Saturday, January 19, 2013

Conference on Current Pagan Studies 2013

Pagan Sensibilities in Action

9th Annual Conference

January 26 and 27, 2013

Claremont Graduate University, Burkle Building
Corner of 8th & Dartmouth
Claremont, CA 91711

Keynote Speakers

Peter Dybing and Sabina Magliocco

 I'm very pleased to be able to present again at the Conference this year..........if you live in the Los Angeles area, perhaps I'll see you there!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

James Lovelock and Gaia


James Lovelock, the Father of Gaia Theory (with collaborator Lynn Margulis) is 94.  I felt like making a mask dedicated to Gaia, and to him.

Lovelock truly did offer a new paradigm to the Earlth Sciences community, and the world in general, and certainly Gaia Theory has had a profound impact on me.  The idea the the Earth is a living being, self-regulating, evolving, and we participate in that evolution...........has truly been a paradigm shift. 




Monday, January 14, 2013

One Man, One Cow, One Planet

http://www.onemanonecow.com

/
 It's very important now to find hope, and there are heroes all over the place, I've found, people doing great things for both the present and the future, and yet you rarely hear of them.  New Zealander  Peter Proctor and his wife are such Heroes, quietly creating a revolution with biodymanic agriculture.  As we face the consequences of big business farming and an unsustainable future, here is another movie that is freely available, and very important.  

What they have to say: 

"What does an environmentally friendly biodynamic food system  actually look like? Here's  a blueprint for a post-industrial future.  The outcome of the battle for agricultural control in India may just dictate the future of the earth.  Our existence on this planet is precarious. Desertification, water scarcity, toxic cocktails of agricultural chemicals pervading our food chains, ocean ecosystem collapse, gmo, soil erosion and massive loss of soil fertility. Our ecosystems ore overwhelmed. Humanity's increasing demands are exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity.

Modern agriculture causes topsoil to be eroded at 3 million tons per hour. (that’s 26 billion tons a year)- Human mass is replacing biomass and other species. The carrying capacity of the earth is almost spent.  The mantra of free trade has failed the world’s poor. There is a better way.
Biodynamic agriculture may be the only answer we have left."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y1xMauClzU



Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Solstice Ceremony at Willits

Mana Youngbear as Dawn
I wanted to share these wonderful photos from the Solstice ritual  my colleagues Ann Waters  (visit her blog  Annie Green Jeans) and Mana Youngbear, creator of The Muse in Willits, both in Northern California, put on at their community center.  I feel very privileged that they use my masks, and they are evolving a full performance to be tentatively produced in March.

Everyone loves, especially, the photo above of Dawn presiding over the cauldron of a new year and new world............it's the "year of the snake", and note the flame rising from the cauldron that looks very much like a snake.  Snake is an ancient symbol of the Earth Mother, with origins that go back to prehistoric Egypt. We'll take that as a sign!

In fact, as I was preparing this post, there was a lovely synchronicity.  I was answering an email from Mana, informing her that a new set of masks had been shipped, and concluded the note by asking what she thought was "next" to make.  After sending out the email, I noticed a new email had just popped up, titled "Butterfly Woman".  It was from a woman in Ireland who works with children, using stories for therapy, and she was asking permission to use the image from my website.  I would say, synchronistically speaking, that's a pretty "instant answer", so off to the studio to make another Butterfly Woman mask (the ones pictured were sold long ago), and they can put these ideas of transformation, chrysalis, and children, who are the future..........into their Cauldron of Evolution.

Meanwhile, gratitude to all those who wore these masks, and produced their beautiful Solstice. And gratitude to the photographer, Jerri Jo Idarius (all these photos are copyright J.J. Idarius).  I wish I had been there, but the photos give me inspiration and impetus.


Gaia

The Lady of Avalon mask



Ann Waters


Volcano

Pachamama mask

Monday, January 7, 2013

Gerson Nutritional Therapy for Cancer

Original book by Dr. Gerson

I watch a lot of films while I work, which I guess my posts demonstrate, but I consider it a great  privilege of our time that so many important films are available, many virtually for free. Thanks to the rapid evolution of video technology, people can make professional and effective documentaries, whereas 20 or 30 years ago this was not possible.  It's an incredible resource, and great generosity on the part of those who allow their work to be shared.  We are fortunate indeed to live in a time so much profound information is available, literally at our fingertips. 


In 1975, I ran across a book by Dr. Paavo Airola, a famous naturopathic doctor, and after reading it spent most of my tax return on a Challenger juicer (which I still have).  Airola and Gerson were contemporaries.

Dr. Gerson emigrated to the U.S. in the late 30's, fleeing the rise of Nazism in Germany.  He developed a treatment, over many years, for cancer and other degenerative diseases,  using nutritional therapy, supplements, and detoxification.  He had many amazing successes with his protocol, including Albert Schwitzer (who praised him highly), and his own daughter, who recovered from tuberculosis and runs the Gerson Institute to this day at the age of 84.  What is equally amazing is that in this country he is routinely discredited, dismissed as a quack, and Gerson Therapy is not even allowed to be practiced as medicine in the U.S.A. (The Gerson Clinic is in Mexico, not far from San Diego).  Wikipedia's page for Dr. Gerson is dismissive and discredits his work.........which makes the movie below all the more important to watch. As the film points out, the "establishment" can be very narrow minded, and cancer is very big business.

 I've lost friends to cancer, including my dear friend Felicia to breast cancer in 2010. 

 Dr. Gerson died in 1959 under mysterious circumstances - he had finished his manuscript for the book above, and became ill.  While recovering, the manuscript disappeared.  When he was well again he wrote the entire book once more from only his notes.  Shortly after it was published he became ill again, and having himself tested, learned that he had been poisoned with arsenic.  If he had not recovered from his first illness, there would have been no book about his work.

What I understand from both Airola and Gerson is that in treating disease the best way to recruit the healing abilities of our bodies is to 1) provide maximum, easily absorbed nutrition, in particular, from green vegetables, and living foods that have lots of enzymes which are absolutely vital in healing and detoxification.  2) Juicing allows us to absorb very high quality organic nutrition, but doesn't demand the amount of energy that eating solid foods does, allowing the body to devote more of its resources to healing and detoxing, which it does when fasting.  And 3) to facilitate detoxification in all ways.

Gerson's diet for people who are critically ill is very limited:  no meat, no dairy, no corn, no legumes, no grains, no soy, no nuts or seeds, no oils (including avocado), no alchohol, and certain foods, such as berries, bananas, and yams, are also excluded.  The diet is readily available in books published by the Gerson Insitutute or just online, including explanations of why certain foods are, for the course of healing therapy, to be avoided.  They make no secret of the protocol.

I hope a day will come when conventional medicine will work hand in hand with Gerson's therapy, and believe that, thanks to the internet and sites like TOPDOCUMENTARYFILMS.COM,  or even Netflix, this will happen.  Another recent film that demonstrates the healing power of juicing is the wonderful (and very funny) film by Joe Cross Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
( http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/) in which he, and then a friend he made along the way to filming his project, fasted for 60 days on juice.  Joe has a great website, with lots of testimonials from people who've taken inspiration from his film and gone on to "reboot their lives". 

 http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dying-to-have-known/

In Dying To Have Known, filmmaker Steve Kroschel went on a 52-day journey to find evidence to the effectiveness of the Gerson Therapy – a long-suppressed natural cancer cure.

"His travels take him across both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, from upstate New York to San Diego to Alaska, from Japan and Holland to Spain and Mexico.

In the end, he presents the testimonies of patients, scientists, surgeons and nutritionists who testify to the therapy’s efficacy in curing cancer and other degenerative diseases, and presents the hard scientific proof to back up their claims.
 
You will hear from a Japanese medical school professor who cured himself of liver cancer over 15 years ago, a lymphoma patient who was diagnosed as terminal over 50 years ago as well as noted critics of this world-renowned healing method who dismiss it out of hand as pure quackery

So the question that remains is, Why is this powerful curative therapy still suppressed, more than 75 years after it was clearly proven to cure degenerative disease? The viewers are left to decide for themselves."

The Gerson Institute has workshops, and also offers the workshops via the internet, for those interested:   http://gerson.org/gerpress/gerson-basics-workshop/

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Women healing the World Movie



At the Vancouver Peace Summit in September 2009, the Dalai Lama announced, “The world will be saved by the Western woman.”

His comment has sparked controversy, including one very dense journalist who said he had visions of blond valkyries riding forth to battle armageddon.  Some people seriously can't think outside the box.

To me, the Dalai Lama is, and always has been, a very practical man, and what he comments on is the arising of women and woman's priorities in our war torn, greed driven world.  Western women predominantly have access to education, empowerment,  and resources that their sisters in poor nations are struggling to gain (and they will).  

 I've been feeling lately that this year, 2013, is going to be very much about the arising of women and the rising of the Goddess.   My sense about this is almost too much for me to somehow squeeze into an article or blog entry...........it's from scanning many bits of information and news that have been coming my way lately.  And, from dreams.

Here's a movie coming out that seems very hopeful to me, and includes interviews with some of my favorite cultural transformers, women who have profoundly impacted our world:  Riane Eisler, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Sandra Ingerman, Gloria Steinem, and others.

13 is the magical number of the Goddess, and has been for a very long time, because there are 13 lunations in a month (month -moon), and 13 menstrual cycles.  The origin of the "unlucky Friday the 13th" myth may go back to patriarchal re-mything of symbols once sacred to the Divine Feminine, as Friday derives from the name of an ancient Nordic goddess, Freya (Friday - Freya's Day).  So, for people inclined like myself, Friday the 13th is a lucky day, because it's a sacred day of the Goddess.


So, may 2013 see the profound arising of the feminine, bringing healing, justice, peace, and Restoring the Balance.


 
 
From Women Will Save the World, edited by Caroline Shearer:

“At a time when it is clear that life and business as usual is leading us towards collective calamity, we search for signs and wisdom that can help us imagine a new world and tell ourselves a new story. If women are to help lead the world towards a more just, peaceful, and abundant future, what is it that lives in women that holds these keys? What might live in us that we haven't considered as sources of strength and ingenuity that could support our coming together in unity to co-create and birth a new earth? Women always have been at one with birth and renewal, and Mother Nature shows us that the life cycles of the seed, from blossom to death to re-birth, are part of our universal reality."

- Jennifer Buffett, President of NoVo Foundation

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

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



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



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


Debra D. Carroll "From Huacas to Mesas"
DIALOGUES WITH THE LIVING EARTH, compiled by James and Roberta Swan (1989)



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

Martin Gray

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

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





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