Category: Goddess

Goddess Meditation: Pattini by Laura Loomis

I first became interested in Goddess spirituality because of my love of storytelling.  Centuries-old stories yield multiple layers of meaning, and can be told many different ways to get at different truths.  In this respect, the written word is both a blessing and a curse.  It preserves stories that might otherwise be lost; who knows what tales were told about the Venus of Willendorf, or the giant heads on Easter Island?  But it also gives rise to the idea that there is a single “right” version of sacred stories.  Adam and Eve can be a meditation on choice and responsibility, but the insistence on taking the story literally can turn it into a command to disbelieve science.

I’ve been working on some meditations about the connection between Goddess spirituality and political activism.  Last weekend, with people across the country rising up against Proposition 8, I was reminded of a story from Sri Lanki, about the Goddess Pattini.

Pattini (also called Kannaki or Kannagi) began life as an ordinary woman, in a less-than-perfect marriage.  Her husband Kovolan was a philanderer, lured away from her by a beautiful young dancer.  After he’d burned through all their money, the dancer left him broke and alone.  A wiser Kovolan returned to Pattini and begged her forgiveness. Continue reading “Goddess Meditation: Pattini by Laura Loomis”

Where do Cats Go?: Reflections on Death Post Patriarchal Christianity by Sara Frykenberg

The reason I am speaking about death today is two-fold.  First, I have been somewhat preoccupied with the concept of death since entering a new decade of my life.  I no longer believe in the evangelical vision of heaven I learned about in my youth; but as an uncomfortable “un”-Christian, I also have no satisfactory vision to replace it.  Or rather, there are many visions I find appealing, but none that I “believe in,” as I had believed in heaven.  My family is getting older, my parents have been sick in the last few years, and I often feel that I have more to lose now than I used to.

My second reason for considering death today is that last Wednesday, Mimi, our family cat of 24 years—yes, 24—passed away.  After spending all nine of her lives living, Mimi could no longer eat and was suffering.  My mother had her put down after we all said goodbye; we held a funeral for her and buried her among the lilies in our yard, her home.

My sisters and myself were very, very saddened by Mimi’s passing; but my mother took it hardest of all.  Mimi had been her companion, her friend, her lap warmer, her snuggle buddy, her alarm clock and, we often joked, her favorite child for over two decades.  I wanted to comfort my mother; but my protest that it didn’t matter what the (her) Church said, Mimi was with the God/dess, was maybe, not very helpful.  It perhaps, only reminded her that in her view, I too am not going to heaven.

I remember sitting in church, as a child being told that animals did not have souls and that there was no “kitty heaven.”  That was perhaps, one of the first times in my life that I thought, “that’s just ridiculous,” in a church.  Not just ridiculous, but mean and cruel even.  “What,” I thought, “is the point in saying such a thing?”  Continue reading “Where do Cats Go?: Reflections on Death Post Patriarchal Christianity by Sara Frykenberg”

Residing in a Liminal Space: Finding a scholarly home at the Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy by Patricia ‘Iolana

For years I was outside of traditional academia.  I can no longer count the times I have heard that my research and my theories were highly radical and would never find a home or a place of acceptance.  Early in my career, while still in the States, a number of my colleagues tried to convince me to take a traditional theological stance, and join the world of orthodox faith tradition.  What my well-meaning colleagues never considered was that in asking me to alter my way of being, they were asking me to deny myself, my understanding of the Numinous, and negating that there were other people in the world who think and feel as I do.  I would rather cut off my nose to spite my face. Needless to say, I continued on, even though it often meant blazing my own trail off the safe and ‘beaten path.’ I trusted that I was on the right path and that the Divine would lead my way.  In other words, I had faith—loads of it, and in the end it paid off.

For a while, I had been part of the academia.edu community (if you aren’t familiar with it, it is like a Facebook for scholars where academics can share and follow research).  I joined in the hopes that I would reach like-minded people and find an academic home.  One day in the summer of 2010, I received a message asking me if I wanted to contribute a chapter on a new book about Thealogy.  The message from Angela Hope said she wanted to claim and expand the field, and I was eager to speak with her.  Our conversations lasted for hours, days, and weeks.  We found a kindred sisterhood, and she shared with me her idea to create an institute for other like-minded scholars and practitioners – a place that was supportive of liminal theories and research – a place that dared to push boundaries.  And as we wished, so we gathered.   Continue reading “Residing in a Liminal Space: Finding a scholarly home at the Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy by Patricia ‘Iolana”

How to Talk to a Deity* By Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D.

Originally, when ritual was still part of everyday life and everybody talked to gods and goddesses all the time, we spoke to them in everyday words. As time went on and priests assumed more power, however, exalted language and fulsome invocations arose, and pretty soon only the High Priest could speak to God Most High. We common folks were allowed to pray, of course, but the important prayers were uttered by the priests.

During the European Renaissance and all the way up to the 19th-century occult revival, it was thought that the gods spoke Hebrew and Latin. Ceremonial magicians wrote rituals in these languages or made up other highly esoteric languages like crypto-Egyptian, quasi-Sanskrit, and Enochian (the “angelic language” of the Elizabethan Dr. Dee). If you read books on high occultism, you’ll see scripts in these languages. Trying to pronounce the words can be like trying to unscrew the inscrutable.

Fortunately, we discovered that it can be dangerous to invoke an invisible power in a language we can neither understand nor enunciate properly nor improvise in. As anyone who has ever studied a foreign language knows, boners come easily and can be very embarrassing. Worse, some powers may become angry if we mispronounce their names … or we may not get who we intended to call. Like the modern Roman Catholic Church, occultists, ceremonial magicians, and witches have generally adopted the vernacular. Continue reading “How to Talk to a Deity* By Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D.”