Cerridwen

Something urged me to pick up my copy of the beautiful book by the amazing priestess Patricia Monaghan, The Goddess Companion,today. The book is organized by date, with a lovely poem and story accompanying it honoring a Goddess or Goddesses from a different culture, and it is not according to a specific year, so it can be used anytime. I first purchased it at my first First Degree Initiation at Ostara 2002, and I strongly recommend it for any follower of any Pagan path, or any lover of Goddesses or Women’s Spirituality and empowerment.

Today, my inner voice urged me to turn to today’s date, rather than paging through at random as I sometimes do. I did, and the message for today, as my inner self predicted, spoke to me deeply:

I am the womb of every hope
I am the fire of every season
I am the queen of every hive
I am the tomb of every life

I am a drop
of morning dew
I am a star
in the evening sky
I am the light
by which you read
I am a word
in this very book
-Welsh bardic incantations

Patricia goes on to speak about how we need not go on a pilgrimage to find the Goddess in faraway lands..She is right here. At this very moment. That’s right. This very moment. I know it is hard to believe when you are, say, trying to keep your sanity while dealing with an annoying co worker, fighting with your spouse, trying to comfort an infant who is screaming in your ear at two am or scrubbing cat vomit out of a hardwood floor (the delight I woke up to yesterday.). There’s a well-known Zen saying that says, “When in pursuit of the Divine, chop wood, and carry water.”. I interpret that , among other things,to mean”look for the Goddess in every day life, and that every movement can be sacred. That’s right. Every one. The Divine is right there. Right here.

Women are constantly under assault and under pressure in the media and given the message, clearly, with few exceptions to hate their bodies the way they are and to constantly push to be different. Diet and plastic surgery industries make millions of dollars a year. I’m not talking about healthy diet and exercise to feel better and to live a more physically active lifestyle. I mean the constant push to look younger,to be smaller , to fit into those pants you wore in high school, to cover scars, to cover greys, to whiten your teeth, to..to…to…

It seems that the you you are now, is never good enough. That you always need another product, another pair of pants, another nip and tuck, another diet. That aging is a horror and not a blessing, and that you are only worth how others see you and what society judges what you are.

Don’t get me wrong. Men are included here, too. Nowadays, more so than ever, with the products growing more and more by the day to include men and to tell them to get in shape, to sculpt their abs and “buns” (I’ve never heard anyone outside of a fitness ad say “buns”..maybe it’s just me.), to use products to, er, keep them “going” , to cover their grey hair to get a job or a woman (those hair colour ads have literally made me throw things at the TV.). To be macho, but sensitive. But not too macho.Or too sensitive.

What’s a woman or man to do??

I want you to do me a favour right now. Yes. Right now. I’ll wait. Go and find a mirror. Big or small. Look in that mirror and see yourself. Really, truly see yourself. Allow yourself to slowly drift and enter a very very light trance, enough to see yourself beyond the physical traits. See the sparkle in your eye, the shape of your mouth that curves deliciously to speak or to smile or frown, the muscles that can move in hundreds of ways.

Slowly see the spirit emerge. See that there is a Goddess or a God there. Really SEEE it. Say with me.

“Thou art God/dess”.

See it. Believe it.

For you are.

So Mote it Be.

*Doing this daily is an excellent exercise to connect with the God/dess within. I recommend it in the morning and/or the evening as a part of a daily devotion, or as a daily devotion if you don’t have time for one or are just getting started!!*

Ever since I was a small child, I’ve been enchanted by anything and everything to do with New York City; specifically, Ellis and Liberty Island. In this life, I was born in Central Canada. Besides the seemingly-obligatory-for-my-city (because everyone does it) car trips two hours south to North Dakota, I didn’t go farther south until I was an adult, and then, it was to California (a whole other magickal tale, which I will tell in a later entry.). We have no ties to New York that I am aware of..at least, not this trip round’the sun that I’m taking.

My favorite show as a kid was Reading Rainbow. I used to have to race to get home to see it (this pre-dated VCR’s, or at least,we didn’t get one until I was seven.). My very favorite episode was the one about Ellis Island. I loved the book Watch the Stars Come Out , by Riki Levenson, which was featured on the show. I was spellbound by the Statue of Liberty and dreamed of moving to America when I was an adult.It was always either New York or California. My mom’s aunt and uncle lived in California, and I saw it as an amazing place where it never snowed, oranges grew on trees, and I could go to see the ocean every day..not to mention, Disneyland. I remember my uncle had a word processor or a computer, and this was an unusual thing in the 80′s. He suggested I start to write a story on it, and I automatically said I wanted it to be about a girl that lived in California.

In Grade 2 or so, I went as the Statue of Liberty for Halloween (Amazing costume, hand-made by my Mom, who’s an excellent seamstress).  However, I would not actually get to visit NYC until much later, when I was twenty-four.

When I did, they practically had to use the Jaws of Life to pry me off of the streets. I loved NYC. I felt like I belonged there, felt like I knew every nook and cranny. For someone with a terrible sense of direction, in a city of millions, this was huge. I could feel the life pulsing in this city and felt that I was a part of it.

Going to Liberty and Ellis Island were even more eerie. I felt as if I was between two times; the past, a long ago life, and today’s life. It was like looking at the modern world through a transperancy of the past surrimposed on it. I had a past-life regression done once, by a hypnotherapist, and according to that, I had lived in NYC at the turn of the century and had come over from Ireland (Another culture and place I have a strong pull towards) .  I’m an interested skeptic when it comes to regressions (I think that they are awfully subject to the power of suggestion, and test the ethics of the counselor,such as the whole “false memory” syndrome that skyrocketed in the 80′s), but who knows, it kind of fits.

On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself at Ellis Island/Liberty Island, or simply overlooking the harbour, during astral travel/meditation/dreams.  Hart Island, a tiny, windswept island in New York Harbour, where Potter’s Field (large, mass graveyard, mainly for the unnamed and unclaimed dead.), also calls to me in a strange and eerie way. I first saw it in the movie Don’t Say a Word, and again, got that creepy but comforting vibe that I knew the place.

Today, as I was trying to lasso my wild mind into meditation , I found myself staring at grey, choppy waves of the Atlantic, hearing  a foghorn and a strange “ping-ping” sound which sounded like a bell. I could see lights shining from the Statue of Liberty as I sat looking at the waves on the front edge of Liberty Island. I could feel the mists of the sea gently striking my face, in a comforting way. The island was shadowy and peaceful, no one else around. I felt like I belonged there, like I was part of the land, and it was a part of me. In the meditation, I was sitting right at the edge, at the shore, seeing the water inches from me, not elevated from it as the island is today.

I’m not sure why New York consistently comes into my meditations, but I am glad that it does. Maybe one day I will get to visit again, or who knows, even live there….The truth is, as much as I know I’m lucky to live in Canada, I have no attachment to this land, although I have seen beautiful things here. I would have no problem becoming an American citizen. Something about it there calls to me; echoes of a past life? ‘greener pastures’ in this life..who knows?

All I know is, it’s strange how we can be homesick for a land we never knew in this life.

“This is the strangest life I’ve ever known..”

-Jim Morrison