The Goddess Loves HARRY POTTER

Mother Loves Harry 

Here’s another Christian pointing to the Goddess in the Harry Potter books!: “This kind of Goddess Love [as found in the HP series] is exactly what is going to save mankind [sic] and nurture all people in the ages to come….” This kind person even offers a quotation that lays bare the Goddess’s love for Harry:

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign, to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good” (p. 299 [presumably in the first Harry book], Headmaster Dumbledore explaining to Harry about the Love Force which protected him in his physical battle with Quirrell).

But then the Christian spoils the fun by foaming at the mouth about Goddess. Oh, but what can we expect from a poor Christian? They’re so fragile, what with all that wearisome worry about Hell hanging over their heads.

HARRY POTTER & the Goddess

Christians may be less than wild about Harry Potter, but they do give credit where credit is due. Take this statement, for example, from ChristianAnswers.NET:

"Through the sacrificial goddess magic of his mother's love, baby Harry is saved and his blood is given magical powers….”

MORE >>>

New-Computer Blues

Duncan and I are sharing the house now with three (count them, three) computers -- none of which are worth the plastic they were made from. There's the Toshiba laptop, which has just betrayed us by wearing out (the thing has bulbous blisters on its bottom from intense, self-generated heat); there's the ancient Dell desktop we dragged in from the shed and were semi-successful in resurrecting; and, third, there's the new black Dell desktop, which just arrived yesterday in the mail. Despite damaging my left ear waiting on hold from 8 am to one for techies to give us the time of day (we finally got short snatches of time from three of these Golden godlets), we were unable to get "Blackie" totally up and running.

Duncan and I both hope you had better days than we did.

Ta.

THE 9 Tenets

This weblog has 9 tenets:

1. Goddess is Good. Originally, religion centered on Goddesses. At that point humans were healthy. Female deity is key to human health.

2. Human survival is up for grabs; we need to focus on saving ourselves.

3. How can the species be saved? By replacing god the father with God the Mother. Historical, archaeological, anthropological and sociological evidence suggest that humans flourish under female deity. This may be more true for men than women. In contrast, under father gods, humans are not flourishing but floundering.

4. When should god be switched to Goddess? The switch should begin now and finish in 2025.

5. Can a turn-back to Goddess really save us? Yes. Here’s why:

6. From the second we let them in the door, father gods, with their conditional love, have been beating us up. If we fail to meet their conditions, they call for assassination, war, and torture. Humans learn directly from their gods, and if others fail to meet our standards, we, too, call for assassination, war and torture. The result? God peoples are set to wipe human life off the planet.

7. Father gods destroy men as well as women. Men may benefit from the changeover even more than women.

8. Female deities are role models for unconditional love. The Goddess loves us not for what we are, but only because we are. With Her at the helm, we’ll love each other as She loves us – intensely, no strings attached. Everyone will revel in love and care.

9. People are biologically built to need religion. Anthropologists know that every known society has possessed religion. Anthropologists consider such scarce “universals” deep-core human needs.
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Much thnx to bies and stock.xchng for the foto of Mother Love

men IN THE GARDEN?

"The position of men within Goddess Spirituality is only recently beginning to be publicly discussed, but this question is emerging as a debate of great interest," says the author of the Wikipedia entry for "Goddess Movement." MORE >>>

Whaddaya think? Is it time to put more sweat into leading men into the Light? The Light of my Life is a man (see a pic of Dunk in my Aug. 7 post, "Mr. Dunk says hi"). I'd hate to think (LOL) that Mr. Dunk didn't have a place in the lap of the Goddess.

"What the hey," sayeth the lord

Oh How DELICIOUS!

Pat Robertson, an icon of the Religious Right -- an assassination buff!

On Echidne of the Snakes today, one commenter said Robertson is senile. (Go HERE for more.)

Out of the mouths of babes and the senile, I say! I give you Mister Pat Robertson: The god-boy who's lost his knack for prevarication, and mislaid his dissembling abilities!!!

What more proof do you need that God the Father is a mean, ugly heap o' pus that needs to be pitched out on his puss? Here's a major Christian icon big enough to dominate TV for decades, and he's telling us we need to circle the globe snuffing out world leaders (?!).

"What the hey," sayeth the lord -- "Don't like 'em? Snuff 'em out!"

BTW, here's what Cousin Doris had to say today about Mr. Pat: "Pat Robertson shot his mouth off when he should have been quiet. That's not God's fault."

Ha, ha, ha, hardy har har har! (It's not everyone who has a direct pipeline to the Religious Right. As an anthropologist, I place great value on cultural informants. And Cousin Doris is a ripe and delicious cultural informant re: the American Religious Right. I am one lucky blogger!)

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Thnx to nion for the pic of "Tiki god of the loons"

god is DEATH

~~ 

REUTERS, 8/23/05: "Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez...."
MORE >>>

Need I say more? The warrior father-god Yahweh is displaying his true colors.

DEMOCRACY INVENTED BY Women?!?

Imagine: a country where only women vote. In this country it's women who elect Congress and the Pres. Women put MEN into Congress and the presidency, but woe to any man who disappoints the women, because they will yank him out of the White House/Capitol Building faster than he can say "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am...."

Although the armed forces in this fabled land are manned by men, guess who gets to decide when/if men go to war? You got it -- the women. Since the men protect the women and children, run the government, and also bring home the bacon, they are incredibly cherished.

In this enchanted country, men don't own land. Every single house, building, airport, forest, farm, and vacant lot is owned by women. What's more, women own everything springing from land. If a man wants oil, uranium, food or water, they say "Pretty please." (And very, very politely....)

Tidy bit of science fiction, you say? Annnnnnnggggkk! (Error Bell). This country existed. It was called "Haudenosaunee," and it stretched over and beyond the territory we today call New York state. The name EuroAmericans gave to it was "Iroquois."

All this came from a book recommended by Morgaine called Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists, 2001, by Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner. (Dr. Wagner is a founder of one of the nation's first women's studies programs; she's appeared in the Ken Burns documentary "Not for Ourselves Alone" and in the PBS special "One Woman, One Vote.")
Dr. Wagner believes Iroquois women birthed Iroquois democracy. If she's right, then women birthed American democracy, too, since it's obvious to anyone who's done reading in the area that the Founding Daddies adopted American democracy straight from the Iroquois.

Wow!!!! Heavy!

Go to Amazon.com to read more about this fab book.

SURVIVING Toxic SOUP

~ 

Yesterday my gentle brother-in-law Rick was driving along country roads when his car careened off the road into a corn field, and he died. I still can't quite take it in; feels as if I'm living inside a TV set or something.

And I'm wondering -- was it suicide? A supremely sensitive guy, Rick not only failed to find work in this wretched bushNightmare we're suffering through, he was also living with unrelenting physical pain.

According to Suicide and Mental Health Association International , suicide is a "worldwide epidemic." How do we rationalize our shocking suicide rates? Most of us, I suspect, blame the victim. "He was weak," we opine.

What a copout. The fault isn't theirs, it's ours. Increasingly, our most sensitive earth-mates are incapable of surviving the toxic soup we now blithely accept as our physical and cultural environment. For Goddess' sake, the emperor has no clothes! Why can't we see this? Why can't we see that our way of life is deeply cracked? That how we live is grotesquely and irredeemably flawed? Why aren't we turning the house upside down to ferret out and fix the flaws?!?

And deep inside us all boils the wellspring of the muck (in the Western world, at least): that ubiquitous, barbaric male warrior deity. That self-proclaimed "jealous" god, that "Father" who so deeply despises his children that he seals them up in underground chambers to torture them there til the end of time.

Let's face it: When it comes to unconditional love, father gods run on empty. Bless their hearts, they can't help it, it's all they're capable of. They love on condition that you make the football team and the honor roll. They love on condition that you are the prettiest, the handsomest, the wealthiest, the winner, the one who can wrest the best valley from the others. They can't help it, but we need to axe them. It's just plain suicidal to ask them to continue a job they're botching so badly, a job they weren't ever designed to do in the first place.

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Thnx to u8mealive for the foto

Past Permeating Present

"...Think of it: what we experience as life is the direct, nurturing, sustaining eruption of the past into the present. Isn't this what so many of us on the Goddess path are seeking? The sense that the pattern laid down in the earliest of times, structures what is happening now? Don't many of us have an intuition that the past is continually surging into the now, as if to feed us?..." MORE >>>

~ from "History, the Norns, and the Nutritive Past," by Dawn Work-MaKinne

Closet Cousins

Our forgotten cousins 

Well, back from vacation with Mom & Dad Athana, and I'm having a wee bit of a problem getting serious again.

