Paisley Goddess - The journey to finding and nurturing my authentic self |Paisley art, apparel & accessories|Celebrating the Goddess within every Woman

I am still shocked at how old I was before I heard about and became familiar with the historical/mythological Goddesses of the past.
I think those who were exposed to this at some point in elementary, or high school are very fortunate!

I grew up in a very male dominating home. I was taught that females were to be submissive to men and that their only role was in supporting and serving their husbands and to have and care for children.
The religion of my childhood home saw God as proud, vengeful and who would demolish any who did not worship him.
With a father who was not nurturing or compassionate and being taught that God was to be feared, it is no wonder that I had an interest in the issues that women face.
I studied Wiccan, Celtic beliefs and Native American Spirituality to give myself a broader, more balanced view and to reclaim my spirituality.
I realized and embraced how important the feminine energies were for our society, culture and planet.

While this site is broader in intent that just the mythology and spiritual aspects of the Great Goddess, we do wish to highlight and apply important elements of the historical goddesses to help accomplish our goal to be a support and inspiration for women to discover and accept that which we truly are - a part of the sacred feminine.

Below are some perspectives and definitions of Goddess -

Goddess as Diety - The Great Goddess:

Pure formless diety or All-That-Is has no gender. Expressing “God” as divine masculine and divine feminine gives us a balanced view. But for the last two thousand years only the masculine has been emphasized due to a patriarchal society. The Goddess, or Divine Mother, shines light on and leads us to the way of natural law, inner wisdom, unconditional love and a special respect for animals and nature. Old beliefs view the Goddess as pagan and heathen causing us to overlook her beneficial, life-enhancing regenerative powers and her offer for renewal.

Before the rise of male religions, the Old World was a matriarchal, sedentary, peaceful, art-loving, earth and sea bound culture that worshiped the Great Goddess.
The disenthronement of the Great Goddess began by Indo-European invaders and was finally accomplished by the Hebrew, Christian and Moslem religions. The male diety took the prominent place.
When the female goddesses faded into the background, so did the females of our society and along came limited cultural images of women relegating what we could and could not accomplish.

But the Great Goddess still exists in the collective unconscious. The historical goddesses are patterns or representations of what women are like with more power and diversity of behavior than women have historically been allowed to exercise. They are beautiful (not stuck in image limitations) and strong (not competitive) and motivated by what matters to them.

Another approach to what a goddess is, is to see *her* as that Higher, connected to All-That-Is, part of you as a woman.
Each of us have two selves - the physical, ego based -here on earth- self and the infinite, non-physical, pure love, connected to All-That-Is, self.
*She* does not dwell in societal limitations or labels that women traditionally deal with. *She* calls us each forward towards our true potential and desires helping us to see that we can accomplish whatever we wish to accomplish and we can succeed, not through competition, vengeance or wrath but by utilizing our inner wisdom and power of the sacred feminine.

Whether we talk about the personal spiritual aspects of embracing the goddess within or we just learn to be more compassionate and caring towards ourselves and our sisters, experiencing the *goddess* allows for the creative and spiritual revival of our souls and brings a new meaning that makes human life whole and the world a healthier place to live!

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