The Goddess^[credits]

by Anja Heij

Although often depicted as a woman, she is none, and she is all of them. "I am every woman!" And every woman is the Goddess. She is the mystery of the life-giving and life-taking rhythm of nature, the great void and well of endless possibilities. She is the infinite bubbling up of inspiration, waiting to be fertilized by intent and focused action. She is the bow that shoots the arrow; that's why the goddess Diana/Artemis is also the huntress. She is the high priestess of the tarot, able to look behind the veil and sense hidden realities. She is the egg inside the womb, inviting selected spermatozoids to join her and create. She is passive action and eternal susceptibility.

The Goddess is the great force of femininity, Mother Nature, the Divine Mother. Every woman shares her fierce potential of being life and bearing the fruit of new life within her. A woman in tune with her femininity will intuitively know for sure that she is life itself; she does not need thoughtmodels or scientific proof to understand this. This allows women to think in terms of compassion and concern for the whole. And it allows her to combine intuition with knowledge derived from experience and the understanding of nature laws, what results in wisdom. Women can think in analogies, because they can sense the universal pattern behind an outer expression of nature. Femininity feels and knows that everything was always already there, waiting and available, where masculinity is the initiating and directing force to make choices and realize possibilities out of the slumbering potential. She is the Egyptian goddess Nuit, the dark womb of the night, who bows over Hadit, the earth, symbolizing materialization, to mate with him.

The Goddess is the process of life with all her cycles and stages. The Goddess is both the giver and the destroyer, laying off old patterns and weaving new ones. Therefore many goddesses and mythical wise women are depicted as weavers, creating new forms along the moving axles of their spindles.

The Goddess is often represented by the cycles of the Moon. The first quarter, the rising moon, symbolizes spring, and the maiden. Full moon is the equivalent of the summer and the woman in full bloom, ready to be fertilized. Declining moon is autumn, the warm season of harvest, and the mother with her offspring. New moon is wintertime, the return to the inner self, experience and knowledge transformed into wisdom, and the wise older woman able to teach and heal others in a renewing cycle. The celestial cycles of the moon are reflected in the physical menstrual cycles of the woman. The moon cycles around the earth thirteen times a year; thirteen is the number of Saturn, the planet of fate, cycles, structure and destiny, who's ruler often is depicted with the scythe which harvests life at the end of a cycle.

The Goddess is also known as the Triple Goddess, in her various stages of virgin/maiden, queen/mother and crone/wise woman. Every woman contains the flame of the Goddess in all her stages, but the different stages become more prominent in her different life phases. Still every woman has the pure and innocent radiance of the youthful maiden, the warmth and stability of the mother, and the intuitive wisdom and natural healing abilities of the crone. True healing is through love and compassion!

Womanhood is much more than the cheerful thin, young and sexy ladies the glossy magazines show us, or the super happy mommies deriving bliss from a cleaned house as the advertisements would like us to believe. Womanhood is a strong connection to eternal life, nature, intuition, stillness, love and empathy. It is an innate understanding of the mystery of life. The inner strength and power of the Goddess lives in every woman. Thou art Goddess!