Category Archive

I love to think that women throughout time have left the women of our time clues about how to feel that our spirits are powerful, passed down to us little treasures learned over millennia just waiting to be excavated. Sometimes we look to the stories and artifacts about how powerful women have lived and still live; sometimes we can also look to what women have been forbidden to do. Our culture is peppered with little taboos, mostly that I remember from childhood, but some that are still common. As I consider these taboos, especially those concerned with dress, in relation to what I know about women spiritual leaders, I can see how each can be seen as a way to make women less powerful and how breaking these little taboos can be an avenue to feeling, looking, and being our strong, creative, confident selves.

Certain colors were never or rarely worn when I was younger, in particular, bright red, except as an accent, and black and white except for funerals, weddings, graduations, and other formal occasions. The association of red with “immoral” women was well-established for years and years. Remember the scene from “Gone with the Wind” where Scarlett finally gives up all pretense of respectability by going to a party wearing a red dress? Red, white and black are, of course, colors associated with goddesses all over the world. Fortunately and perhaps not coincidentally, red is now considered to be a “power color” and one that all job applicants should wear somewhere and black and white also have a power of their own as they are more commonly worn.

Clothing taboos have always divided women by class, making it possible to know exactly what strata of society a woman was from by looking at her clothing. Rich women from more aristocratic classes not only had better clothing, but also clothing for a wide variety of formal and informal events. Of course, being wealthy has not meant that women were more personally powerful, but by having women dress differently, it certainly helped keep them from seeing how they as a group lacked power and doing something about it. Dressing outside your assigned class has been taboo (“who does she think she is?”), as is mixing pieces of clothing from different class styles. How many times have you see any woman wear khakis and a silk jacket with pearls to a business meeting? When I was a teen, the owner of a consignment once gave me the fashion advice to wear rhinestone pins with my plain flannel workshirts. At the time I thought that was trendy, but maybe it is a statement about women’s unity as well.

Let’s talk hair. Traditionally, long, unbound hair has been considered to be powerful in itself. Medusa comes to mind. Young women were allowed to have such hair, but as soon as women began to come into their power as they grew up, taboos required binding it. Even now older women are supposed to cut off their long hair altogether and certainly never leave it long and loose. Gray hair, which could be considered to be a sign of wisdom, must be colored and covered up. Makes you want to keep your natural gray and let it grow long, just to see what happens, doesn’t it?

What about jewelry? We can see from ancient tombs of powerful women that those folks liked jewelry and had a lot of it. They seemed to wear tons of the stuff all at the same time. No one who studies the qualities of various metals and gemstones will be surprised that jewelry, especially beadwork, is supposed to carry a kind of spiritual power in itself. Too bad that real “ladies” are supposed to wear a piece or two only, unless they are royalty or really rich, that should match. And why is it that we aren’t supposed to wear two different kinds of metals or gemstones at the same time? Could it be that if we wear as much jewelry as we like we might just feel a power we are not meant to?

Ignoring society’s little taboos is certainly a statement of personal freedom, but I also wonder if it may also be a bit more. When something is repressed for centuries, it almost seems to gather energy over the centuries, just waiting for women to rediscover it. Breaking a clothing taboo feels fresh and new, a step into the future, simply because I have rarely dressed that way before. When I wear red, I not only enjoy the color itself, but it seems to hold the vibrant energy that I also sense in mixing up styles, wild hair, far too much jewelry and other broken taboos.

Maybe clothing taboos aren’t the only ones that are worth breaking. If we broaden our sights and think of other things that are considered not quite right for no real reason, perhaps we will find other avenues to power. One post that many readers seemed to feel a connection to is about being a hermit. Our society praises and encourages extroverts and discourages those who are more thoughtful and solitary. It isn’t hard to see why – if you think too much you may begin to think for yourself. Being by yourself, meditating and contemplating yourself and life is essential to the kind of self-knowledge that leads to inner illumination.

People who enjoy the night rather than daytime, who prowl around in the dark, are also considered not quite reputable. Now, let’s see, what is out at night that isn’t in the daytime? Oh, that’s right, the moon, that potent symbol of women’s spiritual power in the west. If we go and bathe in her mysterious, enlightening light, what mischief might we get into?

Can it really be this simple? Can we really uncover reservoirs of our own power just by doing those things we aren’t supposed to? Probably not. But they can help us recognize the hundreds of ways that women’s power is taken away, bit by bit. As we can see by how quickly red has been embraced as a power color, releasing the force of a taboo can be very freeing. Give it a try. Next I’ll be wearing white shoes after Labor Day…

I’ve been very kindly invited to be part of a synchroblog that is blogging this month on the topic of duality.  Other participants are listed at the bottom.  The entries I have read are phenomenal and I encourage you to read them.  These are my thoughts on how the way we look at the world – whether too much in terms of  such traditional dualities as good versus evil or perhaps in a way that does not recognize the value of opposites — affects our ability to respond to everyday situations in an effective and positive way.  Most people see duality and other such models as descriptions of the universe that are true or not, unchangeable and outside of our control. This blog is all about seeing the spirituality in everyday life, the practical side of things, especially as it relates to ordinary women’s lives.  I won’t be talking about extreme events like genocides or hate crimes — though these are unfortunately too much a part of life for too many people — but the kinds of situations that arise in most people’s everyday lives.  So, let’s change our way of thinking, be our powerful selves, and choose how we want to see the world at any particular time.

I would like to give a gift to each reader of this blog post.  It isn’t an actual gift that you can hold in your hands, but rather one to keep in your imagination until you need it.  It is a kaleidoscope.  Turn the wheel and you can move from seeing any situation from a traditional dualistic point of view, especially one where everything can be categorized using such judgmental labels as good or evil, to a perspective that values everyone and everyday life as sacred and creative in its own way. Turn it the other way and the opposites in life come into clearer focus.

In my experience, almost nothing is as destructive in everyday situations than for people to take morally dictated, absolute stances.  “That act is sinful.”  “What you said is unforgivable.” “Making that choice is immoral.”  These may not be the words used, but the meaning is the same, and it is not just one group or those with a particular viewpoint who practice this.  Some of the people I have heard voice such stances would be called conservative fundamentalists, others would consider themselves to be liberal and free-thinking.  Dividing the world into two – good versus bad or evil, worthy versus unworthy, sinful and holy, enlightened or ignorant – is a way of looking at the world, not a particular philosophy of life. And please let me reiterate again that there are some extreme actions that deserve labels like “evil” — but I’m talking about the things that happen in everyday life that may rightly or wrongly cause irritation or disagreement, but not much more. 

I doubt I need to express what happens when people think this way unnecessarily – positions get entrenched, relationships get severed, people become ostracized, tiny misunderstandings become lifelong feuds.  I have known parents who have not spoken to adult children for decades because of a fight no one can even remember anymore. I’ve seen young teenagers tossed out onto the street for choosing the wrong boyfriend or girlfriend even though they will likely be onto someone else within a couple of weeks.  I’ve heard a mother say that her daughter deserved to be killed if she attended a protest rally she disagreed with.

Unfortunately, in our culture, taking these stances is often considered to be a sign of moral strength.  The more situations you can find to take an absolute stance on, the more righteous you must be.  The more unwavering you are in your feeling of superiority over whomever you consider to be the wrongdoer, the better human being you are.  I know I do it everyday. Maybe you do it, too. 

Let’s put this kind of thinking away for a moment and turn the kaleidoscope so that we look at situations through the lens of valuing everyone’s sacredness and creative uniqueness.

