KING ARTHUR: Better THAN JESUS

Oh, lovies! Why didn’t we spot this before? I think Jesus Christ is really King Arthur! Take a sneak peek at the evidence:

First, the Celtic Christmas, celebrated on Dec. 21, is called “Alban Arthuan” (Winter Solstice).

Second, according to this website, King Arthur was born on December 21.*

Doesn’t that turn Arthur into Jesus Christ -- the hero who at the darkest hour comes to save us all from Evil?

Thing is, since Arthur isn’t plunked into the same rule book with Yahweh “the … psychotic delinquent,”** he’s bound to be Big-Time better than Jesus.

Arthur of course picked up his power not from a psychotic delinquent, but from from the Great Guiding Goddess.

According to Barbara Walker, King Arthur’s mother was the Triple Goddess. “Arthur lost his sacred mana when he lost his queen, the Triple Goddess incarnate in Guinevere, who was really three Guineveres according to the Welsh Triads” (TWEMS, p. 61).

Have you heard this before -- that King Arthur was the British Jesus Christ?

It seems as obvious as the pointy dunce cap perched on Dubya’s head!!! Why didn’t we see it before?!

Or, am I just the last to see it? Hee, hee.
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*“The name 'Arthuan' is interesting in relation to Arthurian legend, as King Arthur was believed to have been born on the Winter Solstice in Castle Tintagel in Cornwall”.
**Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006: 38.
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Thnx to Peter-Noster for the foto; go here for more.

SANTA WAS A Woman

This is from last year, but it's too good to pass up:

HO! HO! HO! Whaddya Know? It wasn’t Santa, but Mother Goddess Holda who used to swoop down our chimneys, leaving all those goodies, and nibbling on our cookies!

“…[I]n some parts of old Europe, it was Holda--not Santa--who brought gifts to children and determined who was 'naughty or nice.' I also encountered lore depicting her as dressed in red and going down chimneys to bring gifts to children. An old Germanic tradition included leaving an offering of food and milk for Holda on December 24, known as Mother Night.”

MORE>>>
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Thnx to Selena Fox and Beliefnet for the foto.

RELIGION: NOT A Choice?

Like I always say, sweeties, a dude without religion is like a nostril without a nose – ain’t no such thing.

Whatever you leap on to answer the Big Questions (Where da we all come from? Where da we go when we die? etc.) -- is your religion.

And be careful what ya choose, cuz it can make a whale-load of a difference. Here’s a sweetie dude who agrees with me -- a Mr. J. Peterson:

Jordan Peterson has an easy way to prove to most everyone they are a person of faith….

"I presume that you assume that the future is real," said Prof. Peterson, who teaches psychology at the University of Toronto and has studied the impact of belief on society. "The future is an immaterial entity. It's composed entirely of possibility. So your belief in it is an axiom of faith."

SNIP

"You are to an extraordinary degree guided by, or misguided by, what you believe," Mr. Harris said. "If you're a racist, that is a result of what you believe about race. If you're a jihadist, that is built on what you believe about the Koran and supremacy of Islam.…

SNIP

To Prof. Peterson, though, belief is not optional.…At its most basic level, belief acts like a set of headlights to guide us through a foggy universe that "is far more complicated than we are smart."

SNIP

But at a deeper level, belief represents patterns of a deeper reality that go beyond the physical world. They function like mathematical formulas that seem abstract but actually define an underlying physical reality.

"Our religious sense is grounded in biology," said Prof. Peterson. "It's not a simple cultural overlay. Religious belief and ritual are universal. It's as specifically human as language.

SNIP

"Christ is born at the darkest time of the year. That's not an accident. There are a lot of extremely complex ideas behind that. So here's one: the redeeming hero emerges when the need is greatest.

For more, go to the NationalPost.com, 23 Dec. 2007.
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Thnx to hippobosca for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Havva HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Getting bashed with “internet-connection” issues today, so I’m thanking my lucky stars and planets I can get through long enuf to say thank you, dear Goddess, for the new light, and HAPPY NEW YEAR, SWEETIES!

Love you all!

Athana
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thnx to Moo. Just Moo. for the foto. Go HERE to see more.

HUCKABEE THE Devil?

Is Mike Huckabee a Christian Dominionist?

Go HERE to find out.
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Thnx to carnefresca for the foto; go HERE to see more of her work.

STERLING STOCKING-Stuffer

Ahhh! The perfect winter-solstice stocking-stuffer for your sweet little pagan kiddies, who need to learn about the world's BogeyBaddies. It's Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials. HERE’S a new review of this winning bookset, by assistant prof of New Testament Studies Leslie Baynes:

Some snippets:

Although the series is a fantasy set in multiple worlds, there is no doubt that Mr. Pullman, a self-described atheist, targets Christianity--and particularly a rather thinly disguised Catholic Church--in these children's books.

SNIP

The polemic against [YAJ's] religion starts … in the first book, which introduces … the personal daemon. A daemon is not a demon but … a sort of guardian spirit ... in animal form. Children's daemons change to match their mood or suit their purposes (say, from a moth to a wildcat), but they settle into a fixed form at puberty. This change is the crux of the entire series; that is, the series is about growing up.

SNIP

In His Dark Materials, however, the church condemns growing up, particularly sexual awakening. "That's what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling," claims a character in "The Amber Spyglass."… So strongly does this church want to "save" children from autonomy and the resultant possibility of choosing sin, that it literally cuts them away from their daemons, destroying their souls.

UNCLE SNURLY’S Christian NATION

Uncle Snurly driving you snarly with his rants about how the U.S. is a “christian nation”?

Point him to this New York Times op-ed piece: “A Nation of Christians is Not a Christian Nation.”

Some snippets:

The only acknowledgment of God in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated “in the year of our Lord 1787.” … The Connecticut ratifying convention debated rewriting the preamble to take note of God’s authority, but the effort failed.

snip

Andrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a “Christian party in politics.” Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed “Christian amendment” to the Constitution to declare the nation’s fealty to Jesus.

snip

In the 1790s, in the waters off Tripoli, pirates were making sport of American shipping near the Barbary Coast…. Washington sent Joel Barlow … to Tripoli to settle matters, and the resulting treaty … bought a few years of peace. Article 11 of this long-ago document says that “as the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” there should be no cause for conflict over differences of “religious opinion” between countries.

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thnx to delgoff for the foto; go HERE to see more.

DO YOU EVER Dream ABOUT THE GODDESS?

This morning I picked up Elinor Gadon’s magnificent The Once and Future Goddess.

It fell open to page 229 and to this: Jungian analyst Edward Whitmont says that “the Goddess is returning in the dreams and fantasies of his patients,” and that “his patients dream differently than they did twenty-five years before, and that the Goddess is omnipresent….”

Do you ever dream about the Goddess? Daydream about Her? What are your dreams like? How often do you have them?
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thnx to chasing twilight for the foto. Go HERE to see more.

GODDESS Hugging: THE NEXT STEP?

Z. Budapest, one of the great leaders of the Goddess Movement, has been experimenting with hugging:

“…the hug I was experimenting with is ... not just a plain hug. Not an air hug, not a petting hug, nor a boa constrictor hug.

“It’s a non-sexual committed hug, when two women embrace each other with heart-on-heart and entrain with each others breathing. This is easy. But when you breathe together, past a minute, old tapes begin to play. Break it off … enough … the urge to stop is great. But if you stay past 2 minutes in this hug magical things begin to happen.

“After about two minutes a great crumbling of the walls begins, the warmth of the human heart transcends the personality, you no longer think of this other person as an individual. You stop thinking. Sinking deeper into the hug, I felt a total peace descended on me....

SNIP

“My third [hugging] partner was an experienced darshan receiver…. A very different feeling emerged. Her center was like a hot point, like a heart oven, radiating heat and love to me. I fell into a bliss in her arms, just warming all my loneliness….

“Tears came into my eyes.

“I looked and saw others tearing up as well.

“How this unconditional love that was so close, so available, was making us all realize how the divine spark, was in all of us if we could stand it past the 2 minutes. Total strangers could transmit to us the unconditional love of the goddess and create a great peace in our hearts."

For more, go HERE
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thnx to mestes76 for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Birthing A BOOK!

It’s actually going to happen. The establishment is plunking our ideas on “gently replacing God the Father with God the Mother” into a real, live book.

The ideas of all of you who’ve posted regularly on this blog over the past few years are heading straight into this volume.

Most likely title: Switching to Goddess: Humanity’s Ticket to the Future. Publisher: O Books in the UK, an imprint of John Hunt Publishers. Date of publication: Nov. 28, 2008.

WE ALL ARE sooo FAB, aren't we?!?!
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Thnx to Ben Zvan for the foto; go HERE to see more of his work

BEGINNER'S Guide TO GODDESS

I could so use your help!!! Can you think of any important books to add to this list? It’ll be an appendix in a book that in 18 days I’m turning in to the publisher. [18 days!?! O Goddess help me, I can’t get this done in 18 days!][Sound of teeth chattering, knees knocking]

Baring, Anne, and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image.

Bolen, Jean Shinoda, Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women Save the World.

Christ, Carol. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality.

Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade.

Gadon, Elinor. The Once and Future Goddess: A Sweeping Visual Chronicle of the Sacred Female and Her Reemergence in the Cult.

Gimbutas, Marija. The Living Goddesses.

Gunn Allen, Paula. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions.

Johnson, Buffie. Lady of the Beasts: Ancient Images of the Goddess and Her Sacred Animals.

Olson, Carl. The Book of the Goddess Past and Present: An Introduction to Her Religion.

Sjoo, Monica, and Barbara Mor. The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth.

Spretnak, Charlene, The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power within the Feminist Movement.

Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess.

Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1976.

Stone, Merlin. Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood: A Treasury of Goddess and Heroine Lore from Around the World.

Tate, Karen. Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations.

Walker, Barbara G. The Skeptical Feminist: Discovering the Virgin, Mother and Crone.

Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets.

Wilson, Ian. Before the Flood.

MEN AND THE GODDESS

Ward, Tim. Savage Breast: One Man’s Search for the Goddess.

RITUAL

Monaghan, Patricia. The Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit.

Budapest, Zsuzsanna. The Grandmother of Time: A Women’s Book of Celebrations, Spells, and Sacred Objects for Every Month of the Year.

IS IT TIME FOR Goddess YET?

A site worth bookmarking: The Skeptics Annotated Bible.

Sample pages:

Cruelty and Violence in the Bible:
-Long List
-Short List
-Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran?
-How many has God killed?
-Etcetera

Great Mother come back to us!

The war gods are about to turn us all into a little pile of ashes!

GODDESS Getting GARGANTUAN!

Two more media breakthroughs for the Goddess!

First, this just in from Dana Alder at the RCGI*: “The Washington Post is now featuring online columns by Starhawk, in their On Faith section.... I have such strange feelings about this ... sort of a Yay! mixed with a Whaaaa?”

Go HERE to read Starhawk’s latest (first?) column, “Torture Is Never Justified.”

A snippet from it:

”One reason many of us choose to call ourselves Witches is to consciously identify with the women and men who were tortured and burned by the inquisition throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries during the Witch persecutions. Our traditions remind us of how people were taken, on the word or whisper of a neighbor, an enemy, a rival for land or lover, and tortured until they confessed to anything the Inquisitors suggested….”

Second, Karen Tate has a fab new radio program just beginning on Internet Radio. In the first segment, aired a few days ago, Karen interviewed Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary.

The two have a fascinating chat about the “Veteran Pentacle Quest,” Selena’s ten-year fight to get the U.S. military to accept the pentacle on the graves of wiccan military personnel.

So great to hear the voices of these two women who’ve done so much to bring Goddess spirituality to the general public. You can sense their deep beauty, love and spiritual power.

Go HERE to listen to this historic half-hour program.

Go HERE to see pictures of upcoming guests – they include Riane Eisler (Feb. 20), Max Dashu, Lydia Ruyle, Rev. Angie Buchanan, Secretary for the Board of Directors for the Parliament of the World’s Religion, Rev. Ava, Director and Founder of the Goddess Temple of Orange County, and many other exciting guests!
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*Reformed Congregation of the Goddess International

Leading US INTO DARK AGES

As the early Christians led the Western World, c. 500 AD, into the Dark Ages, they jumped so hard on science that it became a field of gibberish. The best books in the land taught that mice could be “generated spontaneously … from ‘the putrefaction of the earth’; that wasps produce themselves out of dead horses, and bees out of cow carcasses."

Since Christians had banned the scientific method, “even notions that would have been simple to test remained untested…. Pagan thinkers long ago understood the shape of the earth, and even calculated its approximate circumference with only a small error. But Lactantius … called this field of endeavor ‘bad and senseless,’ and proved by quoting the Bible that the earth was flat” (Barbara Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia, pp. 211-212).
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thnx to t90 for the foto

SAMHUINN: Good FOR YOUR HEALTH

According to the Beltane Fire Society, the original reason for dressing up in masks and costumes at Samhuinn was “to disguise oneself against the unwanted attentions of spirits and faeries” who, along with Great Aunt Greselda and Grandpa Jehosaphat also take advantage of the thinning of the veil between the living and the dead at this time of the year.

After doing a lot of thinking , I’ve come to the conclusion that disguising oneself at Samhuinn is also wicked good medicine.

Why? Because we’re all boxed into our own little personas. We behave the way we do partly because people who know us expect us to behave that way.

Whenever we try to break free of our personas, people give us dozens of little subconscious kicks in the kahooties to make us crawl right back in. If you’re never funny and you tell a joke, people don’t laugh – they shrink away like you have lice or flies.

Or if you’re generally funny and you announce that Granny’s just died of a stroke, people laugh their fool heads off.

Anyhoo, becoming someone else at Samhuinn rewards us with the knowledge that we could indeed – if we really, really wanted to – break free of our persona cage and take on another one (persona that is).

Especially if your persona’s kind of thin and dry, this can be very good medicine.

So get out there tonight and become someone else! For the sake of your health!

Me, I’m going to spend the night as Maid Marian of Sherwood Forest, aka the Great Goddess of the ancient Celts of the British Isles.

However you spend the night, here’s to all of you having a fab and meaningful time.

And may only the spirits of your choice see through your disguises.

THE YEAR OF Living HELL

New book hitting the stands about a dude who crawls through a full year following every rule in the Bible religiously (pun intended):

"He hires an earnest New York shatnez tester to ensure that his garments don't mix wool and linen (Deut. 22:11).

"He can't utter the names of false gods (Exodus 23:13), which means that "I'll have lunch with you on Thursday" or "let's get the kids together for a play date on Wednesday" are flat out, since Thursday and Wednesday honor Thor and Woden, respectively.

"He won't touch his wife during and just after her period—or any woman, for that matter (Lev. 15:19). He can't even sit on a chair a menstruating woman has occupied, which makes navigating the Manhattan subway a bit tricky.

"He allows the sides of his hair to grow uncut (Lev. 19:27), and by the end of the year the fashion-challenged combination of his long earlocks and all-white garments (Eccl. 9:8) causes people to cross to the other side of the street rather than encounter him...."

The book is The Year of Living Biblically, and the dude is one A. J. Jacobs. Jacobs calls himself “a secular Jew” who never utters the world “Lord” unless it’s followed by “of the Rings.”

The snips above came from a review by Jana Riess. Go HERE for more of it.
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Thnx to scott ableman for the foto; go HERE to read more about it.

GODDESS Perpetuations

Goddess Perpetuations for Daily Living

1. I strive to be in service rather than in power. With service comes humility and care. With power comes corruption.
2. I strive to live in harmony with Nature.
3. I strive to employ kindness and compassion as well as ethics and integrity.
4. I strive to be strong, tenacious and assertive, using force as a last resort, and then only tempered by wisdom, care, and discernment.
5. I strive to be accountable and responsible for my actions and expect the same of others.
6. I strive to not be influenced by power and greed.
7. I strive to be generous, supportive and nurturing.
8. I strive to work in partnership with others to create mutually beneficial relationships and associations.
9. I strive to perpetuate positive thoughts and practice life-affirming actions, knowing that what I put forth will return to me.
10. I strive to be aware I am a thread in the web of life, a microcosm of the macrocosm, and as such I affect others.
11. I strive for equality and human rights for all, no matter one's sexual orientation, race, religion or gender.
12. I strive to seek the beauty, joy and pleasures of life.
13. I strive to be grateful and know abundance, with no fear of scarcity.
14. I strive to know myself.
15. I strive to embrace diversity and tolerance for in Goddess' many faces, skin colors, sizes and shapes I see richness and have no fear.
16. I strive to honor all living things, including myself, and seek to harm none.
17. I strive to see the Divine in myself and all things, including the mundane.
18. I strive to recognize there is no one way to define, embrace or worship the Divine.
19. I strive to seek my own best path to the Divine.
20. I strive to be one with the Divine.

By: Rev. Karen Tate
Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations, available now,
and Walking An Ancient Path (due in bookstores Summer 2008)
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thnx to Rev. Karen Tate for the text gemstones.
thnx to seattletim for the foto.

AMERICA THE Christian NATION

Turns out some dude who wants to be Prez, John McCain of AZ, is tripping around town tooting about how America was “founded as a Christian nation.”

Somebody needs to clue this dude in before he makes a fatter fool outa himself! Any dudette or dude who squeaked through sixth-grade history knows that in the late 1700s Americans weren’t Christians.

First, Washington, Jefferson and the other dudes who stitched us together as a nation weren’t Christian:

“Legal scholar William Lee Miller writes that the chief founders of the nation were all Deists* -- he lists Washington, Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and Paine, though many more leaders of the founding era could be added (Benjamin Rush, John Witherspoon, David Rittenhouse, Philip Freneau, Joel Barlow, Aaron Burr, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Tench Coxe, to name some).

“The founders were of a ‘liberality of spirit which must forever and properly remain a scandal to the rank and file of professing American Christians.’"

Second, back then even the people weren’t Christian:

“… at the time of the founding [of the U.S.], historians estimate that only about 17% of Americans professed formal religious adherence, a historic low point.

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* Deists “believed in a divine providence knowable only through reason and experience and not prone to intervene in the affairs of men.”

**The quotes came from a review in the LA Times of the new book by Garry Wills, 'Head and Heart: American Christianities.' Go HERE for more of it.

Thnx to basicabe for the fine foto of Uncle Sam

AMERICA Cries OUT FOR GODDESS

In my teeny-tiny small-town library nestles a handful of books-on-tape. Last week I checked out one of two left: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

You’ve heard of Alexis – the French dude who shipped over in the 1830s to check us out here in Revolution Land?

About America Mr. de T. was all rosy smiles. Flatteringly, he fell madly in love with us. On the other hand he also said that, compared to Europeans, we are pinpointed on our own pleasure. Each American is like a little god, a dictator, he said.

He worried about the Tyranny of the Majority. In 1830s America, dudes who said Christianity was a buncha hooey got ridden outa town on rails. And in America, the Majority Opinion is the same as the European king or dictator.

But in de Tocqueville’s mind the only thing really, really wrong with America was this: we were doing genocide on one set of people, and treating another like they were cattle (buying, selling, trading them).

Hang your heads low, Americans -- really low.

On the other hand, what d’ya expect from a nation so Christian it squeaks? In what other book do you find more slavery and attempted genocide than in the Bible? The Bible is a guidebook from A to Z for how to stomp all over people you don’t like.

Americans, we need something new to form around. And what could be more dramatically new – not to mention perfect -- than the Guiding Mother Goddess?

Ever heard of a mother pushing genocide?
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thnx to cedar rose for the foto
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Thnx to DK50 for the foto.

BOO-BOO

Yesterday I announced that the Temple of the Goddess in Orange County CA was invited to appear in a TV series on religion. Not! The group that’s been invited is the Temple in Pasadena, not Orange Co. (how many Goddess temples are there in CA?!).

Click HERE to visit the Pasadena Temple. Do they look well organized or what? Anyhoo I’m going to drop down to yesterday’s post and pitch “Orange Co.” for “Pasadena.”

Meanwhile below is the latest email back-and-forth between Karen Tate and me on the TV deal:

ATHANA: Karen, makes all the sense in the world to check the situation out
> completely before committing to it. I'm keeping all my fingers crossed
> though that everything works out and you can get this to work for the
> Temple, the Goddess -- and the world. I hope the producers haven't been
> giving you any negative feedback because they don't understand Goddess
> spirituality?

KAREN: Nothing negative yet. We're just making sure of the ground rules - namely if there will be censorship.
>
> ATHANA: I was wondering: if you
> sign a deal with Charter Media will it be for a one-time appearance
> only, or for regular appearances on a regular basis?

KAREN: It would be on a monthly basis, playing 24/7, and we can change the video we submit as often during the month as we like.

THE GODDESS on TV?!?

HOT tingling tamales! I think we're building up some steam! The Goddess may be on the brink of catching some big-time media attention: a California cable TV network has invited the Temple of the Goddess in Pasadena to take part in a new TV series: “Faith.” Karen Tate just emailed me the following to post here on RGT:

Priestessing Goddess Onto the World Stage;
We Can No Longer Afford to be Invisible

by: Rev. Karen Tate, Media Director
Temple of the Goddess

As the Media Director of Temple of the Goddess, I recently accompanied its Foundress and Director, Xia, to a presentation hosted by a cable television network, Charter Media. Charter had put out a call to a diverse range of religious organizations in the city to invite them to participate in a new cable program they were initiating called Faith. As we sat there listening to the intention of Charter, to bring spiritually uplifting messages to the airwaves, from all religious corners of southern California, we realized our dream and vision, years in the making, might soon be a reality. But were we really ready to fully step into the public spotlight?

Some in the women’s community snickered and others were fearful for me when I first named my ministerial path as Emissary Priestess of Isis. Yet I sensed, even in those early days, that it was up to us, individually and collectively, to priestess Goddess back onto the world stage. I believe we could no longer afford to be invisible. We had to share our spirituality with the rest of the world and reclaim our rightful place alongside the recognized traditional religions on the globe. Having discovered the importance and empowerment for both women and men obtained through knowledge of Goddess, spiritually, politically and culturally, I wanted to be one of the many needed ambassadors in her rebirthing into the mainstream world.

I truly believed the Sacred Feminine, long-missing in the spiritual and political equation, caused our world to sink to the low point we now experience everyday. Fortunately there were others that supported my vision. In those early days, Lady Olivia Robertson, one of the founders of the international Fellowship of Isis, invited me to Clonegal Castle in Ireland to be ordained. In the ensuing years, myself and Xia, continually visioned and dreamed of temples of Goddess in our neighborhoods across the country. We both felt called to do what we could in our lifetime to make that a reality. We could no longer be content to practice our spirituality just underground. That inner voice was loud and pushed us forward to dare to be visible. Xia calls it, “following the sacred breadcrumbs.” As the years passed, the urgency felt all the more great.

Mostly our paths overlapped. When I founded The Isis Ancient Cultures Society, a non-profit educational organization, built on partnership ideals espoused by Riane Eisler, Xia was a facilitator and on the Advisory Board. I went on to write Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations, a book that has provided me with a vehicle to teach and lecture about Goddess in the mainstream world, opening doors to radio, television and in print media that might otherwise may have remained closed tight. My second book, Walking An Ancient Path, a guide for the mainstream novice to incorporate Goddess Spirituality into their spiritual paradigm, will be in bookstores the summer of 2008. During this time, I co-founded Sacred Sundays, inter-faith services rooted in the Sacred Feminine and complemented by the Divine Masculine.

In the last several years, under Xia’s’s careful vision and tutelage, Temple of the Goddess, one of the few legally recognized Goddess churches in existence today, has grown and thrived. Today, I serve Goddess and community there as a facilitator and as the Media Director of Temple of Goddess. With TOG as a vehicle, Xia and I both have come to understand we have the opportunity to do what we have believed for years must be done.

Not only would TOG provide a bridge where our beloved sisters and brothers with their covens and pointed hats can find common ground with new Goddess Advocates, bit it is also providing a safe haven where, through sacred liturgy and ritual theater, those of more traditional faiths might come to understand and embrace the importance and relevance of earth-based spirituality.

Taking things a step farther, Temple of the Goddess now has the opportunity to have a public platform - with a microphone to the world! The Temple has been invited to bring our spirituality to cable television where we might once and for all dispel the propaganda and myths instilled within mainstream psyches about the Sacred Feminine. We have the chance to define ourselves and our beliefs, rather than let those who would demean and dismiss the Divine Feminine set the agenda and the tone as they continue to mass produce fear and misinformation, whether through intent or ignorance.

Yes, Charter Media, with its newly forming Faith program has invited Temple of the Goddess to participate, along with other traditional and non-traditional faiths, to have their voices heard across the airwaves. And Xia and I believe it is time for us to step up, be heard, and cast aside fear. We must step up and shout to the world, our principles are as valid and credible as any commandments. Our liturgy and myths are as uplifting, substantial and as much a roadmap for living as any other religion. Perhaps even more, because we seek the balance of the feminine alongside the masculine. We no longer want to be children of divorce where the Mother has been cast out of the garden, pulled away from her children and husband, by man-made dogma. We must certainly use this opportunity to re-educate those who have been spoon-fed lies. We can no longer let patriarchal religions that worked so feverishly for thousands of years to remove Goddess from the world stage continue to publicly define who we are.

As I am out giving lectures about the Sacred Feminine, I continually come up against this toxic propaganda and have to encourage a rethinking of the Divine; the Sacred Feminine alongside the Divine Masculine. Men come to understand embracing Goddess does not mean women want to take over the world. Both genders realize feminism is not a dirty word, but a vehicle for equality and it will not unravel societies if both wings of the bird are equal in strength. I have to constantly remind people that Satan and the Devil are not creations of Pagans. Imagine a world where these are no longer even talking points or wedge issues. Mother and Father together again feels pretty natural and right to most people when they take a moment to think and challenge the programming.

What I do see out there in the mainstream world are people who, when hearing what a world embracing the Feminine would look like, they say, “Yes, I could do that! I want that! Tell me more! What books do I read? Similarly, when Xia penned an article, “Out of the Closet and Into the Fire,” it was met with overwhelmingly positive response as people came up to her later and said they did not know before reading her article that they were pagan! Yes, people are starved to restore the sacred within their lives - and that sacred must be about balance, harmony, compassion and wisdom. Sacred Sunday services grew from a handful of people to standing room only in a few short months. Likewise for Temple of the Goddess rituals held four times a year. Mainstream people are responding to the message of the Mother. The days for domination, power over, and control are coming to an end.

Yes, in the long ago past, we could be killed for our beliefs. I know women who still hoard books for fear one day there will again be book burnings. Yes, many of us have had to hide who we were for the sake of keeping custody of our kids or keeping a job to pay the bills. But if not us, then who, and if not now, then when? Time is running short. More than ever, the religion of environmentalism needs to be a top priority. Liberty, equality, integrity and love must be what our leaders walk and talk. That along with tolerance, diversity, wisdom, compassion and strength, just some of the fundamentals and ideals of the Sacred Feminine, must be learned and taught. to our sons and daughters. Over the next few decades we must educate and inspire a shift from a dominator culture to one where we all strive for partnership and we measure ourselves not by our bank balance but by how we serve humanity.

It bears repeating, people today are literally starving for the sacred. Traditional religion alone no longer works for the masses. Humanity needs to once again be held in the embrace of the Mother and know her love, strength and acceptance. Let those of us who know her best, our beloved sisters and brothers who wear the pointed hats and black robes, stand shoulder to shoulder with those new Goddess advocates and together help rebirth her onto the world stage. It is time for us to set the agenda. It is time for our voices to be heard. It is time for us to make a difference in the world, not just for ourselves and for our children, but for our beloved Mother who has been patiently waiting for us to return to our sanity!

To conclude, yes, it is true. We are in the process of dialoging with Charter Media about Temple of the Goddess’ participating in their Faith program. We hope you are excited about this potential opportunity as we are!

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Thnx to kahunapulej for the foto of the volcano

DANCING, THINKING & Crying ALL AT THE SAME TIME

How ‘bout that? Some of the songs on this new album by my friend Kate Schrock made me dance, think and cry -- all at the same time.

"Kate Schrock is a US indie artist / rebel - raised on the coast of Maine - left home at 16 - landed in New York City and then Paris as a run-way model. Met cool people like Wim Wenders & Bill Murray and decided to use her brain and become a writer - enrolled at the University of Chicago to study philosophy and ended up fronting a rock band and transferring to art school (Bennington) where she met more interesting people and started making records and putting them out on her own label (Kakelane).

The status quo never held much fascination for Kate - who has seemed more interested in authentic life experiences than getting record deals. She just released her 6th indie album (2007) - 'Invocation' a collaboration with Legendary horn player Glen DaCosta of 'Bob Marley and the Wailers' fame...." For more go HERE.

To sample a few songs on Kate's new album Invocation, go HERE.

These are songs that roll around in your head and pull and stretch your emotions right out of you. Just like they need to be stretched out of you. Like you have an itch and the songs are the scratch that makes everything alright again.

It’s such a total gift to know someone as smart and talented as Kate. On top of being a gifted musician, she’s just become a mother, and after visiting her and baby Roosevelt yesterday I have a feeling she’s going to be a fab mother, too.

When I held Roo on the porch yesterday what blew me away was how at only four weeks he turned and tilted his head all around for almost five minutes staring at the tree leaves and clouds. And registering all these profound emotions on his face at whatever he was seeing up there.

I think if anyone has what it takes to raise the next generation of Goddess men, it’ll be Kate.

To order Invocation, go to Kate's website. When you order, make sure to tell her Athana sent you.

HEY! JUST Try HARDER, WILL YA?!?

Dear Readers,

Pick up almost any book on What’s Wrong with the World and How to Fix It in 10 Easy Steps and the answer 100 times out of 100 is this: When we try more, work harder and love better, things will be alright again.

Nuh-uh. They won’t.

As long as I’ve been alive this has been the standard, pat solution to the world’s problems. The problem is, if your heart, mind and soul are sabotaging you -- which ours are -- it doesn’t work to work harder. It makes no difference, babies, how hard you work to get North if your compass is directed South. You are *never* gonna get there.

Almost the entire world now is lead by war gods plunked into “holy” books which are then plunked into the chubby little hands of children. The kids are told, “Junior! Be like this war dude!” Then Junior grows up and all he wants to do is go to war.

*That’s* what’s simple.

In the christian bible Christ is plunked in there with the war god Jehovah. So who do people follow? Whichever is convenient at the time. If all’s hunky dorrie, they follow Christ. If someone’s threatening their home heating oil, they switch to the war god. This is not rocket science.

It is not – I repeat not – a matter of environmentalists and social-justice activists trying harder, working longer, or organizing better.

The world has its Mind set against itself. And kiddies, until we change that, we will never, ever end war amongst ourselves or the war against our Mother Earth.

Love,
Athana
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thnx so much to gregkendallball for the foto

TIME FOR Stealing?

Is it time we stole into war-god congregations and made them our own?

It’s important to grok that the Christian-Islamic-Jewish congregation is a unit that can be looked at as totally distinct from The Church, i.e. the rotten war-god hierarchy.

Although they don’t often do it, most congregations would be perfectly capable of flying off on their own, cutting themselves loose from any “higher” organization.

Congregations are simply separate and potentially removable cogs in the war-god Machine. If they’d fly away from god, most over time at least would probably be perfectly capable of shucking off their damaged and damaging baggage (war gods, war songs, fear of women and the human body, etc.).

At the same time however, they could hold on to all the benefits of congregations – the promises of love and support to members, of help to members in need, of help in socializing tots, toddlers and teens; the knowledge of group dynamics and small-group financial systems; and so forth. All it would take would be a few good Goddess followers to join a congregation and slowly convert it to the Goddess. When they discover what we're really all about -- not only the love of Christ but also the love of humor, the human body and that most priceless of all Goddess gifts, love making -- how could any congregation resist us?

Think big is what I always say. Tee hee.
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thnx to eaglerm for the foto

Dancing IN TO SUNDAY SERVICE

What's snapping and crackling today at The Goddess Temple of Orange County, California, one of the most active and well organized modern Goddess orgs in the country (and for that matter the world):

Sunday, September 23
TWO SUNDAY SERVICES for WOMEN
"PRIESTESS WISDOM, PEACE & POWER" Ritual
This month: "WORK & CAREER"
9:30 -10:15 AM
Love Offering
HURTFUL TRIBAL BELIEFS TRANSFORMED EVERY SUNDAY MORNING …
Your affirmations will only work when you have released your hidden tribal beliefs - those mistaken ideas about life passed down to you by your culture. These myths keep women oppressed, poor, sick, tired, fearful and miserable. Let them go here … now in Safe, Supportive and Sacred Feminine Space … and come to your greater Priestess Wisdom, Peace & Power.

2007 SCHEDULE of TRIBAL BELIEFS TRANSFORMED in First Service

This month: "WORK & CAREER"
October: HEALTH & HEALING
November: GRIEVING & SADNESS
December: HAPPINESS & STRUGGLE

"MAIN SUNDAY GODDESS SERVICE"
TIME: 11 AM -- 12:30 PM
COST: Love Offering
DESCRIPTION: TODAY'S Goddess: Pachamama
Animal Totem: tba
Medicine Woman Herb: lobelia
Themes: discipline/addiction
Colors: earth brown, leaf green, and ocean blue
Our main worship services start with drumming and dancing, include candlelighting, often a guest priestess with an amazing message, goddess culture and education, Jewel of the Lineage (honoring a great woman leader from history to the present), Medicine Woman Herb, Animal Totem, Women's World Healing Prayers, Spiritual Weather Report (astrology) and more. Always different … always wonderful … always spontaneous flowing of spiritual energy and power! Experience it.


Today's GUEST PRIESTESSES: CHRIS GASCI
with the presentation:
ABOUT TODAY'S GUEST PRIESTESS: more information soon

12:30 PM After Services, join your sisters in Oshun's Lounge for tea and cookies, and snacks, and intimate conversation with friends and newcomers. Feel free to bring food or beverage to share. INFORMATION: 949/651-0564 or info@goddesstempleoforangecounty.com

The Temple's website is worth checking out. Even if like me you live 3000-odd miles from CA it's still nice knowing what other Goddess lovers are up to.
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Thnx much to Smulen and Flickr for the foto

GODDESS ‘Congregations’!?! WHAT THE --?

This idea so flabbergasted me I need to put it out for feedback.

My friend Jan – an interfaith minister but in no way, shape or form in love with the war gods -- thinks the new Guiding-Goddess world needs ‘congregations.’

Whoa! One of the nastiest words in my vocabulary is ‘congregation.’ To me it smacks hard of War-God-ness.

But the more I turned it over in my mind, the more I thought she miiiight be right.

War-god congregations give people a lotta stuff they can’t grab in other places: people sworn to love ya no matter what your breath’s like Sundays; free babysitting – and unlike those boing-eyed, bubble-gum-popping sitters at the bowling alley – these people look like they came from planet earth; friends for your kids you actually like (even Scouts are sposed ta let in kids with 40-piece artillery collections and the habits of trolls).

The other thing I liked about my childhood war-god congregation was Sunday School. I got to air my feelings about the deity. And people actually listened.

So waddja think? Could our covens, temples and other Goddess groups grab anything from the congregation?

But forget about being a “flock.” We’d hafta be something like a ‘pack’ or a ‘pride.’ Or – whaddya call a group of leopards?
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Thnx to wcm1111 for the foto

GODDESS Spells N-O * W-A-R

The plain fact is we’ve dug up no evidence that the Neolithic and Bronze-Age guiding-goddess societies did war. As archaeologist Jonathan Haas puts it “’endemic warfare was much more the exception than the rule until the first appearance of state-level societies between 4000 and 2000 B.C.E. in the centers of world “civilization.”’”

Anthroplogist Billy Haviland chimes right in behind Jonny: in his survey of human prehistory Billy mentions war only when he talks about the first state-level societies.

And in her “The Natural History of Peace” Leslie Sponsel follows suit: “nonviolence and peace were likely the norm throughout most of human prehistory.”
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Thnx to James Wainwright for the foto

PHILLIP

In a previous post, a very learned UK Atheist and anthropology student and I have been having a splendid time playing tug-of-war about my take on the world. Phillip’s brot up quite a few points others might be wondering about too, so I’ve plunked a tiny fraction of our tiff down here for all to view:

PHIL: Harappan society* could well have been peaceful but since it largely follows your war god take-over you have to explain why its male gods didn't drive it to wars of conquest.

ATHANA: War gods didn’t take over India until well after they took over Europe and the Near East -- not until somewhere between 1500 and 500 BC, and well after the Harappan Civilization had disappeared.

PHIL: Harappan society was certainly not egalitarian.

ATHANA: Can you cite evidence for this Phil? Almost every home in the Harappan Civilization was the same high quality as any other. Almost all had indoor bathrooms and lavatories – something you don’t even see 1500 years later in the Roman world, where only the wealthy had indoor bathrooms and lavatories. As a matter of fact, the next time you see this in human history is c. AD 1950 when much of the Western world at any rate scrapped their outdoor outhouses and moved to indoor plumbing.

PHIL: Neither was Minoan society for that matter [egalitarian].

ATHANA: Again – could you cite evidence? Dietary differences showing on skeletal remains? Differences in grave goods? What? No one anymore thinks the so-called “palaces” were homes to kings and queens. There’s no evidence of any king or queen among the Minoans – or any evidence of any rulers at all. Everyone else around them – Egyptians, Sumerians had despots plastering their faces and bodies over every piece of art they could get their hands on. I think the “palaces” were like our modern shopping malls where you could go and do any societal business you needed to get done – trade in the market, for example, sit and slurp a strawberry sundae, or take trombone lessons.

PHIL: As to the famous Minoan peace, recent evidence has challenged its lack of warfare status. The status of weapons once thought to be ceremonial is now challenged, and evidence of fortifications has been uncovered.

ATHANA: What a tricky little phrase “recent evidence has challenged” is. Have you done any in-depth reading about this “evidence”? Do you know how flimsy it is? Do you know that not all Minoan experts support this “evidence”? Do you know how prehistory works? Everybody piles on the guys who came before them, trying to prove them wrong, picking at every little scrap of data and calling it “evidence.” Especially in certain hot-button areas like the history of warfare and ancient Goddess worship, academicians stand on their heads trying to score points for their ‘team.’ Sometimes it begins to look more like a city soccer match than an academic undertaking.

PHIL: It is also possible that warfare didn't exist because there was no one to fight - the Aegean civilisations being too remote from each other to be territorially threatening (unlike the Middle East).

ATHANA: First, it seems you’re making an assumption that grabbing someone’s territory is the cause of war. Ain’t necessarily so. Furthermore, it takes the good part of a day to drive across the island of Crete – in a gasoline-powered vehicle. There’s a whale of a lot of territory there for one Minoan group to grab from any other. So why don’t we find even 5% of Minoans living in defensible sites on high ground? Why do we find 95% of them living without the protection of city walls? Why do 95% of their so-called weapons have hafting that would never stand up in an actual fight? Where are the warriors buried with their weapons?

PHIL: Minoan society also provides evidence of human sacrifice - that doesn't sound very nurturing to me.

ATHANA: Again, Phil, not all Minoan experts agree that what was found at one single site – Anemospilia – had anything to do with human sacrifice. The archaeologist Nanno Marinatos for one. But the idea certainly appealed to journalists all across the world. Wow! This made hot news! You suddenly lurch from a peaceful, nurturing society to one drenched in the horror of human sacrifice! Boy did that sell papers. Fact is there are alternate explanations for everything found at Anemospilia.

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* The Harappans, or Indus Valley Civilization dudes, were an amazing people who lived around the same time as the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians but were as peaceful as doves. They lived over a huge tract of territory that took up a good part of southwest India. They built cities of up to 100,000 dudes and dudettes. They worshipped one or many goddesses, but there’s not much evidence in their art for their gods. They did writing but we’ve not been smart enough yet to decipher it.

WANT UTOPIA? Get THE GODDESS ~ Pt. 3

This is the third of three-part series summarizing this weblog.

THE BEST EVIDENCE

The fact is, the best evidence today suggests that during the millennia-long Neolithic our ancestors revered a Great Goddess and at the same time lived in relatively utopian societies. Then at the end of the Neolithic, when Goddess was demoted, humans slid into a veritable hell of chronic warfare, conquest, violence, social ranking and despotic political regimes.

Let’s look at what no one disputes first. No one disputes that archaeologists have unearthed thousands of female figurines from Neolithic settlements all over the world.

Second most admit that the best explanation for most of these figurines is that they are goddesses.

Third most admit that while gods might have accompanied these Neolithic goddesses, the latter did not allow the former to push them around.

Fourth no one disputes that, compared to the Bronze Age that followed it, the Neolithic was a time of relative bliss – little war, little violence, little ranking and no despotism.

Fifth no one disputes that in the hellish Bronze Age most people were saddled with pantheons that included male gods at the top of a ranked system of deities. Although goddesses were included in these pantheons, as time went by they were increasingly pushed around by the gods. My guess is that just as Bronze-Age people were forced into “accepting” war, violence, ranking and despotic rulers, they were also forced into worshipping the new upstart power-over gods.

SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

So what do people dispute? Well nothing really. Some military historians and even archaeologists still insist there’s always been war. Of course they conveniently “forget” a few key and telling pieces of evidence. Bonobos for example. And Neolithic towns like Abu Hureyra, which existed for millennia without any signs of warfare. Also they have a boatload of excuses for why various modern cultures such as the Semai, Copper Eskimo and others have never engaged in warfare.

Of course just because Goddess and utopia occur together doesn’t mean Goddess caused the utopia. However the data on oxytocin, bonobos and the Moso, Hopi and Basques provide excellent evidence of just such a causal relationship.

CONCLUSION

The idea that centering our societies around a goddess might put an end to war and other social ills is potentially threatening to many piddle-puddles who benefit from the status quo. Nevertheless several lines of evidence concur: centering societies around an honest and true unconditional-love archetype (Mother) – one modeled before us in both the human and the animal worlds on a daily basis – would give us what we need to produce the kinds of societies we all want to live in (but few of us do): peaceful, non-violent, equalitarian and democratic.
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The pic above is a goddess figurine from Neolithic Egypt

WANT UTOPIA? Get THE GODDESS ~ Part II

This is the second of three-part series that summarizes this weblog.

(3) MODERN GODDESS SOCIETIES

The Hopi, Basques and Moso are three current societies that, until very recently at least, revolved around a strong Great Mother Goddess. Each stands out among its neighbors for its various “utopian” characteristics.

(4) THE NEOLITHIC GODDESS UTOPIA: BACKLASH & COUNTER-BACKLASH

In the 1980s and before, many wrote about the predominance of a Neolithic Great Mother Goddess. Anthropologists also wrote then (and still do) about the Neolithic as a time of peace, nonviolence, equality and community-run political systems.

The 1990s however witnessed a backlash against both these ideas. Anglo feminist archaeologists and military historians figured prominently in this backlash. Many feminists view any emphasis on the biological differences between the sexes as harmful to women’s social and cultural advancement. And they see the idea of Mother Goddess as limiting women to their biological functions. In the 1990s a flurry of books and articles appeared that blasted the Mother Goddess and her ancient “matriarchy” (a term psychologically loaded as well as misunderstood). A major backlash book was The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, published in 2000 by an assistant professor of religion, Ms Cynthia Eller.

But now we’re beginning to see a backlash against the backlash (this is how science works). In 2002 the great French archaeologist Jacques Cauvin wrote at length about the Great Mother Goddess of the Neolithic, especially as She existed at the Neolithic town Catal Hoyuk (Cauvin, The Birth of the Gods). Anthropologists Keith Otterbein (How War Began, 2004), Raymond C. Kelly (Warless Societies and the Origin of War, 2003), and Douglas Fry (Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace, 2006) argue vehemently against the notion that humans are intrinsically violent.
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The pic above is a Goddess figurine from the Japanese Neolithic

WANT UTOPIA? Get THE GODDESS ~ Part I

This is the first of three-part series that summarizes this weblog.

Four lines of evidence point to a causal relationship between Goddess and “utopian” societies: 1) New biochemical studies on the hormone oxytocin; 2) New primate studies on our first cousin the bonobo; 3) The existence of societies still centered (until recently) around Goddess; and 4) The apparent pairing in the Neolithic era of the Goddess and utopia (ca 10,000 to 3000 BC depending on where you are around the globe).

DEFINING TERMS

By utopia I mean not a perfect society but one relatively free of war, violence, despotic government, and social ranking (a condition often including ageism, classism, sexism, poverty, slavery, caste systems and other ills).

By “Goddess” I mean a Great Mother deity who is the source of earth and everything on it as well as the source of the cosmos.

(1) OXYTOCIN

The hormone oxytocin is found more often and in greater strengths in women than men. Recent evidence suggests it makes mothers automatically fall in love with their babies at birth. Since this mother love is unconditional it can serve as a powerful social archetype/role model, helping us treat others with the same unconditional regard that healthy mothers model for us 24/7.

Oxytocin is also a calming hormone. Under stress men fight or run (“fight or flight”). Recently however it’s been discovered that oxytocin helps women respond differently to stress – with “tend and befriend” behavior. So for this reason also women would seem to provide excellent societal role models – if we’d let them.

(2) BONOBOS

Although bonobos, the last primates discovered, are as genetically close to us as chimps, unlike chimps they apparently do little war, violence or social ranking. Furthermore females do not allow males to dominate them. Recently someone quipped that if we’d discovered the bonobo before the chimp we’d all be talking less about human violence and male dominance and lots more about human empathy, caring and cooperation.
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Above is a 3,400-year-old wall painting from a Guiding-Goddess society on the Mediterranean island of Santorini. It shows a teenaged girl admiring the Goddess (obviously not in the picture)

ON SPLITS AND Splitting

[Sound of Athana getting very serious]: I wonder: is there a connection between the mind-body split and the sacred-profane split? Could both have been dropped on us at the same time by the war gods back in the BCs? With the same crinkly consequences?

The war gods have always labored to steal what's good about us -- our laughter, sensuality, beauty, sexuality, the earth under our feet -- and split it off into some separate box that has to be kept high on a shelf out of reach.

With Goddess on the other hand everything is whole. Nothing about us is splintered off and piled on some shelf somewhere because it's somehow less than sacred. Goddess adores every little thing about us -- and expects us to, too.
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thnx to mona, eh for the foto

BIBLE: BOOK WITH NO Yuks

Just for the heck of it I punched “laugh” into an online Bible concordance. Got ten hits. Gee. Ten whole times the Bible uses the word “laugh” – but in the following senses: rueful laughing, sarcastic laughing, talking about someone who laughed sarcastically, quarreling about the word “laugh,” “Wiping your forehead with relief” laughter, and a at least one case of “Gotcha” laughter”:


Genesis 17:17
Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?"

Genesis 18:12
So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"

Genesis 18:13
Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?'

Genesis 18:15
Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, "I did not laugh." But he said, "Yes, you did laugh."

Genesis 21:6
Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." (Laughing because at age ninety you have to go through the pain and danger of childbirth and getting an hours sleep everyday after nursing and changing diapers? Whaddya call this? Sarcasm again maybe?)

Genesis 38:23
Then Judah said, "Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn't find her."

Exodus 32:25
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. .

Job 5:22
You will laugh at destruction and famine, and need not fear the beasts of the earth.

Job 8:21
He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. (The next verse is “Your enemies will be clothed in shame,
and the tents of the wicked will be no more.").

Job 12:4
"I have become a laughingstock to my friends, though I called upon God and he answered— a mere laughingstock, though righteous and blameless!
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Thnx to five2b4u for the foto

TV WRITERS: A Gift FOR U

Go Morgaine over at The_Goddess! Morgaine's putting out the following dynamite idea for someone to pick up (with her help) as a sci-fi TV series:

The idea is to follow the history of the Bible from a sort of "Chariot of the Gods"/ Book of Enoch perspective: Yahweh is a captain of a ship of people called the Annunaki, angels are crew members, Jesus is one of them, and there are competing ships or races that become pantheons of other cultures - Isis leads one ship, her lover Osiris is murdered, etc.

Moses is talking to a hologram, the ark of the convenant is a radio transmitter that allows the humans to communicate with the ship at great distances, Ezekial is taken aboard a ship he describes as a wheel, etc. We see the story from the perspective of the Annunaki, who are observing and interacting with primitive humans. Some, like Yahweh, intend to establish themselves as deities in the minds of the humans; others, like Isis and Jesus, are trying to help civilization develop along peaceful lines.

Go to The_Goddess Sept. 3 for further details.

I'd watch a series like this in a heartbeat -- seven days a week if it were on that often. Think about it: seeing Isis fleshed out as a real being?! What exactly would She be like? How would She interact with Yahweh? How big of a contrast would there be between the deities and the humans?

This kind of show would attract viewers in the kazillions. Everyone's interested in religion these days -- even Atheists! Any such series, however, would definitely demand a consultant conversant with goddess theaology, and Morgaine could serve in that capacity as well as general advisor.
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thnx to outlaws road for the foto

TV Goes PAGAN

National Geographic's airing a show tonight that's supposed to be partly about Paganism -- with an emphasis on sky-claddedness. Looks like a repeat. I hope to tune in, if only to see how badly they butcher us.

‘Taboo: Nudity’
Shedding clothes as an act of expression or liberation, and even as a means of worship.

Date: Wed., Sep. 05, 2007
Time: 10:00PM (Eastern Standard Time)
Channel: 65, NGC (where I live it's channel 75, not 65).
Descriptor: Repeat Episode, Dolby

ATHEISTS: CHRISTIANS in drag?

In many ways, Western Atheists are simply Christians in sheep’s clothing. What’s more, unless and until Atheists get retrained, they’ll always remain simply Christians in drag.

Just like YAJites Atheists think Mother Earth is mostly something to be cut apart, dissected and conquered.

Just like YAJites they think Mother Earth is inert.

Just like YAJites, when their plane’s about to crash they look up to heaven and pray “Dear God, help me.”

Just like YAJites, on their death beds many look up and pray, “Dear God, help me.”

Just like YAJites they think humor and spirituality have no connection.

Just like YAJites many don’t do well with sexuality.

Just like YAJites they think sexuality has nothing to do with spirituality.

Just like YAJites many are out of touch with their bodies.

Just like YAJites many spend very little time enjoying their senses, sensual things, sitting in and listening to nature, or sitting on and listening to earth.

Just like YAJites many think those who don’t do things “our” way are fair game for colonization.

Just like YAJites most are closet snooty snobs who think people can be set out on a ladder of good, better, best and utterly worthless (they might use different scales to judge people than YAJites do; one for example would be IQ).

Just like YAJites many think it’s only the natural order that some are poor, others not.

Although I could go on and on, I have other things to get done today. But bless their hearts, atheists all need a big hug.
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thnx, Bitter Bettie, for the foto

GOD IS NOT GREAT Tours the US

Funny-bone reading from Christopher Hitchens (author of the current best-seller God Is Not Great) describing his recent US speaking tour:

A few snippets:

May 1, New York City: An evening at the Union League Club…. A full house of upscale right-wingers who at least agree with me on the single issue of fighting Islamic jihadism…. I am interviewed by the publisher Peter Collier. He's just closed the meeting when a man in a clerical collar puts up his hand. In a magnanimous mood, I say, Fair enough—let's extend the event for a man of the cloth. This turns out to be Father George Rutler of the Church of Our Saviour, who announces that he's on the committee of the club and will make sure that I am never invited there again. There's some shock at this inhospitable attitude, but I think: Gosh. Holy Mother Church used to threaten people with eternal damnation. Now it's exclusion from the Union League Club. What a comedown. In a brisk exchange near the elevator, the good father assures me that I shall die a Catholic. Why do people think this is such a good point?

SNIP

May 14, Austin, Texas: A phone-in with WPTF ("We Protect the Family"), a conservative talk-radio station in North Carolina. The questions are very civil until the end, when I am asked if I know the anti-Christian works of Friedrich Nietzsche…. Am I aware, inquires the questioner, that when he was writing that very stuff he was suffering from terminal syphilitic decay?... Do I think, comes the next question, that there is a similar explanation for my own work? Should have seen that coming. My response is that I obviously can't be the best judge but that it's very compassionate of him to ask.

SNIP

May 15, Raleigh, North Carolina: At the airport, strangers approach to say, "Thanks for coming to take on the theocrats." Apparently the good folks at WPTF announced after my appearance on their show yesterday that I was going to hell. This doesn't prevent a huge crowd from showing up, which in turn means that Quail Ridge Books has to move the event into a neighboring Unitarian church. (The rector whispers to me, "I ought not to say this, but the church has never been this full before.") My opponent tonight is the very courteous Dr. Adam English, from the religion department at Campbell University. He's another Baptist, but when I ask if he believes Calvin's teaching about hell and pre-destination, he doesn't love the question. Southern hospitality is rightly famous, and he may think it would be rude to condemn a visitor to hellfire. Then again, he can easily tell that the audience is not with him. Many southerners are annoyed by the presumption that they are all snake handlers and shout-and-holler artists, and the most critical questions all go to Dr. English, who has unwisely told the local paper that he'll win the argument because god is on his team. Again I notice two things: the religious types are unused to debate and are surprised at how many people are impatient with them, or even scornful. Go HERE for the whole article, in Vanity Fair.

Heh. After Hitchens and others soften people up, I think the path will be open for the Goddess to gather them in. This is good!
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thnx to Pele and Flickr.com for the foto of Chris Hitchens

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"