Yesterday I baked myself a birthday cake. A day late. It came out okay. The children and husband were polite, telling me it was “good,” but I knew they could taste what should have been there. There is a belief held by some, myself included, that the food we prepare for consumption holds the emotions we feel as we assemble it. When I took my first bite of the cake I had made for myself, because I had decided I couldn’t let the occasion pass without one, I tasted a distinct note of melancholia, if not the definitive spice of sadness.

Birthdays are never easy days for me. The wounded inner child comes out weeping to be nurtured, loved and adored unconditionally on this day, as well as the cloaked goddess who desires to cast aside the garment of domesticity and shine in all her glory. For at least one day. Instead, reality takes over. The hectic nature of our modern lives consumes the celebratory energy of the day, and the goddess and inner child are squeezed into the spare moments. But they are still there, waiting to be let out, and I find I can no longer deny their presence, nor do I want to.

I don’t think I am alone in my hidden, or not so hidden desires. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re shared by most of my fellow goddesses in hiding on this planet. There was a time, you see, when the goddess was revered. The woman-as-goddess was simply an undeniable truth. There was no question of our sacred power and gifts. We were revered and honored for the divine famine energy we possessed, as well as that awesome ability to create and bring forth life.

I’d like to believe we are gradually coming back to this place, but we’re not there yet. I am not the only woman out there who has to occasionally bake her own cake, and buy her own flowers (yes, I did that too). And, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. It’s a step toward honoring that inner goddess and child. It is an expression of self-love that is essential to healing the wounded spirit.

Last night I told my own daughter, who, I might add has had at least a handful of pedicures and manicures in her twelve years on this planet, while I have had one, a pedicure, in my 43 year, that life was not always like it is now. I brought back the time of the goddess and told her about how women shone in all their glory in a way that honored their power and truth. A time when we were not something to be feared, but revered.

I told her this is something that needs to be brought back, and that it can start within the home. That it is not a selfish desire. It is, quite simply essential. When we look at the world we live in, it is hard to deny that we are out of balance, and the scales have long been tipped dangerously on the side of masculine force. Notice I said force and not energy, as the true masculine energy is not forceful in its power, and it is always, ideally, balanced with the divine feminine nature that exists in all of us. We have forgotten that we are both. We have forgotten harmony and balance, and the glorious celebration of who we are. We have forgotten the need to bring forth in ourselves and others the hidden energies that lie in wait inside of us, so that we can nurture their rebirths.

The goddess within needs to be brought out. It’s high time we celebrated “her,” and revered her. It’s high time we starting using the name “Isis,” who was once celebrated as an aspect of the divine mother, in the name of love and not war.

So, you see, what I held inside and desired to come forth on my birthday this year, is an energy that exists in all of us. We all hold within us the dark and the light. The yin and the yang. The divine masculine and famine energies. And, there is always, always, the inner child waiting to come out to dance in the sun (or rain). If only for one day, but hopefully everyday.