Wendy Griffin "Crafting a Voice from the Darkness"

I'm currently taking an online course at CHERRY HILL SEMINARY, where I'm also the current Resident Artist.  The Course is Voices of Gaia, with Wendy Griffin Ph.D.   Wendy Griffin  is an extraordinary voice for Mother Earth, Gaia, Pachamama.  I was delighted to find (via the course I'm taking) this moving and urgent presentation on U Tube, which I saw when I attended the Conference in January this year.  I am further delighted that Wendy will be invoking Pachamama at the Parliament of World Religions in October.

She summed up succinctly the reality of climate change, as well as pointing out (since we are a culture that places value on money) the economic, political and social consequences coming as well…….the increasing numbers of refugees driven by the loss of habitat and resources (many speculate that the situation in Syria actually  reflects the drought they have suffered for a decade), the rising of all kinds of tribal wars and religious fundamentalism  as populations become increasingly stressed.

She spoke of the "prevailing narratives of our times, the stories we tell ourselves, the myths that we tell today" which include the fact that "our current economic system depends upon indefinite expansion - and a belief that progress through development is the ultimate good and improves everyone's lives."  And that "technology and science will save us".  She pointed out the truly terrifying denial of climate change on the part of Exxon Mobil and the oil industry in support of fracking and the oil sands of Canada.

I was moved and heartened to hear Wendy comment that "instead of these old myths what we need is a new narrative …..toward the behaviors that can create a sustainable, global civilization".    Because "re-mything culture" is at the heart of what I feel the Pagan movement can uniquely address itself to, the very reason I joined the movement so long ago, finding existing structures inadequate. 

"We need to create an understanding of how the world works as a global culture ….. We need to draw on ancient archetypes and tell ourselves new stories....and pagans are in a unique position to do this...........we understand the power of archetypes, the (power of myth making), we create these in our rituals."

I am in no way denigrating the progressive theologians. activists, and spiritual leaders associated with diverse  faiths  who are addressing climate change and the  humanitarian concerns of our times as we rapidly emerge into a global culture with a global crisis.  I am a great admirer of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and also of Pope Francis.......and so many others who have stepped up to the call of the time, great leaders.

But we are also confronted with religious forces that are fundamentalist, medieval, oppressive in their world views, and  DO NOT include evolution, climate change, women, or cultural diversity in their narrow worldviews.   And like it or not,  they have a lot of power.    Witness the power that evangelicals have within the USA, people who take the Bible as the literal truth, and wish to impose this "truth" on everyone else.  In South Carolina, for example, I recently read that some schools are not allowed to talk about fossils found locally because the age of the fossils, unfortunately, disagrees with the Biblical notion creation's timeline.  

Sadly, this kind of  "truth" also de-sacralizes the Earth and embodied existence (which, since women are generally the means by which people enter the world with a body, provides fuel to the scapegoating of half the human race as well.)   These fundamentalist religious structures were perhaps useful during the dark ages, or to wandering Semitic tribes 2,000 years ago, or the fall of the Roman empire,  but they have not evolved to be appropriate to the crisis of our time.

As an emergent religion neo-Pagans are uniquely gifted with the ability to "re-myth".    Our very creativity is our strength, and our reverence for Mother Earth is the mythos we can further.  The "new narrative" Wendy speaks of  is a task we're up to, we are weavers together in the great work of creating a  "webbed vision".  

And as Wendy pointed out in her presentation as well, this "webbed vision" has to be active, not passive, and certainly not fatalistic.    If the Earth is our Deity, then our actions upon the earth (which includes member of our species as well as all other Beings of the Earth) have to be seen as either desecration or reverence. 

While I was reading I thought of one of my favorite books, THE GURU PAPERS by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad.  They speak of how many contemporary religions, from evangelical Christianity to aspects of Buddhism to "Guru traditions" to "A Course in Miracles"….. are in their essence   "renunciate" theologies.   In these systems  divinity is placed "elsewhere", be it the heaven or paradise that awaits the faithful ("be in the world but not of the world") This is a prime theme in religions that are  patriarchal, with authoritarian deities such as the Old Testament Yahweh.  Or , more subtly, the message is  that "this is not real", and hence "the real world" is to be found in some diviine, other-worldly abstraction once we are "purified", "enlightened",  or have our conciousness raised sufficiently.    

Human beings are myth makers, and religions are mythic, archetypal systems that help people to concretize the ineffable.  What are needed desperately now are myths/religions that are appropriate to the crisis we have been born into, that are "embodied", that sanctify again the great Community of Mother Earth.  We can't afford "somewhere else" religions, not now.

“Hope now lies in moving beyond our authoritarian religious past in order to build together a sustainable future for all the interwoven and interdependent life on our planet, which includes the human element.  We will have to evolve now into a truly compassionate and tolerant world – because for the first time since the little tribes of humanity’s infancy, everyone’s well being is once again linked with cooperation for survival.

 Our circle will have to include the entire world.”

Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad

Butterfly Mind, Pollen Heart

 

Beauty above me, 

Beauty below me,

Beauty before me,

Beauty behind me,

I walk in Beauty.

Navajo (Dine`) Prayer

"Art is not a thing, it's a way of life" 

(seen on the billboard of the First Congregationalist Church this morning in La Verne, Ca.)

Although it is the 1st of February, Imbolc, the "Festival of Lights", I returned from the Conference in Claremont very thoughtful, inspired by speakers there, in particular, the activists for the Earth, ecologists and theologians, that spoke about our deepening crisis, and the need for all to become involved in activism, and re-mything culture, for our beloved Home, our Mother Earth, Anima Mundi.   

I have often felt, as so many do, despair in the past few years.   At 65, I feel myself becoming old,  physically limited.  As an artist, buying into the gross materialism of our world, I often absorb the feeling that what I do has no effect, no use in the face of what is occuring now.   Thanks to Wendy Griffin in particular, her eloquent and impassioned "call to arms" at the Conference on Pagan Studies last weekend.  She closed with a call to speak, do, create in all ways possible - for the Earth, for the future.   And synchronistically I received a note from Abby Willowroot, founder of the Goddess 2000 Project, commenting on the article below, which I wrote at May Day in 2012.  Abby is a great Pollinator herself, and I thank her for guiding me to this post again, because what I wrote then is what I need to remember now.  Thank you Wendy, thank you Abby.

We can all participate in the transformation that must occur now. each in our unique ways with our unique gifts.  We are pollinators for the future,   a future that must cherish and preserve all beings of the Earth.

May 1, 2012

 I love the painting above, which I found in a magazine; I don't know who the artist is, but thank him or her often for this  "Butterfly Woman" from whom thoughts like butterflies emanate out into the world to do their work. Perhaps the artist will forgive me that I do not know his or her name........but be glad that the work has gone forth to do its work in my heart and imagination.  Pollen:  agent of new life, new hope, transformation.  

As we (well, some of us) wind our way to the May Pole, and plant that metaphor into the still fertile earth, weaving our dreams into the ribbons of this ancient ritual of fertility, perhaps I can find a way to image the celebration of love and hope with a vast, global cry for help that sounds like a beating heart beneath the surfaces of our lives, just beneath our feet.  As the drums and penny whistles sound, as we dance, may we all become Pollinators for our time, for the future.

Like the woman who walks above, this is my prayer:    May we have butterfly minds, pollinator hearts. 

Peace March against the war in Iraq, San Francisco, 2003

 
The ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psȳchē), which means "soul" or "mind".  And I have often found them mysteriously "soulful", as they seem to flit in and out of mystery.  The picture above, for example - it was from the San Francisco Chronicle at the time of the great peace march against the incipient Iraq war, and shows three friends with their "soul icons" - me in the mask of Sophia, Alan Moore, founder of the Butterfly Gardeners Association, and Nicole, creator of "Cosmic Cash".  Note that her icon, also, has occurred in this synchronistic photo.  

Transformers, pollinators .......... they begin their lives as caterpillars, build a crysalis, and generate imaginal cells........... 

"When a caterpillar nears its transformation time, it begins to eat ravenously, consuming everything in sight. The caterpillar body then becomes heavy, outgrowing its own skin many times, until it is too bloated to move. Attaching to a branch (upside down, we might add, where everything is turned on its head) it forms a chrysalis—an enclosing shell that limits the caterpillar’s freedom for the duration of the transformation.....Tiny cells, that biologists actually call “imaginal cells,” begin to appear. These cells are wholly different from caterpillar cells, carrying different information, vibrating to a different frequency–the frequency of the emerging butterfly. At first, the caterpillar’s immune system perceives these new cells as enemies, and attacks them, much as new ideas in science, medicine, politics, and social behavior are viciously denounced by the powers now considered mainstream. But the imaginal cells are not deterred.  They continue to appear, in even greater numbers, recognizing each other, bonding together, until the new cells are numerous enough to organize into clumps. When enough cells have formed to make structures along the new organizational lines, the caterpillar’s immune system is overwhelmed. The caterpillar body then become a nutritious soup for the growth of the butterfly."

from Imaginal Cells and the Body Politic by Anodea Judith Ph.D.

Photo from: http://www.fishersville-umc.org/classes/nac/Pics/week0401.htm

 If we can see that our thoughts participate in  pollinating the future, we can  perhaps find ways of living with simplicity and honor, even in a time so very out of balance.  Regardless of where one is, there is a profound need to "walk in Beauty".  To be "on the Pollen Path".

Without the grace of the pollinators, the butterflies and hummingbirds and bees, there will be no future.  This idea is fundamental to spiritual traditions of native peoples of the Southwest, including the Pueblo peoples, the Navajo and the Apache.  As shown above, when this young Apache woman came of age and entered into her fertile years, she was honored by the tribe with symbolic pollen.

 "The Pollen Path" is a healing and initiatory ceremony/concept among the Dine` that variously enacts a mythic journey, and demonstrates a cosmology of non-duality.  "Pollen Path" art and sand paintings often show the union of opposites, such as red sun and blue moon, as well as mandalas, the balance achieved within the circle.   In keeping with May Day, Psyche in Greek mythology was a beautiful girl who was loved by Eros, the god of Love. Here is "fertility", generation, pollination..........the union of soul/mind with love.  

As I imagine a "pollen path" for our time,  and emanations of hope and beauty,  I reflect as well that some butterflies, like the Monarch or the Painted Lady, are migratory.  Monarch butterflies will migrate over very long distances, as amazingly frail as they seem.  Some travel from Mexico to the norther parts of the United States and into Canada, a distance of over 2,500 miles. 

Lastly, a few thoughts from one of my favorite storytellers, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, on the work of the Butterfly Dancer.  May we all, women and men, young and old, become Butterfly Dancers this May Day.

  "The (Hopi) butterfly dancer must be old because she represents the soul that is old. She is wide of thigh and broad of rump because she carries so much. Her grey hair certifies that she need no longer observe taboos about touching others. She is allowed to touch everyone: boys, babies, men, women, girl children, the old, the ill, and thedead. The Butterfly Woman can touch everyone. It is her privilege to touch all, at last. This is her power. Hers is the body of La Mariposa, the butterfly." 

"La Mariposa" from Women Who Run with The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Clarissa Pinkola Estes  tells the story of waiting to see the "Butterfly Dancer" at a ceremony.  Tourists, unused to Indian Time, wait throughout a long, hot, dusty day to see the dancer emerge, expecting, no doubt a slender, ephemeral Indian maiden, and they are no oubt they were shocked out of their patronizing cultural fantasy to see at last the grey haired  Dancer/Pollinator emerge, slow, not young, with her traditional tokens of empowerment.

"Her heavy body and her very skinny legs made her look like a hopping spider wrapped in a tamale. She hops on one foot and then on the other. She waves her feather fan to and fro. She is The Butterfly arrived to strengthen the weak. She is that which most think of as not strong: age, the butterfly, the feminine."

Because in the agricultural ritual these dances symbolize and invoke, call in, the forces that initiate the  vital work of pollination, this is no job for for an inexperienced girl, no trivial token flight for a  pretty child. It's a job for one who has lived through many cycles, and can seed and generate the future from a solid base.

"Butterfly Woman mends the erroneous idea that transformation is only for the tortured, the saintly, or only for the fabulously strong. The Self need not carry mountains to transform. A little is enough. A little goes a long way. A little changes much. The fertilizing force replaces the moving of mountains.

Butterfly Maiden pollinates the souls of the earth: It is easier that you think, she says. She is shaking her feather fan, and she’s hopping, for she is spilling spiritual pollen all over the people who are there, Native Americans, little children, visitors, everyone. This is the translator of the instinctual, the fertilizing force, the mender, the rememberer of old ideas. She is La voz mitológica."

"La voz mitológica". The mythic voice.  The Mythic Voice re-enchants the world around us, lending luminosity to each footstep, and pollinates, energizes, en-chants those who hear.   It is transparent, permeable.  And one way to walk the Pollen Path.

* The Pollen Path http://unurthed.com/2007/05/24/the-navajo-pollen-path/

Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage - My Speech at Claremont

As noted in the previous post, I'll be presenting at the Conference on Current Pagan Studies at Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles this coming week........hope to see some of you there!  Here's my speech.......

