Goddesses love for Mother Earth

A Morgan goddess keeps watch at the altar

Georgina Sirett-Hardie is a priestess of Avalon, whose followers worship Mother Earth.

"People are just waking up to respect for the planet, but we've been doing it for centuries," she said.

"Unless we take care of Mother Earth we won't survive. We have to be more environmentally friendly and recycle."

Her love for Mother Earth stems from the worship of the divine feminine, but she insists it's not exclusively for women.

"People think we're a bunch of lesbians or a bunch of witches - we're not. We believe in the Mother Earth and it's all females that give birth to life.

"[The earth] feeds us and gives birth to new life every day, the air that we breathe, it's all Mother Earth, the mother divine feminine.

"She's the thing that gives us life, it is our faith in the woman that can give us our birth right. But there has to be an equality.

"It's a proven fact the female could survive without the male, without intercourse with the male, but there has to be a balance.

"We have to live in harmony and there's fertility to consider."

People think we're a bunch of lesbians or a bunch of witches, we're not. Georgina Sirett-Hardie, a priestess of Avalon

Georgina said Goddess worship began over 300,000 years ago when people's lives were ruled by nature.

It was before the rise of patriarchal religion, when people worshipped life sources, such as the sun and the soil that fed their crops. It was a time when people lived according to the elements and the seasons.

The Goddess temple in Glastonbury opened five years ago.

It is the first living temple to be built on the site for 1,500 years.

"I think people are learning that we have to take care of the environment to survive.

"As a group of people we're getting bigger everyday and we really care about Mother Earth.

"Increasingly people are turning to more alternative types of faith, because I think they are tired of the patriarchal religion; the wars that it creates, the upset and political mayhem it creates."

In contrast the Goddess faith presents itself as a non-threatening belief.

Georgina said: "There's no fire and brimstone. There's good and bad but there's no evil."