So who, exactly, is this Great Goddess of Wicca?
Assuming Her reality, as described so far, how do we begin to know Her,
to understand Her personality? How do we become aware of our role
in Her body and life, and of what that role means for us as natural beings
taking part in Her Divine Nature? How can we, on our limited human
scale, as inhabitants of one tiny planet "... floating like an anonymous
raindrop in the vast ocean of stars..." even begin to think about Her,
or contemplate establishing communication and personal intimacy with Her
vast cosmic being?
As with most intellectual endeavors, our road to
understanding begins with an appeal to metaphor. A central tenet
of the Wiccan religion is the Hermetic saying, "As Above, So Below," meaning
that the large and the small, the cosmic and the human, while clearly functioning
on different scales of size, time, awareness etc., arise according to the
same processes, and are there-fore profoundly similar and reflective of
one an-other. To understand the Great Goddess of Wicca, we can begin
by taking a close look at our-selves.
When Wiccans say The Goddess, we typically mean
something very different from what is implied by the plural goddesses,
or when we discuss or magickally invoke a specific goddess-form by name4
. The Great Goddess, to my knowledge, has no name. She simply IS.
The Great Goddess of Wicca is reflected in the life of all things earthly
and supernal, but She is wholly contained by none of them. All things
flow from Her, are maintained by Her, and participate in their unique and
individual ways in Her life and evolution.
This universal pattern is, in Nature, found reflected
in your own body (As Above, So Below), where living cells, each with their
own unique births, lives and deaths, work together to enflesh organs with
unique "personalities" (functions), which, themselves, work together with
organs of wildly differing personalities to maintain the life of you, the
conscious human being – who is him or herself a cooperating member of a
family, town, society, nation, world, solar system, and on and on to the
scale of All That Is.
It seems very unlikely that the cells of our bodies
are aware, in any way comparable to our own human reflective-self-conscious
awareness, of their existence within organs, or that our organs are similarly
aware of their roles working side by side with other organs to make our
physical lives possible. Still, they all continue to work together, assisting,
supplementing and "adding value" to the work of individual cells and organs
beyond their immediate perception, tied together by invisible strings of
communication and higher purpose, continuously effecting and being effected
by one another, together serving a larger life they are not biologically
equipped to understand.
Every cell and organ remains an individual unto
itself, with a finite life that is never exactly repeated by any cell or
organ in any person anywhere – and yet the greater meaning of each individual's
existence is only revealed when the perspective is expanded, when those
individual lives are seen from the vantage point of the living, conscious
human being they make up, through the self-aware eyes of the final fruit
of all the cooperation carried out by invisible design between individuals
who, from their limited perspective, are probably oblivious to the whole
operation, just "living their lives" as best they can, following whatever
instinctive programming Nature has implanted to help them make it through
another day intact and alive.
Since Wicca sees all matter and energy and the
natural products of their dance as alive and bearing some level of conscious
awareness, then what is true for the cells and organs of your own body
must also be true for the quark, the atom, and the molecule, as well as
the stone, plant, animal, planet, moon, sun, solar system, galaxy and universe
in which those quarks, atoms, molecules, cells and organs are born, live
their unique lives and eventually expire. At each level of complexity
in Nature, at each point where groups of individuals come together to create
a new composite being, whether at the subatomic level, within the biosphere
of the living Earth, or in the cooperation between planets exerting gravitational
influences on one another to main-tain a stable solar system, etc., a higher,
more complex consciousness is created, in which the individuals of each
level are composed of the individuals from the level beneath them, and
share, mostly unawares, at least on our level and below, in the physical
internal life of the more complex creature they, themselves, make up in
cooperation with others of like development.
And at every level of this cosmic "ladder of being,"
from the tiniest point imaginable in Nature, where the smallest building
blocks of matter and energy appear to arise spontaneously, out of nothingness,
to the grandest scale where All That Is exists as the solid physical being
we call the Great Goddess of Wicca, every one of these interpenetrating
"layers" of life within life is connected by the same "invisible strings"
of com-munication and purpose we see exemplified in the functioning of
our own bodies. All these connections form a vast "cosmic web" in
which every living thing – and since, in Wicca, everything is alive and
conscious, to one degree or another, every living thing means everything
that is – is directly or indirectly tied to every other. Tug the
web here, and it quivers over there. Everyone is affected by everything
that happens everywhere in the universe, to a greater or lesser degree,
depending on one's position within the web, and where a particular disturbance
originates.
This interconnection is the source of all synchronicities
and other mysterious phenomena in life. Without being consciously
aware of the source of a "cause," because it may well lie outside the limited
range of our ordinary physical tools of perception, we feel its effect.
If we apply even a little bit of conscious attention to these mysterious
effects in our lives, we will eventually become aware of the lines of force
that connect them to each other and to us, a pattern of mean-ing and purpose
that will lead us, if we follow the path their patterns trace in our individual
lives with patience and diligence, to greater knowledge of, and conscious
connection with, the Great Goddess in all of Her Manifestations on every
level of being.
In Wicca, we not only work to follow the paths
She traces for us through the interconnections of the cosmic web, but we
also make conscious use of those "invisible strings," and the connection
to Higher Being and all life they make available to us, to enhance our
experience of reality. Through the use of divination tools (Tarot, I Ching,
etc.), the casting of spells, and participation in seasonal and other rituals,
for example, Wiccans enter into a conscious relationship with what is,
for the vast majority of human beings, a normally uncon-scious process
– that of cause and effect in the cosmic web of life. Conscious manipulation
of the "invisible strings" connecting all life in order to bring about
specific desired effects is a pretty good general definition of the term
Magick.
As Above, So Below. If you wish to understand
how this cosmic web of interconnection works on a practical level, and
what it makes possible for you as one conscious, living point of intersection
within that web, you need merely look within – physically within, by once
again considering the functioning of the "cosmic web's" microcosmic reflection
in the workings of your own body.
Cut your finger, and your brain signals a pain
response, tear ducts well up, glands release adrenaline, your heart beats
faster, white blood cells are mobilized, and resources begin to flow from
every part of your body to the site of the injury to begin the work of
disinfection and repair. Carry out a magickal working and, similarly,
all the resources of the universe begin to flow to your aid – provided,
of course, that your working does not attack other life within the web.
Just as the cell or organ in your body that is best equipped to signal
its needs clearly to the brain will get the best service from all the body's
systems, so the Wiccan who works to become skilled in the techniques of
Magick will more effectively communicate his or her intention to higher
levels of being, and will be better prepared, as well, to recognize and
accept assistance from even the least expected corners of the cosmic web.
Once the individual Wiccan's relationship with the Goddess and the cosmic
web becomes a conscious one, as opposed to being purely automatic or instinctive,
what, to others, appears miraculous, for the Wiccan becomes science. We
become forces acting to create and shape reality, rather than mere objects
being acted upon by forces beyond our under-standing or control.
I want to re-emphasize here that when I say "invisible
strings" and "cosmic web," I am speaking metaphorically, "...using a word
or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing to designate another, thus
making an implicit comparison..." according to my dictionary. There
may or may not be a real "cosmic web," I don't know. Real "strings"
of some kind may or may not physically or energetically connect all things5.
But since we have all seen spiders' webs in Nature, and understand something
of their construction and inherent properties, these terms are very good
metaphors by which to discuss the real and effect-ive connections that
concretely exist between all things. Whether this interconnected
quality of Nature is or is not a real web spun from invisible lines of
force, it demonstrably behaves as if it were. You cannot go far wrong
working with these time-tested metaphorical images in your quest to intellectually
grasp the inner nature of the Great Goddess of Wicca.