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Oh, Goddess: Exploring the
concept of the Divine Feminine
Oakland Tribune / Posted: March 2004
By Elizabeth Jardina -
STAFF WRITER
CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE ARTICLE
Oakland, California - The divine inspiration in Leilani Birely's life is
definitely present, but she's pretty sure of one thing - it isn't an old man
with a long white beard. In fact, the spiritual presence in her life isn't
a man at all.
Birely is the priestess of the Daughters of the Goddess Temple, a group of
women who meet regularly to honor "She of Infinite Names" - or simply the
Goddess. The 40 to 50 women who regularly attend the temple's gatherings
acknowledge goddesses such as Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and
creation; Isis, the powerful Egyptian goddess of magic and motherhood;
Diana, or Artemis, the Roman and Greek protector of women; the Buddhist
mother figure Kuan Yin; and Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and
rebirth.
"Daughters of the Goddess is unique in that it invokes multicultural
goddesses," says Birely (pronounced BYER-lee).
The
concept of goddess reverence - or the divine feminine - was introduced to
pop culture last year with Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (Doubleday,
$24.95), which raised the possibility that Mary Magdalene was a spiritual
heroine and that pagan traditions - which honored feminine as well as
masculine divinity - were inextricably linked with Catholic traditions.
But
for those, such as Birely, whose spirituality encompasses the assemblage of
feminine deities from cultures around the world, the practice of her faith
is no fiction.
Birely was raised Catholic, but she felt the faith had too much emphasis on
masculine energies - the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. While she loved
Catholic rituals, she simply didn't connect to the church as a whole. After
she had her two daughters, Birely says she became involved in the La Leche
League, an organization that encourages women to breast feed. "I started
helping women reclaim their bodies," Birely says. "It seemed sacred, that we
have everything we need to feed our babies. I did feel a yearning connected
to sisterhood and community, and I was looking more for that than I was
looking for a religion."
In
1994, Birely took a class at the New College in San Francisco on female
shamanism, which explored healing by women through connections to ancient
goddess traditions. "It totally blew my whole world open," Birely says.
"Once I started taking classes, I knew I wanted to lead other women to this.
This was so huge and so important - I want every women, child and man know
that the goddess exists."
Women's prehistory
Marla Lowenthal, who teaches classes on women and culture, public relations
and acting at Menlo College in Atherton, has been holding an event honoring
goddesses each spring for the past six years.
The
event, scheduled for March 23, is an acknowledgement of multicultural
goddesses.
Lowenthal does a slide presentation giving a who's who of goddesses from
around the world, followed by Laura Strom of Half Moon Bay leading a
ceremony. The evening finishes with a drum circle.
"I
look at it as a women's prehistory event," Lowenthal says. "Once you get
into the word `history' you get into 'his story.' "
She
says culture - which she defines as the time when humans started using
language and creating art with pottery and cave-drawing - began about 35,000
years ago. History, on the other hand, generally begins about 6,000 years
ago, with the ancient Greeks and the Jewish tradition.
"It's a very limited time period," she says.
Some
of the most important artifacts from the "prehistory" period suggest the
importance of femininity, such as the iconic Stone Age statue Venus of
Willendorf, estimated to be 30,000 years old, a small, plump statue with a
prominent belly and breasts, both of which are associated with traditionally
female virtues of fertility and sexuality. "There are thousands of those
(figures)," Lowenthal says.
She
says modern perceptions of Greek and Roman religious cultures are shaded by
the fact that most storytellers were men. Hestia, for example, the Greek
goddess of the home and hearth, is considered by many to be a minor deity.
"Even though she was worshipped daily in every home, there are no stories
about her," Lowenthal says.
Rather, mythology is filled with stories of wars and sexual conquests, a
result of the fact that men were the storytellers. "If you've got control of
the production of stories, you only tell the stories you're interested in,"
she says.
The
ecology movement of the 1960s and '70s was critical in a re-emerging
interest in goddess culture, Lowenthal explains. "Ecology uses the term
`Gaia' and the `Mother Earth.' "
Lowenthal, despite her years studying goddess culture, says she herself is
not a believer.
"I
use the goddess as a metaphor," she says. "I don't worship anything. I'm too
much of a cynic."
Contemporary goddess reverence
For
Birely, her connection to the concept of the goddess isn't a rejection of
the more traditional monotheistic God.
"It's not that I'm looking for something other than the masculine," she
says. "However, I do feel that as women it's important for us to be
intimately in touch with our roots and our heritage and our past, and the
goddess is part of that.
And
I do feel like the goddess in all her forms provides archetypes for us as
women to embrace and grow and transform." She simply never found goddesses
of birth and creation, goddesses who protect women, or goddesses who destroy
in order to re-create in monotheistic religions, she says.
However, her faith has nothing to do with Satanism, she stresses. She uses
the example of the Hindu goddess Kali, who is seen by many of her Western
devotees as a powerful, feminist goddess. "Some of the goddesses - like
Kali, with sharp teeth and her axe in her hand - she's about serious
transformation. If you're willy-nilly in your life, she cuts the cords and
sets you loose. "It has nothing to do with the devil, but (some goddesses)
deal with the deeper, darker emotions."
Kali, it should be noted, is not solely a goddess of destruction. While her
Western female admirers emphasize her fierceness, her Eastern followers tend
to view her as a creator and mother. This multiplicity is one of the
ambiguities Birely enjoys about her faith.
"For
me, I think it's expanding the level of options that we have in finding
spiritual guidance, and I do think the female deities offer a lot more
choices than we're given in most male-centered traditions," she says.
The
Daughters of the Goddess organization is only for women, but that doesn't
mean they're anti-men, says Birely.
"I
don't think it has anything to do with men, but it's not against men," she
says. "It's exclusive to women. I think we're really dualistic in this
culture. We think that if you're into one thing, you automatically hate the
other thing. I'm into multiplicity. I think there should be men-only
spirituality groups because they need it as much as we do. We all need
healing."
Daughters of the Goddess holds a public ritual with labyrinth walk starting
at 11:30 a.m. Monday. Locale provided upon RSVP. All women and girls are
welcome. Call (925) 787-9247 or visit
www.daughtersofthegoddess.com
The
Menlo College goddess event is at 7 p.m. March 23 in the Russell Center at
Menlo College, 1000 El Camino Real, Atherton. Call (650) 543-3840.
You
can e-mail Elizabeth Jardina at
ejardina@sanmateocountytimes.com or call (650) 348-4327.
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