unbelievable!! I am on a soap box....
Well, I pass this church on FM 150 just before I get to Hyw 21 every day... and I read the sign to see what new message of BS it carries to the unknowing lambs then just shake my head. But I will be posting a pic of the most recent... it says "Borrowed beliefs have no power." Can you imagine the utter gall? Or maybe the Christian 'faith' had forgotten that the beliefs they are now proclaiming were originally of the Goddess? Or maybe, as a Dianic Wiccan, I am just flat out offended?
After co-opting/borrowing/stealing/whatever fro the indigenous earth-based religions they have the audacity to tell you not to "borrow belief"? Our holy days became Christian feasts or saints days or birthdays. Why? Because the heathens would not stop celebrating them and if you can't convert the people, ursurp all their traditions and then claim they are yours. Somehow, worshipping the Earth Mother that birthed & sustains us became about worshipping the Father God in the sky (who apparently wont live on Earth because it is 'not pure') and now they want to judge people about their belief?
The Goddess functions (if allowed) in different ways to empower women and men, through its life-affirming concepts, its provision of ways of breaking out of a patriarchal reality and by its bringing of the sacred back into the world. To be Dianic is to be empowered by the Divine Feminine all around us. It is to know that time moves in a never-ending spiral of energy and love. It is seeing the Mother's face in the world all around us--in the elements of Gaia, the darkness of Hecate, the wildness of Kali.
First and foremost, we envision the Earth that birthed and nourishes us as female. We revel in all aspects of life on the planet and feel unbounding joy in living a Pagan life. The Earth is our mother and sister but, perhaps more exactly, she is our Grandmother. Wise, ancient, full of deep mysteries and ultimately unknowable. The Earth is a Woman and she is Goddess. We honor Her as home and womb/matrix of all life. We also respect her as an immensely complex system that is constantly engaged in the dual act of creation and destruction. This is an awe-inspiring power with which we are suitably awed.
Structurally, Dianic Wicca is affirmingly non-hierarchical. Consensus building is a conscious part of our decision-making and our spiritual practice. Dianic ritual often includes a talking stick with which we check in, honoring the speech of our circle sisters and brothers as they tell where they are (both emotionally and physically) at the time of the ritual. Dianics aren't just lesbians who don't ever do ritual with men and are not, in fact, gender separatists. We are not "men haters". We are feminists, we believe in returning to a time of balance. It is not about men. It is about the destructuring of our Earth Mother by a destructive system of patriarchy over the last 2500-3500 hundred years. We are a non-competitive and non-hierarchical place where humans can be awed by the destructive/creative nature of the universe and the mirror image of it in their own psyches. I've found a place of deep personal connection with that which I deem Divine and it is a healing and joyous homecoming.
Then arises the question of duality, of balance. I have been told that Goddess and God reflect the ways of nature where all things are balanced as female and male. I tend to see the perception of male/female energy to be uncomfortable and limiting. Energy flows from the world around us--in the tides, the seasons, the jetstream. We perceive it in the Wheel, the Spiral, the triskele. It is an energy that surges and retreats, again and again. We see it in our human cycles of birth, growth, death and rebirth. It is reflected in the phases of the moon and the silver wheel of the stars, in orgasm and the cycle of menstruation. We see few things as linear, preferring the Wheel and spiral. (More on the Wheel later!)
"Look at nature...you worship it!" they say. "Everything in nature is male and female!" I look at the stars and mountains, sea and clouds. In them is the pulsing music of that force that is and also runs the Universe, not simply "male or female". I name it Divine and I honour it as feminine. The Goddess is love, honour, power. Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate the Eight Wiccan Virtues as a guideline for their deeds. These are Mirth, Reverence, Honour, Humility, Strength, Beauty, Power, and Compassion, and are found in a phrase from Doreen Valiente's Charge of the Goddess, where they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy.
