Avebury Notes

“The ancient Greeks spoke of the "genus loci," or spirit of a place. They sited a shrine to honor the Earth Goddess Gaia in Delphi in Greece because the unique personality or spirit of that place was divined to be especially suited to Gaia residing there. Understanding the forces that drew the early Greeks to reach that decision may well be a concept that is at the very root of developing sustainable human societies and creating programs that maximize the unique values of each destination.” 

James  Swan

Going to Avebury was a process, because it represented an intention, long nurtured, of making a personal pilgrimage to this ancient sacred landscape.  So it could be said that the intention preceded me, one of Spider Woman’s threads, across the Atlantic.  Going to a Pilgrimage, even if only half realized, I venture to suggest there are stages of opening, of preparation, necessary.  Entering “mythic mind and space” is part of entering sacred space of any kind – it’s entering that dimension wherein the mind is prepared for the possibility that here the land speaks, the oracle resides, the fey are, and the ancestral spirits listen.

 

 Among the Lakota, preparation for any kind of spiritual activity, and many communal activities that involve consensus as well, must include cleansing activities – a fast, and a sweat lodge, for example.  This “purification” is found throughout virtually all spiritual traditions.   So following this logic, I’m not surprised I became sick almost as soon as I got off the plane, with three days of fever.  It certainly served to detox me from the stress and negative, fearful atmospheres I’ve been dealing with for months now.  It was with an exhausted body and an open mind I got off the bus at the village of Avesbury, and immediately walked, delighted, across the street and between two great stones that seemed for the entire world like a bright doorway to me.  I later learned that they’ve been dubbed the “Adam & Eve” stones, presumably because they represent polarities of male and female to some group that works with them.

You don't have to be long at Avesbury, or the area in general, to realize it is a pilgrimage point and magnet for many people, among them spiritual seekers, crop circle researchers, druids and witches, and a lot of others who have many different ideas of what is going on, some of it fascinating, some pretty fanciful.  So I tried to keep myself open to my own experience, without superimposing projections on the landscape.

There is brightness there, it emanates from the land.  Local dowsers tell me it’s a “time vortex”, and hence that explains the continual conversation of so many magnificent crop circles that have occurred near Avebury, or Silbury Hill.   Quite a few studies of electromagnetic anomalies, brain waves, and other phenomena have been done in the area, and within crop circles that have occurred in the area as well. (There was a crop circle that occurred the morning I visited, July 18th, although I did not see it – it was closer to Silbury Hill, about a mile away.)

I proceeded to the stone the pair seemed to frame, and sat at its base, warmed by the stone’s presence.  I was becoming euphoric, and sheep wandering throughout with their soothing cries, and their curious-cautious eyes were good companions, a counter-point to the solemnity of the stones.

Then up the side of the great circular “henge”, attracted by wildflowers on its crest, and the naïve hope of seeing, in the fields below and beyond, a crop circle, or maybe Silbury Hill (wrong direction).  But what I looked on were just corn fields.  Rather fancifully, I felt I had, in some way, entered the “Gate”, and could now walk the Circle that is Avebury.

When we used to cast a circle in Reclaiming, we closed with "And now we are between the worlds, and what happens between the worlds can change the world."  Between the worlds is another order of being, an imaginal order that we enclosed by casting a circle, which we entered through a “doorway”, leaving behind the mundane world.  I think places of potency, Avebury, were enclosures and temples for “places between the worlds”, points of heightened earth energies, marked reverently by their stone monuments and avenues, places where celebrants could attune.  Places to contact the ancestors, the devas, places to heal, communicate, conceive, receive an oracle,  retrieve a soul, pray for rain or celebrate an auspicious day between the moon and the stars and the wheel of the year.  This was where the Great Mother spoke and the gods made their play.

Photo by www.adlag.com

I found that they are also ripe with synchronicity – that’s what places of heightened energy do, they “connect” and weave.  I had put on my Spider Woman necklace that morning, a Navajo piece that shows Grandmother Spider Woman weaving.  As soon as I  came off the Henge, I went into a little shop, where I  got into conversation with an elderly local, who told me he had seen a fabulous crop circle with his own eyes, and pulled out a polaroid of  the famous “Spider Web Circle” (of 1994),  proudly informing me that he had taken the photo himself.  He told me  it was “just over there, on the other side of the Henge.”  Just over by the fields and vista I had been  attracted to!


Circles within Circles……………

Avebury only has a hundred or so of its original 600 plus stones.  Most of these have been broken down and used by farmers to build houses and barns – the church has not been kind to the stones either, with various ministers admonishing their congregation to pull down  the “devil tracks” .

I found myself, walking that wide circle,  ecstatic, my heart chakra open, feeling “turned on” with that visceral deep eros of nature, of Gaia.  The following day, I was “stoned", spaced out, open.  I didn’t much want to return to “human time”, and I’m convinced if I had been able to sleep there, the dreams would have been vivid.   Avebury affected me in subtle ways, an effect that continues.

Sometimes language bears in its fossil rock
things once commonly known, now information
available to us only as tourists
as here poke through the earth
through the welter of houses from the last thousand years
through country roads, prim churches, blowzy pubs,
through male and female stones, the huge breast
called Silbury Hill, vast and cumbersome
works of a people whose will slumbers
in the stone circles, rows, wordless
as the thoughts of the sheep that graze.


Yet that will is potent, not with the dumb ferocity
and shapeliness of mountains, not with the bodily
eloquence of frightened or curious sheep.
Here are erected runes of language partly designed
to be read by clouds or goddesses, left for us
too carefully wrought to be ignored.
Sometimes with my hands on the warm/cold stone
I almost think I hear it in my bones.


