Why It Is Wise to Worship a Woman

Arjuna Ardagh

A few days ago, after a particularly exquisite evening with my wife Chameli, I put this post up on Facebook before going to bed:

“I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through.”

When I woke up the next morning, there were the usual offerings of people who liked the post as well as comments. One man had the vulnerability and courage to post this on facebook:

“Thank you Arjuna for this sharing, I feel like [I’m] in front of a choice which is between feeling envious of what you have and I don’t, or instead to decide that ‘I want that too,’ and, as you show, it is possible…”

I was touched.

Over the next days, I got several more messages like this from men: vulnerable men, honest men, rare and courageous men. They came in as private messages on Facebook or through our website, and they all said basically the same thing: “I read your Facebook post. I want what you have. Show me how to get it.”

So, friends, here it is. The short guide on how to worship a woman, and why it’s the wisest thing that a man can do. First of all, lets pop a few very understandable doubts that you might have. I’m familiar with all of them.

1. “I’m wounded and damaged in my relationships to the feminine.” So am I, dear brother, so am I. My parents divorced in a messy way when I was four. I grew up alone with my mother. She did her very best to provide for me, but she was unhappy and insecure. By the time I started to have relationships with women myself in my early teens, I discovered that I had a mountain of resentments, fears, and separation in my relation to the feminine. The conscious practice of worship can become a part of healing the wounds.

2. “Arjuna, you’re lucky. You’ve got an incredible partner. I’m together with a woman who’s not like Chameli.” I really don’t have the ultimate answer to that doubt or question. It certainly could seem to be the case that I’ve been lucky in finding a great woman, but here’s how it happened for me. I’ve had a lot of less lucky connections in my life. I’ve experienced my share of the manipulative side of the feminine: the victim, the rageful, the vengeful. And I have seen the ugly side of the masculine psyche in myself. A few weeks prior to meeting Chameli, my wife, something deep and profound shifted in me, which I believe can shift for anyone in the same way.

3. “I don’t have a partner at all, and I sometimes doubt if I’ll ever meet anybody.” Being with a partner where worship is not flowing, or not being with a partner at all, are basically two aspects of the same situation: you’ve had an intuition or a glimpse of the possibilities of a deeper love, and you want more of it. The solutions are the same.

4. “I feel my heart is closed down. I live in my head a lot, and I wouldn’t even know what worship was if it broke into my house at 2 o’clock in the morning and held me at gunpoint.” That’s where the whole thing starts for all of us, when we realize that we don’t yet know how to love. And that’s that the big question that you have to consider: “Is that okay with me?” Never mind how much money you make, or how many friends you have on Facebook, no matter how nice a house you live in, or no matter how big a car you drive, no matter how impressive your partner’s bust size, or how much you meditate and become spiritual… have you loved for real, in a total and undefended way? If not, and here’s where you have to be honest with yourself, is that OK with you? Is it OK to die one day without the heart’s gift having been fully given?

Eight or nine years ago, I came to that question in myself, exactly that, and I discovered that the answer was, if I was was raw and vulnerable and uncomplicated, that it was actually not OK. If I died one day without having fully loved, it would not have truly been a life well lived.

Many many years ago, I went to Bali for a vacation, on my own. I met up with some other young travelers there and we hired a Jeep to take us on a tour of the island. We drove up right to the highest point of the island, where Tourists don’t usually go. Our guide took us to one of the most sacred temples. It was surrounded by a big brick wall with an ornate entrance. After removing our shoes and wrapping scarves around our heads, we stepped together through this entrance. Inside, there was a short courtyard and then another brick wall with another entrance. After more preparations of lighting incense and giving offerings, we stepped through the second entrance. We were allowed to go through the opening in one more wall, but that was it. All together there were ten walls around the deity in the middle. Hindus could go beyond the fourth wall. Devotees of that particular deity could go beyond the fifth wall, and so it went on. The only people allowed to approach the deity directly were those who had given their lives completely and totally to its worship. Everyone else could come a little closer, a little closer, to the innermost beauty, but not all the way to the center.

