Wednesday, June 30, 2004
pagan temple / pagan sanctuary
Temple or sanctuary? Two sides of a coin I keep tossing and tossing in my spiritual life. I've spent a lot of time with what are clearly temple groups and programs, though none have yet manifested a bricks and mortar temple.
I'm both fascinated with the idea of, and worried about the reality of, a temple community. Appealing: the idea of living and working in a spirit-focused, self-sustaining community. Worrisome: the human track-record for handling institutional power.
A year ago I had a temple dream, one of those dreams so visceral that the line between waking and dreaming reality is quite thin. In the dream, I was walking through the warehouse/barn behind my house (and of course, there is no such building), getting ready to go into the house for a weekend spirituality intensive, when I saw the warehouse in a fresh light and realized "Everything we need to create a temple is right here." That meant "right here" inside this huge warehouse, but it referred more specifically to "right here" at the tips of our fingers: I was looking at my hands at the moment of realization.
I'm an
everything is possible kind of a Sagittarian, so on waking I realized the truth of that dream (nonexistent backyard warehouse notwithstanding): All the resources needed for temple-building are within our reach. Many scenarios came to mind over the next few weeks -- practical steps a community of folks could take to make a temple happen.
So powerful was the dream and the visions that followed it that I organized a series of discussions in my community(s) and explored both the idea of a priestess-organized, priestess-centered temple (with the potential for services/space available to many flavors of gendered mysteries -- men's mysteries, women's mysteries, polarity-based mysteries, transgendered mysteries) and the idea of a temple organized and facilitated by the broader pagan community (again, with possibilities for all pagan faith groups to serve the temple and use its spaces in group-only and community-wide rites).
We had several meetings with good discussion and some fine visioning, but our discrete and disparate ideas, and I think heavy doses of can't-do (or at least, can't-do-it-
that-way), eventually spelled the end of our discussions and visioning.
What's moved my thoughts around to this topic today is this snippet from
the BBC's Pagan temples page:
Celtic sanctuaries - Most such places were little embellished. They were left largely to nature, with perhaps no more than a boundary ditch, an open-air altar, and a crude wooden image of the god. Evidence for actual buildings is rare. Roman writers confirm the impression we have from archaeology: they refer to druids, idols and sacred groves, but we hear nothing of temples. In the Iron Age (700 BC-AD 50), Celtic deities seem to have thrived in the open; it was the Romans who shut them up in temples (AD 43-410).
I live in a truly beautiful spot of heaven on earth, and this has been a particularly beautiful season, with a cool and rainy spring lasting through June; waves of Virginia bluebells on the hill behind the house in March, followed by a cheery swarm of swamp buttercups and then a thick spread of wild geraniums in the little thicket on the east side of the house, between us and the lake; after six years of only three trillium, several outbreaks of them here and there -- must have been the rain; the ever-widening, mystical community of mayapples; the sweet-scented lilies of the valley at the foot of the oaks; the English cottage garden we put in last year with its bloodroot and pulmonaria, its evening primrose and lilies, its forget-me-nots, yarrow and soon-to-bloom beebalm, its promise of purple coneflowers to come and sedums for color in the fall; the gentle harebells, proud liatris, vivid spider wort; the new and glorious rose-garden-in-the-round in the front yard.
As I listen to the birds this morning and sit with windows open and a sweet breeze traveling through my study, I contemplate an afternoon swim in the lake and experience another shift in my temple-vs-sanctuary mindscape: Of course there is no warehouse/barn in the backyard in which to build a temple. There is, however, an informal, though well-tended, nature sanctuary all around me. I feel how deeply satisfied and profoundly happy my (primarily) Celtic DNA is to be living in this bowl of oak trees, on this little quiet street, on the edge of this small, out-of-the-way village, in this remnant of mixed hardwood forest, with this lake and the delightful mix of cultivated and wild beauty all around me.
Where I live? It's a sanctuary. Maybe that's temple enough.
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11
I still haven't seen it yet, but an interesting and credible article by Philip Shenon (New York Times / International Herald),
FACT-CHECKING MOORE'S POLITICAL BROADSIDE, is a great before-you-go preparation.