I'm blog-locked. Can't get anything "down on paper" (out on screen?). Part of the problem is I've done a bit of the reading y'all've been suggesting and it's blowing me away! It's all rolling biliously around in my brain like a bunch of crazed-colored marbles: Angels in America, the play andygrrl recommended (fabulous). Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists, the book Morgaine from The_Goddess recommended (also fabulous). And "Bonobo Sex and Society: The Behavior of a Close Relative Challenges Assumptions about Male Supremacy in Human Evolution," an article by the famous primatologist Frans de Waal. Recommended by Anonymous.

On top of all this, I have to drive down to Kennebunkport for my once-every-two-months haircut, and I hate to get that close to anything that smacks of Bush, but the only woman in the world who can cut my hair locates her shop down there, so what can I do?

My basic mood seems to be, "Wanna end war? Then give women half the power. What's to argue?!?"

It's almost too simple. And where's the fun in simple?

Take the bonobos, for example. Unlike chimps, our female bonobo cousins refuse to let their male counterparts push them around. Unlike chimps, bonobos countenance neither war, violence, nor female domination by males.

Also, I'm peeved. Why haven't I heard about bonobos before? In grad school I had to read about baboons and chimps til my eyeballs popped. But never a peep about bonobos from anyone. Why? Because bonobos are so sexually avant garde? (Oh! My!) Or because male bonobos don't dominate females? (Egad! How frightening!!!) Or because bonobos are a non-violent species sharing 98% of our (human) genes? (Booooor - ing....)

Come on, now. Which is it?

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Thnx to the Zoological Society of San Diego for the foto

THE Goddess = Peace EQUATION

Why don't more people trumpet the Goddess*PEACE : gods*WAR Equation? (Goddess worship produces peace; god worship produces war).

For reasons too numerous to mention in a blog!!!

At the bottom of all reasons, however, is this: the Equation petrifies people.

And why not? From Asia and Europe to Africa and the Americas, almost the entire world, now, revolves around the god boys. Ripping them out from under us suddenly would pitch the world into a tizzy. Even to whisper the Goddess*PEACE Equation is tantamount to abomination, to risking setting the world on fire, to world revolution of the First Order.

The Goddess*PEACE Equation frightens everyone: Women as well as men. Christians, Muslims, and all the other god-boys. And for good measure, throw in atheists and feminists. And the giant corporations! Well!! These suits stand to lose their shirts if the world order suddenly shifts into one without war (read "loss of profit") or poverty (read: "no more impoverished people willing to slave for poverty wages").

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Thnx to pixelstar for the foto

Mister Dunk Says Hi

Don't I look pretty?  

Hi! My mom Athana said I could come and say hi. I just got a bath. My Grandma and Grandpa Athana are coming, so Mom said I had to smell good. Mom will be busy when Gram and Gramps are here. So for about ten days she won't be able to blog very much. Well, 'bye now.

Yur friend,
Mister Dunk

Last LIVING Goddess Matriarchy?

Just sent this to my friend Jan:

Jan! There's a film you can watch if you go to the site I just sent you. Brought tears to my eyes. This may be one of the world's last living matriarchies, almost utopia, and the patriarchal world is invading and destroying it. But at least it's been found, and we can see a model of what life could be! The Chinese (Han) are coming in droves to see these Mosuo, because they (the Mosuo) have "free love." Even the Han women come, because the matriarchal men are so "handsome, and manly," etc. (And of course our patriarchal myth is that in a matriarchy, men would be downtrodden, weak, Mama's boys....)

I think the entire human species used to live like this.

(In a few months Jan's traveling to China to lead an American tour group there with her brother.)

Go HERE to see this fabulous 20-minute film. Because so many people are trying to watch it, it's hard to pull in at times. Probably the best times to watch would be weekday mornings. I saw it this morning before 10 am, and several times it froze, and I had to sit and twiddle my thumbs until it started up again.

The word used to be that matriarchies did not exist -- now, then, or ever. The closest you could get to matriarchies were the "matrifocals", i.e., people who -- like the Mosuo -- didn't have marriage. And there didn't seem to be a whole lot of them.

Instead of getting married, the Mosuo live with their extended families on their mother's side, and a man comes and spends the night in the room of the woman he loves -- if he's lucky and she loves him too, and lets him into her room. In the morning, he ambles on back to his own mother's house to do childcare for his sister's kids.