I’m not a big believer of the worship of statues, but there’s a beautiful symbolism to what I saw there, because a woman’s heart is just like that. At the essence of every woman’s heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman’s heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it’s protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn’t even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.

If you stand on the outside of the outermost wall, all you have available to you, like many other unfortunate men, is pornography. For $1.99 a minute, you can see her breasts, maybe her vagina, and you can stimulate yourself in a sad longing for deeper love.

Step through another gate, and she will show you her outer gift-wrapping. She’ll look at you with a certain twinkle in her eye. She’ll answer your questions coyly. She’ll give you just the faintest hint that there is more available.

Step through another gate with your commitment, with your attention, with the small seedlings of devotion, and she’ll open her heart to you more. She’ll share with you her insecurities, the way that she’s been hurt, her deepest longings. Some men will back away at this point. They realize that the price they must pay to go deeper is more than they are willing to give. They start to feel a responsibility. But for those few who step though another gate, they come to discover her loyalty, her willingness to stick with you no matter what, her willingness to raise your children, stick up for you in conversation, and, if you are lucky, even pick up your dirty socks now and then. And so it goes on. You’ve got the gist by now.

Somewhere around the second wall from the center, she casts the veils of her personality aside, and shows you that she is both a human being and also a portal into something much greater than that. She shows you a wrath that is not hers, but all women’s. She shows you a patience that is also universal. She shows you her wisdom. At this point you start to experience the archetypes of women, who have been portrayed as goddesses and mythological figures in every tradition.

Then, at the very center, in the innermost temple itself, all the layers of your devotion are flooded with reward all at once. You discover the very essence of the feminine, and in a strange way that is not exactly romantic, but profoundly sacred all the same, you realize that you could have got here with any woman if you had just been willing to pass through all the layers of initiation. Any woman is every woman, and every woman is any woman at the same time. When you love a woman completely, at the very essence of her being, this is the one divine feminine flame. It is what has made every woman in history beautiful. It’s the flame behind the Mona Lisa, and Dante’s Beatrice, and yes, also Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum. You discover the magic ingredient which has lead every man to fall in love with a woman.

When you learn how to pay attention to the essence of the feminine in this way, you fall to the floor in full body prostration, tears soaking your cheeks and clothes, and you wonder how you could have ever taken Her, in all of Her forms, for granted even for a second.

So just a couple small questions remain. First, do you get what I’m talking about? Does it jive for you? Does it make sense? And second, if yes, how are you going to get from where you are now to being able to the full capacity of your heart to love for real? I’d be glad to share more about this if we get to know each other better, but here’s how you get started.
First, do what I did, and create an altar in your room dedicated to Divine Feminine. Put only symbols of the feminine on it. I have a painting called “Beatrix” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I have a statue of Quan Kin. Populate your altar with anything that reminds you of the feminine, and spend a few minutes of the day in worship. Yes, worship. Adoration. Devotion. Offer up rose petals. Offer poems. Offer everything, and beg Her to reveal Her innermost essence to you. This will work miracles whether you’re single and waiting to meet the right woman or whether you’re already in relationship and long to meet your woman in a deeper way.

The second way to get started: make a practice, a discipline, of telling your woman, or any woman, ten times a day something which you adore about her. “I love the smell of your shampoo.” “I love the way you laugh.” “The color of your eyes is so beautiful.” Of course, you need to keep it appropriate. You can go as far out on a limb as you like if you’re in relationship with a woman, but with anyone else remember the gates. Keep you communication appropriate to the gate number that you find yourself at. Appreciation the curve of a woman’s breast, for example, if she happens to be the cashier at the supermarket, would equate more to harassment than worship.
So here’s enough to get started. Of course, there’s a lot more we can say about this. Feel free to post your comments below, and I’ll use them as the foundation for future blogs.

