Goddessing

On March 15, scientists announced the discovery of a planet/planetoid they're thinking about naming Sedna, after an Inuit goddess. I naturally (and enthusiastically) posted this to my Goddess Religion in the News feature, and have since participated in some fun and wide-ranging online and offline discussions about the planet, the Goddess, and more.

From a myth, religion, and spirituality perspective, I like Joanna Powell Colbert's blog, Sedna swims up from the deep into global consciousness.

She roots the celestial Sedna in Native American culture and myth, hints at astrological possiblities, explores personal, ecological and cultural aspects of the archetype, and offers an invocation / prayer / affirmation at the end that I find useful and inspiring as a way to honor and embody this phenomenon / consciousness / deity in my spiritual practice.

When I drum at tonight's Spring Equinox Celebration, I'll be honoring Sedna, carrying Her in my heart, and praying that She restore balance and harmony to us as we enter this new season.

Thanks Joanna!

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My partner announced in early January that it was my turn to be chief cook.

Yikes!

We'd both been sous-chefs in our previous relationships. When we started cooking for each other, well...at first it was a pitiful adventure but soon she pulled ahead as the creative, competent and consistent one. So voila! She became chief cook and I've been sous-chef ever since. And so it went.

When she stated that things were changing, after all these many years, I agreed to her pronouncement -- partly because she's usually not a pronouncement kind of a partner, and partly because, well, fair is fair. It helped that she explained herself. Her goal was to be more conscious at home in the evening after work, to enjoy our time together more. How could I have a beef with that program?

So we struck a deal. I'd be chief cook if she'd advise me, tell me what to put with what and how to cook and season it. You see, I just don't have an imagination for cooking, and not much imagination for food in general. (Well, I do like barbeque ribs....) I can't answer the basic question "What do you want to have for dinner?" unless I'm hungry. The thinking-creatively-about-food part of my brain is just deficient.

Or so I thought.

Last night, she called from work just before leaving and said, "What about dinner?"

Immediately, baked potatoes flashed into my head. Yes -- flashed! Weird, because I wasn't hungry yet, and even when hungry I never think of baked potatoes.

So, she made a quick stop at the Piggly Wiggly and by the time she came home I had turkey bacon crisping in the frying pan (for the potatoes) and had pulled out of the fridge the following:

ginger
three heads of bok choy
four pieces of celery
one red bell pepper
snow peas
one apple
one lemon
Umi Plum Vinegar

I stuck the potatoes in the microwave for nine minutes, and then into the oven for 20 minutes, and started my...I don't think I can call it a stir-fry because I did it on a low heat and I think stir-fry is over high heat, but what do I know, really?

In any case, a little canola oil and minced ginger with chopped celery & pepper, snow peas, slices of apple and the juice of a whole lemon simmering in them, and finally, bok choy and a generous splash of Umi Plum vinegar added at the end...created a really yummy veggie dish to go with the potatoes. Each piece had a unique taste, and together they were a taste-bud medley. At first I thought I had put in too much lemon, but eventually I decided the lemon was just right.

I'm gonna try that one again.


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Living forever in one body is not as creative as reincarnation.... ~Mellen-Thomas Benedict

Now that's a cool quote, if I've ever seen one, but much of the web article about M-TB is quotable, and cool. He died of terminal cancer in 1982 and after an hour and a half, revived. During that time, he went into the light and explored the universe. I've read some NDE literature, but its never been a major topic of exploration. I've always been more fascinated about the "here and now" than the "there and then."

But something's shifting.

It could be that I'm 50 and having intimations of mortality. Pause. Yes, it could be that.

Maybe it's serendipity...coming across two articles in a few days' span that have ignited something in me (Contemplative Spiritual Formation -- 3/11 blog -- and the above-referenced article about M-TB).

Or maybe my thinking and being are evolving, growing in a new direction. Pause. Yes, it could be that.

We are the most beautiful creations. The human soul, the human matrix that we all make together is absolutely fantastic, elegant, exotic, everything. I just cannot say enough about how it changed my opinion of human beings in that instant. (M-TB)

Certainly one of the things I find the most fascinating about M-TB's experiences is that they reflect major pieces of my cosmology, arrived at from my near-life experience(s):

• we all have a Higher Self, a direct connection to the Source


• all Higher Selves are connected, as are their humans, so we are all one Being, "different aspects of one Being," a mandala of souls


• we can transcend truth, find profound stillness beyond all silence, be one with absolute life and consciousness


• the Big Bang is only one of an infinite number of Big Bangs, creating universes infinitely


• the "void" is not a void but absolute consciousness, full of energy -- chaos from which all possibilities form


• the "reality" of the mystics looks like the "reality" of the new scientists


• God/dess is "in here" (and "out there" too, because we acknowledge that we are individual parts of a greater whole)


• everything is alive, everything is intelligent


• "we are part of a natural living system that recycles itself endlessly"

But what I didn't expect was this:

The mystery of life has very little to do with intelligence. The universe is not an intellectual process at all. The intellect is helpful; it is brilliant, but right now that is all we process with, instead of our hearts and the wiser part of ourselves. (M-TB)

Loving is more important than knowing? It's the heart, stupid.

I've been thinking of Goddess as "the mind of nature" since the late 1980s when I saw the video, From the Heart of the World: Elder Brother Speaks-- been fascinated with and awed by the incredible intelligence of the self-creating universe. And now this? The mystery of life has very little to do with intelligence?

My friends who've studied NDE say that folks consistently come back from the other side with this info: what we're here for is to love and to learn. MT-B goes a step further, stipulating love over learning:

What all people seek, what sustains them, is love, the light told me. What distorts people is a lack of love.

Loving, learning ... heart/intellect ... Ok, they're both important. But is this dualism, a polarity, an either/or?

Stay tuned.

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