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Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit QUOTES

Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit QUOTES

1 " How do we love the fierce and unattractive sides of ourselves? The angers, the pettiness, the competitiveness? The laziness, the irresponsibility? The desires that run wild, the instability, the irritations? Accepting oneself is difficult, given even a moderate desire for self-improvement. How do we know what is to be improved, what accepted?

Many goddesses have as one of their powers that of discernment. It takes much wisdom to know when to push yourself toward change and when to relax into self-acceptance. Too much self-acceptance is, for women in our society, given less support than excessive self-criticism, and yet both are equally damaging to the soul’s growth. Kali, with her steel weapons and her fierce combative nature, is a goddess who assists us toward discernment. We can trust her wisdom not only to determine what moves is toward growth, but to destroy what resists as well. "

― Patricia Monaghan , Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit

2 " She created us, and so we dance.
She smiles down upon our dance.
She grows happy because we dance.

We are her grandchildren, and so we dance.
Our dance is our best prayer to her.
She laughs in happiness because we dance.

We are her children, and we must dance.
If we were ever to forget, she would weep.
She would never cease her weeping.

She is the mother to whom we dance.
If only insect tracks marked our dancing grounds,
she would forget us too, and we would die.

She is the goddess who dances through us.
We are her children, and we must dance.
She created us, and so we dance.

~ Shawnee Bread Dance Song "

― Patricia Monaghan , Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit

3 " The worship of the goddess did not end when the god was born. Even after the establishment of monotheistic religions, women continued to honor the divine in feminine form, as this biblical text shows:

The women knead dough
to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven
and pour out drinks unto the gods.
~ Jeremiah 7:18

What makes the goddess necessary? If the divine exists beyond our human dualism, why can people not accept that any image is but a shallow and limited vision of what cannot be pictured?

Because our picture of god helps us know who we are. When god is only male, we implicitly understand that only males can be like god. And so, whenever society has claimed a single male god, women — and many men — have found ways of continuing to honor the feminine source of mystery and life. Even in the many ages when the goddess has seemed to be hidden from our eyes, simple creative rituals have kept her alive. Your grandmother, your mother, your sisters — all connect with the goddess even when they do not recognize her aloud. In the secret chambers of women’s hearts, she has never died. And she never will. "

― Patricia Monaghan , Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit