“She is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at her face or her garments for the splendor with which she shines. For she is terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning, and gentle with the goodness of the bright sun; and both her terror and her gentleness are incomprehensible to humans…. But she is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is her secret that no person can know the sweetness with which she sustains people, and spares them in inscrutable mercy.” ― Hildegard von Bingen
Not only has the Goddess spoken, but all her various aspects have spoken as well….the Goddess of death and destruction, the Goddess of goodness and love, the Goddess of fertility and abundance, the Goddess of wisdom, the Goddess of food and healing, the Goddess of dance and song. And the Goddess of power and revolution is beginning to rise. Yes, the force of the Divine Feminine has encompassed planet Earth.
Enough is enough
Every mother knows it—that moment when you have had enough, and you know that if you don’t reign that child in, there will be irreversible consequences.
With all the love in your huge mother’s heart, you say, “Get in that house and sit down and stop. Just listen.” You declare this with such a power, that the consequences don’t even need to be stated. They are unspoken, a matter of life and death.
Life and death. That is the Goddess or Divine Mother, an aspect of creation that is not merely a New Age buzz word, but a force and power to be reckoned with. She is ruthlessly loving, and asks EVERYTHING of us, her children. She asks for our full attention.
Now that she has it, what will be do with the wisdom she is showing us?
The power of the Divine Feminine
Divine Feminine power has been very elusive until now, in a society in which power itself has mistakenly been associated with the masculine. The Divine Feminine resides within every human being, both men and women, the ineffable source of life itself. Because she has been so hidden away during the 6,000 years of the patriarchy most people, both men and women, do not fully comprehend what the Divine Feminine truly is.
The Divine Feminine is the sexy, sacred, nurturing, fertile, wild, loving, fierce and flowing part of existence that is fully alive as the earth and all life on it. At the same time she is a spiritual force that transcends the realm of day to day living.
The Divine Feminine is a felt experience of a presence that knows no age, gender, or other conceptual category.
The power of the Divine Feminine is that she promotes change by exhibiting and anchoring her presence on planet earth. Her gift is that she is a catalytic force for grace, love and kindness. She represents the connection to the part of your consciousness that has to do with intuition, empathy, nurturance, community, sensuality, and collaboration, regardless of your gender.
She often teaches through devastatingly destructive hurricanes and wildfires, and now the deadly virus. She is unstoppable, and the sooner each of us stops resisting her presence and learns the lessons she asks of us, the more powerful we become as a force of positive evolution.
A path of no rejection
In the ancient Indian tradition of Tantra the Goddess in all her aspects is worshipped. Called Shakti, she is really a divine cosmic power that manifests as feminine energy and is the dynamic forces that move through the universe.
Tantra is called a path of no rejection, and teaches a profound saying of “Yes” to all of life, the pleasurable or painful, loving or violent, beautiful or dreadful. It’s a wide-open embrace of all states of being, for in the Tantric view, each moment offers the possibility of our spiritual awakening. There is nothing outside of or more powerful than this Divine force in all of life.
This view is subversive to a culture that thrives on the illusion of control and ideology. If you are watching closely, you see a world in chaos that could never have fully prepared for the appearance of the Goddess.
The message of the Goddess
In this tradition, Shakti is the source of all power, and consciousness is the masculine force that grounds and focuses the feminine. Every genuinely creative project emerges out of the marriage of this feminine power and masculine consciousness.
In other words, science alone will not find the solution to this pandemic. The real solution will be far more radical and all-encompassing than a vaccine or enough social distancing. It will be in the hearts and minds of men and women who have slowed down long enough to deeply listen to the message of the Goddess.
She recently spoke her message through the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who issued a plea to the countries of the world to declare an immediate ceasefire. “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war,” said Guterres “Let us dedicate ourselves to the real fight, which is not with each other, but is to protect our health and the health of our planet.” Like every mother, she wants her children to get along!
Our precious human web
Do we need any more evidence that we have arrived at a perilous moment? Can we finally acknowledge that we need deep societal change, and that governments cannot protect us from a power stronger than anyone or anything? Neither position nor privilege can hide a person from the truth of what is happening.
The current slowing down of human activity has enabled the earth, scarred with pollution and toxins, to purify and begin to renew herself. Just as the body of the Mother—the soil and water and air— recovers from the ravages of our frantic consumption—this slowing down is here to renew us, in body, mind and spirit. There is an opening now to rethink our values and behavior, and to recreate our world to reflect altruism and cooperation.
In exquisite dystopian fashion on Zoom, we are finding ways to weave and nurture our connections. Let us extend that web to include the millions who are so vulnerable, and have not had the gift of sheltering in place.
Prayer for renewal
Divine Mother of All that is,
whose essence dwells within each of us and all things,
Please shower this planet with your light and presence
And protect us from our own tendencies.
Please brings us into a state of deep peace and wholeness,
That we may see others as our sisters and brothers.
Awaken in us our highest selves,
That we may act from truth and generosity.
May we all be lifted up by your Love.
And so it is.
