Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit

Who knows what the goddess means? She has meant different things in different eras, in different cultures, to different people. She has been anger and rage as well as peace and fruitfulness. She is the totality of experience of each woman. She cannot be limited to a single form, nor contained in a single body. She is more comprehensive than we can imagine. In meditating upon her vastness, we encounter it within ourselves.

Everything that exists partakes of the goddess. But we cannot know her directly. Rather, we know her through the universe that expresses her and that surrounds us. Studying this world, and studying ourselves, is the only way we can truly learn to know the goddess. Look at the sky, the black earth, the green living things that surround us. Look at the movements of animals, graceful and hungry and free. Watch the flights of birds, the great movements of sea mammals and fish, the ice-flow of glaciers, the frozen rippling time incised on great mountains. These are all ways to know the goddess.

We ourselves participate in the divine feminine. Whether male or female, we each hold her within ourselves. Our route to the goddess is only partially through understanding the world around us. It is also through understanding our hearts: our most frightening and needful urges as well as our brightest and most ecstatic ones. Embracing all that we are, we also embrace her, in whose image we are made.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Oshun, I bow to you!
You are very rich,
digging in the sand
to hide money there.
Oshun, I bow to you!
You are very beautiful,
with your coral hair-combs
and your cast-copper jewelry.
Oshun, I bow to you!
You are very powerful.
You have seized the crown.
Look at you, dancing with it!
~African Chant To The Love Goddess

After the African Goddess were carried across the Atlantic in the hearts of their worshippers and in the holds of slave ships, they found a new life on this side of the ocean. In Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, and other areas of the New World, they joined with indigenous Goddesses and spiritual traditions to form new, vital, and energetic religions.

Many of these religions place a special emphasis on the spirituality of dance. In Haitian voudoun. for instance, a Goddess makes her appearance in this world by taking on the body of a devotee, who dances the divinity's special dance. Such dance is an ecstatic communion between the world of the senses and that of the spirit. Spirituality need not be a disembodied experience. We can worship with our whole selves when we invoke the Goddess through dance.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

O sun mother, kindly Saule,
where have you been hiding?
Where have you traveled
since you left us here?
I have been across the hills
to take care of the weather
for the shepherds over there.
Remember, I have much to do!
~Lithuanian Folksongs

The sun has not disappeared from our world. As the Baltic peoples knew, when the sky grows dark above us, the sun is merely busy warming other people in other lands. Summer is not gone from the earth; it is merely blooming on the other side of the world right now.

In our own lives, too, the sun seems to disappear at times. We have money worries, or we lack love, or we find work frustrating. It is tempting, at such times, to focus on the negative aspects of our lives. But even when times are tough, there is positive energy somewhere. Some friend offers a kind word, or we take pleasure in a hobby or good book, or we accept the gentle ministrations of our pets. Light and darkness dapple our lives at all times. We can choose only to see darkness, or we can rejoice in the light as well.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Where is the woman who refused to marry?
Look: she is in a kayak going to sea with a puffin.
Where is the father of the woman who refused to marry?
He is taking her home in a kayak to the mainland.
Now he is taking the woman back home.
Now a storm is rising. Now the wind is rising.
Now the man is pushing the woman into the sea.
Now she is clinging to the boat. Now he is striking her.
With a knife he is cutting her fingers. Seals emerge.
Again he is striking at her arms. Whales emerge.
Now she is sinking, Sedna the beautiful.
Now she is sinking. The tide is taking her.
~Inuit Song

One of the most powerful and violent of the world's goddess myths is the story of Sedna, the great Goddess of Abundance to the Artic Inuit people and their relatives the Inupiat and Yup'ik. A woman who found no human man appealing enough to marry, Sedna was finally courted and won by a sea bird. He took her to an island, where she lived in a huge best and ate fish scraps. After some time, her father came to rescue her, but the sea rose up against him, for the bird was a prince of the ocean.

The man, realizing he could not win against the elements, pushed his daughter overboard. She clung to the side of the boat. He pushed her away. She sank beneath the waves. And there, she underwent a
transformation. From her arms, whales emerged; from her fingers, seals. The foodstuff from which her people would rely came from Sedna's body.

