I am a lover of the steady earth and of her waters
she says:
let the light be brilliant to one who will cherish color; what if there be no heaven? she says: touch my breasts the fields are golden
her songs are all of love life long every blue yonder her grass harp rings
unlettered in her rivers our cherished sins our musts drift voiceless in her clouds
she will rust us with blossom she will forgive us
She will seal us with her seed
~~Robin Williamson
For Mother's Day I remember Gaia, Mother Earth, whose unlettered love and generosity and endless creativity gave birth to all of us. And there is no greater Bard, in my opinion, to celebrate Her than Robin Williamson, whose song above (and sung below!) celebrates Her with the long and sweet magic of his poetry, and his own Celtic lineage.
"She will seal us with Her seed."
And below Robin's Homage to Gaia, I could not resist placing his best known, and truly magnificent poem "Five Denials on Merlin's Grave", that winds and meanders among the silent standing stones and the green meadows and the roaming stories of the ancient Celts....if you have not heard this poem, especially if you are of Celtic descent, it is so much worth hearing, and will evoke something "Older yet, and Lovelier Far......." that
still ghosts to the vitality of our most early and unwritten forebears whose wizardry still makes a lie of history whose presence hints in every human word who somehow reared, and loosed, an impossible Beauty enduring yet............and I will not forget.
Representations of Gender in Media is a school project that was
created for a Women and Gender Studies class at the University of
Saskatchewan by Sarah Zelinski, Kayla Hatzel and Dylan Lambi-Raine. The group wanted to show how the media portrays gender roles and stereotypes in advertising.
And it’s absolutely hilarious. I love these guys!
The Fifth Sacred Thing is the fifth element, Spirit, at the center of the union of the Four Elements of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. It represents unity and balance, and is represented by the color white. In the illustration above, Starhawk and her collaborators have chosen the wheel of the 4 elements with a spiral in the center, the "fifth element".
Starhawk is a powerful writer, activist, community facilitator, and true visionary for our time. She is also a Witch, one of the founders of Reclaiming, and her book was my first introduction to the realm of the Goddess. I use the term witch in the sense of the actual roots of the word: "witch, wick, wicca" - weaver, woven. She is a true Weaver.
I read Starhawk's book back in 1995. As a native Californian who lived in Los Angeles, but attended Berkeley, I remember well the prejudices between progressive Northern California and materialistic Southern California, and had to laugh when Starhawk imagined an utopia in San Francisco with Southern California becoming an autocratic, fundamentalist corporate state. Starhawk has been a terrific inspiration in my life - in 1986 her book "The Spiral Dance" was the inspiration for a show I had at the University of Arizona. More than a decade later, when I moved back to Berkeley, I joined Reclaiming, Starhawk's collective, and created the Masks of the Goddessfor the Spiral Dance in San Francisco. Once again she and her colleagues set me on a path of powerful inspiration.
So I was delighted to learn that Starhawk's book THE FIFTH SACRED THING is in the process of becoming a movie, which as she herself says, is a long process. Here's the video introduction to the Project which I received recently below.
"The novel describes a world set in the year 2048 after a catastrophe which has fractured the United States into several nations........The story is primarily told from the points of view of 98-year-old
Maya, her nominal granddaughter Madrone, and her grandson Bird. Through
these and other characters, the story explores elements from ecofeminism and ecotopian fiction." ......Wikipedia
"Making
a movie is a long, long process!But
along the way we’ve created a video, to quickly explain the story to those
who haven’t read the book, and to show off some of the art and music we’ve created.Pictures
speak louder than words—so here it is: http://www.fifthsacredthing.com Also
on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROCSDQg9WM. I
wrote the narration, Olympia Dukakis speaks it and our lead producer Philip Wood
put the video together and edited it.Joshua
Penman did the music.Yes,
it’s a long haul, but we’re all feeling the growing momentum!"
"When we form
heart-centered beliefs within our bodies, in the language of physics
we're creating the electrical and magnetic expression of them as waves
of energy, which aren't confined to our hearts or limited by the
physical barrier of our skin and bones. So clearly we're "speaking" to
the world around us in each moment of every day through a language that
has no words: the belief-waves of our hearts. In addition to
pumping the blood of life within our bodies, we may think of the heart
as a belief-to-matter translator. It converts the perceptions of our
experiences, beliefs, and imagination into the coded language of waves
that communicate with the world beyond our bodies. Perhaps this is what
philosopher and poet John Mackenzie meant when he stated, "The
distinction between what is real and what is imaginary is not one that
can be finely maintained ... all existing thing are ... imaginary."
Gregg Braden
I enjoy the quote above by philosopher and New Mexico visionary Gregg Braden........except at the end of the last quote, I might change "imaginary" to "imaginal". Because, as Braden himself so fully argues in his life work, that's really where we are collectively now - at the "imaginal threshold" of our species evolution.
I began this journal almost 6 years ago, as a journal for the evolution of my project "Spider Woman's Hands", which I received a Fellowship at the Alden Dow Creativity Center in Midland, Michigan to pursue. In 2009 I was resident artist at Wesley Theological in Washington, D.C., and continued the project. My fascination with ubiquitous myths and symbols of Spider Woman, from the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest, the Navajo weavers, the prehistoric Mississippian people, even the Maya......began with a deep realization of the significance of this metaphor of the Great Weaver for our time on multiple levels: ecological, social, spiritual, and quantum. We live in the participatory universe of Spider Woman, weavers and woven. One of the names for Spider Woman among Pueblo peoples is Tse Che Nako, "Thought Woman", because She made the world with the stories she told about it. There is a great Keresan Pueblo proverb that says,
"Tse Che Nako, Thought Woman, the Spider is sitting in her room thinking up a good story. I'm telling you the story she is thinking."*
Pueblo legends hold that it was Spider Woman who led the people through the cosmic Kiva at the end of each age into the new world. According to their calendar, the 4th World is now ended, and we are entering the 5th World........and I believe that once again, it is Grandmother Spider Woman who is showing the Way, offering us the opportunity to pass through the Kiva, the Birth Canal, into a new world, with the truth of Her great Web at the very center. We all know the Precipice we hang on as a common humanity. Our technology and technological connectivity will either be the end of our evolutionary promise, or we will become a truly global humanity. The new World, or "New Age", will be an age that puts into practice the great truth of unity within the great co-creative diversity of life. What I would like to pursue in future posts is not only how this is being demonstrated by science as well as metaphysics, but how we can, and are, putting the "New Paradigm of Connectivity" into pragmatic practice. Because that's ultimately the good news we need.
As I return to Spider Woman's Web, I find Greg Bradon, in "The Science of Miracles", makes an eloquent discussion of how Quantum physics and metaphysics now agree on a "conversant world".
“The act of focusing our consciousness is an act of creation.
I've had a lot of synchronicities for several years around Turkey, and last year I was given two kittens, both white and each with odd eyes, one blue and one yellow. Lulu and Lucy became my Muses, sometimes following me around the house talking to me in a mysterious cat language. Then a well travelled friend of mine, said "Oh, Van
Kedisi!". Lulu and Lucy were Van Cats! And it turns out that's rather special - for many people in the ancient land of Turkey or Anatolia, they are very much the "spirit of place".
Lake Van (Turkish: Van Gölü, Armenian: Վանա լիճVana lich or Vana Lij, Kurdish: Gola Wanê ) is the largest lake in Turkey, located in the far east of the country in Van district. It seems that Van cats have a very ancient lineage indeed, as does the region, and are very much loved by Turks, Armenians, and Kurds, so much so that there are all kinds of legends about them, they are mascots for teams, there is a Van Kedisi research center in the capital of the Lake Van region, and even the government protects them.
Not far from Lake Van is the excavation of Gobekli Tepe, a Neolithic site that is 12,000 years old, which I've been fascinated with. Göbekli Tepe means, literally, "Belly" or "Navel Mountain", and is composed of some 22 megalithic stone circles (only two have been excavated) which were intentionally buried 8,000 years ago, located 2500 feet above sea level at the top
of a mountain ridge in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Artist and scholar Lydia Ruhle writes:
"Gobekli
Tepe means "navel mountain" in Turkish. It is on top of a hill that is
the highest point on the windswept Urfa Plain, between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. This is the area where emmer wheat was domesticated
and hunter gatherer cultures settled into agricultural communities. As
early as 12,000 years ago, humans spent much time and effort to cut
stone and create circular structures with twelve foot tall pillars with
carvings of animals, vultures, snakes holding up a roof..........In 2006, I created a
Goddess Icon Banner of (a Sheela-na-gig image from the site) and named her Gobekli Tepe. She has
been flying around the world ever since. My banner description states:
"Gobekli
Tepe is a Neolithic Sheela-na-gig incised into stone on the floor of a
rock cut temple which appeared to have ritual purposes.Two standing
pillars with lions sculpted in relief protect one of the earliest known
Sheelas. Gobekli Tepe, which means navel mountain, is in eastern Turkey
near the source of the Euphrates River. Emmer wheat was domesticated in
the area. All life comes from and returns to the mother".
"Navel mountain and navel of the world" indeed. I wrote an article about Gobekli Tepe .........and I felt blessed to be given two magical cats, with such ancient origins, from that ancient part of the world where agriculture began, the "belly of the Goddess".
It's interesting to look for information about Van cats on the internet, and learn of all the peoples who claim them.....almost like living "numina", they truly belong to a Place, and are loved because they are magical, living embodiments of that Place by the peoples who call it home or homeland. Perhaps for me too, my magical "muses" give me a bit of a sense of belonging to the Homeland of the Goddess, that place of ancient origins; when I see their topaz and sky blue eyes looking at me, I remember. And Lake Van...........how wonderful it would be to go there and see the Van Kedisi, along with everything else.
It's been really interesting to see how passionate different groups in the area are about the cats. For example, from the Turkish Angora Cat website:
"About
2 years ago, a disagreement between municipalities of Van and
Ankara occurred. And it still continues. Ankara city proudly
displayed their logo with odd-eyes “a smiling Turkish Angora’’. This was
very insulting for Van municipality and Van cat lovers, as every folk
knows that odd eyed cat is a Van, not Angora! Certainly, a problem arose because both of cities see ‘’their’’ cats in very identical ways. Maybe white odd-eyed cat has deep roots in Turkish culture in general? Although both Van and Angora are thought to be odd-eyed white cats, Van municipality feels that Ankara city has no right to claim different eyes for ‘’their’’ Angoras."
Since Beltane (May 1) is an auspicious day with a truly ancient precedent, I can't resist a bit of his
& herstory to honor the day, and a few May Pole
pictures. May the RITES OF SPRING quicken the weary sap of all, may you find a bonfire to dance around, may the May Queen bless you!
The birth of spring on May Day in Elizabethan England would send
villagers into the woods to collect flowers and boughs, and then they
would wait for the sun to rise as it brought the fully opened year
flowering into spring. A few years back I was fascinated with
the origins of the famous legend of "Lady Godiva" in Coventry,
England.........with the kind help of scholar and gardener Robur D'Amour, who wrote
a fascinating article about Lady Godiva, I learned that origins of this legend are probably to be found in the
ancient pagan ride of the May Queen to the sacred tree ( the Maypole), the "coven tree".
He wrote:
"The official etymology of Coventry is that it means Cofa's tree.
A tree owned by Mr Cofa! A very early spelling, 1050, is
Couaentree. I found, by chance, a reference to Coventry as bring a
rebus for 'a coven round a tree'. Well, it is undeniably a rebus. But
that doesn't mean anything conclusive. There was a widespread
practise for dancing round a tree on May Eve, which is the maypole.
Perhaps there really was a tree that was used for festivities."
"The
story that Lady Godiva was protesting against taxes is untrue.
Apparently, at the time the procession dates from, Coventry was a
village, and there were no taxes. The procession is actually a May-Eve
fertility procession, many of which are found across Europe. There
is even one at Southam, a few miles from Coventry, which is no
longer celebrated. What happened at Coventry, was that there was a
Benedictine monastery there. The Christian monks did not approve of
people watching the fertility procession, and so put some 'spin' on the
procession, and invented this story about taxes. "
The origins of the May Queen, the young Goddess, and agrarian celebration of the Rites of Spring
throughout Merrie Old England and Europe are very ancient indeed, and probably go back to the "sacred marriage", whereby a couple, representing the young Goddess and God, would make love in the fields, encouraging and participating in the fertility of the world.
In villages throughout England, a procession would bear flowers, all
the while capering around the new Maypole chosen for the celebration.
Only unmarried girls would be allowed to plant the phallic Maypole
into the fertile Earth........a lovely dance and ritual based upon pagan practices of sympathetic magic. In other words, "the world is waking up and making love, so we too wake up and make love, and all will bear fruit".
The planting of the May Pole, and the union of the May Queen with the
May King (or the Green Man) probably has its origins in very ancient
traditions of the Sacred Marriage,
going back as far as Sumeria and the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi -
or probably farther even than that, into unknown origins in prehistory.
In ancient times, the spring ritual union of the King with the
priestess (representing the Earth Mother) was a very significant rite;
in later times, even in Christian Europe, church morality may have been
suspended for Beltane, as couples went out into the fields to
participate in the ripening fertility.
This celebration of the fecundity of Spring no doubt made many of
the early churchmen nervous. In the late 19th century, May 1 became
associated with the growing labor movement, and since then many
countries have celebrated May Day as International Workers' Day. In
1955, Pope Pius XII instituted May 1 as the "feast of St. Joseph the
Worker" with the intention of emphasizing the spiritual aspect of
labor.........I'm sure the advent of this secondary meaning to May Day
came as a belated relief to the Catholic Church, along with Lady
Godiva's famous ride becoming folk legend.
For myself, I think the re-sacralization of sexuality, in tandem with
the blossoming of the world, that was the original meaning of May
Day.....is a wonderful Holy Day, and am often surprised by how little
people today know of it's origins. This has to do with the de-sacralization of sexuality that has followed closely behind the monotheistic Judeo-Christian-Islamic God - it seems the One God does not approve of sex, or the raucous turning of the natural year that becomes spring's fertility. Not a bad argument for polytheism, where, when there is a multiplicity of Gods and Goddesses, things are a bit more tolerant.
Traditionally, the Maypole was hung with garlands and streamers. Dancers took hold of the ends in a weaving courtship dance.
Boys would dance in one direction and the girls in another, and so
flower-clad ribbons were woven around the pole in the form of a braid. There might also be a procession led by Jack O' the Green (a
variant of the Green Man), fantastically arrayed with flowers, leaves
and ribbons, and followed by Morris Dancers with bells jangling on
their ankles. Last, there would be the choosing of the May Queen.
Flora was the Roman Goddess of Flowers and it’s not
surprising that her festival was held on the first day of May. The May
Dance festivals of Europe have many of their origins in the ancient
“Feast of Flora”, the ecstatic Roman Rites of Spring.
"Whitman says, "And your very flesh shall be a great poem."............That is the message I'd like to offer on Beltane. Our flesh is a symbol, a microcosm of the earth we inhabit. Our flesh
is what connects us to the seasons; it is where we feel the cold of
winter, and -- more and more in the Northern Hemisphere -- the warmth of
the sun. It is in and through our flesh that we experience our emotions. We
feel love in the flesh; anger in the flesh; exuberance in the flesh. The
body is a treasure trove of sensation, and our sensations inform our
temporal existence. Sensation may not be all of what life is, and the
experiences of the flesh may be subjective and passing. But subjectivity
and impermanence do not make a thing meaningless. Flowers bloom for but
a short time, and when they do they are beautiful. We bloom, too.
We are a body full of color and fragrance. We are a cycle of life
unto ourselves, and we have good cause to celebrate our body -- our
flesh -- for we have no knowledge of what is to come beyond this moment,
this life, this body. We are here, alive, and we can, on the day and in
the season of Beltane, choose to celebrate the life that we are living.
We can choose to honor our flesh, and honor the flesh of others. (What a world we would live in if the flesh was not seen as evil, but
rather a manifestation of something holy and worthy of respect. I
wonder if violence would be so commonplace if we recognized the flesh as
sacred.)
Love the body you are in! Love your flesh! Celebrate this High Day with a fullness of being!!"
I met the artist and scholar Max Dashu, author of the fascinating"Suppressed Histories" website and many, many brilliant articles, when I presented at the Women and Mythology Conference last year. Max has devoted her life to re-membering the lives and stories of women and Goddesses lost and reclaimed. Her new video explores
the rich cultural record of medicine women, seers, oracles, healers,
trance-dancers, shapeshifters, and dreamers round the world.
To
experience the beauty of these spiritual legacies is
medicine for the spirit. Her trailer includes the music of Suzanne Teng,
Emmalee Crane, and Tiokasin Ghosthorse; scores of other musicians are
featured on the dvd, including archival world music from Smithsonian
Folkways. See link above for music credits, chapter listings, and more
info.
For Mother's Day I remember Gaia, Mother Earth, whose unlettered love and generosity and endless creativity gave birth to all of us. And there is no greater Bard, in my opinion, to celebrate Her than Robin Williamson, whose song above (and sung below!) celebrates Her with the long and sweet magic of his poetry, and his own Celtic lineage.
