The Oracles - from "The Awakening" (Post #2)

Corizone Elliott as "The Pythoness - Oracle"

THE PYTHONESS:

Pilgrim and Kings, alike, answers sought, spoke of their hopes and dreams,

 journeyed to holy Delphi,  a crevice, deep in the earth,

 journeyed to the Oracle, the Sibyl, the Pythoness

 In trance, she spoke

 offered visions, offered hope:

Behold I draw a spiral for You - 

Step In I implore You

You are vessels of  

Finely Woven well pitched baskets

Ancient Urns, Carved boxes

and Medicine Bundles

Fashioned From Your Perfect Heart

They are Still Safe Inside HER Holy Womb

Ancient Prayers Stir the Air,

Stirring Breath and Bone 

Inspiration, Invocation, 

Your hope is yours alone.

To touch what was a memory brings no fruit, 

Your silent longing is the proof

As the Years move to months, 

Months move to days

Numina witness you this Night,

Numina witness you this Night,

Floating plastic, Trash, decay, 

Fill our planet and oceans today

Young and Old cry out to be free,

Grieving  loss from each killing spree

Earth Mother Gaia raped 

of soil and honor brings famine

Extinction threatens sockeye salmon

Elders sit alone in Hunger waiting; 

Chorus:  Man’s compassion dissipating.

Time to listen, Take note, Stand strong

Mark My Words - It won’t be long

When no water will be safe to drink, 

And Men will lose their right to think

Because their judgment is impaired 

with residue of regret and mind despaired.

Desolation’s Darkened Dance

Stomps out the last of free will’s chance

False pride clothed in glamour’s fashion -

a deceptive weaving of wasteful action

Chorus:  Grinding you down ...Back Down to dust.

A woman weeps - A baby cries, a seed refuses to grow

Where now there is open sea there once was gentle snow.

Fruitless trees that do not bear, drought pursues you everywhere.

But Listen within - Your Soul Still Knows.

Ageless Grace resounds around.

Chorus : A Prophecy is about to unfold

Thallia Bird as "The Weaver"

THE WEAVER:

Listen. Things are unraveling.   

Let me tell you about the fabric of your life. 

Your soul is the tightened yarn of the weft; your spirit is the weave. 

Your spirit is woven into the mat on which you kneel, 

into the cloak that wraps around the shoulders of your everyday lives.

 

Allow the distressed threads of your life to unravel. 

I have an old yarn. I have a new yarn.

Chorus: Take this yarn from me.

Form a weft that makes you strong

Take this yarn from me

Weave the threads so life goes on

 Take this yarn from me.

           

Stories are woven into the land. Stories wrap themselves

around old bones and compost, vine and curl and leaf in the night,

stories written in the rocks about Deer and Raven,

sung by a Tree Nesting Warbler, stories found

in the cold hearts of sleeping mountains.

Walk out into the orchard. Sit beneath a fruiting tree. 

Notice the shapes of things. The shape of the sky,

the shapes of the shadows, the shape of your own shadow.

There are cracks in the land like a spider web,

full of light, full of fire. Once,

you could see the Web as plain as day. 

Song lines, leylines, threads, the pattern. 

Each shining, woven thread.

It’ s time to weave a new story now.

See yourself as Spiderwoman, 

sitting in the center of your   web.

All of its snaking rivers and twining roots are inside of you! 

All those threads come right out of your hands and out of your hearts

All those threads just go on forever

Chorus:  

Into the Earth, and into each other: 

into all your stories, into everyone you'll ever know,   

Into all those who came before you, 

and all those who will come after you.

 

Script excerpts by Ann Waters, Mana Youngbear, Lauren Raine

All photographs are copyright Jerri Jo Idarius, and used with her permission.

My gratitude to the fabulous performers of Willits who danced the masks to life!

"The Awakening" - Ritual Performance Photos #1

Ann Waters as "Dawn of the New Aeon"

"Dawn of New Aeon - She arises! Mother awaken to us! We see her on the horizon, rising with the sun…New Aeon - take hold! We feel the changes coming. We are the web of life…be glad, sing praises, love one another."

I've received photos from The Awakening - Our Changing Earth the  performance created and produced by Ann Waters, in Collaboration with Mana Youngbear, the Muse in Willits, and her Community of performers and writers - wonderful!  There are so many beautiful photos, and excerpts from the script I'd like to share, that I don't know what to chose.  

So I'm not going to make just one post - I'd like to excerpt some of the performance photos, and the script, in several posts, to share these wonderful images and do justice to the cast.  So here goes!

My deepest gratitude to Annie, Mana, and all of the wonderful people in the Cast - for creating hope, beauty, bringing the masks to life, and giving voice to the Numina.  May this important story continue to unfold.

Mana Youngbear as "The Medicine Basket"

"You’ve gathered through the springtime, the summer and the fall. 

Your offerings are yours alone, and precious to us all.

 Now rest and build your strength up. Cycle with the moon.

Offer your song of life

 A very sacred tune. 

Dream of where you’re going

 Dream of where you’ve been

 Dreams  make the Gathering.  Beginnings never end."

"Rainbow Star Goddess"

"I bear a message of hope.   You are the Rainbow Bridge prophesized so long ago. Receive this  seed, YOU are the Rainbow."

All photographs are copyright Jerri Jo Idarius, and used with her permission.

Bolivia Passes Gender Violence Law

In 2010 Bolivia passed the "Law of the Rights of Mother Earth (Pachamama)", the first time the Earth Herself , and all of Her ecosystems and co-habiting creatures, has been recognized as having rights.  Now this:  truly, I applaud them! Would that my own country was this progressive.

Martin Luthor King said "I have a dream", and that speech continues to inspire.  It's time for half the human race to have a dream as well, a dream of living without violence, without rape, without discrimination for being born female.   

 DAVID DOUGHERTY, PRODUCER, TRNN: 

"In La Paz, Bolivia, community members and loved ones of Juana Quispe gather for a vigil, followed by a march on the prosecutor'’s office demanding justice and an end to violence against women. It’s been a year since Quispe was murdered, and like the majority of similar cases, nobody has been held responsible for her death. The Plurinational State of Bolivia has passed a new law aiming to address soaring levels of violence against women in the South American country. The new “Comprehensive Law to Guarantee Women a Life Free of Violence” was signed into effect by President Evo Morales on Saturday, March 9. The document touches upon a number of themes, including working in the areas of prevention, prosecution, sanctions, and of course restitution. Prevention means working with the Ministry of Education so that the educational curriculum can include the subject of gender equity and the subject of women's human rights…. The law also in a way allows the creation of specialized courts, authorities that will be trained in areas of gender, violence, human rights, and that this be applied in order to prevent cases from remaining in impunity."

http://youtu.be/okpLGWIiQUk

Water Harvesting in Tucson and Other Ways to Save the World

I've been doing some permaculture around my house, and have become excited by the work of  Brad Lancaster  who has developed many ways for people to harvest and conserve water in arid lands (I live in Arid Zona).    I'm excited to explore some of the options, and to that end have also signed up as a potential host with Workaway (http://www.workaway.info/), a wonderful site that connects travellers who wish to help out in exchange for room and board.  Check out the site .

Below is a fascinating TED talk by Allan Savory about desertification, and surprising ways to combat and restore desert areas. What he speaks about, and demonstrates, is both hopeful and absolutely surprising, going against the common ideas we have about the desertification process.  He shows the relationship between soil erosion, and the loss of very large, moving herds, such as the buffalo in our great Mid-Western grasslands.  Well worth watching!   And two videos with Tucson's Brad Lancaster.

I will not have any large herds of buffalo, or wolves, in my own backyard any time soon, so I must resort to a whole lot of digging.  Ok........now let's see if any travellers want to take me up on my offer and help me "green" my own backyard!

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts


 http://youtu.be/WymWRDd1OOg



http://youtu.be/4aQrZtG-LVg

Magic.....

"The Magician Card" from Rainbow Bridge Oracle

"The object isn’t to make art,
 it’s to be in that wonderful state 
which makes art inevitable.” 

~Robert Henri

Sometimes I wake up  with a strange, often annoying,  song playing in my head.  Usually one that won't go away until I sit down and think about it.  In the past I' ve had songs from  the Beachboys, commercials, and Peter and Gordon.  Recently it's  Olivia Newton John - three days of:

"Got to believe we are Magic,  nothing can get in our way" 

So.........what could this mean?  Is there something  I need to pay attention to, mediate on, or do I just have a loose synapse stuck in the 70's somehow? Considering I just wrote about Monsanto as comparable to Voldemort,  perhaps one meaning is that we must not allow such corporate Black Magic to sap our hope.  We can create change. 

 The Dictionary defines magic as "the belief that  things, people or events can be affected through supernatural forces".  Starhawk defined magic as a verb,  proactive:

"the art of changing consciousness at will" 

Perhaps, viewed as a verb rather than a noun,  "Magic" is a way of  "changing consciousness at will" in order to more consciously and  creatively engage with the co-creative universe, with Flow*.  That's where we become "Sorcerors", seeking an active connection with  "Source".  

In the painting I did for the  "Magician" Card, from the Rainbow Bridge Oracle  (it's actually a portrait of my ex-husband, who is also an artist) the  Magician is, making the universal gesture of Invocation.  I never saw the classical Tarot card as about  "commanding", but rather, using skilled attention and the various tools available, he is opening himself, inviting, the cosmic White Light  to work through and with him in order to create, to manifest on the material plane.  

He draws the white light of universal energy ("the Above") through his hand, through his will and and his willingness to create (to "handle").  But the light must move through is heart, his desire, inspiration and passion, in order to  manifest on the physical plane ("the Below").  Tapping into "Source", his creative energies manifest and unfold, and are broken into the "rainbow" components of the physical world in all of it’s  diversity, it's vast spectrum of form and expression and evolution.  From the One, the Many.   The Mage is an artist in every sense of the word, for his magic arises from  understanding and respect for the tools he has to work with,  and a realization that ultimately all things are one, connected to the infinite realm from which all manifestations originate. 

The card, read in my own deck, urges the persons being divined to remember that they are artists - the  Magicians of their lives.  We each can  "invoke" our  potential through wise use of will, vision and inspiration.   Reversed, the card can indicate an inability to manifest (create)  due to any number of conditions, including lack of self-esteem, discipline, or necessary education.  The Querant may also be rendering his or her  "power" over to others, and the card may indicate the presence of an individual displaying an  egotistic abuse of  power, or an  urge to manipulate others, that lacks both spiritual understanding and contact.

"Sympathetic Magic" by Kathleen Holder

Perhaps this is a hopelessly idealistic thing to say, but ultimately, all enduring creativity has to come from love.  We become Sorcerors when we draw from the the Source.   I also love the word "enchantment", which comes from the Latin root word "chanter", to "chant" or to "sing".  Thus to  "en-chant" is to join with the chorus,  to  be "within the Song".

Everyone knows the magical word "Abracadabra", which stage magicians exclaim just before they pull a rabbit out of a hat.  But not everyone knows that (from Wikipedia)  variations on the word were used as a magical formula by the Gnostics of the sect of Basilides in invoking the aid of beneficent spirits against disease and misfortune. It is found on Abraxas stones which were worn as amulets.   Subsequently, its use spread beyond the Gnostics into popular usage.  Abracadabra is probably derived from the Hebrew or Aramaic language "Avra Kadavrai" (אברא כדברי) meaning "I will create as my words".

 "I've often heard words and songs as I work.  I felt an underlying pattern or rhythm.  I wanted to include that sensation, to make it part of the structure.  "Singing" seemed important.  The creation myth of the Australian Aborigines involves the idea of "singing the world into existence".  I wanted to feel a musical time in the work, as if I was walking and singing.  Again, here is that relationship between figure and land:  I saw rhythm reflecting consciousness walking across the land, the walk of consciousness.

Dreams frequently precede what happens in my work.  It's like what I was saying about the poem being not so much a reference, but a part of the work.  The dreams are a part of the work as well, there's no separation."

Caroline Beasley Baker, discussing her installation "A Magic Spell For The Far Journey" (1989)

The World According to Monsanto: A Terrifying Look

 

They say that all evil really needs is enough good people who say nothing, and I think the amazing passivity with which Americans are allowing Monsanto to change, own, and modify our food source is terrifying.    I posted previously about the "Monsanto Protection Act" that was just passed, and feel, in good conscience, that I need to post further for the benefit of any who may not know.  Below  is the   documentary "The World According to Monsanto".   Having watched it, I BELIEVE EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE THIS FILM.  This is truly monumental, and frightening, whether we're hearing a French scientist report that the universally used weedkiller Roundup "provokes the cell division leading to the formation of cancer", to the almost complete  loss of independent farms and  biodiversity in Uruguay.   

In India farmers are being driven to suicide because they can no longer, due the fact that Monsanto completely controls the cotton seed market,  afford to plant their traditional crops (Monsanto and the Seeds of Suicide)........(see also "The World According to Monsanto" below to understand the problem).  As a result, they are falling deeper and deeper into debt, losing their lands, and being displaced from traditional homelands.  

 

In North America as well,  Indiana farmer Troy Rouse talks about being sued by Monsanto and the "gene police" phenomenon.  (Consider:  if you grow organic or conventional,  and your neighbor grows Monsanto, the two will  inevitably cross and you will be legally liable to be sued by Monsanto when they field test your seeds.)  Further, seed crops are being designed to be sterile, so that future planting must be purchased anew from the corporation.    What this could mean is that essential crops could be potentially controlled by a corporate entity demanding a tax which it can determine at will.   They're doing this in India now.

We need to educate ourselves as to what lobbyists are accomplishing - it is frightening indeed to allow Monsanto to control  food production, as well as unleashing biologically modified crops with very little testing, and certainly no long term understanding of what the consequences of such tampering could mean.

As a mythologist,  I cannot help but reflect that the two most popular Epics of the 20 years was "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter", both about a "Dark Lord" intent on sacrificing everything in the pursuit of power.  When I think of forces in the world like the arrogance and soul-lessness of Monsanto, I think of these films, reflecting the shadow of our crucial time.

 "Monsanto's talk of ‘technology' tries to hide its real objectives of control  where genetic engineering is a means to control seed.  These are the promises Monsanto India's website makes, alongside pictures of smiling, prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. This is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and its PR machinery to delink the epidemic of farmers' suicides in India from the company's growing control over cotton seed supply - 95 per cent of India's cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto."......GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.   The highest acreage of Bt cotton is in Maharashtra and this is also where the highest farmer suicides are. Suicides increased after Bt cotton was introduced - Monsanto's royalty extraction, and the high costs of seed and chemicals have created a debt trap.  As Monsanto's profits grow, farmers' debt grows........Monsanto's seeds are seeds of suicide."

The ultimate seeds of suicide is Monsanto's patented technology to create sterile seeds. (Called "Terminator technology" by the media, sterile seed technology is a type of Gene Use Restriction Technology, GRUT, in which seed produced by a crop will not grow - crops will not produce viable offspring seeds or will produce viable seeds with specific genes switched off.) The Convention on Biological Diversity has banned its use, otherwise Monsanto would be collecting even higher profits from seed............ A Monsanto representative admitted that they were "the patient's diagnostician and physician all in one" in writing the patents on life-forms, from micro-organisms to plants, in the TRIPS' agreement of WTO. Stopping farmers from saving seeds and exercising their seed sovereignty was the main objective." 

Read More:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/16674-focus-monsanto-and-the-seeds-of-suicide

Thanks to Janie Rezner for article.