Story Masks: Bast

 I've been wanting to share my archive of not just masks, but stories from the 20 plus years of the "Masks of the Goddess" Project.  Here is the story of Bast, from a 2000 performance directed by Diane Darling.   I think Bast was pleased............

Bast

Her paws whisper on temple floors

Her eyes 

luminous as the moon

Her ears pricked, 

alert to danger

Her whiskers sense currents from the unseen world.

Guardian of cats and women and children

Posessor of the uchat, the all-seeing eye

Bast wards against dangers in the spirit world -

Evil beings, enchantments, nameless things

Visible only to cats.

Daughter of Ra, the sun

Lady of the East, the Moon

Her eyes hold light in darkness 

Listen:

Ra the mighty sun appears at dawn as a baby

At sunset he is dying, and when he dies

Darkness falls.

But Bast prowls the Nile, gazes into the setting sun

Holds his fire in her eyes

Shining in the dark, until Ra is born again.

Bast is Mistress of the science of relaxation,

Bast luxuriates in her sensuality and agility

She plays  with her children:

But leaps ferociously to their defense.

She is The One Who Tears, Little Lion -

Her sharp claws are the vengeance of Ra. 

Those who love Bast honor every cat.

Speak to them with respect

Lay gifts at their paws.

They call to her:

“Mau Bast! Mau Bast!”

Here is her blessing

Her secret wisdom is yours to know:

Sunny spots are best for dreaming.

Never waste a moonlit night,

and accept reality with supreme indifference

To the opinions of mere mortals.

by Mary Kay Landon with Diane Darlilne (2000)

Story Masks: "The Bone Goddess"

I love stories, discovering the stories that "wrap themselves around old bones" and wrap themselves around each of us.  With masks, the story is as much a part of the mask as the mask itself.  Masks are by their very nature "vessels for Story",  stories ever evolving in mysterious ways. If you let the mask "talk to you", much can be revealed.  While re-visiting the  Superstition mountains not so long ago, I remembered an encounter I had once with a persona of the land, a Numen of the mountain.  She spoke, I listened. Her name, I think, was the Bone Goddess.  

THE BONE GODDESS

I was the first one.

I am this land,

and you no longer know me.

Ah well. So what. I've been here a long time.

A long time.

In the beginning, I was alone. 

Alone in this place.

Me, and Old Man Mountain, 

sleeping beneath the hot sun. 

Running when the sun was young,

waking up the People in my country: 

Ho, Hare, Snake, Mallow, Saguaro. 

There were more People then.

Some have gone.

We spoke together then, laughed more. 

These ones,  these new ones, 

they think they own the place.

Ha! They dig and dig, 

but they will not find me!

Listen, I will tell you something, 

since you have come here with your hands empty.

You are full of holes.

Sometimes a person stands up and just walks outside

and keeps on walking into the sun, and does not know why.

There comes a time when you have given so much of yourself away 

there is nothing left, when you have become transparent,

when you can be seen through to the bone, 

when your spirit has become woven into bad things.

That's when you find yourself in my country.

Walk into the desert

sit beneath a cholla and be silent.  

Notice the shapes of bald mountains. 

Old Man, sleeping. 

The shape of his shadows, 

the shape of the sky, the color of shadows. 

That is when you must find beauty 

in a cholla 

crack in the sun like an old bone. 

That's the time when you must collect your own shadows.

I may help you. 

Bring your offerings if you wish, 

I will give them to the Bird People, the Mouse People, the Lizard People,

walk in the shimmering heat, the silence, you may find me.

If I want you to.

I may tell you stories that wrap themselves around old bones, 

around quartz and turquoise, pottery shards, 

stories of Snake and Coyote 

and cracks in the land like a spider web, 

full of light.

And I may not.

I was the first one. This is my place.

Spring in the Superstition Mountains

A Rumi and Rilke Moment........

Georgia at White Sands (2015)

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors,
and keeps on walking,
because of a church
that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead. 

And another man,
who remains inside his own house,
dies there,

inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children
have to go far out into the world
toward that same church,
which he forgot.

Rainer Maria Rilke  (translated by Robert Bly)

Spring at White Sands (2015)

When grapes turn
to wine, they long for our ability to change.

When stars reel
around the North Pole,
they are longing for our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk with us,
not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.

We are bees, and our body
is a honeycomb.
We made
the body, cell by cell, we made it.

Rumi (Translated by Robert Bly)

AN INCONVENIENT SEQUAL with Al Gore - Trailer and Preview

Nothing is more important than this.  Nothing.  Once again, I applaud former Vice President Al Gore, author of EARTH IN BALANCE, and collaborator of the film AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006)    Gore is a true American hero, who has devoted so much of his life to waking people up to climate change and environmental destruction.   Please see the film share the film and don't let it stop there.  Literally, everything depends on it.


https://youtu.be/h1Etl9UjIxI

Quan Yin Sculpture...........

I've made a number of sculptures dedicated to Quan Yin *** and this is the most ambitious one in progress. Quan Yin, the manifestation of Divine Compassion throughout Chinese Buddhism, represents the Bodhissatva - the Great Being who "hears the cries of the world" and returns, again and again, to aid the suffering of the world.  She is often shown, like Tara of Tibet, with many arms, and has been called "thousand armed Quan Yin"....the arms being the many ways she can help and assist those in need.  

I don't know why I have felt the need to create so many Quan Yin images, exactly.  I have felt so much this past year the hardening of hearts, division, anger, and mean spiritedness in my country, and have become quite political with the rise the far right agenda and the election of Trump.  As above, so below - in the process I have seen a lot of anger and division coming out of me as well, not all of it manifesting in a good or wise way, and I do not feel in balance these days.  So making masks, making art about Quan Yin (and I am also making a painting about the Archangel Micheal), whether I realize it or not consciously, is an act of invocation.  For the world, but most especially for myself, the lack of compassion and understanding that I find in myself as well as in the world these days.  

As I love to tell my students, but don't always remember myself.........art making can be a great act of invocation, a great act of healing, an act of magic if you will.  When my model and I were working on the sculpture above, we both felt a kind of light in the room, a yellow, calm, serene light/sensation.  The Goddess was with us as we invoked Her through our creative process.  And it really doesn't matter if you even "believe" in the Goddess Quan Yin.   I'm not sure that "believing" is anywhere near as important as simply wanting help, wanting guidance, opening the heart.  I don't "believe" the Divine Ones care what we call them or what form we give them.  But making art can thus be an act for us of devotion and spiritual practice or transformation.  The art object, finished, becomes an icon, a talisman to remind us.  

I wanted to make a Quan Yin that, instead of the idealized and beautiful, but iconic, representations, looks like a real woman in the real world of today -  Bodhisattva walking among us, working among us, hearing and responding to the pain of the world, bringing healing and love.  And not a beautiful young woman either, idealized, but a woman in her middle years, reflecting the experience that comes with embodiment.  

And I had to throw in a photo of the gifts of my friend, my lemon tree.  Giant lemons!  I don't go Wassailing around the lemon and lime trees, but I do make a point of thanking the tree when I harvest the lemons around this time of year.  Perhaps I should Wassail too!  Certainly I am ever reminded of the generosity of the World, the friendship of the garden that so graciously gives us these gifts.

***

Kuan Shih Yin - Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva

The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion

The Sanskrit name "Avalokiteshvara" means "the lord who looks upon the world with compassion".  Translated into Chinese, the name is "Kuan Shih Yin"or Quan Yin.

Kuan: observe

Shih: the world / the region of sufferers

Yin: all the sounds of the world, in particular, the crying sounds of beings, verbal or mental, seeking help

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is the embodiment of great compassion. He has vowed to free all sentient beings from suffering. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is has great powers and can help all sentient beings. His skilful means are limitless and he can appear in any form in all the six realms of existence to relieve the suffering of the sentient beings who live there. He vowed to rescue those who call on him when they are in suffering, for example, when caught in a fire, shipwrecked or facing an attack.

In the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha said that if a suffering being hears the name of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva and earnestly calls out to the Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara will hear the call and relieve that being from his suffering.

According to the Huayen Sutra, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva transforms himself into forms that suit the nature of those to be helped. His manifestations or transformation bodies are countless.  e.g. if a boy or girl is about to gain some enlightenment, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva transforms himself into a boy or a girl to teach the child.

e.g. If a monk is about to attain some enlightenment, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva transforms himself into a monk.

In short, he can appear as a monk, a nun, or a normal person like you and me. The purpose of such transformations is to make people feel close to him and willing to listen to his words.

In China, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is represented in female form and is known as Kuan Yin. Probably because of Kuan Yin's great compassion, a quality which is traditionally considered feminine, most of the Bodhisattva statues in China since the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618 - 907) have appeared as female figures. In India, however, the Bodhisattva is generally represented as a male figure.

In her hands, Kuan Yin may hold a willow branch, a vase with water or occasionally, a lotus flower.  The willow branch is used to heal people's illnesses or bring fulfillment to their requests.  The water ( the dew of compassion) has the quality of removing suffering, purifying the defilement of our body, speech and mind, and lengthening life.

In Buddhist art, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is sometimes shown with eleven heads, 1000 hands and eyes on the palms of each hand (Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva). The thousand eyes allow the Bodhisattva to see the sufferings of sentient beings, and the thousand hands allow her to reach out to help them.

Sometimes, he is represented with one head and 4 arms. This is the Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara, worshipped by all Tibetans as "Chenrezig", the Holder of the White Lotus. It is in the male form which has two hands in the praying gesture while the other two hands hold his symbols, the Crystal Rosary and the Lotus Flower.

There is a sacred place for the worship of Kuan Yin in China - the Putuo Mountain. It is actually an island located near the city of Ningpo, in Zhejiang Province. There are many stories of Kuan Yin's miraculous appearances at Putuo Mountain.

Actually, anyone can be like Kuan Yin. You may say that you don't have a thousand eyes or a thousand arms or that you lack skillful means, but it is your compassion that can transform you into a Kuan Yin. With your eyes and hands, you can help others. With your compassion, you can bring peace and tranquility to this world.

The Mani Mantra (The Mantra of Universal Protection) : OM MANI PADME HUM

from:  Buddhanet

 Kuan Yin  at Putuo Mountain

TOMORROW - a New Film by the Transition Network

“TOMORROW” CAN BE SEEN IN THEATERS IN APRIL TO COINCIDE WITH EARTH DAY CELEBRATIONS  Transition Network has been one of the leading inspiration of the narrative and the spirit of “TOMORROW”.   “TOMORROW” is an upbeat environmental documentary directed and narrated (in English) by actress Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and activist Cyril Dion. Together, they traveled to 10 countries to visit Permaculture farms, urban agriculture projects, community-owned renewable initiatives. They introduce us to people making a difference in the fields of food, energy, finance, democracy, and education. See “TOMORROW” at these Theaters or set up a screening in your town or city: Northern California: San Francisco: Vogue Theater – April 14th to 20th – Q&A with Director Cyril Dion and Robert Reed on April 14th Sebastopol: Rialto – April 14th to 20th - Q&A with Director Cyril Dion and Robert Reed on April 15th Berkeley: Elmwood – April 14th to 20th - Q&A with Director Cyril Dion and Robert Reed on April 15th Southern California:  Los Angeles: Fine Arts – April 18th – Evening event with fundraising opportunity - Q&A with Director Cyril Dion Los Angeles: Laemmle’s Music Hall – April 20th to 21st – Q&A with Director Cyril on April 21st Pasadena: Laemmle’s Pasadena Playhouse – April 22nd to 23rd Claremont: Laemmle’s Claremont – April 22nd to 23rd Mid-Atlantic region:  New York City: Village East – April 21st to 27th - Q&A with Director Cyril Dion on April 22nd Rhinebeck: Upstate Films – April 24th Washington DC: Film Fest DC – April 24th and 26th Rockland, ME: Strand Theater – April 21st - 27th More info here on the film's release in the U.S., including contact info of the distribution team, prices for screenings and more!  Watch Trailer Here Press Kit Here And the film is also a book! The English language paperback edition of Tomorrow will be available in the U.S. on April 5th. Chelsea Green Publishing is making a special 50% (20 books or more) to Transition initiatives screening the film, or using the book as the basis for a discussion group. For more information, please contact Darrell Koerner at dkoerner@chelseagreen.com, 303.963.5612. Mission: Transition US (TUS) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that serves as the national hub for the international Transition Towns movement. Our mission is to catalyze and strengthen a national network of citizen-powered groups who are building local resilience through community action. We accomplish this mission by: Inspiring people to take action in their communities From water and energy to transportation and agriculture, we help local people gain the skills they need to build a resilient communities and localized economies Training local leaders to educate, organize and mobilize their communities Identifying and sharing best resilience-building practices Providing a knowledge hub of resources and models Connecting emerging leaders to this vital movement and to each other We are working in close partnership with the Transition Network, a UK based organization that supports the international Transition Movement as a whole.