Variants of this myth - in which a primal mother gives up her body in order to feed her people - appear across the world. However shocking it might seem, it encodes an inescapable truth: we live of the lives of others. To do so without gratitude is the ultimate insult to our great mother, nature.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Hail to Inanna, the sky torch, the pure one.
Hail to heaven's noble one, crowned with great horns.
Hail to the Moon's oldest daughter, heaven's great queen.
I sing of her greatness, her beauty, her nobility.
I sing of her brilliance in the evening sky.
I sing of her rising, to shine down on all our lands.
~Babylonian Star-Rise Incantation

Winter nights give us an opportunity to see one of nature's great exhibitions: the star-filled sky. How many of our forebears saw the features of their gods and goddesses in those stars! In the many eons of prehistorical time, our ancestors studied the stars so closely that they have left astonishingly accurate star-maps all over the world, even predicting eclipses that have not yet occurred.

How much more distant we are today from the stars and from the earth. Once every child could find her way home on a dark night by noticing the positions of the stars. What intimate connection was forged between the heavens and the earth, when a star stood, like a beacon or a street sign, revealing directions and illustrating myths. As we sit by the starry blue light of our cathode tubes indoors today, have we really gained so much?

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Under the mountains is a house.
A road runs down to it. The mountain hides it.
No one knows how to reach it.
There evil people are bound with ropes
and held in narrow spaces. No one escapes
from this house, but the just need not fear it.
This is the house of the setting sun.
This is the house on whose foundation
the sunrise mountains rise.
This is the house of the monster
with gaping jaws and the raging lion-guards.
And here also are the gardens of the goddess.
~Babylonian Description Of The Underworld

Every religion has an ethical standard, a set of rules on which people's behaviors is judged. And every religion, including the religions of the goddess, speaks of some kind of punishment for wrongdoing. Yet, when we look around, how often we see selfish and uncaring people richly rewarded for their actions! There is the victimizing boss who moves up the corporate ladder. There is the selfish lover who receives pleasure while denying it. There is the uncaring parent who enjoys life at the expense of children. Why are these people not punished?

This problem of evil is one of the great philosophical and religious questions humanity faces. We face it time after time, generation after generation, culture after culture. And no definite answer is ever reached. In the religious of the goddess, we find images of punishment of evildoers, as well as rules for living in harmony with her wishes. If we cannot settle the problem of evil, we can try to activate the good within ourselves.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Wake up, people! Open your eyes! Wake up!
Move quickly, like people of light!
Draw clouds forth from the sky's quarters.
Draw clouds full of snow to us here!
Snow falling now means water in summer.
Come, ice, cover my fields!
In four days the festival starts, when we assemble
to call down snow in abundance.
~Pueblo Dawn Call To Winter Feast

Throughout the world, the darkest time is also the time of the greatest celebration. One reason is simple: busy people, bustling about to gather enough food to survive through the winter, have less time to tell stories and to feast and to sing. But there is another reason that is not so obvious: the belief that the activities of human beings during the winter somehow empower the earth to keep turning on its axis, progressing slowly toward the new seasons yet to come.

Stories have traditionally been vital in this quest for continued order in the universe. Each winter, people would gather to hear the old myths recited by the hearth-fire. This was the children's school, the time to learn the rules by which humankind was expected to live. It was a continuing education program for adults, too, who each year heard the familiar stories anew, with deeper meaning. But the stories did more than just educate people. In a mysterious and magickal way, they also linked humans to the cosmos. Just as the sun set at the anticipated time, so we were to tell the right story on the right night. We thus were bound to the cycle of the seasons in a deep and meaningful way.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

"Mother most amiable, mother most admirable,
mother of good counsel. Virgin most prudent,
virgin most venerable, virgin most renowned.
Mirror of justice, seat of wisdom, cause of our joy, Mystical rose, tower of David, tower of ivory,
house of gold. Arl of the covenant, gate of heaven, morning star. Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of peace." ~Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today is the feast of a special Goddess: Tonan, the Great Lady of Aztec Mexico, who has survived even into present times. But she does not wear her fierce Aztec mask anymore. Rather, she is pictured as a dark woman, wrapped in a serape, surrounded by flames, the moon under her feet. She is Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary of Mexico, a figure who absorbs the earlier Goddess and sustains her in the life of her followers.

