Let be, and let Goddess by Leslie McIntyre As a devotee of the Goddess and practitioner of Goddess spirituality, I have chosen to make my life the path. I have surrendered myself to the Goddess and committed myself to serving Her for the rest of my life, in whatever ways She sees fit. Of course, I don't always know what this will mean or what this looks like, and my surrender has taught me not to be attached to outcome. When I find myself being attached, I try to remind myself to get out of the way and let go and let Goddess. Goddess to me is a verb. It is "Goddessing". To Goddess is not easy. It is a way of life. As I learn more about what our ancestors knew, I have realized that we have mutated from a consciousness that was all-inclusive and held everything as sacred. Life lived on a daily basis was sacred. There was no separation between what was ritual and what was not. Since we have been subjected to a mind/body split by our Cartesian heritage, we suffer from a separation from the natural world. Many people do not even know that this separation exists. I believe this separation has created what we call the "ego" . I believe the spiritual teachings we have inherited in the last few millennia have attempted to guide us about this ego. Unfortunately, because many of these teachings have come through a male-biased filter, some of the most important information about our spiritual roots has been disregarded, and one has to dig deep to find the Mother-wisdom at the core of them. The resurgence of the Goddess in our times is our hope for the future. The values and truth of this path hold the key to our survival as a species. Since we cannot go backwards, I see that we must learn to integrate the wisdom of the ancients while applying it to our current condition. Since we struggle with our ego, how do we apply this wisdom and do the necessary practice to transform ourselves into our authentic selves? What are the practices? Watch out for ego! I have had many experiences with women who identify themselves as priestesses of the Goddess, who serve Her sincerely while at the same time displaying what I perceive to be unconscious egoic involvement. For me, the two do not fit. I think to be a real priestess, shaman, witch and medicine person, one has to have a strong practice of self-reflection. One can be a good technician -- that is, one can "do" the correct techniques of ritual, for example -- but to actually embody the magical healing energy of ritual, one must be well acquainted with states of "being", not "doing". Being is born out of not knowing -- being open to the moment and not assuming oneself to be an expert. One may be quite experienced as a medicine person, without being self-identified as "one who knows". In the not knowing, space fills the person. In "knowing", the person fills the space. And I am not talking about the space women need in order to express our own voices and our truths. That is a different kind of space. Taking up that kind of space is essential to our visibility. I am referring to the space of the Goddess in all things. I am talking about being spacious. It's important to practice not-knowing so that true wisdom has the space to emerge. I have known people who have written books about the Goddess and artists who have created beautiful artwork in the name of the Goddess, and yet, I have found some of these people to be suffering from a deep hunger for recognition, which I believe stems from early childhood unmet needs. When I have seen this, I have seen that anything, no matter how lovely and wonderful, can be a distraction from healing one's own pain. If we get attention and recognition from outside ourselves, we must be good. If we get this validation, we must then be lovable. However, if we don't understand how to love ourselves, we will always be looking outside for that love. Because human beings are divine, great works are certainly created in the process. How many times have we heard about the very painful lives of artists, writers and musicians? They could create beautiful music but their own lives were full of despair. I don't think our ancestors lived this way. I believe their beauty and expression of creativity was a reflection of their way of life. I do not think there was any separation between them. Goddess lives in the moment. . . Are we to know one another by the objects we produce? For me, Goddess lives in the moment. She lives in how we treat one another. I do not think it is okay to name oneself as a high priestess or Goddess facilitator of some sort and then be abusive, manipulative, and self-centered and not take responsibility for one's behavior. I have witnessed this, more times than I care to remember. Nor do I feel that is okay to have attachment to being the "star" and compete with other sisters about who is the best Goddess priestess or the most knowledgeable. This can actually be very dangerous when people who do not know what they are doing invoke powerful energies and have gotten hurt. In shamanic cultures, it takes many years of devoted, committed study and apprenticeship as well as a deep humility to be a true medicine person. While I do feel all women are healers, I also know that it takes a lot of soul-searching and witnessing to get out of the way enough to let the Goddess come through us. If we are in the way, we eclipse the magic we are wanting to bring to others. Egotistical ambition can be quite a foe. It causes one to be in denial and attached to image and outcome. This kind of behavior is hurtful. While it may be unconscious, one is still responsible for the consequences. When Goddess women hurt each other, we need to take responsibility and make amends. We need to find a way to truly hear one another and see any pain we