Healing the Feminine Energy: A Sacred Mission at Ancient Wisdom
For four thousand years women and men have suffered under the burden of patriarchal religion, of the annihilation of the divine feminine and all that entails. Our ancient ancestors honored the Earth and women as the sacred bearers of life but with the rise of patriarchy came the subjugation of both. Within this system, the destruction of the environment and denigration of women went hand in hand.

Images of the Divine masculine, "God", became not only supreme but exclusive. Nearly everywhere "Goddess", the concept of the Divine Feminine, was lost to human imagination and religious imagery and where she did survive, was made the tool to justify the patriarchal order (e.g. Athena among the Hellenistic Greeks). Our world became hopelessly out of balance.

Today, with genital mutilation in Africa, bride burning in India, epidemic female infanticide in China, continued Taliban style persecution in Afghanistan, domestic violence here… the abuse and denigration of women is still universal. Even when a woman doesn't experience such violence personally, the destruction is often manifest in lack of self-esteem and a sense of powerlessness. That poisonous energy is felt everywhere! There will never be peace on Earth while half the world's population is systematically dehumanized.

In June of 2001, eight months before we found this property, Sibyl was told by a psychic/astrologer that we would build a "temple to the Goddess". When this beautiful piece of land was unexpectedly brought to us, we knew it would be possible. We envision Ancient Wisdom as a place for restoring that balance both within one's own body and soul and in the world at large. We welcome the women and men who wish to share in this sacred work.

Permaculture:
Healing our relationship to the Earth
Once we understand and "experience the Goddess primarily as an expression of land and place [and thus] understand the earth as an organism, the Goddess is the consciousness of the earth being, and her various aspects are reflections of the land/climate/ecology web of a given area." (Starhawk, Spiral Dance, 1999) That shift in consciousness puts our commitment to teaching and modeling urban permaculture at the center of our work.

Permaculture, a contraction of the words permanent and agriculture or culture was once defined as "revolution disguised as organic gardening". Indeed! Our current system of petro-chemical dependent agribusiness is poisoning the soil, water, air and us. It is destroying family farms and the rural economy. It is unsustainable, unnecessary and ultimately, a contributor to the oil wars. Our urban yards can be an oasis of unlimited yield of healthy food and culinary & medicinal herbs with minimum input on our part.

We welcome the women and men who wish to share in this sacred work of personal and planetary healing.