I hail You and praise You,
Glorious Goddess,
At the end of this day which You granted me.
May my actions within its hours be judged to be justified,
And my words within its hours found to be true.
Drain from me all intent and action;
I offer to You all energy I have locked in unworthy action or reaction.
May tomorrow by Your grace find me wiser
and my joy in the universe still greater;
I ask Your welcome now in the Temple;
Accept me this night for rest, for study, and for worship;
Grant me dreams of meaning and the memory to recall them.
Hail to You, Goddess of the starry pathways;
Hail to You, Goddess of the Deep Black,
Hail to You, Goddess of the Shining Sun at Midnight,
May I partake of Your glory forever.
"The Gods and Goddesses are not cute allegories and analogies, figures of speech for evangelizing and moralistic orators, just as they are neither psychological nor social roles. Rather, they are the empowering worlds of our existence, the deepest structures of reality.... at base, we are such beings that only a polytheistic consciousness will account realistically for our lives, and that such a polytheistic consciousness is emerging on the tips of our newest sensibilities. The Gods and Goddesses may also teach us a new tolerance - even more, an acceptance of the variousness of ourselves and others.... a new way of sensing a potency in the diversity and plurality of our modern existence... Perhaps if we are patient enough, if we listen closely enough to the moods, emotions, unusual behaviors, dreams and fantasies of ourselves and our societies, we may hear some songs that are very old... [These] songs, their narratives and their dramas, are those of the Gods and Goddesses announcing an expanding consciousness, a new sensibility, a new polytheism, a remythologization of modern life.
ReplyDeleteDavid L. Miller, The New Polytheism.