Yesterday I sat in one of my final intuition classes with my incredible coach Marinna Siri, focusing on communicating with Mother Earth. I was challenged (as was the rest of my class) to connect to "Mother Earth". Ahhhh the GREAT GODDESS!
Ok, so we all started focusing on opening our chakras, allowing an intuitive channel. And as members of the class began to share their experiences I made contact.
The first thing She - the GREAT She - had to say to me was, "Why are you calling me mother? Is that all I am to you? Someone to cuddle you, clean you, feed you, nurture you? Am I nothing else?" I've had a previous conversation with Her where She has asked me to stop calling her Mother Earth. She even gave me a name : Sahashara - which happens to be the Sanscrit name for the crown chakra. But naturally, as a social creature of culture, I promptly returned to calling her the more known "Mother Earth."
This question, though left me surprised at myself. Why was I calling her mother? How would I feel about EVERYONE calling ME mother? (For the record I have no children right now.) More so, how would I feel about being expected to mother everyone. Yuck. Blech vomit vomit. There is nothing less appealing to me than being in a room chock full of children who's parents are inattentive, and these children expecting me to mother them. And I LOVE children. But I don't ever want to be identified in life as simply a "mother." (Mother meets astrophysicist, sure.)
But seriously, when was the last time you referred to Mother Earth as "Mother meets Weatherwoman" or whatever?
Recently I read a book by Jean Shinoda Bolen called "Goddesses in Everywoman." (Ironically her featured book today is called "Urgent Message From Mother" - what are the odds?). In the book she loosely follows Jungian psychology to identify the 7 main archetypes of a woman's psyche and outlines those archetypes using the stories of 7 Greek Goddesses. It's an incredible book and I recommend it to everyone. You see, Demeter is Mother Earth. She's the nurturer, the one who brings harvest, the one who obsesses over caring for children, caring for the elderly, etc. But Demeter is only 1 of the 7 faces of the Great Goddess.
And so "Mother" is one of the many appropriate titles for our Goddess Earth.
And now we get to Tarot (thank God!). In Tarot, the Great Goddess is divided into two characters, two Major Arcana cards (though She shows Her faces throughout the deck). Card #2, the High Priestess, and Card #3, the Empress. The Empress is traditionally pictured (I am currently calling Rider-Waite imagery the "tradition" which I know some consider a faux pas), ahem, she's traditionally pictured outdoors, sitting very relaxed in a comfortably flowing gown, arguably pregnant, with pomegranates and golden wheat symbolizing her fertility. She is Mother Earth in all of her Demeter qualities. And our culture tends to leave Her there. But that's the Empress -card number 3. Before the Goddess was ever the Empress, She was the High Priestess.
The High Priestess is pictured indoors, seated between two pillars (labeled for two pillars in the temple at Jerusalem). She has a curtain of behind her that hangs from the two pillars. And behind that curtain is a great mystery. She holds a scroll or a book entitled "Tora" - perhaps representing the mysteries of the Jewish Bible. The High Priestess is the inner woman, the inner Great Goddess. She is no Mother. In fact, the High Priestess in Greek Mythology was Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. And, not coincidentally, Persephone is the Daughter of Demeter. Before the Goddess was ever a mother, she was a daughter and a queen.
The High Priestess is, as is Persephone, the gatekeeper to the underworld, or that is, the unconscious. She is the agent who grants us passage into our deepest selves. She gives you passage to the moonworld, the world ruled by Artemis - the fearless huntress.
Think about this. Water symbolically represents emotions. The most significant water on our planet is ruled by the moon - that is to say, the ocean's tides are controlled by the moon. One cannot look into the depths of raging waters, but only into the depths of relatively still water. The same way, emotions are controlled by our inner selves, not our rational selves. Not the Empress who sits outdoors, but by the High Priestess who lives within. Raging emotions must be stilled before they can be understood, and the moon, or Priestess, is the gatekeeper to still waters.
The Earth is 70%-ish water. Our bodies are 70%-ish water. As I was intuitively connecting to "Mother" Earth yesterday, she reminded me that we only occupy 30% of her surface. That is to say, she is only 30% our Mother. The other 70%, of her surface, the gateway to the deep, dark, mysterious depths of her, are covered in water. The doorway to her other 70% is guarded by the Queen of the Underworld. The Goddess before she became the Mother.
Have I lost you? The bottom line is this: we oversimplify the Goddess every time we say "Mother" Earth. Tarot shows this - it defines her using two cards, two faces. This is a mirror of our culture. How many of us squeeze ourselves into one role in life? How many of us feel "wicked" for not feeling like the Empress at all times? How many of us consider it a guilty pleasure to explore the underworld of our consciousness?
It's not healthy. It's not natural. And bottom line, to limit oneself is an illusion anyways. Our best example of the this is the very planet we live upon. Who are we to say we are masters of it - we who are land-dwellers by nature. Sure technology can get us up into the air, or down into the water, but we as a species are not capable of living, as a species, in water or in the air. We are land-dwellers and we are truly masters of only one of her elements: Land (Earth). We limit her to this, because we feel limited.
Perhaps, if we broaden our perspective of her, and of all things, especially ourselves, we will evolve.
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