“I was teaching a group of aspiring priest/esses the other day and began the class with a question a dear friend had reminded me of. “What is your doorway to Spirit?” It’s a great question and allowed for fascinating responses from my eclectic group of students who come from a variety of traditions and practices. I realized in the asking that my answer came without any hesitation. The Goddess is my doorway. THE Goddess you ask? Or WHICH Goddess? Is there one answer? I love to taste the flavors of goddess wherever I am on the planet. I seek relationship with Her in my private practice, in my writing, and in my ritual work in groups. I have a cohort of divinities I call ‘The Big Girls’ with whom I communicate with regularity. They include Inanna, who was the very first to call me and remind me of my truest nature. There is Isis whose power and depth of compassion moved me to song in the very center of the Great Pyramid. I seek out Yemaya and Domnu and Seal Woman as the portals to the bottomless wisdom of the deep waters from which we all emerged. I find comfort with Hathor and Nematoma and Danu as the avenues to earth’s stories and a profound connection to where I stand. And of course, the Cailleach, who has claimed me and been the truest pathway to my Crone persona. I also have less involved relationships with a rotating bevy of goddesses of place and nature that I talk with infrequently. But the one, the ONE with whom I speak daily– that is Brig.
I have wondered why she calls to me so. I do have a deep affinity for the divinities of the Celts and their precursors in the misty isles. I was raised a cradle Catholic, so the Christianized part of Brighid probably winnowed its way into my brain early too. I have been in the healing professions for almost 40 years, so Brighid is a kind of patron saint there as well. All of this and more, for Brig is more. I think, I believe, She is the whole of it all. Brighid is the Dao, the Way, the Path.”
–Gina Martin, excerpt from Lady of the Forge: Stories and Art Dedicated to the Goddess Brigid
