MOBILE PHONES, BEES, AND Witches

Heard the stuff about cell phones bumping off the bees? Here's an interesting take on the issue:

What if we all decided not to work on the assignment of blame, as the dominator culture would like us to spend our time doing, and instead, like witches who threaten the established mentality by not only thinking outside the box but sometimes using it as a container instead of a cage...

what if we forsook blame and began to seek how we can help the bees, both escaped and wild, and the other members of the body of the Goddess,such as, not cutting down the apple trees and laying out asphalt, planting flowers that are bee, hummingbird, and butterfly friendly (a hard task because you can't sell bees, hummingbirds or butterflies, so this is a waste of time and space and an offense against capitalism)

and the ultimate offense: don't buy anything you don't need. if you need a cellphone, buy it. If you don't need a really fancy upscale phone and the old one still connects you with friends and family, keep the old one. Ditto for the car. Ditto (a wonderful goddess who makes more of a good thing) for the new "whatever" that you buy only to assure yourself that you still have some choice left in the world.

the mainstream culture does not like women who say no, especially when asked to hand over her money.

witches bend reality, remember that one? It's not hard when what we are supposed to believe is reality is actually a manipulation technique that was cooked up in the knot on the upper end of the patriarchal neck.

Rainbow bubble ecstasies to us all,

nancy r

~From the rcgi (reformed congregation of the goddess international) news group

Bully ON THE BLOCK

The VA Tech story is plastered all over our news to blind us to two gaping holes just shot into our national landscape:

(1) Partial-birth abortions made illegal last week. So now, if you need an abortion to save your life, too bad, sucka. Die, girl, die!

(2) Six fired US Attorneys: Why’d the White House fire them? Because they were investigating friends of the White House. Last Thursday the Senate grilled the firer, Mr. Alberto Gonzales. Did the mainstream news cover it? Hahaha, hardy har har!

Imagine: your sixth-grade class bully can fire teachers and principals he doesn’t like. After which he hires dudes who, while he bullies you, promise to look the other way.
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Thnx to jassi nain23 for the foto

VIRGINIA TECH Deaths

Why are we mourning for Virginia Tech as if the sun had died? Haven’t the Mother’s children been dying dirty deaths all month and all year? Aren’t Her children our children?

In Iraq our children died and still die dirty deaths, in Darfur our children died and still die damnable deaths, in New Orleans our children died and are still dying ugly deaths.

So I was a bit taken aback to see the news saturated with these few Virginia deaths when so many have been ignored.

THE GODDESS Pandora

And you thought Pandora a mere woman and the root of all our troubles! It's called "smear campaign" -- as the following excerpts from Jane Ellen Harrison show:

"Jane Ellen Harrison* turned to the repertory of vase-painters to shed light on aspects of myth that were left unaddressed or disguised in [Greek] literature. The story of Pandora was repeated on Greek ceramics.

"On a fifth-century amphora [vase] in the Ashmolean Museum ... the half-figure of Pandora emerges from the ground, her arms upraised in the epiphany gesture, to greet Epimetheus. A winged ker with a fillet hovers overhead: ‘Pandora rises from the earth; she is the Earth, giver of all gifts,’ Harrison observes.

"On another vase showing the fashioning of Pandora she is inscribed with her alternative name: [A]nesidora (‘who sends up gifts’). ‘Pandora is a form or title of the Earth-goddess in the Kore form, entirely humanized and vividly personified by mythology,’ Harrison notes (p. 281).

"[Harrison] quotes a scholium on a passage of Aristophanes mentioning a sacrificed white-fleeced ram to Pandora: ‘to Pandora, the earth, because she bestows all things necessary for life’.

"Thus Harrison concludes ‘in the patriarchal mythology of Hesiod her [Pandora's] great figure is strangely changed and minished. She is no longer Earth-Born, but the creature, the handiwork of Olympian Zeus’ (Harrison, p 284)."

Go HERE for more.
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*Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion
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No, the above pic isn't Pandora. I couldn't find a good pic of Pandora. The above is the Minoan Goddess found on a wall painting on the island of Santorini.

IMPEACHMENT Isn't ENOUGH

If we can’t persuade people to stop pounding on others, our only choice is to box them away where they can’t pound. Far from being ugliness or revenge, this is plain commonsense.

Since George W. Bush and Company have hurt, maimed, tortured and killed millions -- and continue to do so -- through not one but many avenues of ugliness – we must box them up.

Through their anti-environmental actions, through their love of fighting over talking it out, through their crushing of our U.S. Constitution and government, through their inability to put themselves into the shoes of others and to see the needs of the seventh generation, they have pushed us to our limits.

Their thumbing their noses at the environment might have pushed the Earth over the edge. As duff wrote yesterday, “…some climatologists predict: ‘...before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of humans that survive will be in the arctic region where the climate remains tolerable.’ THE REVENGE OF GAIA, by James Lovelock, 2005.”

The Great Earth Mother speaks: Now is the time to rope Bush & Co., hog tie them, and drop them behind bars. If and when they show clear signs of rehab, then and only then should we untie them.

For the love of humanity, is there anyone out there with enough courage and intelligence to get these people put away where can’t blow billions of us off in an easy afternoon’s romp through the power halls of the planet?

DEMOCRACY Under YAJ?

Is democracy possible for nations thickly under the thumb of Jehovah, Allah or Yahweh ? Elie Elhadj says "Not!":

"Elie Elhadj, Ph.D., explains why … a democratic Arab-Muslim {American} nation is nothing but fantasy. "Arab {American} people obey a hierarchical authority…. Muslim Arab {American} political and religious leaders raise … Islam {Christianity} in a shield against democracy … to protect their power.

Constant preaching by Islam's {America’s} religious leaders, instructing Muslims {Americans} to blindly obey their leaders, has created an attitude of political quietism in regard to the tyranny of Arab rulers {pResident George W. Bushlet}…."

Shamelessly adapted from a book review of The Islamic Shield: Arab Resistance to Democratic and Religious Reforms, by Elie Elhadj. Go HERE to see the entire review
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Thnx to bloggerheads.com for the foto

CHRISTIANS Causing GLOBAL WARMING?

Once upon a time, we all knew the Earth was our Mother. We worshipped Her as sacred deity. Then yaj the Jealous* roared into town on his Harlie.

He bellowed, “Mother Earth is dirt!” He jerked his index finger at humans and said, “You! ‘Subdue’ Her.”**

Feast your eyes on a few synonyms Microsoft Word keeps in its synonym drawer for 'subdue': ‘crush,’ ‘subjugate,’ ‘defeat.’

To Christians the Earth is a pitiful pile of dirt so dangerous it needs to be kept under lock and key. Oh – but it’s a handy place to throw all your kadiddle and dung.

MY QUESTION: If the world had never known christianity, islam and/or judaism, would we today be facing death by global warming?
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*yaj is yahweh/allah/jehovah, who pretends to be three different gods, but is really one. His other name is Jealous (“[T]he LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Exodus 34: 14)[yEAH, gO rEAD THE bIBLE -- hE rEALLY dOES sHOUT oUT hiS nAME lIKE tHAT]

**27 “So God created man …, male and female he created them…. 28 God … said to them … ‘Fill the earth and subdue it.’" Genesis 1: 27-28
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Thnx to clio girl for the foto

Catalhouyuk GODDESS

Go HERE for an excellent photo of the seated Goddess of Catalhoyuk -- the one on the throne flanked by lions (or leopards). It's taken in the museum in Ankara where She now resides.

What you see here is only a small version of the real photo, which is at pbase.com.

Under THE THUMB OF WOMEN

Yesterday, Bes wrote:

“You're right, we do need to throw out the entire judeo-christian system but my fear is that to replace it with a matriarchal system would be a new face to the same thing…. Peace to you, Bes”

Thanks Bes for your thots.

It seems your hidden assumption is that a Guiding Mother Goddess would drop men under the thumbs of women.

Not.

Healthy mothers don’t stand aside while sisters sit on brothers. Likewise a Guiding Mother deity wouldn’t allow her human daughters to throw around her human sons – or vice versa. Like all healthy mothers, She teaches us to treat each other with unconditional love and regard.

Bes, I don’t think pantheons of co-equal male and female gods would produce equality among humans. As you’ve pointed out, men and women have different skills – and mothers rule when it comes to role-modeling for all of us.

It’s hard to imagine this new world I’m painting -- we’re so steeped (imagine a tea bag in hot water) in our violent, winner-take-all, me-first bully world of sexually-uptight boot-lickers.
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Thnx to EnBee for the foto

COUSIN DORIS Complained YESTERDAY

Ah, family! Cousin Doris complained yesterday that I’m horrid and heartless.

“The very democracy you claim to defend,” she says, “you want to give to everyone EXCEPT the Christians. You want to tear us down in any way that you can---and don't even deny it.”

“Dear Doris,” I replied. “No, I don't deny it. I'd adore it if Christianity were deep-sixed.

“Notice I didn't say ‘Christians deep-sixed.’ My religion doesn't spin tales about how others will be treated to zillions of years of torture after ‘good’ people are ‘raptured’ up to heaven.

“It's simple, Dorrie: you're worshiping the same primitive god Osama bin Laden does. Think upon it: your bible men strut around in Osama's pretty desert skirts, his turbans, his beard, on his desert sands, and with his tantrum-throwing, two-year-old-baby 'god' at their sides.

“Give him up, Dorrie, and dance on over here to our side. Let’s fight that baby-god sucker together, and clean up the planet.”

“Love,
“Athana”
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thnx to jawahar2006 for the foto

THE MOON Hare's EGGS

Well, Dears, what are your Easter wishes this year?

Mine: The Bush Crime Family impeached and put behind bars for forever and ever, amen; Nancy Pelosi bringing the War to a screeching halt, may the Goddess Oestre see to it all toute suite, so be it, amen and amen again!

Blessings to all of you, and don’t forget: if you’re good this spring, the Moon Hare will lay many golden eggs for you!
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thnx to hunny for the foto

APRIL IN Maine

When the Goddess handed out Spring, Maine was at the tail end of the line.

BETTER OFF without RELIGION?

"The motion was: 'We'd be better off without religion.' On his side [Richard Dawkins the author of The God Delusion] were Professor AC Grayling and Christopher Hitchens. Against were Baroness Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton and Nigel Spivey. The incomparable Joan Bakewell was in the chair. At these debates, styled along the lines of Oxford and Cambridge debates but disappointingly less hecklesome, a vote is taken at the start and another at the end."

So who won? Go HERE to see

Of course as I've argued before, no one in any modern complex society can argue against Goddess religion -- 'cause no modern complex society has ever tried it before. And Richard Dawkins poor man is steeped in religion up to his eyeballs. His is called "Science."
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Thnx to claymor for the foto

I’M JUST Asking

“NEW YORK (AP) -- An anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ infuriated Catholics and even led to threats, but the artist says offers to buy or exhibit the piece have been pouring in.” MORE >>>>

I don’t get it. Nobody gets exercised when viewing an “anatomically correct” [i.e., nude] sculpture of Goddess. What's up with Jesus's body? Some physical defect Daddy God's hidden from us all these years? Are Catholics ashamed of J's beautiful body?

HIGH SCHOOL Hot SHOT

Anne over at The Gods Are Bored has a sad, Daddy-War-God tale to tell (aren’t they all). This one’s about her daughter The Heir and the same high-school hot shot we all went to high school with:

The Heir goes to a posh Blue Ribbon School where you're dirt if you're not smart and good at sports. The Heir's class is dominated by a golden boy I'll call Adonis. Adonis is a multi-sport phenomenon, an accomplished artist, girls swoon over him (Heir excepted), teachers suck up to him, he's in the National Honor Society ... and he made a film for the festival [which the Heir also entered, with her film "Static Bliss"].



Festival hour arrives. Five students are present to view "Static Bliss." But when word gets out that Adonis's film is about to air, a couple dozen "populars" file in to watch the Adonis offering. Which, of course to these adult eyes writing this entry, was nothing more than a self-indulgent, glitzy techno-snobbery, poorly filmed and pretentious.



It didn't help that the asshole teacher introduced Adonis's offering by saying, "Now, here's the one we've all been waiting for. It has proven to be very popular."



So Heir and I are sitting there watching this thing, and the substitute teacher in me starts deconstructing it. How did Adonis get free rein in the school to manipulate empty corridor lights and film in parts of the school that are off limits to students? When The Heir left a textbook at school one weekend the janitors wouldn't even let her in the door to go to her locker. Slurp slurp slurp! Someone's sucking up to Adonis big-time.



Didn't you go to school with one of these perfect pricks?



Anyway, Adonis's film just crushed the poor Heir flat. When it was over, she left the room, rushed out of the school, dashed her VHS with "Static Bliss" on the ground, and tore into the park. I let her go. Sometimes we just need to walk off our anger, don'tcha know?



When I got home myself, though, she was sitting in the living room weeping. Mr. Johnson and I just couldn't get her calmed. It sure didn't help that she was preaching to the choir when she said that no matter how hard some people work on perfecting their visions, their efforts go completely unappreciated by the boobs and morons who populate the globe.

MORE >>>>

Babies, heres’ the good news: We don’t hafta put up with Adonises spilling their goo all over us and our high schools. Adonises are a product of the Daddy-War-God machine, in which everybody’s ranked, and competition smells up the halls like dead fish moldering for many moons or more. When we finally switch from Daddy-War God back to the Great Mother, we’ll be free of the Adonises of the world – I promise.



Here’s why: Healthy mothers love us unconditionally. (It’s probably biological, so they don’t get a whole lot of credit for it). But anyhoo, if we had Mother as our archetypal role model, we’d all love each other unconditionally too, no strings attached. First, we wouldn’t even have contests that only one can win and everyone else has to go cry their eyes out over, cause they lost.



Second, girls and boys would be equal (as they are in the eyes of all healthy moms). Third, all kids’d be equal -- rich or poor, plug-ugly or knock-down gorgeous, in mum’s eyes we’re all knock-out fab.



“Smart and good at sports” won’t make mom love us
more than “dumb with two left feet.”


So let’s hear it for dumping the War Gods and bringing back the Unconditional-Love Goddess!

TEETH-Rattling TERRIFIED

As many of you know, most older feminists seem teeth-rattling terrified of the Great Mother Goddess. Ms Rosemary Radford Ruether is no exception. Below is a peek at part of a pack-it-to-‘em review of her latest book, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine*. At the way-bottom of the post is a very rough reminder of when all the various "Ages" happened (Neolithic, etc.).

“Ruether totally denies the Goddess of the relatively peaceful and healthy Neolithic and devotes almost her entire book to those goddesses that haunted the hellish Bronze and subsequent ages, all of which have been defined by war, conquest, subjugation, social ranking and poverty - right up to the present day.

“Ruether doesn't seem to want to get to the truth in this book….. A big part of her agenda: We hafta hide the Neolithic Goddess because this goddess will hurt women. She says the Neolithic goddess 'duplicates what I suspect is one of the key roots of the need of males to dominate females -- namely, it identifies women predominantly as the representatives of the "natural." If women, and women alone, personify the forces of nature in the cycles of birth and death, either they need to be dominated by men in order to control these forces of nature, or they are the primary gender that will somehow "save" us from the destructive effects of millennia of male domination of nature' (pp. 39-40).

“…There's no reason to believe that a strong Neolithic goddess meant women and only women personified nature, or that there were no male gods anywhere in the time/culture period. Does Ruether have a time machine? Did she go back and check?

“I'm afraid Ruether's speaking old-speak. Younger women today know that just because women give birth doesn't mean men see them as mere bodies walking around with no heads, abilities, capabilities, or important place in the larger world.”

MORE >>>>

A VERY VERY ROUGH IDEA OF WHEN ALL THE ‘AGES’ HAPPENED

Paleolithic Age: roughly, before 10,000 BC
Neolithic Age: roughly 10,000 – 3,000 BC
Bronze Age: roughly 3000 BC til whenever you began using iron (it’s different in different places)
Iron Age: This has lasted up to the present, but I guess you could say some of us shifted into the Steel Age at points along the way.

I left out a lot of little Ages, like the Calcolithic, Eneolithic, Upper and Lower Palaeolithic, etc. But I'll let you look those up on your own.

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*U. of Cal Press 2006
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thnx to fang for the foto

TIME FOR Burying TIME CAPSULES?

I think we all need to bury time capsules in our back yards. That way, in 6000 years, when the nuclear fallout has finally wafted away, the lone human individual on earth can dig up our messages, read what we wrote, and begin again –- this time with Goddess at the helm. Plus a strong wariness against any War-Gods who roar into town on Harlies.
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thnx to PanamaJack for the foto

FROG IN THE Pot

These days, like the frog in the water pot sitting on the fire, we’re callous to the unthinkable. So another war – Iran this time? – nuclear? – doesn’t faze us. Nor does WWIII with us and the Brits getting slammed to the mat by a tight circle of Chinese (1/5 of humanity), Russians, French and Iranians.

So who gives a fig if WWIII starts next week?

"Operation Bite: April 6 sneak attack by US forces against Iran planned, Russian military sources warn
By Webster G. Tarpley
Online Journal Contributing Writer

"WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov…. Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.

"The attack is slated to last for 12 hours, … 4 AM until 4 PM local time. Friday is the Sabbath in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories…."

MORE >>>>>
EVEN MORE >>>>>

So – Planet of the Apes. Who cares. All we can do is what we can do. All I ask is that we arrange things so that when the new human race begins again, they’re aware of the deadly dangers of even having lunch with any War Gods who ride into town.

As might be obvious, I’m feeling a touch cynical this morning. But if ya have any ideas ‘bout what to do here, please. Fill me in.
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Thnx to duff for pointing me to the first article
& thnx to geotrac for the foto

GODDESS Utopia

Two recent emails to my new Goddess Group (which is flowing right along – next week we’ll gather for the fifth month in a row):

“For years, now, a virtual war has been raging over the issue of ancient matriarchy. The warriors: theologians, archaeologists, feminists and prehistorians, primarily. I’ve thought about this less in terms of matriarchy than utopianism. When societies revolved around female deity, they tended to be more peaceful, less socially stratified and more democratic. And 'social stratification' covers a whole multitude of sins -- from sexism, racism and ageism to classism, slavery, poverty and so forth.”

“Goddess devotees have been tricked into believing a Goddess utopia didn’t exist. Many powerful forces want us to believe it didn’t. The fact is, however, much of the evidence suggests it did.”
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thnx to Young and flickr for the foto

TIME TO Party ON DOWN?

Duff thinks it's time we formed a Goddess Party (no, not the kind with Champaign and party favors -- the kind that boxes the Reps and the Dems about the ears).

Whaddya think? Is it time yet?
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thnx to awesome joolie for the foto