Adonis said he didn't understand what the heck I was talking about when I said that "the energy of joy and pure love that they [babies] bring is the energy that grounds Being--the energy that some of us call, in convenient shorthand, Goddess." That's what I get for blogging while sleep-deprived, because usually he knows what I'm talking about.
Terri says it differently here: "Love is the Ground of All Being, the Zero Point of the Universe whence all matter and spirit is bound." To use Plotinus's image, Love is the One overflowing, self-generating.
Carol Christ writes about attending her mother's death that she (the daughter) experienced the overwhelming presence of Love, and that for her that was a tangible, indubitable experience of Goddess's presence.
It's just a belief. A tenet of faith. In the beginning, there was Love. At the end, there will be Love. Love is the Source. Love is the Ground. If you believe this, you will experience the universe thus. Call it confirmation bias. Call it revelation. Call it faith. Regardless, it is a rich and joyous way to live. It is a good way to regard the earth and all her creatures.
When I gaze upon my baby's face; when a dog at the SPCA crawls into my lap; when a friend offers me compassion--then I feel the Source rise in me like sweet water from a spring. And my faith, which is so often a guttering candle, burns a little more steadily and brightly.
3 comments:
I've found that people have the most problem when I try to put this faith into words. Only, to me, it's not a faith-it's experiential, it's a gnosis.
I think it's possible that you have to exeprience it more than once in your life - perhaps on an ongoing basis - before the blather of words I use to seek to translate the experience is understood.
No, it's not frustrating - it's rather comical, huh?
Love,
Terri in Joburg
Only, to me, it's not a faith-it's experiential, it's a gnosis.
Agree, completely. You've either experienced it (know it) or it's just someone's weird babbling.
And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.
I agree with the idea of a gnosis. I like it. My formulation of a "tenet of faith" is rather beholden to Logos, isn't it--to religions of the book? It's good to get outside that framework for understanding religion.
On the other hand, I'm inclined to think that what we're able to experience depends on our background beliefs or assumptions. So if I believe that the universe is fundamentally a hostile or indifferent place, will I be able to experience Love as its Source?
Of course, background assumptions by their nature usually go unstated and undiscovered, so maybe it's incorrect to think of them as propositions, as tenets that can be stated "x is y."
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