Month: February 2023

Bringing Back Balance

Her voice doesn’t call for the destruction of the masculine principle, as some people fear, but rather calls for a balance between the energies of the masculine and the feminine.

Goddess Inspired

February 26, 2023

Tagged balance, Divine Feminine, Divine Masculine, Patriarchy, wholeness

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“Today on many levels, we are witnessing an immense longing for the mature feminine at every level of our society—from our politics to our economics, in our psyche, our cultures, our patterns of leadership, and our theologies, all of which have become far too warlike, competitive, both mechanistic and noncontemplative. We are terribly imbalanced.” Father Richard Rohr

I have been a devotee of the Divine Feminine for a very long time now. When I began my journey almost forty years ago, there were few people who could conceive of the idea of the Sacred Feminine. Today there are more and more people who are openly and joyfully claiming Her presence in their lives. As institutions crumble around us, the voice of the Divine Mother is becoming louder than ever – and people are beginning to heed the cry. Her voice doesn’t call for the destruction of the masculine principle, as some people fear, but rather calls for a balance between the energies of the masculine and the feminine.

For too long, God has been pictured as the judgmental, bearded MAN in the sky, who rains down retribution on a sinful, lost world. He is out there, separate and apart from us. He is a conqueror and an exploiter of those who don’t believe in him. He is jealous and punishing. This view of God has permeated our cultures, world-wide, and has led to untold atrocities committed in the name of God. It is the ultimate patriarchal view of the world. And in this view, there is no place for a sacred and divine feminine.

Before patriarchy, the Divine Feminine was the ultimate source. Shakti, Sophia, Shekinah, Inanna, and other goddesses (in various world pantheons) created the universe and were the ultimate mystery. Goddess was the seed of divine power, the beginning and the end of everything. The energy of the feminine divine was generally creation, fertility, growth, compassion, and wisdom, not judgement and destruction.

In ancient and indigenous cultures, god and goddess were intertwined. Shakti and Shiva, Isis and Osiris, Inanna and Dimuzid, Sophia and Yahweh, Hera and Zeus. There was a tradition of the hieros gamos or sacred marriage, which recognized the necessity of both the feminine and masculine for the health of the community. In these pairings was the essence of balance and of wholeness. The sacred child (Christos) came from the joining of the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine. It took both.

Over the centuries, Christianity evolved into a patriarchal structure in which there was no room for the divine feminine, especially in Protestantism. Although there are many feminine metaphors for God in the scriptures, these were somehow ignored, and God became male. Never mind that there are many scriptures where God is depicted as giving birth or gathering her chicks. One of the creation stories is this simple passage from Genesis, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27. To me this verse implies that both the masculine and the feminine are the creative force. If we are created in God’s image as male and female, then the Divine also has characteristics of both.

While I truly believe that the Divine Source is neither male nor female, it is important to bring back the concept of the Divine Feminine. First, because the name God conjures up the masculine in most people’s minds; secondly, because the masculinization of God is weaponized against women; thirdly, because it is important that women and other gendered people be able to see themselves in the Holy; and lastly because it is imperative that we bring balance back into the world.

It is important for us to value both the male and female, to balance the inner and outer journey, the light and the dark, the active and the receiving. Banishing the patriarchal view of the world with its skewed emphasis on hierarchy, conquest, and dominance and bringing in a more nuanced and compassionate way of being which honors the earth and promotes wholeness will bring the balance that is needed to bring abundant life for all.

Barbara Garland
February, 2023

When Does the Spiritual Become Political?

What Am I Called to Do?

I imagine a golden river of loving energy flowing out from me to embrace everyone I meet.

Goddess Inspired

February 18, 2023

Tagged Activism, False Christianity, love, spirituality

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When does the spiritual become the political? Almost every time I see a headline my heart is broken. I am a seventy-four-year-old white woman living in an active retirement community. I am privileged and somewhat protected, and for that I am grateful. But when I read of daily mass shootings, book bans, lack of affordable health care, women almost dying because they can’t get an abortion, attacks on gay and trans people, racism, police brutality – my heart breaks, and I wonder what I am called to do to make a difference.

I was reared as a Christian, but I no longer recognize the Christianity of my childhood. I believe that Jesus would be appalled by the so-called Christians who are in the headlines. In my opinion people who wrap themselves in scripture but who have no compassion or empathy for anyone who is not white and straight are not Christian, no matter how loudly they proclaim their faith.

I grew up in a Christian home, and what I am seeing perpetrated by the Christian right is not Christianity. Jesus would be appalled at what people are doing in his name. Jesus’ message was one of love. He sat down and ate with the despised of his day. He accepted women as equals. He opened his heart to all. He invited people to become the most loving individuals that they could be. He did not judge, and he was not cruel.

