Goddessing: A Goddess / Pagan Blog

Moved!

2006-01-21T10:46:00.000-06:00

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The Very Definition of Tyranny

2006-01-16T14:27:00.000-06:00

I've been on retreat and am coming out soon, but when I heard Al Gore was going to deliver a "Constitutional Crisis" address today I was excited about watching it on TV and thought I'd post viewing info here.

But alas, the speech was at noon in Washington, in the Constitution Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and to date I've heard no news of it being televised.

This was billed as not-your-usual Gore speech:

But this will not be the sort of cautious, bureacratic speech for which Gore was frequently criticized during his years in the Senate and the White House.

Indeed, his aides and allies are framing it as a "call to arms" in defense of the Bill of Rights and the rule of law in a time of executive excess.

A constitutional crisis address at Constitutional Hall, on Martin Luther King's Day, referencing the FBI's illegal wire-tapping of King (and many other Americans) and the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) that resulted, legislation enacted to restrict and monitor governmental surveillance of its citizens.

His speech is sourced in the Constitution and the words and intentions of the Founding Fathers, focuses on Bush activities that he identifies as illegal, and spells out what he makes of the current situation:

In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Warming Trend

2005-12-27T07:33:00.000-06:00

It must be our legendary January thaw in December. We've been having highs right around the freezing mark for the past several days, up from the brutal -10 to 10(F) range we've been living in for weeks. It actually feels warm outside!

Aside from the streets cleared of snow and ice, and the relief from cold so intense it burns exposed skin, this trend has given us rare sky colors. Christmas Eve day we were treated to a muted winter lavendar sky, and with the color reflected on the snow and bouncing back up to the heavens, it was like living gently in the third eye. Mesmerizing.

Today, it's fog, the color of an ash-filled smoke. Not thick enough to put us in that rare, between-the-worlds environment, where everything familiar is hidden in the fog. Thick enough, though, to draw the eye and spirit and adventurous body out to the gentleness of 100% humidity manifested as fog.

Birthday Gifts

2005-12-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

By 9pm tonight, I'll be 52. Looking at that, I realize it's a numerological 7. I can work with that.

This afternoon, the south wall of the Cat Temple arrives -- modular shelving from Lundia.

This evening, a Dremel. Timely. Yesterday we inaugurated the crafting area of the Cat Temple — beading will be happening over the holidays!

Tonight, home-made carrot cake with Italian Cream Icing. Yum. Don't know who's making it, but I've requested it and between my beloved and my beloved friend Sarah, I believe it will happen.

Crazy for Crochet

2005-12-05T18:20:00.000-06:00

It started last January. It hasn't taken over my life. It has occasionally taken over the living room.

I've been seen crocheting at choir rehearsal, in the car, at witch school, and at parties.

Let me count the ways: 4 afghans, 20-30 hats, 4 Tarot pouches, a belt, a scarf, a blanket (in the works), a wand muff, a music-stand carrier, a beaded crochet bracelet. My goals for 2006: one or more items for afghans for Afghans, more baby caps, learning more patterns and stitches, two blankets for our bedroom, and perfecting my witch hat design (see grainy photo #3). Everyone who's tried one on has looked awesome in it, and everyone seems to want one!

A Graphic Recap of My Crochet Year

Baby Beanie

Coral Cap for Friend's Mom

Witch Hat #1

The crocheted Witch Hat came out of my imagination. The first one wasn't too bad, I think, considering I made it in my third month of crochet, without a pattern. I learned a lot with the first three hats, and by hat #4 I was ready to call it good enough and gifted it to a friend who says, with tongue in cheek, "Won't my teenagers be proud," and "I'll just tell them that if I ever have to come to school because they've been in trouble, I'll wear my witch hat." Witch hats #5 and #6 are gifts (in progress) for my Spiral Door teachers. After I've done a few more to work through a few more bugs, I'll make a pattern to satisfy the millions who will want one.

I'm crazy for crochet. I don't know how I lived 50 years without it.

Fifth Snow

2005-12-01T14:18:00.000-06:00

Last night we had our fifth snow of the season. The earlier ones have been sugar snows, the first like powdered sugar -- very light, the third like granulated sugar -- a little more substantial, but just a dusting nonetheless.

