Who is "the Guiding Goddess"?

Guiding Goddess is my term for an important type of deity who existed in many if not most Neolithic societies (and on into some early Bronze-Age civilizations).

As supreme creator (of people, the earth, life on earth, other deities and the universe), the Guiding Goddess was a role model for people:

Just as a healthy mother loves her children, so the Guiding Goddess loved humanity.

And as She loved people, people were to love each other.

I believe this simple yet profound blueprint for behavior was what allowed Guiding-Goddess societies to avoid war, violence, social inequality, and governments of domination.

Getting BACK TO GODDESS

THINGS YOU CAN DO to flip the switch OFF on the war gods and ON to the Goddess:

African People -- Find your ancient guiding goddesses, figure out to the best of your ability who they were and what they stood for, and then return to them.

Americans, North, South and Central Indigenous -- Find your ancient guiding goddesses, figure out to the best of your ability who they were and what they stood for, and then return to them.

Anthropologists – Investigate and publish your findings on the relationship between female deity and societal health.

Archaeologists – Uncover the ancient guiding goddesses in every modern country and put your information in a book updated annually as new information arises; translate this book into all major world languages.

Artists – Create images of the Guiding Goddess to adorn books, people’s homes, and our public buildings.

Asian People – Find your ancient guiding goddesses, figure out to the best of your ability who they were and what they stood for, and then return to them.

Atheists – Keep up the good work of explaining how deadly the war gods have been to humans and the rest of the earth; understand, however, that since no human group has ever existed without religion (and religion based on the supernatural at that), you have scant chance of converting the world to atheism.

Bloggers – Start a blog on the Goddess.

Catholic Church – For starters, begin gathering all the books you’ve littered the world with; bestow them on Africans who can’t afford firewood.

Children’s Authors – Write children’s books about the Guiding Goddesses. Rewrite our fairy tales so that the Goddess is no longer disguised as a “fairy godmother,” “Mother Holde,” or “Mary Mother of God.”

Chinese People -- Find your ancient guiding goddesses and switch back to them.

Christian Congregations -- Switch from Jehovah to your ancient Guiding Goddess; publish and disseminate a manual on how you made the switch.

Christian Moderates – Take responsibility for disbanding your Reconstructionists and others who openly admit they want to replace democracy with war-god theocracy.

Christians – For starters, apologize to the descendants of the millions of people worldwide who in the name of Christ you’ve tortured and murdered.

College Professors – Teach courses on the guiding goddesses today and throughout history.

Comedians – Write a gentle, sympathetic family sitcom about a goddess-following family.

Educators – Demand, purchase and use textbooks that include information on both the good and the evil done by the war-god religions.

European People -- Find your ancient guiding goddesses, figure out to the best of your ability who they were and what they stood for, and then return to them.

E-zine Creators – Start an e-zine on the Guiding Goddess.

Feminists – Understand that rather than being a hindrance to the world, the guiding goddesses can save us.

Film producers – Produce films and documentaries about the guiding goddesses.

Genealogists – Help people find ancestors who were underground followers of a guiding goddess.

Goddess Community leaders – Organize email and letter-writing campaigns demanding equal representation on panel discussions re: religion, politics and war.

Goddess followers – Take the time to understand the difference between a healthy guiding goddess and goddesses who are merely war-god makeovers.

Goddess Followers – Stand with your heads high! When your religion reigned, the world was a far, far better place than it’s ever been since.

Historians – Publish books and articles on the history of the guiding goddesses.

Hindus – Switch from your current pantheons back to your ancient guiding goddesses, the ones you followed during your magnificent, peaceful and equalitarian Indus Valley Civilization.

Japanese – Switch from your current gods and goddesses back to the Guiding Goddess you followed during your stunningly peaceful and egalitarian Jomon Era.

Jewish Religious Moderates – Take responsibility for disbanding your fundamentalists.

Jewish Congregations – Switch from Yahweh to your ancient Guiding Goddess; publish and disseminate a manual on how you made the switch.

Middle Easterners -- Find your ancient guiding goddesses, figure out to the best of your ability who they were and what they stood for, and then return to them.

Mothers – Whisper to your children from birth on never to follow a war god.

Musicians – Write and perform songs about the Guiding Goddess.

Muslim Moderates – Take responsibility for disbanding your fundamentalists.

Muslim Congregations -- Switch from Allah to your ancient Guiding Goddess; publish and disseminate a manual on how you made the switch.

