Nine Worlds in the Tree

Nine Worlds in the Tree

Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about: Staff-women, the völur; the oldest texts about female spiritual leadership in Europe; a window into the ancestral heritages of North: nine worlds in the Tree, the nine primordial women in Nature; a common cosmology from Siberia to Scandinavia; the first primordial seeress mentioned in the Völuspá; theories about the Vanir, Álfar, ethnicity, and conquest; “the first war in the world” between the Aesir and the Vanir, one of the core themes in the Völuspá; the demonization of the other and divide-and-conquer, the tools of patriarchy through history; strong parallels between the Norse and Vedic stories; the nectar of wisdom, the mead of poetry; the hopeful ending of the Völuspá; ancestral recovery work for the people of European descent.

Nine Worlds in the Tree

Witch Burnings

Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about: the long history of women suppression; withcraft accusation for land theft from women; the crusade agains the Cathars; the consolidation of feudalism and the early witch hunts; the influence of the Roman legal code in the Spanish persecutions; the medieval patriarchal mentality in the bound up accusation “witch and whore”; accusations as a tool of control on the female population; the chastity ordeal of fire back to ancient Vedic and Blibical times; the dynamics of scapegoating.

Nine Worlds in the Tree

The Ancestral Mother

In this week’s episode Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about: Cailleach, the Old Woman; her aspect as megalith builder; the bones of the Earth; drinking from the pool of regeneration; the Cow Mother from Ireland to India; the temple, astronomical observatory and ancestral sanctuary at Newgrange; recent genetic evidence supporting the work of Marija Gimbutas; an ancestral mother to many people; the mythical degradation of women following the political and economic shifts to patriarchy; the Germanic Blessing Goddess of winter nights.

Nine Worlds in the Tree

A Language of Consciousness

In this week’s episode Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about the chapter dedicated to the runes in her book “Witches and Pagans”: her newest book “Deasophy”, traditional images to contemplate and color; a broad range of meaning for the word “rune”; runes and ceremonial acts; cliches about the witches have basis in archaeological records; the origins of the word “heathen”; the modern reclamation of the Old Religion; Europe was wilderness; the mystics in the trees; the effect of language on the way we think; historic examples of the magical use of runes; haliorunnae, the women who commune with the ancestors; singing to remember.

Nine Worlds in the Tree

The Women Who Know

In this week’s episode Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about: the nectar of ancestral traditions; the sacred meaning of names for the wise women in Europe; demonization of the herbalist women through naming; a whole body of healing practices; life force medicine; seeress in the roof; witches as spiritual leaders; the women who see and know; cultural spells of patriarchy; the colonialist invention of white identity; honoring the indigenous names of the land.

Nine Worlds in the Tree

Goddesses, Fate and Ancestors

In this week’s episode Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about: remembering other ways to live; “witch hunts” in Europe, the prehistory of our current socio-political situation; the Three Sisters spinning the webs of Wyrd; ancient Norse and German cosmologies and the curving nature of Time; the archetypal Tree and Well; the pan-global symbol of the holy matrix of Being; the Maidens on the sea of Knowledge; the Faery Faith and the ancestral religion; the break up with ancient knowledge at the time of Industrial Revolution;  language and recreating the future web of meaning.