Goddess

Goddess, Great Mother, Divine Feminine: What are we talking about, anyway?

The following 3 “sermonettes” were given by members of the Live Oak Wednesday Morning Women’s Group on July 23, 2006. They are Carolyn Dower, Mary Pritchard and Katherine Enyart.

Carolyn Dower:

In 'The Charge of the Goddess' Starhawk writes: "For behold, I have been with you from the beginning . . . and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."

I never went looking for The Divine Feminine. This is how I found Her, or She found me.

Many years ago when I was active in the Episcopal Church, I was going through a very tough time. I loved my religious community and enthusiastically accepted Jesus, more as my guru than savior. As I worked on my issues (and I did work) God was not there for me, and I longed for God to be part of my healing. I was a spiritual person, but spiritually, I felt lost, alone and confused. At a summer church family camp, I expressed my distress to a woman who I looked up to and respected. The next day she handed me an 8 by 10-inch sheet of paper that is now framed and sits on my bedside bookshelf. Those words changed my life and started me on an amazing and exhilarating journey. She had calligraphied the words by Ntozake Shang: 'I found god in myself . . . and I loved her . . . I loved her fiercely.'

Starhawk was right; She was there all the time.

Amen, Blessed Be.

Mary Pritchard:

Divine Feminine

My original thought when I started to write about the divine feminine was something along the lines of the three aspects of the goddess: maiden, mother, and crone. That a woman is divine to me is obvious, but why everyone else would think so was not so clear. There are some people who may never think of gender and what makes them so different, some who know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus and, Tuesday night at open mike, there was one guy whose songs reflected a great dislike for women, so I did a little more research on what people think The Divine Feminine is.

Goddess worship dates back to Paleolithic times, and most creation stories begin with mother goddess and a father god. Some of the earliest human figures discovered by anthropologists were Venus figures, the mother goddess. All three aspects of the goddess have always been revered in art and music. The beauty, grace and innocence of the maiden, the growing, nurturing qualities of the mother and the wisdom and power of the crone are all qualities that we honor in women. After looking at what others found divine in femininity in books articles and in everyday life, I realized what I find most divine at this moment in my life was the mother aspect of people.

We all have mothers, whether we think they are good mothers or bad mothers, they did, in most cases, bring us into this world and raise us the best way they knew how. On a larger scale, we are all mothered by our parents, grandparents, spouses and other family members and friends, male and female.

Historically fathers and husbands are the providers and wives and mothers nurture the family. In mythology and theology, the same is usually true. We are all capable of drawing on the nourishing aspect of the divine feminine in our daily lives. Most of us have started projects from smallest seed of an idea and nursed and mothered it along, sometimes praying to some higher power to protect and nourish our idea as it grows into a garden or a house, a business or in the case of a child, a caring successful adult; an experiment that my family is in the middle of right now.

This is a compassionate aspect of The Divine Feminine that is in us all that drives us to help people in need, in our home, church and the world at large, the part often drawn upon to get a project done for the right reason. It takes so many things to finish a project, drive, charisma, dedication and love, but they are all held together by family, friends and community nurturing each other, mothering each other as we work to complete a project. The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress says in Walking a Sacred Path, “The spirit of creation lives and evolves within each human being, as well as through the whole of the created order”.

As a member of the pastoral care committee, I have seen so many aspects of the divine feminine represented in this church. From the most basic mothering aspect of taking food to families with new babies, to nurturing the idea of having this church building, we have often come together as a community to mother a project along. We come together to do fantastic work in the community in Hands On Housing. The fantastic work involved in building the labyrinth or the xeriscape garden, from the idea of one or two people into the beautiful grounds of this building draw greatly on the aspects of a strong loving mother.

David Michael Levine has the idea that the gaze of reason needs to be reintegrated with a vision of wholeness, a vision feeling, a vision of the feminine archetype. I think that we are gazing in that very direction in our church. We feed our spirits with the groups that we meet with here. Parenting groups, women’s groups, men’s groups. There are games nights and circle suppers, book groups and meditation. We meet here to fill our spirits and feel the mothering influence of our church. The divine feminine is seen everywhere in this congregation. Some of us just call on a goddess more often to guide us in our projects. As you can see, I believe that we all have the ability to utilize the divine feminine to grow ourselves, our community and our world as a whole. I am so happy to have all the opportunities available here to begin.

