The Henry Luce Center for the Arts Residency 2009

(rough scetch - "Hands Altar")

I feel very grateful indeed to share that I have been privileged to receive a fellowship for next fall at the Henry Luce Center for the Arts at the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. I'm so delighted with the prospect of having this wonderful opportunity to work there.

(very rough sketch - potential exhibit with "icons")

What I would like to engage the student community with there is a dialog in art process about interconnectivity and interdependance, within the continuing metaphor of "Spider Woman's Hands". What I show here are some very rudamentary sketches of how such a piece might evolve into an altar/exhibit. I want very much to do a large circle of participant hands, embedded in an ornate circular frame that consists of individual tiles, representing symbolic qualities of each individual who has contributed to forming the whole.

"Ancestral Hands - the Midwife" (clay & mixed media)

Above is a recent sculptural sketch I made, using cast hands of Lori, a midwife in Pittsburgh I met. I decided to call this piece "Ancestral Hands - the Midwife", recognizing the nameless midwives who have brought each new generation forward into the world, their hands and stories buried in the earth, emerging here with all the power of the gesture Lori made, the gesture of opening a portal into life for those whose time has come to be born.

The Rainbow Woman (again).....

-----Original Message-----

From: eloesh fireeater
To: laurenraine@aol.com
Sent: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:39 am

yes, i was (and still am) rainbow woman.
blessings, amanda

In the preceeding post, I concluded with choosing "The Rainbow Woman" as the excerpt from my new book that I felt like posting. As I sat typing that post, I simultaneously was checking my emails.....and in came a group email about an event being organized in the Bay Area. That was a no delay syncronicity indeed, because I recognized the address as belonging to a woman from the 2006 Spiral Dance - none other than the very last dancer to wear the "Rainbow Woman" mask! I wrote to her and above is her response.

We are all, truly, linked. This has been a week of syncronicities!

"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

Perhaps Syncronicities are like that, the other end of the rainbow, the invisible threads made visible, here and there. Hidden, "but at the foundation, never the less."

Here's another one:

I received an email from a woman I met at Lilydale, who was sponsoring the showing of a recent movie "Orbs: The Veil is Lifting" about this phenomenon which has been recorded through the medium of digital cameras by many.

I received the same day a series of photos from Lena Grace, who purchased several of the Masks of the Goddess this past year, including the Kali mask. They are photos of her group of women making altars, and the Kali mask is included in one of the altars. The email makes a comment that these are more "wonderful photos, orbs and all."

I disregarded both emails, but did go to Lilydale yesterday, just to "say goodbye" to a place I so much enjoy. At dark I stopped to get some gas, and noticed that the building Jan (my aquaintance in Lilydale) holds her meetings in, which is across the street from the gas station, had a lot of lights on and cars out front. So, of course, I had to go check it out.......just in time to walk into the movie as it began! I now know considerably more about orbs, and what various people think about them. Among the interviewed people in the movie I was surprised to see Sergio Lub, a man I used to know many years ago when I was on the crafts circuit. His name popped up again this past year, because my friend Tom Greco (who is currently travelling throughout Malaysia and inspiring me to do the same with his travelogue and photos) lived and worked with Sergio this past year in the Bay Area. "Funny", I thought, "I never imagined Sergio would be interested in something like orbs."

Then I returned to check my email, opened Lena's, and took a new look at the photos she sent. Of altars, and, yes.........orbs (below........they have a lovely "diatom" like symmetry to them!)

Oh, and by the way. Tom had just sent me his recent post about his travels in Penang, and a whole bunch of new photos!

Sometimes, I just love the internet. In a quantum universe, I also have to wonder if syncronicities follow me about just because I happen to be so fascinated by them, and have a blog called "Threads of Spider Woman"!

PS: If this isn't enough, below is the final installment (for the moment, anyway) on "orbs". While I was sitting over coffee telling this story to my fellow campers, Nancy ran back to her tent, and came back with her digital camera, and some night time photos she took of the "Nemeton", a sacred place at Brushwood. The photos were full of Orbs.

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.

After the Festivals...

"The Messenger - The Thunderbird"

Well, I've once again survived two plus weeks of the Sirius Rising Festival and then Starwood in Western New York. It's kind of a complete emersion experience, with some 2,000 diverse and eclectic people with tents and art and drums and encampments roll in. As before the Bonfires were extraordinary. Above is the "messenger" this year, representing the element of air, the Thunder Bird. I will try to get a photo of it going up in flames, which was amazing, to see the great figure, designed and created by Leslie and Jason, becoming a great fiery bird. When the sparks went up far into the night sky, I felt like indeed all of our prayers and hopes were going up into the spirit realms with it.

The Labyrinth was amazing as well, high on a hill, with some 1500 luminarias forming the labryrinth. At twilight, to see the shadows of people moving throughout to the center is a beautiful thing.

"Candles in Labyrinth"

Still somewhat exhausted, and not a lot coherent to say. So much input. But two good things have happened:

--I have been offered a 6 month teaching residency at the Wesley Seminary School in DC next fall to pursue my Spider Woman Project.

--This morning a little spider had made a nest (and was sitting in it) right on top of my medicine box, where I keep all of my various pills and inhalers and bandages. Spider Woman Medicine indeed!

"Water Ritual"

"Fire Ritual"

All Photographs here are courtesy of Roy Jones.

The Artist's Oracular Cook Book

CARD #1 - FAITH

In 2005 at the I Park Artist's Enclave in Connecticut it was the custom for residents to leave behind something for the scrapbook, as well as a creative recipe for a cocktail. Because I spent two months utterly blissed out in a creative fury there, my contribution was the "Artist's Oracular Cook Book", cards with commentary on the back. I always meant to get around to publishing them, but like the other books that are in my files, I never did.

(Someone asked me to share some of them again........what the heck. Here they are, one card at a time. And while I'm at it, I'll let them be the meditation that once were again........)

It seems to me that a creative act, like a creative life, really does, after you take a good look around, have to begin with a leap of faith. Faith in yourself, faith in some greater web of minds and being and continuum you are a part of, faith in the sheer beauty and delight of the process, faith in what you'll learn from it when you're (theoretically) "done".

Here's something my friend Felicia providentially sent to me recently, about creativity, and the Muse.

As you come near the glass, she approaches from the other side to meet you. You lift your pen, and she raises hers to touch its tip in the other world. You begin to move your hand and words form on the glass on her side, the other side. Patiently, you now follow her pen; you hear what she is writing, but dimly. You can see a little bit into the images she is creating. Can you read what she is writing?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(This is the only image not my own - it was created by my friend Catherine Nash, who let me use it because after 20 years it's still so firmly embedded in my mind.)

Hands of the Spider Woman book almost finished...

Thought-Woman, the spider,
named things and as she named them they appeared.
She is sitting in her room thinking of a story now:

I'm telling you the story she is thinking.

(Keresan Pueblo) quoted by Carol Rudolph Patterson

I'm pleased that I'm almost finished with the Spider Woman book - the proof copies I received look good, in fact, the illustrations are terrific! I' m excited about the continuing possibility of publishing in this way limited editions of art books, my own and those of others. Now I'm working on the challenging effort of making a photo and text document of the "Masks of the Goddess" project.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SPIDER WOMAN

Stories don't end after two hours in a theatre, or when we turn off the electronic box. When we talk about “spinning a good tale“, like the hands of Spider Woman, we’re participating in something that keeps spinning and evolving, generation into generation, from the waking world to the dreamtime, back into the past, and forward into the stories of those who are yet to come.

Spider was the first weaver, bringing order and form, balance and symmetry to the primal, formless chaos. The Navajo (who call themselves the “ Dine”) revere Spider Woman (Na'ashje'ii sdfzq'q) for teaching them how to weave. To this day, when a Navajo girl is born a spider web is rubbed into her hands so she will become a good weaver. Wool rugs often have “Spiderwoman's Cross” woven into the pattern, representing balance, the gestalt of the four directions, and Navajo weavers traditionally leave a flaw in the work - because the only perfect web is that of Grandmother Spider Woman.

Spider Woman is a wise guide. She can best be heard in the wind (or on the transparent threads of synchronicities) if one is quiet, and prepared to listen. According to anthropologist Carol Patterson-Rudolph,

"As with all metaphors, Spider Woman is a bridge that allows a certain kind of knowledge to be transmitted from the mundane to the sacred dimension.........they believe that an individual must undergo an initiation before he or she can be fully receptive to this kind of knowledge. Thus, to the eyes of the uninitiated, Spider Woman appears merely as an insect, and her words go unheard. But to the initiated whose mind has been opened the voice of this tiny creature can be heard. This is the nature of wisdom, conveyed through the metaphor of Spider Woman."

The Pueblo cultures refer to the people from northern New Mexico to the Hopi mesas of Arizona who still inhabit their ancestral lands. They are descendants of the ancient Anasazi peoples, who built cliff dwellings and ceremonial centers throughout the area over thousands of years. In Pueblo mythology Spider Woman is also called Thought Woman or Creation Thought Woman, and with the Sun (Tawa) she creates the world by thinking it into being. The creative impulse, within this metaphor, originates from a primal center in the great Web, and is shared by all beings - an eternally generative thread expanding and being re-woven.

Weaving and spinning, the creation of baskets, clothing and rugs from cotton (and later wool with the arrival of the Navajo and then the European) was of enormous significance to native America, just as it has been in other parts of the world. It was both a practical and a holy activity, and has almost universally been associated with women. Among the Maya of Mexico and Belize, Ix Chel was an important earth goddess, matron of childbirth, medicine, and weaving. She was perhaps reincarnated as the Aztec Goddess Tlazolteotl, “the great weaver”, illustrated in Aztec art holding spindles and with strands of cotton fibers in her earrings. Among the Osage, until little more than a generation ago, honored and important women had spiders tattooed on the backs of their hands.

In order to lay out the four directions they required for ceremonial purposes, the ancient Maya used stones they called “spiders”. Many depictions of spider motifs in early American cultures have been found that show a cross within a circle (“Spider Woman’s Cross”). The spider and cross symbol can still be found associated with balance, the four directions, and as a central or unifying force among diverse cultures of the American southwest. In the southeastern U.S., shell ornaments belonging to early Mississippian people often show a spider insignia with a cross on its back.

Almost a thousand years later, peoples from the southeastern U.S., among them the Cherokee, have important myths and symbolic imagery about Spider Woman. Cherokee legends say, for example, that Spider Grandmother provided the world with light by weaving a great basket to carry it and to contain it.

Spider Woman has a way of getting around.

Although she can be found in the canyons and deserts and prairies and forests of the Americas, her archetypal presence is felt in many other places and times. In ancient Greece she wove among the Fates, and was Arachne, the master weaver. She is even found in the Odyssey - for Penelope (who wove and unwove a shroud each night as she waited for Odysseus) means "with a web on her face". Another way of translating the origins of this name might be expressed as one who “sees with a webbed vision”

Perhaps she was once Neith, the primal weaver of ancient Egypt. In Celtic lore she has her hand on the web of the Wyrd, and in India the great Jewel Net of Indra, wherein each gem infinitely reflects every other gem on the cosmic lattice. Among the Greeks she gave Theseus a thread to guide him through his labyrinth - a thread not unlike the same threads she casts to you, and to me, now and then, on our own journeys.

And today? Well, there are many contemporary ways Spider Woman makes herself known. What the Legend of Spider Woman has to say now is of vital importance, and I think she represents an ancient paradigm that is also an emerging paradigm for our time. She's working very hard now to make us pay attention.

A cultural paradigm is founded upon mythic roots - the "warp and woof" from which the ideas of a culture grow. So what are those threads? Do they show us how to “walk in beauty”? To create, and partake in life, with balance? Each of us is holding a thread, a lineage that goes back in time and extends far into the future, a weave we participate in with our thoughts, our dreams, and the manifest creative work of our hands. So perhaps the only real question is an ethical question, as well as a creative one. “ What are we weaving?” Estrangement or "a Webbed Vision"?

I have found that Spider Woman delights in all things connected, co-creative, collaborative, cooperative, communicative - all those “co” words. Warp and weft. May we all be beautiful weavers, rubbing a bit of spider web into our palms.

Chautauqua County revisited......

"Inspiration Stump" at Lilydale, New York - 

gathering spot for mediums at Spiritualist Church service.

"What is in my mind is a sort of Chautauqua - like the traveling tent-show Chautauqua’s that used to move across America, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster -paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply to dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale, and platitudes too often repeated.

There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and “best” was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for."

Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

I can't resist doing the "tourist thing", and sharing some photos, and one of my favorite quotes, about Chautauqua County, New York,, where I am at present. I've sent years visiting here, at Brushwood Folklore Center in Sherman where the big Pagan festivals are held in July (Sirius Rising & Starwood), at Lilydale, the oldest spiritualist community in the United States (150 years), and the Chautauqua Institute in Mayville on the great Lake Chautauqua.

The bad news is that it's been raining for pretty much the entire month of June, and my allergies are kicking up a storm as well as the Great Lakes. Who would have thought that my major battles at this point in my life are with microbes. Sometimes it's hard to maintain one's dignity when you are sneezing all the time, but I'll do my doddering best. Here is some of the beauty of the region.

Storms rolling in dramatically over the great Lake Goddess Erie.

Blue Heron rookery just south, near Pittsburgh.

This was a gift from my friend Wendy, who took me here. The Blue Heron has always been a guide, a messenger of beauty and inspiration to me. Imagine seeing hundreds of these solitary creatures in their nests in the trees!

A medium hangs out her sign in Lilydale.

Leolyn Woods - a rare old growth grove in Lilydale.

I love to walk in Leolyn Woods, and imagine what the entire rain forest of the East Coast must have been like before the coming of the European settlers. The deep presence of the great old trees here, maple and chestnut and oak .......they speak with such amazing voices.

Maplewood Hotel, at Lilydale

They say the Maplewood is haunted, but at Lilydale, where they have been "talking to the dead" for 150 years, as well as hosting runaway slaves, suffragettes, and many other progressives, a little haunting wouldn't be anything particularly interesting.

Chautauqua county in western New York has a peculiar kind of geomantic potency. Historically it has been called “the burned over zone”. Because so much religious fervor, utopian dreams, and spiritual experiment has occurred here in the past 150 years, from the Suffragettes and Lily Dale school for mediums, to the Shiloh Community and the origins of Mormonism in Joseph Smith's "visions".

For myself, if all goes well, and I can keep from sneezing and hacking long enough, I'll have another summer of my own kind of "visioning" here, and some good work will come of it. Currently I'm finishing my book on Spiderwoman, and working on a very challenging book about the "Masks of the Goddess". I think a lot these days about what making art means. I wrote this a year ago..........it seems worth copying here again.

You have to let it go, and not concern yourself with how many people care about what what you're doing, not care about how much money you make or don't make, not care about what any institution or magazine or even colleague thinks art "is". Ultimately, Art Making has to become your spiritual path, your meditation, your thread that weaves you into harmony and depth.

"The truest art I would strive for would be to give the page the same qualities as Earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding. Finally, the lessons of impermanence would teach this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness, and despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life"

Gretel Ehrlich, "The Solace of Open Spaces"