A Sermon Preached + St. Stephen's Episcopal Church + Calling Christ Out of Our Tombs

March 16, 2016

Saint: Patrick
Daniel 3.14,24-28
John 8.31-42

 

Every time I hear the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego two songs come to my mind. The first is an 80s Christian Rock Classic (if there is such a genre) by the artist, Russ Taft who has the prophets singing on the chorus, "We won't bow to your idols!  We won't bow, no!"  Russ Taft had an amazing feathered mullet and he enthralled me. 

The second is from the VeggieTale version where Nebuchadnezzar is a giant hairy pickle (I refuse to psychoanalyze this) who doesn't want to go to church and only wants to eat chocolate bunnies all day long.  "The bunny, the bunny, oh I love the bunny, I don't love my mom or my dad just the bunny..."

Our readings tonight are filled with big bad dudes vs. the small good guys.  This is an ancient dyad that is pervasive in our human myths and also throughout our Bible stories:  Moses vs. Pharaoh, David vs. Goliath, Jesus vs. Religious Leaders/Roman State. Power vs. love. Maybe you have a similar relationship structure in your own life.

This structure appears right before a time of renewal is about to occur which will create a sacred geometry of a whole person/family/community.  

Cutting edge research on healing PTSD  reveals that this same dyadic structure exists within the inner world of the psyche where there is a trauma injury.*  One part of the psyche grows really big to defend the still developing inviolable spirit.  This part both protects the inviolable spirit, and also attacks it and treats it like a slave to a master bully.  When the spirit tries to expand within the psyche, the protector/persecutor works to frighten the soul to stay in a small "safe" place.  Because  injury happened during the soul's expansion, any growth is now perceived by the protector/persecutor as a threat.  It's a disorder similar to red blood cells that start to attack themselves.   All of this happens like an automatic reaction.  The research shows that it seems beyond the human will--much like we we don't will a scab to appear--it just happens as a basic biological response to injury--only this injury is not always so visible and plays out in the emotional fields of all of our relationships.

After studying some of this in college and after my master's degree, I began to see how what is happening within the private world of a trauma victim is also happening in our culture at large.  We are living in a traumatized society.  And naturally, one powerful force rises to rule with total control and  fear, and other small seeds of hope start to rise to balance and heal the injury.

THE TRAUMA OF THE WORLD MUST BE HEALED.
YOUR TRAUMA.  MY TRAUMA. THE EARTH'S TRAUMA.  
THAT IS WHY WE ARE HERE.  THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE COME TO DO.

I was struggling to keep the promises of my  baptismal covenant recently, "to seek and serve Christ in all people," when a certain political candidate would insight violence and I wondered: Can I really seek and serve Christ in him?  My former boss and cartoonist, Rev. Jay Sidebotham used to say that Christ comes to us in all people--but sometimes he comes very, very, well disguised.

I recalled that his appearance on the world scene is a symptom of a larger trauma (what do you think the big ego is veiling?) and I jumped on the internet to find a baby picture of this guy.  I find this one:  he is about my son Dylan's age, he is pushing his shoes around in a wheel barrow.  My mother's heart softened and I knew I could easily love that child.  Now I could clearly see Christ in him.  Maybe I will print this picture and light a candle and honor the Christ that is so well disguised.  

I try to imagine the opposing force of insecurity and total vulnerability in equal amount to the push for power and control and suddenly I am in awe of the vast chasm of injury.  There with the wound, I can find compassion again.

Seeing the wound and facing our pain, is something that many of us--especially men--have been raised not to do.  (Many boys were raised hearing, "big boys don't cry" and "take it like a man." Basically don't feel.  Some say anger is the only socially permissible emotion a man can have.)  Here is a further injury to our collective. 

When we know we are wounded we can tend the wound.  But the first step is looking.  And it's the most courageous first step.  

Buddha reminds me to hold my Angry Momma with compassion.  

The religious leader's who were talking to Jesus couldn't face their wounds.  They couldn't or they refused to see that they were living like slaves.  Waking up in our lives and being brave to face the illusions to which we cling is a challenging task.  But take heart, for this is the realm of big miracles.  The mystery of the parted veils, each leading deeper and deeper into the divine.  When we realize that we are not created to live like slaves in fear, the Divine comes closer and closer to us and says, "yes--let me lead you out of this and deeper into me."  

This week I was also reminded that the person I struggle to have compassion on most of all is myself.  I have this little plastic woman with holes in her head--you fill her with water and the steam billows out of her head and she cleans your microwave.  She has her hands on her hips and a really mean face.  I call her my Angry Momma.  I haven't used her to clean the microwave yet.  Instead I placed her on my  large Buddha candle holder as a reminder that I can compassionately hold my own Angry Momma.  Here is another common trap in our healing:  when I blow it--I have a really hard time forgiving myself.  I get stuck in feelings of guilt and shame.  Christ becomes so well hidden in me.  And that's another illusion--that somehow we are disconnected from Christ when nothing can ever separate us, not even death.  So when we look carefully, and compassionately at the wound, we will also see Christ's love rising.  Christ's love is big enough for traumatized political candidates and Angry Mommas everywhere.

THE GRAVES WILL BE OPENED
THE DEAD WILL RISE

St. Patrick wasn't born in Ireland.  He was brought there as a slave.  It was during these six years that he had an awakening.  God drew close to him and he drew close to God.  The divine is often born in slavery, in difficult times, in stress, because it seems the divine is always about freeing the captive and bringing new life.  This is why tyrants fear (and hide from) the life of the soul-- they know at a deep level that they have set themselves up against the one power of the universe that will be their ultimate defeat: love.  Only what they don't know is that love will not work to destroy them as they did to Love.  

Love will love us all the way back to our authentic selves.  

I'm so grateful for the Celtic Spirituality that has been grafted into Christianity.  The Celts seemed to understand a long time ago something that we are still trying to grasp.  They honored harmony in song and in nature.  I had the opportunity to visit Ireland in 2006 and I was blown away by the reverence the people had for the land.  Roads often winded about circling a small hill of trees.  I asked the guides why this was so and he replied, "oh those are fairy forts."  The people protected their ancient sacred sites.  They built their communities in harmony with them.  It made me sad to think of all our straight roads in the US and the sacred sites that were demolished in the process of dominating the land.  The Celts knew the dance of power-with.  Their intricate art shows us the power and beauty of interconnection.  

One of the first places St. Patrick began his ministry was at the Hill of Tara, where the royal lineage of Irish kings were crowed after they married the Goddess which connected them to the land.  A large stone still stands here today and the legend goes that the stone would sound when the true king placed his hands upon it.  It's an inspiring picture of humanity working in harmony with the earth.  

When I was there I had the opportunity to climb Crough Patrick.  Humans made pilgrimages up this sacred mountain as far back as 3000 B.C.  I cannot describe the deep peace my body felt as I stood on this holy site.  In the mountain a treasure of gold worth close to $400 million dollars rests.  Recently someone wanted to dig it up.  The local community voted "no."  I experienced an inner transformation in the presence of such deep reverence for the earth and her sacred history.  My body buzzed for weeks after my travels.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit another sacred site in Wimberely, Texas that linked to the ancient Mayans.  I stayed on 15 acres of sacred ground that resounded with deep, deep peace.  I have never felt so home, so far away from home.  The golden honey rocks called me close to the ground.  I could feel the earth's warm hum, the expansion of her deep grief and her even deeper love.  I left with a hunger to create a sacred piece of land.  In the meantime, my body, my home, my work, are the sacred land I've been given to tend.  

Sacred sites show us what is possible when we live in harmony with the earth.  Healers know that the body's energy channels light up on sacred ground.  Even spending ten minutes standing on the earth with bare feet balances the body.  There are big wounds to see as we face the way we treat the earth.  And also so many opportunities to create sacred space, to consecrate the land and work to bring balance back to creation.

If we have the same God as Jesus, then we would not want to kill creation, we would love all.   This is our work.  To hold onto love in the face of tyrant kings and Angry Mommas.  Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb last week, we are called to go and do likewise.  Where Christ is well disguised, we pray, Come Christ.  In hopeless faces, Come Christ.  In tombs of pollution, Come Christ.  In a world full of trauma, Come Christ.  

And may we take heart and know when we stand trembling before mad power, that God comes very close to us and we come very close to God.  We are never alone; there is always a part of us that exists in harmony with a beautiful force of creation and all of the saints who have gone before us.  We are in harmony with Love.  We just need to tune in and turn it up!

And may we remember when we find ourselves standing in the fires for Love, that the fires are not for our destruction, but for our complete and total transformation.

I will close with St. Patrick's Breastplate:

I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay,
his ear to harken to my need:
the wisdom of my God to teach,
his hand to guide, his shield to ward;
the word of God to give me speech,
his heavenly host to be my guard.

Christ be with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ deep within me,
Christ below me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right hand,  Christ at my left hand,
Christ as I lie down, Christ as I arise,
Christ as I stand,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Amen.
 

*See Donald Kalsched's work, The Inner World of Trauma and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute.

Hecate by Mother, Julie

(heh-cáh-tay, according to my Classics Major, Librarian sister, Pam)

 “Merry Meet to all my fellow Witches out there. I am a Third Degree, Elevated High Priestess in the Gardnerian/Alexandrian tradition of Wicca. I have been practicing Paganism and Witchcraft for a number of years ...too many for me to acknowledge! Although I have earned the title of High Priestess in the highest level of the Wiccan tradition, and the years it took me to get there, I am more Pagan and Witch than anything else and no longer call myself Wiccan, as according to the Oxford Dictionary, Wicca is a male term.”

This paragraph greeted me, online, when I started digging a little deeper into Hecate.  On the surface she’s all, savior to the outcast, all-seeing guide, protector of childbirth, the wise crone of the Feminine Trinity: Maiden, Mother & Sage. These excellent, strong, godly traits are worth pursuing. They’re also quite similar to the (Biblical) Third Person of the Trinity: The Holy Spirit.
But, apparently Hecate is also goddess of witchcraft. 

Okay then. 

[Selah]*

So, what was my initial premise for doing this project? Glancing back through my intro to this process... oh yes, I was going to discover more about God’s feminine nature by studying the archetypes of ancient goddesses.  

It’s been a delicate balance, a struggle actually, to hold God (the One I think I know) as God/Goddess. To try to see God’s fullness as not only male and female, but Other. God is not human but Other. The One who created us in God’s image, is more. Beyond. I wish there was another name so I didn’t have to choose between God or Goddess, Him or Her.

I digress. 

So here we have the story of another ancient, strong goddess, stripped of most of her powers and relegated to leadership of a most hated and misunderstood profession, witchcraft. A religion of outcasts, indeed.

Hecate’s origins are difficult to discern because they are pre-Greek. She shares traits with a Mother Goddess from Phrygian/Anatolian civilizations as far back as the 6th millennia BCE. The Hittites conquered these peoples and incorporated their gods and goddesses into their pantheon of deities, and Hecate may have evolved from their Divine Queen Mother goddess, “Hatkatta.”

Enter the great patriarchal persecution of women.

The Priests and those who worshipped the gods of the Sun had reason to fear the Hecate archetype (along with her counterpart, Artemis). Hecate (and Artemis) were independently feminine, having no need for the masculine. Hecate had power over of the sacred, secret feminine mystery of childbirth. She could hunt for food. She was asexual. Hecate became a threat as she might lead women to become independent from men. Even Artemis usurped some of Hecate’s traits and remained the more powerful and well-known of the Greek goddesses.

Hecate was relegated to Crone. Which is a good thing to be. A female Sage. Except now, crones are associated with old hags and witches. 

Patriarchy marched through the centuries grabbing positions originally enjoyed by women: land owner, business owner, community leader, teacher, healer, mid-wife, spiritual guide, sage etc. 

What was left of woman? Child-bearer. Mother. Even the Catholic church tried taking that away by stating a women had no soul. The soul of a child came through the father’s sperm, of course. Women became the scapegoat of any malady or catastrophe. Eventually, any women asserting her self was labeled a witch. 

It’s sad when you think half the wisdom and intelligence on the planet at any given time was wasted. 

It’s no wonder that women secretly held to their shared wisdom, learning what they could of the Earth and healing arts. Witchcraft was actually an honored profession for centuries, not so much a religion, but doctor, counselor, spiritual guide, midwife. 

And shame on the Church for it’s part in the persecution. Torture and murder are on it’s hands. And isn’t it funny that the gender given the Church is female. The Bride of Christ. How God must have wept. 

Women aren’t being burned at the stake these days, but still aren’t allowed into the priesthood of the Catholic church, nor in many Protestant denominations. Even my daughter, Jessica, was told by an Episcopal priest that he would not support her ordination into the priesthood because  she was female, having a vagina and not a penis kept her from representing the male Jesus. Gaa!

All of this is no fault of God/Goddess, the Creator of women. Any intelligent reading of the Bible reveals God’s love for all creation, and a special love and care for women and children. God knows we’ve had a bad rap. With the patriarchal death-grip on the writing implements, it’s a wonder God’s true nature got revealed at all. But it’s there. In spite of men. Some day I’ll write a book about all the good things God has to say about his best creation. Adam was just the prototype. A rough draft. Eve was the crown of creation.

Today, as I write this blog, it is “International Women’s Day.” Ha. We got a “Day.” CBS morning news featured two new books: “All the Single Ladies,” by Rebecca Traister and “The Future of Men: Masculinity in the Twenty-First Century,” by Jack Myers. 

“All the Single Ladies” describes the substantial increase of women waiting to getting married, or staying single, and opting to remain childless, in order to have a career. “The Future of Men” raises concerns that the latest generation of males (under 30 years old) are "out-educated by women" and being "out-performed" by women, economically. Undergraduate degrees and Master’s degrees are going to 40 percent men versus 60 percent women. Women, under 30, are out-earning men of the same age. More boys than girls are failing at math and science. 

So, good for you, Hecate. You may yet win.

*selah: word found in the book of Psalms. Generally thought to mean “pause, and think about this.”

Gate Six: Persephone, by Mother Julie

I am Charlie Brown.

Jessica is Lucy, and she’s always holding the football, coaxing me to believe she will not do what she’s always done.

“Let’s do this project together, Mom. It’ll be fun.”

“Well, I don’t want to get into any weird stuff. I mean, I’m kind of nervous about all this goddess stuff, and, will it freak out my family and friends?”

“No, it will be good for us, Mom.”

So while reading Jessica’s Persephone blog, I’m thinking, “She moved the football, again.”

I’m Charlie Brown, again, whack! I’m flat on my back.

After reading only two paragraphs, I’m like, “Really, Girl?!?! You've embraced pantheism?!?!” And I’m wondering how I can smooth over the shock value and turn it into something humorous and non-scary … and hoping the 2nd half of her blog pretty much says: "just kidding!"

I’ve now read it all. Several times. I still love her, but she really scares me. What have I gotten in to?

I’ll make no comment about baptisms and devotion to goddesses. Yes, she and I “span our own dance of the opposites and [Jess’s] orbit always seems to move into the realms of the forbidden and strange.” Fiddle-dee-dee. Let’s talk about something else.

Persephone’s story of abduction, rape and imprisonment by Hades is extraordinarily similar to Jessica’s journey. In our “dance of opposites,” I am the embodiment of Persephone’s mother, the Goddess Demeter. I am Mother Bear. Demeter (wife of Zeus) dropped everything to search the world for her daughter. Demeter’s story is all about rescuing Persephone. Sadly, while Jessica was in her own hell, I was focused on navigating the family through her fiery eruptions. I knew I’d lost my happy little girl, but didn’t know I was supposed to go search for her. I didn’t know why that shy child had become an angry teenager who hated her mother. Had I known. Had I only known.

Even now, after years of therapy, the scars still occasionally swell and burn a little.

Although Demeter found Persephone and facilitated her rescue, Hades urged Persephone to assuage her hunger before she journeyed out of the Underworld. Persephone had not eaten a single thing since her abduction, so she ate a single pomegranate seed. Sadly, Persephone did not know, “Anyone who tastes the food of Hades must remain in the Underworld.” She is now fated to spend half of each year with Hades and half of each year with Demeter.

Hmm… isn’t there another ancient story where the eating of a fruit results in eternal bondage to the underworld and banishment from the garden, from home, from Parent?

The absence of Persephone myths prior to her abduction story make me wonder if Hades’ despicable act awakened something in her. Perhaps that horrific event and her subsequent rebirth afforded her value, and made her useful for universal myth.

Persephone’s story reminds me that we cannot control the events in our lives. Shit happens. Real bad shit. But in God/Goddess there is redemption and resurrection. The Creator restores, rebirths. There is always death. But there is always new life. Always. Resurrection is real because it is the Divine nature of Goddess. As Jessica’s story unfolds, the Presence of Light, Love and Life is rebuilding her out of the darkness that carried her away so long ago.

Jessica doesn’t think she is strong, but she is.

She is Persephone, Resurrected Queen.

---

Persephone’s Mandala of the Humble Warrior pose is comprised of four symbols. 

At the center are pomegranates, signifying what sealed her fate as Queen of the Underworld.

Next is the symbol of the river, Styx, which represented the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. The river Persephone had to cross twice each year.

The Persephone myth reveals that while she spent her half year with Hades, Demeter would cause plant life to go dormant. Earth grew cold. As Persephone emerged from the Underworld (always in Spring), warmth returned and Earth came to life. The symbol of the vine represents Persephone’s connection with new life and new growth.

Lastly, there is the eternal fire, a universal image of the Underworld, Hell and Hades. Fire also conjures up feelings of strength and power and leadership, traits of Persephone as well.

Gate Six: Hecate, by Daughter Jessica

Hecate (or Hekate) is the Goddess of the Gates, so before we descend to the next one, we will need to get to know this Goddess a little bit better.  Getting to know her though is challenging.  Hecate still feels like an enigma to me, even after reading about her and wondering about her nature for the past ten years.  Scholars struggle to understand her origin and nature as well as her role seems to overlap those of Artemis or Demeter and Persephone.  Many think she is an older Goddess from another culture that became later incorporated into the Greek pantheon.  As Hecate rules the intersections of our lives, maybe it's no wonder that she remains mysterious to us; it is she who invites us to explore the edges of what we know to be true and she is the guardian Goddess of the other realms of which we do not yet know.  

As far back as 300 BCE statues and pictures of Hecate show her as one in three forms.  It seems that one of the earliest forms of the trinity belonged to Hecate, who was also known as the triple Goddess.  Anyone who has preached on the trinity knows how difficult this divine concept is to grok, which also adds to Hecate's mystery.  Because she tipped off Demeter on where she could find her daughter Persephone and because Hecate accompanies Persephone's return to earth, these goddesses seem to hold together three divine aspects of the feminine: the daughter, the mother and the wise (possibly old) woman, the crone.  

Hecate's triple nature teaches us how to interface with different realms.  She is associated with animals, with the deep instincts, and the wisdom of the night. As a military child, I learned that each culture I lived in had it's own unspoken rules. These secret rules revealed a lot about what a particular group of people collectively valued and feared.  Every place was different.  Every place required careful listening to learn how to interact in each realm.  I learned early on that what worked well in one place, didn't always translate to the next.   Hecate is the energy and wisdom that helps decipher the structure of the many different realms that we rule or move through in our lives.  

Often people left Hecate offerings at crossroads.  She is the one who can see all of the different realms at the same time, so she can help us transition from the familiar to the strange.  Sorta like Jesus stands at the door and knocks, Hecate stands at the threshold and guides us to new realities.  Because she is able to see all of the realsm that war against one another, Hecate was often called upon in battle and at sporting events.  One of her triple statues stood outside of Nike's temple.  It is Hecate who can weigh the opposing forces, and she who can guide us through the realms for the highest good of all beings.  

Hecate also helps us navigate the realms within--which are sometimes even farther away than the stars.  She can keep her many eyes on the many pieces of us we have yet to discover and integrate into our consciousness.    As we are learning and acquiring new skills, she guards the gates that we are not ready yet to open, and opens to us the gates that are most needed to lead us to deep healing.  Following her energy through the unknown is like experiencing a river of "ah ha!" moments.  

Because Hecate traversed the realms, she knew her way around the underworld.  Her many faces mirrors the many faces of the moon.  She rules the dark feminine realm like a wise grandmother.  Often boundary making is seen as a masculine energy, but Hecate reveals how the feminine also makes boundaries with the power to open or close her many secret gates at her command.  

As we unveil many illusions learning wisdom, Hecate lovingly guides us to new discoveries like a caring mother or school teacher guiding a child. She is also a Goddess to the children and she helps them through their rapid transitions and dangerous rites of passage.  

Ancient Greek Invocation to Hecate
You encompass the vast world at night,
You make the Daemones shudder and the Immortals tremble,
O Many Named Goddess who brings glory to men,
Whose children are fair,
O Bull Eyed One, Horned One, Nature, All Mother,
Who brings forth both Gods and men.
You roam around Olympus and traverse the wide and fathomless Abyss,
You are the Beginning and the End, and
You alone are Mistress of All:
For from You are all things,
And in You, Eternal One, do all things end.

Translated from the Greek Magical Papyri

Yoga Pose: Triangle
For Hecate I chose Triangle pose which reflects her triple nature.  Stand with your legs apart and arms out wide.  Line up your feet underneath your wrists.  Now turn the right foot forward so that the heel points at the back arch of the left foot.  The left foot is angled at about 45 degrees, so that the heel is the farthest point back.  Place the left hand on the left hip and square your hips to the front right foot.  Now reach with your right arm straight in front until you come to your edge.  Then place the right hand underneath your right shoulder, on the ground, your shin, or a block.  Keep turning the left hip down to the ground as the heart is turning up towards the sky.  Lengthen the spine on the inhale, and on the exhale engage your core and squeeze out any toxins and old ways of being in the world that no longer serve you and your highest good.  Stay here for about 5-8 breaths and then use your core to bring your spine vertical again. Repeat on the other side.  

Download the mandala coloring page for Hecate.   This also supports Episcopal Relief and Development: Gender Issues and Women's Development.  

Creating Inanna's Illustration, by Mother Julie

“Lady of all the divine powers, resplendent light, righteous woman clothed in radiance, Mistress of heaven, …who has seized all seven of its divine powers! My lady, you are the guardian of the great divine powers! 

