Here is a post I put up on Temple Illuminatus about my own inner Awakening...
My apologies in advance for the length: this is my story of awakening to myself as a mother, daughter, wife and woman.
I had just gone through the most horrific journey into motherhood. After 50.5 hours of labour with hemmorrhaging afterwards, requiring a ten day hospital stay, I was left with Post Partum Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had originally blamed my daughter for my pain, and would even go so far as to say: I had to teach myself to put aside the pain and learn to love her. It was a very horrible journey and I wouldn't wish anyone to go through it. Ever.
But my reaction was to reevaluate my faith.
I was originally a Catholic Woman, and still sometimes seek out the Christian Trinity in prayer, but I was completely turned off after my experience. I hated everything and everyone. I hated women for propogating the "joys of motherhood" myth, I hated men for not being able to physically deliver children. I also hated men because my own spouse became abusive: mentally, emotionally and verbally, after my daughter was born. I was at a crossroads.
I still behaved appropriately. I said I loved my daughter, I showed her absolute affection, I breastfed her and I laughed when people said I now knew what lack of sleep was. When other women said I'd forget the pain and want more, I just nodded... I did everything everyone expected of me but I was spiritually in crisis. I didn't go to see the priest at my church, although I made appointments and missed them, sometimes purposefully and sometimes not.
I already knew what the different answers to my problems were:
1. Why did I suffer so much pain?
Traditionally, the Catholic church doesn't endorse this answer but a lot of extremists do: In the old testament God reprimanded Eve for her sins with labour pains. You suffer because of that... I don't know what my priest would have said to this, but I currently know there's no real answer...It's really just a luck (or lack) of the draw.
2. How can God, his Son or the Holy Ghost know what I went through or felt if they're all "Male?"
I know that even in the Catholic Church, the creator God: the father is not necessarily all male, but more androgynous. But the son, the namesake of Christianity is male. How can he ever claim to be MY saviour? When he never even chose a woman to be his disciples, they became his followers but not his chosen few. Why would I follow someone who didn't value my sex?
3. Why should I worship a male God, when I truly need the support of a woman?
I chose to read a book about discovering the Goddess, and it went like this:
Sit, preferably in nature, and get comfortable. Ground and center yourself. Imagine you are in a safe place, at the foot of some stairs that lead up to a garden. In the Garden is the Goddess. You will slowly and deliberately go up the stairs imagining yourself getting ready to meet her. When you enter the clearing you will see her and walk to her as slowly or quickly as you like then greet her. Let your subconscious guide it from here on, you will know how to greet her when you meet her.
The original guide said that the God might be in the clearing and you can greet him also later on.
In my tradition, I starved for knowledge about the Christian concept of evil, and so at first the thought of meeting the horned God scared me. But what I encountered was far better than I could have imagined.
I walked into a clearing at the top of stone steps, to a woman with strawberry blonde hair in the middle of a clearing with woods around us. She wore white and smiled at me, becoming more pleased as I walked towards her. I needed to go slow... As I looked around the clearing, I saw the God in antlered form in the background, more of a hazy silhouette and only watching. I felt nothing evil or malicious from him.
When I finally got to Goddess, I looked at her and fell on my knees crying. I was filled with such relief and so much anxiety I had was relesed from me. Here I'd had horrible feelings I thought no proper woman or mother should have, yet still the Great Mother welcomed me. She grabbed me by the arms and pulled me to standing for a really big hug. Then I sat down in the grass and she knelt in front of me. I let my feelings pour out of me and into her, she took them all and the God (peripherally) slowly, came to stand to the far left of us and knelt too. He had the head of a stag on a male body with hooves. He was powerful but toned it down for me. It was the most relaxing thing. He moved quietly and just wanted to be there for me, but kept his space-knowing my feelings right then about men.
This is when I awoke. I felt alive and I felt good and confidant in my abilities to be a good mother and daughter and wife and woman. I knew who I was in that split moment.
I had just gone through the most horrific journey into motherhood. After 50.5 hours of labour with hemmorrhaging afterwards, requiring a ten day hospital stay, I was left with Post Partum Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had originally blamed my daughter for my pain, and would even go so far as to say: I had to teach myself to put aside the pain and learn to love her. It was a very horrible journey and I wouldn't wish anyone to go through it. Ever.
But my reaction was to reevaluate my faith.
I was originally a Catholic Woman, and still sometimes seek out the Christian Trinity in prayer, but I was completely turned off after my experience. I hated everything and everyone. I hated women for propogating the "joys of motherhood" myth, I hated men for not being able to physically deliver children. I also hated men because my own spouse became abusive: mentally, emotionally and verbally, after my daughter was born. I was at a crossroads.
I still behaved appropriately. I said I loved my daughter, I showed her absolute affection, I breastfed her and I laughed when people said I now knew what lack of sleep was. When other women said I'd forget the pain and want more, I just nodded... I did everything everyone expected of me but I was spiritually in crisis. I didn't go to see the priest at my church, although I made appointments and missed them, sometimes purposefully and sometimes not.
I already knew what the different answers to my problems were:
1. Why did I suffer so much pain?
Traditionally, the Catholic church doesn't endorse this answer but a lot of extremists do: In the old testament God reprimanded Eve for her sins with labour pains. You suffer because of that... I don't know what my priest would have said to this, but I currently know there's no real answer...It's really just a luck (or lack) of the draw.
2. How can God, his Son or the Holy Ghost know what I went through or felt if they're all "Male?"
I know that even in the Catholic Church, the creator God: the father is not necessarily all male, but more androgynous. But the son, the namesake of Christianity is male. How can he ever claim to be MY saviour? When he never even chose a woman to be his disciples, they became his followers but not his chosen few. Why would I follow someone who didn't value my sex?
3. Why should I worship a male God, when I truly need the support of a woman?
I chose to read a book about discovering the Goddess, and it went like this:
Sit, preferably in nature, and get comfortable. Ground and center yourself. Imagine you are in a safe place, at the foot of some stairs that lead up to a garden. In the Garden is the Goddess. You will slowly and deliberately go up the stairs imagining yourself getting ready to meet her. When you enter the clearing you will see her and walk to her as slowly or quickly as you like then greet her. Let your subconscious guide it from here on, you will know how to greet her when you meet her.
The original guide said that the God might be in the clearing and you can greet him also later on.
In my tradition, I starved for knowledge about the Christian concept of evil, and so at first the thought of meeting the horned God scared me. But what I encountered was far better than I could have imagined.
I walked into a clearing at the top of stone steps, to a woman with strawberry blonde hair in the middle of a clearing with woods around us. She wore white and smiled at me, becoming more pleased as I walked towards her. I needed to go slow... As I looked around the clearing, I saw the God in antlered form in the background, more of a hazy silhouette and only watching. I felt nothing evil or malicious from him.
When I finally got to Goddess, I looked at her and fell on my knees crying. I was filled with such relief and so much anxiety I had was relesed from me. Here I'd had horrible feelings I thought no proper woman or mother should have, yet still the Great Mother welcomed me. She grabbed me by the arms and pulled me to standing for a really big hug. Then I sat down in the grass and she knelt in front of me. I let my feelings pour out of me and into her, she took them all and the God (peripherally) slowly, came to stand to the far left of us and knelt too. He had the head of a stag on a male body with hooves. He was powerful but toned it down for me. It was the most relaxing thing. He moved quietly and just wanted to be there for me, but kept his space-knowing my feelings right then about men.
This is when I awoke. I felt alive and I felt good and confidant in my abilities to be a good mother and daughter and wife and woman. I knew who I was in that split moment.
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