It can be difficult to approach a topic like the divine feminine in the 21st Century while we are in the middle of grappling with new ways of thinking about sexual and gender identities. On the one hand, the concept of the Divine Feminine is found throughout history and across cultures; on the other hand, how that divine presence manifests is not so consistent from time to time and place to place.

Part of this new approach and understanding of gender is summarized by stem cell Biologist and Tik-Tokker Micah Valentine who tells us that gender, like biological sex, is not a binary but a “Bimodal distribution with two extreme ends and most people falling somewhere in the middle.” Meaning that our understanding of gender is defined by two polarities on either end of that extreme, but our individual gender expression (and sex defining characteristics) will come from some combination of both.

To understand the Divine Feminine, the ultimate expression of the feminine archetype, we can look at one end of that spectrum, a tricky thing to pin down when incorporating ideas between cultures.

Perhaps the complexity of what the divine feminine encapsulates is best described by spiritual traditions with a large pantheon of Gods who have made room for feminine as well as masculine figures. In the Candomblé tradition, for instance, we have Iemanjá and her younger sister Oxum, Goddess figures with characteristics associated with water and thus fertility, healing, beauty, and wisdom. But there is also Oyá, Obá, and Ewá, all warrior goddesses.

Similarly in ancient Greece, only two of the Olympian goddesses, Hera and Aphrodite, are associated with maternal/sexual attributes; the other two, Athena and Artemis, are virgin goddesses of hunting, wisdom, and warfare. Looking beyond Olympus, goddesses embodied every aspect of spiritual life in Ancient Greece from the Earth itself to primordial Chaos, the seven Muses to the three-in-one goddess, the Fates. The Fates are of particular note because of their multifaceted nature as a single deity, encompassing our existence from birth, through life, to the moment of death.

The Fates aren’t the only goddesses that contain so many aspects of life they must be represented in three forms. The Celts have The Morrigan, a triple goddess associated with war and fate. Korean Shamanism venerates Samshin Halmeoni, the triple grandmother who is also a goddess of fate, and a protector of newborns. The recurrence of the three Marys in the bible is another echo of this tripartite divine feminine. In all instances, we see this sacred representation of the feminine in wildly divergent appearances.

So, what are the characteristics of the Divine Feminine?

Is it tender, caretaking, safe, contained, well ordered and well kept? Or primordial creation itself, the vastness of the earth, expansive, chaotic, and infinite?

The modern concept of the ‘sacred feminine’ coincides with first wave feminism in the 1970s and was strongly influenced by the influx of Eastern religion and philosophy, especially Hinduism. While it was often used as a counterpoint to the male-oriented worship of modern day Christianity, the goddess-oriented Shakti denomination of Hinduism (which contains its own triple deity as manifestations of the supreme being Devi) rejects dualism and binaries, seeing the divine reality as one, whole completeness.

The Devi-Bhagavata Purana states: “I am Manifest Divinity, Unmanifest Divinity, and Transcendent Divinity…I am the Sun and I am the Stars, and I am also the Moon. I am all animals and birds, and I am the outcaste as well, and the thief. I am the low person of dreadful deeds, and the great person of excellent deeds. I am Female, I am Male in the form of Shiva.”

Or as Swami Vivekananda defines it, Shaktism is “... the omnipresent force in the universe and sees in women the manifestation of that Force.” Divine femininity is not one thing, or even a category of things; it is all encompassing, touching every part of creation and made manifest through us as human beings.

During this concert, each performer is making their own connection to that source. Intuition, fertility, and sensuality, or water and the moon, or the juxtaposition of chaos and order, or vengeance and sorcery, or the teeming life of the earth itself. And as an audience, we are given the opportunity to step into that energy, consider its potential, how that driving force guides our fate. Can we lean on oppositional metaphors based in that bimodal structure and think of masculinity as a mountain and femininity the sea? Sure, but remember that the tallest mountain in the world isn’t Everest but Mauna Kea, which stretches over 10,000 meters, with the majority of it underwater. Perhaps the slopes and peaks of a mountain are no more or less mysterious than waves and tides, and perhaps each pearl on the ocean floor holds the same majesty as the highest summit.