Day 9: (A)Holy Distraction
I keep getting distracted by a small word that is growing on me, feeling like I should interpret it each time I use it... So, on the way to Synchronicity II, I'd like to invite awareness of Godde, for posts to come.
It's pronounced just like God, in my head at least, which soothes the conservative-reactive amongst us. A spirit-friend put a long E on it first time he saw it, which I liked too. My liturgical settings won't go there with me.
The word is halfway to Goddess, but not quite all the way there. It stops in the middle of this polarity, offering a written seed of a more expansive but not determinative way in the Divine Masculine-Feminine dance in all I do. It has a little felt-sense of German to it (Gott), which is my own heritage, way back.
Starting about three months ago, I found myself using this spelling when referring to the One God, or in traditional Christian language, the Triune One of Father, Son, Spirit. I've not had a strong sense of any word for Godde in these last years, as each one I grasp onto gets broken open beyond my grasp. Spirit is the word I use most, as it connects in both conservative and liberal communities in which I serve and am nourished. A friend of mine refers to Godde as the hum, noting the energetic presence in all of creation, Creation. I've appreciated that, but it's never landed in my bodysoul the way I imagine it does for her. Then I was emoting about something in a longish, private blog-post--don't even remember what was goading me into words at that moment. Godde came out onto the screen. I remember pausing, noticing, before racing onto the next thought. It's been Godde ever since, in my writing, and in my own ears when I've had to read scripture in a liturgical-formal setting.
It feels resonant because it wasn't a cognitive-choice kind of thing, but more of a happenstance, a gift that arrived quietly, without fanfare. Godde is often like that for me.
This gift offers a nice middle way between the presumptive Masculine in most liturgical traditions and a companionable, even befriending Feminine who does not need to have Her embodiment/ideology be the only one for the whole. It was a journey for me to grow comfortable with the word Goddess, needing to recover Her Sacred Form(s) from the way Hebrew and Christian scripture demonize Her. I cherish that journey and the word Goddess. But She does not strike me as One who insists HER charisms take over the Divine. She is a welcome form, for those whom She feeds in that way.
In my work, I tend to honor/use whatever Godde-language my students and/or directees need, including absolutely no-Godde-language at all. My own bodysoul smiles with the entrance of Godde into my writing. I like how it resists quietly in place yet honors my weariness of masculinized presumption in collective spaces. I like how it 'seeds' the Goddess in writing, if not fully in speech, for those not prepared for Her. I figure that's okay, because I'm seeding Her everytime I speak aloud, in the Incarnate way Godde teaches: my voice, my body.