We Are All Goddesses Now
June 2, 2010
Did Pandora release goddess spirituality into the world?
EARLY 21st century culture teems with goddess spirituality. We have shorn the new and reclaimed the old. A matriarchal society must have its she-gods, its polytheistic pantheon of feminine beings who suspiciously have little in common with the modern feminist. It’s interesting how the good goddess, rather than the vindictive or irrational or lustful goddess, dominates contemporary goddess culture.
Here’s a synopsis of goddess theology from one of the many feminine spirituality sites on the Internet:
In the beginning was the Great Mother, worshipped in an era when the ability to bring new life into the world was paramount – hence the elevated position of women in primitive society when the struggle just to survive left little time for anything else. Even when mankind found time to make statues and paint pictures in caves, the focus was still on the necessities of life – motherhood and successful hunting. The religious beliefs, which can be inferred from theses remains, also seem to focus on survival.
However, as mankind evolved, so did his/her perception of the Divine, leading to the sophisticated pantheon of deities of the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Other countries and societies – Northern Europe, India, Aborigines, Celts to name but a few – have also developed pantheons which reflect their way of life and cultural thoughts. Unfortunately, in the process of this development, the balance of power shifted from the female to the male. Not only were women relegated to an inferior place in everyday life and society but, in some religions, the Goddess lost her divine status altogether and was simply a holy mortal who had the privilege of giving birth to the Deity.
Fortunately, though, the pendulum has begun to swing back the other way and women are once more becoming a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps the pendulum will come to rest somewhere in the middle, leading to a complementary sharing of power – but that is in the future. What womankind needs now is a Goddess with whom she can identify during the sociological state of flux.
Women’s lives now have far more facets than they did during the pre-patriarchal era of female power. Whilst the Fertility/Mother Goddess is still very relevant, producing children is no longer the be-all and end-all of a woman’s life. She now has other aspects in her life: career, relationships, creativity, spirituality, leadership etc. So do women need to “invent” new Goddesses for the twenty-first century? Well, a Goddess with Special Responsibility for Stroppy Computers wouldn’t go amiss but apart from that, just about every aspect of a woman’s life is already covered by a Goddess from some corner of the world. All you have to do is find one who resonates with your current situation.
Start by looking at the Goddesses with whom you are already familiar: the British, European, Greek, Roman and Egyptian Goddesses. You will probably find that you connect with several – after all, our personalities consist of many strands, not just one. If you are going through a period of change in your life, then you may resonate with Persephone, Ishtar or Changing Woman but, at the same time, you may be a woman who enjoys sensuality so you would also feel in harmony with Aphrodite whilst Hecate may inform your spiritual development. You will also find that over the years your connections change as you integrate new experiences, develop, and generally change your perspective on life. The Goddesses who were relevant to you at twenty may no longer fit the bill when you reach forty. Some of them will have been replaced by other Goddesses who connect to your current needs. It is also important to be balanced so if you feel that there is a gap in your make-up, work with the Goddess whose qualities will help you fill that gap and restore harmony and balance to your life.
Having acknowledged the need for the Goddess within your life, how do you find the aspects of Her which are right for you? You could follow the usual research routes: the Internet has endless articles on the Goddess and there are books ranging from an in-depth treatise on one Goddess to those which cover one for every day of the year. New Age and Pagan magazines have details of courses and workshops and then there is the annual Goddess Conference in Glastonbury. However, the most important place to look for the Goddess is within yourself. The Deities are personifications of human experiences. We are all reflections of the Goddesses and the Goddesses are reflections of us.
“If that which thou seekest, thou findest not within thee
Thou wilt never find it without”
– which is why, in one sense, we are all Goddesses.
— Comments —
John E. writes:
Perhaps the pendulum will come to rest somewhere in the middle, leading to a complementary sharing of power – but that is in the future.
This sounds innocent and reasonable enough, but experience shows that “equality” between men and women in matters of power seems to result in men being swallowed up in insignificance and irrelevance, at least judging from our modern society. Perhaps we might call this the Gaia effect.
