Hello, everyone. Lucy, here. I’m very excited to be writing this blog. I’ve been thinking about what to write for ever so long. I finally decided to tell you all about my favorite goddess. Her name is Durga.

What, you don’t have a favorite goddess? You sound like my mother; she says I’m a PAGAN.  Honestly, she’s probably right about that, although I do NOT worship rocks and trees like she thinks I do. But I definitely strayed away from the family RC path a LONG time ago, forged my own way, developed my own strain of belief that works for me. And honestly, I didn’t have a favorite goddess until a few weeks ago when I read about Durga in my favorite magazine, Yoga Journal. Shout out to Sally Kempton. Sometimes that magazine has some great stuff in it… (How to Channel Durga During Challenging Times)

Durga—eight arms, five weapons, three magical symbols, and all of it riding on a tiger. That’s my kind of goddess!  She defeats the forces of evil by seducing them with her beauty and overpowering them with her strength.  Whoo hoo—you go, girl!  I want to know her; I want to BE her.  And that’s the great thing about goddesses, of course—they personify something inside you, so you really can summon up their power and focus it into your own world.  Got some inner demons to defeat? See some wrongs that need to be righted? Injustices that need to be named, claimed, and shamed?  There’s a goddess for that! Durga and her tiger are on the way!

Here in boring, western Judeo-Christian bondage, we aren’t supposed to have gods and goddesses anymore.  It’s such a shame. I mean—Durga isn’t competition for the Divine. Her powers are human powers; she’s an energy. And when you need that kind of energy, you can call her up by name. I just love that! Need to feel beautiful? Summon up the energy of the goddess of beauty.  Need to do some healing? Summon up the healing energy of that goddess. So much better than reading a self-help book, or going to a spa. Need to win some battles?  Durga is your gal! How beautiful and how simple! 

I suppose if the name “goddess” really annoys your J-C sensibilities, you could call her an angel. Like Michael the Archangel, so delightfully portrayed by John Travolta in the eponymous film. I loved that movie…  Durga would go out with Michael in a second. Eight arms, wings, and a tiger…the path of destruction would be glorious! 

I think I’m one of Kathy’s goddesses, the one with the Durga energy. I carry the weapons, and seduce and defeat the demons. I am beautiful and deadly (well, okay, maybe not exactly deadly, but definitely dramatic). I’m also the one who believes in divine magic, that it can wear a thousand different robes and faces, and that you find it everywhere. It really doesn’t matter if you call those robes and faces gods and goddesses, or angels, or whatever. The point is, they exist; we need them; and they serve us if we know how to ask them to. So go look for your favorite god or goddess. You’ll know when you find the right one. 

So American Airlines (AA stands for “always annoying”) made a black woman in a romper get off the plane, with her young son, because her attire was inappropriate. Of course, they didn’t know when they did it that she was NOT a hip-hop queen, or a welfare queen, or a drag queen—she was an MD. Now they are falling all over themselves trying to apologize and unsay what they said in the face of her lawyer (who I hope is black, female, and wearing a romper).

BTW—her selfies in her outfit look perfectly acceptable to me; I’ve seen loads of cleavage and ass cheek on planes and she wasn’t showing any of that. She says the AA staff were racist and sizeist and I gotta agree ‘cuz I can’t see anything offensive unless I don’t like to see black skin and black curves.

But my point is: if she had her professional degree tattooed on her forehead, they’d have left her alone.  If she’d been accompanied by a man instead of just her young son, they have left her alone. Because then they’d have seen money and power instead of black, female, single parent.

Every professional woman has had to deal with some asshole, be it a boss, a neighbor, or a system, that has to be clubbed over the head with our credentials before they can unsee their stereotypes of who we are supposed to be. “Supposed” being the key word here, as in “I suppose you got your position because of your looks/daddy/fellatio skill set.” Add brown skin to the mix and the supposing gets bigger and uglier, and the actual person gets smaller and more difficult to see.

Racism and sexism in America—and apparently on American—are alive and well. I’m lucky enough to have some credentials to club with; not every woman does, and every woman shouldn’t have to. Personal dignity is a human right—more honored in the breach than the observance. In Trumpian times, we’re getting to see what a lot of people and systems REALLY think underneath the mask of appropriate behavior. Maybe that’s a gift… It’s certainly a call to arms for women and every “other” group out there. Back to the trenches, folks. The war ain’t over.