Goddesses Have One Thing In Common – and it isn’t beauty! It’s intelligence, but cultivated intelligence. You know what cultivated intelligence is? Education.
Goddesses Have Vast Perspective – Across time, nations, histories, cultures…this universe is so rich that synthesizing its glories is a satisfying life’s work for anyone. But you need to know about those glories. Goddesses inform themselves. It’s much more unlikely you’ll be victimized or sidelined when you familiarize yourself with aggressor and hostage-taking strategies from, say, The Prince or The Art of War.
Never Quit Learning. Synchronicity is the magic connector of daily life, but you can’t see it without Education. Do you dream of longed-for events and fulfillment? Glorious parties of blissful happiness where life finally seems to be unfolding exactly the way it should? Synchronous events are harmonious, as if the universe is a vast perfectly working clockwork machine. Understanding machines, systems, attribution and calibration are the subject of the educational process. This is the reason we spend the first twenty plus years of our lives in instructive settings.
Goddess Learn for a Lifetime – Humans are fierce absorbers of knowledge. Advertisers know this, as do the designers of games and entertainment generally. We adore self-educating mazes.The complex dance between our skills, our bodily manifestation and the physics of reality is never-ending. Goddesses determinedly master the synchrony of Right Thought, Right Instruction & Right Action.
Goddess Have Young Brains but Old Souls – We have seen, known, learned and struggled so much. We have much knowledge to pass on to the brash beginners. But we ourselves confront each day with Gratitude Practice – re-experiencing the thrill of being alive and relishing the challenge of bending the universe toward light.
As We Fill Our Souls with Light We Confront the Darkness – Remember – always get the oxygen mask over your own face before you try to enlighten others. We need to design a life-long learning plan that benefits US, not one that puts our hard-earned money in someone else’s pocket.
Beware the Quicksand – The culture seeks to bog us down in titles, degrees, honors, acquisitions and pro forma protocols. Don’t succumb. Our motion is always upward, our benchmark always healthy, top-level functioning. Are we becoming stronger, smarter and more peaceful? Can we pass this flexible, constructive protocol along?
Goddess Danger: we are seducible. We love to relax! We look for allies. We get tired, we long for reinforcements and approval. We just want to put our feet up.
Learn today to calibrate your balance in this uncertain world. Write it out in your Goddess Journal before you go to sleep – what new thing have I learned today? Where will it fit along my map? But we are smart! Our self-designed goal system must contain refreshment and renewal breaks. Most importantly, we will be needing a buddy as we go through the system, and a spiritual guru who provably has our best interests at heart. You can recognize them by the fact that they don’t trap you into a dominance/submission matrix.
Models & Mentors – “Education is the key to unlocking the world. It is the passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela
“Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X
Goddesses are Self-Sufficient.– You will need to become your own best friend. Have you been fearing time alone? This could be because you are aware of the important work you need to do in bringing your inner universes – past – present – future – and potential – into alignment. Carve out time to reflect on all your relationships. Goddesses are collaborative, never subordinate, although they are surrounded by diminishers.
Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – and the dreams of a goddess have immediate reality. The first battle is increasing your Zone of Respect. Treating yourself with respect is vital. You will need to think seriously about ways you disrespect yourself, and why.
Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Sun Tzu reminds us that all battles are won and lost in the brain. Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to God know who. Advertisers, influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to turn that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.
After the Party Comes Cleanup – Goddesses develop self-confidence. Frustrated Goddesses devour themselves. We need to trust, not fear, our own reactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself? “Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any other human (or animal.) That must change today.
Goddess Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were your own best friend, you would protect, not isolate yourself. You would strategize your power towards health and sharing, not secrecy and isolation.
Do You Hate Your Thoughts? – A recent poll discovered that most people would rather experience electric shocks than spend time alone with their thoughts, doing nothing but thinking. Just as mapping your future is an important Goddess job, so is mapping your brain. Make yourself a person it’s a pleasure to spend time with. You are not lonely when you enjoy your own company.
Your Goddess Journal Is Your Mirror – It anchors you with its reflection. It is not necessary to write long pieces – lists or single words are adequate. Visual thinkers may want to sketch out or paste in pictures. Your Goddess Journal answers the following questions: Where Have I Been? Where Am I Going? Who Am I? Meditate 20 minutes a day on these issues.
Goddess Opportunity – Find a voice you respect and admire to model your internal voice. We all need a life coach or a cheerleader in our corner. Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishing hobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day to day peaceful retreat inside your own head.
Ask Yourself What You Take For Granted – This is the part of the picture that’s hardest to see. Because we take it for granted! Here is where your study of models can be helpful because you will be surprised by what other people take for granted. For example, some people assume being a goddess is constant partying and adulation, but to me, it is the peace of totally owning oneself and being responsible for oneself. It is serfdom that is suffering and hardship.
Gratitude Practice – Gratitude must be part of your everyday practice. Give thanks for this wonderful body, with its aches and cuts and bruises, eagerly shaping itself according to your efforts. Give thanks for the freedom of your mind. Give daily thanks for the honor of being a Goddess.
Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.” – May Sarton
“The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude” – Voltaire
“Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso
“The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison
Goddesses Re-Imagine Themselves. This is a consequential power. You are not condemned to your past; not even to your biology. You are completely free to be whomever you choose – and to evolve in any way you choose.
You Know You Are A Goddess When: Have you been dreaming of rebirth? Second chances? Starting over? Do you wake up in the middle of the night screaming, “Mulligan!”
Isn’t Rebirth Really “Recovery”? Recovery is what happens we repel a demonic force that kept us in thrall – could be addiction, illusion, corruption, compulsive behavior; even a poisonous culture. Were we hostage to another human being who didn’t want the best for us? Goddesses claim absolute freedom: this requires deep thought about our best interests. Freedom to do “anything” doesn’t serve us well. Freedom to “advance”, to “evolve” is what we crave.
“The Bad News is Time Flies – the Good News is, You’re the Pilot.” As our brains clear we get ideas. Ernest Hemingway used to say we are “stronger at the broken places”; Nietzsche expressed it as “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. Healing provides peace as well as joy. We give thanks that we have begun the journey.
Starting Over Is About Expecting to Stumble. Watching toddlers try to “rise and walk” we consider it lucky that they don’t mind being laughed at. (In fact, they love it.) It takes them time to figure out this new challenge. Like beginning skiers, they cling to objects, sway exaggeratedly back and forth, slam into things, and plop down SPLAT; not just once or twice but over and over. The toddler hasn’t been born who suddenly vaults up suavely and starts swanning around in a sophisticated manner. Embrace the last step of Recovery: “Expect to go splat.” Of course we don’t WANT to – fingers crossed – it’s dangerous and bruising. We’d better arrange to have someone around – just in case.
Do Goddesses Fall? Of course! Read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology is you have any doubts.
You Don’t Fail Unless You Refuse to Rise Again. Don’t even bother counting the times you were “brave”. It’s only the “getting back up” that counts. As long as you’re doing that, you’re a true winner.
Goddess Danger – Life never goes the way we planned. There’s the excitement of finding a plan, investigating goals, making them ours, and committing to the plan – and then there’s living the plan. Suddenly we don’t know how to get through the next ten minutes – worse, we make a “big mistakes” unconsciously. The rational self we’ve planned for fails to show up and instead we turn into some irrational monster who threatens murder when momentarily frustrated. This is like sport-learning. Allow each new behavior to penetrate every fiber of your whole body. Rehearse over and over. (10,000 times?) It’s ALL mistakes at first.
Concepts of “Perfection” and “Purity” Require Re-thinking and Re-framing. This exercise is more like forming calluses over tender new skin. It feels funny at first, sore. It might actually “hurt.” We’re on the early steps of a long journey to a wonderful place; and we won’t get there unless we forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up and keep going.
Goddess Opportunity – To “acquire” some things means also to “surrender” others. Learning what to surrender to guarantee our lightness and power is part of being a goddess.
Ever heard of a “dry drunk”? The phrase refers to the state of envying those who “indulge” and feeling that we are somehow lesser, damaged beings because we “can’t.” How does this regret pertain to the goddess’s pledge of superior living? Contrast your planned empowerment with others’ benumbed abandon. Think about what this means.
Goddesses never envy loss of consciousness. We enhance consciousness.
Do Goddesses feel pain? Of course. (See Mythology.) Isn’t it always better to remove the source of the pain, the shame we are escaping from? Is the nostalgic fantasy of mental sleep Normals yearn for really some faint memory of union, with a lost, beloved Other? What would it mean to give up these blind yearnings, this cultivated pain and these unbearable memories to lead a fresh, released and intentional life? It means accepting and becoming a new self in all our exquisitely uniqueness, exploring everything that implies. Recovery is “self-forgiveness”; going forward with a clear-eyed, honest appraisal of ourselves, resources and desires. “I am free”
Goddesses Crest the Wave – Most people have too narrow a self-definition to dare to try new things, but daring and courage are essential features of being a Goddess. Just because something sounds uncomfortable doesn’t mean we won’t someday like it so much we make it part of ourselves. If you’re used to sleeping on the floor, going without breakfast and struggling with a new language, you’ve learned to be unafraid of those things.
Goddesses Are Cagey – We don’t expose ourselves to unnecessary danger. We are constantly developing our safety instincts to recognize insecure situations before they get out of control. A main reason for frugality is that situations can become “too comfortable” – your senses are being dulled! Sharpening senses is what Goddesses are all about!
Goddesses Are Reborn Many Times – Creating our own maps means we go many wrong ways before we find the right one! It’s the process. Throughout our quest we transform ourselves many times to incorporate our new knowledge.
Self-Definition Is Key – Should you be ashamed of taking a wrong turn? Or confident because you figured it out, and proud that you were able to change? Your body is completely new every seven years. You welcome every new day. You are eager to meet new people and find out what makes them tick. You like putting yourself in new situations and figuring out how to cope. Read “Survival” manuals and try out escape rooms with your friends. Explore the sport of orienteering.
Models & Mentors – “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life” – J.K. Rowling
“The airplane takes off against the wind, not with it” – Henry Ford
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt
“The best way to predict your future is to create it” – Abraham Lincoln
You Were Born Lucky! You have to be lucky to deserve goddess-hood. It’s not for everybody. What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?
How Lucky Do You Need to Be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps goddesses should give thanks for our innate ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered one. All these memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Being a goddess is a glorious privilege. Let’s learn to develop gratitude thinking.
Goddess Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.
Goddess Danger – Now that you’re committed to the goddess path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but somehow being tricked into giving control of it over to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?
Goddess Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we recognize it. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?
How Did We Get Here? Turns out your Goddess Map is only a suggestion, full of surprises to keep things interesting. We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more exciting, it turns out, than our imaginations.
After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?
List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Goddess Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?
The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!
Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult”
– Erin McKean
“Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn
“Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh
“Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh
Do Goddesses get time off? They need it! Are your reveries organized around beaches, vacations, relaxation, memories of happy times when you had nothing to do but enjoy yourself feeling only the moment? Goddesses have a heavier lift! We have to live in four time frames at once – past, present, future AND possible!
Is Peace Possible? Consider Serenity as an Idea, and an Ideal. Most of us are familiar with the “serenity prayer” written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right.“
The Serenity Prayer works as an inoculation against pointless worry, which it sees as “borrowing trouble.” The benefit of cultivating serenity is that it allows tender shoots to grow and broken limbs – and organs – to mend.
Goddess Challenge – Like meditation, serenity is a mental gymnastic that takes practice. Make a list of your most pressing concerns. Can you do anything about any of them today? If so, appoint a time when you will take a step towards resolving this concern. If you can’t do anything about it, put it forcefully out of your mind. Goddesses aren’t in charge of the universe! We are merely an upgrade in toughness and heroics. Imagine your worries as a bunch of balloons. Now let them go, one by one. Put each useless worry on a piece of paper and burn them slowly, one by one.
Goddess Mantra – Give yourself a “serenity mantra” a word or phrase you find comforting and centering, and repeat it out loud to yourself. St. Julian of Norwich recommended: ”All will be well”, Coué offered, “Every day, in every way I am getting better and better”, some yoga enthusiasts chant a simple “Om.” You can use a phrase from your own past said to you by a Beloved Person – “now you’ll be fine” “You’re safe” “You’re perfect” “Everything’s all right” or the tried and true: “I love you.” My favorite is from the Book of Revelation: “Every tear is wiped away.”
Goddess Danger – Don’t be tempted to become a mentor while you’re still learning. Goddesses usually want to be helpful but this can be a snare. Mentoring is an end-of-life honor, but you are still placing the oxygen mask on your own face so that you can stay on your plan. Not everyone has the steel to graduate to Goddess. You’re welcome to show friends the basics but don’t bother to walk them through it. You’re nobody’s nanny. You’re busy.
FOMO – We are all worried about “missing” something. Often that “centering person”, that reassuring person from our past is not just the one who gave us the relaxation code, but is also the same one who told us what to worry about: ie. ”Make sure all the locks are locked” “Have you done your homework?” There certainly are things to be concerned about (“Are you registered to vote?”) but there are plenty of worries we CAN’T address. Return to the serenity prayer and start weeding out – on paper – your Justifiable Concerns. One of the best things about Anxiety – and I mean this – is that it offers an opportunity to ask for help. Yes, I say “opportunity”! Because – remember The Lovers -life is all about RELATIONSHIPS.
Worries offer Opportunities to Forge More Meaningful, Worthwhile Relationships. Get ready to experiment. In every relationship in your life, your requirements, tolerance, communication goals will present as unique. Many people yearn to speak to a “professional” – therapist or life coach – and plenty of professionals out there are auditioning for a little – or a lot – of your hard-earned cash. An excellent place to start is with Proven Gurus like Tolle Eckhart or Pema Chodron who can be accessed for free from any library. See what you think. Evaluate their assistance. Inquire further.