Parents – Teach your children how societies of guiding-goddess followers blossom and prosper. Teach the extreme dangers of starvation and war-god culture.

Parents – Teach your daughters it’s their duty to become strong and wise enough to help lead the world; teach your sons it’s their duty to be strong and wise enough to move over and give girls an equal place at all tables.

Parents, New – Start from its birth whispering to your baby that it shall never follow a war god or support a war-god’s wars.

Peace Organizations – Read, research, and disseminate information on the relationship between the Guiding Goddess and non-violence.

Philanthropists – Start think tanks on how the world can switch from war gods to guiding goddesses.

Playwrights – Write plays about the guiding goddesses and the necessity of the Switch.

Political Activists – Form a Goddess Party focused on the abolition of all status hierarchy, social violence, egocentric selfishness, and sensual prudery.

Psychologists – Study starvation culture and the variety of effects it has on individuals.

Publishers – Publish books, magazines and newspapers on the Guiding Goddess.

Readers – Read books, magazines and e-zines about the guiding goddesses; if you can’t find any, write publishers and ask why they’re not publishing on the Guiding Goddess.

Researchers – Research the guiding goddesses.

Sacred Circle Experts – Start a sacred circle centering on the Guiding Goddess, or one or more guiding goddesses.

Science Fiction Writers – Hugely important job for you: create a world placed in the near future in which the war gods are gone and all are following a guiding mother goddess; of course all your characters will have problems, but no one in the world will experience any of the following problems: war, violence, snooty snobbism, political repression, bully-wimps, me-first scroogism, boot-lickers of the rich, slavery, sexual fear, sexual uptightness, poverty or hunger.

Seminarians – Publish manuals on ways your church, temple, synagogue or mosque can make the switch from God to Goddess.

Seminary Board Members – Begin now converting your seminary to one that centering on Guiding Goddess versus the war gods.

Sociologists -- Research and disseminate information about the relationship between starvation culture, our subconscious fear of never having enough, and the inability of much of the world to avoid war.

Study Circle Experts – Start a study circle on the Goddess.

Television Producers – Create a television show about the Guiding Goddess.

Television Watchers – Write to television networks and producers demanding shows about the guiding goddesses.

Website Creators – Start a website on the Goddess.

Writers – Write and publish about the guiding goddesses.
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Thnx to xerxespersepolis & flickr.com for the foto, "Victoria goddess in an athlete's hand, Vatican Museums"

Shooting THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT

Couldn't help it. The latest political news just pumped the bad poet right out of me today:




Evidently the Republican Party,
Which hates gays,
Is all gay,
And is therefore merrily
Shooting itself,
Member by member,
One by one,
In the foot,
So toodle-loo Republican Party.
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thnx to the dog's daddy for the foto

DEMS, REPS & THE Goddess PARTY

Calling all goddessites who are political-organizer types: I call for a Goddess Party focused on the abolition of status hierarchy, social violence (including of course war), egocentric self-centeredness, sensual prudery, and the lack of a sense of humor.

Got any ideas for a good name?

HERE COME THE Bogeymen AGAIN

This is the type of site that makes my blood clot in my veins: Restoration: Reaching America’s Oldest Cultures through Practical Acts of God’s Love.

Christians poking at American Indians again – in this case the Hopi, one of the last groups to keep their mother goddess (mostly ‘cause they plunked their villages on mesatops and carved trails up the mesas so narrow no one could get their horses up them).

What makes this dud of a group think the Hopi want to be “reached”? In my head I see a cartoon of the Hopi running for their lives across the desert at the sight of these “Restoration” bogeymen.

I mean, haven’t the Christians done enough bone-breaking damage to the Hopi? First the Spanish Conquistadores called them "heathens" and tortured them for gold.

A little later Spanish missionaries tortured them in the name of Christ. In addition to torture they pumped the Hopi into forced labor, “summoned” Hopi women for sexual favors, and tried to take down the Hopi Mother Goddess. Hopis caught practicing their age-old religion were either “whipped or executed” (Billard 1979: 174).

Although usually peaceful and nonviolent, the Hopi have never been shy about fighting for their rights. So after being manhandled by the Spanish for a few decades they banded together with their Pueblo cousins and in 1680 royally routed these Spanish rogues.

Then in the mid 1800s in stomped the Anglos with their missionaries and government policies (Dozier 1970: 88). From about 1900-1920, the Mesa villages snapped and popped. For adults there was the U.S. Religious Crimes Code, designed to root and stomp out Indian religion.

For kids there was an even finer delight: the Indian boarding school. Against their parents’ will children were carted off to these re-education camps and cracked open like nuts (Dozier 1970: 115). Pueblo English professor Paula Gunn Allen says “…millions of Indian people were educated in boarding schools … wherein serious sexual and other kinds of physical abuse, neglect, terrorization, starvation, and humiliation were the order of the day…” (1992: xiii-xiv).

Just in case they don’t know squat about their Christian history I’m sending Restoration a copy of this post
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Billard, Jules B., The World of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1979).

Gunn Allen, Paula, The Sacred Hoop (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).

Dozier, Edward, The Pueblo Indians of North America (Case Studies in Anthropology, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970).

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Thnx to Ale Paiva for the foto

HATS Off TO MEDUSA COILS

Ever wondered what’s happening in our glorious Goddess community? If you haven’t already, trip on over and check out Medusa Coils. You’ll find little vignettes of who’s said what and doing what in the English-speaking Goddess world.

Everyone’s all friendly over there and insightful to boot. I say hats off to labrys, Medusa and Silver Serpent for keeping this fine blog.

TO RECOVERING Christians ET AL.

To All Recovering YAJites*,

Bless you dear ones, for you have been burned.

But listen dudes and dudettes, ya get burned by one hot stove, d’ya give up cooking? Not. Just because Jehovah, Allah and Yahweh did you dirty doesn’t mean all deities will.

When the Guiding Mother Goddess was our mainstay humans lived peaceful, egalitarian lives. Institutionalized warfare didn’t exist. Large-scale snooty snobbism didn’t exist. What could be wrong with letting yourself fall for a deity like this?

Love,
Athana
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Thnx to obyvatel for the foto
*YAJ is the god YahwehAllahJehovah, the god of Abraham. YAJites are those who follow YAJ.

RU Worried YET?

Wake up and smell the stinky feet in bed beside you, dear readers. They’re called “Christian Reconstructionists,” or “Dominionists” and they want to bring back death by stoning for “gays and nonbelievers” among others. What's more, they might just be getting too big for their britches:

“Two really devilish guys materialized
in Toccoa. Ga. last month to harangue true believers on the gospelof a thoroughly theocratic America. Along with lesser lights of the religious far right who spoke at American Vision's "Worldview SuperConference 2006," Herb Titus and Gary North called for nothing short of the overthrow of the United States of America.

“Titus and North aren't household
names. But Titus, former dean of TV
preacher Pal Robertson's Regent University
law school, has led the legal battle
to plant the Ten Commandants in
county courthouses across the nation.
North, an apostle of the creed called
Christian Reconstructionism. is one of
the most influential elders of American
fundamentalism.

"’I don’t want to capture their (mainstream Americans') system. I want to replace it,’ fumed North to a cheering audience. North has called for the stoning of gays and nonbelievers (rocks are cheap and plentiful, he has observed). Both friends and foes label him ‘Scary Gary.’

SNIP

“At the heart of what was taught by a
succession of speakers:
o Six-day, ‘young earth' creationism
is the only acceptable doctrine for
Christians. Even ‘intelligent design’ or
‘old earth’ creationism are compromises
with evil secularism.
• Public education is satanic and must
be destroyed….

“It would be easy to dismiss the
Reconstructionists as the lunatic fringe, no more worrisome than the remnants of the Prohibition Party. But. in fact, they have rather extraordinary entree and influence with top-tier Religious Right leaders and institutions.

“James Dobson's Focus on the Family
is now selling DeMar's book, America's
Christian Heritage. Dobson himself has
a warm relationship with many in the
movement, and he has admitted voting
for Reconstructionist presidential candidate
Howard Phillips in 1996.

“TV preacher Robertson has mentioned
reading North's writings, and he
has hired Reconstructionists as professors
at Regent University. Jerry Falwell
employs Reconstructionists to teach at
Liberty University. Roger Schultz. the
chair of Liberty's History Department.
writes regularly for Faith for all of Life,
the leading Reconstructionist journal.

“In short, Dobson, Robertson, Falwell
and the Southern Baptist Convention (the nation's largest Protestant denomination) may not agree with everything the Reconstructionists
advocate, but they sure don't seem to mind hanging out with this openly theocratic, anti-democratic crowd. It's enough fur Americans who believe in personal freedom and religious liberty to get worried about - before the first stones start flying.”


From “WARPED WORLDVIEW: Christian Reconstructionists Believe Democracy Is Heresy, Public Schools Are Satanic And Stoning Isn't Just For The Taliban Anymore -- And They've Got More Influence Than You Think.” By John Sugg, published in Church & State; Jul/Aug 2006, Vol. 59 Issue 7, p11-13.

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Thnx to floter for the foto

HOLY christian JIHAD

Yesterday Cousin Harold ripped me off a piece-of-trash email that’s circling the Net and trying to pump us all full of fear. First it says Islam is "the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States" after which it shouts, “most … clerics of Islam have declared a holy war against the infidels of the world…”

I don't know about the first part, but the second is not true. Most Islamic leaders don’t push violence any more than Christian clerics do. Also, this circulating foolishness totally skips over the part where Jehovah and Jesus too push the idea of killing heretics:

Here’s Jumpin’ Jehovah: "If you hear that in one of the towns ... there are men ... saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ ... it is your duty to ... put the inhabitants of that town to the sword; you must lay it under the curse of destruction -- the town and everything in it" (Deuteronomy 13: 12-16).

And Mr. Jesus: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15:6).

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Thnx to graceland32 for the foto

CRASH

Big computer crash you don't even wanna hear about. I've spent the last week in India and Mexico with techies, trying to iron things out. Finally I'm back on line. Never mind that most of the sites I surf to look beamed in from Mars -- at least I can get to them.

It's good to be back!

TO Anti-War & CLIMATE-CHANGE ACTIVISTS

A friend of mine named Duff said she’s having trouble flagging you down on something big.

Right now most of the world has been bamboozled into following religions that are going to wipe us off the face of the planet – you included. Maybe you personally don’t think you need religion, and that's fine. But anthropologists know that the majority of the world does, always has, and probably always will.

And if you don’t help the world see their religions are lethal – and help throw them some healthy religions as substitutes -- then nothing else you do will ever matter. Nothing you can do will ever cap religion. Darlings, you might as well spit in the wind.

Actually, we all have “religion.” There’s no choice in that. The only choice is which religion you’ll follow: Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah or Vishnu, the way over half the world does now? One of the Eastern religions? All the mainstream Eastern religions I know also pump up war, violence, and a one-sided male-over-female mentality – even Buddhism. Or is your religion money? Or science?

We all have answers to the big questions -- Where did I come from; What’s the purpose of life; Where do I go after I die. How you answer is your religion. Maybe without knowing it, Science is your god. The purpose of life, says the God Science, is to study it. And since it stands in the way of accurately studying things, the Big Sin is emotion. The supernatural, says The God Science, is for fools. The God Science says humans came from 32c worth of chemicals, period. End of sentence.

Can you see how such a god, if left free to romp around the sandbox, might lead to the invention of WMD? If the point of life is to scrutinize the universe, and fear and love are abominations, then study has total free reign -- no matter where it leads.

Of all the hundreds of world cultures anthropologists have studied, every single one has had religion – and religion based on the supra-natural. When anthropologists find such “universals” they know they’re on to something big, something fundamental to human functioning (other universals include the incest taboo, gender roles, myth, language, art, cooking, games, moral standards, and a few more.).

A solution to the war gods is a Guiding Mother Goddess. We are what we worship. If people worship a mother goddess, they’ll treat others the way a healthy mother treats her children: with unconditional love and regard. Instead of punishing, they’ll teach. Instead of bumping everyone into piles called good, better and best, they’ll see everyone as equally valuable.

If you have a negative reaction to the idea of a Mother Goddess, consider this: the Abrahamaic religions have spent 2000 years making damn sure you do. They knew the greatest threat to their existence were the Mother Goddesses, and they used every trick in the book – most hitting below the belt – to con humanity into having just the reaction you’re having now.

But even the Inquisitors couldn’t scrub out the notion of Mother Earth, Gaia, the ancient Goddess Gaia. Not only has the world shrunk to a village, it’s shrunk to a village speaking a hundred different languages – almost all of them sick war-god languages. To survive now, we need one mutually intelligible language. I propose it be a language of love -- the language of our common Mother, the Great Mother Goddess, Gaia.

Hymning TO DADDY WAR GOD

In your megachurch this Sunday, here's a sprightly little tune to sing along with "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic":

“Christian, dost thou see them
On the holy ground?
How the troops of Midian
Prowl and prowl around?

"Christian, up and smite them,
Counting gain but loss;
Smite them by the merit
Of the holy cross.”

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins said he used to sing this hymn in church Sundays (Dawkins 2006: 245).

Babies, as long as we drop on bended knee in front of primitive desert war gods, we will ... always ... have ... war.

GET YOUR Hands Off MY GODS, DUDE

Evidence has it that Robin Hood was not a man but a god (just one bit of evidence: in a 1639 pamphlet published in London he’s depicted by the Church as a pagan god).

At the same time, Maid Marian seems to have been “the Goddess Maerin, or Marian, or Mari-Anna, the Saxon wudu-maer, literally the Mary or the Mother of the Grove” (Barbara Walker 1983: 858; Robert Graves 1991: 396).

So why not revive Robin and Marion’s true identities?

King Arthur too seems to have been a god demoted by Jehovah the Jealous to mere mortal status.

Likewise, before Jehovah trotted in to Britain and sank his hooks in them, many of the women in the Arthurian legends were goddesses too.

And while our old gods Robin and Arthur push truth, beauty and justice, Jehovah, who stole their lands, pushes – what? -- mostly himself.

Mostly all Jehovah digs is allegiance, the licking of his boots (“Do not worship any other god, for the lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” ~ Exodus 34: 14).

So the upshot is, we with British heritage are hiding our shining, superior deities simply because this green-eyed dud named Jealous has demanded it. Hm.
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thnx to Bekisjak for the foto of what's heralded as the grave of Arthur at Glastonbury

Traveling WITH THE GODDESS

Karen Tate asked me to let you know about her 2008 Sacred Goddess tours to Paris and Turkey.

I hafta admit, after reading her tour descriptions (HERE and HERE) my mouth’s watering. Gathering around old goddess places with a group of like-minded people, and with an ordained priestess of the Goddess (i.e., Karen) to guide us? Oh, my!

Karen’s lead tours all over the world. She’s the author of Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations, which I highly recommend for a worldwide grounding in the history of the Goddess.


The TURKEY Tour: October 15-28, 2008

Did you know Turkey used to be called “Nourishing Mother”? I didn’t.

“…Few places,” says Karen, “offer so many exciting activities and varied sacred sites of the Goddess [as Turkey]. Visit temples of Athena, Aphrodite, Cybele, Mary and Isis. Stand in the temples of Artemis, including outside Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Explore Hecate’s only standing temple and the famous Neolithic site of Çatal Hoyuk. No longer swept beneath the sands of time, Goddess sites come alive on our journey, giving you the rare opportunity to connect with the Divine Feminine among Her ancient stones, on Her still potent sacred soils.”

For more info on the Turkey tour, go HERE.


The PARIS Tour: May 23-30, 2008

Did you know Paris has hidden places where the Goddess used to be?

In Paris, says Karen, “Goddess Spirituality [is] hidden in plain sight…. From her newly defined sacred place, the Louvre Museum, visit her many faces embraced across continents…. Wonder at Mary Magdalene’s temple in the heart of Paris…. Uncover places once sacred to Isis, the Druids, and Celts. Visit a sacred well beneath a cathedral replete with symbols and imagery of Goddess from a past long forgotten…. Meditate on the ancient roots of the Black Madonna and the Blessed Virgin…. Contemplate controversial sites made famous in The DaVinci Code.”

For more info on the Paris tour, go HERE.

BTW, both men and women are welcome on both tours.

HATS Off TO TAWFIK HAMID

Here’s a dude who deserves a dance in the park with his favorite woman:

He's TAWFIK HAMID, and he says to his fellow and sister Muslims, “It is well past time that Muslims cease using the charge of 'Islamophobia' as a tool to intimidate and blackmail those who speak up against suspicious passengers and against those who rightly criticize current Islamic practices and preachings”

Hats off to you, Mr. Hamid!

To read Tawfik Hamid’s article in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal go HERE.

Of course what I'd really like to hear Mr. Hamid say is he plans to lead Muslims back to the beautiful, glorious, sparkling spiritualities they practised before the war gods hit them. The spiritualities they practiced back when they were what we now call Ubaidians and Halafians, and had no war whatsoever, no snooty snobbism, or poverty, or violence, or bully-boy rulers. That's what I'd really like to hear him say. But at this point, I'm very, very glad for small favors.
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thnx to anna.benedetto for the foto