Goddess Spirituality – Page 6 – Feminism and Religion

The Sanctuary of One Another by Molly Remer

“Please prepare me
to be a sanctuary.
Pure and holy
tried and true.
With thanksgiving
I’ll be a living
sanctuary
for you.”*

—Beautiful Chorus (Hymns of Spirit)

In March, my husband drove our daughter into town to work at her Girl Scout cookie booth and released me to prepare for an all-day Red Tent retreat for my local women’s circle. After I packed my supplies for ritual, I set off on a walk in the deepening, rain-dark twilight. As I walked, I sang a song of sanctuary over and over, until I felt transported into a different type of consciousness, my feet steady on muddy gravel, the leafless branches stark against grey sky, moss and stones gleaming with sharp color against the roadside. A fallen tree absolutely carpeted with enchanting mushrooms caught my eye and invited me off the road and into its arms. As I stood there, feeling as if I had stepped out of ordinary reality and into a “backyard journey,” the spring peepers in the ephemeral pool in our field began their evening chorus. It has been so cold out with below freezing temperatures, snow, and ice for days since first hearing them in early March that I actually wondered if they would survive to continue their song.

Mercifully, though, it is not a silent spring. Continue reading “The Sanctuary of One Another by Molly Remer”

Devotion by Molly Remer

There are things that ask
to be remembered
or, is it that I ask to remember?
The everyday enchantments
of our living
words forming slices of
memory.
A white squirrel watching
from a sycamore tree
the sounds of black
crows calling
from within the secret
passages
between oak tree
and neighborhood
footprints of a shy orange
coastal fox in the sand.
Rays of sunlight
forming individual white rainbows
stretching from cloud
to water.
I no longer feel like I have anything
to teach
I just want to tell you about the
shell I found today
the sandy pink color
of its wave-shaped spiral
the way the pine needles
form a canopy under
which orange monarchs dance
the surprising softness and bright
green hue of thin fingers of grass
the pretty purple pollen cones
of a longleaf pine.
The colors of a morning woven
into a tapestry of devotion.
That is the word for this feeling
in my chest.
Devotion
to noticing.

Devotion is not a word that I have previously felt particularly inspired by or connected to. Perhaps it is too heavy, too responsible, or even “too religious”—carrying connotations of dogma or roteness. However, in the last month or so, something has opened up for me to consider the word, and the process, in a different way. Continue reading “Devotion by Molly Remer”

The Goddesses Ereshkigal and Epona and Their Help in My Grief by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Anjeanette In November, my paternal grandmother passed. She was five days away from her 93^rd birthday. As I was/am going through the grieving process, I started to actively recall all the studies I have done regarding death and grieving practices across the globe and throughout the centuries. Mixed with the grieving process was constructing a January term class called “Goddesses Around the World.” As I marked each culture, religion, and goddesses we would be studying I kept coming back to an interesting fact. In many ancient cultures, it was the divine feminine who oversaw death, not only at times as the bringer of death but more importantly, as the guardian of the dead, the protector of all those that have gone from the earthly realm. Continue reading “The Goddesses Ereshkigal and Epona and Their Help in My Grief by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”

2019: Hopefully a Happier New Year by Barbara Ardinger

We’re nearly a week into the new year. I almost wish I were a prophet and could predict with assurance that 2019 will be better than 2018—less filled with hate, name-calling, lies, and all-round trumpery (pun intended: “trumpery” is “worthless nonsense”).

When I wrote my daybook, Pagan Every Day, here’s how I began today’s essay:

The Saxons of northern Europe called the first Monday after January 6 Plough Day and honored Freya, “the Venus of the North.” As a goddess who engages in indiscriminate sex, Freya is the spirit of the earth’s fertility. Like Persephone, she is in the underworld during the winter, but early in January we already see hints that she might be rising. We’ll soon set our ploughs into the earth and plant our crops.

We can think of planting our crops in both literal and metaphorical ways, but my best guess is that we’d best think of them metaphorically, at least in the so-called developed world, because our part of the world is mostly urban now and if there’s literal planting, it seems to be mostly done by agribusiness. If we’re not farmers literally broadcasting seeds, how do we plant metaphorical crops for 2019?