With your strength, my lady, teeth can crush flint. You charge forward like a charging storm. You roar with the roaring storm, you continually … You spread exhaustion with the storm winds, while your own feet remain tireless. …you confer strength on the storm. 

Great queen of queens, issue of a holy womb for righteous divine powers, greater than your own mother, wise and sage, lady of all the foreign lands, life-force of the teeming people: True goddess fit for divine powers, your splendid utterances are magnificent. Deep-hearted, good woman with a radiant heart, I will enumerate your divine powers.”1

These phrases from “The exaltation of Inanna.” remind me of Biblical Psalms exalting God. At first I had trouble imagining Inanna’s mandala. I was a little afraid of her power. I came upon one of her stories, which put into perspective the demoting of Inanna’s essence from Ruler over All to less than other lesser gods.

Inanna and the Huluppu Tree

The poem begins, "In the days of yore, in the distant days of yore…when what was needful had first come forth." “After heaven had been moved away from earth, after earth had been separated from heaven,” A violent storm uprooted a huluppu tree. Inanna rescued it and planted it in her "sacred grove.” She waited as it grew into a place for her to sit and to sleep.

The tree grew big, its trunk bore no foliage,

In its roots the snake who knows no charm set up its nest,

In its crown the Imdugud-bird placed its young,

In its midst the maid Lilith built her house --

The always laughing, always rejoicing maid,

The maid Inanna -- how she weeps!2

Three creatures settled in the tree: in its roots, a snake; in its trunk a lilitu, (female spirit); and in its branches the Imdugud-bird. The poem portrays her as weak and emotional, unable to rid herself of these invaders. She has to request aid. Gilgamesh, Uruk's warrior king, "smote" the snake, the others fled. He cut down the tree, took the branches for himself, and gave the trunk to Inanna to be fashioned into a throne (for the king) and a bed to be used in the Sacred Marriage Rite.

“The seemingly innocent poem ‘Inanna and the Huluppu Tree,’ then, constitutes an androcentric account of the reasons for Inanna's involvement in the ‘Sacred Marriage,’ both as herself and as furniture. (my emphasis) It shows well how myth can be remade to serve ideology! A powerful goddess subject, the sacred World Tree, had, over the centuries, been reshaped into limited goddess objects, a bed and a throne, while the goddess herself was co-opted into seeing this limited role as powerful. Independent Inanna had become feminine, a woman reliant on males to get her out of trouble.”3

Now I grieve for her and want to restore “the always laughing, always rejoicing maid, Inanna” (Queen of Heaven) to God’s essence.

With help from insightful interpretations I saw Inanna as the Great Tree, the Tree of Life, Circle of Life, BirthDeathRebirth, Goddess of the Cycle of seasons, of Planets and Stars. She was the Great All In All, encircled and her head in the Stars, her roots in the depths of Earth. To me, she became the Tree.

Researching images of “tree of life,” I was drawn to Celtic knots re-connecting both Heaven and Earth and the Circle of Life. Many Inanna images place her eagle-like feet on lions’ backs. So I included lions (at the base of the trunk), and hung eight-pointed stars (her Venus symbol). The snake is found in the tree’s roots but becomes part of the Circle of Life. Owls represent her sacred wisdom. The shapely tree trunk illustrates the Lilitu and the eagle with lion’s head is a representation of the Imdugud-bird.

Sources

I. The exaltation of Inana (Inana B): bibliography

1. Barnstone, A. and Barnstone, W. (ed.), A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, Schocken: New York, 1980: 1-8: translation

2. Hallo, William W., "Sumerian Canonical Compositions. A. Divine Focus. 1. Myths: The Exaltation of Inanna", in The Context of Scripture, I: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, Leiden/New York/Köln: 1997, 518-522: translation, commentary

3. Hallo, William W., and van Dijk, J.J.A., The Exaltation of Inanna. (Yale Near Eastern Researches, 3) Yale University Press: New Haven/London, 1968: composite text, commentary, translation

4. Heimpel, Wolfgang, "Review of Hallo and van Dijk 1968", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 30 (1971), 232-236: commentary

5. Kilmer, A.D., Bankier, J., and Lashgari, D., Women Poets of the World. Macmillan: New York, 1983, 111-117: translation

6. Kramer, Samuel Noah, "Sumerian Hymns", in Pritchard, James B. (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Third ed.), Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1969, 579-582: translation

7. Römer, W.H.Ph., "Review of Hallo and van Dijk 1968", Ugarit-Forschungen 4 (1972), 173-206: commentary

8. Sauren, H., "Review of Hallo and van Dijk 1968", Bibliotheca Orientalis 27 (1970), 38-41: commentary

9. Westenholz, J.G., "Enheduanna, en-priestess, hen of Nanna, spouse of Nanna", in Behrens, Hermann, Loding, Darlene, and Roth, Martha Tobi (eds.), DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A. Studies in Honor of Åke W. Sjöberg (Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 11), University Museum: Philadelphia, 1989, 539-556: commentary

10. Wilcke, Claus, "Nin-me-shar-ra -- Probleme der Interpretation", Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 68 (1976), 79-92: commentary

11. Zgoll, Annette, Der Rechstfall der En-hedu-Ana im Lied nin-me-shara. (Alter Orient Und Altes Testament, 246) Ugarit-Verlag: Münster, 1997: translation, composite text, score transliteration, handcopy, commentary, photograph

II. The Poem: http://www.piney.com/BabHulTree.html

III. Johanna Stuckey, Feminist Poetics of the Sacred: Creative Suspicions, eds. Frances Devlin-Glass and Lyn McCredden. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pages 91-105.

For Dr. Stuckey’s fascinating interpretation “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree:” One Way of Demoting a Great Goddess, see http://www.matrifocus.com/LAM05/spotlight.htm

Gate Six: Persephone, by Daughter Jessica

Artist, Julie Zdenek (c) 2016

From mom's previous post, you can see that I come from a long line of warrior women, who possess a certain quality of feminine energy: strong willed, assertive, at times combative (usually for a just cause), bold, daring, intellectual and powerful in their circles.  Viking blood runs down both sides of my family tree and I'm sure some of my female ancestors wore awesome breast plates as they served as sheildmaidens.  (Boyfriend:  We'll have to work up to that costume.) 

This is a little bit how my relationship with my mother seems to work: Mom says in last blog post, "Let me reassure my friends and family that I do not advocate worship of any of these goddesses as live beings – or dead ones, for that matter."  And I go ahead and create a ritual baptizing myself in devotion to the Goddess and start praying to Her daily.  

My baptism actually occurred before mom's post, on January 24, 2016 at 1 p.m.  I just haven't told my mother yet.  Or created the certificate.  But maybe in feminine spirituality external proof and printed certifications are unnecessary.  Still I'm nervous to tell my mom or anyone for that matter.  She and I span our own dance of the opposites and my orbit always seems to move into the realms of the forbidden and strange. Which makes life both scary and exciting, qualities of aliveness I believe.  

During this season of Lent I am discerning what devotion to the Goddess means for me and how serving Her shapes my actions in the world.  Do I choose just one Goddess?  Or does each Goddess teach me about another aspect of the Divine Feminine?  And is She OK with me staying devoted to Jesus?  Yes, she says. Jesus is just alright with me.  <3  Or maybe that was the Doobie Brothers.  Whatever the case, she certainly speaks to me in mysterious ways.  I set up an altar in my home and, on the recommendation of a mentor, I chose the Goddess Isis first, since she's a fun energy to be hanging around with my kids and because her name is being co-opted for violence and fear.  And then feathers started appearing on my altar.  And everywhere else in my life.  But that's another story.

I do not see this Goddess devotion as a severing of my Christian roots.  In fact I see the Goddess as a part of the One who is further upstream, and also interwoven with our Christian traditions which incorporated Her festivals.  Her stories flow into Christianity like Isis and her son Horus flowed into Mary and her son Jesus.  We are all flowing from the same source, and all of our ancient human stories show us that She is there at the beginning, with God, co-creating.  We are all flowing streams from the divine.  Or to use another metaphor: The divine is like a diamond and each of us represents a facet of the whole, while at the same time being completely whole in and of ourselves.  Each of us is sovereign over the reality that is being expressing through us.  Whatever we do to one another, we do to an aspect of God.  The All is in the One and the One is in the All.  And the Goddess comprises at least HALF the facets of God, mom, not just 1/3!  

***
As a child in the religious circles I was raised in, I recall these qualities of a strong warrior woman being labeled as sinful which created a lot of dissonance within my spiritual learning and these strong women around me.  I remember getting the message that to be a strong independent sexual woman was to live outside of God's law where the man was the head of the woman.  Woman was property.  She took his name.  Sometimes she was bought.  I remember being taught that woman brought sin into the world.  Woman was emotional.  Woman was not rational. Woman was less trustworthy, less divine than a man.  I remember being taught to be cautious of my family's beliefs.  I heard that the denominational churches of my mother's family roots were merely the "has been" of the Holy Spirit.  Religious leaders told me that my Grandfather's faith was dead.  He was a Lutheran minister.  Seeds of doubt were planted early in my religious formation that were intended to sever me from my mother's spiritual roots.  The communities I was in were filled with a lot of paranoia about who to blame for all the evil in the world.  Was it the homosexuals?  The feminists?  The Lutherans?  It was a hard chasm to hold as a child.  My two realities seemed so polarized within my family and within the world as everyone worried:  who is in?  who is out?  who is being saved?  who is going to hell?  I desperately wanted to do the right thing and end up on the right side, but I had no idea who to trust because everyone had a different firm conviction on the matter.  

Until fifth or sixth grade, I wore I love Jesus T-Shirts to school and endured a lot of teasing from my peers.  I was strange.  I was overly sensitive.  I was weird.  To everyone, my peers, my family.  I was very confused about the meaning of life.  And I had bony knees to boot.   Since I was five years old until junior high, I prayed daily.  I asked God for miracles.  I spoke in tongues.  I had experiences of rapture.  And experiences of deep shame.  Now there's a chasm to hold.  

To make matters more complicated, I had been pulled into the mysteries of sex when I was raped at 14 and then crowned the school slut when my abuser bragged about his plunder.   My religion taught, “don’t have sex”.  And every time I heard it, it felt like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Too late, I thought.  I’m already all screwed up.  Suddenly my naive sheltered "Christian" life had a very dark taboo underworld to it.  The only underworld I knew of was “hell” and that was a place where evil people went, so I must definitely be in the "out" group now both with my peers and with God.  I had gone to hell.  I was living there.  I believed I was unredeemable.  God died.  Or He turned away and left me for dead.  And my inner devotion to the images I had of Him as a child stopped at that time.  

I never spoke of this experience until I was a mother myself, 27 years old and in the care of a trusted therapist.  Then, I told him how I had faced six months of relentless public scrutiny and humiliation in junior high (thank God before Facebook) just as I was learning how one socializes with peers, a thing at which I already struggled.  The southern town was small and even the adults were gossiping about me.   My mother had no idea what was going on, and she also experienced women judging and rejecting her as they got wind of the elaborate story which had evolved into me giving blow jobs and having sex with the entire football team. (Isn't that what every school slut does?)  I didn't know how to tell anyone what had happened to me.  So I attempted suicide—or made a gesture towards it—by cutting my wrist.  I sent a signal to my parents that I was not OK and I was not going to be OK unless they helped.  Not knowing what happened to me, and having no guides for navigating the underworld, they sent me to live with my aunt and uncle in Colorado, a counselor and an elementary teacher, who provided a safe space for me to recover.  For years I buried the incident and when ever anyone asked about what happened behind the high school that one summer day, I lied.
  
