Missing Witches – Monica Sjöö: The Earth Is A Witch And The Men Still Burn Her

A deep dive into the divine feminine, from goddess worship to modern motherhood, guided through the landmines by author, artist, activist, witch: Monica Sjöö.

We really wanted to dedicate an episode to one of the groundbreaking powerhouse 70s witches – those take back the night witches who were influencing our moms and step moms and weird aunts without us knowing – and we wanted to try to do justice to that young emergent Wicca rebirth scene.

But we also had this sense that there was a lot of bullshit in the new age stuff that emerged at that time, and we felt like we hadn’t quite found a perfect entry point… until we stumbled on the art, research writing and fierce activism of Monica Sjoo.

Artist, activist, feminist, witch, Monica Sjoo’s greatest work is her paintings: women channelled from ‘the unknown country’ goddesses, ancestors, cosmic mothers. She also co-authored an overwhelming goddess history called the Great Cosmic Mother; walked through live munitions testing from Silbury Mound to Stonehenge; had her iconic paintings threatened with gross indecency charges; and as the Guardian wrote in their loving obituary “she and others, from End Patriarchy Now, interrupted a Bristol Cathedral service to demonstrate against the non-recognition of female spirituality by the Church of England. The dean joined hands with them, to sing to the goddess in front of the altar.”