Goddess Know What They Have to Do – Others will be envious that we have laid out a plan for our lives, as well as that it is flexible, that it is life-enhancing and that it gives us permission to Enjoy. Be humble and unsurprised about this jealousy.
You’re Entitled – Others also could find peace if they began to take control of the drama that rages within them. Point them in a hopeful direction but don’t get sucked in.
Meditation Looks Like Dreaming – The truth is just what they suspect: that there is enormous pleasure in being a goddess. You will finally feel confident, and when you know your own strength, and the value of your time, you understand your own value. This is what others yearn for. They can learn it, too. But in the mean time you are enjoying your hard-fought-for serenity.
We Need So Little To Be Happy – Here is the great realization. Do goddesses require entourages or enablers and sycophants, vast bank accounts, and acres of product and showcase? Or is one bowl, one mat, one dawn enough for us when we are fueled by our own power? Allow yourself to revel in the comfort of another’s presence or the private pleasures of your own thoughts and company. There will be the joy of another morning, the peace of another night’s rest. The confidence of maintaining a sharp, clear head. Welcome to the Universe.
Models & Mentors – “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – The Dalai Lama
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
“Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action make up the sum of life”
– Vita Sackville-West
“Enjoy the peace of nature and declutter your inner world” – Amit Ray
Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? We were all born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”). Approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are all looking for validation. This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!
Goddesses Need Respect – A Goddess is a Soul Apart. You have a mission, and the Other must be worthy of you. You must be able to respect them, too. You can see that dominance/submission becomes a zero-sum game with each trying to knuckle the other under. No relationship can last under that stress and it degenerates into a destructive spiral.
Goddesses Have Mystery – You are aware of vast reaches of your Self that are unknown and In Development. Most of your promises are tenuous. You are stepping forward with hope into uncharted and potentially dangerous wilderness. This means the pair must accept each other in good faith, as followers of the Light. You will rapidly see you cannot forge relationships until you have a working concept of what the Light is and what its potentialities are. Too many aspirants want the Lover to define them when our obligation is to define ourselves. Accept that with a mystery this vast, it can’t be “solved”. It can only be momentarily elucidated as we receive glimpses of our path and purpose.
Good Relationships are Complementary – You don’t have to provide everything, and they don’t either. Each of you has lapses and blindness the other can improve.
You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t get through this alone, and we don’t want to. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us. If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up as someone else’s meal.
Goddess Danger – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize this. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” this person is an enemy. This is not what friends are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.
Goddess Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.” Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.
Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach. Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts. Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially. Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and deepening sexual connection.
Love Transforms as a Goddess Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.
Locked Back to Back the Goddess Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.
As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint goddess, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.
Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”
– e.e. cummings
“All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller
“Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place”– Zora Neale Hurston
“Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –
II Corinthians
“Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi
Something’s Always Coming. Are you having bad dreams? Of natural disasters like storms, volcanoes and flooding? Do you fear war, robbery, violation, home invasion? Or do you dream about your loved one’s face turning bitter and their words cutting sharply? Conflict is inevitable. It is even necessary – birth pangs seem terrifying. In dreams we rehearse our fears until some of us fear to dream.
It Always Comes Before You’re Ready – Here it is – the reason you become a goddess. You must always be larger than the fight. You must embody the meaning of the fight, and to do that you have to discover what the meaning is. You represent the Principle of Life and have committed yourself to its immortalization.
Battle or go under. It’s not pleasant under there. The force against you is superior – unthinking – inhuman – so you will have to be wily and know when to expend energy and when to conserve your strength.
You are a Force Field. You are a magnet for desire, change, for evolution itself. This comes by virtue of your goddess decision making. Others may tell you to stand back, take your place in line or wait your turn but your appearance into this chaotic universe triggered no such guarantee. We are here to learn to use our power.
Conflict Makes a Goddess – Force stirs up resistance. Actions create re-action as we swing back and forth in our determination and direction. We clash and crash. Sometimes we regret it bitterly, “why did I do that?” Sometimes we fear loss or harm so much we become immobilized. The challenge is to assume your stride, elucidate your goals and plan a direction.
Goddess Danger – It’s all too easy to make others fear you. The one with the biggest weapon THINKS she the fight. But what looks like compliance to you could be revolution – you will be toppled and lose your heart’s desire.
Goddess Opportunity – Learning to use conflict constructively and creatively is a Superpower. Other people are force fields, too. If there is any way to blend these powers and head in the same direction, we become invincible. Welcome the knowledge provided by Storm.
Study Your Opponent – Some clever scholar has separated these opponents into groups & classes. Read up! Some opponents – physical contests, weather conditions – don’t even have a brain. So who – or what – are you playing against?
You Are Playing Against Yourself – your own fear, incapacity, beginner status. Seek mentoring so you have advice along the journey. Who is the sensei who will guide you? Someone who desires both your safety and your growth.
