My Mother the Goddess

The Earth is often given a female pronoun. She sustains us. Take care of her. Mother Earth. We are intimately acquainted with earth; the beauty of it along with the ugly, gritty parts.

Conversely, God is broadly seen as being male. The man in the sky. Our Heavenly Father. He is God of the Universe, all powerful and mysterious. What we don't understand is so much easier to mystify and aggrandize. And it goes without saying that religion, which seeks to define an other worldly divine, has been dominated by men.

But think of astronauts who upon looking down at Earth for the first time are moved to reverence by seeing our planet from a distance. From that perspective, a "Mother Earth" isn't less than a "Man in the Sky", because she is part of that "sky". She is another bit of wonder within the universe, a miracle as much as anything else. It's only our being so close to her that has caused us to take her for granted.

It's all perspective. My feelings about bearing and raising children became more positive once I completely swept the patriarchy cob-webs from my mind. Every patriarchy loves motherhood, but they value it to the point of excluding women's other strengths and individual desires. Under that paradigm, my view of motherhood was tainted. I needed a change of perspective.

More perspective came when I had my own children and realized what my Mother did for me.

When I threw up several times a day during pregnancy; my mother did this.
When I woke in the night just to make sure my baby was breathing; my mother did this.
When I gained lots of weight, got stretch marks all over my previously perfect skin; my mother did this.
When I had to clean poop or vomit from floor or crib; my mother did this.
When I anguished over how my inevitable faults and weaknesses would likely hurt my children; my mother did this.
When I cried that I could not spare them the pain of being teased or left out; my mother did this.
When I was exhausted and hassled beyond my limit and felt like my life was a black hole of servitude to children; my mother did this.

And then you know. You know you know nothing. You knew nothing. And you still have so much more to learn. But even in your not knowing, you are more wise than you ever have been.

In gaining this perspective, much like that astronaut looking down on Earth, you come to feel more reverence for your mother. Hopefully you have more patience for yourself too. Hopefully you can see how special you are despite the hard times and despite your faults.

It's hard to see Motherhood as being glorious and beautiful in the day to day grind. But remember that astronaut's perspective. You are a Goddess, and taken as a whole, you are awesome.

To my Mother: You are my beautiful Goddess. My mama Earth. Love you.



"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts."
- Washington Irving

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Rain is for Romance

Maybe it's a side effect of living in the desert that I adore a good rain storm. I love waking up to it in the morning, like I did today. It makes me want to write romance.


Best romantic scene in book or film. So perfect.

And I got to thinking as I was driving Jack to school how I've always loved romance. Books without any romance bore me. Writing without romance feels unnatural to me, and most of my writing has been romance driven. But as a feminist, I can't help but be a little bit ashamed of that. Can I be a hopeless romantic writer and a feminist at the same time?


Where's cat?

When I was growing up, falling in love seemed like the pinnacle of life experience. And then it happened, and I was sort of like, ok, now what? It's quickly apparent that there is a lot more to life than the dude by your side. Sure, he's very important, but he is not the whole of your story either. Your story doesn't end at "I do" like it does in a Disney princess movie. And I hope I can write romance without selling my female characters short on the wholeness of their personhood.



But even as I have had to learn the hard way that a woman's story will be so much more than the man she falls for, I still adore a good romance. A good one can still give me butterflies, or those bittersweet heart pangs.

I'm listening to this rain outside my window and thinking of all the dramatic, tension filled scenes I've ever seen in a movie that involved rain. I had lots more songs and pictures I could've used to illustrate this point. (I left out a shirtless Jacob in the rain, sorry.) Wet weather is an easy way to add drama to any scene. It is cliché and over used, but I don't even care, because I love it. I want to write romance today. Stormy eyes that match stormy weather. Dramatic statements punctuated by lightening. Kisses that are rain wet. Broken hearts under the deluge. Mmmmm, yummy.

Forgive me, feminism. But the rain just feels so good.

I'm not crying, it's just been raining on my face.

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Why I Won't Shop at Victoria's Secret

Warning: if you are a conservative dude (or my Dad) this post might make you blush. There be mention of boobies here. Also, this is not intended to be a condemnation of those that do shop at Victoria's Secret, but rather a critique of some deeper issues the store presents according to my perceptions.

I used to shop at Victoria's Secret quite a bit. It was my go-to place for intimate apparel. I liked the yummy smelling lotions and pink and white striped walls. It lured me in with its girly mystique. Just walking out of the store with that distinctive pink and black bag made me feel like I was announcing to all the other mall patrons that I was one sexy vixen. Rawr!

Before I got married, I had, or so I was told by other females, a nice sized rack. (I am totally not trying to brag here, I consider big boobs a curse.) I didn't need the extreme pusher upper bras, or the heavily padded ones, and I noticed it was hard to find ones that weren't like that at Victoria's Secret. Early on, I suspected they weren't entirely catering to a truly curvy girl.

Then I got pregnant and my boobs went from "nice" to "damn, girl!" I went to Victoria Secrets to get a new bra only to learn I was suddenly outside their size range. Kind of a crushing realization. It made me feel like I was now outside the bracket of what was deemed appropriately sexy. You think those Victoria's Secret angels are big, until you yourself are bigger, and then they look like 15 year old girls arching their backs in desperation to make their boobs look more prominent.

Now that I was outside of Victoria's Secret looking in, I began to see it in a different light. The commercials with the heart pounding music and mouth agape girls. The oversized posters of size 0 models in the store windows, head titled back, tousled bedroom hair, hooded vacant eyes. All that pink. All those teeny little bra's designed to make their wearers look 2 times bigger.

It hit me. Victoria's secret is that she isn't for women. She's for men. To me, the store is designed to sell us an illusion of what sexy is and should be. Sexual availability and big boobs (but only big in proportion to a skinny girl) are what they market. It's sexiness from a male's point of view. Which is the only pov we ought to care about when dressing in our intimates, apparently. Comfort, and a well-made, supportive bra are secondary to buying the idea that we are sexually appealing to a man.

I am not saying that desiring to be, feel, or look sexy is bad. I'm saying that message that our sexiness is set by a male standard is ultimately going to make us feel insecure, thus driving us to stores like Victoria Secret to buy their cure for what we supposedly lack. We are buying into the idea that our enjoyment of sex is based primarily on whether or not the man is enjoying it. His pleasure is the priority.

Really, this isn't even so much about Victoria's Secret. That I won't shop there anymore is just my expression of learning to put myself first; above what culture tells me I should be. My value does not lie in being a sexual object to a man. No woman should feel that way.

It reminds me of several years ago, when at an early morning ballroom dance practice, I joked to the people around me that I hadn't shaved my legs that day. I must've felt self conscious and was using humor to deflect. This was after I had married Greg, and a young man standing near me made the comment that most women after marriage let themselves go in that way.

This hurt and angered me. The idea that not shaving my legs was letting myself go rankled. Let myself go according to who? Him? That because I'd landed a man I must not care about pleasing men any more, and not pleasing men amounts to letting yourself go? In that boys eyes, I was of less value not only because I was off the market, but because I wasn't pandering to his idea of what a woman should do with her body.

And the worst part is that it got it to me. That feeling that I had to continually fulfill those standards in order to be relevant.

With time, and mounting impatience with the womanly check list, you come to ask yourself, does this make ME happy? Examine whether or not your answers are based on what is best for you, or if they're based on an appeal to a male's pov. Some of us may not even know how to separate the two. It took me a while to figure that out for myself.

Women are all too often shoving our feet into uncomfortable shoes, propping our boobs up higher, ripping our hair out in the most sensitive of places, wearing uncomfortable clothes, constantly fighting and battling our bodies. We are measuring our happiness, our worth, and our pleasure, by his.

And I say: screw it.

If you have to torture and fight your body for any man's attention, he's a douche.

If telling him you shop at Victoria's Secret makes his eyes light up, he's been sold a bill of goods, and so have you.

As for me, I have discovered bra's made with me only in mind. Bra's that make me feel like a woman, not a preening little girl angling for a boys attention. Chantelle is a brand I love. They are pretty and feminine and well made. They aren't sold in bright pink shops be-decked with 20 year olds in angel wings, but I can happily live without that. As they say, all that glitters is not gold. Sometimes the glitter is just a gilded cage.

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Easter 2012

Birds are chirping outside of my window and I'm eating sweet-tarts in the shape of bunnies. It must be Easter!

Did you know the eggs and chocolate bunnies in your kids Easter basket are symbols for a pagan Goddess of fertility and rebirth named Eostre? Isn't the feminine divine delicious? You know anything involving a lady would probably involve chocolate.

So I will join with all my religious friends today and say, YES. Let's remember the real reasons we celebrate this holiday. And let's not forget to include the feminine aspects of it that Christianity has successfully overshadowed and over taken. And I say that not to condemn, but to add a reality check to the situation. People have their own reasons and interpretations of every holiday, and that's ok. They don't have to celebrate for the exact same reason you do.

The greater point is that we celebrate at all. We gather together. We have a good time. We greet the arrival of warmer weather and things turning green. However we do that, and whatever the details of beliefs in our head, it is a beautiful part of humanity.

Happy Easter, Namaste, xoxoxo

A post I wrote about the Goddess Ostara, in case you're interested.

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Spring Rituals

Recently while Greg and I were working in the garden, prepping for spring, he mentioned that maybe yard work could be our Sunday activity. A little church time of our own making. I could not love that idea more. There is something meditative and satisfying about nurturing life. Feeling connected to the cycles of the season, encouraging bloom and growth. It's a communion all its own. I believe we can create our own rituals that edify us spiritually. We don't need "official" sources. Do what makes you bloom.

Here's a poem I love.

Catechism for a Witch's Child

When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling
streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drink
a holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being

© 1986 J.L.Stanley

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