Happy Mother's Day to women everywhere. You have always had power.
Came across this poem last year and it moved me to tears. Although I no longer claim any theistic faith, the imagery of divine feminine not as a goddess cloaked in modesty and mystery, but something tangible with power and vitality healed something in me.
"I was told
God wore robes and a frown.
That He sat high and heavy
on a golden throne
with a finger forever poised
over the red button of smite.
I was taught that holiness
was male,
that mercy came with conditions,
that my softness was sin
and my wildness worse.
They offered me judgement
in a wine cup,
shame dressed up as salvation,
and I drank.
For years, I drank.
Until my soul grew thirsty
for something truer than fear.
And then one day,
barefoot and broken
on the forest floor,
I met Her.
Not in a church,
but in a clearing.
Not with a hymn,
but with a howl.
She came to me
with moss on her knees
and galaxies in her hips.
She came with the scent
of milk and blood
and moonlight.
She was no one's
Sunday School sweetheart.
She was thunder and lullaby,
she was claws dipped in honey,
she was the war drum
and the rocking chair.
Holy Mother.
Creatrix of All
The one who gathers
what the world tries to scatter.
She did not ask me
to be quiet.
She asked me to remember.
That I was born from
a sacred scream,
and my softness
is a weapon in a world
that’s forgotten how to feel.
She pressed her lioness
forehead to mine and said:
I was never your shame.
I was your shelter.
I was never your punishment.
I was your passage.
They gave you a God of thunder.
I gave you a storm to dance in.
Come home, daughter.
Come home.
And so I did.
I turned away from pulpits
that made me small
and toward the altar
inside my own chest.
And there She was.
The Holy of Holies.
The God who bleeds and births
and breaks open to bloom.
Not a He to obey,
but a She to embody.
Not a cage.
But a crown.
And I?
I am Her temple now.
~Angi Sullins, “Mother Daughter Holy Muse"
Art: "Earth Mother" by Josephine Wall