Pachemama and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia

“The earth is what we all have in common.” 

 Wendell Barry

The next mask I want to work on is Pachemama, the name for Mother Earth among indigenous populations of South America.  Something really important happened in December of 2010 with the passage of the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia.  In Wikipedia's commentary about this remarkable event, the editor notes that "Mother Earth is sacred to indigenous peoples".  I was saddened to be reminded, again, that in the so-called modern world, Mother Earth is not sacred.  As corporate oil interests (from The   Pachemama Allience below) negotiate for 5 million acres of rain forest in Ecuador......I am reminded again that to that mind, nothing is sacred.  

I just have to say it.   People talk about 2012 and the end of the Mayan Calendar and the "end of days".  Here it is.  I'm never able to forget that this is the reality going on all around us.  Here I am, living in a large city in Arizona, daily shopping for my mother and myself, driving in and out of malls and grocery stores, stuck in the responsibilities and economic realities as anyone else............and meanwhile, I hear always the myriad voices of Pachemama.

 As I pull in to parking lots or enjoy the great privilege and luxury  of sitting down at a restaurant to choose what I want to eat, people in the highlands of Bolivia are being driven out of  ancestral homes by global warming, and the famous snows of Kilamajaro grow less every year, and the blue glaciers of Antarctica fall into the sea, tribal wars intensify in the Sudan as resources become less, another 10 or 20 species becomes extinct ..........and corporate executives in black and white suits sit around expensive tables and discuss cutting down the very lungs of our planet in the Amazonian rain forests.  And then they go to lunch.

WE are the agents of "2012", not some apocalyptic punishing father god, or, for that matter, a mythic galactic mother ship either.  I remember when Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" came out in 2006.........I've seen this arise all my adult life.  The shift in consciousness is also not going to come from some magical source - it's going to come from us, is coming from us, as we understand that we are all a part of Gaia, of Pachemama, and of each other.  As we re-sanctify the Earth.  And what happened in Bolivia is very hopeful from that perspective.

Law of the Rights of Mother Earth

(From Wikipedia)

Law of the Rights of Mother Earth (Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra) is a Bolivian law  that was passed by Bolivia's Legislative Assembly in December 2010. This 10 article law was presented by president Evo Morales at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference.  The law defines Mother Earth as "...the dynamic living system formed by the indivisible community of all life systems and living beings whom are interrelated, interdependent, and complementary, which share a common destiny" adding that "Mother Earth is considered sacred in the worldview of Indigenous peoples and nations. 

The law enumerates seven specific rights to which Mother Earth is entitled:

• To life: It is the right to the maintenance of the integrity of life systems and natural processes which sustain them, as well as the capacities and conditions for their renewal
• To the Diversity of Life: It is the right to the preservation of the differentiation and variety of the beings that comprise Mother Earth, without being genetically altered, nor artificially modified in their structure, in such a manner that threatens their existence, functioning and future potential
• To water: It is the right of the preservation of the quality and composition of water to sustain life systems and their protection with regards to contamination, for renewal of the life of Mother Earth and all its components
• To clean air: It is the right of the preservation of the quality and composition of air to sustain life systems and their protection with regards to contamination, for renewal of the life of Mother Earth and all its components
• To equilibrium: It is the right to maintenance or restoration of the inter-relation, interdependence, ability to complement and functionality of the components of Mother Earth, in a balanced manner for the continuation of its cycles and the renewal of its vital processes
• To restoration: It is the right to the effective and opportune restoration of life systems affected by direct or indirect human activities
• To live free of contamination: It is the right for preservation of Mother Earth and any of its components with regards to toxic and radioactive waste generated by human activities.
•  

 

**Five Million Acres at Risk for New Oil Development in 2012

Pachemama's lungs are the forests of our planet, and Her lungs are our lungs.  The Ecuadorean government is in advanced negotiations to open five million acres of pristine rain forest in the south central Amazon basin for new oil development in early 2012.  The   Pachemama Allience  is working with indigenous partners to resist this new threat. For more information about the situation in Ecuador:

A Sad Synchronicity

 "Today, I would describe a priestess as a woman who lives in two worlds at once, who perceives earthly life against the backdrop of a vast, timeless, reality."

  Jalaja Bonheim

In my Valentine's day Post, I shared some thoughts about Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of love.  One of the things I found interesting was a correspondence that had been going on with a friend in Portland who is bringing up a ritual with Goddess masks.  Apparently, she and others in her group are frustrated because they can't seem to get the Aphrodite mask to "cooperate"..........several priestesses have volunteered to dance the mask, and then abruptly withdrawn.  Some discussion has passed among us about the deeper meanings of Aphrodite in our contemporary world.  I love psychologist and priestess Jalaja Bonheim's book Aphrodite's Daughters, the compassion with which she illuminates this through women's stories.  She is also, quite appropriately, the founder of  the Institute for Circle Work in Ithaca, New York.

My friend and collaborator, Macha NightMare, is a potent weaver and circle maker, and I would not have made the original collection of Goddess masks had I not met her, and followed her to the Spiral Dance, and later the performances she organized with many communities.  The masks being used currently in Portland have their origins in her inspiration some 12 years ago, and are infused with the energies of community she gathered. I see that Macha will dedicate the ritual in May to Luanne, who I did not know, but was friends with her partner, Tami.   I was saddened to receive an email from Macha today about the death of a priestess of Aphrodite, on Valentine's day:


"I've been distracted due to the dying of a close friend in the Reclaiming community; she'd been fighting leukemia for 2.5 years and she passed thru the veil last evening.  I'd like to dedicate this ritual to her memory.  Luanne Blaich, Priestess of Aphrodite (Aug. 29, 1962 - Feb. 14, 2012)."
  
From Reclaiming's bio:  "Luanne was a teacher in the Reclaiming Tradition for 7 years -   committed to radical sanity, ecstatic devotion to the Goddess, and living in the Good Reality. Her magick is informed by a lifetime's study of movement and dance technology as well as drawing on many different shamanistic and magickal traditions. She is a devotee of Aphrodite."

There is a circle here I honor.

New Masks

I'm not always sure where these characters come from..............but the masks filling my head are definately elemental.  They await storytellers, and story!  The above mask is a Trickster Goddess - I don't know her name, but she just kept flitting in and out of my imagination until I gave her a face.  Now she needs a name, and a voice!

 

This is a Volcano Goddess.  Not Pele................I know she seems frightening, but to me, the image is about giving birth, which is what a volcano does, gives birth to new land, to new life, the substance of the continents coming forth from the hot core of the earth.  The land is born in fire.  

This mask I call "The Lady of Avalon", and is a meditation for me upon my experiences there, in the place of the ancient sacred springs, the Red Spring  and the White Spring.  More on that later.........feels good to be in the studio, and more good news, I'm 1/3 of the way to achieving my funding with my proposal! 

THE MASKS OF THE GODDESS

Proposal for a  Community Arts Project  to be Funded with "Kickstarter"

Aphrodite and Jalaja Bonheim

 

"Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love "

Leonard Cohen, "Dance Me To The End Of Love"

A friend in Portland is facilitating a ritual performance with masks, and I was a bit amused to learn that the mask of Aphrodite had been chosen by 3 women to invoke, and then each had withdrawn.   In my experience, one does not aspect a Goddess lightly!  When I last heard, they were still seeking a priestess to dance the mask.  I think invoking the energies of Aphrodite especially is no small task!  As I write I  remember a performance in 2001 in which the mask was danced by a beautiful woman with black silk gloves, to the music of "Dance Me To The End Of Love".

Aphrodite was "born from the sea", and without writing about the many sources of the mythic Aphrodite, it seems fitting that the Goddess of love should have her power and source in the vast depths of the ocean.  I also have to say that, considering the blog entry that preceeds this one, I believe Aphrodite........Eros.........is very wounded in our world, and I don't need to go very far to demonstrate my claim.  

 

 "Today, I would describe a priestess as a woman who lives in two worlds at once, who perceives earthly life against the backdrop of a vast, timeless, reality."

  Jalaja Bonheim

Allow me below to introduce one of my personal Heroines,  Jalaja Bonheim, a psychologist, temple dancer, and creator of the Institute for Circle Work in Ithaca, New York who has devoted much of her life to healing that wound.  She is the author of Aphrodite's Daughters: Women's Sexual Stories and the Journey of the Soul.  After spending her childhood in Austria and Germany, Jalaja studied classical temple dance in India before coming to the United States in 1982. She is the author of three other books as well, which were inspired by her passion for integrating sexuality and spirituality in our world, and empowering women.                                                                                                                            

"I think that every woman should have the opportunity, at some point in her life, to set down her sexual baggage among people who respect and support her, and to unpack it with them.  Our isolation has reinforced the assumption that nobody shares our feelings, or cares about our story, or wants to know.  But our individual baggage is never just ours alone.  Rather it belongs to the collective.  Other women have their own piece to carry.  The time has come to speak of what we know.  In the Temple we now sit in silence, a circle of priestesses.  One by one, each of us has stepped forward to make her offering.  Each one has given her gift, revealing through her story a beauty that made us catch our breath, a courage that renewed our own.  Around us we sense the spirits of many others - mothers and grandmothers, lovers and husbands, teachers and guides, the spirits of the ancestors and the spirits of those who are yet to come."

(from Aphrodite's Daughters)

APHRODITE IN BROOKLYN

Please allow me to take off my shoes,
this faux marble pose 
this modern, pragmatic mask.
Permit me my ruin.

Let us not consider this therapy
 or revolution
do not ask me to give you space
let us not discuss those who came before
and those who might follow.
Let us not talk of past lives.

I have fallen on hard times.
If you come to my temple
 just let me make for you an ocean.

Half seen in the darkness
your body, a mystery
true, tangible, radiant,
lined with the rings of your life.

You are beautiful,
beautiful to be a man.

Darling, even in this era, I will not believe
that love is disposable,
that sex is safe
that lovers are trains, rolling past each other
to some certain station 

  I remember,
  I almost remember my river source

My skin forms the word anew,
     yes,
     enter me
     as if

    you were coming home

             Lauren Raine (1999)

The Handmaid's Tale......

 If you think medievil thinking is a thing of the past, think again.  As we progress into a future of massive over-population, diminishing resources, and global warming,  the wise patriachs have a solution:  let's keep girls  pregnant, barefoot,  ignorant and in their place, as "He" supposedly ordains in the Bible. Remember Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?

The right-wing has officially gone off the rails. Some have even compared Obama to Hitler - why?  Because the administration approved a rule mandating insurance coverage of birth control.Now Congress is saying they're going to overturn the mandate. "Pro-choice" used to mean abortion.  Now it is also apparently used to mean people who advocate birth control and women's rights to control their bodies.

According to NARAL  since the beginning of the 112th Congress the anti-choice majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has consistently been unleashing legislation attacking women's right to chose contraception.  They tried to eliminate funding for birth control and cancer screening at Planned Parenthood clinics nationally.   They have passed legislation that would allow hospitals to deny women emergency abortion care, even if it means she will die without it.  If this  was happening to people of color, there would be a huge outcry.  But because it's an issue of sexual control and discrimination, instead of racist, few take the time to notice.

I find this, and the very idea of government determining the availability of birth control........scary.  This pushes the envelope towards theocracy, a theocracy of the religious  right that, ironically, also reacts violently to any suggestion of "socialism" and a "welfare state".  It seems that girls may not protect themselves from becoming pregnant, but after conception, they and their children are on their own.....punished, just like the good days, for the great sin of not having been "chaste".

I know from first hand experience what it's like to be a very young girl, pregnant, and alone. I have great compassion as well for children born to children themselves.    I know  how hard women have fought for the right to vote, to work, to own property, and to control their own bodies, rights only available within the relatively recent past. Remember:  It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that a woman could own property, or control her own assets.   Black men were given the right to vote in 1870.  But women (of any color)  were not allowed the right to vote until 1920, 50 years later!  Until very recently, birth control was still illegal in some states, including Connecticut ( in 1965, the Supreme Court  ruled in the case Griswold v. Connecticut  that prohibiting the use of contraceptives violated the "right to marital privacy"). In 1972, the case Eisenstadt v. Baird expanded the right to possess and use contraceptives to unmarried couples.  1972!
Here's a petition circulating to support birth control today:

http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/congressbc/?referring_akid=a418651.99468.hFKWrT&source=copy_thanks_email

Masks for the Numinous

"Ocean"

"O fountain mouth, giver, you, mouth, which
speaks inexhaustibly of that one, pure thing,—
you, mask of marble placed before
the water's flowing face..."

from Sonnets to Orpheus
by Rainer Maria Rilke 

In our proposal  Macha wants  masks that are elemental, allowing "voice" to goddesses that have their origins in places...the land, the waters, the forests -  the true wellsprings of myth.    To our ancestors, as to  indigenous cultures today that have been able to preserve their traditions like the Aborigines of Australia, or the Hopi in Arizona, the entire world was alive and conversant.  One way the "mythic conversation" occurred was by personifying the spirits of place.  As Macha  (and I) believe, the experience of communing with the elemental powers is grounded and woven into myth, but the experience is  real. The Pythoness or Oracle drew her visions from the heightened energies, the "mind" of sacred Delphi.   Hawaiians tell traditional stories about Pele, the Goddess of Kilauea - but many modern people, visiting the great volcano, have come away with personal stories of transformation, wonder, and mystery.  

"Volcano Spirit"

We feel the numinous power of special places, the  "anima", be it a life giving spring, a cave with oracular potency, or the generous "devas" that infuse an orchard with fruitfulness.  How many rivers bear the names of Goddesses, for example the river Avon in England, derived from the Celtic goddess Abnoba?  How many mountains are called a Goddess, or a God?

How, in other words, do we "talk with the Earth", and what might the many voices of Gaia have to say, voices garnered from sacred places throughout his/herstory?

'The River Face"

Myths (and masks) are portals that can open possibilities of  "communion with the invisible realms", because myths (like masks) open windows into the country of the mythic imagination.  In other words, giving a "face", a "voice", and personae to the elemental powers isn't  just about creating  fairy tales.  It's about finding a human face for the ineffable,  so the conversation, generations long,  can be more readily translated into human language.  Does that make sense?
  
"Numen ("an influence perceptible by mind but not by senses", pl. numina) is a Latin term for a potential, guiding the course of events in a particular place or in the whole world, used in Roman philosophical and religious thought. The many names for Italic gods may obscure this sense of a numinous presence in all the seemingly mundane actions of the natural world." (Wikipedia)

"Fey"

I've always loved the notion of "numina", the local deities of early Rome.  Pomona is one such Roman goddess who derived from simple shrines placed near orchards, revered as the lady who helped the apples and grapes to grow.



When I made my pilgrimage to Glastonbury this past summer I visited again and again the sacred springs -  the White Spring (which is in an underground chamber, and they wouldn't let me publish the photos I took), and the Red Spring (the Chalice Well).

The Red Spring (Chalice Well), Glastonbury, England

I profoundly felt the power of these holy springs, as well as the Tor, which is (I believe) the source of the two springs.  People have been coming to Glastonbury for millenia on pilgrimage, the site of Avalon, and Arthurian lore, and the famous Glastonbury Abbey.  One of the first things I encountered in "Avalon" were many works of art devoted to the "Lady of the Lake", and everywhere, violet, amethyst, and purple.  Here's a photo I took inside the Tor - notice the "purple haze" that the camera consistently recorded in my photos there.

"That two springs, one red and one white, should rise together and flow out from one of the most remarkable hills in the British Isles strikes a profound chord in the imagination.  In esoteric tradition, the Tor as world centre and axis mundi provides the means of passage between the mundane world and the spiritual realms.  In such a place, the veils separating ordinary reality from spiritual planes can thin or dissolve, allowing those who are receptive to receive the guidance and blessings of the otherworld.  The guardian spirits of the Avalonian soul-portal invite all those who are drawn here to pass through the symbolic gateway that is the Tor.  The interplay between the subtle energies of the Red and White Springs is a vital key to understanding the impact of this experience upon the individual soul-body."

 THE RED AND WHITE SPRINGS OF AVALON , Nicholas R Mann and Philippa Glasson

52 fully illustrated pages available from  http://www.thetemplepublications.com/

The monastery in Glastonbury gradually drained the lake and swamplands around the Tor with a system of irrigation channels to create farmland, but in earlier times the Tor must have been visible as a mysterious island in the mists, the "isle of Avalon".  Today the deep springs still pour from the slopes of that island - the iron-rich red waters of Chalice Well which arise from beneath Chalice Hill and flow out through the Chalice Well gardens; and the waters of the adjacent White Spring, arising from beneath Glastonbury Tor. 

So, today I'm working on a mask dedicated to "the Lady of the Springs of Avalon".  Although there is so much lore and mythological legacy connected with this ancient place of pilgrimage, I'm going to just go with my own intuitive vision, and hope I produce a mask that will, like the ever-flowing waters of Avalon, be used to dance new stories about this sacred place into the world.

Barbara Ehrenreich on the darker side of positive thinking

Artwork by Catherine Nash

It's got nothing to do with masks or my Goddess project (although a trickster mask, black and white, seems to be evolving on the worktable.  Wonder what she has to say?) but I felt like sharing this fascinating animated video in which acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the "darker side of positive thinking", with an emphasis upon the corporate world.

At the movies recently Coca Cola announced some kind of program whereby they're going to save the polar bears, and we saw some happy, singing polar bears leaning against an iceberg drinking Coca Cola.  Was I the only one  stunned by the hypocrisy?  Coca Cola addiction has produced millions of diabetics.............and is it really so easy to forget that the reason polar bears are becoming extinct is because our civilization, including the factories that produce Coca Cola, is changing our climate?  Wouldn't it be better for children (and adults) to at least experience the truth, rather than soothing images of dancing polar bears?

I am not really a "positive" person by nature, and often have to work very hard to shift my consciousness away from habitual dark tracks. Sometimes, I don't want to. A good depression can inform one of authentic needs, a tantrum releases blocked or stagnant energy, getting pissed off is sometimes not only appropriate but absolutely necessary.  Don't get me wrong..........I absolutely agree with the necessity for positive thinking and affirmation......but not at the expense of empathy and reality.

Sometimes the soul needs a wailing wall,  sometimes  spirit needs to ferment and incubate in its depressions, and sometimes the heart needs to tell its dark story in order to heal.  Sometimes we need to face the truth, which gives us the power to be present.