Sacred Sites: Were They Made To Commune With The Goddess and the Ancestors?

 

Did I ever share my teacher Sig Lonegren's ideas about Stonehenge?  He felt that Stonehenge, which was made later than Avebury, which must have been the original land/temple................ Sig believed that the Temples/Sacred landscapes, when combined with ritual at auspicious times, allowed portals or doorways between the "worlds" so they could commune, as a whole people, with the ancestors, the dead.  He believed that people had different conciousness than we do now, they all "channelled", perhaps more like animals do, they all perceived reality in ways that by and large we don't now.  He felt that Stonehenge was a "last ditch" attempt to retain that "communion with the Gods" which gradually became lost in left brain, and possibly patriarchal/heirarchical culture evolved.   He believed that humans were much more "mediumistic" then, more able to perceive/feel in ways that we have lost as cultures evolved in different directions. I think he is right...................having spent time sitting in one of the ley crossed chambers in Vermont to watch the sun rise,  I know damn well that they were made to change conciousness, literally and not figuratively.   https://threadsofspiderwoman.blogspot.com/2020/05/sig-lonegren-on-sacred-sites-and.html

"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."

Sig Lonegren (2012)

www.geomancy.org

https://youtu.be/9sMGxeONXrA

References:

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).

"The Masks of the Goddess" at the Women & Spirituality Conference

 

Photo by JJ Idarius

                                   I am deeply honored to be the Keynote Speaker at this years 

40th Annual Women & Spirituality Conference

                  October 4th, 5th & 6th 2024

              St. Mary’s University,  Cascade Meadows Campus,

                                       Rochester, MN

Over 36 workshops to choose from, vendors, exhibitors and more. The Masks of the Goddess Collection will be on Exhibit!  Along with many women’s voices sharing their wisdom, offering their healing, together in community since 1981.  Explore the beauty of the land, experience art in the Maker’s Space, find solace in the Chaplain’s Corner.

And.......... there will be a special Ceremonial Evening 

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Conference

with a Community Ritual  Performance and the Masks of the Goddess 

                        Friday October 4th, 2024 at 7:00 pm

                         at the Chateau Theater in Rochester,  Mn  

 We are still seeking Participants to Invoke the Goddesses with the masks!  If you live in Rochester area and would like to be part of this offering for the Divine Feminine, please contact Laurenraine9@gmail.com.  We would love to have you join us!

                                                  

“What the audience saw when a dancer looked through the eyes of the mask was the Goddess Herself,  ancient and yet contemporary, looking across time, across the miles.”

           Diane Darling, Director, Playwright                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Updated Archival Video of the MASKS OF THE GODDESS PROJECT

I'm pleased with this updated version of the original video created by Serene Zloof (which was made in 2004 - so there was a great deal that needed to be updated since then!)  With thanks to Space Cruiser Video for the help.  A lot of memories there, and the hope that what I and my many wonderful Colleagues created will pass on and evolve with future generations.  

Blessed Be.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wqoxJr8_vU

La Mariposa

 Here is a story I wrote a long time ago, at a time of great change.  I was in one of those liminal zones that can be so very transformative - I was living in a little trailer in the deserted grounds of the Arizona Renaissance Faire, months before it would open.  Just me, winter in the Sonoran Desert,  and my cat. And a few refugees from winter like myself, scattered throughout the ghostly Renaissance Faire village.   I had left my life in the East Coast, and had no idea, yet, where I would go next.  It had not revealed itself, the "direction of the road", and I was not ready to know yet anyway.  What I found that winter was the solitude and quietude I needed to open to a new life, and to bless and release the old one.   This little story came from that time..........

LA MARIPOSA 

by Lauren Raine (1998)

Once upon a time, in a dusty village like any other village, a village with three good wells, fields of blue and yellow corn, a white church, and a cantina, there lived a woman who was neither young, nor old. She was brown of skin, and eye, and her hair was as brown as the sandy earth, and her clothes were brown and gray as well.

She was neither beautiful nor ugly, neither tall nor small, and she walked with a long habit of watching her feet. 

One day, she saw a tree alight with migrating butterflies. Their velvet wings fluttered in the wind of their grace, and one circled her, coming to rest upon her open hand. She thought that her heart would break for the power of its fragile beauty, and she held her breath for fear of frightening it.  La Mariposa was as orange and brilliant as the setting sun falling between indigo mountains, as iridescent, as black and violet as the most fragrant midnight. 

 At last the butterfly lifted from her hand to rejoin its nomad tribe, and its wings seemed like a whisper that called to her: "Come with us, come with us..."

The next morning they were gone. She held her hand out to the empty tree, as if to wave farewell, and saw that where the butterfly had rested, there remained a dusting of color, yellow, like pollen, the kiss of a butterfly wing. And she thought something had changed. 

She went to the well to draw water, and saw her face reflected there. She was not the same - there were now minute lines, hairline cracks, along the sides of her face, at the corners of her eyes. Later, she noticed little webs of light beneath the sturdy brown skin of her hands, barely visible except in the dim twilight. This was a frightening thing. She drew her skirts more closely around herself, pulled her scarf over her eyes. But as time went on, there was something that kept emerging, something that would not be denied. She was peeling open. 

At first, it simply itched, like a rash, like pulling nettles.  But as weeks went by, what had been easily born, what could be endured, became painful, became an agony. Try as she might, as tightly as she wrapped herself in her cocoon of shawls and skin and silence, as tightly as she wrapped herself within the comforting routines of her life, still, colors emerged from her hands. Colors spilt from her mouth. Colors and tears, deep waters that seeped from within, washing away the dust of her life. 

Soon, sleep became impossible. Standing by her window one day, shivering, she shook with fear. "Please help me", she cried, "I'm not the same". 

Then she noticed a beam of sunlight that fell across the floor of her little room like honey. Motes of dust gathered in the golden light, becoming a flurry of butterflies. Butterflies, dancing through an open window, a window opening into a sky as blue and as vast as forever. 

And La Mariposa opened her arms, took the gift of wings, and rose. 

When her neighbor came to walk with her that evening, she found only a dusty shawl and an old brown skirt upon the floor, the early stars glimmering through an unshuttered window.

For Lughnasadh: "John Barleycorn"

                                    

Who was John Barleycorn?  Why was this ancient and ubiquitous myth such a lasting folklore and folk music theme? Why is it particularly important as we approach  Lughnasadh, a Gaelic festival and Pagan holy day that marks the first harvest season. Celebrated annually on August 1st, Lughnasadh is a time of gathering, feasting, and honoring the abundance of the earth, bringing in the sheaves of wheat and barley that will become the sustaining bread, as well as future sustaining beer.  John Barleycorn must die, like many other Pagan agricultural gods, when his time is come to be sacrificed.  But, like other Pagan gods, he is also endlessly reborn,  along with  the return of the sun at the Winter Solstice,  and the return of the barley and the corn and the wheat.  And like Opheus and Dionysis,  these Gods that dwell in the liminal zones of life and death, he becomes as well the source of ecstasy, be it beer, or wine, or music.  

John Barleycorn Must Die is a traditional English song - records of its origins go back as far as the 1300s, and it is probably much older than that.    Over time, many variations have arisen, and the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote his own famous version of the story of John Barleycorn. In the 70's, John Renbourne, Traffic, and Steel eye Span popularized the song, along with many other folk artists. 

John Barleycorn is a very prime myth indeed  - the Great King who is sacrificed, dies and is reborn in the agricultural cycle.  The motif is found as the Sumarian Dumuzi, the Shepherd husband of the Goddess Inanna who goes into the underworld for part of the year, and returns to her in the Spring.  The same idea of the dying and reborn King is found with the Egyptian Osiris, who is reborn in the Sun God Horus.  "The King is dead:  Long live the King!"

John Barleycorn is the personification of the grain, and the life of the grain from planting to harvest, transformation into beer, and then sowing.  After Barleycorn’s first death he is buried, and laid within the ground.  In midsummer he grows a “long golden beard” and “becomes a man”.  

The song goes on to describe threshing and harvesting. Barleycorn is bailed and taken to the barn. And then the grain is parceled out. Some is taken to the miller to make flour for bread. And some is saved and brewed in a vat to make ale. And some is planted, so that the whole cycle can begin again.  It is likely that versions of John Barleycorn were sung in pre-Christian times, to accompany harvest rituals. Some of these rituals survive to this day in modified form, most famously the sacrifice of the wicker man. These rituals tell the story of the death and rebirth of the god of the grain.