Marge Piercy

English Gardens.....

 "Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping 
than you can understand."

....Yeats

I find so many fey  personae,  among the amazing English  gardens.....this little fairy was in Lacock.

And an angel, presiding over a public garden in Bath.

I think I understand the English delight in gardens, and also their pursuit of the illusive sunbeam.

And, as I passed through the Roman Baths on my way to get the bus to Glastonbury (and next week's Goddess Conference)..........how about this for a "Sign"? 

Greetings from the Angel Hotel

 

 

I came back from Avebury yesterday, and find myself quite speechless, to be honest.  I need to write a poem, or a long article, if anything, so I'm not going to try, yet.  Suffice to say I feel quite "stoned".....such potent energies there.  I want to write about my experience in a way that does it justice later.

I landed in Wiltshire a week ago, sick as soon as I got off the plane in spite of my "Airborne" immune pills (airplane air is lethel), got on a train to Bath, found a B&B in a town on route called Chippenham (along the famous Avon, where graceful swans actually float), slept for 3 days straight, woke up to talk to my delightful landlady, Mrs. Barrows, and her chickens (shown observing her at her kitchen window), and Mrs. Avebury, a fellow lodger, who was sitting at the table pursuing her geneology project and eating eggs.  So, although I was too ill to get to Avebury yet, I rather magically found myself in the company of "Avebury" and "Barrows" ("barrow" is the term for the many ancient prehistoric graves, also near Silbury) in the flesh......I doubt I would have been surprised if a Mr. Stonehenge had walked in for tea. (Honest, I'm not making this up!  The Cosmic Punster is alive and well in Wiltshire.)

  So  here I sit having a coffee, several days later, at the Angel Hotel.  Not too far from the River Avon.

I figure, outside of my day among the Stones, nothing could be better.

Travelling!

Well, here I go!  I'm off to Glastonbury to the fabulous GODDESS CONFERENCE,  and also to attend the GLASTONBURY SYMPOSIUM !  I'm so excited!

I lived in England on three separate occasions, as a child in Essex, as a 17 year old during the "swinging London" era, and again, in my 20's.  I know that London has changed hugely since the last time I was there, the 70's, and I'm a little afraid of everything being colored by my memories of being there then, and my memories of who I was then as well, or, at least, my ideas of my memories of who I once was.  We're nothing if not our own invention.

So I've decided to leave all of that behind for the moment, and go straight to Bath, and find a quiet B&B to be a tourist looking at Roman ruins for starters.   I have sensible shoes, a backpack with too much stuff, and a very large purse, and I know very well I'm not the fit, thin girl I once was.  Well, so what.  Let the adventure begin!

A Festival of Scarabs

As I pack for my trip, I'm amazed at the convergence going on, right over my patio, of bright green metallic Scarab Beetles! I've never seen anything like it.

The bugs seem to be having a feast from the sap of a Palos Verde tree, and are flying around in what looks like a joyous drunken stupor.  Since Jung's most famous synchronicity had to do with the appearance of a scarab beetle, I'll take this as a good sign!  He only had one.......I apparently have several hundred.

Spirits of Place

"Numina" (2009)

 "I experienced contact with something or someone sentient and much greater than my individual self. I had experienced contact, even momentary communion, with the "essence" of what could be called a transpersonal presence. Afterwards I was told by the local shaman or caretaker that I had met with the guardian spirit of the place.""

Debra D. Carroll "From Huacas to Mesas"

DIALOGUES WITH THE LIVING EARTH, compiled by James and Roberta Swan (1989)

I was reading the above article by Debra Carroll, an expressive arts therapist from an important (and sadly obscure) book by the Swans, published in 1989. Within her article, I found a wonderful description of a visionary experience she had with the "Spirit of Place" at a site she visited in Mexico. I was equally enthralled by a story she quoted by someone called Martin Gray, in which he described his own experience in Japan. I was moved enough to earmark the book, and I pulled out my yellow marker just to be sure I held them in memory. Ms. Carroll described Mr. Gray as a "pilgrim".*** Because "pilgrim" embodies, I think,  the humility necessary to approach a sacred site, or perhaps any place with its myriad beings and ecosystem, with a willingness to listen.

I have a story as well,  I've told it before, but it's good to tell it again.  It still haunts me. 

In 1992, I was living with my former husband on 40 some acres in upstate New York. Where we lived was a rural area rapidly being built up with new housing and industry. One of the mysterious places in the area, to me, was a field I used to go to. To get to that field, which bordered our property, one had to go through a kind of obstacle course - crossing an old stone wall, you immediately ran into a rusted barbed wire fence, and then tramped through a nasty barrier of poison ivy, grape vines and small trees. Braving all of this, an expanse of field appeared.

Bordered on all sides by trees, you could stand there in the tall grass, or the snow, and see nothing of the warehouses or homes nearby. It felt, oddly, as if it was somehow protected, as if you entered a special, quiet, mysterious place. The land had obviously once been worked, but it had been left fallow for many years. In the center of the field  I perceived a "fairy circle".....small trees, bushes, even tall grasses formed a loose circle, if one looked. With my divining rods, I found there was a ley crossing in that exact spot - the rod "helicoptered" and whirled at the center of the "fairy ring".   We came to revere the THE FIELD as magical.

