Embodying the Divine Feminine: a difficult path to walk

Although I may have an ecclesiastical name, worked on Church Street and lived at one time on Ministerial Road, my name has certain association with a famous author and although I follow in her footsteps I am certainly humbled before her. No matter what, my name burns and surrenders before her sacred memory and that is part of my path.Because my name ended up this way as an accident of divine inspiration and birth, my divine feminine journey involves a love affair with the infinite power of words through poetry, short story-writing and now this, my first blog.

My mother said there needed to be a minister of some description in the family, but I was not singled out for that role. Instead, I was singled out to play the role of a wordsmith. Each day no matter what: rain shower, shine or singular snowstorm or wave swell, I write something towards my goal of being heard. Of course, I improve my website, add dictionary words to my profile, but that has never had an effect.

To accomplish anything is a severe act of discipline because I have Lyme Disease and I can’t run around in the way I used to do. The Divine Feminine Journey happens to have a feminine face, but that is all. At this juncture, a pilgrimage of ministry and witnessing before the people I meet wherever they are is part of my path. I try to walk my talk but that involves two canes. When I first heard of the medieval Spanish pilgrimage of Jacques Compostelle to Saint James years ago, I made up my mind I wanted to performs the steps that comprise the sacred stones on that path. I still have the intention of performing that walk no matter how hard it is. Trying to align the pathway of mind, body, soul, spirit with the willful energy crouching behind each chakra that was ever born in a body of knowledge and also in a body of flesh is part the intention behind my path. It also involves the path of scholarship. Against the precept of aging, I decided at seventy to undertake my second doctorate.

The reason I decided to undertake this path was because it was the hardest challenge I could possibly give myself. I figured that if I wanted to remain a person interested in the world, I had better not be like a Tibetan Mountain goat and stay sequestered away behind some antique lace curtains. Few mountain goats do that anyway.

To be an artist is important to me. I have never allowed myself to be an artist, much less a feminine artist who is inspired every day by the a most positive appreciation concerning the positive developments in the world. Divinity comes from the imagination and from an endless well of inspiration. It is endless, it is boundless, and it is sacred. The Divine Feminine can be born in anyone at any time.

Elizabeth Martina Bishop holds a PhD from Bowling Green State University in American Culture Studies and is now studying for her second PhD, as a candidate in Women’s Spirituality at CIIS. She was a former ballet dancer and now writes poetry. She has published thirty three poetry books.