Follow Arjuna Ardagh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/awakeningcoach

Nourishment, Kundalini, and the Menopausal Woman

by Mary Lane
Author of Divine Nourishment: A Woman’s Sacred Journey with Food

Fall is a time nature separates the seeds from the chaff in the plant kingdom, embeds them in her body and has the grand cosmic lovemaking with spirit to consecrate her impregnation. You can see and feel it as the brilliantly colored leaves reveal the sacred merging. It is a time when life and death are merged as one. Nature is supported by the animals, wind and birds to spread her seeds, as she carpets her body with the decaying leaves to give them a warm safe bed for the winter. She protects the seeds of her next generation before she retreats and takes time for herself. She rebuilds her energy in the winter before giving birth in the spring. It is truly a magical time and an honor to witness.

Menopause is a passage into the autumn of our life. It prepares us to take a look at the harvest of our life, separate the wheat from the chaff and distill the wisdom from our journey. Once we have taken the time to go inward and do the work it takes to distill the wisdom it is time to come back out as a wise woman and plant the seeds of our wisdom for the next generation. This is quite a different scenario than we have witnessed in our culture for the last few generations. Women have just gotten old after a difficult menopausal passage and discarded by our society. Their usefulness has been hidden by our lack of awareness of the value of this phase of her life. They have been medicated and have had no idea what this passage is truly about. With so many women from the baby boomer generation going through this passage at this time we can not afford to have a vast amount of women just getting old. We can not afford to not honor and welcome our wise women into society to support the collective transformation we are going through. This generation of menopausal women need to take their rightful place in society. We need them!

Nature has been my teacher for many years. I spent 15 years living in the Hawaiian islands on Maui. It is the newest land on Earth. It energetically embodies the creative, orgasmic sexual energy erupting wave after wave. The fire goddess Pele rules in this part of the world. It was the place I focused on learning what this thing called sexual energy was really about, beyond what I was conditioned with from a culture that has definite issues about it. She taught me well. Just as Pele and the energy of those islands taught me about my sexuality as it is reflected by nature, the mountains of North Carolina are teaching me what it looks like to embrace and embody myself as an elder wise woman – integrated with my sexuality. These are the oldest mountains in the world with deep, wise feminine energy. I am a full time student of this phase of life with the best teacher there is.

What do the two have in common? How does one support the other? And what does it have to do with menopause and Divine Nourishment?

First of all, nourishing ourselves according to the Earth’s wisdom, the embodiment of the fully integrated woman, balanced with her masculine, with no apologies about her oozing infinite creative sexual energy, and wise enough to recycle, is the first step in shifting our self rejection as women and open to our wisdom.

Many women naturally experience a rising of kundalini energy as they approach menopause. Their energy is shifting from being projected outward to attract procreation to inward and movement upward through the chakra system. Some experience this as hot flashes as the energy hits up against blocks. This energy is available to clear out the blockages through the entire chakra system that does not represent the fully authentic, integrated powerful feminine. It scours the system for all conditioning that is not compatible. It is a powerful serpentine energy that is the master of transformation. And it is there for us at this time. When we hang onto the old illusory ideas of who we are as a woman menopause can be a nightmare. When we work with this energy in a conscious way it is a journey into our authenticity which prepares for the phase in life that is intolerant of anything less. It prepares us to take our place with the wisdom that comes from the depths of our soul’s journey. It prepares us to be so grounded in it that we are unshakable. We are no longer under the influence of society’s conditioning. We have the strength and power to tell it like it is as we pass the baton to the next generation laced with deeply earned wisdom.

Is it no wonder that it was necessary to convince women that this passage was quite the opposite of its reality? Can you imagine a generation of women from the baby boomers coming into this phase of their life fully empowered? What an impact it would have on this collective transformation.

Honoring ourselves, shifting the self rejection, nourishing ourselves according the our wisdom reflected from nature and making friends with our sexual energy is important preparation for this most sacred passage.

When we are not grounded in our life, unable to nourish ourselves appropriately the kundalini rising through our bodies can become a dangerous vehicle that can carry us to realms we are not prepared for. It can shred and dismember us in such an unmerciful way we can’t integrate it. It is the most powerful energy in the Universe and should not be taken lightly. Opening to this energy in a way that supports the cleansing of the chakra system and prepares us for our role as wise women without getting blown out of the water is a tricky dance.

