Listen, and you will hear the Goddess

‘O wau ka moana.
E hele mai ‘oe i o’u nei.
E hele mai ‘oe i o’u nei. E hele mai ‘oe i o’u nei e ‘ike ai, ua ho’okahi kaua.
‘O wau kou pu’uwai, a ‘o nā au hohonu o’u ke pai a’e nei i kāu mau moe’uhane.
Me ka ‘ole o ka hilina’i, e ka’awale ana nō ‘oe me he hōkū hū hewa o ka lani ākea.
‘O wau ka moana.
‘O wau ka lie ‘ele’ele.
’E ho’olono mai! E ho’olono mai a e pane aku au i kāu mau ui ‘ana mai.
‘O ke noi wale nō ka mea e noa ai ka’u man waiwai a pan iā ‘oe.
‘O wau kou pu’uwai, a he kahe kou koko ma nā aka o ka mahina.
‘O wau kou pu’uwai, a he kahe kou koko ma nā aka o ka mahina.
Na ke akua wahine ka ho’omikāukau ‘ana i ka wai ola mau.
‘O wau ka moana.

–Malcolm R. Campbell, in “Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey,” Hawai’ian translation by Hiapo K. Perreira

I cannot say with any certainty whether or not there truly is a Goddess as we portray her in myth and meditation or whether the notion of a Goddess is the closest our understanding can get to comprehending electrons and other energies with a negative electrical charge. What becomes of our ideas and archetypes and assumptions at the quantum level is beyond my grasp.

In my magical novels, my storytelling presumes that at one level of reality, there is a Goddess and that if the characters attune themselves with nature, they will hear her voice. My presumption comes out of my experience of nature, especially nature as one finds it when s/he is alone in a wild place without the interference of airplanes, nearby highway traffic, snowmobiles, and stereos. Quite often, the Goddess speaks through wind and rain and the movements of falling leaves and the appearance of animals, especially our totem animals, rather than with a human-like voice.

My attunement is the most intense in mountain forests and bodies of water, especially the ocean. In Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey, the protagonist (who is me) hears the Goddess speak to him in Hawai’ian while he is meditating in the ocean off Kailua. In reality, I don’t think we usually hear it quite that way, but using a human voice with distinct and comprehensible sentences was the closest I could come in a novel to describing what usually comes into one’s thoughts as “a knowing.”

Here’s the English version of those lines:

I am the ocean.
Come to me.
Come to me. Come to me and you will see that we are one.
I am your heart, and my deep currents carry your dreams.
Without trust, you will remain separated from the heavens like a stranded star
I am the ocean.
I am the black horse.
Listen! Listen and I will answer your questions.
My treasures are yours for the asking.
I am your heart, and my deep currents carry your dreams.
I am your heart, and your blood follows the phases of the moon.
The goddess has prepared the everlasting waters.
I am the ocean.

When I listen, that is to say, when I swim or float in ocean water, these are the sentiments I am “hearing.” Is this “hearing” psychic, empathic, shamanistic or organically spiritual? I don’t know. I’ll leave others to define it because whenever I try to define it, I am playing with logic rather than listening and hearing.

My senses are always of oneness and of a great compatibility with “wild places” and nonhuman creatures even though my education and culture and upbringing make great distinctions between human and nonhuman, natural and civilized, and dark forest and bright city. Listening tells me otherwise whether I’m hearing an actual Goddess or intuiting a reality of matter and energy that I cannot understand without the personification.

We can listen anywhere, and that includes crowded street corners and airports and living rooms. I’m drawn to oceans, forests, deserts and tall grass prairies where my thoughts are more easily at rest.

Perhaps you’ll find it easy to listen while walking through your neighborhood on a Saturday morning filled with the sounds of children playing, lawn mowers and garage sales, and traffic. Or, in a quiet bedroom after everyone else in the house is asleep. We  can, I think, hear the Goddess everywhere when we turn our attention away from cell phones, TV sets and the other distractions that can drown out her voice.

–Malcolm

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~ by knightofswords on June 26, 2012.