Goddess For Our Times by Jessica North - O'Connell

Goddess For Our Times:

The Social, Psychological and Spiritual Relevance of the Feminine Aspect of Divinity

Jessica North - O’Connell

This essay was originally prepared as part of a panel presentation

for the “Goddesses” Art Exhibit, Belfry Theatre, Victoria, B.C., 1994

For me the Goddess represents the multitudinous aspects of woman and the essence of the Feminine expression of the larger universe, which is mirrored within both women and men. She is the affirmation of our inherent creativity and mother of the manifest realms, the word - or logos - made visible. We are her issue and all that we know, perceive and suspect about the nature of reality is the evidence of her existence, for she is immanent--that is, pervading all creation. Hold the earth’s soil in you hands, hug a child or loved one, gaze up in wonder at the sky, sniff the air, feel the warmth of the sun or passion coursing through your body, taste a cool refreshing glass of water, regard your own image in a mirror--and you have direct experience of the Goddess. Likewise, be moved by the pain of another, feel your own anguish, suffering, loss or grief and these also confirm her existence, for she is the sum total of the human condition as well as our inestimable potential. Above all, the nature of the Goddess is cyclic as well as all-inclusive.

The re-awakening of Goddess consciousness as we are currently experiencing it is happening at a time of humanity’s extreme need to re-emphasize and re-integrate the feminine and maternal qualities of human nature. While some cultures have never wholly abandoned their awareness of the Divine Feminine, all patriarchal or sky-god religions, (the predominant religions of the so-called “civilized world”), have sought to subdue and ultimately to eradicate the older Goddess or earth-based traditions, using methods as subtle as appropriation and propaganda and as brutal as torture, dismemberment and ultimately death by means as diverse as mass genocide and individual immolation. Modern psychology has indicated that aspects of our humanity which we refuse to acknowledge or which we suppress, in this case represented by awareness of and reverence for the immanent Divine Feminine, will manifest nonetheless, often in a perverted form. The history with which most of us were raised, of an omnipotent ever-existing, wrathful, vengeance-seeking male deity--evidently hostile toward his human creations, evolving into a being who can only be approached through a sacrificial intermediary, also male, both of whom emphasize beyond the shadow of a doubt our separateness and alienation from the Divine--is one illustration of this syndrome.

Our collective experience of soul loss, spiritual deprivation and the devaluing of all life resultant from the devaluing of women in general, arises directly from the suppression of the holistic image which the Goddess represents, and though many no longer hold sacred even the concept of an omnipotent male sky-being, human nature still seeks to uphold a force which it deems greater than itself. For many in this culture that force manifests itself as the drive to acquire money and material goods, at whatever cost to the self, humanity at large, the environment, or the planet herself. As the awareness of the Divine Feminine has been swallowed up by her progeny and hence his ideologists, (for indeed it is always the female who births the male), so does her suppressed shadow self, via our negation, threaten to indiscriminately devour our very existence. When we do not observe and honor her immanence--the divine feminine presence which we embody--our innate, uniquely human sense is disrupted, rendering our lives seemingly senseless or devoid of meaning, and we are unable to access the profound state of ecstasy which is our birthright and our calling. (Ecstasy means “movement out of stagnation”).

As we collectively begin to move beyond such a limited and painful self-identification, it is natural to gravitate toward a re-integration of those aspects of the self which we have suppressed or attempted to disown. As we re-access our humanity, we become capable once again of activating our creative potential. This is a primary function of the returning Goddess consciousness.

We cannot underestimate the importance of the Goddess for women, especially for those of us who live in male-dominant rather than egalitarian or matrilineal societies. In the words of Gynne Stern, “all over the world, the female was seen and still is seen as the fundamental spiritual originator of all life, just as woman is known as the biological originator of the human baby.” With this knowledge genetically-encoded, women are struggling to regain our rightful position in our respective cultures. As we embrace Goddess religions and ideologies, and re-acquaint ourselves with her many guises, we are able to re-affirm for ourselves our own myriad aspects and expressions--some of them uniquely female--and to then facilitate the enlightenment of our brothers, thus also enabling them access to their own inner feminine selves and the implications thereof.