It places the film in its proper journalistic niche:
"This is an Op-Ed piece, it's not a news report," said Dev Chatillon, the former general counsel for The New Yorker, adding, "The facts have to be right, yes, but this is an individual's view of current events."
And as for the facts being right, Shenon says:
After a year spent covering the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, I was recently allowed to attend a Hollywood screening. Based on that single viewing, and after separating out what is clearly presented as Moore's opinion from what is stated as fact, it seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in "Fahrenheit 9/11" are supported by the public record.
He also says that Moore has hired outside fact-checkers with impressive credentials, has consulted attorneys about the possibility of bringing defamation suits against those who make false accusations about the film, and will be refuting lies on his
website.
Moore says:
"The most important thing we have is truth on our side.
Last night while channel surfing, I happened on Moore's 1998
The Big One -- a "docucomedy" about his Midwest book tour to promote his book,
Downsize This -- where he takes on downsizing as corporate greed and economic terrorism, and also corporate welfare (did you know our government gave 11 million dollars to
Pillsbury to promote the
Doughboy overseas?).
What has any of this to do with Goddessing? Everything, naturally....
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Archaeology in the News: Chalk Down Figures, Southern Britain
Last Wednesday in
Brighton & Hove there was a news item about the date of the chalk figure, the Longman of Wilmington. In a search for more information, I found the excellent article,
New work overturns date for chalk Long Man of Wilmington (October 2003, University of Reading).
There's been a lot of speculation about the origin of the three well-known chalk figures -- the Longman in Sussex, the Uffington White Horse, and "the great phallic Cerne Abbas Giant" in Dorset.
Of the Longman,
Christine at Mirabilis.ca says
Carved into a steep slope on the South Downs in Sussex, the imposing figure has been claimed as an Anglo Saxon warrior, a Roman folly and an Iron Age fertility symbol.
The University of Reading archaeological team, assisted by local archaeologists from the Mid Sussex Archaeological Group, found, to the contrary, that this possibly 5,000-year-old figure was actually created in the 16th or 17th century CE, as was the Cerne Abbas Giant. Most other hill figures in the area date to the 18th or 19th centuries, with the exception of the Uffington horse which is the only truly ancient chalk figure in the area, dating to the Late Bronze Age.
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Friday, June 25, 2004
What would it look like ...
... if I made two blog posts in one day?
I'm avoiding work, trying not to miss my sister (put her on the airplane to Texas yesterday), getting some seriously-needed, non-functional, alone time (did the functional bit earlier today), and I'm regretting that I can't join the goddess crowd tonight in either of the two Madison cinemas that have
braved the pressure and are showing
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. We were going to go, really we were, but when I went online this morning all the tickets had been bought up !!!!!! That's a pretty decent response to all the corporate types whose fear cost them some opening-weekend bucks.
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
"neo"paganism
While tripping through the blogosphere, I found a well-written, informative article on
Thealogy at Wikipedia, which led me to Wikipedia's
Goddess article. What caught my eye, today, was this:
Many academics favour the neologism 'Neopagan' which most Pagans detest, pointing out that modern forms of a faith obviously differ from historical or prehistoric forms. We do not, for example, generally speak of 'Neotantra' or 'Neobuddhism'.
Now, I didn't know that most Pagans detest the term
neopagan, which means I just probably don't get out and about enough! Even so, I've often thought about which is a more accurate reflection of what I'm about, in terms of the pagan roots of my spirituality. The above argument against
neo is a compelling one.
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
3 million people
Robert Brady (
Pure Land Mountain ) is a word artist, a nature guy (what my nephew would have called him), a grandfather, an American living in Japan, and a prolific blogger whose varied interests are reflected in his posts and his 25 categories of "finest quality" links (what a hoot! -- remember
The Joy Luck Club, anyone?). In my 15 minutes of free time on the computer this week, I started catching up on my favorite blogs, and his June 18
What a Way to Start a Millenium spoke to my condition.
He quoted Neal Pollack's essay,
Church & State:
A lunatic Christian cult has the run of the White House and the ear of the president. What do they want? The end of the world. Be afraid.
...the president meets with the members of a radical, far-right millennialist Christian sect three weeks before he counteracts all known international law and opinion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian situation. That sect, known as the Apostolic Congress, opposes any deal with the Palestinians because it believes that Christ won't return to Earth until all of Israel belongs to the Jews and Solomon's temple is rebuilt.
...even if Reagan believed in Armageddon, he didn't actively try to bring it about. You can't say the same about George W. Bush.
I implore Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Protestants, Catholics, and even evangelical Christians to pray for a new president. Why should George W. Bush supporters hold a monopoly on prayer?
Finally, Neal Pollack refers to his new website,
Pray for Reason, where he tells us that "nearly 3 million people (are) praying for George W. Bush every day." He calls on "Americans of all religions and belief systems who want to see their country's policies at home and abroad based on facts, history, and reasonable thought processes" to join him in a pledge-pray-vote campaign to return reason and reasonable leadership to the White House.
I say
A M E N.
Visit his website to read his prayer, or others submitted there. Better yet, submit your own!
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (1).
.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Conflict Transformation
I'm having a wonderful visit with my sister. Renewing, healing. She's keeping the house full of cut flowers from our yard. We're feeding her Wisconsin pizza and taking her shopping at Land's End Outlet stores and Madison's west-side St. Vinnie's. I've made her several pieces of jewelry and have two more ready to go. We'll pick up lobster-claw clasps tomorrow at the bead store.
We abandoned her this past weekend, though, for a trip to Milwaukee to the National Women's Studies Association meeting. My partner and I sang with
our choir for the conference opening, and we and our collective/support-group members presented an experiential panel on the importance of conflict in consciousness, community and classroom. We had a small number of attendees but excellent evaluations of our work, and we've been invited to do another presentation at a state WSA gathering.
We're in the early stages of putting together a web site on our work, but here's the flow chart I did recently to be included in our handouts:
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Inanna
Inanna was not one of the 30 goddesses I studied/worked with in my priestess training. However,
- I'm an information sponge.
- I have a huge book collection (as one of my young friends said: She has books on Goddesses I've never even heard of!).
- I'm on my third copy of Barbara Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. The first two fell apart from (over-)use -- I read the second of them from cover-to-cover before I let it go ... in sacred ceremony ... and that's 1,136 pages!
- Same goes for multiple readings and copies of Patricia Monaghan's Goddesses and Heroines and Merlin Stone's Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood.
- I'm a sought-after team member when it comes time to play a "name-that-goddess" game.
In short, I'm a Goddess Geek.
So, it doesn't necessarily surprise me that a goddess with whom I haven't worked came to me when I was meditating on the Venus transit, but what I'm curious about is why. Why Inanna?
To start finding answers to this question, I pulled a few of my favorite reference books from my shelves and opened Baring and Cashford's
The Myth of the Goddess, Evolution of an Image.
Their
Chapter Five -- Inanna-Ishtar: Mesopotamian Goddess of the Great Above and the Great Below is a treasure-trove. First paragraph, second sentence:
(In a cylinder seal dating from 2334-2154 BCE) An eight-rayed star is near her, the image of the planet we now call Venus; for in the mythology of this goddess the crescent moon and the evening star, as the 'daughter' of the moon, belonged together.
And from the section, 24 pages later, titled
Inanna as Queen of Heaven:
The Sumerians and Babylonians were fascinated by the stars, in the way, perhaps, that we now respond to the idea of exploring the universe. Nightly from the roof terraces of their houses they must have watched the great constellations wheeling around them, as they came to identify the most brilliant stars and gave the zodiacal belt the names and images that have endured to this day. Both Inanna and Ishtar were worshipped as Queen of Heaven. Their principal images were the moon and Venus, the morning and evening star, which may have given rise to the image of the eight-pointed star as well as the stylized rosette with eight petals as symbolic of their presence. Eight was the number sacred to the morning and evening star, addressed as the 'Radiant Star', 'The Great Light' in a Sumerian poem. Eight was the number of years it took for the planet to return to the same point of the zodiac while at greatest brilliancy. It is also the number of the sacred year, celebrated not only in Sumeria but in Egypt, Crete and Greece, when the full moon coincided exactly with the longest or shortest day, so reconciling lunar and solar time.
