Anne Carter, MD

Two years ago I began a journey that is giving me a way to connect more deeply with myself as a woman, a journey I continue to this day.

For one weekend a month over the course of six months, I and eleven other women explore one of the ancient Goddesses: Athena, Demeter, Persephone, Hera, Aphrodite and Artemis. We are led on this journey by a wonderful teacher, Monica Garaychochea, a medical doctor in her native country Spain, who gave up a successful practice to devote her life to deepening her relationship with her most essential self, and to better understanding what it means to be a woman and to inhabit a female body. Under her guidance, we gather in a circle and learn about the myths of these Goddesses and the way that the stories of their lives, their personality traits, their values and vulnerabilities depict core feminine patterns or programs.

In sharing our lives with each other during these weekends, participants get to see and hear the way these essential patterns, as illustrated in the myths of the ancient Goddesses, continue to embody the feminine today. In recognizing behaviors and temperaments as propensities we are born with, and carry rather than create, I have learned to be more understanding and compassionate to those women who seem so different from me, as well as those parts of myself I may not like, or reject outright.

We begin each Goddess workshop on a Friday night, sharing our experiences of the past month and how the Goddess we explored the month before has shown up in our lives. The next morning we begin with a meditation in which Monica directs our awareness to our bodies, and those parts uniquely female. This meditation is often the first time many of the participants have spent so much time being with their bodies in this way. For me, this meditation process has been a way to connect with parts of my body I largely ignore. After the meditation, participants are inspired to share any insights, feelings or thoughts they had during the meditation. Some share their experiences of bearing children, others, like myself, about what it has been like not to, as well as the experience of losing female organs through illness, trauma or surgery. In this way, the connection between our bodies and life events and the range of feelings, from the joy of giving birth, to the sense of loss at never having done so, are shared and given supportive attention.

For those who wonder if there is a place where intense feelings can be experienced and brought out into the open, Goddess Inspiration is that place. Because the series takes place over six months, a strong container or holding space is created where trust develops and deepens. It is in this place of trust that I and others are able to share with each other those things about ourselves that make us vulnerable.

I, for example, have been able to share the way I am caught internally between caring for others at the expense of caring for myself, leading to a sense of being overwhelmed as well as feeling unable to more fully manifest my personal desires, a tension expressed in the Demeter/Persephone or mother/daughter dynamic. Bringing this struggle into the circle has enabled me to get support in setting limits on those things that serve as a distraction while putting more energy into making more real my deeper desires. As a result, I have moved, changed jobs, and become producer of the Goddess series in Boston.

Every weekend ends with a ritual that pays homage to each Goddess as she expresses herself through us, and where we can ask for her support and/or deepen our connection to those qualities she personifies so that they may grow in us. The ritual is one of the most moving parts of the workshop series. It is like stepping into a special state of consciousness, where the deepest part of ourselves can, for a brief time, come through.

The Goddess Inspiration Series is an invitation. An invitation for women who wish to make a deeper connection to themselves. The workshops are also a gift. They are a way for women to have the experience that being in loving relationship with who they are, just as they are, is the most important gift they can give to themselves and others.