One such tool of education is Art. Being the daughter of a visual artist and intimately involved with the arts myself, I consider Art to be the mediating language of the soul, and its purpose that of informing, inspiring, exploring and celebrating the manifest realms of which humanity is a part. Through the ages, the Goddess as muse has inspired us to tap the larger body of our creative potential. Art can also be a form of therapy for its originator, depending upon how deeply the artist is moved to explore her or his own inner landscapes. The artist may also assume the role of psychic messenger by depicting for us configurations of our collective soul. And, even reaching back into pre-history, Art has been an expression of humanity’s recognition and reverence of the Divine or sacred presence. One of the oldest-known baked clay figurines of European origin dates back 25,000 years and is readily identified as a full female figure. There are many such figurines from the ancient world now gracing the interiors of our museums. These Mother Goddesses or Earth Goddesses are our legacy from times little-known and long forgotten, except that the Divine Feminine presence represented in human form is apparent. Many of these artifacts are explicit in their sexuality, honoring the gateway to physical life and celebrating our fertility--the fertility of woman as well as Mother Nature. Many of the figurines show female forms combined with animal features--the body of a woman with a bird’s head, for example, or like the mysterious sphinx, the body of an animal with the head of a woman. If I were to make no other comment on this phenomenon, I would have to say that the relationship of humanity to the rest of the natural world is implicitly stated in these artifacts: all Nature is one.

Far fewer in number, though no less significant, are the representations of the masculine principle, usually as an erect phallus, sometimes incorporated into a single figurine which also has female features. The rudiments of what later grew into the more sophisticated mythologies of resurrection may well have arisen (no pun intended) from our predecessors observing the cyclic rise and fall of the phallus!

Archeologists have also unearthed figurines of bull-men and goat-men dating back to between 5,000 and 4,500 BCE indicating that the ancients viewed the male no less a part of the natural world, though the rise in patriarchal ideology was concurrent with an attempt to deprive the male of his place here. Shamanic cultures have retained this connection between “man” and “beast” as is evident in the visual art depicting the shamanic realms currently being produced, as well as in the lore of the totem animals and animal spirit guides now becoming popularized. And in the practice of martial arts, which in themselves derive from shamanic traditions, both men and women once again encounter our nature-based selves as we assume the various animal postures. Speaking as a woman, I feel that we are fortunate to have retained a closer connection to our nature-based selves than our brothers, due to our birthing and bleeding capacities, and that this connection can serve as the thread which leads our awareness back to our essential sacredness.

The Goddess, because of her immanence, also has a pronounced identification with animals, they being representative of her various aspects: the goose, the owl, the hare, the serpent, the sow, the bee, the cow, the dove, the lynx, the bear, the frog, the spider, the butterfly, the mare, the fish, the vixen, the eagle, the peacock, are but some of her icons and totems. The ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for serpent also means Goddess. The cow jumping over the moon in the nursery rhyme is an allegory for the Goddess’s lunar aspect, and Mother Goose herself is none other than one of the oldest images of the Earth Mother. Many cultures recognize the sow as representative of the Goddess’s fertility and generosity. The Goddess’s affiliation with the non-human aspects of nature does not end here, for she is also depicted via flowers and many other forms of vegetation. And her reputation with regard to the forces of nature is, of course, legendary.

The Goddess is immanent and because of this our highest acknowledgement and celebration of her must of necessity be the acknowledgement and celebration of ourselves, for this is the avenue through which our healing and ultimate enlightenment will occur. For as Doreen Valiente’s Charge of the Goddess states: “let my worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold-- all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.”

BIO: Jessica North-O'Connell is a founding Priestess of Thirteenth House Mystery School, Victoria, B.C., and Faerie Mound Covenstead, Lake Cowichan, B.C., on beautiful Vancouver Island. She is currently developing The School for Magical Studies, does private readings and teaches classes in Tarot, Astrology and Mythology. Email: therapeia@shaw.ca