The Goddess Thing

Recently, while discussing our spiritual paths, a friend of mine admitted that she just didn't get "the goddess thing."  I understand that her path is not my path... and I love and honor our differences.  Still, I'd like to shed a little more light on the subject by sharing a few questions here...

What would happen if, instead of growing up with popular male images of divinity such as these dominating our mental landscape,

we were also given just as many images of divinity that looked like this...

 and this...

 

and this...

 and this...

 and this...

 

Would we see ourselves in the same light? 

What if creation didn't look like this...

but looked like this instead...

How might our consciousness be transformed?

Those patriarchal images take root in our mind.  They effect how we view ourselves, how we treat one another, and how we treat our planet.  When we see that all things are sacred, when we honor both the feminine and the masculine and see that the life in us is the same life that causes trees to grow, the sun to shine, and the earth to spin on her axis, we liberate ourselves from dualistic thinking and become free.

Sue Monk Kidd writes in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter:

"Walking into the sacredness of the female body will cause a woman to "enter into" her body in a new way, be at home in it, honor it, nurture it, listen to it, delight in its sensual music.  She will experience her female flesh as beautiful and holy, as a vessel of the sacred.  She will live from her gut and feet and hands and instincts and not entirely in her head. The bodies of such women, instead of being groomed to some external standard, are penetrated with soul, quickened from the inside."

When this new consciousness takes root within us, we also begin to experience every blade of grass, every drop or dew, as infused with divinity.  Kidd writes:

"Divine feminine imagery opens us up to the notion that the earth is the body of the Divine, and when that happens, the Divine cannot be contained solely in a book, church, dogma, liturgy, theological system, or transcendent spirituality.  The earth is no longer a mere backdrop until we get into heaven, something secondary and expendable.  Matter becomes inspirited; it breathes divinity.  Earth becomes alive and sacred.  And we find ourselves alive in the midst of her and forever altered."

Would we treat Mama Earth differently if we felt that she was a living, sacred, thing?  Would we still spray our strawberries with poison?  Would we still fill our oceans with plastic?  Would we still genetically modify our crops so they were "pestiside ready" or support the corporations who did by buying their products?  Would we still value material wealth over spiritual abundance or wage war against one another?   

Would we treat ourselves differently if we honored the sacred in feminine form?  Would we dance and play and honor our bodies regardless of their shape?  Would staying home with our kids be as valued as pursuing career goals?  Would our little girls grow up believing they were just as strong as their brothers?  Would we see ourselves in a different light?  I certainly think so... and for reasons like these, this mama is loving every minute of her journey into the collective feminine soul.

Equanimity for Equinox

We've been counting down the days until autumn, enjoying some cool weather, and watching the moon as she grows more and more full each night.  This morning we had some fun with a leaf printing project and now we're making a double batch of Roasted Red Pepper Potato Soup with goodies from our CSA and potatoes from a friend's garden.  The windows are open, the breeze is cool, and the the smell of onions, garlic, and peppers roasting in the oven has filled every corner of the house.  

With equinox approaching, we've been discussing how, like us, the earth must rest -- and that autumn is the beginning of her resting time.  We made a big, red, autumn tree and hung it in the classroom with the title, "Equanimity Equinox."  On one side of the tree we've written, "give, rest, dark, serious, sad, night, quiet."  On the other we've written, "receive, play, light, silly, happy, day, loud."  We can't have one without the other.

I've also been reading up on Michaelmas lately.  Michael is the "greatest of all the archangels and is honored for his defeat of Lucifer in the battle for the heavens in the Bible." (from Wiki).  Waldorf schools also use Michaelmas to teach students the importance of using courage to prepare for the colder, darker, winter months.  I'd like to give this a sacred feminine twist.  Maybe we'll tweak it into a goddess subduing a dragon.  Maybe we'll just forgo this festival altogether and have our own celebration to honor Persephone's return to the underworld.

"Greek mythology tells us that, each year as Persephone left to join her husband in the underworld, the goddess Demeter would begin to grieve, bringing on the cold, barren winters.  But a few months later Persephone, the goddess associated with awakening, would return to bring spring and its verdant growth in her wake . . . thus were the seasons established."  (read more here.)

This is the beauty of archetypal stories.  The names and places change, but the message is the same.  Each of us must, for a time, plummet into darkness and face our demons.  In the darkness, we find the light.  No life can be without a measure of darkness and without it, the light would lose meaning.  In autumn we begin our descent into the dark half of the year.  We can't stop it.  All we can do is make it conscious and trust that spring will come again.  This is the how balance is created.

Still, I think it's important for our daughters to hear stories that speak directly to their experiences.  Hero stories greet us at every turn... but what of the heroine?  Persephone's story seems more fitting for us, I think.  

