When Sekhmet, The Mighty One, roared into my cards this week, I didn't even know what to say. Sekhmet encourages to get in touch with our anger and our rage and use it to transform our lives and our situations. As someone who wrestles with depression -- "anger turned inward," as the saying goes -- giving free range to my anger and rage is sometimes frightening. And given that American society's response to a woman with strong emotions and opinions, a woman who shows anger, is typically to dismiss her as irrational and thus not worth listening to, letting my inner Sekhmet out is something I've been strongly socialized to avoid.
But she is here to visit, in all her lion-headed majesty....
It's not an easy few days around here. Finals time is always stressful, between the piles of papers and exams to grade, soothing freaked-out students, and trying to get all the end of academic year paperwork turned in. Add in that I had a sudden and unexpected -- and still bewildering -- falling out with an old friend, that I'm staring at a summer with no teaching income, and that I'm just plain tired, and its all too easy to fall into a spiral of negative thinking. I've been really working to stay positive, to see my teaching-free summer as a great opportunity to build my business and do some much-needed writing, to trust that things will work out as they should. I know too well what happens when I let myself go down the rabbit hole of negative thinking -- nothing good, to put it mildly.
The Universe definitely wanted to send me a message along those lines this week, because Aditi, the Hindu Mother Goddess, came up in my cards this week:
It's the first week of May, which -- along with Beltaine -- means it's finals time. Now that I'm a professor I'm on the "grading" rather than the "taking" side of the exams, but I'm not entirely sure that makes things less stressful! In the midst of all the finals time tasks -- grading papers, answering panicked emails, crafting review sheets and exams, and generally wrapping up my classes -- I've been surfing a wave of inspiration for new ideas for my Etsy shop, my Tarot blog, more metaphysical classes I want to offer, and various writing projects I want to undertake. It is quite like me to get very inspired when I have a pile of rather mundane tasks to square away.
When Brigit came up as the Goddess for this week, it was a bit like meeting an old friend. Brigit (or Brighid) has been one Goddess I've worked with consistently in my practice. I like her triune nature, as patroness of poetry, smithcraft, and midwifery. I appreciate that she is the one who brings imbas, the fire in the head that is inspiration. The first circle I ever practiced with was dedicated to Her, and our major Sabbat celebration was Imbolc/Brighid. It will be nice to spend the next week with her, as I navigate the waters of both inspiration and obligation.
Contrary to my usual pattern in the high, bright, Texas Springtime, I've found myself doing a lot of going within of late. I'm facing something of a transition in my career -- not necessarily out of my line of work and into a new one, but into a new relationship with what I do and also the launching of several new ventures. I've found myself simultaneously terrified and excited by the changes, and have been feeling a lot of internal changes and shifts as well.
Add in that I've been teaching an8-week online intensive about the Chakras, with this last week focusing on the Sacral Chakra with all its powers of intuition, creativity, and finding personal power and passion, and it's been a time of really considering what makes me tick, what I need to feel stable and safe (thanks, Root Chakra!), and exploring my relationship with my intuition and ability to trust myself.
One of the things I love about working with Kris Waldherr's Goddess Inspiration Oracle is that she includes Goddesses from many cultures, including nonWestern and indigenous ones. This deck has really expanded my awareness of different Goddesses, and I always smile when one I haven't pulled before comes up. (And though I've been working with the cards for nearly three years, I still have new ones come up!)
So I smiled when Benzai-ten, Japanese Goddess of Talents, came into my life for this week. And I chuckled when I saw her message, which is
I've spent much of the last month engrossed in Reverend Lauren Artress's Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as Spiritual Practice, about the labyrinth as spiritual movement and spiritual practice. I've been walking the labyrinth since 1998, and within the last few months I've taken what has been a deeply personal practice and begun sharing it with the Women's Spirituality here in Dallas-Fort Worth, through monthly labyrinth walks at some of the public labyrinths in the Metroplex. Artress writes movingly of the Holy Spirit as feminine, and of the way in which the labyrinth helps us reconnect with the Divine Feminine.
So it seems wholly fitting that my Goddess for this week is Sophia -- the spirit of Feminine Wisdom within the Christian tradition.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...