For the Goddess in You A Quarterly Column by Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway

A Goddess is a Girl's Best Friend

Goddess Reflections

In the world of Goddesses, Yemaja is the Goddess of the Sea. The Yoruban and other cultures who worship Her call her Mama Watta. She is a mother Goddess, to whom people pray for healing and renewal. She is the creative power of all that is. On the New Year, in Brazil, women bring offerings to Her and send them out to sea in tiny boats, hoping to win Her favor.

In the past couple of weeks I have prayed to understand why the Mother Ocean would erupt onto the shores with such violence and take so many of her children back home. There were so many souls leaving this planet at one time; there were so many humans left standing on the shore bereft, having had their children, loved ones, friends, homes, ripped from them. It seems so unreal and surreal.

How could this happen? This is the question many of us ponder from a spiritual perspective.

Personally, I don't believe that we humans are punished by the Divine. But I do believe we are offered lessons. I can't begin to imagine what this lesson could be all about. My heart aches too much to be able to truly tap into a spiritual view. Certainly I have no answers.

In her article on beliefnet.com, The Planets and Stars of Y2K5, my friend Shelley Ackerman wrote: "Will the current climate of polarization dissolve and give way to cooperation, wholeness and harmony in the New Year? In light of the world wide relief effort now under way in Indonesia and the Pacific Rim, Mother Nature's wrath has made certain it does."

Made sense. As we watch the story unfold we are seeing mass cooperation of nations, religions, peoples. Insurgents in one region are working with authorities. Individual people are reaching out to others. People who have lost family members are forming new families with others who have lost their loved ones. A spotlight is being placed on issues that much of the world has been able to look away from in before, such as the kidnapping of children to be sold into slavery or sex work, and the sheer poverty of the people. A time like this forces people to work together in a way that they may not have been able to, or never wanted to, before. And if forces us to grapple with realities we don't often think much about in daily life. At the very least we are shown that we can come together to try to help heal the world.

This healing will take a lot of help and a lot of time. President Bill Clinton, speaking on Larry King Live the other night, had a great idea to have a panel with religious leaders of all faiths to come on and talk about how their faiths deal with tragic events. This is a concept my husband has been talking about for years. We'd probably all learn a lot, and maybe even be surprised at how similar each faith is when it comes to crisis.

We find ourselves at another time in history that will define all history to come. Just as life seemed split into the eras "before 9-11" and "after 9-11" we will find ourselves defining yet the newer era, "before the tsunami" and "after the tsunami."

Maybe this is a time to reflect on life as it was, before the tsunami, and make some choices about how we want to be in this next part of life. Perhaps we have to factor in the fact that we cannot always control a crisis, but we have a choice about how we react to it.

This year started off with a global challenge of such huge proportions that is forcing our world to work in cooperation for the good of all - regardless of religion, politics, belief system. Let us hope that from tragedy will come some good.

© Copyright 2005 Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway. All Rights Reserved. 

May 2003 - "A Gathering of Goddesses: Our Girlfriends Keep Us Real"

For more information:
Website: www.GoddessFriends.com or to join "The Goddess List" for inspirational and informational electronic message, Email: GoddessLaxmi@aol.com

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