Reward Yourself – The best place to do this is your training journal. Think hard about every contest and how you performed. Assess your challenges and accomplishments. Way to go!
Models & Mentors – “I used to tell myself, boy, if you can survive this, you can survive anything” – Tom Lichtenberg
“Laughter is the proof that our tragedies don’t define us. Laughter is the survivor’s language” – Josh James
“Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet”
– Michael Douglas
“If you want to awaken humanity, awaken yourself. If you want to eliminate suffering, eliminate what is negative in yourself. Your gift to the world is our self-transformation.” –Lao Tzu
To Become a Goddess Is to Accept Your Power. But power is fearsome. We are all familiar with fires that escape control, rage-fueled emotional spirals, explosives that blow up their wielders and the dangers of endlessly escalating weaponry. Once the Goddess’ unleashes power, much can go wrong.
The Power is there whether you claim it or not. To abjure your power is to deny your personhood – something women and marginalized groups have always been commanded to do. If you try to get in touch with your personal power, won’t you tempt established Power to come after you?
Power is About More than Control and bending unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. It is the process of fulfilling your natural growth pattern, becoming the person God always intended you to be. You have an immortal mandate but you must claim it.
You Are Iconic –Goddesses invoke more than magic, they exemplify the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably Individuated Self. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.
Only Illegitimate Power Will Fear You – The Universe that God created accepts a glorious new creature fulfilling their immortal mandate, while stolen power – the desire to crush, to control and to drain – will be forced to reveal itself in the fullness of its jealous evil.
Dreams Will Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic is to seize conscious control of this potent power source.
Goddess Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear. As the demons come after you, you will deploy the skills and techniques of dissembling, transmutation, transformation, mirror-magic and emotional mastery. The demons are hungry, pathetic in their eternal emptiness.
Goddess Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat those struggling to stand upright with respect and demand like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.
Goddess Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are the Universe’s Own Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.
Fear & Trembling: Where would we ever get the courage to become goddess? Human history begins with an enormous fear of the Almighty or whatever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) Then Jesus arrived with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.
Becoming a Goddess: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake, and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding the philosophical concepts about what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.
Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.
Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Goddess. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.
Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. It is key to step out of the dominance/submission game.
Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.
Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie
“An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden
“You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal”
Do your dreams pulse with some energy ripening inside you? You are gathering force for a great work.
You Are A Power – You struggle to take command of your force. You feel the power and strength of undefined wishes and an inchoate longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you will have to map this forest yourself. Be brave.
All Connection Is an Energy Transfer –When you make any contact – even exchange a glance – with another living being, a current of energy passes between you, even if the “other” has been ruled “non-sentient” by our limited – and limiting – standards. In the depth of your being, you feel the electric thrill. This is the basis for the healing behind “forest bathing” and “garden bathing.”
Energy Drainage – That fact sets up the possibility that energy – your life force – can be sucked right out of you. Recognize when this is happening – when you are being fed upon. Get away from the predator as fast as you can go.
Goddess Challenge – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow of energy pulses with your every heartbeat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willingly seek to smooth your path.
Goddess Danger – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your set course. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” We are all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If you aren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss.
Goddess Opportunity – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate among them – for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult other maps in designing your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Salut!
How Did People You Admire Manifest the Life Force? Jesus spent an epic 40 day & nights in the desert. Margaret Mead lived in Samoa studying the Samoans. Carl Sagan describes his “defining moment” as visiting the World’s Fair at four years old. It exploded and expanded his mind. Who are your models? Research them and study their transitions and experiments.
Magic & Mystery: A you accept yourself and accept your changes, you are confronting the dynamic of change, which is the manifestation of energy in existence. We are all alive and moving. This is a dance and you are the choreographer and star. Erik Erikson said “A good life is like a weaving. Energy is created in the tension. The pull and tug, the struggle, is everything.”
Commit to tiring yourself out during the day with thought, exercise and interrelations so that you can enjoy healthy sleep at night.
Models & Mentors – ‘Every thought has an energy. Thoughts send out a magnetic frequency” – Rhonda Byrne
“Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it – for it is a faculty of the psyche” – Germaine Greer
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” – Nikola Tesla
“The more positive energy you throw into the universe, the more positive energy you get back”
(On the beach. Door in the house opens and CHARMAYNE, wearing only a filmy cover-up over her bikini, steps out exultantly to spread her arms to the moon)
CHARMAYNE Moon, Mother-Sister-Goddess, whose tears fertilize the world, I seek permission to penetrate your veil.
WHITNEY (Awkwardly standing) Er – Char –
CHARMAYNE Oh, my God, Whitney! You scared the life out of me. What are you doing here?
WHITNEY Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.
CHARMAYNE (Insulted)
I’m surprised, that’s all. You’re never here this late. Should I be flattered? What have you got there?
