We visited Temple of Goddess Spirituality, dedicated to Sekhmet! And WOW!
It was such a lovely day. A quick hour drive north from Vegas (where I met my Mom again for Super Bowl. FUN) and Laura and I found ourselves in a small desert area with an adobe temple atop a small hill. The area was carefully sculpted with trails and sitting areas. (There were lots of fire pits, but the temple is only open during the day so something happens at nights! I will find out!!!) The Temple itself was so lovingly displayed in made us cry. Statues of Gaia, the Virgin, Quan, Lakshimi and of course fierce feline warrior Sekhmet dominated a wall! What a force! We just don’t get to see things like this in America. (OK OK yes the Pieta and lots of hanging Jesus, sure. And some cool saints, but like this?) The Goddess! And not hidden or obscured. Boldly there saying Honor Me! I brought some prayers to say aloud from circle members as well as my own sacred speech in Her countenance. UHH can’t wait to go back!
As a writer and performer of many things Pagan, hippie and ok, weird, it struck me as how odd it was for this to be odd. Why was this different? Special? Even in my most secular work, there is much feminism and certainly myth and story of She, in varying degrees of reality. I make work that invites Her. I pray almost every day. At my own altars. In my band we create sacred space in each show. It’s kind of our thing…. but to go somewhere and be there and bask in its simplicity of existing… that was changing. I’m trying to understand why? If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said it’s so cool that this exists but it’s not any more sacred than the circles we create ourselves. And, ok, in some ways it’s not. But in so many other ways??? To be welcome on sacred ground of your own Goddess? To travel and make day of it? To see the authenticity. To feel the spirit of the space loving you? To have this HUGE statue to kneel before, as others have done…. maybe that’s it. Otherness. Tribe. One reason I try so hard to go to Pagan Pride or Beltane at Greenman is because of community. These aren’t really my friends or buds and yet we have this thing in common….. a sense of a people. It’s vastly different than hanging with your friends and doing a circle on a holy day! I mean the very fact that you don’t like some of them, at these larger events, is sort of the point! Family, tribe, community isn’t just about your buds. It’s bigger than you. And NOW? A place set out in the desert… a place strangers you’ll never meet weep? So much bigger than that!!!!!
I challenge myself here and now to do something with this energy. As we finish up the album and work out new gigs, as I start writing a new solo show, as my fantasy fiction is so Goddess/Pagan centered… I mean I know I’m on the path… but… HEAR ME!! I wanna be at the temple!
