Remembering "Rites of Passage" Gallery

The Morrigan prepares for Battle!

Found these great old photos of myself invoking Fire at the Gallery I had in Berkeley, California. Being a double Leo, I've always had a thing for fire.  And a lot of great photos of other people.   What a great group of people I knew there.....thanks to all for the memories!  They say "if you build it they will come" and it was so very true - create the space for magic to happen, and it will.  Make the Circle sacred, and all the more so.  ***

Evelie Posche

 

Flynt Garner

The God and the Goddess for Beltane

 

The famous Snake Dance

 

Arjuna Blessing the Space with Tuva singing

 

Serene Zloof dancing with Kali and with Fire

 

Blessing of the Priestesses

Ann Waters as Sophia holding the Mirror of Self

***I've often thought of opening a gallery again, here in Tucson, especially since Tucson's "art district" is diminishing to just about nothing, along with most American cities, thanks to gentrification, "real estate" investment, and a relatively hostile society that tends to think of the arts as unimportant, if not suspect, and if they should be around at all they should color coordinate with the sofa, or sound good on a Hallmark card.  Alas, I can't afford to do it any longer.

I have many times  ranted about the importance of low rent districts, and cultural creatives.  There would not have been Modernism and Post-Modernism if there hadn't been cheap warehouse in Soho.  There would not have been the Visionary Arts Movement, the Summer of Love, and the Beat Poets movement if there hadn't been cheap rent in Haight Ashbury.  There would not have been a genre of poetry, art, and music that has profoundly impacted American culture  if there hadn't been cheap rent and coffee houses in the Village.  There probably would not have been Impressionism if their hadn't been The Left Banke.  These were places where creative people could come, create and share ideas, show their work, perform, speak, and they could still eat.  Without cheap rent...........would there have been a Rothko, or a Seurat, or Bob Dylan, or Alan Ginsburg, or Pete Seeger, or..................?


The fact is, all of this is changing in our urban centers.  The arts are being de-centralized, and even more trivialized (I like to call it "Cultural Soul Loss").............because there are so few spaces where people can live, work, or show.  It's no secret that innovative arts (innovators in general) usually don't "sell".  And most non-commercial  galleries generally don't make money................well, I see I'm ranting again.  I wrote an article about this when the Muse Community Arts Center (Requiem for the Muse)     was destroyed 10 years ago, to become condos.

Bast

Her paws whisper on temple floors
Her eyes are luminous as the moon
Her ears pricked, alert to danger
Her whiskers sense currents from the unseen world.

Guardian of cats and women and children
Possessor of the uchat, the all-seeing eye
Bast wards against dangers in the spirit world
Evil beings, enchantments, nameless things
Visible only to cats.

Daughter of Ra, the sun
Lady of the East, the Moon
Her eyes hold light in darkness

Listen:

Ra the mighty sun appears at dawn as a baby
At sunset he is dying, and when he dies
Darkness falls but Bast prowls the Nile,
gazes into the setting sun
Holds his fire in her eyes
Shining in the dark, until Ra is born again.

Bast is Mistress
of the science of relaxation.
She luxuriates in her sensuality,
She plays  with her children
But leaps ferociously to their defense -
The One Who Tears, Little Lion -

Her sharp claws are the vengeance of Ra.

Those who love Bast honor every cat
Speak to them with respect
Lay gifts at their paws.
They call to her:
“Mau Bast! Mau Bast!”
They petition her blessings by stroking her soft fur
Which She may accept, or ignore.

Here is her secret wisdom:

Sunny spots
are best for dreaming.
Never waste a moonlit night,
and accept reality with
supreme indifference 

To the opinions of mere mortals

.

#YesAllWomen: Rebecca Solnit on the Santa Barbara Massacre & Misogynist Violence

This is what the return of the Goddess  means to me, just as much as the beautiful, nurturing, and contemplative.  The Return of the Goddesss is also, and profoundly,  the arising of women, who say, like the brilliant author  Barbara Solnit, "Look at this.  Take a good look at what it really is, how it's everywhere,  and what it does.  And it has to stop." 

Misogyny kills.

#YesAllWomen:  Rebecca Solnit on the Santa Barbara Massacre & Viral Response to Misogynist Violence

 "Santa Barbara is grieving after a 22-year-old man killed six college students just after posting a misogynistic video online vowing to take his revenge on women for sexually rejecting him. The massacre prompted an unprecedented reaction online with tens of thousands of women joining together to tell their stories of sexual violence, harassment and intimidation. By Sunday, the hashtag #YesAllWomen had gone viral. In speaking out, women were placing the shooting inside a broader context of misogynist violence that often goes ignored. In her new book, "Men Explain Things to Me," author and historian Rebecca Solnit tackles this issue and many others. "We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern," Solnit says. "Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender."

http://youtu.be/iIHg7IY_31s



http://youtu.be/PmexrnazNhE        
(Part 2 of interview)

**See also, 

By The Numbers: How The Santa Barbara Shooting Reflects A Culture Of Violence Against Women

CREDIT: Adam Peck/ThinkProgress

• More than one in three women will experience rape, violence, and/or stalking at the hands of an intimate partner in their lifetimes.
• Eighty-five percent of intimate partner violence victims are women.
• About three women are killed by their partners every day. One in 13 murder victims are killed by their intimate partners.
• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44. One in six women with bone or joint fractures is a recent victim of abuse.
• Violence is often paired with controlling behavior: women whose partners are jealous, controlling, or verbally abusive are significantly more likely to report rape, physical assault, and/or stalking from their partners.
• A domestic abuser who has access to a firearm is more than seven times more likely to kill his partner.
• Between 2009 and 2012, 40 percent of mass shootings started with a shooter targeting his girlfriend, wife, or ex-wife. In nearly 60 percent of mass shootings during the same time period, the gunman killed a current or former spouse, partner, or other family member. In at least 17 incidents, the shooter had a prior domestic violence charge.
• The leading cause of death for women at the workplace is homicide, most often at the hands of an intimate partner.
• While the rate of intimate partner violence declined by 64 percent between 1994 and 2010, most of that decline came before 2001, and since then the fall has slowed and stabilized while the overall crime rate has kept dropping.
• Domestic violence support services get more than 75,000 requests for assistance on a typical day, but last year they had to turn away more than 9,000 people thanks to tight budgets.

Lilith, and new Book Endeavor

I began my new archival book "The Goddess Suite".  While many wonderful scholars, like Patricia Monaghan and Max Dashu, Anne Baring, Jennifer Barker Woolger, Jean Shiboda, and others have written extensively about the historical, and archetypal, importance of the "Woman with A Thousand Faces"..........still, I feel I need to archive the stories that have come from the women and men I've been privileged to know over the years of working with masks of the Goddess.  What I really want is to share are the many performance excerpts from those years, and most importantly the techniques we developed to work with masks  devoted to the divine feminine for healing, re-discovery, empowerment, and, of course,  community ritual  theatre.  A lot of magic happened, and I keep trying to pass that on.  So I may repeat myself many times in the course of this blog..........for any who may read this, forgive me.

For some reason, I began with  Lilith, and I reflect on the little garden magic going on right now, the quite miraculous repeat bloom of the "Night Blooming Cereus".  Well, surely that is Lilith's flower, because her name means (more or less)  "Night", her domain is the liminal night landscape, and her gift is  night vision. 

I found the excerpt  below, which I wrote for a short performance piece some 15 years ago, I had completely forgotten about it.  This was around the same time I did the fascinating  interview (below) with David Jeffers, an artist and musician in San Francisco  I greatly admired: 

"Lilith as Dream Guide"

This is a famous painting by the British artist John Collier.  Like Blake, I believe Collier was intuitively tuned into something not very well articulated in his time.  His sensual Lilith is unapologetic, and she is  embraced by the Serpent, which is the serpentine Kundalini force, rising from the Earth, and through her body. 

I think that painting might have been the  beginning point of my Lilith piece - unapologetic as well, she is "herself", unbroken, elemental, and sympathetic.

LILITH

There are times  I find myself drawn to him.
Or he draws me, in his dreams, his lonely sleep.

There are times
I'm pulled by a past so lost I can no longer even invent it.

We were innocent then.  Wandering a newly risen world
it's seedlings and sproutings, it's empty waters and warm sun.
He and I, I and him, one being really, in two bodies, rolling together
in the sweet and simple mud, rain and sun and light and dark

Before the words, and shapes and endless dividing of things.
The logic of fragmenting and naming,
and then breaking again, and again, and again,
each piece
smaller and harder and denser and slower.
And colder.  Colder.

You see, I grew enraptured by the ferocity of  World.

Her vast generosity, Her dangerous spiral mysteries.
Stars reflected in dark tide pools,
vines that curled eager tendrils around the curious finger,
fragrance of hyacinth and hyenas calling across the night.

But Adam wanted to make the world into his own measure.  I was his first attempt.

So I grew wings.

The more he tried to seize me,  the farther I flew into azure skies,
elemental passions, deep black waters,
empty deserts, bone yards and jungles,
the more I hungered for the moon.

