{"id":9750,"date":"2014-04-01T01:10:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T06:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=10086"},"modified":"2014-03-30T15:11:29","modified_gmt":"2014-03-30T20:11:29","slug":"goddesses-of-sorcery-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2014\/04\/01\/goddesses-of-sorcery-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Goddesses of Sorcery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Goddess Can Change the World<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently I participated in the International Women\u2019s week at Vanier College in Montreal. My talk was called \u201cThe Goddess Returns\u201d and I spoke about a very important issue: how Goddess spirituality can decrease violence against women by empowering women. <\/span><\/p>\n

My talk was held in a large classroom with fifty-plus young people expectantly waiting to see a Witch (maybe with a big pointy hat and black cat!) arrive to tell them about the Goddess. \u00a0I did not bring the hat and the cat but I did bring a lot of thought-provoking ideas! I started the talk by asking the students to imagine what God might look like. Then I talked about the different ways that God is perceived in the different main stream religions. I would like to share some of my talk with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Goddess Returns<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When most people think of God, they think of a masculine figure or energy. They use the pronoun \u2018he\u2019. If you are a Christian or Jew and believe the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, you may read that man is made in God\u2019s image. The King James Bible says in Genesis: \u201cSo God created man in his <\/span>own<\/span> image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.\u201d \u00a0Most people forget the last bit: male AND female\u2026..So what the bible alludes to the idea that God is both male and female. But Christians and Jews still think of God as \u201che\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

Islam teaches that no one is like Allah. \u00a0Quran verse 42:11 says that: Allah is the creator of the heavens and the earth and there is nothing like him. But they still refer to Allah as \u2018he\u2019. Some Muslims say that Allah is the same God that is worshipped by Abraham. <\/span><\/p>\n

Buddhism does not believe in God in the same way, they believe in Buddha. Being human, the Buddha had a human body like any ordinary person. There is also nothing in the teachings of the Buddha that suggest how to find God or worship the god’s of India, (where he came from) although the Buddha himself was a theist (believed in gods), his teachings are non-theistic. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Buddha was more concerned with the human condition: Birth, Sickness, Old age, and Death. The Buddhist path is about coming to a place of acceptance with these painful aspects of life, and not suffering through them. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Buddha is not thought of as a god in Buddhism and is not prayed to. He is looked up to and respected as a great teacher. \u00a0He was a human being who found his perfection in Nirvana. Because of his Nirvana, the Buddha was perfectly moral, perfectly ethical, and ended his suffering forever.

Does that mean that every Buddhist in the world is an atheist? <\/span><\/p>\n

No! A lot of Buddhists believe in God, a lot of Buddhists don\u2019t believe in God… And a lot of Buddhists just don\u2019t know. All three points of view are OK if you\u2019re Buddhist because the end of suffering is more important than God in Buddhism. (1) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hinduism believes in one universal soul called Brahman that manifests into the world as many forms, mainly Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, a triad of Gods. Goddesses can also be manifestations of Brahman. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wicca has a different view point and emphasis than Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Wicca is a spiritually that comes from the British Isles and while it is a modern religion, has its roots in antiquity. So Wicca as we know it today all started in the 1950\u2019s when a man called Gerald Gardner decided that Witchcraft should be brought out of the broom closet! Since then Wicca has become the fastest growing religion in North America today. I think one of the reasons is because the people of the world are ready to re-connect with the Divine Feminine, their Divine Mother, the Goddess. <\/span><\/p>\n

The thread that runs through every Wiccan Tradition is the belief that God\/Goddess is immanent: present within nature. Judeo-Abrahamic Religions believe God is transcendental (outside creation), Taoist religions (ex. Buddhism and Hinduism) believe that the world is \u201cmaya\u201d (an illusion), but Wiccans believe that God\/dess is immanent and the world is sacred. This means that we believe all life is Sacred including plants, animals, the planet and YOU!<\/span><\/p>\n

The Students Meet the Goddess<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At this point in my talk I had the students close their eyes and relax. I invited the Goddess to enter the room and I felt her calming and gentle presence! The energy in the room had changed! I asked them to return to the picture of God they had imagined at the beginning of the talk and then to imagine a beautiful woman glowing with light standing beside the God image. Then I asked them to imagine this Divine Lady stepping forward and coming beside them, then to feel her putting her arm around them and holding them. I was surprised to see the deep peace and happiness on their faces!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sharing their experiences some of the students were shocked that they actually felt a warm arm around them. Some saw the God and Goddess as their parents. One boy said that his Goddess didn\u2019t have a head! I think this is very significant because it shows how our modern society has removed the face of the goddess from our lives. It was a wonderful experience for me as a speaker and for the group. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next I talked about the impact of Goddess Spirituality on the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would happen if you believed that God was female?<\/span><\/p>\n

If when I said the word God you not only saw a male figure but you saw the Great Mother standing beside Him how would that change you? If you as a woman realized that not only are you sacred but that you were actually made in the image of the Goddess would you feel empowered? <\/span><\/p>\n

An empowered woman is not afraid to stand up for her rights. She is confident and strong. She raises her sons and daughters to respect others, because she does not have to prove to others that she is strong, she knows she is. If women were empowered perhaps the violence and inequality against women would change.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to propose that Goddess spirituality empowers women and that the boys raised by empowered women grow up to be men who see women as equals and treat them with respect. <\/span>This theory is backed up by many feminist studies and scholars<\/span>. Since Wicca is the only religion in the world where the Goddess is seen as the main Deity, perhaps this is why it is growing so quickly, as people react against the gulf between genders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Violence against women<\/span><\/p>\n

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women states that “<\/span>violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women<\/span>” and that “<\/span>violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men<\/span>“. <\/span><\/p>\n

In North America, specifically in our beautiful city of Montreal, the inequality against women is not as evident as it may be in other countries. However all over the globe, violence and discrimination against women and girls violates their human rights and severely compromises young people’s sexual and reproductive health. Harmful practices, including female genital cutting\/mutilation, femicide, gender-based violence, and early marriage, damage girls’ physical being and self-worth by reinforcing gender-based marginalization and inequality. Gender inequalities and biases pervade cultures worldwide, preventing women and girls from fully realizing their rights to reproductive health and equality. <\/span>Even here one in four women has experienced violence related to sex and gender!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here are some very frightening statistics about violence against women. How can we change this? The only way is to change society from within each home and within each heart. Goddess spirituality and empowered women can do this! Let the Goddess return to the world!<\/span><\/p>\n

Discrimination against women and girls often begins at conception, especially in parts of India and South Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n