This fifth snow rates. It brought down several inches of soft white beauty, blanketed trees, gardens, and bird feeders, and called snow plows out of the barns and onto the streets for their first round of winter service. It's been several years since we had November snows. The NOAA 2005-2006 Winter Outlook forecasts a warmer than usual winter, and that usually means more snow around here.

In the last few weeks, the cats have been out on the porch, and then confined inside, over and and over again, as our temperatures have ranged from the low 20s to the mid 40s or higher. Right now, the porch-thermometer's needle points directly to the 20 degree marker and the cats are in. Our work on the Cat Temple continues, and soon they'll have a permanent indoor space where we can visit, do devotions, and craft as long as we let them play with the occasional bead or string of yarn. Next spring, a screened pen wrapping around the northwest corner of the house, with access from both windows in the Cat Temple, will provide the outdoor experience they love -- an experience that protects them and their would-be prey, too. The illness and behavioral problems that have necessitated the Cat Temple are bringing blessings to all of us; the illness is healed; the behavioral problems can be managed in the Temple and with the blessings of the cat goddesses they may be overcome. So mote it be!

The early snows and the roller-coaster thermometer have been outer indicators of season change, but my inner landscape has not been in sync. This year's Hallows didn't feel like year end/new year, as it usually does, and I'm just beginning to believe that the slower pace and more quiet days of winter will give me a much-needed shift, seasonal and psychological.

I've been unusually busy this fall with a new web site birthed for a friend's midwifery practice; talking, strategizing, and visioning with Z Budapest about her site and how my ministry can support it and be supported by it; a fabulous Gathering at Equinox with a keynote speech by Wendy Griffin on the origins of "our religion" that started with this phrase, repeated several times: "All religions mythologize their origins"; a few moves forward in the slow development of the Goddess Scholars group and site; exciting new growth for MatriFocus developing on several fronts, and new web work forthcoming with the Black Earth Institute.

On the home front, two dramatic developments:

a major tree thinning/pruning and underbrush clearing of the thicket between us and the lake, taken on to replace the lake views at the front of our house which we lost when new neighbors built a garage that obstructed not just our view of the beachfront-side of the lake but more dramatically the incredible light the lake reflects; necessity (theirs) and grief (ours) that ended in a win-win-win.

the afore-mentioned Cat Temple project with hiring helpers and electricians and carpenters/installers and all the upheaval involved in re-arranging major spaces and belongings (most impressive change: 2500 books, 120 linear feet of book shelving, and a library table moved into the living room with great effect)

And thrown into the mix: my beloved's many days of overtime spent on a major project, the farewell concert of the feminist choir she's sung in for 12 years and I for 5, and our mutual graduation from the four-year Spiral Door program, with the many preparations for the graduation including gift-making activities, in the midst of chaos.

For this high-energy woman living in a low-energy body with a soul still on the mend, all this activity has been exhausting. I'm still recovering physically from the triple crown weekend (November 19/20): two-day Spiral Door session, including a seven-hour graduation ritual, Womonsong's Farewell Concert with warm-up beforehand and party after, and joining the crowd Sunday evening for the long-awaited Harry Potter Goblet of Fire big-screen event.

And Thanksgiving? We were blessed with company on three of the four days of the long weekend. Good food, good fun, and more hands and other body parts to help us move things around the house. A wonderful set of days, yet exhausting in the ways lots of food and friends and family can be.

So the seasonal shift I've been longing for has been delayed. I've felt overwhelmed and out of sorts and have been hanging on through each event, drawing on energy reserves to make it through this seeming gauntlet of activities. I had thought to declare December 1st my own personal end-of-the-old-year / beginning-of-the-new, but I'm not quite there yet. When I talked about my out-of-sync feelings in my writer's group meeting this morning, my writing partners said I was not alone. They had talked about this very thing last night, noticing that the veils which thinned early this year because of Katrina were closing much later than usual. For some reason I take great comfort in having my experience affirmed.

I'm ready for the sixth snow, though, and the seventh and eighth and ninth and beyond. The end of Spiral Door was the end of 15 years of formal education in Women's Mysteries and Goddess Religion. I have another 6 ahead of me as I work with a mastery metaphor from Irish piping lore. Plans for the next 3 years have been made, but first I need some time to rest, re-center, and balance the life of the student with the life of the practitioner. In the midst of household upheaval, I claimed a new space for my altar and constructed it yesterday. The smell of incense filled the morning, and now the lentils simmering on the stove fill the closed house with smells of the winter hearth. The end of the busy season is in sight as the land adjusts to its first blanket of snow and stillness.