I guess I'm still undecided about Michaelmas.  For now we're just experiencing the change of seasons, watching the moon grow, and seeing ourselves reflected in each autumn leaf.

Finding the Feminine

I was chatting with a dear friend recently, when she mentioned something about her personal deity, Artemis.  We follow similar paths and see the earth herself as a living, sacred, manifestation; however, I'm more of a pantheist and she's more of a polytheist.  We don't squabble over the details though.  Instead we embrace what we share.

I had all but forgotten that she had a personal deity and my initial reaction was something like a five year old in a toy store, "I want a personal deity too!"

She went on to tell me about the process of discovering the goddess who would be her guide and the gratitude she holds in her heart now that she's found her.  In the days that followed, I decided to keep my heart open to the notion of discovering my own personal deity.  What mama doesn't need a little guidance from the divine feminine?  

To me, gods and goddesses are states of consciousness that we are all capable of becoming.  They are archetypes telling the story of the cosmic drama that plays out in our lives again and again.  They exist within us and beyond us as energies upon which we can call to be present in our hearts, in our minds, and in our lives.  They are sacred because there is nothing that is not sacred.  Every element of nature, every vibration, every thought is sacred.  Every beam of sun and each blade of grass is a sacred manifestation. 

In the days that followed our conversation, I kept my eyes open for signs of goddesses making themselves known to me.  I opened this month's Yoga Journal and found a mantra to the goddess of abundance and prosperity, Lakshmi.  Lakshmi is one of my favorite Vedic goddesses and I've actually been using her mantra all year.  Could she be my personal deity?  No, I don't think so... but I'm still calling on her just the same.

Then I thought of an article, Mothers of Liberation, that I'd recently found at Tricycle.  Here, Miranda Shaw explores "some of the many powers, symbols, and stories of the often overlooked and misunderstood [Buddhist] pantheon."  I discovered Vasudhara, Hariti, and Vajrayogini -- a divine yogini, compassionate, all-knowing, and supremely blissful. 

Could Vajrayogini be my personal deity?  Maybe.  She's my kind of goddess.  Still, I decided to keep my heart and mind open to the process.  I remembered Prajnaparamita, the Buddhist Sophia and compassionate mother of bodhi.  I remembered Prithvi, the Earth Goddess who rose up to witness Buddha attaining enlightenment under the bodhi tree.  Could Prithvi be my personal deity?  I love this idea because nature is the teacher I look to most. 

Later that night, I found myself on Etsy searching handmade items with the keyword, "goddess."  Amongst other pretty things, a silver necklace jumped out at me.  Taking a closer look, I realized it is an exact replica of the necklace I wear nearly every day -- a gift from my mother-in-law who described it as a Buddha.  Yet here, in an extreme close up view, I saw something that could mean only one thing -- breasts!  The necklace I've been wearing is not the Buddha... it is a buddha -- and a female buddha at that!

Over the next few days I searched though images and symbols on my bookshelves and on the internet.  The female buddha I've been wearing is the goddess Tara.  Tara is the mother of liberation, a bodhisattva, and in the Buddhist tradition, "Tara is actually much greater than a goddess -- she is a female Buddha, an enlightened one who has attained the highest wisdom, capability and compassion. . . one who can take human form and who remains in oneness with every living thing." [from: http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess_tara_white.htm] 

As I told this story to my daughter, I remembered one of our favorite books, There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me by Alice Walker.  As it turned out, this entire time, there has been a goddess around my neck wearing me.

That's how it always is, I think.  Like in the famous poem, Footprints in the Sand by Mary Stevenson, we may not know it, we may be unconscious of it, but the goddess is always wearing us -- is always carrying us.  We are her, every bone in our body, every hair on our head, each flower, each tree, each beat of our heart, each breath -- all expressions of something sacred... all forms born from the creative energy of Mother Earth.  

I've taken this discovery back to my zafu and each morning I feel myself dissolving back into her.  She is Tara, she is Prithvi, she is Vajrayogini.  She's Mary and Artemis and Ostara too.  She is me and she is you.  She is our daughters and she is the very earth upon which we step.   

I'm still keeping my heart open to discovering an aspect of her to be my guide.  I don't want to be too hasty; although, Tara does seem like the obvious option.  More importantly, I'm remembering that to walk on the earth is to press our feet against the life-giving goddess herself.  This is why we must live skillfully and practice peace in every step.  All life is interdependent and flowing from the same source, rising and falling, constantly becoming.  Each of us is one element of a greater whole and beneath our stories and our habitual reactions exists a quiet observer dissolving back into the luminous nature of the One.