Τό γυναικεῖον τῆς Ὑπατίας - An Áit Bhanda na Hypatia - Hypatia's Gynaeceum

Göbekli Tepe, in southeastern Turkey, is a site now being excavated that bridges the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Dating back to 11,500 BCE, it is the earliest known candidate for the origins of both agriculture and institutional religion. It contains as many as 20 stone circles composed of sculpted megaliths of 10 to 50 tons each.

Göbek is Turkish for belly, navel, core, heart, center, or midpoint. (Göbek dansı is Turkish for belly dance.) Göbekli is the adjective derived from it, meaning something like paunchy, potbellied, naveled; with a heart; with a central design. Tepe means hill, here it means an archaeological mound, the equivalent of a "Tell." The name of Göbekli Tepe, literally 'hill that has a navel' could also be translated as 'a mound with a heart' or 'the mound that is the Omphalos'.

It's an extraordinary archaeological find, pushing the dates of architecture and religion several thousand years back into the Mesolithic. Göbekli Tepe is a few hundred miles east of Çatalhöyük, in southeastern Anatolia, the region where Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Anatolia meet-- the upper Euphrates basin, the northernmost tip of the Fertile Crescent. Southeastern Anatolia is where the earliest forms of agriculture first began, during the centuries after the founding of Göbekli Tepe.

The archaeological evidence here indicates that the socioeconomic changes resulting from the institutionalization of religion are what caused the rise of agriculture. The site is thought to have played a key function in the transition to agriculture, as the necessary social organization needed for the creation of these structures went hand-in-hand with the organized exploitation of wild crops. In fact, recent DNA analysis of modern domesticated wheat compared with wild wheat has shown that its DNA is closest in structure to wild einkorn wheat found at a mountain called Karacadağ, 20 miles away from the site, leading one to believe that this is where modern wheat was first domesticated.

Gathering together for religion meant that they needed to feed more people. So they started cultivating the wild grasses. But this switch to agriculture put pressure on the landscape; trees were cut down, the herds of game were dispersed. What was once a paradisaical land became a dustbowl. This switch took place around 8,000 BCE. The temple of Göbekli Tepe was deliberately covered with earth around this time.
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This dream was so vivid, with such a quality of reality, I did not feel it to be dreamlike. It came complete with childhood memories that had never really happened, or maybe it was something real from childhood I had forgotten but incorporated into the dream. Actually, I had never been to St. Louis in childhood. The scene in the dream wasn't specific to that city, could have been any city, I don't know why I thought it was in St. Louis.

On a street corner, there were two storefronts adjacent to one another. Just two large shop windows, each about 20' wide and 12' deep. Each was formed into a trapezoidal area within, with the wide part on the street side. The one on the left, on the corner, was the Temple of Hermes, and to its right was the Temple of Diana. A building owner had constructed these in the 1920s and decorated them in the style of that era, or sort of a 1920s concept of ancient Greek design, with a statue of the deity in the center of each one. There were only these display windows, the entrance was on the other side of the building. Over time, the building had changed ownership and the original purpose of the temples had been forgotten.

In the dream I had a memory from early childhood of driving past there a couple times when the temples were being used for display of merchandise, albeit with the temple artifacts still in place. I had seen wigs in one of them on wig stands, and I remembered how it had freaked me out because they seemed like disembodied heads. In recent years the building had become a bar, a dive, but the windows were used to sell magic tricks, card tricks, and the like.

I heard the news that the temples had been dismantled, and I was heartbroken. Then I remembered seeing construction work on the street, the building had changed hands again, and the new owner decided to remodel. I went and looked, and the temples were all gone, replaced by a boutique. I like shopping for clothes, but something unique and precious had been destroyed and replaced with something you can find anywhere. I was devastated at the loss-- because even though the temple design had been dated and trite, I had felt profound sacredness at the site. It mattered greatly to me that the goddess Diana had been honored there. I was crying in the dream for a long time.

While I was sitting with a friend on the sidewalk there, mourning the loss of the temples, the mayor of St. Louis came down the street with her entourage, campaigning for re-election. She stopped at the corner, and I went to tell her I felt the temples should have been preserved. I had a paperback book with the front cover removed, and presented it to her, signing a dedication to her in a pen that leaked ink in various dark metallic colors of green, bronze, black, silver, and blue that flowed and blurred over the page. The mayor invited me to come work at her office. I went there and the whole second part of the dream had me walking around and talking to various aides of the mayor and complaining about the temple destruction, I started crying again, and when I awoke I was still crying with real tears in my eyes.

I have always felt intense emotions in dreams.

