``We will do that which we have always done, and we will live as we will live,'' replied Lavinia, last of the true Archigallae. ``The Great Mother will provide.''

``The Mother has betrayed us,'' screeched Demetria, panic in her voice.

Lavinia, her left hand striking with the speed of a serpent, slapped the young woman. Slowly, a red welt appeared on Demetria's right cheek.

``Foolish one, are you not here? Are you not alive? Are we not Gallae? Is our mystery lessened, our magic diminished? What the world does, the world does. We are eternal and the Great Mother is always with us,'' she responded, her countenance imposing and yet, imbued with the anima of Cybele, Mother of the Gods. Standing, her hands at her side, facing the frightened mystes, she stepped forward. Pulling the youth forward she hugged her and cooed, ``It'll be all right, sweet love. These evil times are not brought on us by the Goddess. They are brought on by the greed and wickedness of Rome, the Emperor Theodosius, and their new cult. Forgetting the past they turn their backs on us. They will fall and the world will endure two thousand years of brutality and domination before we come again to prominence.''

``Oh Mother, hold me tighter. I'm so frightened. They loved us so and now they seek us out and kill us. What are we to do? We will all be dead in far less than two thousand years,'' bewailed the trembling girl, her damp azure eyes turned toward Lavinia appealing for what comfort she might provide.

``We can not die, child. We are the very substance of existence, our nature immutable as the stars in the night sky. It's not our choice to be Gallae. We are chosen to walk this path. This is our mystery and our destiny, no man or cult born of man can erase us from the tapestry of life. But they will try. Conquerors are all the same and, because they fear us most of all, they will try to wipe out our history, savage us, kill us, and attempt to drive us from their midst. Nonetheless, they will fail. We are their children, their sisters, their brothers, and yes, their mothers and fathers. We will return again and again, born into their lives to alleviate suffering, to understand them, and to love them. Yet, they will deny us. However, this prophesy I make to you. A time will come when we shall arise from the darkness, and take up our birthright in honor and veneration. In the meantime, we must never forget what we are, who we are, or lose sight of the Goddess. Many people will love us and seek after our knowledge and wisdom. These will be our friends and comforters, even as we will be their friends and comforters. Those who turn their backs on us shall not seek us out. We will learn to avoid them. The wheel turns and it will turn again for the Gallae,'' Lavinia spoke softly, her words soothing the trembling of the youth.

Just then the doors of the temple were thrown open and ten burly Roman guards swept in. Captain Lucius Marcus stepped forward grasping the arm of the Archigalla and pulling her away from the terrified girl. ``Well, Eunuch, you know why we're here. Deny the Mother! Call on Jesus the Christ and you shall live. Deny him and you shall die. What say you?'' demanded the Captain, his demeanor that of a soldier doing his duty. It was apparent he didn't care which way she answered.

``The Mother has been good to me. I will not deny her,'' replied the proud woman, her eyes boring into the eyes of Lucius Marcus.

``Then die! Slowly in agony,'' retorted the Captain. His face was hardened from the slaughter of many innocents as he stabbed through Lavinia's flesh and into her stomach. As swiftly he pulled the sword out and she sank to her knees, a stream of blood coming from the gash.

``Now you child, you are young. Do you wish to die or do you call on Jesus as your Lord and Savior?'' growled the soldier impatiently.

``Mother, what should I do?'' asked the mystes of the stricken Archigalla, ``I don't want to die.''

``It's permitted, child. Accept their Lord. The Goddess will not forsake you,'' gasped Lavinia through excruciating spasms.

``Well, answer child. Be quick about it. There are so damned many of you and I don't have all day,'' demanded the menacing figure.

``I choose ... '' began the trembling young woman hesitating for a moment, ``Magna Mater.''

The sword sank deep into her stomach. As it came out she retched and then fell forward into her own vomit. The Captain and the soldiers turned and left, confident they had fulfilled the dictates of Theodosius.

``Child,'' cooed Lavinia sliding through the pool of blood between them in order to be closer. ``Why didn't you lie? Accept their Lord? They would have let you live.''

``Oh Mother, I wanted to live, but what would life be worth having betrayed my path?''

At the height of the Roman Empire, in the third century, a conservative estimate places the population at fifty million people. Cybele and Attis, served by Gallae, ``male'' priestesses, was the state religion. Temples raised to the Goddess were peppered all over the Empire, none more prominent than the one on the Vatican hill, where St. Peter's Basilica would be erected. The Holy Ones, another name for the Gallae, were at least thirty thousand strong and their followers were, by far and large, the entire population of the Empire. They performed the spiritual rites at births, deaths, weddings, state functions, and any function requiring special blessings and good fortune. The gift of prophesy was deemed to be their province. As vaticanari, they were fortune tellers and counselors. The Christian Emperors, Theodosius through Justinian, escalated the persecution of the traditional religion, encouraging the destruction of the ancient temples and altars. The churches of the new religion were erected on the same sites. Not only did the Church lift the myth of Jesus from the stories of Attis, (along with naming Jesus Mother ``Maria'' after Ma Rhea, another name for the Goddess Cybele) they had the effrontery to raise their main temple on Vatican hill.

When it first appeared in Rome, the Christians were warring cults brutalizing, vandalizing, terrorizing, and murdering, not only the citizens of Rome, but amongst their own kind; each cult seeking ascendancy over the other. Which is why Rome, in the beginning, considered them enemies of the state and decreed them outlaw. The Empire didn't persecute Christians for their religious beliefs, but for their acts of savage barbarism. Had they come in peace, Rome, openly accepting of minority religions, would have embraced the new religion. However, the new religion was anything but peaceful and, claiming theirs was the one true god, they were prepared to do anything necessary to force themselves upon the world.

Movies and stories about the persecution of gentle pacifist Christians by bigoted and hateful Romans are fabrication and revisionist history of the lowest order. Christianity was, and often still remains in nations such as Ireland where Catholics and Protestants still murder each other, a cruel dominating patriarchal religion intolerant of divergent viewpoints. At the inception there were Gnostics, Nazarenes, Donatists (fantical terrorists), Pauline Christians (militant), Montanist (founded by a Galla), and dozens more. Those christian forms which were peaceful were stamped out by the more virulent forms. Pauline Christianity eventually established itself as the dominant practice. Paul, (Saul of Tarsus), only claim to leadership was his own proclamation that he had met Jesus in a dream as he was travelling to Damascus. Paul, with his nebulous self-appointment, usurped the positon of Priscilla and Aquila as church leaders. His governmental skill, with his nebulous self-designation, was sufficent justification for his followers to overwhelm the other religions.

It is said that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but to learn from history it must be recorded accurately. George Orwell's book, 1984, spoke of history being erased and altered to suit the whims of those in power. His readers took his book to be a pessimistic prophesy of the future, but it might just as well be taken as biting satire on what has already taken place.

We have a history, a heritage, and systematically we have had that history erased and our heritage taken from us. Not only were our spiritual practices stolen and ``their'' churches erected on the foundations of our temples, not only did they try to erase all memory of what and who we were, but church fathers, such as Augustine, labelled our nature as everything from abomination to aberration.

Well, sisters, the truth is out. We are now what we have always been, transcendent. We dare to dream a dream, and to whatever extent we dream the dream, we bring it into reality. It is our nature and our birthright. We, the Metro'on, and countless other sisters across the world, have come to recognize our gifts. We are gender mixed people, good people, proud people and we call ourselves Gallae to connect with our sisters past and present.