The Ancient Realm Long before the cross rose as a monolith over the Western world, the ancient earth pulsed with a reverence for the divine feminine. From the labyrinthine palaces of Minoan Crete to the mist-shrouded hills of Celtic Gaul, matriarchal societies wove their existence around goddesses of fertility, wisdom, and the living earth. Childbirth was not merely a biological act but a sacred rite, a woman’s power echoing the creative force of the cosmos. The earth itself was a mother—generous, vital, her rivers and fields a testament to abundance. Trees, such as the towering oak or the resilient yew, stood as conduits to eternity, their roots entwining the mortal with the divine. Into this tapestry of harmony strode the nascent Christian Church, its ambition cloaked in piety, its theology a blade that severed the old ways and inverted their holiest truths. Inspired by Helen Ellerbe’s The Dark Side of Christianity , we uncover a deliberate campaign—not of salvation, but of sub...