Guadalupe, the matron goddess of the Mexican people, came to her people through a vision. Juan Diego, a Nahutl Indian, saw an apparition on a hill where Tonan's temple used to stand. The lady spoke to him, telling him to build a church to her there. He went to the area bishop and told him of the apparition on Tepeyac hill. Several times he was rebuffed, until finally he brought a claok full of roses, in midwinter, to the bishop. The miracle established the desire of the mother to be back among her children, under a new name, but still protective and loving. That is the miracle celebrated on today's feast - and behind it, the miracle of an important goddess' survival among subjugated people.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Tomorrow will be my dancing day,
I would my true love would so chance,
to see the legend of my play,
to call my true love to my dance.
Sing, O my love, O my love,
my love, my love.
This have I done for my true love.
~Traditional Carol

In Greece, this was the period called the halcyon days - the weeks before and after the winter solstice. The name comes from that of an ancient heroine, Halcyone, who loved a fisherman named Ceyx. A dream told her that her beloved had died at sea, and so she stood thereafter by the seashore, finally catching her lover's body as it washed to shore.

Transported by grief and unquenchable longing, Halcyone burst out of human form into the shape of the first kingfisher, and her dead mate magically revived and joined her in the same shape. So kindly did the Greek divinities look on this loyal love that they blessed the couple. Now, when the kingfisher is ready to lay its eggs, a calm descends on the sea until they hatch. These are the halcyon days, a term used of any period of calm and peace.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Wisdom rested on the ark of the covenant.
From the ark she moved to the cherubim.
From the cherubim she moved to the other cheribum.
From the second cheribum she moved to the threshold.
From the threshold she moved to the courtyard.
From the courtyard she moved to the altar.
From the altar she moved to the temple roof.
From the roof to the wall, from the wall to the city,from the city to the mountains, and then,
from the mountain, Wisdom moved out into the desert.
~Talmudic Poem, 279C.E

Life would be easier if Wisdom stayed in one place. We could look for her there and know she could always be found. We could leave her there knowing that, when we needed her, she would be waiting for us.

But the wise ancients knew better. They knew that Wisdom is never at rest for long. We find her here one day, there another. One day we find her in a book, the next day in the open sky. One day we discover her in the soulful comment of a friend; the next day a painting speaks to us.

We must never stop looking for Wisdom. For no one is ever fully wise; we are always on the way. And Wisdom moves before us. She cannot be confined to one truth, one idea, one dogma. She will always escape the prisons we build for her. Only the vast desert is large enough for her. The desert, and the stars ~ for the entire Universe is Wisdom's home.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

Hi LadyV,

Nice to see you posting again. I'm on a tight time schedule for a while, so I will be reading in spurts what you have written.

Thanks for taking the time. I will also take the time to read your efforts.

Thank you dear. I hope this new year isn't as hectic as last appeared to be for you.

The Goddess Companion

At daybreak, the rising sun stretches her arms.
At daybreak, the goddess rises to her feet.
She rises, driving out darkness from the land.
She rises, bringing daylight and birdsong to the land.
Beneath her, we move about, enjoying her warmth.
Above us, she moves about, moving westward.
She shines bright on the blooming collibah tree,
with its sprawiling roots, with its spreading branches.
~Dulngulg Song Cycle, Australian Mudbara People

Light grows daily stronger at this time of year, but it is hard to believe it, for the world still seems shrouded in wintery gloom. Yet daily, the sun rises earlier and sets later. Daily, the great round of the year reveals its mysteries once again.

So it is with our lives. We pass through periods where we believe that we will never find happiness again, that we will never find an end to pain, that we will forever suffer from frustration and unease and anxiety.But nothing lasts forever. The greatest pain, like the greatest joy, someday ends. True joy exists in learning to delight in the dance of life, not clinging to a certain day's beauties or even to its pains. True joy exists in moving like the sun through each day, knowing that it will finally end but also that a new day will always dawn afresh.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

"Gray-eyed one, I sing of you, wiser and most beautiful, relentless Athena, protector of cities, strong-armed and fair. From his head the great god birthed you, dressed in golden armour and bearing a sharp spear. The holy mountains shook when you were born, and the earth quaked, and the sea's dark waves broke against the land. Even the sun stopped in astonishment at this sight, this goddess, fresh-born and strong. Hail to you, Athena, may I never live without this shield of your protection." ~Homeric Hymn to Athena

To the Greeks, the Great Goddess Athena was the warrior who protected their city. Born in a lightning flash, a miraculous child wearing armour even at birth, she was also the Goddess of wisdom, whose owl-eyes saw truth, wherever it might be hidden..

