Goddess Worship, Archaeology edition

When people confuse matriarchy with misandry, archaeology edition...

Hey, Readers,

I'm rereading The Spiral Dance by Starhawk and got to the part where she discusses that people say Goddess worship always included human sacrifice in a literal sense (as opposed to the symbolic sacrifice of burning poppets, etc), but archaeological evidence does not support this. She lists several sites determined to be home to matrilineal cultures where Goddess imagery was common, yet no evidence of human sacrifice was present.


One of the sites named was Çatalhöyük or Catal Hüyük, where she notes that many figures depicting the Goddess and animals were found, but there are no provisions for human or animal sacrifice. Not knowing much about Çatalhöyük, I decided to look it up and read a bit. 

My 2015 Lessons, My 2016 Intention

"What is Your Intention?" asks Thorn Coyle's blog post from a few years ago. I haven't thought much about a single intention for this new calendar year yet, so I'd like to do that, now. Though the whole "Yuletide" season (which for me begins slightly before the Winter Solstice and extends slightly past the change of the Gregorian calendar year) feels like a shift into a new chapter for me, I did feel a significant change in this year's New Year's Eve into New Year's Day, January the 1st of 2016.