My ex and I were actively involved in Earth based spiritual practices, and he facilitated a lively men's group. One night when the moon was full the group, energized by shamanic drumming, decided to visit "THE FIELD".  It was November, and there was snow on the ground.  I was not present, but my husband told me that as the young men strode to the stone wall, something pushed two of them backward into the snow!

Being young men, they got up and aggressively thundered forward - and something again pushed both of them backwards! They fell on their behinds in the snow.  This (I was told) was enough strangeness for everyone, and the party turned around and went back to the house.  The next day, my husband and  I took offerings to the place where one entered "the field".  We came to believe the place had a guardian spirit, what the Romans called "Numina".   I remember placing crystals and flowers on a stone by the old stone wall, and as I did, I felt such an overwhelming sense of sorrow that tears ran down my face and would not stop. I was, for that moment, the empathic medium for something that  lived there. I believe what I felt was  the sorrow of the guardian spirit of that place, and I think that field was a sacred site of some kind, perhaps special to native peoples long ago in some way.

The encroachment of industry and the loss of habitat in that area was a sad fact.   A year later there was an oil spill in a nearby truck depot, and the wetlands that bordered "the Field" suffered  ecological damage, and a number of the old trees there died.  When I left the area, I bid the Spirits of Place there farewell, thanking them for so much beauty, for allowing us to be a part of that place.  I was saddened that this "secret garden" was surrounded by thoughtless and uncaring forces that might continue to invade its invisible walls, and prayed that others would come who might perceive the magic of the place.

I like to think we opened a portal there, a conversation if you will, because we were practicing ritual, and making art, that was about the earth. The spirits of that place responded to us, simply because we were there, and  we were listening. Reading  Debra Carroll and Martin Gray brought that time back  to me.

"There is an earth-based energy available to human beings, concentrated at specific places all across the planet, which catalyzes and increases this eco-spiritual consciousness. These specific places are the sacred sites discussed and illustrated on this web site. Before their prehistoric human use, before their usurpation by different religions, these sites were simply places of power. They continue to radiate their powers, which anyone may access by visiting the sacred sites. No rituals are necessary, no practice of a particular religion, no belief in a certain philosophy; all that is needed is for an individual human to visit a power site and simply be present. As the flavor of herbal tea will steep into warm water, so also will the essence of these power places enter into one’s heart and mind and soul. As each of us awakens to a fuller knowing of the universality of life, we in turn further empower the global field of eco-spiritual consciousness. That is the deeper meaning and purpose of these magical holy places: they are source points of the power of spiritual illumination.".........Martin Gray

 ***Martin Gray published  his monumental book Sacred Earth: Places of Peace and Power in 2007 with Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. of London based on his decades of travel to research sacred places throughout the world.   The author spent the last 20 years on a  pilgrimage: he visited 1,000 sacred sites in 80 countries around the world. His journey unfolds in a remarkable compilation of images that reveals just how devoutly pre-industrial cultures everywhere worshipped and respected our Earth. Gray’s stunning photographs and fascinating text provide unique insight into why these powerful holy places are the most venerated and visited sites on the entire planet.

Stones Dreaming

Photo by Martin Grey

                    Avebury

Sometimes language bears in its fossil rock
things once commonly known, now information
available to us only as tourists
as here poke through the earth
through the welter of houses from the last thousand years
through country roads, prim churches, blowzy pubs,
through male and female stones, the huge breast
called Silbury Hill, vast and cumbersome
works of a people whose will slumbers
in the stone circles, rows, wordless
as the thoughts of the sheep that graze.


Yet that will is potent, not with the dumb ferocity
and shapeliness of mountains, not with the bodily
eloquence of frightened or curious sheep.
Here are erected runes of language partly designed
to be read by clouds or goddesses, left for us
too carefully wrought to be ignored.
Sometimes with my hands on the warm/cold stone
I almost think I hear it in my bones.


Marge Piercy

"Older Yet, and Lovelier Far,

  this Mystery - and I will not forget."

Robin Williamson, "Five Denials on Merlin's Grave"

I share with poet Marge Piercy a deep wonderment at the presence of the Stones, set so laboriously and intentionally by such distant ancestors, to mark circles, leys, energy ebbs and flows and currents, Solstices and Equinoxes, moon crossings, and other, more mysterious means and ways that are remembered now only by the stones themselves, and the language of the land.  I'm excited about my soon to be opportunity to visit some of these sites, to see Avebury, Stonehenge, Callenish, and the sacred wellspring of the Chalice Well as well.

"Where Time began and will Begin",  Scottish Bard Robin Williamson begins his story and prayer (which are really one and the same) "I make reverence to the Ancestors and the Spirits of those yet unborn".  Perhaps the Beloved Silence he speaks of  is that Silence that contains the language of stones.

Liturgy for the Ancient Goddess

This beautiful Liturgy was written by theologian D'vorah J. Gren, founder of The Lilith Institute. She kindly gave it to me when I was working on my book, The Masks of the Goddess. 

I've also been privileged to be included in Talking To Goddess, a  beautiful collection of blessings, prayers, invocations and other writings by 72 women in 25 spiritual traditions, edited by D'vorah. D'vorah teaches at the California Institute for Integral Studies, and she is also the author of Lilith's Fire: Reclaiming Our Sacred Lifeforce (2000).

Inanna-Ishtar-Lilith-Shekhinah...

She of all knowing, dark wisdom....She of the deep abyss, snake’s descent, owl’s knowing...woman of the dark, the light.

We praise you, we stand in awe marveling at the myriad surprises you hold for us always respectful of your power, your mystery.
Lilith-Ishtar-Shekhinah, in all your aspects; we sing your name. 

