Spiritual Leadership
Spiritual leadership is probably the earliest form of leadership that has existed on this planet. However when we look at the scriptures most spiritual leadership is male. So how can we as women connect to it? For years I have been struggling with this issue. Actually my first glimpse of Feminine Leadership was due to a full-on debate with one of my teachers.
We were in a workshop which was about self-esteem and he said that self-esteem is the basic foundation to how we judge and value ourselves. I then stood up and said that I have no problem with it as I always knew that I am part of God as I was created in the image of him. He then said to me: “How come you are saying that you are the image of God, you should be saying of the Goddess?� I then responded arrogantly what’s the difference – God, Goddess it’s all the same I am part of the Devine. He then argued if you believe in God then you cannot be in HIS image if you are a woman. The argument went on for more than 45 minutes before he finally let me off by saying the ultimate sentence “have it your way�. I was too righteous and not able to see the truth in what he was saying. When I went home I had to look at myself and check why was it so important for me to prove that I was right. I realized it was because that deep down inside I knew he was right and if he was right I had a serious problem in being part of the Devine. This started my search which brought me to the Feminine Leadership and to the Feminine Spiritual Leadership.
If human beings were created in the form of their creator, and there is only a male God, in whose image are women created? If you live in a culture where there is only a male God and no Goddess, where’s the model for the Feminine? How can girls learn to be women without the Goddess?
In my search I have found a powerful woman Amy Sophia Marashinsky that has expressed my own feelings in her book “The Goddess Oracleâ€? where she writes: “I was raised Jewish in the 50’s, which means I was brought up to believe in all-powerful God who made man in his image. Very validating for men. Feminine images, on the other hand, weren’t so positive. I was taught to believe Eve was responsible for the expulsion from Garden of Eden. Paradise was lost because of a woman, a snake and an apple. I was told all women suffer childbirth because of Eve. And Lilith Adam’s first wife who left him because she would not lie beneath him during sex, was considered a demon and rarely mentioned. This view of women as evil, as a scapegoat, as temptress and seducer was not very validating for me as a young-woman-to-be. So I did what many invalidated girls do. I decided to grow up and be the best man for the job. Who wants to be a scapegoat? Who wants to be held responsible for losing paradise?”
Now, I wasn’t raised in the 50’s but in the 60’s. I wasn’t raised as a religious Jew but as a secular that defies the existence of God. But society conditions were installed in me whether I wanted it or not. And even though I suppressed my female nature so that I could succeed in the world, I still had difficulty swallowing the values that were installed in me and were unconscious, which is - that as a woman I wasn’t created in the image of God.
After my heated argument with my teacher, I have started my search and I have found that prior to the All-Mighty Jehovah God there was a female Goddess, whom all the people in the ancient world revered and honored. As Amy writes: “ I discovered that there was a time when women were respected, when women were judges, lawmakers, officials, priestesses, rulers, landowners – when women had power… At last I had discovered a role model for me as a woman - The Goddess.
It is important for women to reclaim the Goddess – not just one Goddess, but all. The more Goddess we know, the more we can celebrate, honor, and respect the diversity of the Feminine. The Goddesses can become our Feminine Spiritual role model. If we celebrate, honor and respect the diversity of the Goddess, then we can do it for ourselves. More than that, we can become role models of proud feminine spiritual leaders to our fellow women and most important to our own children. Maybe in this way we will start raising a new generation of girls that will be liberated from the past old conditioning of His-tory.
Each week I will dedicate to a different Goddess. There will be a brief mythology/cultural background about each Goddess and then an interpretation of what does she stand for and what is her message for us. What can we learn from her. Finally there will be a suggestion of how you can work with the energy of that particular Goddess, what can you do to enhance her qualities into your daily life.
Have fun discovering the Goddess within you!