Nourishing ourselves according to nature’s wisdom grounds us on this wave of transformation season by season at a manageable voltage. We become acquainted with ourselves, transforming cycle by cycle. We are experienced riders by the time menopause arrives. We can then utilize this serpentine energy as it rises up our spine, seasoned with meeting ourselves and ride the wave through this sacred passage. We can then integrate this transformation, embody it and take our place as the elder with a baton that is worth passing on. There may have never been a time in history that is calling for this more than now. We can do this.

When we have been able to experience this sexual, creative serpent energy moving up through our entire being our relationship with this energy takes on quite a different flavor. It no longer is a localized experienced that ends quite quickly. It connects every cell in our body to the Divine. We can ride this wave, bathing ourselves with life giving energy that weaves together the physical and spiritual existence of our soul. We have been well trained by the wave that moves through the Earth’s body from living and eating seasonally. There is much more to this seasonal lifestyle than meets the eye.

Mary Lane is the author of the ebook “Divine Nourishment / A Woman’s Sacred Journey with Food.” She has many years and credentials as a chef and 5 Element Nutritionist, along with Plant Spirit Medicine. She has a strong background in inner alchemy according to ancient Taoist practices and teachings of Mary Magdelene. She lives a lifestyle that allows her to have a deep connection with the natural world, and considers herself a full time student. Mary weaves this all together offering tools in aligning and grounding ourselves in the wisdom of nature through the doorway of nourishment. She draws upon her life’s journey to offer support and wisdom for women who are reclaiming the Divine Feminine within. For more information, see divinenourishment.net.

Mary & Anyaa are offering a week-long event: The Crone, Kundalini & Creativity April 8th-15th, 2010 at Isis Cove Retreat Center in Western NC. click here for a full flyer.

Mary & Anyaa will be offering a free women’s circle evening on Tuesday, 7 pm on March 16th and Tuesday, March 30th at The Women’s Health & Wellness Center, 24 Arlington St., Asheville, NC 28801.

Overview of the Evening:

We will gather together to learn from each other in sacred circle, as seasoned women of consciousness. Cronehood is ready to be re-visioned as a time of integration, making whole and birthing a new creativity in alignment with each woman’s own unique soul qualities. The time is ripe for the Crone to take her place on the wheel of life at the Turning of the Ages. We will move, share, journey and overview The Crone, Kundalini & Creativity, a week-long event taking place for the first time here in Western NC. Co-facilitators Anyaa McAndrew and Mary Lane will guide us through a magical evening dedicated to the menopausal woman!

Reflections on The Great Shift in Women

(at the New Moon Solar Eclipse window 1-13-10), by Anyaa T. McAndrew

I’ve been immersed lately in the predictions for 2012, including documentary films, astrological predictions, and channelings.

I also recently I had the pleasure of a week with my Beloved in Tulum, Mexico, where the Mayans left their legacy of the great settlements and their prophetic calendar. It’s clear that we are already well into what my astrology teacher Daniel Giamario has coined The Turning of the Ages. Our reality has accelerated to warp speed vibration while systems and structures are literally collapsing all around us. This morning I heard the news of the Haiti earthquake and fears that as many as 500,000 may have lost their lives. My partner Gary and I have been working with the mortgage banking system for the past 9 months to get a permanent mortgage on the round house we built as our forever home. One thing after another has happened including lost paperwork, lenders closing, and misunderstandings about the value of our home because of its’ unconventional roundness. We have sent out our own prayers, asked for prayers from friends and community, and are now in a surrender mode because there is nothing left to do. We cannot trust anyone or anything but Spirit, and we know we will be taken care of no matter what!

