A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism.

"A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism."

Dion Fortune

Photo: "Queen Nefertiti," Arches National Park, UT, April 16, 2011  This quote only applies to those who seek a meaningful theism.  Those who are conscientious atheists or non-theists have their own ways of celebrating the sacredness of the feminine.

For the Goddess, theory itself is not sacred. It is our ongoing process of building the theory that becomes a sacred act.

"The way of the Goddess seems to be that of inclusion and adaptability, rather than exclusion and rigidity.  We have no need to set up theories that become so rigid we might be tempted to ignore additional ideas and information just to protect the theory.  The theory itself is not sacred.  It is our ongoing process of building the theory that becomes a sacred act.  And perhaps the very fact that we enter into this process together, with compassion, cooperation, nurturance, intuition, respect for intuition, sympathy, and empathy, capable of sensing process and flow, and with love for each other, each of us a part of the unity of the Goddess, will say more about the feminine principle than any specific theoretical expression."

Merlin Stone

Photo: Fourmile Falls with Heart-leaved Bittercress flowers, San Juan Range, CO, July 1, 2011

The Goddess is the FLOW of Life

"Within nearly all expressions of contemporary women's spirituality is the idea of the Goddess, not as a woman sitting on a throne above the clouds, i.e., transcendent, apart from us, but as immanent, within ourselves.  Many would carry this even further and speak of the Goddess as being within all manifestations of life.  And more and more women are relating to the idea of divinity . . . as the flowing energy in the very processes of life and living.  This Goddess would not be in a person, or tree, or river, so much as she would be the actual organic process, the flow, the changes, transitions, and transformations that the person, tree or river go through.  This idea . . . is perhaps more closely related to Taoism than any other body of spiritual thought."

Merlin Stone, "When God Was a Woman"

Photo: Woman at the Merced River, Yosemite National Park, CA, July 26, 2011

The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature

 

"The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone . . . , in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills, trees, and flowers. Hence the holistic and mythopoetic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth . . . The Goddess gradually retreated into the depths of forests or onto mountaintops, where she remains to this day in beliefs and faery stories. Human alienation from the vital roots of earthly life ensued, the results of which are clear in our contemporary society. But the cycles never stop turning, and now we find the Goddess reemerging from forests and mountains, bringing us hope for the future, returning us to our most ancient human roots."

Marija Gimbutas, archeologist

Photo: Last light on red Indian paintbrush, purple larkspur, yellow sneezeweed and white cow parsnip, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, August 12, 2011

Perhaps rather than calling ancient goddess religions "fertility cults," we should call modern religions "sterility cults"

 

“Rather than calling the earliest [goddess] religions, which embraced such an open acceptance of all human sexuality, 'fertility cults,' we might consider the religions of today as strange in that they seem to associate shame and even sin with the very process of conceiving new human life. Perhaps centuries from now scholars and historians will be classifying them as 'sterility cults.' ” 

Merlin Stone, "When God Was a Woman"

Photo: Last light on the fertility organs of purple lupine, orange sneezeweed, and white cow parsnip, West Elk Mountains, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderenss, CO, August 12, 2011