REFLECTIONS ON WHY WORSHIP THE GODDESS
I listened to an initial video of the School of Goddess Shamanism https://www.goddessshaman.com/ because one of the primaries in this new school is a Jewish shamaness who teaches at https://www.hebrewshaman.com/#/ and has been spending the past years really doing her homework about the Goddess in ancient Judaism and making it live in our contemporary world.
I felt a little bit like a voyeur because I’m a guy and the Goddess Shamanism school seems solely oriented towards women. I’m completely fine with a woman only approach to the Goddess—it’s going to be mainly women who are interested, having a women only group creates a different dynamic than a mixed group would and it might well feel safer for the women in the group. The female only orientation and the shamanic journeying we did as part of the initial video led me to want to articulate some of why I am interested in reclaiming Jewish Goddess worship. These comments are not meant in any way to cover all possibilities, just the ones that are top of mind for me.
Goddess worship should function as a counterbalance to the excess of male energy that is characteristic of our modern world. Really excess male energy is generally characteristic of patriarchy in indigenous cultures and throughout human history in general—all one has to do is read the Hebrew Bible to understand the excess of male energy—and it is particularly present in modernity. As a culture, we need to be less aggressive, less committed to domination and inequality, less committed to winning at the expense of the other. Goddess worship can address this.
Goddess worship can help us be more nurturing. Culturally we need to be more nurturing both of other humans and of other beings whom we have the ability to exploit, such as the land, domesticated animals such as cows, domesticated plants such as corn and ecosystems as a whole that we can destroy. Personally, I feel much better about myself when I nurture with a more female energy than when I nurture in a male energy way. What’s the difference? I tend to think of male nurturing energy as focused on responsibilities. For instance, I feel nurtured by the guy who succeeded me in my business because I know that he takes care of things in a way that feels comfortable to me. But it’s just not the same as when I nurtured my cows on the farm or when I deeply listen to someone and put myself aside. That’s because I didn’t relate to taking care of my cows as a responsibility but a privilege (though other farm chores I related to as a responsibility). It’s not that one kind of nurturing is better than another. I don’t believe that nurturing belongs exclusively to female energy, but female energy nurturing feels really different to me than male energy nurturing. I think our world needs more female energy nurturing, I need to nurture more accessing female energy and oh boy, I’d love to experience more female energy nurturing. I think Goddess worship helps open that door.
Goddess worship can help us be more connected to the earth. We call her mother earth for a reason. Our connection to the earth is an existential issue for humanity, because we are busy defecating in our own bed in our actions that harm the earth. On a personal level, that sense of disconnection is so easily available and whatever I can do to feel connected is worth doing. Goddess worship helps be connected.
Goddess worship can help us listen to and trust our intuition. Our contemporary ways of knowing are too left brained, too male, too discounting of other ways of knowing. We need to learn to listen really deeply to ourselves, to each other, to the earth. That is a female energy way of knowing. Goddess worship helps us trust our intuition.
I’m sure there is more, but this is a starting point for why I, as a guy, am interested in worshipping the Goddess.
