It is fall now, and the weather is cooling and crisping. The light has a different quality, and the sun is at a different angle in the sky. Even though the days are still warm in Texas, the nights are beginning to cool off. It is the perfect weather for a big pot of chili and some cornbread. I gather the ingredients and begin to put them together in my big cast iron pot. I brown chunks of meat, onions, and garlic. I add tomatoes, corn, black beans, chili powder, cumin, and anything else that might add to the flavor of the meal that simmers on the stove.

By themselves, any one ingredient may not be all that tasty. When simmered together all afternoon, however, the various flavors begin to blend and meld into a harmonious whole that wakes up the taste buds and causes stomachs to growl in anticipation. But what does making chili have to do with the Divine Feminine?

Many people describe the womb of the Divine Feminine as a container. She holds everything – light, dark; good, evil; surety, doubt; life, death – without judgement. There is room for everything within the container/womb of the Divine Feminine. All the duality, all the opposites that exist can be held in that womb. It occurred to me recently that the Divine Feminine is the womb where opposites meet.

Think about it. In that sacred container everything is held, but like the chili in the pot, the whole that results is much more than the sum of its parts. Everything that is held, while it might not seem very acceptable by itself, becomes a part of a change that is alchemical in nature. The finished product becomes a beautiful creation that is only possible because each ingredient contributes to the whole. That container, the womb of the Divine Feminine, births wholeness and beauty, but all the parts must be present for the birth to take place.

So how then can we consider ourselves as “less than?” We are whole because of the sum of our parts – the dualities, and the opposites. We have permission from the Mother herself to love those parts of ourselves which have been labeled as not-acceptable. That is the essence of pure love and wholeness, and it is within ourselves; it is not ‘out there’ somewhere in a distant and unattainable heaven. 

This is in strong contrast to my experience of Patriarchal Christianity. In that paradigm, there is no room for the opposites. The darkness must be driven away; good must overcome evil; surety must always win over doubt; death is always to be feared and conquered. It is only through a belief in something outside of ourselves (Christ), however, that the opposites can be dealt with. In the Western Christian tradition, however, these opposites are not transmuted, but rather are banished or denied.

Metaphorically, I now look at the Divine Feminine as a symbol of the Holy Grail, the divine container which alchemically transforms dross into gold. And that container is within each of us, not outside of ourselves. In the womb of the Divine Feminine, everything, the lovely and the not so lovely, comes together as part of the recipe for wholeness.

Think of the infinity symbol _∞ . That symbol has no beginning and no end. Whatever is on the extreme points of the symbol ultimately joins in the middle. There is ebb and flow, but everything is a part of the whole.  That to me, is the womb of the Sacred Feminine – the container where there is room for the opposites.  It is when we consciously bring those dualities and opposites together in that sacred container/womb that we become the tasty, juicy, whole souls that we are meant to be.  

Barbara Garland
November, 202