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“As I continue writing stories about people who are transforming religion and culture through including the Divine Feminine in sacred rituals, hope stirs within me. As I hear their visions for the future of the Divine Feminine, my vision expands.”

–Jann Aldredge-Clanton, Healing, Freedom, and Transformation through the Sacred Feminine.

“…monotheists have described the divine as ‘Father’ for over 2,000 years. Even if we neutered the God, to be labeled only an ‘It,’ we would still have the masculine echo ringing in our ears for another thousand years. So maybe it would make sense to call her the Goddess for a millennium or so, if only to even things out. Then perhaps we could move on to something more gender inclusive.”

–Tim Ward, Why Would a Man Search for the Goddess

“I don’t believe the Goddess is stupid or suicidal. I believe she evolved human beings for a purpose, to be her healing hands and loving heart. We may be growing into the job.”

–Starhawk, Earth, Spirit, and Action: Letting the Wildness In 

The god who sits cross-legged: you know Who I mean. The position is central to the iconography of the Horned, in art both ancient and modern. In Old Craft symbolism, the Master may be represented by the skull of a horned animal with two longbones crossed beneath it. If Witchdom had pirates (!), I suppose that's what they'd fly on their flags. The Lord of the Red Bones, above and below.

Even in images such as Lévi's Baphomet and the Gundestrup Antlered, where the god is seated in a position not fully “tailor seat” (as we used to call it), his crossed or bent legs at least allude to the fully cross-legged seat. It's well worth asking what this pose can tell us about the god.

Nature. Civilized people (and their gods) sit on furniture. Barbarians sit on the ground, and cross-legged is the natural way to do so. This is an untamed god, a god in touch with the powers of nature, drawing strength and stability from the Earth.

Duality. The iconography of the Horned lord is dominated by doubling, and this speaks deeply to His nature. He is both Dark and Light, Lord of life and death, the master driven by his own internal contradictions. (Whereas Wicca tends to read duality in terms of male-female pairing, Old Craft generally looks to the divided self for the primal articulation of Twoness.) Just as his legs cross beneath him, so too do the two sides of his self cross and intersect with one another, the basis of his Being.

For us modern folks, it can be hard to understand the worldview of ancient people. They didn't know about outer space or the heliocentric view of the solar system, but they did their best to understand the world given the information they had at hand. In fact, the pre-Indo-European inhabitants of Europe didn't even think of the sky as a separate realm the way Indo-European cultures did. So what does that mean in terms of the way the Minoans viewed the cosmos?

You're probably familiar with the three-worlds cosmos that many pre-Christian Indo-European cultures had. The Norse version is especially popular, given that J.R.R. Tolkien adapted it for his own imaginary world. In the three-worlds view, the 'top' or upper world is the sky; the middle realm is the Earth and the area right above it where people and animals live; and the lower realm is beneath the Earth - the Underworld.

During this month of Light returning (Imbolc) and love igniting (Valentine's celebrations) I collaborated with a man who worships and praises the Divine Feminine expression of the one Source. 

 

The re-emergence of the Goddess has challenged everybody to question the patriarchal realm that has been dominating us for too long. With the rise of the Goddess comes a new relationship with the Divine, as well as Father God that we connect to in the Heavenly realms we have begun to become reacquainted with the Mother Goddess of the Earthly world that we are in.

 

Although it has seemed as though it is women who predominantly worship and honour the Goddess, she is not a 'God' for women. Just as the patriarchy  harms both women and men, the Goddess is an expression of Source that feeds both women and men.

 

Once I began to know the Feminine aspects of the Creator, She became such a significant part of my life that I couldn't imagine having a long term relationship with a man that couldn't honour that side of Source. I also couldn't imagine raising children who didn't know Her face and presence. I didn't believe that I could be led to a strong, masculine man who would honour Goddess, nor one that would join me in raising Goddess conscious children. The man I was dating when I began my Priestess path would vehemently argue "why does it have to be so much about She and Her? God isn't a woman you know." I would counter, "I know, God also isn't a man, so why not use Her for a few hundred years since we've all gotten to know the Him side so well?" I could feel him bristle, he felt threatened and upset and there was nothing I could do. Shortly thereafter we parted ways.