First of all, overdone moral indignation fades right away when everyone is considered to be first and foremost sacred and unique. You can’t put someone into a box when their inherent value as a human being far overshadows any label on that box.  Your family member or friend becomes a wonderful, fascinating human being who may disagree with you or say something she or he shouldn’t have, but who is not an alien being who is evil or immoral. 

When we stop considering everyday actions to be part of great battles such as those over good and evil or morality and immorality, we see that most things that happen are just one of many interactions or events that we will encounter every day.  Most times people are just being their imperfect selves or doing the best that they can rather than aligning themselves with heaven or the forces of evil. If we haven’t placed an action or a person in a context that requires an extreme response but just reacted to the situation itself, we can then just let it go or perhaps even appreciate the courage of the action, even if we don’t agree with it.  Often, this will then let in compassion and understanding, even improve the relationship.  Usually an argument is just an argument, a child’s romantic partner is just another person, and a protest is just a legitimate expression of freedom of speech. 

When we look at life as a creative journey, we can view most situations as a positive stop forward because of the lessons learned even if they involve behavior we may not like.  We can forgive if that is the appropriate response.  More importantly, we can look at our own emotional reactions and consider what they say about our own attitudes that may need to be changed.  Maybe the person who started the family argument is right.  Maybe objecting to an adult child’s romantic partner tells us that we need to see people in a less stereotypical way. Maybe seeing our child on the evening news should prod us to look at our own views.

These are just a few of the ways that removing the perspective of dualism can help resolve many everyday situations.

But, sometimes duality also has its place.  Many aspects of our world do seem to be opposites – male and female, north and south, hot and cold, and more.  Without these dualities, we would not exist and our world would be monotonous and stagnant.  Imagine a world of only day, or winter, or only one gender.  Duality is Divinity’s way of stirring things up and bringing a little energy to the world.

When you find yourself becoming very, very comfortable, perhaps it is time to turn the kaleidoscope the other way and invite in some opposites.  It is so easy to surround ourselves with people who are just like us and place ourselves in situations in which we know just what to do because we’ve done it a million times before.  But, when I do that, my life quickly takes on a lethargy – I am bored, nothing is interesting, the things I create are lifeless and routine.  When I invite something into my life that is an opposite of what I am comfortable with, my life becomes intriguing again – when I spend time with people who don’t agree with me, when I buy clothes in a color that I would not normally wear, when I write characters into my stories who I don’t understand well enough to predict what they will do.  One story I love to tell is when I was part of a council of a women’s spirituality organization and we met with a businessperson.  The businessperson lamented that she hadn’t known that she was supposed to wear purple.  We looked around and – yep – every single one of us was wearing something purple.

I know of almost nothing that is as magical as simply looking at a situation differently, whether less or more dualistically. Sometimes an answer to a problem will become immediately clear or a creation will get some instant pizzazz.  Most often, though, the experience of simply going outside the ideas we’ve always held makes us into a person who is wiser and who can think more freely and innovatively.  Once you use your kaleidoscope a couple of times you will no longer need it, you will be able to zero in and find the right point of view all by yourself.

For more points of view, visit these blogsites that are participating in the Duality Synchroblog.

Between Old and New Moons
Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism
Aquila Ka Hecate
Full Circle News
Mythphile
Frontiers of Wonder
Women and Spirituality
Paleothea
Quaker Pagan Reflections
Pitch 313
Executive Pagan
Druid’s Apprentice
Druid Journal
Dance of the Elements
Stone Circle
Manzanita, Redwoods and Laurel
When Isis Rises
Religion Think
Dreambuilders

This past week I traveled back to New York City, where I had lived in my 20s, for the first time since I left.  While I was there, I visited the Museum of Natural History, where I had first experienced a worldview that included women as sacred.  Back in the 80s, Diane Wolkstein had brought her performance of the Inanna story from ancient Sumer there.  I didn’t know it then, but that may be the closest I will ever come to experiencing an ancient religious rite involving a female deity.  Thousands of years ago, the celebrations and ceremonies frequently included re-enactments of stories about goddesses like Inanna. 

When I unpacked after I returned home, I took my jewelry out of a little silk bag and put back into it a mirror that had been sent to me by my friend Marione.  I had written a story in which one of the characters shows another her reflection in a mirror as part of a ritual and Marione sent me that gift in response.  After I wrote the story, I found out that this is indeed one of those spiritual acts that have been done by priestesses for millennia all over world. Once again, a modern woman had enriched my life by acting as a priestess.

What if we were all to take it upon ourselves as a sacred duty to act as priestesses for each other?  We live in a world in which women do not see themselves as worthy and are treated as soulless objects by others, leaving us subject to violence, abuse, and exploitation with horrendous results for women and all of society. To me, as I study the functions that priestesses held in ancient times and witness what seems to be lacking in our world, a priestess is anyone who reflects back to others her own sacredness and who heals.  When we forget that we are sacred and others are also, we open the door to violence, abuse, and exploitation.  When we heal, we make ourselves and other whole and bring ourselves and others back into the web of all being.

Everyone has her own way of being a priestess, but here are the ways that I have thought of to bring this essential function to our everyday lives:

Make every job that of being a priestess.  One common thread among the women I know who I would consider “priestessly” is that they view their jobs – whether as a checker at Walmart, a teacher, a nurse, an administrator, or a stay-at-home mom – as a means to show others that they are sacred.  They do whatever they do in a way that responds to each person they encounter as unique, important, and worthy.  With their family and friends, they encourage dreams, listen to ideas and opinions, mend broken self-respect.  They provide opportunities for others to find the sacred in themselves by letting them take chances, by allowing the other person to take care of the priestess as well as the other way around, by listening with genuine interest as people talk about their lives and burdens.

Our lives are the stuff of the sacred.  What happens to us everyday is just as valuable, more really, for wisdom and life lessons, as any ancient story.  Be a priestess by telling your stories, expressing your thoughts, giving others the benefit of what you have been through.  Your life, both the good and the bad, is a gift to you from the universe, and priestesses share what they have been given. 

Create beauty and celebrate the joy in life.  Music, dance, poetry, magnificent architecture and paintings have always been part of our spiritual experience whether in temples or churches or in rituals.  Something about beauty makes us into spiritual beings. So often our creative work is put on the back burner for what we may think of as more important things, like making a salary or fulfilling social obligations.  As a priestess, I will try to make creative endeavors a priority, maybe even blogging more often…

Finally, priestesses of old would often dress, speak, and behave like the goddesses who they celebrated.  To be a priestess, we must reflect whatever reflects the best within us, whatever that may be.  For many women, the most important aspect of this is expressing compassion for all those who come across their path.  They “hear the cries of the world,” as do so many goddesses and other female divine beings.  Maybe for me it is storytelling or making visions of the future.  Maybe today it will be one thing and tomorrow another.

Being a priestess everyday most likely won’t change much about what you do, but maybe it will change the way you perceive yourself and your role in it.  Maybe it will help you get through a tedious day at work, or re-evaluate what you see as important, or remind you in a new way that you are sacred and worthy of being treated as well as the highest spiritual leader. The Delphic oracle, the priestesses who dreamed healing visions at the Hypogeum, the women who over thousands of years have led their communities as spiritual leaders, they are all women just like we are, and, no matter who we are, we can be like them, too, everyday.  

Laughter can sometimes seem like flashes of sunlight off a river, a pane of glass, a crystal in a stone – all around me, but uncatchable, not for me.  When my days are too full and my mind is taut and my spirit weary, laughter can seem like a luxury that I do not have time for.  When I am sad or grieving, laughter can seem to be mocking me. 

