Hello readers, whoever you may be!

This is the fourth blog I have ever began on Goddess religion. The first three, though, were from a time when my approach to it was much different than it is now. As such, I thought it was time for a clean slate. I have learned so much since I made my last blog entry, exactly a year ago today, on my old WordPress site.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Erin, but my ‘spiritual’, Goddess-inspired/channeled/given name is Rhianwen Dôn. The name apparently means ‘pure maiden’, but to me is also a combination of two goddesses I adore deeply: Rhiannon and Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere). Rhiannon’s name means ‘Divine Queen’ or ‘Great Queen’, while Gwenhwyfar’s likely means ‘White Enchantress’, ‘White Spirit’, etc. All three of my patron ‘Celtic’ goddesses (I also worship Venus) have associations with the color white. It typically represents maiden-like, gentle, pure, holy energy (though it has a shadow side which I’ll explore in the book I want to write on Gwenhwyfar). Purity doesn’t have to have the connotations many in the Christianized west hold it to have, for purity and innocence are available to any of us at any time, no matter how impure we may feel. The ‘Rhian’ part, the Queen part, is an acknowledgement of my understanding of Divine Sovereignty, particularly in relation to the divine feminine when women have been denied sovereignty in their own right for thousands of years. I’m going to explore that deeply in the book I’m currently writing, but I’m sure it’ll come up in my posts. Finally, my ‘last name’ is Dôn, the Welsh name for the ‘Celtic’ (I am aware this term is a great oversimplification and not historical but just for the purposes of this post please don’t kick up a fuss, I don’t have time to get in to migratory anthropology) Mother of the Gods also known as Dana, Danu, Anu, Ana. I chose the Cymric (Welsh) name because of my Cymric heritage, and an acknowledgement of the role that beautiful land, its stories and goddesses, have played in my spiritual journey since I was a little girl. As someone in the controversial ‘soft polytheistic’ camp, I view Dôn by all Her names as the Celtic manifestation of the Great Mother, who I view as not only an ‘Mother Earth’ figure but also an eternal, celestial force that existed before the physical planet Earth came in to being.

I have always been deeply religious and spiritual. I was raised Anglican, attended evangelical churches for a while, became a Mormon, then went back to evangelicalism for a short time while secretly keeping an altar to Sophia, the hidden divine feminine figure in Christianity. However, it wasn’t enough, I wanted more. I have been walking the path of the Sacred Feminine for about 8 years now. My spiritual path is ever-evolving. I have jumped the fence between a niche goddess tradition known as Filianism, hardline reconstructionism, new ageism, and back again multiple times. I now think it’s fair to say I sit between the revivalist/neopagan and reconstructionist camps; I try to stick to the original, ancient stories as much as possible, while believing it is okay to have our own interpretations and gnosis about them that others may not share. An example is my view of the Brythonic ‘Sovereignty Goddess’ as being a matriarchal concept and not a patriarchal one (again, will get more in to this in my upcoming book), and how I worship beings not typically regarded as goddesses by the hardcore reconstructionists who insist on having indisputable historical proof for everything (Gwenhwyfar, Rhiannon, Morgan le Fay, Olwen, etc).

It also must be said that at this point in my life, despite trying to include worship of the divine masculine/male gods in my practices, I find it hard to do so for I feel very little spiritual resonance there when I try. When I do, it is of Kings of the Land and consorts to my goddesses. I believe this comes from my spiritual upbringing and I do believe that while we still live in a world where 95% of spirituality is patriarchal, it’s not going to tip the scales in to an unbalanced gynarchy any time soon if a few pagan women want to focus on the feminine exclusively. Even in many of the pagan polytheistic faiths, many powerful goddesses in their own right began being reduced to mere helpmeets of male gods around 6,000 years ago as civilization began to lean more patriarchal for reasons that I am still pondering and exploring. I suppose one could compare my beliefs to the Shaktism branch of Hinduism, where the Devi is considered the supreme power of creation and therefore it is goddess-centric as opposed to Shaivism and Vaishnavism in which the goddesses are usually seen as consorts of the more frequently honored male gods. As I mentioned earlier, I believe in the Great Mother Goddess, the Lady of 10,000 Names, the primordial, elemental, eternal yet changing, cosmic yet earthly, feminine energy that permeates all of existence, and I believe one of the ways we can best connect with Her is through a relationship with the many ‘polytheistic’ goddesses, who are both Her and also individuals in Their own right. When I talk about ‘the Goddess’, I am talking about the One and the Many. I believe humans also possess some of Her creative spark through our inner feminine energy, which most people possess to some degree regardless of gender.

I do not typically practice ‘witchcraft’, but do believe in the power of manifestation, which I practice in a very goddess-focused way: aligning myself with my goddesses, carrying myself how I believe they would if they were to walk this planet, being their hands upon the earth. It is for this reason I currently call myself a Handmaiden of the Goddess. While I was initiated as a priestess in my old tradition (Filianism), I was always a spiritual leader online only, but now that I have diverged from Filianism (though I still believe in many of its metaphysics) I want to step in to priestesshood in my ‘real life’ community, and want to make a concerted effort to do so. Handmaiden was also a term used in Madrianism (old Filianism) to refer to something similar to a Deacon in Catholicism, and an aspirant priestess undergoing study before initiation. My other spiritual passions, interests and practices (budding or fully realised) include ritual practices, tarot, ecstatic dance, bardic arts (sacred storytelling, poetry and song), mantras & rosary beads, goddess embodiment & oracle practices, Jungian psychoanalysis, & more.

My non-spiritual interests include typical ‘girly girl’ stuff: pop music, video games, fiction books. To be honest, though, my spirituality is my life and my main area of interest. The Goddess has completely changed my life in so many names and teaches me new things every single year. She has been with me since I was a little girl seeing Her in the rolling hills of North Wales. She has healed my broken heart many times over, and been my best friend and closest confidante when I felt completely alone. I know now that I will be Her student my entire life.

Tomorrow I’m going to make my first proper post about how I celebrated Imbolc this year. In the mean time, you can find me at @rhianwendon on Instagram. Eventually I’ll be picking a better theme, creating an About page (which will probably just be this copied and pasted, to be honest) and getting set up properly. If you’d like to follow me I hope you enjoy learning about my walk with the Goddess and I hope it can inspire your own.

Blessed Be!

~ Rhianwen