I returned home the following summer and the rumors had mostly blown over.  I soon excelled at climbing the social ladder and I learned how to be a good cheerleader, ascending into the light of a much higher social status, radiating in the football stadium glow,  cheering on the boys and sighing with relief when the kids crowned another girl the school slut.  I had made it back to the other side and I didn’t ever want to go back to the underworld.  Better another girl go there than me, I thought as I participated now in the social hazing that orders the world of who is in and who is out.  Committed to living cut off from my pain (as many in the "in" crowd must do), I also cut off my connection to my sisters in order to earn the approval and safety of the patriarchy.  In high school I used my regular column in the school newspaper to rile up my community by quoting Rush Limbaugh and calling feminists, "femi-nazis" like he did.  (I'm so sorry.) To earn power and success in life, I felt I had to stay very quiet about the truth and very harsh towards the vulnerable within me and within in the world.  At the time I was more tapped in to the warrior woman energy.  (Mom:  remember how selfish and stubborn and strong I could be too?)  I created a shield of hair out of Aquanet hairspray.  No one was ever going to hurt me again, I hoped, I was wrong.  This way of being in the world was a disconnected life.  And it was not sustainable as long as it was cut off from my deep pain. This meant that in order to be whole I needed to go back to the underworld.  Maybe not just once, but often in order to stay connected to my depths and true to my experience. 

Descending, beholding pain, learning compassion, rising again.  This was not a one time ride.  This would be the ride of my lifetime.  

Instead of proceeding through life like many of my female ancestors like the warrior goddess Athena who operates externally showing her strength in the realm of the public square, my feminine energy moved more like that of Persephone.  My life energy would have to span both the earthly realms and the realms of the underworld too.  I would have to learn how to traverse between two worlds.  

GATE SIX + THIRD EYE CHAKRA + PERSEPHONE

Gatekeeper

Thousands of years before Persephone's birth, her ancestor Inanna descended to the underworld to face her sister Ereshkigal who at the beginning of time was the only ruler of the underworld in the most ancient of human imaginations.  Inanna makes the descent of her own choice and in her own time. Persephone does not.  She is taken to the underworld against her will and against the will of her mother.  Persephone is the daughter of Demeter who is the wife of Zeus.  Persephone is that aspect of the psyche that is the maiden, the young girl, the innocent, introverted feminine.  One day she is picking flowers in the field with her mother when the earth below her feet cracks open and up comes Hades, who grabs her heel and pulls her into his depths.  Demeter screams. Zeus looks away and rations: Hades needs a wife... so let him have Persephone.  The God of heaven approves the young girl's abduction and rape.  

The sixth chakra, or the third eye chakra, is located in the space between the eyes on the forehead actually in the center of the brain, in the pineal gland.  In Christianity the forehead is marked with the sign of the cross at baptism.  In India this space is marked with a red dot, a Bindi, which marks the center of spirituality in the human body.  Behind the forehead lies the frontal lobe where the executive functioning, or highest thought processes in the human brain occur.  This area is not fully developed in human beings until around the age of 25.  

This is also the area with which clairvoyants seem to have special talent. Seeing with the third eye means seeing the spiritual realities that surround the human drama which can seem invisible to most people.  Yet this ability to see into the realms of the spirit are available to each person to open and develop.  This can involve seeing auras, spirits, intuiting wisdom, interpreting dreams and more.  A Persephone woman gains access to these skills as learns them in order to survive whatever horror or trauma she has been drawn down to experience.  She must face dark pain, often at a much younger age then her peers.  She finds inner strength and she learns the ways of resurrection.  She transforms from being an innocent vulnerable maiden to becoming the Queen of the Underworld, a woman with power who is on equal standing with her husband, Hades.  She accepts her wounds as her fate and learns from them the ways of healing. Persephone spends half of the year with her mother Demeter, and half of the year with her husband Hades.  Her return to her mother was celebrated during the spring fesitvals.  Through surviving her dark and traumatic experiences and returning to new life, a Persephone woman develops the skills to traverse between worlds and she helps others do the same. 

Persephone

Father
I wanted you to save me
But you saved your lighting
For another rainy day

When I fell away from you
When I lost my point of view

Mother
Did you even hear me
Screaming?
Did you stop the spring from blooming?

When I fell away from you
When I lost my point of view

How much farther must I fall
Must I lose it all?

And who is this that waits for me
In this wound that bleeds and bleeds

Is it just one seed that makes this girl
His queen?

***

Who let you in the door
Is it me
You're looking for?

Yes I can see
The leaves are falling
And I am fading
Should we grab a cup of joe before we hit the road?

Oh my Hades is it you
Have you come to claim your bride
Take me back to the other side?

Take me
All the way
Back into the pain
Take me
Ravish me
Like you did on that summer day
When you stole my life away

One more thing
Don't you ever forget
Who's your queen

I am
I am
I am

Persephone

Yoga Pose: Humble Warrior

I chose Humble Warrior for Persephone because she is a different sort of warrior, a sensitive one who must find a balance between two worlds.  In this pose her feet are grounded on the earth, like she is when she is with her mother half the year, and her head faces the great below, where she lives with her husband Hades, the other half of the year.  In Humble Warrior the neck is soft and prana, or the life force, is allowed to come into the frontal lobe area of the head, the sixth chakra, to open perception.  Also, I like that Persephone is upside down in this pose because she takes a different look at the world and can see it from the perspective of the underworld.  In Humble Warrior her heart is open as her arms reaching up towards her mother while she faces the great below.

To do this pose stand with wide legs and outstretched arms placing your feet underneath your wrists.  Line up the front foot so the heal is in the same plane as the arch of the back foot.  The back foot is placed at about a 45 degree angle so that the heel is the farthest part away from the body.  Now bend the front leg until the knee lines up right over the ankle.  You are in warrior 2 to begin with arms reaching out, wrists should be lined up over the ankles.  As you push your feet into the ground, pretend you are standing on ice and draw the legs together using your interior muscles, while leaving your feet firmly planted.  Tuck your tailbone and zip up through the core.  Strong lower body.  On an inhale, lengthen through your spine as you sweep your arms behind you clasp them together or fly them free if that's easier, and open your heart.  On an exhale use your core to slowly lower your shoulder to your bent knee.  Let your neck be completely soft.  Head hangs.  Take a few deep breaths here with attention to your third eye.  Allow illusions to fall away and open yourself up to see life in a new way.  On an inhale, use your core to return upright.  Observe how the blood flushes through your head and pours down your legs leaving you refreshed, grounded, and open-minded.  

Download the mandala coloring page for Persephone.   This also supports Episcopal Relief and Development: Gender Issues and Women's Development.  

How We Got Here, An Introduction by Mother Julie

I have a really bad memory. Like my first child, Jessica, I never seem to be where I am. My imagination, from birth, has left the place where my body is present to run willy-nilly as it wishes, in all different directions, exploring, wondering, creating, dreaming. And that may be the only character trait I share with my first daughter, my firstborn, Jessica.

But I didn't understand how my strong-willed, creative little dreamer, became so vulnerable and unable to stand her ground in a man’s world when she was younger.  I watched her become so frail.

I come from a long line of strong women. My maternal grandmother went to college (St. Olaf, class of 1912). Every one of her descendants were expected to follow suit. Being a girl was never a copout. We were encouraged to become whatever we wanted to be, and do whatever we wanted to do. We were a progressive lot, Norwegian Socialists, intellectuals, artists and writers. Men in my family embraced their women as equals and celebrated all their accomplishments.

I never had a problem with the masculine terminology surrounding God. I just always knew it included me. And God played a huge part in our family as my father was a Lutheran pastor (as well as my grandfather, brother, uncle and several cousins).

The man I chose for my life-partner was raised by a fiercely independent woman and her husband loved her and gave her power and freedom. Equality defined our marriage.

When Jessica was three, her brother was one, I was 23. With no means of transportation, we were confined to our apartment complex, two preschoolers, and a husband who worked 8am-10pm, 6 days a week.

A sudden onset of panic attacks (no Xanax in 1979) drove me to desperately seek spiritual help. Real, immediate, personal God help. It’s not a Lutheran commodity. I did the unthinkable and tuned in to Pat Robertson and the 700 Club, and listened to “Christian” radio.

I have a good excuse for grasping for anything that would bring stability into my chaos. I recently learned that the adult brain is not completely formed until the age of 25. Wish I’d known that then, because at 25, when my adult brain was just a baby, I had three babies of my own.

We were an Air Force family. We moved every three years. So, as we settled in to our home at Griffiss AFB, in upstate New York, we left the Lutheran church for something more fundamentalist, Pentecostal, charismatic, non-denominational. I found solid ground on which to stand and, well, breathe. I had supportive friends, women who would drop everything to pray with me. I got to know my Bible, albeit with fuzzy interpretation. I even witnessed my share of miracles, and wonders. And the panic attacks stopped.

But Jessica was listening. All those hours of 700 Club, PTL Club, audio tapes of Kenneth Copeland sermons. What’s worse, I sent her to a fundamentalist Baptist school her first three years of grade school. Had I known how it would affect her, I would have sacrificed my sanity to avoid it. I was a moron. I admit it. I’m sorry. Don’t judge.

When the Air Force moved our little family from New York to Texas, we joined a local Lutheran church. The duration of our 21 year Air Force career included Presbyterianism and Methodism, depending on churches in each community. But, being military, we were still fairly conservative in our politics and theology. Since birth I’ve been conservative. I have no excuse, other than I was born that way. God created me with a bent that way, and, well, “that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.” So, even though I listened NPR, I also listened to Rush Limbaugh for a few years. I tell myself I just wanted to understand both sides of every issue, (“that’s my story…”). Thankfully, gradually, we came to our senses, though what took a few years of spiritual wandering for me resulted in 35 years of spiritual turbulence for Jessica.

Divine like a girl.

My initial reaction to this project was one of trepidation, and fear of using the words “goddess” and “Lent” in the same sentence. All my conservative, Bible-believing friends will think I’ve abandoned my faith, I’m destined for hell for sure.

The word “goddess” to most Christians conjures up images of witchcraft, the devil, the Whore of Babylon… and a generous dose of the first commandment.

Let me reassure my friends and family that I do not advocate worship of any of these goddesses as live beings – or dead ones, for that matter. I’m curious about God’s nature. I’m curious about the woman I’m becoming.

Something is happening to me. I feel like I’m shedding my skin, sloughing off old, dead parts of me that have become too heavy to bear. I feel like a new me is ready to emerge, and I’m not sure what she will look like. I carry an impression, a vague sense of wonder and maybe even joy, or hope. I’m in the midst of chaos, both in my family and in my world, but in my core there’s something stirring.

I attribute this phenomenon to three things. Firstly, I turned 60 this year. I no longer fret about trying to be beautiful for others. I speak my mind without a care for anyone’s opinion of me. I see considerable beauty in every woman I encounter. I feel powerful and independent and my internal mantra is, “I’m a woman. I’m 60 years old. Don’t mess with me.” Does this happen to most postmenopausal women?

