As nomad and semi-nomad societies, we didn’t count time with the stars. We didn’t look at the sky because the sky was always different, because we were moving. Because we were in matrilineal and matrilocal societies, women were very close and would have their periods at the same time and basically get pregnant at the same time, and have babies at the same time. So the way that we counted time was through the cycles of women—through the cycles of twenty-eight days that reflected the ones of the moon. These dances were celebratory, ritual, healing dances to keep the earth moving and to keep our blood moving, our womb moving, to keep it active, healthy, fit. Neolithical dances also gave the belly dancers, also gave the hulas in the Polynesias. They gave a lot of different dances which are related to the womb or to the ass.

Obviously these concepts are complex and I’m essentializing, but eventually everything that was considered womanly—anything associated with the more centered, quiet force—became a synonym of not-survival. At the same time, the image of God became a punishing God, where before it was an abundant female entity, a mother. The Abrahamic three religions have a very, very strong prominent patriarchal figure in the sky that is not among us, is divine and elsewhere. The concept of heaven and hell was born, divinity deserted us and the earth, and everything that had to do with erotic autonomy or that had to do with the control of fertility by women for women, became taboo, demonic, dirty, ridiculous, and literally a threat.

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These dances were done in a circle—there’s a lot of images and frescos and murals from that time where there are circles of people, and women especially, basically studying. The circles were schools. Not just a party or a social thing, they were very much a living university. The patriarchy understood really quickly that the formation of a circle was one that was unhierarchical—because there’s nobody at the forefront—so what the patriarchy did, really quick, was to open up the circles and turn them into lines. And that’s when these dances were opened up toward, literally, the male gaze. That’s when they lost their healing properties. Nowadays, they are considered indecent or hypersexualized and all of these things.

