I Need a Mother God

TW: Miscarriage
DINAH: I’d always been a bit of a weird child, if I’m being honest. I spent my childhood on a small ranch in the desert, in a small town, with no close neighbors. I spent much of my time outdoors, with my different assortment of animals, creating my own fun and very much living in my own world. I was supported in my weirdness, and was never stifled. My hair wild and my feet dirty, I was allowed to roam with my body and my mind. From my earliest memories came the whisperings of spirit. I formed my own sense of spirituality and connection. I would often sit outside with my eyes closed to the world, and feel nature and God glowing all around me. They were synonymous to me. Spirit was everywhere, and I absorbed it in many forms.

As I reached my preteen years we started attending church regularly. There I learned to pray properly, to the Heavenly Father version of God. To fold my arms, and fold myself small. It was opposite of the openness in which I’d always connected to spirit. I learned scripture and order, and I learned to listen to men. They were the ones whom God spoke to after all, and not to 12 year old girls. I learned to think what men told me, to repeat what I heard, to question nothing.

I learned that spiritually is a box, and that the right and only way to heaven is to stay inside the box of pre-thought questions and answers that were provided for me. I shut myself down. I shut myself into the box. I followed the path. I married a returned missionary in the temple at the fresh-faced and innocent age of 19 and immediately started having babies. I wore the garments that I hated, and I wore them with an anger I’d never felt inside me before. Garments stopped the connection to my own body, spirit, and femininity. I was suffocated and closed off to my spirituality. Still, I persisted. I was a wife and mother now, my family was my responsibility, and I was no longer permitted to be the free spirit of my childhood. But it seemed that the more I squeezed myself into the box, the more spiritually starved I became.

Then came a day that will be always burned into my mind. The day I laid in a midwife’s ultrasound bed, listening to the silence coming from my womb, where there should have been a heartbeat. I was 13 weeks, and the baby had passed weeks before. My body wasn’t letting go. It was getting dangerous. I’d tried so hard for this one.

A sensation of falling. The feeling that if I didn’t wrap my own arms tightly enough around myself I wouldn’t stay together, that one by one, little pieces of me would fall apart. My husband, good as he was, didn’t understand. We can just try again. Of course a man wouldn’t understand.

Back home I tried to pray, but a man God couldn’t understand either. I didn’t want a Father, I wanted a Mother. Swallowed by grief, I allowed myself to pray with my whole body in a way I hadn’t in years. I was once again on the floor cross-legged, arms open and raw, and feeling the Divine Mother within every ounce of my soul. I felt connected to the fullness of God in all forms once again. I went within myself and told my body that it was okay to let go. It had worked so hard to create this baby, to hold on, but it was okay and it was time.

Immediately my body began to let go. I felt fully held, in love and understanding, with something inside and outside of myself. To this day it has been one of my most profound experiences of spirituality and connection. After that, I knew I couldn’t go back to the box. I slowly allowed myself to take tiny steps away. There was guilt. There was fear. It took many years. But I’ve learned to trust my own connection to God more than I trust anyone else’s. I’ve learned that I need a Mother God just as much as I need a Father God. I’ve learned that I don’t need a middleman to filter God down to me. I can have more than what they offer me.

I will no longer spiritually starve while I wait for scraps to be handed me. There are many parts of our religion that I find beautiful, and that I hold close. This church is my family’s heritage. It’s my people, my culture, my story. But my God is also bigger than a church. My connection to Spirit will not be lessened. I am my own conduit, and once again I am the Goddess of my own spiritual land.

I’ve read tarot cards and felt energy moving through me. I’ve meditated and chanted ancient and sacred sounds. I’ve grasped with hungry hands for as many forms of spirituality, religion, and connection as I can understand. And I can tell you something, I don’t need a spirituality that is prepackaged and approved for my use. There is a world of spirituality out there to experience, and it’s okay. My spirituality is my own. I’ve learned that my God is not a God that stays in a box, and I am content.

~~Dinah~~

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