The quote that describes Jesus as the “front door of God” is found in the Bible, John 10:7, where Jesus says, “I am the door of the sheep”; essentially meaning that the only way to access God is through Jesus, as he is the entrance point to God’s presence.
I have been calling on Hathor, and last night, She came.
Ah, let me back up a few steps.
I have up to now not given much thought to Egyptian Goddesses instead preferring my Celtic and Greek ones. But a few days ago, I attended this lovely workshop by Tahya who has developed a modern day systrum, the percussion instrument used by Priestesses in honor of Hathor. And as so often happens on my path, when you crack the window, She comes.
The last two days I have been listening to Hathor meditations, the Mother of all creation, the Goddess of Love, an Egyptian Goddess whose worship may have begun in the Predynastic Era over 5,000 years ago.
Last night, my son and his girlfriend from Nigeria stopped by.
His girlfriend is a beautiful black woman from Nigeria. My son fell asleep on the coach. My daughters disappeared to their rooms, and so F and I were left to talk.
F is very religious and Christian. It works for her. She is strong, disciplined, focused and sober. Exactly what the Doctor ordered for my drifting son.
I asked her how her New Year’s was and how it compared to her other New Year’s in Nigeria.
She told me that back home, they go to church until midnight and then spend the next day together with extended family. That led to a discussion of Christianity. She radiates Jesus and Christianity. She had spent the previous day in a personal retreat reading the Bible and concentrating on its teachings. It comes seeping through her pores.
We started talking, and I told her that although I grew up Catholic, I no longer call myself a Christian. I told her I saw the need for community from Christian churches, but in the U.S. in my experience, I had not found a community that felt intimate, safe, accepting and loving. Instead, I left the Catholic church upon my first divorce and although attending several large progressive Christian churches filled with lovely people, I found way too many males on stage for my liking. Some even spoke of the need to include more females and other cultures, but still those saying those words were white males.
I just got tired of being told what to think and do by white men.
I brought F back to my sunroom where I host my Circles filled with Goddess statues, rocks, bones, and other meaningful to me items.
The look of apprehension and determination on her face tripled. Her father she shared was Muslim but had converted when she was young. In their experience, Islam taught hate, but the Christians they found were loving and accepting people. She shared how Christianity is a religion of love.
She said she would pray for me.
She asked me to share what the items meant to me, and so I spoke of what I felt was the need to let the divine feminine back in to religion. I shared Lydia Rule’s banners on my wall: Mama Wata, an indigenous representation of the balance of Mother and Father, Sheela Na Gig who is hidden on hundreds of churches in Europe.
Her face looked more and more as if she had eaten something sour.
I removed myself and observed.
She began to go on about God and how He had sent his son to save us, that we did not need all these ‘things’, she spoke disdainfully as she looked around my room, but that Jesus was the front door and the best way and the only way to enter the house of God.
‘Perhaps I want a God who looks like me,’ I countered.
She stared at me a few seconds. But he is in your image. God has no gender. He is formless. He encompasses all.
‘Great, so it does not matter if I call Her ‘She’’
But it did.
We had a lengthy conversation where I kept calling God ‘She’, and F kept calling Her ‘Him’. After circling back to the house analogy, F told me sure there are other ways in the house, but that the devil is insidious and crafty, and he will falsely lure you.
I smiled. ‘Aha, the devil is male as well?’, I asked. ‘At least give me one of them.’
F smiled in return and said fine, ‘She’ will trick you with false promises and lead you to Hell.
I surmised that it was odd how she was more quickly able to call the devil a She than God.
She did not deny that.
She said, ‘Look I know what Mama Wata is, the Goddess of the Waters. In Africa, those that worship her are Witches.’
And I felt the negativity from her when she said the word Witches.
‘Is it so hard to believe that a Witch can do good things?’ I asked.
She looked long and hard at me. ‘Witches do not do good things.’
‘But I am a Witch, and I do good things.’
I felt the level of her dissonance rise.
She showed me the Bible passage where it says one should not do divination or soothsaying.
I replied that I understood the dangers of being told what to think or do and that when I do tarot, I prefer to do it for myself or only from my trusted friends because I have seen first hand the danger of being ‘foretold’ something.
We are what we think.
Her consternation increased, and she yet again with more and more fervor said she would pray for me, that she hoped I would find a heart of flesh and be returned to his righteous ways.
I said I was pretty okay with my current ways, but thanks.
