You are the Cosmic Goddess
How astrology is a pathway for understanding and reintegrating the ancient divine feminine
Long before we mapped their movements, the stars held our stories.
It is difficult for the modern mind to conceptualize the intimacy that ancient people would have had with the sky above.
Yet, we yearn for it. Our desire for a simpler time is seen across the spectrum of belief systems, from homesteading to environmentalism. We want to put down our screens and look around - and up. We want to better know ourselves through cultivating a relationship with this earthly realm, night sky included.
Astrology is a manifestation of that yearning.
We know on a deep level that the stories and patterns of the sky can tell us something about who we are and what the cosmos is here for. Astrology is a system for deriving meaning, and in this topsy turvy world, a tool that feels mystical and personal at the same time is a welcome pathway for self-inquiry.
What do the stars and planets really mean?
This is the question I am playing with in my exploration of ancient history and mythology, and all it has to tell us about human and cosmic nature.
Cosmic Egyptian goddess, Nut
Why Astrology matters
Astrology is a way to understand and integrate these stories that otherwise may feel distant and foreign, but in truth present an opportunity to better understand our purpose - individual and collective.
When we can these great stories about human nature within the context of the system of astrology, they become digestible and applicable to our modern lives.
But first, we need to deeply consider: what are the stories the stars hold?
When we realize that the stories we project onto the heavens are mirroring our own it becomes imperative, and even urgent, to become highly discerning about what we choose to tell ourselves and each other about what it all means.
I have been studying the ancient history of spirituality for the last three years intensely, within the bounds of being a stay-at-home mother rather than a full time scholar. Well before I became focused on cosmology and mythology, I was a student and sometimes practitioner in systems of self-understanding, from astrology to numerology.
In fact, the original question that led me into my obsession with the question, what IS creation, began with another:
What is the true ancient history of astrology?
I could not find any answers that satisfied me, until I wandered into esoteric and alternative history territory and began to learn about the stories of a civilization that came before all others, before the flood. Like the deluge itself, this concept of a high civilization of divine intelligent beings who are the origin of our technologies, from astrology to agriculture, is a “universal” myth, found across the continents in striking similarity.
This led me on a path of discovery, a new and deeper realm than my personal spiritual journey had taken me on thus far, and I had this intuitive sense that the ancients knew something that would crack a code of understanding for me - and others.
I was right.
Ishtar, a later manifestation of Inanna, the original goddess of Sumeria
What’s Missing
We sense that something is very deeply off, misunderstood, and missing - even purposely concealed. This is why “conspiracy theories” have taken off, from the outlandish to the unfortunately accurate, it all points to a deep knowing that all is not right with the collective narrative.
To see what is off, what is wrong, we need to go back to our original great story - the one that defines Western culture, the culture that has seeped throughout the globe in many forms from Christianity to popular culture.
Are we sinners in need of a savior - or are we inherently good?
Was the intention of creation for us to suffer, or to flourish?
This takes us to the garden, the serpent, and the goddess. The garden was a sacred space, the serpent a positive spirit guardian, and the goddess the highest form of “god” for thousands upon thousands of years.
From the Venus of Lasseul carved into a stone cave at least 25,000 years ago to the feminine figurines of the same name, archeological artifacts demonstrate that ancient people honored the woman and the goddess as a source of creation.
The goddess, and not always in isolation but often in sync with her male divine counterpart, was the creator, the source of life, and therefore death too.
“The Goddess becomes the whole sphere in which we dwell.” - Joseph Campbell
At one time, the sun was the feminine, and the moon masculine. Women in many societies held positions of power and leadership, from the role of young girls in initiating the hunt in primitive hunter-gatherer cultures to the reign of queens in high dynasties like Queen Puabi in Sumeria.
This is reflected in the stories of the goddesses, many of which were so ancient, predating clay tablets even, that they were lost. Where the stories of the goddess remained, they were twisted and changed.
Sumerian seal of god and goddess, tree of life and serpent, 2500 BC
A Goddess Renaissance
It is a complex history to unfold, tied up in politics as much as religion, to identify when, where, why, and how the goddess was diminished and eventually demonized as the source of humanity’s “fall.”
To put it simply, Eve was the goddess for long before she was a source of sin and shame. By studying ancient history of spirituality, we can understand why this entire archetype of the divine feminine is what is wrong with our root stories of our culture, and the deeply ingrained belief systems they create.
The most ancient goddess we have named in written history is Inanna, referred to as The Queen of Heaven, in ancient Sumerian texts. It is no coincidence that Virgo, the largest constellation of stars in the sky, goes by the same name. All goddesses are connected and derive from each other, as myths weave in ways we cannot quite fully grasp with our current consciousness.
What from the modern perspective appears as fantastical fictional stories or “paganism” (a word invented during the Inquisition) is a misunderstanding of the archetypal mind of the ancient people. Myths were always a way of self-understanding, just as we use them today through the lens of astrology.
Yet, astrology itself is based on patriarchal mythology and patterns of meaning-making, dating to Babylon through Greece and Rome. The goddess is missing, the sky chopped into equal 30 degree pieces, quite literally diminishing the largest constellation of them all - Virgo, and entirely omitting the 13th, the serpent bearer, that was associated with the prehistoric Aegean goddess.
There is a renaissance of the goddess happening right now, albeit quietly, where women - and men - are returning to this ancient wisdom and desiring to know more about the feminine principle, from an intellectual and embodied sense.
Connecting with Antiquity
Astrology offers a way to connect with antiquity - to explore, reimagine, and reintegrate these myths through the stars and planets and ultimately bring back the goddess in a way that is applicable to our modern lives - and own unique journey's of “know thyself” (words originally written at the ancient Greek Delphi oracle).
Cassandra, a manifestation of the goddess archetype through the divine seer, her story demonstrates the inherent misogyny of Greek and Roman mythology
You see, myth is everywhere, its quite literally the stories you tell yourself daily about who you are, what this earthly experience is all about. “Reality” as a word reflects that everything we experience here is a “relationship” - a dance between outer and inner, self and collective, the deeply rooted why being the cosmic mirror of the sky.
As above, so below, is a phrase that dates back farther than it’s cited at, at least 10,000 years, before the great floods.
As mythologist Joseph Campbell says, “The powers we are talking about when we’re talking about the Goddess are the powers that live in every woman in the world.”
The goddess matters because the woman matters.
This work I share, through the lens of mythology in the context of astrology, lives in a long lineage of scholars, priestesses, and spiritual teachers who have called attention to the feminine principle and worked to bring it back for all of us.
The work continues, within each and every one of us, and I am honored to share what I can with you here.
There is much to come.
Hey Kelly, I am loving your writing and perspective. You discuss how mainstrean (tropical) astrology is patriarchal, does that mean when you discuss astological themes you view through a true sky lens? Ie true sidereal? Thanks
Love it!