The First Time a Goddess Made Herself Known

Do you remember the first time a goddess made herself known in your life?

The path of the goddess is a spiritual path of women that leads back through women’s teachings for women’s bodies. It cannot be done through a masculine, linear, organised, structured path with a destination, that illusive goal that keeps creeping further away. Only the strongest, toughest ones can reach. And to reach this promised reward, suffering is a given.

This path of the goddess is a meandering one.

But on this spiritual path, we move as if we follow a labyrinth, spirally inwards then switching back on ourselves to review old wisdom with new eyes, then changing direction and feeling as if we are moving away from our goal, becoming disheartened or disillusioned, only to discover our newfound vulnerability and humility leads us even deeper into the mystery of the goddess.

The goal loses its pull as we realise that it is the journey that matters, not the destination. So, we slow down, spinning out each careful step, relishing the learning. We stop and revel in each new epiphany. Then we see the goddess shining through every moment, every aspect of our inner and outer world. This is not some far-off, illusive goal.

The goddess is everywhere.
She is me.
I am her.
The destination no longer matters at all.

For me, this spiritual path began in my twenties. I have been called by many goddesses for most of my life. But I just didn’t know it. At the time, I was just looking for happiness, a sense of belonging and connection. So, the goddess could not have been further from my mind. Even though I was not searching for a relationship with Spirit, that is what I found. Every path I took seemed to lead me back to a personal, direct relationship with the spirit realms.

With each new experience I realised I was only limited by my imagination. I discovered I could talk directly with earthbound spirits. That made me realise I could talk to deceased loved ones, which made me realise I could talk to the souls of living loved ones. Soul is soul. Alive or dead I could talk to anyone.

So, I began to communicate with animals, fae, angels, archangels, ascended masters, gods and goddesses.

As I get older the call to dedicate my life to the worship of the goddess has gone from a whisper to a demand to a command to a fierce inner compulsion that will not be silenced. But I do not come quietly to the feet of the goddess.

I have fought this call as I had too much baggage for that. And I’m not talking about my Christian upbringing and generations of epigenetic imprints that signals alarm bells through my system.

Of course, I had plenty of that too, warning me to resist at all costs. Statues are idolatry. Visions are psychosis. Chanting, meditation, tarot, runes and all forms of prophesy are satanic. No. It is not my deeply ingrained Christian beliefs that are the problem. I am talking lifetime after lifetime as a priestess who was burned, drowned, disembowelled, tortured, and hung for my beliefs. So, for decades I have resisted the call.

But even before I really knew anything about her, she called me home. The first time in my mid-twenties, the first goddess who stamped her foot and drew me inexplicably to her was Kali. At the time I recoiled away from her, resisting her with every fibre of my being. I kept her at arm’s length. The goddess was not safe. This goddess smelled of burning flesh. She reeked of death. Fear bristled within me. I turned away over and over again.

The Call Grows Louder
Not to be put off, she waited patiently for me to grow up and decades later she called me back once more.

By now, I am mid-forties and feeling the first stirrings of menopause without knowing it. In 2017 stepped reluctantly through the threshold of understanding and began to explore her many faces and forms. It was only with time and exposure to Kali that I discovered I had been dancing with her for longer than I could count. I had been her devotee for more lifetimes. This goddess was not new to me. She was calling me home, to rest at her feet where I had always been.

But the crazy thing is that I was not looking for a Divine, for a goddess to devote myself to. That never even crossed my mind. I was an explorer, searching the possibilities of my inner landscape, testing the boundaries of the terrain, exploring all I could access in the spirit realms.

My lack of commitment did not put the goddess off at all. She simply kept coming back and tapping me on the shoulder. The goddess was persistent and she was patient. I was drawn back to India three years in a row to meet Kali and other goddesses – Durga, Lalita Devi, Lakshmi, Tara. But none had the pull that Kali had on me.

In amongst this, I met Mary Magdalene. In 2018 Mary Magdalene came out of left of field, completely unexpected and uncalled.

And I rolled my eyes. Really? I thought I’d dealt with my Christian guilt. Hadn’t I gained enough understanding of my childhood and family genetic heritage and the ways it had wreaked havoc on me?

I spent my twenties snubbing patriarchy, refusing to conform and running roughshod over the beliefs and expectations of my society? I learned about the historic Jesus, met him even! Surely this was a waste of energy…

Apparently not.

