Random Chaos

I had been laid off. My apartment was full of something I was wildly allergic to, and a vicious injury basically kept me from doing anything more strenuous than sitting up for longer than fifteen minutes at a time, three times a day.

And I was just about to learn that the vision of the goddess that I had had for over a decade was steeped in patriarchal baggage.

"No way, nope, there is no possible…wait."

The longer I thought about it, the more I realized this was right—the vision that we have of her has been locked into what man has had for her for years: a virginal maiden, a doting mother, and the wise old crone—and fairly often, a frightening one, to hear men tell of it.

Where was the woman in her goddess?

There is something lacking in this vision of the goddess, but until I this book fell into my hands, I had no idea how to get past that limited view. Lasara Firefox Allen takes that limited view and breaks it into pieces in Jailbreaking The Goddess as she throws you first headlong into the worlds of both feminism and a new world in which the goddess is not threefold, but fivefold, and no longer bound to biology and linearity.

Throughout the book's chapters and exercises, we are introduced to both the faces of the goddess in this new revisioning—Femella (the Divine Girl Child), Potens (The Woman who works), Creatrix (She who Creates—as in creates anything), Sapientia (the Wise woman), and Antiqua (the Old Woman)—as well as famous and notable women and even goddesses who have embodied each of these faces in history both recent and past. But it's not just about the information. While each face of the goddess is explored, a bit of the mental programming around the old vision is broken away, and the energy begins to feel different—not all at once, but gradually. Soon enough I began noticing the difference in the energy, noticing the influences and identifying them in different areas of my life; a project would have the childlike but unfettered feel of Femella in and through it; a sudden discovery would have the lightning strike of Potens all through it; disentangling myself from a difficult situation would have both threads of Antiqua and Sapientia in it.

And for the first time in a long time, She began to feel real to me again.

As a non-binary person of color, this was a very important realization. Far too many interpretations of the Goddess and goddess spirituality take a strange, alienating stance on the transgender and gender-nonconforming, but not this goddess. In fact, a strong point is made on this, as after the examinations of the faces, the work on decolonizing and rewilding begins, with a focus on taking things back from the toxic influences that have had a hold on them for so many years—and yes, this includes the patriarchy (#smashpatriarchy). Exclusion has no place with the Goddess, and here we see that she can welcome and hold all, no matter where they stand in life and what they have to do. To feel welcomed again was phenomenal, a welcome change from what had happened.

In Jailbreaking The Goddess we learn lessons at once profound and occasionally cheeky, while at the same time learning about ourselves and how to potentially change the world around us, and the way that it comes to us is presented in such an organic manner that reading it, you might not realize you've learned something.

If you've been a bit put off with the way the Goddess has been set up to you…it's time to come home.

___

Live in the US? This book drops on the 8th of July.

This time around, I will gush.

I was introduced to Harold Budd by proxy. I found out that he had a hand in a few of the Cocteau Twins’s songs, and I had to find out who this man was, on account of the fact that I am a HUGE fan of the Cocteau Twins. To my surprise I see that not only has he got his own work out there, there is a lot to choose from.

I begin my exploration with an album co-created by him and Zeitgeist, titled She is a Phantom.

In the middle of the gentle, chamber ambient, there are pieces that have…not lyrics, but verse, recited over the music. The man’s poetry lifts over the music, creating images at once lovely and disturbing—and in the case of “We Step Across,” humorously jarring. I start hunting around, discovering that a small imprint has printed a limited edition collection of his work: 50 hardbacks and 200 trade paperbacks.

I was lucky to score a paperback. It’s one of my treasures now, stored on the shelf carefully shielded from damage.

I did read it first, after washing my hands thoroughly, drying them on linen towels, drying my hands a second time on a different towel, and then very carefully before opening the first page and getting a strong hit of that delicious new-book smell. I read slowly, savoring the text, and the feel of the expensive pages under my fingertips. Then, carefully, I took the text down, saving it to a document I could put on my readers and safely carry everywhere.

 What's your WebStory today?

Because the 100 Things project was on hiatus for so long, I’m skipping the segment interlude post. We’re changing our topic now to the written word, be it in blog or book format, and today we tackle one of my favorite authors.

( We start with David Eddings... )

I don’t get out much, but when I do get out, it is usually to go to the local bookstore.

Once, my bookstore of choice was Borders. I didn’t frequent Barnes and Noble as often because I felt like they were just an upstart trying to poach people from Borders—also, I liked Borders’s coffee better. It’s cold brew, and easier on my poor stomach.
( Join me in this rabbit hole. :) )