Thursday, December 24, 2009

NEW BLOCKBUSTER Stars MOTHER GODDESS

In the new 3D blockbuster film Avatar, the good guys worship the Great Mother Goddess Eywa!

Finally -- a film with some real religion in it.

I know it’s late, but if you still haven’t zeroed in on that perfect holiday gift for that special someone, BUY HER/HIM A TICKET to Avatar! (Mercy, buy tickets for that un-special someone. Buy tickets for everyone on your block. This is a film everyone needs to see. Take it from your Auntie Athana!)

Monday, December 21, 2009

Wishing YOU ALL A GODDESS-FILLED WINTER SOLSTICE!


A few Winter Solstice Goddesses:
Alcyone (Greek): Alcyone is the Kingfisher goddess. She nests every winter for two weeks, and while she does, the wild seas become calm and peaceful.
Ameratasu (Japan): In feudal Japan, worshippers celebrated the return of Ameratasu, the sun goddess, who slept in a cold, remote cave. When the other gods woke her with a loud celebration, she looked out of the cave and saw an image of herself in a mirror. The other gods convinced her to emerge from her seclusion and return sunlight to the universe.
Bona Dea (Roman): This fertility goddess was worshipped in a secret temple on the Aventine hill in Rome, and only women were permitted to attend her rites. Her annual festival was held early in December.
Cailleach Bheur (Celtic): In Scotland, she is also called Beira, the Queen of Winter. She is the hag aspect of the Triple Goddess, and rules the dark days between Samhain and Beltaine.
Demeter (Greek): Through her daughter, Persephone, Demeter is linked strongly to the changing of the seasons and is often connected to the image of the Dark Mother in winter. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, Demeter's grief caused the earth to die for six months, until her daughter's return..
Frau Holle (Norse): Frau Holle appears in many different forms in Scandinavian mythology and legend. She is associated with both the evergreen plants of the Yule season, and with snowfall, which is said to be Frau Holle shaking out her feathery mattresses.
Frigga (Norse): Frigga honored her son, Baldur, by asking all of nature not to harm him, but in her haste overlooked the mistletoe plant. Loki fooled Baldur's blind twin, Hod, into killing him with a spear made of mistletoe but Odin later restored him to life. As thanks, Frigga declared that mistletoe must be regarded as a plant of love, rather than death.
La Befana (Italian): This character from Italian folklore is similar to St. Nicholas, in that she flies around delivering candy to well-behaved children in early January. She is depicted as an old woman on a broomstick, wearing a black shawl.
Spider Woman (Hopi): Soyal is the Hopi festival of the winter solstice. It honors the Spider Woman and the Hawk Maiden, and celebrates the sun's victory over winter's darkness

~from the article "Thanks to Deities of the Winter Solstice,”
by Patti Wigington

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Thanx to Oriana.Italy for the pic; go here to see more.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Keeping COMPANY WITH A GNAT’S EYEBROW

Lou Engle, a big YAJ* dude (Jehovah followers think he’s metacool), is actually telling Christians to martyr themselves in the name of anti-abortion. As in, “be willing to die” for the "cause."

He’s also shouting about a 2nd American Civil War – Abortion-Rights dudes in the left corner, and Right-to-Lifers – where else? -- in the right. (Pssst! Don’t tell anyone, but I think he means ‘war’ with real guns and live ammunition….)

And here’s a comforting bit of news: biggie Republicans in Congress are actually being seen with this gnat’s eyebrow (Sam Brownback, Jim DeMint, and Michele Bachman, for starters).

Thnx to Rachel Maddow for the tip on this situation. Check out dailykos for MORE >>>>>
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YAJ is short for Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah, who many think is three separate deities, but who is really just one god -- the god of Abraham.

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a big round of applause to astrophotography for the foto of the gnat's eyebrow.

CULTURE WARS: WHO Killed BABY JESUS?

Action star Mr. Chuck Norris says Obamacare woulda killed Baby Jesus.

Shooting back from the hip, Washington Post writer M. Kessler says Christian-dude Chuck Norris woulda killed Mary even before she’d delivered Jesus.

Afterall, Mary was an unwed mother. Before he’da let her give birth in his holy Christian manger, Chuck woulda let her freeze to death out on the plains.

Dudes, dudes, I say! Stop your sniping! Save your lovely breath! Nobody killed baby Jesus -- Jesus never existed!

Not one shred of evidence exists that a man named Jesus of Nazareth walked the planet from 1 to 32 AD. None. Nada.

As in zip, zero and zilch.

