what do the words "Divine Feminine" mean to YOU?

one of my first assignments as part of the online course im taking at the WiseWomanUniversity was to write an essay on what the words "Divine Feminine" mean to me. while i'm accustomed at putting such a concept into an image - Pele, the Blessed Mother, Kali-Ma or Kwan Yin are all images that spring readily to mind when asked to consider the Divine Feminine - to verbalize what those images to mean, to me and for my life, was quite an interesting challenge.

here's my answer. Gentle Reader, what's yours?

For me, the Divine Feminine is the Image of the God-Goddess-Source that I, in this present incarnation, most closely manifest. I have this understood about myself – and every other woman - for a long time, mostly because from the time I was very small, I had a Little Voice that “corrected” whatever spiritual teachings I was taught with a kind of running commentary if I dared to pay attention.

The Divine Feminine is a “whole” Feminine. It is the energy of being comfortable with who you are every moment of your life, magnified to an infinite degree. My connection to the Divine Feminine has at various times infused and informed my life with a grace and power I am not always humble enough to tap into. But it is Her energy that allowed me to stop coloring my hair when I turned 40, it was Her energy that allowed me to birth four babies without so much as a bullet to bite on, and it's Her energy that infuses my approach to sexuality.

There is also a “dark” side to the Divine Feminine which I feel is mostly either ignored and misunderstood by our culture and unfairly labeled as “negative.” Sometimes you have to draw boundaries. Sometimes you have to end things. Sometimes you have to let things go in order to have other things. I know it was that energy that I drew on when I left my abusive ex-husband, and it’s that energy that helped me raise my four children as a single mother. It’s that energy that enabled me to survive three lay-offs in five years, and to find other work far more satisfying to my soul. It's that energy that allowed me to sever the relationship i had with my former business associate when she became abusive.

The Divine Feminine as manifested by the Moon speaks to me of being comfortable with transitions and transformations, to ride the tides of all of life’s changes, and to finally, gracefully, sink into her last embrace. Even when I don’t consciously align my energy to the moon’s I am aware of her influence upon me – I never write very well under a Full Moon, for example, and the time of the New Moon is usually the easiest moon for me to write under.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.