Walk with us as we yearn to understand you... Never let us forget your presence in, around and through us, as we praise you in your many guises, by every name.


Be patient with us as we must be with ourselves,  and each other... holding your presence even when we doubt or despair.

Let us continue to walk as healers, casting new roles for ourselves and others,  weaving new threads of  wonder....

Ishtar-Lilith-Shekhinah, keeper of the mystery.....

Be with us through ecstasy and harmony through death and destruction.
And You, Inanna, Ancient Mother who was given the skill of lamentations, the care of children, the rejoicing of the heart, the giving of judgments,  the stirring of sexuality, the making of decisions:

In the eye of this wisdom, rising forth from the power of your being ..how is it we got lost, taken over, subsumed?

How did we become convinced we were not worthy to serve? How were we silenced?

As we build a new world, allow us to remember our inner strengths, understanding and true compassion.   Let us not be swayed from our goals.  Help us to remember the lessons of our foremothers and so defend ourselves when necessary, without apology,

to speak for what we believe in, take unpopular action, and take what is rightfully ours with or without “permission.”

Work with us, inspire us, protect us as we weave your work - our work. 

Help us, lady of the night, holy winged figure of the light—rageful, wise judge, warmest heart, soulful visionary... highest priestess of the Temples to whom every knee must bend and every tongue give homage.

It is your word we write now upon the doorpost of our house and upon our gates…

Your word, acts, images and thoughts we share, rage at, weep with and learn from.

For It is You who makes rise our laughter and love, happiness and peace, passion, tenderness and compassion,

And from You our anger, the storm, temper and venom, jealousy and vengefulness; You from whom and with whom we learn to combine these things in the best ways possible...as we embody and become You, Our divine selves.

Sweet, dark goddess/es of the earth and sky, river and mountain, night and day, Heaven and Hell.

We seek to embody your passion, your wisdom, your strength.

Be with us now.

( 2008)

 

A Little Synchronicity....

Florence at 92

I had a lucky day yesterday, in the midst of an extremely stressful month.............I couldn't help but feel very grateful for a few synchronistic nudges that pointed the  way.

Florence by the Shores of the Sea

My mother went into the hospital earlier this month, and for a while I thought she might pass.  But she's improved and is now in a rehab center in good spirits.  But it's apparent she can't return to her home again.  So, with less than two weeks until I'm scheduled to leave for England (not to mention the 115 degree temperatures and my politically correct non-air-conditioned car)  I've been desperately seeking an assisted living community for her to go to, and resigning myself to the possibility of giving up my trip.  

I've looked at places gorgeous but too expensive, and lots of places less expensive that are very depressing.  Finally I went to a big community to meet with a manager named "Sharif".  I walked into a beautiful building with a big dining room, impressive art and furniture, and a huge landscaped interior garden.  I was expecting Sharif to be a rather intimidating Middle Eastern man, but instead was met by a young,  freckled redhead in a Hawaiian shirt, who told me that he and his brother, Omar, were named after the famous actor.  I immediately saw that the place would be perfect for my mother.

We looked at a lovely studio, and in the course of a tour Sharif interrupted our walk by bounding down the hall to assist an elderly woman who called for help.  She was fainting, and he caught her before she could fall.  I  excused myself, and said I'd be back later.

My mother's name is Florence, so I was a little amazed when I came back to notice a big sign, with balloons, over a door that said "Welcome Home Florence!".   When I met Sharif again, he told me the lady who had almost fallen was fine, just a blood sugar problem, and that her name was Florence.  And last but not least, I received an email from someone who was interested in purchasing a "Flora" mask!

Flora Pitcher with Florence, 1917

 It turned out my timing was good as well - with a summer promotional event, my mother will get the first month free of charge, and a lovely place to live that she can afford.  And I will get to go to England after all!

Anima Update - the Rain Maker's Gift!

"Given the steady eastward progress of the Wallow Fire and absence of rain in the near future, I have to avoid denial and accept that we likely have a scary 70% chance of our land being burned out.  This is NOT to say that I am resigned to such a fate, we will oppose it in every way possible.  Nor are we fatalistic about it.  As we teach in Anima, the only thing that is hopeless, is the person unwilling or unable to hope."

Jesse Wolf Hardin, from his Blog (6/20)

 I am delighted to copy below a  letter I received from Wolf today.  With the Wallow Fire virtually at the doorstep, monsoons began, and the fires seem to be under control at last.  The Anima Sanctuary will continue to do it's important work, and Jesse and Family and all the Beings there won't need to face devastation.  The First Monsoon came to Tucson as well (I woke up to the sound of thunder at 3:00 a.m.), bringing with it the blessing of extinguishing the Monument fire.

Maybe those prayers to the spirits of the ancient Rain Makers were answered! 

"With the subsiding of danger from the Wallow Fire, we’re finally taking a break from preoccupation with the unimaginable and unbearable, and slowly revving back up for the teaching, healing and tending that must continue no matter what else is going on.  Fire or not, students still need responses, Kiva’s clients still count on her for help, conference organizing and promotion is still important, the honeysuckle and lamb’s quarters require that we prioritize their watering, writers for Plant Healer have to be reminded of the upcoming issue deadline, and wild seeds of hope need to be planted in the soil of this land we so love.  Important, too, is taking the moments needed to personally acknowledge everyone who has given what they can to help keep safe this most special place that we’ve spent since 1986 guarding, restoring and sharing.

