The Divine Feminine
As I near the end of my Spiritual Direction training, the last module pertained to the Divine Feminine. Below is the Reflective Expression I wrote:
Studying the Divine Feminine certainly gave me a lot to ponder, and its not the first time I’ve explored the topic. As I’m prone to do, I brought the concepts into myself, examined my tendencies, and its clear I live far more often in the masculine than the feminine … I, like so many of us in Western culture, am dictated by clocks and tasks, and I’ve always been a go-getter professionally. But what I realized in my illness is that I was more of a human doing than a human being; I treated my life as a project instead of a life. I no longer want to live from that space. Slowly, I’m teaching myself how to live more in my feminine.
Reading and reflecting on the Divine Feminine alone elicits a softer demeanor. It’s rhythm slows me down and asks me to be present. The Divine Feminine represents the truth of my soul. I have been seeking her for some time now, though I often find her elusive in modern culture. We empowered females generally take on masculine qualities over those that are feminine, in order to establish and maintain agency. But asserting power is not the way of the Divine Feminine at all. What’s more appropriate is an allowing of the our inherent power to shine forth in a natural, organic way. This is the reality I wish to live into.
What’s stirring in me is a wondering, a pondering about how to make the switch from asserting to emanating. It must come from within, the place from which the Divine dwells. In reflecting on the stories in Wild Mercy, it’s clear that the power of the mystics came from such a place, not from their own raw strength, but from the strength of the Divine, beyond and within them. How do we as mere humans, live into this reality? One example from history I happened upon via the CAC’s Daily Meditation were the Beguines, laywomen who followed their own callings, in line with the church yet outside of it. They were women of purpose and service, and doing some research about them I discovered that many found them suspect simply because they were women who decided the ways their lives would be. “Their independence and self-reliant lifestyle, unknown by other medieval women, often met with abrasive criticism from many prominent men, especially clerics, who referred to the beguines as ‘pious fools’ or ‘pernicious females;’ however, many of men’s derogatory comments sprang from simple misogyny.” Source: https://www.greynun.org/2020/02/the-beguines-of-medieval-europe-mystics-and-visionaries/)
The empowering part of learning about the Divine Feminine is knowing that it exists and knowing that because it exists, it can be a reality in this lifetime. Recently I learned of a woman from the first century, a contemporary of Paul’s who was never named in the Bible. Her name was Thecla, and an entire book was written about she and Paul, titled The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Interestingly, this book was never lost, unlike those discovered in Nag Hammadi. She was an amazing woman and a great example of the Divine Feminine. Her powers through Christ allowed her to escape death on two separate occasions as mentioned in the book, and one of the most amazing things she did was baptize herself. This story makes me wonder: should I explore taking communion at home, on my own? I’ve been struggling for a while with the Catholic Church. There are parts of the mass I absolutely love and other parts that do not resonate at all. As I’ve been attending more regularly this fall, I notice the way I feel as I leave. Something in me says “don’t go back,” but I’m drawn to the Eucharist to re-member Christ in an embodied, ritualistic way.
I hadn’t heard of Andrew Harvey before and I loved the things he brought forth in The Return of the Sacred Feminine. To me, it’s healing to think that the Divine wants the birth of a new living humanity. He said, “this is the secret destiny of humanity, to birth its own quantum leap of evolution.” I hope he’s right, and what a beautiful reality to ponder. In many ways, perhaps when I’m exploring the idea from the Divine Feminine, it feels true. At other times, it feels very far off, but I think the important thing to remember is that we are not separate from humanity. We ARE humanity, and that means that we are the ones who will birth it, by our thoughts, actions and responses to life. The Divine Feminine has lived in the shadows for far too long. Life is about balance. The time is upon us. May it be so.
I find difficult the same thing that is stirring in me. Masculine traits are mainstream whereas feminine ones are hidden among us. I love when I meet women who are outwardly quite feminine, and also strong and powerful. Two women in their crone years immediately come to mind for me: Robin Wall Kimmerer and Therese Schroeder-Sheker (from the last SGTI module on grief). Both of these women’s voices (an outward display of the feminine), as well as the important work they do with the environment and death respectively, show me their commitment to the Divine Feminine within. What I find difficult is to find that aspect in myself and to allow it to live through me daily.
I am at odds with the dominant culture that seeks to keep the disproportionate majority of the masculine alive. I am at odds with the sneaky way it’s penetrated our culture and the fact that the first women of the women’s movement had to use masculine qualities to be heard and taken seriously. I am at odds with living in the matrix of life that is so far removed from the Divine that the masses have made politics and the media into gods of their own image and preference.
For me, I don’t think I need new language or words foranything related to the Divine Feminine. What I need is to learn how to live into the language that exists. I still get tripped up with masculine pronouns for the Divine when talking to some people about God. There is resistance to the feminine face of God, so it is not a topic I’m comfortable talking about with large groups of people. In fact, I already feel some shame around my contemplative mindset and practice because it’s outside of the margins, outside of ‘normal.’ I struggle with this, because I know what I feel deep in my bones is real. Why can’t I verbalize it, stand firm in it? My mind, when it’s contemplative, knows one is not higher than the other (feminine and masculine), that both exist to compliment the other, that both create the whole, the one, the all.
I feel like my understanding of the Sacred is always changing, as I learn new things. The old ways of thinking don’t seem to ever go away completely and I have to stay with regular reading of the mystics and lectio divina practice, in order to really listen and hone what I know I believe. God is ever-present everywhere. God is the ground of our being. God knows us better than we know ourselves. God’s life is our life. These statements feel right and true in my body. They aren’t necessarily commonplace beliefs, and I must stay in this contemplative spirit and state of mind when reading and interpreting the Bible, which I’ve been trying to make a practice of lately. I feel much closer to Christianity than any other religion, when I stay in this contemplative stance. I also feel such deep reverence and respect for all other religions, excluding and judging none of them. Lately I’ve also been researching and studying early Christianity, including the ways it was integrated with politics and the aftermath of that marriage, ways people practiced their faith before the Bible, some of the gnostic gospels which point fingers to some of the reasons they were excluded from the cannon, and lots of other topics that are helping me to view life contemplatively, not from a rigid, dogmatic space.
How is this unfolding understanding of The Feminine impacting me as a spiritual guide, especially in terms of how I might companion others?It seems to me that spiritual companioning is a very feminine act, as we are receiving another’s story. To offer spiritual direction from a truly guided space, the director must live into the energy of the Divine Feminine, the highest space of wisdom within themselves. From an internal point of view, I feel quite tapped into my Divine Feminine, but it’s not the space I live my ego self from, my outward self that many in the world might see. This is a growing edge for me, as I continue on the path set before me, and become the person I wish to be.
SGTI Reflective Expression Module 22
