Culture Blogs
As a Goddess-centric Witch, I am always looking for new ways to connect with the myriad of global goddesses. Even though I know that I can have powerful relationships with different goddesses from the comfort of my home, I’ve also got a bit of a travel bug, so when I am wandering in new places, I try to hold myself open to spiritual experience and divine intervention. Sometimes, though, I only realize how magical the experience was after the fact. I'll be exploring these different experiences and goddesses on this blog.
Western Waters
Sometimes, I can't sense a particular goddess's energy in the places I travel, even when they are palpably sacred. And sometimes, no matter how much I yearn for the feminine energy, the locations pulse with masculinity that can't be ignored. One particular place that sticks in my mind is Lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, where I've had the good fortune to spend snatches of summers here and there with my husband (a west coaster by birth). Since I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today, I thought I'd share a poem with you that I wrote years ago, upon my first experience at that magical lake.
WEST
This is certainly not the fairy grove
where Bottom made an ass of himself:
the energy here has no time for
prancing fairies and their queen
there is a rawness, a ruggedness
about this place that
can only be described
as male
but that’s not quite right, either
beyond man, perhaps,
is a better way of trying to explain
the sounds of the lake water
constantly setting the rhythm,
the sharp scent of the tall and sometimes scraggly
pine trees,
the insistent prick of the needles underfoot:
this is not a place
to be barefoot,
and yet I find that I cannot help myself.
I know the dancing sprites
will not keep their revels here
tonight,
and I know
that the raw rocky earth
laughs at me,
wandering without shoes,
trying not to step in sap or on sharp stone
Every pain is a reminder
that this is not a gentle place,
not a soft place,
but a place of sacred beauty,
nonetheless.
(Originally published in The Petigrew Review, 2011, Volume 5)
Comments
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Wednesday, 01 April 2015
That's actually a really great question. For me, I usually trust my instincts/knowledge of a place, but then again, I'm predisposed to seek feminine energy, not masculine. Sometimes I already know a god or goddess is associated with a place, so I go there assuming to connect with that particular energy. Sorry I don't have a more direct answer!
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Thursday, 02 April 2015So it's one of those "I know it when I see (feel) it" sort of things? I think that's basically how it is for me, too, but I'm conscious that it can be difficult to distinguish that from projecting our own assumptions on an entity that they may not apply to at all.
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Thursday, 02 April 2015
Fair point! However, I'm okay with that, since I feel like any understanding I have of an entity/force of the universe falls woefully short of the reality, but even if I project my assumptions (and I probably do), I have a place to begin a relationship.
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I'm curious - how do you determine whether any given energies are masculine or feminine? I've been wondering about this myself lately, because I don't really know of any qualities that are unique to men or unique to women.