might have caused. We need to cultivate compassion and love and learn the skills necessary to bring those energies to the moment -- much in the same way a mother loves her child. Why else do we practice Goddess spirituality? For me, it is not just about the fancy rituals we can create; those can be nice and rewarding, but really, the true ritual is lived in every moment of our lives. One does not have to be perfect to offer her gifts, but one needs to have enough self-awareness and self-knowledge to be graceful enough to not be hurtful, especially if one is intending to gather others around her and teach. In this kind of situation, one is responsible for the energy she creates and must be aware of what she is inviting others into to share with her. She is the mother of her space, and needs to be aware of the needs of others and attuned to what is necessary to bring safety to the environment. Of course, she is not responsible for what others do and how they behave in that space, but she has the wisdom and heart to handle situations to the best of her ability, as they show themselves in the moment, through skillful means and right action. I have witnessed facilitators, in the name of the Goddess, deny, for instance, the active alcoholism of a co -facilitator at a conference where I felt ambition took over and brought serious danger and unnecessary difficulty into a space that women had paid substantial amounts of money to participate in. This, to me, is not Goddess practice. I think we owe it to ourselves and each other to be authentic and grounded in the Goddess before we go around taking women's money and promising certain experiences and exciting times at sacred sites. This can be seductive and glamorous, but what's the point if our leaders don't know what they are doing? This is not to say that there are not worthy and authentic experiences to be had with women who teach Goddess spirituality. Just be discerning. And don't be afraid to tell the truth. Once I told my truth at a so-called Goddess conference I attended and was met with hostility, judgment and intense competition. I could see that just because the women in charge used "Goddess" in the title of the conference and felt they had some kind of expertise in Goddess spirituality, it was still a patriarchal event. Who needs that? The sacredness of life is all around. . . Patriarchy is patriarchy, no matter what form it takes. Women's culture is entirely different from patriarchy, and if we are going to learn about the Goddess together, we must be skilled enough to recognize the skillful manipulations of our own process of self deception so as not to bring that to others. And if it leaks out, we must have enough humility to listen and allow transformation, instead of maintaining control and defensiveness. Once, when I was participating in the invoking of a Mayan goddess, Ixchel, in the jungles of the Yucatan, I began to bleed profusely. I had already had my bloods before leaving the US for the event, so it was not time for my period. I bled the entire time I was in the jungle that day, and learned that the indigenous people rub on their bodies a red dye from a seed to symbolize menstrual blood when they invoke Ixchel. I was deeply moved and felt very humbled. I knew there was no way I could have planned that experience, and had I been more invested in being someone who "knew", I don't think I would have been touched so deeply by the love of the Goddess. Another time, I was in Malta at the temple of Mnjadra, and I began to bleed when it wasn't my time. I also felt in that experience that I had allowed myself to stay open to the Goddess and to what the ancients had to share with me. I entered that temple in quiet reverence and sacred intention -- I didn't need to be anyone in order to impress anyone. These experiences have inspired me to write this article, as I learned that declaring myself as a priestess to have all eyes on me to perform something is completely irrelevant to the true ritual of the Goddess. She taught me that what I need to do is simply be awake in my daily life, and that the sacredness of life itself is all around -- providing rich opportunity to connect with our deepest spiritual roots. Goddessing creates women's culture. I believe the essentials of women's culture are loving kindness, honesty, generosity of spirit, compassion, co-operation and equality,accompanied by the practices of self-reflection and the taking responsibility, re-enacting the ability to respond. I believe that anyone who puts herself out there as a teacher must practice these disciplines. To be one with the teachings In patriarchal spiritual texts, I have read that the teacher and the teachings are separate. But in my experience as a mother, I know it doesn't work for me to tell my kids "do as I say and not as I do." It just doesn't work. I feel we are responsible for our actions, and are accountable to each other for our behavior. While a teacher may not embody the teachings entirely, she can say so, and still strive in her own being for excellence and impeccability. I would say that it is my goal to be one with the teachings I espouse. My kids certainly look for that. They are not fools. In other words, they look to see if I walk my talk. I wouldn't want it any other way. They are very good at discerning authenticity. It doesn't matter to them how seemingly "accomplished" someone might be in any way -- if their vibes aren't good, my kids just aren't interested. We are all each other's teachers anyway. So, we might as well create the kind of culture in which we are all seen for our gifts and abilities and eliminate competition and control. Who needs it? Without our conscious, diligent attention to these internalized conditioned states, they have a life of their own. This is where I see that more emphasis needs to be placed in women's spirituality -- focusing on one's own inner transformation and learning how to accomplish this. I believe the teachings from the mother-mind of what we now know as Buddhism holds very valuable offerings for this work. I do not feel it is enough to hold rituals on the holy days and drum and dance around a fire and then go home and think this is all we need. This is wonderful and can be ecstatic, but it's just not enough. I still see the patriarchal mind sometimes peering out through the eyes of my sisters, enjoying a measure of control while going completely unnoticed. I know that women's culture and spirituality are about ecstasy, but I don't see the use of running after experiences where we can have an ecstasy "fix" and then tell ourselves we have found the Goddess. I have also experienced Goddess ecstasy in the silence and stillness, where there is no doing, no attachment to being the doer and no craving --only the presence of her vast stillness beckoning me to come into my true being. So, lately, my Goddessing practice is learning to simply be and be simple -- eliminating the desperate need to have a story and to be seen and heard for my story and taking up lots of space and not allowing the space to fill me. I would rather be filled up with space than fill up space with myself. The yoni-verse is filled with space. The yoni-verse creates the space it moves into as it expands. What an amazing process! I think creating space is at the core of Goddess spirituality. We create inner space as we heal and we create outer space as we share ourselves with one another. When people feel there is space for them, the need for competition is eliminated because all-inclusive spaciousness is present. How do we practice creating inner and outer space? I believe our ancient ancestors knew these secrets, as they lived cooperatively for millennia without war. My own experience with these practices involves consciously learning about my patriarchal conditioning and how it manifests in my being. I am learning to be a good listener and I try to keep my own needs in check so that I am not "needy". Be and be simple Being "needy" is draining to others because it creates an imbalance in the energy dynamics between people. Most of us are quite needy a great deal of the time because we have not had the benefits of women's culture and its intrinsic nurturing, loving, peaceful values -- so we are very hungry and thirsty for this loving way. I believe this condition of the absence of loving presence to be the root cause of all our suffering and all the abuse we see acted out in the world. The absence of the living/loving Goddess causes the unspeakable hatred and violence we witness every day. Coming to terms with my woundedness as a direct result of Her absence teaches me to have compassion for myself. From there, it grows into compassion for others. Many of us hate ourselves, or beat ourselves up for not being perfect or simply not liking who we are. This is what patriarchy wants us to do. These internal sufferings cause anger, ignorance, grasping, impatience, competition and dualistic thinking. We feel isolated and hang onto the need to be right. We might even need to be right about our Goddess knowledge and expertise! Just because we can paint and write about the Goddess doesn't mean we have transformed these inner conditions of despair. If we go around acting like we are Goddessing and we really are not, She will humble us -- thank goodness. It is up to us to take the responsibility to look deep within and search out the conditioning that no longer serves -- some of which never has, except to keep us down, divided and oppressed. While we may not like the thought that we might possibly embody some of these conditions, it is important to face the truth with self-love and compassion. It is the only way we can then skillfully give our truth to others. I find it interesting to note that artifacts from Goddess cultures do not seem to have names on them. I like the idea that our creative expression does not need to be about any compulsion to be seen and heard. If we see and hear ourselves, then we will be equipped as a matter of organic experience to see and hear others. Living the loving goddess is based on our ability to touch each other's heart in the same way that a mother's heart is touched by her child and a child's heart is touched by motherly love. If we truly open to the Goddess within and learn to share Her in each moment with ourselves and with each other, we will come to know the power of oral tradition, which is what our early ancestors practiced. In oral tradition, we are asked to share ourselves from our hearts -- where the art of seeing and feeling with our being brings us into a telepathic communion of compassion and joy. There is no ranking because someone has produced certain objects of art and knowledge. There is appreciation of all gifts that are offered in whatever forms. All will stand together in walking the path of the Goddess where honesty, truth, wisdom, joy, creativity and love are experienced by all. No one stands out as the star because all are stars. Each one of us is a totally unique embodiment of the Mystery, and for us to appreciate this reflection in the eyes of another is one of the greatest gifts we can give to each other. Our creative works are of course worthy of appreciation, but I think first and foremost, we, as beings, are the primary works of art of the Goddess. In Her image may we shine and find that love deep within ourselves, rooting out the ill-at-ease parts by taking full responsibility for our health and well-being so that our love can truly grow in the garden of becoming.