"My understanding was that the driving factor in the construction of purpose-built sacred spaces in prehistoric times was the loss of the ability of more and more of humanity to connect on a conscious level with the world of spirit. I felt, and still do, that the archaeoastronomy, sacred geometry and Earth Energies all enhanced the ability of this connection as we became more and more left-brain/rational."
Over the years I've included in this Blog articles by Sig Lonegren, who I consider an important teacher for me. Recently I found a 2012 UTube Interview with him, and felt like sharing it here. For those interested in Earth Mysteries, follow the links to Sig Lonegren, his writings and interviews or videos..........and you will travel down a fascinating path that challenges paradigms.
Sig is a dowser and a geomancer, and he has spent many years exploring sacred places, in England, Europe, and in the U.S. As a dowser myself, I've experienced shifts in energy - which means also shifts in consciousness and perception -many times when visiting areas that are geomantically potent, be it the henge of Avebury, or the labyrinth at Unity Church in Tucson. Sig demonstrated that Sites are able to change consciousness (raise energy) because they are intrinsically geomantically potent, and/or they also become potent because of human interaction with the innate intelligence of place, what the Greeks called "genus loci". Geomantic reciprocity - as human beings bring intentionality, reverence and focus to a particular place, building sacred architecture, or engaging in ritual. Sacred places have both an innate and a developed capacity to transform consciousness.
Why would the ancient people who built Stonehenge spend generations hauling monstrous (and apparently specific) stones hundreds of miles to pose them in circles, laid in various alignments with the skies, seasons, and land? According to Sig, who references psychologist Julian Jayne's controversial 1970's book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, possibly because, as human culture and language became increasingly complex, we began to lose mediumistic consciousness, a daily, conversant Gnosis. With the gradual ascendancy of left-brained reasoning he suggests the ancients developed a concern with how to continue contact with the gods, the ancestors, the numina of the land.
Stonehenge was a temple on a sacred landscape - according to Sig, it may also represent a "last ditch effort" to keep in touch with the spirit world as communal experience. As the rift between personal gnosis and spiritual contact deepened, gradually Gnosis was replaced by complex religious institutions that removed individuals from the earlier tribal mind, and rendered spiritual authority to priests who were often viewed as the sole representatives of the Gods or God.
As Sig has commented:
"I have been arguing for decades that these (sacred) spaces were special places that enhance the possibility of connection to the other side - to the One. Please judge what follows in that context. You may well find that it challenges some of your paradigms you hold about the past. It combines two separate lines of investigation that support the perception that these spaces really “did what’s on the box.” The gods came to earth. And us humans in great numbers communicated directly with them.
Since the mid-seventies when I began work on my Masters’ degree on Sacred Space, one of the major themes I have chewed on has been the shift from the dominance of that more intuitive right brain in prehistory to the analytical left brain brought to us by (IMHO) the increase of influence of the Patriarchy. The book that really turned me on initially was The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, first published in 1976.
I don’t agree with some of what he has to say, for example, his choice of a particular word to describe how our prehistoric ancestors received their right brain information - "hallucinations." I don't think that's what they were. But on the whole, I found his thesis most useful in forming my perception of this global shift in consciousness. It began with the Neolithic Revolution - the increasing use of agriculture rather than hunter gathering. It facilitated a shift in consciousness. My understanding was that the driving factor in the construction of purpose-built sacred spaces in prehistoric times was the loss of the ability of more and more of humanity to connect on a conscious level with the world of spirit. I felt, and still do, that the archaeoastronomy, sacred geometry and Earth Energies all enhanced the ability of this connection as we became more and more left-brain/rational. I wrote about this at great length in my first book, Spiritual Dowsing, initially published in 1986."
Jaynes, Julian. 1976. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. (Available from Amazon Books.)
Lonegren, Sig. 2007. Spiritual Dowsing. Glastonbury, England: Gothic Image. History of the earth energies, healing and other uses of dowsing today. A book for the spiritual pilgrim. Initially published 1986. ISBN 978-0-906362-70-9. (Available from Amazon books).
I am very deeply saddened by the fall of Kabul, and of the country of Afghanistan, this past week to the Taliban, a violent, feudal, fundamentalist regime. While it was probably inevitable that it would happen, as Afghanstan is a country that has been devastated with war ever since the coup of 1973, I do not speak to that here, or try to analyze the sad desolation of the country since that time. And while debate and blame rages on the internet about the U.S. withdrawal, leaving the people of Afghanistan to their fate, while internet voices loudly blame the Bush presidency and the military complex for invading in the first place, and equally, while voices on the internet condemn Biden's presidency for withdrawing from Afghanistan after 20 years.............I don't chose to speak to that either in this post.
I just grieve for the people of Afghanistan, some of whom I knew long ago in my youth. I grieve especially for the women and girls, who will now be utterly oppressed by a patriarchal religion and regime that regards women as, in essence, slaves. And affords them virtually no freedom. They will have no sovereignty any longer, and many will be punished or killed for whatever freedoms they briefly enjoyed during the American occupation. I grieve for the hope so many Afghans had when they were liberated, at least in the urban centers, in the early 2000's. I grieve for the intellectuals, the doctors and teachers and artists and writers and scientists, who will now be forced to flee, if they can, from a feudal oppressive religious regime that will allow no free thought or freedom of speech. I grieve for the genocide that will now come, indeed, is no doubt going on as I write, as people who are accused of being associated with the Americans are killed by the "rightous warriors" of Allah.
Or "God", or "Mohammed" or "Yaweh" or even, sadly "Jesus" - all the womanless, merciless gods of authoritarian Patriarchy, concretized into religions that their enlightened Prophets of long ago would no doubt be horrified by. All the suffering, all the endless violence in the name of these "gods", whether it is the burning of witches at the Inquisition, or the enslavement of the women of Kabul.
I GRIEVE FOR THEM ALL, AND PRAY, EVERY DAY, FOR THE RETURN OF THE GODDESS TO OUR BROKEN WORLD.
Istalif, outside of Kabul, was famous for its blue glass artisans, and its beautiful blue pottery. Maybe it still is. I don’t know – my memories are of bulky azure glasses, and thick strands of cerulean beads that jingled on the camel harnesses, and occasionally the wrists, of nomadic Kootchi women passing through Kabul, where I lived as a teenager, as they made their seasonal routes in caravans. Probably they no longer do this journey through Afghanistan, which has been war torn for so very long. I don't know, but I remember the Kootchis, and I remember the camels.
My father worked for U.S. A.I.D., and I attended an international school in Kabul. This was during the very hopeful and prosperous days of the Sorbonne educated King Mohammed Zahir Shah who was dedicated to modernizing the country, and brought into Kabul embassies and aid from countries aroundt he world. The American Compound and community in Kabul was extensive, and included my father, who worked with the Teacher's College at the University of Kabul. It was an exciting time for the country - in Kabul women were becoming educated, taking off the veil, western technologies and medicine were flooding into the urban centers and being dispersed into the more rural areas, and even the arts flourished in Kabul.
And I was just another "embassy brat", finishing up my last high school year at A.I.S.K. (the American International School of Kabul). I was 16, and like all 16 year olds, I thought mostly about romance, adventure, and what was "new and happening", which at the time was the Beatles, mini skirts, and Swinging London. Just before I left Afghanistan, my family went for an excursion to Istalif, a village not too far from Kabul. It was late spring, and waters rushed down in cold, lively streams from fierce mountains still snow-clad. Many westerners went to Istalif to sight-see, and there was a rather exclusive restaurant that catered to foreigners there - it offered a good view, and coffee and pastries.
Shop in Istalif with famous turquoise wares
Debbie Simon (my best friend) and I were, like all 16 year olds, eager to get away from the boring conversations of our elders. Dressed in our French coats, our high black boots and mod turtlenecks, with adolescent stealth we escaped the tabled terraces for a while, to walk below on granite boulders that overlooked a stream. We were young, fashionable, and elated with the prospect of leaving Afghanistan. Debbie was headed home to New York, and I was going to London to attend a secretarial college.
Debbie’s father worked for the Embassy, and both our fathers had completed their assignments. We were going back to the states at last! Back to the Rolling Stones and boys and beaches and college sooner or later. As we talked excitedly, not so far away was a familiar sight – a group of local women doing laundry by the stream. Seeing us approach, they had dropped their chadoris over their faces, and now resembled a collection of multi-colored tents huddled among the rocks. We paid no attention to them, and they returned to their work.
I didn’t notice when one “tent” disengaged from the rest and quietly approached us. But we grew silent as she came to stand, silently, about fifteen feet before us, her face hidden under layers of pleated cloth, an opaque net before her eyes. As we watched in surprise, her hands emerged from the chador to lift it above her face.
Before us stood a girl of 16 or 17. Black eyes lined in kohl shone with humor. She smiled shyly at each of us as she lifted her veil, and then she dropped it before her face again, turned and walked back to the group of veiled women as Debbie and I stood silently on our rock by the stream.
I don't know why she approached us. Perhaps she just wanted to let us know that she also was young and pretty, reminding us of our common youth, and yet living in worlds so far apart. I never forgot that moment - it was a gift.
I also never have forgotten the enormous privilege my life has been.
I remembered that exactly 7 years ago, in 2014, I had life support withdrawn from my brother, Glenn, and had to watch him die. Glenn suffered a massive stroke that left him brain dead in 2008. But because he did not leave a living will, and my mother refused to remove life support, he was artificially sustained by life support for 6 years. In 2014 I was able, finally, to remove life support and allow his body to die - although I very much felt his spirit had left long before that event. I made a series of sculptures for him, sculptures that were really prayers made visible to, I hoped, help him to leave this world. I just felt like remembering today, and sharing those sculptures. I copy below the post from 2014 that still describes the event, and the sculptures, pretty well. Wherever Glenn is, I know that his suffering is long past him, and I believe he wishes me very well.
Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sun on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning’s hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft star-shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.
Ann Frye
"Form Is Empty" (2009)
In 2008 my brother suffered a brain stem stroke. Because he did not have a living will, since then he has been on complete life support. In 2009 he was pronounced brain dead. My mother is now in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, and my other brother has finally agreed to allow me to withdraw life support for Glenn, which we will do on the 15th of this month.
Above is a card I made for Glenn in 2009 when I created a "Dia De Los Muertos" Alter at Wesley as their resident artist. The images reflect things that Glenn loved, and dreams, such as travelling to India, that he had.
Below is one of the three sculptures I made in 2009 for Glenn, honoring his long interest in Buddhism. All of them have tiles with words and phrases pressed into the clay, symbols and antique designs, all of them, like pottery shards, broken, disordered, "de-constructing". In this realm of being, words and symbols are what we construct our ideas of life from, the "shells" we create our identities from. In "Form is Empty"I saw the hand of the dying reaching through the shattering of form toward the offering hand of the Divine, the greater Self.
It's been such a long time that I have grown numb to it, to be honest, worn out. I've tried all kinds of strategies to come to grips with the situation, including calling in a medium several times who told me that Glenn was not in his body, and that he had "crossed over". I was comforted by that. Towards the end of his life Glenn was a bitter recluse, and I know that he was tired of the life he had. That made the situation that much more awful to me. I'm relieved that this is soon going to be over.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
Gospel of Thomas
I suppose it sounds hard, but people take a long time to die, and after a while, you just have to go on with life, or you lose your life to the dying. I was my beloved grandmother's caretaker for 5 years as teenager, and I learned after a while to be "selfish" enough to allow myself an adolescence. To survive in a family with much dysfunction. In many ways, Glenn was the most sensitive sibling, talented and intelligent, and I'm not sure he did "survive" - so many of the things he wanted to do he never was able to. I often think of the quote above from the Gospel of Thomas. I think Jesus was talking about the great creative drive that every being incarnates with, a kind of individual purpose or purposes we all have. We have to be responsible to the needs of family and tribe.........but we also have to honor what Joseph Campbell called "following your bliss", your unique path and calling. Sometimes the demands of family or tribe are wrong, the values inappropriate. Sometimes relationships keep us from evolving..............In examining my life, I'm glad I was both rebellious and "selfish". I wish Glenn had been able to do so as well, and I think of him free, and able to create a new life in the other realms.
Form Is Empty
"The Heart Sutra" (2009)
One story I remember was in 2011, when I began to remodel my mother's house after she went into assisted living. My other brother, David, left Glenn's room exactly as it was, including a locked closet that was full of guns, reflecting the paranoia and isolation Glenn felt. David refused to open it. Finally, when he went back to California, I decided to clear out Glenn's room no matter what David thought, and I painted it a bright sky blue, as a ritual, to embody peace, and the open sky, release. As I was painting around the door of the locked closet.........it very gently opened!
I took the guns, sold them, and sent the money to a couple of charities, including sponsoring a girl in Nepal, which I felt was another way to change the energy, to "open the way" for Glenn's spirit to be free. I like to think, am pretty sure, that that opening door was Glenn's way of letting me know that all was well. Unfortunately, my other brother refuses to consider anything he thinks is "metaphysical nonsense", so he's unable to benefit from experiences like this. In the 2nd piece, "The Heart Sutra", I used the hand of a 90 year old woman and a 9 year old child. The Heart is what lies between.
One of the things I hate about any kind if fundamentalism is the endless heavy footprint of patriarchal preoccupation with sin, punishment, torture, etc. The Old Testament tribal war gods have a lot of rules, and no mercy. I've met people so terrified of death because they feel they'll be tortured forever by some vicious god or devil.
How much wiser the Egyptian concept of Maat, who holds a feather and a scale before the door of death and new life. With "the Questions of Maat", the Goddess helps souls to weigh the lives they've had, to understand, to "fore-give" and be "fore-given". She is both grief and praise, and as I understand the word "forgive", it means to not hold on, but to release the energy in order to give it fore-ward, into new form, new love, new creation. When at last each soul is "as light as the feather of Maat", the door opens, and they can pass on.
"Holy Mother Take Me Home" (2009)
A River Runs Through Us
"Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. "
Norman MacLean, "A River Runs Through It"
The last piece, "Holy Mother Take Me Home", is a prayer to the Goddess, the Source. I used a child's hand again, and the broken shards, with all the words, float down the river of light. We're all children, really, all children. She reaches out Her hand to take us Home. It doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, what kind of life you think you've led or not led. She waits. It's been a long journey Glenn. Be at peace.
"We have been raised to think that our body ended here, with this bag of skin, or with our possessions or education or house. Now we begin to realize that our body is the world."
For some of us, Friday the 13th is not a bad luck day at all, in fact, it's auspicious for the Goddess, and highly misunderstood. And as for honey moons, that also is something with a bit of little known history.
For one thing, "Friday" originally was dedicated to the Nordic Goddess Freya, otherwise known as "Freya's Day". Freya was one of the oldest of the Nordic Gods, one of the Vanir** known for her beauty, her compassion (amber is still called "Freya's tears" ), and importantly, she was the Goddess of love, sensuality, and, along with Odin, also associated withSeiðr, sorcery, which may very well pertain to pre-Christian shamanic practices and beliefs.
There are further connections between "Friday the 13" and the Goddess, the most notable being that the number 13 represents the number of lunations in a year, and in many traditions is sacred to the Goddess or the feminine aspect of deity, because there are thus 13 menstrual cycles in the year. In many early cultures the year was determined by the number 13, the number of moons. And last, of course, the Moon is almost universally associated with the Goddesses, including Selene, Isis, Artemis, and so on...............a lot of "feminine" energy, imagery, his-story, and symbology going on here, and depending on your theological point of view, either very superstitious, or very fortunate! It is worth noting that we can see what happened to the once Sacred Day of Friday the 13th in the course of patriarchy by noting that we now (in the West) have a single male God with no wife, no mother, no daughter. Who doesn't seem to like women very much at all.
Freya is the patron and protector of all Cats - and she is sometimes depicted as being driven in her chariot by her cats. This is a Goddess I can very much appreciate.
Last, many people may not realize that in medieval Northern Europe it was often the custom to give a newly married couple a months supply of honey mead, which was considered a very special, rare, and rather magical brew, in the hopes that it might help to bring about fertility and love. Hence, the "Honeymoon". This also was associated with Freya's Blessings.
In Norse mythology, the Vanir (singular Vanr) are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods (the other being the Æsir) and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr (Old Norse "Home of the Vanir"). After the Æsir–Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir. Subsequently, members of the Vanir are sometimes also referred to as members of the Æsir.
Recently a video (posted herein) was sent to me by a friend, and it took me back to an article I wrote in this Blog about the "2012" prophecy, the so called Ending of the Hopi and Mayan Calendar: the end of the 4th Age and the beginning of the 5th Age. So I took the liberty of re-posting here an article from my Blog in 2012 as we approached the Solstice and the "beginning of the 5th Age" It also has a fascinating article by Daniel Pinchbeck within the post. And I copy below a poem that circulated around the internet for years. Although the attribution cannot be proven, it is still a very meaningful warning.
You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt."
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
"The Emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made by the humble people of little nations, tribes, and racial minorities. 'You can read this in the earth itself. Plant forms from previous worlds are beginning to spring up as seeds. This could start a new study of botany if people were wise enough to read them. The same kinds of seeds are being planted in the sky as stars. The same kinds of seeds are being planted in our hearts. All these are the same, depending how you look at them."
from The Book of the Hopi, by Frank Waters (1963)
Since we approach the Solstice, I felt like writing about the Hopi prophecy, as they believe the "4th World" is ending, and the 5th World is to begin. In Hopi cosmology, there were three previous Worlds, all of which were destroyed as the New Age began. We are entering the Fifth Age. Grandmother Spider Woman is, in most of the stories, the one who leads the people into the next age, in most stories (although not all) through the Sipapu, the Kiva, which can be seen as a symbolic womb and birth canal. Hopi cosmology, as are all Pueblo culture cosmologies, is complex and has many variations. There is no doubt that there was trade and exchange between the Pueblo peoples and the Maya, and indeed Hopi language shares much with the Aztec language, so it is not surprising that the Hopi and Mayan calendars coincide in some ways, and also that mythological figures are shared in common. But I am far from an expert, and I can only speak of what I know in the most general sense.
The Hopi have been an oral culture, which means that the prophecies, myths, and ceremonies have been passed on from generation to generation, changing and being influenced by external events. It's also important, in reading the many accounts of the Hopi prophecies on the Web, to realize that 1) the Hopi are traditionally very secretive about their sacred traditions and do not share them with outsiders; conversely, they may intentionally mislead informants, as a means of protecting their traditional wisdom from exploitation. Two, none of the Prophecies that have been circulating, including the well known work of Frank Waters who wrote "The Book of the Hopi" in the 1950's, as far as I can determine, were written by Hopi people. And 3), there is so much hype, co-option, disrespect, and fantasizing of the Hopi prophesies, and Native Americans in general, on the part of popular culture, that it's hard to wade through and find what the truth is. Having said all that, I'd like to share here a great article by Daniel Pinchbeck about the Hopi Apocalypse (see below after this post).
The "Nine Signs" of the Hopi, written by Frank Waters in his book, is very famous and circulating widely. He lived on the reservation for three years and interviewed over 30 elders. Still, there is much that is questionable about his famous book. The "Nine Signs", he wrote, were given to a white minister, who happened to give a ride to a Hopi elder. The Minister conveniently died in the 70's, and the Elder, who told him his name was "White Feather of the Bear Clan", has never been traced. As many have pointed out, the Hopi usually have an Anglo first name, and then their last name is in their own native language. It may also be pointed out that everything in the "prophecies" could have been observed in the 50's, from the widespread terror of nuclear war to "the sea turning black and living things dying" (oil spills). The West has had, under Christianity, a very long fascination with the Apocalypse, and many groups for a thousand years have awaited the "Rapture", when Christ would return and the sinful world would be destroyed. While I believe the Hopi have prophecy (and great wisdom) I do not believe these "prophecies" supposedly given by a mysterious dying "White Feather" are authentic.
