Goddess Words 36: Open Door

Since I spoke in my last post about doors "ajar", I figured it was time to look at another of my Goddess words/phrases, "open door". It's interesting that back twenty years ago, I included this in my list, rather close to the top too. Perhaps this was because of my having experienced so many closed doors in my life? That I had to assume that a Goddess-centered world would do things differently? That I would be welcome, not pushed away? That the Goddess would embrace me with love, not reject and slam the door in my face?

In the last few days, a number of related references have come to my attention, including (in Kim Chernin's Reinventing Eve) the notion of Eve as a "gateway" to knowledge, wisdom, self-creation. And having spoken not long ago about open channels, I've been thinking more and more about this. I mean, in a conflict-driven construct, we're all taught to fight. The assumption may be that all doors are initially closed, and that we need to pound, pry, and smash doors in. And once we do, then we can proudly boast that we fought and won, that we succeeded, were victorious, and perhaps saved ourselves and others by bringing the doors down.

But this doesn't seem to me to be Goddess energy on any level. What if Her doors are open to all? What if the door to Her completely loving world is never shut? Why would so many people resist the opportunity to enter Her doors?

It's been my experience that, when you come right down to it, people capable only of the lowest level of Love energy simply cannot stand Love. It is intolerable to them. They may be exposed to Love every day, and yet still be incapable of walking through that door. And even those of us who are more loving may find it uncomfortable to imagine being exposed to too much Love, to imagine being genuinely welcomed. When genuine Love hasn't been a large part of our experience, as much as we might intellectually crave this environment, our hearts may still be too traumatized to bear the enormity of All Love.

Having said that, when you've spent too much time in the purgatorial empty door-lined hallway, when you cannot take the harsh light and the locked doors and the surreal energy one more minute, the rare open door cannot help but beckon. It may seem like a figment of your imagination (or as my brother used to say, a "filament of your imagination"), or a joke. But just to feel that slight "give" when you take the handle, to grasp that after dozens of closed doors, one is cracked open, is a moment for understanding the potential of warm welcome. The potential of belonging. The potential of a real home. A real home is open to you, through an open door.

A sort of funny postscript to this is that yesterday, where I am currently living, a squirrel was literally leaping up near the outside handle of the deck door. It truly seemed like this squirrel understood that the handle was the key to getting in to a warm environment. I hated to be on the other side of the glass door, to be the one keeping the door locked, keeping the wild animal energy out.  

A door ajar

Someday, I'll probably look back at the last 24 hours as a major turning point, a mid-January, ides of winter 2025 turning point. Now, I've said this kind of thing before (I shudder to think of all the pivot points I've reported to my readers in ten years!), but I suspect this one will stand out. No, I didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize. It was all very small -- one thoughtful phone conversation, and then potential links to other people at least basically "like me". But for me, this is huge. Huge. For six months, it has felt like I was in a long empty hall with a succession of locked doors...now, to find one door ajar, one door swinging open slightly with the promise of continued growth beyond it -- well, I can barely breathe at the moment.

Oddly enough, these promising communications were punctuated by going to the movies, something I rarely do. I had to avert my eyes throughout the opening trailers (I've reached the point where I cannot tolerate even the slightest amount of violence or conflict). My issue with the feature movie ("Wicked") wasn't so much violence as it was the duality message. From citizens cheering the death of the "wicked witch" to the (perhaps telling, but still absurd) final loud, colorful, and dramatic good-becoming-"wicked" and "wicked"-becoming-good moment...(with the promise of more to come in a sequel). I was shocked once again by how it seems to be almost impossible to create "entertainment" that isn't centered on this essential assumption of dueling polarities. The split in the human psyche cannot be healed by so-called victory, or by such entertainment. And, yes, another layer of complexity was added to the experience, knowing that many people who worked on this movie must surely be affected by the fires. Surreality, again.

So I return to what is real for me, since that is all I can do. The door ajar. May I have the courage to go through it a step at a time, to feel my way forward through love, beauty and growth. 

