My dad wanted to name me Anne Calanthe after his old girlfriend, my mother chose her middle name Mary instead of Anne. At 14, I decided that Mary had too many connotations, was too perfect, was old-fashioned, and started going by Calanthe, which is a French version of a Greek name. When I met my husband, he nicknamed me Kali (pronounced aaaa, not the short a). I had been going to an ashram that is in the SRV tradition and is dedicated to Kali, the mother goddess. Having been raised Christian, when I participated in a Kali puja, my mother was upset. I explained that Hinduism is a monotheistic religion which has grown out of the pantheistic religion. Thus each god and goddess are a representation of an aspect of the One God, Brahman. Whereas Christianity has relegated the feminine to an idealized mother figure, Mary, and placed her on a pedestal; Hindu has a variety of women in the pantheon, but Kali/Durga/Parvati is the major woman goddess--in three aspects. Kali, shown as a fierce warrior, is the protector of mankind. Ironic, or perhaps necessary, for me to have all that feminine goddess energy.
Every woman has inside of her the goddess energy, these three and more. We all have the aspect of God within us--male and female. I picture it as a beam of light from the large Pillar of Light that is God--it is the best construct I can create. When I studied Hinduism, I felt that it helped me understand the complexity of God. I also found the feminine in Jesus. I do believe that Jesus is God Incarnate. Since Jesus is God, then "He" also has in "Him" the sacred "Her" The female got segregated to the mother--the only role for women. But in the sixties that was broken forever.
My image of the feminism movement is Sis, 5'1", scrambling up on the crawler with a huge plow behind it, with Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" tucked under her arm. In Montana the women are strong and work next to the men, but are they free? No, at least not in our family. The role that I was programmed to take left me in confusion for a long time- in part because my father had one role for me, my mother the opposite. My father wanted me to be the girl who idolized her father forever--and named me for the one who had told him to go away. Mom wanted me to live the life that she felt that she had been forced to give up, or chose to give up for love of her father, and my father--and gave me her name, which evoked the dutiful, perfect woman. And yet, they had inadvertently evoked a double dose of the feminine goddess, and her power.
I have loved church since I was a small child. I love the church service, the ritual, the aura of the sacred that envelopes the sanctuary. I have questioned the existence of God, but only in my mind; my heart and my soul have known better.
More than that, meditation and prayer come naturally to me. At age three, I had a place in the lilac bushes that bordered our lawn where I could hide from the chaos of our home. With five kids, my mother's recurrent depressions,and my father's constant hypomania, it could be incredibly busy, confused, constantly changing. Sitting under the lilacs, I could let the world go past. I was away from the teasing of the other children, the slamming of doors, the mess, the yelling. The scent of the lilacs is as good as lavender for relaxation. To this day, I use lilac for relaxation. Unfortunately, my husband hates the scent of lilac. In some things we are total opposites, mostly superficial things.
Yet, not all. He is the dark to my light. It took me a long time to realize that I need dark to be whole. To please my father, I needed to be the perfect little girl--not a woman, a little girl. To please my mother, I needed to be dynamic and outgoing, successful. So Mom's expectations balanced to some degree Dad's expectations, and good grades satisfied them both. But all the attention and good grades caused resentment with the two siblings closest to me. In any family, there are direct relationships and also triads formed. Triads are unstable and hence tend to be unhealthy. Direct relationships are more stable, hence healthier, and have only the issues between the two people. In a triad, two gang up against one or one is left out, or one is caught between the other two. Such is it always true. If one has direct relationships, then one doesn't need triads. But it takes courage to have a direct relationship with someone who really intimidates you. I can be very intimidating. I have one friend who is a top notch corporate lawyer and the son of a former lieutenant governor who tells me how intimidating I was in high school, let alone now. And let alone a few years ago, when I first got in touch with my true self and found the power of that "Kali" nickname. I have spent the last few years getting in touch with the Mary side--that Kali without some tempering can be really powerful, good for chasing demons, not much else. Kind of like the Scandinavian berserker warriors. Tried to once write a paper on them for a college class--now I could write a book!
That's why the book, "The Secret Life of Bees", so caught my attention this fall when Sis loaned it to me. The religious figure was the Black Madonna--Kali and Mary, not to mention the use of bees and honey for symbols of mothering. Bees are also pollinators, like humans when they spread love and support others. Yeah, they sting a bit at times and can be a little sensitive to negative thoughts and actions, but they are a necessary part of this world. We should be really concerned about the loss of honeybees and the spread of "killer" bees. Maybe it also says something about our national psyche.
Bee's relationship with me can be described as the result of trying to raise two queen bees in one hive--and we are queens in different ways. I hope to eventually work out how we can respect each other and have a real relationship. Meanwhile, I am just working on my own spirituality and balance between the Mary energy and the Kali energy. I think that the combo can be a strong force for positive change in this world.
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