Well, that certainly gives food for thought ... which I'll most likely be serving up here, for awhile.
---------
Tonight, I pick my sister up at the airport. She's here for a two-week visit. She says she's been crying every day since school let out, and I'm probably going to be doing a lot of that with her. She's bringing recent pictures of my nephew, and some of his writings and journal entries. Yesterday, my partner picked up a book from the library that my sister just heard about --
His Bright Light, the Story of Nick Traina -- about a young man with ADHD and Bipolar diagnoses who committed suicide when he was 19. The book states that a third of those with bipolar disorder commit suicide. My gosh, why didn't anyone tell us how lethal this illness is?
Suicide outnumbers death by homicide, 5 to 3, and AIDS/HIV deaths, 2 to 1. In 1999, suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death among young people 15 to 24 years of age, following unintentional injuries and homicide. Almost
10% of the adult US population suffers from a depressive disorder each year.
Sunday, we're having a memorial for Cobi here, seven weeks after his funeral in Texas. He spent eight summers here with me, so he's got a few close friends, young people and adults, and we've waited for my sister's visit to come together to memorialize him.
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Habit
Send an email to W.
Call the eye doctor.
Proofread P&A's shopping cart pages.
June 8th; Venus transit.
---------
Coming up to full wakefulness from sleep and meditation with a to-do list is a long habit of mine: One of the early "practical" benefits of my
hypnopompic meditations.
A Spring Equinox
dream and meditation encouraged a shift in practice, from to-do to to-be. But habit is habit, and so to-dos are still natural waking companions.
Signs of change: after this morning's third to-do item, my focus shifted from doing to being, and then I remembered that today is the day: June 8th, the first of the paired Venus transits (
occultation) in this 121-year cycle, a time when Earth, Venus and Sun are in direct alignment, with Venus between the two, "occulting" (eclipsing) the Sun.
The astrologer
Richard Giles says:
Venus transits seem to presage great shifts in human consciousness and this June promises the same...The eight years that pass between each occultation are fecund processing moments for new ideas and world change. Previous cycles show that global communications and a shift in consciousness regarding the scope and nature of the world are all part of these transits. The other focus is Venus's role as female entity and ruler of the feminine, the creative and as an artistic channel for new breakthroughs.
As I meditated on the Venus transit and how I might want to be, consciously, in alignment with this celestial sign of great hope for a renewed world, I remembered my partner's suggestion that I write a book (her suggested title:
Bypassing Armageddon). But what do I have to tell the world about Bypassing Armageddon? How do we do that? In answer to these questions, the Goddess Inanna came to mind.
Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, "held comprehensive sway over the Pantheon of the Ancient Near East for many centuries, if not millenia." (Asphodel Long,
In a Chariot Drawn by Lions) She held the "insignia and regalia" of the
me ("
the 'memes' or 'how-to viruses' -- of the arts and sciences of civilization"). Long tells us that the
me equip Inanna with the means of "keeping the world order in being." She also quotes from Wolkstein and Kramer's
Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth:
she took the lapis measuring rod and line in her hand
Long tells us that this association with measuring "carries with it the connotation of justice, and by extension, truth, right and wisdom. What is measured correctly establishes a true picture; measurement provides exact methods that can be checked to discover falsity." And also:
Inanna's possession of the measuring rod and line, as goddess of practical exactness and of the me, the divine symbols of order and sustenance of the world, indicates that she holds the universe together.
Oh Ancient Queen,
Keeper of truth, right and wisdom,
Show us the true picture of our world,
Our solid planet,
Our species evolving, embracing a new consciousness:
Eden Recovered.
Shatter the illusion of the Armageddonites,
Break the mold of fear and hopelessness,
Remind us:
We are what we think.
