Honoring The Work of the Goddesses

There is a new play in the world. It’s by poet Annie Finch and is called Among The Goddesses. Annie was kind enough to send it to me to network about our common cause of bringing abortion healing into its legitimate place in life. What a beautiful work of art! It’s on a par with 4000 Years for Choice, Heather Ault’s exquisite art project. I highly recommend you get a copy and see for yourself. The play is built around an epic poem about the archetypical influences in women’s lives. More than anything it’s a journey of personal healing and transformation. Woven through it is the well known goddess chant—Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali… Inanna.

A couple of weeks ago, I facilitated a discussion for staff from the four states (Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, and New Mexico) of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) at their annual regional conference in Denver. There were 24 abortion clinic managers, assistant managers, trainers, and regional managers in the room. The topic (happily for me) was “Honoring The Work We Do In Abortion Services.” I divided the session between talking about the central issues in Life Choices, and working with the thoughts and feelings of the people there about the importance of their work and how they feel about it, themselves, and each other.

These are some of the women and men doing the work of the goddesses. They are the ones bringing the wisdom of the feminine—the Divine Feminine— into practice in daily life because they honor the many-sided, complex life and death issues women have to face when they make decisions about reproduction. They take care of women and their families during times of uncertainty. They help women with their doubt, fear, and isolation when they need the help the most. Most of all, they shepherd women into taking full responsibility for their power in life and thus help them to step fully into themselves.

Some of these professionals are angry, and rightly so. It’s hard enough to provide good health care services in the current political climate, but on top of the normal challenges of health care they are attacked and vilified on a daily basis. PPRM in Denver is housed in a large, modern, classy looking building that combines their surgical clinic and the administrative offices for the whole region. But you can’t see the building from the street. It is like a fortress, with eight foot high fences surrounding the building at the sidewalk line. Huge black tarps envelope and reinforce the metal barrier so that you can’t see in until you are in front of the double iron gate at the entrance to their spacious parking lot. They are harassed every day and have been for many years by people over-exercising their free speech rights who scream at patients and staff and brandish bloody pictures.

Which brings me back to the goddesses. It’s easier to understand the swirl around abortion and why it gives rise to such extraordinary passion if we embrace the divine wisdom realms of insight, power, and love. These realms give us access to a depth of comprehension and courage that crosses the centuries. It allows us to keep on keeping on, through thick and thin, and when all seems lost.  The empowerment of women and the feminine is a function of human and planetary evolution. The evolution is a natural movement of universal forces. The rising of the women is everywhere. It shows up in myriad sectors of society—political, religious, and personal, as well as educational, environmental, and social. But the patriarchy is not going down without a fight, and lately the attacks on women have been fierce and relentless.

A recent New York Times editorial documents some of what has been going on in the American political war against women. Doctors are speaking out as well.