I think there's a dazzling beauty in this (aside from the fact that the men do the childcare). For your entire life, you live with people who adore you. As do your children. You live forever in the warm-and-fuzzies of your family of origin. Compare that to the patriarchy: We're shoved out of the nest at incubator age, into the arms of strangers (spouses from families sometimes 180 degrees backwards from ours).

Now, to many of us, living an entire lifetime with Mom, Dad & Sibs sounds like Living in Hell. But that's because we're god people, and god's done a number on us. Few of us in the god world enjoy 100% mental health. For starters, gobs of god kids are sexually abused by brothers, fathers and uncles -- last I heard, the stat hovered around the 50% mark, for women. I don't know what it is for boys.

But in a matrilocal world, your family of origin would be healthy.

By the way, although the Mosuo were at one point converted against their will to Buddhism, they nevertheless still worship their old Goddesses (see Wikipedia).

I'd like to read more to see why the Mosuo are considered a matriarchy instead of just a plain old matrifocal group. Also, do they have Goddesses only? Wikipedia mentioned nothing about gods for them.



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Thnx to Frontline for the photo of the Mosuo family.

Goddess*Peace TIMELINE

Marching to 2025 

Below is a first, crude and highly simplistic attempt at a timeline for getting to a Goddess*Peace world by the year 2025. Note that I reserve the right to revise this timeline at any point in time (I will revise, however, in later posts, leaving this first timeline essentially unchanged). Warning: Some of the entries below may be a touch whimsical for your taste, so read at your own risk....

2005 -- [the current situation] Goddess religion is not known, has low membership, not taken seriously, almost no media presence, no national or international leaders speaking out, little sense of ourselves as a defined group, no sense of "solidarity." Women archaeologists afraid to speak out for fear of losing jobs. Subconsciously we adore war. The world's monotheistic God-the-Father countries are warring each other and threatening to wipe life off the planet.

2006 -- Rally American women around the threat to Roe v. Wade. Three-day work strike by all pro-choice women?

2007 -- Internet bloggers start an underground revolution among the mothers of the world, by telling them this: "Since Goddess equals peace and gods equal war, the way to keep your sons and daughters alive past age 18 is to teach them your old Goddess religions."

2008 -- A few of our leaders begin speaking prominently in national and international media outlets -- Possibilities: Riane Eisler; Carol Christ, Starhawk, Joan Marler, et al.

2010 -- Goddess Worshippers now have the beginnings of a media presence (Internet, radio, TV drama, TV talk shows, documentaries, 1-2 full-length feature films). Subjects to concentrate on: Gaia Hypothesis; the Goddess*Peace/gods*war connection, Goddess history.

2011 -- The first Goddess minister/priestess runs for political office; she wins a seat on Missouri State Senate.

2012 -- The first mystery novel appears with a Goddessite as the main character. It's title: Murder by Moonlight in Gaia's Grove.

2015 -- Groups of us begin doing Ghandi-like interventions at leadership meetings of the god peoples (starting with those easier to reach, i.e., UUs and Methodists versus Southern Baptists?).

2016 -- Goddessites have strong media presence, now.

2017 -- Several distinct Goddess "Sects" are now well known (probably several Wiccan, a few Druidic, others based on Carol Christ's brand of Goddess worship)

2018 -- First National Goddess Conferences held -- with strong media coverage.

2019 -- Across the planet, self-proclaimed Goddess worshippers now number in the millions.

2020 -- Lol, the first Goddess-themed soap operas air, across the world, in all countries: As Gaia Turns; Search for Inanna; Love of Isis; and All My Children: The Goddess Version

2021 -- Half the members of Congress are Goddessians (Goddessites? Goddessers?)

2022 -- History books cite the 2005 movie "Bewitched" as a crude but significant early event on the road to the rise of Goddess religion.

2023 -- A "Let's Start Over Pact" is signed by Israel and Palestine, since both countries now realize that their former animosities were initiated and fueled by their old, outmoded beliefs in warrior gods.

2024 -- Iraq, which is just now beginning to recover from the 2005 U.S. invasion, is the last Muslim country to replace Allah with The Goddess Inanna. (Hee)

2025 -- The Mother's Revolution begun by internet bloggers in 2007 is now 18 years old. Millions of babies born in 2007 were secretly taught Goddess religion (= peace), and all of them would refuse to fight in any war -- even if one were proposed, which it isn't, since Godfather religion is gone from the world. Ninety percent of the world either worships Goddess/es, or are atheist/agnostic.

