12/15/2024
December 15th Message from Doctor. Rev. Benton:
Wild Soul of the Mother
https://youtu.be/-Z-QUx493jA
Gliese 581c
The opening music entitled, Gliese 581c was written and performed in honor of the planet in a neighboring solar system that was discovered in 2007. The otherworldly music brought to mind the Star Goddess of the following:
Hear the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of Whose feet are the hosts of Heaven, whose body encircles the universe:
I Who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters,
I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.
From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.
Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.
Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.
The opening words were written by Doreen Valiente and adapted by Starhawk. Entitled Charge of the Goddess, it is used in the Wiccan tradition, often at the beginning of a ritual. The ritual of the Winter Solstice is coming up…a time in which the darkness is honored, as is the coming of the light…the fire.
When the Night
https://youtu.be/NNNsgtaDgWc
Starhawk reminds us that the darkest hour comes just before dawn. She explains that the Winter Solstice ritual honors the fertile, transformative darkness. She says that this darkness holds the seeds of possibility, courage, and renewal.
Starhawk reports that she, like many of us, is feeling rage and dread about the future of our country and our world. She says that we need the promise inherent in the deep magic of Winter Solstice. She is certain that the wheel of life always turns and that the light will be reborn from the womb of Mother Night…the womb of the Goddess. I want to believe this…I want to be as certain as Starhawk that our world is in the hands of the Goddess.
Another person who was certain of the reliability and centrality of the wheel of life was mystic, poet and artist, M.C. Richards. She was a potter who worked for many years on the potter’s wheel. She came to believe that life was like this wheel…with a center from which creativity emanated. She even likened the turning of the wheel…the work of the potter, to the rhythm of our breath. She wrote:
The rhythms of work seem to be the natural rhythms of life: they seem to go by polarities which swing around the unmoving center: the very rhythms of our breathing are the dialogue of inner and outer.
This dialogue connects us, she says to the life-power of the universe.
When the sense of life in the individual is in touch with the life-power of the universe, is turning with it, one senses oneself as potentially whole.
I was meditating on the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe this past week. In her book, Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul, author Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes that this Lady first appeared to a 14-year-old Aztec boy in Mexico facing the marauding Christian Spaniards in the year 1531. This visitation by the mother of Jesus had far-reaching and powerful effects for the Mexican people. It is said that the Virgin of Guadalupe played an important role during Mexico’s revolt against Spanish rule in 1810 and at other times throughout history. Estes says that Our Lady of Guadalupe is ‘not just here or there, but everywhere. One can never live outside her domicile’. She says that this Lady is a symbol of resistance and healing and renewal of love among devastated peoples. The following words have been attributed to the Goddess:
Have you forgotten?
I am your mother.
You are not alone.
You are under my protection.
Anything you need,
ask me.
Do not worry about anything.
Am I not here—
I who am your mother?
Have you forgotten?
I love you, and
you are under my protection.
These are profoundly comforting words from Our Lady. Who cannot relate to the loving, caring presence of the mother. Of course, our own mothers may not have measured up, but I believe that they wanted to. This is the kernel of the divine in each one of us that is capable of healing and love…capable of working against the powers of hatred, injustice and devastation in the world. We want to protect those that we love, and sometimes we can do it…with the help of the Goddess. We are indeed not alone.
Of course, we are also honoring this Goddess this month in the form of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote of her in his moving poetry…
Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere…
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race…
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee…
This universal, all-encompassing vision of the Goddess is powerful. We are wound with mercy round and round. We are nestled by her wild air everywhere and her wild web mantles the guilty globe. If we had been thinking of Mary in a sentimental, sanitized way, Hopkins has set us straight. She is integral to the workings of compassion, healing, and justice making…as pointed out by Clarissa Pinkola Estes…
Holy Mother is Compassion personified.
She is joy-centric and sorrow-mending…
She appears to all. All. Like the sun shines on all…..
She is the fierce Revolutionary who carries infinitely tender love.
Thereby, she is ours, and we are hers.
She reminds us that Our Lady of Guadalupe and Mary, the mother of Jesus are one and the same. She is joy-centric and sorrow mending…she is the fierce revolutionary…and she is available to us all. May we welcome her to our guilty globe.
https://youtu.be/D7mVSwPmlh4
'Gliese 581c' by Emily Doolittle performed live by pianist Rachel Kiyo IwaasaPresented by Music on Mainhttp://www.musiconmain.ca/Filmed Live Thursday, Decemb...
