Before I retired to my current life of abundant free time and art lessons, I used to do collages whenever an artistic need struck me. I kept files of photos, illustrations and images cut out of magazines, books and other sources. My collages were done the old-fashioned way with scissors and glue. I could produce a collage in an hour or two every once in awhile.
My biggest collage project was this 2009 calendar made as a gift for those who attended the drumming circle which I facilitated at the time. Each month featured a collage illustrating one of our favourite songs/chants honouring the Divine Feminine. I did the 13 original collages (counting the front cover) over the course of the preceding year and then took them to my favourite copy shop to be printed in calendar form.
Here is a sample of three of the collages. Because it's hard to read the song/chant lyrics which the collages illustrate, I've typed them out for ease of reference following each photo.
We all come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the ocean.
There is a secret one inside:
All the stars in all the galaxies
Run through Her hands like beads.
Goddess is alive --
Magic is afoot !!
Last year on a previous Thursday Art Date post, I featured another collage from this calendar honouring the goddess Yemaya -- click here to view that one if so desired.
Thank you, Rain Frances, for another wonderful prompt which gave me this chance to go down Memory Lane!
Who doesn't love mermaids!Rain Frances has picked the perfect theme for this week's Thursday Art Date and I'm in, baby, all in!
I bought this handcrafted terra cotta mermaid on the island of Cozumel off the Mexican coast when I was there in the past. I featured her a couple of months ago in my January Full Moon Altar blog post dedicated to the Mermaid Goddess Yemaya.
Originally an oceanic creator goddess of the Yoruba people in West Africa, the slave trade resulted in Yemaya's transformation into a Caribbean and Brazilian deity. Because her enslaved people were punished in the New World for practising their own culture and spirituality, Yemaya's worship became "coded" for people's own safety and protection. In the secretly-practised Santeria and Voudou religions, Yemaya was always depicted as a mermaid because that was a familiar European symbol which raised no suspicions among the white overlords.
In time, Yemaya's name became simply "The Mermaid" in English-speaking colonies or "La Sirène" in French-speaking ones. She was an Undercover Goddess operating beneath the radar of an oppressive and racist colonial system.
I made this art collage of Yemaya in 2008 to illustrate the beautiful Yoruba chant Yemaya Assessu, a favourite song which we sang often at my Women's Drumming and Goddess Chanting Circle. Reflecting the original oceanic nature of Yemaya, its simple words express the River's longing to unite with its ultimate home, the Sea.
Yemaya assessu
assessu Yemaya
Yemaya olodo
olodo Yemaya
Deva Premal sings an exquisitely beautiful version of this chant in the following video, which also conveys the words' deep spiritual significance.
Here's a round-up of three tarot-related items that are currently of interest to me. I hope you find them entertaining as well.
1. Wisdom of the Cailleach Oracle Deck
Irish artist Jane Brideson, who blogs at The Ever-Lasting Ones, is going to publish a gorgeous oracle deck in the summer of 2020 celebrating the Crone Goddess, known in Ireland as The Cailleach. I've signed up for my copy already! Now that I'm in the Crone stage of life myself, her imagery speaks directly to me.
The art for this deck is so beautiful and compelling that I had great difficulty choosing only a couple of examples to show you here --
You can see more card images here and get additional info about this forthcoming deck at its facebook page.
2. Good Omens in Tarot
Have you seen the new AmazonPrime/BBC mini-series Good Omens, based on the cult classic novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman? I highly recommend it! Who knew Armageddon could be such fun? And this may be blasphemy, but I think the film version is even better than the book! Michael Sheen as Aziraphale the angel and David Tennant as Crowley the demon are simply outstanding in their respective roles.
'Lena, a self-described "geeky art goblin," who blogs at Better a Witty Fool Than a Foolish Wit, has recently created two wonderful tarot cards honouring that conflicted pair, which I must share with you!
Squeeeeeeee! My Rare One bought me this awesome t-shirt in Vancouver when we were there in August! It's going to become my new favourite thing to wear, especially when I'm doing a tarot reading. Isn't it perfect?
Now, you may think it's tacky, but I'll have you know that when I was visiting my sister earlier this month and wore it out inpublic for the first time, I got THREE compliments on it from complete strangers! In Walmart and Tim Horton's, if you must know, but still.
The Divine Feminine loves Valentines Day too -- after all, who knows more about love and fertility than the Mother of All? So these ancient representations of the Goddess are having a big dance party to celebrate!
Shake your booty, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth!
And you too, Minoan Snake Goddess!
The Goddess of Willendorf loves line dancing.
I'm not sure who these three are,
but smooth moves, ladies!
The Nile Goddess is as elegant as ever.
Hmm, the Great Goddess of Laussel is
hitting the wine pretty hard.
And the Celtic goddess Sheela-na-gig is
being as outrageous as ever, I see.
These Dancing Goddess gifs were created by Nina Paley and are found here and here. Special thanks to Cal of Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool for letting me know about them!
The Sacred Garden of Maui has many images of the Divine Feminine on its premises but the predominant one is Kwan Yin, the female Bodhisattva of Love and Mercy. She is often represented holding a small vase-like bottle which contains the healing Balm of Compassion. This is composed of Kwan Yin's tears, collected as She cries for the suffering of the world.
As you can see in the background of the above photo, there is another Bruce Harman art print in the Kwan Yin meditation garden. It is called "Water of Life" and portrays Kwan Yin sharing the Balm of Compassion with the Buddha and Jesus as they kneel before Her in a sacred bamboo grove.
Here's a much better, higher resolution image of the painting from Bruce Harman's website:
I bought a small copy of this art at the gift shop. On the back is a little zen-like poem:
Before the great
Descent
Into division
Water flows
Goddess pours
I like this image because it restores the Divine Feminine to Her rightful place among some of the other great spiritual icons of the world.
A couple of weeks ago, Toni at Wandering and Wondering nominated me for the Mystery Blogger Award and I want to thank her very much for the honour! And may I just say that, if you're not a regular reader of Toni's blog yet, well, you should be! There's no mystery about that!
This award comes with a list of rules as long as your arm, but I already told Toni that I'm going to break them all! Yes, that's me, the little rebel. I'm cutting right to the chase -- answering the specific questions posed by Toni.
1. What author would you want to write your biography?
I would exhume, resuscitate and dust off the late John Mortimer, the English writer most famous for creating the Rumpole of the Bailey mysteries. To tackle my story, I need an entertaining writer with an insightful perspective on life and a good sense of humour. A critic once accused Mortimer of being a lightweight author because of his habit of "covering pain with jokes." This criticism mystified Mortimer because, as he said, covering pain with jokes is the only possible attitude to life. I agree wholeheartedly.
2. If your life was a movie, what would the theme song be?
I would choose one of my favourite women's spirituality chants called "Powerful Woman." I taught this chant to many women over the years in my Women's Drumming and Goddess Chanting Circle and it never failed to be a group favourite. My life benefitted tremendously from reclaiming my power in any number of areas, so this song has always resonated with me.
3. Destiny or Free Will?
Free will all the way, baby. While our life circumstances can both benefit us and limit us in various ways, in the end it is up to us to make the most of Life with what we are given.
4. Have you ever read a book that truly changed your life?
Oh yes, several. But the one which had the greatest impact on me was Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia Brinton Perera, which I read almost 3 decades ago. This slim volume is a Jungian analysis of the ancient Sumerian myth of the descent, death and rebirth of the Goddess Inanna. I happened to read it a few short years after the most harrowing period of my life and was stunned to see my life experience symbolically mirrored in the ancient myth with a truth and an understanding that I had found nowhere else. Before reading this book, it had never occurred to me that my ordeal had a spiritual significance. That breakthrough moment of realization hit me like a ton of bricks, let me tell you! And it marked the true beginning of my devotion to the Divine Feminine In Her Many Guises.
5. Who/What has had the greatest impact on your life?
Well, for better or for worse, I'd have to say my parents, I guess. Their influence has shaped my life in almost every way. There's no underestimating the impact of our childhoods and families of origin, is there?
6. Funny/weird question: If you could bring any fictional character to life, who would you choose?
Well, at the moment, I am absolutely OBSESSED with the subtextually-queer coded narrative of Captain America and the Winter Soldier as being the greatest star-crossed tragic lovers since Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and Cathy, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth, COMBINED. So either one of those two angst-filled boys would be fine with me.
And now, I'm going to throw this award open to anyone who would like to claim it and answer the same set of excellent questions devised by Toni!
Most prayer beads are recited using spoken prayers. However, I prefer to use sung prayers (chants) with my Triple Goddess prayer beads. The chants I picked for this purpose are some favourite beloved chants used at my Women's Drumming and Goddess Chanting Circle which I facilitated for 13 years here in Edmonton. But I learned these chants many, many years earlier.
For the Alpha and Omega:
To start and to complete the prayer beads ritual, I sing the beautiful chant There is a Secret One Inside three times at the Alpha commencement point and then later, three times at the Omega endpiece. I learned this chant about 25 years ago from a witch in North End Winnipeg. The chant's bead imagery is perfect for this ritual!
At each turquoise stone, I sing this chant once. We All Come From the Goddess is the first modern goddess chant ever written, composed by the Dianic witch Z Budapest in 1970. It's also the first goddess chant I ever heard and learned about 30 years ago. Its imagery of the Goddess as a vast Ocean and humans as tiny drops of rain coming from and returning to Her is so appropriate for these water-blue beads.
We all come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the ocean.
Here is a short rendition of the chant so you can hear what it sounds like:
For the Maiden, Mother, Crone Beads:
I sing the appropriate verse of the Triple Goddess Chant for every bead of its corresponding Goddess sequence. In other words, each verse is sung nine times in succession. Not only does each verse honour one aspect of the Triple Goddess, it also incorporates the moon phase imagery for that aspect.
1. For each bead of the Maiden sequence:
Holy Maiden Huntress
Artemis, Artemis --
New Moon,
Come to us!
The Greek Moon Goddess Artemis is the twin sister of the Greek Sun God, Apollo. She is forever unmarried and untamed, living wild in the forests of Mount Olympus with her band of female huntresses, all wearing short tunics and short hair. Uh-huh, sistah! Her Roman equivalent is Diana.
2. For each bead of the Mother sequence:
Silver Shining Wheel
Of Radiance, Radiance --
Mother,
Come to us!
This verse invokes the power of the Full Moon rather than a specific Goddess.
3. For each bead of the Crone sequence:
Ancient Queen of Wisdom
Hekate, Hekate --
Old One,
Come to us!
Hekate is the Greek Goddess of the Crossroads, so ancient that She predates the deities of Mount Olympus. She was the only one willing to help Demeter find her daughter Persephone who was abducted by Hades. Hekate alone was powerful enough to descend to the Underworld and return again, leading Persephone back to the surface.
I learned ever-so-slightly different words for this chant than the ones used in the following video. Traditionally, chants are taught by oral tradition, passed from one person to the next, within circles or gatherings and so small differences in words and music sometimes arise.
This concludes my series of posts about my Triple Goddess prayer beads. Bright Blessings to you for persevering through them, LOL!
Because my prayer beads honour the Triple Goddess, the sacred number 3 is repeated throughout the set. There are 3 separate sequences of glass beads, each sequence comprised of 9 (3 x 3) beads. Every one is separated from the next by a silver placer bead which promotes ease of handling during use.
Each glass bead in the 3 sequences represents the Goddess and so is identical in size and shape to all the others. But each sequence is colour-coded differently because they represent the 3 aspects of the Triple Goddess:
White -- representing the Maiden aspect of the Goddess. In women's lives, this is the youthful, dynamic energy of young women from birth until they reach their childbearing years. The Maiden is "complete unto herself," needing neither spouse nor children for a sense of purpose or completion. Her energy goes into creating and becoming herself.
Red -- representing the Mother aspect of the Goddess. In women's lives, this is the full power of female creative energy during their childbearing years until menopause. It is when women nurture new life through childbirth or child rearing, accomplish their life's work in other areas of endeavour or otherwise produce and build their greatest achievements in the world.
Black -- representing the Crone aspect of the Goddess. In women's lives, this is the time when wisdom, spiritual knowledge and existential understanding culminate from menopause until death. In patriarchal culture, "crone" is a devalued term used in derision and contempt, but in Goddess spirituality it is a term of honour, restored to its rightful place.
Each sequence of coloured beads is separated from the other elements by a faceted piece of turquoise offset on each side by 3 silver placer beads. Turquoise is traditionally characterized as a sacred stone of protection and good fortune. The turquoise separator stone's purpose is guidance. It allows anyone who is praying with their eyes closed to be able to identify, by touch alone, the commencement and end of each sequence. For that reason as well, its size and shape are also markedly different from the other beads.
Next time, my final post will discuss how I use these prayer beads.
To reclaim (or perhaps to co-opt) some traditional Christian imagery, the first and last items attached to my string of prayer beads may be symbolically understood as representing "the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end." This classic Biblical description of the Divine means, of course, that the Divine is eternal, being both the source from which we come and the source to which we return at the end of our lives. This symbolism and imagery are equally applicable to the Great Goddess of All.
I provided both these alpha and omega items to my sister for incorporation into my prayer beads.
Alpha:
In Goddess spirituality, the five-pointed star-within-a-circle (pentacle) of the Goddess represents the four sacred elements of earth, air, fire and water plus the fifth element of spirit. This pentacle features a green peridot gem, my birthstone for the month of August.
The pentacle is framed by a beautiful Celtic knotwork moon. The moon is one of the most ancient symbols of the Divine Feminine because its phases correspond to the triune nature of the Triple Goddess -- Maiden (waxing crescent moon), Mother (full moon) and Crone (waning crescent moon). Depending on the angle of your perspective, all three phases of the moon (and therefore of the Divine Feminine) are represented in this item's design.
I bought this as a 50th birthday present for myself 10 years ago. It's meant to be worn as a necklace of course, but I've never been much of a jewelry wearer. It will serve a much better function here in my prayer beads!
Omega:
This double-headed axe is called a labrys. It is an immensely old fertility symbol that was used by the ancient goddess-worshipping civilization of Minoa (Crete).
Designed to stylistically represent the vulva's butterfly-like double labia, the labrys is so inextricably associated with women that classical art often portrayed it as the favourite battle weapon of the Amazons, the mythical female warriors who fought against patriarchal domination.
This symbolism led to the labrys being adopted in the feminist 1970s as the symbol of the Lesbian Nation. The modern women's spirituality movement has now also revived its original spiritual meaning. The labrys is an extremely resonant symbol for me personally because what it represents -- feminism, lesbian rights and women's spirituality -- have all been central to my own life.
I bought this labrys nearly 30 years ago in Winnipeg. It was handcrafted by a talented lesbian silversmith and jewelry-maker in that city. It too is meant to be worn as a necklace but will serve a higher function now as the omega of my prayer beads.
My next post will explain the colour-and-number symbolism of the prayer beads themselves.
[Image # 1 from the internet; photos #2 and #3 by My Rare One 2017]
For centuries, prayer beads have been used by people in many spiritual traditions, including Islam . . .
. . . Buddhism . . .
. . . Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism . . .
. . . and Paganism too. Our oldest visual depiction of prayer beads comes from Ancient Greece. Even our modern English word "bead" comes from the Old English "bede," which means "a prayer."
Prayer beads are also commonly used today in the Hindu, Sikh and Baha'i faiths.
Prayer beads help people to focus their minds, to give structure to their communion with the Divine and to keep track of where they are in a prayer cycle.
Some contemporary pagans use prayer beads as well. Last autumn, I felt a pull to design my own set of prayer beads to honour the Triple Goddess, using some suggestions and examples from the internet. I then gave my personalized design to my sister, who is a talented beader and jewelry maker. She did an absolutely fantastic job of beading it for me as a Yule-Christmas gift! Needless to say, of course, these prayer beads are extra special to me because of the infusion of our "sister energy" in their creation. Here's the finished set, displayed (as goddess prayer beads should be when not being used) in the Sacred Spiral of Life arrangement:
In a series of upcoming posts, I'll be explaining the spiritual and other significance of the first and final attached items, the number-and-colour symbolism of the various beads, and how I will be using these prayer beads.
[Photos #1 and #3 from the internet; Photo #2 by Debra She Who Seeks (Japan) 2013; Photo #4 by My Rare One 2017]
Under the old Julian calendar used by the Orthodox Christian Church, today is Christmas Day! But on the Canadian prairies, we simply call it Ukrainian Christmas because Ukrainians are the single largest group who mark the occasion here.
My Rare One and I celebrated Ukrainian Christmas Eve last night. Long-time readers may recall that My Rare One is a pureblooded Ukrainian-Canadian. All four of her grandparents came straight from the Ukraine in the early 20th century to farm the Canadian prairies. Now, me, I don't have a single drop of Ukrainian blood. But I am a major Ukrainian wannabe.
Although my culinary skills do not extend to preparing the traditional twelve meatless dishes that Ukrainians are supposed to eat on Christmas Eve, I did manage to make homemade borscht and buy some perogies and lemon meringue pie. Meh, close enough!
I gave My Rare One a copy of this lovely artwork for her annual Ukrainian-themed Christmas gift --
This is the Slavic Earth Goddess Mokosh, as interpreted by the renowned artist and scholar of the Divine Feminine, Thalia Took of Amused Grace. To paraphrase Thalia's description of this Goddess on her website --
Mokosh was a member of the old pantheon of Kiev, where She had a statue in Her honour. She is associated with water and weaving. A traditional embroidery pattern (depicting a woman between two horsemen) is said to depict Her. Mokosh is sometimes shown in such embroideries with upraised arms holding a bird in each hand. Mokosh is wearing a sarafan, a traditional cone-shaped dress, over an embroidered blouse with horsemen on the sleeves and a Ukrainian flower crown or vinok on Her head. The vinok has wheat, poppies (which traditionally grew as a weed in the wheat fields of the steppes), and flax flowers which allude to Mokosh's role as Weaving Goddess. The blue drops of Her earrings and necklace, as well as the long flowing blue ribbons, are symbolic of water. The background is based on Slavic folk paintings. Her name is in Cyrillic lettering in the manner of an icon.
["Teachings of the Sweat Lodge"
by Aaron Paquette]
In my first post, I described how a sweat lodge is constructed. But what is it like to be inside a sweat lodge, experiencing its ritual?
A sweat lodge ritual is divided into four quarters, one for each direction. At the end of each quarter, the lodge door flap is flung open, bringing the welcome relief of some cool outside air. The firekeeper refreshes the firepit with even hotter grandfather rocks for the next quarter. The intense heat builds progressively from tolerable in the first quarter to almost unbearable in the fourth quarter. People are allowed to leave at the end of any quarter if the heat becomes too much for them. But once you leave, you cannot come back during that particular sweat.
During each quarter, all persons who wish to do so may speak their heart without interruption or judgment. Sometimes there is singing or rattling. But a sweat lodge is more than simply a sharing circle in a hot environment. It is also more than just a way to promote muscle relaxation via heat. Its purpose even exceeds the benefit of physically sweating out toxins and impurities from the body. No, as mentioned in my first post, the sweat lodge is primarily designed to be a spiritual ritual of healing and renewal.
The sweat lodge represents the womb of Mother Earth. Its willow framework embodies Her ribs encircling you. It is pitch black inside a sweat lodge, apart from the faint glow of the heated rocks before they cool. You cannot see your hand in front of your face. As your skin and body become drenched in sweat, your whole environment turns watery like the womb as well. Often people lie down on their sides in a fetal position close to the earth in order to breathe easier where the air is a little cooler near the floor. And just to reinforce your status as a child being born again of the Great Mother, you enter and leave the sweat lodge crawling on your hands and knees like a baby.
I knew none of this symbolism going into our unscheduled sweat lodge. But laying there bathed in sweat in the hot darkness, it was easy to figure out simply due to the sheer unbridled power of the raw primordial Divine Feminine energy that was present. It was like nothing I've ever felt before or since.
Naively, I had not expected to get all that much out of doing a sweat, but the whole experience hit me like an ton of bricks. We emerged from the sweat lodge into the cool night air filled with stars and a full moon in the dark sky. I needed to walk around in solitude on the centre's woodland property for nearly an hour just to assimilate the experience and come back to myself. The Divine had encompassed me. You don't get over something like that quickly!
I'm so glad I had the great blessing of experiencing a sweat lodge when I did. Now that I'm twenty years older, my high blood pressure medication means I would not be able to repeat it today.
Cats were central to the culture of ancient Egypt in more ways than we realize.
And understanding typical cat behaviour certainly explains the weird hybrid look of the Sphynx --
The major Egyptian cat goddesses were, of course, Bast (who was entirely feline) and Bastet (who was half-cat/half-woman). But no matter who you were dealing with, their personalities were 100% CAT. Any cat owner will recognize the following scenario --
Learning that the Great Goddess Bast still rules in the heavens clears up a modern mystery, too --
I'm told on good authority that Major Tom tasted like catnip.
The Divine Feminine is honoured in my tattoo by a Labrys, the ceremonial double-headed axe of the ancient goddess-worshipping Minoan Crete civilization. This immensely old fertility symbol represents the vulva's butterfly-like double labia. The Labrys is so inextricably associated with women that classical Greek, Roman and Western art often portrays it as a favourite battle weapon of the Amazons, the mythical female warriors who fought against patriarchal domination.
This latter interpretation also led to the Labrys being adopted in the feminist 1970s as the symbol of the Lesbian Nation. The modern Women's Spirituality movement has now revived its original spiritual meaning as well. And, of course, all three movements -- feminism, lesbian rights and women's spirituality -- have been central to my own life.
