Cowspiracy - a Very Important Documentary

 

One of the most important documentaries I've seen in a long time is COWSPIRACY  - The Sustainability Secret, a film by a group of young film makers from California.  They point out a very large "elephant in the room" that very few people are talking about, because such a vast economic system is behind that "elephant".  But everyone should know about it, because it's something we can do, every single day, that can actively make a difference. 

Recently the United Nations has recommended a vegan diet as SIGNIFICANT TO ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.  The U.N.!  Regardless how people may feel about animals, and the health benefits of a vegan diet, if they care about climate change and a future for their children, I believe this is very important information.

The movie is available on Netflix, and elsewhere.

https://youtu.be/YqZTaaGSKg0

https://youtu.be/nV04zyfLyN4

http://www.ecology.com/2014/08/29/water-intensive-food-impact-california-drought/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-planet-thirsty.html?_r=0

Wendy Griffin "Crafting a Voice from the Darkness"

I'm currently taking an online course at CHERRY HILL SEMINARY, where I'm also the current Resident Artist.  The Course is Voices of Gaia, with Wendy Griffin Ph.D.   Wendy Griffin  is an extraordinary voice for Mother Earth, Gaia, Pachamama.  I was delighted to find (via the course I'm taking) this moving and urgent presentation on U Tube, which I saw when I attended the Conference in January this year.  I am further delighted that Wendy will be invoking Pachamama at the Parliament of World Religions in October.

She summed up succinctly the reality of climate change, as well as pointing out (since we are a culture that places value on money) the economic, political and social consequences coming as well…….the increasing numbers of refugees driven by the loss of habitat and resources (many speculate that the situation in Syria actually  reflects the drought they have suffered for a decade), the rising of all kinds of tribal wars and religious fundamentalism  as populations become increasingly stressed.

She spoke of the "prevailing narratives of our times, the stories we tell ourselves, the myths that we tell today" which include the fact that "our current economic system depends upon indefinite expansion - and a belief that progress through development is the ultimate good and improves everyone's lives."  And that "technology and science will save us".  She pointed out the truly terrifying denial of climate change on the part of Exxon Mobil and the oil industry in support of fracking and the oil sands of Canada.

I was moved and heartened to hear Wendy comment that "instead of these old myths what we need is a new narrative …..toward the behaviors that can create a sustainable, global civilization".    Because "re-mything culture" is at the heart of what I feel the Pagan movement can uniquely address itself to, the very reason I joined the movement so long ago, finding existing structures inadequate. 

"We need to create an understanding of how the world works as a global culture ….. We need to draw on ancient archetypes and tell ourselves new stories....and pagans are in a unique position to do this...........we understand the power of archetypes, the (power of myth making), we create these in our rituals."

I am in no way denigrating the progressive theologians. activists, and spiritual leaders associated with diverse  faiths  who are addressing climate change and the  humanitarian concerns of our times as we rapidly emerge into a global culture with a global crisis.  I am a great admirer of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and also of Pope Francis.......and so many others who have stepped up to the call of the time, great leaders.

But we are also confronted with religious forces that are fundamentalist, medieval, oppressive in their world views, and  DO NOT include evolution, climate change, women, or cultural diversity in their narrow worldviews.   And like it or not,  they have a lot of power.    Witness the power that evangelicals have within the USA, people who take the Bible as the literal truth, and wish to impose this "truth" on everyone else.  In South Carolina, for example, I recently read that some schools are not allowed to talk about fossils found locally because the age of the fossils, unfortunately, disagrees with the Biblical notion creation's timeline.  

Sadly, this kind of  "truth" also de-sacralizes the Earth and embodied existence (which, since women are generally the means by which people enter the world with a body, provides fuel to the scapegoating of half the human race as well.)   These fundamentalist religious structures were perhaps useful during the dark ages, or to wandering Semitic tribes 2,000 years ago, or the fall of the Roman empire,  but they have not evolved to be appropriate to the crisis of our time.

As an emergent religion neo-Pagans are uniquely gifted with the ability to "re-myth".    Our very creativity is our strength, and our reverence for Mother Earth is the mythos we can further.  The "new narrative" Wendy speaks of  is a task we're up to, we are weavers together in the great work of creating a  "webbed vision".  