Secondly, the culmination of several life-events threw me into a deep depression. I crawled out of my black hole, after two years with an insightful therapist (everyone should have one).

Thirdly, several years ago I fixated on Jesus’s life and ministry in an attempt to know God better and find some depth of meaning in my Christianity. I took into account history and culture, but tried to see with new eyes like I was hearing the story for the first time. I avoided turning every point into an application for my life, but simply focused on the man, Jesus, and what he said. My world view got turned on its head.

This is a round-about way to come to the point in all of this. Women got a bad rap. God got a bad rap. If you espouse the whole “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” thing, isn’t a third of God feminine? She has to be. Can there be any creation without the female?

When did we lose Her? She was strong in our ancient stories and myths, many of which are found in our book of Beginnings (Genesis).

Ancient Greeks, Romans, Semitics, African, Asian, North American natives and Eur0pean peoples all carry related myths of gods and goddesses. They sing epic tales of heroes, saints, rebels, explorers, lovers, creators, sages and magicians, all of whom are the basic archetypes, symbols, universal truths of the human psyche. The psyche God created… in God’s likeness.

Our oldest stories, those told before time and history reveal God as female. The female gave birth, fed and nurtured humanity. Men were food gatherers and protectors of the sacred woman. When did the tables turn?  When did the Divine Feminine get stripped of her glory and her power? Why was that done to God?

Hence my desire to find Her, and find myself in God. 

How does that fit in to Lent?

As a time of introspection, Lent provides an opportunity to get “real” with one’s self. Carl Jung used the word “shadow” to symbolize our “dark side” (thank you, Darth Vader).  Can God/Goddess help us walk the sacred Christian tradition of looking into one’s own “death of self” on the journey to the cross of Holy Week in preparation for a resurrection?

Let’s find out together!

Incarnating Our Strange Nature, by Daughter Jessica

A few weeks ago, after many months of discerning a title for myself in my business that holds together more of my various facets, gifts, training, experience, and ministries, I found some resonance with the name Creative Healer.  It seemed to get at the root of my heart's passion to live the life of what Carl Jung and Henry Nouwen called, a wounded healer.  I had a sense too that as soon as I made this public declaration, any further issues in need of my own personal healing would soon rise to the surface and call my attention, as the opposites and paradoxes are summoned when we move in one direction.  I started nurturing myself more to prepare for the descent.  I made stew and baked muffins and bought local honey to put me in harmony with the nature around me.  

This week after I launched my Lenten descent to the Goddess, my gut began to ache. My four year old son Dylan threw up a few times.  After taking care of him and cleaning up a few messes, I spent the rest of the night kneeling very close to the Porcelain Goddess myself. Talk about descent. As I sat on the bathroom floor doing my ujjayi breathing and a few yoga tricks to move the sickness from my stomach down through my bowls and out of my body, I recalled my childhood fears of the Great Porcelain Goddess.  

This fear actually developed when I was five, after I watched the movie E.T.  I remember watching the film in the front row of the Air Force Base movie theater in upstate Rome, NY (I believe--Mom?) sitting next to my father, a now retired Lt. Col. who when E.T. appeared on the screen he screamed along with the entire theater and me. In a profound way this movie showed me our collective fear of the alien and the strange.  It showed me how cruel people/scientists could be towards strangers and aliens who looked different than us and whose stories they didn't understand.  This is the program I got as a child at the time: don't be like E.T. don't get caught being too different or too strange, look what they will do to you!  A part of naming myself as a healer put me right back in touch with my own strangeness I feared as a child.  I did, however, refrain from adding "Unicorn" or "Rainbows" in my title.

I lived many years  wanting to cut off my oddities in order to feel safe and protected by the crowd, which was mostly the church and the military.  As a young child and now as an adult I frequently experience profound mystical states of love.  I was often called spacey as my attention drifted to the beauty of nature, or the deep emotional states of all the beings around me.  I often have vivid dreams of heaven and I spent many years working my way through the underworld.  I didn't know how to integrate all these experiences with growing up in a culture that values most only what science can see and prove. Being born an introverted mystic and not a scientist, I was taught to fear my very nature, or I felt others fear my nature and I did the same. 

E.T. came home with me after the movies.  Every time our heater would tick tick on I knew it E.T. was coming for my bedroom door.  I also developed this belief that my toilet was some kind of portal that allowed E.T. to reach me.  I dreaded going to the bathroom.  And after I flushed the toilet I would run as fast as I could out of the bathroom.  The truth was, the strange, the shadow, my inner alien wasn't going to let me go.  It was asking to be integrated into my consciousness rather that cut off and feared.  It was asking me literally to look at all the shit and not live a disconnected life.   

David Bowie's death was a huge reminder to me to embrace my own strange at this point in my life. He was my second crush.  (My first was Prince. Wow.)  I was in 5th grade when I realized it was "those" kinds of feelings I was having towards him, (and yes it was after he wore those pants in The Labyrinth but I swear I didn't notice how amazing they were until I was much older!) And so I knew exactly what to say when my best friend asked me if I liked a boy. And then I made her swear, DON'T TELL ANYBODY!  (Cause you know I would be absolutely mortified if it EVER got back to him.)  When I heard of his death, I had just walked through a gentle snow fall that felt like the fairies had come out to play, after leaving a two hour interview with a stressed out man who was interested in me joining his overworked team.  The job would require me to function mostly using analytic skills and shutting down my spiritual/ intuitive ones.  For the money, it looked good.  But my gut told me it  was incredibly dangerous to me.  Those are hard choices to make.  But I had to be true to my vow that I will not kill my soul in order to survive on earth. And that to me means embracing more of my strange and living a life of faith in powers that cannot always be scientifically measured at this time in our human development.  I also want to model for my children, a life that honors heart and passion, harmony and joy.  

So I've directed my energy and my passion towards nourishing TARALOMA and some exciting things just started happening.  Recently I added the addendum,  Earth Temple to represent the spiritual container where our bodies and our natural world are held as sacred places.  A few days after I changed the name I loaded up my website and it hit me right between the eyes.  There was E.T. catching up with me after all these years.

Each of us is designed to hold paradox and the tensions of opposites.  Still so many of us are putting our shadows on others and playing the blame/victim game and hiding behind well constructed masks with no clue who is really home at the end of the day.  Incarnation involves nodding to all of our polarities and peculiarities, all of our own strangeness so that whatever we fear is also experienced within us.  So that we know (existentially) what we do to others, we also do to ourselves.  

As I went down into my gut with the sickness, I saw so many fears  that I cannot bear to think about for long because it feels like I'm being pulled into the void. I am learning that the Goddess is the Queen of the void.  Like every time I take the trash out and add to the landfill I say a prayer, "Mother help us."  And I know it's not enough.  I worry about our water supply, and the people of Flint and all of us who are at risk of drinking poisoned water, especially our children.  Two of my children display many autistic characteristics.  As a mother I want to nourish them with safe food and water and yet I feel surrounded by a culture that rather demonize the intuitive than actually believe that what we put in our bodies affects us.  I am worried about the loss of the bees which are now being poisoned by chemicals that are inserted into the crops.  It's like collectively we are still trying to dominate Mother Nature rather than live in harmony with Her.  Like we still have this collective belief that we can do better than nature, even as we still have so much to learn about Her mysteries.  The staggering loss of the bees would lead to the loss of all of our healthy food.  Even our chemists know that you can not just randomly mix a bunch of chemicals together with good outcomes.  But our laws and our scientific search for proof aren't always the best at determining the rules for a complex interconnected system.  Many of these systems have been co-opted by the interests of for-profit businesses that are destroying us and our planet.  And what frightens me most is the apathy we are all capable of while this is happening.  As if we have all forgotten that we each came here at this time to do something about this.  This stuff is heavy.  But the Goddess also has the power to create new life in the darkness. 

Descending to the Goddess means lifting our blinders. Who said being spiritual meant only reflecting on the glittery aspects?  A whole spirituality looks at the whole picture and works to integrate it all and restore all of creation.  We have to see what's messy in order to clean it.  We have to see what's broken in order to fix it.  The scientific method asks us to observe and be detached from our surroundings.  But quantum physics is now showing us that it is impossible to detach.  We are always shaping reality.  Are we courageous enough to look at the cultures we have created, and see what we can do better?  Descending to the Goddess asks us to look at the pain of Earth and all of Her inhabitants and discover the joy of living in harmony and balance. 

As we make our descent to the next gate, may we have compassion upon all suffering.  May we learn how to work together as creative healers of ourselves and the planet.  

 

Divine Like A Girl: Descent to the Goddess, A Sacred Coloring Journey by Daughter Jessica

INTRODUCTION
~

Daughter, Jessica

I became fascinated with the Goddess during my ten years of work in The Episcopal Church, particularly as we journeyed through the season of Lent.  I chalked up my love of Lent up to being an introverted church nerd who loved the invitation to move deeper into spiritual reflection.  During this time I began to explore the ancient stories and healing rites of death and resurrection and I soon learned that the rituals of renewal are rooted in the ancient Goddess—who in a knee jerk, gut response kind of way—made my stomach curl and sometimes frightened me.  Easier then, to simply believe:  She isn’t real and rid myself of those uncomfortable feelings.

On the corner of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California sits All Saints Episcopal church which, during my days in seminary, was rumored to worship Sophia—God expressed in the feminine form—the Divine Feminine.  I remember the way the seminarians and professors dropped this information in our social sphere—in a whisper, with eyebrows lifted.  Not only were my feelings about the Goddess uncomfortable (and these feeling defined the way my reason went for many years) but the Goddess was also taboo in my Christian circles.  And since I wanted to be a "good girl" and avoid that murky realm, I didn’t explore it any further at the time. 

It wasn’t until the end of seminary, after the fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity had been intellectually deconstructed and I had begun work as a Youth Minister in (also at an Episcopal Church) that Elizabeth Johnson’s book, She Who Is came to me and initiated me into a whole new spiritual reality that connected with my inner reality and the ancient stories.  There was a new harmony.  The Divine rose from the dead.  Those strange feelings towards the Divine Feminine transformed within me and I found myself falling in love with the Goddess and her stories. 

The word Lent means “spring” and the word Easter is derived from an Anglo-Saxton Goddess named Eostre whose name means “the bringer of the dawn.”  Her fertility was (and still is) celebrated with eggs and bunnies. Ancient rites that celebrate spring’s return are found as far back as 4000 B.C.E. surrounding the myth of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna who descends into the underworld, dies and returns to heaven.  Beyond Mesopotamia, Inanna was known as her Babylonian name, Ishtar.  In ancient Canaan, Ishtar was known as Astarte, in Greece and Rome she was known as Aphrodite and Venus.

Growing up as an Air Force brat and moving around the country about every three years, faith was central to our military family’s stability.  We attended all sorts of Christian Evangelical churches based on which ones my parents felt most called to.  I experienced charismatic, non-denominational, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and more.  No matter how different the services and theologies were, one thing remained the same: God was always a man.  

As I write this in 2016, it seems almost unimaginable that ancient fears of the Goddess are still present throughout our country and spiritual communities.  But the topic is still very much taboo.  The Goddess just rubs us wrong.  I invite you to explore that.  Look deeper into why you may recoil when you hear, see or feel Goddess energy.  For She is a part of us that has been neglected in our own spiritual development.  Let’s lift up the floor boards and face the bugs before they consume the whole house.      

