<div dir="ltr">Greetings Visionaries:<div><br></div><div>For those who do not take the Daily News here is a longer version of my biweekly column. An even longer piece, which includes the feminists Laozi and Jesus, is attached.</div><div><br></div><div>May all you mothers out there have a great day on Sunday,</div><div><br></div><div>Nick</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Our
Mothers; Our Goddesses:<span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Celebrating
the Power of the Feminine<span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">by Nick Gier<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><b><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> </span></b><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">One night several years ago I had a very vivid dream about my mother. I
had invited her to my Moscow home, and she appeared in the front yard in the
full bloom of her womanhood. Dressed in her casual jeans and checkered blouse, she
and her beautiful red hair shone in the morning sun. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> We
went into the backyard and, looming over “University Ridge,” was a snow-capped
peak. We looked to the left and there was another beautiful mountain. I said to my Mom: “Let’s go take a look.” I
took her hand and we flew up into the air, just like Mary Poppins. As we approached the mountain, we started to
lose altitude.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> In
desperation I said: “Let’s flap our arms!”
It was no use, but some gentle force allowed us to make a soft landing
in a meadow.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> “She
makes me lie down in green meadows, beside the still waters, She will
lead.” (Bobby McFerrin’s 23rd Psalm dedicated to his mother.)<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> “Whoa,”
you say, “there’s no Goddess in the Bible”! Yes, there is, but Hebrew
patriarchs nearly succeeded in erasing her from the text. “Yahweh (Jehovah) and
his Asherah” is found in at least two ancient inscriptions, and </span><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Jeroboam, Rehoboam, and Jezebel promoted her worship
<a name="_Hlk482002870">(1 Kings 14:15, 23; 18:19</a>). Celebrating the
Goddess, the people of Judah baked “cakes for the Queen of Heaven” (Jer. 7:18).<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> (For
more check out </span><i><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">The Hebrew Goddess</span></i><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> by Raphael Patai and </span><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">William Dever, <i><span style="border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0in">Did God Have a Wife? </span></i><span style="border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0in">Dever’s
publisher is Eerdmans, an evangelical Christian press.)</span></span><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> Returning
to my failed flight to the mountains, my own beloved, a goddess in her own
right, reminded me: “You are a student of Hinduism, and you know that the
Himalayan peaks are goddesses.” Unlike the Hindus of Nepal, the Buddhists of
Bhutan keep a respective distance from the Goddess (Mom and I did not), and their
kings always banned mountaineering in their own Himalayas.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> Male
gods such as Jehovah play a zero-sum game with power: they have all of it and
we have none. The Hindu Goddess is
significantly different: she shares power with all beings, and she is the power
behind all beings, including the gods.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> The
male gods Shiva and Krishna admit this. Here is Krishna’s confession to his
consort Radha: “</span><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Without you, I Krishna am inert
and am always powerless. You have all
powers (<i>shakti</i>) as your own form;
come into my presence.” </span><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Similarly, Shiva admits to his wife Parvati:
“With you I can create all things. Without you I am powerless and like a
corpse.” </span><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><b><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> </span></b><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black">Women express <i>shakti</i> power
more directly and openly. They are the
nurturers and the healers. They are generally more expressive of their emotions,
while men have been taught to conceal their feelings, even though they express shakti
power in their intellects, sports, business competition, violence, and
war. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> More
fundamentally, of course, women gestate and give birth to new human beings, and
most males have always been afraid of that power. Some scholars have found, for example, a
connection between Asherah and Eve as “the Mother of the all the Living” (Gen.
3:20).<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> Just
like the Force in <i>Star Wars</i>, each one
of us can take our shakti power to the dark side. My mother had many dark moments, and I have
come to better understand why this was so. She was a very talented woman who
had many aspirations. She could have
been a very successful business woman if given opportunity and support. Those
were absent in the prime years of her life.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> One
of the most provocative interpretations of the Hindu Goddess Kali, the most
terrifying expression of Shiva’s wife, is that she is the incarnation of the
pent-up rage, frustration, and resentment of Indian women who have been, and
continue to be, oppressed for thousands of years. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> Male
Hindu priests still control the Goddess temples and the worship that occurs
there. And tragically, there is still
far too much bride burning and honor killings by Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim males. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> For
this Mother’s Day I propose that we to our mothers and say: “I salute the
Goddess in you and may your shakti power bless and makes us whole.” We may also
want to bake a batch of cookies for the Queen of Heaven.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> And
guys, when you wake up next to your beloved, tell her that you think she is a
goddess. I can assure you that will make
her day and may well improve your relationship.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;color:black"> Nick
Gier of Moscow taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
years. <span></span></span></p><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="height:auto;width:auto"> <div> <div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.3333px">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. </span><br style="font-size:13.3333px"><br style="font-size:13.3333px"><span style="font-size:13.3333px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
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