Higher Self reminded me why I sought out Goddess in the first place. For me it was far more than just not being able to relate to a male God. It was my way of getting the nurturing and unconditional love from a Mother that is always there for me. My real life mother didn't raise me so I always felt a huge void in my life because of that. So when I no longer could feel the Divine Mother I felt that abandonment and rejection all over again.
Higher Self explained to me that Goddess never left me. She never disappeared. And she certainly has been there the entire time. The problem is that my own mother left me feeling so unloved and unworthy that all that came flooding back when I did that research on Eostre and Goddess felt like something made up. Of course Goddess feels like something "made up" to me sometimes. I don't know what it's like to have a normal relationship with my mother, so when I try to connect with the Divine Mother I am left feeling like I'm unable to make it happen. Higher Self explained that getting back to why I love paganism, Wicca, and witchcraft in the first place will help me find Her again.
Higher Self also explained to me that a female version of Divinity is needed to balance out the energy of patriarchy that has existed for thousands of years. Women will never truly be equal in a culture that worships only a male God.
Then I did a second meditation and had another conversation with my Higher Self. This time she explained that if I believe I alone can do a spell to make something real manifest, then what could millions of people for thousands of years who all believe in the same deities manifest? She reminded me that I've always believed in the collective consciousness of the world. If enough people believe something, it becomes real.
She went on to explain that the relative word there is "real." What is real? If I do a guided meditation or shamanic pathworking, we consider it real. It's simply on a different level of reality. Higher Self explained that whether I view them as archetypes or believe there are indeed Gods and Goddesses it doesn't matter. They are "real" on some level, even if they are just ideas, even if they are just myths.
Higher Self went on to remind me how I've always believed everything starts in the mind as an idea before it becomes part of tangible reality. Whether it is the idea for how a ritual should be done, what the first Model T looked like, the painting of the Mona Lisa, or what makes up a religion - it begins as an idea. Ultimately I believe thoughts and ideas are energy and that thought energy is converted into Drawing Down the Moon, a working Model T car, the Mona Lisa painting, and even Gerald Gardner's Wicca.
Actually I believe everything is energy. It just vibrates differently resulting in being able to perceive different levels or dimensions of reality. This is why I feel somewhat agnostic towards deities. I'm not perceiving their energy. Like I explained earlier, Higher Self believes that my personal issues are blocking me from perceiving their energy.
The agnostic/atheist part of me tried to argue once more. What if it's all just a product of my brain? The grey matter inside my head. Higher Self argued maybe everything is just in my head! It's all part of the matrix and I only perceive it because of my senses. Arguing whether or not Divinity is real is as pointless as arguing whether or not what I perceive to be reality is real. If this computer I'm typing on isn't real but just vibrating energy than how is Eostre any less real?
Yet I still wasn't entirely convinced. If I have agnostic feelings than surely deities may not really exist, right? Higher Self worded it a different way. If Gods and Goddesses are mere ideas, and ideas are energy, then they are very real on a specific energetic level. Bluntly put, even an idea is real! This is why myths have continued to be around for several if not tens of thousands of years. Myths have a power that I don't understand. Higher Self said studying myths and especially the work of Joseph Campbell is the best thing I could do right now.
Ultimately I believe this. All of it is real and none of it is real. An atheist may claim that Gods and Goddesses are figments of the mind but science can equally prove that everything is a figment of the mind! Things are real only because we perceive them. The mystery of the universe is that none of us know the mystery, and even if we do, we can't prove it one way or the other.
So does that make me an agnostic, a theist, a soft or hard polytheist, or a pantheist? I haven't found a word or phrase yet to describe my beliefs because I'm all of those. I only know that I've decided to stop worrying about what is real and what isn't. Sometimes a Universal Power suits me just fine. Sometimes a specific deity is what I need. Sometimes it's just a vague general idea of God. Sometimes "thou art God/dess." And sometimes all I need is nature.
"This post has been part of the blogging project The Pagan Blog Project 2013. This is a year long blog party where you blog on pagan topics from A to Z."
Reference: spellscasting.blogspot.com