The Great Cosmic Mother" also delves into the impact of Judeo-Christian traditions on the suppression of the feminine. The authors analyze the biblical narratives, highlighting the patriarchal biases and the demonization of female power. They shed light on how the rise of monotheistic religions marginalized goddess worship and led to the subjugation of women. But, when the cult of the male god was established, there must have been difficulty in explaining how he could be the giver of life to all creation—since the man, unlike the woman, cannot produce from his body either the child or the food for the child. The whole attitude of humans towards the God had to be altered—violently altered. There could not be that same vital biological and magical link (the I-Thou) between the child and the father, as there is between the child and its mother: two beings evolving in and from the same body, the same rhythms, the same dreams. From the religious point of view, this means the loss between the human and the divine of direct, continuous physical-emotional-spiritual relationship. Oneness is dualized, the “self” is isolated within, and the rest of the universe, including God, is displaced and objectified without. The evolutionary, protoplasmic connection between the experienced self and the All is broken, and the new relation becomes: I-the Other; or worse: I-It. The father is not of the same all-containing, all-infusing, shaping and nourishing substance, and so the relation between humans and the Father God becomes abstract and alienated, distant and moralistic. The” Excerpted in: Sjöö, Monica; Mor, Barbara (2016). "The First Sex: In The Beginning We Were All Female". In Barrett, Ruth (ed.). Female Erasure. Tidal Time. ISBN 978-0997146707.

Our legacy artist, activist and writer Monica Sjöö is celebrated with a green plaque dedicated to her artistic legacy in the Port City of Bristol living, painting campaigning and writing in Clifton in the 1960s and early 1970s. Sjoo, Monica (1999). Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon? – Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future. Plain View Press. pp.161–173. ISBN 1891386077. Living Room". Temple of Goddess Spirituality. 2017. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022 . Retrieved 28 January 2018.Sjöö's art and writing became well-known outside of the UK, and throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s she corresponded with influential American writers, artists and pagans such as Jean and Ruth Mountaingrove, Starhawk, Zsuzsanna Budapest, Shekhinah Mountainwater, Lucy Lippard, Alice Walker, and Judy Chicago. Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon? – Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future, Plain View Press (1999) Smith, Jill (2005). "A personal remembrance of Monica Sjöö". Monica Sjoo. Archived from the original on 23 October 2007 . Retrieved 4 January 2018. Harrison, Margaret (1977). "Notes on Feminist Art in Britain 1970–77". Studio International. 193 (987): 212–220.

Mor, Barbara (1981). The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All. Trondheim: Rainbow Press. ISBN 82-7223-012-7. The Great Cosmic Mother” is the first retrospective museum exhibition of Monica Sjöö’s oeuvre. Featuring some fifty works from Sjöö’s entire practice, it spans from monumental paintings, over political posters and banners, to drawings and material from the artist’s large archives. Monica’s collection of work moves and shapes itself – and just like that – it’s hard to ignore Monica’s presence in the room. Her work, like an altar – devoted to the Goddess and woman – runs through us as an unseen force, a magik unclear, or often confronting to many. Images, symbols, markings all bearing an ancient mysticism, largely unwelcome in our current society. And yet… Monica Sjöö’s work still bears witness to something far bigger, far stronger than that of the visual impact – but an invocation – a surfacing of the ancient Goddess cultures. A deep remembering felt in our blood and bones. PDF / EPUB File Name: The_Great_Cosmic_Mother__Rediscovering_the_-_Monica_Sjoo.pdf, The_Great_Cosmic_Mother__Rediscovering_the_-_Monica_Sjoo.epub Performing Resistance was inspired by Monica Sjöö’s book, Spiral Journey, published in 2018 where she writes about her sense of connection to our sacred landscapes and her support for Greenham Common Peace Camp and many campaigns for Gaia, and our environment echoing the feelings of campaigners at both conferences for the people COP15 and COP27 in the year of 2022.The Green Plaque is placed outside Dragon Workshop in Clifton Village. A welcome addition to mark a ’sense of place‘ for Monica Sjöö in Bristol’s Bohemia as it is historically known for its diverse and talented residents of the 1960s And 1970s. The artist, writer and eco-feminist activist Monica Sjöö lived for some years in Princess Victoria Street. The plaque we hope will then mark her residency in the city and create new conversations about Her life and work.

Well Worship: The Cult of Sacred Waters". In Castle, Leila (ed.). Earthwalking Skydancers: Women's Pilgrimages to Sacred Places. North Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1883319335. An Avebury Experience" (PDF). Politics of Matriarchy. Vol.3. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. p.55. ISBN 978-0906663004.

From Härnösand to Bristol

I included this image in monoprint form from the Feminist Archive South together with 4 other monoprints in my recent exhibition ‘Invoking Absence’ (2021). The exhibition considered mineral layers, landscapes, waters and the invisible beings of place within a cycle of deep and neoteric time. The inclusion of Sjöö’s prints from the archive enabled a dialogue with goddess feminism, an area of practice that has drawn criticism from within some feminist quarters for being essentialist. But which has also been defended as part of a spiritual tradition that has been unfairly silenced too. Summerland is the land of the faeries and the dead, and this is my interpretation of the gateway into this realm of the White Goddess who carries the souls of the recent dead in Her great winged arms in a mantle of light…” [Sjöö, M (2004) Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue]