I mentioned last time that I had come across a list I compiled many years ago of Goddess words/Words of the Goddess. I have no idea when I compiled it, and, unusually for me, I didn't date it. My impression is that I wrote it back in the early 2000's. It's on a piece of heavy cardboard in my own handwriting; I think I wrote the list over a day or two off the top of my head, an early effort to define, in my own mind, a divine feminine "energy". It's interesting, because starting around 2010, my focus shifted to a series of efforts to return to England and become involved in the cathedral choir world. Doing that required putting my Goddess list (and inner leanings) into a literal and figurative storage box for a few years.
It's very humbling to start presenting the words on this list. Some might see me (with my family background, my not having been a mother in this lifetime, etc.) as the most spectacularly inappropriate person to articulate what the energy of the Goddess is all about, particularly, the word "Love", which is the most important and overarching of them all. A case could be made that I know more about what love isn't than what love is. And there may be dozens of writers out there doing the same basic thing. This series of love-related words can undoubtedly be found in other spiritual traditions and many secular contexts. But increasingly, I feel led to speak for Her, to the best of my ability, or at the very least, to imagine what She would say or do. So here goes.
Dictionary definitions for the word "love" are almost ludicrously inadequate. Affection, caring, attraction...yes, those words are facets of love, but only facets.
To try to grasp the enormity of love, I envision those ancient sculptures of a woman giving birth to the whole world...and then on the other end of the spectrum, those astonishing new photographs of space taken by the Webb telescope. It's like, the universe began because of love, and every new (and old) form of life is a reflection of that love. It's an eternal river of the passion for creating; it is a painting where every color is love; it is a song of love, no matter what the key signature or instrument. I think we are already living in a world that is "only love", but in earlier times, contrasts were seen as evil, something to fight. That perception of duality is literally breaking up as we speak, and in a future unity/harmony construct, all of us will joyfully embrace the "other". We will have the capacity to love more often and more passionately, and when we cannot, we won't get stuck in fear or hatred, we'll just let go and move on, like drops of water in a powerful river.
The only viable path through the coming changes is love. Finding something to love every day, and finding the courage to align with love every day. In a sense, true, passionate, divine love is far scarier than "evil", and not fighting is scarier than fighting. It's so much easier to engage not-love. The habit of pushing back is hard to break. Very few of our institutions are centered around pure love, so on top of everything, the path is lonely. There seems to be no "there" there, yet...But it is there, within many of us, and emerging.
I am trying not to get discouraged by what is visible in society, and in the environment, right now. Somehow, releasing the need to fight everything that is wrong has opened up a beautiful doorway which makes life worth living. It releases me from a sense of hopelessness, and maybe it will do the same for you. A universe of such spectacular beauty is out there (and at our feet). The throb and pulsation of love and life is in every atom, a gift from Her.