The Emergency Fund was spent on the purchase of a high quality Honda fire fighting water pump that pushes water all the way up the mesa to the cabins from the river, hose and pipes, a second storage tank and protective sprinklers for around the cabins... and they also covered the balance of the wages due the hard laboring friends that trimmed, cleared the grounds, installed the water pump, and insisted on taking part trade for their efforts.  It would have been difficult or impossible for us to accomplish these things in a timely way without the support, given that much of our work goes out to the world because of a sense of mission and with little or no profit for us. 

Even though it’s almost certain the still-burning Wallow Fire won’t be threatening this remote school and botanical refuge any longer, the preparations made for it feel no less wise or even crucial.  In the two latest and final Wallow Fire posts on the Anima blog (www.AnimaCenter.org/blog), I mention the warnings of authorities that we need to expect increasing numbers of super hot blazes in this region.  Well, in the last few weeks we’ve taken exactly the kinds of precautions the recommend everyone take in wildfire-prone areas... prior to a dangerous event and not during or after the fact.  All of this was made possible only because of donations including yours. 

We will not be simply storing the pump, however, unused until the next conflagration.  Water pumped up for the fire fighting sprinklers, can also be used for wash water and watering plants up here, instead of having to drive a truck and tank up and down the hill whenever the drought keeps the needed rains out.  And the pump can also be put to work spraying the banks on either side of the river during long dry spells like the one we’ve been in, giving the native plants a boost when they need it most.

And like my last Anima post explains, the scare we just got also enlivened and revealed the huge amount of connections we have to the community of earth loving friends, students and allies we’ve given our lives to.  It feels good, to be shown so clearly the myriad connections that we and this shared mission can depend on.  There is something to be said for the principle of detachment, but it is connection and devotion that make possible the miracles of our every day lives." 

Solutions Magazine and Good News

I think it's so easy to fall into despair these days - it's important to not concentrate on fatalism, but to be aware of the many, many "soulutions" that address our environmental, social, and spiritual crisis.  That's what gives energy to hope, and to transformation.  Here's a few journals I subscribe to that I felt like sharing - Solutions Journal, and Earth Portal News, both offering information about green energy and other good news.  I love this article about possible future urban "farms" - imagine picking your own salad as you head for the checkout counter.  Wonder if they'll have cherry tomatoes and bell peppers?

*******

from Earth Portal News:

Agropolis: The Future of Urban Agriculture?

Posted on September 16th, 2010 

 

Environmental News Network: Last week at the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2010, held in Denmark, one presentation  took urban agriculture to the next level. A collaboration with NASA, you might even say it launched urban agriculture out of this world, and into the future.The idea is called Agropolis, a combination grocery store, restaurant, and farm all in one building, employing the most advanced technologies in hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic farming.
As it stands, Agropolis is still just a mere idea, with little more than some cool graphics to back it up. But regardless, Agropolis ushers forth a new wave of thinking about urban food systems.The team behind the Agropolis concept proposes that this new generation of store would be an ecosystem  unto itself, a finely tuned orchestra of parts in balance, that would not only be totally environmentally sustainably and friendly, but also just plain producing the freshest food around.

But what would all these innovative, NASA-inspired state of the art hydroponics and other high-tech solutions look like in practice? According to the vision of Agropolis, a customer would walk into a store that is covered in green. Vegetables growing on the walls as far as the eye can see. And below the floors one would see tilapia swimming, working in tandem with vegetables in an aquaponic system. You would buy a tomato that was literally just picked, from a plant that you can see in front of you. The store would bring a whole new meaning to local, and one-up the notion of hyper local, since all the food available to eat or buy would have traveled zero miles from the farm to the store. At most, just a few steps.

It all sounds grand, and more than a little space-age. But the challenge given to the team that came up with Agropolis wasn’t entirely outside reality: Create a farm without relying on arable land. As the Earth’s healthy soil and other resources dwindle, it may not be out of the realm of possibility that a system like Agropolis be needed, particularly in urban areas. And while urban agriculture has come a long way, incorporating all kinds of creative and innovative ideas and technologies, in order to make it work on a large and global scale it may be time for something as futuristic and high-tech as Agropolis.

Rumi

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language
- even the phrase "each other" -
do not make any sense.

From The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks.
© Copyright, 2004, HarperSanFrancisco.

I woke up this morning to find the word "raukkadessa" floating  in my mind, between sips of coffee.  The word came from a song on  Beyond Love (Sami Records, 2004), an album by my friend Kathi Huhtaluhta.  Kathi  lived in Finland  where she studied "Yoik" traditions of Sami chanting.  She told me her song, Raukkadessa, derived from a word she learned while there, which meant "beyond love".

Meaning, beyond the pairs of opposites, beyond loss, conflict,  history, and the constructs of personality and culture, beyond even our temporal experience of love, "there is a field".  

Prayers for the Dying

"Form is Empty, Empty is Form" Detail (2009)

Of life's Spring

may we drink deep

and awake to dream

and die to sleep

and dreaming

weave another form

a shining thread

of life reborn

~~Starhawk
"The Weaver Song" from the Spiral Dance

I posted this earlier, and then felt a bit too "exposed", so I withdrew it.  But I feel that was not really right, and so I'm posting it again, and offer again my gratitude to the people who so kindly offered comments at the time.

In early 2009 I did a series of works dedicated to my brother I called "Prayers for the Dying".  I've been wanting to write about my brother again, and don't really know how to do it. I wish I could give him, and others like him, a voice.

