Category Archives: goddesses

Passages: Patricia Monaghan

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The goddess has never been lost. It is just that some of us have forgotten how to find her. (The Goddess Path, 4)

Another of our feminist foremothers has passed from this world. Patricia Monaghan, academic and poet, was one of many women whose words I treasured on my path (back) to knowing the Goddess. Even today, when I need the name of a Goddess or an aspect to invoke, her works are among the first I turn to. We have lost so much of our past. I honour those who have dedicated their time to reconnecting us with our herstory, and I am comforted as they in turn have comforted us:

The most important fact about goddesses, it seems to me, is that they are invariably connected to polytheism. Put another way: there is no monotheistic religion based on a goddess. Not a single goddess appears without friends, companions, lovers, children. The presence of the goddess demands the presence of other goddesses, and gods as well. This is comforting for me, for in my vision of the world redeemed, the world made whole, I yearn for connection, not for separation. (The New Book of Goddesses & Heroines, xiii)

Blessed Be.

Nemesis, Invoked

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dictionary.com

What is justice? For a follower of the Judeo-Christian-Islam path, justice comes from an external source (God), and each law may or may not fit the context of the day. For those on a Pagan path, there is no external source to look to, and no set of rules to follow. Instead we are faced with making choices based on our own set of ethics, recognizing that what we do will ripple out to impact others (hence the Three-Fold Law).

Every choice I’ve made has led me to this place.

Every choice has rippled out to impact others.

Every choice must be accounted for.

en.wikipedia.org

This morning I was named Nemesis by someone who had been impacted by one of my choices. Nemesis is the Goddess of Righteous Anger and Divine Retribution. Mary Daly speaks of Her power not lying in external justice but in “an internal judgement that sets in motion a New psychic alignment of energy patterns.” (Quintessence 85-86) Making choices is as much about the internal – the integrity one brings to the point of decision – as it is about the external. I’m under no illusions that my choices are not always postive for others, but I strive to make them in a way that is in alignment with the world I want to create. And so I chose not to defend or challenge this naming. I stand by the choice I made and accept the consequences of the impact it had on her. I stand by the choices that led me to that one and the choices that have come as a result.

My choice now is to embrace Nemesis, to explore what energy She brings to my life and what Her experiences teach me about a life of service to the Goddess in All Her Aspects. This is my path and I choose it willingly. Blessed Be!

The Christians and the Pagans – Chocolate Style

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(Anyone get the reference to the Dar Willams song? It’s a favourite in our house!)

It’s the Easter weekend and I’ve just finished re-watching Chocolat, one of my favourite movies-with-pagan-undertones *based on the book by Joanne Harris with some changes). The movie circles around the themes of patrichary/morality and matrifocal/sensuality through an ongoing conflict between the mayor and the owner of a chocolate shop during Lent (the 40 days prior to Easter). 

Any witch can explain how Easter has its roots in paganism: Eostre is actually a Germanic Goddess, and bunnies/eggs are symbols of fertility (which is what spring is all about) and so on. This appears in the movie in a scene where the mayor attacks the display created for the chocolate shop’s fertility festival,. The first thing he destroys is a chocolate statue of Ixacacao, the Mayan Goddess of Chocolate; he then destroys other, more common, symbols of the holiday.

While some pagans get upset that our festivals/gods/ideas are reshaped by Christianity, I recognize that the original purpose (taking over/destroying the symbols of the Goddess) no longer holds power over us. Instead, I celebrate the common themes that bring our religions together: first the sacrifice, then the celebration. Jesus was the original hippie, after all, and his stand against the dominant ideas of the day have stood the test of time. I may not make it to sunrise service, but I’ll be celebrating the power of life over death just the same. Blessed Be!

Poetry for Brigid

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To mark Imbolc (aka Candlemas, aka Brigid’s Day), here is my selection for the Third Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Reading.

The Moon is Always

The moon is always you, and I am drawn
to trace the ripe crescent swelling around
your hip, the arc of your throat, the classic curve
of your eyes, and the velvet indigo shadow beneath.

You are always the moon, and I ache in your
absence, although you never leave me for long,
lingering late into the morning and ascending
again in the afternoon, balm for my sun-blind eyes.

The moon is waxen, bloodless.
The moon does not have your mouth.
The moon does not contain your breath.

You are never the moon, but your dimpled
skin is luminescent, it gleams and lures my gaze,
my hands, and I am always reaching for you.

The moon is never you, but I arch to your rhythms
all the same, and I weep relief with the crashing
tidal pool upon your every return.

The moon has a profile that changes with perspective,
and I have written encrypted love poems within
its every dimple and shadow, secrets that borrow
light from our love making to illuminate
the stars and blaze our skins and stories across the sky.

This moon is only for us.

Chandra Mayor