Women healers, Shamans and the Sacred Feminine.

It’s difficult to imagine now, that as we assume we have come a long way from the 1800’ to mid 1900’s in accepting women in medicine and although there is still a lot of ignorance about female anatomy and the ‘gaslighting’ of women’s issues, we have in-fact only come a full circle, and I hope, plus one.

Women in medicine have been shown by archaeological diggings that were excavations done around 1924 in Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, that revealed a woman’s skeleton between 40 and 50 years old who was buried between two Mammoth scapular bones, covered in red ochre, a spear head at her crown and an Arctic Fox pelt in her hand. The Fox symbolised then (and now) a Shaman as does the rest of the burial site, that shows women in medicine have been around since before the Ice Age, and somewhere along the way, were displaced and much of the knowledge sunk beneath the weight and passage of time.

This is a multi- layered question the we can dive into during our up and coming retreat Goddess Rising at Cheeky Fox here in Kinglake at the end of May, but as we look at the various symbols of health and healing over the ages from Hygieia in ancient Greek times who’s name is the root of ‘hygiene’ to Panacea, another Greek Goddess whose tenure over medicine, healing and relieving suffering and pain was so powerful that her name today means a ‘cure all’ however, much like the ways women’s herbal lore and healing wisdoms were dismissed as ‘Old wives tales’ in a derogatory manner, so too has Panacea become about the illusion of a ’cure all’.

There is evidence and symbols of healing in each and every corner of our collective human evolution; Sitala and Kali are both Hindu Goddesses of health healing and the arts; Bon Dea was a Roman Goddess of healing and fertility; Ixchel from the Mayans, Macha and Sirona from the Celts all were about healing, health and medicine. Every ancient civilisation has attributed health and healing to the feminine energy so what happened? The very earth as Gaia is well understood to embody the feminine aspect of nurture, food, protection, water everything we are and breathe, while the masculine energy of the Sun and the very spark of life combines with that to create all we are; plants, animals, humans and fungi.

So, in this time of such a vast division and confusion in our cultural, political and spiritual understanding of life, it’s vital we also take in to consideration the journey of humanity, our tendency to ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’… that is throw out all the good we have learned to welcome in the new. Let us understand that we are all one humanity, at one with all the life on this planet weather you see this from a scientific/spiritual or any philosophical perspective. To listen to others and try to understand (a feminine power) before we express ourselves (a masculine trait) is within us all no matter who we are.

For more details on the retreat call Kinglake Chinese Medicine on 5786 1889, and until next time, stay well

Dr Angela Palmer

Kinglake Chinese Medicine