Hello, reader. How are you doing? I want to tell you why I worship Harriet Tubman. She is a powerful goddess. We all belong to the human family–all of us. Asking our ancestors for help is a human thing to do.
As the years pass, I sink deeper into my faith for pleasure, well-being, and safety. Mainstream culture isn’t going to feed me the nourishment I need. For my queer survival, I need to take my life in my own hands, including spirituality.
The kind of faith I need is changeable and DIY. I create my own path within parameters, with hints from many sources. These are my main sources.
- Earth Based witchery
- the sect of Hinduism I’ve done for 27 years
- mythology from many cultures
- Judeo-Christian ideas that I’ve heard floating around: what I learned in church as a child, or in Jewish spaces with Ming
- my own experience of the natural world
- my inner life and my intuition
- ecstatic states / intense pleasure
- books
- when I was in the hospital and Jaguar came to me and led me out of the thick, dangerous jungle
- childhood, teenager, and young adulthood experiences of the other world
- art making experiences of the other world
- hearing voices
- vivid strange dreams
I enjoy creating an ever-evolving religion that makes sense for my own life and my own fat, disabled body. But I enjoy dipping into mainstream religion to get community and pieces of what I need there as well.
why I worship Harriet Tubman
Liberation is one of the main things I ask for when I pray. I work toward liberation by doing radical mental health, telling the truth, changing my life as I leave painful and harmful situations, building community, centering disability justice, finding new ways to love… Harriet Tubman helped liberate people in a more direct way, literally leading people to freedom.
I am in love with my spouse Ming who strongly identifies with Moses and relates to Moses very much. Harriet Tubman is a lot like Moses, and Ming relates to her as well. Both figures led people to the promised land.
I heard that like Ming, Harriet Tubman might have had narcolepsy. Also I heard she used owl hoots to communicate over distances at night in the dark. Maybe she was stern and not an easy person to be around all the time. Yes, happens to the best of us.
But I find Harriet Tubman easy to talk to. I stare at her picture by my bedside and on my altar. I am not a woman, but I’m sort of like a woman. She and I have a few things in common. I think she listens to me really good.
advice
How do you conceive of God? Nature, your wise self, mushrooms, the vast universe, old man, Jaguar? A grandparent, the ocean, the earth, the sky?
I recommend you ask yourself, “Who is a powerful goddess in my inner life?” then dedicate some time to worshiping her. Yes, that’s my unsolicited advice, to strengthen your spirit.
These human needs are so real. Our culture is failing us. We made a culture of convenience and comfort through products. So many of us are starving. Spirituality is a whole other kind of nourishment that we can’t buy.
Maybe you don’t believe in God. But what if you tried just for fun to cultivate a relationship? Maybe it would be make-believe. But what if make-believe is useful sometimes? I like prayer even if I’m the only one listening. Prayer helps me identify my priorities and needs. If nothing else, it helps me know what to give my energy to.
What do you still need to do, with the time you have left, alive in the world? If you could ask for help from a powerful goddess, that might give you a better chance of accomplishing it.
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