Ritual, Myth, Theatre

Today is my birthday, and I am thinking of a conversation I had recently about journalist Bill Moyers called "invisible hands". I am not a psychic, channel, or medium, but I used to be a ritualist and choreographer, and witnessed many "magical" ways in which I became convinced that we are never alone, are, in fact, within an integral universe, profoundly connected. So, because it's my birthday, I'm going to re-print this article about my last ritual ........it pleases me to do so, to honor that time, those people, and our "invisible means of support". Perhaps most importantly, I want to share again the poem written by Erica Swadley. May I find a way to serve again. May this coming year let the way be open.

Restoring the Balance

O Great Mother Goddess,

We call on you now. Rise up from your roots.

Hear us, our voices of pathos. See our dancing feet, how we beat out your rhythms.

With our hearts, we drum you back. We are staggering toward you.

Will you run one hundred steps to us? Will you spread your mantle of peace?

This is the sack of our offerings:

We give up our greed to feed the needy.

Here is our lust to restore compassion.

We release our hatred to stop the killing.

We forego our vengeance to discover balance.

We scorn our fears, to rebirth love.

We tread softly to bring back forests.

 

And Mother Answers:

No more no more no more!

I have sent you shining planets to help you remember.

Mars and Venus beg you to reconcile.

From the depths of space, Sedna appears, a planetary avatar to stop you in your tracks.

Time is ended, truth be told.

Release, forgive, restore.

Remember Me in all of My forms.

I will bring light to your shadows and make you whole,

if you will call on Me.

Erica Swadley (2004)

Sedna, Ocean Mother of the Inuit

"Myth comes alive as it enters the cauldron of evolution, itself drawing energy from the storytellers who shape it " Elizabeth Fuller (2001)

In 2004, a few weeks before our first performance of Restoring the Balance, we learned that a new planet, in the cold depths of space beyond Pluto, was discovered by NASA researchers. The little planet was named Sedna – who was also the primary character in our production. For our cast, this striking synchronicity affirmed that we were, somehow, part of a larger telling. What meaning does the story of Sedna, Ocean Mother to the Inuit people of the North American arctic, have for us today? My own mythic journey to Sedna began in January of 2004, when I had an exhibit of masks at the Muse Community Arts Center in Tucson, Arizona. There I met Grey Eagle (Kenneth M. Jackson), a Native American storyteller living in Patagonia, Arizona. Grey Eagle collected stories from indigenous peoples around the world. I felt honored when he offered me a version of Sedna, which he told me he received from Inuit activists when he lived in Alaska. I believe there are stories that want to be told. They are spun into our collective dreams on threads of synchronicity, woven into our imaginations because they are necessary, needful to a particular time and place. In a 2002 interview with actress Elizabeth Fuller, she commented about this mystery, her words drawn from her career of 40 years:

"When you create within a sacred paradigm you find a strange thing . You are communicating with sources that you know are within you, but have a greater reflection somewhere else. You touch something timeless, as potent in you as anywhere else . You can experience it with great personal power, but eventually you realize that it's not just you. This is about the immanence and multiplicity of deity, the many faces of the Goddesses and the Gods." (2002)

I organized a group to create a performance for the Global Art Project, an international arts network founded by Katherine Josten . Our event was also to be a non-denominational ritual with the theme of restoring reciprocity to humanity’s relationship with our Great Mother Earth. Central to Restoring the Balance was the story of Sedna. Ironically, the Inuit are among the first human populations to be displaced by global warming; their experience of climate change is immediate and urgent, living as many Inuit do in a precarious balance with one of the harshest environments on earth. As the western Arctic coastline recedes, they are losing their villages. Pollution and over-fishing have also contributed to the loss of their livelihood. The Great Mother has a multiplicity of faces; but, ultimately, she is our universal Mother Earth. She represents the processes of nature which includes our embodied, interdependent, cyclical existence. As the story of Sedna illustrates, to betray the feminine is to betray the source of life, with dire consequences for all.

The Story of Sedna

Sedna lived with her widowed father by the cold northwestern sea . Many young men offered her marriage, but fearful for her father’s welfare, she refused all offers. One day a handsome man visited her . He promised Sedna a better life if she would marry him. Best of all, he promised to send provisions to her father as well . But Sedna’s new husband was really a Raven disguised as a man . He took her to a desolate island where she lived, cold and impoverished, until at last Sedna’s father came seeking her. Finding they had been deceived, he took his daughter into his kayak and paddled for the mainland. Raven, learning of their escape, caused a great storm; huge waves rolled toward the kayak. Sedna’s father, hoping to save his own life, cast his daughter from the boat. Sedna clung to the side of the boat, begging her father to save her - and in desperation, he cut off his daughter’s fingers and hands with his knife. Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean, and as she fell, her severed fingers became the fishes, the seals, and the whales. To this day, Sedna lives in a house of bones, at the bottom of the cold sea , attended by all of her undersea children . As Grey Eagle (2004) wrote:

"Sedna is cold and naked. She is covered with a tangle of hair that she can't comb because she has no hands. And it’s also said that all the broken taboos, and sins of the people who live in the above world fall into Sedna’s underwater realm, collecting on Sedna's body. When the accumulation is too great, Sedna sobs in pain. Then the sea creatures leave the shore, and gather to comfort her."

When the “above world” no longer remembers Sedna’s sacrifice, the Inuit believe they have fallen from grace, and must suffer. When the balance is broken, when the people have forgotten how to live in grateful reciprocity with the Ocean Mother and Her creatures, the ocean will cease providing for those who depend upon Her resources . Ultimately, as Sedna suffers , so must they.

Erica Swadley as "Sedna's Shaman"

Grey Eagle continued:

"Then people know it's time to gather, time to publicly confess their broken taboos. The men, remembering the name of Sedna’s father, do a long dance of contrition. Slowly dancing, they sing a song of remorse for the sins done by man to women, to earth, and to her children. And at last, their shaman purifies herself to take the dangerous journey to the underwater world where Sedna lives. She gathers fine sand with which she lovingly cleanses the filth from Sedna’s body, and she combs her hair. And she offers Sedna the prayers of love and respect she has brought with her . "

To atone is to “rejoin”, to establish once again good relationship with a larger community of being. Such rites of “at-one-ment” and purification, to the Inuit, are periodically necessary in order to reconcile the above world with the below world. Grey Eagle (2004) concluded: When Sedna is at last comforted, She sends a prayer to Creator, asking Creator to forgive the people for the ways they have become out of balance. Her sobbing is no longer heard in the waves; the sea animals end their vigil and offer themselves again as food. And the Inuit are inspired to return Sedna’s gift by making better life stories. (p.3)

 Myths are “life stories“, archetypal templates upon which religions and civilizations are built, and individual lives are imbued with meaning. How can we also create “better life stories” for today? Life stories that speak of interdependence instead of inter-conflict? Life stories that prepare us for a sustainable future? Our stories, and our evolving cultural mythos, crystallize the ways we perceive, experience, and, live within the living body of the world. 

 James Lovelock and his primary collaborator, Lynn Margulis proposed that the Earth behaves as a vast super organism . Lovelock first published the Gaia Hypothesis in 1979. The Gaia Theory demonstrates that the Earth consists of countless systems that are interlocking and self-regulating – in essence, a complex, evolving organism. Gaia theory affirms the ancient wisdom of Inuit storytellers of good relationship within a responsive environment – to which we are ultimately accountable

The Masks of the Goddess Project (1999-2019) 

I've always been fascinated with masks as sacred tools - as “vessels” for the archetypal powers to express through the universal human mediums of art, theatre, dance and ritual. "Theatre" comes from the same Greek word as "theology,” as in theos or god . “Invoke” derives from the same Sanskrit root as “yoga” and “yoke” which mean to “join with”. In earlier times masks were created to contact the divine through ritual and ceremonial performances. To use a sacred mask was to in-voke, or to “join with the Gods”. 

 In 1999, after studying mask arts in Bali, I created mixed media, multi-cultural masks for the Spiral Dance in San Francisco. I made life casts from the faces of actual women, of different races and different ages, and masks were sculpted from mixed media . Inspired by Balinese and other indigenous mask traditions, I decided to offer my collection as contemporary "temple masks", making them available to those who wished to use them to celebrate the Divine Feminine. The collection was sent to groups that requested its use - filling with energy and collective story.

Mana Youngbear as "Tara"

At our first meeting I put the masks in a circle, asking members to choose one. We shared a shamanic journey, and discussed our imagery afterwards to determine who felt called to work with a particular mask and why. Another way of expressing it might be to discover which masks “wanted to be activated”.

Kathy Huhtaluhta as "Corn Mother"

Our group's hope was that these cross-cultural “faces of the Divine Mother” would emphasize the global significance of our event, the universal need for healing. Katherine Josten, who chose the role of Sedna, is the founder of the Global Art Project, a network creating partnerships between individual artists and groups around the world . As we prepared our performance, Katherine (2004) observed in her journal that:

The work of our group is not to re-enact the ancient goddess myths, but to take those myths to their next level of evolutionary unfolding. Artists are the myth makers. It is time for us to create the next chapter, to join the energies of Goddess and God. The integration of male and female must occur in order to bring balance to the earth and human consciousness. A dialogue needs to occur so the pain of both may be brought to light and transmuted.

I was moved by what she wrote: restoring balance to the divided human spirit is what the work is truly about. How can there be peace when our collective psyche is divided against itself?

Altar at the Muse Community Arts, created by participants

Valarie James as "The Virgin of Guadaloupe"

The performance was at Nations Hall, in Tucson, Arizona, on April 9th, 2004. A community altar, built by the cast as a collaborative installation, became part of the ritual . The stage and audience formed a circle, a theatre in the round. We opened with Erica Swadley's poem, “Invocation to the Great Mother”, and closed with Morgana Canady’s performance of Spider Woman . Casting “threads” into the audience, she wove, and for that moment, to my great delight, 300 people were joined by weaving the Web together.

Afterwards, biodegradable burlap cords from “Spider Woman’s Web” were distributed among cast members, and scattered throughout the desert, symbolically extending our web and its blessing to a greater world . In addition, as part of the Global Art Project, photographs, letters, and a video were sent to the AFEG-NEH-MABANG Traditional Dance Company, in Limbe, Republic of Cameroon.

Afterward: The Surprising

Authentic ritual is what anthropologist Victor Turner (1975)described as “communitas”: a collaboration between participants and a larger, invisible, extended community . If it has potency, ritual, like art, can include participants in a conversation whose mythological roots go far back into the past, and forward into the imaginal future. To enter fully into ritual space is to shift consciousness in order to undertake a mythic pilgrimage .

In Turner’s (1971) article, “Pilgrimages as Social Processes ”, he wrote that a “limen” or a “liminal state” is a doorway that enables actors and ritualists (as “pilgrims”) to enter into a sacred space or pilgrimage center . In this magic circle there is a fertile realm where deities, ancestors, and power animals may be encountered, and transformations are possible . Perhaps we were given such a special blessing at our auspicious event, in the form of photographs taken by Tucson photographer Ann Beam . When Ann returned the photos we were amazed to see anomalies in many of them. These strange “spirit photos” are, for me, another layer to that event, a pentimento .

A photo of Erica Swadley, in her role as Sedna’s shaman (she was not masked for her performance), showed two separate faces superimposed on each other. After examining this photo, the photographer (Ann Beam) commented that one of the faces looked like Erica, but another appeared to be Asian.

This was a photo of the end of the performance. The cast is dancing in a circle, and a white form appeared in the photo, superimposed between cast and audience. We called this one "the Visitor".Here's the image in negative.

In a photograph of Quynn Elizabeth, whose dance was devoted to the Hindu Goddess Kali , an inexplicable, goat-like form dramatically appeared behind her, and the suggestion of a goat appeared in other photographs of her dance as well . To Quynn, Morgana, and Erica, whose performances were devotional as well as theatrical, the photographs were affirming, a kind of “greeting card” from spirit guides. I have since learned that in the traditional worship of Kali in India, goats were often sacrificed. Some viewers of these photographs have suggested that a “spirit goat” materialized in the photograph as a symbol of our offering . We did not have a goat to offer the Goddess when we invoked Her, so perhaps one was “ethereally” provided for us.

When I looked at the “goat” photo the first time, I personally recalled the ancient Hebrew ritual of the s capegoat. When deemed necessary, this ritual was p erformed for the well-being of the tribe. A litany of all the sins, troubles, and sorrows of the time was recited, then “laid” upon the back of a goat .

 The goat, a beast of great merit, was then released into the desert to symbolically bear these burdens away. A cleansing had occurred and a new cycle could begin . 

Not unlike the rituals of the Inuit, the act of naming the sins and broken taboos helped the tribe to return to psychic and emotional balance, and to a more harmonious relationship with the Sacred. In the modern world, we have generally lost meaningful ritual, and, as such, we rarely have significant ways to collectively regain “at-one-ment .” We have no long ritual cycle of prayers and dances and confessions. W e have few tribal shamans to help us bear our “better life stories“ to Sedna in the World Below . We scapegoat each other. We scapegoat women. We scapegoat the living Earth without awareness. There is no “symbolic goat” to carry our “sins” into the chaotic wilderness of the collective unconscious; to carry our negativity into the desert so we can begin again in a new way.

I have no explanation for Anne’s photographs except what they mean to me. Nor can I prove that the photos are authentic – although I know they are . I feel the appearance of the spirit photographs are a final blessing, a reminder perhaps that we are never really alone.

"We have heard this sacred story together", Grey Eagle wrote, "And now we can close with: That’s the way it was, and that’s the way it is".

References

Beam, A., (2004), All photographs are reproduced with permission of the artist. 

 Fuller, E. (2001) Interview with Lauren Raine. 

 Grey Eagle, a/k/a Jackson, K.M. (2004). The story of Sedna. Unpublished manuscript. Josten, K. (2004). Unpublished journal. 

 Lovelock, James ( 2006), GAIA - A NEW LOOK AT LIFE ON EARTH, Oxford University Press. Margulis, Lynn, (1999). SYMBIOTIC PLANET: A NEW LOOK AT EVOLUTION, New York: Basic Books. 

 Rosenthal, R. (1989). Interview with Lauren Raine. 

 Swadley, E. (2004) . “Invocation of the Great Mother.” Unpublished poem. 

 Turner, V.W. (1975). Dramas, fields, and metaphors: Symbolic action in human society . New York: Cornell University Press. 

 Weller, A. (2001). Interview with Lauren Raine. 

Additional Resources

Ala Mankon Cultural and Development Association (A.M.A.C.U.D.A. Traditional Dance Group, AFEG-NEH-MABANG Dance), Limbe, Republic of Cameroon. 

 Clipman, W., at www.willclipman.com. 

 Fuller, E., The Independent Eye Theatre, at www.independenteye.org .

 Grey Eagle, 1995 Gordan Ekvall Tracy Memorial Award for Ethnic Performers, at www.ethnicheritagecouncil.org/awards/tracieWinners.html. 

 Greinke, J., at www.jeffgreinke.com.

 Huhtaluhta, K., Sami Records, at www.samirecords.com. 

 James, V., Las Madres Project, at www.lasmadresproject.org. 

 Josten, K., The Global Art Project, Tucson, AZ, at www.global-art.org. 

 Quynn, E., The Institute for the Shamanic Arts at WomenKraft Bldg., Tucson, Arizona, www.shamanworld.com 

 Quynn, E., Earth Tribe TV, at www.earthtribetv.org.

 Raine, L., “The Masks of the Goddess Project” & “Spider Woman’s Hands”, www.laurenraine.com & www.masksofthegoddess.com

 Smith, A. & Smith, A. (2004). Rainbow Didge Music (www.rainbowdidge.com) 

 Youngbear, M., Willits Young Actors Theatre, at www.willitsyoungactorstheatre.com

Farewell to New Mexico

"God's abstention
is only from human dialects;
the holy voice utters its woe and glory
in myriad musics,
in signs and portents.
Our own words are for us to speak,
a way to ask and to answer."

Denise Levertov

Returning to Tucson, cars and asphalt and noise, the urban cacophony (and summer heat), I feel melancholy. The solitude and solace of New Mexico's vast skies and open space worked it's magic for me, peeling away the dross like old paint, revealing essential layers beneath. I hope I can retain this spaciousness.

"A House of Doors", lithograph (1986)

A HOUSE OF DOORS

I.

He opened the door and walked outside.
It was summer, I remember cicadas
scratching a hole in the door
where a man used to be.

The house I live in
has various dimensions.

I recall white rooms,
wallpapered with old letters.
Some rooms are tombs for the heart,
full of damp bones
and useless ornaments.

I remember a pink room
that pressed me until I couldn't breath

Some rooms diminish
some rooms compress.
Rooms can be tricky.
What I remember are doors.
I live in a house of doors.

II.

She stood at the door
and walked outside.
It was spring, I remember
lilacs framed by a window
where a girl in a white dress stood.

A white dress,
flying like a flag,
a white dress
opening like a morning glory.

III.

I opened the door:
she was sitting there,
the girl with the Kodak smile.
The sign on the door said 1969,
it was February in Berkeley.
The plum trees were red in the rain,
steam rose from an espresso machine

the girl listens
to the boyfriend whose name
I don’t remember, cigarette in hand
a baton, orchestrating. She listens,
she knows the punch line.

When I closed the door
she slipped away behind me,
riding a train
I could see in perspective

riding to a vanishing point.

IV.

An onion, that's it.
All those layers.

Just when you think
you can name yourself,
you discover new layers,
you’re forming a new skin,
a new ring.

But there's a core.
And where
does that core start?

V.

This room I live in.
These walls.
They seem to be getting thin.
I can almost see through them today.

Today I feel
like a Chinese box
one inside another.
I consider a state of grace:

I think
I think I may be the gate
that opens
into another room
made of clouds, or sky
or something
I can't name.

I remember white dresses I wore
I remember doors
I can't remember the girl's name.

"Funny", she said,
"how time takes the names out of things,
and bleaches the rest kind of transparent."

Funny.
Chiefly, I remember doors.

VI.

Sometimes,
you open a door
any door

and you have to walk outside
into something tender
like a touch
on a winter night
into a quiet yard
because of a voice you hear

or a bell
or a train
pulling away
somewhere



Lauren Raine

Art, Collaboration, "Pollination"

"Cornmother" mask in "Restoring the Balance", 2004

"Indigenous people have always known corn metaphorically in two or more of the four senses, mother, enabler, transformer, healer; that I use throughout this weaving. Although early European settlers took the grain only, there is evidence in America today that the Corn-Mother has taken barriers of culture and language in stride and intimated her spirit to those who will listen, even if they don't know her story or call her by name."

Marilou Awiakta, "The Corn-Mother Incognito. Or Is She?"
from SELU - Seeking the Corn-Mother's Wisdom

I remember a documentary years ago about a famous Hopi potter, who said that she saw patterns and motifs when she went walking in the morning, and they just wouldn't leave her alone until she "wrote" them into her pots. I wondered what it meant to be an artist whose work was attuned to a long tradition of transmission - a purposeful thread woven into the fabric of daily life, not just for one's assertion of individuality, but in service to the tribe, the ancestors, the gods..........

This morning I woke up thinking about collaboration, not just among colleagues, but also what Bill Moyers called "invisible support". I've been given a lot of grace in my life, and although I haven't been fortunate, like the Hopi potter, to belong to a tribal tradition, still, I've had moments when I felt I got my "orders". And those have been among my most magical moments. Here's one of my favorite stories. It happened when I was still working with the Masks of the Goddess collection in 2002, and affirmed, for me, that idea of "greater collaboration".

""Myth comes alive as it enters the cauldron of evolution, itself drawing energy from the storytellers who shape it." Elizabeth Fuller, The Independent Eye Theatre

"Corn Mother" has many names throughout the Americas - She is the sustainer, the Demeter of this continent. The Cherokee Corn Mother is called Selu, and her story is one of sacrifice and renewal, with compassion for the ignorance of her children, who in fear destroy the very source that sustains them. It is a myth with profound significance for our own time.

In 2002, I had given the collection of masks to choreographer Mana Youngbear, who was directing a performance in Oakland. I had no idea of what she planned, but planned to attend the show. About a month before her event, I attended an unrelated event at the University of Creation Spirituality (now the Naropa Institute). It included a moving meditation about the wounding of the Divine Feminine in Western religions, led by a woman minister. She spoke of the tragedy of the Inquisition. I sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded in the darkness by about 300 people, many of them weeping.

Yet when I closed my eyes, I saw vividly something that had nothing to do with the ceremony I was participating in. I saw a Native American woman, wearing a deerskin costume, dancing with an ear of corn in each hand. Her image remained with me throughout the evening, and I decided to make a mask about her. I placed ears of corn on each side of the face, and painted a rainbow on the mask's forehead.

A week before the performance, Mana told me there was one dancer in her cast, Christy Salo, who had no mask. Christy had created a dance derived from the Cherokee legend of Selu. Now she had a mask!

And when Christy danced she blessed the audience with corn meal, completing the circle for all of us.

Here's the interview I taped with Christy after the performance.

Christy as "Selu", (2002)

"I made a bouquet of corn for Mana and Stephen's wedding, with a necklace of rainbow beads on it I bought at a garage sale, the same bouquet I used later to dance Green Corn Woman at our performance. The wedding was at a retreat in California, and after the ceremony, I met a woman walking about the property. She told me she really didn't know why she was there! She had been heading to Oakland, and felt an urge to turn off the road. When she drove by the sign for the center, she impulsively pulled in. And there she was, in a lovely place with a wedding in progress. As we talked, I realized she was the woman I bought the rainbow beads from, the same beads that were decorating Manna's bouquet, even as we spoke! I like to think she was a touchstone on my journey to Cornmother.

Mana is part Cherokee, so perhaps that was why she asked me if I wanted to dance Cornmother when she cast her show. We didn't have a mask for the Corn Goddess, but I was inspired to create a dance anyway. I knew very little about Her, and meant to do some research at the library, but a friend turned up with a wonderful book called BROTHER CROW, SISTER CORN full of indigenous corn legends. I also stopped at a used bookstore, and opening a rather esoteric book at random, discovered I was looking at an article about the Corn Maiden. I was stunned to learn it was illustrated by Vera Louise Drysdale, the first woman I met, years ago, when I lived in Sedona. With that, I sensed I was ready to begin.

I felt I was following an invisible, mythic thread - and the feeling of familiarity continued as I created a costume. I looked for materials associated with Corn Mother, and within a few days, Manna had left me a message. "Christy" she said, "There's a Hopi woman at Isis Oasis you need to meet! She gave me some 300 year old corn meal to give to you!" I felt the spirit of Corn Woman encouraging me indeed!

Corn Mother's story represents the wealth that comes from the hard work of forgiveness. How can we be fed, how can we create peace, if we cannot learn the lessons of forgiveness, if we cannot learn tolerance for our differences? That is the beginning place we will need in order to evolve into a peaceful Rainbow Nation. To me, the Rainbow as actually a circle. Half the rainbow disappears into the ground, into an underworld realm, where it exists beneath the Earth, hidden, but at the foundation never the less. Like the Corn Mother. We're all Her children, especially in America, with our mixed bloodlines. We have "rainbow blood".

We received the new mask at the time of the lunar eclipse, in May of 2002, and decided at that auspicious time to consecrate it with some dried corn. As we did, a flash of light went off in the room! At first we thought it was a light bulb, but looking around, realized there were no electric lights on in that room. We looked at each other amazed, and we felt the presence of Corn Mother."

** Elizabeth Fuller, Conrad Bishop, "The Independent Eye" Theatre

The Eye in the Hand revisited

"Hand and Eye" by Tylor Gore

A friend asked if I would re-print this article about the "Hand and Eye" Icon; since I"m about to continue work on my book "Spider Woman's Hands", it seems like a good reminder for me to do so. As I write this in a cafe, a Carly Simon record is playing, and she's singing "Itsy, Bitsy Spider". So funny sometimes......... I've been fascinated for years with the hand and eye motif. Last year, while visiting a healer who does massage and energy work, I saw that she had an ancient native American artifact. It was of thick shell, about 3"x 2", stained, carved into the shape of a hand, incised to show the fingers and joints, and with an eye and pupil in the center of the palm. A hole was drilled in the top of this medallion or amulet, presumably so it could be worn with a cord. Judith bought it at a show in Ohio.

Design engraved on Spiro shell; Hamilton, The Spiro Mound, Courtesy: Michael Fuller, Professor of Anthropology, St. Louis Community College (http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/spiroshell.html)

I found myself continually holding it. It seemed to emanate a kind of "clarifying" energy, and being curved, fit into the palm of my hand. I don't have a photo of Judith's amulet, but the shell gorget above is from a similar source. The "Hand and Eye" motif, like the Spider with Cross, are found throughout prehistoric sites of the Mississippian peoples of the great river valleys, from Ohio to Alabama. These people have also been called the Mound Builders, leaving behind mounds and burial chambers (last year I visited Wickliffe Mounds in Kentucky). The awesome "Serpent Mound" in Ohio has been associated with these ancient peoples. For those unfamiliar, atop a plateau overlooking Brush Creek Valley, Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy in the United States. Nearly a quarter of a mile long, it apparently represents an uncoiling serpent; its "head" may also represent an egg in the mouth of the serpent. It has been variously dated from about 1,400 years ago to as long ago as originating in 5,000 bc. It's also geomantically interesting that this ceremonial mound was built on the site of a ancient meteorite strike. Some scholars also believe it aligns with the summer solstices, and also with the constellation "Draco", suggesting it was designed when the star draconis alpha was the pole star. Serpent Mound is certainly one of America's greatest archaeological mysteries. Judith's artifact, an ancient sacred image once ubiquitous among the Americas, is related to the prehistoric people who built Serpent Mound. Her carved shell talismen of a Hand and Eye is probably 500 years of age, or older. Why did they wear it, why did they engrave it in stone?

Variants of the Hand and Eye motif. a, b, c, Southeastern United States (after Waring and Holder 1945, Figs. 1, 7 a-c); d,Lienzo de Tlaxcala: 40 (after Seler 1902-23, Vol. 2: 569, Fig. 99).

What did this iconic image mean to these prehistoric people, who were the ancestors of the Cherokee and many others? I am familiar with the "Hamsa", also called the "Hand of Fatima", a symbol used to ward off evil ( worn as an amulet, or over doors) in the Middle East, both by Muslim and Jewish peoples. This token is ubiquitous through the Arabic world. I wonder why this image is personally meaningful to me, so that I am continually incorporate it into my artwork. Perhaps it represents conscious mind in the works of our hands, in what we manifest. Beyond that, the Presence of God/dess, of the divine, the "one within the many", moving through the manifest creative and healing works of our hands, of our lives. An amulet not to avert evil, but to call forth divine vision and creativity. Does that make sense? Here's an amazing "Hands with Eyes" mask made by artist Dan Lyke, which I found on the fabulous web page "Hand and Eye" created by T.P. Kunesh, whose fascinating (and wry) website shows him to be a philosopher and visionary worth knowing. My great thanks to Mr. Kunesh for the images and commentary he provided me with.

"Hands Mask" by Dan Lyke at Burning Man (2000)

Here is some further information about the mysterious Mound builders of southeastern U.S. I have taken much of this information from the inspired writings of writer and Jungian psychologist Frank Adair, MD, who resides in Redwood City, CA. I love one of his comments in particular about this symbol:

(The) inner Self has been likened to God or to "God within us". It has been called the light of nature that creates our dreams. Whatever "it" is called will involve some degree of projection limiting meaning. Somehow, the eye as symbol captures the pivotal point between the opposites, between the conscious and unconscious - where "the land meets the sea." The hand adds richness to the symbol. Hands can build the bridge between our inner world and the external world...The hands are the mediators between spirit and matter, between an inner image and an actual creation. By handling, the existing energies become visible.

Large ceremonial centers were found in Moundville, Alabama, Etowah in Georgia, Spiro in Oklahoma and Cahokia in Illinois. These mounds are the greatest sources of the artifacts of this culture. The eye, usually a simple oval containing a small circular pupil, may have represented to these peoples the hand and eye of Creator. This famous disc below has a hand pointing upward, and appears to be both sides of the hand (perhaps suggesting non-duality?) There are two knotted rattlesnakes surrounding the hand. Being knotted, they could further suggest the forces symbolized by the snakes (the snake power contained, controlled, or organized by the hand?). In ancient Europe, as "snake" was associated with the Goddess, hence, the moving, serpentine, cyclical powers of the Earth. While we cannot know what "snake" meant to these people, and the meanings of the iconic hand is only suggested by archaeologists, I think it can be said with some certainty that it did represent shamanistic power and/or deity. As Dr. Adair points out in his article, the motif of the "eye in the palm" is found in paintings of the compassionate Bodhisattva White Tara of Tibet. He further points out that none other than the great mythologist Joseph Campbell (1) has mused and written this about possible meanings of this particular Native American stone disc:

"Interpreted in Oriental terms, its central sign would be said to represent the "fear banishing gesture" of a Bodhisattva hand showing on its palm the compassionate Eye of Mercy, pierced by the sight of the sorrows of this world. The framing pair of rattlesnakes, like those of the Aztec Calendar Stone, would then symbolize the maya power binding us to this vortex of rebirths, and the opposed knots would stand for the two doors, east and west, of the ascent and descent, appearances and disappearances, of all things in the endless round. Furthermore, the fact that the eye is at the center of the composition would suggest, according to this reading, that compassion is the ultimate sustaining and moving power of the universe, transcending and overcoming its pain. And finally, the fact that the hand is represented as though viewed simultaneously from back and front would say that this Bodhisattva power unites opposites.

Our picture depicts the dual aspects of psychic life which have been projected, since ancient times, as metaphysical realms. On the one hand, there is ordered consciousness symbolized by the regular appearance of the sun's "blazing eye;" on the other hand, there is the unconscious, a chaotic region of animal instincts, symbolized as "serpentine monsters" capable indeed of wrapping themselves around the ego and dragging it into its depths. Yet the American Indian projection preserves the fact that the unconscious is full of novelty and is a creative reality which can be harmonized with the structures of conscious living. That has been achieved aesthetically in our artifact. The image of a "hand" at the center reminds us that this beautiful piece was made by human hands and hints at the requirement of human effort if we are ever to unite the opposites within ourselves. Should what we say here be more than intuition, should it also be rooted in the facts of the psyche and in the requirement to withdraw projections, then sensation has also been served. Serving opposite functions and honoring the larger duality of the conscious and unconscious psyche is, then, the modest modern equivalent of the prayers, offerings, and correct ethical behavior of the Mound Builders. (1)"

References (From Dr. Adair and others): Campbell, J. (1990). The Mythic Image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Photos of artifacts from Spiro Mound courtesy Dr. Michael Fuller, Dept. of Anthropology, St. Louis Community College,(http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/spiroshell.html Fundaburk, E.L. & Foreman, M.D. (1985). Sun Circles and Human Hands: The Southeastern Indians. Art and Industry. Fairhope, AL: American Bicentennial Museum. Kunesh, T.P. The Eye in the Hand, http://www.darkfiber.com/eyeinhand/ Walthall, J. (1994). Moundville: An introduction to the archaeology of a Mississippian chiefdom. Tuscaloosa, AL: Alabama Museum of Natural History. Frank Adair, MD www.uroborus.com Tyler Gore, artist: http://www.tylergore.com/ 

Earth Mind

If anyone asked me what my theology was, I think I would have to say it is Gaia-ism. Since the first time I read about James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis (with collaborator Lynn Margulis). 

Encountering a proposal that said, in essence, that the planet we live within is alive, I felt affirmed in something I intuitively sensed since childhood. That the whole world was alive, conscious in some amazing way, responsive, conversant. With their revolutionary work, the Gaia Hypothesis (now, more generally accepted, it has been called the Gaia Theory), a name was chosen from both science, and mythology. My paradigm, as they say, shifted like the Teutonic plates, and I've been seeing the world I live in through that lens ever since. My notion of God ceased to be not only male, but human-centric, and my art sprouted roots, vines, and webs in every background, always going "off the picture plane".

Sometimes a book, or an event, is the beginning footprint of a lifelong "Marga", the hunt for divine purpose or meaning. Gaia Theory set me to wondering about the mythos of "Gaia", the Great Mother, as well. I learned about the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in her excavations of prehistoric Europe, and I read "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone. I read Joseph Campbell (The Way of the Animal Powers), Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade), and later, as a graduate student in the arts looking for the "roots" of the Goddess in visual history, Gloria Orenstein (The Re-Flowering of the Goddess), Elinor Gadon (The Once and Future Goddess) and many others. I found I was not alone in my quest to uncover earlier perceptions of deity, my fascination with the idea that to ancient peoples the Earth was a Great Mother with many children, to imagine worlds where where deities like Crow and Turtle, the lion headed goddess Sekhment or the generous Roman Numina of place had something to teach and tell.

Prehistoric Mississippian "Hand and Eye" gorget 

The eye and hand  fascinates me and has occured in my art process numerous times.   We can integrate symbols into our being so deeply that we forget where they come from, they are simply a way we speak to ourselves about the world. The hand of the Great Spinner and Weaver, the hand of Spider Woman, the hand of Gaia. Within my own hand, as I create my life, if I'm lucky enough to contact that divine essence.

As I work on my "Icons for the Earth", I see the Eye represents the intelligence, awake and aware and creative, within what we so blithely call "nature", as if we were somehow not part of it, as it "nature" was something "out there".

"We are living IN the Body. Not ON the Body, but IN the Body. And what we do to the Earth, we are doing to ourselves."

........Rachel Rosenthal, Performance Artist

The eye keeps re-occurring, and is the spirit of place I have so often felt in the mystery of the woods, the dapple of shadow on water, the bones of lives abandoned in the desert heat. I felt it without words when I was a child, observing a lizard that was also observing me. The Eye is the world awake and

 aware, the conversation

 I think this has been a prologue to something. I was inspired by the talk on Crop Circles I enjoyed in Roswell, by Freddy Silva, an Englishman who has spent many years researching the Crop Circle phenomenon in his native country, and around the world. He has found that they have unique magnetic and energetic properties, that they are increasingly complex, they can occur unnoticed within as short a period as 20 minutes, and that they often occur near prehistoric sacred sites and standing stones, places of "energetic power" where ley lines cross and underground water domes occur, etc. Freddy believes they are not only communicating through the universal language of symbol and mandala (a symbol of wholeness), but they are also, speaking in terms of subtle energies, changing the land and water in some

 way - perhaps, an infusion, a "pollination".

 I need to learn more about this..............as an artist, they are not only mysterious, but stunningly beautiful, Mandalas that incorporate sacred symbols drawn from all human cultures.

So, I'll meander with this, because this is a mystery, serpentine by nature, as all "earth mysteries" are. What I remembered as I was listening to Freddy's lecture was an experience I had many years ago, something I always wanted to share, but didn't know how to, or what it meant.** I have had a few real visions in my life. By that I mean, I was not asleep, I wasn't dreaming, I experienced an "altered state of consciousness" that was lucid and visionary. When this occurs, I consider it big, something I've been graced with. One of the most extraordinary "visions" occurred in the spring of 1989, when I pulled off the interstate at a rest area near the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. At the time, I owned a little red Toyota truck. I shut my eyes, and immediately found myself in the back of my truck.....which much to my surprise, began to fly! Looking tentatively over the side of the truck, Virginia was gone, and I seemed to be flying above a misty, very green landscape with rolling hills. Below me I could see a circle of standing stones. They were really more like a kind of spiral that culminated in a circle. Up the hill came a procession of people, most clad in white clothing, and many carrying flowers and baskets; they seemed to be preparing for a ceremony of some kind.

  Then I was peering down at an entirely different kind of landscape, as my magical truck transported me to a Southwestern terrain. The red earth had bluffs and mesas, and as I looked, I could see that there were many, many layers of petroglyphs within the rocks - they seemed to recede infinately into both human and natural patterns.

  Then I was flying high over Los Angeles, where I grew up! Below me was a familiar, vast pattern of freeways - and as I watched, they formed the "figure 8" infinity sign. And then I opened my eyes, seated at the wheel, pulled over at a rest area, with a map on the seat next to me. The whole experience was too vivid to have been a dream, nor did I have any memory of being "sleepy" before it happened. What does it mean? I don't really know, even now, but seeing those crop circles, I remembered this vision, and thought of it's message of pattern, language, deep within the processes of the earth, the speaking, dreaming earth. Deep within the past, universal human language and ritual and art, deep within us even in our contemporay world. I still find this vision somehow encouraging. We stand on the razor's edge, poised for global community and maturation as a species, as well as in dire danger. To me, the freeways that formed an infinity symbol across the land could mean that, even in our ignorance and hubris, the mind of Gaia still speaks beneath and through the works of our hands and minds - there is a larger pattern, an evolution we participate within. The pattern, the template, Earthmind. ***

 

*** EARTHMIND: Communicating With the Living World of Gaia is a book by John Steele, Paul Deveraux, and David Kubrin (1989) that I highly recommend. It was another one of those "paradigm shifters" for me. **There is so much I have said in the past about the shamanic function, the visionary function, of art - something we so little understand, and yet is basic to the understanding of archaic and indigenous cultures.

Syncronicity and the Butterfly Man

In the process of researching something, I ran across these photos from 2003 in my file, and felt like quickly sharing this lovely synchronicity story before I forget it.

I used to be friends with the inspired, visionary, and very eccentric, founder of the Butterfly Gardener's Association in California, Alan Moore. Alan is the one who got me so interested in Butterfly syncronicities, which seem to be a world-wide phenomenon, and we shared a number of events together, including marching together in San Francisco against the war in 2003 (there were 300,000 people in the streets, just like I remember it was in 1970, when I marched against Vietnam. An amazing thing to see, if sad to see it repeated. And Alan, I, and his lady friend, Nicole, were fortunate to be right at the very front of the march. Once again, with 30 years between, I heard Joan Baez sing. )

I wore the Mask of Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom, whose emblem is the dove. Alan brought his "Butterflies not Bombs" banner. The picture above was from the San Francisco Chronicle, where we appeared with our "Icons". What makes this a synchronicity is that Nicole (with her back turned to the camera) was locally famous as well for her "Cosmic Cash", which she created and passed out to everyone wherever she went. It says "One Love, One World" on the other side.

Notice the "cash" sign on the right of the photo at top? I think Nicole's "Icon" was in the Peace News that day as well.

Life and art at the ranch

I can't get to the Internet easily here - so my blogging is somewhat delayed. I want to thank friends for their kind and thoughtful comments......in my previous post I'm a bit embarrassed to let my "psychic underwear" show.

But I do question what I'm doing these days - everyone I know is in some kind of similar transitional phase, it seems. And I am weary of the aloneness of it sometimes. I would like to say that, in the previous posts comments, I especially appreciated what Valerianna had to say about art being a spiritual practice, a way to "pollinate".

Rachel Rosenthal once said that our creativity was "compost for the Earth", the highest and best of what we are, feeding the planetary mind and creating fertile soil for those to come.

I remember, years ago, recording an interview with performance artist Raphael Montanez Ortiz. In the 60's, he was famous for his "De-Construction Performances"; in several of them, he ritualistically destroyed a sofa and a piano. For Rafael, these works were not just about him, but also shared rituals about both personal and collective "Shadow Work". Here is another dimension of art process.....one that is psychologically self-revelatory. As Rafael pursued his art in later years, he integrated shamanism, healing, and indigenous cultural traditions into his work, with "Physio-Psycho-Alchemy", and "Waxworks". Re-reading that interview recently, I found this:

Rafael: "Do you remember the movie, "Forbidden Planet"?"

Lauren: "Yes, their "id creature" destroyed their civilization. So, in order to integrate these internal forces, one must see it and be it?"

Rafael: "Or find a safe haven for it, and art can be a haven, a solution."

I was sitting on the stoop of the back porch a few days ago, looking out into the desert, when suddenly I was joined in my morning coffee by a black dog. Wagging her tail, her company was most welcome. Looking at her tags, I saw a phone number, and had to laugh when I learned that my new friend was called "Shadow"! So Shadow and I hung out all day, until her owner came to pick her up........I think there's a living metaphor in there somewhere worth noting as well.
How can we know the whole of anything without the friendship of what Jung called "shadow"? I make room these days for "both sides now", and when Shadow turns up at the door wagging her tail, it's not a bad idea to sit down on the porch and share your hamburger.


So, I've been busy making ICONS in clay and in paintings, but I think I'll make a "Shadow Box" or two, just to make sure I keep the balance.