Today as my daughter and I were coming home from her preschool, our road was blocked by a truck that was cutting down and hauling off a tree. My five year old daughter, budding environmentalist that she is, was quite disturbed by this image. I tried to explain to her that it was very likely that the tree was either sick or had been hurt in a recent storm. Even so, with sadness she said, "The Goddess is in the tree. The Goddess is dead." I then reminded her that the Goddess is in everything...She is not dead because the tree is dead; rather, She lives in the mulch that the tree will become and She lives in us and in all that is around us.
The Goddess is present as Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Perhaps it is the Crone Goddess that lives within that tree, walking with it from this life (form) to the next. She is the same Goddess who lives in the darkness of the new moon. However, just as the moon slowly reveals herself until finally shining in her fullness, so too, if we look around us, we will see the evidence of the Goddess in her other forms of Maiden and Mother as the earth buds in anticipation of the new life of spring and the harvests of summer and fall.
As we celebrate the season of Lent in the Christian calendar, I am reminded of the words that many congregations say on Easter Sunday, "He is not dead. He is risen. Christ is risen indeed." And in remembrance of those words, I say the same regarding the Goddess...She is not dead, She is rising. Out of the dormancy of winter, She is rising. In the midst of destruction, She is rising. She is rising indeed.