Women are so often the victims of others’ laughter from the youngest age that laughter can seem like a weapon, something whose sightline we eventually escape when we are old enough to fend off the ridicule and shame with hard work and our self respect.  Our sense of responsibility for taking care of those in our family and friend circles, whether that means daily caregiving or preserving the Earth for all future generations, can make our days so heavy that the light of laughter cannot penetrate.  As recently as ten years ago, I used to be known for my infectious laughter, but each day it has become rarer and rarer.

But, in my memories of how I used to laugh, I remember that laughter is not a glimmer, but the sun’s fire itself.  It illuminates, warms, brings life.  Real laughter does not make fun of others or ourselves or present a picture of life that is gloomier than what we see.  Real laughter is silly and comes from what happens to us everyday and shows us ourselves and others with love.  Laughing at ourselves takes away the burden to be more than human.  Real laughter is a sacred gift that is as important to our spiritual journey as meditation or prayer or celebrations.

I remember that:

Real laughter is revolutionary.  Laughter breaks apart our illusions about the world and ourselves, the attitudes, assumptions, and fears.  When we laugh, our minds open to the world as if it were new and we can see what we did not before.  

Real laughter heals.  No matter what is wrong, it can be put in its place by laughter.  Laughter reminds us that we have laughed before and we will laugh again, even in our saddest moments.  Laughter takes us out of our moment of despair into an expanded world.

Real laughter binds us to one another by creating a moment that belongs to only you and the person with whom you are laughing; it creates an entire way of looking at the world that only you and the other person share.  Laughter signals that you understand one another and that the world is a good place to be.  Women’s laughter is intimate.

It is time that we reclaimed that kind of laughter, that we invite it into our lives, our speeches, our articles, our poetry, our stories, our celebrations, and our homes.  When we laugh together, we are invincible as we face either for our own challenges or help others.

Today I pledge to:

At least consider taking myself less seriously next time I am faced with a tough situation.

Try to quote Monty Python at least twice a day.

When I think about the sacred in my home and life, always remember laughter.

Laugh really hard when my son tells me something funny that happened to him, even if I don’t get it.

Make at least one close friend in emotional pain laugh this week.

Go to the library and take out a funny book to read (has Fannie Flagg written anything new this year?)

What about you?

Whether it is astronomical convergences, or historical cycles, or just coincidence, these past few months have seemed to be time of galactic change in the lives of many people I know.  Whatever the cause, upheaval, forced truth-facing, losing one life and embarking on a new one, emotional anarchy, creative excitement and inspiration, initiations and rebirths – all these and more have burst through my daily life and those of so many others in my circles. At the same time, national and global transition seems to be a part of the very air we are breathing. 

This image of a violent storm, a ripping away into rawness before a new life can occur, has sometimes seemed like the only way real and deep rebirth can happen, or maybe that is just how it has been envisioned in the culture I grew up in. I usually love a great storm.  I have been known to walk through the eye of a hurricane, to stand outside in a lightning storm so that I can experience the electricity in the air all around me, to rush outside when the wind is blowing down trees and power lines in order to feel the earth’s power.  But, at this moment in my life, I want peace and gentleness.  I crave rest and calm.  I want to be a part of the future, but I want to get there differently.

Perhaps we can choose how we experience transformational moments like these. My image of times like these has always been of that gigantic storm causing the land we live on to break up, dissolving into the ocean. We fall into the deep water and sink down, down to the depths where all and only truth lies, where we battle our ten thousand demons and then, eventually, begin our swim back to the surface where the whole universe is roiling and making tsunamis that wash away all that has ever been built.  Eventually the chaos subsides and we wash up, exhausted and wounded, onto a newly made self, where we begin the cycle again.

It takes great courage to be part of this intensely powerful surge, to face all that awaits us under the storming sea and then to ascend again like Inanna coming up from Hades.  But this image focuses on the going-away, the death, aspect of that moment of transition between the old and the new. It assumes that we naturally hold onto what is no longer needed, or no longer in existence, until it is ripped from us or we sever it from ourselves.  What if we paid less attention to the fear of the unknown and the insecurity that makes a trauma out of leaving behind the past?  What if we talked as much about what happened to Inanna when she came back from Hades as her journey there?  What if we simply walked away from what is no longer a part of us and instead imagined strolling onto the shore of our new lives in joyful expectation and celebrating all that is waiting for us there?  What if we push aside the worldview that change must come from conflict and destruction and replace it with one of inevitable but peaceful turnings, the way the earth moves around the sun? 

But of what will I build my new life if all around me is turning to dust?  I will build it of the only thing I truly own – my faith that I have been made to be exactly who I am and that where I will end up is precisely where I am meant to be. So, instead of abandoning those parts of myself and my life that no longer fit, I will honor all they have done for me and remake them into what I do need, whether it is self-destructive anger turned to determination or meekness made into contemplative wisdom. I will be able to leave behind situations and people who harm me without fear because I will have the strength and hopefulness to find new companions and opportunities. I will nourish my everyday self with healthy food, and sleep, and times of fun and enjoyment and merriment, and solitude and company.  I will make sure that I am happy.  When I walk out onto the shore, I will expect beauty and kindness to be all around me, and what I don’t discover, I will create, for why else would I have landed here?

Not only will I make a different way of experiencing these times for myself, but I will make it my task to make such a way for others also.  When I come across someone who is struggling in the ocean, I will be extra nurturing.  I will listen with intensity and nourish them with food and opportunities to celebrate.  I will lend them my spyglass so that they, too, can see the new lands arising from the tempest. 

Perhaps I will be one of a new profession, that of midwife to those who are participating in this re-creation of themselves and our world.  Maybe I will make it my job to be of comfort to those who are more directly in the middle of the maelstrom so that they can do what they need to do for themselves and others.  I will place vases of flowers around their birthing room and open the windows to the fresh winds that blow.  I will remind those who are in the throes of these moments that they have not been tossed into the ocean without help or a compassionate witness. We will walk out onto the shore shoulder-to-shoulder and experience the stillness of the morning that so often comes after a storm.  We will talk about taking care of ourselves, of not burdening ourselves with what we have left behind in the ocean, of giving ourselves time to be amazed and enchanted with our new lives.  We will re-envision transformation as the joy of building rather than the pain of tearing down and leaving behind.  I think maybe that is who I am and what I am supposed to be doing. Together we will see the land of our transformed lives as a paradise and then it will be one. 

The older I get, the more I love the snow.  This winter, as more snow has fallen than in almost any winter on record, I hated what it did to the convenience in my life at first.  But now I see that each flake is a kiss from the hag, the Spirit of Winter, the old woman who presides over the deepening times of life, whenever they may occur.  She blesses us as we struggle with truths that become visible in the stark bone essence of the winter landscape, whether of the environment or of our souls.  She is the midwife of necessary endings and promises the hope of beginnings, however much they may or not be welcomed.  

Whether you are in the spring of life or nearing its end, snow has a message for you, for we all have times when we need the blessings of the Winter Hag.  She could leave us to our fates, but instead, like the good Mother that She is, she is present and makes herself known in these tiny drops of water, the very substance of life.

Snow is healing – it calms and quiets.  It has a soothing wisdom that does not proclaim, but instead drifts silently into consciousness, like a first snowfall on the grass.  When we are aching from loss, snow shows us how to be a balm for ourselves and others.

Snow honors and comforts the poorest.  Its beauty is for all.  It makes next spring’s crops grow as it brings nutrients to the soil of every farmer.   No one’s sorrows or needs, even our own, are too meager for snow’s ministrations.

Snow demands respect.  If its power in an avalanche or blizzard is ignored or belittled, its destruction can be devastating.  But these maelstroms are part of the earth and its atmosphere, just as upheaval is necessary in our own lives at times.  Snow requires us to honor all aspects of Her nature, and we learn that we must also honor our own. 

