threads of the spiderwoman

Friday, March 12, 2021

The Hand and the Eye

"Hand and Eye" by Tylor Gore

A friend asked about the motif of the "hand and eye" Icon, so I pulled up this article from 2009, when I was obsessed with the theme and possible meaning of the "eye in the hand". It had a way of occuring in my artwork, even as I was casting many hands for my Community Arts Project at Wesley Theological Seminary called "Weavers". To me the Eye represents the "Eye of the divine", seeing with a expanded, spiritual view as we touch the world with our hands, and as we create within the world with our hands. It is divine touch, divine love, divine action.

THE HAND AND THE EYE IN THE AMERICAS

I've been fascinated for years with the hand and eye motif. A few years ago, while visiting a healer who does massage and energy work, I saw that she had an ancient native American artifact. It was of thick shell, about 3"x 2", stained, carved into the shape of a hand, incised to show the fingers and joints, and with an eye and pupil in the center of the palm. A hole was drilled in the top of this medallion or amulet, presumably so it could be worn with a cord.

Design engraved on Spiro shell; Hamilton, The Spiro Mound, Courtesy: Michael Fuller, Professor of Anthropology, St. Louis College (http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/spiroshell.html)

It seemed to emanate a kind of "clarifying" energy, and being curved, fit into the palm of my hand. I don't have a photo of that amulet, but the shell gorget to the right is similar. The "Hand and Eye" motif, like the Spider with Cross, and the Cross and Circle motif (the 4 Directions unified?) are found throughout prehistoric sites of the Mississippian peoples of the great river valleys, from Ohio to Alabama. These people have also been called the Mound Builders, leaving behind mounds and burial chambers.

In 2007 I visited Wickliffe Mounds in Kentucky, an unplanned visit (I went to Kentucky to visit nearby Paducah's artist colony and the Mound site was on the way) that afforded me quite a few synchronicities, as I had just been working on my "Spider Woman's Hands" Project!

And in 2015 I visited Mound State Park in Indiana, which was clearly built over a highly energized site, and, like stone circles in the UK, marked a ceremonial center of some kind. It is within 5 miles of Camp Chesterfield Spiritualist Community, which also afforded me many surprising experiences, and also, residents believe, has a Mound on the land.

And then there is the awesome "Serpent Mound" in Ohio has also been built by these ancient peoples.

For those unfamiliar with Serpent Mound, atop a plateau overlooking Brush Creek Valley, Serpent Mound is the largest landscape effigy in the United States. Nearly a quarter of a mile long, it apparently represents an uncoiling serpent; its "head" also represents an egg in the mouth of the serpent. It has been variously dated from about 1,400 years ago or older. It's also geomantically interesting that this ceremonial mound was built on the site of an ancient meteorite strike. Some scholars also believe it aligns with the summer solstices, and also, coincidentally, with the constellation "Draco", suggesting it was designed when the star draconis alpha was the pole star. Serpent Mound is certainly one of America's greatest archaeological mysteries. For a fascinating perspective on the spiritual and ritual uses of Serpent Mound, in particular upon the gestation cycles of women by independent artist and scholar Constance Tippett, visit her website The Moon at Serpent Mound (https://moonatserpentmound.org/about/)

The artifact I held, a carved shell talismen of a Hand and Eye is probably 500 years of age, or older. Why did they wear it, why did they engrave it ?

What did this iconic image mean to these prehistoric people, who were the ancestors of the Cherokee and others? I am familiar with the "Hamsa", also called the "Hand of Fatima", a symbol used to ward off evil ( worn as an amulet, or over doors) in the Middle East, both by Muslim and Jewish peoples. This token is ubiquitous through the Arabic world.

"Seeing in the Dark" (2009)

But I wonder why this Native American Icon is meaningful to me, so that I continually incorporate it into my own artwork? Perhaps it represents conscious mind in the works of our hands, in what we manifest. Beyond that, the Presence of God/dess, of the divine, the "one within the many", moving through the manifest creative and healing works of our hands, of our lives. An amulet not to avert evil, but to call forth divine vision and creativity as we touch and shape our worlds? Does that make sense?

Here's an amazing "Hands with Eyes" mask made by artist Dan Lyke, which I found on the fabulous web page "Hand and Eye" created by T.P. Kunesh, whose fascinating (and wry) website shows him to be a philosopher and visionary worth knowing. My great thanks to Mr. Kunesh for the images and commentary he provided me with.

