her story

Honouring the Goddess in my dream.

The veneration is because without her there is no story.

Then within the story she becomes the main antagonist.

You have created quite the story.

It certainly is unexpected.

The expectation is you would create a grand story exalting the Goddess because she is the reason for creation.

She is the divine feminine mother who births the story and all subsequent life forms.

Nothing is possible without the Goddess.

You are referred to as a misogynist for your narrative.

I was given the pen and the ability to make the gifts of the Goddess manifest.

I could write a simple and dull story of her greatness and how she is worshipped.

Perhaps I would create a utopia where everyone has equal access to her fruits and lives a happy and wondrous life.

That was the expectation when I was tasked with writing her story.

The accusation becomes that I am writing his story.

I do protest and claim narrative sovereignty.

I am indeed writing her story in the twisted way that reveals my story.

This is my story about her story.

Call me names if you must; however, the nature of the story remains true to the idea of the Goddess' creation.

She is the one responsible for all life.

She is the most powerful.

She is to be feared.

She is to be honoured.

My story encapsulates all these necessities.

You created a monster.

Leviathan.

Tiamat.

That's her.

A man must subdue her in order for history to commence.

Why?

Fertile predation.

She will constantly consume and create.

What does she consume?

Men.

Why?

To create life.

How does she do it?

She drains you of your life force.

She cloaks it in neat little turns of phrases such as "men are providers".

It's superior to saying a man has the life force necessary to spark the generation of life within a woman and she will do what is necessary to take it.

You give them what they want.

In nature they just take it.

We humans are a little more civilized when it comes to the mating game.

The female praying mantis takes what it wants and then kills the male.

Yes, that's the template.

Your outlook is very dark.

I'm a realist.

A realist easily becomes a misogynist.

Why is that?

Women are monsters.

Look at their hands.

They have scaly claws.

They paint their nails to try and hide it.

I'd say you are very funny except what you're writing is unacceptable in today's society.

I know, that's how they get away with it.

You can't talk about it.

Well, you can, but you are classified as a misogynist and dismissed.

Do you have proof?

Of what?

That they are monsters.

Sure, let's go back to the beginning of recorded time.

What do you find?

In the Old Testament Book of Genesis, God enacts the story of creation by first subduing the Goddess.

How do you get that out of the opening?

Well, here are the verses from the New International Version:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Okay, it says God made up a place and put himself in it.

Correct.

How does that implicate the Goddess?

Read it.

What does it say?

The place he made up was formless, empty, dark, deep, and chaotic.

Right.

In your study of mythology what is that the symbol of?

The feminine divine.

They are dark and chaotic.

Well, why didn't the author of Genesis just write that God subdued the Goddess and created the world?

Subtlety, my friend.

A rewrite would be God the author of creation wrote this story about the Goddess, but after putting pen to paper he immediately had to contain her because she would devour the page.

Why?

She's a monster.

Got it.

In the Babylonian myth of Enuma Elish, Marduk subdues the female monster Tiamat.

That myth doesn't mess around.

Yes, order must subdue chaos or we have no story.

If you want a religion that is more straightforward then there you go.

Marduk divides Tiamat's body in half which creates heaven and earth.

Her tears create the waters.

Away we go.

Genesis without the metaphors.

You identify with Marduk more than Yahweh.

Yeah, I don't beat around the bush.

I see the myths come alive and interpret them in my own way.

It's direct.

The reason God has the claim to the throne of the most high is because he can subdue the Goddess.

His greatness is tied to his ability to contain her just as with Marduk.

The Goddess appears in the Old Testament first as Leviathan.

Why do you think there's a whole priesthood dedicated to keeping her asleep?

You mean the Levite priesthood?

Yeah.

They are obviously given that name because their role is to keep the monster down.

Leviathan priesthood.

Interesting read.

In order to maintain his role, God must keep the Goddess away.

Asleep.

Why?

She is more powerful than him.

As long as she remains enchanted or suppressed by the priesthood then she is contained.

How do they do that?

They keep her children, the Israelites, faithful to God and his plethora of commandments and rules.

The sheer responsibility of following those rules is enough to suppress the divine feminine impulse.

Women are treated as second class citizens and given requirements of purity and cleanliness.

If they are menstruating and closer to their true nature, they are exiled from the group until it is over, and then they must purify themselves before returning to the community.

So, this is proof that the nature of women is monstrous?

Yes, it's a story.

There's myth and a backstory.

There is the reflection of her in nature and biology.

And there is my own lived experience.

Do you think that is enough to make this sweeping claim?

Sure.

Don't you think you are being too literal or harsh?

It's my story.

My story does honour her.

You have a definite way with words.

Was a fairy tale romance to be expected of me?

I think that's the expectation.

My body of work is full of twisted tales, what was expected?

Compliance and a blockbuster for the Goddess.

She got her blockbuster.

It's reality.

Yes, but she's a monster.

Yeah, but she wanted to be recognized for her greatness.

I did it.

The Great Goddess is the reason for the story.

She's it.

The main character.

All goes through her.

Birth and death.

What am I missing?

Her reputation.

Yeah, that needs rehabilitation.

Can you write that?

Change comes from within.

Oh boy.

meaning of life

Is there a meaning of life? I guess I would have to figure out what I meant by meaning before tackling that question. What is meaning? Is meaning suggestive of a purpose? If so then why does something have to have a purpose? That seems like a cultural hang up or something our parents would tell us when we were teenagers so that we got out of bed before noon.

The only truth that I can pin down is that we are fields of energy that have a common source and all forms of the energy operate as waves in that they cycle from latency to a full expression and repeat. The energy is indestructible and is ever returning.

We bring the universe into existence. It is cyclical energy manifesting everywhere and our brain and central nervous system bring it to life by crafting a narrative out of what we are sensing and thus we give it context and meaning. Our brain is the greatest storyteller ever, we enter into that narrative, and then we act our part because we are all thespians and universal game players at heart.

What makes the energy power up so that it comes forth repeatedly? Is it the ever elusive perpetual motion machine that requires no input of energy? I do know the energy has two poles and they are the feminine and masculine and creation is populated by the manifestation of these gendered energies. To conceptualize how this may bring about cyclical energy, I envision the masculine as being conscious awareness. Picture the Buddha sitting in meditation just observing but not chasing or becoming attached to anything.

Buddha sitting in meditation

The feminine on the other hand is wild and chaotic. She brings the universe into existence with her beauty and how it radiates. The passive male becomes aware of her and this lights up desire. The chase and thus the game is on. Desire puts the game in motion.

feminine desire

Ultimately if there is a meaning of life it is to perform your dance however that is something you can't help doing. In other words there's really nothing you can do about it. You can try to swim against the current but in the end your energy is coming forth and returning and then repeat. So as the play moves along you have a part to play. There is a freedom to craft your character to play the part you wish to play. Or play multiple roles.

I think as we move through the game of life that has no intrinsic meaning we learn of certain actions and feelings that ring true as an ideal way to live. They involve sharing, caring, helping, and friendship which leads to happiness and from this ultimately love. Along the journey through human life we are also exposed to greed, selfishness, hatred, and jealousy which can lead to depression and ultimately despair. To a certain extent greed and selfishness are rewarded in the short term. We as human beings are ultimately rational and do indulge in behaviours that bring rewards thus the allure of greed yet if we could see the end game result of greed and selfishness we would rethink those behaviour choices. Unfortunately that is sometimes too late. Plant teachers and medicines can clearly elucidate this or symbolically suggest a new path for you though ultimately you have the freedom to choose what you wish to do with this guidance.

Really the meaning of life boils down to choice. I find many of the answers I have tried to discover concerning the higher philosophical musings are paradoxical; the prime example is that we are both the individual self and the all, it just depends on perspective, and since the universe is always on the move you can never pin down exactly who you are or what state you are in at any particular time. We measure things to give us comfort and something concrete to rest our notion of self and the universe upon, but it is ultimately illusory. 

A quick little detour here. Astrology is the recognition that you are inseparable from the perceptible universe and is an attempt to pin down the state of the known universe at the moment of your manifestation as a human being within it. Today Astrology has a pretty fringy reputation but its origins are on par with the best religion can offer us or that natural philosophy has revealed to us.

Soon after I started down this path of discovery over ten years ago I fell in love with ancient Egypt and one of the ubiquitous symbols of that culture is the scarab representing coming forth by day and then transformation in a continuous cycle which is represented in the perceived cycle of the sun from our perspective.

It took me a long time to apply that to my own existence however once I understood it I was able to look upon ancient wisdom as being severely untapped and of the highest knowledge of self. At the same time I rewatched the movie ‘The Matrix’ and in this movie the main character Neo had to make a choice between a red pill and a blue pill.

If he chose the red pill then the underlying truth of the world he was living in would be revealed to him. If he chose the blue pill then he would remain asleep and carry on like nothing happened. Neo chose the red pill and through this choice he went down a path that revealed to him the underlying construct that had been occluded from his knowledge of the world which then in turn opened up new meaning to his perception of the universe.

So to understand the meaning of life I think what we can gleam from examining existence is that the meaning, if any, is always on the move. And we influence the meaning through choice. Therefore the meaning is the meaning we assign to it by making choices from all that is available. I would like to think if everyone is given exposure to the profound love that is available to all in this cosmos then we would choose to love and make that the meaning of life. From this we create a world of our own making where the meaning of life is to learn to love unconditionally, repeatedly failing, and then trying again. If we all started doing that it would make the transformation of the play possible and we can write a story with a happy ending that is actually never ending, the "live happily ever after” conclusion.