Goddess Spirituality – Page 5 – Feminism and Religion

Asherah, Blessed, Asherah by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Once upon a time, the Great Goddess was the spiritual focal point of ancient culture. Her worship included honoring women, living in harmony with the earth, and cherishing the processes of the cycles of nature. Asherah was one of those Goddesses. When the Patriarchs moved in and worked to suppress the old goddess religions, Asherah and her fellow Goddesses were diminished, and in a propaganda coup we might recognize today, defined Her as evil. I imagine that some brave people fought to hold onto the Goddess in Her glory but when they saw they were losing the battle, they encoded Her and Her Sister Goddesses into their cultural mythology. Hidden in this manner, She found Her way into the bible. If we can uncover those codes, we can reclaim Her, others and their Earth-based spirituality.

Rituals for Our Sons, Part 2, by Molly Remer

Five years ago, I wrote an essay for Feminism and Religion musing about rituals for our sons. I wondered aloud how we welcome sons in manhood, how we create rituals of celebrations and rites of passages for our boys as well as our daughters. I have been steeped in women’s ceremony and ritual since I was a girl myself, watching the women wash my mother’s feet and crown her with flowers at her mother blessing ceremony as she prepared to give birth to my little brother when I was nine years old. Her circle of friends honored us too, crowning their daughters with flowers and loosely binding their wrists with ribbon to their mothers as they crossed the threshold into first menstruation.

At 24, I then helped plan the rite of passage for my youngest sister, then 13, as she and her friends gathered into a wide living room, flowers on their heads and anticipation in their eyes as we spoke to them of women’s wisdom and the strength of, and celebration of, being maiden girls on their way to adulthood. I knew then that I would have a ritual for my own daughter, yet unconceived, one day. I birthed two sons and lost another son in my second trimester. I led a circle of mothers and daughters through a series of nine classes culminating in a flower-becked coming of age ceremony while newly pregnant with the rainbow baby who would become my own daughter.

Farewell to Carol Christ at the Kamilari tholos tomb, Crete by Laura Shannon

September 7, 2021

1. At the gate

On a hilltop between the horned peak of Mount Psiloritis and the wide blue expanse of the Libyan Sea, Ellen Boneparth, Tina Nevans and I prepare to enter the Kamilari tholos tomb. This round vaulted structure served as a communal and egalitarian burial site for thousands of years, from Neolithic through late Minoan times, and Carol brought more than 40 groups of Goddess Pilgrims here to honour those who have gone before. This is where Carol asked the three of us to perform a farewell ritual for her; she wanted no other ceremony. We each don a scarf and necklace which belonged to Carol and enter the sacred space. Kostantis stays behind to guard the gate, in case any other visitors arrive during our ritual.

2. Invocation

On this spot, hundreds of women have honoured thousands of ancestors. We ask for the benevolent presence and the blessing of all those who knew and loved Carol, living and dead. We ask permission of the spirits of the place to enter for this ceremony. We ask Carol’s own ancestors, and the Minoan ancestors of this place, to bless and welcome Carol as a beloved daughter and granddaughter of both lineages.

Occult Adventures with Walter Troll -A Truly True Story Part 1 by Barbara Ardinger

I was born into a Republican, Calvinist, working-class family in Ferguson, Missouri, and was a teenager during the 1950s. Nothing remotely “spooky” or occult about my life. I was fortunate to discover the Unitarian Universalist Association during my freshman year in college and was a happy Unitarian until the late 1970s, when I completed my formal schooling and moved to Southern California. Nothing spooky or occult about the UUA, either.

After I moved to California, I met people interested in occult and metaphysical topics. I wanted to know more, so I started reading. I read the mainstream metaphysical literature, the books on the European Occult Revival and the various psychic sciences, books on ceremonial magic, New Thought, alchemy, the Qabala, theosophy, metapsychiatry, and the Universal White Brotherhood. I read Madame Blavatsky, Charles W. Leadbeater, Annie Besant, Dion Fortune, Horace Quimby, Stewart Edward White, Charles Francis Stocking, Manly P. Hall…well, the list goes on and on. (Those books are still on my shelves.) Although I learned enough to be a walking footnote to this day, I didn’t learn anything helpful about the spirit guides that a popular teacher in Anaheim told me were running my life. My boy friend was regularly doing automatic writing, so under his tutelage, I tried automatic writing, too. All I got was a stiff hand. I visited The Psychics To The Stars. I went to a spoon-bending seminar. (I bent one spoon). I attended a remote viewing workshop. All I got was a lot of debits in my check register. I didn’t meet any of my spirit guides.