Growing up in conservative evangelical communities I heard all the arguments about why a woman should submit to a man’s headship, why women shouldn’t teach or preach to men, why women’s bodies were dirty and should not stand by the altar.  As a woman there were many times I felt like a second class person.  When I graduated from seminary with a GPA of 3.87 (just higher than my ex-husband) I quickly learned that when we both walked into a room together, he would be given more authority.  When we applied for jobs, he would be paid more.  My value as a woman always felt less than a man—even if I was smarter or more capable.  There was just something about me that was so messed up that no amount of perfectionist striving could fix.  As long as I remained unconscious of this program running in my belief system—this downgrading of the Goddess— I was also able to remain unconscious of the critical voice that ran like spyware within me.  When we are that unconscious we co-participate in chopping up our potential up with fear and all the threats that joy and new life bring.  We live the unconscious ritual of maiden sacrifice—we confuse sacrificing our illusions with giving up our soul.  The truth is, as Brene Brown reminds us:  joy is terrifying.  You can’t control it.  You will feel pain when you open your heart to love.  You will be asked to go down roads that you don’t know.  But descending to the Goddess leads to transformation and new life.  You won't know exactly what the baby looks like until is is born.  The Goddess reminds us that surprises are divine.  

Today many will ascent that God has no gender, but throughout Christian history and in most churches today it is pretty clear: worshipers continue to imagine and speak about God using primarily masculine pictures and pronouns.  Even my atheist friends claim that they don’t believe in Him.  In the Christian Trinity God is three times male:  God is Father, God is Son and God is Holy Spirit (and the Nicene Creed assures us that even the Spirit is a he).  

The Goddess is found throughout the world’s religions and She is also found within the fabric of Judeo Christianity, even though it feels more obscure to us.  Still, there is no need to bash our religion to death.  All things are being made new. An upgrade is now available!  The Hebrew Scriptures show us that the fullness of God’s image is expressed in both male and female.  (Genesis 1:27).  The Hebrews called God’s feminine presence on earth, the Shekinah.  In the book of Proverbs a figure named Lady Wisdom appears who seems to be God’s consort, who helps him create the world. (Proverbs 8:22,30).  The Goddess has been here all along.  We’ve just chosen to avoid her.  (And avoid our depths and our shadow.)  She is a part of God, God needs her too.  We might reflect upon how the one can be many and the many can be one.

Religious scholar Elain Pagels teaches that early Christian Gnostics saw and named the divine in both masculine and feminine terms.  In the Gospel of Thomas (which was excluded from the Biblical cannon) Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as his Mother.  And an early depiction of the Trinity appears in the Apocrophon of John naming God as Father, Mother and Son.  

The truth is that the Goddess has always been , She is and She will be.  Whether we want to expand our language and our images to include and honor the fullness of the divine (and also the fullness of ourselves) in our present day will be up to us.  We must consider carefully if we believe that devaluing the Goddess has no effect on our global life.  Consider this:

UN World Health Organization revealed that nearly 35% of women across the globe have experienced physical and/or sexual violence. According to the Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, Lakshmi Puri, “The major causes of violence are the extremely unjust and flawed beliefs that men and women, boys and girls are not equal. And from that the whole culture of discrimination develops and violence is a symptom of that discrimination.” 

Gender is still a factor in determining salary today.  Women are paid 78 cents for every dollar a man is paid.  Black women make 64 cents and Latinas make 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white man.  Mothers with children make significantly less than women without children.  It takes women on average 469 days to earn what a man would earn in 365.  Women tend to choose different professions than men, but their professions as teachers and caregivers are valued less and subsequently paid less; there is still less upward mobility for women in terms of holding the top management positions around the world.

Our current global economy creates a climate where being born a girl costs a family more money in projected loss of income and dowry expenses.  Every year we lose 2 million baby girls to sex-selective abortion and infanticide.  That’s 4 girls a minute. It is estimated that 117 million women are missing due to gendercide.  That’s as many deaths as WWI, WWII and AIDS combined.  In China 66 million women are missing; that’s 10.3% of their female population.  As populations age, male preferred communities are experiencing more frustration as young men lack available women  with whom they can share their love and their lives. These skewed populations historically find outlets for their unrest in violence and war.  

This Goddess stuff is not obscure and unrelated to our present global problems.  Her return and integration is essential to finding balance and healing.   Think again what it means to divine like a girl.  

The Goddess is in all of us.  She was, she is and she will be.  This book is an invitation to explore the ancient stories behind the season of Lent, the rituals of waiting for spring to return and the Goddess to renew us.  My mother, Julie Hansen Zdenek designed mandalas with Goddesses doing yoga poses.  Working with mandalas is an ancient spiritual practice that helps the participant get in touch with divine realms.  As a yoga teacher, I reflected on the energy of each pose and chose one to reflect each Goddess' energy.


I invite you to join me on this spiritual journey throughout the season of lent.  You are invited to comment and add to the discussion and help me shape this project into its final form.  You will also be able to download beautiful mandala coloring pages of the Goddesses doing yoga poses to reflect on for $1.11 each.  My mother and I will donate $0.11 per copy (a number that symbolizes balance between the masculine and feminine) to Episcopal Relief and Development: Gender Issues and Women's Development.  

Bidden or not bidden, the Goddess is present.  May she guide us through the depths, unveil our illusions and raise us to new life again.  

Jessica Zdenek, Lent February 11, 2016

Sources:
http://gendap.org/faq.html
http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/un-champions-prevention-as-best-hope-for-eliminating-violence-against-women/

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Divine Like A Girl
Descent to the Goddess: A Sacred Coloring Journey

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Gate Seven
Crown Chakra
Inanna

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Gate Six
Light Chakra
Hecate & Persephone

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Gate Five
Sound Chakra
Athena & Artemis

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Gate Four
Love Chakra
Mary & Isis

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Gate Three
Fire Chakra
Hestia & Demeter

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Gate Two
Water Chakra
Aphrodite & Hera

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Gate One
Earth Chakra
Ereshkigal

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GATE SEVEN   +   CROWN CHAKRA   +  INANNA
 

Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld

Who dares to walk the road from which no one returns? 
Who stands at my entrance adorned and proud? 
Who wraps their fingers around my gates and hopes to catch a glimpse of my Queendom? 
You who have denied my existence. 
You who have veiled yourself from my pain. 
You who unleash chaos upon the earth with hardly a thought of the consequences. 
Do you realize your chaos kills my beloved?  
You smirk in your power while I weep and wail for all the destruction you create.  
Do you even know what you have done?

Inanna, Queen of Heaven

It is I, Inanna, your sister, the Queen of Heaven. 

Ereshkigal

She who slayed my husband,
She who sent my beloved into to battle for her broken heart,
She who has unleashed chaos and pierced me with inconsolable pain,
If you wish to come
Then come and bow low.

Gatekeeper—remove her crown.
Strip her of royalty,
Of wisdom,
Of a sound mind.
Phobos—come and scare the Queen awake to face what she has done to me!

Inanna

Take my crown, dear sister
I am already stripped of dignity.
They have all turned away.
My beloved first cut down my sacred tree
And fashioned it into our marriage bed.
For fifty nights we celebrated our sacred union.
And then he asked me to release him
After I bestowed him with my power,
After I lay in the sacred marriage bed with him,
After I gave him everything,
He asked to leave.
My beloved left me with nothing but grief.
I looked for help
But the Gods turned away.
They said I got what I deserved.
They said my hunger is too great.
My passion, insatiable.

In my rage I sent your bull,
Your beloved husband to take my revenge.
The King’s role was to sacrifice.
He was consecrated to honor me.
When he broke the vow,
The law of my heart summoned death
And the red bull of fire answered.
But my beloved’s fight overpowered your bull
And my beloved slayed your beloved.   

Take my crown, dear sister. 
I will come and bow low.  

Reflection

Chose one or several questions to reflect upon:

How do you tend to respond to your mistakes?  
Do you tend to avoid facing the consequences of your actions?  
Have you ever blamed someone else for something that you have done?  
Have you ever justified violence towards another because of the pain that you were experiencing?  

How do you express your deepest feelings, your pain and your grief?
How do you relate to pain?  Do you avoid it?
Do you think society encourages us to disassociate from our depths?  Why or why not?
Recall a time when your pain was transformed into power.
If you can't think of a time--use your imagination to see what might be possible with any present pain in your life.
What mistakes or wounds are you willing to learn from today?

What gift from your crown (your thoughts? your imaginations?) would you offer Ereshkigal at the 7th gate as you begin to enter her depths?

Inanna's rage and sorrow unleashed a bull to kill her beloved after he betrayed her.  The bull was her sister's husband, or if we see Inanna and Ereshkigal functioning as twin sides of a feminine principle (like Anna/Elsa in Frozen) we can see how Inanna's rage ultimately harms herself, yet also leads to her transformation.  Think of positive and negative examples of feminine rage. How can we use our anger/our sacred bull for good?

Inanna reminds us that to be whole, we must tend to our inner world and our depths.  We descend without attachment to possessions and titles and outcome, knowing that when we are in touch and conscious of our darkness what dies is illusion and separateness, and what rises is a whole new self. 

Yoga Practice:  Tree Pose

Stand on one leg and ground down into the four corners of your foot.  Ask Mother Earth or Gaia to ground you.  Lift your toes and visualize roots growing out of the bottom of your foot that reach all the way down to the center of the earth.  Wrap your roots around the molten iron crystal.  Receive her energy, the ancient wisdom of Earth that can best assist you at this time.  Drawing from her memory of all the histories that have happened upon the Earth and all of the ancient codes of all the species, all of the families, the DNA.  Visualize Gaia's nourishment coming up your legs and healing your first chakra, that cluster of nerve endings at the base of your spine that when balanced help you feel confident in your place on the planet.  Draw her energy up to your core and engage the muscles there.  Tuck your tailbone and lengthen in your low back.  Begin to draw the earth energy up into your heart center.  You may place your thumbs here or extend your arms above your head and reach to heaven coming into a slight back bend with a wide open heart.  Draw Earth's energy all the way up to your head and visualize it beaming out of the top of your head, igniting your crown chakra, your connection to heaven and  your divine nature.  Experience your lower body as strong and grounded, the upper body as soft and open.  Experiencing the dual energies of grounded and open can help us feel the fullness of the divine feminine which provides material (mater/mother) shelter and spiritual compassion.  

Download:
Inanna Queen of Heaven Mandala Coloring Page
And support Gender Issues and Women's Empowerment projects through Episcopal Relief and Development's work to create a more equal world.

Invite more love & creativity into your new year with this Heart & Hip opening yoga practice

This yoga practice is designed to open your heart & hips so you feel more connected to the energies of love and creativity. For optimal life changing results, practice yoga 3x a week for 6 months. Take the 6 month yoga challenge with me and I'll guide you all the way through July 1!

Jessica's January yoga video is now available!  This 60 minute yoga practice is designed to strengthen your connection to the energies of love and creativity.  Each practice includes 45 minutes of yoga movements and 15 minutes of guided relaxation and meditation.  Take the yoga challenge!  Practice three times a week for six months and see your wellness and light expand!  Look for another video in February!

Happy Thanksgiving! Remember to write down all those food coma inducing dreams!

