Requiem for Gaia

HYMN TO GAIA

(Ancient Greek Homeric Hymn)

To Gaia,

Mother of all, shall I sing:

The oldest one, firm foundation of all the world.

All things that move over the face of the earth,

All things that move through the sea, and all that fly:

All these are fed and nourished from your store;

With the pains of child-birth you bring forth all life,

From you all children come forth,

O blessed one, Mother Earth,

The giver of life and the taker of life away:

Happy are those you honor:

Your fertile earth yields up riches to satisfy all their needs;

Their cities and their homes are filled with good things;

Well-ordered lives of men and women you bless:

It is you who bless, it is you who nourish,

Sacred spirit, Mother Earth.

(English translation © Alec Roth)

I painted GAIA, the painting above,  when I was in graduate school, in 1987.  Although I didn't know it, I was accessing not only my deeply felt sense of the Gaia Hypothesis, but also very ancient archetypes of the Triple Goddess and the great Mother Goddess Asherah, often represented as a tree.  I worked so hard on that painting!  It was only exhibited once, and like all very large paintings (it was lifesize), it was destroyed in a few years (which is invariably true unless the artist was fortunate enough to either become famous, or to have loving relatives who cherished his or her art, neither of which was true for me).........and all I have left is a photograph.  Still, I love this painting, and am sometimes saddened that I did not respect myself and my visions enough to try to preserve it.  For me at least, self-worth and identity as an artist has been a long and slow growth.

I recently made a collage with this photograph  and the beautiful, ancient Song of Praise to Mother Earth by Homer.  This is the  kind of worship humanity would do well to reinstate in today's world. The reason I called the piece, which I made for a commemorative Day of the Dead show, 'REQUIEM FOR GAIA" is because I feel the Three Aspects of the Goddess look forth, with the barren tree, in sorrow and accusation at a world that does not  honor them, does not honor  what is being lost, and what is lost.  

What I wanted to say with this painting so long ago I still want to say.  SHE wants to say.  Blessed be Her name.

Remembering the Muse as we approach the Day of the Dead

I wrote this article in 2004, but it still matters, maybe even more now.  Felt like re-posting it today.

REQUIEM FOR THE MUSE

The former Muse Community Arts Center, where I used to have my studio, is fenced and empty, in preparation for her imminent demise.  Like so many arts communities in American cities, we have been evicted by gentrification, real estate development, and urban "development".
I've been told She stood empty some 7 or 8 years ago, the old YMCA building no one, except a few visionaries, wanted any more. I'm not writing about the history of the Muse, or the brave people who founded her, and why. I don't know if they feel saddened, or rewarded for their efforts, or just relieved to have the building sold and done with. I’m also not writing about those who are trying to relocate some part of her essence else where. I just want to remember the life, and death, of an urban Muse.

In those 7 or 8 years, a theatre developed, and classrooms opened. Reasonably priced studios filled with painters, sculptors, alternative healers, and non-profits. An occasional gallery hosted shows of professional artists, aspiring artists, and young people just learning to express their imaginations. Drummers drummed, dancers danced, actors created personae, students came and went with easels in hand. A reiki master and a new age minister held classes on Sundays, along with the Vineyard Church, who also provided donuts and coffee for the homeless as long as they sat through the service. A Buddhist lama taught for a weekend, and people in red and orange robes filled the halls. A month later, the Fetish Ball took over the Muse, and people in leather and tight corsets filled the halls.

Kucinich gave a rally to an enthusiastic crowd, the Gay/Lesbian alliance held their Christmas party, and teenagers in tuxedos and pink chiffon held proms to loud rock and roll music. At 7:00 in the morning shoes were lined up outside the door of a classroom as the morning yoga class stretched and ohm’d. In the afternoon, high school kids made graffiti art in the parking lot, while pottery kilns shimmered their heat in the sun. At 7:00 in the evening, the building vibrated to the studded feet of a flamenco class. The Muse was more, so much more, than a building. She was alive, a celebration of Tucson's diversity, an engine and generator of creativity.

Sometimes residents fought with each other, and artists gossiped in the halls. Dirty dishes in the community kitchen were always a point of contention. Management came and went with various degrees of competency. The owners burned out or left town, utilities were often in danger of being cut off. But the Muse struggled along. Because, for all of it, the Muse was full of love, and human diversity. Her last year found her depressed, like someone with a terminal disease. People began leaving, doors stood open to empty studios, fighting among those who remained was more bitter than it had ever been before. And now the Muse is empty again. Haunted, and awaiting burial.

Who grieves for her? Certainly, I do. The Muse, who hosted so much vitality, who delighted in the sounds and colors of so many, now is abandoned on the corner of 5th and 6th, her parking lot empty, a chain link fence around her to keep out squatters. On her grave, I've been told, condo lofts will rise.

I don't know the the corporate developers that bought her, and I don't care. They represent the forces of gentrification, "real" estate, and unquestioned "economic progress". In Tucson's so-called Historic Arts District they have imminent domain, and as downtown becomes more profitable, artist studios, galleries, and gathering spots, like the Muse, have become increasingly sparse.

I'd like to draw attention to the word "lofts", which used to mean live/work spaces in industrial buildings in places like New York and San Francisco. Artists built lofts above their studios to save space. Why did they live in industrial buildings? Because it was cheap, and because artists need each other’s support and inspiration. I used to live in a famous space in Berkeley called the Warehouse (it's now an architects office with a rather pricey restaurant on the first floor). Live/work "lofts" in the Bay Area now mean highly profitable condos, often in former industrial buildings, that rent for some $2,000.00 a month. By advertising them as “live/work”, developers got around token restrictions the cities of Oakland, or San Francisco, made in recognition of their former use by arts groups. I don't know many innovative artists who can afford that kind of rent, which is one of the reasons why so many left. Hence, many individuals and groups are displaced, cultural creatives in an economy that increasingly does not provide enough resources to flourish.

Artists are marginalized in America. I don't know if this is true elsewhere. Maybe it's easier to be an artist in Rome, or Paris. I’ve spent my life on this continent, and have observed that my peers spend considerable emotional energy trying to justify their endeavor in the face of a popular culture that, essentially, considers them superfluous. A few of my colleagues got famous; some landed jobs that made them middle class. Most of us didn't really care that much; we got by, and the rewards of a creative life were enough. But now, urban life is becoming expensive, even in Tucson. And rural enclaves, like Bisbee, and Sedona, and Jerome, have also become costly.

The land the Muse was on is valuable, because the surrounding area has become interesting. Thanks to the artists, writers, cafes, bookstores, and clubs that have come to inhabit the area. For the past 10 years, people fleeing the cost of living in California are coming to Tucson, and developers are, from my perspective, barely able to contain their glee, by the proliferation of housing developments also blossoming like mushrooms in the surrounding, pristine desert. That most of these are inappropriate for their use of energy and water is another issue.
The city of Tucson says it wants an arts district. And yet it is an irony that as Tucson grows, its downtown cultural center is emptying out. As of this writing (2007), the past two years have seen the loss of the Muse, Orts Dance Space, the Sanjin warehouse, Muse Pottery, Biblio, and now  the Seinfeld building.  The Arts Partnership gallery will be moving in May of 2007, as their building becomes converted to condos. There are empty storefronts and warehouses now, with high rents, that undoubtedly await the advent of a Starbucks, or a Gap, or a Cost Plus. And meanwhile serve as a tax break.

In fact, there are precious few art spaces left in the "Historic Arts District", although where there once were there are gourmet coffee shops opening along with artisan beer restaurants.   Will anyone remember what generated the ambiance and energy that brought people there, other than food?  My question is, what is real value? In my book, the energy the Muse generated is "real value". If the city of Tucson really wants to encourage an arts district, why not give artists, and other social innovators, what they need: space. Inexpensive leases, rent control, protection, and respect for the energy they bring?The Muse was not derelict: it was full of tenants, a well insulated building. The waste of a creative community is a terrible loss to all of us. And I personally find the waste of the building as well is obscene. The roof could have been fixed, the air conditioner renovated. A few professional arts administrators could have been employed to keep it in the black.

Property speculation is intrinsic to our economic value system. But what about community goodwill speculation? Creativity speculation? What equity do the people who inhabited the Muse get for raising the monetary value of a neighborhood by, in essence, raising its energy? Real estate investors that buy up arts areas for gentrification are sometimes beneficial, but more often they are predatory, too often displacing the lively, and vital innovation of these areas with calculated, and expensive, formula. Without any motivation other than profit, they have no concern for the living organism that is a community. They are making money from the unpaid creative energy of people, well, like me.

Recently I learned about a nonprofit in Phoenix called Arizona Citizens for the Arts. The organization is described in it's website as "the charitable arm of Arizona Action for the Arts (that) increases discussion and awareness of the importance and impact of the arts in achieving quality of life, educational excellence and economic health for all Arizonans and Arizona enterprises."

While I am glad such an organization exists, there is also something deeply disturbing to me about the notion that we need charities devoted to convincing Americans that art and creativity is something that can, just maybe, contribute to education and the quality of life. Is it possible it's no longer obvious? And, in the language of profit, I find it very depressing that the arts need to be justified because they can make money, providing "economic health" and accommodating, in some fashion, capital "enterprises".
​
What is real value? Can we can no longer justify even the creative impulse, the masterful creation of beauty, and the healing depths of self-expression - unless we are convinced they can make money? What, then is "real value"?
I'd like to affirm that the arts are the soul of any given community, and of any given civilization. They embody the conscience, the aesthetics, the history, and often, the future of an evolving culture. They celebrate what is best in the human experience, our highest aspirations and our complex human diversity.

Farewell to the Muse. You will be missed.

Copyright Lauren Raine 2005
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Lucy Contemplating a Crime.......

Lucy as Feline Bodhissatva Contemplating Enlightenment and Other  Delicious Birds

(photos thanks to Madeleine Charron)

John Barleycorn Must Die

John Barleycorn Must Die is a traditional English song - records of its origins go back as far as the 1300s, and it is probably much older than that.    Over time, many variations have arisen, and the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote his own famous version of the story of John Barleycorn. In the 70's, John Renbourne, Traffic, and Steel Eye Span popularized the song, along with many other  folk artists of the time.  John Barleycorn is a very ancient, prime myth indeed  - the Great King who is sacrificed, dies and is reborn in the spring as the wheel of the year's agricultural cycle turns. In many pre-Christian cultures, this motif is found as the Sumarian God Dumuzi, the Shepherd husband of the Goddess Inanna who goes into the underworld for part of the year, and returns to her in the Spring.  The same idea of the  dying and reborn King is found with the Egyptian Osiris, who is reborn in his son,  the Sun God Horus.

John Barleycorn is the personification of the grain, and the life of the grain from planting to harvest, transformation into beer, and then sowing.  After Barleycorn’s first death he is buried, and laid within the ground.  In midsummer he grows a “long golden beard” and “becomes a man”.  The songs of John Barleycorn go on on to describe threshing and harvesting. Barleycorn is bailed and taken to the barn. And then the grain is parceled out. Some is taken to the miller to make flour for bread. And some is saved and brewed in a vat to make ale. And some is planted, so that the whole cycle can begin again.   It is likely that versions of John Barleycorn songs go back to pre-Christian times, the accompaniment of  harvest rituals at Lughnasash, in August, or Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox. 

Some of these rituals survive to this day in modified form, most famously the sacrifice of the wicker man. These rituals tell the story of the death and eventual  rebirth of the god of the grain."*

  Photo with thanks to  Avalon Revisited

It might be noted that John Barleycorn is, in particular, also a God of Ecstasy - because he provides celebration and ecstasy as the barley becomes the source of beer and the beloved malt whiskey of the Highlands. He shared a style not  unlike the more Mediteranean temperment of Bacchus,  the  Roman God of wine.   The malting and fermentation  of the grains that form his body is also a part of his "life cycle" and divinity. Perhaps one of the most famous "ecstatic"  manifestations of the Wicker Man, his rituals of sacrifice, rebirth, and  celebration is Burning Man, the "harvest" festival that happens in Nevada every fall. 

It's interesting that in Robert Burn's poem, there are "three kings", similar to the kings from the east in the Nativity story.  Early Christians who came to the British Isles (and elsewhere) often absorbed native pagan mythologies and traditional rituals into Christian theology, and the evolution of the Story of Christ is full of such imagery in order to help the natives accept Christianity. Certainly John Barleycorn shares with the Christ Story the ancient theme of the death and rebirth of the sacrificed agricultural King. 

I am a great admirer of the wisdom traditions of Gnostic and esoteric Christianity, but I also believe it is necessary to separate the spiritual teachings of Christianity from  the mingling (and  literalization) of earlier  mythologies  in the development of the Church.  For example, I believe the metaphor used to describe Jesus as the "Lamb of God" directly relates to Biblical practices prevalent in his lifetime  of sacrifice of lambs and goats to Yahwah.  The later development of  the doctrine that Christ   "died for our sins",   may have some of its origins in the important, and quite ancient,  Semitic Scapegoat Rituals.  But observing recently a Catholic "Communion" ritual ("This is my Body, This is my Blood") I was impressed by the many layers of mythologies and archaic cultures inherant in that ceremony, still important to so many people today.  And one of those threads may very well originate in the prime agricultural myth of  the dying and reborn God, a long tradition from which John Barleycorn dies now at Harvest, and arises re-born  every spring.

John Barleycorn
by Robert Burns

There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.

The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.
His coulour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.

They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a Miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!

And last, and so appropriate for the Harvest Time of Mabon, Steeleye Span's JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE.  https://youtu.be/g0TAiCgMouI




For more readings:  Thought Co on John Barleycorn:  https://www.thoughtco.com/the-legend-of-john-barleycorn-2562157

Nancy Wood, Poet of the Earth

Recently I re-discovered the New Mexico poet and photographer   Nancy Wood, who passed away in 2013.  Nancy Wood found a deep sense of spiritual  belonging in nature among the natives peoples of New Mexico, and much of her poetry is a celebration of that belonging.  I've always found comfort and a return to Balance when when I return to her poems, and copy a few here for my own great pleasure.

Hold on to what is good

even if it is 
a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.

From Hollering Sun (1972)

Blue lake of life from which flows everything good.

We rejoice with the spirits beneath your waters.
The lake and the earth and the sky
Are all around us.
The voices of many gods
Are all within us.
We are now as one with rock and tree
As one with eagle and crow
As one with deer and coyote
As one with all things
That have been placed here by the Great Spirit.
The sun that shines upon us
The wind that wipes our faces clean of fear
The stars that guide us on this journey
To our blue lake of life
We rejoice with you.

In beauty it is begun.
In beauty it is begun.
In peace it is finished.
In peace it shall never end.

My help is in the mountain

Where I take myself to heal
The earthly wounds
That people give to me.
I find a rock with sun on it
And a stream where the water runs gentle
And the trees which one by one
give me company.
So must I stay for a long time
Until I have grown from the rock
And the stream is running through me
And I cannot tell myself from one tall tree.
Then I know that nothing touches me
Nor makes me run away.
My help is in the mountain
That I take away with me.

From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979

Earth teach me stillness

As the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
As old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
As blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
As the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
As the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
As the ant who crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
As the eagle who soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
As the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
As the seed which rises in spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
As melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
As dry fields weep with rain.

from Hollering Sun, 1972

The Difference between Dogs and Cats

There's a big difference between the intelligent  existentialism of a cat like, say, Henri below, and the mysterious minds of dogs.  I'm definately a cat person, but I have to admit, Jesse the Jack Russell Terrier would come in handy.  Jesse lives to serve.  Henri, on the other hand, would consider  running for office, were he not so disillusioned by life.

David Whyte on visible and invisible support

Thursday, December 8, 2016 - 4:28 pm

THE POETRY RADIO PROJECT

“Working Together”

We shape our self
 to fit this world

and by the world
 are shaped again.

The visible
 and the invisible

working together
 in common cause,

to produce
 the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
 the intangible air

traveled at speed
 round a shaped wing

easily
 holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
 trust

to those elements
 we have yet to see

or imagine,
 and look for the true

shape of our own self,
 by forming it well

to the great
 intangibles about us.

---

from David Whyte’s collection of poetry, River Flow: New and Selected Poems. For more poetry, visit On Being's  Poetry Radio Project.

To hear "Everything is Waiting for You" as well: 

 https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/david-whyte-everything-is-waiting-for-you