Finding the God Within Me

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Finding the God Within Me

by Mariani Dawnstar

When I first encountered Paganism I was transformed by the Goddess and the revelation that the feminine was divine as well as the masculine. For many years my primary focus and relationship was with the Goddess and the gifts She brings. I honored the God and respected Him but had little connection with Him inside myself. I had come from a fundamentalist background where any memory of the Lady had been suppressed and the discovery of Her was truly the discovery of much of myself that I had never known existed up until that time.

After I learned the powers and rights of the Lady, my development began to focus on the God within me and here I encountered much trouble. I knew the God of the Christians, a severe demanding being who would send those who did not honor his ego rights to first place into the torture of Hell. But as I was confronted in my life with this negative image of the mate powers and this was all I knew, I had no way to deal with the negative strength of this demanding controlling being as he was reflected in the men I knew and he tortured me in my personal life with a vengeance. I knew even then that I was making this reality for myself because the mate alter ego within me was modeled on Jehovah God, but r did not know what to do other than to continue to endure and seek to transform the pattern within me. l could not access my male energies because I refused to use them in this egotistical pattern and such a pattern was the only one I knew for maleness.

Intellectually, I held the God equal to the Goddess. I knew the God gave his power to the Goddess. I knew he supported and helped her and defended her. But I couldn't feel this, it was not active within me. Working with the rituals of the Gardnerian Wiccan way, I participated in the positive relationship of the Goddess and God in the seasonal celebrations, the circle drawing1 and the initiations. Here I could experience something more than I knew within me and He began to grow within me.

I sought the energy of the type of God who would love and partner with the Goddess I knew. There was a thick solid wall between me, and that energy channel within me, and the process of breaking it open was similar to placing dynamite against that wall and lighting the fuse. I survived, just barely. But it was worth every bit of pain it cost me.

Beginning to feel the God in the depths of my being was a revelation as deep as my original experience of the Goddess. I suspect that others like myself have trouble opening up to His energies because of the many negative experiences of the male energy within our culture. He supported rather than criticized. protect me when I needed it He was warm and loving. He was warm and loving. He gave freely of his energy to protect me when I needed it.

The first gift of the God was the gift of battle. I had never been good at handling anger and hostility. I tried to placate the other person and calm them down in those situations. The God gave me the energy to stand up for my self and not be controlled or dominated by another. He taught me how to fight for myself. The second gift of the God was the gift of directness. I had always avoided awkward questions that "might" hurt someone's feelings, questions that "might" be misunderstood or offend. The God taught me to ask what I realty wanted to know without beating around cock robin's barn to try to get someone to tell me what I wanted without having to ask an awkward question. rhe third gift of the God was reason. His coming sent me back to school to get an additional college degree that taught me to think clearly, precisely and logically. He gave me reason.

So who have we learned that the God is. He is first and foremost the partner of the Goddess. He loves and honors a fully empowered female energy and revels in it. He respects and follows the wisdom of the feminine. He also is secure in the wisdom of the masculine that is his and does not have to prove it. He has moved beyond the ego and though he uses it, he is not used by it. He knows his power and uses it if he must but he would rather be gentle and loving. He is warm. He is a gentle cloak that wraps you about, but that cloak is also armor that will protect you from the arrows and slings of others if you need such protection. In the first wonder of dancing in his love I wrote in joy and delight

I hear a sound in the night

Far away out of sight

Like a beacon it sounds

In and out all around

In the whisper of air

Comes a shadow so fair

Now it's brushing my arm

There's no cause for alarm

'Tis enchantment so right

Filling up all the night

A dance of the light

As birds wheel in flight

And the woods echo sound

As the piper comes round

With his bright dancing step

To my heart he has crept

Waking life in my soul

He is making me whole.

Especially have I learned that He is a part of Her and She is a Part of Him and They are together as a Oneness beyond either of them so that you cannot truly know Him until you know Her and you cannot truly know Her until you know Him. They are like two sides of a coin and cannot be separated even though they are two and not one. That between them is the balance of complementary gifts. Their strength is in their polarization, in their difference in their oppositeness. They are Like the two poles of a magnet always pulling toward each other. They are like the Yin and the Yang, each containing the core essence of the other. They are not afraid to be different and they love to celebrate their difference. They are not afraid to be together and they dance the round of life as partners.

Lord and Lady in the air

Being here and everywhere

Fitting earth with love and care

Breathe their being in the air

Lord and Lady in the fire

Blessing earth with Life's desire

Ever willing to rise higher

Burning heat, Transforming fire

Lord and Lady water be

Deeply dwell in you and me

Mystery we dare to see

Dissolving life and setting free

Lord and Lady in the earth

Bringing life and then rebirth

Son of man and lord of earth

Daughter of the' Mother Earth

in thy fullness do we live

From thy bounty do we give

Wondrous life of hearing seeing

All our lives we've blest with being

Dancing round the spiral way

Day to night and night to day

Seasons come and seasons go

All of life in joy we know.

May the Love of the Lady and and the Strength of the Lord be with you each day of your life. Blessed Be.

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