This is an update of a post originally titled Gods of Anger.
When you have experienced emotional abuse and trauma that has negatively shaped your self-esteem, robbed you of agency, and made it impossible for you to see yourself as anything other than less… Broken. Damaged. Inferior. A failure.
When you deal with fear, stress, and panic by manifesting anger because anger is the only way you can feel in control, and 90% of the time the anger is directed back at yourself as punishment for being so weak as to feel fear, stress, and panic.
When you hate yourself and find it impossible to believe that anyone could have feelings toward you other than contempt, derision, or outright malice.
What do you do when some or all of these things are your reality?
I can tell you what I do, or did, for years.
As a person of belief, I would turn toward a god or gods. But not just any god or gods, I was drawn to the severe gods—the gods of war and destruction, of death and darkness and judgment. I would take these gods and recreate them in my image. The perfect deity of retribution, the scourge of whom I was not worthy, and under whom I would struggle and bleed. The piercing spear and infallible mirror who would force me to face my innumerable shortcomings again, and again, and again. I would be their warrior and fall in battle, broken and bloody, but never shriven, never absolved. Never loved.
My path was more austere, my calling more demanding, my gods more inexorable.
Why? Because I had created the gods I felt I deserved—the kind of gods I was taught I deserved by the dominant religion of my culture.
My western mind, with all of its misperceptions, was first drawn to Kali. I was drawn by the deceptive outer image of the dark goddess with wild black hair, mouth fanged and bloody, clothed in nothing but body parts, I didn’t understand the symbolism of Her accouterments. I just saw swords and heads, tridents and blood.
She was death, the destroyer, and she didn’t fuck around. The more I learned, however, the more that outer image began to come into focus and make sense. The closer I came to her, the more I began to see her as Mother, and the closer I got, the more I understood that she was indeed a destroyer.
Of fear. Of Illusion.
The swords and shields in her many hands were wielded to protect her children. Her hands were outstretched to grant boons and clear away obstacles. Did she dwell in the cremation grounds? Yes. Did she possess a terrible and fierce aspect? Yes. Was that the totality of Kali Ma?
No.
I have written in the past that I left Hinduism because, in part, I felt that it did not belong to me, I was a stranger in a strange land and I wanted to find my way to somewhere I thought I belonged. A place that resonated with my spirit and maybe, if I was lucky, spoke to me in the voice of my own ancestors. “In part…”
The other part was that in becoming devoted to Kali, and through Her to Lord Shiva, I was experiencing something I was unaccustomed to and did not know how to handle.
Love.
There was too much love, and it was aimed in my direction.
I don’t think that Ma or Lord Shiva cared that I was some white girl from New Mexico; that was all me. All they saw was that I was sincere and respectful and truly wanted what they had to offer (or so I thought). They were generous and present, and they gave it to me.
I couldn’t handle it, so I left.
I was on the road again, trying to find the deity I felt I deserved. I saw Her in the form of The Morrigan. The Great Queen, battle goddess, speaker of prophecy, screaming battle crow, the red-mouthed woman, She who rains down fire and blood on the battlefield. Giver and taker of sovereignty, ancient beyond measure. Oh, yeah… She was the hard-ass goddess I had been looking for, and her followers confirmed this perception. Most of them I encountered could be relied upon to relate how hardcore the path of the Morrigan was. She was harsh, strict, and forbidding. She would knock you down, and you had better get back up, or she would have none of you. She was the hammer, and we were her nails.
Perfect.
I continued in this vein for several years, on my path to learn as much as possible. Along the way, I met other deities but felt dedicated to the Morrigan. However, there was one during this time who would not be put aside. Veiled and barefoot, aged and mischievous, with blue twinkling eyes. I met an old woman in the middle of a blizzard high in the mountains, and then again on a storm-swept beach on the Beara Peninsula in Ireland. A lithe hare cavorting through my dreams, an ancient whispered voice in my ear. She was not about to let me be and was not interested in my need for self-castigation. She was patient; she would wait while I played out my personal folly, but we would get to her later.
My misguided arrogance was revealed to me in a dream.
Now, I am not a prolific dreamer. I never remember my dreams unless there is something to them, and that does not happen often. This dream was vivid, and when it comes to mind, it is not hazy. It is as clear and detailed as my memory of getting gas at 7-11 this morning.
I won’t relate all the details of the dream, there were several messages, I will tell the one pertinent to this post.
In my dream, I stood before Her, The Great Queen. As I looked upon her my vision of her began to clear, and just as I came to an understanding of Ma, I too began to understand An Morrigan. What I began to realize is that there was more to Her. So much more.
In my self-centeredness and arrogance, I had reduced this great Goddess down, distilling her wholeness to a single drop, a single aspect, for my own purpose. I had denied the fullness of Her godhead in my life. I wasn’t dedicated to Her, I was dedicated to perpetuating the self-deception and self-abuse that defined my spiritual walk my entire life, and She was having none of it. I felt Her draw away from me. This is not how you serve me, She said. How can you fully dedicate yourself to me, when you will not be fully committed to yourself? How can you know Me, when you know nothing of yourself?
To make a long story short, the message was this.