Singing Is a Sacred Power by Carolyn Lee Boyd

A moss-soft ballad sung from a mountain top to the sunrise. A parent’s lullaby to soothe a newborn to sleep. Thousands of voices rising together to banish injustice from our planet. A single wavering melody infusing inspiration into a moment of despair. Whenever we open our mouths to sing, no matter how tuneful or discordant our song, we have instant access to a well of power to transform ourselves and others.

Over the years, I’ve been amazed at how often singing denotes spiritual power in myths and stories about goddesses and holy women from across the globe and throughout time. These are just a few examples from around the world. You may know others.

Finding the Antler, by Molly Remer

May you witness
a growing trust
in the guidance around you.
May you allow magic to find you
where you are.

Seven years ago, I did a drum-guided meditation in which I journeyed deep into the forest. On my head as I walked, antlers grew, curving above me. As I followed the sound of drums and the glimmer of firelight, I kept raising my hand to check to see if they were still there, firm beneath my hand. I reached the fire and met the Goddess there, she reached up and took the antlers off my head and cast them into the flames, where they twisted and glowed until they became a golden ring, which she removed and placed on my finger, antlers now wrapped around my index finger. In waking life, I scoured etsy and two years later located a bronze antler ring extremely similar to my vision, which I bought and placed on my own finger in the woods as a symbol of my earth based path, my priestess vows, and some kind of unspoken dedication, felt within but not able to be fully verbalized at the time.

Mother Goddess and Mothers Hold the Key

I am of my mother –
from the swirling stars of the cosmos
through the long passage,
contacting and expanding –
birthed of her body,
nourished by her love.

Continue reading “Mother Goddess and Mothers Hold the Key”

Delilah Reclaimed by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

*This post includes a call for stories at the end.

In my previous blogpost, I wrote about the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah and why it was likely written in a manner to hide older pagan mythos. You can read it here: Delilah Lost. I promised to share my own myth about the story and tell it as best as I can. Here it is:

Samson was known as one of the strongest forces in the galaxy, a shining light in the sky. Humans would one day recognize his rays of light as his hair. In the infinity of time, his attention was drawn to movement in the star system known as Sorek. Looking more closely, he saw a woman dancing in dazzling motion while draped in star dust and star light. He could hear the slight tinkle of bells as she shimmered. It was as if the heavens themselves were shouting ha-la-hu-ya at her beauty. She noticed his gaze and winked back at him, tempting him with her swirls and her sparkling eyes. He was enthralled. Continue reading “Delilah Reclaimed by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

Delilah, Lost by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Delilah is a beautiful name on its own merits. As a biblical personage Delilah is forever connected to Samson for their tales are intertwined. As it is told in Judges, Samson is the clear hero of the tale and Delilah is merely the temptress who betrays him. But as in all spiritual accounts there is more here than meets the eye. A spiritual journey is never a linear affair. When reading the story of Samson and Delilah, it immediately becomes clear that something mythical is afoot. The root of Samson’s name is the same as the word shamash, the Hebrew word for sun. The root of Delilah is lila, meaning night. Right away we understand that this story contains apparent opposites, heavenly aspects, the sun and the night, light and dark . . . Continue reading “Delilah, Lost by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

Restoration by Molly Remer

In 2014, I sat on a low wooden bench nursing my 6 week old baby boy while wet plaster strips were laid across my face to create a mask. The final activity of the Rise Up and Call Her Name program, a women’s spirituality curriculum by Elizabeth Fisher that I’d been guiding over the course of an entire year, I had shown all of the women in my living room how to make masks and now it was my turn to have the mask material applied. My back was sore and I felt tired and lonely within my plaster shell. As my face faded from view, the women began to talk around me as if I suddenly wasn’t there and as my lips were covered, I became voiceless and closed in, shrouded and silent. When the plaster dried and I emerged again, I saw a dear friend sitting in the recliner drinking tea. While I was not sorry to have finished my commitment to the group and to have closed out the year-long program, I was suddenly awash with a deep longing for rest, a deep longing to be the one in the chair being brought tea, instead of the one to lead the group, baby dangling from her breast, tugged in a million directions by questions and needs.

This moment, this snapshot of maternal priestessing, has recurred for me many times over the last few years, a wondering of why I could not permit myself to be the tea-drinker instead of the hostess, the person to enjoy instead of the person to teach, the person to rest instead of the person to create experiences. Continue reading “Restoration by Molly Remer”