This essay is an edited version of a ritual paper presented by the author at Harvest Home Colloquium, International House, Sydney University, 16th November 1997: it was a gathering of women involved in diverse religious traditions[i]. This essay is long for a blog, but it is a ceremonial work: and thus may be en-trancing perhaps.
When I say “we” in the title of this presentation, it may seem audacious: is there a “we” that can be spoken of in these post-colonial times? It may seem disrepectful of diversity to draw women together with this pronoun. Yet, there are some things that are fundamental, elemental … there iscommunion: as we stand apart in all our integrity, there is the actuality of a common ground that we all stand on …. the challenge in our time is to find ways of expressing that. We are all children of GaiaEarth or however our Place of Being may be named; we share this origin. There is increasing perception in these times that we are living in a world that senses itself in a process, part of something that is whole. We now know that humanity has been around for millions of years in some form; that creation has been ongoing in the Universe for billions of years; and here on the planet Earth, the long amazing story of life is recorded in the rocks, and we have learnt to read it. So, a realization has been growing for a few centuries now, and speeding up in this one, of a common overarching story that goes beyond the heretofore parochial sense of history. Humans now know empirically that the most amazing transformations in the physical realm are a fact of life: from the proton to the atom, to the molecule, to the single cell organism, and so on. Humans can now as a species have a sense of their global cultural and social evolution, from the beginning, in a manner that is new: particulars of interpretation may vary, but the long human story is present. And the modern human now realizes our origins in the stars … empirically (not only intuitively), and we may be awestruck. Faith, hope and charity are now in some ways much easier, as we gain the advantage of an eagle-eye view of what we are part of; as we may sense ourselves conscious participants in some great cosmic drama/play.
What role does religion in the future bring to this? What is it that this growing edge of humanity will ask of a religiosity? There seems to me at least two quite clear demands: one I will describe as shamanic, the other as ecozoic[ii].
By shamanic, I mean that individuals are “storying” themselves, knowing themselves and thinking from within their own skin. There is more reliance on direct lived experience for an understanding of the sacred, as opposed to relying on an external authority, external imposed symbol, story or image. This shamanic direction has been partly provoked by the emergent feminist spirituality, because women with this understanding have learned to no longer take things on prescription – reflecting suspiciously on all holy texts and myths. The feminist perspective has tended to cure one from swallowing pre-scribed religion. With this perspective one is entered into a process of self-scription, of authoring, scribing oneself. Religion then becomes based on what one can feel, what one can know. This is also an affect of the recent harvest of the last few centuries of Western science – people generally are desiring to know directly, to rethink it all, and to find “for ourselves our individual role in the matrix”[iii], a way in which each being is part of the texture of the universal fabric. Our stories then, the stories of each one, become very important – the very weaving of context. Our texts together become Context: and we do indeed co-create the Universe. When we become conscious of that, and begin to experience it often enough by ceremonial gathering, the “we” grows stronger – the Divine/Sacred is supported and birthed.
When it is understood that each contains within that which we seek – and perhaps this is a growing realization, then there is no power base for religious hierarchies whose persons may claim an inside track or rights to knowledge of the sacred. There is, alsoon the other hand, a recognition of “more skilled musicians”: that is, practitioners, teachers, people in whom the music of the Universe is heard and played more skillfully, from whom one may want to learn. That is a very different kind of authority; a power that is given from within, with personal discernment and choice.
The other demand being made on religions as this “we” emerges is the ecozoic; and by ecozoic I mean one that will enable the human to become present to the Earth, to feel that relationship[iv]. Thomas Berry uses the term to describe an emerging era in which the well-being of the entire Earth community will be of primary concern. All religions that are unable to make a contribution to that will increasingly mean nothing. Women particularly, though certainly not exclusively, have been ushering in this impulse towards the ecozoic in many disciplines including the theological, for a good few decades. As women reach for a notion of divinity/spirit congruent with our-selves, with our lived experience, the notion of deity separate from the cycles and rhythms of physical being has receded, and the desire to know and celebrate the larger rhythms of which one is a part arises. The fact that GaiaEarth, Cosmos, and the other than human world has seemed beneath us, other than us, is what has to change, and ischanging; and it does not mean a reduction of the human, it means expandingour understanding of what we are part of. And gradually, we are.