Laura writes:
I think the goddess-seekers will keep that pendulum from moving to the other side or even resting in the middle.
Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:
The “Feminist-Theological” claim that, “we’re all goddesses now,” aside from being fatuous, is also a typical and indeed unoriginal Gnostic formulation. Like the Gnostic systems of Late Antiquity it begins with the alienation and resentment of a disturbed subject and spins from it a fantasy of election. Women – especially the enlightened ones – are therefore like strangers in a strange land, harassed and oppressed by the inevitable Patriarchy. Interestingly, the doctrine that you sample refers to a “pre-patriarchal” female order, that is, to a female utopia existing in a speculative prior phase of actual or known history; the absolutely autonomous female persons of that “pre-patriarchal” female order were, in the conception, like goddesses – or at any rate like the goddesses that the grumpy-neurotic women who retail these stories desperately want to be. The speculation, true to the Gnostic pattern, becomes, in and of itself, the kernel of salvation. In knowing the Arcana, the alienated subject affirms her sense that she is right and that the normative values, which she despises, are wrong. The advice to take a tally, so to speak, of known European goddesses is interesting. The advice more or less promises the questing subject that she will catch a glimpse in one or the other of those deities the spark of her own divinity. In this construction, the real Female Deity exists in a hidden realm above and beyond the images of familiar female deities, but it beckons the elect subject through them – once again, a feature of classic Gnostic systems.
The West is in its phase of what Oswald Spengler called “Second Religiosity.” Degenerate cultic ideas and systems proliferate everywhere, in competition with what remains of normative religion and with each other. The shade of Helena Blavatsky (or is that Sonya Sotomayor?) walks again in the twilight of our etiolated spirituality.
Kristor writes:
Gosh, these goddess worshippers are so selfish! Their religion is all, “what can the goddesses do for me?” It’s the opposite of religion. It isn’t worship at all. It’s magic.
That I think is the key difference between Gnosticism and real religion. Real religion is sooner or later going to require that you let go of yourself, and turn so completely toward the truth that you are glad to die for it. Gnosticism does not do this.
Thomas continues:
Kristor is quite right. Gnosticism is ultimately about self-validation, self-promotion, and self-redemption, the last implying that the subject is a savior; which means that he – or she – is also God. Hence the Gnostic rejection of the normative or known God, or if not the rejection of Him, then the revilement of Him as a false or inferior, usurping God, part of whose dispensation is his concealment of knowledge about the supposed real, but hidden, God. (In Feminism, “Patriarchy” is the tyrannical, dissimulating agency that keeps authentic types from actualizing their authenticity.) Inherent to all Gnostic systems is the notion that some few people belong to a divine elect because their souls are sparks that have anomalously reached this dark and obnoxious world from the perfect world where the “real” God (or Goddess) dwells, whereas everyone else has just an ordinary, animal-type soul. The sign of election is in knowing by other than deduction or experience that one belongs to the righteous few. In other words, as far as anyone else is concerned, election is a subject’s claim and nothing more. People who make such claims characteristically dislike being gainsaid and when such people acquire status or institutional power they can be tempted to exploit their station to quash criticism.
Notice how the “Goddess” writer deals with the tedium of acquiring knowledge by the diligence of actual study: “You could follow the usual research routes… There are books ranging from an in-depth treatise on one Goddess to those [that] cover one for every day of the year… However, the most important place to look for the Goddess is within yourself.” [Italics added]
By the way, one of my college buddies had, I believe, a book depicting one goddess for every day of the year.
Laura writes:
People who make such claims characteristically dislike being gainsaid and when such people acquire status or institutional power they can be tempted to exploit their station to quash criticism.
These words conjure the frightening possibility of goddess-adherents in power, but it also are a concise explanation of the arrogance of liberals in power, their air of the divine-elect and their willingness to skirt normal procedure and popular opinion, as was so abundantly made clear with the passage of Obamacare.
