Under a Fig Tree | Gabriela Gutierrez | Substack

Oct 24, 2022 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Before Olympus: A 6-Week Descent into the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods

Announcing a new series for paid subscribers!

Nov 16, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Demeter: Keeper of the Sacred Order

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 6)

Dec 28, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Zeus: The Divine Child Who Renews the World

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 5)

Dec 21, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Poseidon: Vigilant Father

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 4)

Dec 14, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Investigations into spirituality, prehistory, and the mythopoetic imagination. Weekly Sunday essays + audio for paid subscribers, monthly essays for all, and free seasonal rituals.

IMAGINATION & THE IMAGINAL REALM

Imagination as a Ritual Technology

What ancient sites teach us about imagination as a way of knowing

Sep 14, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Dead Bodies of Angels

(Part 6) The Lost Language of the Imagination: Icons Not Idols

Sep 17, 2023 • Gabriela Gutierrez

What is the Otherworld?

The Sacred in the Mundane

Aug 27, 2023 • Gabriela Gutierrez

The Fabulous World of Gods and Magicians

(Part 5) | The Lost Language of the Imagination in Shamanism

Jul 30, 2023 • Gabriela Gutierrez

The Heart as the Organ of the Imagination

"The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you." Rilke

Jun 18, 2023 • Gabriela Gutierrez

RITUAL, MYSTICISM & ANCIENT RELIGION

Singing over the bones of the Red Lady

On the 19,000-year-old female shaman of Northern Spain

Sep 7, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

When women were the shamans in Neolithic Europe

A gift lecture for paid subscribers

Aug 31, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Love has coloured me mad: The wild devotion of Mirabai

Poetic Disobedience Part 7

Jun 29, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

To burn down heaven and flood hell: Rabia al-Basri's ordinary love

Poetic Disobedience Part 6

Jun 15, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

ON THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION & THE MYTHIC IMAGINATION

Demeter: Keeper of the Sacred Order

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 6)

Dec 28, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Zeus: The Divine Child Who Renews the World

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 5)

Dec 21, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Poseidon: Vigilant Father

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 4)

Dec 14, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Aphrodite: She Who Initiates Through Beauty

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 3)

Dec 7, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Dionysus: The Great Liberator

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 2)

Nov 30, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE DEEP PAST

On our essential cooperative nature

(Part 7) Encounters with the Deep Past

Aug 24, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Revisioning the world of our early ancestors in Europe

(Part 6) Encounters with the Deep Past

Jul 27, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

What if prehistoric humans were never primitive?

Encounters with the Deep Past (Part 5)

Jul 20, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

All the ways of knowing

(Part 4) Encounters with the Deep Past

Jun 9, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

THE ELDER'S COUNCIL: CONVERSATIONS WITH WISDOM-KEEPERS

Guardians of the Sacred Forest

In Conversation with the Chief of the Kajang Tribe (part 1)

Sep 28, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Meeting Bali's Shamans

(Part 2) The ancient palm book, the three types of human character, and all the ways of knowing

Dec 22, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Meeting Bali's Shamans

(Part 1) On the survival of animism, how to become a shaman, the taboo of menstruation and being holy or, simply, human

Dec 15, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Two Thousand Years of Peace: Europe's First Civilisation

In conversation with a Serbian Archaeologist of Prehistory

Jan 29, 2023 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Of Love and Books

In conversation with a Spanish Catholic Priest

Dec 11, 2022 • Gabriela Gutierrez

REFLECTIONS (MAINLY FROM THE ROAD)

My loyalty is to Imagination

A letter in response to my recent video that went viral

Aug 10, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Word from Greece!

The final pilgrimage for my book, a call for support, and a benediction from the Old Woman

Jun 22, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

My Grandmother Carmen, Star of the Sea

On dementia, orienting toward the Stella Maris, and the consolation that comes from braiding my life to the Living Soul

May 18, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

On my research methods and the intimacy of listening for Soul in the ordinary places

"You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire" - Bukowski

Nov 10, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

MYTH & FAIRY TALES

Dreaming awake as the kingdom sleeps

Some thoughts on the cost of creativity, lessons in ripening, and how stories can save our lives

Sep 21, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

The Myth of Princess Mandalika

A tale from Indonesia

Feb 9, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

On Male Initiation

A Commentary on the Legend of Herakles

Jun 16, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Beauty, Nostos, Becoming Nobody and Letting go of the Plank

May 12, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

The Nine Sisters

Story | Listen now (10 min)

Aug 13, 2023 • Gabriela Gutierrez

WOMEN'S MYSTERIES & RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Dodona and the Origins of the Oracular Tradition

Aug 3, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Monotonous Rhythms to Induce Trance and Men's Initiation into the Feminine Mysteries

(Part 2) The Ancient Mediterranean Sistrum

Jun 30, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

An excerpt from my dissertation "The Bee Cult in Greek Myth and Ancient History"

(Part 1) Women's Religious Experience: The Ancient Mediterranean Sistrum

Jun 23, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

The Myrrhbearers

Resurrection, the Promise of Renewal and the Women at the Tomb

Mar 31, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

The Lineage of Wisdom

From the Neolithic to the Middle Ages

Feb 4, 2024 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Under a Fig Tree

Under a Fig Tree

Investigations into deep history, spirituality, and the mythopoetic imagination. Weekly Sunday essays + audio for paid subscribers, monthly essays for all, and free seasonal rituals.

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The latest from

Gabriela Gutierrez

Demeter: Keeper of the Sacred Order

Recent posts

Aphrodite: She Who Initiates Through Beauty

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 3)

Dec 7, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Dionysus: The Great Liberator

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 2)

Nov 30, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Artemis: Mother of Beasts

On the Prehistoric Roots of the Greek Gods (Part 1)

Nov 23, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

I think I made this little girl proud

On submitting my manuscript, the tenderness of realising a dream, and doing the work for the child we once were

Nov 9, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

On the Wisdom of Limitation

(Part 2) In Conversation with the Chief of the Kajan Tribe

Oct 12, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Death of an Elder

The Legacy of Jane Goodall

Oct 5, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Guardians of the Sacred Forest

In Conversation with the Chief of the Kajang Tribe (part 1)

Sep 28, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Dreaming awake as the kingdom sleeps

Some thoughts on the cost of creativity, lessons in ripening, and how stories can save our lives

Sep 21, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

Imagination as a Ritual Technology

What ancient sites teach us about imagination as a way of knowing

Sep 14, 2025 • Gabriela Gutierrez

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