Workshop at the Kripalu Institute

Life can make you bitter, life can turn you cold

It seems I've spent most of my own  just trying to crack the code

But if I die tomorrow may the last words that I know
Be praises, praises for the world

Some predict the rapture where we all will leave this place
The chosen ones will pack their bags for somewhere out in space
But the holiest words I've ever read or thought or sung or prayed
Were praises, praises for the world

by Jennifer Berezon

VIDEO:  https://jenniferberezan.com/praises-for-the-world-video

Just completed the three day workshop for women I taught at the Kripalu Institute here in the beautiful Berkshires - its second year, and the class this year was twice the size of the previous.

Challenging to organize a "guerrilla art studio" overnight in a hall that was built to practice yoga in, but somehow I always manage, if I don't mind patting myself on the back. Like the previous year, I leave feeling enormous gratitude to the Institute, to those who participated, and the Goddess, whose presence has been felt throughout the experience. Frankly, whenever I do this, I always leave awed by the collective vision that arises.

Speaking of little miracles - all the music I brought was by the Bay Area singer and composer JENNIFER BEREZON, whose “She Carries Me” I have used to open several ritual performance events. Last year I purchased “Returning” for the group, a collective piece that she created in the ancient Temple at Malta. When I arrived on Saturday, I learned that she was here, had been teaching a workshop, and was to give a concert! Here by the way is a video of a huge Concert she gave with others called PRAISES FOR THE WORLD


It was beautiful, and so good to hear her in person after all these years. And the following day the class met in the room she and her group had just vacated! I was able to buy a dvd of “Praises for the World”, the concert/ritual she organized in Oakland that includes some 50 musicians, dancers, poets, spiritual leaders, and activists for the earth (including Joanna Macy and Alice Walker) It was an extra gift to be able to share it with my class.

I love to teach! I wait for some of the writings, and photos of masks, from the participants.

One of the participants in the workshop is going to Spain this summer, to spend a month walking the Camino. The Camino is the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, a 10th century Romanesque and Gothic cathedral that houses a black madonna, as well as (and most significant to most pilgrims I suppose) the supposed bones of St. James, a Christian martyr of the middle ages.

I'm fascinated with the Black Madonna, myself, and quote Jay Weidner's comments about the Great Dark Mother, and "composting". He writes:

"There was once a vast pilgrimage that took place in Europe. Pilgrims made their way towards the town of Compostela in Spain, where an ancient effigy of the BLACK MADONNA is housed. The word Compostela comes from the same root word as compost. COMPOST is the living, black material that is made from rotting fruits, grains and other organic matter. From this compost -- life and light will emerge. When the pilgrims came to the Cathedral at Compostela they were being 'composted' in a sense. After emergence from the dark confines of the cathedral and the spirit -- they were ready to flower, they were ready to return home with their spirits lightened."

Speaking with the woman who is on her way to this extraordinary adventure, the hair on my arm (actually, both of our arms) rose, and I thought of my own longing to make a pilgrimage. Maybe, I'll walk the Camino! Certainly I've been writing about Pilgrimage, and the "composting" process enough in the past 6 months........how strange, provident, and magical, to meet someone who is doing it literally. Back in November I wrote,

"I think the pace of our lives has taken away the time needed, the cyclical time reflected in all organic systems...........to "compost". To fall apart, re-turn into the dark, re-form, be re-formed by the organic, collective forces we are woven into in the cycles of the planet, and our souls."

Exploring the metaphor, to me, the beautiful idea of the "Camino", the "road to Compostela" embodies the pilgrimage to the Black Madonna, spiritually, perhaps a journey to ward the formless dark of the deep rich earth and the grace of re-birth as I enter my 6th decade.

Doris Lessing & my "Book of Common Miracles"

"Writers are often asked: "How do you write?" But the essential question is:

"Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write?"

Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas - inspiration. If a writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn. When writers talk to each other, what they discuss is always to do with this imaginative space, this other time. "Have you found it? Are you holding it fast?"

Doris Lessing,

Nobel Prize Speech, 2007

My friend Rose says that I should compile a little book about syncronicities. I think, if I did, I would call it the "Book of Common Miracles", or perhaps, "Grace". Because I've often felt there is a Conversation going on that, in a quantum sense, once we notice, becomes continually more animated. In other words, we're often "tapped on the shoulder" by angels, and pre-occupied with our daily concerns, fail to notice little miracles fluttering under our very noses.

