Showing posts with label Divine Feminine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Divine Feminine. Show all posts

Tuesday, 31 January 2017

A Snowdrops Call

I’m sat, watching birds fluff their feathers and busily building their nests with windblown twigs. 
The sky is grey and a roof of winter is over my head, my heart yearns for spring. 
I saw snow drops today, poking out of the dark soil, and I realised that today is Saint Bridget’s day.
Saint Bridget is the Patron Saint of dairymaids, midwives and newborn babies.

Tomorrow is Imbolc too, another echo that the first stirrings of spring is awakening.

Coincidentally it is the Inca month of Hatan Puncuy, The Great Ripening. 
It is a time dedicated to the Divine Feminine in all her earthy and heavenly forms. 
Though nothing in the United Kingdom is ripe, the fertility of the season is obviously still within the whole earth.

The Divine Feminine archetype who speaks to me today, on Her day, is Bridget. 
But she has many other names; Brighid, Brigantia, and far older names, Bree. 
She is the breeze that blows our seeds to lay.
She is the breath that blows life into the Smithy’s fire. 
She is the breast milk of nourishment that pours from the mountains to fertilise the earth, the snowdrops that drip like springs lactation.
For me personally, this time of year reminds me to honour the Divine Feminine within me. 
She expresses herself through me in many aspects in my life. 
As a gay man, she flames my desires as she flames her own. 
As a LGBT father, I embody her as nourisher, comforter, fierce mother, teacher of trees and beasts, tear collector and bottom wiper. 
She communicates her words through my writing and my art, both ceremonial and aimless doodling. She pours through my fingers in crazy ways, risqué ways, creative and wild ways, and often very emotional ways; talking of which, she cries through my eyes at the most inappropriate times. 
She works her magic through me when I am in a state of healing. 
She listens, as I listen, a sacred witness to another person’s pain, one divine being listening to itself, maybe…She moves my hands over our clients, allowing me to remove the hucha you no longer need, she guides my fingers as I shift the flow of the river of light within you and re-members lost soul parts. 
She also sits quietly within my heart while I hold your precious skull in my hands.

In honour of the fact, that it is also LGBT History month, I’d like to add that we, the LGBT community, were once, and still are in certain parts of the world, considered sacred. 
Even in the most intolerant of countries, there was once a holy place for us, you cannot deny it. 
We were called Two Spirited. 
Gay men, for example, were seen as having the physical body of the Holy Father, Great Spirit, and the spirit, soul and passions of the Divine Mother, the Sacred Feminine. 
Because of this view, we were often trained in the traditional paths of healers, priests and priestesses, medicine people and shaman. 
We were seen as a conduit between heaven and earth, spirit and matter, the masculine and the feminine, balance.


But we All have both the light and the dark within us, we all have both the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine within us, they are One within us, a perfect and many shaded rainbow. 

Each one of us capable of answering the call of Spirit. Her call, the nesting call, springs call, the healers call, snowdrops call. 

Listen to your heart, and you will hear her.


Sunday, 11 December 2016

Our Lady of the Serpents

It was in the winter of 1531 that a 57-year-old Juan Diego heard strange music coming from the once sacred hill of Tepeyac. He walked up the hill and was greeted by a woman of his own Aztec heritage. She introduced herself as Mary, mother of God. 
She told him that she wanted him to build a church on top of the hill, and urged him to speak to the Bishop. Juan left and demanded that he is greeted by the Bishop of the New Church of Tenochtitlan, Juan de Zumarraga. 
The Bishop was understandably sceptical, and asked for more proof, a sign, maybe, that she truly was the Holy Mary, mother of God. Eagerly, he ran back to the hill and prayed to the Virgin Mary that she would appear again to him once more. 
She did appear, this time she told him, (in his language, Nahwatl) that her name was Coatlaxopeuh.
She showed him a garden of roses, which do not bloom in winter, a miracle by any means. 
She told him to collect them up and show the Bishop the rose buds, she even helped him arrange the roses in his tilma, his modest cloak. 
When he arrived at the New Church, he blurted out her name, the Bishop, due to nahwatl pronunciation, heard Guadalupe. 
Juan emptied his tilma of roses, letting them spill across the floor, but the Bishop did not fall to his knees in disbelief because of un-seasonal rose buds, but the imprinted image of Our Lady Guadalupe on his tilma.
A church was built on the sacred hill of Tepeyac.
Eight million descendants of the Aztecs converted to Catholicism.



The tilma is still held, after all this time, in the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. 
It is made of cactus fibres and in 500 years it still hasn’t disintegrated. 
No paint was used. 
The eyes of the image reflect those of the clergy and those of Aztec heritage. 
Even more fascinating is that the star constellations on her dress are exactly what you would have seen if you were in Mexico in 1531.

But, Our Lady has another identity. 

She is Coatlicue, ‘Skirt of Serpents.’ She is Tonantzin, ‘Our Mother.’ She is Cozcamiyawh, ‘Corn Tasselled Necklace.’ She is Cihuacoatl, ‘Snake Woman.’ 
And she is also Coatlalopeuh, ‘She who has Dominion over the Snakes.’
Earth Goddess, Mother Most High. Patron of Serpents. Pachamama.

In the Image above, you can see that her cloak is midnight blue, and adorned with stars.
Coatlicue’s son Huitzilpochtli created the stars from his dead brothers.
She stands on a dark crescent moon, held by a child. Coatlicue’s son created the moon from his sisters severed head.
Behind her, shines the rays of the sun. Coatlicue’s son is the God of the Sun.
She wears a black sash around her waist. Coatlicue wore a black sash around her waist as did many Aztec woman during pregnancy and childbirth.
Her tunic even shows the sinewy lines of the image of Coatlicue.

I love the Holy Virgin Mary, and I also love Coatlicue, the primordial Goddess of all things wet, dark and tangled. 
This is why Our Lady Guadalupe is so special to me.

Elders tell us that she has been holding the Divine Feminine energy within her heart, until such a time that the decedents of the Mexica set aside the beliefs imposed upon them by the Spaniards, and bring forth into the light of the sun, the ancestral teachings, and the restoration of woman’s place of honour in the community.

This speaks volumes to me, not just for the feminist principles, but for bringing Her back. 
Bringing back the Divine Feminine within our culture and community and spirituality. 
It means acknowledging the presence of the female face of God as Mother, Divine Creator and nourisher of All, as pure creational potential and the feminine energy of flow and movement.
Already the ancient teachings of the Americas have been brought forth into the light, we shaman and mesa carriers have these teachings, I have these teachings within me, and I willingly share them with you.

All religions have a hidden, or not-so-hidden, female face of God; you just have to search for Her. The best place to search for her, is within your own hearts. 
Embrace her, for She will embrace you, and She will give you back your power and your grace that She has been lovingly holding for you.


The twelfth of December is The Feast of Our Lady Guadalupe, light a candle for her, embrace her, for she carries within her womb your gold.


Sunday, 6 March 2016

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day!
To all Our Mothers, the Divine Mother, the archetypical Mother, the Universal Mother.
To those mothers who have passed on, grandmothers ancient wise women; we honour you and we love you 🌺💐