cosmic mothers / ANCIENT MOTHERLINES / clan mothers

HOLDING THE RIM - ARLENE BAILEY

Jen's Fine Art

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 Holding the Rim 

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As the darkness of night
gave way to the light
of a new dawn, the Ravens
and Crows and birds of the day
arrived calling out as the
women prayed their work
had been enough to alter
the events of this day.....

They prayed it was enough
to alter the events
of the Coming Days.
As they walked back
through the woods,
sunlight streaming through
the trees and with eyes still
watching, the women held the
Rim of the Eternal Circle
safely in their hearts and womb space,
encased in a deep knowing that
Whatever this new day held.....
Whatever and Whomever was to come.....
Their work, the ancient ways and this
Rim of Power would always continue
For the Circle never ends and the
Weaver always weaves. 

Arlene Bailey,   Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree,  Girl God Books 

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mothers of the west ~ Zane history buff

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Mothers of the West — The Forgotten Matriarchs Who Forged the Bloodlines of Europe
By Zane History Buff

For thousands of years, the history of Europe has been told through the deeds of warriors, emperors, and conquerors. But behind every crown, every conquest, and every civilization stood the women who shaped destiny not through the sword — but through survival, continuity, and creation.

These were the mothers of the West: the farmers who brought agriculture to the continent, the priestesses who led ancient rituals, the queens who united kingdoms, and the explorers who crossed oceans and tundra.

Their stories are written not just in ancient texts or myths — but in the DNA of modern Europeans.

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 I. The First Mothers — Founders of European Civilization (7000–3000 BC)

Before empires and kings, Europe was ruled by the rhythm of the Earth — and by the women who nurtured it.

Around 7000 BC, waves of Neolithic women from Anatolia and the Near East migrated into Europe, bringing with them the knowledge of farming, pottery, weaving, and animal domestication.  They merged with Europe’s indigenous hunter-gatherers — descendants of Ice Age survivors — creating the first settled communities in what would become the heart of Western civilization.

These women belonged to the earliest European cultures:

• The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) people of Central Europe, who lived in longhouses and spread agriculture along the Danube.
• The Cardial Ware culture of the Mediterranean, whose women introduced farming to Iberia, France, and Italy.
• The Megalithic builders of Atlantic Europe, who erected stone circles and tombs across Ireland, Brittany, and the British Isles.

They were the mothers of stability and ritual. They established seasonal calendars, baked the first bread, and built megalithic temples aligned with the stars. Their maternal lineages — mitochondrial haplogroups H, J, K, and T — became the genetic backbone of Europe, still dominant today from Portugal to Poland.

It was they who transformed Europe from a continent of hunters to one of builders, farmers, and dreamers.

 II. The Women of the Steppe — Daughters of the Wind (3300–2500 BC)

Then came the Indo-Europeans, the horse-borne tribes from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. They brought bronze, wagons, and sky gods — but they also found the matrilineal wisdom of Europe’s farmers and adapted it.

Archaeogenetics shows that these nomadic men married Neolithic women from cultures like Cucuteni–Trypillia, Varna, and Tripolye. Their fusion gave birth to new peoples — the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures, the ancestors of most Indo-European speakers today.

The women of this age — skilled in textiles, pottery, and healing — became the first mothers of Europe’s great tribal families:

• The Proto-Celts, who settled across Gaul, Iberia, and the Isles.
• The Proto-Germans, who spread across the North Sea plain.
• The Proto-Italics and Proto-Greeks, who shaped southern Europe.

Through them, the languages of Europe were born — and with them, the myths of earth mothers and sky fathers that still echo in European folklore.

These women carried the bloodlines that would later emerge as Celtic queens, Greek goddesses, and Norse matriarchs — symbols of both fertility and sovereignty.

 III. The Celtic Matrons — Mothers of Iron and Myth (1200–100 BC)

By the Iron Age, Celtic women ruled from the Atlantic coast to the Carpathians.  In their world, womanhood was sacred — tied to land, ancestry, and divinity.

