Numina.....6 months later......

Numina - Masks for the Elemental Powers from laurenraine

Back in July I wrote of having a "hot springs satori" while ernestly asking the universe, in a hot pool alone at midnight on the 4th of July in a little town called Safford, Arizona....what the Universe thought I should do next.  I have just "retired", and feel sometimes like I'm being put out to pasture, and have a terror that my imminent fate is some kind of elderly senile purgatory with the golf cart crowd. 

Bearing these fatalistic thoughts in mind, I didn't really expect an answer from the Universe.  But a few dips later - wham! -  a very well organized academic paper of a project titled "Numinous" popped into my mind, in three distinct components, and nicely typed on a Word document!  Not the romantic, visionary experience I used to have under similar circumstances.  But there is was, an Answer.  Which I wrote down, dripping, on some soggy paper.

This kind of thing has happened to me before, although in a much more poetic manner. In fact, I believe that when we engage in true creativity, and when we enter the "realm of the Goddesses/Gods", we enter a seamless realm that is liminal, collective, and sacred.  But this time I guess my guides have decided its time for me to become more organized.

I remember a vivid dream I had  in 1998 at Harbin Hot Springs about being given an antique typewriter that was buried in the ground.  As I dusted the dirt off of it it began to type by itself, spewing forth pages and pages of stories about Goddesses. Then the pages turned into pictures, and the pictures turned into a long line of women, dressed in beautiful costumes.  Women of all colors, black, blue, white, red, and yellow, stood before me like a luminous, expectant  rainbow.  Not long after I returned to my studio in Berkeley, I was invited to attend  a meeting to plan the upcoming Spiral Dance in San Francisco. That year the theme was diversity, and the group wanted masks to celebrate the Goddess.  And so I began work that summer on a series of  masks.  At the  Spiral Dance that October my dream came true.  Twenty-five women in a rainbow of colors formed a masked procession.  The dream proceeded the creation and the event.....

I realize now  that "Numina" is similar to what I was proposing with Macha Nightmare for my Kickstarter project last year (unfortunately it failed).   I thought that failure meant that  was done and over, an idea whose time came, and then went.........but surprise!  The masks I had made  were in Marin with Macha, and another colleague, Ann, volunteered to pick them up, to be returned to me when I come to California for a conference in February.  Somewhere along the way, Ann and Mana and Diane, all colleagues who have created rituals and performances with the previous "Masks of the Goddess" collection in the past, decided to create a Solstice event, and then something in March in Willits, California.

So it wasn't over, and inspired, I've been  making new masks.  In fact, they keep arising in my mind, leering at me from the other side of Manifestation, saying "make me, make me!".  I have to trust that there are Dancers, and Stories, also currently behind the Veil, for whom they wish to become manifest.............most recently I added "Dawn", "Drought", "The River Face", "Ocean", and "Tree" to the evolving collection.  Now I'm working on one called "Gather and Offer", "Desolation", "Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors", and "Rainbow Woman".

And much magic and synchronicity has begun to occur, which tells me I'm somehow on the right track.  I want to write about this in future posts, but for now take pleasure in sharing the little slide show about the evolving project above.

Here's what I scratched on to a piece of damp paper.........and I reflect that  it's also a variation on what I've always done since the day I first walked into a stone chamber with a ley crossing in Putney, Vermont, in the summer of  1982, thanks to master dowser Sig Lonegren.  I felt vibrant energy there, I watched my divining rod "helicopter", and I've been asking myself ever since:  "How do we speak to the Earth?  How does the Earth speak to us?" So I make masks, because that's what my particular gift or "offering" is,  with the hope that, finding them useful, we'll receive an answer.

One last thought for myself, since it is the beginning of the 5th World, not to mention New Year 2013 - why do this at all?  Because I believe there is so much wisdom we have lost, that needs to be re-invented for our time, among that "re-discovered, re-invented" lost wisdom, the use of sacred masks, and reverence for a "conversational world", for the many faces of Gaia.  Whether that conversation occurs with a tree, or the great Goddess Pele, or the magic of a sudden butterfly, I do believe that once one has experienced it, one will never be the same.

From Soggy Paper in Journal, July 4th, 2012:

Numinous 

Component 1)  Masks.  In traditional societies masks are "Liminal Tools".  Traditionally they were perceived as being mediation tools between shamanic states, or different dimensions of being.  A mask might allow spirits to participate, communicate, even prophesize and heal.  They can be seen in this respect as a way to permit "numina" or the spirits of place to to communicate through the medium of the mask, and the one who wears the mask.

Component 2) Story.   What might the spirit of a place, the "genius loci"  say?  How would "place" speak to participants?  Perhaps, though visioning exercises, art process, meditation, creating handmade books, masks, or shrines that "engage, invoke and invite the numinous" to "speak"?

Component 3) Vision. How might Numina, Spirit of Place or Elemental Powers,  be  "personified" or "voiced"  in contemporary terms, even as they are now "dis-placed"?

 

 
NUMINA/NUMEN:  What They meant to the Romans

 "If ever 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." [1]

The Romans believed nature was inhabited by elemental forces they called Numina, and many Roman sites  had little shrines dedicated to  the "genius loci" of a particular place.  Being in a reciprocal  relationship with the Numina was important to the health, prosperity, and spiritual well-being of all who lived in any landscape.   How can we regain this sense of  “communion with place” - the healing springs,  mysterious forests, or  generous orchards -  that are the true wellsprings of myth?  Myth making has always been a way for human beings to become intimate with the world.  In the past  "Nature" was not just a "backdrop" or a "resource" – nature was a conversation.  Our experience changes when environment  becomes "you" instead of "it".  

Among the Hopi of Arizona honoring and being in balance with the Katchinas that preside over many aspects of their beloved land,  and bringing them “to earth” with sacred masks and ceremonial dances,  is believed to be essential to their survival.  Masks thus to most indigenous peoples are a liminal, transformation tool, a means for different dimensions of being to interact, communicate, bless and inform.

Most of us cannot live as early Romans, or indigenous people,  but we can re-invent a “mythic dialogue” with the  environment through storytelling, ritual, and with  masks.   My  evolving collection of  "Numina Masks" invite others to “give voice” through prose, dance, and theatre to the numinous intelligence and unique qualities of where we live, to “put on” the elemental forces of nature as they are personified in myth, both ancient and new.  Especially as we face climate change and environmental degredation: what might Pachamama, Earth Mother of South America,  say?  Or the “Spirit of the Redwoods”?  Or the great volcano Kilahua?

"A numen (plural: numina) is a sacred force, an impersonal but divine power. The gods have their numina as their divine power, but the gods themselves have been considered numina. The "divine presence" to which Plinius Caecilius refers is called a "numen." 

"In Roman literature we find that a numen is something 'of the Gods' dependent on the Gods, and not something that is either separate or prior to the Gods......The easiest way I have found to explain a numen is this. When you sit down in a chair and you feel the warmth of a person who has there before you, you sense his energy, his power, his presence having been there. In the same way, when a God or a Goddess have visited a place, Their presence radiates out into that grove, or that pool, energizing it such that it is more lush than the surrounding area, teeming with life, and filled with a certain presence that you can intuit and feel."

"Working alongside and in harmony with a numen benefits a person by making his tasks easier and in accord with the Gods. Horace says that "By Jupiter's benign numina are the shrewd guided in his care and defended."[2] And Servius warns that those who act contrary to the numen of a God act against the will of the Gods and can only expect failure.......Or as Livy put it, "You discover that all events turn out well when we follow the Gods in obedience, and ill when we spurn Them."[4]

"It is not a supernatural power in the sense of divine will overcoming the principles of the cosmos, but a power imbued in nature by the Gods to maintain the natural order of the cosmos. The providence of Ceres is to bear fruit (geres) from the earth and to create a regeneration of life (creare). It is through Her numina that She effects plants to germinate and grow. In a period of mourning for the loss of Her daughter Proserpina, Ceres may temporarily withhold Her numina and cause a barren winter to set in. But She cannot alter the natural order of the earth, nor of a seed to germinate, nor can She alter Her own numina into something different than what it is. She does not make the winter to come by exercising a numen of barrenness that is alien to Her own nature. In that same myth, none of the other Gods and Goddesses can bring about a return of spring. Their powers cannot effect that which the numina of Ceres alone may do. The numina of each God and Goddess are therefore a special power, unique to each of Them alone and not a general divine power that is diffused among the various deities. "

"In practical terms, whenever one invokes the aid of a God or Goddess, what is asked is that the deity will project His or Her special numen so that whatever task is to be attempted shall succeed in accordance with the Gods. The two most basic prayers in the religio Romana are Do ut das, "I give so that You may give," and the formula: bonas preces precor, ut sis volens propitius, "I pray good prayers in order that You may willingly be propitious." (Reciprocity)"

 http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Numen

    ? C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus minor, Epistula 41.3
    ? Carmina IV, 4.76, et benigno numine Iuppiter defendit et curae sagaces
    ? Commentary of Virgil's Aeneid, Book 1.4; quod non suo merito eos insequebantur numina, sed    Iononis inpulsu
    ? Livy 5.51.5-6: Invenietis omnia prospera evenisse sequentibus Deos, adversa spernentibus

White Tara (2)

Om Tare, Tu Tare,
even in the darkest prisons, you offer your hand
Your touch cools hatred and grief.
From you, the demons of delusion fly
Praise Tara, whose fingers adorn her heart
Light radiates from a wheel in Your hand.

Valerianna mentioned Jewell in her recent comment, which is magical, as I had just written this entry which talks about energy work Jewell facilitated.   I've been reading "Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton recently, and I felt like sharing a very important vision I had in 1997, a vision that became the inspiration for all the masks I made dedicated to the Goddess Tara.  It was a profound gift.

In 1997 I was finally divorced, and all ties were severed between us.  The ending of the marriage did not bring out the best in either of us, and I felt a great deal of remorse, emotional confusion, and grief.  In my effort at growth that summer, I went to a well known energy healer in Massachusetts,  Jewell.  She put me on her table, and I went almost immediately into a trance state.

I found myself watching what seemed like a "clip"  from a movie - each scene was rapidly replaced by another scene.  I still remember some of these "vignettes" vividly - a ceremonial room decorated with thousands of orange marigolds;  an emaciated old black woman lying on a dirty bed;  a heavyset white man with glasses, bundled up in a kind of fur parka;  African drummers, drumming with passiona around a fire, and more.  Gradually,  I felt myself "pulled back", so that I seemed to be watching these scenes from a greater distance, as if they formed a patch-work quilt.  I remember thinking how incredibly beautiful it all was from that perspective, a work of art.

Then I became aware of an immense energy - a being that radiated (there's no other way to describe it) tremendous compassion.   She had no form, just white light.  The only thing that seemed identifiable was that I felt the Being was female;  and I felt she was communicating something like "Don't take on so, Lauren, look at all of this.  You'll meet again.  You can move on now."  I might add that she also radiated an equally huge sense of humor;  I felt  like a child getting a hug from an angel.  If that makes any sense........

And then I came to on Jewell's table.  After we spoke, I learned that Jewell often began her sessions with a prayer from the 21 Praises to Tara, a Tibetan prayer to the Goddess Tara.  To me, that visitation was White Tara, Goddess of Compassion, manifesting to help me move forward to a new stage of life.  I've revered her ever since.

Manna Youngbear as "White Tara" (2004)

Reflections on Visioning

"Spider Woman's Hands" - 2007 (Alden Dow Fellowship)

Back in Truth or Consequences for a little while, I find grief, and a feeling of lack of purpose are my frank companions. I miss my brother. There are many things I wish I could have said to him, when I had the chance.

I'm about as psychic as a brick these days (and perhaps that is unfair to bricks, since I have never actually had an intimate conversation with one.) But that is why I was pleased when a bit of magic happened this morning.

"Spider Woman's Hands" - Mississippian Gorget, ca 1300 ad.

I was in my studio trying to finish up the paper I will be reading at the Claremont Conference on Pagan Studies soon - it's on Spider Woman, of course. Last night I was up late trying to find out (unsuccessfully) who or from where the "prophecy of the return of the Spider Woman" came from. I confess, writing academic papers is frustrating to me, and so I wander around the vicinity of the typewriter, taking every chance to get distracted. So I bent down to check on the heater, and (I swear!) a tiny little brown spider fell down on it's web seemingly from the top of my head! I carefully positioned a plate under my nose to catch it, and then moved it to the window to watch it. Once again, a little spider (I would be alarmed, were it ever a large one) has dropped down from my head or my hat right before my nose. Spiders have done some pretty interesting things around me in the past few months.........

I like to think it's Spider Woman's way of saying "hello".

I've been thinking about visions. There was a time when I was blessed with several significant visions (by visions, I mean visionary experiences had while in a conscious or voluntary trance state, and not while asleep) that have very much informed my life and my art.

I'd like to say that visions are Grace, divine gifts. Among the Lakota, long preparations were made for the Vision Quest, in order to invite visions, and when a vision occurred it was shared collectively, discussed, and determined if it had prophetic or ceremonial significance for not only the individual recipient, but for the entire tribe. This is something we have entirely lost, and indeed, we cannot differentiate between someone who has had a true vision (which, in native wisdom, would be considered a gift), and a schizophrenic.

(I think of the great visions of St. Teresa, or the works of Hildegaard Von Bingham. I do not think they would fare so well in today's world.)

"The Universal Mind Lattice", Alex Grey

I remember a conversation years ago in Brooklyn with Alex and Allyson Grey about the shared vision they had while taking LSD. Their need to communicate that vision resulted in "THE SACRED MIRRORS". The need to understand it set them on their spiritual path (by the way, they have recently bought a retreat center in upstate NY where they are planning on housing the Sacred Mirrors and developing a center for sacred arts. Visit the link above to learn more.)

Here's the point - true visionary experience is meant to be shared. Art is one way, ceremony or ritual is another. To be given true vision, which is archetypal, collective, and exists on multiple layers of meaning, and then deny it's value, is an enormous waste. So here I am this morning (and I just noticed a single shining transparent spider thread stretching from my window pane to some infinite point into the air..........well, I've been feeling lately that these gifts I need to share, communicate. A blog is a good place to start; maybe someday I can produce a few paintings as well.

PATTERNS

This occurred in 1989. I was driving on an interstate in Virginia heading north. I became very tired, and pulled off the road. Almost immediately, I fell into a half-sleeping, half-trance state.

My little red Toyota pick up began to fly! It seemed as if it could fly not only through distance but perhaps through time as well. I looked down and I was over a green landscape, green and misty. Below I saw patterns of dolmens laid out in a spiral. There were lines of people who were coming up a hill toward that spiral pattern, reverently, as if in a ceremonial procession.
Then I was in a Southwestern landscape. I found myself contemplating petroglyphs on a cliff - spirals, figures, circles, layers of petroglyphs that receded into the rock face. And then I was flying over Los Angeles! I saw freeways making vast, snakelike patterns across the land, culminating in a figure eight infinity sign. What this means to me is that the living Earth, Gaia, speaks through the land, and through us, across the ages - even now, unseen, ever present.

And then I opened my eyes to a soft Virginia morning. In the "Song of Medusa" (with the voice of my character "Sibyl") I described that vision, from the imaginary perspective of a Neolithic shaman):

"I do not know the meaning of such a vision; perhaps it belongs to some distant past or a future beyond imagining. But I do believe this: the Song of Her purposes is written upon the land in all places, and in all times."

THE SONG OF MEDUSA, Lauren Raine & Duncan Eagleson

WHITE TARA

This vision came with help from a teacher of mine, Jewel. Jewel is a true shaman, who lives on her land which she has developed as a teaching center, THE SOURCE, in Shutesbury, Massachusetts. When I met Jewell I was living in Brattleboro, Vermont. I was divorcing from my former husband, Duncan, and was full of the grief, anger, and remorse that comes with the ending of a marriage.

I went to see Jewell for an energy healing. When she put me on her table, she said prayers before she began.

I slipped into a trance state - it seemed as if I was watching short clips from movies, without any sound. I saw African men drumming around a fire, then the body of an emaciated black woman lying on a bed, a ceremonial room of some kind with thousands of orange marigolds, a white man, balding and heavyset with glasses, and many more.

At some point, I felt I was pulled backward, given some distance, so that these "movie clips" became like a patchwork quilt, all occurring at once. I remember thinking how beautiful they were from that perspective.

Suddenly, a Great Being arrived. I cannot actually describe that presence, because there was no form - she was composed of light. The only identification I felt I could make was that she was female. She didn't speak to me, only radiated the most intense compassion I have ever felt. She also radiated a profound sense of humor! It was as if she was saying, "Look Lauren, take a good look at this. It's going to be alright. You'll meet again. Don't take on so."

I shall never forget the power of that radiant being. I later learned that Jewell begins her sessions with prayers to the Goddess Tara. And to me, that was the Goddess White Tara; which is why I have prayed to her and tried to honor her with my masks ever since. And,come to think of it. I've been very fortunate in that way!

Om Tare Tu Tare Tare Soha

Mana Youngbear as "Tara", 2004