"Hands Mask" by Dan Lyke at Burning Man (2000)

White Tara, Goddess of Compassion, is also shown with the "Hand and Eye" motif - the Eye representing yet another means by which the great Bodhissatva manifests to help those who are suffering.

Here is some further information I have taken from the writings of Jungian psychologist Frank Adair, MD, and also from that of Joseph Campbell. Dr. Adair comments about this symbol:

"(The) inner Self has been likened to God or to "God within us". It has been called the light of nature that creates our dreams. Whatever "it" is called will involve some degree of projection limiting meaning. Somehow, the eye as symbol captures the pivotal point between the opposites, between the conscious and unconscious - where "the land meets the sea." The hand adds richness to the symbol. Hands can build the bridge between our inner world and the external world...The hands are the mediators between spirit and matter, between an inner image and an actual creation. By handling, the existing energies become visible."

Large ceremonial centers of the cultures collectively called the "Mound Builders" or the "Mississippian" cultures were found in Moundville, Alabama, Etowah in Georgia, Spiro in Oklahoma and Cahokia in Illinois, and elsewhere. It is suggested that the advent of Europeans coming to the so called New World (the old world to the nations already here) had much to do with the demise of these cultures through disease and conquest. The mounds are the greatest sources of the artifacts of these peoples. The eye, usually a simple oval containing a small circular pupil, may have represented the hand and eye of Creator. The famous disc below has a hand pointing upward, and appears to be both sides of the hand (perhaps suggesting non-duality?) There are two knotted rattlesnakes surrounding the hand. Being knotted, they could further suggest the forces symbolized by the snakes (the snake power contained, controlled, or organized by the hand? Earth Energies, symbolized so often by snakes or dragons in early European cultures? The protective power of the rattlesnake itself as it surrounds the sacred Hand?).

In ancient Europe and the Middle East "snake" was ubiquatous in its association with the Goddess, hence, the moving, serpentine, cyclical powers of the Earth/Earth Mother. While we cannot know what "snake" meant to these people, and the meanings of the iconic hand is only suggested by archaeologists, I think it can be said with some certainty that it did represent shamanistic power and/or deity. As Dr. Adair points out in his article, the motif of the "eye in the palm" is found in paintings of the compassionate Bodhisattva White Tara of Tibet, "She who hears the cries of the world". He further points out that none other than the great mythologist Joseph Campbell has mused and written possible meanings of this particular Native American stone disc:

"Interpreted in Oriental terms, its central sign would be said to represent the "fear banishing gesture" of a Bodhisattva hand showing on its palm the compassionate Eye of Mercy, pierced by the sight of the sorrows of this world. The framing pair of rattlesnakes, like those of the Aztec Calendar Stone, would then symbolize the maya power binding us to this vortex of rebirths, and the opposed knots would stand for the two doors, east and west, of the ascent and descent, appearances and disappearances, of all things in the endless round. Furthermore, the fact that the eye is at the center of the composition would suggest, according to this reading, that compassion is the ultimate sustaining and moving power of the universe, transcending and overcoming its pain. And finally, the fact that the hand is represented as though viewed simultaneously from back and front would say that this Bodhisattva power unites opposites.

Our picture depicts the dual aspects of psychic life which have been projected, since ancient times, as metaphysical realms. On the one hand, there is ordered consciousness symbolized by the regular appearance of the sun's "blazing eye;" on the other hand, there is the unconscious, a chaotic region of animal instincts, symbolized as "serpentine monsters" capable indeed of wrapping themselves around the ego and dragging it into its depths. Yet the American Indian projection preserves the fact that the unconscious is full of novelty and is a creative reality which can be harmonized with the structures of conscious living. That has been achieved aesthetically in our artifact.

The image of a "hand" at the center reminds us that this beautiful piece was made by human hands and hints at the requirement of human effort if we are ever to unite the opposites within ourselves. Should what we say here be more than intuition, should it also be rooted in the facts of the psyche and in the requirement to withdraw projections, then sensation has also been served. Serving opposite functions and honoring the larger duality of the conscious and unconscious psyche is, then, the modest modern equivalent of the prayers, offerings, and correct ethical behavior of the Mound Builders. (1)"

References:

Adair, Frank MD www.uroborus.com

Campbell, J. (1990). The Mythic Image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Fuller, Michael Ph.d.: Photos of artifacts from Spiro Mound courtesy Dr. Michael Fuller, Dept. of Anthropology, St. Louis Community College,(http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/spiroshell.html

Fundaburk, E.L. & Foreman, M.D. (1985). Sun Circles and Human Hands: The Southeastern Indians. Art and Industry. Fairhope, AL: American Bicentennial Museum.