  Photo with thanks to  Avalon Revisited

John Barleycorn is, in particular, also the God of Ecstasy - because he provides celebration and ecstasy as the barley becomes the source of beer and the beloved malt whiskey of the Highlands.  The malting and fermentation is also a part of his "life cycle" and divinity. Perhaps one of the most famous "ecstatic"  manifestations of the Wicker Man, his rituals of sacrifice, rebirth, and  celebration is Burning Man, the  festival that happens in Nevada every fall.  Originally associated with the burning of the Wicker Man at the Lammas Harvest Festival by neo-Pagans in the Bay Area, 

it's grown to become a fantastic festival and art event.  I'd be willing to bet however that  many

of the people who attend Burning Man don't know that it began with that in mind...........

Here's an excellent  quote I take from a Druid's Blog called "The Dance of Life" 

about the Wicker Man:

"In English folklore, the folksong representing John Barleycorn as the crop of barley corresponds to the same cyclic nature of planting, growing, harvesting, death and rebirth.  Sir James Frazer cites this tale of John Barleycorn in The Golden Bough as proof that there was a Pagan cult in England that worshiped a god of vegetation, who was then sacrificed to bring fertility to the fields.  It is tempting to see in this  echoes of human sacrifice as portrayed in The Wickerman film (1973), but that is not really what this time is about.  Whilst there was a Celtic ritual of weaving the last sheaf of corn to be harvested into a wicker-like man or woman, it was believed that the Sun 's spirit was trapped in the grain and needed to be set free by fire and so the effigy was burned........In other regions a corn dolly is made of plaited straw from this sheaf, carried to a place of honor at the celebrations and kept until the following spring for good luck."

It's interesting that in Robert Burn's poem, there are "three kings", similar to the kings from the east in the Nativity story.  Early Christians who came to the British Isles (and elsewhere) often absorbed native pagan mythologies and traditional rituals into Christian theology, and the evolution of the Story of Christ is full of such imagery in order to help the natives accept Christianity. Certainly John Barleycorn shares with the Christ Story the ancient, ubiquitous  theme of the death and rebirth of the sacrificed agricultural King. 

I am a great admirer of the wisdom traditions of Gnostic and esoteric Christianity, but I also believe it is necessary to separate the spiritual teachings of Christianity from  the mingling (and  literalization) of earlier  mythologies throughout  in the development of the Church.  For example, I believe the metaphor used to describe Jesus as the "Lamb of God" directly relates to Biblical practices prevalent in his lifetime  of sacrifice of lambs and goats to Yahwah (indeed, the sacrifice of animals was common

thoughout the Roman and Jewish world.)  The later development of  the doctrine that Christ   "died for our sins"   may have some of its origins in the important, and quite ancient,  Semitic Scapegoat Rituals,  wherein the "sins and tribulations" of the tribe were ritually placed on the back of a goat, which was then driven away from the village to literally "carry away the sins" into the desert.

Observing recently a Catholic "Communion" ritual ("This is my Body, This is my Blood") I was impressed by the many layers of mythologies and archaic cultures inherant in that ceremony, still important to so many people today.  And one of those threads may very well originate in the prime agricultural myth of  the dying and reborn God, a long tradition from which John Barleycorn arises re-born  every spring, and is finally "killed" in the fall. 

Ubiquitous indeed!  This same idea is found in variations throughout the Americas, this time with

the story of the Corn Mother (among the Cherokee, Selu) who is killed, dismembered, and reborn in 

the spring.

John Barleycorn
by Robert Burns

There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead. 

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.

The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.
His coulour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.

They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a Miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!

** Here's a link to the song being sung in  a 1972 Concert by Traffic 

http://youtu.be/fsIdhSzyx8M

And here is wonderful Steeleye Span:

http://youtu.be/tlL9RCznuU8

An Irish Invocation to Bridgit

 A friend forwarded this beautiful Invocation, spoken in Gaelic and in English, and performed in Ireland.  So timely for me, as my mind is full now of the masks to make, and Invocational Ritual Theatre event to weave, for the upcoming Women and Spirituality Conference in October, at which I will be the Key Speaker.  The Administrators and I want to open the event with a community based ritual event invoking the Goddesses with the masks.  I am so excited, and so delighted to be given an opportunity once again to weave with others a Basket for the Goddess.  More about that in the next post.  Enjoy this true, deep, and moving Invocation of the Goddess Bridget.  

https://youtu.be/Vt_a-O7hWeM?si=zHU-i0-4sp2c3xJ_

A Poem for this This time

 

From the Pandemic........ 

But still a Poem to nourish in this time of Fear and Division

By Rev. Dr. Lynn Ungar, poet and minister for lifespan learning 

and editor of Quest for the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship.

Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.