 

NUMINA:  Sacred Places and Pilgrimage

"To the native Irish, the literal representation of the country was less important than its poetic dimension.  In traditional Bardic culture, the terrain was studied, discussed, and referenced:  every place had its legend and its own identity....what endured was the mythic landscape."

    R.F. Foster

The Romans believed that special places were inhabited by intelligences they called Numina, the "genius loci" of a particular place.   I believe many mythologies are rooted in actual experiences of "spirit of place", the "living landscape", a conversation within which we also participate.  

Myth is, and always has been, a way for human beings to become intimate and conversant with what is vast, deep, and ultimately mysterious. Our experience changes when Place becomes "you" or "Thou" instead of "it".   There are many disciplines now writing about the importance of place, asking, in essence, “how can we renew our ancient conversation with the Earth"?  As pagans I believe we are uniquely able to answer that question, and lead the way into re-mything our culture.  In the past, "Nature" was not just a "backdrop" or a "resource"...........nature was a relationship within which cultures were profoundly embedded.  Whether we speak of the aborigines of Australia, Celtic fey folk, or the agrarian roots of Rome, the landscape was spiritually personified.  Every valley, orchard, healing spring or womb-like cave had its unique quality and force - its Numina.   Cooperation and respect for the Numina was essential for well-being.  And some places were places of special power, places of pilgrimage.

With the evolution of monotheism and religions that increasingly removed divinity from Nature and the body, and in the past century, the rise of industrialization, we have looked at the world primarily from a "users" point of view.  This  screen tends to frame the world as an object.  Yet every culture, including ours, has insisted throughout its pre-industrial stages that the world is alive,  and responsive to what human beings do upon it.   From katchinas to the Orisha, naiads to dryads, the Australian Dream Time to Alchemy's Anima Mundi,  every local myth reflects what the Greeks and Romans knew as the resident “spirit of place”, the Genious Loci.

Contemporary Gaia Theory proposes that the Earth is a living, self-regulating organism, responsive and evolving.  If one is sympathetic to Gaia Theory, it follows that everything is responsive and conversant in some way, visible and invisible.     Sacred places may be places where the potential for revelation, healing, or transpersonal experience is especially potent.  Ancient Greeks built their Oracle at Delphi for this reason, and certainly early Christians knew this when they built churches on existing pagan sites.  There is a geo-magnetic, terrestrial energy concentrated at certain places on our planet that throughout the millennia catalyzes spiritual insight, healing, visionary experience, even prophecy.  Before they became contained and mythologized by  religions or marked by prehistoric monuments, these sites were intrinsically places of numinous power and presence in their own right.  They radiate their powers to all who visit, and ultimately, no practice of a particular religion or belief system is needed for them to have a transformative effect, although human architecture and the accumulation of human psychic energy and visitation may amplify this effect.  

 

Roman philosopher Plinius Caecilius commented that:

  "If you have come upon a grove that is thick with ancient trees which rise far above their usual height and block the view of the sky with their cover of intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest and the seclusion of the place and the wonder of the unbroken shade in the midst of open space will create in you a feeling of a divine presence, a Numina."

Many years ago I lived in Vermont, and one fall morning I stumbled down to the Inn for a cup of coffee to discover a group of people about to visit one of Vermont's mysterious stone cairns on Putney Mountain.  Among the researchers was Sig Lonegren, a well known dowser and researcher of earth mysteries.  Before I had my second cup of coffee I found myself on the bus, and then at a chamber constructed of huge stones, hidden among brilliant foliage, with an entrance way perfectly framing the Summer Solstice.  No one knows who built these structures, which occur by the hundreds up and down the Connecticut River, but approaching the site I felt such a rush of vitality it took my breath away.  I was stunned when Sig placed divining rods in my hands, and I watched them open as we traced the ley lines that ran into this site.   Standing on the top of the somewhat submerged chamber, my divining rod "helicoptered", letting me know that this was the crossing of two leys, a potent place. 

Months later 13 friends gathered in the dark to sit in that chamber and watch the sun rise through its entrance way.  We were not a coven, I had not even heard of such a thing, but we all felt the power of the deep, vibrant energy there, and awe as the sun rose illuminating the chamber.   None of us knew what to do, so we held hands and chanted Aum.  We were all as high as a kite when we left, and this was the beginning of a life long journey for me, a journey that led me here. 

Earth mysteries researchers like John Steele and Paul Deveraux in their book EARTHMIND have written that we suffer from "geomantic amnesia".  We have forgotten how to listen to the Earth, to engage in "geomantic reciprocity", instinctively, mythically, and practically, to our great loss and endangerment. 

We disregard or destroy for short term economic gain places of power, and conversely, build homes, even hospitals, on places that are geomagnetic ally toxic.  The ancient Greeks built their shrine for Gaia at Delphi because the unique personality of that place was divined to be especially suited to Gaia residing there. They also sited their healing Dream Temples according to the auspiciousness of place.  Honoring what inspired the early Greeks to decide on a particular place may be important not only to pilgrims, but to something at the base of building future sustainable human societies.

The act of making a pilgrimage is among the oldest human endeavors. Recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey include a landscape of monolithic  temples that peoples journeyed to 12,000 years ago.    The Eleusinian Mysteries  combined spirit of place and mythic enactment to transform pilgrims, and enact the death/rebirth cycle of nature, for almost 2,500 years.  I believe there are both leylines and mythic “songlines" that trace ancient pilgrimages to the Black Madonnas of Europe (which are still going on). One of the most famous is the "Camino" which concludes at the Cathedral of Santiago at Compostella.  Some believe the earliest Camino was to the “Black Madonna of Compostella", a very ancient effigy. Compostella comes from the same root word as "compost",  the fertile soil created from rotting organic matter, the "dark matter"  to which everything living returns, and is continually resurrected by the processes of nature into new life, new form.  Pilgrims finally arriving in  Compostella after their long journey were being 'composted' in a sense.  Emerging from the  dark confines of the cathedral they were ready to return home with their spirits reborn. 

In 2011 I visited the ancient sacred springs of Glastonbury, the Chalice Well and the White Spring as well as participating in the Goddess Conference there.   Making this intentional Pilgrimage was life changing, and I had a profound, personal sense of the "Spirit of Place", what some call the "Lady of Avalon".  Pilgrimage opens one to blessing, vision, and reverence.  

As a dowser myself, I've experienced shifts in energy - which means also shifts in  consciousness -many times when visiting areas that are geomantically potent, be it the henge of Avebury,  or the labyrinth at Unity Church in Tucson, Glastonbury, or even a crop circle in Wiltshire.  Freddy Silva is an Englishman who has spent many years researching authentic Crop Circles. He has found that they have unique phenomena, including magnetic and energetic properties, which have been documented to alter consciousness and affect the health of some individuals.  The vast majority of the documented authentic crop circles have occurred near prehistoric standing stones, Silbury Hill, and other places of geomantic potency near by.  Silva believes they are not only communicating through the universal language of symbol and Mandela but they are also, speaking in terms of subtle energies, changing the land and underground water tables  in some way - perhaps, an infusion, a "pollination".  He calls them "Temporary Temples".

Sacred Sites are able to raise energy because they are intrinsically geomantically potent, and they also become potent because of human interaction with the innate intelligence of place.  My teacher, spiritual dowser Sig Lonegren, has spent many years exploring sacred places, and commented that possibly, as human culture and language became increasingly complex, we began to lose mediumistic consciousness, a daily, conversational Gnosis with the "subtle realms". 

 With the gradual ascendancy of left-brained reasoning he suggests the ancients were concerned with how to continue contact with the gods, the ancestors, the numina of the land.  According to Sig, Stonehenge may represent a "last ditch effort" to keep in touch with the spirit world with communal experience.   As the rift between personal gnosis and spiritual contact deepened with the development of patriarchal institutions, tribal and individual Gnosis was replaced by complex religious institutions that rendered spiritual authority to priests who were viewed as the sole representatives of the Gods or God.  

Perhaps this capacity is returning to us now, a new evolutionary balance. As crisis engulfs us, we need, once again, to re-member how to “speak to the Earth", to make pilgrimage to the Source, by whatever name. 

 References:

***Sig Lonegren:

http://www.sacredsites.co.uk  ©1998

http//:www.geomancy.org
http//:www.sunnybankglastonbury.co.uk

*** EARTHMIND: Communicating With the Living World of Gaia, by John Steele, Paul Deveraux, and David Kubrin (1989) 

***Freddy Silva:  http://www.invisibletemple.com/

Photo by Anna Anhen - http://anhen.deviantart.com/

Pagan Sensibilities in Action 

9th Annual Conference

January 26 and 27, 2013

Claremont Graduate University, Burkle Building

Corner of 8th & Dartmouth

Claremont, CA 91711

Keynote Speakers

Peter Dybing and Sabina Magliocco