Gore, Tyler, artist: http://www.tylergore.com/

Kunesh, T.P. The Eye in the Hand, http://www.darkfiber.com/eyeinhand/

Tippett, Constance (https://moonatserpentmound.org/about/

Walthall, J. (1994). Moundville: An introduction to the archaeology of a Mississippian chiefdom. Tuscaloosa, AL: Alabama Museum of Natural History.

Monday, March 8, 2021

"Imagine a Woman" - for International Women's Day

https://youtu.be/0C4zDxOdLY8

Poem by Patricia Lynn Reilly

“I have learned to trust myself and so have the women with whom I sit in circle. We no longer choose to expend our precious life energy scrutinizing every facet of our beings to figure out what is wrong with us. Instead, we celebrate ourselves as gifted and powerful children of life.”

― Patricia Lynn Reilly, Be Full Of Yourself: The Journey From Self Criticism To Self Celebration

“Instead of ascending to enlightened states of being that involve the denial of the self, we have discovered that ours is a journey of descent: we look deep within to reclaim forgotten aspects of ourselves. In our descent, many of us rediscover “Sophia,” which is the Greek word for wisdom. She is a feminine aspect of the divine found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Her presence in the male pantheon of gods has been obscured, but not completely eradicated. In the Gnostic writings, considered heretical by the “orthodox” church, Sophia was present at creation and escorted Adam and Eve toward self-awareness.

Women are reclaiming Sophia as a representation of their own inner wisdom. No longer is “god's will” imposed from outside of their lives—wisdom unfolds from within them and is in sync with their own natural gifts and capacities. No longer available to turn their lives and wills over to gods, gurus, and experts, they’re refusing to surrender except to Wisdom's urgings. No longer abdicating responsibility for their lives, they are employing their own willfulness in harmony with Wisdom's ways.”

― Patricia Lynn Reilly, A Deeper Wisdom: The 12 Steps from a Woman's Perspective

Thursday, March 4, 2021

A Synchronicity.............

Back in the summer of 2000 I had moved to Tucson from California, mostly to be of assistance to my mother and brother, and also a great deal because, like many others, I could not afford to continue to live in the Bay Area. I rented an apartment and settled back in to living in Arizona, not without some ambiguity, as I had loved living in the exciting environment of Berkeley.

Some mail continued to arrive for previous tenants, and one day a card arrived for "Angel M Grace". I was struck by the idea of having a "credit card" for "Angel M Grace" and thought of it as good luck - I put it in my wallet, and I've carried the thing around now for 20 some years!

Yesterday I was cleaning my wallet out looking for something and I pulled out my "Angel Card". I had never actually read the line that says "Must Activate by 09/08/00." Then I remembered that exactly 20 years after that "activation date" was when I had my spine operation - September 8th, 2020.

In July, 2020 I got shingles, and in the course of dealing with this seemingly painful but not catastrophic problem, the doctor had me get an MRI. A few days after that I found myself with an emergency appointment with a neurosurgeon! It seemed that I had some dangerous spurs on my neck/spine that could lead to paralysis if not corrected! They wanted to operate as soon as possible, and I now am recovered, and have a bunch of metal pins in my spine.

I guess that card got activated!

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Spider Woman's Signature: the "Cosmic Spider"

"Spider and Cross", ubiquitous symbol of the prehistoric Mississippian culture

In 2007 I was an Aldon B. Dow Fellow at Northwood University, in Midland Michigan, for the summer, and was pursuing my fascination, indeed, obsession with, myths and symbols related to the Native American Spider Woman, but as She appears in my life, and in our contemporary world as well.. In time my obsession led me to travel across the country, to have many synchronicities

(one of those synchronicities led me to this building, which,

now that I revisit it, very much looks like being under a giant Spider Web!)

and to create a community arts project I called "Spider Woman's Hands".

The Project was continued at the Creative Spirit Center the following year (2008). As participants created "Icons" using casts of their faces, their hands (mind and creativity in manifestation), along with symbols of personal sanctity or significance to each participant, they wove a "thread" that unified all of their stories. In each show that "thread" was "held" by each hand in each Icon, and ran right out the door. I look back at that time, following the "threads" that Spider Woman cast me as an artist and a person, as infused with magic and guidance. I do not know if I have fulfilled that quest yet, but I do know that the symbols of the Spider, the Cross representing the union of all directions, and the Great Web are profoundly important symbols not just from the buried past, but for our time now.

Lately I've been feeling the "hand" of Spider Woman weaving in my life again. I do not know where She might lead me...........

So thinking about this I re-discovered a Blog post from 2015 I found fascinating, information kindly sent me from a gentleman named Eddie Bailey in the U.K. in which he pointed out that the Earth's magnetic field in its appearance is very similar to the prehistoric spider and cross symbol found among the Mississippian people of ancient America (one that, interestingly enough, also occured in 2005 as a crop circle in Wiltshire, England. I do not see that many people in Southern England, hoaxers or not, would even know about this symbol, and personally feel this is a genuine crop circle.)

The "Cosmic Spider".....a motif, for me, that embodies the concept of Spider Woman as, once again, midwife for a New Age.

http://geomag.usgs.gov/about.php

As Mr. Bailey pointed out,

"The truth will cease to be stranger than fiction when we get used to it."........ "I realise symbols work on many levels or fractally. It is said matter is condensed light, and Light is an electro-magnetic wave or particle. The electric field and the magnetic field are ALWAYS perpendicular to each other - like a Cross on a certain level."

2005 crop circle of ancient American spider motif, Wiltshire, England

He also kindly shared comments by Laid Scranton, who believes that the "primitive people" of Africa, the Dogon people, not unlike the similarity between the "cosmic spider" of ancient America and the Earth's magnetic field in relationiship to our sun, seem to have created or intuited a complex symbol language as well:

"The Dogon symbols and concepts relating to atomic structure so thoroughly mimic their scientific counterparts that, if our purpose was to refute their basis in science, we would first need to explain in some believable way the following extraordinary similarities:

• The po, which is defined in terms similar to those that describe the atom
• Sene seeds, which are described in form and behavior as being similar to protons, neutrons, and electrons and whose "nesting" is recognizable as an electron orbit
• The germination of the sene, whose drawn images are a match for the four types of quantum spin particles
• The spider of the sene whose threads weave the 266 seeds of Amma, much as string theory tells us all matter is woven from strings.

Likewise, there seems to be a relationship between Dogon cosmological drawings and the shapes of various Egyptian glyphs, yet among the Dogon, these drawings have never taken on the status of an actual written language.

Dada, the Dogon spider who weaves matter and whose name means "mother" in the Dogon language, exhibits many of the classical attributes of the Egyptian (and Amazigh) goddess Neith. In fact, other ancient goddesses, like Athena, who are traditionally associated with Neith also are associated with spider symbolism similar to that found in Dogon cosmology. Such consistencies suggest that the Dogon system of myth could represent an early incarnation of the Egyptian myths."

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

A PAGAN ICON: "Asherah"

I've been interested in Catholic Icons for a long time, as well as Hindu and Buddhist Icons.......so I thought, since I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with painting again after so many years of not touching the scary gessoed surface...........that I'd make some Icons of my own. This one, dedicated to Asherah, or the "World Tree", is my first attempt, although I've done this image so many times in the past, the woman who is rooted in the Earth, the Tree of Life, the great primeval Mother Earth. But it was fun doing this because I could just paint from my imagination, unconstrained by the sometimes tedious process of being skillful, realistic, commercially viable, etc. I look forward to doing more, these Icons for just myself!

Concerning Asherah, I copy below from a previous post:

Asherah and the Tree of Life

Asherah was often represented as a tree, among them the ubiquitous "Asherah poles" (ashirim) associated with Her worship in early (pre-monotheistic) Judaism. *** There is evidence that these wooden icons, and possibly, actual trees intentionally planted as icons or shrines) were meant to be representations of Asherah. Asherah is sometimes referred to as the wife of Yahweh, whose name became something that could not be uttered, only represented as "the Lord". The Asherah poles, and eventually the name of Asherah, were banned from worship as Judaism became monotheistic and established the sole deity as male.

Interestingly, with the early advent of Gnostic Christianity, Asherah is perhaps re-born in the form of Sophia, the feminine face of deity, often called the "mother" or sometimes "wife" of Yaweh. The emblem for Sophia was often a dove.

I never would have associated the Tree of Life archetype, which has been a part of my spiritual vocabulary for more years than I remember, with Asherah had I not investigated just recently because of a visionary experience during a healing session.

I had some energy work done last week with an alternative healer. Not unlike Reiki practitioners, although her system had a different name, she worked with me for over an hour, helping me to enter into an altered state of consciousness, kind of like a meditation, while she, in channelling energy to work with me, also entered into an open, meditative state. As I closed my eyes, the session began for me with the appearance of a white dove that visually manifested right before my (closed) eyes. But not a literal kind of bird, more like a sacred emblem, what one might see in a church. I immediately thought of the "Dove of Sophia", which is of course associated with Peace to this day. And as a Christian icon representing the Holy Spirit, it may very well be that the origins of the Dove go all the way back to Gnosticism and Sophia.

Who, like Asherah, was removed from patriarchal monotheistic theology, Her symbols often co-opted to support the later mythos of a strictly male deity without a wife, mother, or, for that matter, a daughter either.

The healer, after the session was over, told me that she clearly saw a Goddess form present during the healing. The healer, who is not much familiar with Goddess archetypes, said that the name she got was "Ashara". She also mentioned that somehow trees or wood were associated. I couldn't think of what that meant, until I looked it up on the Internet later, and then (of course!) discovered the Hebrew Goddess "Asherah".

Visions, like dreams, have multiple layers of meaning, and like dreams, exist outside of time. In my experience Spirit communicates in visionary, symbolic, mythic ways, often from the great "library" of human archetypes. This visioning was a blessing for me, and something I will continue to contemplate and ask to understand.

"Asherah" (Artist unknown)

*ASHERAH POLE

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah_pole

An "Asherah pole" is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah, consort of El. The relation of the literary references to an asherah and archaeological finds of Judaean pillar-figurines has engendered a literature of debate. The asherim were objects related to the worship of the fertility goddess Asherah, the consort of either Ba'al or, as inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom attest, Yahweh, and thus objects of contention among competing cults.

In translations that render the Hebrew asherim into English as "Asherah poles," the insertion of "pole" begs the question by setting up unwarranted expectations for such a wooden object: "we are never told exactly what it was", observes John Day.[4]

Though there was certainly a movement against goddess-worship at the Jerusalem Temple in the time of King Josiah, (2 Chronicles 34:3) it did not long survive his reign, as the following four kings "did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh" (2 Kings 23:32, 37; 24:9, 19)[citation needed]. Further exhortations came from Jeremiah. The traditional interpretation of the Biblical text is that the Israelites imported pagan elements such as the Asherah poles from the surrounding Canaanites. In light of archeological finds, however, modern scholars now theorize that the Israelite folk religion was Canaanite in its inception and always polytheistic, and it was the prophets and priests who denounced the Asherah poles who were the innovators (of monotheism with an exclusive male god).

Asherim are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. The term often appears as merely אשרה, (Asherah) referred to as "groves" in the King James Version, which follows the Septuagint rendering as ἄλσος, pl. ἄλση, and the Vulgate lucus, and "poles" in the New Revised Standard Version; no word that may be translated as "poles" appears in the text. Scholars have indicated, however, that the plural use of the term (English "Asherahs", translating Hebrew Asherim or Asherot) provides ample evidence that reference is being made to objects of worship rather than a transcendent figure.

The Hebrew Bible suggests that the poles were made of wood. In the sixth chapter of the Book of Judges, God is recorded as instructing the Israelite judge Gideon to cut down an Asherah pole that was next to an altar to Baal. The wood was to be used for a burnt offering.

Deuteronomy 16:21 states that YHWH (rendered as "the Lord") hated Asherim whether rendered as poles: "Do not set up any [wooden] Asherah [pole] beside the altar you build to the Lord your God" or as living trees: "You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make". That Asherahs were not always living trees is shown in 1 Kings 14:23: "their asherim, beside every luxuriant tree". However, the record indicates that the Jewish people often departed from this ideal. For example, King Manasseh placed an Asherah pole in the Holy Temple (2 Kings 21:7). King Josiah's reforms in the late 7th century BC included the destruction of many Asherah poles (2 Kings 23:14).

Exodus 34:13 states: "Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherim [Asherah poles]." Some biblical archaeologists have suggested that until the 6th century BC the Israelite peoples had household shrines, or at least figurines, of Asherah, which are strikingly common in the archaeological remains.

Raphael Patai identified the pillar figurines with Asherah in The Hebrew Goddess.