Snow knows how to be solitary – the single flake wafting down from the sky – and also one of many as a storm.  Especially in times of emotional winter, we must be alone to meet ourselves but also be able to then re-emerge into the company of others and begin to live again.

If you are lucky enough to live where it snows, go outside the next time the Hag of Winter breathes her blessings upon you.  Let her surround and embrace you with her cooling, strengthening, mysterious presence.  Learn from her.  If you live in a warmer climate, seek her anyway.  She is there for you.

Winter seems to be the time for celebrations.  All over the world, people focus on festivities around both the Winter Solstice and then the Spring Equinox.  These are the celebrations of the Great Mysteries — the coming of the Light, the birth of Diety,  magnificent miracles, overcoming death – that happen in the realms beyond our everyday senses, in the great cosmos, as we watch from below in awe and wonder.  I enjoy these holidays, but they always seemed a bit too far above my day-to-day life for me to really understand and be an essential part of.

Imbolc, which falls between the two celebratory seasons on February 2, always seemed to me to be a somewhat outdated holiday.  In the Celtic cultures in which it was celebrated, it was the early spring holiday when the lambs began to be born and the first plants began pushing up through the soil.  Where I live, it occurs in the deepest of winter, when the snow is three feet deep and the first crocuses are almost three months away.  

But, if we look at it differently, perhaps it could become a third holiday that celebrates the Mysteries that occur in everyday life, the “kitchen mysteries” that do not originate in the heavens, but on earth; that we help create with what we always do after getting up in the morning everyday; that are not celebrated with global festivities, but at our breakfast tables and in our gardens. 

Though I cannot see the seeds of rebirth preparing to bud, it is happening all the same in this most basic manifestation of the Great Mystery of the coming of the renewal of life, of light’s return, of the earth and Divine joining to make the world anew.  This coming back to life or into life occurs each day as our children grow from babies into full-grown adults with lives, spirits, and personalities of their own.  I see it in all of our creative endeavors that begin with the smallest of ideas and transform into books, paintings, quilts, organizations or businesses, and so many things.

Perhaps we can make Imbolc a time to celebrate those Mysteries in our everyday lives the same way we do the other holidays, with decorations, foods, and activities that symbolize the message of this time.  Just as we begin to prepare for those other holidays for weeks, I plan to get ready for Imbolc starting now.  What might we do to honor those seeds of so many things that are the bridge between the winter and spring, a wasteland and abundance, the old and the new?

I have already begun watering a planter full of crocus bulbs and their little heads peeked through the soil yesterday.  If I had enough light in my house, I would plant more seeds for flowers, vegetables and herbs.  What can you begin to plant?

We can make an Imbolc mix of seeds, nuts, and dried fruits to put out for snacks during these weeks ahead.  We can serve meals to ourselves and our families that are high in nutrients, full of the life of the seed as it prepares for its journey to the upper world, and that are full of the spirit of the earth.  These might include more seeds, lentils, beans, root vegetables and, to celebrate the coming abundance, grains.

We can read or listen to a retelling of the story of Innana. This story is, to me, a perfect Imbolc tale because it recreates the journey of soul to the underworld where she is purified and made wise so that she can re-emerge into the earth better able to serve. 

We can find ways to nurture children and help them bring forth their own inner powers. We can spend more time with our own children or others for whom we have caregiving responsibilities, asking more questions about their interests and dreams. We can volunteer or donate to organizations that work for children with special needs, education, or other similar causes.  We can share our skills and experience to benefit children who may come across our paths at this time and throughout the year.

We can spend some time doing at least one creative project that has lain dormant for whatever reason.  It may be writing about a subject that scares us.  It may be trying some new media – if you are a writer, paint; if you bead, make something out of clay; if you are a singer, try cooking.

This new kind of Imbolc is a holiday that you can make your own.  What does it mean to you and what would you like it to be?

The myth of Demeter and Persephone, as it is generally retold, goes something like this:

Persephone, the maiden daughter of the Earth Goddess Demeter, was joyfully picking flowers with her friends when Hades kidnapped her and took her to his Underworld realm.  Demeter wandered the earth in despair seeking her daughter, rendering the land barren so that the people starved and the gods and goddesses of Olympus had to do  without their sacrifices.  Finally, the gods and goddesses decreed that Persephone would return to her mother, but only if she had not eaten of the food of the underworld.  But, alas, Hades had tempted her and she had eaten pomegranate seeds.  Thus, she was forced to remain the Underworld, Hades’ captive wife, for four months of the year – winter – when the land would be bare and desolate, but come back to earth the other eight when Demeter would again make the land fruitful.

I have always loved and hated this story.  It is full of violence against women and the Earth is the unwilling object to be abundant or not at the gods and goddesses’ whim. Yet it also has a beauty and meaning that always eluded, yet attracted me.  Because it was written down millennia ago, this is the story that we hear.  Of course, it is not the only version.  In other renditions of it, Persephone journeys to the Underworld of her own accord and, with her mother, is a powerful goddess of life and death and rebirth.  How different the story and its meaning for women becomes when we change just a few things here and there.

Let us begin to think differently about our stories.  Instead of myths, folktales and other stories that have grown up by the retelling over time being frozen at the moment they were written down, maybe we can think of stories differently.  Maybe these stories belong to each of us, ordinary women and men, and it is our right and our gift from our ancestors, to reinterpret them to meet our own needs from generation to generation.  Many times I feel as if there are no myths or folktales that speak to me – they relate to lives long ago and few have come along that truly enlighten and inspire my own life.  Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here is another version of the Persephone and Demeter tale.

Persephone was the maiden daughter of the powerful Earth Goddess Demeter.  She and her mother loved one another dearly, and her mother knew that the time had come for her daughter to become the woman she was meant to be, in all her strength and wisdom and bright joy.  Demeter also knew that it was time for humans and the Earth they lived on to evolve, too.  Humans lived in eternal summer, with abundant food and shelter, but no time to think, to contemplate and create, to honor that within themselves that was deep and rich.  Demeter was deeply bereft to give up her daughter to her daughter’s destiny, but she knew that she had no choice.   

So, Demeter called Persephone to her and told her it was time for her to go on an important journey.  She was to sojourn to the Underworld and become a part of it.  She was to be the link between the upper world of light, activity, and outward growth and the underworld of darkness, thought and inner enrichment.  Through Persephone, humans would learn to become not just the willing servants of the gods and goddesses, but creative and immortal in their ability to think beyond their daily lives and become like the gods and goddesses. 

Persephone willingly ventured down to the Underworld, though her heart was filled with sadness at leaving her mother and the beauty of the Upperworld and fear at what she would find in the Underworld.  When she arrived, however, she met and fell in love with Hades, whose realm she had entered.  In time, he brought her the gifts of the pomegranate, that fruit of fertility and holiness, and She brought him the joy and  pleasure of the Upperworld.  Yet, Persephone knew that her destiny was not to live in the Underworld all the time either.  So, again with grief at leaving her new-found partner, she returned to the Upperworld and come to a decision with her mother about what to do. Together with Demeter and a willing earth, Persephone and Hades helped bring the world into balance, with Persephone spending a third of her time in the Underworld and two-thirds in the Upperworld, in correct proportion for the Earth to allow humans to both be nourished through the fruits of the land and to dive deep into the restful contemplative cave of their own souls.  And so it is even to our own time.

I like that version much better and what does it teach us?  That women are powerful, that mothers and daughters and women and men together can remake the world, that love creates balance, that we must face our fears and put aside our own sadness at times to fulfill our destiny, that we must both celebrate the abundance of our time in the light and honor the nurturance of our time in the dark, and that we are like the goddesses of old if we will just recognize and use our talents and strengths. 