A Bit of Ceremony
So let us taste this then … this elemental communion, the dynamic of the cosmos primordial and fundamental wherein the “we” may be found[v].
(Light a candle)
We remember that we are AIR. We are this gaseous realm, the planet’s membrane. We are drawn from this ancient river that passed through the lungs of our ancestors, that passed through the lungs of every breathing creature. And we draw from this ancient river, as all on Earth have done before us. We breath the same molecules they did, and future generations will breath ours. As AIR rushes into us, right now … it reveals the cosmic dynamic of exuberance, the desire at the Heart of Existence to rush into Being, to celebrate itself. We awaken to oxygen. We are inspired in every moment.
We remember that we are FIRE. We are children of the Sun. Everything that happens on Earth is a solar event; our gathering here now is a solar event – the thought you are thinking now, the lunch we are about to have, this building. Like the flame, we are an image of unseen shaping activity. We are, each of us, that which shapes the complex work of art that is our life. We are not any one thing that we do, we are the conflagration of it all. We are, each of us, in an unbroken link, all the way back to the Primeval Fireball. The same unseen shaping activity manifest in the Fireball, manifests in us. We are it, we live it.
We remember that we are WATER. We are juicy, we are soft with it. The ocean is within us and it ebbs and flows. We drink a glass of water, and in us it thinks and feels. We are like water rushing down a mountain that picks up minerals and salts on its journey becoming something new; we absorb, become, are permeated by, all that is around us. Water reveals the cosmic dynamic of sensitivity alive in us.
We remember that we are EARTH. We are geological formations, made from rock and soil, and molten magma at the planet’s heart. Everything we eat comes from the soil somewhere on the planet – the molecules of China’s soil yesterday in our body today. And just as Earth’s crust holds the story book of life’s adventure, the memory held in the rocks; so every cell of our bodies holds memory – the stories of life’s adventure, of our journey. The great numinous past is alive in our present. We are mini planets, with the same source as Earth, effected by the same cosmic dynamics.
This earth, water, fire, and air that we are, comes out of Great Mystery. We share this origin, we share a long story, a deep connection that is beyond the bounds of space and time, light and dark, joy and sorrow, birth and death. We share its immanence and its transcendence.
This is a sacred space from whence we can hear each other’s stories, the complex compositions that they are, different textures in the Fabric. There is a recognition of diversity – diverse manifestation of essential Being that is common. We share the desire to Be, to live our passion; there is power-with.
An Invocation
Within this sacred space the Divine may be invoked – and why not in a metaphor native to us. She has three faces, three aspects, this cycle of life, foundational to being. Let me take you on a story journey, to feel her within – let us understand Her.
As Young One/Maiden she is the beginning – you can feel her in you as the urge take a new breath, as your hunger for food, as your hunger for anything. She is passionate. She is felt in your longing – any longing. Her symbol is the flame. She midwifes the soul, and any creative project. She is known when you love yourself, admire your beauty, stand firm in your truth. She is the hope, the promise of fulfillment – symbolized and expressed in the new crescent moon, that fine sliver of light you have seen … and perhaps felt. She is all possibility within you, the seething quantum foam. She is essentially a big “Yes” to existence. She can be seen in the new shoot burgeoning out of the dead looking branch of winter. As Virgin/Maiden She has been named Artemis, Athena, Brigid, Aphrodite, and Mary … so that we may speak of her.
As Mother/Creator she is the fullness – you can feel her in you as the peaking of your breath, the dynamic interchange within you. She can be felt in the satisfaction of a well crafted project, the satisfaction of the successful tending of needs. Her symbol is the container, the pot, the chalice. Her power was felt when you held another being, gave life in some form to another. She is known in your everyday work, of strengthening networks, weaving and repairing, creating the world, raising children, teaching adults. You have felt her in the awesomeness of the full moon rising, in the comfort offered by needed rain. She can be seen and smelt in the full flower; She can be tasted in the ripe fruit. We have named the Mother/Creator as Demeter, Isis, Kuan Yin, Sophia, Prajnaparamita, Tara … so that we may praise her, and be present to her more each day.