I said, the Bible was edited by males. Parts were left out and translated differently. The Bible also says ‘You shall not tolerate a sorceress’ that a man or woman who has a ghost or a familiar spirit shall be put to death; they shall be pelted with stones – and the bloodguilt is their’s.’ Leviticus 20:27
‘Are you going to kill me because I am a Witch?, I point blank asked her.
She stared at me in exasperation and replied, ‘no, I am going to pray for you.’
These are amazing times. I keep being sent these healing opportunities.
During this conversation, there were so many opportunities for me to become mad and indignant. She put down my beliefs and choices. She looked around my room filled with items that are significant to me as if she were in a crack den. She ended the night clasping my hands and fervently praying for the salvation of my soul through Jesus for a good minute or so.
I felt the remnants of my Catholic upbringing agreeing with her, ‘She is right. You are going to Hell! Accept Jesus Christ. Return to Church!’
And I stood firm, ‘No, thank you.’
I felt Hathor and the other 10,000 faces of the Goddess who have been shunned, put down, diminished and destroyed. I felt Her Rising. I felt Her Returning. It does not matter whether or not I call Her an archetype or a God or a Goddess, because I know what she stands for. I know what I feel. And I know her power.
Yes, She has always been there, but we have had to hide Her in submissiveness. We have had to pretend we were quiet and meek with quiet persistence.
No more.
I slowly went around my entire home and opened each window. I stood there letting the sunshine stream in and feeling the wind on my arms. I listened to the birds. I opened my house to all. Because I am strong enough now.
It is time.
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Feminism and Religion 
Wow! Just wow! To me, this essay reflects the rigid, wooden responses from the religious right who want Bishop Bubbe silenced and deported! Your son’s g/friend seems to “parrot” her responses based on a catechism she has been taught and accepted. I see this today (right now) happening as conservatives throw stones (unintegrated biblical quotes) at those who do not agree with their ideas of how life (in America) needs to move forward. Thank you for this, Caryn.
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Thank you Esther for the reply. And yes, I agree. And ‘a process’ as I see how her Christianity has provided community, structure, discipline for her, but it needs to go a step further and be inclusive, non-judgemental and more balanced.
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I believe that we are much more than we think!
I also believe that focusing on any aspect of a goddess if she calls to you will come. I once had Tara come all the way from India to help me with compassion! Some of us have Animal Guides that do the same. Any authentic call is answered when the time is right. Those latter words are important because it’s not up to us – we are the receivers..
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“… much more than we think!” Love that. We’ll need to know ourselves better.
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Yes! Agree … Caryn
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Thank-you for sharing this conversation. I hope your son’s girlfriend isn’t scared away by this, because you said she is a good solid person “just what the doctor ordered” for your son. For me this conversation that you relate falls directly into the divide that I’ve considered fascinating: in Africa witches are persecuted, sometimes small children are persecuted as witches, and are thought to travel at night to suck the blood of their victims. The Western European/American pagan revival exists outside of this African social-cultural reality, and yet here the two worlds confronted each other in your own home, in your own experience. .. … because witch hunts still happen. … and the language of witch-hunting packs a powerful punch (think Donald Trump’s allegations of a ‘vast witchhunt’, or also, the Pizzagate hysteria that alleged Hilary Clinton was a witch). … So, I find this very interesting and provocative but I do worry that your son’s girlfriend won’t get over this very easily. …
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AliB, I hear you. I did not initiate this conversation. It was presented to me. And as such, I expressed my opinion, gently but persistently. I get that these ‘seeds of truth’ will most likely germinate in her. And sometime, next year, twenty years, maybe her offspring will begin to question why this religion from which she has received much but why it had to be at the cost of diversity, inclusion and acceptance. It has always felt so hypocritical to me that a religion of love and compassion should so vehemently include their evangelizing and judgemental condemnation. The premise that amazing people like Gandhi or others not of a Christian faith should be doomed to hell has always seemed very close-minded and infantile and yet it is one of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. That is a conundrum I have not been able to overcome.
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Caryn, I admire your bravery and honesty in sharing your beliefs with your son’s girlfriend. I don’t think I could have done it. By the way, the Bible, is inconsistent when it comes to divination. It seems that it is ok, at least sometimes, if it is done by men. No big surprise! In Acts 1, verses 24-26 the apostles pray to Jesus to help them select a replacement for Judas and then they cast lots to help them decide between two candidates. That sounds like divination to me.
