The Goddess, she gone

...and the lost faces of Deity.

Here's one moment where I discuss how I reconcile my atheist self and my spiritual self, because, logically, rationally, of course there isn't a deity of any verifiable sort, but, on the other hand, the only ways that Deity manifests are not what we would call "supernatural," and, anyhow, believing that there is something to all of these layers of existence is as natural to me as breathing. It's just how I experience reality - in layers.

So, reading a book yesterday, I had a thought - that the Goddess left. It wasn't an intentional thing, because I, personally, think that the gods only act through us, which is why I say that my personal paganism is humanism with gods. I think we are manifestations of divinity - which doesn't mean that we get to run around willy-nilly declaring that we're gods and treating each other like hell; it means we have responsibility with all of the power that we have been given both as individuals and as a species.

So, the Goddess left.

There are two ways in which I mean this: spiritual and metaphorical. If you've ever seen any of my fiction (or semi-fiction), you know that my concept of metaphorical and literal are very mixed up together, so I see no conflict here in interpreting one to necessarily mean the other.

Spiritually, the world devalued women as a whole, and the Goddess in particular. It devalued the Goddess, debased her, called her either virgin or whore and disregarded every other face she ever wore. She was called either a demon at the service of Satan (their perversion, in some forms, of our Horned One - at least he was worthy of being remembered, even if in this debasing) - not worthy even to have her own power - or Mary, because the only worthy form a woman can take is a self-sacrificing virgin. The Goddess was forgotten or sneered at, and She left.

Metaphorically, the world devalued women as individuals, and, through that, the Goddess within all of us, women and men. It devalued our contributions, debased us, reduced us to mothers, virgins, or whores, and disregarded every other function we were capable of performing. We were viewed as either vile temptations and corrupting influences on men - not worthy even to have our own power - or mothers who might as well be virgins, because the only worthy form a woman can take is a self-sacrificing virgin. We, as whole human beings, were forgotten or sneered at, and our contributions began to wilt away from the world, and, through the lack of women's voice in the world, the Goddess left.

As above, so below.

For me there is no conflict between the two interpretations; they are one in the same, because the gods primarily act through us as human beings.

And, as the world came to be under the power of not only the God, but this one, narrow interpretation of the God, that had no room for the kindness and beauty of the Green Man (because beauty is feminine), or the joy and reveling and eroticism of Dionysus (because sex is evil and joy is a waste of time), or the many, many other faces of the God, and the world has become, essentially, what you would expect it to become when the majority of humanity turns their back on all but a few gods who started out as war gods (such as YHVH and Allah). Jesus brought some kindness to the religion that is named after him, but that wasn't sufficient for people who feel emasculated by the slightest hint of genuine empathy. People insisted on reading scriptures as absolute literal testaments to truth, rather than looking at them figuratively and metaphorically, and digging for inner knowledge within them - which is, frankly, something one would associate with the Goddess, who is associated with intuition and the shadowy passages of esoteric knowledge. No. There was only room for this strict interpretation of everything, including Deity, and holy things, and the Goddess left, because we forgot her.

The thing is, though, that some of us remember, whether or not we intentionally so do, or consciously do so. We remember every time we teach our daughters that they have many options, to become artists or teachers or scientists or activists or mothers or wives or lovers or military officers or whatever they choose. There is a different face of the Goddess to each of those choices, and all of them have names, and most have been forgotten or relegated to the world of mythology, with their spiritual and metaphorical value completely forgotten and shelved in the face of this literal interpretation of one God only. We honor and revive the Goddess every time we teach our daughters that they have sovereignty over their bodies and agency over their lives, and every time we teach our sons that they may not intrude upon these things.

We remember every time we teach our sons that they have options available to them other than becoming husbands and breadwinners. When we do this, we honor the forgotten faces of the God as well as the manifestations of the Goddess that are latent every bit as much in men as in women. The Goddess is not the only form of Deity that has been denied for so very long - she simply took the brunt of the scorn and devaluing.

We need to bring back the Goddess, both literal and metaphorical, and, in doing so, bring back these forgotten faces of the God as well, because I've got news for you, people - these traits that have been forgotten and scorned as feminine don't have a gender, and everyone suffers for the lack of them. It's not just my half of the human race that is suffering.