A Sermon Preached Proper 27B / Ordinary 32B / Pentecost 24 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, North Fargo 11 a.m.

What makes a person valuable? 

Is it the amount of money in one has in their bank account?  (Capitalism may say yes.)

Is it one’s looks?  (Magazine covers may say yes.)

Is it found in how hard one works? (Your protestant ancestors and current boss may say yes.)

Is it found in how much one plays? (Your kids and your inner child may say yes.)

Is it the ability to perform impeccably to societies high standards while hiding one's messy humanity? (The country club may say yes.)

Is it one's intellectual prowess? (The academy and your colleges may say yes.)

Is it the ability to exploit the vulnerable and displace your fears in others so that one feels more in control? (The power hungry may say yes)

But wait.  Aren’t all people valuable? (Jesus says yes.)

After 2000 years of marinating in Christian ethics we are still struggling to value and love all of God’s people.  (Which is everybody.)  After Jesus willingly became the scapegoat and the sacrifice for our sins, we are still pinning our own sins on others, happy to let someone else take the blame, still content if someone gets the short end of the stick, still pushing our bags of shame on someone else in order to feel some relief and goodness about ourselves. 

The church’s job historically has been to care for widows and orphans, to welcome the stranger, to include the outcast and to help the poor.  When my peers tell me that religion is the root of all evil, I remind them that Jesus’ teachings inspired the creation of hospitals, food banks, and community.    

But what is our motivation for helping those less fortunate than ourselves?  Is it to create sustainable change in their lives?  Or is it just so that we can pat ourselves on the back and feel good about ourselves?  Is it to lift someone up to equality, to invite all to dress in dignity, or is it merely to feed our own piety? If it is the latter, then we will always need someone else to play the role of less ‘than us’ in order for us to feel good about ourselves.   And that’s not Christian ethics.  That’s participation in systems of oppression that even the religious leaders can get caught up in—back then and now.  And that’s what Jesus was working to dismantle and what we must continue to work to dismantle.

It’s too easy to fall into the trap of ‘I have more value than you’.  Sometimes our practice of religion itself becomes the biggest defense against experiencing the living God.  Why is equality and love for all such a hard road to walk?

The women who come to us in the readings today are not here to be used for our piety.  They don’t want us to look down on them, feel sorry for them, or to guilt us into boosting our pledge.  They are here to help us see the systems of oppression that we still participate in today today—to see clearly when certain individuals are denied equal status, to see how we as a community and as individuals can so easily dump on others our own shame that we have not yet figured out how to forgive or hand over to Jesus.

The widows remind us to see what kind of a world we live in:

           One where those who fall on hard times and experience calamities are not shown mercy, but harshly judged for being lazy,

            Where one medical emergency/death/divorce/job loss can bankrupt a family,

            A world that we are not really in control of as much as we would like to think,  

            Where we possess medicines that can save people’s lives but they are just too expensive to afford,

            Where a divorce can cost 6 figures (when it costs nothing in many other countries),

            Where we need people to be sick in order to keep the economy booming, 

            Where wellness would put people out of businesses,

            Where people’s suffering makes someone a profit at every turn, 

            Where justice must be bought,

            Where the poor are fined and punished for being poor,

            Where people are treated less than human because of their gender or sexual orientation or skin color or social class,

            Where demanding equality would risk people losing their jobs, even their lives, and put us at odds with our family, neighbors, coworkers and even members of the church?

We open our eyes to see the broken systems around us it’s not to just wallow in shame, guilt and apathy.  When we are willing to see and behold our human vulnerabilities, we have the opportunity to wake up to the power we have to create something new together.  Jesus reminds us:  Jerusalem will fall.  But my kingdom will last forever.  All of feel us the effects of crumbling systems around us.  But chaos is necessary for new life.  It’s what comes right before new life.   And over and over again the scriptures remind us to fear not.  Behold.  Believe.  Do not tire of doing good.  Press on. 

The widows in our scriptures today remind us to open our eyes and face what is broken so that we can act more justly.  We can act like the widow at Zarephath, and we can rage at the prophets when things go wrong.  We can act like Elijah and demand a resurrection from God when things go wrong.  We can act like Jesus and help people see the big picture and the backstory when people stereotype and judge wrong.

I have to admit, when I first read the texts I had to preach on this week I cried.  They hit just a little too close to home.  I cried because the woman who had nothing was supposed to feed a prophet.  Because I know how hard it is to feed my kids on my small income, because I know the shame I feel at not being able to give more, and the shame of losing status—from being a prestigious professor’s wife—to a divorced single mom who is still trying to figure out how to stand on her own two feet. 

I cried because God keeps calling us right into the impossible.  And I’m tired of going there.  Because it’s hard.

I cried because the little bit of food that she had did not run out.  Because God keeps asking us to put our hope in things so little (like prayer, manna, mustard seeds and widow’s mites) and because God keeps asking us to trust in mysterious ways. 

And then because after the miracle--her child dies. 

And then I got angry.  I got angry like widow at Elijah for bringing calamity upon her; and angry like Elijah got at God for bringing calamity on the widow.  And then I got angry at myself for all those times I have stopped short of demanding God’s justice, for demanding new life, for giving up before the miracle, for remaining in my own apathy rather than pleading for a resurrection.

Sometimes we’ve got to plead for a resurrection. 

I got angry because God keeps showing up at the end of our rope.  Because why do I have to get all the way to the end of the rope before God shows up?  Did her child have to die/did the marriage have to fail/does the church have to split/do we have to suffer so much before faith can be born?  Can’t the way be a little easier?

Elijah and the widow learned that being obedient to God often earns one even more suffering. 

And we will experience this too, when we decide to stand up to systems of injustice, when we take a stand for our own self-worth and the worth of others, we will see the systems of fear and power try and push us back down and go back to playing their old game.  That’s why there’s a cross at the center of our faith.  It’s the hard way.  It’s not the glamorous way.  But it’s the good way.  It’s the only way that leads to resurrection and a renewed creation.

This week I watched again one of my favorite movies: Moulin Rouge.  It’s a contemporary musical and you get to hear the gorgeous singing voice of Ewan McGregor.  The movie works to resolve the questions:  can we live for truth, beauty and love? Or is it foolish?  Must we settle for less in order to get by?  Or is love like oxygen, does love lift us up where we belong, is love really all we need? 

The psychologist Carl Jung taught that new life comes from holding the tension of opposites, until a resolved third is born between the strenuous dyad.  He likened this internal experience to a crucifixion of the self, a death of the old ways, a struggle to avoid pinging to either pole where we would become dichotomous and insipid towards the opposites rather than more compassionately integrated.    

I think many of us are living these tensions every day.  We have to be practical while we hold on to the truth that love can make things right.   We must keep holding the tensions.  Soon we will all discover that love is not so impractical.  It’s the way.  Sometimes it hurts, like birth pangs bring new life.

We are living in times of great change.  Nearly 60 million people are currently displaced from their homes — more than at any time since World War II.   I’ve seen a few videos of the way refugees have been welcomed into other countries:  I’ve watched them be hosed down with water, tripped, and ridiculed.  I have also seen people awaiting their arrival with warm blankets and medical care.  Someone reminded me this week:  kindness begets kindness.  Love begets love.  We are remaking the world every moment.  Let’s build on the premise that all of God’s creation is valuable.  Let’s build upon goodness.  Let’s choose love.  Over and over again.  Let’s keep choosing love.

As we open wide our arms to the strangers in our midst, in our community and in ourselves, we will discover too that God Immanuel who is with us, is also concealed in a mystery that is only approachable in the space between ourselves and the strange other. 

There is no defense that will hold against the inevitable frailty of being human.  This is what the widows show us today.  They invite us to behold the vulnerable and to see that we and they are still valuable, even if society says otherwise.  They invite us to lift the veil on our perceived notions of safety.  To face the brokenness within and without so we can work together with God to renew the world.

Theologian and writer Debie Thomas, wrote on this week’s gospel:

“The widow was also prophetic in the Messianic sense, because her self-sacrifice prefigured Jesus's.  Perhaps what Jesus noticed was kinship.  Her story mirroring his.  The widow gave everything she had to serve a world so broken, it killed her.  Days later, Jesus gave everything he had to redeem, restore, and renew that world.”

Will you also notice this week those frailties and vulnerabilities in yourself and in the world?  Ask God to reveal to you how these frailties can become and ally and strength in building a more compassionate world that thrives on love.  Discern what gifts you have to bring and see what you can give to redeem, restore and renew this world.  Let us leave empty handed having done our best to act like Christ to give our whole lives to the work of love.

Because small things go a long way.   

From Maiden to Queen, Embracing Our Whole Feminine Selves

[Here are some excerpts and expanded ideas from the talk I made on Saturday, October 24 at The Power of A Woman Symposium in Fargo, North Dakota.]  

I was in college when I had an exorcism performed on me.  No I wasn't having trouble levitating at night, my head wasn't prone to spinning around in circles-- the only foaming at the mouth was actually just a little drool over a few cute guys--no I had enrolled in some women studies courses and started listening to Ani DiFranco.  

This was obviously pretty threatening to the boys who ran the Bible Study that met on my college campus and when they heard the rumors they asked me to stay after, and they asked to pray for me.  They prayed impassioned prayers.  Sweat ran down their brows.  "Jesus," they said in breathy voices, "please deliver your daughter Jessica from these demons of feminism!"  

Demons of feminism.  

Oh dear.  Watch out for those, now.  Those are the worst kind!  Once you get those demons of feminism in they're impossible to get out!

When I was five I attended a private Christian school where we sat in cubicles and worked independently because good Americans--er--good Christians create community this way I guess. Recess was granted to those who memorized an entire psalm because play is frivolous and protestant work ethic.  I remember one day a high school girl came in with a cute bob because 80s fashion and she left with tears running down her cheeks after she was paddled for cutting her hair above her chin. Because only boys can have short hair.  Because Jesus had... wait a second.  

Growing up I heard all the arguments:  women shouldn't teach a man, or preach because Paul said men were supposed to be the spiritual leaders. Woman would contaminate the sacraments with her moon cycle.   Early on I learned there was something different about being a woman.  She wasn't equal to a man. She was dirty.  She tempted men to stray.  A woman's curiosity brought sin into the world and only a sexless virgin could help redeem it.   And we should all look to a male savior who would come on a white horse (with our missing glass shoe?) and make everything right-- oh our poor husbands.  

5th grade- full of curiosity and naivete  

In my women's studies classes I began to learn how many of the world's religions have also struggled to value men and women equally.  I began to wonder if I could be a strong woman and also be spiritual, or if I wanted to be a Christian was I choosing a small cage for my gender?   For many years--as I was unaware of another way-- I placed all my hope of salvation upon authoritative men in my life; they all looked a little bit too much like Jesus to me. 

Can a woman be a savioress?  Yes.  Yes she can.  As a single mother raising three children--she must learn to be.

Tara is a female goddess of compassion in Buddhism, a savioress and companion to humans on the journey to enlightenment. 

Wait. There are goddesses? TONS of goddesses. I remember when I learned this. I remember how my stomach lurched. It just felt so weird. So different. So overwhelming. So potentially witchy. So possibly evil.  Where did this instinct come from?  Why did I fear the Goddess whom I did not know?

