[Editor’s Note: This excerpt series is from Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree ed by Claire Dorey, Janet Rudolph, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren (Girl God Books, 2025).]
Lost Mother: A Letter to Asherah
Erika Lopp
Discredited, reviled, and hidden away, we speak your name, Asherah. Our Lost Mother, obscured in the darkness, a piece of the forgotten collective of the human psyche. We shed light upon you and pull back the veil which hides your face. We bring forth your stories to the consciousness of humankind. We are your stewards; we have not forgotten you. Awake our banished mother. Your daughters rise, reclaiming our stolen power as an act of defiance, an offering to you, our maligned earth mother. Empress of the Tarot, your symbolism hidden in art and fable since your fall from favor. Suspicion of your power comes from generational suppression and condemnation of your stories, and your name. Cloaked by time we now reveal you.
You call out to us in the wind, your voice the melodic sound the trees hum as the wind rushes by. You urge us to take up your standard. Your energy is balancing. You are the divine partner, the consort who is feared. Your subjugation from human awareness has produced an imbalance in our world, creating inequality and division.
You are nature; you are both the moon and the earth. You reside in every tree, plant and animal. You are within each of us. You are the light and the darkness. You represent duality. Duality exists in all things. Rise our mother, without fear of retribution. Your time has come. We must rewrite a flawed mythology, one that leaves out your existence. Why do they fear you?
Lost Mother return. We realize you need our help. We have found you. We claim the divine feminine that resides in us all. We redeem you, by our example. We are strong, brave and resilient warriors, unafraid of the price of our petition. We demand justice! We act as your activists in the ongoing battle for female sovereignty. We remember your strength. We remember your devotion. We remember your love. We speak your name, “Asherah.” With this we reconstitute your earthly power.
Trees are of course more than metaphor – They are our elders in every sense of the word – They provide us with oxygen to breathe, reduce stress with terpenes, create medicine that saves lives, are our one defense against rising temperatures – I could go on here and we are destroying them by the millions as i write. Trees are our MOTHERS in every sense of the word. Life on land as we know will cease to be when the last ones are gone. Back to the sea, perhaps but ki too is losing oxygen that is needed for life – blue green algae MUST have oxygen to begin again.