It was no coincidence during the process of making this Patchwork that the more I read about our ancestral matrilineal history, the more "witch" I felt. Even though I was a bit skeptical of the term, a part of me yearns to reclaim it. As a mestiza, more than half of my ancestors are from Europe, so I've been thinking a lot about my female European ancestry.
Women have always been healers, midwives, and connected to the Supreme Goddess and Mother Earth, so I imagine the initial suppression of our ancestral practices must have been brutal. Even though Hebrew women were brutally terrorized and even killed for worshipping the goddesses, the rituals of Isis and Ishtar, among others, continued strong until the 6th century. But once the Inquisition started, women were singled out again due to their resistance to giving up their sacred knowledge and the worship of the Divine Mother. That is why they called them "Witches," so do I want to be a witch? Yes, I do! Please! My next question is why that Genocide of women has never been called such as? I know history is written by the winners. One might argue that I'm a hysterical feminist calling the Inquisition a women's Genocide, but for SIX GENERATIONS, women lived in a state of terror. SIX generations of children watched their mothers, sisters, and grandmothers burn at stake, to the point that sometimes by the time the Inquisition left town, no women were rejected because they were all burned to death. Instead, they got an economic revival thanks to the mass murder of women; they even published the first mass-produced book detailing how to kill witches. This was the time when torturing women allowed them to perfect their techniques. Midwives and healers were forbidden to protect against the rise of doctors' formal education, which was only available to men. It has been overwhelming to see the complete picture unfold and realize how much effort and resources have been placed in the last 2000 years into repressing women from worshipping the Divine Mother Goddess and the practice of sacred knowledge.
For those reasons, this When God Was A Woman Patchwork has been highly transformative for me. I have been reluctant to embrace one God for another, whether a female or a male. For me, deities always imply a subordination status. But I did not know the Devine Feminine Goddesses. The Goddesses do not have commandments or lightning punishments powers to unleash upon us. The Goddesses are not omnipotent supreme deities. Instead, they are a divine reflection of the depths of woman's femininity, from motherhood to fearless warriors to sexual power. The Goddesses are a mirror of our divine strength as creators in the scheme of the universe. They have guided me into a space within my femininity where I am light and dark, and they are both demiurges.
This has been one of those works that alter your essence and open your reality. Sometimes rough, overwhelming but always illuminated. The intensity of the process was emotional and spiritual and materialized when my studio and the Patchwork took over my dining room and that wall.
My main objective with this work is to question our history as women and our perception of our own feminine essence because when we connect with our ancestral divinity, even how we perceive our body and sexuality changes. Most importantly, I wish to heal our ancestral trauma of when we were violently stripped of this divinity that lives in each one of us, in all women, with no exception, by bringing the Goddess Queen of Heaven back to life. Ironically, it was just a year ago when Instagram shadowbanned, deleted and censored my accounts for posting a photo of Marina Abramovic dressed as the Minoan Goddess Snake, which for me at that time, was just a picture of a female artist. And I say ironically because it was with the same force they used to repress and silence the Goddess that I used to immerse myself in this project and me... So I've been thinking about my female ancestors... I thought they killed you, but we just keep coming back. 🙏 💗 🔮
The entire process is documented on my Instagram with the #whengodwasawomanquilt
