Manifesting Goddess: Gender, archetypes and identity

Half male and half female, Ardhanarishvara is a Hindu deity that represents the union of the god Shiva with the goddess Parvati.A few months ago I was talking to Donna, a transgendered community member who had just recently begun presenting herself as a woman in public. She came into the office dressed elegantly with perfect makeup and hair. Frowning, straightening her skirt, she asked me, “Do I look OK? Do I pass?”

I thought it was hilarious that she was asking me, of all people, because as usual I was dressed in my hippie witch mama style, which means I was one step away from having rolled out of bed and gone to work in my pajamas. I told her she looked magnificent and could definitely pass anywhere, but she continued to fret about it.

“Donna,” I said, “do you have a spiritual practice?”

“Yes!” she answered.

“I think that when you get dressed in the morning you should meditate on manifesting goddess energy,” I suggested. “If you radiate the goddess within you then you won’t have to worry so much about your hair or your shoes. Your feminine beauty will come from your core, and everyone will see it shining through.”

She was excited about this advice, and it got me thinking about how much work we still have to do helping young women deconstruct and recreate gender identity. How can we teach our daughters and remind each other that our womanliness is not just in our bodies or outfits, but in our minds and hearts and spirits?

Many Asian and indigenous traditions teach that the divine transcends gender, but manifests in the world in gendered ways as gods and goddesses. Goddess archetypes from around the world offer a creative profusion of models for a feminine sense of self: warrior, queen, solitary hermit, demon, demon-slayer, mother, girl-child, elder, hunter, farmer, craftswoman, bodhisattva, partner, seeker, trickster. Many of my favorite images of the divine come from the Tibetan tantric Buddhist tradition, where both male and female forces can be gentle or fierce, meditative or active, and the male and female in ecstatic union represent the integration of compassion and wisdom.

You do not need a spiritual practice to appreciate the psychological power of archetypes as symbols and as a focal point for reflection. If you can’t find a goddess that feels right for you at this particular point in time you can create your own. As a white woman I am careful not to appropriate other people’s traditions; I am often inspired by goddesses from other cultures but also take responsibility creating my own traditions, since the patriarchal monotheism I inherited does not resonate with me. It is a blessing to be able to teach my children to do the same, and to watch them develop a creative and self-reliant approach to spiritual practice and identity formation. Last year my daughter made me a lovely Cougar Goddess for the family altar—and yes, the pun is intentional. She said it represented my “ability to hypnotize all men with my magical mama power.”

As I reach menopause, digging deeper into the spiritual and metaphorical aspects of gender has taken on a special resonance for me. Working with goddess archetypes reminds me that regardless of my stage of life, the way I embody the feminine aspects of the sacred can continue to evolve. I view aging as an exciting adventure, but many of my women friends are fearful and apprehensive: Will they still feel like a woman when they are old? What if they have to get a full mastectomy? If the male erotic gaze no longer follows me down the street, am I still feminine? Too many women construct their gender identity around the ability to be viewed as sexually attractive within the narrow confines of patriarchal culture. They worry that becoming an elder means becoming invisible and neutered, rather than an opportunity to deepen in wisdom and power.

Goddess archetypes give us windows into alternative and healthier ways of understanding what it means to be a woman, windows large enough to frame all of us who are struggling to find deeper and more authentic gender identities in a patriarchal world.

Polly Trout is the founder of SEA and author of Eastern Seeds, Western Soil: Three Gurus in America