This essay is part 3 of an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion.
Joseph Campbell has said that the best things can’t be told since they transcend all thought; the second best things are misunderstood, since they are the thoughts that refer to what can’t be thought about; and the third best things are what we talk about[1]. Campbell described life as a poem, and that we participate in a poem[2]. He recalled the Gnostic texts, saying that “one problem with Yahweh … is that he forgot he was a metaphor. He thought he was a fact”[3]. I do not name Great Mystery – the “She” of whom I speak – as “God”. In terms of human history, “God” is a recent name for the Mystery, or Source-of-All. A couple of millennia ago, the Greeks hesitated to use “God” as a name for Source-of-All lest the people became confused, as to whether the term was referring to Zeus[4], their morphic god. Indeed in the minds of most, still today, I think “God” does precisely that; the image – the Body – invoked in the mind still looks the same even though it is not known as Zeus. The people tend to forget that “God” is a metaphor, and remain oblivious to the Body that it may conjure in the mind.
Even feminist theology can speak at great length about female metaphors for Divinity, and not once use or develop the term “Goddess”, or sometimes not even use the female pronoun. Feminist theologians frequently do not perceive “God” as invoking Maleness, yet “Goddess” is perceived as invoking Femaleness; and this for some to whom feminist theology speaks, seems to be too dreadful a thought. This hesitance also reveals an acceptance of “Goddess” as being an invocation of “Other”. “God” can quite happily incorporate the maternal; that is, “God” is frequently addressed as “Mother”. But there is nothing radically different about this incorporation; the Gods of recent human history have always done this – appropriated maternal capacities – though it is interesting that they have left menstrual abilities alone.
On occasion feminist theology advises us to grow out of maternal metaphor altogether[5] – a move that I feel participates in a denial of the body. It falls into the hands of the patriarchal mind that would have us deny Earthbody, along with female body, and the sensuous processes of life – as Charlene Spretnak well describes in her book States of Grace[6]. Most feminist theology, as important as it is for women and men within the Christian paradigm, generally continues to be within that paradigm; and that is not what I am doing in my work. I am invoking an earlier human orientation to Mystery, something more primal to being, more organic, more dynamically essential to life, more ubiquitous – that can be known in our bodyminds, in Earth, in the Cosmos. I feel that there is no longer the time to speak to the problem, as so many good minds still do; addressing issues with the “old guard”. I suppose it still needs to be done – it does serve to identify and analyze the problem. I am glad that it is not my work. I feel that the hour is late, the urgent and sacred yearnings of the Earth call for real change, we must get on; we cannot be held up at the gate entertaining the old rules. I wish to be part of the re-creation – actually “do” something new, in the sense of actually changing the reality, situating us in a new realm/Place.
Further to the case for naming what I am doing as “Poetry”, is that the Earth tradition in which I have been nurtured, was in its origins, an oral tradition, which relied on its poets. It may be noted that the first among the attributes praised in the Great Goddess Brigid was Her function of poet – along with physician and smith-artisan. It would appear that Poetry was considered a critical discipline in which to engage – it was the way in which the culture was passed on, the transmission of the sacred stories, the cosmology of a people told, the bearing of a tradition. The poetic imagination may also allow for the ever-new that is innate to something that is alive. In Gaia: a Way of Knowing, William Irwin Thompson speaks of the poetic imagination as a capacity to sense/intuit and to be more than one can know, a capacity that is important to scientific endeavour “because we are more than we know.”[7] Poetry thus allows for the bringing forth of a world, as well as the bearing of a tradition; that is, using what is there yet allowing the sentience within it to reveal ever-new valencies. I am an inventor, a mythmaker, who has received/taken remnants of her indigenous religious heritage, and newly available parts, and spun and woven new threads, fabrics and stories[8]. When I became bold enough to assume such a task – out of a sensed necessity, I had long been encouraged by the words of Monique Wittig where she describes the attempt to remember an earlier mode of being, for which it is said “there are no words” and therefore perhaps “it does not exist.” Wittig says, “Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.[9]”
This work of PaGaian Cosmology may be regarded as “feminist discourse”, but it is more; rather I regard it as “PaGaian concourse”- perhaps that is another name for Poetry. It is a speaking with our Place: a relational work and practice. This work is mothered and fired by feminism, an eco-feminism; but I do think that the engagement with Her, our Place of Being, ventures into new territory. The new territory is in the realm wherein we humans no longer primarily or simply engage in more talk and analysis, but we dare to attend sincerely and primarily to the complexity of actual relationship with, and comprehension of, our embodied identification with our Earth-Universe-Gaian context: and adjust our divine expression and language accordingly.
Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone
NOTES:
[1] Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p.49.
[2] Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p.55.
[3] Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p.62.
[4] Dr. Joanmarie Smith CSJ, “Hen, Homemaker and Goddess” in PACE 14 issue D, p.2.
[5] Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is, p.235.
[6] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.122-127.
[7] William Irwin Thompson, Gaia: A Way of Knowing, p. 8-9.
[8] As the process of invention and methods of qualitative research are described by Norman K.Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research, p.584.
[9] Monique Wittig, Les Guerilleres. NY: Avon Books, p.89.
REFERENCES:
Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. NY: Doubleday, 1988.
Denzin, Norman K. & Lincoln, Yvonna S. (eds). Handbook of Qualitative Research. London: Sage, 1994.
Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley: Wingbow Press, 1990.
Johnson, Elizabeth. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. NY: Crossroad Publishing Co, 1994.
Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005.
Smith, Joanmarie. “Hen, Homemaker and Goddess”. PACE 14 Issues-D. Winona Minnesota: St. Mary’s Press, 1983-84.
Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. SF: HarperCollins, 1993.
Thompson, William Irwin. Coming into Being. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
Wittig, Monique. Les Guerilleres. NY: Avon Books, 1973.
Re: Essay Language of the Goddess/ Glenys
“On occasion feminist theology advises us to grow out of maternal metaphor altogether[5] – a move that I feel participates in a denial of the body. It falls into the hands of the patriarchal mind that would have us deny Earthbody, along with female body, and the sensuous processes of life…”
In my opinion this is the last thing we need to do… of course it denies the sanctity of the body! Our women’s bodies, the Earth Body, the place where joy resides.
We must NOT fall into this trap!
As it is women despise their bodies… Is it any surprise that we use the earth as a garbage pail?
The two are connected – intimately!