One of the most interesting aspects of Hopi prophecyWaters wrote of is the "Blue Star Katchina":
"The end of all Hopi ceremonialism will come when the Blue Star Kachina removes his mask during a dance in the plaza before uninitiated children [ which has been interpreted to mean the naive or general public]. For a while there will be no more ceremonies, no more faith. Then Oraibi will be rejuvenated with its faith and ceremonies, marking the start of a new cycle of Hopi life."......"You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star."
This has been interpreted to mean the comet Hale Bopp, the destruction of the space station Challenger, even UFO's. I have to note that there were manned satellites in the late '50's that could have influenced this. However, the Blue Star Kachina removing his mask is very interesting, and I would like to learn more about that at a later time.......what the meaning of the masks are is complex.
There is a later commentary (1998) about the Blue Star Kachina given by Robert Ghost Wolf(aka Robert Franzone, aka Robert Parry) that is very eloquent. The author claims to have received them from Hopi elders, yet it turns out that Ghost Wolf has been discredited by many sources as a fraud, and in researching him, it seems, indeed, very difficult to believe anything he may say.
Perhaps the closest we can get to truth is reading Dan Evehema, a Hopi traditional leader (he died in 1999) , who was one of four Hopis (including Thomas Banyacya, David Monongye, and Dan Katchongva) who decided or were appointed to reveal Hopi traditional wisdom and teachings, including the Hopi prophecies for the future, to the general public in 1946, after the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. Evehema was co-author, with Thomas Mails, of "The Hopi Survival Kit". The "Hopi Survival Kit" includes a signed affidavit from Dan Evehema approving the book, and is the only written account of the complete Hopi prophecies. Evehema was a member of the Greasewood/Roadrunner Clan. Hopi prophecy also contains the return of Pahena, the white brother. The legend of the Pahana seems connected with the Aztec story of Quetzalcoatl, and other legends of Central America. In the early 16th century, both the Hopis and the Aztecs believed that the coming of the Spanish conquistadors was the return of this lost white prophet.Daniel Pinchbeck has written in “The Fifth World and the Hopi Apocalypse”(which I take the liberty of excerpting below) that “The Hopi prophecies also tell of the return of Pahana, the elder white brother, in a real exchange of knowledge and a true communion, as the Fourth World comes to an end.”
Last summer, I visited the Hopi on their tribal lands in Arizona. The Hopi are thought to be the original inhabitants of the North American continent–this is what their own legends tell us, and archaeologists agree. My initial interest in the Hopi came from reading about their oral prophecies and their “Emergence Myth.” According to the Hopi, we are currently living in the Fourth World, on the verge of transitioning, or emerging, into the Fifth World. In each of the three previous worlds, humanity eventually went berserk, tearing apart the fabric of the world through destructive practices, wars, and ruinous technologies. As the end of one world approaches a small tunnel or inter-dimensional passage —the sipapu—appears, leading the Hopi and other decent people into the next phase, or incarnation, of the Earth.
Of course, most modern people would consider this story to be an interesting folktale or fantasy with no particular relevance to our current lives. Even five years ago, I probably would have agreed with them. However, my personal experiences with indigenous cultures and shamanism convinced me, in the interim, that there is more to traditional wisdom than our modern mindset can easily accept. The Hopi themselves say that almost all of the signs have been fulfilled that precede our transition to the Fifth World. These include a “gourd of ashes falling from the sky,” destroying a city, enacted in the atomic blasts obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a spider web across the Earth, which they associate with our power grid and telephone lines. According to Frank Waters, who compiled accounts from 30 Hopi elders in his Book of the Hopi (1963), the current Fourth World will end in a war that will be “a spiritual conflict” fought with material means, leading to the destruction of the United States through radiation. Those who survive this conflict will institute a new united world without racial or ideological divisions “under one power, that of the Creator.”
The 12,000 Hopi live in a dry and dramatic landscape strewn with enormous boulders, resembling the surface of an alien planet. Their towns are clustered on three mesas—high, flat cliffs overlooking vast swathes of desert. Traditionally, the Hopi are subsistence farmers; they work with ancient strains of corn and beans that are, almost miraculously, able to grow in that arid environment. For obvious reasons, water is sacred to their culture—many of their rituals are aimed at bringing rain. Each spring, each well, is precious to the Hopi. While I was visiting Hopiland I attendeda rain dance in the town of Walpi, on First Mesa. Perhaps 50 men of the town—wearing masks and costumes and feathered headdresses —participated in the dance, which was held in the town’s center. The dancers are dressed as katsinas, the spiritual beings that are thought to control elemental forces. The ceremony is a form of possession trance—the goal is to summon the katsinas to temporarily inhabit the bodies of the dancers. The Hopi believe that their culture can only prosper if they maintain direct contact with the supernatural powers that manifest directly through the natural world.
In his book Rethinking Hopi Anthropology, the Cambridge anthropologist Peter Whitely recalls, with an almost embarrassed reluctance, that during his time with the Hopi in the 1980s, he witnessed repeated demonstrations of their precognitive abilities and their ability to influence natural forces through ritual.***He was transfixed by his first visit to a Snake Dance in 1980: “This was no commodified spectacle of the exotic … its profound religiosity was tangible, sensible. Within half an hour of the dance (which lasts about 45 minutes), a soft rain began to fall from a sky that had been burningly cloudless throughout the day.” When he went to see one of his informants, Harry Kewanimptewa, a septuagenarian member of the Spider clan, he would often find that the elder would answer the questions he had intended to ask before he could vocalize them: “I have no desire to fetishize or exoticize here, but this was something about him and some other, particularly older, Hopis that I have experienced repeatedly and am unable to explain rationally.”
I can sympathize with Whiteley’s plight. Since I started exploring shamanism almost a decade ago, I have found myself living in two worlds simultaneously—the world of Western rationalist discourse with its empirical and materialist emphasis, and the shamanic realm of magical correspondences, supernatural forces, dream messages, and synchronicities. The shamanic realm is one in which human consciousness is not an epiphenomenon or dualistic byproduct of a purely physical evolution, but an inseparable aspect of the world, intertwined with reality at every level. It seems that quantum physics has attained a perspective that is similar to the shamanic view, acknowledging a direct relation between the observer and observed.
I went to the Hopi as part of my research for the book I am writing on prophecies, studying the Mayan and Toltec obsession with the year 2012, the Apocalypse described in the Biblical Book of Revelation, the Hopi foretellings, and various modern Western philosophers and visionaries whose ideas offer a context or system for understanding these predictions. Before I visited the Hopi or even read much about them, I had a few powerful dream experiences that seemed to indicate, to me, the importance of my imminent encounter with this ancient tribe. After seeing the film Naqoyqatsi (“Life as War”)—the last in the trilogy of films beginning with Koyaanisqatsi (“Life out of Balance”), by Godfrey Reggio (appropriating Hopi concepts with no input from the tribe) — I had a dream of fiery demons at computer workstations, and awoke with the sense of a visceral supernatural presence flying through my house. The night before I left for the Southwest, I had an even more specific and frightening nightmare. In this dream, I was killed and dismembered by a disgusting-looking demon—who was simultaneously, in typical dream dislogic, the famous conceptual artist Bruce Naumann. In the dream, I returned to Naumann’s studio or the demon’s home and said, “Great—now that you have killed me, I control you.” I went to a bookcase and picked up a huge leather-bound volume titled “Grimoire” (a Medieval catalogue of imaginary beasts and supernatural creatures) and melted it down over a fire. As I did this, I heard incredibly loud Native American chanting and maniacal laughter. I awoke, once again, with the sense of a powerful presence, a kind of unhinged or wild diabolical force, looming overhead and then soaring away.
While traveling to Hopiland I scanned several books of Hopi anthropology and folktales and found that the being who had haunted my dreams closely matched descriptions of Maasaw, the complex creator-deity of the Hopi. According to Hopi legend, when the Hopi first emerged from the Third World to the Fourth, they met Maasaw, who gave them the rules of conduct for life on this new land and introduced them to the rudiments of their agricultural system. Maasaw brought the sun into the Fourth World; but once he had accomplished this, he left the daylight world forever to haunt the realm of night and darkness. The name Maasaw literally means “corpse demon” or “death spirit” in the Hopi language, and he is considered to be the ruler of the land of the dead. Maasaw resembles the ambiguous deities found in Hinduism and Tibetan Tantra, who have wrathful and benevolent manifestations. Since his disappearance from the earth, Maasaw often appears to the Hopi in dreams as a terrifying presence, wearing a ghoulish mask. According to some accounts, Maasaw’s deviation began long ago in the Third World, where he became arrogant and defiant. His assignment to rule over the underworld was a kind of demotion. I wondered why—as seemed to be the case—this spirit had introduced himself to me, in my dreams, even before I arrived in Hopiland.
I thought that I needed to learn more about the Hopi prophecies—and indeed, I did manage to visit an elder in that extraordinary desert landscape. Martin Gasheseoma took time off from working on his field of corn and beans, to tell me that the “purification,” as foretold, would soon come to pass, that there was no way to prevent it. “It goes like a movie now,” he said. However, even before I had found my way to this meeting, my perspective had shifted. I had realized that the essence of the prophecy—the solution to the riddle—was not in some transcendent or otherworldly event, but in the very immanent and real world around us.
The Hopi way of life is threatened with imminent extinction. In the 1960s, the Peabody Coal Company was given a concession to mine coal on their land. They were also awarded the right to use water from the aquifer under Black Mesa to slurry the coal down a pipeline, built by the Enron Corporation. This operation wastes 1.3 billion gallons of pure drinking water annually. Of course, there are other ways to transport coal, but this is the cheapest for Peabody, and the company has continually fought against and effectively delayed all efforts to change their destructive practices.
In the 1980s, it was discovered that the lawyer who negotiated the original deal for the Hopi was, at the same time, on the payroll of the Peabody Corporation—and the Hopi have received a tiny fraction of the revenue they deserve, while forfeiting control of their own destiny. According to US Government Geological Surveys, by the year 2011, the aquifer will be finished—already the Hopi are finding that the local springs on which they rely are drying up.
In the middle-class New Age culture and “New Edge” festivals such as Burning Man, much lip service is paid to Native American traditions. Perhaps millions of white people hang dream catchers over their beds and put kachina dolls on their shelves. Despite this sentimental interest in indigenous culture and spirituality, precious little, or nothing, is done by us—those of us with the leisure for yoga and raw food and sweat lodges, who often sanctimoniously consider ourselves to be especially “conscious” or “spiritual” beings—to help the Native Americans on this continent. The indigenous people are resettled next to toxic waste dumps, abandoned to the least arable lands, ignored when the fish in their rivers are poisoned, when their resources are robbed from them. In every way, they continue to be treated with condescension and contempt.
This is also what I intuited from Maasaw’s mocking laughter and deviant presence in my dreams: Some deep schism of the soul remains to be recognized; the wound can only be healed if we work to forge a real relationship with the indigenous world, to expiate our dominator culture’s guilt and denial through pragmatic action in this reality, as it is now. If this is the case, then the Hopi situation represents the perfect place to begin the reversal: They are probably the oldest and perhaps most well-known indigenous group in the US, zealously studied by ethnographers for over a century, while repeatedly and blatantly betrayed by the US government and private corporations.
As climate change accelerates along with the global depletion of resources, we are being forced to recognize that our current system is unsustainable, even in the short term. The Hopi situation provides a microcosm of the global crisis—a cruelly ironic situation considering the essential meaning of their culture. As Whiteley notes, “The phrase ‘Hopi environmentalism’ is practically a redundancy. So much of Hopi culture and thought, both religious and secular, revolves around an attention to balance and harmony in the forces of nature that environmental ethics are in many ways critical to the very meaning of the word ‘Hopi.’” Visiting the Hopi, it occurred to me that indigenous prophecy, in itself, arises out of a deep level of attunement to the natural world, rather than anything “spiritual” or immaterial.
According to Vernon Masayesva, of the Black Mesa Trust (www.blackmesatrust.org): “It is our water ethic that has allowed us to survive and thrive in one of the most arid areas on planet Earth. It is the knowledge and teachings of our elders that have sustained us. This water ethic that has been handed down to us by our ancestors we are eager to share with everyone who will be facing water shortages—and according to some studies, water wars—in the next few decades. When the water is gone from Black Mesa, so will be the traditional cultures that could have taught the world so much about living successfully with less.” The Hopi prophecies also tell of the return of Pahana, the elder white brother, in a real exchange of knowledge and a true communion, as the Fourth World comes to an end.
Like so many manifestations of our neurotic and alienated culture, the Koyaanasqatsi films create a mood of inescapable doom and approaching cataclysm. Personally, I reject this attitude. We still have time to save the Hopi and other indigenous groups — perhaps, by extension, ourselves—if we are willing to learn from them and fight for them, rather then appropriating their spirituality while ignoring the destruction we keep inflicting upon their world.
*** This is of great interest to me, as a person who has attempted, with the communities I've worked with, to study about, and create, a Sacred Mask collection (The Masks of the Goddess, 1998-2019). The intention of the performers was to invoke, and bring the energies, of the Goddesses to the performers and the participants/audience. And so it often was.
I also think, when I read this, about the work that has been done at Findhorn, Perelandra, and the Sirius Community with the Devas, the elemental beings that help the plant world to manifest. Perhaps they are in part Katchinas. Or the Numina of the Romans. How sad to think that we have mostly lost this understanding. How sad to think that we have lost the Sanctity of nature.
"The Work of seeing is done, now practice heart-work upon those images
captive within you......." Rainier Maria Rilke
A print of the image above was given to me as a gift, and I have carried it around and placed it on my altar for at least 10 years. I did not know who the artist was until 2012 when I was delighted to discover Cherokee artist Shan Goshorn's site. What a magnificent body of work!
The image above that has spoken to me over the years is not even on her site, and I don't know what it meant to her. But to me it speaks of "coming into power" as the maturation of integral consciousness. The masked figure "gathers power" as he/she embodies, "drums with", the union of opposites. Red and Blue represent opposite elements or forces, heat and cold, fire and water, dark and light. The orbs could be both the sun and the moon, as well as the interplay and synthesis of dark and light, conscious and unconscious, heart and intellect. As the figure drums, she/he resonates and harmonizes with the starry rythems of creation. The mask is, to me, self becoming transparent, personality and ego a thin mask over a field of stars, the cosmos, the greater life we are part of. The white band in the "sky" could be the energy of spirit, or the vast rim of the Milky Way. This image is important to me, a great gift by a sacred artist.
