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Let
be, and let Goddess
by Leslie
McIntyre
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Kuan
Yin by Max Dashu
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As a devotee of the
Goddess and practitioner of Goddess
spirituality, I have chosen to
make my life the path. I have surrendered myself
to the Goddess and committed myself to serving
Her for the rest of my life, in whatever ways
She sees fit. Of course, I don't always know
what this will mean or what this looks like, and
my surrender has taught me not to be attached to
outcome. When I find myself being attached, I
try to remind myself to get out of the way and
let go and let Goddess.
Goddess to me is a verb.
It is "Goddessing". To Goddess is not easy. It
is a way of life.
As I learn more about
what our ancestors knew, I have realized that we
have mutated from a consciousness that was
all-inclusive and held everything as sacred.
Life lived on a daily basis was sacred. There
was no separation between what was ritual and
what was not. Since we have been subjected to a
mind/body split by our Cartesian heritage, we
suffer from a separation from the natural world.
Many people do not even know that this
separation exists. I believe this separation has
created what we call the "ego" . I believe the
spiritual teachings we have inherited in the
last few millennia have attempted to guide us
about this ego. Unfortunately, because many of
these teachings have come through a male-biased
filter, some of the most important information
about our spiritual roots has been disregarded,
and one has to dig deep to find the
Mother-wisdom at the core of them.
The resurgence of the
Goddess in our times is our hope for the future.
The
values and truth of this path hold the key to
our survival as a species. Since we cannot go
backwards, I see that we must learn to integrate
the wisdom of the ancients while applying it to
our current condition. Since we struggle with
our ego, how do we apply this wisdom and do the
necessary practice to transform ourselves into
our authentic selves? What are the practices?
Watch out for
ego!
I have had many
experiences with women who identify themselves
as priestesses of the Goddess, who serve Her
sincerely while at the same time displaying what
I perceive to be unconscious egoic involvement.
For me, the two do not fit. I think to be a real
priestess, shaman, witch and medicine person,
one has to have a strong practice of
self-reflection. One can be a good technician --
that is, one can "do" the correct techniques of
ritual, for example -- but to actually embody
the magical healing energy of ritual, one must
be well acquainted with states of "being", not
"doing". Being is born out of not knowing --
being open to the moment and not assuming
oneself to be an expert. One may be quite
experienced as a medicine person, without being
self-identified as "one who knows". In the not
knowing, space fills the person. In "knowing",
the person fills the space.
And I am not talking
about the space women need in order to express
our own voices and our truths. That is a
different kind of space. Taking up that kind of
space is essential to our visibility. I am
referring to the space of the Goddess in all
things. I am talking about being spacious. It's
important to practice not-knowing so that true
wisdom has the space to emerge. I have known
people who have written books about the Goddess
and artists who have created beautiful artwork
in the name of the Goddess, and yet, I have
found some of these people to be suffering from
a deep hunger for recognition, which I believe
stems from early childhood unmet needs. When I
have seen this, I have seen that anything, no
matter how lovely and wonderful, can be a
distraction from healing one's own pain. If we
get attention and recognition from outside
ourselves, we must be good. If we get this
validation, we must then be lovable. However, if
we don't understand how to love ourselves, we
will always be looking outside for that love.
Because human beings are divine, great works are
certainly created in the process. How many times
have we heard about the very painful lives of
artists, writers and musicians? They could
create beautiful music but their own lives were
full of despair. I don't think our ancestors
lived this way. I believe their beauty and
expression of creativity was a reflection of
their way of life. I do not think there was any
separation between them.
Goddess lives in the
moment. . .
Are we to know one
another by the objects we produce? For me,
Goddess lives in the moment. She lives in how we
treat one another. I do not think it is okay to
name oneself as a high priestess or Goddess
facilitator of some sort and then be abusive,
manipulative, and self-centered and not take
responsibility for one's behavior. I have
witnessed this, more times than I care to
remember. Nor do I feel that is okay to have
attachment to being the "star" and compete with
other sisters about who is the best Goddess
priestess or the most knowledgeable. This can
actually be very dangerous when people who do
not know what they are doing invoke powerful
energies and have gotten hurt. In shamanic
cultures, it takes many years of devoted,
committed study and apprenticeship as well as a
deep humility to be a true medicine person.
While I do feel all women are healers, I also
know that it takes a lot of soul-searching and
witnessing to get out of the way enough to let
the Goddess come through us. If we are in the
way, we eclipse the magic we are wanting to
bring to others.
Egotistical ambition can
be quite a foe. It causes one to be in denial
and
attached to image and outcome. This kind of
behavior is hurtful. While it may be
unconscious, one is still responsible for the
consequences. When Goddess women hurt each
other, we need to take responsibility and make
amends. We need to find a way to truly hear one
another and see any pain we might have caused.
