CLOWNING Around

 

Oh, oh, oh, here's an article we can use, "The Importance of Being Seriously Funny":

"The poet Czeslaw Milosz called humor the 'glory of the slaves' for good reason -- jokes are a secret weapon of the politically marginalized, and those in power are largely powerless to stop [them]...."

This article comes from the only magazine I currently get via snail mail, Peace Magazine out of Canada.

Read the whole article, you won't regret it! >>>

Joining the AU

Morgaine at The-Goddess has a very good point: "If you don't belong to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State - AU, for short - I really encourage you to join now. We need them to stay on the job." This was in response to the Indianapolis Wiccan activist who recently received a court order that he must "protect" his 9-year-old son from his (the activist's) "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

Go HERE to join the AU.

LOVE by 2025

Love 

In her post yesterday, SPIRAL CRONE describes a celebration honoring a friend's 40 years in the priesthood. At one point she says, "It is so affirming to be among people who honor and care for each other, ... for an individual to be surrounded by people who acclaim him and love him, publicly and enthusiastically."

I got excited! This is exactly what I want for us. A goal: by the year 2025, all of us following the Goddess Path will be "surrounded by people who honor and care for us, who acclaim us and love us, publicly and enthusiastically." Okay, there's the goal. Now. How do we get there?

That Devil, Peace

Thor/War. Isn't he just too cute? Couldn't ya just eat him up? 

Dear God, Give us this day our Daily War, and forgive us our Peace-thoughts, as we forgive those who think them against us. And lead us not to the temptation of the Peace Table, but deliver us from Evil, forevermore, Dear Lord, Amen.

Dear God, On this Memorial Day, please bring us more war. Only one of my nephews is serving You in Iraq, and I have three more fresh, young bodies to contribute (another nephew and two nieces). If you'd only give us a few more wars -- say, in North Korea or Iran? -- then maybe they could go and serve You too. Amen

God societies depend on brainwashing us to adore war. So forget about dumping war. It won't happen. Not as long as we glorify male gods.

PASSIVE Pagans

"... If being Pagan is a wonderful choice, why not lead others who are predisposed to it toward that choice?

"Part of it ... is political: high-profile Pagans don't want to become targets....

"But there's a larger theological issue here: no one wants to state categorically what Paganism is....

"Perhaps it's time to give Paganism a little more definition. Or ... to define a Goddess-centric practice ... that's tolerant, and yet militant about fighting the remaining strains of Biblical intolerance and puritanism....

"It wouldn't be a dogma, but a structure, an integration of tolerance with principle."

Go to Kensho Godchaser's weblog to read his complete thought-provoking post.

ANYTHING Jesus Did We CAN DO BETTER

Goddess 

Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes; so did the Goddess Demeter of Eleusis -- long before the time of Jesus.

Jesus turned wine into water; so did worshippers of Dionysus -- long before the time of Jesus.

Jesus healed the blind; so did priestesses at Ninevah -- long before the time of Jesus.

As a matter of fact, in Jesus' day, "Healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out devils, handling poisonous serpents, etc., were so commonplace that [the Roman scholar] Celsus scorned these 'Christian' miracles .... 'The magicians of Egypt cast out evil spirits [and] cure diseases by a breath .... But because they do such things shall we consider them the sons of God?'"

See Barbara Walker's lavishly documented The Women's Encyclopedia for more.

Where'd JESUS Get all Those HATS?!?

Statue of Jesus 

o He was called "King of Kings"; so was Dionysus -- long before him.
o He was called "Lamb of God"; so was Mot-Aleyin -- long before him.
o He was called "Light of the World"; so was Mithra -- long before him.
o He was called "The Good Shepherd"; so was Osiris -- long before him.
o He was called "Son of Man"; so was Vishnu -- long before him.
o He was called "Messiah"; so was Mithra -- well before him.

I could go on. Jesus was simply a stab at shifting the Great Mother's love into a male body. See Walker's abundantly documented The Women's Encyclopedia for more.
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Thnx to tlorien and stock.xchng for the photo

The Da Vinci Code REVISITED

Watched a special on Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code last night. Once again, TV "authorities" pretended -- as they always do -- that there once lived an actual man named "Jesus Christ," a dude who supposedly started his own religion and died on a cross.

I hate to break it to ya, but JESUS CHRIST never existed. The eastern Roman empire around 30 A.D. was crawling with "self-styled Christs and Messiahs," all calling themselves "Son of God" and all prophesying the end of the world. The word "Christ" simply meant "annointed one." It was a title used by Attis, Adonis, Tammuz, Osiris and other pagan gods too many to mention, all of them totally ancient dudes by 30 A.D. "Jesus" or "Iasus" was the name of one of Demeter's consorts sacrificed by Zeus.

One more nail in the coffin: No one living in 30 A.D. ever mentioned Iasus Christos. As a matter of fact, no one mentions him until the 4th century A.D., when the first New Testament writings appear.

Don't get me wrong -- I love this Iasus dude. In my humble opinion, though, he was stolen from the Goddess.

For more, see Barbara Walker's profusely documented The Women's Encyclopedia.

HOT BOOK #8: *Amazon: A Novel*

Amazon woman 

How would ancient Goddess women respond to modern violence? In Amazon: A Novel, Antiope the warrior woman is magically transported into the 20th century from her god/Goddess world -- and into a reality we think of as "normal."

Here's a sample scene.

"She handed him a bag. He pulled a bottle out of it, looked at it, and abruptly slapped the woman just as he had slapped the child. 'You stupid bitch,' he said. 'That ain't scotch, it's bourbon. I told you scotch.'

"He raised his hand again. The woman cowered against the car, expecting another blow, which never fell. By that time I had my sword out of the mailing tube, had spun the man around with an ankle shove to put him off balance, and had pinned him against the car with the point of my sword at his throat. 'Men not hit women and children,' I said.

"'Who the hell are you?' he demanded, glaring through bloodshot eyes. He was about to attack me. I shoved his shoulder back harder and gave his neck a little warning prick. Blood trickled down to his collar.

"'Men no hit women and children,' I repeated. 'Wrong.'

"'Mind your own goddamn business!' he shouted. I pricked him again. Then Diana was at my side, saying, 'Come on, Ann, you mustn't do this.' [Antiope's 20th-century rescuer Diana calls her "Ann"].

"'Damn right she mustn't do this!' the man blustered. 'Call a cop, you! Get her back to the bin where she belongs! What's she doing with that illegal weapon?'

"Ignoring everything, I said, 'You swear by whatever spirit you worship, never to hit women or children again -- else I kill you right here.'

"He stared into my eyes and realized that I meant it. By way of encouragement I let him feel my blade once more. His collar was now quite red. I saw him begin to tremble.

"'OK, lady, OK. Don't get excited.'

"'Swear,' I said, tensing my grip.

"'OK, I swear. I'll never hit anybody, so help me God. Satisfied?'

"I looked at his woman, who stood with her mouth open, holding on to a grocery bag. 'You remember,' I said. 'If he does criminal acts, I will find him.' She nodded without closing her mouth.

"I backed off slowly.

"When I released him, the man scrambled into his car and locked the door. The woman finished loading her groceries, watching me curiously. Then she got in beside the man and they drove away."

/////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Now, Antiope hails from a world as far distant from pure-Goddess societies* as she is from us. She lived in the days of the ancient Greeks -- at least 2,500 years after pure-Goddess peoples were stamped out by patriarchals. In pure-Goddess societies, swords were unknown. Be that as it may, this novel packs a punch in that it exposes the way in which we allow males to devastate women and children. No animal species does this. Neither do the so-called "simpler" societies. Only we patriarchals do it. And in a Goddess society, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be verbotten.

BTW, Amazon A Novel was written by the wonderful Barbara Walker.

Go HERE for more on Amazon. Buy a copy for as little as 85c.
____________
* By "pure-Goddess societies" I mean those with few if any gods. Examples: Catal Huyuk, ancient Crete, Marija Gimbutas' Old Europe, and the civilization historian Ian Wilson identifies in Before the Flood.

__________
Thanks to jynmeyer for the photo.

HOT Books

Hot 

Below is my list of HOT BOOKS. These are the books that helped mold me into the Goddess revolutionary I have become. I could recite their titles and authors in my sleep. If you're ready to join the god-to-Goddess Revolution, I'd recommend reading them:

When God Was a Woman (Merlin Stone)
The Chalice and the Blade (Riane Eisler)
The Great Cosmic Mother (Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor)
The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Barbara Walker)
Grandmother Time (Z Budapest)
The Spiral Dance (Starhawk)
Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood (Merlin Stone)
Amazon: A Novel (Barbara Walker)

From time to time I might explain why each book hit me so hard. I might even begin today, with "Amazon: A Novel."

RATTLING SABERS with Starhawk?

Starhawk 

What's your role in the god-to-Goddess revolution? Anything to help Starhawk would be a spiffy start! One of the major movers and shakers in the Goddess Movement, Starhawk will be entrenched in Scotland this summer rattling her saber at the G8 -- the eight most powerful nations in the world. In her own words:

"The G8 Summit, the meeting of the heads of state of the [G8], will take place in Gleneagles, Scotland July 6-8. Major protests are planned, and organizing has been underway ... for over a year....

"Urban convergence centers and a rural encampment will be designed to show a vision of the world we want.... Spiritual healing spaces and celebrations are being planned .... And, ... there will be ... a march expected to be the largest demonstration ever in Scotland....

Read More to see if there's anything you can do to help >>>

_____
Thanks to vindheim.net/myte/gudinner.html for the beautiful photo of Starhawk

Little KING GEORGE

Little King George & the Evangelicals 

LIGHTING A FIRE Under CNN

Where's your coverage of the Downing Street memo? 

According to this site, we should contact the media and ask why they're not covering the Downing Street memo (wanna know what the Downing Street memo is? Check out the site). So I sent this in to CNN today:

"Where's your coverage on the Downing Street memo? I'm beginning to spread the word that TV news has become not only worthless, but actually dangerous. Why? Because you dupe people into thinking they're getting the information they need to help run a democracy."

Yes, that was harsh. But in my humble opinion the mainstream media are scared silly of Karl Rove. They need a colossal shove to get them over their fright and on to doing their extraordinarily vital job -- acting as the Fourth Part of our system of checks & balances.

_________________
Much thanks to abecerra for the photo of the person trying to light a fire under CNN

Dear Atheists, P.S.:

Religion is not a choice of "to have or to have not." It's only a choice of "what kind."

ATHEISTS, I Love Ya!

32c worth of chemicals 


Like me, you're scared silly of God, and therefore dig deep for dirt on Him. This is excellent, 'cause it saves me the trouble (notice I have 2 of your blogs on my blogroll).

But you guys! You can't escape religion!

It's a default condition!

Religion is just "... how we choose to understand the most important events in our life. Birth, death, charity, compassion, sacrifice, joy, love, home, community and sustenance. Do we see a distant father? A loving mother? A family of ancestors? A kind teacher? A great warrior? (Jason at Wildhunt.org, 4.17.2005)."

In place of Mother or Father, I suspect you see Inanimate Universe. Birth? 32c worth of chemicals in a jar suddenly springing into life. Death? Said chemicals seeping back into soil. Love? No such thing; your groove with others is to study them -- at a distance. Emotion? Blocks your "objectivity" and so is your Deep Sin?

____
[Great thanks to Anniebee for the photo.]

What CAN I DO?

To Athana's May 14 post calling for a "bloodless, non-violent revolution ridding the planet of God and substituting Goddess," Mae commented, "What can we do?"

First, read something that LIGHTS YOUR FIRE. For you, Mae, I would suggest re-reading The Great Cosmic Mother, although you may have something else you suspect would rekindle things even better, for you personally -- something you haven't read before.

Second, start blogging about the Revolution. Let it all come straight from the fire now in your belly.

Third, get focused. A good way to focus is to get a mission statement for your blog. Use Athana's if you want (it's the very first post on this blog):

MISSION of Radical Goddess Thealogy:
o To demonstrate to the world, by 2015, that the long-lost Goddess religions produced unparalleled peace, prosperity, social equality--and men more manly than can ever be imagined!
o To demonstrate to the world, by 2015, that this unparalled peace, prosperity and marvelous manhood came to a creaking halt as soon as god stepped on stage.
o To rid the world, by the year 2025, of god religion.
o To replace god religion, by the year 2025, with Goddess spirituality.
o To begin, on this blog, a dialog about strategies and methodologies regarding the four goals above.

I SMELL A Bogeyman COMING

This from Sage Starwalker's site Goddessing:

"This site wears a black armband for Democracy

Fritz Stern, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading scholar of European history, ... warned in a speech about the danger posed in this country by the rise of the Christian right. In his address in November [2004]... he told his audience that Hitler saw himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity." "Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he said of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured (Hitler's) success, notably in Protestant areas."

This site wears a black armband for Democracy"

Well, like I've always said, God the Father is not -- nor has He ever been -- a religion. He is a political-control mechanism. I smell a bogeyman coming up the stairs, and ... it's ... The ... #@%*/@!#@ gODfATHER #@%*/@!#@....

Manliest of the MANLY MEN

Manly Man 

Who’s the Manliest of the Manly Men?Here’s my private list, in order of manliest (which means, remember, the most pleasing and aromatic combination of nurturance blended with supreme assertiveness. And of course, not even a whiff of aggression).

1. John Travolta
2. Paul Newman
3. Patrick Swayze
4. Robert Redford
5. Leonardo di Caprio
6. Tom Cruise
7. Sean Connery
8. Russell Crowe
9. Will Smith
10. Jimmy Stewart

Runners-up: Kevin Costner, Jon Stewart, and Johnny Depp
Unmanliest: John Wayne.

Many men seem assertive but not nurturing. Some are nurturing but not assertive enough. In my mind, the men on my sterling list are a delicious and intermingling combination of both! Some men, alas, feel neither assertive nor nurturing (Woody Allen comes to mind....)

Who's your #1 Manly Man?


Definitions:

Nurturance: To help nourish, sustain, grow, develop.

Assertiveness: Expressing your thoughts & feelings in direct, honest ways and without violating another's integrity.

Aggression: Expressing your thoughts & feelings in ways that humiliate or overpower another.

Non-Assertiveness: Failure to express yourself -- or expressing your thoughts so apologetically that others can easily disregard them.

The Emperor HAS NO CLOTHES

Yesterday, Mae said, "I know NOBODY who is interested in this [Goddess replacing god], apart from myself."

Ya hafta wonder: why aren‘t more people interested?! Why can’t people see the Emperor Has No Clothes?

Personally I think one reason is this: the Church worked like the Devil to burn the Goddess out of us. Everyone knows It burned pagans alive at the stake. What we don’t know is that It also invented new-fangled institutions called "foundling homes“ -- for the sole purpose of torturing and "re-educating" pagan children.

Yep. At exactly the same time He began exterminating pagans, God the Father invented the modern European orphanage. After all, after reducing all those pagans to piles of ashes at the bottoms of burning stakes, there were -- guess what! -- a passle of homeless pagan kids running amok on the streets of Europe. Something had to be done with them!

Staggering numbers of kids disappeared into these Godfather snake pits -- in 1445, nine hundred a year at Santa Maria degl' Innocenti, for example, the "best known" "home" in Florence Italy. Chillingly, the vast majority of kids never left foundling homes alive. And records about their fates are often either unclear -- or absent.

The public was barred from entering foundling homes. Homes had “revolving doors in a niche in the wall which allowed a parent or servant to deposit a child...." In 1743, Rousseau pulled strings to get inside a home for girls (he’d seen the girls sing from a distance). He was severely disappointed: “’Sophie was hideous.... Cattina ... had only one eye.... Bettina was disfigured by smallpox. Scarcely one of them was without some notable defect.’”

Those who did make it out of these snake pits, you can bet were bleeding, infested, brainwashed automatons. And these, my friends, were your own great grandparents.

Most of my info comes from The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe, by historian John Boswell (oddly enough, Boswell talks about the horrors he strongly suspects happened in Renaissance foundling homes, but he never makes the connection between the mass murder of pagans and the sudden explosion of homeless children in Europe).

SOONER Than You Think

Yesterday, Kensho Godchaser offered this comment: "Do you expect everyone will eventually come to a Goddess path? That's my hope and my dream as well, but I doubt whether I'll ever see it happen."

In my opinion, most of us will eventually walk a Goddess path, and I think this generation could see it happen. Ideas can take hold like wildfire and sweep the forest in a twinkling. History and archaeology show Goddess to be the Right Idea; logic shows it. Already there's a husky portion of Christians worshipping Goddess (Mary) over god. Male gods not only don't work -- they devastate and debilitate -- as both history and logic demonstrate.

Just now I walked from my porch (where I blog) into my living room and picked up The Chalice and the Blade off the shelf. Leafing through it, I see I was right: the author, Riane Eisler, spotlights the idea of abrupt bursts of social change. In the past we thought change was mostly gradual. Now, Chaos Theorists and New Physicists are surmising otherwise (pp. xxii ff in my copy). According to Eisler, the Bronze Age shift from Goddess to god was an overnight lunge in human culture. How appropriate, then, that the Goddess's return be an overnight lunge in reverse.

BTW, if you haven't read The Chalice, run your fingers right over to Amazon.com or wherever, and order your copy now! The Los Angeles Weekly's plug for it: "The most significant work published in our lifetimes ... might make the future possible."

Go, Kensho!

Kensho Godchaser, that luckiest of lucky men, a man obviously blessed thrice (if not more) by The Goddess, says that his own wife is the #1 womanly woman in his life. Nice ta hear from ya, Kensho!

PARTIALLY Pagan

From an article in The Plain Truth Online about why Christians should not do Harry-Potter-book burnings (also a nice concise reminder of how Christians blew away our pagan ancestors):

"Western culture has been shaped and influenced by Christianity for only the last two millennia. Some portions of Europe and the British Isles were converted [sic] to Christianity only about a thousand years ago.... The names of our days and months echo the ancient deities -- Saturn, Janus, Frea, Woden and Thor.

"Early on, the Christian church co-opted some of the ancient, pagan festivals and customs .... Churches were erected on formerly pagan holy sites.... God, a pagan Anglo-Saxon word which once referred to deities such as Balder and Thor, came to refer to the Christian [god]....

"... [A]rtifacts of paganism are all around us -- Easter eggs, mistletoe and the days of the week.... We cannot reasonably expect our literature, or our language to be laundered of pagan references, names and characters...."

So far, so good. But then comes the kick below the belt:

"...The pagan elements in our culture are no more than ... reminders of our ignorant and superstitious origins."

Now to be honest, this statement initially made me want to tear someone's typing fingers off, one by one -- ten, nine, eight, seven.... But this violent streak in me stems from being reared in a patriarchal (read: violent) culture. My Goddess self tells me that this guy -- like many Christians -- is himself seriously ignorant and simply needs some heavy-duty teaching. "The Goddess solution," quoth she, "lieth not in violent finger removal, but in peaceful pacification of the beast...."

god the father's TICKED OFF

Interesting rash of lawsuits lately, filed by Christians bent out of shape over being barred from abusing public schools. Actually, the jellybean suit isn't new (it was filed in 2004), but I couldn't resist: The nasty Dayton Ohio public schools prevented a precious kindergartner from passing out jellybeans labeled "Red is for the blood He gave, Green is for the grass He made" (don’t ask me how they got that onto a jellybean).

Philadelphia Woman Barred From Reading Bible Sues

Christian Teacher Sues His School

Religious Jellybeans Lead to Lawsuit

god's a big, fat THIEF!

god 

You know, I'm sitting here scratching my head -- isn't it pathetic that I feel the need to call this blog "radical"? I mean, it's about snatching back a miracle that was stolen from us (Goddess), and about locking up the psychotic thief that did the stealing (god)!! I ask you: what's so radical about that?!? Honestly.

WOMANLY Women

Susan 

I'm having too much fun with this "Manly Man"/"Womanly Woman" thing to give it up. (see Sunday's post)

Besides, before we establish Goddess religion worldwide, we need to define the "good" Goddess person. I say it's someone who, like a healthy mother, and like the Great Mother, is at the same time nurturing and assertive (no aggression allowed).

So the Womanly Woman would be a fine, aromatic blend of nurturance and assertiveness. Ditto the Manly Man.

And, Voila!! My TOP 10 WOMANLY WOMEN:

1. Susan Sarandon
2. Joanne Woodward
3. Angela Lansbury
4. Cher
5. Tyne Daly
6. Penny Marshall
7. Sandra Bullock
8. Drew Barrymore
9. Brooke Shields
10. Helen Hunt

Who's your #1 Womanly Woman?

Definitions:
Assertiveness: Expressing your thoughts & feelings in direct, honest ways and without violating another's integrity.

Aggression: Expressing your thoughts & feelings in ways that humiliate or overpower another.

Non-Assertiveness: Failure to express yourself -- or expressing your thoughts so apologetically that others can easily disregard them.

Nurturance: To help nourish, sustain, grow, develop.
___
Thanks to Yahoo. Com for the photo of Susan Sarandon playing Princess Wensicia Corrino on the Sci-Fi Network's Children of Dune.

Before the Flood: A LOST GODDESS CIVILIZATION?

The mainstream media aren't on our team, of course, and last night provided more proof of it: a National Geographic TV show based on one of the books I'm reading, Before the Flood: The Biblical Flood as a Real Event and How It Changed the Course of Civilization, by British historian Ian Wilson, St. Martin's Press, 2001.

Before the Flood has a stunning premise: the cradle of Western civilization was not Mesopotamia, but Turkey and the Black Sea. And it was centered not on gods, nor on gods/goddesses, but almost entirely on the Goddess. Furthermore, this 8,000-year-old ancient Goddess civilization was, in Wilson's words, "More advanced and interesting than anyone has previously anticipated."

As Joburgpete put it (Joburgpete is one of Amazon.com's top-50 reviewers), Before the Flood is about "a lost culture that thrived in northern Turkey before a [massive and sudden] inundation in 5,600 BC turned a freshwater lake into what is now the Black Sea, by connecting it to the Mediterranean." MORE >>>

But did National Geographic even mention the Goddess? No. All they presented was what patriarchal couch potatoes might consume. For example the "Northern Horizon" -- the research vessel that uncovered what appears to be the remains of an ancient town, 300 feet under the Black Sea -- at precisely the place where the old Goddess shore line would have existed 8,000 years ago.

Here's the good news: the Black Sea is saturated with deadly toxins. These devastate almost anything living but are perfect preservers of wood and possibly other organic substances. So an entire lost civilization probably awaits discovery -- the first-ever civilization in Europe or West Asia, and one based almost entirely on Goddess.

WARNING: If you go to Amazon.com to read Joburgpete's review, you'll find that Christians hate this book. They read the title, think the book is for them, read a third of it, and get smacked in the face with the Goddess. It's not a pretty thing to read their reviews ("A tedious work full of non-sense" and "Boring to read.")

WHICH Goddess ARE YOU?

Take this fun test to find out which Greek goddess you are.

These testers tell me I'm Athena. Are you the goddess you thought you'd be?

MANLY Men: NURTURING & ASSERTIVE

Nurturing yet assertive MANLY MAN Paul Newman.

In a page called "Restoring the Goddess," the excellent site AmazoNation.com says:

"The survival of any species depends on the nurturing behavior of its females, not the aggressive behavior of its males...."

MORE

I would go a little further: Human survival depends on female symbols (Goddess) achieving ascendancy over male symbols (God).

Men and women alike are thereby programmed at deep levels to see nurturance as the name of the game.

We'd be programmed, too, to see assertion (not aggression) as equally important -- for both women and men. After all, aren't mothers assertive powerhouses when protecting their young?

And aggression? It descends into the nether world of the weak and sickly, society's failures.

Manly men are nurturing and assertive. Womanly women are nurturing and assertive. Each sex, however, will have its own distinct brand of each. Vive la difference!

HOT DEAL: God-for-Goddess TRADE-IN

"I call for a bloodless, non-violent revolution ridding the planet of God (i.e., war, famine, slavery and pain), and substituting Goddess (peace, prosperity, equality, and nonviolence). How this revolution will look to the naked eye, what form it will take I don't know. I propose only a beginning, a call to arms, a defining of purpose. I know this: Ghandi did not slip away into a corner murmuring, 'Ah, the enemy is washing my people in blood, I'll go where it's safe and worship in silence.'" Excerpt from the article "Revolution Now!" in the new issue of Matrifocus.

happiness as weapon

Happiness 

I'm still thinking of the Happiness-as-a-Weapon idea from a few days ago.

When I was growing up, at least once a month Grandma Ramsey would say to me, "Be Happy!" Furthermore, not one piece of advice did she ever give me except "be happy." "A fool and his money are soon parted"? Huh-uh. "Early to bed and early to rise, blah, blah, blah"?

Nah.

Just, be happy.

As a kid, I remember mulling this over. "What kind of advice is this?!" I thought. "Who wouldn't be happy if they could?!" And, "Why can't I have grandparents who'd tell me something smart." (It didn't help that my adorable grandparents were ninth-grade dropouts .)

Now, of course, like all grown-up kids, I'm thinking, How did they get to be so smart?

BIOETHICAL Blow-up ...

... TWO GRAND RELIGIONS, God the Father & Science, DUKE IT OUT!

What distinguishes "a clump of cells in a petri dish" from "early human life"? You might ask a scientist – or perhaps a novelist... Last March, Martha Montello sat in a session of the Kansas Legislature and heard about a bill that would criminalize all stem-cell research in the state. Evangelical politicians duked it out with molecular biologists. Montello, a lit prof, left thinking that these guys needed to read more fiction, particularly by novelists like Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, Walker Percy and others who confront bioethical dilemmas by spinning stories about them.

More >>>

But whoa! Science a religion?

Well, yeah!!! For one, Science like all religions answers the Big Questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go after we die? Who made the universe? (Answer: The Big Bang.) Etc., etc.

But Religion "Science" has dragged us into terrifying cul-de-sacs where we fight virtual wars in our minds over bioethics. Cloning!?! Conceiving kids to harvest their body parts!?! Yikes! Too scary.

Result? Religion 2, God the Father, knee-jerks. "Back to the old days! Get a shovel! Dig up the Old Testament!" Can't really blame the loves -- these bioethical cul-de-sacs are the stuff nightmares are made of....

But see, this is where Religion 3 needs to step into the room. What would the Goddess say about Religion Science and its Pandora's Boxes?

Personally, I think the Goddess has been talking to us -- through our novelists, filmmakers, and graphic artists. Particularly the ones who resonate deeply with us.

I think, actually, I might go out and pick up one of Montello's books and see what the Great Mother has to say.

Any ideas? What is the Goddess telling us about bioethics? The scientific "law" that scientists may travel any unexplored road, no matter where it leads?

(IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Science must be saluted for the things it has given us other religions have not. Electric lights. Central heating. We may complain about the down side of electric lights and central heating [pollution etc.], but I'm not sure we're ready to chuck these things over night. Gradual chucking may be OK, but sudden? I think not.)

Goddess INSTINCTS

Mother Earth, from the Montreal Mosaiculture Garden Sculpture competition 

"The mother’s drive to protect her children is the most powerful heroic instinct we know. Cindy Parolin showed no hesitation when she leapt to the defence of her 6 year old son. Attacked by a cougar, Steven was saved by his mother’s incredible bravery as she wrestled with the animal for hours while he was dragged to safety by his brother and sister." From a BBC program on human instincts.

____
Thanks to Ixine and stock.xchng for the photo.

ARE YOU WILLING TO Risk Being Happy?

~~ 

"The desire for happiness ... is discouraged by the three dominant religions in the West [Might we be talking here about Christianity, Judaism, and Islam?!?].

"Risking happiness is as difficult and dangerous as risking any other form of authentic self.

"Goddess women have spent a lot of time ... focusing on injustice.... I am calling [them] to step forward from ... anger into reverence and happiness.

"[T]here comes a point where violent revolution (physical or spiritual) ends up hurting the weakest ... while those with power buy their way out of discomfort."

[Excerpts from a thought-provoking article by Rev. Nano Boye Nagle in the new issue of Matrifocus]

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Just a reminder, Gentle Reader: the Goddess revolution called for in this blog is a bloodless, nonviolent revolt. Could we use HAPPINESS as a major weapon in our war? It's certainly one The Father knows nothing about. He'd be a babe in the woods when it comes to defending Himself.

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Photo courtesy of Helmut Gevert and stock.xchng

Are YOU out there?

Unconditional Love 

You know "Mother" means unconditional love and can therefore extract the world from the mess it's in.

You know it's time to start thinking about a bloodless, worldwide revolution purging God the Father from the planet, and putting God the Mother in His place.

Come on over, sit down, have a cup of tea with me on this. Don't be shy. Hit me with your best ideas. Let's gather here, on this blog. Kids, women, men, everyone, let's put our heads together for the Great Mother Revolution!

(Thanks to Big Foot at stock.xchng for the great photo)

WOW!

Young Women of Wisdom 

If we're going to reach our goal of God the Mother in ascendancy by the year 2025, WOW (WomenOfWisdom.org) is exactly the kind of organization we need!

“Women of Wisdom is an internationally recognized organization that provides diverse and innovative programs offering women opportunities for personal growth and transformation, including an annual conference on women’s spirituality held each February in Seattle, Washington.”

At their annual conference, WOW not only offers workshops for men as well as women, they also attend to teens -- with such items as "Sacred Girlfriends" classes. They'll even help you start a "circle" of your own: "Even if you live in another city, we'll be glad to support you with the names of other WOW women with the same interest, and help you form your circle."

Visit them here>>>

Freak-O-NOMICS

I stumbled over this the other day and can't get it out of my mind. Some statistician is saying the crime rate dropped in the 1990s not due to better law enforcement, but -- are you sitting down? -- due to ROE V. WADE.

Yep. 1973's Roe V. Wade.

Here's his theory "... boiled down to its essence: 'Decades of study have shown that a child born into an adverse family environment is far more likely than other children to become a criminal. And the millions of women most likely to have an abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade--poor, unmarried, and teenage mothers for whom illegal abortions had been too expensive or too hard to get--were often models of adversity . . . Just as these unborn children would have entered their criminal primes, the rate of crime began to plummet.' Levitt goes on to support this assertion with an almost unassailable statistical analysis...."

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Reason #73,853 why we all Win Big when women aren't yoked to the GodFather? Can any society be worth living in if it stands on the necks of its women?

If God the Father is not a religion, but a covert political machine, wouldn't He wither away if women controlled their own bodies? Who'd be born and raised discontent enough to enlist as body fodder for the Polity's War Machine!

I have an idea! Instead of test-ban treaties, why not a worldwide God-the-Father-ban treaty?

Anyway, if you haven't heard of him already, chalk up this guy's name while he's still standing. My guess is he's about to become the center of a Religious-Right wind tunnel of hot air. His name: Steven D. Levitt. His book is "Freakonomics."

Please feel free to comment. Leave your footprints in the sands of blogdom.

Beltane in Maine

The May poles are brought back to the beach year after year and placed in an erect position on the beach to be readied for the spiral dance.

 

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Beltane in Maine

Beltane in Maine 

"Each year since about 1982, Maine Pagans have gathered at Popham Beach State Park on or about the 1st of May to celebrate the Beltaine Sabbat (The midpoint between Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice and a time to celebrate fertility in Nature.)"

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SIMPLE but Haunting

Susun Weed spins a simple, haunting tale about the historical shift from God the Mother to God the Father. Here's a taste of it:

"... The men were lost. Without the wisdom of the women, alone and apart, the men forgot the ways of peace. They forgot that the Earth was their Mother. They forgot that all women were sacred. And they began to fight. At first they fought only among themselves. But soon the sickness spread and the men began to fight the women. They began to torture the women. They began to kill the women. They bound women's feet for this pain gave men pleasure.

"...They came to believe that women and plants and animals actually enjoyed being hurt. They confused some women so terribly that these women began to believe that they actually were dirty and in need of punishment. They tortured so many women that the wisdom of the women seemed to be the lie, and the lies of the men took on the trappings of truth...."


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Capitalists with HEART & SOUL?!?

"Some people work to attain enough for themselves and their families, and then stop. Others, as Max Weber saw, just keep working and earning and working and earning..."

Weber, of course, saw this as a direct result of the Protestant Ethic -- particularly Calvinism:

"For Calvin, the absolute sovereignty of God means that God not only foreknows, but actively wills the salvation of some and the damnation of others. ... For Weber, [this looney-tunes god] is responsible for enormous psychological suffering among the faithful."

"As a result, Reformed ministers began to advise ordinary people to dedicate themselves to a calling as a way to overcome 'normal' anxieties about their election [or lack thereof, to heaven]. ... Such advice ... was quite enough to inspire a huge increase in economic industriousness."

-- From Max Weber Goes Global by Michael Novak.

My QUESTIONS FOR THE DAY:

As deadningly ghoulish as He is, do we need God the Father to make capitalism work?

Is Novak right? Has world poverty fallen as a result of the spread of capitalism -- preceded immediately by the spread of God the Father?

Was Weber right when he said that modern capitalists are “specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart"?

Might we not expect a new and improved capitalism under God the Mother, in which capitalists are both wildly successful, and also possessive of Weber's missing hearts and souls? In particular, I'm thinking of the ancient Minoans, who, "under" God the Mother were not only stunningly talented artisans and manufacturers, but also spectacularly successful sea-going mariners and world traders.

Please comment. Leave your footprints in the sands of blogdom.

HOW TO Stop War

MOTHER. From predynastic Egypt. She adores us. All of us. Unconditionally. No strings attached. She asks from each of us the same for each other, and Her Earth.  


We've given God the Father five thousand years to show us He's better than God the Mother.

As soon as He stepped up to bat He gave us War. And then the next thousand years were war. And the next. And here we are today with -- let me hear it: WAR!

And even though everyone moans and groans about the situation, no one seems to have any answers. I have an answer: replace the GodFather with the GodMother!! Let's give ourselves some Love, here for a while! Enough, already with war!

"...(T)he scale of warfare [has] steadily increased with the growth of civilization [and] ... the highest casualty lists have been accumulated in precisely the same nations that call themselves Christian" (Barbara Walker, Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 1983:136; Walker got her the "casualty list" data from anthropologist Marvin Harris).

Please comment. Leave your footprints in the sands of blogdom.

Under TWO HATS

It's taken me a while to realize that when I talk about the Goddess, I talk from under two separate and distinct hats, so to speak. One is my social science hat, under which I see the Goddess sociologically as a very good bet for the human race.

The other is my spirituality hat, under which I experience the Goddess directly myself, in everything I see, hear, taste, feel, do or imagine.

I guess I just wanted to clarify this. I'm not an anthropologist trying to shove something onto the human race I know nothing about personally. On the other hand, neither am I a lone Goddess worshipper content to keep bliss for myself while the world bleeds under God the Father. Or while the human species I love disappears into the sunset because it couldn't extract itself in time from this Monster.

No, no, now wait. I guess the real reason I brought this up, is this: I want to distinguish myself from GodFather proselytizers. I have to admit that, like them, I hold a deep desire that the rest of the world adopt my spirituality. And, like them, the goal is to save the world -- through my own and no one else’s spirituality.

So what’s the difference? It’s this. I’m able to pop on my academic hat, step back, and with the cool eye of the scientist, academic, and statistician, say, “Look. The cool/calm scientific evidence points to God the Father as damaging, dangerous and deleterious to the human species.

“And that same evidence points to God the Mother as the turn-around, jump-a-bail-of-cotton, 180-degree opposite: healthy, health-producing, species-building, and splendiferous.

“So I recommend that we slam on the brakes with God the Father, jump outa the car, and dump him for God the Mother. And LET‘S BE QUICK ABOUT IT!”

CATHOLIC CHURCH Withers in EUROPE

Today, in an article called "Catholic Church Withers in Europe", The Boston Globe informs us that the new Pope "... is intent ... on turning inward and strengthening the core of the faithful few. The commitment to this approach is revealed in [his] choice of his papal name. St. Benedict was a sixth-century monk who, when faced with the decay of the Holy Roman Empire and the onslaught of the barbarians, retreated to establish hilltop monasteries. The monasteries spread and became the foundations from which European Christendom was built."

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I keep wondering, What sane human being would raise a hand for the festering rottenness of the Inquisition and GodFather child-sex-abuse when right next door is the visible vigor, health, fresh air, adventure and loving humor of the Great Mother?

Of course our ancestors didn't exactly choose The Father, as they squatted shivering on the ground at the point-end of his long, sharp spear. Pick up any world history book for the details of that. But now, I say, is the time to break free from Him for good! Europe's doing it, and the rest of us can too!! Let's hear it for sanity!!

Once again, though, I would warn you -- "religion" is something found in every human society, past and present. This suggests it's central, somehow, to being human. The human species still needs a role model to guide it. Let's choose Mother this time around, and take a break from suffering.

Oh -- and those barbarians who took over Europe after the Roman Empire fell? They were GodFather people, too, in case you're wondering.

Happiest of Beltanes TO ALL!

It's a rainy first day of May here in Maine. My dog Duncan surveys the sunless scenery back behind the house.