(WHITNEY proffers the bottle.)
WHITNEY I was trying to get up the nerve to speak to you.
CHARMAYNE Tequila?
(Laughs.)
WHITNEY It’s my drink. Want some?
CHARMAYNE Why couldn’t you just come to the door?
WHITNEY You were…with someone.
CHARMAYNE (Burbling laughter)
Ramon’s gone, you must have heard the television! Don’t be jealous of the television. You’re adorable! Give me some of that.
(Seats herself comfortably and takes the bottle)
WHITNEY Sorry I don’t have any cups.
CHARMAYNE Oh. Whitney, I’m the Queen of Cups, didn’t you know?
(Laughs and drinks)
Queen of bottles, too. So what did you want to talk to me about?
WHITNEY I wanted to ask your advice on something.
(Making it up on the spur of the moment)
I’ve got a problem at college, and you know all about men. My advisor is…handsy.
CHARMAYNE Handsy! There’s an expression I haven’t heard for awhile.
WHITNEY (Inspired) He’s a real – Casper the Grasper. He always pretends it’s a joke or a mistake. I don’t know what to do. He’s the head of the department. If I complain –
CHARMAYNE Never complain, Whit. Never settle. We’re better than that. You need to get even. Trust me, that’s where all the real satisfaction is.
(Takes another swig – offers it to WHITNEY who pretends to drink)
This is so much fun! I was yearning for a Girls Night Out!
(Puts her arm through WHITNEY’S)
This may amaze you, but I get lonely too. It’s a well-kept secret life can be lonely at the top. Finding my equal just gets harder and harder.
WHITNEY There’s Ramon –
CHARMAYNE Oh, please! Ramon’s just an employee and he knows it. Men! Even well-trained men are…a limited indulgence. And there’s one thing they can’t ever get right.
(Smacks WHITNEY’S thigh as she cuddles up to her)
This part.
(EIGHT looks over the boulder. WHITNEY seems emboldened by his presence)
WHITNEY So have you ever done it? Gotten even?
CHARMAYNE (Bragging)
I always get even. Nobody messes with me twice.
(Swig. She’s not even sharing the bottle anymore)
WHITNEY (Settling down for a story)
Tell me about it.
CHARMAYNE You’ll have to take off your clothes first.
(Uncomfortable moment. WHITNEY pulls away.)
Did you think offering me a drink would be enough to get me to unburden?
WHITNEY What are you talking about?
CHARMAYNE I need to know you’re not recording me, silly girl. I’ve been blackmailed by pros. What happens on Girls Night Out stays on Girls Night Out. Hos before bros. Come on. Hurry it up. Look at me, I’m not wearing anything.
WHITNEY (Peels down to her underwear)
Believe me, I’m not “recording” anything.
CHARMAYNE That’s what they all say. Knowledge backfires in the hands of the novice. Turn around. Let me look. Phone turned off?
(She runs her hand thru bra & panties)
You know what? I believe you. You couldn’t lie to save your soul. And you’re the most awful blusher, has anybody ever told you that? You blush with your whole body!
WHITNEY (Blushing)
I’m aware.
CHARMAYNE Lucky for you. People automatically trust blushers because blushing’s involuntary.
WHITNEY People trust me because they know I care about the truth.
CHARMAYNE Oh, bullshit! The truth! The Sacred Truth! There’s no such thing! There’s what happened and there’s what we think happened – who can tell the difference? OK, sit down. Take a load off. Have a drink to loosen you up.
(WHITNEY pretends to drink)
You’ve got a good body, you know that? Nice and hard. Lovely tone. You’re lacking a waist, that’s all. You inherited your father’s physique as well as his brains. It’s all about pluses and minuses. You have to work against the minuses. Men are prejudiced against waistless girls because their hard wiring makes them suckers for a certain waist to hip proportion. Did you know that? But we don’t care about them, do we? Who needs them? Prisoners of their reflexes! Born to mate! Man proposes, the goddess disposes!
WHITNEY Charmayne, you turn every conversation into a Whitney – critiqueathon. Why’s that?
CHARMAYNE Because you interest me, little Whit. You interest me extremely. You’re smart. The way your father was … at first.
WHITNEY (Refusing to be drawn. Grits her teeth to get through this.)
Please don’t talk about him. And don’t tell me to make myself gorgeous for Casper the Grasper.
CHARMAYNE Listen, if you were gorgeous he wouldn’t have the nerve to touch you.
WHITNEY I think the beautiful get harassed, too.
CHARMAYNE But they have more options. They can –
WHITNEY I want to hear about you. Tell me about that time that you got even.
