A Rose By Any Other Name...

Wherever the goddess was, beauty was.
Beauty flowed out from her like water,
like the light blue gown she wore, the gown
that carried the sweet smell of her presence
that hung as heavy as incense in the air.
Beauty flowed from her, like her thick gold hair
that spread out over her broad shoulders,
beautyflowed out from her like light,
radiating the brightness of lightning,
beauty blazing through the world,
wherever the goddess was.

--Homeric hymn to Demeter

We do not need to know how old the goddess is, how tall, how light or heavy. We cannot trap the goddess in such ways. If we were to specify the perfection, the exact type of beauty that we sought from here, we would limit her to our merely human imaginings.

See... it comes back to the whole, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' statement really... but according to the text of today's meditation - and to my way of thinkingthat should be that it is in the heart of the beholder, and not the eye. You can look on something with a stunning aesthetic beauty and still not be moved by it in the same way that you would be by something that touches your heart - the difference is love and the capacity to love that something which you see. That was the point of the rest of the text of the meditation... but as I sat thinking, contemplating I had to ask myself - if the difference is love, then should not all things be beautiful to someone with love in their hearts? It is extreme, maybe, but if the difference is love, and one looks on everything with love in ones heart, then by that argument everything is beautiful.

But we are human and imperfect... we don't live the life of 'saints and prophets' who are able to live that kind of existence. Even when we strive to live a peaceful and loving life, it's hard to view some things in the light of love, and therefore to see them as beautiful. We feel other things instead, things that are not always appropriate, like pity - or sorrow - of regret or something.

It's like this... I remember once walking in on my grandparents - yes... in a compromising positon. I was young at the time and was horrified. "Old people don't do that... ewwww - gross!" Now, years on - I can look back on it and actually see it for a thing of beauty. How much my grandparents must have loved one another, expressed that love and togetherness even after all of their years together. Younger people, yes - you expect them to sneak away for moments of passion together, but the older, slower and wiser of 'we humans' not so much - for them to have done so - wow... what love.

Perhaps that's another thing - as we get 'older' and wiser, we are able to see the beauty in things that much easier? I'm not certain on that - it's just a thought.

So if the key to beauty is love - what about the bigots and the haters? What does their world look like? All shade of grey, and darkness, perhaps with light and beauty coming only in their own images?

And what do we mean by 'ugly'? We can say to someone, 'that was an ugly thing to say,' or 'that was an ugly thing to do.' Do we really mean something like, 'there was no love in the words you just spoke.' or 'what you did showed no love in your actions'?

One of these days I'm going to sit down and make a study of the ways in which we use the word 'love...' and what we really mean by it.

Proof of the Divine

At the world's beginning
there was a mother.
All beginnings partake
of that mother's energy.

To know this world,
first know the mother.
Then, go forth and learn
to know the world.

Then go back to her. Go back
and hold fast to her.
Hold fast to the mother, and
you will never be in danger.

--Chinese Tao te Ching

Studying this world and studying ourselves, is the only way we can truly learn to know the goddess... We ourselves participate in the divine fminine. Whether make or female, we each hold her within ourselves.

Seeing the divine, and particularly the divine feminine in the world around us seems to me to be an easy thing to do. It's in the creativity of nature... the cyclical turn of the year - female things seem to me to be circular - and of course in the waxing and waning of the moon, long held as a manifestation of the Goddess. I've been thinking about this all day - for some stupid reason, even though I was exhausted when I went to bed, I didn't sleep very well, and woke up way too early - as I've been doing my chores around the house, cleaning, laundry, listening to the songs of the birds and the laughter of children outside, it all speaks to me of the presence of the goddess.

Seeing the divine in ourselves, divine feminine or divine masculine, it doesn't really matter which - is by far the harder. Beyond the obvious times, when we as women bleed or breed, (sorry to put it that way, but - well no actually, I'm not. Live with it), in what ways can we exersise that creativity and love which, to me, is revealing of the presence of the divine within? Is it in the reflection we see in others?

I spoke, some time ago now about a necklace that Mir gave me, with a heart on it, only partly covered with little red gems, the other heart just the precious metal of the mount. She gave it to me saying 'Half my heart to make yours whole' which, for those of you that knows the Movie Dragonheart, you'll know that's where it came from. In this case, not a dragon's heart to make mine whole, but the heart of my love... who holds a half of mine in trust in return. Together we are whole; one... god and goddess, male and female - together. Yesterday, and still today, I feel this. I mean, I feel it all the time, there inside of me, wrapped around me, shielding me and giving me the strength to go through my day. Yesterday though it was close to the surface, and brought closer still by some incredibly romantic words, and deeds and thoughts that my wonderful guy gave me... gave to the world really. I read them, yesterday and today and am moved to tears by their depth, their verity and just by the way then make me feel. There is divinity, right there, in that love... given and reflected.

So if you don't like the way you look, the size of your nose, the cut and colour of your hair - whatever it is that you think is 'wrong' with you, that makes you feel less than worthy, less than divine - only remember that. Remember love.