Maybe the reason to write about this story is to demonstrate how very important it is to re-examine our understanding of death.  All the research and  interest in NDE's (near death experiences), mediums,  Michael Newton's "Life Between Life" work, even TV shows like "Ghost Hunters" contribute to changing attitudes to what death is,  and hence, to what life is as well.
 

In 2008, Glenn had a brain stem stroke, and since then has as been in a  persistent vegetative state, which means that he is fed by tubes, breathes  by tubes, and cannot respond to others in any recognizable way.  His doctors have told me that there was no brain activity, and no hope of recovery.  Glenn did not have a living will.  Because my mother  has traditional ideas about  "god's will", I can't remove life support.  The only other surviving member of my family is a brother who agrees with my mother.   Glenn lingers in a vegetative state, and I am unable legally to assist my brother to pass.  I know I step into an ethical hornet's nest when I say this. 

One of the ways I've dealt with this has been assisting a number of charities that work with children in Glenn's name, something he would appreciate.


The last decade of Glenn's life, he became  depressed, and isolated.  He was a gun collector, and after his stroke, I  took half of his collection and sold them, donating the money to a charity for children as a way of transforming the negative energy that the guns represent.   The rest, at my other brother's insistence, were locked  in a closet, and he kept the key (the house is retained for his and my mother's use). 

This past spring they weren't in town, and I did an "energy cleansing" with my friend and while "sageing"  I noticed that the closet door was cracked open.  I'd never seen it open before, since my other brother was adamant that I "leave Glenn's things alone".    I looked inside, saw some guns and other memorabilia.  I  did not remove anything, and shut the door, which locked and I can't, of course,  open it again.

In retrospect,  think that closet opened because Glenn wanted me to take the contents and turn them into charity, as I did before.  I wish I had.  My friend noticed the phenomenon as well. 

"The Heart Sutra" (2009)

One of the reasons we did the "cleansing" was there have been many such experiences  in that house, and I've never been comfortable having to stay there.

One of the most striking was last winter.   I was alone in the house, reading,  when suddenly I heard a bell, kind of like a Tibetan brass bell, right beside my ear!  I was so startled I got up and walked around, trying to find out where the bell  was,  but no luck.  Within an hour of that strange occurrence, a friend called, inviting me to go to a talk given by a local energy healer.   Which is how I met Kate,  who works as a medium here in Tucson.

I arranged for a meeting, and we met in a quiet cafe, where Kate informed me that Glenn was with us (!) -  and then told me things about him that seemed  accurate.   She said that Glenn, and others like him, are often out of the body, and she encouraged me to go talk to him at his bedside, and tell him he can let go. Last summer I went away for a while, and when I returned  I saw Kate again.  She told me  Glenn had "crossed over".  I don't know what that means, as he remains physically in a vegetative state.  But I remember the bell - and the encounter with the medium certainly gave me comfort.

 

I don't see spirits, although I pay careful attention to synchronicities in my life.  I don't know what to make of this, but it's given me a better capacity to deal with the situation.  I hope what Kate said is true, but I can't really know.

Meanwhile, I pray to Tara, Goddess of Compassion, for my brother, Glenn, and I'm going to sponsor another child for him.  I know he would be pleased.  

"Transformation Reliquary" (2009)

 

 

Waters of the World

© Photo by Cathy Frischknecht & Christian Bollmann

"O fountain mouth, giver, you, mouth, which
speaks inexhaustibly of that one, pure thing,—
you, mask of marble placed before
the water's flowing face..."

from Sonnets to Orpheus
by Rainer Maria Rilke 

 There is a wonderful ritual  we used to do at Reclaiming's Witchcamp called the "Waters of the World".  We would begin the week long event with a ceremony in which participants brought vials of water, gathered from throughout the world as those gathered were.  Each would empty water into the Chalice, naming the place from which the water came.  I remember the profound sense of gratitude, and the presence of the Holy, as I poured my little vial of water from the beloved Rio Grande into the Chalice.

The theme for this year's Glastonbury Goddess Conference is "Celebrating the Great Mother of Water ", and I will return from Glastonbury with a vial of water from the Chalice Well there.......a personal pilgrimage that I've longed to make for many years.

Freddy Silva, a world renowned researcher of crop circles, believes that the concentration of crop circles in the ancient sacred geomantic sites of southern England  is also about shifting or "raising"  the energies of the water tables there, which in turn flow into the ocean, impacting on subtle levels the entire world.

She is our universal Mother, the source and beginning of life.  We grow in Her amniotic waters and are born, we weep and our hearts open, we are "baptized" in Her waters and offered a new life.  And like children, which we really are, we take Her for granted, rarely noticing the great Mother who nourishes us.

When I was a teenager, I used to devour any science fiction I could get my hands on.  A child of the '50's, we grew up with "The Bomb", and a universal mythos of the End of the World at the hands of the inevitable military mind.  I still think "On the Beach", with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, is one of the most powerful movies ever made, and I remember well the terrible message Ray Bradbury told with his "Martian Chronicles".

Anyway, there was a story I read (I have no idea who the author was, and would love to find it again) in which "The Bomb" had happened, and an astronaut had the misfortune to be be the last living human being.  He saw it happen while orbiting the Earth, and landed to a desolate and barren world.  He begins to walk, and as he walks he hears voices  talking to him, calling to him.  He sees, through blowing dust,  his wife, his children, his friends, his dog, all just ahead, beckoning  images of everyone he's ever loved, calling to him urgently to hurry, to meet them somewhere in the distance.  At last, about to die from radiation, he finds himself standing on a beach, the waters of the ocean lapping gently against his ankles.  What called to him  was Mother Ocean, and as the story ends our desolate hero sinks, finally at peace,  into the water.  We're left to imagine that She will use his life, and the cells in his body,  to begin again.