Goddess Women RISING

Here's a group to keep an eye on: The Re-formed Congregation of the Goddess, International.

Located in Wisconsin, they appear to be an exceedingly well organized (and well funded?) Goddess association. They sponsor a "Women's Theological Institute" that ordains Goddess professionals:

"Held in many locations in North America, the Women’s Thealogical Institute is a way for women to learn, practice and share their spiritual work with others on related paths. It contains three programs of self-directed spiritual development activities...."

They also offer ongoing activities, workshops and seminars, as well as membership:

"Women's religion is gathering strength as each woman who shares this religious perspective makes the commitment to become a member and find her own ways to celebrate and serve the Goddess.... Working together we can create a vehicle for the embodiment of the thoughts and ideals of Goddess women. You are invited to add your name to the thousands of other women who have joined the Congregation ...."

I'm going to join, and also add them to my list of "Good Sites" to the right.

Goddess HOLY WAR #2

Over the past few days there's been a rousing discussion regarding the July 29th post on this blog, "Goddess HOLY WAR." I promised a summary, and here it is (in quotes are the original questions posed):

"What if at least 50% of the world truly understood, on a deep-gut level, that before God the Father, during God-the-Mother times, we humans lacked war, violence, poverty, slavery, social divisions, hierarchy, hunger, and ennui?

Morgaine said this is "a necessary leap" that needs to be made before a Goddess "Reawakening" (to use her term) occurs. lisa thought that gods are a symptom not a cause of the war, violence & social divisions that hit the human species after gods ousted Goddess.

"Would it be best to call such a conflict a holy war, a crusade, or a revolution? Or would that make any difference?

andygrrl went with "revolution," but thought any war term went against the entire concept of Goddess religion. Morgaine preferred "reawakening."

"Could Ghandi teach us anything?

No one answered this question.

"Could we win something nonviolent?"

Morgaine thought that we would not be able to work with men in a Goddess Holy War/Revolution/Reawakening, and that although a revolution could be nonviolent at first, it would turn violent when men saw there was no other way to preserve their power.

What if we were fairly certain we had only two choices: a Goddess Holy War, or the annihilation of the human species. Would kind of power and energy might that give us? Give others?

lisa: every revolutionary thinks there are only two choices. Although Morgaine didn't answer this question directly, she seems to be saying that the certainty has given her great energy and power.

"How could the internet be used?

Morgaine: Education. Networking. Sharing information, organizing actions.... Allows us ... to connect with other Goddess women, to bring the Goddess up from the collective unconscious into full blown consciousness.

andygrrl: Since the internet might not be sustainable in the future, we should use it now but also act locally as well.

OTHER THINGS SAID

andygrrl: The Goddess must be ready to step in when the gods fall.

lisa? If I'm reading her correctly, lisa seems to think that a Goddess Revolution may be counterproductive. On the other hand, she also said, "Lol, if Morgaine were to knock on my door, hand me the instruction manual for a cannon, and say "the Revolution starts tomorrow, 8am sharp," I'll totally be there!"


Morgaine:

A key is getting people to grok the Gaia Hypothesis, i.e., that the earth supporting them is a living female.

Another key is solidarity. Getting women to stand together. The threat to Roe v. Wade could be used as a rallying point around which we could unite women. A three-day work strike by all pro-choice women.

Need to educate people in the history of matriarchy. Need to get them to see that violence is not a natural part of being human.

Need to become more vocal about our Goddess religion, and more demanding that our religion be included.

Need to get other feminists over their "embarrassment" of Goddess spirituality.

Matriarchy Conference in Sept.

Just found this invitation in my mailbox. Morgaine, have you heard of this group before? Sounds very, very interesting. I can't believe they found this many speakers who feel their indigenous societies are (or were) woman-centered!

Of course there's that old theory that goes like this: since 99.99% of anthropologists were male (up until recently), they "found" what they were looking for, i.e., male domination. Early missionaries and explorers, too, were male, and would refuse to speak to a leader if she was a she (so the theory goes), demanding instead to speak to a man. In some groups, this would have elevated the status of men (to be considered superior by these "superior" people with all the technological goodies.... My, my!).

