Goddess of the Week: Quan Yin

Image via Wikipedia

It pains me to say this, but there are some things that not even a goddess can do. Goddesses are not saints. If you light a candle they will not bring back the dead, they will not cure a disease, they will not cough up the mortgage payment that you just can't make. I wish they could. I think we all wish they could.

Still, goddesses know about suffering. They've seen it all, and on a much bigger scale. They've lost seemingly immortal children. They've suffered marriages so bad that they've had their own children cut off their husbands' balls (for details, see last post). They feel your pain.

That being said, in your time of need, when things look really bleak, the goddess you want on your side is Quan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy and compassion. Some say Quan Yin started out as a man, a Buddhist monk, some say she was a wealthy young woman who refused to marry and was thrown into a Buddhist convent. Some say she has an abundance of arms, some say she is beauty personfied. Bottom line: Quan Yin is what you need your image -- your story -- of mercy and compassion to be -- even if that means she has to look an awful lot like an eastern version of an Italian Madonna con Bambino, like in the picture.

Here's what everyone agrees on: she waits for you -- for all of us -- at the gates of Nirvana. She could enter there herself at anytime, but she, alone among the few souls who have made it there, will not enter until all of us have made it there, which is likely to be a long while. But she's waiting, and she's with us in our suffering, and she's comforting us. So, while we all suffer (sorry, no getting around that), we do not suffer alone.

Bonnie: This goddess is for you and your daughter.

Need a goddess: Tell me what you need her for and I'll see what I can do.