As Old One/Crone she is the ending – you can feel her in the need to exhale, to empty – in the release. She can be felt in the ending of things, in the exoskeleton of all your old shapes[vi]– who you have been, and are no longer. She may be felt as pain, or as joy, or both. Her symbol is often the sword. She cuts through illusion, and that vision is sometimes hard to bear. Hers is a fierce love, felt when you love but something needs to change. She can be felt in the “No more!”, that may surge in your being. She is the chaos felt in the tearing down of a structure no longer needed. Her darkness may be comforting, and can be seen growing as the last crescent sliver of the moon, before she disappears. She is the wisdom gained when her dark terrain has been travelled. She can be seen in the seed pod, the peeling bark, the pruned branches, the scissors cutting the thread. We have named the Dark One Kali, Medusa, Lillith, Persephone … and she is a deeper mystery than we can conceive.
These are things “we” may feel and know: though each may express different particulars, and there are many stories, yet there is an essence that is shared. There is a “we” that may be named Goddess. My body, your body, is Her body. My spirit, your spirit, is Her spirit. We are Her unfolding story.
Women and men both, need the opportunity to experience new language that houses and expresses a more inclusive understanding of being. Myth/story which arises from within can draw its power from a realm of pattern “which is common to people of all cultures and all times”[vii]. The archetypes that arise, have done so since ancient times and have recurred across many cultures, in a diversity of form. It is possible for our stories to weave a sensible fabric, because they arise out of a stream that we all drink from and are immersed in; even though its ultimate conception remains beyond us.
The three faces of Goddess that I have storied for you today, are three aspects of holistic actualization that can never really be separated, they are present to us constantly, in a moving dynamic of balance and flow. In the grain of wheat or corn all three aspects are present at once – the beginning, the end, and the food of life: thus the wheat, the grain, the corn, is sacred to Demeter and other Goddesses around the globe; it speaks of the whole, the complete cycle of life. It can remind us of the mystery present every day, in every moment. It can speak of the profound unity and poesis, of what may appear to be disparate and degenerative.
(Sheaves of wheat were passed around for women to take a shaft each)
“Take one if you would like, and remember the unity and poesis, the wisdom of Goddess in yourself, that you carry forward in space and in time – you are Her story.”
(“The Birth of the Goddess” image was projected onto a screen, while “Ancient Pines” by Loreena McKennitt was played)
I offer you this image.
If you like, allow it to disclose itself to you. Erich Neumann, in his book The Great Mother, calls it “The Birth of the Goddess”, and places it in the section on “Spiritual Transformation”[viii]. It is from Rome in the 5th century B.C.E.. For me it speaks of what we may do for each other. This is the Harvest we seek – to birth the Divine. This is one of the ways in which it is done.
References:
Drury, Neville. The Elements of Shamanism. Element Books: Dorset, 1989.
Houston, Jean. The Search For The Beloved. Jeremy P. Tarcher: Los Angeles, 1987.
Macy, Joanne and Seed, John. “What are You?” in Earth Prayers From Around the World. Roberts, Elizabeth and Amindon, Elias (editors),1991.
McKennitt, Loreena. “Ancient Pines”, Parallel Dreams CD.
Milton, Deborah. “I Wish I Could”, https://deborahmiltonartist.com/gaia/
Morgan, Robin.Lady of the Beasts. NY: Random House, 1976.
Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Starhawk.The Spiral Dance. SF: Harper & Row, 1979.
Swimme, Brian & Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story. NY:Harper Collins, 1992
Swimme, Brian. The Universe is a Green Dragon. Sante Fe NM: Bear & Company Publishing, 1984.
NOTES:
[i]The gathering was organised by Jill F. Kealey McRae, Director of External Programs, International House 1997-98.
[ii]Brian Swimme & Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.241-261.
[iii]Neville Drury, The Elements of Shamanism, p.101.
[iv]Thomas Berry, The University: Its Response to The Ecological Crisis. A paper delivered at Harvard University, April 11 1996.
[v]I acknowledge the work of Brian Swimme, Starhawk, Joanna Macy and John Seed in the composition of this elemental reflection.
[vi]Robin Morgan, Lady of the Beasts,p.84.
[vii]Jean Houston, The Search For The Beloved, p. 100.
[viii]Erich Neumann. The Great Mother, Plate 155.