We're hard at work on the Mothers Day edition. Lots of goddessness in that
one . . . and it will be coming to you soon!
Tell Mom She's a
Goddess . . .
Here are some gift ideas for making this a
memorable Mother's Day for her (though macaroni necklaces
always worked for me!)
Mark Twain once quipped, “I can live for two
months on a good compliment.” Verbal appreciation speaks
powerfully. This is a chance
to make your mom immortal. Imagine her pleasure when she
gets the message that she is always a Goddess to You!
Gift certificates to take
the
Goddess Quiz
will do just that.
Order at: My Mom's a Goddess!
Or let her know
your love is eternal
with one of the
Pendants or Pocket Goddesses from the
Goddess Glass Art Collection
by Colin Heaney.
All this thinking of motherhood naturally put me in
mind of the Great Mothers, those great goddesses of
antiquity -- the ones who, like all great mothers, not only
give us life but banish chaos and help us create order in our lives.
When Woman Was
Whole
(adapted from Goddess Gift: Discover Your
Personal Goddess Type)
Life was simpler in ancient times, back when God was a
woman. Harder, no doubt—but simpler.
Woman had only a handful of roles to play in life: gathering
food, being a sex partner (willingly or not), giving birth,
caring for her young, getting someone (most often a man) to
bring her protein and to protect her and her offspring while
they were vulnerable.
No wonder the oldest goddesses, the Great Goddesses, usually
belong to a category we call ‘fertility’ or ‘Mother’
goddesses!
But soon human females were to take on additional roles,
becoming midwife, herbalist and healer.
Woman proved so adept at multi-tasking that new
responsibilities just kept getting added to her list.
Today it is typical for a woman to play well over a hundred
roles on any given day – chauffeur, cook, waitress,
laundress, photographer, children’s hairdresser, personal
shopper, florist, gardener, concubine, and much, much more.
The life of a modern woman is a delicate and tricky
balancing act.
My inner voice keeps telling me that the changing roles of
women and the increasing complexity of their lives also had
a lot to do with why the Great Goddess has virtually
disappeared. It goes a long way toward explaining how she
got dismembered, carved into such tiny pieces that we can
barely discern a glimmer of her former radiant self. Only
fragments of the myths of the Great Goddesses remain.
How did woman cope with such a
rapid expansion
of her job description?
By specializing, of course. . . by becoming psychologically
adept at doing just a handful of things at which they could
truly excel. At the same time the goddesses were becoming
more differentiated, their powers more limited . . . and
more distinctly human.
And what has been the consequence of all this role expansion
and specialization, you might ask? The development of the
female psyche has fragmented as well.
Over time, women have ‘evolved’ to such a degree that it is
sometimes hard to find a contemporary woman who feels she
has created a wholesome balance in her life.
The Warrior
Woman is busy climbing the career ladder and generally being
insensitive to everybody’s feelings, including her own.
The Lover's latest shopping spree has just pushed
her family to the brink of financial
catastrophe. The Mystic Maiden has withdrawn and
is off in her own world while the Matriarch is
wearing herself out being a martyr to everyone
else’s needs.
What is going on here?
Though we are proficient and productive (or trying
hard to be) , though we are mindful of our bodies
(some would say obsessed), and though we are
organized (or feeling guilty about not being),
something is missing in our lives.
Every woman comes to a point in her life when it is
time to grow up and face the sad fact that nobody is
perfect, not even a goddess. We are too often
crippled by neglecting those parts of ourselves that
would give us balance.
We have learned to 'do'. At the same time we have
forgotten how to simply 'be'.
Can we relinquish the need for power and control in
our relationships? Can we relearn how to be both
humble and compassionate? Vulnerable and strong?
Can we learn to dream a better life? Can we let
ourselves be filled with joy for the infinite beauty
of every sunset, every curve in our bodies?
I think we can.
Can we learn a new way of finding peace and grace?
There was a time when you were not a slave,
remember that. You walked alone, full of
laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say
you have lost all recollection of it . . .
but make an effort to remember. Or, failing
that, invent.
The Goddess of Willendorf, great-bellied giver of life and great-breasted
source of nourishment, was a small statue discovered in an archeological
dig in Austria in the early 1900's.
She is both the earliest depiction
of the human form (currently estimated at
circa 30,000 - 25,000 BCE) and the first known image of the Mother Goddess in all her raw and fertile splendor.
Art historians debate the sophistication of her detail, her unknowable face, the dynamism of her braided hair, and her profoundly regal posture.
One scholar described her thus:
She "exhibits... a physical and sexual self that seems unrestrained, unfettered by cultural taboos and social conventions. She is an image of "natural" femaleness, of uninhibited female power."
Well, it seems to me that he neglected to
mention another very important point. She also exhibits
an abundance of adipose tissue (commonly known as fat) and
this is part of what's so wonderful about her.
So let's back up a minute and give some
thought to what that really means . . .
So given all that, here's what we can assume
about the Venus of Willendorf:
She was an important woman in her
culture, so valuable to her "tribe" that she managed to
be well-fed . . . not an easy thing to manage in a
pre-agricultural civilization.
That ample cushioning gave her quite a competitive edge
in the survival sweepstakes . . . for herself and her
children (born, unborn, and yet-to-be conceived).
Whether it was because of her wisdom, her leadership of
the clan, her fertility or all of the above, we can be
certain that this was a woman of power and influence. No
doubt about it . . . all the other women envied
those gorgeous curves and wanted to be shaped just like
her.
This was a woman with goddess power!
My how times have changed! Womanly fat is
now despised and its value disregarded.