There is good reason for Athena to represent both wisdom and defense. For we need wisdom to know when to defend ourselves and when to let down our defenses. We must not walk through this world unprotected, for there are those who would steal our energy, our hearts, our time, our possessions. We need to armour ourselves against such thieves and robbers. But we cannot wear armour all the time. There are times we must share: ourselves, our good fortune, our ideas, and our hearts.

Athena's wisdom tells us when its safe to unbuckle the armour and remove the helmet. She is also the armour itself, protecting us when we need it. To live in her image is to live fully but safely, to be generous but not exhausted, to have enough both for ourselves and to share with those who merit it.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

I am whatever is. Whatever is, I am.
I am whatever is visible. Whatever is visible, I am.
I am whatever is invisible, Whatever is invisible, I am.
I am whatever is alive, Whatever is alive, I am.
I am whatever moves and breathes. Whatever moves and brethes, I am.
I am the very spirit of life. The very spirit of life, I am.
Everything that exists in time is part of me. I am everything that exists.
When time ends, I will end. I will vanish, disappear, dissolve.
And with me, everything else will vanish, disappear, dissolve.
I alone can create, and I alone destroy, this universe.
Everything that exists is mine. Everything that exists is me.
~Invocation to Lakshmi, India

There is nothing in the Universe that does not partake in the essence of the Goddess. In Hindu religion, the Goddess creates everything we see, hear, feel, smell, taste. She is the energy from which all the matter in the universe is made.

The vision of the Goddess is echoed by contemporary science, which has rediscovered what some philosophies have long known: that matter and energy are intimately connected. The dance of subatomic particles, flashing in and out of existence as they swim in their quantum soup, is not far distant from the dancing Goddess who creates all the visible and invisible world through her movement. Whether we call her Lakshmi or the implicate order, there is an ultimate reality to this universe. Whatever we call it, we must marvel at its greatness and its mystery.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

I am beautiful, I am indeed beautiful:
I am the spirit of the earth itself.

I am beautiful, I am indeed beautiful:
The earth's strength is my strength.

I am beautiful, I am indeed beautiful:
The earth's thoughts are my thoughts.

I am beautiful, I am indeed beautiful:
All that the earth is, all that is everywhere I am.

I am beautiful, I am indeed beautiful.
~Navaho Chant of the Changing Woman

What woman among us can truly celebrate her beauty? Once we livd in small communities, surrounded by people like ourselves. We felt the wind on our faces and the warmth of the sun; we fed ourselves with food harvested by our own labor. A woman in such a community was never just a visual object, to be observed and evaluated from a distance. She was known for her hard work or her easy laughter, for her kind words or her exhuberant dancing. When those in her community looked at her, they did not see a still life but a moving picture.

Today we are surrounded by still pictures of women, models who pose on every corner, every passing bus, every magazine cover. We know nothing of these women. We do not know which of them lost thier brothers to early deaths, or which were hurt by cruel parents. We do not know which one loves the flashing rainbow or the thunder. We see them only as visual compositions; we cannot see thier hearts.

This is the vision of beauty we are offered now. Yet the wise ones of the desert knew that woman's beauty is as various as the seasons, as changeful as the skies, as complex as a snake's brilliant markings. Let us rejoice, as they did, in the variety and depth of every woman.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

"The Goddess Companion"

Here is some advice for you:
make peace with all your family.
And here is more: never seek revenge,
even when you have just cause.
And here is even more: never break an oath,
for bad luck follows liars.
And here is my last advice: watch your words,
speak with care, avoid all
those whose speech is careless, for foolishness is loud,
but wisdom whispers.
~Scandanavian Lay of Sigrdrifa

It is common today to recognize the Goddess in nature, but our foremothers saw her in human society as well. Goddesses represented justice and the bonds of family, law and its ordering principle. We acknowledge this wisdom when we depict blind Themis holding her scales, or place the crown of Tyche on a ruler's head. Femininity is not only to be found in nature or in the worldview of goddess cultures; it is found in civilization as well.

