Goddess in my grandmother’s beauty salon

I truly believe that the Sacred Feminine has been with us for as long as women have come together, even during times when no one spoke of Her or called Her by Her true name.  Here is a story from my past that I think express how She has always been present.

In a beauty parlor in Montgomery, Alabama

When I was young, in the mid-60s, I would go to my grandparents in Montgomery, Alabama for some time in the summer. Each week my grandmother would take me along with her to get her hair done in a beauty parlor down the street. I would listen as the women would talk over everything but even then I realized that what they were really doing was celebrating themselves as women together. They may have said they were doing their hair for their husbands, but their husbands never really noticed. It was really for themselves and each other. This was their way of having time alone with other women in a place that was completely woman-centered. It was their way of feeling good about their physical being in a place and time when women and their bodies were not taken seriously. It was the mid-20th century version of women gathering at ancient temples to honor the old Goddesses and themselves.    

Carolyn Lee Boyd's avatar

By Carolyn Lee Boyd

Carolyn Lee Boyd has been writing about the sacred in everyday life and the wisdom of being in community for over 40 years. She has published fiction, essays, and poetry about feminism, women’s spirituality, and art in print and online periodicals including Women Artists News, SageWoman, Feminism and Religion, Return to Mago, Matrifocus, The Beltane Papers, We’ Moon, and more. Her work is seasoned by her decades-long human services career in which she got to know the life stories of a diversity of extraordinary “ordinary” women. She would love for you to visit her at her website, www.goddessinateapot.com, where you can read and download some of her previously published work as well as a little music.

Leave a comment