Her vulval images are in abundance in this place, Carnarvon Gorge, Central Queensland Australia; however, in a cultural milieu that can barely say the word ”vulva”, let alone understand the ceremonial celebration of female anatomy, this place has gone largely unrecognised. Even Goddess people barely know of it, though I was alerted to it by a good Goddess woman, Chris Sitka, who went there a few years ago.
Part of me is amazed that the site of these engravings is open to the public, and people are allowed so close up: it seems to me almost sacriligious to do so: most who view the work would have little perception of the sacredness of the art. The Indigenous people who created them were long ago banished from the place and their descendants are only beginning to return and tell their story again.
In the story told at the Ranger’s Station there, the vulval images are named as “cup and ring” motifs; my partner and I were aghast at the complete erasure of Her. There was only an admission that they “were associated with very significant fertility ceremonies”. Perhaps the Europeans who wrote this actually did not have any idea, since their kind had destroyed so much of the culture and knowledge of the people, and their own culture and religions were so completely devoid of sacred female imagery. It would have been difficult for them to imagine, much like the Sheela-na-Gigs have not been comprehended by minds locked up in dualistic, androcentric mythologies.
Thankfully the story being told at one site, “The Art Gallery” as it is named, is different. It is entitled “A Woman’s Story” and the word “vulva” is used. The full text in this location reads:
Women are responsible for looking after some of the stories etched along this section of the sandstone wall – women’s business. You will see engraved over and over again the motif of the human vulva. Our Elders tell the story of this design being a fertility symbol.
There must be very interesting discussions that go on about how to describe the engravings. The place is certainly not advertised as a sacred female place, though there are Elders (recorded at the Ranger’s Station) who tell that it is women’s business.
I can only advise that Carnarvon Gorge, Central Queensland, Australia, be put on the list of global Goddess sites, and it’s true worth recognised, received and revered.
Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone
Wish I could have seen this when we were together, Glenys!!
Leslene, I didn’t know of it then, and getting to it was a drama for me. I actually couldn’t physically go the whole way; Taffy had to go the rest of the way without me and take the photos. As it was I got injured and hospitalised for a few days, and disabled for several weeks from the adventure. not a place I could go to again … have to be younger or more able
It’s quite possibly an historical sacred women’s site. The fact it was taken from the first people’s of Australia and not publically spoken about by them was likely to have been to keep the history alive. Women’s sites are women’s business. Many such places have been abandoned because they are no longer deemed sacred. Gender ceremonies are not to be spoken about to the opposite sex. I guess it’s too late now.
Commentary from Elisabet Sahtouris via my email: “The ignorance about this sacred site remindes me of Newgrange in Ireland, which I visited years ago. The mound por Earth’s goddess body, the entrance and mound chamber a vagina and womb, the ‘burial depressions’ birthing beds (not originally burials!) and the big giveaway: Father Sun shaft enters Mother Earth temple through that narrow entrance tat solstice! (I call it the Cosmic Shtup!) Outside the temple, in case you still missed it, there is a srone statue of a woman holding a birthing cloth!
So clearly women went into the Mother goddess to deliver their babies, yet none of the literature provided to the endless stream of tourists mentioned any of this.”
Glenys Livingstone – latest article on vulvas… fascinating but also so scary that humans today go to such lengths to deny what is. The power of WOMAN.