Home from my Weekend celebrating Bitch Goddesses

[wanderlustlover]

Yep. That's right. I said what you think I said. And cringed a lot myself when I heard the topic of the RCG annual retreat a few weeks ago, too. But like always, they have made such a beautiful working of their topic, their rituals, their activities. My mind is changed and comforted and inspired by so much.

I do not have much time.

I have dinner plans very shortly.

For now I will leave you with the poem that closed our weekend.

Call Me Bitch by Clara Kern

I heard you call me "bitch"

Call me bitch
Mother of many names:
Alani, Samara, Astarte,
Artemis, Diana, Anoth,
Gula, Ishtar, and Isis
Just a few names of the
Devine Huntress
The Great Bitch

I share with pride
The title of ancient priestesses
Called "bawds" or Sacred Bitches

Bitches
Domesticated dogs
To guards their hearths

So call me bitch
Spirits enroute to Summerland
Still behold the Great Mother
Attended by her watchful bitches

(And dogs still howl when death is near)

Call me bitch

Ancient female artifacts
Blossom with breasts
Neck to thighs, because

Our foremothers knew
Living creatures need more than
Two sources of nourishment, and
Refused to believe the Mother-of-All
had less

And she was known as The Great Bitch
So, call me Bitch

But, whenever you do,
Remember I have other names:
Such as Warrior-Hunter-Healer

Call me Bitch
And remember Hecate of the Crossroads
Whose name, coming from Egypt, means:
Midwife-Goddess, Woman-Wise-In-Words of Power
Hecate, whose fury engenders
Panic in stalwart men

We still exist
We bitches

Call me Bitch
Or call me Cat
But see more than
Hair and claw
When women worshipped Bast (the cat)
Anyone who killed Mau (also the cat) was
put to death...
And "Pussy" was a title of respect

Or call me Cow
Hathor, the cow,
Produced the Milky way with her left udder
(With Her right, She curdled the shape of the cosmos)
Her horn, each night, replenishes the Earth
So I identify with the Holy Cow
The sacred Cow

Or call me Sow
Now, why do you suppose
A Goddess would be pictured as an
Enormous Pig, unless some woman
Observed that a sow devours and digests
Garbage as an adjunct to the
Production of healthy, living beings?

You see, there are few names you
Can call me which will not do me Honor

You may rant and rave,
Tell me the eternity holds
Fire and brimstone for me
Well fire destroys....ad creates
While Mother Briom is the "raging one"
So I claim my right to rage

When I go, Hel (Daughter of Mother Earth)
Will welcome me with regenerative fire
(Cinderella, you know, is a prophecy
of patriarchy’s overthrow)

While anatomy well may be my destiny,
"Hysteria" is Aphrodite's festival,
And means "womb"
So call me "hysterical"

"Cunt" means "womb" and the
Procreative power of the womb;
The Sanskrit word for temple
Still means "womb";
And the name for the Delphi oracle
Means (you guessed it) womb

So I prophesy a destiny for women
Which both respects the functions of her womb,
And reaches beyond her capacity as a breeder

Women bring forth all kinds of life
Seldom do men comprehend this

(We are Lilith, who chastised God
When he ignored The Great Mother
Who created Him)

Say I screech like a cow,
But I remember Krobe, the Shape-Shifter,
Who could be either crow or bitch

Call me bitch,
Prostitute, harlot, or whore

You denigrate yourself
And not the holy fire of women

Daughters of Aphrodite, Sacred Whores,
Were "virgins" (meaning free of paternal control)
Daughters of Har, Holy Harlots,
Were "virgins" (meaning they belonged to themselves)

We have been Temple Prostitutes,
Vestal Virgins,
Free to dispense sensual magick,
Or to deny the healing of our wombs

(By the way, our children were cherished as "virgin born")

When you call me "Bitch"
I call you unimaginative;

You could have called me "Weird"
Which means knowledgeable of immutable law;
You could have called me "lady"
Which means giver of bread;
You could have called me "hussy"
Which means a women engaged in
"adultery" (which meant she owned and
conferred her own property)

When you says I'm "foolish"
You've saying I have psychic wholeness;
When you say I "nag", I'll admit
the mare in me is untamed.

(You could have called me "lesbian",
Which would credit me with the fearful
power to be indifferent to the phallus)

Do you call me "witch"?

A witch is a "speaking woman"
A witch is a "defiant woman"
Who knows even the burning times
Could not destroy her work

Call me witch
As long as you remember,
Also, to call me
Cat, Cow, Crow, Sow
And add the titles
Spinster, Hag and Crone

I am a Spinster
Weaving worlds from my own substance
I am a Hag
Penetrating patterns in the Tapestry
I am a Crone, a Clan-Mother
Tying knots of Creation

Labels can't stop me

Call me Witch or Harlot
....or call me Bitch