Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time a woman was walking along a path gathering herbs. She hummed as she went about her work and at one point stood tall to stretch her back. The sun was out and she pushed the hood of her cloak back and for a moment paused and lifted her face to the warmth.

Unbeknownst to her, she was being watched. The man, the local priest, stood on an upper path. When she stretched her back, he felt a twinge of arousal. When she pushed her hood back, the twinge increased. When she lifted her face to the warmth of the sun, his arousal grew stronger. It was then he knew she was a witch, sent by the devil to lure him into sin.

What does this story have to do with our monthly topic Lost Arts, Found Art?

During The Burning Times (15^th – 17^th centuries) this scenario and others were played out to the point where in some villages virtually every woman including infants, toddlers, children and adults were hung or burned at the stake or in some other manner, murdered. In many cases these women were the Wise Women, the healers, mid-wives or women who owned their own property and were not subservient to men.

What’s important to note is that these women did nothing wrong or bad. In many cases they adhered to many of the “old ways.” They planted and harvested herbs according to pagan traditions. They followed the seasons honoring the turning of the wheel of life.

And to be fair, while I’ve watched the Canadian documentary The Burning Times, I’ve also done some additional research albeit on Google. There were areas in Europe where mostly men were accused and in some cases mostly children. There were also areas where there were virtually no cases of a “witch hunt.” While there are many theories about “who” and “why,” the skeptics and naysayers minimize or attempt to turn us away from what was lost.

Paty Jager’s Monday post talks about what happened to the Nez Perce who lost their spirituality when forced onto reservations and forced to accept Christianity.

And along the same lines, the collective “We” lost the old traditions. We lost human potential. We lost artists, healers, oral histories and thus wisdom.

While there are disputes that millions were “burned at the stake” even conservative estimates range from 50,000 to 200,000 victims over the centuries. Considering these victims had families, friends and neighbors, it is accurate to say that millions were affected by these witch hunts.

Can you imagine what it was like for the woman gathering herbs to return to her home, to be seized and accused of being a witch sent to seduce the local priest? What could she have ever said that would have been believed? And for those situations where the woman would have been raped? Again, she was sent by Satan to lure the man to sin. What would her defense have been? Who would have believed her?

And centuries later we are still paying a price. Women who speak up often become the target of ridicule, of suspicion, of hate. How dare she say anything about her past.

As a woman who graduated from high school in 1959, I can attest to the routine sexual harassment that most of us endured at that time. A boy who grabbed a girl’s breast was “just being a boy.” In my fifth grade health class, I was taught that it was My Responsibility if a boy “got out of line.” If that happened, I had done something wrong. If that was what I was taught, why would I have spoken up?

As a single mother who worked in a male dominated profession (law enforcement in the 1960’s), I know the price I paid to get along with and be accepted by my colleagues. The sexual innuendos, at times spoken to see if I’d squirm. The pats on my butt, the “accidental” brush against my breasts. Could I take it? I had rent to pay, food to purchase for my son and me.

As a woman who worked fifty years in social services with populations that spanned from nursery to nursing homes, I know the toll sexual and physical abuse, sexual and physical harassment and domestic violence takes on women and men. Part of our homeless problem is because women and men do not feel safe in shelters or adult care homes, or even in an apartment building (there are elevators and stairwells and they know from personal experience what horrors can happen when trapped there).

But most of all from all these experiences I know the price we all pay when

women in particular are targeted, blamed and not believed.

While what is happening on the national scene in the US affected this post, I am not talking about any one case or situation. I am talking about acknowledging that for centuries we have blamed women for some men’s sexual arousal, sexual fantasies, for some men's need for domination, control and power over others, over women.

We are at a crossroads once again where what we lost in The Burning Times can be found in present time.

The question is: Do We Want To?

To find your own answer, I encourage you to watch the Canadian documentary The Burning Times and also to read the book When God Was A Woman by Merlin Stone. And if you have a book you want to recommend, please do in the comments. What's important is to

Educate yourself.

Question what you’ve been told, been taught.

Ask yourself “Is it true?” “How do I know this to be true?” “What are my personal experiences?”

Yes, there are somethings we take on faith, but our history?

Something we can check out ourselves?

We owe it to not only ourselves but to our mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters and in my case, great granddaughter as well as all the women who came before to do the work, to do the research, to know the truth of our herstory.

Judith Ashley is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrates the journey from relationship to romance.

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Learn more about The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshleyRomance.com

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© 2018 Judith Ashley