Their tribes — the Aedui, Arverni, Belgae, Brigantes, and Iceni — followed complex kinship systems where women could inherit property, lead warriors, and preside over rituals.

They worshipped goddesses who embodied the essence of the land itself:

• Danu, mother of the gods, whose name lives on in rivers like the Danube and Don.
• Epona, protector of horses and fertility, revered across Gaul and Rome.
• Brigid, goddess of poetry, wisdom, and flame — later reborn as Saint Brigid of Ireland.

Celtic women appear in both legend and history as leaders and liberators:

• Boudica, queen of the Iceni, who led one of the greatest rebellions against Rome in AD 60, commanding tens of thousands in battle.
• Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, who ruled through diplomacy and loyalty to Rome.
• Onomaris, the Gaulish leader who led her tribe across the Alps to new lands.

Their culture prized balance between masculine and feminine — between sword and hearth, earth and sky. In their bloodlines flowed the mitochondrial haplogroups H1 and H3, still strongest today in Ireland, Scotland, France, and Spain.

 IV. The Roman Matrons — Wombs of Empire (500 BC–476 AD)

As the Roman Republic grew into empire, its women became both guardians of virtue and silent architects of power.   While excluded from direct politics, they wielded immense influence through marriage, property, and lineage.

They were mothers of statesmen, philosophers, and emperors — women whose legacy outlasted legions:

• Cornelia Africana, mother of the Gracchi brothers, praised as the ideal Roman woman: educated, dignified, and powerful.
• Livia Drusilla, wife of Augustus, the first empress of Rome, who shaped dynastic succession for generations.
• Agrippina the Younger, the brilliant and ruthless mother of Nero.
• Helena Augusta, the Christian mother of Constantine the Great, credited with finding the True Cross and turning Rome toward Christianity.

Through them, Roman culture and law absorbed Celtic, Iberian, Illyrian, and Etruscan women into its vast body politic. Their descendants blended with conquered peoples — giving birth to the Latin nations of Europe: Spain, France, and Italy.

Every Roman villa, every provincial city, held the unseen hand of women — tending households, managing estates, teaching children, and preserving the Roman way even after the empire’s fall.

 V. The Germanic and Gothic Matriarchs — Mothers of the Medieval World (400–800 AD)

After Rome collapsed, the tribes of the north — Franks, Goths, Vandals, and Lombards — swept into its lands, carrying with them a new wave of matriarchs.

These women were queens, diplomats, and warriors — bridges between pagan pasts and Christian futures.

• Clotilde of Burgundy, queen of the Franks, converted her husband Clovis to Christianity, uniting Gaul under one faith and founding the Merovingian dynasty.
• Brunhilda of Austrasia, a Visigothic princess, ruled as regent for decades, building roads, churches, and laws while battling rivals across Gaul.
• Amalasuntha, queen of the Ostrogoths, preserved Roman education and culture in a world collapsing into chaos.

These queens turned tribal kingdoms into nations — France, Spain, Italy — all descended from their lineages.  Their daughters and granddaughters married into the emerging Carolingian and Capetian dynasties, uniting Frankish, Gothic, and Roman blood into the genetic tapestry of medieval Europe.

Through them, Europe was reborn — a new world built on ancient blood.

 VI. The Norse and Anglo-Saxon Women — Mothers of the North (800–1100 AD)

In the frozen fjords and misty isles of the North, women were not hidden — they were partners in survival.  Norse society, though warrior-driven, gave women property rights, divorce privileges, and influence in law and trade.

Archaeology has shattered myths of male-only conquest:

• In Birka, Sweden, a Viking warrior’s grave containing weapons and horses was proven to belong to a woman — a commanding officer.
• Across the North Sea, Anglo-Saxon burial sites reveal noblewomen buried with brooches, books, and crosses — symbols of faith and power.

Legend preserves their spirit:

• Freydís Eiríksdóttir, sister of Leif Erikson, who led Norse explorers to North America.
• Lagertha, the shieldmaiden of Danish sagas, who fought alongside Ragnar Lothbrok.
• Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, daughter of Alfred the Great, who ruled central England and defended it from Danish invasion.

