Divinity lacks a sexual orientation…do we?
September 11th, 2009God and Goddess, Lord and Lady…male and female. We use human terms to describe our Sacred Being(s) and we think we’ve got it covered. I suppose we do if we’re only going to make the heterosexual portion of the Pagan community comfortable. But what if male is NOT the opposite of female for you? How does any Pagan group address not only the spiritual needs, but the language of the GLBT population? How do we communicate our concepts of the Divine without leaving out anyone? Do we need to change our terminology?
I don’t think so–I think we just need to explore an expansion of those terms. We need to remind ourselves that each one of us is able to access and emulate the aspects of BOTH genders, avail ourselves of whatever power or characteristic we need, regardless of which sex–or sexual orientation–we are. We have held ritual that had only female aspects as well as rituals that only honored the male. In our private rituals, we address the Divine by whatever form we find most recognizable and I’m willing to bet it is almost always the same sex aspect, simply because we are the most familiar with our own being.
It’s just a matter of choosing the aspect that has the attributes we are addressing, either to honor or to claim a particular characteristic for ourselves. Even within various pantheons, the archetypes for various attributes are pretty evenly shared by both male and female aspect. There are creator gods and there are warrior goddesses; no one behavior is limited to a specific gender. This is an important point to remember: you should call upon that aspect of the Divine which has the strongest resonance for you at that time. The choice should be made based on which pantheon you are familiar with, which aspect of the Divine seems most compatible with your purpose, and being comfortable with the images that particular aspect brings to your mind.
It can be worth the effort to work with the opposite gendered aspect of the Divine on a regular basis in order to learn more about ourselves in the process. We are not any of us 100% female or 100% male—and I mean this in the mental and spiritual sides of our being more than the physical. But even in the physical portion, there’s a great deal of overlap in common body parts… remove the sex organs and there’s minimal difference between man and woman. Transsexual operations require a certain amount of intricacy, but really—if we were that different, turning one sex into the other would not be possible at all. That overlap is probably part of the reason that there is a rainbow spectrum of sexual behaviors.
Sometimes familiarity with our sexual being actually impedes our energy work. We’re so comfortable with, so used to having that same sex association that we do not give it the attention it needs or deserves. So purposefully choosing an opposite aspect to work with serves as a focusing lens on the magick we are doing. Choosing to align ourselves with the opposite gender in our Craft work can lead to all sorts of revelations. It can open up a whole side of ourselves that we seldom explore. We are so much more than our sexual identity or orientation and yet so often we are limited, either by our own fears or by other’s concepts of acceptable behavior, that we don’t use or even realize our full potential.
And you do notice that I’m not saying men should be exploring only the female aspect or women should be trying the male; I’m talking about a conscious choice to seek out and learn about ANY aspect that has attributes you want to emulate. Sexual orientation is such a minor part of the choices for living a complete and balanced life that we shouldn’t get hung up on it. Same thing with those gender-specific stereotypes of behavior–gay or straight.
Women do not have some special mothering ability to nurture. Men can be just as nurturing, just as warm and tender—but our society does not encourage them to allow that side to be seen. Men don’t have the monopoly on anger or aggression, but women are very seldom taught how to be appropriately angry or how to express it without having it tied to their physical cycle. Emotions have no gender. Your feelings are not male or female. Let me say that again: emotions are not categorized by your sexual identity. We all are capable of every single emotion.
With the marvels of science now available to us, there is nothing that a man can do that a woman cannot, and vice versa. The only thing that one gender can do that the other cannot (and that’s at this time in history) is to bear children. And quite frankly, while it’s a miraculous thing, bearing children is not particularly a notable defining characteristic. Any female cat can do it. It should not be the first or the only thing someone says about you and what kind of person you are.
In fact, there shouldn’t be any single characteristic that would sum up the total of who you are. We are part of the Divine and we can’t adequately describe Him/Her/It. Words are insufficient to explain the unknowable and we are a child of that unknowable, living our physical lives towards becoming that unknowable again. This means that the gender of our concepts of the Divine is really immaterial and completely irrelevant to our worship as well as our cooperative efforts, such as energy work. It’s much less about who has what plumbing than it is about what resonates for you, gives you the best results because it “feels right”.
Focusing on one aspect of anything means that you lose sight of the bigger picture. It can be worthwhile to take a close look at that one spot, but it should never be mistaken for being the entirety of the object being examined. Limiting oneself to only one aspect of the Divine is also a mistake. Limiting it to only one gender is foolish beyond words—and I don’t just mean limiting it to a male figure. There are those who only identify the Divine as female; a natural enough reaction to a life time of masculine religious domination but just as wrong as any fundamentalist who denies female Divine power. It is a form of arrogance, this restricting and limiting of the limitless. Arrogance is a way of “knowing” and once you *know*, you stop learning, you stop being open to newness.
We don’t use these terms to promote some sort of heterosexual agenda, even if it seems like that’s where it’s going. Like I’ve said, we need to conscisously and consistently expand the use of the terms, redefine just what exactly do we mean when we try to explain the concept of the unknowable. It’s not so much about “you are God and I am Goddess and together we are One” as it is more the concept of “I am God AND Goddess; You are God AND Goddess, with each of having different aspects of the Divine–and together, we are ONE”. So it doesn’t matter if it’s Adam and Eve, or Adam and Steve–or Eve and Lilith–or some other combination. Every human being has a multitude of aspects and can identify with at least three different terms for the Divine. We were, after all, created in His/Her/Its own image.
And really, none of those terms describe the sexual orientation of that aspect. We don’t talk about Mars, god of war and queer…or Diana, virgin goddess and lesbian. Who you love and how you love is not important; all that truly matters is that you love. And what is love? Let me offer this definition: Love is the natural result to, and acknowledgement of, the sacredness within another person; it is the ultimate, unthinking recognition of the Universal connection and holiness of each person; it gives freely without thought of recompense and wants only the best for the other, regardless of personal involvement in that best. Love is indeed a verb, NOT a noun. I breathe, I live, I love.
So when open yourself to welcoming Divinity and acknowledge the sacred in all, the form it takes will not matter. Every face that the Divine wears has a lesson to teach, wisdom to impart. And that is EVERY face, whether it’s an archetype god or goddess aspect from your preferred pantheon or the person sitting next to you at work.
I would suggest that the only time that aspect’s sexual orientation is important is if you are receiving a lesson in accepting different types of loving that you are not familiar/comfortable with or if it’s a chance to teach you about something related to having that orientation, like acceptance in our society. And learning the lesson is our purpose in life, to seek and explore for the things we need to know and do to be the Sacred Being that we are. Open your hands; open your hearts; open your minds and receive all the gifts of the Divine.
