O.E. god "supreme being, deity; … from P.Gmc. *guthan (cf. O.S., O.Fris., Du. god, O.H.G. got, Ger. Gott, O.N. guð, Goth. guþ), from PIE *ghut- ‘that which is invoked’ …
"But some trace it to PIE *ghu-to- ‘poured,’ from root *gheu- ‘to pour, pour a libation’ (source of Gk. khein ‘to pour,’ also in the phrase khute gaia ‘poured earth,’ referring to a burial mound; ….
“Not related to good. Originally a neuter noun in Germanic, the gender shifted to masculine after the coming of Christianity….”_________
One of the most gruesome and grisly monsters ever to threaten our Mother Earth is the Kochtopus. “I have read your book, Switching to Goddess and very much liked the first half of it. But i have to say, i have real problems with the theory that famine and starvation caused the rise of patriarchy.
“People starving to death still happens today. And the problem of starvation is not that people turn into savages, Reports from charity organizations is that people who are starving become very lethargic and don't do much to help themselves.
“Also i think in desperate conditions a matriarchal tribe is far more likely to survive than a patriarchal tribe. This is because in a patriarchal tribe it will be the men who will commandeer what little food they have and the women and children won't have anything....” MORE>>>>
"....Voices of the Sacred Feminine Radio has been creating an archive of the brightest minds of our time for the last twenty months.... This is in response to your requests!
"Just some of the guests interviewed since last September:
Layne Redmond
Judy Grahn
Starhawk
Joan Marler
Barbara Walker
Genevieve Vaughan
Patricia Monaghan
Charlene Spretnak
Riane Eisler
Elinor Gadon
Isaac Bonewits
Phyllis Chesler
Ava Park
Miriam Robbins Dexter
Luisah Teish
Carol Christ
Jean Shinoda Bolen
"Be sure to tune in. Or call in. Or send your email questions prior to the show."
UPCOMING SHOWS:
2/17/2010 9:00 PM
Phyllis Chesler & Prof. David Hillman - Noted author, feminist and foremother Phyllis Chesler, famous for her book Women's Inhumanity to Women, will discuss her views of feminism, contemporary challenges of women, and her books, including Women's Inhumanity to Women. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOUR hear scholar David Hillman discuss the new movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians as we delve into Greek Mythology we've learned through a Western/Christian lens versus what the ancient texts actually say and mean."
2/24/2010 9:00 PM - Cristina Biaggi
3/3/2010 9:00 PM - Heide Goettner Abendroth
3/10/2010 9:00 PM - Michael York
In the new 3D blockbuster film Avatar, the good guys worship the Great Mother Goddess Eywa! 
• Alcyone (Greek): Alcyone is the Kingfisher goddess. She nests every winter for two weeks, and while she does, the wild seas become calm and peaceful.
• Ameratasu (Japan): In feudal Japan, worshippers celebrated the return of Ameratasu, the sun goddess, who slept in a cold, remote cave. When the other gods woke her with a loud celebration, she looked out of the cave and saw an image of herself in a mirror. The other gods convinced her to emerge from her seclusion and return sunlight to the universe.
• Bona Dea (Roman): This fertility goddess was worshipped in a secret temple on the Aventine hill in Rome, and only women were permitted to attend her rites. Her annual festival was held early in December.
• Cailleach Bheur (Celtic): In Scotland, she is also called Beira, the Queen of Winter. She is the hag aspect of the Triple Goddess, and rules the dark days between Samhain and Beltaine.
• Demeter (Greek): Through her daughter, Persephone, Demeter is linked strongly to the changing of the seasons and is often connected to the image of the Dark Mother in winter. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, Demeter's grief caused the earth to die for six months, until her daughter's return..
• Frau Holle (Norse): Frau Holle appears in many different forms in Scandinavian mythology and legend. She is associated with both the evergreen plants of the Yule season, and with snowfall, which is said to be Frau Holle shaking out her feathery mattresses.
• Frigga (Norse): Frigga honored her son, Baldur, by asking all of nature not to harm him, but in her haste overlooked the mistletoe plant. Loki fooled Baldur's blind twin, Hod, into killing him with a spear made of mistletoe but Odin later restored him to life. As thanks, Frigga declared that mistletoe must be regarded as a plant of love, rather than death.
• La Befana (Italian): This character from Italian folklore is similar to St. Nicholas, in that she flies around delivering candy to well-behaved children in early January. She is depicted as an old woman on a broomstick, wearing a black shawl.
• Spider Woman (Hopi): Soyal is the Hopi festival of the winter solstice. It honors the Spider Woman and the Hawk Maiden, and celebrates the sun's victory over winter's darkness
Lou Engle, a big YAJ* dude (Jehovah followers think he’s metacool), is actually telling Christians to martyr themselves in the name of anti-abortion. As in, “be willing to die” for the "cause." 
Action star Mr. Chuck Norris says Obamacare woulda killed Baby Jesus. 
Why are so many suffering apoplexies over the simple notion that, in the past, the world might have revolved around goddesses? 
Since Mother Earth is suffocating under skanky loads of human flesh, doesn’t it follow that the world’s true heroes are our radically fab and super-cool childless men and women? Those who say, “No. I refuse to add to the refuse. I WILL not use my body to pound out more earth-polluting human flesh!" 
Yikes! Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade.Go HERE to read the entire article.
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Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.
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Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts [found from this culture] were the ubiquitous terracotta “goddess” figurines, originally interpreted [sic] as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.
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At its peak, around 4500 B.C., said David W. Anthony, the exhibition’s guest curator, “Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world” and was developing “many of the political, technological and ideological signs of civilization.”
A few towns of the Cucuteni people, a later and apparently robust culture in the north of Old Europe, grew to more than 800 acres, which archaeologists consider larger than any other known human settlements at the time.
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“The concentration of imported prestige objects in a distinct minority of graves suggest that institutionalized higher ranks did exist,” exhibition curators noted in a text panel accompanying the Varna gold.
Yet it is puzzling that the elite seemed not to indulge in private lives of excess. “The people who donned gold costumes for public events while they were alive,” Dr. Anthony wrote, “went home to fairly ordinary houses.”
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An entire gallery is devoted to the [human and primarily female] figurines, the more familiar and provocative of the culture’s treasures. They have been found in virtually every Old Europe culture and in several contexts: in graves, house shrines and other possibly “religious spaces.”
“Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be…. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.” ~Judges 5.24-26.
Excepting the deep-down brain dead, what woman would willingly call herself a Christian?
And what cool dude would touch a Christian woman with a ten-foot pole?
"In the 21st century, the Islamic burka, the full-face-and-body veil, adopted by more women every day, has become the most potent human symbol on earth. But what exactly does it symbolize? Many say it stands for piety. No, that's wrong, says Marnia Lazreg, an Algerian-born professor of sociology at the City University of New York. Piety has little to do with it; the Koran doesn't even mention the veil. 
Ever notice how YAJ* barks and bites at himself -- 24/7? It’s not just Yahweh stomping on Allah, Allah jumping on Jehovah, and Jehovah yammering away at Yahweh. It’s Baptists beating up on Methodists, and Methodists mopping the floor with Mormons. OPTIMISTS called the first world war "the war to end all wars". Philosopher George Santayana demurred. In its aftermath he declared: "Only the dead have seen the end of war". History has proved him right, of course. What's more, today virtually nobody believes that humankind will ever transcend the violence and bloodshed of warfare. I know this because for years I have conducted numerous surveys asking people if they think war is inevitable. Whether male or female, liberal or conservative, old or young, most people believe it is. For example, when I asked students at my university "Will humans ever stop fighting wars?" more than 90 per cent answered "No". Many justified their assertion by adding that war is "part of human nature" or "in our genes". But is it really?MORE >>>>
This poem moved me to tears. Called "Dressng the Bride," it was written by Goddess Pages Editor Geraldine Charles. Sure, ‘twas as though the granite bonesWhen I read this poem, I want to sing it. Actually, I did sing it, in a Medieval kind of minor key that I just made up as I went along.
And flesh of earthen Mother,
Rose up, said, “Well, I’ve a will to be wed
To my white and golden lover
My white, my gold-haired lover.
“He’s a son of the sun and a son of my own
So the sun and the sky I will wed,
For they say I’m owed a warrior bold
To protect the fields in my stead
To preserve the land in my stead.”
Will Sheelah-na-Gig then jig for joy?
Will fairies then dance in a ring?
Or will Morgan le Fay angrily say,
“We’ve started a terrible thing
Oh, begun a terrible thing.”
“Oh, Mother”, we said, “don’t marry that man,
We need no warriors bold and brave -
His kind will call you whore and hag,
Rip minerals from your caves,
Yes, rape iron and oil from your caves.
“No, Mother, don’t marry the son of the sun,
His sons will bring you sorrow -
They’ll shit in the ocean and piss in your wells,
For you there’ll be no tomorrow,
For all of us no tomorrow.”
And Sheelah-na-Gig won’t jig for joy,
The fairies won’t dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will sadly say,
“We’ve started a terrible thing
Oh, begun a terrible thing.”
We’ll give you a day like you never had
A day of praises, joy and mirth -
Far better than tying yourself to that lad
A day for Mother Earth
Just to celebrate Mother Earth.
We’ll dress you in green; we’ll dress you in brown,
We’ll polish your lakes, from swords make ploughs,
And braid wildflowers into your crown -
And berries for your brow,
Gather berries for your brow.
And Sheelah-na-Gig will jig for joy,
The fairies will dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will gravely say,
“We’ve avoided a terrible thing
Oh, escaped a terrible thing.”
But oh, my darlings, sad to say,
She wed the warrior bold and brave.
His sons forced all our maids away,
Ripping minerals from the caves,
Raping iron and oil from our caves.
So we went down to Troytown,
One cold and bitter winter’s day -
And danced into the Maizey Wheel,
And never came out again,
Not for five thousand years and a day.
And Sheelah-na-Gig is forced to church,
The fairies are no longer near.
And Morgan le Fay’s called bitch and whore,
There’s no place for the Lady here,
No, no place for the Lady here.
***
Now the dragon paths are trod again,
The veils are lifting from our eyes -
As earthen mother breaks her chains,
Flicks the warriors off like flies,
Flicks the warriors off like flies.
We’ll dress her in green; we’ll dress her in brown,
And polish her lakes, from swords make ploughs,
And braid wildflowers into her crown -
With berries for her brow,
Yes, to bind around her brow.
And Sheelah-na-Gig will jig for joy,
The fairies will dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will gladly say,
“Our mother is everything
Mother Earth is everything.”
And Sheelah-na-Gig will jig for joy,
The fairies will dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will sing all day,
“Our mother is everything
Mother Earth is everything.”
©2004, Geraldine Charles
It’s no accident that the Christian Bible is peppered over 300 times with the words “war” and “warrior.” 
These technically fab but amazingly violent illustrations come from a rare antique children's book I found recently. 
In "Ann and Her Mamma," Mamma points to a beggar girl and tells Ann to think how much more god has given her, Ann, than he has the beggar. 
While I think we've come a long way, baby, since 1871, I seriously doubt YAJ* or Jesus had anything to do with it. 
You’ve seen it: Christians behaving badly. 
Compared to his dad Jumping Jehovah at least, Jesus plays ball more like a goddess than a god. For example, he says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me” (although you’d be hard pressed to find him doing anything awesome for, to or with any of the kiddies in the Holy Bible). 
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting fed up with the “Religion is so bad to us -- why won’t it go away” camp. (See this article and the snippets from it below).“Prominent secularization theorists like Peter L. Berger who, as recently as the 1960s, openly conceded religion's demise, are having to radically alter their forecasts. They have had to invent new concepts and categories to describe the phenomenon of religion's unexpected global resurgence.”From Reason vs. Faith: the Battle Continues
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But Jeesh, look at “… the historical and political excesses of dogmatic belief: the intolerance, the persecutions, the expulsions, the forced conversions, the autos-da-fé….”
Hot-off-the-press: Rumsfeld used Bible verses to help keep G.W. Bush in the Iraq War:ON THE MORNING OF Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president.... On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”Other verses Rummie used:
This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” (To see these and more Bush-administration intelligence cover sheets, visit GQ.com’s exclusive slideshow)."
After we humans lost the Goddess as the center of life, liberty and sunny joy,* we morphed into a totally wacked out, wiggy species: ”Today most of the world’s business is conducted by wolf- and dog-like dominance hierarchies peopled by packs of young men headed up by top-dog alpha-males.How did we lose Goddess? It has to do with long-ago climate change, and something called "starvation culture."
"Like a bunch of starving psychotics in a small sandbox, the world’s major nations today spend most of their energy violently snatching food and other resources out of the hands of 'weaker' nations. From our constant wars and interpersonal violence (if you [feel you] never have enough you 'need' to take from others) and our rape of women, their children and the environment (deep down we feel Mother Earth abandoned us) to our obesity, overpopulation and propensity to hoard, starvation culture supplies explanations for almost everything about ourselves we deeply despise. As a matter of fact, when you finally realize it, it’s hard to see why we didn’t see it before. Almost everything we loathe about ourselves looks suspiciously like the behavior of wild dog packs, wolf packs, or the unhinged humans we keep locked up in mental and penal institutions."
~From Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, 2009, Jeri Studebaker, Winchester, UK: O Books, p. 206
This is an oldie but "goodie": a 2007 article I bumped into about how UK Muslim teenage girls are being beaten up in the streets if they refuse to become Muslim. Some are in for double trouble: beaten up AND forced to quit the university. 
Anyone wanna take a stab at answering a friend of mine? 
Unbelievable! This May 2009 NatGeo article about China's Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces mentions zip & nada about that region's most totally amazing people: the Moso (Mosuo) of Mother Lake. 