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Well not to be too obvious but what about our current dictator praying around that freaking glowing orb with the Saudis during his first term? And of course the gold statues of him and all the prayer circles where he was being put on by hands? Spiritual warfare is real. Prayer and spelling are the same kind of intention. The energy is neutral like electricity and the practitioner directs according to their hearts. You were very kind because she is a good person but maybe you should have said thank you for your heartfelt prayers and I will in turn send you blessings of the goddess. If she doesn’t return the graciousness then you know where you stand.
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What a great article, unfortunately men of every color tell women of every color what to think and do, that has been my experience. I loved what you had to say about Hathor, I too got a message, turns out Hathor is my central Goddess, every woman has a central Goddess, I have since learned. I heard that women are here to lead the new earth because we know the way of soft power, feels like Egypt is a gateway to the rebirth of the divine feminine, where we are greeted by Hathor, beautiful.
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All Praises be to Het-Hert (Hathor)
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So my mother comes from a family of Santeros and other Witches in my ancestry.
But, my father is a Jehovah’s Witness. My mother hated the magic and visions my grandmother used to have. And she always liked the witnesses since she was a child. So when she met my Dad she converted. They thought it was their responsibility to “teach me to fear Jehovah”.
Oh they taught me fear alright, of everything.
And to make it worse, I could see things as a child. And it freaked people out. No one wanted to help me. They treated me like it was my fault for being born with abilities. And that I was letting Satan misguide me.
Except I didn’t practice magic. I just did it by accident. I kept being psychically filled with energy because no one taught me to ground or cleanse. And since witnesses don’t even believe in exorcisms and what not I ended up attracting nasty things. That frightened me as a child.
My sister also saw things later. And my family was all but useless. I knew since I was a child that I did not want to be a witness. You have no say in that religion. No freedom of thought.
You can’t even research other religions without the church’s permission (they call it a “Kingdom Hall” but whatever it’s a church). As I became a teenager, I realized I did not like the things they taught. And not just spiritual beliefs but their core ideology. They said that women cannot be leaders or teachers in the faith. Because women are like the Congregation which have to be in submission to Christ.
And the men symbolize Christ. Which I think is ridiculous. I knew what was right and wrong. I knew that women being allowed to have freedom was right. And that the witnesses believed in outdated misogynistic beliefs.
But I was told that was “God’s law”. Eventually I got out. And found the Gods. All of them. The Goddesses too. And ironically I actually found the Christian God too.
Only I found out that thousands of years go, he was the Supreme God of a pantheon of Pagan Semitic Gods. And he wasn’t the only Supreme Deity. The other one was his wife Asherah the Goddess of Creation and Nature. I learned that Christianity and every other faith evolved from Paganism at some point. In the Bible they renamed Asherah “the Holy Spirit”.
But the holy spirit is clearly female not male. Just look at how she is described. So I am closer to him and his wife now as a Pagan than I ever was as a Christian. In fact I don’t call him or her the “Christian Gods” anymore. Because they are found in many cultures and faiths.
I have discovered true spirituality. And now when I pray as a Magician (just another fancy title for a witch) and as a Pagan I get answers. I don’t feel like I am alone anymore. I did have a spiritual crisis because I kept getting pressured by people to “return to Jehovah” including my mother. And I told them all hell no.
I would sooner be an atheist than return to their corrupt version of the Elder God as I call him. Or deny the existence of his wife, The GODDESS the Co-Creator of all. For they are both Co-Creatrix. Neither one did everything by themselves.
Also whenever I needed help, the Christians weren’t there.
By the Gods and Goddesses were. Pagans were. I am happy where I am. And I would be happier if these holy rollers would mind their own business. And stop trying to shove their version of the Elder Deity onto all of us.
Another FAR User said it (hilariously) best,
” I don’t want Jesus,” 😆
(That post was down here)
Hail Het-Hert (Hathor)!
M
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MiamiMagus, I am happy to hear that you found your own way with what works for you. We should ALL find our own way. My belief is that religion is a ‘framework’ to find what works best for you: Christianity, Paganism, Hindu, Animism — as long as you are striving each day to be a better person and love, there is no ‘right’, there is no ‘wrong’. Thank you for replying and sharing. — Caryn
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Thank you for sharing your experience. I still get times when I hear that annoying “cult voice” in my head,
“Come back to the religion even if you hate it of JEHOVAH will kill you!”
Yeah……no way I am going to live a lie anymore. So when I read where the Catholic voice inside told you to return to Jesus or burn in Hell I understood that only too well.
Just like all the Baptist Christians who have rapture anxiety from when they were kids. It amazes me how anyone could think this depiction of the Elder God could be seen as “loving”.
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