The Divine

A Plurality

The "divine", like "human nature", is plural, not singular.

But just what is the divine? It is those things ouside ourselves that connect with everyone and everything. It is the difference between living in a "clockwork" universe (where everything can be plotted and calculated from a prior set of conditions and causes) and a living one.

But this interconnectedness does not just have one nature, one identity, or one function, it has as many as we can comprehend and relate to. We, as human beings, perceive the universe and our environment via our senses and personality. Human personality is not a monolithic quality, but a composite of experience, reactions, tastes, preferences and ideas. It has sub-personalities, individual groups of characteristics and identities, and is bound together by an "internal monitor" which we call consciousness.

Because of this, individual experience of the divine varies from person to person, and our perception of it is filtered and flavoured by our personalities and the culture we live in. We place a "face" upon the divine that relates more to our own ideas and needs, than to what ultimately it might be. The consequence of this is that there can be no such thing as an "ultimate truth" about the divine, only relative truths pertinate to ourselves and our community.

This being the case, the idea that one person's concept of the divine being more authentic or authoritative than another is nonsense. Such concepts relate more to a person's ego, than reality, and are related to ideas of hierarchy and justified value, than to a meaningful system of values.

'The Goddess' and 'The God'

The prime experience of the divine is 'The Goddess' and 'The God'.

Human beings in general come in two main sexes: female and male. There are in fact variations of this such as intersexed and transgendered, however, on the whole most of humanity uses definitions such as woman and man. Because of this, perception of the divine also comes in two main varieties:

The Goddess

We are all (including those born by Caesarian) "born of women". Regardless of what comes next, whether we live or die, or how or by who we are raised, our first experience of the world is our biological mother. Thus many of the ideas about The Goddess are based upon tradition models and roles that women and mothers have taken in Western Society's past.
 

The Goddess, then, is the main representation of the divine. She represents both the nurturing and destructive forces within the universe. She is involved in cycles of birth, death, and rebirth; with change and alteration. Because of this, The Goddess is concerned with variety and diversity. Life and death are part of a process in creating and maintaining such diversity.
 

The God

If The Goddess represents the "feminine" in the divine, The God likewise represents the "masculine" aspect of the divine. It is important to realise that such aspects are not opposites, but composites. One is not one or the other, but a mixture of both.
 

Characteristics of The God are based upon traditional qualities and roles that men have assumed in Western Society. As such, these may seem to have a patriarchal nature about them and deal with authority. Thus, The God relates to the making and breaking of rules; the setting and exceeding of limits; of mortality and rebirth. The God also therefore relates to authority and challenges to that authority, about making or preventing things from happening.

There is quite a distinct difference between the two.

The Goddess has to do with cycles, variety, diversity, creativity, and patterns of change; with all those qualities that connect us to more than just humanity, but with the rest of the world and our environment as we know it. Imagine if you will a symbol for The Goddess, as a Rainbow, all colours in one; or a circle, for wholeness.

The God on the other hand has to do with delineation, barriers, distinction, mortality; both the definition, maintenance and transgression of these. It is no accident that dying and resurrecting gods in general tend to be male, as that is an aspect of The God. Also, by the very nature of setting and breaking boundaries, The God is related to authority, and the idea of hierarchy. The symbol for The God might be the Taoist dyad minus the centres of each half (black verses white), or a vertical line (division).

Now the qualities of The Goddess and The God are complimentary, not opposite. As a metaphor, imagine a human eye, which has the rods and cones of the retina. Without cones, you would not be able to see any colour. Cones however only work well though, when there is sufficient light for them to work. Rods detect black and white, and that is why night vision is often in a reduced colour range. Take away either cones or rods, and you have incomplete vision. Rely too much on either The Goddess or The God, and you have an imbalanced view of life. Let's suppose then that a symbol for this knowledge is a horizontal bar, representing say, an open book (see left).

Put all these symbols together and the symbol created is the Ankh (see left). This, over the five pointed star, is my preferred symbol of faith (it also helps being "Goth").

Immanence

The divine is within each of us.

We, as people, do not exist outside nature, or above it, but within it. Thus, the divine spark that connect us to all things, is in every human, and every animal, and every plant, and even inanimate objects and things. We each have the The Goddess and The God within us, whether we are male or female, "women" or "men".

This is important for three reasons. Firstly, if the divine is within everything, we should respect that this is so, and rejoice and homour ourselves and others. Secondly, it means that we are at heart, equallly important, and systems and practices that create unbalanced heirarchies are a form of disrespect. Lastly, because we are all connected to the divine, we are (by inference) connected to each other, in wys and means that we don't immediately perceive.