This is my story of Persephone and Demeter and it belongs to me, an ordinary woman of the 21st century, just as much as to any ancient author or contemporary scholar.  What is your favorite myth or folktale and how do you tell it?

I love reading what search terms people use to find my blog.  A day or two ago, someone searched on “being a hermit in everyday life.”  I had actually been thinking of writing a post on this, but never did because I didn’t think anyone but me would be interested.  So, this is for that reader that searched for this post before it was written.  I hope you are still around and like this post, created for you but with the anticipation that if you and I want to be hermits, maybe others do, too…

From the time I was little, I wanted to be a hermit.  My life’s goal was always to live by myself in a little cabin on a mountainside, spending my days gazing at the sky, gathering herbs and flowers, and writing pieces that I would somehow send out into the world without leaving my cabin (kind of like blogging on a computer!).  Of course, it hasn’t worked out that way.  Being a hermit has not been considered to be an appropriate career choice for several hundreds of years.  In fact, I think that hermitry fell out of favor at just about the same time as women have been persecuted for being healers and witches, oddly enough, or not.

To me, being a hermit does not mean being anti-social or even just going to live by yourself, Thoreau-like.  It means being the stillpoint around which the rest of the world revolves.  A hermit is someone who makes a mission of being in that place of solitude and contemplation where the voice of all beings and the earth can be clearly heard, where what is really happening and the intentions of people and institutions are obvious, where visions come to land like so many crows on a tall tree and where the future is not commanded by the past, where creativity flows and can be imbibed with your morning tea. 

Being a hermit means is a courageous calling because it means sacrificing the security of being part of society, however painful that may be at times.  It is waking up every morning without a day’s worth of activities to distract you from whatever you need to face in yourself at that moment.  Being a hermit means actually believing that thoughts are things and have value, that contemplating goodness and beauty can make it come about, that the human mind is a thing of value apart from the economic goods it may command the body to produce.

In short, a hermit is the status quo’s worst nightmare.  Can you imagine an entire profession of people whose job it is to think clearly apart from the strictures of society?  Who are not beholden to the community for basic necessities?  Who do not care if they are thought of well by others?  Who can look at themselves in the mirror each morning without fear or regret because they are accustomed to seeking out their true selves every day?  No wonder you cannot major in hermitry at universities and there is no way to make your living from being one.

In fact, it is almost impossible for most women to be hermits in today’s world.  We have family responsibilities to parents or others even if we have no children.  Most of us marry. We do not make the kind of incomes that allow us to save enough to be financially independent early in life.  We are taught to distrust our instincts and our thoughts and not to look too deeply into ourselves. 

Yet, hermits are needed now more than ever.  We need people who see clearly and are willing to speak about what they witness.  We require envisioners to help us steer clear paths to a kinder and ecologically sustainable world.  The re-emergence of the Sacred Feminine gives me hope that, perhaps in our grand-daughters time at least, we will love and nurture our hermits.  Hermitry is a talent that will be valued when action is not considered the only way to solve a problem, when power comes from integrity within and not only the ability to coerce others, when people are valuable for their sacredness within rather than their economic benefit to others.

Still, if we see being a hermit as a way of looking at the world rather than a way of living, we can still be hermits.  We can make time for solitude and contemplation in our lives and not give it away everytime someone asks to do something for them.  We can make an effort to make decisions and witness people and events in a way that relates only to our values instead of what is considered valuable by society.  We can spend time in prayer, or contemplation, or meditation, or simply having faith, and genuinely believe that these are activities that change what happens in the outside world and are worth doing. 

I am a hermit and I always will be.  Solitariness is what comes natural to me.  It is something I have fought all my life because preferring to be alone was always somehow a bad thing, an indication of something wrong with me.  Today, I choose to be a hermit, a time-honored, valuable way of being. 

When I am lost, I wander.  When I feel as if I am at a crossroads and don’t know which way to go, or if I find that the road I have been on has ended with no directions as to  where to go next, or when I am empty of creative ideas or simply unsure of what to do in a situation, I begin to look around.  If it is pleasant outside, I take a walk without knowing where I am going or when I will return.  If I need to stay inside, I find the byways of my home and travel them, whether the internet, or taking a look at what is in my bookcase that I have forgotten, or maybe I’ll even clean out a closet. 

I always anticipate that an answer will come at least within several days of wandering.  It almost never takes more than an hour or two.  Within that time, something I see in my house will spark an idea or understanding, or an email will arrive with an idea, or the solution will simply come upon me like divine inspiration.  Sometimes what I receive is a response to a specific problem.  Sometimes it is just a small miracle that reminds me that life is so much more than I ever perceive day to day.

Once on one of my walkabouts in the neighborhood, I came upon this place that is no more than ten minutes walk from the house I have lived in for 20 years, yet I never saw it till I stopped looking for someplace else.

Why is wandering such a wonderful, if lost, art?  When you wander, you change your attitude from one of frustration that you are not in control to one of openness, wonder and trust.  When you are determined to go from “point A” to “point B” and you have lost your way in getting there, you have already pre-determined that “point B” is where you should be and that you should be able to get there if all were right with the world.  What if “point C” is really a much better place?  The universe contains an infinite number of “points” that it would take a lifetime to explore, so perhaps heading single-mindedly towards only one is rather short-sighted.

When you wander, you are almost sure to find something to inspire, to enlighten, to give joy.  Instead of demanding only one thing, you are saying that you love the essence of many things in the universe, just because they exist and have been created by Goddess, and are waiting for Her to place something new and delightful in your path.  As Darryl Zero, a Sherlock Holmes-like character played by Bill Pullman in the movie “Zero Effect” says, when you look for something, you may not find it; when you look for anything, you are sure to find it. 

When you wander, you are expressing a trust that you are a valued part of the universe and that you will receive what you need from it, even if you are surprised at what your gift is.  We humans have control over almost nothing.  We like to think we have complete control over everything, but, in fact, everything we love and consider ourselves to be could disappear in one instant of a car accident or some other catastrophic event.  When we realize this, we can choose to live in fear of every moment or we can choose to live in trust.   We can believe and act on the belief that even when we have had taken from us everything that gave us meaning and direction, there is, in fact, meaning and direction for our lives if we will be open enough to let it come upon us. 

Wandering is a way of nature, whether it be expressed as a river or a canyon, or a galaxy expanding, or driftwood floating hundreds of miles on the ocean, or a mind that is watching a sunrise over a lake on a summer day.  Rays of light, flocks of birds, and other natural phenomena may have their lines and pathways, but they are not the only ways of the universe.  When we wander, we are being like those creations that seek their food every day in the forest, here and there. However, instead of a meal, we seek enlightenment and wisdom.  The more we wander in open wonder and trust, the more we find, and the more understanding we have of this amazing universe that has been given by Goddess to us to enjoy and make better by our presence.

I was just sent a fun meme game by Aerolin in which you are supposed to write 26 things about yourself using the alphabet.  Well, since I love to change rules, I’m going to write instead about 26 things in which  I find Goddess around the house.  Here goes!

A is for apple, that fruit so plentiful at this time of year that it is a perfect symbol of the abundance of Goddess.

B is for basement, the “hermit cave” of my house, that dark warm spot that was scary in childhood, but that I now see as the place of quiet and contemplation, the heart of the home.

C is for cape.  I’ve decided that every woman needs a flowing, billowing, brightly- colored cape to be her wings and to announce her presence to the world wherever she goes.  I have a bright red and purple ruanna from Ireland that I think will need to suffice for right now.