Goddess Amaterasu in the News

2005-11-15T08:09:00.000-06:00

Japanese royalty traditionally marry in shrines dedicated to the goddess Amaterasu, whom legend identifies as the mother of the country's first emperor. (Princess confronts commoner culture shock)

As Her Imperial Highness Princess Sayako of Japan is marrying a commoner today, there will be several breaks from a traditional royal wedding. She'll be married at a hotel instead of a shrine, for example. The chosen hotel has an in-house shrine, but it's dedicated to another deity. There have been reports that the hotel has scrambled to transport a sacred mirror representing the goddess from the Japanese imperial palace to the hotel. Clearly, some traditions are worth upholding....

Floating

2005-11-04T15:03:00.000-06:00

I am floating. Not untethered, but floating. No wait. Floating is too passive. I'm swimming in air.

Weather and landscape are golden, wild, seductive. I can't stay inside.

I'm being mentored in the mysteries of the staff, and a young oak does the happy dance and says "Work with me! Me! Me! Me!" every time I'm out her way.

The Samhain Issue of MatriFocus is online, and so many exciting things are happening, MatriFocus-wise.

A new writer's group has been birthed! Three of us decided on this adventure at the New Oracle Institute party a couple of weekends ago and had our first weekly session yesterday. I had 1000 words from my NaNoWriMo project to offer, and they were well received. Hmmm. Maybe I can write fiction. The question still remains: Will I?

The kindling stack has been laid for tomorrow's mega leaf-burn, and the tree guy comes next week to clear the thicket of the buckthorns, mulberries, hackberries, and black locusts that are in the way of both the oaks and maples and also our view of the lake through it all -- a joint project with our neighbor who owns most of the land on which grows the thicket. It will still be wild space, but the view will be fabulous and the habitat better for the hardwoods (and no doubt for the swamp buttercups, the wood anemone and wild geraniums, and my beloved mayapple). A few of the black cherries will come out, too -- the ones that are too dwarfed, crowded, and shaded by others to grow to a healthy maturity.

And a new adventure in living -- a Cat Temple and Craft Room being created in our home this week and next. Not something we planned to do, but something the Cat Goddess dropped in our laps and said "Make it happen, now." (OK, that's pretty cryptic and mystical, but the story's just too long for a day like today when my work is done and it's time to get back outside and glory in the gold.) Good friends are coming over tomorrow to move eight tall bookshelves and several thousand books, and to break bread with us a time or two!

And it's the season of endings: graduation from the Spiral Door, a four-year spiritual journey undertaken in magical partnership with my beloved; the final season of Womonsong (Madison's feminist choir) -- a 13-year relationship for her and a 5-year experience for me; the departure of beloved friend and confidant, Sarah Bebhinn, for graduate school adventures and a new life in Iowa.

And likewise, a season of newest beginnings: the dark of the year, germination and dream time; time and space opening for heart-, hearth-, creative-, imaginal-, social-, and priestess work from the void the ending activities offer up.

Spider Woman Spins the New Year

2005-10-31T10:08:00.000-06:00

There is a spirit that pervades everything, that is capable of powerful song and radiant movement, and that moves in and out of the mind. The colors of this spirit are multitudinous, a glowing, pulsing, rainbow. Old Spider Woman is one name for this quintessential spirit, and Serpent Woman is another. Corn Woman is one aspect of her, and Earth Woman is another, and what they together have made is called Creation, Earth, creatures, plants, and light. (p. 12, The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen) )

I'm into acute labor with the Samhain Issue of MatriFocus, and while looking for a few last images I was struck by the image of a spider, so I spent a few minutes creating a mandala of it and finding the inspiring words above.

Happy Hallows, Sacred Samhain, Best Witches for the New Year.

Names Dropping Like Flies

2005-10-27T10:31:00.000-05:00

It took several days for my feet to touch the ground after last Saturday night's party. Patricia Monaghan and Michael McDermott hosted a four-day summit of writers from around the nation to discuss the intersections of literature, politics, and the sacred, and to reclaim spirituality for political progressives and to refocus poetry specifically from its current econometric status to its rightful place within the sacred arts.

