First Draft Published!

(Photo by Thomas Lux)

FORWARD (6/3/2020): 

I see that people have been visiting this (ancient) page:  Since this was published in 2008,  a new, much expanded version of THE MASKS OF THE GODDESS was published, and a 20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE AND CLOSING OF THE PROJECT SHOW was held in San Francisco in 1919.  

To view the New Book:

 https://www.blurb.com/b/9380795-the-masks-of-the-goddess

To view the Collection and read about the Project and the Closing Exhibit:  

www.masksofthegoddess.com.   

8/2008:

I have just finished the draft and have the proof of my book on the "Masks of the Goddess" project self published through Blurb.com.  You can actually "flip" the pages there. It is not actually finished yet, as I await some new entries by collaborators, especially, Macha Nightmare, who created two spectacular events with the collection and is really responsible for inspiring me to do it in the first place - but there it is and the book looks fantastic, if I don't say so myself.

I wanted to excerpt from the book, and since it's my birthday today and I'm in a great mood, with the great and vast clouds of the the great lakes rolling across my horizon line as I write making rainbow bridges across the heavens, I think I'll excerpt "Rainbow Woman".

And may this book, as Macha Nightmare wrote for her "Rainbow Of Goddesses" perfomance in 2000, "Generate waves and waves of pleasure, inspiration, and healing throughout all the worlds. So May It Be!"

RAINBOW WOMAN
Future Goddess

"To me, the Rainbow is actually a circle. Half of the rainbow disappears into the ground,
into an underworld realm. It continues beneath the Earth, hidden, but at the foundation never the less."

Christy Salo, Mask Performer, 2002

I made the mask of the Rainbow Woman for a performance in 2003 at the Black Box Theater in Oakland. Because the performance was meant to be a Peace Ritual (this was just
before the invasion of Iraq) I decided to make this new mask to add to the cast. My Rainbow Woman is not about historical or indigenous "Goddesses of the Rainbow"; rather, she is a hopeful Goddess of the evolving human “Rainbow Tribe". And the stories and mythologies about the new Rainbow Woman haven’t really been told yet, the birth of a multicultural world that celebrates her “rainbow” of global and ecological diversity…… hasn’t yet come to full term.

There is a Cree prophecy, from the past century, that a time would come when greed and ignorance would ravage the Earth. Forests would be destroyed, birds would fall from the air, the great waters would be fouled. A similar prophecy is found among the Hopi and the Lakota about a time when the "Warriors of the Rainbow", people from all the races and nations of the world, would come together at last to restore universal harmony with the Earth, and with the Great Spirit.

The rainbow is a perfect symbol of wholeness, because it contains all the color frequencies in the visible spectrum. The Rainbow is also, in many folk tales (including those of the Norse) the Bridge between this world and the divine realms, between heaven and earth, between other dimensions of being and ours. I liked that ~ because building bridges of peace and understanding is what the future must bring if we're going to survive.

I was delighted to see this mask worn by women to offer their blessings ~ blessings meant, especially, for those who are yet to come.