And as Wendy pointed out in her presentation as well, this "webbed vision" has to be active, not passive, and certainly not fatalistic.    If the Earth is our Deity, then our actions upon the earth (which includes member of our species as well as all other Beings of the Earth) have to be seen as either desecration or reverence. 

While I was reading I thought of one of my favorite books, THE GURU PAPERS by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad.  They speak of how many contemporary religions, from evangelical Christianity to aspects of Buddhism to "Guru traditions" to "A Course in Miracles"….. are in their essence   "renunciate" theologies.   In these systems  divinity is placed "elsewhere", be it the heaven or paradise that awaits the faithful ("be in the world but not of the world") This is a prime theme in religions that are  patriarchal, with authoritarian deities such as the Old Testament Yahweh.  Or , more subtly, the message is  that "this is not real", and hence "the real world" is to be found in some diviine, other-worldly abstraction once we are "purified", "enlightened",  or have our conciousness raised sufficiently.    

Human beings are myth makers, and religions are mythic, archetypal systems that help people to concretize the ineffable.  What are needed desperately now are myths/religions that are appropriate to the crisis we have been born into, that are "embodied", that sanctify again the great Community of Mother Earth.  We can't afford "somewhere else" religions, not now.

“Hope now lies in moving beyond our authoritarian religious past in order to build together a sustainable future for all the interwoven and interdependent life on our planet, which includes the human element.  We will have to evolve now into a truly compassionate and tolerant world – because for the first time since the little tribes of humanity’s infancy, everyone’s well being is once again linked with cooperation for survival.

 Our circle will have to include the entire world.”

Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad

Bridgit Mask

---

"Brigit never really left Her sacred places. The women of Kildare still refer to her in the present tense.  The Catholics made Her Saint Bridgid, but She is really the ancient Celtic Goddess, the same one Great Britain was named after. Fires are still lit in Her honor, Brigid's well is still sacred. You can feel Her still immanent in Ireland, continuous from the distant past - the Lady who never abandoned Her people, even when they were driven from their homelands to the New Worlds."

Diane Darling

I am Brigid, Lady of the Celts
Creatrix of the Island of Ireland
Midwife to new life in the spring.

Leave a cloth outside your door -
For I shall be abroad on Brigid's Eve
I am Lady of the Flame, Mistress of changes

Feel my hand on yours as you craft your lives
I am Lady of the Well, the deep well
That reaches into the darkness and rises to the light

I am the fount of Inspiration for poet and bard
Call me by my many names: Breezh, Bridey, Brigit, Breed
Sweet Mary of the Gaels, midwife to Christ
When once again amongst us he is born.

I am with you, children of the children of
The Lost Isles, the Western Shores
Far flung, far from your homelands -
I have not forgotten you.

Remember me when the poet sings
When the cow rises from the calving
and the fever leaves the brow.

Raise a glass of golden mead to Brigid,
Lady of the Celts.

by Diane Darling (2000)
Photographs courtesy Thomas Lux

Music For The Mabinogi

Here's something I never thought to find on the Web, but I was wrong, a piece of very obscure music Robin Williamson wrote for a production of the Mabinogion,  in 1984, the ancient tales of the Welsh Pantheon.  In 1984 Robin Williamson and theatre company 'Moving Being' staged a 3 hour production of the tales form 'The Mabinogi'.  Some of the music was later released on an album by Robin Williamson.

I listened to that album (which is also below) so many times for years and years.......

To me, this music transports me to another time, a mythic realm populated with the Fey, with Rhiannon, with Lugh, with Pryll, infused with a kind of haunting bitter sweet magic that calls across the years and from some high, half-glimpsed green place in the calling woods. 


Robin Williamson 1984 Production of 'The Mabinogi' 

Robin Williamson - Music For The Mabinogi (Full Album)   

The Black Leopard and the Animal Speaker

So many of my friends have seen this, that I didn't think to post it before, assuming it was seen by all.  But this video about a famous South African animal communicator is so extraordinary I just had to post it here..........

https://youtu.be/gvwHHMEDdT0

Amaterasu Omikami Mask

AMATERASU

 by Mary Kay Landon 

Hail and Awake!

