Matriarchy and Monotheism

Matriarchy.

All the Girlies are talking about it.

We need to get off the Patriarchy and move to a Matriarchy! It’s a circle not a pyramid! It’s family-centric, and egalitarian, and gift-based! It’s the solution to all our problems!

But, is it?

When I was first delving into an exploration of “alternative” spiritual traditions, I came across a Celtic researcher who shared stories of that region’s matriarchal practices. The story goes that it was also an imbalanced time with women being even more cruel than men under the structures we experience today. A king was chosen in an annual ceremony based on the fitness of his form. If he was reigning and received an injury, he was not only dethroned, but put down. And, if he was not chosen as king again at that year’s ceremony, he would be ritually sacrificed for the good of the clan.

Over the years, I have continued to hear similar stories from Rabbi’s, Egyptian scholars, and Tantric Swamis. There was a time when God was a woman, and it was so rugged for men that a group of matriarchs chose to swing the pendulum. They created structural shifts, religious practices, a new code of ethics, that would allow men to rule for a while so we could all see what life would be like if a woman’s power was not left unchecked.

Well, we be seein’

And it ain’t great

But, there’s also something else here that I am not hearing much about.

If we want to shift out of the Patriarchy, we will need to release our attachment to a monotheistic God.

Matriarchy is not possible with Monotheism.

Or, is it?

In the stories of those societies I mentioned above, they all were based in more animistic views of reality. Very pluralistic. However, if there was a God more supreme than all the others, it was Woman. She gave birth. She produced new life! Man was in the role of deity position in some myths, but The Feminine was exalted above all.

That was “pre” history. Now, of course, the tables have turned. Man reigns supreme and it is heresy to state otherwise. To say that Woman could even take the place of minor deity is blasphemy, at least in the eyes of some. (Hence, the hundreds of years of bloodshed between the Protestants and the Catholics, in some respects…)

If we want to enact systemic, long-term change across the human spectrum, we will need to examine what is at the very heart of our underlying ethos. We will need to investigate the very foundations of our view of reality. If you are a woman who believes that the one true God is a man, what does that say about your own value in your life, and how does that impact how you view the world, how you interact with your life? Because it does have an impact. What might the impact be if God was A Woman? What would that impact be if God was literally everything, and not gendered at all?

I have such a hard-on for philosophy, but so many of the folks in my life who don’t, feel that it’s a big load of mental masturbation. That it might be! But, it’s also so deeply fundamental to how we live our lives, to the structures of survival and governance we create for society at large, and even how we interact with our world en masse, that the importance of understanding those beliefs cannot be overstated. It is imperative that we examine our personal world views, learn about other’s perspectives outside our little bubble, then make a conscious choice.

Just like chosen family, we can choose something different from what we grew up with.

Abrahamic monotheism, or Atheism are not the only baseline perspectives in the world.

And, maybe to strike some balance, we will need both Matriarchy and Patriarchy.

But, to think that we can somehow move into a Matriarchy—or anything other than this male-dominated, top-down garbage we are currently experiencing—and maintain a spiritual perspective of One Male Above All is fallacy(phallus-y?).

We will need to release monotheism in order to embrace a new way.

Personally, I feel that if humans collectively, consciously embrace an Animistic perspective, all else falls in line. If we collectively agree that plants and animals have sentience. That we exist as part of a natural matrix. That all that exists has value, and contributes to the wellness of the whole. That everything is sacred. That even the elements have rights to exist the same as humans, and have needs that should be taken into consideration when making decisions. Well… can you imagine? What would government look like? What would economic models look like? What would we be tracking on our quarterly reports? All these issues of extractive economy, climate change that won’t be addressed because it’s unprofitable, the abuse of women and children, homelessness, rigid dualistic mindsets, the list goes on… It all begins to mend, when we as individuals become connected again to the voice of the natural world.

What would the world look like if it wasn’t either/or, but both/and—if Matriarchy and Patriarchy walked shoulder to shoulder? What if all of it had value?

I’m pretty comfortable calling myself a misandrist these days, but I’m not too far gone to realize that value over—in any direction—leads to a shitshow. There is value in all of it—the Masculine, the Feminine, and everything in between—and there is no going back. So, what will we choose moving forward? Only time will tell.

This article was originally published on Substack. You can read the original here.