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Huracán was the supreme Taíno god, said Mr. Colón, my history teacher.

As a ten-year-old student, I did not control my enthusiasm:

No, I replied, it was Atabeyra.

What! Mr. Colón shouted, as he hit his desk with a ruler. 

Silence crept into the room like a mouse during siesta time.  

Every child in class seemed to stop breathing.  Suddenly, I felt my face turning red. 

Ruler in hand, Mr. Colón slowly walked toward my seat: What, he repeated as he reached me.

It all begins with Earth.

Recently, at the Summerland Spirit gathering, I spent a day in walking meditation, fasting, naked, covered with ash. I'd suspected beforehand that I might be bored. Nothing could have been further from the truth. That day was the busiest I've spent in a long time. They say that the naked ascetic sitting beneath the tree has fought and won more battles than the bravest warrior.

So there I was, sitting under a white oak in the mid-afternoon heat, reeling with the concept: Goddess Earth.

The year's first favas are in, thank Goddess. It really must be spring.

Vicia faba. Broad beans. Horse beans. Windsor beans. Under their many names, they are the Original Bean, one of humanity's very oldest cultigens; we've been eating them for the past 12,000 years or so, since the end of the last Ice Age. They're the Old World's only true beans, the ones Jack sold the cow for; all the rest, incredibly, come from the New World. Fava beans.

Once long ago, they say, on the southern Mediterranean island of Gozo there lived a Giantess. One day she decided to build two houses: one for herself, and one for her daughter. She carried her daughter on her hip and the stones—I've seen them myself, and many are as big as automobiles—on her head. From these she built two beautiful big houses, one for herself, and one for her daughter. How did she manage to heft such massive stones? Well, she ate magical fava beans, of course, which gave her magical strength.

Then there came a terrible drought, and the crop of favas failed. The hungry Giantess (and presumably her daughter as well) sank down into the Earth. They are there still.

      "A goddess!" I exclaimed, as I approached a large rounded feminine figure in the National Museum of Ethiopia.

      "No!" A man's voice echoed throughout the room.

   When he noticed people's glances upon him, the museum guide lowered his voice: "That piece is a very, very old", he said hesitantly.  "It is pagan.  She comes from the Oromo people, the largest ethnic group here in Ethiopia."

   I could not peel my eyes off the figure.  The unexpected discovery piqued my interest.

  "Does she have a name?" I asked hopefully.

   Instead of answering my question, the guide told me about Ethiopia's most famous woman:

I recently wrote about what it meant to priest for the Goddess. In it I quoted, noted Buddhist roshi, Pat Enkyo O'Hara, who once said, "When asked of all the wisdom traditions why Zen, I said, because I live a life of Zen."  In a reframe, I suggested that I live a life of Goddess. Many have messaged me to clarify what I mean by that?

Goddess is the everyday constant in my life. She is the immanent divine within me, around me, the all and the vast nothing; but also the transcendent manifestation standing before me. She is the totality of my life experiences, regardless of circumstance, and I manifest the life I have in Her service because She is worship for me. I confess worship is one of my favorite words. When I was growing up my grandmother would say, “Worship is a verb!” Meaning that there was more to being a Christian than just showing up on Sunday morning or worse, just at Christmas and Easter! She was not wrong, as worship is in fact both a noun and a verb.  But what is worship? 'Worship is the action of religious devotion often directed towards a deity."