 

My employer at the time was only too happy to set me up on a blind date with a wealthy, successful man who was ready to settle down and have children. I was happy to go on a date, my last relationship had gotten quite tedious, and I was looking to have children in the nearish future. When I met up with this man I didn't feel the spark, but I decided to explore it. He showed interest in my spirituality, the Goddess Gatherings I attended and the Priestess training I was doing.  A part of me felt vulnerable about revealing my sacred inner world to a person I had just met, but his enthusiasm made me ignore my reservations. After we parted ways I pondered how I would politely decline a future date, as I knew he wasn't for me. I also pondered how I would let my employer know that her blind date hadn't created a future marriage. I arrived at work and my boss pulled me aside.

 

"Candise, Peter (let's call him Peter) said that you seemed more into the Goddess than you were into having a family."

 

I'm going to pause here a moment to share that I wish I could have put a halt to this insulting conversation then and there, but I was shocked, humiliated and dumbfounded.

 

In a condescending voice my employer went on to suggest that I ease people into my lifestyle and not mention it on a first date. That night on the bus ride home I cried, devastated that I had shared about my sacred journey with this man. I felt humiliated to be discussed as though I were a piece of property and then shamed for who I am. I was desolate, certain that that I would never find a man who would honour my path, let alone join me on it.

 

Fast forward two months later and I was flying to New York, a whirlwind of a city where I met and instantly fell in love with my husband. As we sat at a busy diner the night we met he asked me similar questions to the blind date guy, except this time I felt at home and safe. I felt as though all of my life was being coated in pink gossamer. I just fell into a conversation about who and what I was, and he was enraptured. He compared me to his psychic mother and genuinely admired my work. Months later as we dated and then moved in together he would play guitar and lead "We all come from the Goddess..." in circles that I led. He would drop me off at Priestess circles and Goddess Gatherings and join me for events where men were welcomed. 

As I stepped off the bus in Glastonbury, England I suddenly became a monk once more, dressed in a long brown robe with a swinging rope belt, which surprised me. I'd had a recurring dream for eons where I would be running into a castle shouting, "Morgause! Morgause! And always assumed I was a woman, goddess type during those times. As I climbed the Tor I saw that there had once been a circular pathway to the ruins at the top. As my spirit felt the telluric energy of this upflow vortex I immediately connected with Archangel Michael who had appeared to me once before in Jerusalem. I could feel the connection between Heaven and Earth and sat to meditate to enjoy the tremendous uplifting spiritual power. I then walked to the Abbey itself. It was mostly in ruins, but this Glastonbury site had been sacred Goddess land from before Neolithic times, so I should be able to feel, hear, and know past realities, I thought, as I walked about, feeling ‘present’. As I stepped out of the Abbey arches and walked toward the central green, I saw a marker that stated, “King Arthur lies buried here.” I immediately felt like kneeling down, and as I did so I had a vision. I knew without a doubt that it was King Arthur. He had a broad face with a dark complexion. A mass of curly brown hair framed his face and the crown on his head held three lion-like red dragons. His cloak was a gray, heavy, linen-type weave. Then suddenly I began to sob; and soon realized that they were not my tears that I was releasing. They were Guinevere’s! She had at some point left them here.

Later, I discovered that a grave had been found under an ancient oak at this spot in 1191 A.D. In the grave, a small cross was found that stated King Arthur and his second wife, Guinevere, lay buried here on the Isle of Avalon. In 1278, King Edward I reburied the skeletons in a black marble tomb that survived until 1539 when King Henry VIII, bent on destroying monasteries and abbeys, also destroyed this abbey and many of the tombs. The Arthurian era was a pivotal one on Earth; there was a war going on between the Light and dark forces then! Arthur and his valiant legions of Light, tried their best, but it was not good enough. The darkness eventually prevailed for many centuries.

Although my couples mediation practice is first and foremost a secular one, since publishing my New Vesta book series I have also been providing Vesta-based relationship help to those who have specifically sought me out for that service (it bugs me when a practitioner sneakily slips their own spirituality into what is assumed to be a secular appointment).

To be honest, I was initially worried that “coming out” pagan would negatively impact my private practice; however, my fears have proven unfounded.  Business is as good as ever and I’ve had fantastic feedback from people who identify with my story and worldview.

As with every year, this year’s Pantheacon offered too rich a menu of workshops and performances for any of us to see all we wanted. This year I was lucky. Several of my favorite Pagan singers (and wonderful people as well) offered back-to-back performances, and I was able to see them all. Ruth Barrett and Holly Tannen  were prominent Pagan minstrels and bards when I first entered our community back in 1984.