Posted by Athana
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thnx to okinawa soba for the pic; go HERE to see more

Monday, December 14, 2009

Striking A NERVE?

Why are so many suffering apoplexies over the simple notion that, in the past, the world might have revolved around goddesses?

Take, for example, Mr. Robert Sheaffer at “The Debunker’s Domain.” Mr. R.S. must have spent months -- if not years -- scouring the planet for every document he could scare up that might possibly besmirch the notion of Goddess.

For the best yucks, read all the way to the final article. In “Why Is the ‘Goddess Movement’ Being so Vehemently Promoted?” Mr. S. explains that it’s all a lesbian plot (to what? Turn him into a lesbian?).

Frankly, my dears, methinks mi’lady doth protest too much….
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Thnx to dogwelder for the foto; go HERE to see more of his work.
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P.S. For a refutation of nearly everything Mr. R.S. says, read Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, by Jeri Studebaker, 2009, O Books: Winchester, UK. You can put your hands on a copy of STG at almost any online bookstore.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

INTERNATIONAL Childless PEOPLE’S DAY

Since Mother Earth is suffocating under skanky loads of human flesh, doesn’t it follow that the world’s true heroes are our radically fab and super-cool childless men and women? Those who say, “No. I refuse to add to the refuse. I WILL not use my body to pound out more earth-polluting human flesh!"

In honor of these most awesome of the Earth’s awesome, I hereby dub today, December 10, “Childless Peoples’ Day.”

Thank you, fab Childless People, for working to wipe human-flesh pollution off the face of the Earth. You blow me away!

Of course parents are important too. Parents will pump out the people who’ll celebrate Childless People’s Day – kids who -- we all pray -- will become childless themselves one day.
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Thnx to fbako for the foto; go HERE to see more of her work.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

ANCIENT GODDESSES Score BIG

Yikes!

Two days ago, one of the biggest US newspapers ever – The New York Times –actually printed an article about that “little-known” Goddess culture, Old Europe!

And from what I understand, this article was plopped onto the front page of this Grandmama of all US newspapers!

According to the article, since Old European figurines, jewelry and other stuff are currently on display at New York University, Old Europe is now being “rescued from obscurity.”

‘Bout time, I say!

Of course the article is not without its flaws.

First, the author downplays the notion that women had power in Old Europe, or that the “ubiquitous” female figurines were – gasp! – goddesses (Oh no! Not scary goddesses!).

The explanation at the end of the article as to what these figurines “were” is a hoot. Don’t miss it! Apparently the author threw a bunch of words into a bag, shook hard, dumped the words, and then printed them out on paper.

The resulting paragraphs read like crow tracks rambling across a snow bank.

Second, a guy’s quoted saying the Old Europeans had a social hierarchy – you know, social classes, snooty snobs, and all that ick? Hafta give the author of the article credit, though. At least he clears his throat and voices a gigundo concern, namely this: if the Old Europeans had snooty snobs, why didn’t the snoots live in nicer houses than everyone else did?

Thing is, Old Europe *had* no “nicer” houses with “nicer” stuff in them. All the houses were equal, and plumped up with equally nice furniture, dishes, art, and so forth.

Well, enough of my rambling. Here for your reading pleasure, are a few snippets from the article, A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity, by John Noble Wilford, published November 30, 2009
Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade.

SNIP

Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.

SNIP

Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts [found from this culture] were the ubiquitous terracotta “goddess” figurines, originally interpreted [sic] as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.

SNIP

At its peak, around 4500 B.C., said David W. Anthony, the exhibition’s guest curator, “Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world” and was developing “many of the political, technological and ideological signs of civilization.”

A few towns of the Cucuteni people, a later and apparently robust culture in the north of Old Europe, grew to more than 800 acres, which archaeologists consider larger than any other known human settlements at the time.

SNIP

The concentration of imported prestige objects in a distinct minority of graves suggest that institutionalized higher ranks did exist,” exhibition curators noted in a text panel accompanying the Varna gold.

Yet it is puzzling that the elite seemed not to indulge in private lives of excess. “The people who donned gold costumes for public events while they were alive,” Dr. Anthony wrote, “went home to fairly ordinary houses.”

SNIP

An entire gallery is devoted to the [human and primarily female] figurines, the more familiar and provocative of the culture’s treasures. They have been found in virtually every Old Europe culture and in several contexts: in graves, house shrines and other possibly “religious spaces.”
Go HERE to read the entire article.
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The pic above shows a Cucuteni goddess figurine. She dates from 4045-3800 BC.