The Call of the Goddess

When I was a child, I learned that a woman could not become a spiritual leader. There was no such thing as a Priestess in any established, reputable religious traditions. The image of deity was exclusively male. Women were permitted to bear and care for children, even at times respected for such. They could care for the sick and dying, tend the temples, grow the food, toil endlessly at emotional and physical labors, but never could they attain independent wealth, standing, respect, authority, power, or autonomy in the same context as their masculine counterparts.

The world I was born to had lost all understanding of the feminine aspect of divinity, and with it all chances of perceiving the entire feminine gender as equal. I had observed, as a child, that the form which follows the function of the dominant religious structure in a society is the real life structures which confine the individuals within that society. I was confused that we repeatedly attempt to correct the symptom of the disease without treating the root cause. We pull at the leaves of the insidious plant that is the oppression of women, asking please can we vote, please can we work, please can we get credit cards, please can we be Governor, please can we be President - all requests we must file and apply to men and the structures built by men. All permissions we must be granted by a male God and the institutions devoted to His word.

It is my belief that those of us who find ourselves acutely aware of the cracks underlying the foundations of the world in which we find ourselves are the architects of a new order. We are here to correct those problems which we find ourselves in view of, through whichever methods are necessary to ensure their effective remediation. Some cracks can be patched, and some foundations must be demolished before they can be reconstructed.

So as I walked in these “houses of God”, and I found myself in full view of larger than life sized idols of Death, Decay, Depravity, and Destruction while listening to sermons of Fear, Repression, Oppression, Force, and Control, I affirmed the lessons from Scooby-Doo - the monsters are all human. To preach a foundational lesson of “Thou Shall not Murder” while simultaneously idolizing an effigy of cruel torment and murder (committed in a display of force designed to control the actions of a large population and ensure compliance with the acceptable beliefs of the church-state) in the delusional guise of generating an eternal rest for your soul in a paradise which can conveniently never be proven to exist - served as a critical hypocrisy which my childhood mind could not overcome. To preach against murder, to advocate for life, whilst standing beneath a crucifix is to pay your worship to an altar constructed upon a foundation of horrific torture and capitol punishment - it is to pray for life to a God of War, Malice, and Destruction.

I was all of seven years old, dumbfounded and appalled beneath a bronze statue of the Crucifixion, as adults corralled their children into pews to be cleansed, purified, guided, protected, and taught “right from wrong”. I would go to school and learn of the Holy Wars, I would learn of the movements of Men upon boats to distant shores where they would see fit to commit genocide of any person who they determine savage by right of their lack of worship to their personal God of War. It was far easier for these historical Holy Men to understand “Thou shall have no other God before Me” than “Thou shall not murder”.

Perhaps they failed to read to the end. Perhaps a lifetime of being taught that sometimes murder could be righteous if it resulted in an imaginary future saving (eternal rest in heaven) of an imaginary structure (the individual, unique, only once incarnate, godly and divine human soul). If crucifixion can be determined a holy saving grace, genocide can certainly be considered good and righteous as well.

Needless to say, my stomach could not tolerate the consumption of the Word of God as presented from any of the Abrahamic Traditions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and others). I have never wavered in the decades since childhood in my understanding that the foundations of monotheism are fundamentally corrupted by a uniquely masculine arrogance, pride, lust, ambition, hierarchy, violence, and narcissism. There is a pervasive flavor of cognitive dissonance which is common to all dominant organized religious structures on Earth.

So what is a Woman to do?

What we always have done. What was done first, what will always be done. Return to Nature. Ask Her for her wisdom. Ask Her about her laws. Align ourselves with Her vibrations, sing in tune with Her songs. Be still and quiet and listen to Her gospel. Dine of Her fruits, mourn Her losses. Learn from Her bosom as Her first children once did, and remember Her stories and tales. Remind Her living children of who and what they are, and lead them back into Her grace. Restore the connections between Goddess and Sun-Child, and allow the chain to remain unbroken.

When I was 15 I followed the voice of Nature all the way to Wicca. I found it a blessed cool drink of water after a long and parched journey across a barren desert wasteland of Spirit. I had neither resources nor transportation nor any necessary materials to participate in the way things are properly done, but neither did the First Children and I lacked nothing they possessed. I could hear the Voice of the Goddess just the same as any of us have ever been able to do so. I could hear the trees speaking, sharing their love, community, support, wisdom and guidance. I could hear the whispering of the stones, and feel the pull of their vibrations. I could heal through the powers of plants, and move my body to the music of the spheres. I grew in my ability to heal with my hands, to journey with my spirit, and to come to know union with the One-Song.

At 16 I began experimenting with astral travel and past life regression. I knew I had incarnated before, and the whispers of memory tugged upon my consciousness. I was appalled at the inefficiency of our shortened lifespans. Trees live for so much longer, and I had been one for a while. I had gained the ability to move at the expense of time in which to create change with that movement. I was frustrated with the task I felt called to do - Stewarding the reawakening presence of the Divine Feminine and pursuing the work of restoring Her to sanctity in our society. I knew I could orient myself to the tasks I had planned for the context of this lifetime better if I could remember where I am at on the grander chain of my individual incarnations. I thought if I could only recall what I had already done I would have a better understanding of which actions are still to do. Which stubborn patterns of my Ego remained to be healed and evolved, and which were aspects of a unique service I provide to our collective evolution. Nature needs both fruits and fungi, what remains to us is to identify which work we are individually tasked with - creation, maintenance, or destruction.

It is an old lesson, which we try very hard to circumvent. “Know Thyself”. In the years since, I have found great personal wisdom in knowing not only who I am now, but who I have been before. I see the themes which resurface. The courage I possess, the Warrior’s spirit. I see also my Divinity, having been again and again a Priestess in title or service or both. It helps to realign me with my priorities, and what it is I am here to do. For many years I considered this knowledge impractical, non-actionable, and fruitless, but nonetheless it brought me comfort in dark moments after long days working multiple jobs just to survive. It was a candle in the darkness, offering a beacon of hope that perhaps one day I would be able to set a grander blaze.

There are many paths up the mountain, and none are superior to another. In a society which predominantly believes a woman to be the seat and container for the burden of “original sin”, an inferior, unreliable, disempowered, demonized, and fundamentally flawed creation - The path of a Priestess is inherently against the grain. One cannot simply wait for another to offer a validation which does not exist for a vocation which was violently annihilated through a series of thousands of years of tactical murders. You can search for a certification or another to tell you that you are worthy, and that might help you in a variety of ways. Perhaps that is not now, or was not when you needed it available to you. Perhaps you are aware that no manner of qualifications can be laid before the Pope to convince him that you stand on equal footing. Perhaps the only validation which any of us actually need is the one which has been present since Her First Children - The Call which She issues forth Herself.