Don't Take It Lying Down Quotes

“The ancient myth of Inanna’s descent has become important to women who are called to explore the archaic face of the feminine and to balance the heroic upper world approach to life with a time of reflection and incubation. There is profound meaning for us today in Inanna’s decision to enter the Underworld and be deeply affected by the mysteries of the dark feminine. I have worked with this myth using ritual to re-engage Inanna’s journey, and it is an extraordinary experience to reenact the descent and feel the Goddesses coming to life in response.”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess

“Even as the feminine principle was venerated for its fertile, life-giving properties, there are also many examples of Goddesses who embodied the entire life process: birth, life, death, and regeneration. This is important because it can be tempting to romanticise the Goddess as a sort of angelic Fairy Godmother or abundant Good Mother. The feminine principle is more complex and more powerful than that. There are many stories from mythology that tell of the different faces of the Goddess. One such myth tells of the ancient Sumerian goddess who “outweighed, overshadowed, and outlasted them all . . .Inanna, Queen of Heaven.”[xxvi] This story originated in ancient Mesopotamia, five or six thousand years ago. In the myth, Inanna, who rules as queen over the upper world (birth and life), decides to visit Ereshkigal, queen of the Underworld (death and transformation). As Inanna descends into her sister’s realm, she is stripped of all the symbols of her upper world sovereignty, so that she comes before Ereshkigal naked and bowed low. Her enforced stay in the Underworld and the return after three days predates the Christian story by thousands of years. It is one of the first stories of ritual descent from the realm of life to the realm of death and the return to life after a time of incubation in the Underworld. This is also the theme of most ancient initiation rituals like the Orphic mysteries, the Eleusinian mysteries, and of much of the Egyptian sacred teachings. At the time when the story of Inanna’s journey first appeared, the increasingly male dominated Sumerian culture was separating from earlier matrilineal forms. Before the descent myth, another story tells how Inanna, in order to rule, had to take power from the God, Enki, assuming his symbols of sovereignty as her own. Ereshkigal, queen of the Underworld, represents the archaic feminine, the dark mysteries of the older religion which had been sent underground. The descent story can, therefore, be understood as Inanna balancing her heroic victories in the upper (masculine) world by reconnecting with the rhythms and cycles of the under (feminine) world. Based on clinical experience, one analyst called this a “pattern of a woman’s passage from cultural adaptation to an encounter with her essential nature”.”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess

“Goddesses rather than male deities were the central focus in European religion from about 6500 BC to 3500 BC. Archaeologist, Marija Gimbutas[xxii], was one of the first scholars to recognise the significance of the fact that twenty times more female than male figurines have been excavated from European archaeological sites. The many engravings, reliefs and sculptures frequently de-emphasised facial features, while exaggerating gender characteristics such as breasts, buttocks, hips, and vulva. These female figurines had traditionally been seen by archaeologists as some sort of sexual fetishes, a projection of the current degraded view of feminine.”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess

“Once she was replaced by the slightly more obedient Eve, Lilith no longer existed in our teaching stories, or our conscious thoughts. Yet there she is at the very beginning. The original Old Testament story tells us that Lilith left the Garden of Eden, never to return, and she has, therefore, been left out of the story as we know it today. She only appears as a hag, inhabiting the outer regions, giving birth to demons and luring men and women into depravity. She is there, waiting for us to dream her and the ancient mysteries back into our lives. Are you willing to risk depravity?”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess

“Lilith’s story is the story of the first woman, our most ancient mother. Until a few years ago, this story was almost lost to us. Along with the ways of the ancient mothers, Lilith had been cast out of our memories. In the oldest of Old Testaments, Lilith was the first woman, created in her own right. Not from a rib of Adam. She knew the name of God and could choose her own path. When Adam tried to force her to lie under him for sex, she left the Garden of Eden. Next came Eve, more compliant yet still disobedient enough to listen to the serpent. Some say that it was Lilith who returned in the form of the serpent, offering Eve a choice: To live in the Garden of the Father God in ignorance of her true identity as a daughter of the Goddess, or to remember her birthright and find her way back. Eve chose to take a bite of the apple, and woman was cursed by the Father God for Eve’s disobedience. The curse condemned women to bear their children in pain and to live under their husband’s rule (the Father God claiming dominion over women’s business). As daughters of Eve, we are now faced with a choice: Do we continue to live under this ancient curse? Or do we call to Lilith and find out where She has been all this time?”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess

“Hebrew myth tells the story of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, who was also created from earth. When Lilith refused to assume the missionary position, Adam tried to force her. Lilith uttered the name of God and left the Garden. Some say that she returned in the form of the serpent and offered Eve the apple. The rest is his-story. This book offers another bite of that apple by telling part of her-story, Lilith’s story, the story of women’s mysteries lost and found . . . I invite you to embark on a journey that will challenge much of what you have been taught as truth. You will come to understand just how relative to time and place our current version of truth is. Things are not what they seem. What happens if we don’t take it lying down?”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess

“Eve chose to take a bite of the apple, and woman was cursed by the Father God for Eve’s disobedience. The curse condemned women to bear their children in pain and to live under their husband’s rule (the Father God claiming dominion over women’s business). As daughters of Eve, we are now faced with a choice: Do we continue to live under this ancient curse? Or do we call to Lilith and find out where She has been all this time? There are many modern women who would say that they are already free of Eve’s curse. They are independent and can choose whether or not to bear children at all. And, if they do, there is pain relief on hand. The only problem is that somewhere in this freedom, something fundamental has been lost. Where are the mother’s ways? Where is the ancient pact between women and the Goddess? As Marion Woodman says, modern women have learned to ‘”take it like a man” in order to achieve independence and success in the world.”
― Kaalii Cargill, Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess