Divine Creativity

 I've been teaching a class this fall on clay sculpture, which I've been enjoying a lot. It's been a pleasure to see the class create.  So I found myself thinking about the divine nature of Creativity.

Creativity, to me, is the Divine made visible.  When we are Makers, the Divine expresses through each of us, whether we're making a mathematical theorem or a new recipe for lemon cake.  How can anyone look at an orchid, shamelessly pretending, in the hope of being pollinated, that it is a beautiful bevy of  magenta tipped butterflies in flight......without seeing the Goddess at Her easel? Without appreciating the gorgeous humor, and creative intelligence, behind all things visible? 

When I was a kid in a long-ago Bible class, I had an "ah-ha" experience.  I could not understand the "God" that was so often put before me as we plowed through the Book,  a God of terrible vengence. Even now, I shudder to think of children internalizing some of these stories as divinely inspired. How about this, for example?

"And  the Lord spake unto Moses, saying "Avenge the children of Israel"..............and Moses said unto them, "Have ye saved all the women alive?.......Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.  But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."    Num. XXXI, 1-18

I remember reading this, and trying to fathom how the noble Moses, made so visible by Charleton Heston delivering the Commandments......could be involved in what was actually being described here.   All those women, old ladies, babies  and little boys hacked up with swords,  the little girls carried off to be raped, sanctified by "God" and His prophet.   How could I reconcile this horror?  

Other options were needed, and like many others, it became a lifetime quest. 

And how sad that a fragmented history of the bloody genocide practiced in ancient battles, fought beneath the banner of a tribal war god sometimes called Yahwah........should appear within the same book as  "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you" (Luke 6:27).  Or, and this passage, a favorite of mine, which is not from the Bible at all, but rather from the long hidden Nag Hammedi Gospels, attributed to the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (the Twin)*** :

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you,  what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

There it is!  The Divine Creative Force, expressing in everything and everyone. Early Christians called it "gnosis", knowledge of God within.   Joseph Campbell called it your personal  "bliss"......... it's the joy of creation and discovery,  and if we bring it forth, it energizes and informs and expands our lives.  If not, the energy contracts, turns self-destructive, dark, stagnant, an interior place ripe for infection  physical and mental.  

Be that as it may, I think it's so important to not "give your power away", which can mean appreciating, in fact thoroughly enjoying, the gifts - powers -  that life has put on the banquet plate.

There's a wonderful passage in the ancient Sumarian stories of the goddess Inanna where she goes to visit Enki, the head of the Gods.  In a celebratory mood, he calls forth some heavenly beer, and the two get drunk together.   Enki gives Inanna many empowerments or gifts (called a "me") -  from the art of sexual seduction to the governing of cities to the making of cheese. At a Witchcamp I attended this cycle was ritually enacted.  As  Enki offered each "me" (I always found that ancient word for gift or power interesting), Starhawk, in the role of Inanna, said loudly with conviction and gusto:  "I'll take it!"

I think that's what you have to do, and it's not always easy.  Take it.   There are so many forces that discourage  creativity and talent  - one does not necessarily get love or acceptance for being "gifted", and so sometimes the quest is to hold true to those gifts and their potential for expression regardless.  And seek the place and time and community that can allows that.   I think of my own small dysfunctional family, and the kind of "dumbing down" I've always had to do in order to be tolerated by my envious brothers, who felt that success on my part somehow diminished them.  This is the nature of the competitive, heirarchical  paradigm that values "power over" instead of "power flowing".  The "winner" vs. the "weavers".

  I've seen this operate in groups as well, groups that do not know how to facilitate or address this unconscious collective shadow aspect  (a friend who prefers to remain anonymous calls it the "mediocrity prerequisite").    I do not mean to sound harsh, but many people live in toxic spheres where they are being energetically rewarded for being stupid, uncreative, or a "victim", and punished for not being so.  For not using their divine "Me"'s.  And I guarantee that if you live that way long enough, you will demand the same currency from others.  

I've been privileged to encounter many who are busy expressing the Divine Creative Force***** joyfully , in all kinds of ways, and sharing what they have.  May we all, like Inanna, loudly proclaim:  "I'll take it!"

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you. 

 -- David Whyte
     from The House of Belonging
     ©1996 Many Rivers Press

****  Elaine H. Pagels further commented that: 


"The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place that appear in the other gospels. Here Jesus says, "If those who lead you say to you, 'look, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds will get there first. If they say 'it's in the ocean,' then the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known."........Here it says, "It's inside you but it's also outside of you." It's like a state of consciousness. It's hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here is something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means knowledge.....The secret of gnosis is that when you know yourself at that level you will also come to know God, because you will discover that the divine is within you." 

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/thomas.html#ixzz1dtGPBd2t

Signs Out Of Time: Marija Gimbutas Documentary

    





I often try to explain to others what is the focus of the Goddess events I attend, what, in other words, do I believe.  That question is not easily answered.......when I listen to people like Vicki Noble, Joan Marler, Mirrium Dexter, Starhawk, or Kathy Jones speak, it comes together in a great visionary whole, a hopeful paradigm shift that never fails to inspire, provoke, and challenge the long standing assumptions, so deeply embedded, within our culture.    So I take the liberty of sharing here the first two parts to SIGNS OUT OF TIME,  a 2004 documentary by Donna Read and Starhawk, narrated by Olympia Dukakis, based on the work and life of  archeologist Marija Gimbutas, who found that Europe's prehistoric origins lay in a cooperative, peaceful, Paleolithic and Neolithic culture whose universal prime deity was a Mother Goddess. Her theories challenge conventional archaeology, history, spirituality, theology, and religious studies, while inspiring artists, feminists, environmentalists, permaculturists,  and activists to explore a revolutionary paradigm of  peace upon Mother Earth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=share&list=PL42DD8748183C9B11



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmjghytJDtQ&feature=share&list=PL42DD8748183C9B11

Starhawk's "The Fifth Sacred Thing" becoming a movie

 

The Fifth Sacred Thing is the fifth element, Spirit, at the center of the union of the Four Elements of  Earth, Wind, Fire and Water.  It represents unity and balance, and is represented by the color white.  In the illustration above, Starhawk and her collaborators have chosen the wheel of the 4 elements with a spiral in the center, the "fifth element".

Starhawk is a powerful writer, activist, community facilitator, and true visionary for our time.  She is also a Witch, one of the founders of Reclaiming, and her book was my first introduction to the realm of the Goddess.  I use the term witch in the sense of the actual roots of the word:  "witch, wick, wicca" - weaver, woven.  She is a true Weaver.

I read Starhawk's book back in 1995.  As a native Californian who lived in Los Angeles, but attended Berkeley, I remember well the prejudices between progressive Northern California and materialistic Southern California, and had to laugh when Starhawk imagined an utopia in San Francisco with Southern California becoming an autocratic, fundamentalist corporate state. Starhawk has been a terrific inspiration in my life - in 1986 her book "The Spiral Dance" was the inspiration for a show I had at the University of Arizona.  More than a decade later, when I moved back to Berkeley, I joined Reclaiming, Starhawk's collective, and created the  Masks of the Goddess for the Spiral Dance in San Francisco.  Once again she and her colleagues set me on a path of powerful inspiration.

So I was delighted to learn that Starhawk's book THE FIFTH SACRED THING is in the process of becoming a movie, which as she herself says, is a long process.  Here's the video introduction to the Project which I received recently below.

"The novel describes a world set in the year 2048 after a catastrophe which has fractured the United States into several nations........The story is primarily told from the points of view of 98-year-old Maya, her nominal granddaughter Madrone, and her grandson Bird. Through these and other characters, the story explores elements from ecofeminism and ecotopian fiction." ......Wikipedia

"Making a movie is a long, long process!   But along the way we’ve created a  video, to quickly explain the story to those who haven’t read the book, and to show off some of the art and music we’ve created.  Pictures speak louder than words—so here it is:   http://www.fifthsacredthing.com  Also on YouTube:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROCSDQg9WM.     I wrote the narration, Olympia Dukakis speaks it and our lead producer Philip Wood put the video together and edited it.  Joshua Penman did the music.  Yes, it’s a long haul, but we’re all feeling the growing momentum!"

In gratitude,

Starhawk

The Spiral Dance

Web Weaving at Tucson Spiral Dance (2000)

Weaver, Weaver, weave our thread
whole & strong into your web
Healer, Healer, heal our pain
in love may we return again

We are dark and we are light
we are born of earth and light
of joy and pain our lives are spun
male and female, old and young

No one knows why we are born
A web is made, a web is torn
But love is the home that we come from
and at the core we all are one

Of life's  Spring may we drink deep
and awake to dream and die to sleep
and dreaming weave another form
a shining thread of life reborn

Weaver, Weaver, weave our thread
whole and strong into your Web
Healer, Healer, heal our pain
in love may we return again

~~~Starhawk, (from "The Spiral Dance")

Blessings at Samhain to all as we celebrate the year passed, and remember our Beloved Dead.

My first "Spider Woman" performance (1999) Rites of Passage Gallery

The Wheel of the Year has turned again to a new Spiral Dance.  Samhain, Dia de Los Muertos, the Witches New Year, the last Harvest Festival, and Halloween (once known as "Hallowed Eve") is almost here, and I remember the Spiral Dance , which was so very transformative for me.  I brought this great Earth Religions High Mass to Tucson  when I returned here in 2000.   I've posted about this beautiful ritual before ...and I wanted to do so again.   Believe me, when you have danced the Spiral Dance and in the process of the dance come face to face with 2,000 people - you have experienced something profound.

I looked up "The Spiral Dance" on UTube, and was surprised by two things. First, up came a picture of my former roomate, and inspirational mentor, Judy Foster.  Judy was much loved in the Bay Area, as one of the founders of  Reclaiming, and also one of the founders of Food Not Bombs in Northern California.  She passed away in 2000, and when I brought the Spiral Dance to Tucson that year, with the help of Macha Nightmare (also one of the founders of Reclaiming)  who came to facilitate the ritual, we had a place of honor for Judy on our North Altar, the altar of the Beloved Dead.

Judy Foster  (1997)

Hecate Mask made from Judy Foster's face (2001)

There is no footage of the years I participated in the Ritual, unfortunately.  I assisted in the "Invocation to the Goddess" with my  first collection of the MASKS OF THE GODDESS .  I also put together a "Fire Dance Troupe" for the 20th Annual Spiral Dance in 1999 as we called the South, the Element of Fire.  I shall never forget that!  They didn't allow photographs of the Ritual until 2008, but in the video I did find I see friends and valued colleagues - Macha Nightmare, Evelie Posche, Starhawk, Kala, Drissana Devananda and  others. I wish I could attend this year, and I thank in spirit the many people I knew there.  May we meet again soon.

The Spiral Dance Ritual (2009 video) 

The Spiral Dance Ritual (2008 video)

Tucson SD

Arjuna