When God Was a Woman

An introduction to the wisdom of the sacred feminine

Photo: Belinda Liu

Years ago, not long after the birth of my second child, I had what felt like a divinely inspired epiphany. Even though I had no proof, I knew that somewhere in our past, we humans must have once known and honored a female aspect of God.

I’m still not sure how or why I knew this, but suddenly it seemed like simple common sense. Life emerges from mothers, as I’d now experienced twice. This is not only true for us humans, but also of other animals and even plants, who emerge from the body of Mother Earth. If the vast majority of life originates within the bodies of mothers, then why wouldn’t our ancestors have envisioned the creator of all life to be female?

My curiosity about this female face of God set me on a path of discovery that I’ve been pursuing for the last five years. I’ve learned a great deal — so much, in fact, that some of the first questions I had about Her can still be some of the hardest to answer in a concise way. Yes, a female version of God might exist, but who or what is She? What does She represent?

These are big questions, and ones that this human mind probably isn’t qualified to fully answer. But through my own research, I’ve developed a working definition of the Sacred Feminine that might be helpful for those who are seeking to learn more about Her.

First, the Sacred Feminine is a historical fact, as demonstrated by a significant amount of art, archeological finds and myths reaching back nearly 30,000 years. The first evidence of Her appears during the Upper Paleolithic Era, a period of time ranging from about 50,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE, in the form of more than 250 figurines of women that have been discovered in sites scattered across Europe, Siberia and Eastern Russia. Despite being found across a vast geographic span of more than 4,000 miles, and in some cases being dated to periods of time thousands of years apart, these figurines nonetheless share remarkably similar characteristics.

Goddess of Laussel, estimated to be at least 20,000 years old. Photo courtesy of the author.

They are small, most standing only several inches tall. The most famous of them depict women who are…