Seeking Her Even When Others Won’t

Mother God, Anne, Mary, Christ Child

I had an experience with Her before I had language.

I woke up while in my crib. It was dark, and I was crying. I turned and saw a picture of a woman holding a baby. She was sitting on a pile of straw. People and animals were around her, watching. I felt her comfort. I laid down, and went back to sleep.

By the time I was 9 years old, I was reading mythology and legend from several cultures. I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved seeing the similarities of the stories from different civilizations, even if they were from different continents. I relished reading about the powerful goddesses.

I loved learning that my religion had a theology of Heavenly Mother, of the Feminine Divine, of the Council of Gods that included expressions of Female and Male, and of a heritage of Gods that invited each of us to seek to grow in light, knowledge, and wisdom on a path of eternal progression.

I felt drawn to this. I felt a different kind of connection with Heavenly Parents than I did with my mother and father. My earth parents had brought me into this existence through a very physical process, and my connection with them has been closely linked to that process and progression of parent-child relationship. My Heavenly Parents had brought me life in a different way.

I learned at an early age about teachings from Joseph Smith – that we are co-eternal with God. We have existed forever, as the Gods have. Our Heavenly Parents presented Their knowledge and wisdom to us, inviting us to step forward into new life, a new sphere of existence that would challenge us and transform us. It was inspiring, and we became Their children by accepting Their invitation to breathe deeper and enter a new life that would lead to us becoming like Them. She is a mother goddess figure who is an example, an inspiration for me at all times in my life – not one who is confined to a very small, child bearing period of my life. She is one who can inform, comfort, heal, lead and inspire any and all of the human family who will seek Her.

My prayers, my study, my seeking, my questions, my experiences with God have led to deepening awareness of Their presence, Their compassion, Their love beyond condition. Sometimes it is the presence of one being, usually more. Sometimes a feminine, sometimes masculine presence, usually both.

Even though this seeking, this awareness began early in my life, I still have learned to look for Her more and more. I still had to learn to set aside a filter I once had that is far too common in my western civilization. This filter tells us to not see Her, to not think She will be visible, to wait for someone in authority to reveal Her. Once I took on a filter of looking for Her everywhere, of learning the many names by which She is known, I could see Her everywhere.

I was devastated during the 90’s, when there was an effort to eliminate voices that spoke of Her, and the many expressions of Her in language and scripture. More than anything else, those efforts helped me notice my old habit of not looking or seeing Her. I was all the more eager to set it aside.

I learned that I could not expect or seek answers from those who are unwilling to ask the questions I had.

Much like Joseph Smith, I learned to seek answers in my own sacred grove, over and over.

I learned, more than ever, why I need to go directly to the source. One of Her names in the scriptures is wisdom. I asked Her for wisdom.

In recent weeks, I am discouraged again to hear of attempts from those who are not willing to ask questions about Her, attempts to try to stop the speaking, the seeking, the yearning, the deep hunger, the crying out, the desperate need to know Her.

Some of the same reasons are being given again, and, once again, they all seem to come down to this… “Because we don’t already know, we can’t ask.”

It is so hard to know anything, until you ask. The unwillingness of people, even those in authority, to ask, cannot and will not stop those who are thirsting for wisdom to seek Her.

It is the most recent version of some people saying, for whatever reason, “Don’t look up.”

It takes so little effort to see what is already there, if one will only look.

She is everywhere in the scriptures, she is everywhere in the world, if one will only look.

Sometimes I realized that I had been in the presence of stunning depictions of Her, and I had missed it because I wasn’t looking.

A few years ago, I became aware of a magnificent stained glass window in the Canterbury Cathedral that was a depiction of Her. I had first seen this window decades ago, and I had not noticed Her. When I saw this window again, this time as one who was looking, I could see Her – in this window, and in the life of the artist who created it. They were expressing what they sought and experienced. And I was in awe of the presence of Her.

Last week, I was in the city of Madaba, in the country of Jordan. My tour group was visiting St. George’s Church, a 19^th Century Greek Orthodox church which was built over a large Byzantine mosaic which depicted a pilgrimage map of the Holy Land. It is an amazing thing to see. As I walked around the church, I noticed the many mosaics that were on the walls and pillars of the church, some which were created in recent decades. I paused in front a small mosaic near the back of the church. There was something more here than what, at first, seemed to be an image of Mary and the Christ Child.

And there She was.

Mother God, then Anne the mother of Mary, then Mary, then the Christ Child.

The divine lineage of God in the world.

I saw Her because I was looking.

I stood there and wept.

No one else in the crowded church was looking.

She was still there.

She is still here.

Please. Even if those around you are not seeking, are not looking, are not asking…if you will, you can.

Spirit refers to breath. Inspiration refers to breathing in deeper life.

Breathe deep. Let your life be filled. Filled with wisdom.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.