Ecologist David Abram commented that perception is:  "a reciprocal phenomenon organized as much by the surrounding world as by oneself" and suggested that a two-way dynamic of intention, or energy exchange, may be going on. In contrast to our idea of a non-living world we simply observe, he went on to say that "the psyche is a property of the ecosystem as a whole", suggesting that we move beyond the notion that "one's mind is nothing other than the body itself".* 

A Conversant World. Or as writer Alice Walker has often said, "the Universe responds."

So the story I would like to tell today concerns one of my 5 favorite writers, a woman whose visionary books, most significantly SHIKASTA, has informed and inspired me since the mid '70's, Doris Lessing. The excerpt above is from her 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature speech, which she received at the age of 88. The visual is her personal note and autograph, found on the back cover of a paperback I found lying on the sidewalk at my feet, a pile of discarded books just a few blocks from where I live in downtown Tucson, Arizona. To me, it's a talisman - infused with energy from the living hand of this prolific and visionary writer, whose long and enduring gift she has never failed.

I've been very depressed this winter, which led me to go into therapy to tell and reveal to myself, some of the stories of my personal life, and hopefully untangle them so I can move through the bardo of transition I've been mired in. I do not like the cynicism and bitterness that post-menopausally "haunts" me.......the Habit of Loving is the discipline from which creativity arises, and without it's hopeful window, the river dries up. I've been blessed to find a wise counselor to listen to me. And in the "unmasking process" (as she puts it) I've often felt like a ghost within the "legend" of my former self.......therapy is rather a painful process! And I've had plenty of doubts as to whether being an artist matters anymore.

So when I found"The Habit of Loving" at my feet while strolling down a residential street near where I live I picked it up with pleasure. To find a personal autograph on the inside (dated 1982) by the author........is pure magic. Personal magic - because if it was by Stephen King, or any of the thousands of authors I don't know or don't care about, it wouldn't mean a thing to me. But this is a talisman, as if, in some wonderful way, a creative spark was passed on to me from someone I tremendously admire. And a reminder to not only respect, but CHERISH the gifts of creativity and expression we're given. It's too easy to forget - they are high privilege.

In her acceptance speech, Lessing remembers her life early life in Africa, in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, as well as her life in England. And she urges us to remember how precious knowledge, and the gifts of literacy, really are.

"We are a jaded lot, we in our world - our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words and ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost their potency.

We have a treasure-house of literature, going back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. It is all there, this wealth of literature, to be discovered again and again by whoever is lucky enough to come up on it. Suppose it did not exist. How impoverished, how empty we would be.

We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.

Ask any modern storyteller and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration, and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, to fire and ice and the great winds that shaped us and our world.
The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise . . . but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill.

It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.

The poor girl (in Zimbabwe) trudging through the dust, dreaming of an education for her children, do we think that we are better than she is - we, stuffed full of food, our cupboards full of clothes, stifling in our superfluities?

I think it is that girl and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us.

© The Nobel Foundation 2007

*"The Perceptual Implications of Gaia", David Abram, THE ECOLOGIST (1985)

Kathleen Jenks MYTHING LINKS

I'd like to introduce Kathleen Jenks wonderful Mything Links site, and I'm touched that she chose to open her Spring Equinox page with one of my favorite poems, based upon the Celtic Goddess the Morrigan, bringer of Justice.

http://www.mythinglinks.org/springequinox2000~Sapling.html

True justice has to be circular and gestalt: founded on the empathy that arises from experiencing "both sides now".

a "Webbed Vision"

“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw with a “webbed vision“?.....The world seen through a web…as delicate as spider’s silk, yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”

Catherine Keller, FROM A BROKEN WEB

As the juices of spring flow (and it's well into high spring here in the desert), and the psychic juices of months of therapy also seem to be flowing in my psyche, I've been noticing a lot of synchronicities lately.

(I have many times noticed that synchronicities follow the threads whorls and weavings of my thoughts and imaginative processes. If one can understand that dreams are a conversation with the inner self by means of symbols that interact, then why can't synchronicities reflect the symbolic conversation World is having with us.......or perhaps we're having with World? )

I've been thinking about PENELOPE - the myth, its origins, and origins of the name itself. I've been reading the 1989 book "From a Broken Web" by theologian Catherine Keller. What struck me particularly are her reflections (as the quote above) on what kind of world we might co-create with if we could truly re-claim or truly internalize a new universal vision of a paradigm of interconnection. If we could see the world, as she put it, with a "Webbed Vision". She derives this concept from her analysis of mythologies about Spiders and Weavers, including Penelope, who wove and unwove a shroud every night as she waited for the return of her husband Odysseus.

The name, "Penelope" actually means, in Greek, something like "with a Web on her face". Here's what I opened to in the Tucson Weekly's Theatre Section this morning, while still bleary-eyed over coffee:

The movie showing in Tucson theatres has nothing to do with the Odyssey, or weaving (it's a charming film about a woman with a pig's snout and a curse she has to resolve) - but following the threads of my thoughts about Penelope, suddenly there she was, with a kind of web over her face, looking up at me from my newspaper. I love it.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Penelope:

In Homer's Odyssey, Penélopê (Πηνελόπη) is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is rejoined with him at last. Her name[1] is usually understood to combine the Greek word for web or woof (πηνη / pene) and the word for eye or face (ωψ / ōps), very appropriate for a weaver of cunning whose motivation is hard to decipher.[2] Until recent readings, her name has been associated with faithfulness,[3] but the most recent readings offer a more ambiguous interpretation.

Ambiguous interpretation indeed. It seems fairly clear that here is a much earlier Goddess. The Weaver who "sees through a web". Another variation, for me, on Spider Woman - the Fate, with her 12 maids. The 12 maids are interesting too - perhaps, as I'm sure many have speculated before me, is the magical Goddess number 13 (representing 13 lunations of the year, 13 menstual cycles, the very number that became so "unlucky" in later patriarchal myth spinning). Bythis same re-mything process, Penelope became gradually diminished in the Odyssey, becoming the faithful wife, waiting for her adventuring husband (he was kind of the last word n the "hero's journey") to come home. And when he does, after eliminating the suitors who have been infringing upon his kingdom, he hangs Penelope's 12 maids as well, (for having been seduced or raped by the various suitors).

A much earlier Goddess, an earlier paradigm of the Web and the Sacred Feminine. Perhaps, at last, Penelope, weaving her Spider Web, reveals another transparent thread, an ancient myth that winks at me, at least, from my morning paper.

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, poet, and feminist wit, had a few things to say about the Odyssey recently - from the point of view of Penelope - in her 2005 novel

THE PENELOPAID

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2007.10--margaret-atwood-novel/

I loved the book, would love to have seen it on stage as well - apparently, complete with the 12 hanged maids as Greek Chorus.

Gratitude (and a funny syncronicity)

Mana Youngbear and her cast, Oakland, California 2002

"What the audience saw when a dancer looked through the eyes of the mask was the Goddess Herself, an ancient and yet utterly contemporary presence, looking across time, across the miles."
Diane Darling, Director, Writer, Ritualist

The Auction is over, actually, it ended precisely at 12:00 on Sunday Night, January 27th, 2008, closing a two month auction. Most of the masks are sold and go to new homes. The proceeds will benefit me, as I pursue my "Spider Woman" project in the years to come, and Conrad and Elizabeth of the Independent Eye as they develop their new edition of "The Descent of Inanna" (It will be in production in May).

One of the enormous blessings is also that Lena, who lives in Oregon, bought a fair collection of them, and will continue working with them as a collection. I feel enormously relieved, and also very grateful for all the wonderful letters and comments I've received from people who have written to me in the course of this process. There have been times that I have felt I "failed" because I couldn't keep the project going, nor could dancer Mana Youngbear, who recently closed her center in Willits, California, where the masks as a full collection were last housed. (That doesn't mean, of course, that I won't continue to work with women to create masks, and to explore the Goddesses within).

The Circulation of the the Masks of the Goddess was a collective project that lasted 7 years. Thank to the many who participated - all brought the Goddess home, made the stories of the Goddesses incarnate.

Thank you:

Macha Nightmare, Mana Youngbear, Serene Zloof, Ann Bridgit Weller, Diane Darling, Barbara Jaspersen, Shelly McHugh "Valley High", David Jeffers & Benad Hasche, Monika Mann, Kelly Nelson, Flynt Garner, Silk, Duncan Cook, Evelie Posche, Lilla Luoma, Will Clipman, Jeff Grienke, Isobel Amourous, Kathy Huataluhta, Ileya Stewart, Morgana Canady, Valerie James, Quynn Elizabeth, Katherine Josten, Erica Swadley, Grey Eagle, Ann Huggins, Celestine Star, Kala, Eleni, Abby Willowroot and the Goddess 2000 Project, Alan Moore, Drissana Devananda, Elizabeth Fuller, Conrad Bishop, Ann Beam, Paloma Hill, Jim Hewes, Arjuna & Tuva Space, Jo Odessa & Buka Creati, Deborah Scott Gren, Mary Kay Landon, Tami, Amadae, Jim Lovette-Black, Sabina Magliocco, July Lewis, Juan Pablo, Farida Fox, Tara Webster, Stacy kalkowski, Lee Hendrickson, Adrienne Hirt, Barbara BBC (“White Buffalo Woman”), Amie Miller, Freya Anderson, Morgaine Harris, Laura Janesdaughter, Tansy Brooks, Willow Kelly, Dawn Marlowe, Damira Norris, Maria Wahlstrom, Fontain and Fontain's Muse, Kendra, Copper Persephone, Eleni Livitsanos, Jamra, Cypress, Cris Ferreira, Starhawk and RECLAIMING, Christy Salo, Melusina Gomez, Maritza Schaefer, Journey, Nada Khodlova, Stessa, Angela Blessing, Rachel Morgain, Catlin & Reggie Williams, Ingrid Aspomatis, Annie and Phil, Carlin Diamond, Alan & Audrey Smith, Lea Bender, The Veil and "Sophia Speaks", Sammi Alijagic, Paul Fisher, Toker Johnston, Linda Johnston, Motherbear Scott, The Muse Community Arts Center, Ashley Wallace, Melissa Penn, Laura Dubois, Dorit Bat Shalom, Jeanne Koelle, Karina McAbee, Navaab Munirith, Charlie Adams, Sharon Kihara, Nettie, Corinne Levy, Judy Foster, Dina, Amanda Allison, Wendy Cornelius, Copper, Kendra Stone, Jamra , Bombshell Betty, Heaven, Ariel, Shanel, Carrie Adams, Kim Arnold, Nadirah Adeye, Thallia Bird, April Taylor, Donna Peck, Dailey Little, Rhonda, Marisa Scirocco, Jonette Ford, Lyndzee Dava, Aielen, Carolyn Lucento …………and many more.

And I have to share this final syncronicity........Divine Providence, in my experience, has one heck of a sense of humor. So, it's 5 minutes or so before 12:00, and I'm about ready to close the bidding. And I received an email from Dina, a friend of mine who occasionally forwards inspirational emails to people on her list. The title of the email: "LET IT GO!!!"

I swear, I'm not lying. I copy below the email .........note the time it was received. Just to make sure that Dina didn't do it on purpose, I wrote to her a day later. Her response:

Hey Sista Goddess,
Nope, I didn't have a clue, I did know that you were selling them, I got the e-mail months ago. Just divine time'n. Sometimes, well, rather alot of the time, I do or send things without knowing why. Sometimes I find out after the fact, sometimes not. Love to you,Dina--

So this is the advice that Dina and Syncronicity sent me at exactly 11:54 on January 27th as I closed my 7 year Masks of the Goddess Project.

In a message dated 1/27/2008 11:54:12 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, devastar1@juno.com writes:
---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Let it Go

Acquire the gift of good-bye.It's the tenth spiritual gift,
Believe in good-bye. It's not hateful; it's being faithful, trusting in the flow of life.

If you are holding on to something that doesn't belong to you anymore;
Then you need to ..LET IT GO!!!
If you are holding on to past hurts and pains ... LET IT GO!!!
If someone doesn’t treat you right, love you back, see your worth...LET IT GO!!!
If you are holding on to some negative thoughts and revenge .. LET IT GO!!!
If you are holding on to a job that no longer meets your needs or talents . LET IT GO!!!
If you keep judging others to make yourself feel better... LET IT GO!!!
If you are judging yourself…LET IT GO!!!
If you're stuck in the past and Divinity is trying to take you to a new level... LET IT GO!!!
If you are struggling with the healing of a broken relationship.... LET IT GO!!!
If you keep trying to help someone who won't even try to help themselves..LET IT GO!!!
If you're feeling depressed and stressed .. LET IT GO!!!
If there is a particular situation that you are so used to handlingyourself and Divinity is saying ‘surrender it,' then you need to... LET IT GO!!!
Let the past be the past. Divinity is doing a new thing for 2008 !!!

LET IT GO!!!Take a moment to appreciate the divine power in your life.
Divinity loves you and will guide you;
Surrender whatever it is, Get Quiet, Ask for Guidance, Listen with you heart, Trust the process,
Surrender the outcome, Take the Next Step.