I had to change how I saw myself so I could see Her for who She truly was. I couldn’t look at her through the distorted lens of my own self loathing. She was more than a hammer, so much more. Don’t misunderstand, she did not abandon me, or cast me off. On the contrary, She was still with me, but She had diverted my path for a time. I had some things to learn before I could see her truth.
She had set me on the learning path, and this is how it began.
I woke up feeling very disconnected and at a loss. I continued uncertainly for a while, trying to be true to my path, still learning, and still honoring the gods and ancestors. During this time, I leaned heavily on my three grandmother ancestors, special women in my lineage who are always present and available to me. I heard the Veiled One in their voices—her laugh, her gentleness.
The end of summer came around and I went to a pagan festival with some friends. At that time I didn’t have a lot of Neo-Pagan experience and didn’t know what to expect. I was asked if I wanted to go to a “drawing down.” I agreed, although I will fully confess, I had a less than respectful attitude about it. I wasn’t taking it seriously at all. I waited in line and watched very serious, very dressed up people leading other very serious, sometimes dressed up or not dressed at all, people to various tents spread out over a meadow in the mountains. It was all very theatrical and had an air of LARPing about it. I saw a tent draped in black and red – that’s the one for me, I thought. Over to my left was a tent draped in sea and sky blue with a robed figure sitting in a chair in the open center. There was a woman in a toga kneeling on a pillow in front of the seated figure. I felt a self-righteous sense of superiority. I don’t kneel before my gods, my gods want courage, they want me to stand, if I can’t stand, then the hell with me (or something like that, spoken with nobility and conviction). There was no way I was going to the “fluffy bunny tent.” My friend and I were at the head of the line now. I still had no idea what to expect, my friend had explained a bit to me, but how much can you explain about something like this?
Guides were coming to collect people from the line, one by one, and telling them who they would be speaking to. One of the guides approached my friend and said in a deep, solemn voice, “Would you like to speak to The Morrigan?”
She glanced back at me. She didn’t contradict the guide but I could tell she was thinking “You have the wrong person!”
That was definitely what I was thinking! “No!” My brain screamed. “I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE MORRIGAN!!! ME!!!!”
Off they went to the black and red tent, and I was left completely bewildered at the head of the line. Before too long, an individual who looked like Dionysus in a feathered top hat came and held their hand out to me. I stood there for a second waiting for them to speak, to tell me who we would go see, but Dionysus wasn’t talking. It figures, leave it to me to draw the mystery god. The niggling neurotic in the back of my brain whined that I had ruined things as usual. No one wanted to talk to me because I wasn’t taking things seriously. I took Dion’s hand anyway, and they led me away from the line. “Don’t turn left, don’t turn left.” I was thinking with all my might.
They turned left. Of course, they did. We were going to the friggin’ fluffy bunny tent.
We headed across the meadow toward Fluff Town. As we drew closer, I noticed that it became very still and quiet, and the noise of the large gathering, even the ambient noise of the forest, fell away. Okay, things were feeling a tad more serious. About 10 feet from the tent, the guide let go of my hand and turned away. The figure inside beckoned me forward. I got to the pillow and unexpectedly, but with a sense of relief, I knelt down. It wasn’t wrong. It was right. I felt tired, and it felt like rest. The seated person reached forward and took my hands. She laughed, soft and gentle. I looked at her face. The deep lines, the gentle smile, the blue twinkling eyes full of kindness and mischief. The tendrils of white hair that escaped beneath the draped veil. It was Her. The one who refused to abandon me, who wouldn’t let me be. The Mother of Mountains, the Mother of the Herd, the Mother of Ancestors, The Veiled One. Grandmother.
An Cailleach.
She looked into my eyes and she saw… everything.
She spoke to me about myself. Not about what I had made myself, what I had shaped out of myself, or what I thought of myself.
She spoke to me about my true self.
She spoke to the child within me, the one I punish and shove aside. The one I am impatient with. The one I give no freedom to. The one that I brutally abuse.
She spoke to the child, and she gave that child love. And then she permitted me to love that child too. She spoke Grandmother words to a child who had never known a loving mother. She put cool, dry, wrinkled fingers on my cheeks and wiped away my tears.
I stumbled away from that tent in a daze. I did not expect to find anything when I came, and I went away with the key to everything. It just goes to show you, no matter where you are, when the gods want to talk to you, they will talk to you.
I am still moving forward, although my path has changed somewhat, I found the place that resonated deeply in my soul. The lithe hare is still present in my dreams, and Grandmother’s voice whispers Grandmother words to me, but now there are others. A one-eyed wanderer that has taken me onto the path of deep learning and self-discovery, and his friend, a storytelling goddess who has taught me the power of narrative magic. A different great queen, full of secrets, wisdom, and gifts, and a quiet, gentle goddess filled with understanding and compassion. I do my best to see them for who they truly are, and when I can’t see myself I ask for their help, and I remember to call on Grandmother.
You see, anger is not a god. Anger is an obstacle. We will never truly be able to see the divine until we can clear the scales of anger from our eyes – at least the anger that we punish ourselves with.
This is my personal learning and observation. It may be different for others, or it may be the same. Our paths are all, each of them, unique. If my learning can help others, then I am blessed to share it.
Take it for what it is.