Katherine Enyart:

When I told Chuck what our topic was going to be for today’s service, he said “I hope one focus of the service will be - How do we expand the Goddess beyond “Women’s Spirituality”? Well that really got me thinking. I had thought I was going to talk about what the Divine Feminine means to me, and the impact exploring this kind of spirituality has had on my life. But I realized that one of the reasons it IS so important to me is because of its global implications, the universal need for a return to our ancient roots, which is about all of humanity, not just women. So I’ll tell a bit of my story and attempt to address his question too!

In her book When God was a Woman, Merlin Stone wrote:

Though we live amid high-rise steel buildings, formica countertops and electronic television screens, there is something in all of us, women and men alike, that makes us feel deeply connected with the past. For people raised and programmed on the patriarchal religions of today, religions that affect us in even the most secular aspects of our society, perhaps there remains a lingering, almost innate memory of sacred shrines and temples tended by priestesses who served in the religion of the original supreme deity. In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of Life, the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you remember?

The first time I have a clear memory of learning about the “Great Mother” was about 20 years ago. I read a series of historical fiction novels known as the Earth’s Children Series. These stories take place in the Paleolithic era about 35,000 BCE during a time when Cro-Magnon humans and Neanderthals shared the earth. The author, Jean Auel did extensive research about the tools, crafts, climate and presumed practices of these peoples based on artifacts and other archeological evidence. She fictionalized an entire culture of Cro-Magnon peoples, all with differing tribal customs, but with a shared belief in the Great Mother being the Source of Life. In this culture men and women shared leadership and honored the differences of the sexes as being part of the balance of life and nature. Rather than the traditional hierarchy we are familiar with today, there was a cooperative leadership.

While these stories and characters were absorbing and entertaining, it was fiction nonetheless. But it did create a longing in me; wouldn’t it be wonderful if only it could be true? What would it be like to live in that kind of culture?

Jean Auel’s research to create the basis for her stories was very detailed, she learned how to make the tools and implements used by pre-historic humans, how to butcher an animal using flint tools, cook it and preserve it’s hide. About the plants used for food and the harvesting tools and methods; about herbs and their medicinal uses and how to boil water in hand woven baskets using hot stones. All of it accurately described. She used real artifacts to illustrate parts her story, including goddess figurines, and speculated on how they may have been created and why. But in the absence of any historical records, and with only artifacts and speculations, it was natural for me to assume that the rest of it, the society, culture and beliefs, she simply made up, like a fairy tale.

Around that same time I began to question my traditional beliefs. I was raised Episcopalian, and we were regular church-goers when I was growing up. As a young adult, I had become quite conservative in my beliefs, and had even explored other churches much more conservative and fundamental than the Episcopalians.

Somewhere along the way I began to question something about my Christian experience that was a core issue for me. I had been taught that Jesus was God Incarnate. That God as a human had come to live among us to teach us, and also to experience humanity. Well, I wondered, how does that apply to me? Jesus was a man and I am a woman. How could this God really understand ME? In the stories I was familiar with there were no women I could relate to. No sense of recognition. Almost all the central figures were men, and the few women mentioned were (to me) sketchy versions of the ultra pious or hopelessly fallen. No, this God was male, his son was male, and it seemed to me the realm of Spirit was male.

So I had a long period of time where I detached myself from churches altogether and had my own private spiritual practice and beliefs. I started learning about herbs and experimented with using them medicinally. Later I leaned about animal Totems and I grew interested in finding my spiritual connection in Nature and in the cycles of the seasons. I learned about gemstones and their energies, and about chakras and meridians, the concept of Yin and Yang, the 4 elements, and the 5 elements.

