facing the darkness
In We the Temple of the Moon, one of our aims is to challenge the commonly held perceptions of Goddess by introducing some of the alternative perspectives that exist about Her. The intention is not to prove any particular perspective to be right or wrong, but to be, merely, exactly what it is – only one of the ways of looking at Her. Through this we hope to enrich all of our personal perceptions of Goddess.
It has become popular to interpret the dark aspects of Goddess as being those feminine qualities that are challenging or frightening to men and masculine-dominated paradigms. And so they may be. But this is also a convenient way for women to ignore the fact that they find many aspects of themselves equally challenging, threatening, frightening and down-right horrible to face. Goddess represents these things also.
We usually don’t know what to do about our dark self, so we suppress it and pretend it’s not there. And in this way we are as damaging to ourselves as patriarchal society has been to womankind in general.
In exploring the dark Goddess we give ourselves the opportunity to explore our own depths. In facing that which we wish we could just forget we have the opportunity to understand much more about our-selves, possibly even to forgive ourselves.
One thing is certainly true – when we simply ignore something, it doesn’t always go away, and it can come back to bite us when we are least prepared for it. But if we are brave enough to seek out those things, in us and in Goddess, we may learn that we do not have to fear or fight our dark-ness, but merely accept it.
When we start to look a little more deeply into the origins, history or meanings attributed to Goddess we discover, quite quickly, that there are many different ways of looking at Her. Perspectives change depending on the cultural background, political and social agendas, and the sex of the person that is considering the Goddess, to name but a few influences.
If we take a moment to think about our personal perception of Goddess we must eventually ask ourselves, how did I come to have my perspective of Her? Is it formed from reading a little bit about Her and taking it at face value? Is it formed by reading a lot about Her and deciding what we think is right and what is not? Is it formed by meditating on Goddess and inviting Her to reveal Herself to us? In truth we probably all do a little bit of all of these things, depending on what aspect of Goddess is of interest or important to us.
In modern society the importance of the individual is often emphasised over that of the community. It is perhaps not surprising that many of us are solitary practitioners who are not used to looking to the wider Pagan community for help with issues that we don’t understand or worry us, but which we think are our concern alone.
Choosing to face the things that you fear takes a lot of courage and it can help to have a supportive circle of peers around as you undertake the journey. The fears that you have and the courage that you muster to face them are completely your own, but realising that you are not the only one that is afraid can help you to find the resources to deal with your fears in a productive way.
We the Temple of the Moon hope that women will participate in as many of our Temple Events as they can, not only for the benefits that the experiences will bring to them as individuals, but also to build a strong sense of communion within the other women who will come to be known as Temple Members.
The ritual leaders are also committed to run the rituals responsibly by providing a safe environment and always having a leader available to watch out for the welfare of the participants and assist anyone that is distressed.
At the conclusion of each ritual / event time is put aside to share food and drink and to talk about our collective and personal experiences.
dedicated to
exploring &
embracing the
mysterious &
dark aspects of
Goddess & Self