Keep it simple and sacred whisper the trees, let go with grace and trust the turning, watch how the leaf rides the air all the way to the ground. Let life astonish you, mess and magic all entwined. Be patient with yourself. Feel the mask slip away as the mist rises and mystery invites you in.
Are you a woman (or man) who has lost touch with yourself spiritually — or
has never gotten in touch with yourself spiritually — or who just wants more joy in each day? If so, you may want to try entwining more goddess energy into your life. Many anthropologists believe that human societies were originally goddess-centered, and goddesses are still worshipped on every continent. Whatever your desire — strength, wisdom, compassion, fertility, creativity, sexuality — there is a goddess who can help you. Connecting with the goddesses who call to you — in the form of jewelry or art, words and music, or simply your thoughts — can sweeten and enhance your days with bright threads of unity, wonder, and female power.
But how to begin? The number and diversity of goddesses loved, worshipped, and celebrated throughout time and into the present, in every corner of the earth, is so breathtakingly large that trying to keep track of them can feel like counting the stars. To start you off, here are nine of my own favorite goddesses, chosen from among the most popular female divinities celebrated today (please note that many of them may also be known by different names or spellings).
Durga. The great Hindu mother goddess Durga is really nine goddesses in one. Durga’s nine manifestations — embodying qualities from courage to piety to blissful joy — are celebrated in India during a huge nine-day festival called Navarati. Durga is often pictured as a fierce goddess with many arms riding a lion. I have revered her ever since I found an ancient and powerful stone carving of her in the Asian wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. You can call on Durga’s invincible spirit when you need to be strong to your core!
Me (5th from right) with friends at a Durga Puja Celebration in Kolkata, India, many-armed Sculpture of Durga in background
In this world of opposites, transformation is constant. Every moment the cells of our bodies are dying and being reborn. Matter, which flows from consciousness, dies but is reborn through the process of birth, death and rebirth. Some changes are fast and some are slow; stars live billions of years and butterflies live only a few days.
Ever since our collective experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, we both feel and are told that our world is transforming. Leaders—political and spiritual—talk about the need for transformation. Some want us to transform ourselves back to some imagined golden age, whereas other have eyes on the future, speaking of transformations we can’t yet imagine.
My own life has been one of continual transformation, an ever recurring experience of letting go of the old. I was told by an astrologer long ago that I came into this life determined to wipe the slate clean and transform myself. Admittedly it has not been an easy path, but my internal transformations have been a rich source for my paintings. Much of my art has been and continues to be about transformation.
Mirabai Starr writes that to be a mystic is to “harvest the bounty of your own soul garden,” a place that is “both wild and tended,” sometimes lush and sometimes arid.
As summer’s heat presses in and the clamor of growth and change rises to a peak of abundance and urgency, we may begin to hear a summons from deep within. The cauldron call begins, at first a whisper and then an irresistible song that leads us away from the to-do list and into a mystical realm in which dreams and desire meet and begin to bubble into possibility. May we grant ourselves space for descent, even in the middle of all that is hot and bright and beautiful. May we listen to the yearning we feel to explore the depths, stepping out of the light and into the cool shadows that beckons us to steep. Right here, right now, in the middle of all that swirls, is when we are invited to stop, to put our ears back down to our souls and listen hard. It is now that we are invited to step into the cauldron of change, to sink down and in and let everything we are carrying soften and melt away while we remember how it feels to simmer in everything we have made, all that we love to taste and serve.
For years now, August has been my “Cauldron Month,” a dedicated time in which I take my life into the metaphorical cauldron of being, to reflect, to re-collect, to reconnect, to consider what I’m “simmering” in, what is bubbling and brewing in my days, and what needs to be scooped out of the pot. It is time in which I review the year to date and consider where I’m going, what I’m savoring, and what I’m dishing up to serve.
Recent headlines in the international press announced that the enigmatic language of the ancient Cretan “Phaistos Disk” has been translated—in part—by the Welch-Cretan scholar Gareth Owens. Owens states that the Phaistos Disk records an ancient hymn to a Mother Goddess. More specifically he claims that one side is dedicated to a Pregnant Goddess and the other to a Birth-Giving Goddess.
All of this is very exciting, but is he right?
I have been leading Goddess Pilgrimages to Crete for that past twenty years, in the course of which I have developed an intimate and scholarly knowledge of the religion and culture of ancient Crete. Participants on my tours sent me the news reports about the Phaistos Disk, assuming I would be thrilled to have confirmation of my understanding that the ancient Cretans worshipped the Goddess as the Source of Life, or as Marija Gimbutas says, as the powers of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life.
Reading the news reports, I noted that archaeologist-translator of the disk, Gareth Owens, identified the Goddess of ancient Crete as a “Mother Goddess” and more specifically as a Pregnant Goddess and a Birth Goddess . This raised a red flag for me. The most well-known Goddesses of ancient Crete, the bare-breasted Snake Goddesses, are neither pregnant nor giving birth. Other Goddesses pour liquids from the breasts, but again are not visibly pregnant or giving birth.
