It's God, Jim, but not as we know it..

Why is it that when I tell Xtians I don't follow their religion, they assume I don't believe in God?

I told a neighbour that I was not a Xtian- her response? 'Oh well, I can't believe there isn't a god out there that doesn't care about us.' Well honey, you're in the wrong religion!

Of course I know that intelligent mind... that sustaining life-force, infinitely encompassing and yet intimately knowable.

Now deep in my heart I know that I am no religion. I am not a Xtian, I am not a Pagan. I just am.

However, for years people tried to tell me who I was, I was even NAMED after their god. I was given an identity that did not tell the truth about who I am.

I am all these things, and I am none.

Currently I prefer to identify myself as Pagan. It distances me from the false identity I was given as a child. It helps me remember the truth.

I am an expression of Divine Consciousness. Of course I know God. Just not as you know Her.




How sad to be a woman--not to know

Aught of the glory of this breast of snow,

All unconcerned to comb this mighty hair;

To be a woman and yet never know!




Were I a woman, I would all day long

Sing my own beauty in some holy song,

Bend low before it, hushed and half afraid,

And say "I am a woman" all day long.


- Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Remembrance Day

I remember Remembrance Day... a time to remember the horror and suffering caused by Patriarchy. If xtians truly believed a word their so-called god-man Jesus said, Churchill would be no more a hero than Hitler. The Jews were terribly oppressed by the Romans, but Jesus didn't pull a Dresden on them. No, he surrendered. In fact, that's the meaning behind the xtian sacred symbol- the cross of death, of surrender. Jesus taught surrender. In fact, if you want to follow Jesus' teachings, try Buddhism. You won't find as much in a modern-day church.

No, I simply cannot call ignorance heroism. Although my grandfathers and great grandfathers were veterans of wars, I do not see them as heroes for their part in the killing. I pity them. But I am almost angered to be expected to pay in my time or money to extoll our war veterans. In history I was taught about the perception of war at the beginning of the last century, as noble and heroic. Men were desperate to get into battle... any battle. Does anyone know the point of WWI? So tragically pathetic it was made into a succesful comedy 'Blackadder Goes Forth' with very little fiction needing to be added to the scripts.

I willingly admit that I am a coward. But I do not applaud anyone who has taken up arms against another human being. No, my heroes are elsewhere. Maybe I'll start my own Remembrance Day, to recognise the true heroic examples set in this world by Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. Theirs is a courage so far above what most of us understand, that we call anyone who admires them 'New Age.' Their followers do not go out to fight. They go out to die.

I'm So Gorgeous

After six years of having babies, I am done. And now I truly have my body back (no pregnancy, no breastfeeding) I feel fantabulous. The last time I felt like I looked this good, I was seventeen.

Now I can't believe I was made so beautiful for no reason. I was made to be enjoyed, to be worshiped. I want to be worshiped.

If I could just get over my fear of receiving love, of receiving pleasure. I was raised on the message of self-sacrifice. I am a good giver. But I am a poor receiver. I am embarrassed by compliments, feel guilty accepting gifts.

It could be a result of being taught as a child that I was born fundamentally flawed, inherently corrupt, naturally bent to evil.

Now as a mother, I know that is a lie. My babies are perfect. They were born perfect. It's only the fear they've learned from me that corrupts them.

Now I reject those lies I was taught (by people themselves almost totally controlled by fear). Stress, depression, anger... all come from fear.

But how do I scrape away the residue of those lies? The fear that still grips me? How do I learn to fly, to be free?

How do I remain in the constant awareness of the truth... that I AM?

Herstory

It's harder to trace women's history. Even now it is the culturally accepted norm for a woman's family name to be erased when she enters a monogomous relationship with a man.

Astarte and her consort Baal, Asherah and her consort El. Both female and male aspects of divinity worshipped together, until patriarchy stamped out the feminine divine. History is written by the conquerors, so I wouldn't believe a word written about the 'vile' worship of the feminine principle. Particularly by a group of people who believe it's OK to slaughter a city of women, children and animals. (How is that better than the so-called child sacrifice these victims were accused of?)

Because my god is right, your god is wrong. I'm the winner, you're the loser.

However, women are great story tellers. Women preserve their family history, through scrapbooks and photo albums. Woman is the heartbeat of the family, keeping the strands together, keeping the relationships between generations and between her children.

And whether or not history is true, does not matter.

I know my truth, because I am. This is my story. Herstory. I will write new myths, because a myth after all, only helps to explain a truth. The truth remains. The myth can be re-written.