Friday, August 25, 2017

The Divine Feminine

Goddess Consciousness

We need Goddess consciousness to reveal earth's holiness. Divine feminine imagery opens up the notion that earth is the body of the Divine, and when that happens, the Divine cannot be contained solely in a book, church, dogma, liturgy, theological system, or transcendent spirituality. The earth is no longer a mere backdrop until we go to heaven, something secondary and expendable. Matter becomes inspirited; it breathes divinity. Earth comes alive and sacred. And we find ourselves alive in the midst of her and forever altered.”
Sue Monk Kidd

Sunday night, I went with my friend, Anna, to see the new Wonder Woman movie. Gal Gadot, who is certainly goddess material, did an earnest and excellent job of embodying Diana, princess of the Amazons, the formidable warriors of Roman mythology. She brought together the feminine desire to nurture the downtrodden, the eroticism of a beautiful woman, and the invincible strength of an angry, protective female. A couple of other things impressed me about this movie—one was the backdrop of World War I, and the incredible destruction to the earth, the towns, and the people that war brought. The other was that it placed the final battle scene in the air—a transcendent location. Yes, she was a goddess fighting a god, Aries, but that airy scene also depicted the divine as something not of the earth, but hovering above it.

I think the notion of God as detached from the earth has gotten us into a lot of trouble. It has allowed us to use and abuse not only the ground of our being, but the animals and indigenous people who share it with us. Detached from the divinity of the earth, we feel justified in tapping her resources in whatever way is easiest in order to create wealth for some. Just yesterday, a decree went out from the new administration to shrink the size of several protected areas, not so that they could be used to graze cattle, or to grow crops, or returned to the native people who hold them dear, but so that gas and oil companies can tap into them for their own enrichment. Have we made capitalism our transcendent God, and forgotten that without the Great Mother, all the money in the world will not help us?

You should know this about me: I am not a militant feminist. I have two sons that I adore; I do not hate men or blame them for all troubles of this earth. I participate in a patriarchal religion, Christianity. Even so, I believe in the divinity of our world. I believe that Jesus was a man of this earth, and so were Mohammed, Gautama Buddha, Abraham and all his children, and the prophets of old. We are earthlings. Our home and our spirituality are inextricably bound to this planet. Let us bring our sacred divinity, deeply feminine and creative in nature, back to this place. Let us find ourselves “alive in the midst of her and forever altered.”

                                                             In the Spirit,

                                                                Jane

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