The message to set intention, take action (which means do whatever you can do) and then let go is a huge one for all of us. This upcoming New Moon in Capricorn (tomorrow Thursday Jan 14^th at 11:11 pm PST) is also the first new moon of the year and a solar eclipse. Solar eclipses mark the beginning and ending point of the past and the future. In Vedic astrology, it is the Vedic Winter Solstice and in India it is referred to as “Pongal”. Spiritually this is the time to overhaul your current self and get ready for a higher self. This festival celebrates leaving behind the old way of doing things, be it relationship, money matters or health habits. This timing is potent for working with the energies of the Great Shift. If you have not set intention yet for the year, here is a ritual you can use that comes from Barbara Hand Clow’s channeling of the Moon in her book The Pleiadian Agenda:

Write down 7 things you want to bring into your reality. Think Conscious Abundance, calling in what your soul needs to live out your purpose and give your gifts, rather than what your ego wants to get to feel safe and comfortable.
Describe each one as specifically as you can.
Now work with each one and visualize 3 different scenarios of it coming to you.
In your visualization, leave out specific people as the source, as this can manipulate another’s reality.
Tap those scenarios into your medulla oblongata, the chakra at the back of your neck at the top of your spine…tap into that point a magical number of times…you chose!
Now put it all away on your altar and check your list every once in awhile to see what has manifested from your list….cross off and add others (to make 7) once you have manifested something!

Yesterday I received a call from a priestess who said her whole life is falling apart from the inside out. My dear friend Star Wolf is ready to launch a huge book tour to promote her book that urges us to wake up in these Shamanic Times and do the work we need to do to get as conscious as we can in the time we have left, however long that is (ShamanicBreathwork.org). Another friend is trusting that although she has no income, she is in the right place at the right time while she channels a book already accepted by a wonderful publisher. I have a small circle of priestesses who are struggling and resisting as they face their time of dying to the old and Emerging as priestesses. In Cincinnati, 19 women (a lunar cycle number) are signed up for this coming weekend to explore with me the Shamanic Priestess Archetype and Women’s Mysteries. I feel the potency and the power all around me! As I connect every day with my own multi-dimensional selves, I ask to be taken to the next level, whatever that is! My final decree is always: I am willing, I am willing, I am willing, meaning I will use my will to fully participate in this next level, however it looks.

One of the questions I have been reflecting upon is What does it mean to be a priestess NOW? I have answered that question in the past in various ways, yet I find the answer starting to shift with the SHIFT! I realize now that it is no longer sufficient to be the priestess who is the conduit for bringing the Divine Feminine to Earth. It is now time to be the Goddess in all her glory and diversity and radiance. We can no longer assume the position of human woman humbly opening to the Goddess. WE ARE HER, she is HERE, and THERE IS NO MORE WAITING! As it is declared, We are the Ones we have been waiting for. What this means is that each and every woman who chooses to walk the priestess path is now ready to take her place on the wheel of the Great Goddess energy of these auspicious times, to assume her rightful personal and spiritual power in her own way in her own unique world. The diversity of the

Divine Feminine is wide, expansive and colorful. There is no doubt in my mind that every woman who walks in her life and acknowledges the sacred in everyday life has a place as a goddess. It’s now time for each of us to claim it and BE it. One of the ways to BE it, is to align with all of our selves in all dimensions and to realize that the collective of these selves is more than 3-dimensional.

Our planet is moving quickly into a great expansion of dimensions, some say 9-dimensions. We will be wise to acknowledge that our little 3-dimensional selves cannot hold it all!

Another insight I had is that in order to claim this collective multi-dimensional Goddess Self fully, we as women are going to need to step up our personal self-care to the next level. There is no way we can stand in the intensity of vibration that is around and within us if we are not in our bodies fully receiving. Our 3-dimensional physical self is the conscious zone from which we operate, acknowledge and access all the other levels. I have been working with my own self-care issues since I abruptly entered menopause after a uterine hysterectomy 3 years ago. I noticed I did not have the energy to care for myself in the same way as I continued at the same frantic pace of work life and travel. I eventually crashed, and am slowly climbing out of a deep dark hole of fatigue and overwhelm. I am now feeling a renewal of aliveness that has been the result of lots of good boundaries, quiet time, research and new applications of information tailored for a rejuvenating, more centered way of life as a seasoned woman of consciousness.

I am also realizing that I can no longer whine, complain, or play the blame game in my life if I am claiming my multi-dimensional Goddess Self. I must take responsibility (finally!) for everything I create, and do it in style, with a smile! We no longer have the time or self-indulgent luxury to play the game of blaming each other, gossiping, walking away from commitments because we are afraid, or being intolerant of another person’s perspective on reality. It’s time to clean up our messes, apologize when appropriate, make amends to those we have offended, and finish what we have started so we can move on in expanded consciousness. It’s a time when if we don’t do what we say and say what we will do, and follow through, our lessons come to us many times harder the next time around.

