As I continue to reflect on how my life has changed since my dedication to Sophia, the sacred feminine presence, I realize my loving relationships have expanded in unexpected ways. Now the list of “those I love” includes a tree to whose presence I turn when I seek healing for myself and others; a small chipmunk who enjoys eating her lunch beside me on the back deck; a family of Phoebes who nest each spring above the porch light; the Iris plant that blooms in delicate splendour each June; the heron who moves down the river with slow grace, her wings weighted only with sunlight and soft winds; wild roses unattended, spilling gifts of perfumed beauty; the people I encounter, at the Post Office, the Waste Depot, the Library here in my small town.

Jean Houston teaches that when we love we become more intelligent, more creative, as we open to the patterns in the universe, as we glimpse the wonder of life and the wonder in ourselves. Speaking during her July 2014 Seminar, “Love in the Quantum Field”, Jean urged us to open the love receptor in all possible directions, the evolutionary and loving lure that has to rise in our time if we are to keep going. Patterns of connection activated by love are being brought out of the DNA, “bootstrapped into the culture”, Jean says. This transformation, this evolution, is taking place in our lifetime.

For Carol P. Christ, writing in “The Rebirth of the Goddess” (1997) hope is possible if we use the “human powers of reflection and moral action” that we once thought “set us apart from nature” to “create a new place for human beings within the web of life.” (p. 155)

Though thinking and acting (wrongly) have created many of the problems we and the Gaia body now face, human hope can only be located in the human capacity to think and to act differently about our place in the web of life….We act morally when we live in conscious and responsible awareness of the intrinsic value of each being with whom we share life on earth. When we do so, we embody the love that is the ground of all being. (p. 156)

Carol Christ believes that love forms the basis of morality:

…we have each experienced the power of intelligent love that grounds all beings in the web of life. This can become the basis for morality and moral transformation. None of us is perfect, nor can we be expected to be. What is asked of us as we work to heal the web of life is that we return the love and nurture given to us and that we try to contribute just a little bit more to the lives of all people and all beings than those who came before us. If we value our feelings of deep connection, if we love life on its own account and through others, and if we find the courage to act together on what we know, then maybe, just maybe, we can build a better future for ourselves, our children, and all the other children of earth. (pp. 158-9)

In her final chapter, Christ shares with us nine touchstones or ethical guidelines which she has discovered within her experience of the web of life. We might ask as we reflect upon them, how some or all of these might serve us in our lives, which ones we would set aside, which others we would add.

*Nurture life
*Walk in love and beauty
*Trust the knowledge that comes through the body
*Speak the truth about conflict, pain and suffering
*Take only what you need
*Think about consequences of your actions for seven generations
*Approach the taking of life with great restraint
*Practice great generosity
*Repair the web

Christ ends her book with this hope, this promise:

If we focus on the beauty around us, if we love life on its own account and through others, if we trust the knowledge that comes to us through our bodies, we will find the strength to continue the work of personal, cultural, and social transformation. If we speak the best of ourselves and others while at the same time speaking the truth about the harm that has been done, perhaps we all will recognize that it is in our own best interest to care about the survival of the web of life. Then we can begin again to create communities and societies that live in greater harmony and justice with other people, all our relations, and the earth body. (p. 177)

What shines brightest for me in Jean Houston’s teachings about “Love in the Quantum Field”, is her call to loving partnership with the Divine Beloved. This, says Jean, is the Great Lure that will draw us forward, opening us in love to all the realms of being. It involves an intensive practice, a daily practice of spiritual exercise, learning how to commit, to make the conscious choice of loving. “You will discover,” Jean says, “that the universe is alive and loving. As you move towards it, it moves towards you.”