THE PROCLAMATION OF SOPHIA
I was sent forth from the power
and I have come to you who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who see who | am,
and you hearers, listen to me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves;
do not banish me from your sight;
Do not speak disrespectfully of me,
nor listen to those who dishonor me.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere, or at any time.
Be on your guard!
Do not ignore me! —The Thunder: Perfect Mind, NHL, p. 297
In our meditation, let us retrace our steps to a time about two hundred years
after the death of Jesus.
We stand in the marketplace of Alexandria, where people from Europe, Africa, and Asia walk about—philosophers and saints, beggars and prostitutes.
In this colorful cosmopolitan city where the cacophony of sounds is accompanied by smells of incense and dung and fresh meat and garbage floating down the river, small crowds gather around street preachers and teachers who sell their philosophies as others sell bread and love philters.
Stop to listen to those new Christians who are attracting more people day by day.
They speak of a god-man, sent down as a messenger from his heavenly abode
to let the world know about the glories of the Father.
Is he any different, we wonder, from the Jewish prophets who spoke of their god as an all-powerful father and king, creator of the world, absolute ruler and judge?
Something important is missing here.
We hear no mention of the mother-god, the goddess who appears in a thousand guises, she about whom we have heard in the tales of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Babylonians.
The goddess has not yet been totally banished by the Jewish-Christians; they
simply do not speak of her.
They are devoted to one called Mary, who gave birth to the son of the Most High.
She was a mortal woman who served as a vessel to receive the divine impulse.
In her own right, she is no more or less than any young Jewish virgin betrothed to an ordinary man.
She becomes an object of veneration only because the Most High has chosen her.
But the goddess—there is a female with real presence!
She speaks for herself and knows who she is.
In this moment she is not at ease, for the converts to the new faith have forgotten her warnings.
They follow in the footsteps of their Jewish forebears who banished her altars from their cities in Palestine.
So we walk on, hoping to find a place in Alexandria where she is still remembered, and there among the Egyptians and Greeks and the others whom the members of
the new sect call “pagan,” her voice rings out in the marketplace.
Hers is a strong voice, the voice of independent femininity and creative
maternity.
She speaks to the defenders of the older faiths.
Crowds of people stop to listen, for they have seen how unyielding is the power of the male god when it is not tempered by the goddess’s passionate love for humanity and divinity alike.
They adore the foolish mercy she bestows upon all without discrimination
when she stretches out her arms to the multitudes.
Through the mouths of those who still honor her, she proclaims her strength and demands the respect due to one who was the First Thought of the Father.
And so we stop to listen to those who would tell us about the role of the Feminine in creation and in the redemption of those who have gone astray. ~June Singer, A Gnostic Book of Hours. Keys to Inner Wisdom, Page 40-41
