[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.]
Kaalii Cargill:
Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess.
When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.
When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to believe that Nature should be dominated by humans.
When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to cut down old-growth forests, annihilate species, and poison waterways.
When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to blame our mothers for everything; we are more likely to take responsibility for the joys and sorrows of life as mature adults living co-creatively with other mature adults.
When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we can no longer believe exclusively in a single male deity and in the life-denying dogma of religions based on that belief.
When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we embrace the embodied experience of being here now in this abundant World, and we recognise our role as care-takers of the Earth.
Valuing and honouring the life-giving power of the Feminine is the pathway of survival . . .
Kaalii Cargill, Melbourne, Australia.
http://kaalii.wix.com/soulstory
Stacey Hughes: i am going to go out on a limb and stand alone on this subject…as a philosopher, revaluing the values i was raised with, it was important to me to understand what historical man’s repeated error has been in life and to find a way to avoid endlessly repeating that loop of vain stupidity…with the advent of scientific discovery (specifically, that the xx chromosome is “far more ancient, much more stable and has inbuilt endurance, which the y chromosome – being the newer ‘freak’ – does not have” (Natalie Angier: “Woman”) it was no longer required that woman further postulate in order to ‘prove’ their primacy in life or their capacity to be creators of life…woman IS the origin of human life just as much as all the universe itself has been created within a receptive/feminine void…therefore there is no need to assert a femininised version of man’s claims to the authority of an absolute power (that a male deity or creator god created life and gave man a reason for being) and we can, with a totally organic sensibility, throw off the spurious notions that any deity created life and rather women can collectively affirm that behind all of life is MORE LIFE and that life is the creative process and power of diverse beings/becoming and overcoming themselves in the spirit of playful creativity and joyful abandon…humanity has long been over-spiritualised and that over spiritualisation of human beings has been the cause for decimation of the earth and diverse life forms…my perception is that IF we are aligned with our organic and authentic selves, then we don’t need to do anything other than live WITH life (not against it) and care for and honour the earth, each other (as family – the interconnectedness of all things) and diverse life forms which share the earth with us (this is a very ancient and tribal way of philosophizing about life itself and our role in that organic matrix) being TRUE to the earth and to ourselves and each other and all living beings IS the manifestation of the authentic spirit(uality)…we don’t need any higher law or morality than this simple organic ethos and in forfeiting the notion that we are “created” we are at liberty to be ourselves truly creative!
Stacey Hughes, Canberra, Australia
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/ramkinkar-baij-festive-eve-5761161-details.aspx
Cedar Cat:
The Great Mother. The Great Cosmic Birther. She gives life, and she gives death. We are all food for one another. She loves all of her children. She loves peace and requires justice. She is bloody and messy and dark, deep in Her Nourishing womb of creation. She is the wind on the plains, the waves of the oceans. She is changing constantly and yet constant.
We need only look at matrilineal and matriarchal societies to see the power of the divine feminine for peace and sustainable living. The Seneca nation is an excellent example, with Grandmothers selecting male Chiefs and providing the final word on major tribal matters. Using the Talking Stick as the great tool of peace. When all are heard, all can live in peace.
The wise crones will rise to lead the world.
Donna Snyder: From infancy, my parents and sisters read me mythology that included tales of goddesses and gods from ancient times. My two sisters were enough older than me that they mothered me, too, teaching me vocabulary and to count by multiples of all the numbers one to ten to make up for not getting to go to kindergarten. They were smart and beautiful, but the single most powerful influence in my young life was Mama. Daddy was important and read to me, but he also worked 12 hour shifts, six days a week at the cotton gin where he was bookkeeper. Mama was the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most talented of any of the mere mortals I encountered in the rural Texas Panhandle. She was the Almighty Mama. It was only natural that I should find it easy to believe in a divine feminine source of all the most important things in life-poetry, the law, passion, learning, righteous indignation, judgment and retribution, miracles and magic.
The watershed experience in my development was reading Mirrors of Ancient Womanhood by Merlin Stone, while traveling in Turkey and Greece in my early 30s. That was when I learned the Goddess was not just an entity involved in jealousies and competitions, but, rather, was the source of all that was Good and Crucial. From then on, I never regretted my earlier repudiation of misogynistic Western religious traditions. From then on, I sang Her praises everywhere I lived and worked, and with everyone I encountered. From then on, everywhere I lived, I found Her there before me.
Donna J Snyder, El Paso, Texas, USA
http://donnajosnyderpoet.wordpress.com/
Jayne DeMente: Regarding “Why Goddess”? Recovering a tradition of the many faces of the sacred feminine is different things to different persons….
it is healing for most practioners recovering from patriarchal religions,
it gives both males & females a compassionate mother that loves them even if theirs did not, it adds women back into his-story or the recording and teaching of the human story,
for some it is a science,
for some a religion or spirituality,
but for all genders, minorities, impoverished, emotionally burdened –
it gives us back a bigger, more equitable and fair framework for being human.
To answer the question regarding whether it is all the same – God/dess… it has not been the “same” for some 6,000 years out of minimally 150K years of being human; therefore, there is a great need to name her.
Lastly, when humans say “God” we automatically think & express this belief in a male language… it is important to create again, a female language; and then possibly one day we will be able to integrate our stories again.
Jayne DeMente, Los Angeles, California, USA
www.womensheritageproject.ning.com
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