“Those toxins don’t stay buried, especially if they’re embedded in scriptures. We have to grapple with these legacies in order to heal because those toxins keep coming back and we’re seeing that with what’s happening now in the United States. And so these are stories we need to know - we need to know our own story.”~ Max Dashu
Have you ever wondered... how did we get here? Where are all of the women in history books? What about the true stories that have been left out of our school curriculum and kept hidden for centuries? How about cultures and societies beyond the patriarchal paradigm... What about cultures where women were not only equal, but people were living in a non-hierarchical paradigm that actually valued the maternal and revered Mother Earth?
How different would our world be today if we still lived by these principles and ancient ways of knowing?
That’s what Max Dashu asked herself as a young woman in 1960s who dared to defy her history professors at Harvard and embark on a journey to get out of the patriarchal interpretation of women and dig up suppressed histories. What she found not only changed her own life, but provides a template for reclaiming the wisdom and vitality we seemingly lost long ago.
Max Dashu is a historian and one of the world’s leading experts on matriculture. in this episode, she shares various historical global patterns that she discovered are missing in modern times, the nature-based practices and ways of knowing that Max has seen throughout history and what Max foresees in our collective future (with her unique perspective as a historian) plus the prescient advice she gives us for how to move forward.
I love how Max weaves together mind-blowing cultural findings, historical facts, linguistic patterns, and art in her teachings... if you’re a nerd like me, get your notebooks ready and listen twice. You’re in for a treat :)
Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document global women's history, reflecting the full spectrum of the world's peoples. She has built a collection of 40,000 images, from which she has created 130 slideshows on female cultural heritages, including Indigenous traditions, and patterns of domination. She is internationally known for her expertise on ancient female iconography, matricultures and patriarchal systems, medicine women and shamans, witch hunts, and female spheres of power.
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Show Notes
In this episode, we discuss:
Why Max started Suppressed Histories and her quest for evidence of matricultures to get out of the patriarchal interpretation of women
How the “HIStory” we are taught in school, which is very Eurocentric, is different than what Max was finding globally
How integration of the economical, technological AND spiritual is found throughout history, yet divorced and missing in modern Western times... i.e.“living in a sacred manner”
Max found that women played a central figure in culture throughout history
How Max began to puzzle piece together women’s history through ancient figurines before written record - a window into ancient culture
The patterns that she discovered globally including Ceremonial pots in the form of breasts (theme of "life-giver") as ceremonial vessels, and pots in the shape of women
How words such as “witch” and "weird" have been changed and demonized overtime - yet the names in the ethnic languages often meant things like knower, seer, spirit journeyer, healer, medicine woman
The resonant themes that Max has found in culture throughout the world and ages
How the the waters, stones, and trees were central in various cultures - “as the witches teach” through earth-based spirituality
The nature-based practices and ways of knowing that Max has seen throughout history that we can revitalize and practice today to support our connection to the earth and healing ways of our ancestors: land walking, immersion in “living waters,” and breath/chant/invoking - naming it.
What Max foresees in our collective future (with her unique prospective as a historian) and the prescient advice she gives us for how to move forward.
The parallels she sees throughout history that are being played out today, and how the principal of compassion has to guide us today.
Max’s thoughts on the internet, social media and new technology
What Max believes needs to be a recovered for people of European descent and her thoughts around the issue of cultural appropriation
How art, connection, community are of vital importance in the health of cultures and the world, and how Max is providing this experience thru her new Theosophy Goddess coloring book
Max's upcoming books and projects, including never-before seen histories of ancient Hellenic/Greek peoples
Connect With Max Dashu
Website | Facebook | Max's Veleda Press
Resources + Links Mentioned
Max Dashu's Academic Papers + Work
Deasophy Goddess Coloring Book
Wildly Rooted Resources
Sacred Ecology Activation Journey Audio
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