Mary Magdalene was unknown territory, having no knowledge of her aside from the Christian trope of the repentant sinner. She invited me to come find her, to learn about her and discover who she was. This was intriguing, mysterious.

And so, I fell down the rabbit hole and took years to come back out. I travelled to France in 2019 to walk in her footsteps and recover a lifetime as a Cathar, a twelfth century devotee of Mary Magdalene. And so I studied. I read her gospel (yes, Mary Magdalene wrote her own gospel!) and learned who she had been as a historical woman.

But she had more surprises up her sleeve.

Back in 2018, when I began to search for Mary Magdalene, I was dumbfounded by how hard it was to learn about her. More books have been written now and it is becoming easier to learn alternative theories about the woman that the Church tried to silence. In 2020 I was told to write. My spirit guides were emphatic. So, I did as I was told.

But the deeper into her story I got, the more I realised that to understand her, I needed to know more about the religions she grew up with. So, I began to explore the religions of the Near East, sending me down another rabbit hole that is taking years to come back out of. So, I met the goddesses of Mesopotamia, particularly the Sumerian goddess Inanna and the Creators of the world, such as Ninhursag and Tiamat.

Only after I had explored the ancient religions of the Near East, did I receive her permission to return to France in 2023 to meet the energy (through relics) of her siblings Lazarus and Martha, and to finally sit in her energy (through relics) and meet her fully. I walked the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral. And I finally understood the way the spiritual paths of women differs from the spiritual paths of men.

The goddess is infinitely patient. She will wait as long as it takes.

My research sent me to Egypt and Türkiye in 2025 where I met more goddesses, particularly Sekhmet, Isis and Hathor in Egypt, Cybele, Artemis of Ephesus and the ancient Neolithic Great Mother The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük in Türkiye.

Touching the very deepest, oldest layers of the spiritual paths of women I begin to retrace my steps back out of the rabbit hole and slowly come up to the surface.

I return to Egypt in a few months. My attention has shifted from the religion to the women of spirit and the spiritual paths of women. So, now I am searching for the woman priestesses, oracles, prophetesses, dancers and singers.

Opening myself up to their world, I can catch glimpses of actual women who devoted their lives to the goddess.

Calling a Goddess
We have worshipped countless goddesses over countless lifetimes. So many goddesses walk alongside us, depending on the issues we are dealing with in life and the type of support we need. Some of us only need one goddess, while others need many.

What matters is that we do the work. Our chosen goddess will need us to research her first. She is not going to waste her time teaching us the basics. We need to learn all we can about her before we call her in and ask to be her devotee.

So, learn about one goddess at a time. Do your research. Cleanse and purify yourself physically and energetically. Be a clear channel for Spirit. Release all the lies and illusions you hold around goddess worship. Offer your prayers. Ask for her to walk alongside you. Only then can you…

Ask for her love, guidance and support.
Write a prayer or a ritual.
Create an altar.
Ask the goddess to accept you as her priestess.
Dedicate yourself to her.
Wait for proof in the real world that the goddess has accepted your request and claimed you.

The path of devotion to the goddess is not straight forward. It is a labyrinth. So, relinquish resistance and surrender. We need to open ourselves up and be willing to do whatever she asks of us, no questions asked. It can take years to understand the method to her madness.

Expect the unexpected. This is not a masculine, linear, organised path. It will take us to places we do not expect.

Sometimes life sends us curveballs. I mean, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get cancer! But being on a spiritual path for women gives us the tools to move through anything with gentle courage and vulnerable strength.

When things take an odd turn, it is a sign that we are in contact with true divine feminine energy. Trust the process, trust the goddess and trust that it will all make sense in the end.

Treat the spiritual path like a labyrinth.

The labyrinth is a curving, spiralling, nonlinear path. Every supposed detour has a purpose. We just may not know it yet. Recall the labyrinth.

Relinquish resistance.
Surrender.
Trust.

Remember how you felt when you felt the first stirrings of the goddess within you, on the very first day, and arouse the same feelings of curiosity, holding the search as an adventure into the deepest mysteries. Do not expect to find any definitive answers.

The goddess is far too mysterious to be pigeonholed.

What was it that first attracted you to her? What are the ways that help you feel her presence, her love, her guidance and support?

Refresh and renew your commitment, taking you back to the beginning to be reborn once more into a new insights and possibilities. After all, we are only limited by our imagination.

So, walk the labyrinth to discover your newfound vulnerability and humility, leading you even deeper into the mystery of the goddess.

Debra Reeves