D is for dandelion, that flower that almost no one remembers is full of vitamins and other nutrients and, if it weren’t so common, would be a garden favorite because it is so pretty and cheerful.  The more I look for Goddess around my house, the more I think that perhaps we stopped appreciating Her when we no longer valued things we encountered everyday.  

E is for egg, an outer world symbol of all that is creative and fertile within us.

F is for feline, my black cat who brings some of the wild freedom of nature into my home and who is my constant companion, proof that species is no barrier to caring and understanding.

G is for goodies, of the cakes, cookies, and candy kind.  Remember, in many cultures it has been traditional to make “cakes for the Queen of Heaven” not “plain brown rice and tofu for the Queen of Heaven.”  Brown rice and tofu has an important place in our diet, but goodies do, too, to remind us of the sweetness of life and that Goddess wants us to enjoy living.

H is for Heaven which, if I have my way, will look just like my house, because that’s where I find it.

I is for ice cream.  If I were Goddess – well, we are all Goddess, but you know what I mean – I would say “thank you for the cakes, but I would prefer ‘ice cream for the Queen of Heaven.’ A prime example of co-creation – She made the cows and the sugar cane and the flavorings and the ice and we put them all together to make the perfect food.

J is for Jupiter, the planet.  Just because it is billions of miles away doesn’t mean it is not part of my home.  When I recognize the sacred within myself, I am at home anywhere.

K is for kindness, a virtue too often thought of as nice but not as good as strength or power or even love.  But, kindness is the one thing that makes a house a home and that which will, in my view, transform the world because understanding its essential importance changes how we interact with one another everyday.

L is for love, of course.

M is for music.  Music is spirit that you can hear and feel.

N is for necessary evils, like housework, that become sacred acts when you forget you are supposed to hate them and, instead, find the symbolic and ceremonial in them.

O is for open pit barbecue.  As a vegetarian, I don’t really barbecue, but for those who do, this is about as close to a home-based ancient Goddess fire ritual as you can get, I would think.

P is for peppermint, a wonderful reminder that Goddess has provided remedies for so many ailments in our own gardens.  She does not want us to suffer, but knows that when She gave us bodies, illness would come, too, because that’s part of being in the physical world. 

Q is for questioning, an activity that is essential for a Goddessy life, since this is how we grow as we are meant to.  Home is a wonderful place to question because it is safe and full of love as we experiment and try out different answers.

R is for running and the fun of watching my cat bound around the house, bringing pure joy in living into my home.

S is for snow.  It is so abundant and so beautiful, though few crystals will ever be seen.  Whenever I see it snow, I know Goddess loves me and that it is up to me to express gratitude by being as gentle with others as a snowfall.

T is for teapots.

U is for the Universe, ever-present in even the smallest crystal of sugar or drop of water if I look hard enough.

V is for variegated leaves, yet another unnecessary beauty that illustrates the beauty all around us if we will just look.

W is for water.  How amazing that the substance that brought forth all life runs from my own faucets!  My house truly is a temple!

X is for my son’s X-Box and the expansion of consciousness that electronics can bring. 

Y is for you, those who read this blog and therefore make it live.

Z is for Xena, (I know that Xena is spelled with an “X” but I have already used “X” and it is pronounced like a “Z”) who brought Goddess-y women into our children’s lives through our tvs, who is strong and uses her power to fight for right, who can make a wonderful, wild sound, and who has many times given me the answer to a dilemma when I would ask myself “What would Xena do?” 

I tag foxchild one of the many women I have met blogging who I would like to know better!

The house that I live in is more than 150 years old; it was built in about 1850 as housing for workers in the textile mill down the street.  Everyday, when I put my clothes into bins under the bed because there are no closets or stuff the groceries into the cupboards that were built too small for our 21st century abundance, I am reminded that real women spent their lives within these walls, hauling water up the stairs, lighting woodstoves before the sun came up, sending children off to school or war, perhaps feeling content to have some measure of security and love or maybe crying with frustration at how restricted their lives were.  Before the house was built, it may have been an earlier colonist’s farmland and before that may have been a cornfield planted and tended by Algonquin women.  It may have even been the site of their homes. 

I’ve always been fascinated by learning about the women who lived before in the buildings where I reside.  No one lived before my family in the house where I grew up, but when I was in my 20s I moved to an unrenovated tenement building in the East Village of New York City.  It had been immigrant housing built around the turn of the century and I was able to find photographs of apartments just like mine from that time.  I came to feel a kinship with the women who had lived there and who, like me, had left home to find a new life in a strange place.  I believe it helped me feel more at home in NYC than I have ever felt anywhere.

Thinking about how bonded I feel with the women who lived in my present home and that tenement made me wonder about whether we should sometimes think about our kinships and lineage of place as well as of blood.  What if we thought of those who lived on the land where we now dwell as our ancestors, too, and all those who share it with us as our family?  

If we did, we might feel that we were part of a web of existence that includes not only the people who have lived on the land we share, but also the plants and animals and all other beings. Our sense of connection would go not only back in time and include not only people, but also all those who shared our environment with us. 

We might be less inclined to take up centuries-old grudges based on our blood heritage rather than work together to make where we live now a better place to be.

We might feel more responsibility to be a good steward of our spot on Mother Earth if it was how we defined our family and if we felt a familial obligation to those who would come after us.

Perhaps defining ourselves by our bloodline is a concept more in tune with the past, when it was important to know who should have inheritance and property rights and when some people, especially women and children, were more possessions than loved ones.  I believe that, in many ways, we are moving to a society where your family is who you love, not who shares your DNA.  By including in our family Mother Earth and all those who share the land we dwell on—past, present, and future—we can add another dimension of reverence for She who sustains us now just as surely as our blood families did when we were children.  We can declare our sisterhood with all those who have been nurtured by Her on the land where we are now.  We can always feel that we are not only with “family” but also that we are “home.”
 

Over the past couple of weeks death has come so often into my home it seems as if as if it lives here.  Among the deaths I have experienced have been that of a friend; a husband, an aunt, and an uncle of people I care deeply about; a grandchild and friends of people I know; even a family member’s pet.  At one of the funerals, I held a friend in my arms as she grieved, collapsed against me from the devastation of her mourning.  I tried to think of what I could say to bring comfort to this woman who had lost a lifetime love after having spent the past weeks seeing a healthy, vital man suffer needless, intense pain and finally be so weak and ravaged by cancer that he could do nothing for himself.  I reached into my own belief system for some words, but somehow telling her that his death was just part of the great wheel of life, death and rebirth just did not seem like it would do the trick.  Granted, I doubt that others’ words — that she should be happy that her husband was now in heaven and that he was called by God because he was a good churchgoing man — were of much help either.  I finally just shut up and held her until she let go; I think that was the right thing to do.

If the Great Wheel of Life is a bust when it comes to those moments when a spiritual salve are most needed, what is it good for?  It may be true, nature may work that way, but where is the comfort and sureness in the sense of deep truth that causes us to know that we are in line with the universe and that we are being who we are supposed to be, doing what we are supposed to be doing?  It is not only humans that grieve death, as anyone knows who has seen a dog or other animals react when a beloved companion is no longer in their lives.  If we are simply participating in a completely natural process that is a common part of all existence, shouldn’t it be easier?

After some pondering, I came to see the creation of the world as being in two parts.  First, the Creator made the mechanical aspect, the wheel of life, with its many layers of existence, the physical one being earth, but also those places where those who are outside of our existence, before birth or after death, dwell.  Then, when it was spinning round and round quite happily she blew love into the mechanism and gave the wheel meaning. Now it was no longer simply a machine, but a universe that was the home of beings of all kinds.  It had life and a purpose.  But, with love comes both joy and sorrow.  In fact, without love there is no joy or sorrow.  Love both exists within the wheel of life, as humans are born and die, but also outside of it, as love begins before birth and endures after it.  Love is like the electricity that makes the machine move and do meaningful things, but it exists outside of the machine.  Just because the wheel of life is part of nature does not mean that its consequences cannot cause grief.

