Aphrodite (Pt. 2)

Mask of Aphrodite (1999)

 "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."

"In the Western traditions, spirituality has been so drained of Eros, it has vitually been removed from what most people consider a spiritual life.  And there is a deep hunger to heal that wound."

  Jalaja Bonheim

In my earlier post I shared a performance piece I wrote for Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Erotic love.  I also wanted to re-post also some information about  Jalaja Bonheim,  psychologist, temple dancer, and creator of the Institute for Circle Work in Ithaca, New York who has devoted much of her life to re-sacralizing and healing  the wounds of feminine Eros.   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. 

"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)

http://youtu.be/03Rm3K8Ail0

Thanks to Janie Rezner and  Nick Polizzi  for this story about a remarkable woman...............

Shamans Among Us

by Nick Polizzi

When I say the word “shaman”, what imagery immediately comes to mind? Is it a male or female? Old or young? What nationality?

There is an interesting phenomenon that most experienced ethnobotanists and anthropologists are well aware of, and it’s this: most shamans don’t like to attract much attention to themselves. They tend to dress and act exactly like the rest of the community. Only family, friends, and local villagers who at one time needed their services are usually in on the secret.

A few months ago, my colleague Shannon and I had the great honor of meeting with well-known ethnobotanist, Dr. Rosita Arvigo down in Central America. She shared some poignant plant wisdom with us (which we will be sharing with you in the coming months), but the biggest teaching I received that day came from a story about a legendary midwife that Dr. Arvigo befriended decades ago in Belize.

This woman was Ms. Hortense Roberts, known by locals as “mil secretos”, or a thousand secrets.  Born on the Island of Cozumel, which happens to be the mythical sanctuary of the Maya moon goddess of medicine and midwifery, Ixchel, Hortense came from a long line of midwives, her mother and grandmother included. When she was thirteen she had to be hospitalized after a severe asthma attack and it was here that the legend of Ms. Hortense began.

One afternoon during her stay at the hospital, a group of chicleros (gum factory workers) raced into the room with a pregnant woman on a stretcher. She was in the middle of hard labor and there were no doctors or nurses in sight, only little Hortense. Desperate, the woman on the stretcher yelled to Hortense, “Come here, child, and catch this baby!”
Instinctively, young Hortense knelt down knowing exactly what to do, guided the little baby’s head out of the birth canal, and caught the little one as it came out. She did exactly what she had watched her mother and grandmother do many times and massaged the belly until the placenta came out. Next, she removed her hospital gown and used it to wrap the baby and placenta up snug, then sat down to wait for the doctor.

The nurses frantically rushed into the room, saw what had occurred, and pleaded with Hortense to not tell the doctors what had just happened. Forgetting that she was a child, they handed her her first cigarette. For some, adulthood starts well before age 18.
Thus began a life of perhaps the most important work there is, delivering babies into the world. Not only that, Ms. Hortense had 8 children of her own AND adopted 14 unwanted babies, raising them all to adulthood!

In Dr. Arvigo’s words, “If she delivered a baby that a woman didn’t want, Hortense wrapped it up, put it in the crib, and took care of it. Sent them all to school. So she raised 22 kids, most of the time as a single mother.”  That was just a peek into the depths of Ms. Hortense.

According to Dr. Arvigo, everywhere they went together, someone would say, “That’s Ms. Hortense and she delivered me!”, or “She delivered all of my babies!”

Rosita told us a story that gives me goosebumps as I write this:

“Hortense was a female shaman. She had such a connection with animals. All the time that she was staying with me, animals, and birds, and creatures that I never see would come up on the porch and just walk in front of you. Armadillos, all kinds of animals. 

Hortense was with me one winter for about four months. She was sleeping in the downstairs bedroom and I was in the upstairs bedroom. One morning I heard a strange noise. It sounded like something scratching. So I got up out of bed and I looked down to the first floor veranda and there’s a jaguar walking across the downstairs porch. And off it goes, over my deck and jumps into the bush. When Hortense got up , I said, ‘Hortense, you won’t believe it! I saw a jaguar this morning and it was right on the porch by your bedroom!’

She said, ‘SHHH! Don’t you dare say a word. That jaguar comes every night to sleep.’ She said, ‘You didn’t notice that it’s injured?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact it was limping. It was kind of walking on three legs.’ And she said, ‘That jaguar knows this is a safe place and it comes every night for protection and as soon as dawn comes, off it goes. And it will be there until that leg is healed, so don’t you dare tell a soul.’”

Rosita said that she saw that jaguar about 10 more times. If you were careful, you could get up in the early morning and as soon as the sun came up, off it went.  One night, Rosita asked her if she could sleep with her and wait for the jaguar to come. And it did. Almost exactly at 10 o’clock at night. The animal came limping in and it layed down. The door was open, but there was a screen door. In bed she could see the cat’s back. It was about 6 feet long. A big, big animal and all night long you could hear it breathing.

It was guarding, but was also there for its own healing. It felt safe because of Hortense. It was there because she was there.”  In addition to her gifts as a midwife, Ms. Hortense had an innate connection with the natural and spiritual world. Her knowledge of medicinal plants, home remedies, and spiritual healing was enough to fill a library, and she had a lifetime of hands-on experience with patients, big and small. She healed thousands of sick people, using only traditional methods and prayer, and welcomed everyone into her home without prejudice.

According to Ms. Hortense, much of her knowledge came through dreams in which she was shown which herb to use for a particular patient and how to prepare it. In a beautiful essay that Dr. Arvigo wrote to honor Ms. Hortense after her passing, she says:  “She had humility, and would never big-up herself – in her own words, ‘you could never be too humble.’”

She wore no special garb, had no elaborate ceremony or entourage of devotees. Ms. Hortense lived a life of loving service to others and revered nature like few others do. If you asked her if she was a shaman, she would probably smile to herself and tell you no.

Aphrodite (Part 1)

"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"

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 I believe Aphrodite ........ Eros.........is very, very  wounded in our world, and I don't need to go very far to demonstrate my claim. 

As I wrote earlier, I seem to be needing to re-make the Masks of the Goddess, and doing that means re-visiting the Goddesses.  Or, perhaps, they are re-visiting me.....  I have not yet made a new mask for Aphrodite/Venus, but I did find a performance I wrote  some 20 years ago, and felt like sharing it on this blog.  Funny how  it is with much more difficulty  that I write about the domain of Venus,  than it is for me to talk about Kali, or Hecate, or many others. 

I've been unpartnered and unmarried for a long time, and I like it that way.  I cannot say, to be honest with myself, that I've been very good at marriage, although I've loved  men, and treasure many memories.  But at 65 romantic love seems thankfully a long way in the past.  And yet, I remember a few years ago when I was at a conference in England.  There was a presenter there who was a scholar of ancient music.  In his late 60's, he had that tall, elegant, aristocratic English  face and gesture,  and I remember watching him with fascination, admiring both his knowledge, and his beauty.

The following morning, as I sat down to breakfast at the B and B I was staying at, he walked down the stairs and joined us!  And suddenly, I found myself a girl again, animated, shy, vulnerable, longing,  and quite disturbed by all the emotions that arose.  Aphrodite........

APHRODITE
(from "The Goddess Suite" 1998)

The stage consists of three levels;  to the upper right is the Archetypal  Realm.  Here is posed the masked Aphrodite, spotlighted. 

The second level,  middle left, has a raised platform on which is a table and chair.  Nadine is seated at the table, with a glass of wine, photos to the side of her  notebook, a pen holder.   She examines several, plays with pen. 

Below the stage, and to the lower left, not always visible, is the Realm of Uncertainty, and the Heyoka, in black and white, is occasionally seen.  And she/he will always be unpredictable. 

Nadine:

Men.   Why do I always have to deitize  or demonize them, and then obsess, obsess, obsess,  little pieces of me lost bit by bit.....where?  Where do all those little pieces of self, little pieces of soul,  go? Where they somehow stolen from me?  Or do they wander in the dark like lost children, the shy little soul parts,  always trying to find their way home?

I've never really been very good at it.  Why can't we just reproduce by some kind of cell division?  You know, you look in the mirror and notice a few weird bulges.  So you pack a bag and check into the local mitosis center for a "birth of self" retreat?

(picks up glass, takes a drink)

Sex. That's what they call it now, or words somewhat more course.  Long gone is the clinical "intercourse", which manages to imply, nevertheless, some kind of mutual exchange of energy.  To make love....... you don't hear that either.  

Sex.  Reduced to a commodity. We "have sex".  It sounds like "having a beer" . We have each other.  We have cornflakes, we have Cheerios.   Names.  Labels.   Sex surrogates, swing parties, single bars.  Maximize your orgasmic potential.    Consumable.  Buyable. Disposable........O Brave New World!

And beneath the skin, beneath it all,  there is ......

 (sets down glass, looks at audience)

something so vast, so rich and so deep,  spilling out like a super nova through the cracks of every kiss, every stupid, heartbreaking,  hilarious drama, every tear streaked parting, every breathless beginning.  You look back; what was that all about?

And then we rush around looking for therapy,  for why, after the fact,  immersion in Aphrodite's tide pool made us .....crazy, mad, projective, dysfunctional.  Co-dependant. Delusional, temporarily insane............

(soft) Listen to Her laugh like thunder, like silk, like rose petals on a tsunami. 

(louder) Listen to Her laugh like thunder, like silk, like rose petals on a tsunami.......
 

No answers.  Oh, you'll come up with a few of them later. Ha!  Fit  the ocean into a bottle if you can.  Tame Aphrodite?  Make Her safe?  She'll rip you apart.  In Her waters.

And there, in that other realm,  where no one grows old, where lips are always ripe to be kissed, she lives,  with Her Lovers,  locked in one eternal embrace,   spewing flowers and butterflies and little Gods and Demons from their ferocious heat, their cosmic creativity,

 their immaculate pleasure, their effortless separateness and merging.

While WE just get old,  haunted by old ghosts that chase you around the house like dust balls.  You sweep and sweep, but they always come back.  Old ghosts with eyes like leaves, lips like flowers.  There's a face in the crowd,  your breath stops, "It's you, you haven't aged a bit, you're still so lovely......." but the face is gone, and that was 30 years ago.
 

I loved them all. Their potbellies and sweat and bad jokes,  all the Gods that possessed them.
 

(Aphrodite tinkles laughter)

 I remember candlelight.  Moonlight, beaches, whiskey bars,  kissing goodbye at airports and somehow, never, ever to meet again.........all those breaks and  losses and tears and memories and kisses.  Rivers.

The river. 

I erase all my regrets from the storyline.  I remember when everything ignited, when all of Your waters flowed from me, Aphrodite.  And  they rippled out like waves to all the world.

And we made love.  And we made love.  And we remade  all of  Your creation. 

And those, those are moments worth remembering.

Ah, Aphrodite.  I am unmade in your waters. 


Lights dim, fade out on Nadine.  Heyoka appears, disappears.    Aphrodite steps into floodlight,  throws roses into audience as she leaves stage.

Music is "Dance me to the end of love" by Leonard Cohen.)

Net Neutrality - a Funny Video About A Serious Concern.........

I remember when FM was all about alternative radio - that's gone.   I also remember when Cable TV was an innovation.  We all know that's gone too, and if you watch cable, be prepared to watch more commerials than program.  Is the Internet about to go the same way?  We just can't let them do it. 

  

 http://youtu.be/xjOxNiHUsZw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjOxNiHUsZw#t=120

Chubasco!

Photo by Kristy Thomas

Chubasco means storm, squall, monsoon.  And that's what it is right now, the Monsoon Season that takes place in the great Sonoran Desert during July and August.  Last night mighty crashes of thunder accompanied lightning, and sheets of rain as Chubasco moved in fast, right on schedule in the afternoon, the streets ran like a river, the trees groaned.  And two hours later it was all gone, and everything in the desert sighed in delight, rich, rich, rich with water.......................and then also the life of the desert comes up, overnight, the ground begins to green.  Morning glories are everywhere, and wild flowers, all in a hurry, all knowing that this wealth will not last, will not be forever, they have to blossum and seed now, now is the time.

My name came from this phenomenon, the summer storms, the wonderful, vast energies of the Thunder Beings, the blessings of the Rain Katchinas.   Chubasco!

The World of Steve McCurry

I lived in Afghanistan in the 60's, and have many photos and memories from there.  But the photos of  Steve McCurrey are incomparable.  The portfolios on his website (of many places)  are absolutely riveting...............

http://stevemccurry.com/gallerie

Pele

Here is a story dedicated to Pele, the Goddess of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano.   It was written by a woman who is part Hawaiian, and once or twice was  performed by a fire dancer. Pele is a truly a Spirit of Placer, a  numinous force many feel they encountered  when they visited the great volcano.  She has many native stories, but in telling her story among contemporary people, what arose was that She was one of the  one of the great elemental builders of our planet, the very fires at the heart of the world that  create new land.

I am Pele Honua Mea!

Pele of the Sacred Earth.
I come from the fiery heart of the Earth.
I am creation,
I am molten fire!

I erupted into the ocean
many, many years ago.
I spewed  lava 
in pure ecstasy into the sea,
In ecstasy, I rose in  clouds
of red and black,
and the mountains
rose with me from the ocean floor
the islands you call Hawaii.

I gave these green and beautiful Lands.
Honor my sacred mountain, Kilauea!
Take not one small rock from my body!
Do not violate me!

Or feel my wrath!

You call me capricious,
unable to see that my fires
are the fires of Creation
shaping new lands.
Deep in the sea I stir the waters, 
I stir the air.  I stir the fires 
of newborn  life
as I rise from the core of the Earth.


Begin again
in new and fertile ground!
Be remade 
in this time of the great change!