 Pretty extraordinary story, considering it was written in the 50's, long before Gaia Theory, Women's Spirituality, or even Ecology!

I never forgot that story, although all of the Andre Norton I once read is long, long gone.

I know that I often sound rather apocalyptic, but I don't really feel I am.  I think, in this time of transformation,  we're being given a chance to grow up,  and become co-creators, instead of exploiters, of life.   In the face of so much loss, so much fear, it will be hard to hold that hope.  But I have a deep kind of faith in the adaptability of the human spirit, and beyond, the evolutionary mind of nature, of Gaia.

Holy Mother of Waters, I Praise You!

From The Huffington Post (6/20/2011)

If the current actions contributing to a multifaceted degradation of the world's oceans aren't curbed, a mass extinction unlike anything human history has ever seen is coming, an expert panel of scientists warns in an alarming new report.  The preliminary report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) is the result of the first-ever interdisciplinary international workshop examining the combined impact of all of the stressors currently affecting the oceans, including pollution, warming, acidification, overfishing and hypoxia.

 According to the report, three major factors have been present in the handful of mass extinctions that have occurred in the past: an increase of both hypoxia (low oxygen) and anoxia (lack of oxygen that creates "dead zones") in the oceans, warming and acidification. The panel warns that the combination of these factors will inevitably cause a mass marine extinction if swift action isn't taken to improve conditions.

"The 6th Extinction" (2007)

The report is the latest of several published in recent months examining the dire conditions of the oceans. A recent World Resources Institute report suggests that all coral reefs could be gone by 2050 if no action is taken to protect them, while a study published earlier this year in BioScience declares oysters as "functionally extinct", their populations decimated by over-harvesting and disease. Just last week scientists forecasted that this year's Gulf "dead zone" will be the largest in history due to increased runoff from the Mississippi River dragging in high levels of nitrates and phosphates from fertilizers.

A recent study in the journal Nature, meanwhile, suggests that not only will the next mass extinction be man-made, but that it is already  underway. Unless humans make significant changes to their behavior, that is.

Travis Donovan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/ipso-2011-ocean-report-mass-extinction_n_880656.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3|71953

Anima Sanctuary Update

 "A steady stream of elk have been driven east across our Anima Refuge by the alarming smoke."

"Given the steady eastward progress of the Wallow Fire and absence of rain in the near future, I have to avoid denial and accept that we likely have a scary 70% chance of our land being burned out.  This is NOT to say that I am resigned to such a fate, we will oppose it in every way possible.  Nor are we fatalistic about it.  As we teach in Anima, the only thing that is hopeless, is the person unwilling or unable to hope."

Jesse Wolf Hardin, from his Blog (6/20)

I am sorry to report that things are not looking good for Anima Sanctuary.  Here in Tucson it's a roaring 112 degrees, bone dry, and no sign of the monsoon season.  Still praying for these dedicated and courageous people.

“Considering what I get from the work that you and your family do… I wish I could have given more.  All your hard work is not for nothing. You live in the wilderness, at the complete mercy of nature’s whims.  You’re not a martyr, and I can’t tell you how much I respect that…. You are raising awareness, inspiring and enlightening people, even in the face of the destruction of your home. I don’t know what it feels like to have the prospect of your home being destroyed, and not only that but a place that you’ve put blood and guts into restoring… But if the fire hits your canyon, it will not kill the spirit that runs through it. It can be built again. And you’ll have hands to help.”   -Rebecca A.

The Summer Solstice

Wishing the blessings of the Solstice to all!  May we all "dance the Long Dance" together this sacred day.

The world is
not with us enough

O taste and see

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

 Denise Levertov

I am a lover
Of the steady Earth
And of Her waters.
She says:

“Let the light be brilliant,
For those who will cherish color.”
What if there be no Heaven? She says:

“Touch my Breasts - the fields are golden.”

Her Songs are all of love, lifelong.
Every blue yonder,
Her brass harp rings.
Unlettered, in Her rivers
Our cherished sins
Drift voiceless in Her clouds.

She will rust us with blossom
She will forgive us
She will seal us
with Her seed.

Robin Williamson
("The Song of Mabon", 1985)

Fires, Anima Center

This has been a grim June for me - I am, frankly, exhausted.  My mother is in the hospital, and the smoke of fires from the worst fire season in Arizona history lingers in the air of Tucson. If you've never seen a forest fire, or the devastation left behind, it's an experience impossible to describe.  Few environments are as fragile, contrary to appearances, than the water poor Southwest, and what is happening now is very much about 100 years of human misuse and misunderstanding of this frail landscape.

Years ago I created a Samhain ritual called "Litany for the Lost", to honor the loss of extinct and endangered species and their landscapes.   We always speak of loss in human terms - but we are ensouled in the entire world, the entire eco-system.  Deforestation, destruction of land from the vast cattle industry,  water diversion for urban areas inappropriate agriculture (which results in salinizing the land, leaving it completely barren).........most people don't know that since 1895 we have lost 90% of the riparian areas in Arizona. (http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Biota/riparian_degradation.htm)   .

Who weeps for these Lost Ones?  I used to hike in the Chiricahua Mountains, and that's where I heard the story of the Thick Billed parrots that were indigenous to the area.  Imagine, parrots flocking in Arizona!  It turns out that virtually the entire subspecies was wiped out in one day by a group of "sport" hunters. Just try to imagine that...... Not even their ghosts remain for memory to enjoy now.  No one even knows that brightly colored parrots once flew there, nesting among the Cottonwood trees, a long lost flash of green and red.

