Column: The Goddess Rises Everyday

“Why it was wonderful!  Why, all
At once there were leaves,
Leaves at the end of a dry
Stick, small, alive
Leaves out of wood.  It was
Wonderful,”

Librarian of the Congress, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Modernist poet, Archibald MacLeish reminds me, “It was Wonderful!” Leaves alive out of wood! This is the moment of Spring, the moment for which most have been waiting. This is also for many a holy moment in the year. I am not using holy as an abstract of an orthodoxy that binds a special resurrection today. But rather holy from the Old English hālig, which means whole; complete and unbroken. That thing which is complete unto itself. I know that ‘thing” as Goddess. She that breathes inspiration, births and nurtures and destroys time. Her face is many; Her stories unbroken. And, She rises every day.

[Photo: J. Pitzl.]

“You can’t imagine.  They came
By the wood path
And the earth loosened, the
Earth
Relaxed, there were
Flowers
Out of the earth! Think of it!’

Goddess is expansive in Her generative invitation to transform. I see this in the shedding of the old at winter and like the Earth, herself, in the loosening and relaxing into the birth of Spring. This resurrection through nature is more than the ‘born again’ that is taught within holidays like Easter. It is instead, what means to be born within. It is the holiness of what it means to be complete unto ourselves. When I think of Goddess, I am speaking beyond the liminal space of one deity form and beyond the container that holds named praxis. Here in this space, we are greater than the sum of Pagan, Polytheist, Heathen, Monist, and even Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or more. Here the Earth is loosened, and simply, we are one with the flowers.

‘And oak trees
Oozing new green at the tips of
Them and flowers
Squeezed out of clay, soft
Flowers, limp
Stalks flowering.  Well, it was like
A dream.’

As the Earth forms anew right now,  the clay is ripe with possibility, with radical transformation, inspiration, and even hope. The hope that welcomes all women as reflection of the Goddess. The inspiration to manifest the life you want to live and the transformation to look at the Earth as sacred, right now.

[Photo by J.Pitzl]

The Earth never lies. From even the most harrowing chaos and destruction, even when caused by Earth, She always regenerates. Spring is Her Promise. Whatever is planted, if nurtured, will bloom. From the limp, there will be stalking flowers. And I can see the tips of this dream in this perfect moment. We stand at the precipice of change. How will you answer?

MacLeish’s poem ends…

“It happened so quickly, all of a
Sudden
It happened.”

It’s happening right now. So quickly. Goddess has been here, at the doorstep inviting all into the wholeness of holy, complete and unbroken; Into the dream, alongside the earth, and it is wonderful!

[Photo Credit: H. Greene]

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1. Collected poems, 1917-1982 Archibald MacLeish – Houghton Mifflin – 1985

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