We can start with numerology, which I studied back in the early 1980s about the same time I was reading books on metaphysical and occult topics, learning the tarot, and reading every book about the Goddess I could find. (There were already lots of them.) As you no doubt know, numerology is based on the meaning of numbers. Whether we’re working with a name, a birth date, or a situation, we use a chart (which you can find online) to convert letters to numbers, then we add the numbers and reduce them to one number that becomes a kind of prediction. It’s important to remember, of course, that true divination does not forecast a fixed and permanent future. Instead, it notes what is likely to happen if things keep going along the path they’re on.

According to my numerology teacher, 1 means creation and individualization; 2 means love, gentleness, service, harmony; and 3 means self-expression, personal creation, optimism, inspiration. One is also the beginning of a new cycle (year, life, experience, adventure), and 9 is “complete expression,” or the end of a cycle, life, experience, or adventure. It’s interesting that 9 + 1 = 10 = 1. The end always leads to what we call a new beginning.

So let’s do some numerology with 2019. We add the numbers and reduce them to one number that will characterize the year: 2019 = 2 + 1 = 3 + 9 = 12 = 1 + 2 = 3. This means that 2019 is a “3 year,” which can (and may) lead to self-expression, optimism, inspiration, talent, sociability, friendliness, and kindness. (Note that there are two 3’s in the calculation; maybe they reinforce the idea of 3-ness.)

Self-expression, optimism, etc. are good crops to be planting this month! These are crops that need to be growing here. If we think politically, as so many of us have been doing for two years, we can hope that the new diverse and Democratic majority in the House of Representatives will grow and harvest these crops and bring an end to trumpery. What do you think might happen this year? Where are these metaphorical crops best planted? How will we feed and fertilize them? How and where will they grow?

Several years ago, I moved into what I call tarot numerology. Our new year’s 3 corresponds to Card III of the major arcana: The Empress. You know of course that there’s a nearly infinite number of decks with their own illustrations, but most of them show Card III as The Empress. She is the Earth Mother, Mother Nature, the Great Goddess. My tarot teacher said The Empress advises, among other things, “as above, so below,” and when we get The Empress in a reading, she’s usually telling us that new things will be born, there will be productivity and creativity, there will be good crops.

Our reading of 2019, therefore, is that we are possibly entering a new year of good crops—those metaphorical ones I listed earlier: self-expression, optimism, inspiration, talent, sociability, friendliness, and kindness. A couple months ago, we elected 100 women to a U.S. Congress that is more diverse than any Congress has ever been before. Can these women, perhaps individually, more likely collectively, embody the Goddess?

I’m going to stop writing now because I want you all to finish this post for me. Give me—give us—your ideas and plans for planting new crops in 2019. How can we bring self-expression, optimism, inspiration, talent, sociability, friendliness, and kindness into our weary society? We can keep voting, of course, but what else? Organizing? Marching? Writing? Please think about this new year and then tell us what you’re thinking. What’s gonna happen??

Note: The cards are from the Tarot of Meditation, drawn by Marty Yeager; the Motherpeace Tarot, created by Karen Vogel and Vicki Noble; the Gaian Tarot, drawn by Joanne Powell Colbert; and the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, drawn by Pamela Coleman Smith (who did not receive any credit for her work for nearly a century. Oh, look—it’s the patriarchy in action again).

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is a published author and freelance editor. Her newest book is Secret Lives, a novel about grandmothers who do magic. Her earlier nonfiction books include the daybook Pagan Every Day, Finding New Goddesses (a pun-filled parody of goddess encyclopedias), and Goddess Meditations. When she can get away from the computer, she goes to the theater as often as possible—she loves musical theater and movies in which people sing and dance. She is also an active CERT (Community Emergency Rescue Team) volunteer and a member (and occasional secretary pro-tem) of a neighborhood organization that focuses on code enforcement and safety for citizens. She has been an AIDS emotional support volunteer and a literacy volunteer. She is an active member of the Neopagan community and is well known for the rituals she creates and leads.

Honoring the Completion of the Year, by Molly Remer

“Beginnings and endings are so very sacred, to give honor to all that has transpired, every experience, every joy, every pain, is a doorway to the magical. Hold your entire year between your hands, every day, every thought, every breath. Now bless it with gratitude, love and humility. You have done more to transform this new year than a thousand resolutions.”

–K. Allen Kay

Two years ago, at the end of the year, I was supposed to hold a closing ceremony for a year-long Ariadne’s Thread study group I had been guiding throughout the year. Every member of the circle ended up backing out of the closing circle at the last minute, but I held the ceremony in full anyway, alone in my front yard, just for myself, and expanding it to include acknowledging and appreciating all the work I had completed in 2016, including my D.Min degree. People’s reasons for backing out of the ceremony were very valid and while on a cognitive level I understood why they couldn’t come, on an emotional level I still felt let down and disappointed at being “abandoned” by them. Holding the closing ceremony for myself anyway and acknowledging that I kept my own commitment to doing a full year of this work in circle, felt like a powerful declaration and affirmation of my own worth. In fact, it was such a validating and powerful experience that I continued the practice with a personal year-end closing ceremony for 2017 as well and I will do the same for myself this year too. Continue reading “Honoring the Completion of the Year, by Molly Remer”

On a Friend’s Departure by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

On June 25th, I received the news that my friend Zubeida Shaikh had passed away in South Africa. This took me by surprise. The last time Zubeida and I exchanged communication, she was as always, strong, determined and full of life, ready to realize her dreams. Zubeida Shaikh was an avid reader of feminism and religion. I would like to remember her in this space, thanks to which she and I met in life. In 2015, a little before my trip to South Africa, Zubeida sent me an email. She had read my article “Enemy of Islam” and it “was speaking to her”.

So, few weeks after my arrival in Cape Town, we met in the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, her place of work until 2017, where I visited her in her office and we talked at length about feminism, violence against women and resilience, putting our own stories with patriarchy and abuse on the table. Then we spent the afternoon together. She was the first person from South Africa that I met. She was my first friend in South Africa. Continue reading “On a Friend’s Departure by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Women Can Change the World by Judith Shaw

These are dark days for those of us who believe in democracy, social justice, environmental stewardship/protection, and connectivity. A rise in authoritarian rulers – from the U.S. to pockets of Europe to Turkey and beyond – are threatening the values upon which democracies are founded.

Continue reading “Women Can Change the World by Judith Shaw”

Swan – Guide to Love and Spiritual Evolution by Judith Shaw

Swan glides gracefully across the mirror-like surface of the lake, stirring sensibilities of purity, loyalty and love in our hearts. Her long, curved, delicate neck reflects in the water as gentle ripples spread out behind her. Swan evokes feelings of peace and can signify self-transformation, intuition, sensitivity, and the soul.

Continue reading “Swan – Guide to Love and Spiritual Evolution by Judith Shaw”

Celtic Myth, Moon Blood, and the White Beauty Standard by Marisa Goudy

My woman’s body is entering the dark time of the moon, even with blinding white snow lashing the windows, even with a full moon tracing its way far above thick clouds. My mood is black and soon I’ll be flowing red, and the snow will just drive on white, white, white.

In The White Goddess, Robert Graves tells us: “…the New Moon is the white goddess of birth and growth; the Full Moon, the red goddess of love and battle; the Old Moon, the black goddess of death and divination.”

The Celt in me feels cradled by this imagery, even if, as Judith Shaw and Carol P. Christ have pointed out elsewhere on this site, the idea of maid, mother, and crone is a modern invention, not gift from the past. I agree with Christ: “My suggestion is that we give up the idea that the details of contemporary Goddess Spirituality are rooted in and authorized by tradition. We can instead acknowledge that though we are inspired by the past, we are the ones who are creating contemporary Goddess Spirituality.”

Continue reading “Celtic Myth, Moon Blood, and the White Beauty Standard by Marisa Goudy”

Ritual Theory: Sharing Stories by Molly Remer

“Ritual that is alive encourages each person to touch what is sacred in their own way, in their own time, through their own unique experience. So there evolves a dynamic dance between guiding and shaping the group’s experience and encouraging and supporting the individual’s experience, so there is a smooth and cohesive flow to the ritual.” –Suzanne Reitz and Sandy Hoyt (Celebrating, Honoring, Healing)

As a practicing priestess, one of the dynamic dances that I engage in is with the power of story. I both find that women’s stories are the vital lifeblood of conscious engagement and power-building with one another and that they can be one of the elements that bogs down a ritual and makes it lose power and magic. This is partially because the dominant culture may teach us to bond using stories in a way that actually drain our energy through “venting,” swapping complaints, trading to-do lists, and through describing behavior, motives, and character of other people. In women’s ritual space, I encourage people to dig deep, but also to share a here-and-now connection of shared experience rather than a there-and-then rendition of past experiences.