On the four-day agenda was a Saturday night party and feast to celebrate their work and the creation of a new organization (it's name is currently being discussed among the Fellows), and she invited some local publishers/editors/writers to join them: Kat Sojourner and Carol Marshall of Creatrix Books; Jim Frenkel, editor of SF/Fantasy publisher TOR Books, and his wife, Hugo-award winning novelist Joan Vinge; my beloved and me, of MatriFocus; and a few others with whom I didn't get to chat.

We carpooled out to Black Earth, Wisconsin, a place of rolling hills and rural beauty, with Sarah Bebhinn, who entertained the group after dinner with songs from the Midwest and the Celtic Isles. It was a fabulous party. The summit attendees were juiced from three days' intensive work and simultaneously exhausted, so they were prepared for relaxing and having fun. Though we had to leave early, I understand that party songs and raucous laughter carried on into the wee hours.

Before dinner and song there was delicious time for conversation. My peak moment came from Ron Engel's whole-body reaction of astonishment and delight when I responded to his questions about MatriFocus (How do you track success with an online Journal? Do you have subscribers? Oh, how many? 1500? Oh my, that's magnificent. Most academic books have a run of only 2000 copies!). I had never really thought about the number of MatriFocus subscribers as a measure of "success." Our success, if I think in those terms, is the quality of the work we do. And certainly numbers of subscribers and their positive regard is a response/reflection of that quality. I learned later, when the group did formal introductions after dinner, that Ron is a theologian (Professor Emeritus, Meadvill-Lombard Theological School), a framer of the Earth-Charter, author, and co-editor, with his wife Joan, of Ethics of Environment and Development Global Challenge, International Response.

I had deep conversation with writer / professor / photographer / Connecticut Review editor John Briggs about clouds (his latest photographic subject) and the experience of the sacred in nature. He said he tends to photograph clouds in public places, setting up his camera and tripod at a mall parking lot, for example. Shoppers wander over to see what he's doing and then find themselves lost in cloud-gazing for awhile before they carry on with their shopping. I understand he does other pieces of art activism, but I'll leave those stories for someone else to tell.

I met the writer of one of my beloved's treasured books (Out of This World), the poet, scholar, and gardener Mary Swander, and talked at length with Elizabeth Cunningham about play, partnership, and ministry. She seemed fey, feisty, and solid as a rock, all at the same time. I have to admit I've had a copy of her book, The Wild Mother, on my shelf for several years and have not yet made time to read it. Ouch! Elizabeth has agreed to allow MatriFocus to publish an excerpt from her latest book, due out in April 2006, and I've asked Mary if she has time for and interest in publishing a gardening column for MatriFocus.

There were other writers I got to chat with briefly, and some I didn't, but I hope to know all of them better, at least by their books. I'm creating my 2006 reading list from the works of the summit members.

And I have other work before me as a result of this party. Two attendees asked me if MatriFocus publishes poetry. I had to answer no, which was a difficult thing to do in such company. When asked why, I responded: "Because I don't have a Poetry Editor. Poets deserve to have their work reviewed by a poet or someone knowledgeable about poetry, and that's not my area of study/knowledge/experience." My answer was a satisfying one to poets who submit poetry for publication, but it's left me circling around the problems of poetry and MatriFocus one more time. I'm thinking it's time to find a Poetry Editor, someone who knows well feminist/Goddess/sacred/nature poetry and poets, and who can create a by-invitation poetry section for MatriFocus. More on my plate for the love-feast that is MatriFocus.

50 Books: Sheri Tepper's The Visitor

2005-10-25T14:10:00.000-05:00

Is Sheri Tepper not one of the most compelling novelists around? I'm beyond page 418 and into the last fifth of The Visitor, and though I've seen some things I intuited come to pass, I still have no idea where she's leading me, fundamentally. So much yet to discover. How delicious.

Two excerpts to demonstrate two things I appreciate about her:

1. Opening sentence.

Picture this: A mountain splintering the sky like a broken bone, its western precipice plummeting onto jumbled scree.

Take-your-breath away writing.

2. The healer's response to the demon's effort to distinguish between miracles, which he believes in, and magic, which he doesn't.

