taai
June 14th, 2008, 07:48 AM
i am a forest pagan and a pantheist with deep roots in taoism.
i did not realize i had a goddess until i was 17. i was living a pretty terrible life back then. i wrote often in notebooks, and i began to draw this woman, with long flowing gowns, and large eyes. she came to into me when there was violence and when i was suffering. i had no name for her, so i called her "the gentle one". as years passed, she came to me often, usually when i was under duress.
one day, for my birthday, a good friend gave me a statue she had found in a shop. it was this (she's in the corner):
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o35/electrobelly/100_2210.jpg
at the time, i immediately identified her as the gentle one, and neither of us knew who she was. i took her everywhere with me-- whenever i needed her.
for years, i worshiped her, but it wasn't until very recently i asked a shop owner who she was, and the shop owner replied that she was quan yin, the chinese goddess of compassion.
the story of quan yin-- a young girl who did not want to live a life of cruelty and who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love and mercy-- is so right for me. for i do not, but very well could, mete out a life of cruelty. i come so close, and struggle so much with this. but she IS mercy: her mercy has taught me. she is love. boundless love. it is no wonder that she came to find me.
strangely, a few months ago i began to wear a necklace i'd inherited-- a single pearl suspended in a gold triangle. it is a very delicate object. i am not normally drawn to jewelry. in fact, i have not worn anything around my neck in years. i find out now that quan yin holds a pearl in her lap. the theme of a pearl has come up again and again for me.
i marvel that this goddess chose me and that she is with me always. i am a forest pagan first-- a person of solitary, private worship with forest magic and ritual. a believer in a vast, rather impersonal universe far beyond my understanding... but she has walked with me for a long time, perhaps because i am to become like her, if the ancestors and the universe so wills it. i marvel at this.
thanks for letting me share my story.
i did not realize i had a goddess until i was 17. i was living a pretty terrible life back then. i wrote often in notebooks, and i began to draw this woman, with long flowing gowns, and large eyes. she came to into me when there was violence and when i was suffering. i had no name for her, so i called her "the gentle one". as years passed, she came to me often, usually when i was under duress.
one day, for my birthday, a good friend gave me a statue she had found in a shop. it was this (she's in the corner):
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o35/electrobelly/100_2210.jpg
at the time, i immediately identified her as the gentle one, and neither of us knew who she was. i took her everywhere with me-- whenever i needed her.
for years, i worshiped her, but it wasn't until very recently i asked a shop owner who she was, and the shop owner replied that she was quan yin, the chinese goddess of compassion.
the story of quan yin-- a young girl who did not want to live a life of cruelty and who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love and mercy-- is so right for me. for i do not, but very well could, mete out a life of cruelty. i come so close, and struggle so much with this. but she IS mercy: her mercy has taught me. she is love. boundless love. it is no wonder that she came to find me.
strangely, a few months ago i began to wear a necklace i'd inherited-- a single pearl suspended in a gold triangle. it is a very delicate object. i am not normally drawn to jewelry. in fact, i have not worn anything around my neck in years. i find out now that quan yin holds a pearl in her lap. the theme of a pearl has come up again and again for me.
i marvel that this goddess chose me and that she is with me always. i am a forest pagan first-- a person of solitary, private worship with forest magic and ritual. a believer in a vast, rather impersonal universe far beyond my understanding... but she has walked with me for a long time, perhaps because i am to become like her, if the ancestors and the universe so wills it. i marvel at this.
thanks for letting me share my story.