Remind us:
We are alive in your Garden.
Remind us:
We can measure our world,
Reject false images,
Transform hard truths into new ways of being,
Develop sacred, sustainable habits,
Be in right relation with each other, and our world.
Oh Ancient Queen,
Keeper of truth, right and wisdom,
You who carry the measuring rod and line,
You who keep the world order in being:
Prepare us to meet you again at the table,
Remind us that we are welcomed guests at the feast of life.
Help us see the future in our hands, hearts and thoughts.
Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven pillars;
...she has set her table.
She has sent out her maids to call...
Come eat of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mixed
...walk in the ways of insight.
(Proverbs 9:1-6, as quoted in Long)
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
The New Consciousness for The Renewed World
A sign that I'm on the mend: I've had time and space and energy and desire-to-reconnect enough to catch up on some blog reading and commenting last night and today.
How can this be grounding?
Just now, visiting
was it the Pagan remark? , I followed a link to an Australian web site and an article titled
The June 2004 Transit of Venus, A Unique Harmony Event.
Mention Venus transit, and I'm there. The skeptic in me never adopted the pentacle as a personal religious symbol until I learned its origin: it's a two-dimensional plot of the
eight-year Venus cycle.
OK, I said those many years ago,
now I can begin to understand why this symbol is sacred, and to source it to antiquity and not some made-up-recently, cool-and-groovy, let's-call-it-ours creative moment.
About the second of the paired 2004-2012 Venus Transits (you'll just have to read the article):
...several of the surviving Mayan manuscripts also refer to Venus as a Sister Planet of Earth. And Mayan prophecy states that the renewed world of new consciousness will be born on the occasion of the Venus Passage across the Sun of 6th June 2012.
Ah, so perhaps I wasn't a fool mumbling foolishness when
I called for a new thought-form to counter the Apocalypse/Armageddon
nightmare crap.
At the time, I questioned what we should call this great future event: The Awakening? The Cosmic Fresh Start? The Great Evolving?
Now I'm thinking
The New Consciousness for The Renewed World. Perhaps I can track down the source of this prophecy. Perhaps there's a better translation of an ancient, or even contemporary, way of talking about this. I've heard forever about the end of the Mayan calendar, and somewhere along the line began to suspect and even hope that certainly there was something (wonderful) to replace or restart said calendar. Now I learn that the concept of Renewed World and New Consciousness were there all along.
Wonderful! As
She Who Makes the Pagan Remarks says, a propos the upcoming Venus Transit:
...while considering the state of the world the fear and sense of doom I normally have has been replaced with a sense of hope, positive energy and even calm.
Yes! Hope!
Enough from me. Go read
Richard Giles on the June 8th Venus Transit. Let's pray/meditate/dance/drum/chant/breathe/do magic to align ourselves with this cosmic energetic opportunity to create "a shift in consciousness regarding the scope and nature of the world."
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Angelica
Two busy weekends in a row and this week completely disrupted with a new computer install for me, my beloved old machine sent down the hall for my partner's use, and folders and files to zip and transfer, programs to reinstall, networks to figure out, and general mayhem. Goddess help the hardware-impaired!
Last Friday night our friend Math came over to unbox, set up, shuffle, connect and reconnect everything. How grateful I am -- that kind of thing is pretty much beyond both of us these days. We're a two-
fibro household (my partner was officially diagnosed a few weeks ago, but we've both known it for awhile). Oh, while we're at it, we're a two-arthritis household, too. So, lifting heavy boxes and parts and torquing bodies to connect miles of cables in dark spaces under desks ... well, as I said, it's just all pretty much beyond us.
For the first time, we're on a LAN, for all that's worth -- haven't got it figured out yet. Some day we'll be able to share files and won't have to do all this zipping and walking disks between machines. Just today the little update message came from the vendor/manufacturer, offering to share information that would have been
really helpful about, oh, four days ago.
I'm hopelessly behind on everything web in my life. There's still some glitch with our local email accounts because of the LAN (I think). It continues to be a season of learning to live with drastic change and disrupted lifestyles.
