HIDDEN TRIBUTES TO WOMEN
Celts have paid homage to heroes for many millennia, and they have venerated both men and women in heroes’ halls. When the Christian Conquest imposed religion on Europe, it turned the public halls into churches. All traces of Celtic tributes to women have not, however, been erased. This clip shows some of the tributes that appear to remain true to the original Celtic intent – and one that has been quite obviously altered.
A Presentation to the Century Club
Thank you for inviting me to talk with you today. I hope that what we have to tell you today can help us all rediscover the ancient path to peace and justice. Women are a big part of the solution now – and always have been.
WE STAND WITH UKRAINE, and let me explain the importance of that. Ukraine belongs to the ancient European culture that Russia wants to destroy. This is the age-old tale of a foe who invades a land to steal its riches and enslave its people. And it’s also the real story of Europe that has been covered over.
We see this as a matter of male supremacy – and now Putin is the Hitler, the Stalin, the Caesar that delights in devastation. A great deal of the history we’ve learned has been fabricated by these and other conquerors. The genocide of women has been a priority of invaders for a long, long time. We see this through our science-based search for a more accurate account of Europe’s past.
Europe has been under almost constant assault by conquerors. Now it’s Putin, but for most of the past 2000 years it was other emperors. And all of them wrap themselves in the flags of the church, because the church state has ruled Europe for most of this era and fabricates its story.
What we need to know though, is that it hasn’t always been this way. Before Christianity, women mattered. Before invasions of Europe by dividers and conquerors, women were revered leaders, healers, scholars. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is reenacting a horror that Europe has seen again and again. It’s showing us the male-dominant master-servant model that has crippled Europe time after time. We need to throw off the bonds of Putin, just as our ancestors freed themselves from the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire and all the other empires that dictators sought to impose. We need to regain our lost legacy of equality and inclusiveness.
I came here today, ready to tell you about Europe’s Celtic past before and after the Christian conquest. Instead, I want to say that this is our moment to stand united with Ukraine and to reclaim our freedoms from monstrous oppressors, a plight that our ancestors have confronted continually.
We have deep roots, and we have them together. Whether in Europe or elsewhere, our common heritage is one that centered on family and nature – and it’s the invaders, conquerors and occupiers that want to overtake us, and pretend that what we’ve done is theirs – and then act as though we never existed. That’s Europe’s Celtic story and it’s playing out again now. What we’ve discovered by tracing threads from the Iron Age up to the present is that the ancient familial fibers that made the Iron Age flourish are still with us today. We just need to rid ourselves of the saboteurs who want to destroy us.
Let me say this outright. Religion is the culprit here – It’s the vehicle that Romans have used to devastate Europe repeatedly. Europe was under the church state’s Draconian heresy laws for 1400 years. Those laws criminalized secularism and caused untold thousands of women to be burned at the stake as witches. You still see the effects of attempted genocide of the Celts across Europe. Memories hang in the air and are carried by field after field of poppies. Heroes who stood up to warlords across the ages are as much a part of us as the Ukrainians of today.
I’d like to present our research to you another way too – through my short clip entitled Women and Freedom. It feels as applicable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as it is to all other authoritarian, male-supremacist attacks of the past 2000 years.
Let me tell you a bit about ourselves. For the past 20 years we’ve conducted independent study in Europe. Our quest is to understand Europe’s past – and it’s not the history that we’ve been taught. No, it’s a past that prizes its women.
In those 20 years I’ve written 8 books – 3 were published in Europe. Each book has led me deeper into the past to decipher the present. By relying on evidence that’s been hidden underground, we see real objects without mythical interpretations. With the help of science and on-site explorations, we’re piecing together a picture of pre-Christian times.
You might be wondering - what are our credentials? We both have law degrees from Stanford– I studied at universities in Germany and Slovenia for a year each, and I have a masters in French. My thesis was on the medieval period, and in that layer of history, I see remarkable consistencies all across Europe and the British Isles
A core issue of mine is why my grandparents fled their native Slovenia – through Germany, Canada, Oklahoma, southern Illinois, Chicago. It turns out that displacements have been continual in Europe – even now - residents flee to refuge when invaded.
We think we live in a civilized time, but we only need to read today’s news to know that invasions are still going on and those invasions result in displacements and residents having to flee for refuge. We need full-strength to confront these challenges still facing us today. The denigration of women weakens us as a society to half-strength.
Ours is a heritage of women warriors.
