86 D'vorah Grenn
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D'vorah: The only goddesses I was ever aware of were the ones we learned about in school, like Aphrodite and Venus. You know, the Greek and Roman ones, who of course were co-opted from much earlier. Mesopotamia not only goddesses, but, but God's Artemis Diana. And so I had read a little bit, you know, I guess as a kid and growing up, and then my husband died in 91 and that threw me into something of a tailspin and less than two years later, uh, I had taken a lover after a year after he died and he died about nine months after that.

And so everything then, as you described so eloquently in your first episode, and I'm so appreciative of that, everything crashed around me. I went into a descent, which I didn't even know how to describe or define, but it was not a good place. I didn't know. It was very dark in there and it was, everything really came crashing down because.

Everything that had had meaning before no longer had meaning, including my work and my environment and the desire to keep living a very fast paced life in which I saw my kid, maybe 50% of the time, because I was on the road the rest of the time I had family in California. So I moved at that point. It was pretty clear to me.

A few months later, I moved from New York to California. And as I think I may have said to you, it was as if the God has hit me over the head, it in a different way than a lightning bolt is like wake up. And actually just a funny aside is that a man came out of an alley one day when I was maybe on lunch hour or something from my corporate work, I was walking Midtown Manhattan and a man who probably was homeless, came out of an alley and said, you'll be dead in two years.

Normally I wouldn't have paid attention to that. But I was cracked open by these. I was completely open and I think it's what they call a spiritual emergence. 

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Monica: Welcome to the revelation project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project and what gets revealed. It gets healed.

Monica: Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the revelation project podcast. I'm so excited to introduce you to D'vorah. Gran D'vorah is a PhD and, Priestess. She is the founding director of the Lilith Institute. She co-directed the former women's spirituality, M a program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and Sophia University.

Monica: She also founded Mishkan Shekhinah. You're gonna, you're going to have to repeat that D'vorah. 

D'vorah: Sure Mishkan Shekhinah 

Monica: Ok movable sanctuary, honoring the sacred, feminine and adjunct professor at Napa valley college D'vorah also serves as a spiritual mentor and guide her talking to goddess anthology includes sacred writings of 72 women from 25 traditions.

Monica: Other publications include Lilith's Fire Reclaiming our Sacred Life Force. The Kohenet keepers of the flame in stepping into ourselves an anthology of writing on priestesses and the Jewish priestess and Lilith entries, encyclopedia of women in world religions, Hi D'vorah..

D'vorah: Hi there. How are you, Monica?

Monica: My goodness. That is the accomplished bio that I have read. Yeah. Over the year. I think it's amazing. I'm of course butchered that, but we'll get an opportunity to talk more about it. Yeah. Yes. I'm sure 

D'vorah: I would butcher it if it was in, you know, Arabic. 

Monica: Right. It's just so yeah, there's so much here. And of course I want to go right to the Kohenet priestess and just for our audience, have you kind of tell us more starting with that?

D'vorah: Well, you started with my, one of my greatest passions. So that's interesting because we didn't identify it as that before we spoke, but it's been something that has been close to my heart and in my energy field and in all my activities in one way or another. And my thinking since around 97, when I started the Lilith Institute, which came as a result of my master's thesis process and my thesis was on Lilith herself.

D'vorah: And that turned into the book. You mentioned a blue list fire. And as I did that, one of the sources I read was Bernadette brown. Who wrote women leaders in the ancient synagogue and those leaders included who she called priests, as well as patrons, spiritual leaders, patrons are included, which is interesting.

D'vorah: The president of a church or temple today becoming, um, you know, the spiritual leader. You don't usually see that, but in ancient times, she wrote about that and she wrote about what is now Israel, Palestine, and. And other places where she found some material evidence. And the one that she found that was near Haifa in Israel is called Becerra.

D'vorah: Rheem is the, is what the village was called. And it is, but the excavation that was done many years ago, maybe now 50 years ago, of course, by the time I got over there doing this research for my doctorate. And I think even then, yeah, it was just starting, my doctorate it's all closed up. So all I had to go on was the little breadcrumbs little clues that she left in her book.

D'vorah: One of which said a Kohenet. She, she posed it as well. It means priestess in Hebrew. But there were some goddess type symbols that were on a tomb, you know, a sarcophagus at this place. But Sherry and I went there with my cousin Mariam, who was in her eighties and we went to the Rockefeller archeological library and they pulled out three tomes of about two to three inches thick describing this whole dig.

D'vorah: And there, we found this piece and talk something, talking about a priestess who'd been buried there and it said Kohenet equal sign priestess. And for the first time I got one of those lightning strikes a bolt, a Thunderbolt lightning. I don't know all of it through my body. And at that time I was starting to recognize that that had meaning I didn't understand it quite the way.

D'vorah: I understand. So Madda sizing, emotion and spirit now, and certainly 30 years ago when I was in corporate life or 40 years ago, I would have. Not even noticed, you know, I would've written it off as, oh, I got to chill and it was much more than that. And it, I knew it was significant. So for years I had this page from that document next to my computer, because to me it was proof and not to them because we asked the identity, I'd have to explain is that Aaron was the high priest in the ancient temple, right.

D'vorah: Moses brother and Mariams brother. And so he was a Kohen, he was high priest. And so anybody still today in that name and that lineage with that, with that name Cohen with a C or a K or variations is considered to be in the precinct all these years later. Interesting. But at that time, and in the writings, in the sacred text, it talks about a wife or a daughter of a Kohen of a priest could be, didn't have to be, but often was included.

D'vorah: Are you adapting the role of priestess 

Monica: Kohenet

D'vorah: Right? Yes. And so I, and a few other friends here on the west coast were, which I know some people will say, oh yeah, of course that's the left coast. And of course you'd be doing this, but we were doing some of the functions that we were sure were those of a priestess, whether now, which we were, or 2000 years ago.

D'vorah: And by that, I mean, few, sometimes funerary rights, baby blessings, performing weddings, being healers of a sort, uh, each of us having our own way of doing that. And so, and I, at that time, I never would have claimed that, you know? Right. But so I, I was beyond excited this for me, you know, even though, so my cousin asked, I think I skipped over this part.

