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Goddess Calling: Inspirational Messages & Meditations of Sacred Feminine Liberation Thealogy
Goddess Calling: Inspirational Messages & Meditations of Sacred Feminine Liberation Thealogy
Goddess Calling: Inspirational Messages & Meditations of Sacred Feminine Liberation Thealogy
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Goddess Calling: Inspirational Messages & Meditations of Sacred Feminine Liberation Thealogy

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In ever-increasing numbers, women and men are seeking spirituality beyond traditional religious institutions and more and more their new normal includes the deities, ideals and archetypes of the Sacred Feminine. They have a desire to get beyond the patriarchal dogma that often perpetuates sexism, homophobia and the domination of Gaia and all her inhabitants, including the body of Mother Earth. Goddess Calling is designed to give individuals or those desiring to serve their communities a springboard to offer “sermons from the pulpit” with ideas to create a format for a regular gathering or service. Easy to digest and sometimes gently following the seasons of the year and holidays already on most people’s calendars, these messages and meditations use Goddess archetypes, ideals and mythology to provide content for education, inspiration and contemplation for anyone seeking to incorporate a feminine face of God within their spirituality, no matter what their faith.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 28, 2014
ISBN9781782794417
Goddess Calling: Inspirational Messages & Meditations of Sacred Feminine Liberation Thealogy

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    Goddess Calling - Karen Tate

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    Part I

    The Politics of Eco-Feminist Goddess

    Spirituality – A Theology for a

    Sustainable Future

    ¹

    Goddess is a Democrat! Imagine the feedback from that statement from interviews with notable leaders in the political and spiritual community on my radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine! But what were we really saying in that statement that might not have been immediately evident? We were saying the strategy to move us toward that paradigm shift, into a post-kyriarchal world, would not just be the use of secular law, but a change in thealogy. We believe at the Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy, as do many others, that the mythology of the Sacred Feminine, deity, archetype and ideal, might reestablish the foundations on our planet necessary for a sustainable future for all life and Mother Earth.

    Here’s the line of thought. We know religion, law, and society are shaped in large part by our mythology. We believe the ancient mythology of the Sacred Feminine, perhaps 40,000 years old or more, has been obscured and demonized, particularly in the West, by Abrahamic traditions’ immature-youngster-male-dominated religions, linchpins of patriarchy, leaving us with false normalcy. This results in cultures that set men above women, with men indoctrinated to believe they are the rightful masters over Nature and intolerant male-dominated religions believing their god is the only real god who gives them license to crusade against non-believers. Having nothing to counter this unnatural imbalance, we have been left to endure all manner of oppression: fundamentalism, genocide, militarism, imperialism, homophobia, racism, infanticide, sexism, female genital mutilation, predator capitalism, slavery, exploitation, corporate fascism and threats to our democracy. All this we face, in conjunction with potential environmental catastrophe that can effect national security and life on the planet as we know it. According to Egyptian feminist and professor, Nawal El Saadawi, Patriarchy needs god to justify injustice.² Therefore, until we can get religion out of politics and economics, Goddess advocates counter we must start rethinking our mythology, or our religion. We must see the Divine not just in male terms, which is dominant in the collective psyche. We must also see the Divine in female terms and value the ideals that go along with maternal values, or we may never achieve a contemporary egalitarian society of equality, partnership, and peace for people of Gaia.

    Compare the generally accepted views of liberals and conservatives. Peter Michaelson, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author, in his article, The Primitive Conservative Psyche,³ extrapolates from the insights of Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, George Lakoff, in his article, What Conservatives Really Want.⁴ According to Michaelson, citing Lakoff, the conservative belief in individual responsibility to the exclusion of social responsibility is based on the model of the strict authoritarian father, sometimes called the psychological or Freudian super ego or inner critic, which can manifest in the weak or unaware mind as judgmental, aggressive, negative, ruthless, mocking, unforgiving and irrational, with a distrust of government. Michaelson equates conservative mentality to a primitive aspect of human nature explaining Conservatives’ mental gymnastics for disrespecting the poor enable them to practice guilt-free ruthlessness while feeling morally superior…. They rationalize their lack of empathy by claiming that the poor deserve their poverty because they are responsible for their own failings rather than considering they might be doing well considering the hand they’ve been dealt. Likewise we observe many conservative Christians who misinterpret doctrine believing their wealth as a gift from God for their discipline and rationalize poverty as punishment for sin or being lazy.⁵ A vast majority of conservatives tend to want to support established institutions for social stability even if this stable order means the oppression of patriarchy. According to economist John Kenneth Galbraith, The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

    On the flip side, according to Webster’s dictionary, liberals are generous, broad-minded, tolerant and believe in individual rights and freedom.⁷ Politically, liberals desire progress and value equality, diversity and social justice. They view government as the protector of the environment and people and want government to help alleviate social ills and protect civil liberties and human rights.⁸ That said, perhaps it is clear to see why community leaders and activists, along with many other Goddess advocates, have said that until we have a viable Eco-Feminist-Goddess-like political party, maternal values of the Sacred Feminine are more in sync with liberal and progressive ideals, which are the home of the true Democratic party.

    So let us look at several examples of the marriage between liberal values, political platforms of Democrats, and Sacred Feminine mythology.

    We find, under the broad umbrella of Goddess, many faces across continents and cultures, with no mandate that we worship one name, one face. Instead we see a metaphor for plurality, diversity and inclusion in the loving and life-affirming Sacred Feminine, rather than the jealous, One Way, androcentric and exclusionary god of patriarchy keen on asking men to sacrifice their sons to prove their loyalty and a holy book filled with violence.

    Likewise, the Democratic umbrella casts its net wide. Generally speaking, it is the natural home of those embracing gender equality and peoples of all walks of life: gay, straight, people of all skin colors and religions or no religion at all. Juxtapose that with the majority of white, Christian faces peering out at you from a male-dominated Republican National Convention.

    Consider the mythology of the Inuit Goddess Sedna. She is the gatekeeper between humankind and the sea creatures upon which people depend for their livelihood. If mankind becomes too greedy and exploits the creatures of the sea, Sedna cuts him off until he takes only what he needs. Greed and excess are taboo as we are all inter-dependent upon each other.

    Likewise, real Democrats, not Blue Dog Dems or Clintonian corporatists, are the gatekeepers demanding regulation so that corporations cannot run amok and destroy the resources of Mother Earth or rights of people. Most notable is former Vice President Al Gore who, having pressed for stern regulation of greenhouse gases, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build greater knowledge about man-made climate change. On the other hand, because of the Republican world view in favor of free trade and globalization, the GOP has fought against taking steps to alleviate the threat of climate change. They dismiss it as a hoax or socialist plot to redistribute wealth from corporate polluters to the poor nations they’ve harmed, and they support their corporate constituents who pour billions of dollars into keeping the public misinformed.

    The Egyptian Goddess Isis bestowed upon pharaohs their right to rule, and they were to rule their kingdoms under the laws of the Goddess Ma’at, namely truth, balance, order, and justice. Likewise the Roman Lady Libertas represented the deification of the virtue of freedom.

    It should be noted that it was under Democratic administrations that progress was made on civil rights and social safety nets while Republicans generally put corporate interests before people, case in point the Conservative leaning Supreme Court’s decision that corporations are people which has had a disastrous effect on the democratic process. Republicans have forced a watering down of regulation of Wall Street and threaten to de-fund many consumer protections agencies. And how can we ignore Fox News, arm of the Republican Party, that cannot get into Canada because of regulations there against the media disseminating

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