He demanded his way
Or no way. 

And when his tantrums failed, he made for himself
a womanless and jealous  God
who would have no other.

I rose!  I flew!
Not for any price.....not for  bread or any ease.
Not for any price
would I be anything less than what I am,

Damned if I do and damned if I don't!

So I left  and found another lover.

Ah, Samael.....his hot wings and volcanic heart,
his sweet and terrible kisses.
Samael, who comprehends neither sin nor virtue,
only the splendor
of the ever changing moment. 

What soarings we had!
What flights, what heat, what progeny!

Adam, and his quiet,  frightened wife
placed amulets at his door
painted their bed with magic words and  self-imposed
shame, invocations to his cold-eyed God
who made of me a demon

I still remember him
when the whim  or the wind takes me
I kiss his sleeping lips
when he calls me in his dreams.

The Night Blooming Cereus.........an Encore Performance!

 .
I've had a bit of  magic happening right in my own back yard this Spring................my Night Blooming Cereus cactus less than a month ago decided to produce a spectacular 6 blooms (I took pictures and wrote about it).  This extraordinarily beautiful, and rare, flower usually blooms only once a year, and that at night (although if you get up early in the morning you can see them still).  The very delicate flowers close up and wilt in the heat of the day.  Normally, after a blooming cycle, the cactus produces a purple fruit, and doesn't do it's spectacular show again until next year.

To show my appreciation for the artistry of this fabulous cactus, I've been thanking it.  And to my amazement, it produced a whole new array of buds.  I've never seen anything like this.......and this morning I awoke to the beautiful blooms below!  I'm amazed, and feel very much like thanking the Devas of the Cereus for their generosity!

Sai Baba, Spiritual Authoritarianism, and Gurus in General.........

I recently watched the documentary below about Sai Baba, the Indian Guru who had a massive following throughout India as well as in other countries, and who we now know was a pedophile who sexually abused many young boys, which was covered up.  Fascinating how followers of Sai Baba (at least, at the time of this  documentary) were immune to any criticism or allegations of their guru.  "To them it was just another test of their faith". That same "faith" can be seen in the faces of those who cheered on Adolph Hitler - he too became an idealized "Father" ("Der Fuerer"), and another  "God Man".  I reflect on the ways "faith" has become a pseudonym for all kinds of abuse, regardless of the form it takes, and this unyielding "faith" is, in its essence, related to the hierarchy and authoritarianism intrinsic to patriarchal culture, whether it occurs in India, Texas, or Germany. 

  Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad   are heroes of mine, because their writings so deeply embody true "new paradigm" thinking.  They coined the term "renunciate religions", used to describe doctrines in  religious systems that, hidden or blatant, teach us to renounce  nature, the body, sex and material existence as either not sacred, not heavenly, or "not real".  Since woman is the source of birth, all of these aspects of being alive on the Earth are usually associated with the untrustworthy feminine.   In patriarchal religions from ancient Greece on forward, sexual  "purity" is highly valued,  and women are scapegoated and distrusted, one way or another,  for inspiring sexual desire. 

In their book THE GURU PAPERS they so elegantly "unmask" these deeply embedded  aspects of contemporary religion and mysticism.  And as they point out, "renunciate" and authoritarian  systems of religious thought are a profound disaster for contemporary times, for the environmental crisis, because they are so very inappropriate for the environment, for a global society, and for women.***  

As they point out as well, the emphasis on "purity", whether a Hindu Guru or a Catholic  priest, usually results in abuse of power and its denial.

"Lying about sex is so rampant in every culture that structures what is sexually permitted it is commonplace to be inured to it and accept such lying as a given. But it is the lie, not the sex, that's the real issue.  The lie indicates the guru’s entire persona is a lie, that his image as selfless and being beyond ego is a core deception.  Many think that though a guru lies about his personal behavior, his message is still essentially true. Lying here as elsewhere is done to cover up self-interest.  If  the guru’s message is that purity without self-interest is the ultimate achievement, not only did he not achieve it,but he does not even know if it is achievable.  If being self-centered is an unavoidable aspect of being human, then any ideology that denies this will necessarily corrupt its promoters and believers.This why images of "purity"are always corrupt." **


http://youtu.be/hOjk2NpKMFM

 

**The Guru Papers:  Masks of Authoritarian Power 

          by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad

The Guru Papers demonstrates with uncompromising clarity that authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social, and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. It illustrates how authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think, hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very ideals people try to live by. Thus our basic problems are not the inevitable outcome of human nature, but rather are shown to stem from deep authoritarian implants. This offers new grounds for hope. The Guru Papers powerfully attests that unmasking and decoding hidden authoritarianism can disempower it, increasing the range of human freedom and possibility. The book also elegantly argues that this process is essential for human survival.