Learning that the artist is also weaving together the broken threads of the past to create healing baskets that re-member and re-join brings the idea of "coming into power", for me, into even greater focus. I was particularly moved to see her work as a Weaver of Sacred Baskets. She creates "medicine baskets"in traditional designs and techniques that are woven with words, some in English, some in Cherokee. One that I found truly moving was woven of broken contracts, the names and photos of children taken from their communities and forced to attend boarding schools. I'm so pleased to share a bit aboutShan Goshorn's powerful and (to me) shamanic art.....
Shan Goshorn's award winning basket “Educational Genocide – The Legacy of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School”was created with a Cherokee-style double weave, and was made from splints of paper that had student’s names and historical documents and photographs who were taken from their parents and force to attend the boarding school. A photograph of the Carlisle Student Body of 1912 was woven around the perimeter of the lid.
“I completely underestimated the impact that this piece would have on viewers, including Indian and non-Indian. I was surprised that every native person seemed to have a connection to Carlisle, but it was even more surprising that everyone seemed affected by seeing the faces of those children woven into the lid. I think that maybe seeing those children humanized this ugly, but critically formative, part in our collective history.”
"The devastating impact boarding schools has had on Native culture cannot be overlooked. Native children were removed from their families, homes and communities and sent to live in these military-like facilities in an effort to be whitewashed into the dominant culture. The goal of these institutions was to acculturate and “civilize” Indian children, thus stripping them of their Native identity and resulting in the loss of language and tribal customs.
Mainstream American attitudes also perpetuate this historical trauma. At first printing, the popular children’s song “10 Little Indians” presented a malevolent outlook and summed up popular national sentiments regarding “The Indian Problem.” In this basket, the center white splints combine lyrics of three versions of this song, including the original words written by Septimus Winner in 1868. Sample phrases from all three versions of these hostile lyrics include: one got executed and then there were nine, one got syphilis and then there were eight, one shot the other and then there was one, one broke his neck and then there were six, one chopped himself in half and then there were six, one dead drunk and then there were three, one passed out drunk and then there were two, one shot himself and then there was one, he went and hanged himself and then there were none.
Woven into this basket are Navajo, Lakota and Kaw tribal prayers of healing and well being, collected for the healing and well being of generations of boarding school victims. Also included are the words to a Cherokee Memorial Song, “We remember your sacrifices. You will not be forgotten.” In order for race relations in this country to truly be repaired, America has to accept responsibility for this travesty and make amends. "
"Traditionally, native women held positions highly revered in their communities, often respected as leaders, warriors and always as the bringers of life. However, after first contact, non-native men frequently viewed indigenous women as disposable sexual commodities. Based on today’s disproportionately higher rate of violence toward native women and a judicial reluctance to prosecute these crimes, it is a belief that appears to be ongoing. Statistics in the U.S. indicate three in five native women will be physically assaulted; 34% will be raped; on some reservations,native women are murdered at more than ten times the national average; and U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute 67% of sexual abuse related cases. In Canada, a 2015 report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RMCP) concluded 1,049 aboriginal women had been slain between 1980 and 2015, and that another 175 were considered missing. Patty Hajdu, Canadian Minister for the Status of Women, reported in 2017 that 4,000 would be a more realistic number based on a history of police under-reporting or failure to properly investigate cases. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports that activists with the Walk 4 Justice initiative collected at least 4,232 names of missing or murdered indigenous women.
Although the numbers tell a story, revealing a tragic disparity that must be rectified, we must remember the persons behind the numbers. This Cherokee style single-weave basket was created not only to point to the statistics but also to humanize women who’ve lost their lives. Woven in the traditional pattern called “Water”, the vertical splints are printed with high stats of violence directed at native women in the U.S.; the horizontal splints compile the discrepancy in gathering such numbers in Canada. The interior is printed with the names and tribes, compiled by the CBC, of 306 murdered and missing women, cases the RCMP dismissed as solved. The families of these women dispute this resolution.
The Red River, which runs from Winnipeg, Canada to northern South Dakota, has become known as a place where the bodies of women are regularly recovered making its name (Red River) heartbreakingly fitting. Included on the front of the basket is a red-lined map of this river, a visual gash to serve as a reminder of this place where native women have been discarded and seemingly forgotten. It is time to recognize the humanity of these women, mourn the value of their lives and put a stop to this terror. "
Sources: National Congress of American Indians (2013); US Department of Justice (1998); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1998); Native Women’s Association of Canada/ Canada Public Broadcaster CBC NEWS (Feb 2016); The Guardian (Feb 2016); Walk 4 Justice/ Global News (Mar 2016); NPR National Public Radio (Aug 2016)