CHARMAYNE (Very expansive)
There are so many! But let’s start at the beginning. Here’s something you didn’t know about me. I had a stepfather. You may complain about me, but the problem with you, Whit, is that you always take your good luck for granted. I never take anything for granted. I’m a day at the beach compared to that guy. Talk about “handsy”!
WHITNEY (Pretending to drink, then surrendering the bottle)
So what was he like?
CHARMAYNE What was he like? He was a monster, that’s what he was like. He was Death, the Hanged Man, the Tower. He thought he was the God of Wrath, that asshole. He was only a king of Destruction.
(Swigs from the bottle)
Destruction is easy. It’s creation that’s hard. It’s creating that takes it out of you. Every time I look in the mirror and recreate myself, I am spitting on his grave. He acted so convinced that I’d end up nothing, just like him. All he ever gave me was a spiral fracture of the arm.
WHITNEY (Shocked and appalled)
Why’d your Mom marry him?
CHARMAYNE She couldn’t believe he wanted to marry her! She’d never been married – God knows who my real father was. She thought if any vaguely presentable guy – even some unemployed wastrel on disability – proposes to you, you HAVE to say yes. She met him at the diner where she cooked. Oh, yeah, my Mom worked. And worked and worked. Two shifts a day. My step-dad was supposed to take care of me. She thought she’d hit the lottery to win some guy with a disability check and nothing but time on his hands to look after me for free. He used every second ratcheting up my misery. I couldn’t stay at school every minute, but you better believe I wanted to. I knew I had to go home to him eventually. But the joke was on him. He thought he was so smart but he sure underestimated me.
(She’s lost, now, talking to the audience)
What a scrawny, worthless loser! He knew the entire universe despised him so he thought he’d get himself a slave. Someone he could push around. I was eleven when he told me it was his duty to teach me about sex. He said that was what stepfathers were for.
WHITNEY But your Mom –
CHARMAYNE (Angrily)
Oh, my Mom knew perfectly well what was going on! It meant she didn’t have to cope with him!
(Returns attention to courting the audience, cultivating her reverie. WHITNEY muffles up to ease the flow)
Mom’s cooperation (I should say her silence, because she was way too fat to “cooperate”) could be bought with a carton of snack cakes.
My step-dad pretended I was ugly; that he could barely bring himself to touch me. He expected me to worship him. But he must have known that the moment I grew up I’d try to get away. Maybe he thought he could keep me forever, like a hostage. Once, when my girlfriends and I streaked our hair for a sleepover, he acted as if I had set the house on fire. Luckily it was the kind that washes out; otherwise I think he really would have shaved my head.
I remember exactly how scared I felt the first time I decided to ignore my stepfather’s dictates about how I should look and dress. My first day of high school I knew I couldn’t go in there looking like some Amish refugee. I had to step up my game. It was terror, rank terror, the kind that makes you wet yourself; but you know what enemies forget? That fear is the rocket fuel of rebellion. Remember that, Whitney. You’ll never experience an emotion like that; you’ve been too sheltered. My stepfather’s own possessive rage became the engine of his death.
I try not to think about him too often because my energy is the only thing that gives him life, but you know, I’m glad to share this with you. Open it up, get it out of my head. The memories are still there, perfect and crystal clear. Nothing that happened in all those years since packs that kind of punch. I was just beginning to realize that my stepfather couldn’t actually read my mind, had no eyes in the back of his head, could not see through walls, did not have spies everywhere, was not connected to the Mafia or the CIA. It was him or me. How could I destroy him?
That year Saturn and Mars were equally fiery, it was dry and there was a comet. Perfect for revolution. He was weakening and I was strengthening. Your father taught you that in chess queens rule: my step-dad was too stupid to know it. So our battles escalated. I was getting as tall as he was; he must have figured his fists and penis were no longer sufficient to control me. One day he produced a gun. His idea was that we would have a threesome, little me, paralyzed with fear, and Superman with his two dicks. My idea was different.
He knew I was afraid of the cellar. He used to lock me down there for punishment when I was little. As a child, I thought it was the mouth of hell; a dirt hole stinking like a sewer clawed out beneath the bowels of the house. When he pushed me down there I never even passed the top step but just clung to the doorknob, eye pressed to the light crack, wailing for release.
(A slug of fast-vanishing booze. Turns her attention back to WHITNEY)
Will is a muscle, Whit; you can train it just the way you train the body. I had transcended so many fears already; why couldn’t I outgrow this one? What is the fear of confrontation, really, but the fear of change? What is the fear of being caught but the fear of ultimate failure, of not being powerful enough? Poisoning him didn’t work – I tried that – hoping to make his death look accidental; so, what if he simply disappeared? Nobody except his bar buddies would even notice he was gone. And they were way too fuzzyheaded to stage any meaningful hunt. Mom could just keep cashing his checks. Who would know? And she owed me. He’d overstayed his welcome on this planet; neither of us needed a babysitter any more. If weapons are engines of confrontation, Whitney, both of us could use them.
