Creating Images of the Sacred Divine Feminine
by Suzanne Cheryl Gardner
There is a passion that brews inside of me. It began several years ago when I was publishing my own metaphysical magazine, The Higher Source." This publication was dedicated to learning about metaphysical and spiritual concepts as well as supporting the alternative medicine practitioners, but as the years passed I felt something else speaking to me. Running a business by myself was challenging, but the support of women in my area was quite impressive.
Women helping women, encouraging each other and forming groups to support each other through the tough times as well as enjoying and celebrating the good times. The word "Goddess" kept popping up, and at first I thought of it as a frivolous concept. But SHE knew that what I needed was to be educated about what that word stood for and began to offer me ways to teach myself, and learn more about HER. The journey had begun and SHE was calling me.
Several books presented themselves with spontaneous synchronicity, and I began to read about the Feminine Face of God or The Goddess. Her first physical appearance was as the Black Madonna while on my adventures to France, and when I returned I read all of Joseph Campbell's works on myths and the Goddess in antiquity.
I was a voracious reader of everything Goddess, and soon she began to appear in my art and eventually became the key to all my images. It began to dawn on me that this was my path and passion. I desired to know all I could about HER and absorbed myself by calling up her energy and asking for guidance.
It has now been over a decade since she first began to haunt me, and now, I have become her. She changes everything she touches, and everything she touches changes, so I have been transformed.
I wish I had known her in my twenties or thirties because I could have used her courage, her compassion, and most importantly her inner peace. But she now sits in my soul with grace and fortitude seemingly showing me the way and creating dreams of herself in my future. And so, I paint her, the Sacred Divine Feminine.
She is the guiding light that is teaching me how to communicate with nature—the plants, the rocks, the animals, the air, the water, the trees, the very earth...she is the earth. I had been losing touch with these elements in my early years, and it caused me to lose myself, my inner most being became confused, distorted, lost. And although all human beings, men and women, can call up her energy it is the woman who has been gifted with more of her insight as a natural kind of energy, and being a woman in this life I feel blessed to now represent her.
So, now that I know what my path is, I am painting images of her in all her aspects in hopes that she will touch the spirits of others, so they also can remember her, and call upon her energy to guide them down their own unique paths. I paint faces of her and I paint her in images of women that counteract the images we see in the media. I paint her in all colors, shapes and sizes. I paint her communicating with nature and being nature. I paint the symbols that she has spawned throughout antiquity and I paint her in future visions of what she can become.
The media wants us to believe she is only a young innocent creature, who is sexual and desirable, with beautiful slim bodies, big breasts and made only for the pleasure of men. And though that may be one aspect of her, she is so much more than that. She is the Mother who gives birth and knows how to nurture. She is the strong willed, sometimes-chaotic spirit who is ready to seek change and knows that without the dark we would not see the light more clearly. And of course then there is she who is the Crone, the wise woman, the energy of old age who has past life experience that can help raise up and guide the young and innocent and show the way to a more enlightened, wiser life.
The stage I seem to be in now is what Donna Henes, the Urban Shaman, calls “The Queen." I like that! She is the energy who leads with strength, compassion, empathy and a loving heart. I believe it is so very important to show younger women that we are so much more than what the media portrays us as. Creating images of HER like I do counteract all the images that media has shown us for so many years.
She has called upon me to create these images for our future children, mothers, queens and crones. And these images are not just for other females, they are also for the males who desperately need to see new images of women, ones that are powerful, strong, filled with empathy, compassion and wonder, not just those with sexual connotations.
Wise women need to advise and guide younger women so they feel empowered to follow their own hearts and passions, and not be reduced to thinking that they have only one option, to become a mother and raise babies (not that raising children isn't a worthy profession, it just isn't the only one.)
But for now my path is as the artist who has been called upon by the feminine energy to create images that empower others to question this feminine side of us. What exactly does “feminine energy” mean? How can we become more compassionate? What does just “being” mean in my life instead of always wanting to “do?” How can I become more empathic, and become more of a listener? How can partnership and cooperation with others be a wiser choice than always in competition? What do I need to do to create inner peace in my own world so the outer world can reflect that peace?
My husband told me that he was disturbed by my latest piece "Open to All Possibilities." Perfect!!! That's my job as an artist...to shake up your inner world and ask you to reflect upon it, to begin to ask yourself questions and possibly to open to the energy of the Goddess, the Sacred Divine Feminine, because I believe it's time for her to regain more power and presence in our lives and our world.
Suzanne Cheryl Gardner is calling up feminine energy. “The image of the “feminine/Goddess” is key to the transformation of our culture. As we begin to physically see new symbols of female power we are spiritually reminded of the importance of a life balanced with both masculine and feminine energy.” She is co-creating art as a form of expressing vibratory healing energy. When her paintings are viewed it touches the viewer on an unconscious level, triggering cellular memory—activating the desire within the viewer to experience their own balance and inner peace. Creating images for commercial ventures and illustration pieces for projects is part of her goal towards encouraging others to remember the feminine. She also creates “Spirit Rocks” on commission, embodying animal spirit messages. You may purchase PRINTS, one-time rights to DIGITAL Images, or Note Cards on her website at www.suzannesart.com She is offering 1/2 OFF on her prints for the month of Sept. Please use the code “Half-Off” when making a purchase in her store on the website. ALSO you can send a FREE E-Card from her website!
Rosemary Gladstar 
