Goddesses and Gods.wps - Welcome to Our Temple

Beliefs of Goddess Worship
Christianity teaches that God is transcendent, is separate from nature, and is
represented to humankind through masculine imagery. Witchcraft holds a
pantheistic view of God. God is nature, therefore God is in all things and all things
are a part of God. However, this God is in actuality a goddess.
A fundamental belief in Goddess Worship is the idea that the goddess predates the
male God. The goddess is the giver of all life and is found in all of creation. The
importance of the Goddess symbol for women cannot be overstressed. The image of
the Goddess inspires women to see ourselves as divine, our bodies as sacred, the
changing phases of our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy, and our anger as
purifying. Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds,
own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions.
The modern Goddess movement is an attempt to integrate the feminine back into the
world as we know it. This means bringing the Goddess out of the shadows and back
into the limelight where she belongs. Part of most modern Goddess traditions is the
idea that Goddess exists within and around everything in creation. Therefore, if
Goddess is sacred, then so is the Earth, so our bodies, etc. Moreover, the relationship
between all of these things is equally sacred. Therefore, not only do we need to revere
the creations of the Goddess, we must revere the relationship and the systems that
Goddess has created, for they each have their purpose. The problem is that we don't
always know what the true system is anymore because our society is so corrupted by
the patriarchy. For example, if we only examine the system as it exists today, we
might come to the conclusion that women's place within the system is necessarily
subservient to the men in the system. Naturally, eco-feminists would laugh at this
idea. First of all, eco-feminism maintains that the natural order of things is not linked
by hierarchical value, so the very notion of men governing women is absurd. The
nature of things would require reciprocal communication and integral networking.
In light of this, then, Goddess religion asserts that Goddess and God cannot be viewed
separately, but rather as a network of energies that work together to better the entire
network.
Goddess Archetypes:
The The The Maiden Maiden
Maiden
The Maiden is the first aspect of the Goddess, presented to us as a young woman,
blossoming into womanhood, exploring her sexuality and learning of her beauty. She