"There is no difference at all," said Galenor. "Except that people allow themselves to believe an event if it's called a miracle while disdaining the same event if it's called magic. Or vice versa. Life arises naturally; where life is, death is, joy is, pain is. Where joy and pain are, ecstasy and horror are, all part of the pattern. They occur as night and day occur on a whirling planet. They are not individually willed into being and shot at persons like arrows. Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts...."

Truths summed up succinctly, and sometimes subtly pointed bidirectionally at camps with opposing points of view.

Oak, Ash, Buckthorn

2005-10-19T07:29:00.000-05:00

The ash tree in the front yard dropped all her leaves last week, and they joined the baby mulberries, chokecherries and buckthorn already stacked in the burn pile, along with daylily stems and other dead bits of summer's glory. Sunday afternoon, the temperature was perfect, the wind was blowing away from the lake, so we had a small burn, clearing the fire pit for the tons of oak leaves to be raked and burned this fall.

In Sunday's burn pile were thousands of acorns. I've never seen so many acorns drop in a season. Several weeks ago, when they started falling from the trees, I pictured squirrels in an Olympic tossing contest, so loud and frequent the explosive sound of acorn on roof. The sound and feel of a carpet of acorns is everywhere I walk, or scooter, or drive. Like my friend Julie, I wish I were earth-wise enough to read this sign.

Yesterday, the sometimes-neighbors from Chicago were here. The acorns their kids had picked up when they were here last were still in the bowl they had put them in -- one of those plastic bowls topped with something that looks like a shower cap. The conditions had been just right, apparently, for the acorns to germinate. Chicago Mom told me about the accidental science project, which she was prepared to throw away, and weird-one that I am, I said "I'll take them!"

I'm imagining a bonsai oak grove to plant and tend, squirrels well-fed this winter, and thousands of baby oaks coming up everywhere in the spring.

Season of Large, Slow Farming Equipment

2005-10-18T13:10:00.000-05:00

Local News

A woman driver, on a state highway between Madison and Cambridge, Wisconsin, was seen pulling out of a very slow line of traffic and passing 3 cars, 1 truck, 1 SUV and 1 very large, very slow mechanical harvester this morning.

Several cars and other vehicles were seen following her example.

What Would Jesus Blog?

2005-10-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

"God bloggers" had a three-day national conference in Southern California recently, looking at what they're doing, including their "relationship with the traditional church, their growing influence on mainstream politics and how to manage outsiders' perceptions."

Likening god blogging to Martin Luther's Halloween 1517 act of posting his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church, accusing Roman Catholicism of heresy upon heresy, God bloggers anticipate "reforming the modern church by keeping televangelists and other high-profile Christian leaders honest."

God blogger Joe Carter notes that his peers are moving beyond the staples of contemporary evangelical/fundamentalist theology, writing about religious oppression, poverty and world hunger: "There's a bigger world out there than gay marriage and abortion."

One participant expressed concern about God blogging's potential for reinforcing "stereotypes of evangelical Christians as angry and close-minded 'pit bulls of the culture wars'." He notes that many Christians seem to have forgotten something that Jesus might have blogged about:

Blessed are the peacemakers....(Matthew 5:9)

What would Jesus blog? is an interesting question. It's made me think about dipping into the New Testament again. I have a feeling Jesus and Pagans might not be as far apart as the contemporary church would have us all believe.

Still Hoping for a Life

2005-10-14T05:08:00.000-05:00

Granny D's Politics of Nonviolence speech proves her crones-to-watch (and read) status. Delivered at Orchard House, home of the Alcotts, in Concord, Massachusetts, where "the great Quaker ... William Lloyd Garrison ... spoke to this very group so many years ago - as did Emerson and William James and Julia Ward Howe and other voices for justice," Granny D "humbly" raises her voice "in the long shadow of these people."

She addresses "two great and growing divisions ... separating us as Americans: rich versus poor, and left versus right," and speaks to the second of these, suggesting that "its resolution would help solve the other."

Truthfully, the entire article is quotable, so I'll stop here:

Where authority and power flow down from above, from heaven to the White House to husbands and ayatollahs, the free and joyful living of people can be quite the enemy...

Here it is: those in the clan of authority are not given the privilege - the natural right - of living their own lives. They do as they are told, say and think what they are told. Smothered is their curiosity and their healthy skepticism, and also their imagination, joy, freedom, and lust for life itself. When they see others actually living lives, they react with anger, as if someone had cut to the front of a line that, for them, never moves.