Jesus, however, did call out injustice. He drove the money changers out of the temple in a fit of righteous anger. He was not always meek and passive, but rather he was a radical who called out the wrongs of his day. As a spiritual person, I no longer believe that it is enough for me to meditate and send out loving thoughts. I must do something. And the first step is to name the wrongs I see. All I have to do is to look at the headlines:

Six officers on leave after tasing black man to death
GOP blocked gun reform a year before MSU shooting
Marjory Taylor Greene and George Santo co-sponsor bill to limit LGBTQ books in classroom.
Six Dead as ‘Shooting Spree’ Rocks Small Mississippi Community
At least 1 dead after gunfire at Texas food court
Illinois man pleads guilty in Planned Parenthood clinic fire
71 mass shootings to date in 2023
Tennessee bans gender transition treatment for minors
Search warrants for menstrual tracking apps legal in Virginia
Near Total abortion ban passes South Carolina House

Guns, violence, misogyny, racism, sexism, homo and trans-phobia – all these arise from fear and lack of love. All these societal ills come from not being able to see God/Source/ Creator/Goddess in ourselves. What I can’t see in myself, I can’t see in others. When I can see the sacred in myself, I can see the sacred in others. I can open myself up to love. I can transform myself into a river of love flowing out to everyone in my path. I can see the world through the eyes of empathy and compassion.

So what am I called to do? I can call out injustice and wrongdoing when I see it. I can work for peace and justice in my own community. I can vote. I can write this blog. I can listen to people who are not like me. I can consume less. I can love. I imagine a golden river of loving energy flowing out from me to embrace everyone I meet. What are you called to do?

Certainty Is Not Certain

Of one thing in my life I am certain, there is no certainty.

Goddess Inspired

February 4, 2023

Tagged certainty, darkness, Dogma, Reason, Rules

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Of one thing in my life I am certain, there is no certainty. Although humans like to believe in certainty – in truisms, dogma, rules, and order – life continually has a way to show us that there is no certainty. Sister Joan Chittister says. “The problem is that certainty seduces us. It enables us to believe that what is said to be true is true because someone else said so. It simply cuts off thought…And yet we yearn for it with a passion.” We want to believe that what we have been taught or told is true, that we can count on the rules, the dogma, the theology unfailingly. Last week in central Texas was a case in point.

Average February temperatures in our area hover in the sixties for the highs and the forties for the lows. Last week the temperatures never got over freezing for three days. We had a constant drizzle that coated the trees with at least a half inch of ice. Now that the ice has melted there are downed trees and branches everywhere. There was no particular reason as to why hundred year old oaks fell along with branches from my ten year old crepe myrtle, why one tree was destroyed and others lost a few branches. There was no rule, no discernible reason that determined which tree lived or died.

What happens to us when there is no discernible reason for what occurs in our lives? What happens in the dark night of our souls when the rules have failed us? What happens when the rules don’t fit our lives anymore? What happens when the things that we truly believed don’t work? We have been taught to believe that if we follow the rules, life will always be easy. Go to school, work hard, marry well, go to church, love God; then everything will be okay. Then something happens that doesn’t fit the narrative. A special needs child, serious illness, divorce, death, war, natural disasters. “But,” you say, “I followed all the rules. I am a good person. Why did this happen to me?”

The truth is that life is not certain. But it is in this very uncertainty that we learn to trust that the Divine holds us and loves us in spite of the world falling apart around us. It is in the darkness that we find new growth, new strength that we didn’t know we had. It isn’t in following the rules or the dogma that allows us to grow to our full potential, but rather in asking questions and opening ourselves to seeing the world a little differently that we find our strength and our wholeness.

The people in power desperately want the populace to believe in the rules. It is what keeps them in power. Their mantra is be compliant; don’t ask questions; follow the rules; believe the dogma, even when it doesn’t make sense in your life, even when it doesn’t seem the loving thing to do.

I say, “Question everything. Look at the rules with new eyes. Embrace the darkness. Be open to whatever comes.” Everything is not black or white, right or wrong, us or them. Nothing is certain. Everything is in flux. And that is the nature of life itself.

Barbara Garland
February, 2023

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New blogs will be added to this post every Friday.

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About Me

I am a seeker of truth, a truth teller, a lover of the Divine Feminine, an aspiring writer, a mystery, an open book, a work in progress. I have lived a long and varied life, and now in my seventies, I am being called to share some of what I have learned over the years. I hope to share the wisdom of the deep Feminine that is being channeled through me.

If the Goddess has ever whispered to you, I invite you to join me on an incredible journey of love and discovery. May you hear Her wisdom through these words.

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