You children of the blue, brown and green earth,

You who tread in space and time.

I come to you today from My shining abode

In heaven

Far away yet so close.

I am Amaterasu Omikami,

The Great Woman Who Possesses Noon,

Ruler of heaven,

Queen of all nature’s forces,

Goddess that is the Sun.

Golden, gleaming,

Startling, luminous,

Fierce — and gentle,

I light your way,

I warm your bones,

I stoke your tired feet,

I fire your imagination.

Without Me

And My brilliance that is so benificent,

The rice and all the other green things of the earth

Would wilt and die.

And there you would squat

At death’s door

Cold — hungry — wicked —

Doomed —

To a fate as premature shadow

In the valley of the dead.

I know, for it almost happened —

Just once.

My drunken brother Susanowo

So angered Me with his bloated pride

I took leave of you.

And hid My light self in a cave,

Refusing to move,

Refusing to come out

Even though outside

I knew

The dark air grew cold,

The plants no longer yielded fruit,

And the World began to die.

All this I nearly allowed —

But the other gods and goddesses,

Facing death, as well,

Gathered outside My cave.

They summoned forth an eight-armed mirror

And hung strings of jewels on the branches of the Sakaki tree,

They muttered ritual sayings,

And the voluptuous young goddess Ama no Uzume began to dance.

She danced —

And danced,

And danced

Whipping up an ecstasy so great among the gods and goddesses

That they began to laugh

And laugh —

Louder and louder

Hahahahaha

Hahahahahahahahha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Finally I peeked out of the cave,

Demanding to know —

What the fuss was all about,

And then I saw Myself.

In the mirror.

Amazed by My beauty,

Stunned by the luminescence

Streaming off My brow and filling the world

Turning it once again green,

And coming back to Me

In this reflection.

Today I, Amaterasu,

Goddess of the Sun,

Come to you from My shining abode

To bestow upon you two gifts:

But with these gifts

You must also take

The eight-armed mirror.

Hang it outside your cave.

And aim it directly at your soul.

Then,

As I had done before you,

You must venture out of your cave,

Out into My light, My air.

And you must open your eyes,

Into that mirror,

And allow ME

To introduce

YOU  To  YOURSELF

As if, 
For the first time.

Welcome home.

Sayonara.

Inanna Mask

INANNA:  The Great Goddess of Sumeria

I am the morning and evening star 

I go down into darkness and arise dancing

I mount the sky to my high throne

The starry heavens are the robe upon my shoulders

I am the loud-thundering storm

The rain upon the land,

The shimmering midday heat

The welcome floods that feed the thirsty land

At the end of day, all creatures lift their eyes to me,

Make love in my name. 

And when sweet sleep has ended

I fill the bedchamber with day.

Once,  I went below

To my sister, Ereshkigal

To the the Queen of Death.

She took my  lapis measuring rod

She took my life into herself

She hung me to rot upon the wall.

But Ereshkigal could not bear the pain of living.

She traded my corpse away

For the promise of healing.

But I arose reborn:

And I returned to the above world.

I took back my rod

And  my crown and my lapis sceptre.

Every year my lover  Dumuzi

Leaves me grieving

to return to the halls of my sister.

The land mourns for Dumuzi.

But he is too is reborn, 
the shepherd of the fields and the  soil

To plough his seed into the Queen of Earth and Sky.

I bring you many gifts:

I bring the arts  of allure and delight,

And flax and cream and barley for your table,

I give you paper and pen, the book, the art of speech.

Oh, my people!

Parade before me in your finest robes,

Sing to me with your drums,

Make offerings to me,

Of incense, sweet-smelling cedar,

Fine, fat sheep, long-haired sheep,

Butter, cheese, and dates.

Return with Me from your shadow lands.

Use my gifts with honor.

Enter My House,

Eat from my table,

Sleep in my bed.

Take unimagined pleasures.

By Mary Kay Landon

painting by John Singer Sargeant