I have been off writing every day, and I am pissed at myself about it! Writing is the synthesis of this weird spiritual life. And when you are navigating this level of complexity, you need to get it down, even if it’s messy and gross and you cringe later. I would rather have something to cringe at later than nothing at all.

I recently learned that the Gnostic Christians have a different interpretation of the Holy Trinity—and let me tell you—it’s beautiful.

I’m obsessed with the Holy Trinity because even without mystical interpretations, it’s pretty beautiful on its own. Creator in three parts. It’s complex and elusive. It’s Holy Spirit that moves through everything and God above, body that was once here. And, it’s been my lived experience of God in three parts.

My first intellectual encounter with God, as a three, was in the Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Representing the supreme cosmic functions of creation, preservation, and destruction/transformation.

Then, God as the law of three to create anything: active force, passive force, and neutral force + magic (will, fear, surrender). The ideal configuration is neutral will, passive fear, and active surrender. You set your intention, you honor and navigate your fears, and surrender the results. This is basic change management—this is basic making things happen here on earth—but is also found in American/ritual magic. It makes sense.

But then I came to the Holy Trinity as a mystic, as a felt sense of the Divine.

I feel the Holy Spirit all the time.

In the wind.

In the sky.

In the clouds that stand out a little more than they did just minutes ago. The bowls of white holding a golden light as the sun moves further down the horizon.

In the music that brings tears to your eyes for no apparent reason.

In the stuff that just moves you.

And I’m an artist. The Holy Spirit is just sort of our thing. It’s everywhere with us (I know other artists feel this, too). The connection between artist and mystic is well known, but gosh, how real it is.

It’s why we want to look at something for a long time, as if it’s speaking to us. Or why we’re compelled to paint that one scene. That one little piece of the meadow. The one ghost that haunts us. That one skyline that we can’t get out of our heart. The tree that takes on the shape of a lover.

And, the Holy Spirit, in my life, has felt feminine.

It’s beauty and grace. It’s soft and loving. It’s feeling, endlessly. It just feels woman.

And that’s what the Gnostics believe.

They believe the Holy Spirit is the Divine Feminine.

And, to me, that makes sense of something I’ve been trying to make sense of for a long time.

I’ve had to build a relationship with the Divine Feminine.

The Divine Feminine is a universal, non-denominational spiritual concept representing the nurturing, intuitive, creative, and receptive aspects of consciousness that exist within all people, regardless of gender. We can understand it as a counterpart to the "Divine Masculine" (logic, action, structure).

The best way I’ve found, in my experience, is through praying to the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine independently. Because it creates a different posture in us, and it gets us different results.

It’s how I came to understand the need for a place of the Divine Feminine in my life. It’s how I came to see my own disconnection with my femininity. And it’s been a huge part of my spiritual journey to move from absent Divine Feminine to connection (and we’re still working on it).

And this is a thing for a lot of spiritual folk. We were raised disconnected from the Divine Feminine. In our mothers, in our culture, in our religion. And that is, in my opinion, a great disservice to the world.

Because the Divine Feminine is a part of us.

A part we need to understand and integrate.

A part that will deeply support our emotional world, our beauty, and our love when it is in intimiate relationship with our soul.

And we know the Divine Masculine well. Especially if we were raised with any cultural Christianity. In my life, the Divine Masculine, often I call God, I reach out to for support. Help me with this, please God. Change this. Give me this.

But my relationship with the Divine Feminine had to be cracked open.

Within myself to understand and integrate my own femininity.

Within my concepts of God, to expand the notion of who and what God is, both masculine and feminine.

Today, I have a relationship with the Divine Feminine, and not just in the Holy Spirit but with the Divine Feminine as the great feminine force above. I call to Her when I am in collapse, surrender. Divine Feminine, I don’t know what to do, please just help. Please just do something!

I think of the relationship now, God as masculine and feminine, in the same ways we might speak to our parents.

And this has been a LONG journey for me to figure out because I did not have that healthy, intimate parental relationship modeled, and therefore a relationship with God. This is why so much of the spiritual path is the healing path.

My family had A LOT of issues, all over. From how my mother was unattuned and absent emotionally to how my father was selfish and neglectful. That’s a pretty tough concept of the Divine to start with.

And the model your parents set for a healthy relationship with the Divine cannot be overstated.

Our parents model the relationship to the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine. And to see and understand them as One provides the foundation for a genderless God who loves you in all ways.

It reminds me that we are the little piece that radiates upward. I believe fully that our little snapshot, our little puzzle piece of life, holds all the wisdom to tell us about the world, the cosmos, and the Divine.

Your parents are the first representations of God. And that is so beautiful and so sacred.

They hold the archetype of God.

So wouldn’t it also make sense that in the Trinity we might be able to see: you as Son, Dad, as Holy Father, and Mother as Holy Spirit? I think so.

And I just love the mandala of our lives towards the secrets of the universe.

And I’m touched at how sacred every part of this experience is when we really open our eyes, feed our minds, and let our hearts feel it.

Love,
Val

Thank you for reading! If this essay resonates with you, please support my writing by sharing it with a friend. This is integral to my growth, and I appreciate it greatly!

If you missed one or want to see what’s been written before, click below.