If it wasn't for my family lineage of Lutheran ministers and a mystical experience I had when I was a child, I might have closed the door on religion in college.  I began my preaching career at age five, after divine love descended upon me one day and melted my heart.  I thought:  this is it.  If everyone could just feel this love, just have one taste, it would solve so many problems in the world if people knew how beloved they were!  I first proselytized the passengers on the short bus that drove me to my strict Christian school.  There were some cute high school boys who sat in the back and one day I overheard them say that they didn't believe in God.  I stood up.  Threw down my backpack and literally screamed, "What?!!  How can you NOT believe in God?!! God is EVERYWHERE.  God is in the trees and in the grass and all around us!  Can't you feel it???"   I thought at first God's amazing love had stunned  them into complete wonder.  Until everyone started cracking up.  And then my heart broke because I had a total crush on the boy who started laughing first.

The next group I shared the good news with was my girl scout troop.  It was one of those special overnight events where we had to walk across a bridge where we were transformed from little daisies into real life brownies.  It was the perfect opportunity.  And after dessert (Were we eating girl scout cookies? Yes. Yes we were.) I began to pour my heart out. I told them all about this amazing divine love, about heaven and Jesus and God and the trees, and the grass and the air. Cookie crumb covered mouths hung wide open in wonder.  I had successfully delivered the message.  And just as I had done it, the girl scout troop leader barreled over to me with those angry eyebrows that can stop a heartbeat.  "Don't you ever talk about that stuff here again!  Understand?"

Yes, I began to understand shame.  Shame started growing right along side of this wondrous experience of divine love.  I began to understand silence.  And fear.  I began to feel uncomfortable with the little mystic girl who wanted to pray and sing while she vacuumed her bedroom, climbed trees and communed with God while catching frogs.   In the summer between my 7th and 8th grade year I had the chance to reinvent myself--I had a shot at being cool--when the military gave my father orders to a new town.  I got contacts and hormones all at once.  And like many women, I stumbled my way through the passage from girlhood to womanhood with few guides, I experienced sexual assaults and endured too many years of shamed silence.  My heart grew as hard as my Aquanet anointed hair. It took me many years to reach out to that geeky mystical girl, to wipe the shame away and say, "Oh little girl, I am so sorry.  I need you.  Please come home."

Being a whole woman means all of our girls our welcome.  
All are valuable.  
All of the parts of me.
All of the parts of you. 

I started practicing yoga when I was in seminary over fifteen years ago with a VHS tape of Rodney Yee in Speedos because he was in Speedos.  I had started to feel like a walking MTV head dragging my anxious and depression prone body around through life.  I truly sucked at yoga--trust me--I was a mess on my mat, my toes were light years away, and I frequently told Rodney he was nuts and made fun of his too-peaceful-to-actually-be-taken-seriously demeanor. (Sorry Rodney.  Please forgive me.)   But something started to change.   I would get up from the last pose, savasana, (the one where you just lay there and be) and the world had changed.  Suddenly my problems were not big scary monsters anymore.  No--I had changed.  

As I began to heal my body, it began to send me messages that it needed some serious detoxing.  The first came in the form of frightening night terrors.  When we begin to heal, sometimes the wound needs to ooze first.  Night after night I awoke screaming.  In my dreams I was being chased and chopped up and violated over and over again.  In my dreams I felt I could do nothing to protect myself.  I found a Jungian analyst to work with, a person who understood dreams as holding symbols necessary for our healing.  He began to ask me about my childhood.  He asked me about 8th grade.  And I thought the whole world was going to come to an end.  And it was, because I had stayed silent for over fourteen years and I was about to speak.  I was about to open the forbidden door and reveal the chopped up young woman inside.     

Once I spoke the dreams began to change.  Now the scary people chasing me wore the face of my abuser.  One night I had enough and I pushed him off of me and I said in a loud voice, "You don't ever get to treat me like this ever again."  And the nightmares stopped.  Somewhere along the way I had confused being a spiritual woman with being a doormat.  In order to shift that energy I had to tap into the forbidden feminine energy of anger--a holy anger--not an evil anger--not to just be an angry woman--but to learn how to create safe boundaries and to value that which was most vulnerable within myself. I had to learn how to integrate the energy of the wounded little girl that I had wanted to forget about and throw away and abandon forever in order to survive in a sometimes harsh and violent world.  It was at this point in my life where the powerful male images of God that once brought me comfort offered little help to me. God died. And I had to wait for a resurrection.  Jesus and the theology of the cross started to make more sense to me now.  But the deeper I dug into it, I realized that the ancient story of resurrection first belonged to the Goddess.  

There are different kinds of energy and wisdom.  Like the Yin and the Yang.  There is the kind of wisdom that can put a satellite into orbit around Pluto.  You have a destination.  You follow the steps, you do the math and you reach your destination.  Then there is the wisdom of the body.  This kind of wisdom moves down, through the layers of flesh, of history, of dirt, of blood, of bone into ash.  The destination is unknown new life. You must be faithful to the mystery of the process. This kind of wisdom moves deep into feeling.  All of the feeling.  It goes all the way down into the body of suffering which is human history.  Attempting to deny our human suffering is dangerous.  In psychology it is called disassociating, or a fragmenting of the self where one part is completely disconnected from the other, one hand knows not what the other does.  It seems that sometimes we secretly admire this ability to appear so cut off from our vulnerability, as if this denial reveals strength and not a defense against feeling, as if being walled off from our humanity is a good thing.  And we raise up leaders who mirror this false sense of strength. And we substitute violence for the power of love.    

Many of us are terrified by our vulnerabilities.  We are scared of identifying with something small and weak.  Men are especially encouraged to split this aspect off from themselves, and we encourage them to do so as long as we keep needing them to save us!  Our spiritual traditions remind us that this is where the gold is found.  The tiny seed becomes the Kingdom of God.  The child leads the way.  Being vulnerable is the only way we can open ourselves up to true love.  I call this tiny seed like energy, Maiden energy. It's the wide eyed wonder of a curious young child.  And as long we stay connected to this energy, we don't grow calloused when we grow up, we grow in wisdom, playful joy and deep intimate love.  

Erasmus, one of the early church fathers venerated reason over emotions.  The ideal man throughout much of history, has been described as one who is unmoved and rational above all. But in the Romantic period a resurgence of valuing emotion over reason arose.  People recognized that great art required great emotion.  Emotions could also make people irrational, which gave them more power than reason. When the industrial revolution came about, machines began to shape our identity and modern societies once again valued suppressing the emotions and compartmentalizing our parts in order to be a functioning cog in a machine.  The private and public life became more fractured. 

Kali, A Hindu Mother Goddess.
Terror is her name.

When we can strike a balance between reason and emotion, between the yin and the yang, male and female, in all of our lives, we will find the wholeness and healing we are seeking.  Holding the tension of opposites is a practice.  Carl Jung believed it was this work that brought about the birth of something new, even the Self. This is the work of incarnation. Of bringing Spirit fully into the body.  

I think when people fear a powerful women what they really fear is an ANGRY WOMAN.  Everyone seems to be pretty scared of an angry woman.  Why? Because she's a fucking force to behold!  Images like the Hindu Goddess Kali who wields knives and chops off men's heads and wears their bones for jewelry (fucking awesome) and the snake haired stair-you-to-stone Medusa come to mind.  Definitely demon possessed, right?  

The healing snakes of the caduceus also look like the chakra system and the patterns of DNA.

I just recently learned the back story to the Medusa myth.  Did you know that she was once a priestess in the Goddess Athena's temple?  (This is pre-snake hair.)  And that Poseidon, God of the Sea broke into the temple and raped her there?  When Athena found out what happened to her priestess, she GIFTED Medusa with the snake hair and stone stair so that she would always be protected from any predators unwanted advances.  When you begin to know the back story of the demon, you find the wounded child.  You see that what you mistook for evil is actually a big boundary of protection--as thick as three inch 90s hair.   In fact sacred sites around the world have long been protected by scary faced figures like those found in totem poles and gargoyles.  What is needed is not to cast out the demon and separate ourselves from our suffering, but to begin to heal the wounded child that the demon is protecting.  When Medusa's mad head is reconnected to her pain body healing can occur.  We need to stop demonizing the powerful feminine and start understanding her ancient symbols.  Snakes are symbols of healing; consider how the medical symbol of the caduceus has two snakes wrapped around it.  The oldest goddess statues that have been found reveal a large woman holding two snakes in her hands. The snake goddess is a symbol of  healing power.  The snake is the creature who has a body most connected to the earth.  

In Buddhism demons are not cast out.  There is a practice of becoming mindful of them.  Of extending hospitality to that which is strange and frightening. Much like Jesus' wide invitation to the heavenly banquet--even the outcasts are welcome.  

I've recently started a meditation practice called Tonglen which invites us to sit with our most uncomfortable aspects.  To inhale the suffering, to imagine it dissolving within us (or within the light of which we are made) and exhaling out healing.  In this way we are not putting our demons on other people or casting our shadows darkly upon the world.  Instead we are practicing courage to look our shame right in the eye.  To reach out and wrap our arms around this grotesque thing that we'd much rather discard.  To feed it even, until it heals and reintegrates within our being and gifts us with new energy, so that we are whole people.  So that our souls have depths.  So that we live the mystery of resurrection.  And that our lives are authentic and truly powerful.  

Innana is one of the most famous ancient goddesses from Mesopotamia.  Like 4000 B.C.E. old.  Many of the other goddess stories are variants of this myth.   In many of the goddess stories, the sacred feminine descends into the underworld to face pain and recover something that has been lost.  A death occurs here and by some miracle, also a resurrection.  This is the old way of lady wisdom.  She descends. Dies.  And rises again.  Resurrection is about the wisdom of the feminine way.  It's what happens in our bodies every month.  It's not a straight calculated shot to Pluto.  We won't know exactly what or when new life will emerge.  But we can trust it will be divine.

Feminine power is often misunderstood ancient mother bear energy. The mother goddess is powerful at protecting what is most vulnerable, in herself and in life.  It is this energy that contains the power to help us rise up and face down any system of fear that keeps us living too small lives.  It dissolves the old ideas that our heads should be disconnected from our feelings and our bodies. This energy knows that when we pollute the earth we pollute our bodies. It can empower us to recreate a world that doesn't make money off of people's continued suffering.  This energy says NO MORE taking advantage of our most vulnerable citizens. This energy fuels us to create communities that thrive on mutual wellness.  This is the energy of the Queen, the inner priestess who serves and protects our sacred bodies and our sacred earth.  This energy knows the power of a seed and has the gift to keep it safe until it is ready to bloom.

Because we are the savioresses that we have been waiting for.    

A closing blessing.

May you find the courage to descend into your sacred body.
May you find the strength to face whatever Medusas you find protecting your vulnerability.
May you know that the fire is for transformation.
That the ashes are only temporary.
That the chaos is for creativity.
That resurrections happen everyday.
May you rise in grace and power and shine your brightest light.

The powerful woman in me salutes the powerful woman in you. 
Namaste.

The Power of A Woman

Join us for an empowering event this Saturday!  Jessica Zdenek, owner of Taraloma will be presenting, Embracing Our Whole Feminine Selves.  Message me to get the discount code and register at Eventbrite below.

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/vision-to-reality-initiative-inc-presents-the-power-of-a-woman-fall-symposium-tickets-18170432252