Great Mother of All - 59" X 60"
Vying for power in the first three hundred years of the Roman calendar, were two rival religions; Mithraism and Christianity.  Mithras, “God of Truth and Honor”, was the central figure in Mithraism and was associated with the protection of warriors.  Jesus the Christ, in contrast, was associated with equality, love, peace and unity.  It was a very near thing.  The soldiers, of whom there were many, preferred Mithras, the God of might and strength, to the “turn the other cheek and love thine enemies” rabbi.  If Constantine hadn’t seen a way to turn this God of Love to political advantage his soldiers might have had their way.

This contest was preceded by several millennia of gradual but unrelenting conversion from a matrifocal Goddess religion to the patriarchal Jehovah who came into the Fertile Crescent with conquering warriors from the north.  Destroying everything in their path, these fierce northmen claimed all and supplanted the ancient ways with their angry, avenging, and patriarchal god.

Still earlier was the “Golden Age”.  Tales of this era of tranquility, of cultural flourishing and plenty for all were still being told by Plato and Aristotle.  For the people who revered the Great Mother of All, it was no myth.  Rather it was the stuff of their daily lives, worth dying for and was with us, unbroken, until crushed by the Inquisition.

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