We grow up in Duality. Mind you, I don’t think it’s instinctual – at all. Quite the contrary children exhibit no judgements, but they do learn them rather quickly since our western society has them embedded in our lives (together with a hefty plethora of stereotypes). Without even realising it, we have dualism everywhere: black/white, left/right, right/wrong, day/night, light/darkness – and is a rather limiting view of the world in any case, since it leaves out so many nuances and colours. Also most of our spiritual paths are dualistic, since they portray light/darkness – good/evil oppositions.
Paganism, and to be more precise a Goddess-based spirituality, in this sense, to me and in my personal experience is a jump after this division. Or a jump before, since to me it has always been the case of going back to my roots. In any case, a jump it is – and regardless of the direction you jump, dichotomies like good/evil, light/darkness will be past you.
It is a jump because this sort of approach/world-view/mentality might be hard to leave behind and it needs some work to be dismantled. It is – effectively – a deconstruction work. You get to re-learn everything anew and, to me, it has felt like getting an eagle eye view on our world.
When you think about this, Goddess is, after all, represented as a warrior and as a mother; covered in blood and in flowers; as death and as birth. Goddess is, indeed, everything – darkness included. So, is there no such a thing as evil? Strictly speaking… no. Think about Nature.
Nature is everything: the carnivorous plants and the beautiful flowers, the spider and the insect trapped in its net, the predator and the prey. Nature has no place for moral judgements.
What we label evil depends on our own point of view. So, our position, as human beings, is different: we can make choices and through these choices we can express ourselves. Goddess, however, does not judge us; as She does not judge the carnivorous flower nor the shark. We are, all, truly, utterly, deeply… free. It’s a freedom that is beyond what we normally allow ourselves to perceive. The freedom of the Wild.
Does this mean we should accept “evil”? Heck, NO. A big, resounding, shouted-from-the-top-of-the-roof NO (not ultimately because, hey, we are free, haven’t I just mentioned it?). Let me delve a little bit deeper here.
What we call evil is something we don’t recognise in harmony with who we are and our choices. It is in this dis-harmony that we can choose to act. We don’t need to effectively “judge” anything – and we actually cannot since, to do so, we would need to witness far more of the single moment when the predator eats the prey; and, unfortunately, our position, as in our “I” in the fabric of life, is rather brief. BUT – and this is a rather big but – we can observe, recognise and then act accordingly.
We can, then, act to help, to mitigate, to change, to build… you name it, we have plenty of options. Because, yes, we are truly, utterly, completely free.
So when we Ask Goddess “When will the Light be back?”, She might not answer, because, you see, the Light has never gone away. It is always here – and you can embody it. Nothing goes, truly, away.
What are we really Asking with this question, though? We are actually Asking when will “evil” go away, when somebody will do something to make “evil” stop. Which, incidentally, is one reason there might be no answer; since, once again, we are free, so basically we can choose to do something about this – or, indeed, not.
So what can we Ask for to get an answer when we face what we would recognise as “evil”? We can Ask for support – and, by this, I also mean emotional support; we can Ask for guidance on how to act, we can Ask for support in our actions, we can Ask what can we do. And this might lead to questions, not necessarily answers. But, Trust in this, once you understand exactly what you want to do… you are practically already there.
Just remember: you are free. And you can choose to act Wildly Free.
Photo by Ian Parker on Unsplash