 

 ***  Witness the strange relationship conservative Christians and evangelicals make between Biblical thinking and the denial of climate change.

Desert Summer ........

The long, hot, introverted summers of Tucson are, like the long winters of the North lands, a time to go inside (quite literally), retreat.  After you get over the rigors and limitations of  The Inferno, and provided you have a good cooling system, you can quite learn to enjoy this time.  The snowbirds are all gone, the students are gone, and Tucson is a much quieter place. Everybody is up by 5:00 when it's cool, and by noon you're inside.  After the sun goes down people go out again, the cafes open, music is hear from bars, people like me are in the yard watering the plants and having a glass of cold wine.  The hot desert moon hangs, intense in the heat, over all, and walks in the surrounding desert can be very magical indeed.  Just bring water, water, water, because one quickly learns here that without water, there is no life.

Hot or not, it is still summer, and the adapted life of the desert is responding.  The giant saguaros produce a  crown of beautiful white flowers which quickly become sweet purple fruits (native people make wine and preserves from them) full of birds tearing at them. The desert doves make their mournful call, but actually it's a mating call.  The veneer of greenery in the desert dies back, waiting for the monsoons to come in July, when suddenly, , the vast storms roll in every afternoon, thunder and lightning, pour down floods that disappear within an hour or two...............and almost overnight the desert greens with seeds that have been dormant all year, waiting for this time.
  

mullein

It's easy to live inside of apartments, cars,  cyberspace and televisions today, immune to the subtle voices of nature, the "great conversation".  I remember when I was living in upstate New York, and suffered from asthma.  Every morning I would walk out into my garden and there would be mullein plants, springing up in very odd places I had certainly not planted them.  A herbalist friend remarked, seeing this phenomenon, that the spirit of the plant was trying to help me out.  Mullein is specifically useful to people with lung problems, both as a tonic and as an herb to smoke and breath.  A true Medicine Plant, a generous plant, responding to my need.   How often do we take the time to thank them?

I had that same experience with "fairy circles", also in New York.  We lived on 40 acres, and I remember, being very involved in Pagan spirituality, I was eager for "signs" in the fields of Devas.    I left offerings, I talked to the trees.  And sure enough, there were a number of times when I would take a walk and see grasses grow up in pretty clear circles.   Fantasy on my part?  Maybe, but other people saw the  "circles".  I like to think the fey folk were saying hello.

Mushroom Fairy Circle (not my picture)

The Desert too has its spirits, its Numina, and if you listen, you can converse with them.  Friendliness has much to do with opening the conversation.  Ever since my Night Blooming Cereus cactus put on such a spectacular show a few weeks ago, I've been patting the cactus in the morning, thanking it for giving me such beauty.  I'm absolutely astounded to see a multitude of new buds on it now, and thrilled with the prospect of a new show of these rare, ephemeral blooms once again.  Coincidence?  Maybe the cactus just likes me, and is responding to my great appreciation for its artistry.  Why not?  As an artist myself, I know I respond to appreciation.

Night Blooming Cereus

I've decided to give myself a "retreat" for a while,  and one of the things I'm going to do in the course of the next few weeks is work on a new book that's called "The Goddess Suite - A Community Portfolio of Excerpts from Performances, Rituals and Writings 1998 - 2014", which will archive the materials I have for communities in the future who may wish to use them.  I still receive emails from people who are interested in working with the Goddess masks, and along with my friends Mana, Annie, and Macha, I believe it's important to archive and share as much as I can the processes we all developed in working with sacred masks, ritual theatre, and telling and inventing new stories about the Divine Feminine through the art of the mask.  What I think is humming underneath this project is the possibility of me returning to working with groups directly myself. 

I think, every single day now, about what happened last summer when I was visited by the spirit of an African Songhai shaman - I think about the call he left me with to "revive Yemeja".  Yemeja has been called   the "Mother of the World"........ as an artist, as I keep saying to myself and to the other artists in my network, we need to take seriously our job, our unique power to "re-myth culture".  As the New Stories Foundation points out, so much of what happens in the life of humanity has to do with the stories we tell about the world and ourselves.  We need stories about the Great Mother, the Goddess with a Thousand Faces.  If I can help in this endeavor, I will.  So, I'll just keep on keeping on, and see what seeds get planted now in the quiet time..................

Found Poetry:"The Barbed Heart Finds Refuge Among the Palos Verde Forest"