Civilizing Goddesses offered advice that rings as true today as when it was uttered hundreds, or thousands, of years ago. The goddesses tell us to be prudent and truthful, to be honorable and loving. Beyond the changeful forms of society, some values seem to be constant. Following the advice of the Scandinavian Goddess Sigrdrifa can make our lives whole and serene.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

Earth, holy mother, source of nature,
you feed us while we live, you hold us when we die.
Everything comes from you, everything returns to you.
What else could we call you but Our Mother?
Even the gods call you that. Without you
there is nothing. Nothing can thrive, nothing can live
Without your power. Queen and Goddess, I invoke you:
you are all-powerful and my needs are so small.
Give me what I ask and in exchange, I will give you
my thanks, sincere and from my deepest heart.
~Roman Prayer To The Earth

Compared to the vastness of the earth, each one of us is tiny. Yet altogether the amount of life this planet supports is immense. The ability of this planet to produce enough food for its creatures is astonishing. Not only does Our Mother feed all her human children, but her plants produce seed and leaves in such great quantity that they feed the birds, the fish, the other mammals as well. Life on this green planet is supported by intricate interconnections. And we are the benficiaries of that great web of life.

How infrequently, however, do most of us today acknowledge this web that supports and sustains us? In many cultures, the first action each person took each morning was to bow in prayer to the sun and to the earth, expressing gratitude for the warmth and light that enlivens the planet, and the earth's plentiful food and water. How raely do we, today, follow such ancient practices? Henceforth, let us begin each day with grateful acknowledgement of our place in the planetary system.

From "The Goddess Companion" By Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

How I love that dark beauty,
seducing the world
with her black hair,
how I love her!
How I love my black darling
who lives in the heart of the world,
int he heart of our hearts,
in the hearts of the gods,
how I love her!
Because she is black,
I love black.
Because she dances,
I love dancing.
Because she is beautiful
and black with dancing
hair, I cannot help
myself, I adore her!
~Indian Poet Ramprasad

In India one of the most beloved Goddesses is Kali, the black dancer who brings death to each of us and to the entire world at time's end. How can people love death? Is not death something to be feared, to be postponed at all costs? How can we embrace Kali and all that she means?

Yet the insight that lead the Hindu poet Ramprasad to write his magnificent prayers to Kali is one that can benefit all of us. For we are - all of us - mortal beings who will one day face death. There is no avoiding Kali. She will be with us at the end; it is no good to pretend she will not. To lie in constant awareness of her presence is to live fully in each beautiful, brief moment. To live with Kali means not to lapse into mindlessness and thus lose the preciousness of life. To love Kali is, in the most profound fashion, to love ourselves and all those around us. embracing her is most deeply embracing ourselves.

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan

The Goddess Companion

The Goddess is an eye of fire,
born from a cauldron of strength.
The Goddess is a radiant fire,
born from an ocean of fear.
The goddess is strong and fearsome.
Her Magic is strong and powerful.
When she grows angry, she strikes,
and her enemies wither from her wrath.
~Egyptian Coffin Texts

The feminine force is not only warm and matronly, friendly and girlish. It is also a power of fire and strength, or righteous anger and powerful wrath. As the Egyptians knew when they honored Sekhmet, the wrathful lion Goddess of the sun's fire, nature cannot be contained nor constrained within our human vision of gentleness and love. She is vaster than that. She is all the natural forces or purification and change; she is fire as well as earth and water.

So, too, each woman has the fierce fiery power of the primal Goddess within her. And there are times when that power should be used, nature. Once the purifying fire has done its work, the kindlier aspects of the Goddess will return. seasons when the soul, and the exterior of life that reflects it, must be purged and cleansed. A woman must not retreat from the challenge of using this power, for it is a part of her feminine

From "The Goddess Companion" by Patricia Monaghan