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Who is Astra?
As seen in “The Handmaid’s Tale” For more than 30 years, Oberon Zell’s “Astra/Star Goddess” has touched a deep place in the collective psyche for many contemporary women, who wear it as pendants, brooches and earrings. Inspired by Doreen Valiente’s powerful poem, “The Charge of the Star-Goddess,” Oberon created the Astra/Star Goddess design in 1987 for his beloved Lifemate Morning Glory, representing the sanctity and the power of women’s connection to the cyclical rhythms of the Earth and the Heavens. Oberon’s Astra has become an iconic image of the Women’s Spirituality Movement, as a symbol of epiphany, empowerment, liberation and self-honoring for Goddess-oriented women reclaiming a sense of the feminine…
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The Goddess in The Handmaid’s Tale
In 2017, MGM and Hulu produced a television series adapted from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. Unbeknownst to Oberon Zell, they used Morning Glory’s personal sigil named the “Astra, Star Goddess” in the set and costume design as the symbol for the oppressive Red Center where kidnapped women are indoctrinated to sexual and reproductive slavery for use by the male elite of the intensely patriarchal regime of Gilead. This contorted subversion of Morning Glory’s design caused considerable distress to the pagan community, as her symbol was created to express the power and beauty of women’s sexual and spiritual empowerment, the opposite of the fictional Red Center.