----- Original Message -----
From: Vicki Noble
To: vicki@motherpeace.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 3:42 PM


Dear Motherpeace Friend:

Please don't miss this opportunity to participate in an historic discussion and sharing about ancient and contemporary societies that function from a woman-centered, egalitarian point of view--providing a peaceful and harmonious vision of what is possible. Hear indigenous voices explaining in their own words what it is like to live in a bonafide matriarchal world.
The conference (thanks to its generous donor and co-sponsor, Gen Vaughan) is free to participants who register to attend.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Blessings, Vicki Noble


The Second World Congress on Matriarchal Studies

SOCIETIES OF PEACE
Matriarchal societies past and present.
Matriarchal spirituality. Matriarchal policy.

Sept. 29 - Oct. 2, 2005
Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas

Presented by the Center for the Study of the Gift Economy, USA and
the International Academie HAGIA, Germany.

Contrary to the common prejudice which sees matriarchies as “women's rule”
these societies have real gender-egalitarian, consensus-based and peaceful
traditions. Their cultural genius can give the guidelines for a better future.
Please come to this groundbreaking congress which will bring together
speakers from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America with a special
invitation to indigenous women and men from matriarchal societies worldwide.

Speakers:Yvette Abrahams, Khoekhoe, Khoisan Zaire, South Africa
Jeanette Armstrong, Syilx,Okanagan, Canada
Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Germany
Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, Italy/USA
Hélène Claudot-Hawad, France
Doña Enriqueta Contreras, Oaxaca, Mexico
Susan Gail Carter, USA
Wilhelmina J. Donkoh, Akan, Ghana, West Africa
Max Dashu, USA
Kurt Derungs, Switzerland
Malika Grasshoff, Kabyle, Berber, North Africa/France/Germany
Heide Göttner-Abendroth, Germany
Lamu Gatusa (Shi Gaofeng), Mosuo, China
Fatimata welet Halatine, Imajaghen (Tuareg), Sahara, N. Africa
Kaarina Kailo, Finland
Cécile Keller, Switzerland
Annette Kuhn, Germany
Uschi Madeisky, Germany
Barbara Mann, Bear Clan of the Ohio Seneca, Iroquois, USA
Ibu Ita Malik, Minangkabau, Sumatra, Indonesia
Joan Marler, USA
Bernadette Muthien, Khoekhoe, Khoisan, Zaire, South Africa
Patricia Mukhim, Khasi, Northwest India
Christa Mulack, Germany
Vicki Noble, USA
Antje Olowaili, Germany
Gad A. Osafo, Akan, Ghana, West Africa
Peggy Reeves Sanday, USA
Marguerite Rigolioso, USA
Lydia Ruyle, USA
Rosa Martha Toledo, Juchiteca, Mexico
Mililani Trask, Hawaii
Tamanese, Maori, Samoa
Genevieve Vaughan, USA
Claudia von Werlhof, Austria

Please register now at

www.second-congress-matriarchal-studies.comor
(512) 444-1672
Co sponsored by California Institute for Integral Studies Women's Spirituality Program, Indigenous Women's Network, Institute for Archaeomythology, Reformed Church of the Goddess International, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

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Thnx to ncrotty for the foto

GODS: SYMPTOMS? or Causes?

I'm going to pick on Lisa again today; Lisa I hope you don't mind, too much. It's just that you're bringing up so many good points!

LISA: "Since male war gods are symptoms, I think it's a fruitless waste of time to go after something that will just manifest as something else once we've misdirected our collective energies upon it."

ATHANA: Well said! And of course that's an entirely different way to look at it. Male gods as symptoms, not causes of the woes of the world. And it would be a waste of time to fight a symptom versus a cause. But I do think you have it backwards. I do think male gods are the cause of our ills. I do think that if we excised them and put female deity back where it belongs, that things would slowly right themselves.

LISA: "... It's too superficial for me to accept that 3000 BCE + sudden male gods = war."

ATHANA: But why do things have to be complex?

And of course you know that it wasn't 3000 BCE everywhere. The time period varied depending on where you were, from about 4000 or 5000 BC, on down to the ADs in some areas.

Here's a major theory which I'll try to explain simply & briefly (and leaving out all the details and qualifications): Small, select, and culturally backward groups (mentally ill people perhaps outcast from society? Men genetically predisposed to violence -- with that extra Y [?] chromosome?) discovered iron and how to use it to make weapons. They also domesticated the horse and used it as a war weapon. These two discoveries, of course, gave them a distinct advantage over everyone else in town. These outcast societies grew. They wanted the things the goddess societies had, but didn't know how to produce them. (The steps I'm describing didn't necessarily happen in the order I'm giving them, and I'm thinking about the spiral analogy you posted on this blog a while ago....)

