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You are here: publications: Goddess Page One Featured Tradition: Goddess Spirituality My journey into female-centred spirituality began, rather obliquely, via the Catholic Church when I was about nine years old. Even at that tender age, it seemed absurd to me that God was exclusively male, and that only men were allowed to lead religious services. I argued the point ad nauseam with my Catholic priest uncle until he threw up his hands in exhaustion and decided to let me join his ranks as Germany’s first altar girl. Several years later, I discovered the Goddess through friends who introduced me to the writings of feminist witches such as Starhawk and Z Budapest, and various Jungian writers. It was as though I had come home. Of course there was a Goddess! Of course there had been matriarchal cultures and tribes that worshipped the Divine Feminine. Goddess Spirituality made sense to me in an instant. It became clear what I had been missing in religion, and life, all along: connection to the female aspects of Nature, and a more cyclical, balanced way of being. Now, having followed the Goddess path for over fifteen years, I define my spirituality as a profound belief in and connection with the Divine Feminine, who dwells within me and all around me. I am passionate about retrieving our neglected religious heritage and knowledge, and re-integrating them into our lives. It is a path which includes working closely with our menstrual cycles and blood mysteries, intuition, dreams, shamanic art and female-centred sexuality. Connecting to the Goddess is, in my view, a vitally important aspect of modern woman’s quest for wholeness. Because we have generally been raised in a masculine-oriented society, we lost many of our own inherent feminine instincts and energy patterns. I find it saddening, for example, how many modern women are unaware that their menstrual cycles are connected to the moon, and how powerful and intuitive their moon time can be if they are open to exploring it. In our society, many women have a poor relationship with themselves, their bodies and each other, and the Goddess movement is partially also a way of healing these wounds. Goddess Spirituality is the best path for me because I experience it as deeply transformative women’s work that brings me great awareness. The work is personal and healing, and it can bring an enormous amount of wisdom. The journey includes increasing my sensitivity to the different stages of womanhood, negotiating them successfully, and assisting others to do the same. When I communicate with the Goddess within, I am led to all the deep dark hidden places in order to shine light into them. My relationships with different Goddesses opened me up to a fully creative, authentic way of life, and made me softer and more compassionate, yet also more of a warrior unafraid of standing in my own power. The ways I practise my spirituality are manifold. Everything I do is connected to my beliefs and to bringing Goddess consciousness back into the world. These practises include, at the most basic level, meditation, prayer, ritual and ceremony. I also frequently travel to sacred sites, places that were once vibrant with Goddess worship and where Her energies are still prevalent. I sometimes honour these sites with offerings, or simply spend time with them, listening and connecting. On a professional level, I work as a Priestess, a role in which I facilitate Her energies through public and private ceremonies in the community and in prisons. I also honour the Goddess through my creativity – I write about Her, teach about Her, and I embody Her in Performance Art and Sacred Drama. People often ask me where this leaves the Pagan Gods. Do I just ignore and neglect them, and does this necessitate that I dislike men? Can my path be a truly balanced one, when nature consists of both male and female elements? My reply is that, as a woman intent on exploring women’s mysteries, powers and processes, I work with the energies I can relate to most. My tradition goes back to ancient times when women were Priestesses worshipping the Goddess, whereas men worshipped male deities, and studied their own masculine mysteries. Men and women related and worked together in different ways, in special joint rituals, from their individual grounded places. It is the principle of ‘Know Thyself’. I believe that authentic balance between men and women can be achieved only when the feminine principle is fully recognized and honoured once again, and much work and healing still needs to be done before we are able to reach that place. Further reading Z Budapest ‘The Grandmother of Time’ (Harper Collins) |
