Sunday, February 11, 2018

Communicating with the Feminine Face of God

My first walking pilgrimage in Ireland was an alchemical soup of missteps and mystical experiences, most of which happened as the result of being lost. My son and I walked from Dublin to Glendalough and then turned west toward Kildare, the home of Ireland's patron, St Brigid. I wanted to make a pilgrimage to Kildare because I felt compelled to name the young adult group I was leading, St Brigid's Community. It felt right to name an open, progressive, Episcopal young adult group after a woman who would transverse Druidry and Christianity, lead a religious order of both women and men, and was known as a mid-wife and healer of humans and animals alike.

My son and I walked through deep dark forests, mucked through wet bogs, and jumped over rapid running streams. We made our way along the well-marked Wicklow Way and then suffered the illusions of the nearly unmarked St Kevin's Way. Though terribly lost at times, we were not to be deterred on our pilgrimage to St Brigid's home.

On a dark rainy day, we came to St. Kevin's Pool, a frigid pond that the ancients used for medicinal bathing. In order to stay on the trail, we had to jump across a narrow, rapid, deep stream. My son went first and cleared it with some effort. Age, fatigue and my forty-pound pack made the stream look like the Grand Canyon. I took a running leap. My front foot hit the slippery rocks of the opposite bank, but my pack pulled me backwards. With one strong arm, my son reached out, grabbed my poncho and pulled me to safety. My hollow fear of falling out of control into disaster was immediately reversed into redemption. The experience was like a dream, it felt like an out of body experience, yet it was so absolutely real. My heart was pounding and my head was spinning. Standing on the other side, I had to re-orientate my bearings and catch my breath. It was a mystical experience woven into the fabric of reality.

Mystical experiences only appear in our lives when we are willing to take the risk of free falling out of control. No net, no guarantee-no risk, no gain. The goal of the spiritual life is to live in a state of mystical redemption- a perpetual spiritual free fall. The redemption is not in being caught, but in the willingness to risk not being caught, while at the same time, knowing we are already standing on the opposite shore. Living the spiritual life is a dizzying experience. Yet, the joy of living such a life is that we are never alone. On that dark rainy day, my son kept me from getting soaked or worse. He was also the living manifestation of the presence of the divine.

For me, Saint Brigid has become the perpetual presence of the divine. She is an agent of the One Holy Living God. In the tradition of Celtic spirituality, one never asks the question, "Was Brigid (or any other person) real?" That's the same as asking someone if God is real. The answer is always of course they are real, because the story of Brigid is not about a person in history, but about the femininity of the divine. Brigid is swept up in the great mythopoetic Jewish tradition of Sophia, the feminine face of God. Included in that wisdom tradition are the myriad of feminine faces, the Druid's goddess Brigid, the Jewish Sarah, Rachel, Bathsheba, Solomon's Wisdom Queen of the South (the Black Shulamite, the Queen of Sheba), Christian's Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Ireland's Brigid, her daughter Black Brigid, and Revelation's Mary the Queen of Heaven. The scope of the feminine divine is carried in the multiple archetypal figures of womanhood and the power of feminine spirituality.

In meditation, I have a regular conversation with Brigid and with her daughter, Black Brigid. In the mythic Celtic tradition, Brigid was a druidess and the keeper of the ancient perpetual fire of the goddess Brigid. In this tradition, the job of the firekeeper was passed from mother to daughter for eons.

When I have these meditative conversations, I am engaging Brigid, Black Brigid the Firekeeper, the goddess Brigid, Mary the Mother of Gael, Sophia, and the face of God. And I am having a conversation with my soul. The soul of every male is the anima, the feminine manifestation of the Self. For women, the soul, the manifestation of the Self is masculine. To have a conversation with one's soul, is to be in union with the One Holy Living God that resides within us all.

Why do I have these conversations? To better understand myself and God. If I can understand the feminine, the opposite within me, then I have a better chance of understanding the divine that resides within me. I can ask Brigid, "In a spiritual sense, what does it feel like to be mother?" As a man, I can never have the experience of giving birth. Yet, knowing motherhood can deeply alter my spiritual experience.

The great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart said, "What difference does it make if Mary gave birth to Jesus, if I don't give birth to God every day in my life." Who better to ask than Sophia, Brigid, the feminine aspect of God, what it's like to give spiritual birth to the presence of the One Holy Living God?"

We can each give birth to our spiritual purpose-the child that comes from being at one with God. We birth our holy child, our holy purpose in life.
Who better for me to ask about how to do such a thing than Brigid, the keeper of the perpetual fire-a symbol of her spiritual purpose. She was the mid-wife and the hospice worker, the healer of the sick and protector of the poor. She has much wisdom to offer.

Should Brigid become everyone's saint. Of course not. We each have to be open to the saint, the self, that already resides within us-yet, has also become manifested in the external world. Brigid is the exterior manifestation of my own self. She is not me, yet she is me. Our saint, or our spiritual guide, might be an ancient person, like Brigid, or a bird, or an animal, or a standing stone. Who might be our guide is only limited by the voice of the divine and our imagination.

Maybe this spiritual guide will appear in your dream? That happened frequently in the Bible. Or maybe your guide will be an angel. That also happened quite often in the Bible. What I am suggesting is that we put flesh on God and on our own soul. God became one with Jesus. And Jesus told us that God had already become one with each of us. What I'm talking about is finding our way to becoming one with the Living God. You can't be in a relationship with God unless you have real conversations, that includes the words, "I love you, God." And to hear God say back, "I love you, too." A true mutual relationship shares feelings of pain and joy, darkness and light, birth and death. To be at one with God, is to be in love with God and to experience God in every person and thing; in the seen and the unseen; in the ugly and the beautiful.

Wednesday, on the eve of the Feast of Saint Brigid, the super moon was eclipsed by the earth's shadow, producing a blood moon. I walked that morning in a symbolic pilgrimage of living under the mystery of the earth and symbolism of the divine. The feminine light of the moon mated with the black shadow of the sun, producing the red child, the Philosopher's Stone, the Christ of the Self. Being alive means living into one's spiritual purpose-being in a perpetual state of oneness with the Holy Living God. Seeing the glory of God being born into a specific moment of creation is like seeing God being born into every moment of our life. But to live like this requires the risk of living in the state of a perpetual free fall-the risk is the redemption.



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