Union

....I am being reminded to integrate the masculine and the feminine. to respect the Male Divinity as well as the Goddess. Six months before, on the same land, I experienced a deep and spontaneous sharing with a friend. It was as if a veil were pulled aside and I suddenly realized how alienated I had been from the Father God.

My hellfire and brimstone Christian fundamentalist upbringing had turned me off to the image of God as a punishing and critical father. In my twenties I turned to the Great Mother Goddess for comfort and healing. Now I am being guided to the next step. It is time to turn to the male side of the Divine (of my own psyche as well) to clear away the false images and find my own true relationship between the two sides.

As if to acknowledge my surrender to the task, I plunge into the pool headfirst. I am naked except for my gold ring with a triangular blue topaz, the ring I gave myself as a symbol of the sacred trinity - Father, Mother and Divine Child or Christ Being.

Kneeling in the grass, with the hot sun on my face, I pray to be shown a way to be in a true partnership of the masculine and feminine. Opening my eyes, I see two bright red dragonflies beginning their mating dance, swooping joyfully in tandem. ..."See, just like that! We can be like that and dance and fly together."

from The Woman's Retreat Book
(by a woman on retreat by herself)