Chameli Ardagh in her Create Your Own Women’s Temple manual from Awakening Women explains:

To hold the group and space as sacred is one of the most important guidelines, and the guideline that may bring up the most questions or protests. It goes against our habits as women and against our identification with the small self; we are quite used to creating intimacy through sharing our wounds and problems. The Temple Group is not a place for processing wounds, analyzing ourselves, solving problems, complaining about our lovers, healing our addictions or sharing the stories of the personality. Many women’s circles (and support groups or sharing circles) are focused mostly on the personality. The Temple Group is, in a way, impersonal because it focuses on the larger vast nature of our true self. In the Temple Group we focus not so much on our identity as separate women, but on the whole group as one feminine divine body and expression. The impersonal guideline may sound uncaring at first, but as you explore new ways of being intimate and nourish each other as women, beyond the words, you discover that those are infinitely more fulfilling and caring than the personality talking and processing (p. 61).

I believe that we live in a storied reality and that we are constantly in the process of 22338975_2058326864379525_7570131764764457268_o storying and re-storying our lives and that seeing our lives, and the lives of others, through a mythopoetic lens, can have a radically transformative impact on our experiences and our relationships. I have written about this for FAR in the past and noted that my personal lived experience is that stories have had more power in my own life as a woman than most other single influences. The sharing of story in an appropriate way is, indeed, intimately intertwined with good listening and warm connection. As the authors of the book Sacred Circles remind us “…in listening you become an opening for that other person…Indeed, nothing comes close to an evening spent spellbound by the stories of women’s inner lives.”

So, what is special about story as a medium and what can it offer to women that traditional forms of education cannot?

Stories are validating. They can communicate that you are not alone, not crazy, and not 23319504_1994649147413964_2818983018590835346_n weird. Stories are instructive without being directive or prescriptive. It is very easy to take what works from stories and leave the rest because stories communicate personal experiences and lessons learned, rather than expert direction, recommendations, or advice. Stories can also provide a point of identification and clarification as a way of sharing information that is open to possibility, rather than advice-giving.

Cautions in sharing stories while also listening to another’s experience include:

Are you so busy in your own story that you can’t see the person in front of you?
Does the story contain bad, inaccurate, or misleading information?
Is the story so long and involved that it is distracting from the other person’s point?
Does the story communicate that you are the only right person and that everyone else should do things exactly like you?
Is the story really advice or a “to do” disguised as a story?
Does the story redirect attention to you and away from the person in need of help/listening?
Does the story keep the focus in the past rather than the here and now present moment?
Is there a subtext of “you should…”?

Several of these self-awareness questions are much bigger concerns during a person-to-person direct dialogue such as at a women’s retreat rather than in written form such as blog. In reading stories, the reader has the power to engage or disengage with the story, while in person there is a possibility of becoming stuck in an unwelcome story. Some things to keep in mind while sharing stories in person are:

Sensitivity to whether your story is welcome, helpful, or contributing to the other person’s process.
Being mindful of personal motives—are you telling a story to bolster your own self-image, as a means of pointing out others’ flaws and failings, or to secretly give advice?
Asking yourself whether the story is one that will move us forward (returning to the here and now question above).

This work is beautiful. It is complex. It is multilayered. It is simple. It is hard. It is easy. It is rich and rewarding. It is dynamic and evolving and flowing. It is never the same.

May you be blessed with many stories together.

mollyatpark Note: there is a detailed audio exploration of the themes of this post available here.

Molly has been “gathering the women” to circle, sing, celebrate, and share since 2008. She plans and facilitates women’s circles, seasonal retreats and rituals, mother-daughter circles, family ceremonies, and red tent circles in rural Missouri and teaches online courses in Red Tent facilitation and Practical Priestessing. She is a priestess who holds MSW, M.Div, and D.Min degrees and wrote her dissertation about contemporary priestessing in the U.S. Molly and her husband Mark co-create Story Goddesses, original goddess sculptures, ceremony kits, and jewelry at Brigid’s Grove. Molly is the author of Womanrunes, Earthprayer, and The Red Tent Resource Kit and she writes about thealogy, nature, practical priestessing, and the goddess at Patreon and at Brigid’s Grove.