D'vorah: She asked the library or translated to the librarian when I said how I believe this could have been somebody independent, somebody who was called. The task who, or felt the calling or to whom people turn for certain things. And immediately they've all said, oh no, that's not possible. It couldn't have been anybody, but the wife or daughter of a priest.

D'vorah: Amazing to me, you know, there was not even a second thought given to this. It was that it was wrote, and that was the, you know, gospel, so to speak. Right. But I have carried that with me since then, since, uh, so that was, that confirmation came in 99. Okay. And that trip to Israel. And then by 2000, I finally understood that to really be true to myself when I was leading a very big, uh, public ritual for summer solstice, uh, in 2000, that that was how I was going to self-identity.

D'vorah: As a priestess as a Kohenet I priestess this, I think I'd already been saying, but as a Kohenet per se and it came definitely not without risk. And, and so I was very nervous about doing it, but I did it. And there were then pieces in, in the ether of conversation about Jewish priests, whoever heard of that since 2000, 3000 years ago.

D'vorah: Yeah. It really should say 3000, sorry. You know, and priestesses of course not. And there was a young woman, I remember hearing her chant at a synagogue service and her whole demeanor and her music and her voice was, you know, to me, she was a priestess and I said something like that to her afterwards. And she looked at me like I had lost my mind, you know, it wasn't in the lexicon.

D'vorah: And so, and I'm, I'm sure it still is not for Orthodox. It may be conservative Jews, but certainly for all of them. And so, and just to clarify that, uh, I think most of the priestesses are either come out of Jewish renewal or a reconstruction or maybe reform, but there may be some, uh, conservative as well.

D'vorah: So that's the, that's the, uh, evolution of the term. And so the conversation was happening online. There was a listserv called Ashura listserv, which was wonderful, uh, where, uh, rabbi Jill Hammer, uh, came on once and asked us anybody here called themselves a priest or priestess. And so there was some discussion and we, of course, these couple of friends and myself said, yes, and here's why here's what we're doing in the community.

D'vorah: And so five, six years after that she and a woman named Taya Ma Shere, she calls herself now who they call lead the Kohenet training Institute. Go ahead and preach this Institute. So the wonderful thing is that by now there are at least 90 and perhaps a hundred either initiated or ordained. 

Monica: Oh, wow. 

D'vorah: And so that's very exciting.

D'vorah: That is so exciting. 

Monica: And D'vorah, tell us more about what led you into the divine feminine in the first place, because I loved what you said, which was when you had kind of that lightning strike or the truth bumps or the way that we can interpret that the divine is, is, you know, showing us or telling us somatically that we're aligned somehow with, you know, go this way.

Monica: Yeah. You had said, had I still been incorporate, I would not have even noticed. And so of course it, it begs that curiosity. Yes. 

D'vorah: So that takes me into, into something you, you asked us to share. And I just want to look at my notes for a moment. 

Monica: Sure. 

D'vorah: The revelation, the personal story. 

Monica: Absolutely. 

D'vorah: It comes out of that. The only goddesses I was ever aware of were the ones we learned about in school, like Aphrodite and Venus. You know, the Greek and Roman ones, who of course were co-opted from much earlier. Mesopotamia not only goddesses, but, but God's Artemis Diana. And so I had read a little bit, you know, I guess as a kid and growing up, and then my husband died in 91 and that threw me into something of a tailspin and less than two years later, uh, I had taken a lover after a year after he died and he died about nine months after that.

D'vorah: And so everything then, as you described so eloquently in your first episode, and I'm so appreciative of that, everything crashed around me. I went into a descent, which I didn't even know how to describe or define, but it was not a good place. I didn't know. It was very dark in there and it was, everything really came crashing down because.

D'vorah: Everything that had had meaning before no longer had meaning, including my work and my environment and the desire to keep living a very fast paced life in which I saw my kid, maybe 50% of the time, because I was on the road the rest of the time I had family in California. So I moved at that point. It was pretty clear to me.

D'vorah: A few months later, I moved from New York to California. And as I think I may have said to you, it was as if the God has hit me over the head, it in a different way than a lightning bolt is like wake up. And actually just a funny aside is that a man came out of an alley one day when I was maybe on lunch hour or something from my corporate work, I was walking Midtown Manhattan and a man who probably was homeless, came out of an alley and said, you'll be dead in two years.

D'vorah: Normally I wouldn't have paid attention to that. But I was cracked open by these. I was completely open and I think it's what they call a spiritual emergence. 

Monica: Yeah. 

D'vorah: Emergency. I'm never sure. Yeah. Yeah. But so I heard it, the state I was in, I really heard that and took it to heart and I don't know that it wasn't true, you know, I mean, maybe I wouldn't have been dead, but certainly I would have been a lot less healthy at the pace I was living and traveling.

D'vorah: And, uh, as I said, not, not home half the time and a workaholic, uh, working easily 12 hours a day off, more come home eight at night. So didn't see my kid, you know, often, even if I was in New York and then might have dinner and work another two-three hours. Not a healthy lifestyle for sure. And so I'm losing well.

D'vorah: Yeah, of course. Yes. So that cracked me open to her. And I came across books like Clarissa Pinkola Ests Women Who Run with the Wolves and, uh, Jean Shinoda Bolen or her discussion of goddesses and, and Vicki Nobles, Shakti woman, which is a real eye opener. So, you know, the book. Yeah. What really hit me about Ests work was just, even in the introduction, it said something about if, if your creativity has been suppressed, your spirit has been suppressed, something like that.

D'vorah: And that had been so true for me, uh, because I was in an emotionally and psychologically abusive marriage. And so I started to have a lot of self-realization, uh, after, in the years that unfolded. But during this period of intense grief, I got myself together and got my kids together. You know, had had the revelation, had the aha moment, maybe two, three months after the second person died that nothing was holding me in New York anymore.

D'vorah: And I should go be where my father and sister and her family were. And my second, second mother, my, my dad's second wife, Brianna. And so I did that. I made the big move. And, uh, started a small PR business in California and then went to my first International Goddess Forum festival put on by Z Budapest.

