Encounters with the Goddess

I'm reading a book (edited by Cristina Biaggi) entitled In the Footsteps of the Goddess: Personal Stories. As the title indicates, it is a book of personal stories of encounters with the Goddess (or the Divine Feminine). One woman, Beth Hensperger, told a story about an experience she had with the Goddess as a child, and in her story she explained about a dream she had with a vision of a feminine divine presence and how later in life she saw the same image in a depiction of the Goddess. Upon reflecting on this experience from childhood, she said, "If there is an internal knowledge of the Goddess that is passed through women, the Queen of Heaven lives within me." This story (and many others in the book) have caused me to reflect back on my own experiences with the Goddess, and how she has made herself present to me throughout my life...even when I wasn't looking.

When I was a child (I'm guessing that I was somewhere between the ages of 9 - 12 years old), I remember distinctly playing with some wax that had dripped from a candle. The size of the ball of wax was probably no larger than a silver dollar, and I was rubbing it with my fingers, not trying to form anything in particular....but there She was. After a while, I stopped and I looked at the form in my hand. My fingers had unconsciously formed the wax into an image that I recognized as the Madonna and Child. I remember the knowledge that this image was somehow significant, and yet at the same time (being a young southern baptist girl) feeling a sense of shame in forming this "idolatrous" image in my hand. I was holding Her in my hand, just as She held me in her arms.

Just a few years ago, a year or so after my first child was born, I woke with an image in my mind, so I drew it on paper (over and over again). It was an image of a woman with a pregnant belly, and her belly was the earth. It was not until some months (or maybe even over a year) later that I came across an image of Gaia...the Goddess pregnant with the earth. There She was again...making herself known to me.

On a recent trip to NC, while driving in the car, I looked around me, and saw on either side, a mountain that had been cut in two in order to put in a road, and I felt an internal pain, and was aware, having had my second c-section only 6 weeks prior, that it was not unlike a lingering pain associated with being cut open...and I wondered if that must be how She felt when the mountain was split open to build a highway, and I apologized for the selfishness of humanity, that cut open the earth of her belly without asking.

At bedtime, we give our daughter (now 4 1/2 years old) the opportunity to pray, and we ask her "Do you want to pray to God, Goddess, or Jesus?" One day she said, "I want to pray to Mary." Chad and I both looked at each other with questioning looks and said, "Okay." We still do not know where she got the idea of praying to Mary, but as I hear her pray to Mary, and sing of walking with the Goddess, Mary, and Jesus, I am reminded of my childhood experience with the wax Madonna and Child, and wonder if indeed, as Beth Hensperger wrote, "if there is an internal knowledge of the Goddess that is passed through women."