And then I found my way to Live Oak and to the Wednesday morning women’s group. There I participated in rituals, sharing personal joys and concerns, and the weekly casting of the circle, which has deep meaning for me. People talked about the Goddess and the Divine Feminine and I began to see that this Great Mother, the one I thought was a work of fiction, was something more. If not real in an Incarnate sense, then certainly real in a historical context.

In the Spring of 2002 I went to the Southwest District UU Women’s Conference in Ft. Worth. That was the first time I really grasped that this Great Mother, this Goddess, this Earth Based spirituality that had attracted me so long ago was alive and well and there were many others who were drawn to it. I was thrilled.

Two years ago, our group did a book study of The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler. I learned more about the goddess culture and how for most of our history we humans practiced the principles of partnership, shared leadership and honoring both men and women for our unique roles in the work of the world. These were the very same concepts described in the books I read so long ago. Jean Auel didn’t make it up! It was based in real history!

The research of Riane Eisler, and more recently James DeMeo, (among many, many others) using archaeological and anthropological evidence present proof that our ancient ancestors were non-violent. In his book, Saharasia: The 4,000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World professor DeMeo writes, "These early peoples were peaceful, unarmored, and matrist (or partnership model) in character. I have concluded that there does not exist any clear, compelling or unambiguous evidence for the existence of patrism (or dominator model) anywhere on Earth significantly prior to c.4000 BCE . . . and the earliest evidence appears in specific locations, from which it first arose, diffused outward over time to infect nearly every corner of the globe."

Riane writes, "One of the challenges of our time is to create for ourselves and our children images and stories of the sacred more congruent with a partnership than dominator social organization. Images and stories in which giving and receiving pleasure and caring, rather than causing or submitting to pain, occupy center stage. For in truth we are living in a dysfunctional and antihuman system that threatens to destroy us all. At the same time, there is a new partnership system that is struggling to emerge."

What is this partnership? According to the Center for Partnership Studies, Partnership is a commitment to a way of living; a way of life based on harmony with nature, nonviolence, and gender, racial, and economic equity. It takes us beyond conventional labels to a future of flourishing untapped human potential.

It is part of our human nature to be caring, sensitive, and creative, to seek pleasure and avoid pain. During much of our prehistory, humanity was rooted in the partnership model. This is our lost heritage. Through a cultural shift, history became the familiar tale of violence, injustice, and domination. We need to restore our Earth and renew our communities. We need social and economic inventions based on partnership.

To me, these concepts are interwoven into what is sometimes known as “Women’s Spirituality”. A spirituality based on a Divine Feminine. But this is not just a women’s movement, and it does not apply only to women. This is for ALL of us; men and women. It is not about worshipping a deity, though certainly for some that is true. It is about inspiration, whatever the source, whether literal or metaphorical to shift our behavior; individually and ultimately globally.

In his book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing The World, sociologist Dr. Paul Ray coined the term "Cultural Creatives" to describe an important and growing segment of our society whose core value is authenticity - who embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem and its peoples and an openness to growth through spirituality and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives seek connection, community and spirit – collaboration and cooperation are important to them. Along with the estimated 50 million Cultural Creatives in the US, Dr. Ray estimates another 80-90 million in the European Union.

Another example is the Millionth Circle Initiative. This is a grass-roots, international volunteer organization of women who believe that circles are the means through which world consciousness will change.

"The millionth circle" refers to the circle whose formation tips the scales and shifts planetary consciousness. The phrase comes from Jean Shinoda Bolen's book The Millionth Circle: How to Change Ourselves and The World. The millionth circle depends upon a simple hypothesis: when a critical number of people change how they think and behave, a new era will begin.

In a global culture where hierarchy, conflict, power over others and exploitation of the earth's resources are dominant values, circles with a spiritual center could become a worldwide healing force with their feminine values of relationship, nurturing, and interdependency.

These and many other movements like them are happening in the world today and appear to be accelerating. My personal belief is that this represents a reconnection with our ancient roots, our original Source, our Mother the Earth, and it is our best hope for the future. This is our heritage. Will it be our destiny?

Amen and Blessed Be.