In fact, love is its own kind of wheel of life, death and rebirth.  When I think of those people who have the deepest compassion, wisdom and understanding; who are able to bring comfort to others and make this world a better place to live, it is those who have experienced heartache who come to mind first.  When we have those we love in our lives, happy and healthy, we are in life.  When they die and we experience grief, an aspect of us dies, too.  We will never be the same people we were before we experienced our loss.  An aspect of ourselves is gone.  And then, over time, we come to live again, but in a different way.  We cherish each day and those who are still in our lives more.  We care about unimportant things less.  We see more joy and beauty where there was commonplace expectation that each day would be more or less like the last before.  We are reborn.

Wheels over wheels over wheels.  So many wheels of life, death, and rebirth in our lives.  It is not an answer, not a remedy, but a pattern that helps us to make sense of those elements of life that are most meaningful.  The next time I hold a grieving friend in my arms, I will hold her silently, not from confusion as to what to say, but knowing that I am helping to midwife her rebirth.
 

My lifelong relationship with food could be called dysfunctional at best; we just never seem to understand and support one another; we bicker a lot.  I am probably the most typical of typical 21st century American eaters, yet I have the same body image whether I weigh 125 or 150 pounds, and it isn’t good; whenever I am stressed, those oreos go straight down the gullet; I think of myself as being in constant battle with food either because I am too tired to make it when I am hungry, or I eat too much and feel bloated afterwards, or I feel guilty that some foods call to me and I have no power not to answer.  Oh, tiramisu, thou beast!

Yet, food and eating should be one of the truest ways to come to an understanding of our own sacredness and bond to Divinity.  In ancient times, Goddess and food, especially grain, were intimately connected.  Thousands of statues of goddesses have been found in grain bins and near bread ovens.  Goddess and Her altars were kept near the kitchen, near the heart of the family where, indeed, She belonged.  When some goddesses were angry, the crops would not grow and the people would starve.  We still, in many religions, sanctify our relationship with Divinity through ceremonies featuring bread.

However, once I enter into our kitchen or the nearest fast food restaurant, any sense of food as a sacred entity disappears for me.  Food becomes an object, something that we need, but yet we really wish we could do without because it can be so much trouble to make and to eat.  Then we have to deal with the effects of it on our bodies.  Even when I determined that I was going to be better to my body and eat only whole grains, keep sugar, caffeine, and salt to a minimum, and make meals of tofu and vegetables over brown rice – oh yum — it was still an adversarial relationship.  Food was a means to an end — that of better health — not a gift. 

Part of this comes, no doubt, from the moment of life I am in.  I work, I raise a family, I have obligations to my community and others.  Dinner is something to be made in 20 minutes or I will miss the opportunity to have my family eat together and serve them something relatively healthy before they rush out the door or to homework.  Breakfast gets five minutes and lunch is whatever I put into the freezer at work, to be eaten in between a constant stream of people coming into my office apologizing for interrupting my lunch as they sit down and start talking.  When I was young and single and had a job with little responsibility, I would buy fresh produce from stands along my way home and then cook and eat dinner slowly during the evening.  That must have been nice, but it was so long ago I don’t remember what it was really like.

But, perhaps the answer is to change my perspective, to see the divine not only within myself, but also within food, to see it as Mother Earth’s way of nourishing me, of welcoming me as an embodied being on this planet.  If I see food as divine, as an emanation of Goddess, then it makes sense to cherish every bit of it, to eat only what is closest to its divine state of being fresh and unprocessed and to eat only what I need to be as healthy as possible.  This is, I’m sure, how those ancient people viewed their food which had to be sown, grown, harvested, milled, and then baked by their own hands into bread.  They knew that food was life-giving because they had seen life end when it was not abundant.  If the grain they had stored over the winter gave out before the next harvest, they would starve, they could not go to Kroger’s for more. 

If I view each meal with this same sacredness, then I will eat what is best for my body, and just enough, so that my body will end up being just the right size, which is no doubt larger than our culture’s ideal. I would eat higher quality food, but only when I was hungry and never from stress or emotional need.  I would, in fact, say grace before each meal, something that I’m sure my great-grandparents, who were farmers, did, and they meant it. If food is sacred, I can still eat it quickly if I have to.  I can still find ways to prepare it fast in order to share it with my family, but what I make will be more deliberately prepared and served with love and patience.  I will  eat for pleasure, but only just enough, and not worry whether it will make me fat because my body image will be who I am when I am happy with myself, not what I wish to be.

If I had one wish for you who are reading this blog, it would be that sometime this week you would get to indulge in some homemade, whole grain bread with honey or jam or whatever you like on top.  Being the Nature Girl that I am, I will admit that I always think it’s a good idea to act in accordance with the seasons and this, if course, harvest time.  But, more than that, there is something elemental about fresh, homemade bread that nourishes us physically, emotionally, and spiritually, that reminds how deeply loved we are just for existing.  If I actually …  well…  you know…  lived nearby you…  I would fire up my bread machine and make you an apple cinnamon loaf.  Since I can’t, maybe sometime in the next few days you’ll come across some bread and have a slice and know that bread is the earth’s love song to us. Whenever you are sung a love song, listen to it for it is the staff of life.

I would love to be able seek spiritual happiness by spending months in the Andes or weeks in Sedona or Montana or western Massachusetts or going on a retreat in some ancient site or a spending a winter alone in a hermit hut someplace. Most of my spiritual contemplation happens in the car while I am driving my teen child to the mall.  So, I ask myself, “How do you discover the Sacred Within when it is all you can do not to throw a shoe out the window at the car that just cut in front of you?  When you don’t feel the powerful abundance of Goddess in your heart, but instead are so frazzled trying to cope with the details of your life that you forget your own name?   When all you want to do is nap instead of meditating on some ancient goddess and her place in your life story?”

I don’t know.  I really don’t.  Believe me, my life would be easier if I did.

I suppose I should stop here, but that would be a disappointing end to the entry.  So, I will just say that…  what a wonderful opportunity driving a  teen to the mall is to dive right into the full storm of the stuff of real life.  No soap opera could ever beat a single day of the life of a parent for drama, for unexpected triumphs and heartbreaks, for never-ending toil.  When you drive a teen to the mall, you learn to focus intensely on the present moment.  No trivial chatter clogs up your mind.  You couldn’t ruminate if you wanted to, but you do live.  You do enter into what it means to be human in an elemental way. 

When the Creator made the universe, She didn’t create perfection, but instead made the world full of bustle and mess and frustration and dirt.  You kind of get the feeling that that is how She likes life, because that is how life is in nature. When you watch a chipmunk or an eagle or a turtle, they are running here and there stuffing acorns in their cheeks or flying off with baby rabbits in their beaks or shoveling out their homes in the mud. There must be something sacred about hubbub if the Creator made so much of it.

So, maybe these years of active parenthood are actually a special time of life, a unique way of being with spiritual messages that we can only get by living this way for twenty years or so.  Perhaps we can only truly understand the gift that life is by spending a quarter of our lives in the nitty-gritty of getting someone else’s life off to a good start, by cleaning up the diapers and mashing up the peas.  It could be that we can only truly appreciate solitude when we have memories of our heads exploding from the constant clamor.  I think that we can only get a true sense of the task of Creation when we understand that the glory moment of turning on the sun is part of it, but so is hearing the cries of billions of humans in despair all at the same time.  Perhaps this is one way of entering into Goddess’s own work, of being at Her side in a way that is not possible through any other means.  And you don’t even have to travel to another continent, or even across the street.

