I had gathered from various astrology sources that this past weekend's new moon was going to be powerful, and it certainly was for me. How about you?
In a conversation on Thursday, I came to a realization about the so-called prosperity gospel (about which I really know virtually nothing except that it is a "thing" in some churches) and its new age cousin, where you try to gain prosperity or success through visualization and other techniques. The latter is something I tried on and off over the years. Both of these cases represent ego-driven effort. It is all about personal success, achievement or material gain. In a flash, I realized not only why the new age version hadn't worked for me, but why such beliefs may actually be inconsistent with Goddess thinking. Does the Goddess want every human being to reach their fullest creative, spiritual, joy, love, and beauty potentials? Yes. But our individual efforts to gain personal worldly success, wealth, land, belongings, and status have brought humanity to the edge of ecological disaster. Wanting so much for ourselves (and in some cases, our families) -- outside of any community context, or concern for the health and future viability of the planet itself -- goes over the edge into pure selfishness. All of us in the West have been brought up immersed in this basic ethos, and I guess even for someone like me, it took far too long to disengage and see what it is doing to the Earth. A more Goddess-centered way of thinking would consider any action's toll on the planet, and how all of us, as the broader community of humans, can blossom. It would never be just about "success for me". (Revelation number one.}
Then, on Saturday, I was in a setting with multiple tall pine trees whose trunks were bare of branches. Two trees had been, I guess you could say, decorated in a manner I have never seen before. At about the five foot mark, both tree trunks had plastic-covered chain "necklaces" with a central metal plaque, saying that they (the plaques or the trees?) had been given in memory of so-and-so. This struck me as grotesque. What had these trees done to warrant being enchained? Visually, the trees look constricted, suffocated; all of this was done for the ego gratification of a person or a family. "My tree. A tree in my honor." On an energetic level, binding it didn't seem too far away from taking a chainsaw to it -- in either case, the tree was allowed no agency. The tree was never asked for permission, just as Nature generally isn't. (The thought wasn't a revelation to me, but the image of a tree in chains was. Number two.)
Then lastly, the big one. Saturday evening I watched something on public TV about tombs and fragments being discovered under the transept crossing floor at Notre Dame de Paris, as the building is rebuilt. The cathedral's original choir screen was knocked down several hundred years ago, and, evidently, simply floored over. For the most part, English cathedrals still have their choir screens, whose original purpose was, of course, to literally screen or separate the choir and clergy taking part in the service from the parishioners down in the nave. It created a higher, holier space where the official acts of worship took place...and it was a space for the tiniest elite. Few men and boys -- and no women or girls -- could go through that beautifully-decorated portal.
Now, I've known about this history, of course. How could I not? However, over the years, my focus was on the music, wanting to sing it, to learn the repertoire, to be an active participant in the choral part of worship (yes, even though my concept of the divine was decidedly broader than the church's!) But watching this documentary, I had an epiphany. This wasn't just about singing. This was about being "allowed" near the heart of the divine. This was about being in the holy presence, not on the outskirts. When I've said that my home is in the choir stalls of British cathedrals, this was arguably about a lot more than wanting to march in, robed, to sing a service. It was about being empowered in the divine, and embraced by the divine, in a much broader sense. Think of all the girls and women throughout northern European history who stood or sat in the naves of cathedrals and churches, knowing they would never play an active part in any ritual, in any capacity. While this has changed in some denominations in recent years, it was a weighty third revelation nonetheless.
Maybe, just maybe, I tried to go through that portal not just for me, but also for all those women in the centuries before me. Maybe, just maybe, this hasn't only been about my own ego.