But enough kvetching. We've finally had sun and warmth enough so that the 13th and last poppy bloomed today, a week after the l2th had dropped its petals with grace. Not complaining about all the cool weather and rain, though. Our water table has almost returned to normal after an 18 inch deficit.
And while I'm counting my blessings... As I was going out at noon to glory in the poppy, revel in the Siberian Irises, and go dreamy about the blackberries in bloom, I heard the unmistakable sound of the garbage/recycling truck grinding its huge self down the hill. What a welcome surprise. It never came on Tuesday, so I had hauled all that stuff back into the garage yesterday. Now there's a sight: me on my scooter hauling trash cans and recycling bins. The only thing more outrageous I do on that scooter is ride it like I was a cowgirl and it my pony, around and around and around the brush pit, managing the occasional necessary fire like I was some wild thing living out on the range. (My scooter looks so much like the red pedal car I had in the late 50s that my inner child is almost always in the driver's seat!)
In any case, I hopped on the scooter and started hauling what I could get to the street in time to be picked up by the recycling man when, glory of glories, my next door neighbor -- who has never been what I'd call neighborly -- comes dancing across the street flapping her hands and saying something unintelligible that turns out to be "Here, let me help you with that." I was stunned, and grateful. I called her an angel three times. Angel! As in, "You're an angel." She probably liked that. She's an 80-something Irish lass of Catholic persuasion and strong ideas of what's right, most of which I don't fit, except in the beautiful yard department. Fortunately, that does go a long way toward making Goddess women acceptable neighbors to aging, conservative
Wisconsin-Florida snowbirds.
And then the next miracle -- the garbage-collecting guy says he can wait while we get the rest of it to the street! And then another miracle -- he walks down the drive, enters the garage, and hauls the last load out. Another angel, just like Math the computer geek wonder-man who helped us last Friday night.
Angels have been on my mind since last weekend, when I was treated to flocks of phlox growing up the hills in remote southwestern Wisconsin, and the early blooming and already
stately angelica. I was out that way to visit friends who were camping along the Mississippi at
Nelson Dewey State Park, a beautiful area on the bluffs overlooking the river. We didn't see the bald eagles nesting while we were there, but we did see a golden eagle and heard many songbirds in the woods.
And just before arriving I saw the most incredible thing I've ever seen: a huge bird, snow white against the spring green, being chased by smaller birds as it flew leisurely along a creek at the edge of field and forested hill. Huge, pure white, clearly a bird of prey. It was one of those tests of reality. Was I seeing what I was seeing? There are remote coves and hollows and hidden valleys in that part of the state that have a timeless quality to them. Perhaps I had wandered into a mythic landscape?
My storytelling mind was working in a peak state. If not an otherworld creature, what could it be? An owl? Pure white? Out hunting in daylight? 5:15pm? We watched it fly for a long time, turning around at our first opportunity to see more of it as it looped and ascended up off the fields, finally crossing the road to disappear in the hardwoods on the other side.
Magnificent. Unexpected. Unlike anything I'd ever encountered in a landscape.
I couldn't wait to get to the campsite. Two of my friends there are long-time naturalist pagans. One an urban shaman, the other a witch. One of them, certainly, could tell me what I had seen. And I had my answer shortly after arriving:
a snowy owl. They're pure white, they hunt during the day, they're huge, and they sometimes range as far south as Chicago when lemmings, their accustomed food source, are scarce.
S was certain of all this, because she had encountered just such an incredibly unexpected bird in Chicago one summer when she was out running. She'd been able to study it over several days and had done the research about the rare southern extension of its habitat.
So angelica, and angels: the snowy owl, my camping friends, my beloved, my sweet nephew who is with me in spirit, Math, my Irish-Catholic neighbor, the garbage man.
And Julie -- who just interrupted me with news of knock-out roses, red and pink, found and reserved for the soon-to-be rose garden in the front yard, in the circle where a blue spruce used to grow.
Oh angels. Oh blessings. Oh life.
Haloscan:
.
Blogger:
Comment (0).
.