Anyhoo, these culturally backward people wanted the things the complex societies had, so they just began swiping them -- with the help of their new metal and animal war weapons, that is. The name we've given these peoples is "Indo-Europeans." I know there's discussion over whether the IEs took over violently or peacefully. But does it matter? If you're staring at a horde of hairy men sitting on the backs of big beasts and brandishing weapons you know could knock your teeth down your throat in a twinkling, are you going to ask questions?!?

But take over they did, there's no doubt about that. The proof? For one, all of us in Europe and India today speak "Indo-European" languages! And these Indo-Europeans, who swamped out the Goddess peoples, worshipped male gods. I haven't read it, but here's a book with an instructive title: The War of the Gods: The Social Code in Indo-European Mythology (International Library of Anthropology), Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd.

What follows is an excerpt from a page by a Stanford University professor. The guy writes about the pattern I'm talking about. It's the same pattern you find all over Europe and the Middle East several thousand years ago. At first there's peace and the good life. The language has no words for war or king. Evidence shows there's probably a democratic form of government. What the author leaves out (they always do!) is that it is Goddesses not gods who are being worshipped at this point. I need to admit right here, however, that this professor teaches geotechnical engineering at Stanford, and I would ordinarily look for something else, but my computer is on the fritz tonight.

Okay, then BANG (I'm shouting, now, LOL): "Around 3000 BC" all this is overturned. No more easygoing life where everyone's equal. Suddenly there's "social stratification" and some people are much better than others, others are at the bottom of the heap. Suddenly democracy disappears. Kings pop up out of nowhere. Armies suddenly materialize. Art deteriorates. And new powerful male gods arrive on the same train with all these other goodies (also not mentioned below-- it rarely is):

"3000 BC. Sumerians in Mesopotamia. By late fourth millenium [BC] a network of Sumerian towns has developed in lower Mesopotamia of which perhaps the best known is Uruk.... The first known written documents appear at Uruk's Level IV along with representations of priestly figures. Absence of ideograms associated with war, king, and palace along with other evidence suggest a democratic and peaceable society engaged in trade to cities in the upper Euphrates, enjoying the pleasures of beer, fish, and sex, advised by sages and teachers and making exquisite pottery and engaging in diplomacy with neighboring cities. Evidently this changed sometime around 3000 BC with the arrival of strong social stratification, kings, and armies. Sumerians have moved from Eastern Anatolia bringing a new language and advanced culture to the existing Ubaidian peoples who have already started developing population centres in the lower Tigris Euphrates."

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And you see this same pattern -- described here for the Sumerians -- happening in India, in other parts of the Middle East, in Egypt, in the Mediterranean, and in Europe: Goddesses*PEACE, followed by gods*WAR.

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Thnx to levi sz for the foto

WHO IS Athana?

Since I entertained today, I don't have much of a post. A big part of the problem is that I've developed "blogger's house" -- a domicile abandoned to dust, dirt, and dog hair. Especially if you blog, you can appreciate the time it took to repair the damage before the guests toddled up to my door at 5 PM.

I've decided therefore to treat you to a little personal information about me, Athana.

I've been studying goddess history and archaeology for almost fifteen years, with academic degrees in anthropology and prehistory (the archaeology of people without written records). As an anthropology doctoral student, my major areas of interest were religion and mental health. I've written the first (very rough) draft of a book about reviving Goddess spirituality.

Years before grad school -- and even before college -- I accidentally stumbled across the Minoans for the first time. I still remember the thrilling frisson that shimmered through my body. Why, I marveled, hadn't my teachers ever mentioned these remarkable people -- people not only as technologically advanced in 1700 BC as Europe in 1700 AD, but also exquisitely artistic, playful, wealthy, sensual, non-violent and full of long-term peace?!? I also, however, remember feeling something delicious: here was a verbotten people who promised utter enchantment....

My questions: why didn't my teachers mention these paragons? I have some possible answers: 1) The bare breasted Minoan women embarrassed the heck outa them (the teachers). 2) The Minoans worshipped a Goddess instead of a god. 3) The Minoans were everything a good god person musn't be: at home with their bodies, playful, sensual, wealthy. 4) Deep down, we god people aren't really interested in people who eschew war; they bore us.

What do you think?