The Solstice and Joanna Brouk

light 

light

light of morning

the fairest light, 

the fairest light has come

softly, I feel its coming

night has given

night has given 

a place to morning 

breath returns

and moistens 

the grass 

the birds feather 

no longer do I hide

no longer do I hide

gone into darkness

light has come 

Joanna Brouk 

One more Solstice moment I'd like to share, in the form of a poem from a section of my website called "Found Poems"*, by a long lost friend, Joanna Brouk, written in the winter of 1973. I still find the poem beautiful as it is like music to me, and Joanna was a consummate musician, evoking other worlds with her music,  as well as a poet. In the poem Joanna moves, like a stream, through the rythems of the seasons, night and day, to the Sun's return.  I miss her.

*Update 2021:  Joanna passed away in 2017.  See the Wikipage link to learn more about her.

**Update 2011:  Joanna and I reconnected, and  renewed our friendship.  And here is a link to Joanna's music.  https://youtu.be/gxI3t67cspw

The 100 Friends Project

I need a counter to my Holiday blues (which have been a long and hopefully transformative process this year) and I would like to introduce my friend Marc Gold, and his 100 Friends Project.

Marc is an amazingly energetic psychologist and teacher from El Cerrito, California, who now spends half of his year travelling around the world giving money to needy individuals and small organizations, and half in the U.S. fundraising. On his website, you can learn directly about the people who receive the funds people donate. In his own words, the project began in 1989,

"When I visited India for the first time. I met a Tibetan woman in the Himalayas who had terrible ear infections, and I was able save her life with antibiotics that cost about $1.00. For another $30 I purchased a hearing aid that restored her hearing. I was shocked to learn something so important could be accomplished with so little. I began raising money among my friends, as much as people were able to donate. Then, in 1992, I traveled to India with over $2,200 in donations, with the goal of distributing it as directly and intelligently as possible. The rest, as they say, is history. "

It's so important now, with the onslaught of despair and orchestrated fear in the media, to remember that there are many, many heroes like Marc, making a big difference. He's inspired me to travel next year myself, and I may be doing volunteer work or even starting a handcrafts business for women's products in the course of my travels. Thank you, Marc.

And as a further counter to the cynicism I'm too often guilty of myself, I copy below from the 100 Friends Website Marc's network page, in case anyone else may be inspired to do something similar to what he's done. So, wishing all of us a Global and Merry Christmas!


Tips & Hints from Marc Gold: How to Change the World While Traveling

How do you prepare? Get a lot of education about the place you're going to -- through reading, watching videos, talking to people, surfing web sites. Learn about the area's history, politics, and geography. Get there with as much knowledge as possible. Learn 20 phrases in that language. People appreciate that, and it goes a long way toward making connections. Do special research into the problems of that country. Find out what the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are doing. Meet with them when you get there.


How do you raise money? Talk to people. Write a letter (see sample letter) and send it to everyone you know. If you don't have 100 acquaintances, so what? Do you have 40? Start a web page. It's all about making the time and having the guts to follow through. Become a non-profit [this is actually more affordable than you might realize. Create a newsletter. Have photos to send, or to show on your web page. The most important part of raising money? ASK for it.


How do you know whom to donate to? You meet trustworthy people, and you keep going back to them. Meet with people at NGOs once you're in the country, and ask them to connect you to good people who are especially worthy or needy. Be cool. Hang out for a number of days. Get to know people before you start talking about money. Trust your instincts. It's easy for money to go into the wrong hands. One family member can keep it from the others, or it can introduce jealousy. You learn as you go. The longer you do it, the stronger your connections will be, the more you'll know whom to trust -- and they'll connect you with honest, reliable, deserving people in the community. Do a web search for NGOs or NGO directories in the region you're planning to visit. Visit the World Organization of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO) or Taking It Global.

Here are some links from other "Global Ambassadors" that are very helpful:

http://www.ethicaltraveler.com/profiles.php
http://www.intentional-traveler.com/index.html
http://www.theculturedtraveler.com/Archives/Nov2004/Lead_Story.htm
http://www.responsibletravel.com/Copy/Copy100061.htm
http://www.sustainabletravelinternational.org/ecodirectory/responsibletravel.html
http://www.adventure-life.com/travel_details/sustainable.html
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/columns/traveller_archive/2003jul30/index.htm
http://www.sustainabletravel.org/case_studies.htm
http://www.imaginative-traveller.com/planet/projects.asp
http://www.backpacknation.org/
http://www.studenttraveler.com/mag/05-04/scoop.php

(Marc's website is Copyright (c) 2004 Judy Wolf )