3/15/2004
Undergrad
at the Precinct of the Goddess Mut
A Johns Hopkins University junior excavates two granaries typically
used to make beer and bread for religious offerings.
3/15/2004
New planetoid
may be named for Inuit Goddess Sedna
Astronomers from Caltech, Gemini Observatory, and Yale University
announce the discovery of the coldest, most distant object known
to orbit the sun.
3/8/2004
Tina
Turner to Play Shakti in Merchant-Ivory Film
Turner's agreement to portray Shakti in The Goddess has fueled
outrage and protests by Hindu orghanizations in Britain who say
the casting is culturally insensitive.
3/8/2004
Iraqi
"Queen of the Night" Relief Goes on Tour
A 4,000-year-old Iraqi relief of a Babylonian goddess (Inanna-Ishtar),
recently purchased by the British Museum, will on loan to museums
across the UK.
3/4/2004
Exploring
the Concept of the Divine Feminine
Leilani Birely, Priestess, Daughters of the Goddess Temple, on Goddess
and female-centered spiritual experience.
3/2/2004
History
of Medicine Rewritten
Analysis of the Minoan frescoes at Thera, showing a goddess presiding
over the manufacture and use of a drug from the saffron flower,
indicates an earlier date for evidence of the history of medicine
than previously thought.
2/27/2004
Crones
Coming of Age
1960s feminists, now in their 60s, are leading the way into juicy
cronehood, with Jean Shinoda Bolen in front of the pack.
2/26/2004
Pagan
Moot Angered Over Controlled Burn
Cheryl Straffon and others who care for the 4,500-year-old West
Cornwall Bronze Age circle are concerned about fire-damaged stones.
2/24/2004
China's
"Jade Age"
The 1984 discovery of the head of a "goddess of Hongshan,"
and the ruins of an ancient kingdom (altars, temples and tombs)
have led archaeologists to postulate a Chinese Jade Age between
the Stone and Bronze Ages.
2/14/2004
Pagan
Expo Triumphs Over Bigotry
Illinois Community Center reverses its decision to cancel a
Pagan Expo (officials didn't want "to be associated with witches
and witchcraft."
2/10/2004
Harnessing
Fire on Bronze Age Thera
Ancient Therans used fire domestically and ceremonially. A fresco
shows a priestess with a censer during a religious ceremony.
2/7/2004
The Return of Paganism
The "triumph of alternative spiritualities" and the decline
of Christianity, from an International News Agency covering issues
concerning the Catholic Church.
2/6/2004
Sex
and the Zodiac
Review of new book, Sextrology, references shaman-priests
wearing the goddess's holy vestments, a term that stems from Goddess
Vesta herself.
1/20/2004
7,000
year old Harappan sites
The discovery of an "early Harappan culture" reveals
worship of a mother-goddess and cult objects in the shape of female
figurines.
1/22/2004
Candlemas:
Why Groundhog's Day and the Purification of the Virgin Coincide
The Romans’ celebration of the return of light, and Hebrew
purification traditions, explain it all.
1/14/2004
First
Egyptian lion mummy found
In an area of the tomb of Maia (wet nurse to Tutankhamun) dedicated
to the cat goddess Bastet, a lion mummy has been found.
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"All known
goddess religions have been polytheistic; they have admitted not
only the god as well as the goddess, but many versions of both.
Goddess religion is not the opposite of the god religions; it’s
a completely different critter." ~ Pat
Monaghan
"What
are we to make of the fact that spiritual liberation came to the
female founder of Tibetan Buddhism, in the visualized form of
drinking the menstrual blood of a Goddess-woman, and the sacred
sexual rites she freely performed with at least two significant
male consorts?" ~ Vicki
Noble
"I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy" ~
Meg O'Sullivan
"My enemy is my own way of ignoring the authority of my own
experience." ~ China
Galland
"We are
our world knowing itself." ~ Joanna
Macy
"Among
the principles essential to the health of living systems are empowered
participation of all parts and continual negotiation of self-interest
at all levels of organization." ~Elisabet
Sahtouris, Earthdance, Living Systems in Evolution
Interviewer:
How do you respond to criticism that the Goddess religion was
just a fertility rite?
Marija
Gimbutas: People usually are not knowledgeable who say that,
and have never studied the question. Fertility was important
to continuity of life on earth, but the religion was about life,
death and regeneration. Our ancestors were not primitive.
"Physicists
and Mystics have looked at the Universe and observed the same
things, but the Mystics spoke in poetry, images and parable,
and the Scientists spoke in numbers, equations and formulas."
~Abby Willowroot
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3/10/2004
Primate-Rich
Forests of Rwanda Now a National Park
At 970 square kilometers, this new park has one of the richest mountain
primate communities in Africa. With its neighboring Kibira National
Park in Burundi, this represents the largest block of rain forest
in eastern Africa.
3/10/2004
Wind
Power Gains in Europe and the U.S.
With a growth rate over over 35% in the last five years, wind power
is losing its "alternative" energy status.
3/8/2004
National
Cancer Institute Explores Chinese Medicine
The National Cancer Institute has establish an international center
to investigate the benefits of some traditional Chinese medicine
for cancer patients.
2/19/2004
Congo Expands Biodiversity
Protection
The Republic of Congo, whose government is "leading the way
in conserving the natural heritage of Central Africa," according
to James Deutsch, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS) program in Africa, plans to expand its protected area network
for the purpose of further conserving the region's immense biodiversity.
2/10/2004
The "greenest"
and "meanest" cars
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranks 2004
model cars on emissions and fuel economy.
2/9/2004
Green
Burials
A Swedish company has a freeze-dry method that avoids polluting
earth, air or water, with other eco-benefits.
2/5/2004
Endangered
Sea Turtles Make a Dramatic Turnaround
Poaching and the practice of illegally removing turtle eggs from
nests have dropped dramatically.
2/3/2004
Hunt
for Medicinal Drugs May Help Save Papua New Guinea Rainforests
At risk from logging and mining, these rainforests will be studied
to yield new medicines and create cottage industries for islanders.
1/22/2004
$8M
grant to protect Amazon-Andes Region
The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society has received a
grant of nearly $8 million to protect more than 85,000 square miles
of habitat in tropical South America.
1/20/2004
Mountain
Gorilla Population Increasing
The Virunga Volcanoes mountain gorilla population (Uganda) has increased
by 17 percent since the 1989 census.
1/6/2004
Utilities
for pennies a day
Zero Energy Habitat for Humanity project's first three houses have
total energy bills of $300/year.
1/5/2004
Women
Want Their Midwives!
Number of US women choosing midwife-assisted births doubles in the
last decade, with less intervention and lower costs.
1/5/2004
2004:
Year of the Green Machine
2004 is a watershed year for fuel-efficient, gas-electric (hybrid)
cars. Sales are expected to surpass 100,000 in 2005.
I started this
feature during the waxing moon, September 2003, because I was feeling
overwhelmed by the mounting, disastrous environmental news and needed
to act as if we humans can still change our destiny from destroying
Mother Earth to developing partnerships with Her and all Her life-forms.
May it be so!
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