D'vorah: And so if I hadn't heard her before, I certainly ran into her there. And then I also remember in New York reading an article about the goddess movement in California, but the way they were mostly describing it was through the appearance of different shops, which were metaphysical in which they often talked about, I guess, goddess literature, you know, books and whatnot being available often described of course, as a new age movement, but it was still somehow in an eye-opener.

D'vorah: And what occurred to me in those in those months was full of courses. There's gotta be a female divine because I'm a woman I'm afraid. They say we're made in God's image. So of course, God, you know, I mean, I know we're anthropomorphizing here, but so does the culture, and so do the major religions, right?

D'vorah: Otherwise. Yeah. Somebody once told me, oh, but we have it in Judaism and they're shuffling now the female face of God, you can see her right there and there. And I, my answer was then why are we still singing to our Lord? And, you know, God, as, as a male figure and I, and I have to bring in and, and bless her memory of Mary Daly and Beyond God the Father, one of her first books where she said, if God is male than male, is God.

D'vorah: If we perceive God as male, then we are going to accord that kind of reverence or obedience to men, or they're going to ask. And in sometimes often of course insists that we do. And that was all very, very eye opening. 

Monica: Yeah, it's always fascinating to me when I hear these stories and the story that you so personally just shared about your, you know, awakening and what I call kind of the unbecoming process, which is the disruption of the trance of unworthiness, where we start to actually recognize and realize first we're recognizing the omission and the glaringly obvious. It seems in that moment, truth. It's like, uh, what, how could I have not seen this? 

Monica: And it, and it really leads me to. Marvel at this real understanding of if we can't see it, if we can't see it, we can't be it. And recognizing that this representation that is so missing it is of course such a buzzword, right.

Monica: And a big word right now. And we're starting to recognize and realize how important representation is. But, you know, I also know that this is a subject that you then immersed yourself deeply in, and that it's so much a part of now your purpose and mission in the world. And so I would love to hear more so that our listeners can hear more about your, your work today and where your initial work has led you.

D'vorah: Thank you. So when you were talking, I remembered, I want to mention the book a God who looks like me. Yes. By official Lynn Riley, because she talks about this as do many other things. Um, and one of my big questions is when I, when I teach or have women in circle, how would your life, how would our lives have been different?

D'vorah: If we had been raised to understand goddess both female and male, it has so much to do with self-image sense of self-worth in some cases, uh, certainly it has to do with then women not, would not be buying this idea, going back to the daily quote for a moment of, you know, men who are abusers, who use Genesis as justification that God said, Adam should have dominion over women and children and animals, everything, the garden.

D'vorah: So damaging. And we know that the Bible like any text can be, if you're picking things out of a context can be used for a number of different political and personal purposes. So, yes. So I was at this festival and I learned there was a women's spirituality program at the California Institute of integral studies.

D'vorah: And I just thought that was amazing. I never heard of such a thing, but I, it had my curiosity. So I looked into it. And one of the first things I asked when I went for the interview, and this was for master's program at that time was what do I do? What do you do with a degree in women's spirituality? And one of our graduates later years later said whatever I want, it was such a great answer because it's true.

D'vorah: And the woman I was interviewing with said, you may go back to what you're doing. You may still do the same career path, but you'll do it differently. And I found that to be very true. You know, colleagues, sister scholars, we call each other who were in this program who went back into, or never left mortgage banking, health care, you know, because you can't, all, everybody can't be an artist or writer, a healer, a facilitator of circles and rituals, because first of all, it's not a living for the most part.

D'vorah: And some, sometimes your heart is elsewhere, you know, it could be in the sciences and yet, you know, you can be having these other leanings callings or yearnings. Yes. And so I went through that program and, uh, as I said, did my thesis on Lilith and. Then thought, okay, what now? But I adore had been opened that I couldn't close and you know what that's like.

D'vorah: I mean, when we gather new knowledge, when women learn our history and we were in this wonderful container of all women, women, teachers, women texts, you know, female texts, not that we wouldn't read anything written by a man, but mostly it was women centered. And that made a huge difference. Men were allowed in the program.

D'vorah: I only knew one in those years, as a student who came in and his primary purpose was frankly, to pick up chicks. We always said, um, you know, so, but it wasn't like, you know, some people might've thought including probably my father, that it was a, if not male bashing too exclusionary, why does it have to be women's spirituality?

D'vorah: He would say. And I said, because everything else that we have been raised with that we live in. It's men's spiritual. It's their view is at that time, they're very much male leadership across the major religions. The first woman rabbi was ordained in 73, but, and there may have been earlier ministers and pastors, but for Catholic priests that has been completely banned until the last maybe 10 years and women, maybe even in England, probably, uh, there were women becoming priests before that, but getting a congregation would have been very difficult and it's still not without right.

D'vorah: Not without great problems. The conservative movement rabbi or a woman rabbi came that came later and, uh, being able to have somebody who was queer or lesbian. Is certainly trans that came even much later, still admission to the seminaries from which you could then become a rabbi. That's all changed fortunately, except I'm not sure.

D'vorah: I think it has changed within the conservative movement, but not in the Orthodox. So there are a few Orthodox rabbis, but they don't have a, a congregation. So they can be educators often people out to do that instead of being pulpit, rabbi or priest, right? Yeah, absolutely. So I had a new language. I had very supportive and new community and my eyes had been opened to so many things that, you know, there's this feeling that you get in the beginning of, uh, of anger of why wasn't I told this, how could this all be true?

D'vorah: And I never knew it. I was never raised this. But it was all fascinating and delicious. And I was in a state of high excitement. So in the beginning I would go home to the suburbs. I lived in and talked to a couple of my neighbors who were friends about it. They looked at me as if I had landed also from Mars and I realized I couldn't have that conversation with them.

D'vorah: And so that was one of the difficult things. On the other hand, I had found a community of like-minds of people from around the country, in some cases around the other parts of the world. And we now recognize that we were not crazy, that we were having certain perceptions that are different from a lot of other people.

