Almost a year ago I designed my first open heart macrame wall hanging. I had a lot of Jesus stuff going on and it felt like I was opening back up to the beauty and compassion of Christ. All very good stuff.
(Read about it here: https://gracienoon.com/2019/03/04/an-open-heart/)
Last month, with Valentines Day around the corner, I thought I’d make another open heart wall hanging. As someone who prefers to be rather counter-culture (ha!), I wondered if I was just “selling out” to commercialism by joining the heart/Valentines day bandwagon. (But I should have known I wouldn’t get to posting them before the holiday, haha.)
I’m so glad I decided to just do it. I was able to produce two wall hangings that I am immensely proud of, and they helped me integrate some important things in my spiritual life. Wheras last year’s wall hanging was about opening up to Jesus again, this year’s wall hangings are about opening up to the Divine Feminine.
I’d recently finished reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd, which is about the author’s journey from Christian tradition to the Sacred Feminine. I’ve been on the same journey in the last three years, and I wrote briefly about it last year on my blog (Mother God: Exploring the Divine Feminine).
Although I felt my feminine heart waking up and longing for feminine spirituality the last three years, I have still settled over and over again for a masculine spirituality, quite understandably. It’s all most of us know. It’s normal to be nostalgic for the familiar, to run back to what once felt so safe. But doing so will not heal the feminine wound. True femininity can never be understood or experienced through the masculine.
While I love Jesus and have no problem with Father God, this masculine representation of God is unbalanced and incomplete. It does not nourish our entire souls. Rather, it neglects very critical aspects of who we are, both women and men.
I’ve wrestled with Jesus a lot. Now I see I’ve been expecting more from him than he could possibly offer. He’s not a woman, he’s not a mother. That’s what I need right now. And I can recognize that’s why I turn away from him, again and again.
I am turning away once more, but not in rejection. I’m not giving him the middle finger and telling him to leave me the F alone (I may or may not have done so in the past). I still love him. But if I am to have a healthy relationship with Jesus (its been pretty dysfunctional from the beginning) then I need to go hang out with his Mom for awhile.
After all, God is not just a Father… God is also a Mother.
And so, back to the macrame:
As I started working on the front portion, I decided to do an open pattern in the diamonds, which I’ve never done except on a small scale. I almost went back and took it out, but I kept going. Sometimes I like to imagine the two sides are arms, and with the open pattern in these, I suddenly thought to myself, “open arms”. I knew I was creating the open arms of the Great Mother who holds and supports every one of us.
I initially planned to put a rose quartz at the meeting of the two arms. I did a weaving instead of knots in order to create a flatter texture more suitable for attaching a crystal. However, it turned out too loose for that purpose. I was going to take it apart, but it looked so good to me that I decided to keep it. I decided to make a smaller diamond below for the rose quartz. But when I finally went to put the quartz there, it just didn’t look right. If I wasn’t going to put a crystal there, I figured I should take out the square knot in the center and perhaps do another open look or another weave to match the rest of the piece. But I just couldn’t do it. That square knot demanded to stay- I knew it needed to stay. Turns out it’s the only square knot in the whole piece.
I stepped back and looked at what I had created. I knew what this was. Two arms encompassing an open heart and meeting at a womb, secured with a solid root (chakra). This was a representation of the Mother Goddess, who opens her heart and arms for us all, who has conceived us in love and sustains and grows us in her womb. She is the earth we refer to as Mother, who grounds us in the physical world, who draws us down into our root chakras, a solid source of stability and energy.
I loved it so much I decided to make a second wall hanging all in natural cord.
As I was working on the second wall hanging, my kids were watching Cinderella. I often listen to something while I do macrame but this time decided not to. Instead, I could hear Cinderella and the arrival of her Fairy Godmother.
God Mother.
It was a Divine mother who showed up for Cinderella. So many of us focus on Cinderella getting together with the Prince (traditionalists cheer and feminists throw up), but now I’m more interested in this part of the story, before the Prince ever shows up. Cinderella just wanted to go to the ball. She just wanted to dance, to live, to get outside of her home which had become a prison.
It was her Divine Mother who showed up (the archtypal Wise Woman) and gave her the power to break free and change her life.
I smiled, thinking about The Mother, as I finished working on my wall hanging honoring her.
Mother God,
Oh how you love
Each and every one of us
Your heart is wide
Your mercy deep
And you could never stop loving me
You will never stop loving me
–God is a Mother, 2019 Grace Lucille
It’s time I stop merely talking about feminine spirituality. It’s time I stop expecting masculine Dieties to heal my feminine wounds.
Oh Mother, I throw myself into your open arms. I thank you for receiving me and I pray that you continue to woo us to your bosom and open our hearts to receive your love.
Amen.
*****
Both wall hangings are available for purchase in my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GRACIENOON
If you are interested in a custom Open Heart macrame wall hanging, please email me at gracienoonhandmade@gmail.com.
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