WE'D EMBRACE THE FEMININE FACE OF SPIRITUALITY
by Tami Coyne
As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother. (Julian of Norwich, 1373)
When I was younger, it didn't bother me that here in the West the deity is most often referred to as "God the Father." My nonchalance at this gross exclusion of my gender in the Judeo-Christian religious worldview should have made me madder than hell. After all, I've got great feminist credentials. I went to Smith College back in the late '70s--and I'm old enough to have seen for myself that women can do anything they damn well feel like. It's just that until I contemplated creating a new life, it didn't dawn on me that our universe shouldn't be solely run by a single dad.
Don't get me wrong--dads are great, but mothers are also great. And since none of us would be here without one, it's more than strange that we females wouldn't have a recognized role in the cosmic creative process. After all, except for one-cell organisms and sea horses, the female of the species is the big Kahuna when it comes to incubating, birthing and nurturing new young.
In late 1997, before I got pregnant, I went on a spiritual retreat. In the company of three laywomen and one kick-ass nun, I finally woke up to the female nature of divinity. And it changed my life for good.
Hidden behind God the Father, I found Sophia, which means "wisdom" in Greek, the female face of God. And anyone, male or female who has ever encountered our ancient, primordial, ever-present mother knows that, as the bridge between heaven and Earth, she has as much to do with creation as our universal father. Sophia is known by many names: Nature, the Holy Spirit, the World Soul. But she doesn't really care what you call her, because she is not some otherworldly egomaniac. All she really wants, like most mothers, is for her children to call her regularly, listen to what she has to say, and take her advice when she gives it.
I needed Sophia to prepare me for motherhood, which she lovingly did. My daughter was born less than a year after I first encountered the glorious Goddess within. I named her Sophia so that she'd always remember that she's not only the daughter of a powerful father but of a magnificent mother, too.
(Excerpt taken from If Women Ruled the World)
FALLING IN LOVE
As time goes on, you begin to realize that all these men, or women, you are so fatally attracted to are all very much alike at their core. You're really falling in love with your own projection each time. Gradually, it gets through to you that it's not the other person you're in love with, but part of your own self that you're projecting onto that person. It's those projected parts of ourselves that we have to pull back.
That [pulling back] is the most painful, agonizing process in the world. Because you have to recognize that what you thought was out there in an other person is not out there, but inside yourself. Most people experience pulling back a projection as isolation, as being cut off from the outer world. But if you have loved a man and you have projected your inner god onto him, you have to recognize that he isn't a god after all. The real god is inside. You have to recognize the illusions, the delusions and the pain of human limitation. Then gradually it dawns on you what a huge mistake you've made.
When you're able to recognize that it's your god you've been projecting, or, in a man's case, the goddess, you learn to hold that divinity within. Then you're able to ask yourself, "Do I love that human being?" And you may find out that you do. That this man is sharing the journey with you, and he's put up with (dare I say) all your shit (that's how dreams image it), and you've put up with his, and there the two of you are, walking through life, together. There's something noble in his suffering. There's something noble in your own suffering. You're not leaning on each other. You're walking parallel paths, you're not holding each other up. That's a marvelous thing, to love another human being like that.
[This means] you have to be able to separate the human from the divine...to say "Last night I was in transcendent space. I was a goddess and I felt myself loved by a god. But this morning I wash the dishes and eat my oatmeal".
(Excerpt taken from CONSCIOUS FEMININITY by Marion Woodman).
NOTE: An excerpt from CONSCIOUS FEMININITY can also be found at Voices from the Underground
THE HEART AND SOUL OF SEX: Doors to the Universe
by Gina Ogden
The following is an article published in THE CENTER POST, Fall 2006.The Center Post is published by the Rowe Center
