This is a touching question. I have something to offer. As a man, I am conscious of dominating space with too much 'thought'. This is long, and please forgive me if that feels overwhelming. I believe it is important to share.

Thank you 'A Truth Seeker'. For creating this thread, and intending to open a respect for Goddess that is centered in itself, without reacting against the masculine. That is mature, mystical and vulnerable in a manner I deeply respect.

I would like to share my knowledge of the roots of Christianity, for Christianity the Religion has been such a powerful too of the patriarchy. I believe it has seriously abused the actual work of the man, Jesus. As we change, it helps to look into how we got to where we are.

I understand the age of Pisces, ushered in by the life of Jesus, as both an age of polarity AND a time of patriarchy. This is - inherently - neither good nor bad, it simply is the structure of these times. That we are more able to see the extreme limitationsthat and abuses of this age now, points the way into a new time, centered on the feminine Goddess guided by a love beyond all we have known.

Jesus, for all that has been done in his name, was a wonderful man. Powerfully and lovingly, it is amazing to reunderstand his life when reading the repressed texts - the Nag Hammadi scrolls. They were buried in Egypt as the Christian Church was becoming the modern hierarchy. They are ENTIRELY different than the words of the New Testement. They were written BEFORE the New Testement was compiled.

All evidence indicates that a group of believers in Christ's way saw the power that was rewriting history, and wrote these texts to preserve their knowledge of his life, knowledge that was being expunged from the church. And one of the most amazing revelations they preserved, was of Mary Magdelene's life.

Throughout these texts, she is refered to as 'the most loved' by Christ. He was clearly her lover, and many translations indicate that they were married. This means that the memory we have been given, that emphasizes her as a whore who Christ 'saved' (in all his generosity) has nothing to do with the truth.

More importantly, to me, this means that Christ himself, and all the love 'he' opened in the world, was in PARTNERSHIP with this amazing woman. Whether or not she ever loved other men as openly as she is (accused) of, Christ himself loved her as his equal.

This stuns me.

All who have loved can understand that being in partnership enables us to become more than we are. Imagine, what it is to reconceive western history, with 'Jesus' a man who loved a woman, her body and her soul, her mind and her heart. Who respected her with his life, and turned to her as an equal.

It is history that has changed the facts. To reclaim the feminine and transform the hostility we live within, where power is so consistently regarded before love, it is so beautiful to reunderstand our roots and find what we need in the past.

Jesus and Mary looked towards the future, the future we are now entering - together. 'His' teaching was really 'their' teaching, and was intended to prepare us for the opening we are presently entering.

And Jesus had an intense love and respect for the feminine, in the person of a divine lover. Mary. Indeed, he was who he was BECAUSE he was with her. To think otherwise is a lie.

Jesus took on pain. He loved so deeply, that he enabled people to step into the divine and become something more. He forgave sins by sharing this love with all who would receive it. This is the root of 'his' teaching. And now, we may understand that it wasn't just he, but he and Mary in partnership, that created this.

History glorified men who 'take on' pain in the name of love, and degraded women. That Christ himself was desexualized, and then sex itself was vilified. Then, Men who take on pain are likened to a bullshit image of Jeses that was never real - and glorified - and women who do so are sexualized and degraded as whores.

As a consequence we have priests abusing boys because they are so divorced from their body and physical love. We ALL have a seriously fucked up relationship with sexuality, that is rooted in a complete lie. Jesus and Mary probably had amazing sex. Imagine life if we honored this with open hearts.

As I learn to embrace the divine Goddess in our world, I appreciate work that helps me reunderstand the 'truths' I was taught. That the change comes in learning how things have already been. We aren't just shifting a culture that has followed the divine masculine personified by Jesus, we are learning to BE in a manner he and Mary learned long ago.

They were living within a love that we may now enter, and I am honored to follow them both.