I have found in my own life that I can be critical of the man in my life, and I have recently come to a crossroads with that behavior, understanding that I have an obligation to be loving and kind all the time, not just when I feel like it!

The Initiated Woman is one who walks her talk, has a strong inner masculine who is grounded and accountable and on purpose, and a feminine who is open, loving and radiant. She is not afraid of looking at her own shadow or claiming her gifts to the world. She knows she needs sisters to walk with her, and she relies on her sisters to call her out, to gently tell her their truth when necessary,

love her through the inevitable times of pain, struggle and loss. As the Goddess, She honors and speaks her gratitude to all Her blessings, to all living things as we all go through the birth canal of the Great Shift of the Ages together.

Blessed Be and So It Is…….

Love,

Anyaa

Reclaiming the Feminine Divine

Creation

I will forge my own goddess in the fire of my need

Unmet by the father-god daddy-world

(call her Kali)

Hammer her curving, open form on the anvil of my power

(call her Hecate)

Carry her close in the medicine bag of my heart

(call her Inanna)

Worship her with love of self

(call her Diana)

Love of life

(call her Demeter)

Love of Earth

(call her Gaia)

She asks no burnt offerings, no fatted calves,

No “Thou shalt nots”

Indeed, she sings to me “Thou shall!”

Oh, truly is she flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood,

Bone, sinew

Never further from me than my heart, my skin

My belly and breasts,

I call upon my goddess, “Rise up within me!”

And, oh, she rises.

Karen Runkles Throener © (1996)

The story below belongs to Anna Cariad-Barrett, A Minneapolis Shamanic Priestess who emerged in 2005. This was a piece of Anna’s thesis and an affirmation of her priestessing in the world.

Anyaa McAndrew

In the fall, I began my first semester of the Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. This program affirmed my background in systems theory, social activism orientation, and prepared me for clinical therapy work with individuals, couples, and families. At the same time, I began what I view as the second half of my graduate studies. Inspired to open more fully to a relationship with the Divine I signed up for a year-long developmental spiritual process which focuses on personal empowerment and explores the feminine face of the Divine.

I gathered with a circle of women for many powerful weekend workshops and community events. (facilitated by Anyaa McAndrew, High Priestess, and Psychotherapist) This process does not involve particular beliefs, dogma, and structure. Instead, it is a fluid and evolving developmental process that supports and enlivens the unique journey of each woman into her full spiritual empowerment and self-knowing. As it explores the priestess archetype, it is called the Priestess Process. The “P” word! What does the word “priestess” trigger within you as you read it?

For many in Western society it is a denigrated and dangerous word. It has been associated with other terms: witch, whore, unholy, illegitimate, exotic, and dangerous to the social order. It has taken time for me to step away from this dominant patriarchal social perspective and define the archetype of the priestess for myself. To me, a priestess is a woman who is a spiritual facilitator, takes a personally-empowered spiritual stance, and honors both feminine and masculine aspects of the Divine.

Over the hundreds of years of the women’s holocaust, or the witch trials as they are popularly known, thousands if not millions of women were tortured and killed (Armstrong, Pettigrew, Studio D, National Film Board of Canada, & Read, 1990). These women were not witches, but landowners, women with money, healers, those active in the community, or those who were simply too bright, beautiful, and gifted to be tolerated by medieval society. In other words, women with any sense of personal power were found to be dangerous and systematically stamped out of Western society (Armstrong et al., 1990). By blaming the victims as witches, we belittle this holocaust and deny its connection to the long-term oppression of women. Women have long been “known” to be sinful, and we are told to look to our fathers, husbands, and men of the church for authority. A woman with a healthy sense of internal authority and empowerment could be dangerous to the status quo! It is no wonder we have been denied positions of authority within many Western churches.