We need to cultivate compassion and love and
learn the skills necessary to bring those
energies to the moment -- much in the same way a
mother loves her child. Why else do we practice
Goddess spirituality? For me, it is not just
about the fancy rituals we can create; those can
be nice and rewarding, but really, the true
ritual is lived in every moment of our lives.
One does not have to be perfect to offer her
gifts, but one needs to have enough
self-awareness and self-knowledge to be graceful
enough to not be hurtful, especially if one is
intending to gather others around her and teach.
In this kind of situation, one is responsible
for the energy she creates and must be aware of
what she is inviting others into to share with
her.
She is the mother of her
space, and needs to be aware of the needs of
others and attuned to what is necessary to bring
safety to the environment. Of course, she is not
responsible for what others do and how they
behave in that space, but she has the wisdom and
heart to handle situations to the best of her
ability, as they show themselves in the moment,
through skillful means and right action. I have
witnessed facilitators, in the name of the
Goddess, deny, for instance, the active
alcoholism of a co -facilitator at a conference
where I felt ambition took over and brought
serious danger and unnecessary difficulty into a
space that women had paid substantial amounts of
money to participate in. This, to me, is not
Goddess practice. I think we owe it to ourselves
and each other to be authentic and grounded in
the Goddess before we go around taking women's
money and promising certain experiences and
exciting times at sacred sites. This can be
seductive and glamorous, but what's the point if
our leaders don't know what they are doing?
This is not to say that
there are not worthy and authentic experiences
to be had with women who teach Goddess
spirituality. Just be discerning. And don't be
afraid to tell the truth. Once I told my truth
at a so-called Goddess conference I attended and
was met with hostility, judgment and intense
competition. I could see that just because the
women in charge used "Goddess" in the title of
the conference and felt they had some kind of
expertise in Goddess spirituality, it was still
a patriarchal event. Who needs that?
The sacredness of
life is all around. . .
Patriarchy is
patriarchy, no matter what form it takes.
Women's culture is entirely different from
patriarchy, and if we are going to learn about
the Goddess together, we must be skilled enough
to recognize the skillful manipulations of our
own process of self deception so as not to bring
that to others. And if it leaks out, we must
have enough humility to listen and allow
transformation, instead of maintaining control
and defensiveness.
Once, when I was
participating in the invoking of a Mayan
goddess, Ixchel, in the jungles of the Yucatan,
I began to bleed profusely. I had already had my
bloods before leaving the US for the event, so
it was not time for my period. I bled the entire
time I was in the jungle that day, and learned
that the indigenous people rub on their bodies a
red dye from a seed to symbolize menstrual blood
when they invoke Ixchel. I was deeply moved and
felt very humbled. I knew there was no way I
could have planned that experience, and had I
been more invested in being someone who "knew",
I don't think I would have been touched so
deeply by the love of the Goddess. Another time,
I was in Malta at the temple of Mnjadra, and I
began to bleed when it wasn't my time. I also
felt in that experience that I had allowed
myself to stay open to the Goddess and to what
the ancients had to share with me. I entered
that temple in quiet reverence and sacred
intention -- I didn't need to be anyone in order
to impress anyone. These experiences have
inspired me to write this article, as I learned
that declaring myself as a priestess to have all
eyes on me to perform something is completely
irrelevant to the true ritual of the Goddess.
She taught me that what I need to do is simply
be awake in my daily life, and that the
sacredness of life itself is all around --
providing rich opportunity to connect with our
deepest spiritual roots.
Goddessing creates
women's culture. I believe the essentials of
women's culture are loving kindness, honesty,
generosity of spirit, compassion, co-operation
and equality,accompanied by the practices of
self-reflection and the taking responsibility,
re-enacting the ability to respond. I believe
that anyone who puts herself out there as a
teacher must practice these disciplines.
To be one with the
teachings
In patriarchal spiritual
texts, I have read that the teacher and the
teachings are separate. But in my experience as
a mother, I know it doesn't work for me to tell
my kids "do as I say and not as I do." It just
doesn't work. I feel we are responsible for our
actions, and are accountable to each other for
our behavior. While a teacher may not embody the
teachings entirely, she can say so, and still
strive in her own being for excellence and
impeccability. I would say that it is my goal to
be one with the teachings I espouse. My kids
certainly look for that. They are not fools. In
other words, they look to see if I walk my talk.
I wouldn't want it any other way. They are very
good at discerning authenticity. It doesn't
matter to them how seemingly "accomplished"
someone might be in any way -- if their vibes
aren't good, my kids just aren't interested. We
are all each other's teachers anyway. So, we
might as well create the kind of culture in
which we are all seen for our gifts and
abilities and eliminate competition and control.
Who needs it?
