Monthly Archive

Deep in our psyches is a cave, a place of shadows and warmth, nurturing and fertility, where we can go to reflect, revitalize, and reconnect with our souls, beliefs, and values.  We may venture there alone, but sometimes a talisman appears to ignite the bonfire in the cave’s center that gives us enthusiasm and lights our way as we emerge onto the next steps of our path.  Such a gift to all women are the films directed by Donna Read.  

A series of Read’s films, The Goddess Trilogy, was released today by Alive Mind. 

The three films are Goddess Remembered, a panoramic sweep of 35,000 years of global worship and reverence of the Sacred Feminine, from cave drawings to the present day; Burning Times, which gives the viewer a real sense of horror and tragedy, as well as the consequences that still continue today, of the witch hunts in Europe from the Middle Ages to the 18th century; and, finally, Full Circle, a very personal film about the meaning of Goddess spirituality to those who practice it as a western eco-feminist movement as well as those who are following their own culture’s traditions that are thousands of years old.  The series is available from womenandspirituality.net.

A year or so ago I saw another of Read’s film, Signs Out of Time, about the archeologist Marija Gimbutas.  Gumbutas uncovered tens of thousands of artifacts from the Goddess culture of Old Europe, giving back to us Europe’s peaceful, joyful ancient times.  This is available from Belili Productions.

It is impossible for anyone to watch these films and not have her life changed in some way.  I have studied women’s spirituality for 25 years, but I was still moved to tears by seeing the ancient temples where women and men peacefully worshipped a loving, abundant Mother, the village square where women were tortured and burned not so many centuries ago, and the commitment of those all over the world who revere the Earth and are determined that we shall not be the last generation.  For anyone who is not familiar with women’s or Goddess spirituality, watching these films will give a background that it took me decades to gain from reading books. 

The films are like sitting in a circle with women from our ancient past who tell us how their lives revolved around a diety who was a woman and women residing next door who talk about how their daily lives have been enriched and purpose found through women’s spirituality.  They have a warmth and passion that will inspire, move, and teach.  Go into your cave, invite these films in, and let your fire be lit.

Tomorrow is Yoko Ono’s 75th birthday.  You have most likely heard of Yoko Ono, but you may not know that she has now spent almost 50 years creating art that is provocative, fun, spirited and meaningful.  She records music, creates and gives performances, makes films, exhibits art, and much more.  You may remember “cut piece,” performed a number of times over the years, in which she sits on a stage fully clothed and invites the audience to cut off her clothing with scissors.  Somewhere I still have my copy of “Grapefruit,” a book on delightful, surprising “instruction pieces.”  On the inside flap, for example, she writes “Burn this book after you read it.”

She continues to be a wise and global voice for peace and understanding that is more powerful for being constant over decades. Recently, she dedicated the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland that will beam a light into the air between October 9 and December 8 each year. This past January, her full-page ad in the New York Times said simply “Imagine Peace.”

Yoko was my first true inspiration as a creative woman.  Like most other people, I first came to know about her because of John Lennon. I was about 12.  I ate up stories of her wildly creative, philosophical, heart-filled art; they opened up within me unexpected realms of the possible. Every piece expressed a sense that the world is, or should be, a place of joy and fun and spontaneity while at the same time envisioning a world at peace with itself.  I first learned from her that creating art is not for sissies, but worth dedicating your life to, that love truly does overcome all, and that one way to overcome unfair and harsh criticism is to outlast it.

You can see more art, find out what is going on in her world, and even wish her a happy birthday (if you do it fast!) at a webpage dedicated to her at http://www.a-i-u.net 

I love that I will be celebrating my 50th birthday within two months of her 75th birthday in the city that I moved to in my 20s because she, John, and Patti Smith all lived there and loved it. 

Happy Birthday, Yoko. 
 

Whether it is astronomical convergences, or historical cycles, or just coincidence, these past few months have seemed to be time of galactic change in the lives of many people I know.  Whatever the cause, upheaval, forced truth-facing, losing one life and embarking on a new one, emotional anarchy, creative excitement and inspiration, initiations and rebirths – all these and more have burst through my daily life and those of so many others in my circles. At the same time, national and global transition seems to be a part of the very air we are breathing. 

This image of a violent storm, a ripping away into rawness before a new life can occur, has sometimes seemed like the only way real and deep rebirth can happen, or maybe that is just how it has been envisioned in the culture I grew up in. I usually love a great storm.  I have been known to walk through the eye of a hurricane, to stand outside in a lightning storm so that I can experience the electricity in the air all around me, to rush outside when the wind is blowing down trees and power lines in order to feel the earth’s power.  But, at this moment in my life, I want peace and gentleness.  I crave rest and calm.  I want to be a part of the future, but I want to get there differently.

Perhaps we can choose how we experience transformational moments like these. My image of times like these has always been of that gigantic storm causing the land we live on to break up, dissolving into the ocean. We fall into the deep water and sink down, down to the depths where all and only truth lies, where we battle our ten thousand demons and then, eventually, begin our swim back to the surface where the whole universe is roiling and making tsunamis that wash away all that has ever been built.  Eventually the chaos subsides and we wash up, exhausted and wounded, onto a newly made self, where we begin the cycle again.

It takes great courage to be part of this intensely powerful surge, to face all that awaits us under the storming sea and then to ascend again like Inanna coming up from Hades.  But this image focuses on the going-away, the death, aspect of that moment of transition between the old and the new. It assumes that we naturally hold onto what is no longer needed, or no longer in existence, until it is ripped from us or we sever it from ourselves.  What if we paid less attention to the fear of the unknown and the insecurity that makes a trauma out of leaving behind the past?  What if we talked as much about what happened to Inanna when she came back from Hades as her journey there?  What if we simply walked away from what is no longer a part of us and instead imagined strolling onto the shore of our new lives in joyful expectation and celebrating all that is waiting for us there?  What if we push aside the worldview that change must come from conflict and destruction and replace it with one of inevitable but peaceful turnings, the way the earth moves around the sun? 

But of what will I build my new life if all around me is turning to dust?  I will build it of the only thing I truly own – my faith that I have been made to be exactly who I am and that where I will end up is precisely where I am meant to be. So, instead of abandoning those parts of myself and my life that no longer fit, I will honor all they have done for me and remake them into what I do need, whether it is self-destructive anger turned to determination or meekness made into contemplative wisdom. I will be able to leave behind situations and people who harm me without fear because I will have the strength and hopefulness to find new companions and opportunities. I will nourish my everyday self with healthy food, and sleep, and times of fun and enjoyment and merriment, and solitude and company.  I will make sure that I am happy.  When I walk out onto the shore, I will expect beauty and kindness to be all around me, and what I don’t discover, I will create, for why else would I have landed here?

Not only will I make a different way of experiencing these times for myself, but I will make it my task to make such a way for others also.  When I come across someone who is struggling in the ocean, I will be extra nurturing.  I will listen with intensity and nourish them with food and opportunities to celebrate.  I will lend them my spyglass so that they, too, can see the new lands arising from the tempest. 

Perhaps I will be one of a new profession, that of midwife to those who are participating in this re-creation of themselves and our world.  Maybe I will make it my job to be of comfort to those who are more directly in the middle of the maelstrom so that they can do what they need to do for themselves and others.  I will place vases of flowers around their birthing room and open the windows to the fresh winds that blow.  I will remind those who are in the throes of these moments that they have not been tossed into the ocean without help or a compassionate witness. We will walk out onto the shore shoulder-to-shoulder and experience the stillness of the morning that so often comes after a storm.  We will talk about taking care of ourselves, of not burdening ourselves with what we have left behind in the ocean, of giving ourselves time to be amazed and enchanted with our new lives.  We will re-envision transformation as the joy of building rather than the pain of tearing down and leaving behind.  I think maybe that is who I am and what I am supposed to be doing. Together we will see the land of our transformed lives as a paradise and then it will be one.