What is the proof of this theory? Those enthralled to authority, cowering under it, lose sight of their own lives. They will venerate above all else the symbol of the yet unruined potential of life: the curled-up unborn. The authority clan will have the image of an unborn baby as its flag, and they will claim to honor and defend innocent life, but that will be a great lie to themselves. For they will not be the ones to demand DNA testing of all prisoners on death row; they will not be the ones to demand health insurance for all children, or better nutrition in all schools, or peaceful alternatives to international conflicts. They will be the ones to rail against these things, for the authority clan parades itself as pro-life while it is truly more like a cult of death. Having died themselves, strangled by authority and fear, they cannot wish happy lives for others - they cling only to that magic symbol of what might have been. They relate to the unborn baby selfishly; it is themselves: unborn, unlived, still hoping for a life.

NaNoWriMo Redux

2005-10-13T14:03:00.000-05:00

DharmaBum is signed up and fired up for this year's NaNoWriMo, making me face the reality lurking in my forebrain these past couple of weeks.

So today I reactivated my account and committed to NaNoWriMo 2005. To those whose goal it is to write 50,000 words: Congratulations and Good Luck! As for me, I've realized four things since my first NaNoWriMo season last year:

1. I shouldn't try to write a novel when in the brain-fried depths of recovery from a loved-one's suicide. Fortunately, most of my wiring seems to be recovered. Now if I can just get all of October's projects finished in October....
2. Blogging has taught me something essential about myself: I'm more a do-er and a draw-er than a write-er. I don't know why it took me 50 years to realize this, but there you have it. I can't imagine ever writing a novel-length work, though I persist in thinking I have several books in me, at least one fiction.
3. When I reflected on the story I worked on last year, I realized I had put together two story ideas that would never work as one piece. So this year, I'll only work on one of them (haven't made my final decision which).
4. I work well with realistic goals. So my goal this year is to double last year's word count. I may not stop at 3,000 words, but I'll have made my goal when I get there. And yes, I realize that's about two days' writing for those hoping to meet their 50K word goal. Vive la différence!

Pagan Proverb

2005-10-11T09:32:00.000-05:00

beneath any green tree, on any high hill

This proverb is found several times in Asphodel Long's In a Chariot Drawn by Lions and refers to where Goddess (specifically Asherah) is worshipped.

The expression is always in quotes and I'm guessing Long cited a source, though I don't remember that just now and am not in a look-it-up frame of mind.

It keeps coming back to me, however. Imagine living in a culture where Goddess is worshipped beneath any green tree, on any high hill.

image courtesy of Dave Schmidt and morgueFile

Witches Fly

2005-10-06T18:08:00.000-05:00

Local News

This afternoon in Cambridge, Wisconsin, with winds gusting up to 11 mph and thermostats registering a brisk 48°F, green- and black-faced witches fly over the yard that was once featured in Better Homes and Gardens, the one those marvelous men take such good care of; corn-stalk bundles and pumpkins dress up flag poles, miniature Connestoga wagons, and porch steps; and a sockless, white-faced Witch was seen flying about town on her ruby red scooter.

Sage's Superlative Morning Muffins

2005-10-04T15:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's what my beloved calls the healthy, delicious, quick-to-make muffins I've perfected in the last three weeks.

These muffins will lower overall cholesterol, boost good cholesterol, give you a carb-sweet that won't spike your blood sugar, provide fiber and real nutrition, and be a great start to your day.

This recipe will yield 16 large muffins that hold their moisture well when refrigerated in a sealed container. It is based on the Whole Wheat Muffin recipe in The Tassajara Bread Book.

Dry Ingredients
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
1.5 cups oatmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup ground flax seed
5 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspon ground cloves
1 cup walnuts
1.5 cups raisins

Wet Ingredients
1 cup unsulphured blackstrap molasses
1/8 cup virgin coconut oil
3 cups silk (soy milk -- you can use cow's milk if you prefer, but it will diminish the cholesterol-reducing power of these muffins)
2 eggs, beaten (we get eggs from free-range chickens)
3/4 cup organic applesauce with cinnamon (if you don't have cinnamon applesauce, add one more Tablespoon of ground cinnamon to your dry ingredients)

Procedure
Pre-heat your oven, 400 degrees.
Mix your dry ingredients.
Mix your wet ingredients. Note that coconut oil doesn't mix well, and it congeals when you add your cold ingredients, so thorougly mix the coconut oil with the molasses before adding milk, eggs, and applesauce. You'll probably want to use an electric mixer.
Turn your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients.
Scoop batter into oiled muffin tins. You can fill each to close to the rim.
Bake for 20 minutes, then allow to cool.