A woman cannot be too rich or too thin.
~ Wallis Simpson, Duchess of
Windsor
So why was the Goddess of Willendorf also
called the 'Venus of Willendorf'? It was, say some experts,
a degrading jest about her weight -- an ironic statement
reflecting that "civilization in the figure of the Classical Venus later sought to curtail and bring under control."
In plain English that statement translates
as "the patriarchy has managed to stamp out the raunchy
sexiness of this sort of woman and will honor only the
slender Venus we see in our statues and paintings of the
Classical Era where she behaves as she should, i.e. 'modestly',
covering her important bits with her hands or with scarves."
Or as Esther Kane once so brilliantly remarked:
"You see, the difference between the divas/queens
[goddesses] in question and myself is that they have given up the terrible habit of second-guessing themselves all the time and “shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around them” (a fabulous line from a famous Marianne Williamson poem). To put it simply, THEY OWN THEIR POWER AND USE IT TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.
"
The Goddess Virtue of Fat
Yes, you heard me correctly . . . I said the "Virtue" of fat!!
Bet you've never thought of it just THAT way . . .
neither had I until my friend brought me this wonderful article in a
recent issue of Spirituality and Health magazine.
The
author is an anatomist/energy healer who describes his wife
as a goddess (gotta' love a man like that!) The essay detailed his newly
acquired understanding of the positive value of adipose tissue
(aka 'fat') and
its important functions in the body. . . storing vitamins
and hormones (including the sensual/sexual ones),
insulating the rest of the body from harmful toxins, and
brace yourself for this one-- serving as the organ of
intuition!
A PARABLE OF
FAT’S CREATION by Gil Hedley, Ph.D.
And creating them in Her own
image and likeness, Goddess says, “Let there be fat.””
And there is fat, to
envelope and warm the whole bodies of the man and the woman. To both
of them are given this great gift, in different measure, according
to their particular perfections.
To the woman, in greater
measure is fat given. A mantle of sensitivity and sensuality
Goddess grants her in this luminous fleece beneath her skin.
The lines of her form are thus
distinguished from the man’s, augmenting her breasts and hips and
belly and bottom, rooting her thighs like trunks to earth’s molten
core, rich stores of yellow sap just below her surface.
Here she finely attunes her
perception of everything and everyone around her — the movement of
the animals, the sounds of the night, the order of the stars, sun
and moon, the cycling of the seasons, and the echo of every beating
heart, rippling subtle waves of feeling through the delicate, wise
web of listening flesh.
Demeter Statue
from the
Goddess Glass Art Collection
Here she embeds the wisdom of
“Her will be done” with all that she senses and knows.
Adorned with her bright yellow
dream coat, the woman dances; her form flies, undulates, and rolls,
mapping stories in space, stirring the hearts and minds and bodies
of all who dare move with every morsel of her now.
Gil Hedley, Ph.D.
~The Parable was excerpted from the article,
"How I Fell in Love with Fat" Spirituality & Health, Nov-Dec, 2007
Next month the newsletter will feature that mysterious source of power he
is talking
about . . .
The Moon Goddesses and The Womanly Art of Intuition
Stay tuned!
Too Much of A Good Thing?
But what if you've created just a bit too much storage
space for all that lovely intuition?
You know the health consequences, but, alas, all those quick weight-loss plans have come
to naught as usual.
According to our guest columnist, Dr.
Steve Hodes the Meta-Doc, it is quite possible
that you are suffering from an overload of metaphysical weight. If you
are ready to let go of physical and energetic obesity, read on
about his metaphysical diet.
Here are the highlights of
Dr.
Steve's Prescription:
Begin your
day with a cup of gratitude.
It can be instant, or something you’ve brewed all night by going to
sleep with gratitude in your thoughts and dreams. Awaken with the
awareness that this new day is a gift to you. It is an opportunity to
transform your self and your life in everyway possible.
Enjoy a
plateful of possibility.
If you could create a day filled with anything your heart’s desires,
what would it be? It begins with an empty plate, brimming with the
virtual reality of your intention. Be open to what will fulfill your
true needs.
Realize
that the emptiness that you are trying to fill with food is a sign that
you need to examine those aspects of your life that are depleting you of
energy—is it time to change jobs, relationships, goals? Or is the
problem your attitude about each one of them? Realize that you will
never satiate this ‘hunger’ with food and that it is time to make
positive changes and create new intentions.
Fill your
bowl with silence.
Clear you
mind of worries for a moment. Just be still and savor the silence.
Don't speak. Don't turn on the TV or radio or iPod. Don't blast your
mind with diverting sounds. Don't be afraid. Allow the time to meditate
and still your mind instead of filling your morning with chaos.
Welcome a
guest to the table—your spiritual Self.
Your
spiritual nature is too often pushed aside by the chaos of your mind.
The hassles of existence drown out the still, small voice within. Allow
your Higher Self to come to the table and help begin your day with a
sense of balance and fullness.
Take each
bite with mindfulness.
Stay present as you eat. Be aware of each bite, how your muscles move,
how your teeth chew. Be aware of the taste. Don’t read, or watch TV or
listen to music or even engage in conversation. Feel the food sliding
down your throat, into your esophagus, and toward the abyss of your gut.
Visualize life-giving energy in each morsel of food. Be aware of each
mouthful—feel yourself filling your inner needs with grace and light.
You will become aware of how much less food your really need to be
satiated. Breathe in and out and pay attention to your breath as well.
Add this
mindful approach to your health and weight control program and your willfind yourself becoming much slimmer--in mind and body.