I was disconnected from the Feminine Divine, but she is my source. Up until 2500 BCE, many of the agrarian communities of Western Europe were socially organized around Goddess spirituality, and were led by women (Crawford, 2004). A number of recent feminist authors, including Crawford (2004), have stated that these societies were peaceful, egalitarian, and surprisingly complex. Though many Neolithic cities held large populations, archaeologists could find no trace of warfare for thousands of years (Crawford, 2004).

Closely mirroring the plight of women, the feminine face and principles of the Divine have been denigrated and forgotten. The Goddess and priestesses were given the negative mask of the witch and were associated with the devil (Armstrong et al., 1990). As Western society shifted from matriarchy to patriarchy, I do not believe it is a coincidence that the snake, an ancient symbol of wisdom and the feminine, was utilized in Genesis as the devil tempting a woman with knowledge, thus bringing about the exile of mankind from the heavenly garden (Kidd, 1996). With the origin of the Judeo-Christian world, the identity of woman as sinful and unholy was cemented. In recent times many men and women have begun to explore this lost feminine face of the Divine (Kidd, 1996). This journey is unique to each person. My reclamation of the feminine Divine has been instrumental in the journey that calls me to work with larger systems.

After the women’s holocaust, many women learned the forced lesson to be small, quiet, and sacrifice themselves. This is how my female lineage survived a gender-oppressive reality. It is no small task to reclaim the Feminine Divine and claim my personal spiritual power and worth. Many women are still metaphorically burned at the stake for being powerful in this culture. Living into the archetype of the priestess has been a powerful developmental journey for me. As I explore aspects of the Feminine Divine, I explore myself and the planet.

As I wrote these words, I felt my storyteller’s voice take on a new tone. As both a storyteller and participant of culture, I hold this herstory of women and my own reactions to it. The emotion of my voice tells an additional story. I refuse to be unconscious of the oppression, violence, and mystification of experience that women and all other marginalized groups face. As I identify my own determination, anger, and refusal to shrink into less than I am, I resonate with the interconnected experiences of oppression that others have faced: the loss of indigenous culture, the bigotry directed at different cultural groups and the LGBT community, the rape of environmental systems, and the economic piracy of large corporations. What began to rise up within me, as I explored the loss of the Feminine Divine, was a voice that said with certainty, “This oppression will not stand anymore. This is my work on the planet.” I claim the following intention statement for my life:

Life Intention Statement

I am Priestess Anna Cariad

Mystical dreamer

Visionary

Creatrix

Sentinel and protector

Wise elder of the circle

Loving energy incarnate

Mother to all

Through these many facets of self, I shine as a beacon to the world.

I am a global leader, teacher, and healer.

I have come forth in this lifetime as a truth speaker.

My voice and actions shake the brittle cage of oppression and violence

Until it dissolves into the flowing birth waters of harmony, understanding, and connection.

I am divine midwife in the birth of a new planetary consciousness.

I am catalyst of energy potential.

Through the divine energy of my truth,

I activate the power of my life intention.

I call forth the dynamism of my life expression

And commit myself to walking this journey.

I stand in the power, truth, and beauty of myself.

I am Priestess Anna Cariad

Anna Brooke Doherty (2005)

As Within, So without… As Above, So Below Continue reading “Reclaiming the Feminine Divine”

A Woman’s Worth by Goldie Taylor

I have been a mother all of my adult life. A single working mother. I put off dating, took menial jobs far beneath my qualifications and baked my share of ginger bread cookies for PTA Night, all so that three incredible children could have better. I chose their lives over mine. I don’t have to tell you that it wasn’t easy. Unfortunately, my story, our story, is not
unique.

We slept in cars, bought groceries with food stamps and prayed for a better day. When that wasn’t enough, I put myself through school at Emory University and took a part-time job as a staff writer at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That was over a decade ago.

Along the way, things got better. I’ve been an executive at two Fortune 500 companies and a practice director at two multinational public relations firms. Today, I own an advertising agency and I’ve authored two novels. A third and fourth are on the way, God willing. All of this was possible because somebody laid a brick or two on the road for me. Continue reading “A Woman’s Worth by Goldie Taylor”