Goddess of the MOUNTAIN

Minoan Goddess 

You can't lay eyes on this ancient Minoan picture and deny that this is one powerful woman.

About Minoans, archaeologists more often disagree than agree. None, however -- as far as I know -- oppose the notion that this is a mighty woman. Almost all call her a Goddess. Wanna know why? Because the other alternative -- that she was the ruler of the Minoans -- is one that makes male archaeologists quake with fear. How could they explain to the world that the ruler of the kindest, gentlest, most peaceful, most sensual, most fun-loving, most artistic, most playful, most vibrant, AND most technologically advanced society that the world has ever known* WAS A WOMAN?!?

Personally I think the Minoans worshipped a Goddess and also chose to be governed either by a woman, by councils of women, or by councils of both men and women. As with the Iroquois, however, the ultimate decisionmaking power would rest in the hands of a woman (who rarely stepped into the decisionmaking arena, and only to arbitrate). I suspect that women "governed" so wisely that no one even felt it. Men and women alike probably had all the power and freedom they wanted, with one sex making as many decisions as the other.

BTW, the "Goddess of the mountain" as this picture is known, is actually an impression made in clay from a signet ring. Fitton 2002: 189 says it was made during the Late Minoan I period, which came at the end of the Neopalatial (New Palace) period (1700 - 1450 BC).
____________
*Most technologically advanced at least until about the 1700s AD, when Europe re-invented indoor plumbing including flush toilets and indoor running water -- all of which the Minoans had in the 1700s BC.

Goddess*PEACE? or god*WAR?

In this post, I respond to recent comments by Lisa. In the sense that they undoubtedly represent the views of many who visit this blog, Lisa's comments are excellent. They do, however, need desperately to be examined and challenged.

(Above is a 3,500 year-old picture of ancient Minoan men who have been described as singing, laughing, and possibly on their way to a harvesting festival):

Lisa: Wow, completely getting rid of any Masculine Divine? I don't know about that, lol. We'd just have to redefine God the Father, so our brothers will have a more healthy gender identity to relate to.

Athana: You have Goddess, and you have peace. You have god, and you have war. It's in the archaeological record. The archaeological record does not lie. Which do you want: war? Or peace?

Lisa: Some sort of God the Father is necessary, just not the way it has become...

Athana: If you choose god, you choose war. It's in the archaeological record, and the archaeological record does not lie.

Lisa: Ironically, the way Jesus spoke about God was very similar to how many view the Goddess now.

Athana: It doesn't matter. If we have god, we have war. It's in the archaeological record and the archaeological record doesn't lie.

Lisa: And why would you want to get rid of pain, even if you could? Pain is what we have to compare to happiness, to know we are happy. Pain is very grounding.

Athana: Choose god, & you choose the pain of perpetual war. Choose Goddess & you choose peace and life's ordinary pains. It's in the archaeological record. The archaeological record does not lie.

Lisa: I think that if men had no God the Father, they'd feel just as jilted and excluded as women do without God the Mother.

Athana: Maybe so, but choosing god is choosing war; choosing Goddess is choosing peace. This is shown repeatedly in the archaeological record.

Lisa: Why would we change the rules? Just because men have had God the Father for too long?

Athana: No. We'd change the rules because while Goddess means peace, god means war. It's in the archaeological record, which does not lie.

Lisa: Well, that's an emotional response, not logical.

Athana: On the contrary, it's one of the most logical responses I know. It's all in the archaeological record. Where there's Goddess there's peace. Where there's god there's war. If we want war 'til the end of time, we keep the gods. If we want an end to war, we chuck the gods and breathe life back into the female divine.

Lisa: Mythos and god images were created for humanity to understand their place in this world.

Athana: And our place is peace. And the archaeological record shows a perfect correlation: Goddess-peace, god-war.

Lisa: I think that if we were to completely disregard the Divine in masculinity and males and not represent that, well that is "Patriarchy in a skirt," and just as damaging.

Athana: You think, but I know -- from the archaeological record (which cannot lie). The archaeological record shows men living 'under' Goddess to be happy, vibrant, masculine, healthy, satisfied, and proud risk-takers. I invite you to look for yourself: in any book on the ancient Minoans. Minoan men sailed all over the known world --a risky, dangerous business in 2000 BC. They engaged in risky, dangerous sports -- bull leaping, for example. They enjoyed hunting, and the sport of boxing.

In one piece of art they are shown laughing and singing -- something totally unheard of in the art of their contemporaries, the god-worshipping Egyptians, Hittites, Sumerians, etc.

Also unheard of among the manly, Goddess-worshipping Minoan men: war. Violence. Poverty. Self-aggrandizement. All of which run rampant in the contemporaneous ancient Egyptians, Hittites, and other god peoples.

Vive la Révolution!!!

Food for thought:

"What I really want to do is wipe the planet clean of the Godfather — of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and all the rest. I'd replace Him with The Mother. But then my face gets red. I feel as if I'm just like those trapped in the Godfather: trying to start a holy war, a Crusade.

Starhawk says: "In today's world, people of good will of every religion are striving for tolerance, understanding, and sensitivity to other traditions" [quotations my own]. Who doesn't want to be one of the "good-will" guys?!

But when you know what I know — that good evidence is missing for Minoan violence[3] — and then contrast that to millennia of Godfather war, gore, and red-eyed horror, what are we to do with that knowledge?

Here's what I've decided to do: 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."

I say, "Vive la Révolution!!!"

MORE >>>

Goddess HOLY WAR

In her comment about yesterday's post, Lisa asked: "I wonder how many centuries before us Goddess worshippers get so frustrated with 'patriarchy' that we become obsessive pseudo-Athena/Diana huntresses or something. What would a Goddess-worshipper holy war/crusade be like?"

Very interesting question!

I'll answer with more questions:

Would it be best to call such a conflict a holy war, a crusade, or a revolution? Or would that make any difference? (I'm reading Van Tyne's The Loyalists in the American Revolution....)

Could, should and would we get men to join us in battle?

What would happen if we didn't or couldn't interest men in joining our side? Could women win such a war alone?

Would such a war (or revolution) necessarily need to be violent, or could we win with something non-violent?

Could Ghandi teach us anything?

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?

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 -- all the stuff that's killing us now, and making life almost unbearable for many in our human global family. What kind of power might that realization give us? Give others?

Would, could and should this be a global war?

How could the internet be used?

I have no answers to any of these questions. Just throwing them out.

But Lisa -- great question. Thanks!

___________
And thnx to obraprima for the fine foto

History QUIZ

Too frequently for comfort, my cousin's wife Doris, a fundamentalist Christian, treats me to aggravating little emails. (When I think of Doris, I think of sand that annoys for days after you leave the beach.)

Today Doris sent a cutesy little quiz revealing how often Muslims have been behind numerous nasty things that have happened recently to Americans (see quiz below). As if she and Muslims aren't the same thing!

So I wrote her back...

"... Dear Doris,

"Don't get me started!

"You Christians and Muslims are identical monsters born outa the same egg -- Yahweh!

"You both strap women on their backs and breed them like flies!

"You both send dead people to vast underground torture chambers!

"Your 'holy' books are almost identical!

"You both murder those who don't bow & scrape!

"You Christians murdered Indians, Hawaiians, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jews, and so forth. And now? America's only fundamentalist Christian president steals into a Muslim country and murders thousands of Muslims.

"You Christians and Muslims both shiver in fear of Armageddon. 'The world's coming to an end!' you moan. And you therefore don't give a fig about trashing my earth!

"You're both bloody warmongers, and if you blow the Western World to bits, at least we might be rid of you both!"

_______________
Here's the precipitating piece of email:

HISTORY TEST
Please pause a moment, reflect back, and take the following multiple choice test. The events are actual.
Events from history. They actually happened.
Do you remember?

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40.

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
a. Olga Korbut
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

3. In l979, the US Embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. During the l980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

5. In l983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

6. In l985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 yr. old American
passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

7. In l985, TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver, trying
to rescue passengers was murdered by:
a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

8. in 1988, Pan Am flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract atention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

11. On 9/ll/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the
World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and
the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were
killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The supreme court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002, the United States fought a was in Afghanistan against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2002, reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Mother Goddess, Mother Goose

These regal images of the Goddesses Aphrodite and Devi on swans and geese stand worlds apart from those in yesterday's post of Mother Goose. While the Goddesses are proud and healthy, Mother Goose is foully fat, abnormally thin, and/or abject and arthritic.

While Aphrodite and Devi gaze at us proudly and full of purpose, Mother Goose gazes at us with apologies.

While the Goddesses are pleasingly proportioned, Mother Goose has a gruesome chin, a grotesque nose, and, in one instance, a humped back.

Just what one might expect if Mother Goose is an anagram for Mother Goddess. Just what one might expect if Mother Goose is our ancestress' clever disguise for their sacred deity, a disguise designed to deliver Her safely through a poisonous past and into the arms of us, their future children.

____________
All images come from Lady of the Beasts: Ancient Images of the Goddess and her Sacred Animals, 1981, Buffie Johnson, Harper & Row.

PROFANE, Silly & inconsequential...

Ah, the mysterious Mother Goose. Despite endless speculation, no one knows for certain who she is, or where she came from. There are, however, a few things we do know about her. For one, as these pictures show, not one shred of her looks like a deity (unless, of course, you know the Goddess, and count the goose...).

But here's a clue: Pretend you're a Goddess worshipper in Medieval Europe. If anyone discovers your religion, it's off with your head -- no hesitation. And since all literate Goddess people were murdered long ago, you communicate with your people not through writing, but through underground code passed on by story tellers. In these stories, what symbol will signify your deity? A sacred looking woman instantaneously detectable by the spies of the Pope? A proud woman puffed up with self esteem?

I ... think ... NOT!

No, you'd go as far as possible in the opposite direction. Women with poor posture -- nay, humped backs. Hips the size of Kansas. Football-shaped chins. Noses mimicking foot-long hot dogs. Faces that say either "I'd love to cook you and have you for dinner," or "God grant me a closed car in a garage with the motor running...."

Wouldn't it be interesting, though, to see how Mother Goose has changed through time? The images above come from my personal collection and were published in the late 1800s (Mother Goose with the cello; black & white Mother Goose); 1916/1939 (be-ruffled Mother Goose with Granny Glasses); 1929 (Carrot-nose); 1943 (Orange polka dots); and 1976 ( Boy waving down below).

By the way, I think you should be able to make each image larger by clicking on it.

"ANOTHER WORLD Is on Her Way"

Last Friday night, in Brunswick, Maine, I discovered Arundhati Roy, winner of the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize. Oh, My. What a woman.

Like many towns since 9-11, Brunswick has held weekly peace vigils. These eventually evolved into film and discussion sessions. On Friday, I sat during a thunder storm in Brunswick's Curtis Library, in a room with humongous windows flanking either side of a film screen. Screen and windows ate up one entire wall, left to right, floor to ceiling.

It was on the screen that I discovered Roy. An actress, award-winning writer, and radical peace activist, Roy lectured in the film on the topic “Public Power in the Age of Empire.”

I admit, a few times it was hard to concentrate. First, due to dashing from car to library in a deluge of rain, I was sitting wet and shivering in the building's finely-tuned air conditioning. Second, visible through the windows on either side of the screen, a flood was slowly stealing up the street. Oblivious to us and our film, cars were swimming by a few feet away from us, windshield wipers slapping at full speed, and water up to the tops of their hubcaps.

"Ever seen waves on Pleasant Street before?" the moderator asked.

Mostly though, I sat mesmerized by Roy. First of all, everything about her is gorgeous -- not only voice, mannerisms, and gestures, but also her bursting-through love for humanity.

Second, she's so smart!

Here's an Arundhati point I'm still pondering: It's not us against the terrorists, says Arundhati. It's us and the terrorists against the rich. All around the world, the rich have secretly joined hands in league against the rest of us. We've asked the rich politely to stop plundering the planet. They have not listened. In the past, demonstrations attracted media attention. Now, unless your demonstration delivers a novel slant, the media (all rich-owned) ignores you. The only sure-fire way to reach the rich, says Roy, is to hurt them -- which is exactly what terrorists are now doing.

Hmmmm.

An Arundhati quote: "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Well, now, you know this quote tickled me pink!

Go HERE to read more about Arundhati Roy.

Mother Goose

Was “Mother Goose” an anagram for “Mother Goddess”? Although Mother Goose is the polar opposite of Goddess -- profane, silly and inconsequential to the Goddess’s sacred and awesome profundity -- what better way to throw the Enemy off the track?

This excellent and concise article, “Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration," gives good reasons to suppose that Mother Goose was, indeed, none other than our Great Goddess in disguise.

20 TYPES OF kiss

The sensual is spiritual 

"I gave thee the sensual pleasures, and thou shalt enjoy them!" thunders the Goddess, in one of Her major commands. Not all of us, however, agree on what constitutes "sensual pleasure." The article Put Your Sweet Lips... begins with an astute observation, made by the African Tsonga in 1927, upon viewing their first European kiss: "Look at these people! They suck each other! They eat each other's saliva and dirt!"

Next, Put Your Sweet Lips... treats us to a bit of kissing esoterica:

"In what must still be the longest single work devoted to the kiss — Opus Polyhistoricum . . . de Osculis — the German polymath Martin von Kempe (1642-83) assembled 1,040 closely packed pages of excerpts from classical, biblical, legal, medical and other learned sources to form a sort of encyclopaedia of kissing.

"He listed more than 20 types of kiss. These included the kiss of veneration, the kiss of peace, the kisses bestowed by Christians on images and relics, and by pagans on idols, the kissing of the Pope’s foot, the kiss bestowed by superiors on inferiors, the kiss used in academic degree ceremonies, the lovers’ kiss, the lustful and adulterous kiss, the kiss exchanged by couples sealing their marriage vows, the kiss of reconciliation, the kiss carrying contagion, the hypocritical kiss and the kiss of Judas...." MORE >>>

THEaLOGY?! DID YOU MEAN THEoLOGY?

Yahoo has not yet heard of thealogy. When I do a search, Yahoo comes back at me with "!Did you mean theology?"

Possibly first to use the term "thealogy" was Isaac Bonewits, in 1974.

"Many scholars find the term 'thealogy' exasperating, a linguistic twiddling...." To them I say, "Get over it!"

"Thealogy is literally the study of the Goddess (Greek θεά, thea, 'Goddess' + λόγος, logos, 'study')."

"So for example, at the second UK Colloquium in Goddess Studies March 2000 it was delightful that three out of ten of the participating scholars wished to address men's position in thealogy (two men and one woman). The adoption of a subordinate, supportive/ critical position, necessarily examining their vulnerability and potential abuse of power within thealogy, by a member of the socially dominant gender, is clearly rich in potential. The complexity and creativity of many Pagan men deserves mention also; their ability to accept the authority of priestesses self selects them as significantly mature in the gender domain (where they **do** accept female authority in more than lip service!)." MORE >>>

Prophecy

~ 

Today I stumbled across an article in the New Left Review with a catchy little trailer I couldn't resist: "In an era of serial war, Rawls, Habermas and Bobbio [are] theorists of a perpetual peace...."

These three dudes (Rawls, Habermas & Bobbio) wonder if there isn't some kind of a priori basis for human rights, that would, in turn, be a basis for universal peace.... "Hmmmmm," says, Habermas, "Well, yes, there is a basis: it's in the 'world religions.'"

Well! Perry Anderson -- the article's author -- jumps on Habermas with both feet flying:

"...[T]he vacancy of the claim that human rights are validated by all world religions is laid bare. The slightest acquaintance with the Pentateuch, Revelations, the Koran or the Bhagavadgita—replete with every kind of injunction to persecution and massacre—is enough to show how absurd such an anachronistic notion must be."

You couldn't be more on the mark, Perry. The God Boys (Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu and Brahma) are chocked to choking with dictates that we all hurt, maim and kill each other. (The Eskimos have a hundred words for snow; we people of the God Boys have a hundred words for "hurt," "maim" and "kill"....)

But deep in their guts, these dudes (R, H, & B) know there's SOMETHING out there that gives humans "human" rights! Wake up, dudes!! Human rights come from a deity the God Boys tried to smash and bury: The Great Mother. After millennia of hibernation, She's finally waking -- just as Sleeping Beauty promised She would.*

When She's fully awake, She'll restore the awesome world the God Boys smashed so long ago: an old and endlessly fascinating world of "perpetual peace."

Go HERE to read Perry's article.
_____________
*There's evidence that Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, among other so-called "children's stories," are actually coded messages prophesying the return of the Goddess.
_____________
Thnx to Ravennce for the foto of Sleeping Beauty

Car-Hunt Blues

Today was a used-car hunting day. Everything but used cars flew away from me, including whatever sense and/or sense of humor I might once have had. Later.

AmazoNation Creed

The AmazoNation has a wonderful Creed which I've kept tacked up beside my desk since I found it. Here are a few excerpts:

"Heyla, Heyla, Amazon Sisters...I have a few words for you....
Respect is for all, but it doesn't come easy. We must each define it
for ourselves. For us...
Respect is for all our relations, and all our relationships.
Respect is focusing on and dealing in "issues" and not "personalisms".
Respect is focusing on "what" is right rather than "who" is right'
Respect means owning our own negativity ...
Respect is keeping the lines of communication open with those
who have a different opinion, and making a sincere attempt to
let them be understood.
Respect means listening until everyone has been heard and
understood...." MORE

a FUTURE FULL OF Goddess

As Morgaine of The-Goddess so rightly reminds us, Yahweh and Allah are two sides of the same coin (see her 7/15 post). They are merely two halves of the same Big Daddy Deity duking it out -- now in Iraq, and a millenium ago in the "Holy Lands Crusades," as the Yahweh-ites called them.

Actually, this Big-Daddy duking may be the best thing that's happened to the planet in an aardvark's age. It might be our ticket to moving the Goddess into the driver's seat again. Once the world sees that Christians and Muslims are on the verge of annihilating themselves and the planet, the United Nations will step in. It will create a unilateral "God-the-Father-ban" treaty. All nations will sign, promising to ban father gods (who, as the world now realizes -- given half a chance and a century or two -- will decimate any human group they enter).

At this point, everyone not an atheist will turn to God the Mother.

At first the new Goddess world will not be perfect. Who could turn a cement hovel into a golden palace overnight?!? But I'll promise this: almost immediately after the Goddess takes over, the macroscopic ugliness on this planet will be halved. War, slavery, starvation, sickening poverty will begin to melt away. Even the microscopic uglies will melt -- the small dishonesties between two people, the lack of respect in groups of three, the souls dead before the body dies.

___
Thnx to chancaca for the foto

~ 

Sliming INTO HOME BASE

Not all Goddess worshippers care a fig about history. What I adore, however, about the early Goddess, is this: She seems to be linked with peace, prosperity, and equality of all kinds (sex, class, ethnic, and so forth).*

But then, around 3000 BC (give or take a few centuries depending on where you are on the globe), gods start worming their way in. First they beg for a tiny chair at the table. A few centuries later they're demanding a chunky chair. And next thing you know they've completely hijacked the total table, and the Goddess is -- well, where She is today: wound up tighter than a clock-spring caged inside the Virgin Mary.

I call this not sliding into home base, but the "sliming-into-home-base" phenomenon (please pardon the mixed metaphors). Unfortunately, as the "sliming" progressed, human peace, prosperity and equality slowly sank into the sunset....

_____
*NOTE: It's vital to avoid universalizing and the numerous other pitfalls of historical and archaeological analysis current scholarship warns against. For example, the Goddess is certainly not linked to peace etc. in all places or times. Neither can we assume clean, constant movement through time from Goddess, to gods/Goddesses, and then to god. Furthermore, the Goddess-to-God pattern differs from place to place around the globe. Societies, tribes, and culture groups can and do die out, and/or change through time, and many almost certainly never worshiped the Goddess at all. Another thing to keep in mind: not all female figurines denote Goddesses. We'll probably never know what some represented. Finally, archaeology especially is constantly changing old analyses as more data come forward. In sum, history is messy. That does not mean we can afford to abandon it in our reconstruction of The Goddess. As you've all heard more than once: "She who fails to learn history is forced to repeat it."

___________
Thank you glanzerr for the foto

SUING god

Someone should sue god.

For what, you say? For the millions stolen in the Middle Ages from the thousands burned at the stake. For our Native American, Hawaiian, Irish and other ancestors tortured until they promised to love Him, and who then turned psychotic. For the millions of children tortured until they promised to love Him, and who then turned psychotic. For the hundreds murdered in past years by suicide bombers slaughtering for allah. I could continue, but you get my drift.

It's god, not people, who needs to be punished. After all, we are only people. We're so frighteningly easy to brainwash.

______________
Thnx to mcherry for the foto

Bushlet the BigTime Bungler

Bushlet is bungling so badly one wonders if he's not secretly in the employ of our Enemies, who are instructing him in bungling so as to soften us up for the kill.

Imagine: our Enemies have sneaked in their own guy as U.S. Prez.

Wouldn't they have him doing exactly what Bushlet's doing?

o Turning our allies against us.
o Outing our CIA agents.
o Frittering away billions as quickly as humanly possible in a war against the wrong enemy.
o Shooting sky high the price of anything they (the Enemies) sell us -- like, maybe, OIL?

WE ARE Mirrored in Our PANTHEON

We need to worship a Goddess who mirrors the world we want. Religion can make or break us, and our male gods are pushing us toward the brink of a break.

Above all, we need a Goddess who won't let male gods push Her around. I believe all-powerful female divinity is a straight-shot to equality -- for women, men, goddesses and gods alike.

Does Isis fill the bill, here? (See "One Nation under Isis," July 9, on this blog.) Was She Supreme, Almighty, Invincible & Omnipotent? After reading a bit, I think possibly She might have been -- in the second century AD, at least, when Apuleius adored Her in The Golden Ass (more on The Golden Ass later).

But in Pharaonic Egypt She's a 90-pound weakling.

In ancient Egypt, the God Seth totally traumatizes Isis by killing her lover Osiris. To recover Her love, She goes "wandering over the world." When she finally finds his body, Seth snatches it, rips it into pieces, which "he scattered abroad; so that, once again, the Goddess had a difficult task before Her." Finally, after much sorrowful searching, Isis recovers thirteen pieces of Osiris -- all but his "genital member." And then Osiris disappears into the Underworld... (Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, pp 424-426).

This is not the kind of all-powerful Goddess I had in mind.

HERE'S WHAT I SUSPECT: Isis was all-powerful before the Pharaohs stepped up to bat, lost Her power when they did, and was recovering power when the Christians cut Her off at the knees. Left to Her own devices, Isis might very well have built Europe into the sane and salubrious continent it did NOT become.
______________
Thnx to amosnet for the foto

AMERICANS: Asian Puppets?

Jumpin' Jehosaphat! Never really looked at it this way before: Christianity is Asian!! It came from the Middle East -- part of Asia. So in AD 400, it was an Asian religion that beheaded European religion/paganism. The result? The total collapse of European civilization -- followed by seven centuries of semi-barbarism called “the Dark Ages.”

"[A]fter about two centuries of European influence upon Asia, the tide began to turn until presently a powerful surge of reaction developed, which culminated with the victories of Christianity over the gods and philosophies of Classical antiquity and the subsequent collapse -- for a spell of seven centuries -- of the civilization of the European West" (Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology, Viking, 1964: 241).

How did this happen?!? And why aren’t we slathering building and subway station walls with signs shouting: “Christianity is Asian! It lobbed us into the Dark Ages! Let’s shoot it back to where it came from!!!

Actually, I did locate a nifty little site that comes close, “Christianity Revealed.” The author calls “The Middle Ages ... a period of dark and turbulent semi-barbarism lying between two phases of civilization—ancient Paganism and modern Paganism. Between was the time when Christianity ruled unchallenged....”

Goddess BLESS AMERICA

By popular demand:

Go HERE (cafepress.com) to buy your "Goddess Bless America" T-shirt.

HOUSES of the Goddess

WELL, I'm confused! There used to be two "Houses of the Goddess," one in New York City, and one in England. Both were/are shutting down. Now one is starting up again; seems that at the last minute two "co-facilitators" agreed to take over from a departing site administrator (-: I think it's the NYC HOG, not the English HOG. (Pity; I knew the English site and loved it; I don't know much about the NYC group). At any rate, whoever it is has been sending me emails, at the bottom of which are excellent quotations. For example:

"If you have a vision of the Goddess, if you dream of Her, you are obliged to work for Her for the rest of your life." Inez Talamantes

"There are and will be those who think I have gone overboard. Let them rest assured that this assessment is correct, probably beyond their wildest imagination, and that I will continue to do so." Mary Daly

"Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl." Nellie McClung (1873~1951)

(P.S. At the moment, I don't have an up-to-date site address for either HOG)

The gods Are BORED

If you're up for a first-class belly laugh, go visit Anne Johnson's blog "The Gods Are Bored." Here's the beginning of today's post, called "Satan Weighs in on Terror":

"Welcome to 'The Gods Are Bored.' If you're just joining us, this site is dedicated to all the gods and goddesses who have been let go in 'revised head counts' since the so-called 'modern era' got underway.

"My contract is secure, unfortunately. I signed on for 10,000 years with one of the gods who isn't bored. That's my boss, The Big Guy.

"Yes folks, I'm back! Anne turns her back, goes off goat-judging, and I sneak into her space. You can call me Satan if you must (hate it), or Lucifer (hate it), or Mephistopheles (can't spell it), or Beelzebub (he's a bored god, and he hates to see his name abused). Myself, I prefer Mr. Applegate. It's so user-friendly.

"If you haven't seen my previous posts, here's my resume in a nutshell. I was working freelance in a galaxy far, far away, and my entire praise and worship population got killed when an asteroid hit their planet...."


MORE >>>

ONE NATION, Under Isis?

THERESA DINTINO RAISES interesting possibilities in "The Goddess and Alchemy." What would the West look like today if Isis had won out over Jehovah in the religious battle that raged as the Roman Empire crumbled?

What do you think?

Personally I find it hard to trust Goddesses dominated by gods, and unfortunately I think that's what the Egyptian Goddesses had come to by the time the Egyptians kept written records.

Addendum, 7/13/05: Thanks, Morgaine, for pointing out that Isis was not dominated by Osiris -- I am removing the picture that formerly accompanied this post -- of the gigantic male foot in the sandal. Here's my problem, though: I think it's critical that we worship a Goddess who mirrors the world we want. I think religion has the power to make or break us, and that we’re breaking because of god religions. First and foremost I think we need a Goddess who can't be pushed around by gods. Period. The Goddess must be in charge -- utterly.

So my question to you is this: Do you know of a place and time that gave Isis absolute power over the pantheon?

I think this was the case in predynastic Egypt. But what about the Roman Era? Did Her followers see Isis as the deity in charge? Or was She still powerless against certain male deities the way she was in Egyptian-pharaoh times? Or do we know? I'm still trying to find answers, here, but if you know, fill me in. Apuleius’s Isis in The Golden Ass seems impervious to the powers of the gods. On the other hand, I feel shut out -- Apuleius’s Isis has male not female priests. (As you can see, I want it all....)

Mother-Love WRIT LARGE

Yesterday, as I ate up the last of Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, I cried until my eyes were fat puffins. The mother of an English boy in 1930s Shanghai loved him so profoundly that she abandoned everything -- including her sanity -- to keep him alive and thriving. In a nutshell: after a Chinese warlord refuses to help her battle the Chinese opium trade, this mother smacks the bandit in the face. Feeling a touch miffed, the brute kidnaps her. She makes a deal: if he spares her son and pays for his education in England, she will become the warlord's sex slave. Although a leading Shanghai political and social figure, to protect her child this woman gives up her very sanity as the warlord treats her to whippings in front of dinner guests ("to tame the English woman"), and worse. Decades later, when Christopher "rescues" his institutionalized mother, she barely recognizes him.

My question: Why would mentally sane humans worship a Father god like the "I-am-jealous" Yahweh when they have a Mother God who loves them as much as this mother loved her child?!?

Let me give you the low-down, though: Ishiguro -- who also wrote The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go -- is HOT! Try him!

A PLOT AFOOT?

The London bombings!
The Karl Rove/Valerie Plame thing!
An amazing new POLE -- going unreported by the mainstream media -- indicating 42% think Bush should be impeached if he lied about Iraq!
The G-8 Meetings in Scotland!

TOO MUCH ALREADY!!

Not that there's anything on this list that's trivial, but could this be another plot to shift our eyes off the ball?! The current "ball" being, in my humble opinion, Bush's nominee for Sandra Day O'Connor's Supreme Court seat?

Apparently at some point Bush declared he would not let abortion affect his decision about who to nominate.

To which Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, "Ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, hardy-dee-har, har [gasping for breath] HARHAR HA HA....!!!

Actually she said -- and I quote: "We really would like to take President Bush at his word, but while I may have been born in the morning, it wasn't this morning. This President has no credibility -- to date, he has appointed more than 200 judges to the federal courts--not one of whom supported a woman's right to choose."
MORE >>>

(thnx to Echidne of the Snakes for this link)

WHAT WOULD The Goddess SAY?

The London bombings today.

What would the Goddess say?

She'd say: "Dump that GodFather who sees some of my children superior to others! All are equal!! All must be fed, clothed and housed -- at minimum. As the sun and stars do shine, is this not utterly obvious?!?!! If all have food, shelter and clothing and know they are loved, all will be well for all!"

2025: PARTY TIME!

Let's Party Down in Party Town!  

WHooooo-EEEE! Picture it: It's 2025, and God the Father has goose-stepped his way off the edge of the earth! Once they saw clearly that He was responsible for the despicable things in the world, the world sent Him packing. (For a List of Despicable Things, go to the June 19 "ONE-STOP Shopping" post on this blog.) It was an easy equation: drop this dud of a deity, and detested things will drop away like dead & departed flies.

And the people did, and the things did.

Part of the reason, too, that the List of Despicable Things vanished, was that the world adopted the Great Mother Goddess as its pattern for how people behave. To The Great Mother, her girls and boys are equal. That means men no longer had to play Lord over women and the "beasts of the earth" (as the duddy GodFather used to put it).

Women recouped first-rights over their bodies, including the number of babies budding therein. And of course women wanted lives, so they began making babies only after they'd had ten or so years to party. A woman'd have a tike at say 25, another at 35, and that'd be it. Finished. Nada. No more.

This left plenty of time for tike 1 to get enough (of Mom's love, Dad's love, toys, food) before tike 2 trotted along.

After the overpopulation and sex inequality problems were sacked, other world problems fell away like butter off a hot knife. Before 2025, war had happened often because there were too many people and not enough to go around. Poverty, starvation, and malnutrition had often happened because there was not enough to go around. Environmental problems had often happened simply because there were too many people.

Also before 2025, lotsa funky things happened because (a) men had to lord it over women, and (b) women had often said "Take a hike," and then (c) men panicked. Thus rape, spouse abuse, divorce, incest, prostitution, and just plain nastiness were wiped out by 2025, in part because men no longer felt forced to play unpaid prison guard to women.

________________
Much thnx to teambo for the pic

DEMOCRACY from Goddess NOT Greeks?

Did Freedom Come from Goddess?  

It wasn't the ancient Greeks but the freedom-loving Native Americans who taught European-Americans how to live, love, and then demand democracy. Those discussed most often in this regard are the Iroquois, whose democratic traditions were extremely well developed.

Go to this excellent NEW YORK TIMES article for more on this (and thnx to Morgaine at The-Goddess for the link!).

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

One fascinating feature of the Iroquois was their female deity, Skywoman.

Go to this CORNELL UNIVERSITY NEWS article for more on this.

**********************

In The Sacred Hoop, Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen garners good evidence that female deity abounded among Native Americans.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

My point: Could we venture a claim that world Democracy came not from Greeks, but from Goddess?

((((((((((((())))))))))))))))
Thnx to femmeannie for the foto

MILLIONAIRE$$ Marches

No blogging today. Exhausted! After rising before dawn and driving an hour, I marched in the annual Whitefield, Maine, 4th of July parade. My parade group -- which included three camels and an enormous-eyed needle -- was described as follows: "Part of our Fourth of July parade will include the local millionaires, who will be thanking the lower 99% of the population for assuming the tax burden...."

Think of it: For one brief, shining moment, this blog-keeper WAS A MILLIONAIRE$$! (And Sweethearts, believe me -- we millionaire$ manufactured that needle with an eye big enough to walk through...).

NYC'er Faces Jail for Slamming Islam

"Oriana Fallaci faces jail. In her mid-70s, stricken with cancer, she has dared to vilify a certain religion...

"...One of the most renowned journalists of the modern era has been indicted by a judge in her native Italy under provisions of the Italian Penal Code which proscribe the 'vilipendio,' or 'vilification,' of 'any religion admitted by the state.'

"In her case, the religion deemed vilified is Islam.... Fallaci ... has chosen to stay put in New York. Let us give thanks for the First Amendment...."

Oriana's crime consisted of penning a book insisting that Europe is now a "colony of Islam."

"The complainant, one Adel Smith [Muslim, despite the name] ... is widely believed to be behind the publication of a pamphlet ... which exhorts Muslims to 'eliminate' [Fallaci]." MORE >>>

Remember kiddies: Islam is just as ugly as Christianity or any other God-the-Father religion. The Old Testament, Koran, and Torah are three peas in a pod. LET US REPLACE THEM ALL WITH THE GODDESS.

Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus: I adore you all. It's your God-the-Father religions I can't abide.

gaian mystery school

Here's a blog worth trotting over to visit: gaian mystery school. They mix spirit with science and cover Goddess stories occasionally. Make sure to visit their Sacred Sounds section; I predict you'll be mesmerized....

Laughing SPASMS

Okay, I might have gone a bit overboard. The Raving Atheist posted this "news" story on his blog, and it just burned my blood: "Supreme Court Split on Display of Two Tits." It was chock to the brim with dim-witted terms for female genitalia.

So I did a parody of the story -- one I "knew" would give Raving a taste of his own medicine. Well, not only was my parody a bit brown around the edges, worse than that no one "got it." So today I tried being a little less rabid and a bit more to-the-point. I'm reprinting my comment here because it's good to remember what The GodFather did to men, women and the female body:

"My point: I'm tired of my genitals being 'stupid people' (boobs), 'mocking cries' (hoots/hooters), and cow udders (tits/teats). I'm tired of men 'fucking' me between the sheets when 'fuck' means mentally ill (fucked up), cheated (fucked over), bad mistake (to fuck up), failure (a fuckup), and bamboozled (fucked).

"Ocmpoma calls his penis 'cock' (king of the barnyard), 'tool' (what we build skyscrapers with), and 'unit.' Hmmmm.

"If I have to have 'boobs' sitting on my chest, I think men should have 'boo-boos' hanging between their legs. Or dodos. 'His dodo grew hard and erect....' Or we could just call them doo's. Or, 'noodle' has a nice ring to it. 'She reached out and patted his noodle, thinking to herself, "Nice doo."

"Interestingly, it's religion -- the thing this blog [The Raving Atheist] battles -- that threw my genitals into the gutter in the first place. Those big state religions, they're awesome political-control mechanisms. Their Masterminds hoodwinked half the human race (men) into serving as unpaid prison guards for the other. Men not only pant to sign up for the job, they refuse to take a penny for it! Which means the Mastermind sits back and props his hush puppies up. He's put one sex in prison, and convinced the other sex to exhaust itself playing unpaid prison guard. I can just see Him: His feet are crossed on the sofa back, and He's sipping champagne between laughing spasms."

What I didn't say is this (the readers of The Raving Atheist are hardly ready for it): the human body, especially the female body, is the body of The Goddess, and, as such, totally and awesomely sacred.

______

Thnx to wazaro for the pic of the Mastermind