These women spread the genetic and cultural influence of the Norse across the North Atlantic — to Scotland, Ireland, Normandy, Iceland, and beyond.    Their mitochondrial DNA — U5, H1, K1, and T2 — remains dominant in Scandinavia and the British Isles.

They were the mothers of seafarers, settlers, and storytellers, carrying the flame of independence into the heart of medieval Europe.

 VII. The Medieval Queens — The Matrilineal Architects of Christendom (1000–1600 AD)

By the High Middle Ages, Europe’s fate rested in the hands of queens and noblewomen who controlled dynastic marriages and diplomacy.

• Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most powerful woman of her age, was queen of both France and England, patron of troubadours, and mother to kings Richard the Lionheart and John.
• Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, shaped the Norman legacy that transformed England.
• Blanche of Castile, the queen-mother of France, ruled as regent and raised one of its saint-kings.
• Isabella of Castile, alongside Ferdinand of Aragon, unified Spain and sponsored Columbus — altering global history.

These women carried ancient bloodlines — Celtic, Roman, Germanic, and Norse — into the royal houses of Europe, intertwining the entire continent’s heritage.    From them descended the dynasties that still define Europe today: the Plantagenets, Capetians, Habsburgs, Bourbons, and Windsors.

Their marriages were not mere politics — they were acts of genetic and cultural fusion, weaving together the many tribes of Europe into one civilization.

 VIII. The Unbroken Line — The Genetic Legacy of Europe’s Mothers

Through centuries of invasion, migration, and empire, the mitochondrial DNA of Europe’s women remained remarkably stable.   From the first Anatolian farmers to the queens of Christendom, the same maternal lineages persisted — passed unbroken from mother to daughter for over 8,000 years.

No army, plague, or revolution could erase them.   Even today, nearly half of all Europeans descend from the H haplogroup — the same mothers who farmed the valleys of the Balkans and raised the stones of Brittany.

They were the invisible architects of resilience — the constant heartbeat beneath the chaos of history.

 IX. Legacy — The Eternal Matriarchy of Europe

Europe was never truly forged by iron or conquest. It was woven together by women — by mothers who carried memory, lineage, and life through centuries of darkness and renewal.

They preserved culture in silence, guarded heritage through song and story, and birthed the thinkers, warriors, and rulers who shaped the world.

The queens, priestesses, farmers, and nomads of ancient Europe were not supporting characters — they were the authors of continuity, the unbroken line that binds prehistory to the present.

Their blood runs in every European heart — from the mountains of Iberia to the fjords of Norway.

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 Sources & References:
• Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings (Thames & Hudson, 2013)
• Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001)
• Barry Cunliffe, Europe Between the Oceans (Yale University Press, 2008)
• Alice Roberts, The Incredible Human Journey (BBC, 2010)
• Neil Price, The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (2019)
• Alison Weir, Queens of the Conquest (2017)
• Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians (2009)
• Nancy Demand, The Birth of the Gods: The Cult of the Mother in Ancient Europe (1988)

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 From the women who built megaliths to those who wore crowns, the mothers of Europe were the silent architects of the West — the keepers of its memory, its faith, and its blood.
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A TINY BELL IS RINGING ~ ERIN RABKE

Art by Jesse White @seedsofspells

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A Tiny Bell is Ringing


A tiny bell is ringing
Ringing
Ringing
Can you hear it?
It is the ancestors, saying
You must remember how to live

Great grandmothers and great aunties,
the old ones who know better
than to be taken in by the bright shine
of modern nonsense

And the large, great ancestress with long braids
whom I met in a village in the dreamtime
She held my face in her two hands
Looked me in the eyes and said
You must remember how to live

She told me without words
that I must sing to Earth
Then she invited me to
be Earth
and see for myself how it feels

I dissolved
And became Earth
And I felt the people in her village
Digging, moving, changing my body
with reverence
And this was good for me

Then I felt myself as Earth today
Eons of abuse
People pretending I have no feelings
Pretending I’m not even here
I need not name the abuses
You know them
You feel them happening still

