In these starless and shifting times, the relationship binding woman to tree lies between dream and memory. We have forgotten so much. Retreating within to unearth buried stories, rooted in nourishment, is a divine act. Contributors to this anthology have shared their vision, creativity and surreal imaginings, all glorious and beautiful, whether written, chanted or drawn.
Asherah’s story exposes exploitation, including sexual and environmental. She is calling upon those of us who weep, when trees are cut down, to rekindle our allegiance to Mother Earth. Behind us is darkness. Ahead, if we take the right path, a new age of possibilities: pristine, joyful, peaceful, restorative.
Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree revives this Ancient Goddess, bringing Her back to Her rightful place in mythology and empowering women to find Her within.
“The Great Goddess Asherah, the sacred tree, Mother-Goddess of all of the gods, did not lose her sacrality in the Hebrew Bible; she was the wife of the Hebrew god as an undercurrent throughout early Hebrew religion, despite the fact that the Hebrew Fathers tried to remove her from their attempted monotheistic pantheon. Blessings to the Goddess, and to this wonderful anthology in her honor.” -Miriam Robbins Dexter, Ph.D. from the Preface
Praise for Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree"This beautiful Girl God anthology encourages us to remember, revision and recreate another glorious Goddess from patriarchal diminishment, distortion and neglect. Asherah, the Great Mother Goddess comes alive in all Her different forms, powerfully enlivened for our modern times by Goddess loving writers, poets, and artists. Asherah is celebrated through poetry, songs, art, photographs, personal stories, historical information and thealogical delights. I was deeply affected by the longing, love and gratitude to Asherah so profoundly expressed, as well as the depth of suffering experienced by too many women in different parts of the world because of the erasing of Goddess. Now, more than ever in these crazy modern times, we need this timely anthology proudly, loudly and gracefully reclaiming and proclaiming the power of Asherah into the world. Blessed Be." -Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, author of Goddess Luminary Leadership Wheel, Presence Activism, and the forthcoming Goddess Enneagram (2026).
Trista Hendren founded Girl God Books in 2011 to support a necessary unravelling of the patriarchal world view of divinity. Her first book-The Girl God, a children's picture book-was a response to her own daughter's inability to see herself reflected in God. Since then, she has published more than 50 books by a dozen women from across the globe with help from her family and friends. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she lives in Bergen, Norway. You can learn more about her projects at www.thegirlgod.com.
Janet Rudolph is a wife, lover, mother, grandmother, seeker, finder, earth-breather, water-swimmer-there is no end to her descriptions. She has traveled to many sacred places in the world to soak up knowledge and experience culture. Along the way she earned two shamanic initiations and wrote a few books including When Moses Was a Shaman, When Eve Was a Goddess, and her recent autobiography, Desperately Seeking Persephone. In Persephone, subtitled, The True Story of My Shamanic Journey Through the Underworld, Rudolph describes her own personal quest which brought her from trauma through healing to joy. She also describes in vivid detail what shamanic initiations feel like. Rudolph writes wherever and whenever she can to express, heal, inform, challenge, startle and expand love. She is a contributor and co-weaver at /feminismandreligion.com. You can also find her work at /mysticpagan.com.
Claire DoreyEditor: Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, and Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree. Claire is a regular contributor at Girl God Books. She contributes bimonthly to Return to Mago E-Magazine and has been published in She Summons: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality, 2021, and Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess, 2023, both Mago Books. She illustrates her written work.Her initiation upon the Goddess path started with ceremonial blessings by Priestesses in India. She is fascinated by ancient symbols, researching them from a feminist and cosmic perspective. She believes accessing creative wisdom is the key to mental freedom.Goldsmiths: BA Honors, Fine Art. Main Employment: Journalist and Creative, UK and overseas. Artist: Most notable group show, Pillow Talk at the Tate Modern. Included in the Pillow Talk Book. Curator: 3 x grass roots SLWA exhibitions and educational events focusing on Female Empowerment: Violence, Healing and Self. Current Artistic practice derives from the meditative, which she calls sending postcards from the dark subconscious. She runs two 'closed' FB groups, Esoteric Hissstories and Sirens at Source. Teaching Workshops: Sculpture and Drawing. Extra study: Suppressed Female History and Goddess studies; Accessing Creative Wisdom; Sound and Breath Work; Reiki Master; Colour Therapy; Hand Mudras; Reflexology type massage; Sculpture.
