There is Duality in everything. Inseparable sides that work together to create balance. Both working for the same goal, yet going about it in different ways.
The Goddess is no different in my experience. She holds both a Dark and a Light side, as we hold both a dark and a light side. Some will see Her as a full pattern encompassing all Her sides in one. Some will see different faces of Her that represent pieces of those sides – the individual Goddesses with Their own domains. All interwoven and connected, as we are interwoven and connected.
The Morrigan is my Dark Goddess. Not evil, not dark in the way our society looks at “Dark”. She taught me foundations, building my inner world, bringing out my authentic self. She took me down inward into myself, revealing secrets and shining light on the shadows within. For me, She was all about my inner work. She was stern and demanding because that is what I needed. She was also kind, with a great sense of humor. She taught me how to connect, create bonds, and hear that which I could not see – Them, spirits, the unseen. For me, the Dark Goddess was about my inner growth and bringing it forth into the physical world. The Morrigan will always be my Dark Goddess, always working on those aspects within myself as I grow and move in this life.
For every Dark there is also a Light. That is the space I am moving into now – the Light side of the Goddess. I am at the beginning of this particular journey so I have a lot of guesses and speculation of what this journey with Her will be like, the lessons involved, but they are only guesses. Will She have a face and form to guide me from as my Dark Goddess does? I am not sure. Right now I see Her in the eyes of my Gaia statue that sits upon my altar. Yet, both That statue and the one for Morrigan, have shifted in perspective, as I have shifted inside. When I look at the statues, I am seeing the Duality – the dark and light side, with my Ancestor tree in the middle.
I understand the words of those Ancestors that have come forward, when they said they were all connected to the Morrigan. It wasn’t the particular image itself, but the energy the image represents. Our names and images may have been different, yet it is the Goddess that we all connect to and that connects us on common ground.
I hear often, people talking about being afraid to connect to Ancestors because they were christian and the person is pagan. Thinking the Ancestors will reject them or worse, shun them for their current practices and beliefs. I have seen many debate on this topic. I can not say this holds for everyone, because I am not everyone, but for me that is a barrier that does not exist. Even my mother who was a devout catholic, prayed to and leaned on the Goddess in the form of Mary. There are others in my line further back that I question the relationship between them and the church, for christianity, like all religions, has changed over time. The christians we see today are not how they were even 150 years ago.
My people were from the hills and the mountains, the wilds of different places. Church was a place of community -To gather and get news of what was going on. The main event, not being the service, but the gathering and talking that happened afterwards. They were much more connected to the land that surrounded their everyday life. They would not have called themselves “witches” yet out of survival and need that is exactly what they were from a modern perspective. Healers, Garden Witches, Kitchen Witches, Hearth Witches, and Justice seekers. The Ancestors I have connected to and work with are women, as I am a woman. Perhaps due to this, we all tend to lean more to the feminine side of Divine – to the Goddess. My Goddess after all did say “It doesn’t matter what name you use for Divine – it is the connection that matters.”
I have a lot of guesses as to what comes next with the Light side of the Goddess. I have some beginning spaces such as deepening my animistic understandings and connections to the land, plants, animals and elements I share it with. To the unseen that occupy this space with me. A focus of growth, nurturing, and flourishing. A space of more physical world than my inner one. Carrying forward all the lessons and growth I gained walking with my Dark Goddess – for They are not separate – They are two sides working for the same goal yet doing it in different ways. All the skills I honed with Morrigan will be ones I use on this new journey as well. I will also develop new ones along the way.
I have a lot of theories but no answers yet. That is ok. This is a journey, and the destination is the least of my concern, it is all the things along the way that truly matter.