Cleaning Toilets and Summoning the Goddess.

While cleaning the toilet this morning I recalled one of my Mary Doodle doodles, wherein she was also cleaning a toilet, and musing that her Inner Goddess must be on vacation somewhere else.

Then I stopped myself and said, “Heck no… the Inner Goddess is right here, right now!”

My Inner Goddess is a powerful warrior queen who is creative, loving, AND gets shit done!

She honours cleanliness and health. So she does the work like cleaning the toilets and sinks and sweeping floors and taking out the garbage and scooping litterboxes, along with feng-shui-ing the house to help the energy flow smoothly to make a clean, welcoming, and peaceful space.

My Inner Goddess is a divine mother goddess, who loves fiercely, mothering six pets, half of whom need a lot of veterinary care lately, so does trips to the vet, twice-daily medicating of two elderly cats, feeding special foods to two of them, dealing with one cat’s chronic diarrhea (most of which at least makes it into the litterbox) , and managing post-op care to the dog who had cancer surgery, along with daily walks.  She is a goddess of love with a big and tender heart.

You’re going to try to pill me again aren’t you?

My Inner Goddess may not resemble Botticelli’s version of Venus, but she loves her man with a devotion that is deep and commitment that is strong.

My Inner Goddess values physical well-being. She makes the effort, along with her warrior man, to eat healthy, local food, which they prepare from scratch after taking the extra time to go to the farmer’s market to shop every week, for the freshest produce and pastured meat. She also values community and they go there to connect with friends they care about who share the same values. And she helps to grow some of their own food too.

Fresh from the garden.

My Inner Goddess loves beauty, and helps to create it by getting dirty in the muck of the garden, digging, weeding, preparing beds, moving, pruning, and nurturing plants, and sometimes (often) lets the floors in the house get dirty with paw prints and fur balls while the outdoors gets even more lovely as flowers bloom.

Before….

and after.

My Inner Goddess may not pray at temples in Bali and do rituals at Glastonbury, or even belly or pole dance or do tantric yoga, but she prays in the temple of the forest behind her house, honouring nature and animals and the earth, walking dogs daily in her worn rubber boots, enjoying the holy simplicity of the woodland trail and perhaps communing with the elementals.

A friend stopped by in the woods to say hello.

Some days, if she gets up extra early, she might actually squeeze in a round of sun salutations and a 15-minute meditation to feel more centered and strong before cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

She chastises herself for her seeming inability to stick to regular, consistent practices even when she knows, as a coach, and from previous experiences where she has succeeded, that  developing regular practices leads to mastery, productivity, and greater confidence.

But my Inner Goddess creates and inspires nevertheless, making photographs, writing, and doodling in erratic but concentrated spurts of project focus, working well to deadlines, and still manages to keep the pantry stocked with all the essentials, so the toilet paper never runs out.

My Inner Goddess is not some winsome being, wandering around in robes fit for wiccan priestesses and doing full-moon drumming ceremonies (although the latter sounds possibly within her reach). And while she is not averse to creating ceremonial altars from time to time to support her prayers and intentions, she is more likely to light candles and place flowers on a table laden with good food surrounded by jovial friends, an altar to hospitality and good fortune and gratitude.

Friends who love food, laughter, and conversation are the best.

My Inner Goddess is not one who reigns above the fray, always composed, feeling powerful and untouched by uncertainty. She is a warrior of the heart who sees and feels the fullness of her wounds and what they’ve taught her, riding her life in waves, ebbing and flowing, from excitement to frustration, from focus to confusion, from creation to reflection, from action to rest, from expansion to withdrawal.

My Inner Goddess is a creative force who conceived this whole article while cleaning a toilet. She is not on vacation. She is always here.