Ancient myths and stories about goddesses and spiritually powerful women have much guidance to offer us all in these challenging times. By bringing these stories to light and exploring what they have to say to us, we can help infuse their wisdom into our present and future in two ways. They can give us the perspective and inner strength to envision the best future and work hard to make it happen. By incorporating their messages into how we think, we create the inner changes in ourselves and others that will be the basis for the kind of world we are striving for.
Here are some myths and stories I have found to be especially meaningful. What myths and stories speak to you?
Myths and stories can help us identify and draw on our own strength and power that is already within us.
Some years ago I was treated for cancer. Two myths helped me find the strength within myself to thrive instead of just survive, and also to show me my own sovereignty. Read more about them below:
Survivorship to Thrivorship in Sedna’s Ocean
Seeking Our Sovereignty in the Land of the Dead: A Journey with Inanna
Stories about goddesses who demanded change by turning the Earth into a wasteland when their rules are not followed showed me how to be bold when the times require it. We are definitely living in such a time.
Goddess myths and stories can help us overcome what is holding us back from our spiritual strength and power.
Learn what I found out when I “danced with Kali”! This happened at a “Goddess Camp” in New Hampshire many years ago. After having dinner, everyone had to go through the woods to get to the evening ritual. We were all met in a clearing by a camp organizer (I assume!) dressed very convincingly as Kali who forced us all to figure out how to get past her. Some voice inside said that I needed to “dance” with her, and I did, and got safely past the clearing. Our whole lives are spent “dancing with Kali,” living in uncertainty and the knowledge of our own impermanence on this Earth. Experiencing a renewed sense of urgency and finding inspiration in the adventure this brings to life can make what we do that much more meaningful, fun, and effective.
Dancing with Kali Gets Us to the Other Side
Goddess myths and stories can help us see how we are already deeply connected to the infinite sacredness of the world.
My grandmother first taught me to find the Divine in nature. She bought a number of acres of woodland near a large lake where our family vacationed to turn into her own nature preserve where the trees would not be clearcut for lumber and the animals were safe from hunters. It was at this vacation spot that I first felt deeply connected to nature as a young child, and later recognized this as my bond to the goddess Mother Earth. I have ever since associated large bodies of water with the creative force of all life.
Our Souls Between Earth and Sea
These myths and stories can help us see everyday places in our lives as sacred.
I found out when I was very ill that the small actions in life can be the most meaningful. Even when I was too tired from chemotherapy to do so, I always insisted on going to the supermarket with my family, though sometimes I had to sit on the floor in the middle of an aisle to rest. This story brings the sacredness of all those everyday places into consciousness by placing an ancient mystery there.
Buying Pomegranates in Demeter’s Supermarket
I lived in New York City in my 20s and always had the belief, for no apparent reason, that it was the Beautiful City, a mystical place where miracles happened and where I would always be safe, protected by what I now recognize as the Spirit of the Land. I lived in the East Village, the only place I ever wanted to live when there, for six years without ever coming to harm, so maybe it was true. The only clue I’ve ever had as to why I felt so bonded to New York City and the East Village was that there was once a Lenni Lenape village near the East Village. A branch of my family is Lenni Lenape from New Jersey. Perhaps I had ancestors who had a wonderful life in that village and wanted to share it with me some 400 or more years later.
This story, about an urban garden in a forgotten part of a city, comes from my memories of life in the East Village in the 1980s.
The Blue Lotus and the Butterfly
Myths and stories can help us find hope in times of stress and despair.
When I wrote this article, I was quite a few years younger. I am now growing into the crone that I found outside my door.
Solstice Gifts from the Winter Crone Household Goddess
Myths and stories of goddesses and heroines/sheroes have been created over millennia. Our own time is just as spiritually important and those times. We can make our own stories that not only speak to us, but will also speak to the future of what wisdom our lives in this challenging epoch taught us. Throughout this blog-book you’ll find fiction that I have written about our 21st century lives.
I have also, over the years, written some”myths” relating the ancient past to our own times.
In the Cave of the Clay Goddess
You are invited to go to the next chapter, Finding Women’s Spirituality All Around Us for Today and Tomorrow
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Goddess in a Teapot 