The Divine Feminine

The taita points to Virgin Mary and asks how she makes me feel. Off guard, I tell him that god is a woman, that Mary makes me feel calm and cared for; that she is quiet patience. He nods then mentions that women all over the world are realizing their divine femininity, which is part of a natural current and something that must happen, something that will save us.

He smiles as he tells us the Virgin Mary is a misnomer, better yet, an idea misconstrued. No, he says, you are all (always already) the Virgin, the divine feminine. Even the woman with five children is a virgin, you see, because of all the sperm traveling to her egg on that conception day, it was her egg that chose the sperm most suitable for a being in this world.

So she was never *inseminated*, I ask, she’s a virgin because life does not happen to her, though only through her. Yes, he continues: impossible purity is part of a long history of stories misunderstood, a being scared of what is sacred. In sigh he says now is the time to understand and feel virginity, divinity: to realize a world where we don’t overestimate what belongs to us.

Then what belongs to us? Given a pause, he says, Only the moment: the only thing that belongs to us is the moment. There is no past nor future. When we heal ourselves we heal our ancestors, the collective, and when we connect with our ancestors we are connecting with ourselves, the community. (Just as you touch one end, the other one quivers).

I blush in western thinking,[1] I’ve just read about something similar but different. Describing emergent complexity with the consequence of a deterministic universe, Sapolsky[2] writes about how slime molds meet their food sources, perfectly, in retrospect; how ants bring food to their colonies, how bees make hives, and how our brains build multi-layered architectures of neurons: that is, all without a master plan yet according to itself, nonetheless… Just as her egg draws forth the perfect suitor and makes life, the universe draws forth the moment (within you not without you), and like this, everything

timelessly

interconnects.

Later that night and in the thick of the moment, I get the sense that we live forever.

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1
I blush because it’s bad practice to compare western and Indigenous histories, or to put Indigenous worldviews in the context of western science; it risks both co-opting (/appropriating) Indigenous science and a lack of listening. Indigenous and western worldviews cannot be held in comparison, and are in many ways incommensurable, as illustrated by the following poem:

"Arguing With a Neuroscientist" 

I'm told to be careful with (that stuff) *ayahuasca*  
--what greatly threatens neuroplasticity 
What this is news to me 
I hear it greatly strengthens... neuroplasticity
makes it more 
plastic more 
malleable 
that is, capable of change
of softening 
surrender 
to source 

No, he says, what it does is overload your receptors 
So much that it 
FRIES THEM
And so your brain desperately rebuilds the broken pathways
(im sry are we anthropomorphizing the brain?) 
*One can only hope they grow back the way they should* 
else they’ll be left askew
& you’ll wish you hadn’t 
bet ur bottom dollar

(Well well well, you’ve found 
my most #controversialopinion: 
fuck western science) 

(western, namely 
imperial
consequently 
predatorial)

Then, the nugget 
"So, what about the Indigenous who use plant medicine all the time 
Those who drink from birth onward......" 
He says, well  
Their brains developed in a supportive environment
Ah, there it is 
The disconnect between worlds “developed” 
And those that exist 

2
Robert Sapolsky (2024). Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will.