Monica: And what I call like you had disrupted the trans effectively, right? To the point where like, yes, you now had sister scholars that you could talk to about it. But, but I think as we go, we start to find our people who we can have these conversations with, who have also made heads of similar revelations and discoveries and have.

Monica: You know, had that you can't unring a bell experience that. And I think that there's something about that D'vorah that's so, so powerful because it's so, you know, I talk about revealing the truth of who we are and it's like, we reveal the truth. And so we can't, we can't go back into the trends, you know, like it's, and there's many behaviors that in like, kind of that I say will pull women back into the trans typically around unworthiness beauty body, right?

Monica: Shame all these ways that we can disassociate or dismember from our true selves at several points along the journey. But then it really is about this continual practice of remembering and continuing forward. And as we continue to amplify this work, we re. More women and I love and men. Right. I do love to knowing that so much has happened in just even the last 18 months.

Monica: That feels like palpable now, you know, when I, and so I wondered if I could lead you into talking a little bit about like, so what do you think is happening in the world right now? Like, are you dismayed by it? Are you excited by it? Are you both? 

D'vorah: Well, I'll tell you into the thing you were talking about disrupting the trance certainly that has happened.

D'vorah: Um, I wrote in Liliths Fire, something about, we've been sleepwalking it's as if we've been sleepwalking. And I think I wrote a line also about it's as if I woke up, well, we will have been waking up from a coma coma. Totally. I think that is true across the board in terms of our country and what's been happening and that's one of the gifts and difficulties of this last 18 months.

D'vorah: And the horrible sacrifices that apparently had to happen. Like George Floyd's brutal murder to wake us up. But now I think we're past w we're into a point of no return, which is wonderful because so many people have now cannot claim they're unaware, or they don't know what the problems are. Especially with racism and sexism, homophobia, and white supremacy, you know, all generated really by white supremacy, out outlook and attitudes and the patriarchal systems that we are living in.

D'vorah: Um, when I first came out here and went to that goddess festival, I was very lucky to hear Monica Shu of blessed memory speak, and she held up a poster about patriarchy. I had never heard the word. I was 40 years old. I know. So, uh, I think that's something really important. And now I'm about to teach feminist philosophy again in the fall, the local college.

D'vorah: And it's, it's a term that these students will never forget because of course it runs through the course and so much of feminist philosophy, if not, all of it, um, is, you know, very innovative and original thinking, but much of it in response to, as it, I think, needs to be the systems we live inside. You know, it's what they say about a fish, not being aware of the water, because that's how it is with us, right.

D'vorah: In the patriarchy. And it filters in. We've seen the signs of it. And now I think people now they know to recognize it. So they've seen it with sexual abuse, by spiritual leaders, you know, and other predatory behavior attitudes and action by executives and companies and things like the me too movement have allowed more people, for example, to come out or timed hashtag time's up.

D'vorah: That women of color started. And me too, as you know, we're starting to pipe a black woman to run a Burke over 10 years ago. All those things I think have given permission and a sense that they will now be believed to survivors who finally can come forward. Just have to say I put on my Facebook page, I think yesterday, um, Mohammad Farhan is a young man who did a whole series of responses to sexist remarks, you know, such as, uh, she asked for it because what she was wearing, I don't think that was one of them, but I really suggest that people look for it because it is really well done.

D'vorah: And there are so many of those things that are said every day, especially things like, uh, why didn't she talk about this abuse? 20 years ago and there so many good reasons that one can't and that's true for men as well as women, you know? And so I also, I applaud men like Terry crews. I think it is where the athlete came out at.

D'vorah: Right. Who came out, uh, talking about his experience of, um, having his genitals groped at a public party ended the shock alone, you know, keeping him from an immediately responding. Yes. And so I think in those ways people haven't been through it, don't can't fully understand how one gets silenced. Um, I was fortunately nothing happened, but a man did try to attack me in a bathroom many years ago and I screamed and some wonderful people from the cleaning steps that basically saved me.

D'vorah: Cause they came in when they heard the screaming. But what happened to me from that incident after the initial, you know, having been scared and so on with that, I lost my voice. , 

Monica: That's a very real thing. 

D'vorah: One of the big, I mean, I did actually lose my voice in the first minute till I could scream, but that was partly out of fear, I think, because I was, well, I was all out of fear, but it was partly because I was feeling he had sort of a woven kind of a bag over his shoulder and I was feeling for a weapon before I stopped, but it's really true.

D'vorah: Yeah. You know, that's one of the, I would say, uh, after effects of trauma, that, and the culture can silence you. And it did have that effect on me and it was compounded by a husband, but also by, I think a lot of things that prevail in the culture, not the least of which is how women are expected to behave in the workplace even still today.

D'vorah: And that's whether it's blue collar, whether it's executive, I don't think it matters. Although the level of abuse can. And recourse, recourse and recourse, right? Because if you're in a corporate situation, you have the recourse, you may lose your job, but you can go to human resources. And usually not, certainly not always, but usually something will happen.

D'vorah: A report will be filed. You don't have that kind of recourse if you're a server in a restaurant or a bartender barmaid. Cause you're kind of in the hands of the owner and the manager. I think

Monica: It's so true. I was, I just, there a couple of things that, that this is bringing up for me. One is I just watched the wisdom of trauma. I don't know if you're familiar 

D'vorah: with, I saw about it. I didn't attend. Yeah. Yeah. 

Monica: It's it's really beautiful. And it's Gabor. And yes, Gabra Mati and his work is been so powerful, of course, in helping people understand traumatic response in somatic response, because what happens and how also those feelings get trapped in the body.

Monica: And then coincidentally, I was reading a book called the body never lies. Right. And those of us that are familiar with the body keeps the score, right. Van der Kolk right. So all of these culminate and it's like this, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Right. Like my body knows the truth oftentimes before I do. Right. Uh, you know, because it's, it's not necessarily logical.

Monica: The body holds its own wisdom and will often respond in the face of trauma. We'll always actually respond in the face of trauma. All about us kind of interpreting the various messages that the body is sending us. And oftentimes in this society getting quiet enough to hear it 

D'vorah: Right. Yeah. Right. And being in a safe space where you can hear it.

Monica: Yes

D'vorah: And I think that's also when memories can surface and you can deal with them and then heal, but it takes a safe space. Those are good references that you mentioned. And also Peter Levine, I want to mention Waking the Tiger, who talks about the trauma living in the body. And there are, there are many good works, certainly on the subject, for 

Monica: For sure yes. I would love to jump into Lilith's fire a little bit more and let's jump into the fire together, Laura. Yeah. And I'd love to just have you talk a little bit more about how you define the sacred, feminine and why this concept is important for women. 

D'vorah: So the sacred, feminine. As we were teaching it, uh, in a women's spirituality master's program, which is what I did after I became was a student.

D'vorah: And after I got my doctorate, which was in a different subject, but when we were teaching it, it was, you know, looking at the sacred feminine, yes. As the goddess, as in God goddess, also many goddesses and people would say, or do capitalize it or not, you know, said the many goddesses or the pantheons that we are often familiar with from different traditions, but it's also an energy, an idea, and a set of values.

D'vorah: And so those values not limited to only women. And of course, men can embody the sacred, feminine. And certainly these values include compassion, empathy, things that you are well familiar with. I know you, you know, certainly how important they are. And you've talked about that nurturing. But not seeing those things as weakness as our culture does relational, being relational, working in partnership, right.

Monica: Cooperation, community, that cooperation community co-creation right. 

D'vorah: But again, this is a fight, you know, in our culture, we have to be very aware and constantly work on the idea of women being able to collaborate, not having to compete. Cause that's still in the culture. I think among younger women, often you have to dress better than look better than the next woman you have to compete.

D'vorah: Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. There's a lot to be said for collaboration. I added actually in my notes for today because the idea of unity is so important, even though we certainly can disagree. And should celebrate our differences and not try to hide them. There's a way we can do all of that collectively collaboratively.

D'vorah: And I think that I hope that's happening in terms of the whole race question and, and looking at it really taking hard looks at racism and also at ad homophobia. Right. Because go ahead. 

Monica: I was just, you know, what this brings up for me is that we're all learning. The skills of the feminine right now, you know, those strong, very necessary skills of litness with witnessing, listening, receiving there's so many ways, vulnerability of people being honest in ways that are very vulnerable.

Monica: And that, that shows up as a strength of course, right? That, that emotions all of these ways, again, that we've been taught to step over. You know, if you even look at how sick our society has become in our bodies, it's all because of this, these suppressed, feminine, necessary. I think ways of being that need to be integrated with our, you know, masculine.

D'vorah: And I think also having men who are allies and who embody the sacred masculine, you know, have that, that has to be encouraged. Oh yes. Yes. I mean that shouldn't be an us versus them. 

Monica: No. And in fact, I think so many men have had that awakening as well and have become allies and we need them, you know, we need them as much as they need us.

Monica: And we're in this together, back to the unity. It's like we, the patriarchy is not serving. Any of us there, it's serving a select few who, you know, are kind of into this domination, dominator culture, you know, of control and power and wealth. 

D'vorah: Yeah. Just for the audience. Riane Eisler wrote The Chalice and the Blade years ago, Dreaming the Dark is a wonderful source on this isolate writes and also has a book called the Partnership Way.

D'vorah: She talks about men and women being in partnership. But years earlier, Starhawk wrote Dreaming the Dark. And I think the subtitles Magic Sex and Religion or something like that. But she first talks about power over versus power with. And patriarchy is all about power over, you know, might overwrite, you know, overwrite and overcome, right.

D'vorah: And might versus right. Very often, you know, those symbols of domination you're talking about being symbols of manhood is crazy. It's just crazy. And so she talks about how our over power with, and the strongest one being power from within yes. That doesn't necessarily easily come to you in your twenties.

D'vorah: Right. You can certainly, it can come when you're eight and for many it's a struggle. Okay. So I will go to, uh, Lillis fire and yes, the fire I had in me to, I guess, research and then write about her. That was the sacred, feminine coming through and all kinds of ways that, that I even then really didn't recognize.

D'vorah: But it, the concept also has to do for me with honoring and respect, seeing women on a daily basis. And our metaphors. Anyway, I won't go down that rabbit hole at the moment. Right. And 

Monica: Tell us to D'vorah. What, when did you write this and just give us a little more context there. Um, 

D'vorah: So I wrote this and published it in 2000 and as I said, it was my thesis mostly turned into a book and I have one chapter, a restoration to consciousness, reclaiming the erotic as sacred life force.

D'vorah: And beneath that I have a net because I loved my titles. It was always hard for me to just go with one. So I have a sub subtitle later in the chapter, contemporary thinkers, redefined sin, and revision the erotic. And I mentioned a number of sources in Lillis fire, of course, including Audrey Lord. And, um, so I'll talk about her work in a more.

D'vorah: It's empowering for women and men to learn that our best senses of the erotic can be found in our work in music and dance in poetry and song and sports. And as Betty to Sean met her has said in family relationships, the erotic is Shakti. Our passion, our sexuality, our Kundalini energy, our creativity, our very life force contrary to the way our culture has defined it.

D'vorah: The erotic is not the connection of sex with violence, nor is it the celebration of bloody wounds incurred or inflicted on the battlefield. And I think the main takeaway from that paragraph is that it isn't just about sex, right? The erotic. And it's certainly not having to do with pornography, which is how people are often equating the term. 

Monica: I think I actually love this. The conversation. The distinction is what I'll say between pornography and the erotic. And I spent a lot of time. Thinking through what was it about pornography that really kind of creates the schism or the disturbance within me? And one of the things that I really recognized for me is that it's this going from witnessing and being with, to objectification.

Monica: And then when you become an object that you're no longer human, right? That it, that you no longer feel seen or witnessed, there's no intimacy intimacy. Right. You know, and that, that is what porn defies something. Right. 

D'vorah: I love what you just said into me. See? Yes. Great way to define intimacy. Yes. And actually, 

Monica: so, you know, we can oftentimes, um, and I know this certainly isn't the takeaway here, but I think it's part of the conversation.

Monica: Is that again, going back to religions, right. We have tend to tended to kind of put so many constraints on our sexuality as meant for this particular function, like to procreate and anything, depending on their religion that falls outside of that, you know, in varying degrees of sin. Right. And so, which is really fascinating because again, when we think about, or when I think about the trance and I think about the coma that you were speaking of and how you said earlier that.

Monica: If your creativity has been suppressed, you've lost access to your spirituality that all of these, you know, that were built. And especially as women as these intuitive central beings, in which to Intuit the world, all of our senses were God given goddess given. And so it's this, it's starting to interrogate and question and get curious about the beliefs that have been conditioned into us and, and starting to really recognize just like you said, that the erotic can be found in everything in nature, in smells in taste.

Monica: Right. Sensory feeling and that to an and, and I go back to the way we've suppressed feeling in general. And so if we're not awake or alive in that way, and we've been taught that it's bad and wrong, there's this whole kind of awakening and creativity, right. That has been denied, suppressed. That then becomes kind of like a possibility and available suddenly if we would dare to consider for a moment that there's something else here.

D'vorah: Yeah. I'm thinking and listening to you, what a loss is to the culture for that to such a loss right aside from personally. But for that to come forth, it has to be nurtured, has to be encouraged and not dismissed and not laughed at, you know, if somebody. In relationship or at the company in a corporate table.

D'vorah: And they bring up an idea and it gets laughed at that shuts people down faster than anything. And it happens to men of course, but it certainly happens to women. Yes. And if a woman then again, back in the corporate setting, but really anywhere wants to make her voice heard or state an opinion, you know, it's often she's a bitch, she's too pushy.

D'vorah: She's aggressive, you know, she's using the same traits of being assertive that a man would do and get praised for. We know that 

Monica: When we look at the archetype of Lilith, of course too, you know, This whole idea of her not wanting to be dominated and refusing to be dominated and submissive and wanting instead to co-create and to partner and how then she's off, you know, off from the garden.

Monica: However, that happens. Right. But it's, it's also this idea of that personal sovereignty and not giving, giving up her agency and how then she's demonized for it in society. 

D'vorah: Right. Thank you. Cause I forgotten to even describe Lillis. And so thank you. Uh, yes, she was the first woman in mythology before, before Eve both were blamed for various things little as, because she didn't want to submit to her man and Eve for her curiosity and, you know, and eating the apple, which Adam could have refused.

D'vorah: And there is a story which was only written in the seventies by Judith Glasgow that has them meeting and collaborating outside of the garden walls, both Eve and Lilith instead of being uh archenemies and then going back into the garden together. And yeah, so she, she fires me up in so many ways. I first learned about her in 85, I think, and then came back to her when I did my work, uh, 12 years.

D'vorah: Oh for the master's program, but, but her, her fire, as you mentioned, is still very much within me and prompted my, creating the last fire circle program that we're towards the end of now, actually we'll conclude next week, this cohort. And then we'll start up again in the fall and wonderful synchronicities.

D'vorah: I just have to mention with Trista Hendren and Monnette Chilson of Girl God books, because we were both so much on the same path at the same time. Yes. The book original resistance, their anthology reclaiming Lilla three, claiming ourselves was almost the title of my thesis. Something really close to that.

D'vorah: And so when we, you know, when I saw that they saw other synchronicities, we were often running together and I'm now very excited to be doing a little a circle, which, uh, which Trista, uh, you know, has visions of making worldwide and already. Oh yeah. They are happening around the world and that we're starting on July 3rd.

D'vorah: So I just want to throw that in because I would be remiss if I didn't mention those things. It's how we're carrying on her work. I hope and inspiring women to find their voice and giving them a place where it's safe to do it and voice and yes, sovereignty, self authorization, many of the qualities. So I'd like to read this quote from Audrey Lorde, from her essay uses of the erotic, my own interest in redefining the erotic crystallized as it redirect result of reading Audrey Laura's powerful essay uses of the erotic.

D'vorah: The book that I read that in is called Sister Outsider. It's a thin book of some very powerful essays. And it was like for lack of a different word right now, my Bible master's program, it was, well, let me say one of my sacred texts. I'll put it that way. She writes the erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual.

D'vorah: Firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling in order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change for women. This has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives.

D'vorah: She wrote that in 1980. Well, she published that in 1984. She may have written it a little bit before. 35 36, 40 years ago. And this generation, I think, does not know her work knows nothing about this, this philosophy. And so I think it's very important that we get out her work. Also the work of Judy Grahn, who is however, still writing very actively and just came out with Eruptions of Inanna.

D'vorah: Yeah. Gender justice, gender, and erotic power. And, uh, and we'll be teaching that starting soon. Next week.

Monica: Devora, quick question on that. I, I wondered personally what did discovering that work, but then how did that relate to your own understanding of your own erotic power, your own body, your own agency, and what did that reconnect? Is there any, anything you want to add there? 

D'vorah: Well, it's, it can be very exciting to be a student. I mean, it has its pressures for sure, but this was an alternative education. So I was excited to all of it when I went back as an adult, a later adult. And so I think it was definitely like discovering parts of me giving put many parts of me, full permission to exist out in the world and to just put it out there and not to try to hide it.

D'vorah: I remember my husband once calling me in a very pejorative. A sexual animal, uh, one, one night where we were making love, you know? And so, and not only does that obviously shut someone down if it's said in a, in a way that is critical and rather than appreciative as it should have been. Right. But I think, you know, so it unleashed, you know, and let me let go of stupidities like that statement.

D'vorah: Um, and yes, or let me say reclaiming it because yes, yes. I'm a sexual animal. 

Monica: Thank you. Yes. 

D'vorah: Right. It's true. Annie DeFranco though saying you say bitch, like it's a bad thing. Yes. So yes. And, and so it just, it gave me new, a new lens and new ways to reframe as, as a teacher to reframe the erotic, but also as a, as a person just moving through the world so that we wouldn't be afraid then to maybe use that word.

D'vorah: You could, you could talk about it. Eros, you know, and you could talk about the erotic in a number of different ways. And if you're an artist and I always used to say, I'm not because I'm not a visual artist, but I'm a writer. So I'm, I'm a creative. 

Monica: Oh yes, you absolutely are. 

D'vorah: Thank you. It gives permission to be your fullest at that and to do more exploration.

Monica: Yes. 

D'vorah: And I think, you know, I think ultimately for those of us who are spiritual or who are looking for spiritual connection or connection with a deity, I think it even gives permission an opening for that very much. So. 

Monica: Right. Well, if you think about, you know, the Yoni as portal to the divine, right? That, that, again, like these, the suppression or the.

Monica: That disassociation in many cases for a lot of women from, from that, from a place of shame or sin, that don't actually have a freedom and awareness permission, they have not given themselves permission that that in so many ways is still an undiscovered huge part of, of who we are of a power center that hasn't yet been discovered or turned on or tuned into.

Monica: And there's so much creativity, energy healing available through, through the erotic. 

D'vorah: Yeah. I was just going to say, it's, it's, it's definitely a source of power, 

Monica: Such a source of power. 

D'vorah: And that very frightening to men, I think

D'vorah: is a way we can be our fullest selves. I mean, I think when we. Are able to identify and celebrate the erotic they do become, I've seen them transform, become painters, become, you know, moving to areas, dancers, you know, lyricists songwriters, poets come back to life. Exactly. And do many forms of the arts. For me to, as we've said, that's, that's been writing, it gives you permission to like do free writing, you know, to not censor yourself or not as much, and to just create, create, create, create.

D'vorah: Yes. You know, actually, as, as I sent that about spiritual people, I realized that the begins, you know, the women mystics of their 12th century, they were writing love letters to God. Yes, Jesus. I mean, what is that, if not an expression of the erotic in it, in that kind of a sense, because also I think if we really did some meditating on that, or if we just really think about it in our wake and consciously.

D'vorah: It just opened, can open you up in so many ways. And if we are really to establish some sort of communication with divinity, we need to be open. If I'm going to be a channel through which information can pass, that I can transmit, that might be helpful to others. That can't happen. If my sense of the erotic is shutdown.

Monica: That's right. 

D'vorah: This is something we should write about. Yeah, because really we both have experience with organized religion and we know there are fruits there, but we also have seen the damage. It can do 

Monica: So much damage, so much damage and you know, I'm still, I'm still discovering as I'm sure. I mean, I. Wherever done, but, but I'll say this, that I still am undoing the damage that was done. The, the, just the amount of shutdown. And even, even unsurfaced shame that show up sometimes in situations that I'm like, gosh, where did that? What is this right? That it's, it's again, it's it has so many subtle repercussions and unintended impact or intended impact, right.

Monica: That I would love to say it's unintended, but unfortunately, as you continue to discover and you so eloquently pointed to earlier, you can, you know, the truth can set you free, but first it can really piss you off.

Monica: Yeah. Because you start to understand that there is some kind of systematic strategy here, you know, that, that. That as fortunate as that sounds right, like there's, there was a huge part of me that just kept being like, there's no way it couldn't have been, you know, like this couldn't be systematic. It couldn't, you know, and then when you really start reading some of the works of so many of these brilliant thinkers, um, I'm even thinking of recently working with Naomi Wolf, who wrote Vagina and, and understanding kind of why rape in war 

D'vorah: as a weapon. Yeah. 

Monica: As a weapon, you know, as a way to completely shut down, you know, the, the power centers, basically not only of women, but also men in that culture. Right. Who've whose females have been. Through that kind of 

D'vorah: write down. Yeah. 

Monica: Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's powerful stuff. And so back to the fire of Lilith, because she comes back, you know, there's, I love fire as, as an archetype, as a metaphor, as a symbol, as a, that purifying, fierce Phoenix energy that can really create industry.

Monica: And really when it comes to Lilith, eternal fire, being that, which I think helps women continually remember to come back to ourselves, to our sovereign selves, you know, is she's such a powerful archetype for us in that way. Because when we are looking at the, all the ways we've been. Scapegoated it really, I think we can fall into despair as we were kind of talking about before, um, you know, we even began. And so this is an incredibly powerful archetype and symbol. 

D'vorah: Yeah. And I have to mention Eve one more time because her sister Eve, because she has also been demonized, as I mentioned, and, and her, as, you know, they, the punishments that were meted out, supposedly by God for the eating of the apple was Adam and Eve were no longer immortal.

D'vorah: He, God gave, gave pain in childbirth and supposedly the curse, which, which we know can also be not such a curse, but great source of information, menstruation and unnecessary, you know, thing, not a, an evil, you know, all those things were result of her and the expulsion of course, from paradise. But of course, as well, Number of us have written about Lillis.

D'vorah: It's it's not a paradise if you're a prisoner that's right. No matter how secure, how much security you have. No, but giving that up. I mean, I think, you know, that's one of the lessons Lilith offers as well. It's not easy it's to take that risk of giving it all up, leaving it behind, leaving, you know, a secure, stable home and going out into the wilderness.

D'vorah: And yet, if you don't have your voice, if you don't have freedom of choice about your activities or about how your day is constructed, that's been, I've been looking at that lately. You know, what is each day, rather than just, you know, what's my life plan or what for the next five years? What about today? I did something on Instagram today because I was looking at a timer that I have, you know, in an hour ago, And I wrote something about, you know, how are you spending your day?

D'vorah: Is it, you know, what you want to be doing? Are you following your passions? Because really otherwise life can go by so fast, you know, and people are always waiting and as many others have said as well, not just me, but you know, we're waiting for that moment when we have enough money or we're happy enough or we're settled enough.

D'vorah: And if that never comes, then what you never live fully. Right. Remember that book that was titled do what you love, the money will follow. I always loved that time. I do remember that book so much. And I think even if the money doesn't always follow, because certainly, you know, I'll never make corporate dollars again, but I am much happier doing what I'm doing, 

Monica: You know, and I've been discovering and exploring this whole notion of like sufficiency and, you know, kind of like true prosperity that the patriarch is kind of build on this foundation of scarcity, you know, and how, just how we can live from that place.