Why Are These Muffins So Healthy?
1. Oatmeal is a great source of soluble fiber and "acts like a sponge to soak up cholesterol and remove it from the body." (#11, Rayne Today's Public Service Announcement)
2. Flax Seed contains omega-3 fatty acids and "increases fiber intake, improves good cholesterol numbers, contains a natural blood thinning agent to improve blood flow in restricted vessels." (#7, Rayne Today's Public Service Announcement) Keep your flax seed in your refrigerator and only grind the amount you need for most potency. Eating the ground seed is preferable to getting your daily flax seed through oil or supplements since neither of them provides fiber. Dr. Nancy Selfridge, Holistic MD -- my primary care physician for eight years -- advised me to eat ground flax seed daily, on oatmeal, cereal, or a peanut butter sandiwich. I like it better in my muffins, though I don't get a full day's share from the 1 or 2 muffins I eat.
3. Unrefined Whole Wheat Flour provides insoluble fiber (and with this and oatmeal, you have both types of fiber as recommended). Insoluble fibers help prevent ulcers, constipation, hemorrhoids and diverticulosis. The Whole Grains Council Consumer Guide indicates that "People who eat whole grains regularly have a lower risk of obesity, as measured by their body mass index and waist-to-hip ratios. They also have lower cholesterol levels. Because of the phytochemicals and antioxidants, people who eat three daily servings of whole grains have been shown to reduce their risk of heart disease by 25-36%, stroke by 37%, Type II diabetes by 21-27%, digestive system cancers by 21-43%, and hormone-related cancers by 10-40%."
4. Cinnamon is a rich source of magnesium (essential for maintaining bone density, electrolyte balance, certain enzyme functions and many other crucial biochemical processes) and is being shown to be a great boon to those of us with glucose intolerance and/or Type-II non-insulin dependent diabetes. "Cinnamon has a bio-active component that we believe has the potential to prevent or overcome diabetes." (Don Graves, University of California) "Data from the Agricultural Research Unit in Maryland [indicates] that cinnamon rekindled the ability of fat cells in diabetics to respond to insulin and greatly increased glucose removal. It is believed that a substance in cinnamon called MHCP is the main reason for its beneficial results." (Mike Hodges)
5. Would you believe that eating Walnuts helps reduce cholesterol? My friend Sally in Texas told me over a year ago that walnuts are the first choice for nut-eaters trying to reduce weight and improve health. ""Walnuts are high in poly-unsaturated fats, such as alpha-linoleic acid, which are known to lower cholesterol levels," says [Dr. Joan] Sabaté [professor and chair of the department of nutrition, School of Public Health, at the Seventh-day Adventist-run Loma Linda University in California}. "Fats make up two thirds of walnuts by weight, which have an important and primary role in lowering cholesterol, along with providing plant proteins and fiber, micro-nutrients and phyto-chemicals."
6. Soy milk versus dairy milk? There's a wealth of research, information, and opinion about the health benefits and risks of these two. I'm going to leave the claims up to others, but for my purposes, soy milk rather than dairy is the way to go.
7. Unsulphured blackstrap molasses is a moderate-level glycemic food that "contains measurable amounts of iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, making it more nutritious than most sweeteners." Barley malt syrup and brown rice syrup are lower-glycemic than blackstrap molasses. They are primarily complex sugars, meaning they are relatively slow to digest and consequently don't cause rapid blood sugar fluctuations when eaten. I have purchased some of each, but I have yet to try them in my recipe. When I do, I'll post an update.
8. Applesauce? If you buy organic, unsulphured apple sauce, you get the amazing benefits of apples. Though it does contain high-glycemic sugars, adding applesauce to your baked-goods recipes allows you to cut the amount of fat needed in them, which leads me to the most controversial ingredient in my recipe:
9. Unrefined Virgin Coconut Oil is a saturated fat, and we're told ubiquitously to avoid saturated fats for our health. This is probably good advice 99% of the time, but it turns out that coconut oil is a saturated fat of a different stripe. What we're not usually told is that those wonderful unsaturated fats which we should be using cold (on salads, for example), aren't appropriate for high-heat processes, because heat breaks up their chemical structure and causes mutations in the fatty acid chains that are harmful to us. I'm believing claims about research showing that virgin coconut oils boost metabolism and energy, support thyroid functions, and aren't stored in our cells, unlike other fats. Until I know better, I'm using virgin coconut oil for baking and sauteing. When I track down more research that isn't tied to a vendor's hype, I'll share it, but in the meantime, consider this source.

