When I started out on my Goddess journey, at the point I really dove into it intensely, there was so much to explore and to write about that I was submerged in issues centring around women and the Divine Feminine. I made new female friends that were all loving and mutually supportive, cheering each other on, rather than vying jealously with each other for leadership as had been my experience in many (but not all) female friends before.
But to have found an entire community of women who supported each other with love and the genuine desire to lift each other up, collaborate and explore together was such a blessing for me that I incorporated this spirit of feminine co-creation in my own work and my exploration of various Goddess archetypes. I’ve written 42 articles on various Goddesses so far and there are more to come.
As I had also been writing articles on Power Animals, I didn’t want to have too many projects open at one time, but then a friend pointed out to me I am creating an imbalance in my life (and on my website) if I don’t write about Gods as well. So I sat down with my closest guide Anubis (Anpu) and discussed this. Now Anubis has a wonderfully funny sense of humour that always strikes right to the heart of the matter and softens the blow. Because it is a blow to be confronted with unpleasant truths you have not been aware of or been trying to ignore.
He asked me what I thought. Did I feel there was truth in it or did I think I still had an energetic balance in myself and my work. I explored this question for a while and wrote a few articles on Gods, Anubis, Thoth and Nun for starters. And then I had a conversation not only with other women about this, but also with my son.
My son isn’t spiritual. He has phases where he considers what I tell him or share with him and other times when he’s got to be a teenage rebel. On the whole, he is a lot more traditional and “German” than I am. And he couldn’t relate to all this Goddess stuff, or Gods stuff, for that matter. Self-empowerment is a logical thing to him, not a spiritual one.
He is still seeking for guidance and dogma, which is okay, if he feels he needs this. I have friends from all over the world from all religious and spiritual paths and I respect all of them, all different opinions and beliefs. I am a firm believer of the maxim that everyone has their own path and there is no “one size fits all” in that.
Now my son Tajun is a very masculine young man, yet at the same time, he is also affectionate, caring and loving. He is not embarrassed to kiss and cuddle his mother in public and he is about to join the German military hoping to go into special forces. He has a few hangups like everyone else but on the whole I’d say, he is a pretty balanced individual where masculine and feminine energies are concerned. He is not judgmental of my chosen path, either, and we always find common ground not only discussing life experience but also some spiritual topics.
Now, the other day, when we sat together with Tarini outside a café on a shopping tour, he told us he had gone to the local Catholic church about a year ago and got baptised (which is funny because that was about the age I left the Catholic church). No one had been there but him and the priest performing the rite. He had mentioned it to a friend when he had been delayed in meeting him because of it, but he didn’t know whether the friend had even believed it at the time or whether this information had made the rounds at all, but he’d not told anyone else.
Two very powerful emotions hit me. One was pride and the other was pain. Pain, because he hadn’t told us and I hadn’t been able to attend his baptism with his sisters and celebrate this together with him. I felt I had let him down in some way that he hadn’t felt he could share this with me and having missed such an important day in the life of my son that could never be brought back again, there’d never be a second chance for that, filled me with pain and regret. Had we been at home, I’d probably have cried then, too.
But at the same time, I also felt proud of him. I felt proud for him making a choice, for thinking about these things so deeply that he had made an informed decision. I have brought up my children with knowledge of the major world religions, nature religions and a vast range of spiritual pathways. So Tajun definitely had made an informed choice. He hadn’t merely blindly followed the herd, he had deeply thought about this, felt into his own heart, informed himself further and decided then. And even though it had been late, he had told me. And for that, I was infinitely grateful.
Of course, my next mission was to think about what all this meant for me in my relationship to my son, in my relationship to the divine masculine and indeed in my relationship to human masculinity, to men, and what I consider to be “masculine” and whether that needed redefining for me.
I have always been a supporter of inclusion, rather than exclusion, although I do see the need to have sacred spaces for women only and by the same token, men only. However, I don’t agree with the notion that patriarchy and the oppression of women and, indeed, the Divine Feminine through the institutions of power, both religious as well as secular, can be ended by oppressing and condemning men and the Divine Masculine. That would create an imbalance on the opposite side of the scale and make matriarchy then no better than patriarchy.
The obvious solution is to reach out and offer equality and a togetherness that is marked by loving acceptance and mutual support and trust, rather than a battle for supremacy. There are so many women exploring the path of the Goddess, but how few men are even interested in doing this or feel left out because there are not as many sacred spaces that include men as there are for women. And also, when there are, these spaces are more geared towards women anyway and men are simply tolerated there.
As I was contemplating to bridge that gap, Colette Baron-Reid, whose new Goddess Power oracle deck I purchased lately and whom I follow lately more intensely, watching her YouTube videos (and I am usually a person who prefers to read, rather than watch, so for me to follow anyone I don’t have a personal relationship with consistently on YouTube is a mark of honour in itself), posted a new video on her channel interviewing for the first time not another powerful woman, but a man. Kyle Gray, a Catholic, very masculine young Scottish man who loves Mary and does angel work.
I found this not only so interesting, but also so valuable in relation to my own current life theme regarding this topic that I would like to share it here and urge you to watch it. I have searched for a bridge between the masculine and feminine, for a bridge between Goddess exploration and traditional religion, and as a mother, common ground for my son and myself.
Being a former Catholic growing up with a grandmother who had worshipped Mother Mary with much love and devotion and having a life experience full of loving Catholic nuns coming in and out of my life, I still have so much of a loving connection that it is not difficult for me to accept or find common ground. But I wanted to find common ground in how to celebrate this together actively, not passively, albeit lovingly, merely accept it. I didn’t attend Tajun’s baptism but I feel I want to celebrate this important decision in his life and honour it in some way beyond merely telling him, I’m fine with it and I love him.
I want to hold his hand in this and be his companion on his path, regardless of my own beliefs and chosen path. I myself had to walk alone for so many years before finding online communities and friends whom I was able to share my own path with, I would never want my child to think that he has to go through this alone, that he is somehow not accepted and seen as inferior and unenlightened in some way. I want Tajun to be able to celebrate his personal beliefs openly and without thought or doubt as to whether he is accepted just as he is and thinks and beliefs.
For women and men alike, regardless of your personal beliefs regarding angels and Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, this interview is deeply thought provoking in a very positive way and I urge you to watch it in its entirety. It’s a beautiful example of the finding this common ground between traditional religion and Goddess exploration, for what most people would consider to be a very “masculine” man, too. Kyle Gray looks more like a lumberjack, rather than a stereotypical spiritual guru, skinny, wearing linen and Jesus sandals or some such character.
UPDATE: unfortunately, this video has been removed from YouTube so I can't share it here any longer.