Yesterday I had a delightful swim with a friend in the cool Aegean Sea. In in the evening I met two dear friends at an open air restaurant for a delicious meal and good conversation. Last night a beautiful moon rose over the sea and a soft breeze caressed my skin. All of this made me very happy. However, the state of the world does not.
Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin. The Ferguson police. Hold your ground laws. Bombing in Gaza. War in Ukraine. War in Iraq. War in Afghanistan. War in Syria. Wars that are not on my radar. Rape as a part of war. Joe Biden threatening to chase ISIL “to the gates of hell.” Citizens United. A rash of laws restricting voting rights. A rash of laws restricting abortion rights. Police brutality. Police brutality that is racially motivated. Young men being sentenced to prision for minor drug offenses. The brutality of the prison system. A woman with children being paid $8.50 an hour working at McDonalds and not even knowing when she will be called in to work. Open carry laws allowing Americans to walk the streets with loaded weapons. And that’s just off the top of my head this morning.
Sometimes I describe my work and writing as “a love song to the Ozarks.” I am deeply embedded, body and soul, in this land that I come from, my bloodland, the place where I belong. Seven generations of my family have called these wooded hillsides and stony ridgetops home. This is my mystery school, where I explore hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth.
The Earth is my teacher I shall always want I witness her still meadows She leadeth me to green pastures She restoreth my soul On tree covered hills She reminds me I am home and, yea, I walk in her valleys and I fear no suffering She is with me Her mountains and rolling rivers they comfort me joy bubbles through my veins and enlivens my footsteps my cup runneth over truly I stand in mysterious awareness all the days of my life and She holds me in the palm of her hand forever.
Let us trust the cycles
of retreat and renewal
alive in both the land
and in our hearts right now
as the melody of belonging
continues to serenade us
and we follow April’s determination
to create and shape
this world anew.
And, so, April arrives all at once to enliven the land, trailing cool breezes and the first blush of pollen possibility across fields and forests, fence rows and farms. She blankets open spaces with purple clover and violets, with chickweed and dandelion. When we pause to listen, we can hear the laughter of awakening rippling behind her. She brings an invitation into healing, into extending outward and reaching up. She offers wild promise and tender hope and the sweet, fresh breath of change. Let us soften into spring, into this invitation, into restoration and reclamation. It is now that we choose. Let us be content to be here, witnessing the changes, leaning into the wind, and savoring the blooming. Let us trust the cycles of retreat and renewal alive in both the land and in our hearts right now as the melody of belonging continues to serenade us and we follow April’s determination to create and shape this world anew.
A Prayer for Solstice Winter’s Crone, cave tender, cauldron keeper, mother of time, guide us into stillness, into a time of deep rest and reflection. Unwind our knots and soothe our scurrying, remind us how to listen, how to be still, how to turn inward and know. Remind us not to fear darkness for it is a time of necessary patience and growth. Help us to celebrate the cycles of change through which we move, honoring the fallow times and the flourishing times as equally essential for life. Bone woman, great mother of us all, quiet our wondering and our worries, gentle our grief, and soften our sorrow. Restore our weary hearts and renew our spirits that we might turn towards the light we carry within and warm ourselves by this, life’s eternal and powerful flame, knowing that we belong to this great grand web of incarnation and all it holds.
Yes, it is December
already and again.
Let yourself notice the milkweed pods,
how they have split their sides
and are sending silky white seed fluffs
into the waiting air.
Witness the trees,
bare and gray and patient.
Yes, it is December already and again. Let yourself notice the milkweed pods, how they have split their sides and are sending silky white seed fluffs into the waiting air. Witness the trees, bare and gray and patient. Watch the squirrels, tails puffed against the chill, stored nuts in their cheeks. Listen to the wind how it whispers and rattles through the empty branches. Watch the clouds, slow-moving white billows in a pale blue sky. Be patient with yourself. Grant yourself grace. Remember the three invitations of the solstice season: to listen, to wonder, to be content. Remember your promise to keep company with joy. Remember your vow to be in devotion to your own life. Think about everything there is to do. Open your hands. Feel that thin, whispering winter wind skim over your palms. Take a deep breath. Allow yourself to marvel at all this year has held. Bless it. Thank it. Cup your hands around your own face. Say: thank you. Here you are in the center of your own life’s unfolding. There is nowhere else to be. Be gentle with yourself. Invite the winter crone to tea. Look into her eyes. See yourself reflected there, your own winter eyes open to the possibility of both clarity and delight.
I have been writing for Feminism and Religion for 13 years. In the summer, I compiled a post with 13 summer lessons from 13 years of posts here at FAR. I decided to bookend that post with a Winter Lessons post as well. Here are thirteen lessons to share from past winter posts:
