brilliant warrior goddess.

So, what the hell does "Brilliant Warrior Goddess" mean you might ask yourself...

Am I so enamored with myself that I gave myself that moniker to remind me how awesome I am? No. Not at all.

It came to into being when I found myself alone, again, in State College, PA in 2000. When I say alone I mean without people around me and not lonely. I have very rarely felt lonely in my life; I have continually felt that my writing has kept me company through times when I could have felt that way. But I was alone. I had moved to State College to attend Penn State. I enrolled at Penn State because there was no way in hell Nick and I were going to remain together at the age of 20 if we weren't in the same town. We had spent a LOOONG distance love (remember, he was in Rome from 1/2000-4/2000...we started dating 8/1999) and that was enough. Without getting into an entire side story, let's just say I knew that the path the Universe wanted me to take was to head to PSU. So there I was.

I started out with two roommates and they moved out to live with their boyfriends. Big house, Kate Miller, art and writing supplies and plenty of music but no friends. Sure, I knew people through Nick but I like to have my own friends. I did not want to get into a position where we broke up and I found myself alone again. Yadda, yadda, miss independent rears her head. Oh, and remember I'm only 20 at this point and Nick has been 21 for almost a year as have all of his buddies. We made do but there was a lot of time to be alone.

Again, being alone was nothing new to me. I spent a year in Columbus, Ohio feeling completely alone and after that another year back home. But as I sat there reflecting on all I had seen and been through by the age of 20- the words brilliant warrior goddess came to me. I felt like my entire life, for different reasons, I had to be strong like a warrior. I learned to dig deep deep inside me, keep my head up, my armor at the ready to defend against whatever was being thrown my way. I do not mean to define this in a woe is me way, quite the opposite. It has a lot to do with the way I was raised: to never let anyone get you down, to never let anyone think that they can hurt you or that they are better than you. This is not a violent warrior that I acknowledge inside of me but a protector, a shield.

I'll spare the details but by the age of 20 I had been through, what I see as some pretty awesome battles. I learned a term in my psych class called "learned optimism" which is the antithesis of "learned helplessness." Some people go through life beaten down, when life throws tomatoes at them they let the acid burn their wounds. I, on the other hand, feel as though I thank the Universe for the opportunity to learn how to make sauce. This is where the brilliance comes in. Not brilliance as in intelligence. Brilliant, in this case, refers to a quality of light, really. A sparkle or brightness reflecting in color.

As my old neighbor in State College said when he found out I grew up as the daughter of a farmer in Upstate New York (he, too, grew up on a farm) "I should have known you were from good stock, a good hearty person." I believe he's right. I believe that growing up with your strong family surrounding you makes you different from other people. Every single day my sister and I, despite anything else, had my grandmother's strong loving arms wrapped around us. We had our Dad right. there. We witnessed first hand his hard work, we rode in the tractor with him, went to Cow-well-wells with him to pick up parts, he even cut a little broom down so I could help him sweep the barn. It was the. best. ever. When I sat there, alone, at the table in State College on a Friday night reflecting on this I realized that everything I'd experienced, EVERYTHING, had developed this strength inside of me that I had a reverence for. There was a Brilliant Warrior Goddess deep down that I could call upon, conjure up for lack of a better term.

The Buddhists believe that everything you need to obtain Enlightenment, you have, you just have to access it. The Buddha, they believe, resides within each and everyone one of us. I suppose this goes along with the Christian belief of your body being a temple, you are a child of God. I think the Buddhist idea goes a little further, though, a little closer to my own beliefs. You call upon different aspects of Buddha to help you on your Eight Fold Path. I think my BWG is my own aspect of Buddha or the HP or the Universe that I call upon. My belief that there is something more guiding me in this life, within me she is called the Brilliant Warrior Goddess. She kicks ass, she takes names. She writes poetry and draws her soul. She loves intensely and protects more so.

Sometimes I let this get away from me. Sometimes I stop listening and let self-doubt and ugly thoughts get into my head. Luckily, I find myself surrounded by people like myself. People who have found or are finding their inner strength, self, love. The beauty and strength in them helps me find the beauty and strength in me (as the idea of the term namaste).

...and there you have the story of the origins of the Brilliant Warrior Goddess.

someday i'll find the picture I drew that night and post it...