I know I'm ranting, but it's time for a "Wailing Wall" that includes All Beings of the Earth.  The loss of so much life, not just human life and property, in these fires is soul loss for all of us.  It is a tragic irony that more of that loss may soon be the beautiful Anima Sanctuary - "Anima" means "soul or spirit" in Spanish.

My forthcoming trip to Glastonbury seems increasingly like a distant mirage. I hope I will, indeed, have that long awaited chance to stand by the Chalice Well.  Meanwhile, friends who may read this blog, forgive me if I have little to write at present.

One of the blogs I subscribe to is Gaian Voices, by Earth Activist Susan Meeker Lowry.   She comments on the fire rapidly approaching the Anima Sanctuary better than I could, so I take the liberty of copying from her recent blog entry here.

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"The Wallow Fire is now officially Arizona's largest wild fire that has made its way into New Mexico. What you may not know is that this fire is fast approaching the Anima Center, threatening not only the handbuilt cabins and living quarters, but also the wild plant sanctuary, and all the restoration work of decades.

Wolf is a long-time friend and colleague. I first met him many years ago when he came to Montpelier, VT where I was living at the time. He interviewed me for a publication called "Talking Leaves" about my work, Gaian Economics. We found ourselves to be kindred spirits in many ways, though our lives were very different. I believe that Wolf had already found himself at what is now the Anima Sanctuary, then called Earthen Spirituality, though I could be mistaken. In any case, he was alone and gave himself totally to that place, committed himself to it forever, as one does one's spouse, and began the long and arduous task of restoring and reinhabiting the canyon. Loba arrived next, then, more recently, Kiva Rose and her young daughter Rhiannon.

So much has happened through the years. Native trees planted and flourished, native herbs returned, on their own and with help, along with species of animals, insects, birds. Today the place is vibrant with life, a true Sanctuary and sacred place honored and loved. It has sheltered wounded human beings who were, in their turn, loved and healed. Kiva Rose brought her love of the healing plants and her innate ability to hear and understand them, and find both new and traditional ways of making medicine. It's amazing to me how quickly and magnificently she has grown and matured into a real powerhouse of knowledge and compassion (and I'm sure it amazes her at times as well).
Though I have never personally visited the Anima Sanctuary, I feel as though I know it well. Not only through the many pictures I've seen on the website and also shared through the pages of Gaian Voices, but because of my connection to these wonderful people..................knowing that these wonderful people were there, doing such transformative work, sharing their love and energy with those who visited, and then the world at large through the internet, and workshops and conferences, was/is important to me.

And now it is threated by a raging fire started by careless campers. The way the media reports this fire and its path of destruction is also very troubling, focusing on the resort towns and homes that have been burned, as if that's all that matters, with not a word (that I've heard anyway) about the loss of wilderness, the death of all the critters, plants, insects, birds many rare and endangered perhaps now, thanks to the fire, extinct. Did you know that this fire is burning so hot that the soil in many places has become sterilized? It will take many, many years – generations – for the land to regenerate.

Kiva Rose mentioned sitting in a cafe listening to fire fighters talk about how the forest will resemble a moonscape. I can't imagine. And yet not a word. Only that a few homes were lost and therefore the fire, now the largest in AZ history, hasn't caused as much damage as the fire that had been the largest until now because not that many buildings were destroyed. How angry that makes me!

So, now Wolf, Loba, Kiva Rose, and a contingent of committed friends are doing everything they can to prepare their home and Sanctuary to withstand the fire at least so that when they return (if they have to evacuate, they will return and begin again) there is something left. They have done clearing around the cabins, cutting much loved trees, limbing others, bring sand up from the river to blanket the ground, packing belongings, burying tools. They have managed to purchase a water pump strong enough to pump water from the river to the buildings so they can wet them down. As I type this the fire is about 5 miles away, the canyon fills with smoke. Rest assured they will leave if they have to. But they will return. As Wolf said in a recent fire update, you don't abandon a loved one because they have been disfigured. You stay and love them anyway.

As you can imagine, these preparations, and the restoration process to come, cost money, which is in short supply. A fund has been set up for donations. I've sent what I can. Not as much as I'd like but it's something. Please, if you can possibly do so, click the link and do the same. The money will be greatly appreciated and put to excellent use. And whether you can help financially or not, please send your good energy, your prayers, your visions of healing and protection – whatever works for you.
Thank you!"

Here's the link: http://animacenter.org/donate.html – and while you're there you can sign up to receive updates and other info from Anima.

(with thanks to Susan Meeker Lowry)

James Lovelock, Father of Gaia Theory

I've not had much time to write lately.  An update to the massive Wallow fire that is threatening Anima Sanctuary in New Mexico - it continues to approach Reserve, N.M., but hasn't arrived.  All the folks there are busy around the clock clearing their land, and preparing for evacuation if necessary.  We continue to pray for them, and to pray for rain.  I think of the many Kachinas I've seen that represent the thunderclouds of New Mexico monsoon season, dark threads of rain flowing beneath them.  Nothing, in the desert, is more precious than rain.

James Lovelock, the Father of Gaia Theory (with collaborator Lynn Margulis) is 93.  I was pleased to find several recent interviews with him on UTube, and felt like sharing them here.  As Dr. Harding comments, James Lovelock should have received the Nobel Prize long ago.