Avalon............

In 2011 I participated in the Goddess Conference in Glastonbury, in the UK, and made my personal pilgrimage to "Avalon".  As I write about  Spirit of Place, I remember my experiences while visiting this site where, for at least a thousand years, people made pilgrimage to the sacred springs and the Tor.  Some quotes that just came to mind when remembering that time...............

"I experienced contact with something or someone sentient and much greater than my individual self. I had experienced contact, even momentary communion, with the "essence" of what could be called a transpersonal presence. Afterwards I was told by the local shaman or caretaker that I had met with the guardian spirit of the place."

Debra D. Carroll "From Huacas to Mesas"

DIALOGUES WITH THE LIVING EARTH, compiled by James and Roberta Swan (1989)



 "There is an earth-based energy available to human beings, concentrated at specific places all across the planet, which catalyzes and increases this eco-spiritual consciousness. These specific places are the sacred sites discussed and illustrated on this web site. Before their prehistoric human use, before their usurpation by different religions, these sites were simply places of power. They continue to radiate their powers, which anyone may access by visiting the sacred sites. No rituals are necessary, no practice of a particular religion, no belief in a certain philosophy; all that is needed is for an individual human to visit a power site and simply be present. As the flavor of herbal tea will steep into warm water, so also will the essence of these power places enter into one’s heart and mind and soul. As each of us awakens to a fuller knowing of the universality of life, we in turn further empower the global field of eco-spiritual consciousness. That is the deeper meaning and purpose of these magical holy places: they are source points of the power of spiritual illumination."

Martin Gray

   "The deepest spiritual energies of the Red Spring relate to the future:  to the emergence of a reborn and rebalanced divine masculine energy that can complement and eventually conjoin with the Goddess energy that is so venerated in Avalon.  This last stage of the alchemical work, involving the balanced union of a rejuvenated solar king-god with a goddess-queen in a symbolic heart centre, such as the pool in King Arthur's court, has long been delayed by our deep neglect of the divine feminine.  Since the recent cleansing of the White Spring, the spiritual and healing powers of the two springs can now manifest in a more balanced way."

Nicholas Mann and Philippa Glasson, "The Red and White Springs of Avalon"

 ***Martin Gray published  his monumental book Sacred Earth: Places of Peace and Power in 2007 with Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. of London based on his decades of travel to research sacred places throughout the world.   The author spent the last 20 years on a  pilgrimage: he visited 1,000 sacred sites in 80 countries around the world. His journey unfolds in a remarkable compilation of images that reveals just how devoutly pre-industrial cultures everywhere worshipped and respected our Earth. Gray’s stunning photographs and fascinating text provide unique insight into why these powerful holy places are the most venerated and visited sites on the entire planet.

Medicine Baskets

A Medicine Basket is a container, woven of many strands, for Medicine.

Recently, inspired by a dream a friend had, I made a mask I call "Medicine Basket - Gather and Offer". 

When I looked up "Medicine Basket" on the Web, I was somewhat disgusted to discover page after page of "Indian medicine baskets" but very little about people actually making them,  or  talking about what the significance of a "Medicine Basket" might be other than its fiscal or historical worth.

So I returned to the contemporary work of Cherokee artist   Shan Goshorn,   as she is also a weaver of  medicine baskets  which she makes in traditional designs and techniques.   They are woven from the words of broken contracts, and the names and photos of children taken from their families and forced to attend boarding schools. “Educational Genocide – The Legacy of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School” was created with a Cherokee-style double weave, and was made from splints of paper that had student’s names and historical documents and photographs. The artist  weaves together the broken threads of the past to create healing baskets that re-member and re-join.

My friend saw in her dream a woman wearing a mask that was a basket, the face emerging from the fibers of the basket.  This image had meaning for me on many levels.  A Medicine Basket is a container, woven of many strands, for Medicine.  We can create Medicine baskets, sacred containers for the medicine that is needed at a given time, place, and for a particular person. We are also "baskets" ourselves, our intentions and histories woven into the container of  life,  day by day, strand by strand.  Since it's New Year, I wanted to think about this mask,  and  another mask came to mind, that of Ilana Stein, which she called "Gathering and Offering" from the poem she made for her mask.  I've told this story before, but after making this mask I felt it was perfect as we stand here at the precipice of 2013.

"Basket Mask" by Ilana Stein (2008)

Gather and Offer
by Ilana Stein


Gather towards the North
Gather towards the South
Gather towards the East
Gather Above, gather below and gather the great Mystery

Gather what you’ve studied
Gather what you’ve learned
Gather how you’ve lived,
and gather what you’ve earned.
Gather what you’ve loved
Gather what you’ve lost.
Gather what you’ve soiled
and gather what it’s cost
Gather what you’ve wasted
and gather what you’ve saved

Gather who your friends are
and gather how they’ve cared
Gather your relations and gather how you’ve fared
Then Gather birth and celebrate,
Gather death and cry
Gather hope, regret and longing and
gather up the why

Gather up the waiting, gather struggles,
gather challenges.
Gather all the goals you’ve met and
gather up the bravery
Gather faceless fear and all the broken promises.
Gather yesterday today,
and gather time tomorrow

Gather what you’ve ruined
and gather when you’ve failed.
Gather up the personal, gather up the frail
Gather up the culture, gather up the myths
Gather all the songs you’ve sung,
and all expressive art
Gather dances,  gather dreams,
and gather up your heart

Gather in the garden and gather at the beach.
Gather on the mountain and gather what’s in reach
Gather in the workplace,  gather on the roads
Gather in the home you’ve made and
gather all your kin
Gather your impatience,
your frustration and your greed.
Gather up the words you’ve said,
gather what you need.

Gather up your journey and all
 the time you’ve spent
Gather up your courage and walk inside your tent.
Gather up your secrets
and gather up your wisdom
Gather what you’ve forgotten
Gather what you’ve meant.

Gather faith and Reverence
Gather truth and and gather lies,
Gather secrets great and small
Gather wisdom of the ages
and wrap them in your shawl
Gather sickness,
Gather health,  gather tenderness and rage
Gather all your stories
and gather on the stage

Gather up your gatherings,
stir the basket’s bounty
Gather all remaining threads
and search across the county
Look out among the human beings,
look out among relations

Then offer up your gatherings
to all nations and creations

Offer to your children and offer to your kin
Offer to the hungry, to the needy and the grim
Offer to the blessed and offer to the prim
Offer to the kings and queens
Offer to the beggars, paupers,
Offer to the jesters and the priestesses

Offer to the little birds, chipmunks and the deer
Offer to the badger, mole, the frogs,
and yes the bear
Offer to the green spring shoots,
the white and yellow crocus
Offer to the budding trees
the bushes and the rushes

Offer to the sand and mud
the concrete and the buildings
Offer to the cook and maid
the seamstress and the butler
Offer to the farmers, offer to the farm
Offer to the doctors and offer for no harm

Offer to the visionaries,  offer to the artists
Offer to the frightened, offer to the scared
Offer to those endangered and to the unprepared
Offer to the hurting, offer to be healed,
Offer to your neighbor and offer to the field.

Offer grace,  offer peace,  offer possibility
Offer privilege,  trust,  and faith
Offer gratitude, wonderment and awe
Offer loving kindness, compassion, joy and love

Offer up your story. Offer honor and integrity
Offer for community, offer your vulnerability

Offer what you’ve learned
and offer what you have
Offer what you know
Offer what you’ve shared
Offer both your ears,
your shoulders and your tears
Offer all you’ve gathered, offer all your cares.

You’ve gathered through the springtime,
the summer and the fall.  And you’ve offered season’s greetings without going to the mall.

Now rest and build your strength up.
Cycle with the moon.
Cycle through the mystery time.
Close your eyes and sleep.
Dream the dreams of where you’ve been.
Dream of where you’re going –


Then gather.

(2008)

A Hopeful Channelled Message......and one for me as well!

"Rainbow Woman" (2012)

 Things are getting strange lately.................synchronicities abound, I even find myself having (oh oh) an occasional (mild) vision or two.

To further facilitate this process, and get myself out of holiday blues, I went for a few days to the hot springs in Safford (very friendly place) where I sat in a pool where more ideas for "Numina" masks turned up.  Later I was having some coffee in the common room with new friends I met there and we all paused as a middle aged native American woman, a very old woman in traditional dress, and a young girl walked in the door.  I really did feel the energy change, become heightened in some way, and later the others commented that they felt the same.  Delphina is a Navajo herbalist and medicine woman, who lives near Chinle, and so is her mother (her mother did not speak English, and Delphina translated for us).  The first thing the elderly medicine woman said almost as soon as they walked in  was that we should not go into the waters without first making an offering of corn meal (I can't remember what else), and asking for blessings  from the spirits of the waters, and making prayers!

And I thought, "Of course!  Here I am indirectly asking for vision about a project that is about Spirit of Place (Numina) and I don't even know how to do what any traditional person does, which is exactly that.  Ask permission, give thanks, make an offering to show appreciation, recognize that the waters are not just another inanimate "object", but a place where spirits reside.  How could I forget?.....but it's so easy to forget, being from a world that no longer remembers these things.  I reflect (in retrospect) how blessed I was to be "reminded" in such a way.

Their entrance was so strange that, to be honest, I can't entirely remember all that was said, just a kind of intensity in the room.  But I also note that the elderly woman (in translation from her daughter) said something about  weaving looms, or weaving..........and here I am, having spent all these years writing about Spider Woman.  And........here is another mask I just made the day before I left.

Sometimes these amazing messages come to us......and we barely notice.  Or we notice after they've happened.  But I know it was a blessing, at least, a reminder..................to quote myself from a previous post:  "The ineffable work with us in the arena of energy, in the field of dreams, synchronicity  and soul language"

I invited Delphina to visit me in Tucson when she comes for the gem show, so perhaps I will have another chance to talk with a real Navajo medicine woman.

Here is an interesting video someone sent to me, from an Australian channel.  I think it's time for some hopeful thoughts about the New Age...............

http://youtu.be/CPriixJ6_Ms

Jobs Not Wars

http://www.jobs-not-wars.org/

The very first priority of patriachal culture and patriarchal mythos is war.  And needless to say, it's  a tragedy for society when the only job, and opportunity to go to school, open to young men is the military.   And yet, as we as a nation confront the huge debt racked up for Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , and congress prepares to drastically cut resources to the elderly (social security), schools, the arts, the environment, the Pentagon remains, as always, untouched.  Just passed, a $633 billion  defense bill for next year. And our taxes don't just support American militarism - we support military regimes all over the place.  In July, for example,   President Obama announced that he was releasing "an additional $70 million in military aid for Israel.  The new funding is intended to help Israel boost production of a short-range rocket defense system, known as Iron Dome."(sound like a video game?)

That's a lot of money.  Even the "additional" small change for Israel is a lot of money, when you consider what it could do at home and put to humanitarian uses. 

 "Corporate CEOs, Wall Street executives and many politicians are working very hard to convince Americans that we are unreasonable and must continue to sacrifice – that cuts must come from Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid and other domestic programs.   But they completely ignore, and refuse to address the biggest drag on our economy – unending war and outrageous, out-of-control Pentagon spending."

My only source of security for old age is social security.  In recent proposals, there is included a change in the cost of living adjustment (COLA) that will make cuts in Social Security benefits.  It’s a real and harmful cut to the Social Security benefits we paid into.   Social Security should not be part of any such deal anyway. By law, it can’t contribute to the budget deficit.

I'm signing the petition  http://www.jobs-not-wars.org/   and circulating it.  We talk about a Shift:  that is the essence of it. 

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

Goddesses for the New World by Lydia and Max

 

Spider Grandmother  and Corn Mother by Max Dashu

"Creation stories of Arizona and New Mexico praise  Spider Woman.  The Keres peoples call her Tse-itsi’nako, Thought Woman, who brought everything into being through the power of her mind. The Hopi remember her as Kokyangwuhti,  who chanted the creation song over the Earth’s twin poles, setting in order stability and circulation.   She created all living beings from earth and her own saliva, then spun shining webs of creative wisdom over them and inspirited them with her chant.  In some traditions, old Spider Woman causes the Corn Mother -- or her daughters -- to emerge from the underworld, and they enliven all beings by singing over their images.   Corn Mother emerges from the Sipapu, the opening of the womb of Mother Earth." 
 
(Copyright 2000 Max Dashu)

Max Dashu is well known for her amazing art and her life long scholarship that has become her "Suppressed Histories" work.  Visit her site and prepare to become enchanted by the world of the Goddess:  Suppressed Histories Archives,  http://www.suppressedhistories.net

  

Lydia Ruhle is an incredible artist (and scholar)  whose Goddess Banners have travelled around the world (I first saw them at the Goddess Conference in Glastonbury).  Here is her "Spider Woman" for the New Millenium.  Visit her website for a wonderful tour into the ancient world:  http://www.lydiaruyle.com/.  Lydia also visited Gobekli Tepe (the name means "Navel" or "belly"), the oldest (12,000 bc) megalithic temple yet discovered,  last summer - I'll write about some of what she discovered there, and the art she made, later. 

Here is Max Dashu's "Wisdom Scroll" (for the New Millenium):
http://users.lmi.net/maxdashu/deasophy/wisdom.html

Post-Apocalypse Halleluiah!

I just had to post this again!  Happy Holidays!