******

The above is not, of course, medical advice. For all your nutrition questions, consult your health practitioner.

Goddess Quotes: Thought

2005-09-28T09:25:00.000-05:00

In the beginning was thought, and her name was Woman. The Mother, the Grandmother, recognized from earliest times into the present among those peoples of the Americas who kept to the eldest traditions, is celebrated in social structures, architecture, law, custom, and oral tradition. To her we owe our lives, and from her comes our ability to endure, regardless of the concerted assaults on our, and Her, being, for the past five hundred years of colonization. She is the Old Woman who tends the fires of life. She is the Old Woman Spider who weaves us together in a fabric of interconnection. She is the Eldest God, the one who Remembers and Re-members; and though the history of the past five hundred years has taught us bitterness and helpless rage, we endure into the present, alive, certain of our significance, certain of her centrality, her identity as the Sacred Hoop of Be-ing. (p. 11, "The Ways of Our Grandmothers," Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop, Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions)

Sidebar Links Cleanup -- Community Blogs / Sites

2005-09-25T16:04:00.000-05:00

Full Circle Online Interaction Blog

Sidebar Links Cleanup -- Crones to Watch

2005-09-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

Z Budapest
Barbra Streisand
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Elisabet Sahtouris
Elisabet Sahtouris
Lydia Ruyle
Ann Richards
Deena Metzger
Wangari Maathai
Joanna Macy
Molly Ivins
Doris "Granny D" Haddock
Jane Goodall
Olympia Dukakis
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Pema Chodron
Jean Shinoda Bolen
Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum
Paula Gunn Allen

Sidebar Links Cleanup -- Blog, Blog, Blog

2005-09-25T15:47:00.000-05:00

~~~Tools
Weblog Review
Waypath
The Truth Laid Bear
Technorati
QuackTrack
Mandarin Design
eatonweb portal
Blogwise
Blog Swarm
Blog Search Engine
Blo.gs
BlogPulse
Blogpoll
Bloglines
Blog Flux
Blogdex
Blogarama
~~~Articles
Women Go Blogging and Find Freedom of Speech
What Makes a Weblog a Weblog?
weblogs: a history and perspective
Tips for Blogs
Scholars Discover Weblogs Pass Test as Mode of Communication
RSS Top 55
Organizing Your Writing for the Web
Copyright, Fair Use & Blogs
Content Creation Online
Blogosphere: The Emerging Media Ecosystem
Blogging is Blooming
A Mash Note to the Blogosphere

Sidebar Links Cleanup -- Resource Blogs / Sites

2005-09-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

~~~Science, Nature, Environment
The Loom: A Science Blog
The J Curve
TerraPass
RealClimate
Observing the Sky
News in Science
Genetic Chaos
FuturePundit
Evolving Thoughts
Complexity Digest
2012 -- Science Blog
~~~Religion
Wren's Nest
Roman Calendar
~~~Quotes
ThinkExist.com
~~~Language
Online Etymology Dictionary
~~~General
Wikipedia
PubSub
BugMeNot.com
~~~Archaeology, Anthropology, History
Women in World History Curriculum
The Undoctored Past
Stone Pages
Roman Archaeology
rogueclassicism
Mirabilis
International Archaeology News
IOL
Golublog
Dieneke's Anthropology Blog
Cronaca
CBA's British & Irish archaeology newsfeed
ArchaeoPundit
ArchaeologyOnline
Archaeology in Europe
Archaeological News

Sidebar Links Cleanup -- Liberal / Progressive / Radical Politics Blogs

2005-09-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

The Huffington Post
Randi's Blog
P!
MotherJones.com
Majority Report Radio Blog
littlegreenfootballs
In These Times
Finding a Voice
Daily Kos
Crooked Timber
Cobb-LaMarche 2004
Black Box Voting
Arianna's Blog