When the Drummers Were Women Quotes

“All the eggs a woman will every carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old foetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as en egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother's womb, and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born, and this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother.”
― Layne Redmond, When The Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“It is often said that the first sound we hear in the womb is our mother's heartbeat. Actually, the first sound to vibrate our newly developed hearing apparatus is the pulse of our mother's blood through her veins and arteries. We vibrate to that primordial rhythm even before we have ears to hear. Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother's ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother's womb and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born. And this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother. We all share the blood of the first mother. We are truly children of one blood.”
― Layne Redmond, When The Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“A cosmology that admits of only one male god limits women’s capacity to envision their full potential as human beings.”
― Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“Women need the archetypal image of a Divine Female. We need to reconnect with the inherent sacredness of woman as creator and nourisher, rather than accept a vision of ourselves as less-than-divine inferiors.”
― Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“Because drumming was recognized as an ancient source and symbol of the power of female technicians of the sacred, drumming was banned. Henceforth divinity was to be exclusively masculine. The suppression of women was directly linked to the suppression of the goddess.” - Layne Redmond, When the Drummers were Women”
― Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“At the end, as at the beginning, stands the archetypal power of the Divine Feminine—the goddess. She is our future as she was our past. With her drum in hand, playing her sacramental rhythms, women can once again take their place in the world as technicians of the sacred. In the pulse of my drum, in the beat of my heart, I erect an alter to her forever.”
― Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born...”
― Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

“Unlike many of her sister goddesses, Cybele did not lose her power to the gods of an invading people. Her vanquisher was already within the city walls. In the shadow of her temples, a new Eastern mystery cult gained strength. It stemmed from a monotheistic patriarchal tradition and rejected the notion of female deities, female prophets, female equality. Its devotees were bound to the exclusive worship of one male god.
With the ascendancy of Christianity, Cybele’s great temple in Rome was destroyed. On the exact spot where the Phyrgianum once stood, Christians built the basilica of the Vatican. This was the beginning of the end of the ancient tradition of spiritually powerful women drummers.”
― Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm