Tuesday, October 2, 2012

THE GODDESS REMEMBERED - Film by Donna Read

 
THE GODDESS REMEMBERED is a beautifully crafted documentary directed by Donna Read and produced by the Canadian Film Board, an in-depth look at Goddess religions in prehistory, the evolution of contemporary Goddess spirituality, and "The  Burning Times", the witch-hunt hysteria that swept through Europe during the Inquisition. Goddess Remembered features Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Luisah Teish, Starhawk, Charlene Spretnak, and Jean Bolen, who link the loss of goddess-centred societies with today's environmental crisis. They propose a return to the belief in an interconnected life system, with respect for the earth and the female, as fundamental to our survival. Goddess Remembered is the first part of a three part series which includes The Burning Times and Full Circle1989.


This excerpt is from "The Burning Times", and talks about the massive torture and burnings that were the ultimate in misogyny and sexual repression represented by the Catholic Church.  If one wonders where the "war on women" going on in Congress right now comes from, here's one of the precedents.   It is estimated that as many as 10 million people, all most all of them  women,  were murdered in this time, ironically, the same period when the Renaissance was flowering in Italy.  As early as 1450, and before,  witch hunts took place in Europe. In some villages virtually all the females, from grandmothers to small girls, were exteminated - an example is the village of  Lagendorf, Germany,  in 1492 (when America was being "discovered") all but two women were accused of witchcraft and destroyed.  Just  imagine that:  an entire village with all of its mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and event female infants destroyed. 




Saturday, September 29, 2012

Jesse the Jack Russell

Ok, I can't help myself.  I'm in a UTube kind of full moon mood.

There's a big difference between the intelligent  existentialism of a cat like, say, Henri, and dogs.  I'm a cat person, but I have to admit, this Jack Russell Terrier would come in handy.  



Jesse has the life of a domestic slave.   Henri, on the other hand, is considering running for office:


Thursday, September 27, 2012

A Thousand Hands of Quan Yin - Stunning Performance by Deaf & Blind Performers

Thousand Hand Guan Yin-"Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva is an astonishing performance in celebration of the Goddess of Compassion, Quan Yin.  It is even more astonishing when one learns that this Chinese production was performed by deaf  and blind performers.  Quan Yin, like Tara, is the embodiment of infinite mercy and assistance to all who call on her.  She is "She who hears the cries of the world".   Avalokitesvara means  "Lord/Lady who looks down", a  Bodhisattva who embodies compassion. Kuan Yin has a thousand arms with which to scatter blessings, a thousand arms with which to bring help to those in need. What an amazing invocation these performers make!

 http://youtu.be/xgHmSdpjEIk



http://youtu.be/Ov_iJQGq6DI


The Martian Chronicles



 Rock Hudson:  "How should we live?"

Martian:  "Anyone with eyes can see the way to live."

Rock Hudson:  "How?"

Martian:  "By watching life, observing nature, and cooperating with it.  By living life for itself, don't your see?  Deriving pleasure from the gift of pure being.  Life is its own answer.  Accept it and enjoy it day by day.  Live as well as possible.  Expect no more.  Destroy nothing, humble nothing, look for fault in nothing, leave unsullied and untouched all that is beautiful.  Hold that which lives in all reverence, for life is given by the sovereign of our universe, given to be savored, to be respected. But that’s no secret." 

From THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, 1979.




 I miss Ray Bradbury.  I miss when aliens were wise beings more evolved than us.  I've always loved this quote from the movie.  

 

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Daniel Dancer's Sky Art




earthwheel
"If we can make a creative crack in the world's deadly abstractions,
the divine will rush up bringing great bounty with it." 

Here's one of my favorite Green artists.  His medium?  People! His canvas?  The Earth!  I take the liberty of copying below from his website.

 Daniel Dancer, who lives in Oregon, became fascinated with sky art while traveling in South America in the 80's  and encountering the  Nazca Lines of Peru. When he returned home, he began working with Kansas field artist, Stan Herd, who creates giant images on the Earth by using a tractor as a paint brush and crops for color. 

One day, Daniel decided to bring an entire elementary school out to perform as beads on the headband of a 25 acre Indian head. . A decade later the parents of one of the "bead kids" told him that the experience taught him that things aren't always as they seem . . . that a Big Picture View of the world is really important!
kidsasbeads
450 children perform as "beads" on headband of  "The Native American,"
a 20 acre field image  by Stan Herd  (photo © Daniel Dancer 1989)
     
 In an earlier time, art was more than what someone else did for us to collect for the walls and tables of our homes. We were all artists and doing art was a part of life which connected us to the whole of nature.  Daniel Dancer's art, events and residencies are an effort to reclaim this way.  Whether crafted alone in a sacred manner upon the ravaged areas of Earth, or with a community of others, his way of art is medicine for ourselves and the Wild.  His  practice is a deep way to give thanks for the beauty which surrounds us and to seek forgiveness from Earth for the damage inflicted by humankind. Through story, intention and participation with others, each piece becomes a way to activate a healing responsiveness from our culture. Uncollectable, his works have real and intrinsic value...like Earth herself

Dancer's decade long photography work with Stan became the material for a five-year touring show with Exhibits USA called Fields in Focus: Art For the Sky, and a book called Crop Art and Other Earth Works. Daniel's fascination with developing humanity's big picture vision led him to work with Lighthawk (the environmental air force) aerially documenting the human impacts upon the natural world. His interest guided him across the continent in the creation of varied found art works upon the Earth that made the most sense when viewed from above. Believing that "only from the sky can we truly understand our rightful fit in the world," Daniel's mission is to awaken what he calls "sky-sightedness". To awaken this way of seeing the world he founded Art For the Sky in 2000.
 
Daniel's work as a conceptual artist and educator has been shaped by his travels worldwide in search of styles of being that engender happiness and sustainability. His striking images of beauty and destruction have been published in hundreds of publications worldwide and viewed in galleries across America. It is precisely this interface between wild nature and devastation that most greatly informs his work and which led him to try to reach as many people as possible through sky art.  Working with communities from Alaska to Australia Dancer has documented his work in various ways. An Exhibits USA tour called Sacred Ground-Sacred Sky: An Eco-Experience became their second most requested show in its five year tour across the country. This 32 picture educational exhibit is currently seeking a permanent home where it can be on public display. All of Dancer's work to date is documented in his book, DESPERATE PRAYERS: A Quest for Sense in a Senseless Time. Dancer is the founder of Rowena Wilds, a 200 acre, eco-community near Hood River, Oregon where he lives in his Earth-sheltered home built of recycled and Earth friendly materials.  


Peace Dove with Rose, Portland, OR. 2002



Beyond the Sky - Grand Rapids, MI  2011

"This is the first of a 3D series of imagery called "Emergence." Here we see a mysterious "Pool
of Potential" that has opened up in the Earth, made up of children. Two giant albatross
are seen flying these "souls" into the reality of their birth . . . special souls that are visionary
and evolved and will help lead people into harmony with the planet and one another.
This is the first image where people play "themselves" rather than pixels on something else."

polarbear

 
Polar Bear Sky - Culminating Maryland's Green School Youth Summit, 700 participants
form a polar bear standing on an tiny iceberg floating in the ocean . . . an iconic representataion of global warming. Maryland's Governor O'Malley is the lone man on the ice. The 350 in red is the number climate scientists say is the maximum parts per million of greenhouse gasses we can have in our atmosphere. It is now 390 and going up.

governor


mamu
World Oceans Day in Victoria, BC 


 An endangered marbled murrelet made with 1000 students and teachers swims in a sea made of 1500 pairs of blue jeans and icebergs made of sheets. The 350 signifies the maximum parts per million of carbon we can have in our atmosphere to survive global warming.



Sky Whale, NSW Australia, 2007
 
A humpback whale made of bark chips and sand was built for the finale of the 5 Lands Walk. This annual festival is a 10K "walkabout" along a coastal path that knits five communities together in celebration of nature at the height of the humpback whale migration. 
ravens
RAVEN'S MESSAGE
Butte College, California sustainability students depict a raven flying over Earth as the polar ice caps are melting. Raven has a message: Achieve a ceiling 350 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere or risk climate catastrophe. Fall, 2009.


crane
Dancing Crane. Hinkle Middle School 5th graders bow down before the image
of a sandhill crane created out of mulch, in a ceremony to welcome these great
birds to the the soon to be restored Snowden Wetlands near White Salmon, WA.
A collaboration with Columbia Gorge Ecology Institute (2008)


bidder 70
Power to the Peaceful
On February 28th, 2011 in Salt Lake City, Utah, activists took to the streets to sing, march and do sky art in a display of solidarity with Tim DeChristopher, aka "bidder 70", whose trial for civil disobedience in defense of Utah wilderness and climate justice began that day.


peacehappens
Raising the Dove peace mandala during Alliance for Peace Conference
in Vancouver, WA. 2008  (see 90 sec. movie)



book1 
Daniel Dancer's book shares his travels as he creates healing art in ten endangered ecosystems. He reflects on spirituality, indigenous knowledge, quantum physics, psychology, and ecological principles. The result is a  hopeful gift for apocalyptic times. Entertaining,  and beautifully illustrated.




Saturday, September 22, 2012

Spirit Photos and Energy Work

O Great Mother Goddess

We call on you now.
Rise up from your roots.
Hear us, our voices of pathos.
See our dancing feet,
With our hearts, we drum you back. 

Erica Swadley
  I've been doing  energy work  that is about the ways we block ourselves with negative patterns....not just as ideas, but as unconscious fields, "resonance".   I don't know how to describe the work, to be honest, except to say that it's come to me in a rather miraculous way.  I thank Lonnie for her generosity!

This past week she gave me some "homework".  We were working on the way that I have, in the past ten years, shut down much of my psychic sensitivities, because of being in an  unsupportative environment (family) as well as some negative experiences in the past. Living in a field of "unbelief" creates unbelief.  But now it's time to open again, so that I can be  more integral in all aspects of my life.  Filtering experience through what we "believe" has a lot to do with what we actually experience (remember the old saying that to a thief, the greatest saint in the world is just a set of pockets?).

Homework was to do something that "takes back power from not believing".  I  said that I would share my spirit photos, because they are one of the most extraordinary affirmations I've ever received.  Taken at a performance/ritual called "Restoring the Balance" by photographer Anne Beam in 2004, I've always felt there was a reason they happened, and  they were meant to be shared because spirit had something to say. But I've received all kinds of negative dismissals from people about them, including people who think I, or Anne, "photoshopped" them.  I didn't, and I know Anne didn't either.
Spider Woman weaving with audience

To read about the performance, and the way it came to be, there's an article on my website:  "Restoring the Balance - a Celebration of the Great Mother".  It's too difficult to show these photos with the entire context without re-writing the article, but in brief, different masks from my collection were used to perform stories of the Goddesses.The event was inspired by my meeting with a Native American storyteller, Grey Eagle, who spent  years among the Inuit in Alaska as an activist, sharing their stories and rituals.***

We used the "Story of Sedna", the wounded Earth/Ocean Mother of the Inuit, and their rituals of atonement and attunement as the focus for our performance, which was above all created as a ritual for the same purposes of Earth Honoring and Healing.  Synchronistically, as we were rehearsing the performance, we learned that a new planet had been discovered beyond Pluto, which had been named "Sedna".  The photos were taken by Anne of that performance/ritual on April 9th, 2004.   So here goes:




In this photo, Erica Swadley is performing the role of "Sedna's Shaman".  In the rituals that are done for "restoring the Balance", prayers and confessions are "gathered" by a female shaman (Grey Eagle told me this), who then takes them to the suffering Sedna deep in the depths of the ocean.  She brings the prayers and "promises to create a better life story" to her, and cleans her body from the filth that has fallen down upon her.  She combs Sedna's long hair, and brings to her the love and regrets of her people, asking her to forgive them, thanking her for food and life,  and to restore the balance.  Erica, I believe, chose this role because she herself is an experienced shamanic practitioner and healer, as well as a poet.  The photo shows her before the story begins, doing a prayer dance to invoke Sedna.  Notice the strange, but beautiful, overlay of two faces in this photo.  Erica is a white woman in her early 60's. The younger face, that seems to have white stripes painted on her cheeks, looks distinctly non-caucasion to me.  It's not Erica's face, and I don't believe she was praying/dancing alone.

Quynn Elizabeth rehearsing "Kali"
KALI

The "Invocation to Kali" was done by another prominent shaman in Tucson, Quynn Elizabeth.  Quynn had ritually worked with Kali in the past, and the Kali mask was a good fit.  Here she is in the dress rehearsal with the mask - note that her costume is black.  And here she is dancing at the performance itself.  There were theatrical lights on her, but nevertheless,
notice how she seems to "disappear". 
Quynn Elizabeth invoking "Kali"

Quynn Elizabeth performance and " emerging goat"
Goat?
Last picture of dance for "Kali".  A goat?

This is the most striking photo.......you can see the back of Quynn's head and her back, and there is a "figure 8" shape, and in front of that what Anne and I decided had to be a goat.  That seemed pretty bizarre, but later I thought about how in India goats and sheep were sacrificed to Kali when devotees went to pray.  Perhaps, symbolically, Kali was accepting our "Offering", and provided us with a "goat".     







THE VISITOR

Anne called this photo "the visitor".   It's the end of the performance,  all the cast has emerged and is circling in a dance just before the music stops and everyone takes a bow.  You can see the audience and the dancing cast, and between them a white form that looks like a head and shoulders.  Here's the photo after I put it into negative:
"Visitor" in negative
It looks even more like a face with high cheekbones.

SPIDER WOMAN

My favorite photos from the performance are those of dancer, Tarot instructor and Wiccan Priestess Morgana Canady performing the role of Spider Woman.  I used the story of Spider Woman, the great Weaver, to demonstrate the truth of interdependancy and interconnection as she wove a web (literally) with the audience from many cords that came from a "sacred hula hoop" she held around her waist.  For that brief while, as the entire room chanted "All One, All One" everyone there was connected to threads that were held by cast and audience, extending to the last aisle.  Morgana, aspecting Spider Woman and acting as a "filiment" at the center to raise the energy with the audience that will release the prayer/intention of the ritual, also seems to disappear in light.

Here Morgana prepares to "weave", building energy.



Here's the Web made of strands of cord being created with the audience.

  

Shapes that obscure a shot of the audience during the "weaving" segment - looks a bit like a hand to me.

My favorite photo - "Spider Woman's Hand".   The cords are from the "web" Morgana is weaving, cords the audience is holding and extending back.  The black blob on the right is one of "Spider Woman's assistants", who is wearing a black cape.  We have no idea what the little white spots all over the place are, perhaps they are like orbs, energy forms.  Just above the black caped shoulder is a hand that is weaving!  That hand cannot be explained, except that it is, for me, who has written about Spider Woman for many years, a hand of blessing and of  affirmation.  (And, interestingly, I went on to receive a fellowship at the Aldon Dow Creativity Center in Michigan in 2007 for a community arts project I called "Spider Woman's Hands".)

Why were we given these spirit photos?  I believe because Spirit wants us to know that we don't create sacred performance, ritual, or art alone.  We are given "invisible means of support".  Also, because the message that Grey Eagle (who passed away in 2006) gave us about Restoring the Balance with Mother Earth, and the return of the Divine Feminine is profoundly, profoundly important.  They want us to pay attention.

So, there's my "homework" Lonnie.  And as before, I am truly grateful for all the support I have received in all ways.  Blessed Be on Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox.

Mana Youngbear bringing the Grace of White Tara


*** Whenever I touch on this work, it always gets very synchronistic.  As I was beginning to write this article this morning, out of curiosity I googled "Restoring the Balance Ritual" to see if my previous article came up quickly on the internet.  My article came up number one, and after it a native American based site called "Earth Mother Crying" (http://www.earthmothercrying.org/Prophecy.htm)  (remember that the story of Sedna concerns Sedna crying and suffering beneath the ocean, and her Shaman going to comfort her).  If that wasn't enough, there is a rather long quote from a teacher (I want to investigate who he is further) called "Grey Eagle" on the page above.  He talks about the "5th Hoop" ..... which gives me insight into my long art project, the Rainbow Bridge.  And whoever is writing in the site talks about the importance of the return of the Feminine, and says that a great healing is going to start in Alaska!

Ok, my attention is fully engaged now, and I'm going to pursue this more in the future.  But for now, I need to close, but copy below a few words from the site above, which has provided me with such a splendid synchronicity.


"They say that this is necessary to help keep the balance of Mother Earth. And that there are keepers of this balance that are around the world like us.......In moving into this time of the World of the 5th Hoop, it is going to be a time of great healing.....and the Hopi say that it is going to start in the North. I have learned just recently that it is going to start in Alaska.....................
The signs of this time of healing that is to start are: When the children bring back the spirit to the village; when the young start speaking with the wisdom of the elders; when the leadership energies start shifting to the feminine side; when this hoop of the 100 eagles feathers gets completed. And when the White Bison shows up. These are all the signs of the movement from the 4th to the 5th Hoop.

Your intuition is going to tell you what I am saying is true. The world for the last 4,000 or so years has been stuck in the male energy side. The male energy is thinking from the brain. It is a management from the top down. It is more aggressive. It does not use intuition or feelings from the heart. It is a different kind of energy. It is not a bad energy. It is just different than the female energy. Female energy is healing, nurturing, loving, caring, touching, sharing. The world spiritual leaders know now that these energies have shifted to the female side.

The center of the top of the energy entrance to the Earth Mother is here through Alaska. The spiritual leaders say that a host, hosts of angels, are coming through Alaska-- spreading out throughout the world for this healing to take place.


Notes:  I found the  "Grayeagle" above on a few other sites.  This is not the Grey Eagle I met, of course, but I am fascinated by this synchronicity:   

"Blue Thunder, Teacher from among the Eastern Shoshone people, sent this significant message from Grayeagle from the Yukon Territory of Canada."  


Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Nature of Sacred Space by Sig Lonegren

 The Nature of Sacred Space

A tone poem Sig Lonegren wrote .........rediscovered it and felt like posting it.

All the Earth is Sacred,
With Every Step We Take
 
          so the chant goes,
          and, of course, it is true.
          But
           there
           are
           places

               where it is
               easier to
               perceive
               the Spirit
                     than others.
 
   
          Places
                where it might be
                easier to
                feel
                at one
                     with the One.

It's the Nature of Sacred Space.

                  It might be easier
                  to feel at one with the One
                  in Avebury Stone Ring

than, say, in Hell's Kitchen;
                  or in Mesa Verde
 than in Times Square.

                  So, there are places on this Earth
                        Where Spirit is concentrated;
                          Where it's "more sacred."



The weird thing about this concentration
is that everyone who goes there sees Spirit differently.
Some encounter Spirit
and see Jesus
Others see Mohammed,
Buddah,
or Cerridwen.
Then there's the Little People
and Manitou...

Dowsers are the same. . .             
          No two dowsers,
even if they
had the same
teacher,     
         find the same thing   
                    when dowsing in sacred space.

Some find energy leys and domes of water,
others find Curry and Hartmann Grids,
then there's Michael and Mary Lines,
and Aquastats and Track lines,
not to mention "energy lines"
and Maltese Crosses.
The list goes on and on.
                                
So, why does everyone
see it differently?

     I think it has
something
to do with
               the level of consciousness
of the individual,
          his/her set of expectations,
and   
     What s/he's ready to "see."
                  
Hmm. . . Who decides that last one - what we're ready to see?

Maybe it is Spirit.
Not some dumb energy with no consciousness.
But the Energy of Spirit with total eternal consciousness.

Maybe it is the Spirit of the Place
who decides what we see...

Sig Lonegren

The Nature of Sacred Space
http://www.sacredsites.co.uk  ©1998
http//:www.geomancy.org
http//:www.sunnybankglastonbury.co.uk