Every now and then, we find ourselves rediscovering what the sacred means to us. How do we view the Goddess? What meaning does the God have to us? These are things that as pagans, we so often take for granted, but which are healthy for us to explore and expand our knowledge and understanding of.
The Goddess
We began our monthly discussion by focusing on the Goddess and, in the process, discovering that each of us has a very personal concept of who She is. Artemis shared that, "To me, the Goddess is truly the Universal Mother. She is both loving and firm. She guides me and comforts me, and occasionally gives me a thwap on the head when I am truly not doing the right thing for myself. I feel very close to Her. I talk to Her every day as I would my best friend, because I feel she IS my best friend." To TinneIvy, the Goddess, "Is like a Celtic or Greek/Roman Goddess, with a particular interest/association/or even human-like quality. Other times the Goddess is a representation of the universal "feminine," and in that sense, I would say, part of the "ancestral connection." Druantia added, "The Goddess represents everything feminine in Nature that surrounds me and the voice that guides and protects within me. For me, She is energy."
Winter shared a slightly different understanding of who the Goddess is to him. "To me she is the entire spectrum of human experience -- she is truly Maiden, Mother, and Crone because in my reality, she is an expression of every maiden, mother, or crone that has spiritually evolved to this state of being. To me, the Goddess isn't a being that is beyond us -- she is us. She's the best and worst of what we are, our love and our fear; the wisdom of infinite lifetimes, lived in infinitie realities, coupled with the impulsive freedom of a little girl. My Goddess isn't beyond us; she is us, she knows us, she has lived lifetimes so similar to ours that she understands what it's like to live as us. At the same time we honor her, she honors us because she realizes that not only is she us, but that we are her."
We spent a portion of our time talking about how we connect with the Goddess. "Definately through meditation," TinneIvy shared, echoing many of the approaches the group uses individually, "especially meditations on specific aspects or qualities of the Goddess." A smaller portion of the Circle experienced Her through dreams and visions. Triah's experience was similar to many that held the minority view within the Circle. "The Goddess to me is a very close friend, although it wasn't like that from the beginning, she presented herself to me as a friend just about a year ago, before that I would have to say I honored her as a distant deity. She came to me in a dream of sorts -- really more of a vision," Triah added. "I see Her very differently now, I feel Her with me in everything I do, and every decision I make in my life."
The last portion of our week spent focusing on the Goddess addressed her various phases and how we call upon them. Some of us focused on Her as a single being. Triah's comments supported this view when she said, "I feel that She does possess all of these aspects, but I can't say that I call on them seperately. She is all of them, therefore for me it works best to just call upon Her." TinneIvy's approach held the middle ground, her view shared by many. "It would really depend upon the association of the Goddess quality, and the need for which I am exploring. I go through phases of being fascinated with one aspect or another, sometimes with all three at once. In my tradition, the maiden aspect would be associated with newness (as that of the maiden), the mother aspect with the emotional/protector, and the crone aspect with the knowledge/wiseness of old age, perhaps even health issues, and reincarnation."
Ahneke closed the week when she shared how she approached the Goddess. "When I need to call on her in everyday life I envision an elderly woman seated on a chair, with a young woman kneeling at her feet and a middle-aged woman standing behind. My eyes will be drawn toward one aspect and then I'll know to meditate upon her. But during quiet meditation or in circle I will go between worlds and wait for one of her aspects to come to me. Strangely enough, the energy of all aspects feels the same to me. In fact, as I meditate on one aspect her face or body will often shift into another form and aspect. And the energy will stay the same through the transitions."
The God
One of the comments on the God that was echoed again and again, was the fact that the way that many pagans perceive the male aspect of the divine is a far cry from the vengefulness often associated with the Christian God. Rowan Ravenfeather shared this view when she stated, "I have never felt fear from this God as I did from the Christian God of my childhood, I have never felt that the God of the pagans would punish. If there is harshness it is the harshness of nature not of an avenging God. I think that my being a Native American makes me see the God more as the so called "Great Spirit" a force that can be tapped and used but must be respected." Druantia agreed, saying, "I had trouble envisioning Him in the manner that was suggested in the church, but it didn't take long for me to get a feel for who and what He really meant to me. He was who I turned to when I was troubled as a child. He was/is very much a father figure to me, and now as I hold my own son in my arms, I can see that aspect of him as well."
Like Druantia, many of the people within the Circle saw aspects of the God in people and in the world around them. Paladin shared that he finds, "His energy strong in the sun, I am strengthened by it, both physically and mentally and at times feel invincible from the strength His rays provide," while Avalon added, "The love, support and guidance I found [in the God] were very different than what I knew. He was and is my Father, and I see Him in my husband and son. The male aspect was always the grand mystery for me."
Vestalin summed up our discussion on why we call upon the God by simply stating, "Although I find the Goddess to be a nurturing, loving mother, I often look to the God to hold me in his powerful arms, when I feel I need to connect with my inner child."