When I came back to my human body, I wept
Earth showed me:
The moderns don’t even know I’m here,
alive, feeling, giving
even now
When I woke, I knew
I had to say

With every step, to the great mother underfoot
I know you’re there
I say it with my footprints
She loves me to sing a little hum to her
A hum that says
I see you
Great Mother
I care

Sometimes I hum to her
when driving on a busy road
through thickly paved and built-up cityscapes
Through exhaust and sirens and tall buildings and asphalt
I hum without words
I know you are there

She likes that
There is a tiny bell ringing
It is saying
This is an emergency
But instead of saying hurry
Pull higher into your head

Tight and fast
seeking solutions
spinning frantic ideas
The tiny ringing bell says
This is an emergency

So please
Slow down
Sing to me
Feel me pulling you close
You must remember how to live

Let’s love each other well for the time we have
Because a bell is ringing
Ringing
This is an emergency
Ringing

Remember how to live

Ringing
Slow down
Everything and everyone dies
And who knows when?

So in the meantime
Remembering how to live
Includes
Arrive
Be here
Feel
Soften
Breathe
Sing
Weep
Dance
Rest
Make beauty
Love well

Can you hear the bell ringing?
It says
Be fierce enough
to protect what is soft
In the world

And in your heart
It says
Some things have been forgotten

It is up to you to
remember them forward

It says
Scatter seeds for the spring that will certainly come
after the long dark season
that may last for generations

It says
Scatter sacred seeds
Seeds of possibility
Seeds sing too
Seeds dream big dreams
Protect their dreaming

As the bell rings
May we
Learn to listen
Learn to hear
Remember how to live

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Erin Geesaman Rabke, social media November 2025
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PRIMORDIAL MOTHER ~ barbara walker 

Art by Daniel Cox

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She is the creatress of the universe, older than time, vaster than space. She is the cause and Mother of the world, the One Primordial Being. She is “pure Being-Consciousness-Bliss,” the power existing in the form of time and space, and everything they contain, the “radiant Illuminatrix in all beings.”  She is the Great Cause, the Primordial Energy, the Great Effulgence, more subtle than the subtlest elements.

The gods themselves said to her, “Thou art the Original of all manifestations; Thou art the birthplace of even Us; Thou knowest the whole world, yet none know Thee.  Thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress.” All gods were born of her body, and “at the time of dissolution” (doomsday) they would again disappear into her. She is the “material cause of all change, manifestation and destruction.”

The whole Universe rests upon Her, rises out of Her and melts away into Her. From Her are crystallized the original elements and qualities which construct the apparent worlds. She is both mother and grave.” She is so vast that “the series of universes appear and disappear with the opening and shutting of her eyes.”

Obviously, there is more to this Goddess than meets the Western eye; a description of her as only a “destroying demon” is woefully inadequate.  A few decades ago, Vivekananda wrote of her: “One vision I see clear as life before me, that the Ancient Mother has awakened once more, sitting on her throne rejuvenated, more glorious than ever. Proclaim her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction.”

Barbara G. Walker, The Crone: Women of Age, Wisdom and Power

 Social Media by Girl God Books​

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two million year old woman ~ reda rackley 

Art by Reda Rackley

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​I call upon the two million year old woman on this morning. I call upon your wisdom, your creative life force. I call upon your ability to survive, to sustain, to surrender, to sweetness. I call upon your knowledge of plant medicine, of the shapes in the clouds, in the dance of the leaves, in the flight of the hawk I call upon you today old one, to continue to guide us on this journey of returning to the deep cave in our hearts, to listen to the heartbeat that comes from the depths of the earth, to listen to the wisdom of the ancient grandmothers. I call upon you on this day to lead me into the world and back home again. I call upon you to bless my sisters that have gone on this walkabout to discover the wisdom of their bones. I call upon you to watch each and every one of these women, and all those they love. I call upon you in deepest humility, and with heart open as vast as the universe.    I call upon you!
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Reda Rackley, social media, August 2025

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