My dream is that, at some time in the future, violence will be so rare that it would seem strange to write about it in a blog about the sacred feminine in everyday life.  Unfortunately, though, for now it is all too much a part of daily life for many women, whether through experiencing the organized violence of war, or crime, or domestic violence, or the emotional violence that is part of too many relationships. 
I first began to understand the importance of celebrating the Sacred Feminine as a way to heal the wounds left by many years ago when I heard an older woman speak to women of  her community about her life as a survivor of many decades of abuse.  After a lifetime of silence she was speaking up.  I asked myself what had given this woman – who had always been told to be quiet, to serve, to take whatever violence was forced on her — the courage to speak out.  Of course, she was never to blame for the violence against her, but something had changed her perspective of the violence and herself so that she was able to respond in a way that could help prevent other women from experiencing violence. All I could think of was that she had finally fully understood her own divinity.  She believed she had a soul, that all women have souls, and that she had to become the protector of her own soul and that of the women in her community.  It was then that I realized that the Sacred Feminine isn’t something to just study, to simply practice for my own pleasure and enlightenment, but a way to create peace in our own homes, communities, and world.

Celebrating the sacred feminine certainly does not provide instant healing from violence.  It does, however, change one’s way of experiencing the world so as to illuminate truth so that we may see violence for what it is and respond accordingly.

At its most basic, violence is a statement that the person to whom violence is being done is not a sacred being and so it is all right to violate her or him.  Celebrating the totality of one’s sacredness requires honoring the sacred feminine within all of us, especially when being a woman is part of what we consider to be our essence.  Quite simply, when we grow up in a culture that considers Divinity to be exclusively male, as women, we must readjust our thinking to honor our female selves as being sacred.  Once we see ourselves as sacred, we begin to understand that violence is never deserved. This is especially important when a component of so much violence involves convincing victims that they are to blame for violence against them.  This is especially true in domestic violence.

When you celebrate the Sacred Feminine, suddenly you are no longer alone in the universe.  So often, creating isolation and the feeling of hopelessness is part of the violence.  When you recognize the Sacred Feminine, you are embraced by all the women in the world and all they have suffered; your cries of despair are heard by She Who Hears the Cries of the World.   You are connected to that which is female in All that Is. Never again will you be truly alone or go unheard and very little is as healing as that.

So often I have heard women say “If only I had done this or that, the violence would not have happened.”  One woman who had been raped once asked me if God was mad at her for not fighting her rapist even when her life was threatened.  While some images of Goddess also include judgment, to me, the image of Goddess as ”mother” has more acceptance than judgment.  Within the Sacred Feminine, survivors are gathered to receive compassion and nurturance and not further violation through judgment by those who could not possibly understand what a woman has experienced.

So, the Sacred Feminine is where survivors of violence can find a space that offers them what they need for healing: a sense that they did not deserve the violence, being listened to, relationship, acceptance.

Of course, men also experience violence.  What about them?  Are they to suffer simply because they were born with y chromosomes?  I believe that the Sacred Feminine is just as essential for male survivors of violence as for women.  They, too, need to honor all aspects of themselves as sacred, to be heard, to find relationship to She Who Hears Their Cries, to be accepted and not judged.

The Sacred Feminine also offers a vision of a world where all beings are considered sacred and where violence, therefore, would not ever be acceptable.  While violence is considered a legitimate way to respond to a situation, it will always exist and proliferate.  As long as it is a strategy rather than an abomination, people will use it for their own ends.  Celebrating the Sacred Feminine offers a vision of a world without violence, where all beings, women and men, are sacred and therefore inviolable; where all beings, women and men, are connected through their essential humanness and generation from a Divinity that they also carry within; where all the cries of the world are heard; where judgment is less important than compassion.  When we carry this vision in our hearts and minds, we hold the seeds of a world without violence.

I have been fortunate to have few memories of real physical violence against me, but I know that few women or men can say that.  So, I invite those who have more experience than I do to comment and share your own thoughts and stories. This entry is just a beginning of a dialogue, just thoughts from my own experience.  Perhaps by telling each other our stories and talking about our thoughts about them, we can all find ways to banish the violence that threatens our lives and our very existence. 

Recently, the world lost the last speaker of a “women’s language” in China.  This language was one created and spoken exclusively by women so that they could discuss their lives with one another.  Is there also a “women’s language” here?

While, obviously, women and men both speak English, the ways in which women use language can express qualities that some associate with “being female,” and these can be very positive.  Some of these ways women speak have been derided as being passive and weak and women have, for years, been told to speak more like men, especially if they are in, or seeking, positions of power.  But, perhaps some of these ways can be looked at differently.  For example, women tend, the experts say, to make statements into questions.  This, they claim, makes it sound as if women aren’t sure of what they are stating.  Or, could it be that they are inviting dialogue, that they are creating relationships rather than simply declaiming facts?  That they are acknowledging that no one can be sure of just about anything and they want to know what others think and believe?  That they value the opinions of the person to whom they are speaking and not only their own?  

Women are also criticised for speaking softly.  But, does not nature so often speak powerfully in just this way in the opening of a rose bloom or the quiet gurgle of a river that has flowed for thousands of years or the cascade of a leaf onto the ground in the fall?  When we speak softly, we invite others to tell us how they truly feel, knowing that we will listen and not overshout them.  As long as we also know when to speak loudly and make our voices heard, speaking softly can bring gentleness into a world where almost nothing is needed more urgently.

When I edit women’s writing or listen to women speak, I will frequently find that women are more likely to express themselves in a way that brings ideas together rather than separating them.   Could this not be a way of communicating wholistically, showing the greater whole when one does not divide and classify?  How much more  do you taste a sundae when you read “vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce and nuts and whipped cream and a cheery on top” than “vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry”?   How much more do you feel the flow that is how life is actually expressed when you read “Today I witnessed the sunrise and counted the geese flying across the noontime sky and then lay in the field and sang to the stars” than “Today I watched the sunrise, counted geese, and sang to stars”?

Women’s writing, especially when they are communicating casually with one another, may have lots of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other indicators of emotion.  Some may call this hysterical; I call it enthusiastic and expressive of feeling, giving a sense of the person behind the words and how she perceives what she is writing about.  If I had to choose a lunch companion with whom I knew I could discuss real issues in my real life and who would show compassion and understanding, I would much rather go with a “!” than a “.”.

The differences in the way women and men speak and write are important.  Language is important and shapes how we view the world.  If we want a world that has balance; that values women and the way they think, then we must also value those aspects of communication that present and foster those human qualities that we associate with women.

I recently had brought to my mind a period of my life, in my 20s, when I lived in NYC and used to do things like wear floor-length opera capes to punk clubs.  I’ve always thought of myself as an Emily Dickinson type — invisible, quiet, living through the written word.  In  those memories of NYC, I am a very different person than I ever imagined myself to be, and yet I know I did what I remember because I still have the cape in my attic.

So, who am I?  I am, of course, both those people, opposite as they may be.  When you see the Divine within yourself, as you see the Divine as looking like yourself, you can be all aspects of yourself.  You do not have to hold an identity together, desperately grasping at its pieces to try to cobble together one whole person.  The person you are in each moment can be the reflection, like sun shining off water, of the much greater Divinity that dwells within.  You can be all the people who will make your life full, who will allow you to be the best you can be, who will enable you to accomplish all you must do, who will delight and amaze and teach you, even as they all are you.  Each moment you can be a new, full person that emanates from all the universe both within and outside of you.