Without our conscious,
diligent attention to these internalized
conditioned states, they have a life of their
own. This is where I see that more emphasis
needs to be placed in women's spirituality --
focusing on one's own inner transformation and
learning how to accomplish this. I believe the
teachings from the mother-mind of what we now
know as Buddhism holds very valuable offerings
for this work. I do not feel it is enough to
hold rituals on the holy days and drum and dance
around a fire and then go home and think this is
all we need. This is wonderful and can be
ecstatic, but it's just not enough. I still see
the patriarchal mind sometimes peering out
through the eyes of my sisters, enjoying a
measure of control while going completely
unnoticed.
I know that women's
culture and spirituality are about ecstasy, but
I don't see the use of running after experiences
where we can have an ecstasy "fix" and then tell
ourselves we have found the Goddess. I have also
experienced Goddess ecstasy in the silence and
stillness, where there is no doing, no
attachment to being the doer and no craving
--only the presence of her vast stillness
beckoning me to come into my true being. So,
lately, my Goddessing practice is learning to
simply be and be simple -- eliminating the
desperate need to have a story and to be seen
and heard for my story and taking up lots of
space and not allowing the space to fill me. I
would rather be filled up with space than fill
up space with myself.
The yoni-verse is filled
with space. The yoni-verse creates the space it
moves into as it expands. What an amazing
process! I think creating space is at the core
of Goddess spirituality. We create inner space
as we heal and we create outer space as we share
ourselves with one another. When people feel
there is space for them, the need for
competition is eliminated because all-inclusive
spaciousness is present.
How do we practice
creating inner and outer space? I believe our
ancient ancestors knew these secrets, as they
lived cooperatively for millennia without war.
My own experience with these practices involves
consciously learning about my patriarchal
conditioning and how it manifests in my being. I
am learning to be a good listener and I try to
keep my own needs in check so that I am not
"needy".
Be and be
simple
Being "needy" is
draining to others because it creates an
imbalance in the energy dynamics between people.
Most of us are quite needy a great deal of the
time because we have not had the benefits of
women's culture and its intrinsic nurturing,
loving, peaceful values -- so we are very hungry
and thirsty for this loving way. I believe this
condition of the absence of loving presence to
be the root cause of all our suffering and all
the abuse we see acted out in the world. The
absence of the living/loving Goddess causes the
unspeakable hatred and violence we witness every
day. Coming to terms with my woundedness as a
direct result of Her absence teaches me to have
compassion for myself.
From there, it grows
into compassion for others. Many of us hate
ourselves, or beat ourselves up for not being
perfect or simply not liking who we are. This is
what patriarchy wants us to do. These internal
sufferings cause anger, ignorance, grasping,
impatience, competition and dualistic thinking.
We feel isolated and hang onto the need to be
right. We might even need to be right about our
Goddess knowledge and expertise!
Just because we can
paint and write about the Goddess doesn't mean
we have transformed these inner conditions of
despair. If we go around acting like we are
Goddessing and we really are not, She will
humble us -- thank goodness. It is up to us to
take the responsibility to look deep within and
search out the conditioning that no longer
serves -- some of which never has, except to
keep us down, divided and oppressed. While we
may not like the thought that we might possibly
embody some of these conditions, it is important
to face the truth with self-love and compassion.
It is the only way we can then skillfully give
our truth to others.
I find it interesting to
note that artifacts from Goddess cultures do not
seem to have names on them. I like the idea that
our creative expression does not need to be
about any compulsion to be seen and heard. If we
see and hear ourselves, then we will be equipped
as a matter of organic experience to see and
hear others. Living the loving goddess is based
on our ability to touch each other's heart in
the same way that a mother's heart is touched by
her child and a child's heart is touched by
motherly love. If we truly open to the Goddess
within and learn to share Her in each moment
with ourselves and with each other, we will come
to know the power of oral tradition, which is
what our early ancestors practiced. In oral
tradition, we are asked to share ourselves from
our hearts -- where the art of seeing and
feeling with our being brings us into a
telepathic communion of compassion and joy.
There is no ranking because someone has produced
certain objects of art and knowledge. There is
appreciation of all gifts that are offered in
whatever forms.
All will stand together
in walking the path of the Goddess where
honesty, truth, wisdom, joy, creativity and love
are experienced by all. No one stands out as the
star because all are stars. Each one of us is a
totally unique embodiment of the Mystery, and
for us to appreciate this reflection in the eyes
of another is one of the greatest gifts we can
give to each other. Our creative works are of
course worthy of appreciation, but I think first
and foremost, we, as beings, are the primary
works of art of the Goddess. In Her image may we
shine and find that love deep within ourselves,
rooting out the ill-at-ease parts by taking full
responsibility for our health and well-being so
that our love can truly grow in the garden of
becoming.
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