Feminism is NOT about conquering the men of this world. It IS about the advocacy of the social equality of the sexes. Political, social, and cultural movement dedicated to promoting equal rights for women in all aspects of life. Feminism is not a single ideology, but rather characterized by a diverse set of perspectives and movements dedicated to promoting the rights of all people, but especially women as an oppressed people.
After co-opting/borrowing/stealing/whatever fro the indigenous earth-based religions they have the audacity to tell you not to "borrow belief"? Our holy days became Christian feasts or saints days or birthdays. Why? Because the heathens would not stop celebrating them and if you can't convert the people, ursurp all their traditions and then claim they are yours. Somehow, worshipping the Earth Mother that birthed & sustains us became about worshipping the Father God in the sky (who apparently wont live on Earth because it is 'not pure') and now they want to judge people about their belief?
The Goddess functions (if allowed) in different ways to empower women and men, through its life-affirming concepts, its provision of ways of breaking out of a patriarchal reality and by its bringing of the sacred back into the world. To be Dianic is to be empowered by the Divine Feminine all around us. It is to know that time moves in a never-ending spiral of energy and love. It is seeing the Mother's face in the world all around us--in the elements of Gaia, the darkness of Hecate, the wildness of Kali.
First and foremost, we envision the Earth that birthed and nourishes us as female. We revel in all aspects of life on the planet and feel unbounding joy in living a Pagan life. The Earth is our mother and sister but, perhaps more exactly, she is our Grandmother. Wise, ancient, full of deep mysteries and ultimately unknowable. The Earth is a Woman and she is Goddess. We honor Her as home and womb/matrix of all life. We also respect her as an immensely complex system that is constantly engaged in the dual act of creation and destruction. This is an awe-inspiring power with which we are suitably awed.
Structurally, Dianic Wicca is affirmingly non-hierarchical. Consensus building is a conscious part of our decision-making and our spiritual practice. Dianic ritual often includes a talking stick with which we check in, honoring the speech of our circle sisters and brothers as they tell where they are (both emotionally and physically) at the time of the ritual. Dianics aren't just lesbians who don't ever do ritual with men and are not, in fact, gender separatists. We are not "men haters". We are feminists, we believe in returning to a time of balance. It is not about men. It is about the destructuring of our Earth Mother by a destructive system of patriarchy over the last 2500-3500 hundred years. We are a non-competitive and non-hierarchical place where humans can be awed by the destructive/creative nature of the universe and the mirror image of it in their own psyches. I've found a place of deep personal connection with that which I deem Divine and it is a healing and joyous homecoming.
Then arises the question of duality, of balance. I have been told that Goddess and God reflect the ways of nature where all things are balanced as female and male. I tend to see the perception of male/female energy to be uncomfortable and limiting. Energy flows from the world around us--in the tides, the seasons, the jetstream. We perceive it in the Wheel, the Spiral, the triskele. It is an energy that surges and retreats, again and again. We see it in our human cycles of birth, growth, death and rebirth. It is reflected in the phases of the moon and the silver wheel of the stars, in orgasm and the cycle of menstruation. We see few things as linear, preferring the Wheel and spiral. (More on the Wheel later!)
"Look at nature...you worship it!" they say. "Everything in nature is male and female!" I look at the stars and mountains, sea and clouds. In them is the pulsing music of that force that is and also runs the Universe, not simply "male or female". I name it Divine and I honour it as feminine. The Goddess is love, honour, power. Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate the Eight Wiccan Virtues as a guideline for their deeds. These are Mirth, Reverence, Honour, Humility, Strength, Beauty, Power, and Compassion, and are found in a phrase from Doreen Valiente's Charge of the Goddess, where they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy.
Feminism is NOT about conquering the men of this world. It IS about the advocacy of the social equality of the sexes. Political, social, and cultural movement dedicated to promoting equal rights for women in all aspects of life. Feminism is not a single ideology, but rather characterized by a diverse set of perspectives and movements dedicated to promoting the rights of all people, but especially women as an oppressed people.
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