Surreality

For decades, I guess I have had a home, the "state" of surreality.  Having seen on the horizon much of what is starting to happen, I wasn't able to function normally, but since so many people continued to do just that, I knew that I was in (perhaps?) a minority of only a few. Now, the fires in California seem like such an enormous wake-up call, even bigger than COVID, that I just can't believe that in certain respects, American life is simply going on as usual. It feels surreal.

Perhaps I should clarify -- I cannot even imagine the horror of what people are going through -- every facet of this prolonged event, from the apocalyptic nature of the fires themselves, to firefighters risking their lives, to families letting go of possessions, pets, and friends, to the widespread toxicity, to the challenge of moving forward. If and when I experience a major climate event, it will leave me as scarred as others are being traumatized and scarred. But I just think we need to remember that Mother Nature has been deeply traumatized and scarred by us. Her tears have been ongoing for centuries. I imagine She hoped and hoped and hoped we'd finally realize the damage we were doing, but it never happened. So it is Her time now, when She gets to do what She needs to do for the earth's survival. 

I'm finding myself -- in the midst of surreality -- continuing to feel immense joy at Her re-emergence. Paradoxically, I finally feel safe. I'm better able to stay in the present than ever, and am clearer and clearer about Her priorities and values moving forward. And as it is Her time, it is my time, and the time for women all over the world to blossom more than they ever have.

Trans-formation

This is clearly a time of trans-formation. A change of shape and energy. A change of landscape, of human assumptions, and of (literally) what life on earth will look like, be like, feel like. We are crossing a chasm into a new form, into higher-level ways of being. I personally think this is happening across the entire universe, and that the human-created horrors we are seeing are, in effect, last gasps opening the way to more Divine Love. The loveless energy that appears to be on the ascendant simply cannot, in the long term, overwhelm Love. It isn't possible. We've all heard of "teaching moments", and for humans this is the teaching moment of all teaching moments.

That's why, as strange as it is, I feel more joyful every day, because I know that the old paradigm will simply fall away as the power of the Goddess is re-membered. We see clearly the nature of everything (is it love or is it fear?) and from now on, only love matters. Now, in the mid-2020's, our vision is sharper and less clouded. This is also a 9 year in numerology, potentially the end of a cycle and the prelude to the beginning of another one, so if we can possibly do it, let us focus only on love, only on living in harmony with the Goddess, only on the ways in which the emerging paradigm will be entirely different from this one. Let us look at the ashes as a blank slate for a different form of creativity. Not to react or "fight" goes against every old paradigm instinct that we have; but there is only one thing to do -- to simply "be" love. To fill out the mold of love. To re-form our personal selves to the shape of love. To vow to take part only in acts of love and beauty. I spoke of being thrilled the other day, and yes, overall I find this to be a time of thrilling, beautiful possibilities.

(I didn't know whether to call this "channelled" or not, but it certainly felt different writing it.) 

 

Fire

Yesterday early, when I wrote, I had not yet heard or seen the news of Los Angeles. Sometimes I must seem pretty clueless, but I don't spend much time online, and/or watching news reports. It wasn't until last night's old fashioned dinner hour TV network news that I saw the hellish, flame-filled pictures.

It's hard to know what to say. Of course this is only the beginning. When humans for thousands of years fail to take Nature's needs into account, the moment had to come where "She" would put the longterm survival of the planet itself ahead of human goals. We never asked Her, "Should we build here?" "Should we build with these materials?" "Is it wise for us to make this choice or that choice?" "Will the planet be resilient if we take this path?" Etc. These climate events aren't about payback. They are not aimed at certain people or situations, although there will be moments (like today) when catastrophes could seem to reflect a certain irony. But really, we don't have time to assess blame. All we have time to do is to say, every morning, "Great Mother, do what you need to do today to keep Earth viable for some forms of life." And at least inwardly, accept that major changes are coming.

