Last year, as my husband and I walked from Le Puy, France, to Santiago de Compostela (some nine hundred miles), I fell under the charm of Nature’s beauty: the newly ploughed fields of deep brown earth, the fragile budding leaves on the trees, the lilacs in bloom. By the time we reached the Pyrenees and entered Spain, we came across wheat fields: fields in all shades of green, whole fields undulating in the wind. They shimmered like some sensuous green silk in the sun. At a later stage, the green blades displayed strong shades of blue on their stalk. I had never noticed the blue before. The more golden the wheat, the more its blades would drop forward, as if reverently bowing their heads. As it grew closer to harvest, the wheat then was tall enough for me to run the palm of my hand over it. I witnessed all this as I walked, day after day, and had time to behold the wonder.
Imagine my surprise when I heard the wind whispering to me on the undulating fields of wheat, “Wake up, Ceres! Wake up!” It was as if each blade turned to me and spoke to me, recognizing me and greeting me, celebrating me. “Oh, Ceres, you’re back. It’s so good to see you.”
I knew Ceres of course, the Roman goddess of wheat, of harvest. In Greece, she was Demeter. For many years I had identified with Demeter after each of my two daughters left home to go to college far away, or when my older daughter got married. Yes, Ceres the bountiful, Demeter the sorrowful…
The wheat fields were asking me to wake up: wake up to what? I let my love for the wheat fields surge up. They were friends, greeting me. I remembered that I had chosen blades of wheat as a symbol for our wedding invitation. I have always had wheat in my home, as it symbolizes abundance for me. From where did that archetypal memory come up? My body and soul rejoiced at walking days after days among wheat fields and vineyards. I felt like a joyous disciple of a time long gone.
I came home from this first Camino and did a search on Ceres. How could I connect with her? What was I to understand? What was I to do?I went to the representation of Ceres and stayed there perplexed. Was I to pray to Ceres? How would I do that? Every one of my Catholic genes was aghast at the idea.
I began meditating on the Feminine Divine, trying to connect with an abstract Godhead who had called me. I turned to Virgin Mary, Mary of Magdala, and the Mother Goddess. I remained blindfolded, in a cosmic darkness, holding my breath, alone with this benevolent presence.
This year again, I walked the Camino, from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago, just five hundred miles this time. Once again, the wheat fields greeted me with: “Wake up!” Once again, as last year, I begged them to tell me more. To explain to me what they meant by waking up. Frustrated, I pushed my question aside as it took me away from the immediate experience of the Camino.
I can see now that I looked for the Feminine Divine outside of me. Why didn’t I see earlier that Ceres is to awaken within me? If God/de created every one of us, in ‘his’ image, both man and woman (Gen. 2:27), my God/de within has to be man and woman as well.
The masculine aspect of God/de has been on the forefront of our psyche for thirty centuries and more. All this time, the feminine aspect of God/de has been locked up, browbeaten, trampled, ignored, denied, outlawed, burned at the pyre, or‘just’ ridiculed.
The Feminine Face of God is calling me. She wants to awaken in me, as She wants to awaken in every one of us who has not experienced it yet. She wants to awaken in women and in men alike. She wants to be recognized, accepted, experienced, enjoyed, developed and actualized. It’s a sort of call to resurrection (or is it to revolution?).
It is not surprising that the Camino awakened the Feminine Divine in me, as I walked day after day communing with and reveling in Mother Earth. There is bounty and generosity in Nature. It appeals more to my senses than to my intellect. It overcomes my intellect, in fact; it brings it to a standstill. It helps me enter into the Now. In the Now, God/de is. And God/de last year showed me a Feminine Face. She reflected to me who I was, or who I could be: the abundance of shared meals, the conviviality of inclusiveness, the divine creation of human sexuality, a channel of life energy toward justice, and the gentleness of the Divine.
The Feminine Divine keeps being as elusive to me as her Masculine counterpart. For it is about God/de after all. The Feminine Divine is calling me to stand up for who and what I am and to assume the responsibility for the gifts that I received at the time of my own creation. The Feminine Divine is not only out there, She’s also very much deep within. This is where She is calling me to and from, at the moment.
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