That was when I fell in love with power, Whitney. I had to, and you can too, or you’ll never get anywhere. Let me be your teacher.
(Strokes WHITNEY’s hair, uses finger for a gun)
Pop, pop, pop, and “pop” is gone. I knew how to cock the pistol; I knew how to release the safety because I’d seen him do it countless times. If the cellar was dirty and stinky, and no one ever went down there, why couldn’t I bury him where nobody would ever look?
So, while he was out buying smokes I fired up my nerve and took a flashlight down to check it out. That wooden staircase rocked like it was going to collapse, but I told myself it had only to hold me two more times. There were bugs, just as I feared; centipedes and worms, but now I saw them as my friends. Let them eat the bastard up; if only they’d chew his bones as well. The walls were caving in; hunks of unhewn stone overpowered by tree roots. Then I saw my blessing. A wooden well cover. I knew the time was now.
I recalled the furor when the county forced us on to public water. My step-dad raged that fluoridation was a commie plot. And all that time the old well was down there. Water in the bottom reflected my flashlight as I leaned over. It was even set flush with the floor; what could be easier? I practiced moving the wooden cover; no problemo. The only difficulty now was to get him down here with the gun.
So I told him I heard rats; I knew he longed for targets; especially in front of me. When I said they were scratching at the door, he was ready to go.
But he liked being a man of surprises, fancying he was in control. He made me go down first, carrying the flashlight and a garbage bag. That meant I couldn’t tackle him from behind the way I’d planned. It cut down on my time for action, because as I think I said before, the place was just a tiny hole. He would see I was a liar.
But if he had surprises, I had ideas. The garbage bag gave me a good one. I had a friend who earnestly believed violence engenders hauntings, but she didn’t see her own death coming. But if what she said is true, that cellar’s haunted forever by me in a red sweater, red kilt and plaid tights; and my step-dad wearing a garbage bag over his head while we struggled for the gun. I had to drop the flashlight; it shot a crazy, useless stream of light across the floor; we were in darkness.
He was wiry and desperate and amazingly strong, but I had the gun two-handed and I would not have let it go if the world around me exploded into flames. I discovered in that moment the secret of power, Whit, if you want something with your whole being, if you have not one cell of doubt, you are invincible. I had to kick his crotch to loosen up his grip, but the gun came to me pre-cocked. What an idiot! I shot him right through the bag. That gun kicked like a rattlesnake. I shot him again and again and again, and one of the bullets somehow came back to graze me in the face. Doesn’t bother me. This chip along my cheekbone – see? I wear it as a badge of honor.
(Demonstrates to WHITNEY)
I still have that gun. I can show you if you want to see it.
(She’s slurring her words now. Shakes the empty bottle.)
There’s another one that fell before The Queen of Swords! Think we should put a message in this thing? What would we say?
(Pulls arm back to throw bottle into the audience, sits down hard)
WHITNEY So you’re telling me to shoot my way out?
(CHARMAYNE laughs. shakes & holds her head)
CHARMAYNE Oh, Whitney, you’re always so literal! Your father hoped you’d be a lawyer. Wow, am I drunk. Guess I should have eaten dinner, but who wants to eat alone? Don’t be so silly, Whit. You can’t dip your hand in the same river twice. Your guy’s got weaknesses is all I’m saying. Search – searching –
(Seems like she’s losing track of her thoughts)
You’ve got to search them out. I can’t do everything for you. Learn to defend yourself. No one helps anyone else and the sooner you find that out, the better off you’ll be.
(Throws herself on her back)
Look at those stars, Whit. So many stars. Every star’s a lost soul, struggling for a piece of sun. Did you know I can’t sleep, Whit? I haven’t slept in days. But, I think I can sleep now. There’s something so safe, so reassuring about you.
(Loud snoring. EIGHT and WHITNEY stand over her looking down)
WHITNEY Should we move her?
EIGHT Don’t disturb her. Jeez, when she goes down, she goes down hard.
(CHARMAYNE reaches up scrabbling at the air.)
CHARMAYNE I hear you! What did you say?
(Burps)
This has been so fun. Look out, there’s two of you!
(Rolls over, cuddles up in WHITNEY’s clothes. WHITNEY tries to cover herself – EIGHT lends her his Hawaiian shirt)
WHITNEY I don’t – thanks.
EIGHT Hey, it’s a beautiful night.
WHITNEY Well, they say confession is good for the soul. But you have to have a soul.
EIGHT I’m sure she’s got something left way down deep in there. But it’s probably a poor, stubby, underfed little thing. You take off, I’ll watch over her.
Alysse Aallyn 