The Capital District has had at least a week of extremely strong winds...not Santa Ana winds of nearly 100 mph -- perhaps half that. Still, the relentlessness of it is odd for this part of the world in winter, and here (unlike the Tug Hill Plateau) we've had very little snow. Even with temperatures in the teens, the ground is unusually dry. So this area isn't "safe" from climate change right now. We are all connected. Whether we live or die, or maintain housing or lose it, everything is happening to everyone.

I have seen a hawk or an eagle an average of once every other day recently, and someone also gave me a dramatic picture of a British "red kite". Now, I am dreaming hawks. One flew over my right shoulder and went and picked up a small white dog, finally dropping it because the dog was too heavy. I woke up as I was trying to find the dog's owner. There must be tons of dream interpretation meaning in this, but until I figure it out, I guess I'll just try to stay in the wonder of it all. 

Mary's Words

What I am being led to write about today (much earlier in the morning than I generally write) is a thought that I have tried to swat away like a fly, but it keeps coming back.

The centerpiece of every choral evensong service is the singing of two canticles, the "Magnificat" and the "Nunc Dimittis". The Magnificat presents the words of Mary, the mother of Jesus, from the gospel of Luke, when she visits with her older cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant -- with John the Baptist. This is one Bible story that I have always loved because the image of the two pregnant women embracing then chatting together is so poignant and yet so normal and real. No matter the future importance of their boys, at that moment they are simply pregnant women, uncomfortable, anxious, yet probably also filled with wonder. 

Mary's words as reported in Luke ("My soul doth magnify the Lord...") are sung every late afternoon all across the UK, in cathedrals, abbeys, school and college chapels, royal chapels, and churches. (The musical settings may differ, but the16th century text is the same.) They are sung (perhaps less regularly) in evensong services across the globe, and sung or said in countless other churches and monasteries of other denominations. So, for somewhere between five and seven minutes every evening, choirs worldwide are singing (or priests and congregations are intoning) the words of a woman. And through the long generations that women were excluded from these choirs, the men and boys were singing the words of a woman. Mary's words. 

This thrills me no end. 

Maybe I'll finally do it

Maybe I'll finally do it. "It" being, write four or five days a week rather than two. I've headed in that direction several times, but kept reverting backwards for some reason. I think in large part it was in order to spare my readers my intensity. But, hey, no one is being forced to read, and now that I will be sharing my channelled material with you, at least periodically, it is no longer necessary to split my journalling life between handwritten and typed. That may still happen from time to time, but not as often...

I am in the midst of reading an extraordinary book, Reinventing Eve, by Kim Chernin (1987, Perennial). Yet again, I'm humbled (even a little embarrassed) that there were fabulous women way ahead of me on this Goddess road...this is one of those books that expresses the spirit of my journey so perfectly, I cannot believe the author wasn't on my shoulder the whole time. Of course, her journey was unique to her...with completely different specifics. She has brought an insight to Eve that I literally never considered -- pride, almost, that Eve was disobedient. Eve thought for herself. She wanted knowledge and understanding, and literally just reached for it.

Reading it and the dozen or so other books from the '80's that have meant so much to me, it's almost impossible to imagine that during that decade, I had barely consciously begun my own path to myself, and was completely unaware of the rich material being generated by other women. I was living in New York City, working in the corporate world, studying illustration at Parsons School of Design at night (as well as singing in a choral group), paying back my college loans, and still trying like crazy to find a viable path through our modern construct. I had "given up" on the world of English church music, and hadn't yet recognized that it could be well nigh impossible to transfer one's passions willy-nilly, from music to studio art. Yes, I did some spiritual exploration (yoga, Buddhism, metaphysics) but never seriously considered aiming toward the north star of the Goddess. I had been immersed in journalism and academia; until well into the '90's I was uncomfortable that a focus on the divine feminine might be unfairly slanted against men. Intellectually, I still feel that way...but the imperative of trying to fill in the gaps in our spiritual world (and my heart) is much stronger. I've been silenced, other women have been silenced, and the Goddess continues to be silenced. I'm thankful for the tatty used books that keep coming my way, representing hope and the clear pure voice of love and wisdom.