Monica: Right. If we, and to continually seek outside of ourselves for the more and that in so many ways, you know, when I think about the kind of ultimate conversation of the divine, feminine and mother earth, Consuming, you know, at a rate that she cannot sustain. And yet we have enough, we are enough, but it's believing right.

Monica: You know, and knowing of our own internal sufficiency, like our own internal sovereignty and knowing that there is always enough. So yeah, it's, it gets so interesting when we start to just be, be with, uh, you know, when we're no longer kind of comparing and despairing or keep up with the Joneses anymore, that we have the ability to actually start to create a harmonious relationship first with, with, with ourselves before we can ever hope to have it in the world.

Monica: But that, yes, the, the money is actually an energy as well. A currency that, you know, it wasn't actually, until I started loving myself that I started to. And that was through the divine feminine. That was through my, my exploration and discovery at the divine feminine that I ever got to that place of self compassion and self love.

Monica: And it was only when I got there that I started to be in flow with energy and money and true prosperity. 

D'vorah: That's beautiful. Well, that scarcity mentality also is tied to fear. And that, that fear of not just not having enough, but not being enough. Yeah, no. Which is what advertising runs on. If you just buy this lipstick, you'll be happy.

D'vorah: You know, that kind of thing. If you're got cooking with this pot yet, you're not a good cook or you're incompetent. Yeah. And I think you're right. I think scarcity can be applied to all these things. Mindsets that are encouraged and they do often bring shame. 

Monica: Yeah. Do often bring shame. So D'vorah, this has been such a rich conversation and I would love to just ask you one final question.

Monica: Cause we're like already, it's like, feels like it's been two minutes, but we're already an hour in, but I would love to just ask you, like, what haven't I asked that you, that you might like me to ask her that you might like our listeners to know. 

D'vorah: Gosh, I can't think of anything really. Um, you've covered so much in your questions have been fantastic.

D'vorah: I'm just taking a look at my own notes. And, uh, and the questions that you, that you asked for. I guess the only other thing, and it's repetition probably of what we've both have said already, but as far as why, you know, why do women look for the sacred feminine, and you know, why do they sometimes show up in our classes without quite knowing why?

D'vorah: And it's because of something missing. It's because of a need of a hunger of maybe a void, you know, a hole in our heart, sometimes something missing. And that piece is often us as you're stressing. You know, it's often who we already are. You know, we have the answers inside us. We often just have to excavate a bit to find them and don't have to constantly look outside.

D'vorah: Uh, I came to a point in my dissertation process where I was still wanting to go to different talks and lectures and a good friend said when I had a conflict one night, forget it. Do you have what you need? Do the writing now, you know, because she thought outside maybe avoiding the, you know, doing the writing.

D'vorah: I had everything I needed. I didn't have to do more research. And that's so true often about our lives. Of course, we want to learn more about ourselves in life every day. I don't ever want to stop learning. I think then we died, but on some level or several levels, but, but to be satisfied with who we are and what we have is as important and a huge task.

D'vorah: And I don't think we can do it without you. 

Monica: That's certainly true. And I think to your point as well, and I talk about this all the time on the podcast, women are learning how to do that. Now they're learning like Lilith and Eve coming back to the garden and supporting each other. And that we can do that for each other, witness each other, see each other there's so much about the way women are circling right now.

Monica: I think that is absolutely 100% imperative, you know, to our collective healing, because I think we, as women have to gather first in these circles and practice, right? Like what is it like to feel seen? What is it like to feel heard and to, to voice your truth without having it stepped on or invalidated or talked over or laughed at, and to have that experience.

Monica: Not only, you know, that insight experience, but also that witnessing that outside experience, that co-created his experience with another woman in a safe place that we're, you know, we're no longer trying to fix each other. We're just trying to celebrate each other and honor each other and respect each other for where each other is at.

D'vorah: Yeah. And that's, you said witness each other, see each, each other, and you have done a huge contribution. I think with this podcast series, thank you. In creating that container, that possibility for discussion and for hearing other women's journeys and struggles, including your own. And I want to thank you so much for creating it.

D'vorah: Uh, thank you. I it's been such a, an, an incredibly. fulfilling, I will say and surprising journey to do this. So when I'm doing it, it's, it feels effortless. And probably that's why I second guessed it for a while. Like, uh, you know, cause I think too, we can tend to think everything should be so hard and yet this felt.

D'vorah: Not for another hour. 

Monica: Yeah, just my natural curiosity. Right. It's like, wow. To just be able to sit and ask questions and have my curiosity fed all day long is just a complete delight. But you to D'vorah, I mean, it's, so I love how I would hear about you as if from all of these different ways before I actually got a chance to finally meet you.

Monica: So it's been an absolute pleasure and for our listeners, we'll be sure, you know, to of course have divorced work and. Links to the many resources that we actually spoke about, but you can of course get your own copy of Lola's fire. And I recommend that you do and D'vorah, anything else coming up that you would like to invite our listeners to consider?

Monica: Cause I know you have some circles. 

Monica: We do. Thanks. Um, I would encourage them to go to www.lilithinstitute.com where you can sign up for my newsletter, which often gives, I mean always gives, uh, not just some of the news of the day, but community offerings. In addition to my own classes, the most immediate one is yes, our Lilith circle, which begins with Ian.

Monica: He found Louisa Teesha, chief and the Euro about tradition and Dr. Vivian Monroe and myself, uh, leading one of the Lilith circles based on original resistance anthology. And that'll start July. For nine weeks over the summer. And, uh, the other one that we're now accepting applications for is the little fire circle program, which will be limited.

Monica: I think I will increase it to 12 women. We just had 10 this time, but there's so much ground to cover it. And women are also very interested to be in a setting where we offer classes and new and full moon circles and a private session with me as part of that package. So, yeah,

Monica: put your email or invite our listeners to contact you through email. 

Monica: Got questions and comments. Thanks. 

Monica: So thank you again, D'vorah and for our listeners more to be revealed.