In writings about Italian regional cooking, you often find mention of the vegetarian side of Mezzogiorno cuisine. When Sicilians talk about the lack of meat on their tables, though, that doesn't apply to the fish and seafood in their cuisine. I suppose that's due to the legacy of the Catholic Church and their allegedly "no meat" Fridays and Lent which, however, allow fish. That never made any sense to me. Are fish plants or animals? Didn't any of those Church prelates study biology even a little bit?

Anyway, as a Sicilian exploring my ancestral cuisine, I find plenty of vegetarian tradition to draw on, and I feel more favored in this respect than I would with any other European ethnicity, or anywhere outside India.

The book Sicilian Home Cooking: Family Recipes from Gangivecchio by the mother-and-daughter team of Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene waxes lyrical about the glories of Sicilian food and the role it's played in their lives. Signora Tornabene introduces her chapter on meat dishes--the smallest one in the book--by telling how she doesn't really care for meat, and how Sicilian cuisine has historically gotten along without it.
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From my childhood, I remember my grandfather's garden, the vegetables he grew that graced the table and my grandmother's homemade tomato sauce made from his garden and her sfincione (Sicilian pizza) when the extended family gathered there; his homemade wine; and the special pride he took in growing a fig tree in northern Ohio that actually bore fruit--a true Sicilian-American miracle. I'll never forget my first ambrosial taste of a fresh fig from Nonnu's tree when I was only 6 or 7. That was many years before they became available in American groceries. Of course, when I visited relatives in Sicily, they fed me all the fresh homegrown figs I could eat, under the shade of an olive tree.

Mother, return us to your breast: Toward a thealogy of Islam
Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia

What happened in the encounter between Islam and Goddess religion?
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Wherever You're taking me is where I am going
Whatever You ask of me is what I will do
Whatever You're teaching me is what I am learning
How blessed I am to give my life to You

Wherever You're taking me that's where I'm going
Whatever You ask of me is what I will do
Whatever You make of me is who I'm becoming
How blessed I am to give my life to You

Take me - Shape me
Make me a perfect channel for Your glory
Use me - Through me
Pour out the sacred fire of Your joy

I am in Your hands now
I walk right off the ledge
I trust into Your silence
I step over the edge

Copper Stewart is a remarkable Witch of old West Virginia working-class stock who has been exploring ways for patriotic Americans to reclaim the Pagan heritage of our democracy, through our relation to spirits of the land and the Goddess of Liberty. See his blog: http://www.isiskosmos.org/libertyblog/ Great work, Copper.

I followed his link to the audio of the "Liberty Tree" song by Thomas Paine--which begins by invoking the Goddess of Liberty--and transcribed the 18-century music, ready to revive its performance. Who knew this patriotic Pagan American song from the Revolution existed? We need to revive this spirit in the present day to confront the tyranny of King George that threatens our democracy. Thanks, Copper!

The question was asked "Are there any lesbian goddesses?" I went and looked some up-- are there ever!

The first one who comes to mind is Artemis/Diana, a goddess who loved women, including Britomartis, Cyrene, Atalanta, and Anticleia. She loved the moon-goddess Dictynna (who is also identified with Britomartis) and the nymphs Daphne, Amethyst, Taygete, and Callisto. As Artemis Orthia, she was worshiped by both lesbian and gay devotees. As Artemis Pergaea, she was worshiped in hymns by the lesbian poet Damophyle of Pamphilia who led a circle of women loving women.

Greek mythology also includes the FTM story of Iphis and Ianthe, two women who fell in love: Iphis was transformed into a man and they got married.

Sappho invoked Aphrodite to win the love of a woman. Her Hymn to Aphrodite is the only complete poem of hers that survives. Her community of women worshiped Aphrodite and the three Graces. The goddess Aphrodite Anosia was celebrated by lesbian rites in Thessaly.

Helen was the name of a goddess worshiped at Argos and Sparta who was invoked for women's unions with women.

Pallas was the lover of Athena and even fused with her, the pair becoming known as Pallas Athena. Another nymph loved by Athena was Chariclo.

Sappho said Leto (goddess of night) and Niobe had been lovers before they became mothers. The Pleiades were associated with love between women in Sappho's poetry.


the Pleiades

In Greco-Egyptian magical texts from Alexandria, the Erinyes were invoked for lesbian love spells.

The relationship between the goddesses Baubo and Demeter can be read as lesbian, likewise Ame no Uzume and Amaterasu.

In Hawaiian mythology the goddesses Hi'iaka and Hopoe were same-sex lovers. Hi'iaka had other goddess lovers, Omeo and Pauo-Palae.

The Hawaiian goddess Pu'uhele had a girlfriend named Puomaiai.

The Inuit goddess Sedna at the bottom of the sea has a female companion named Qailertetang.

The goddess Aurora was worshiped by Sappho's women on Lesbos and was the patron of same-sex unions of women. Another goddess named Aotis was worshiped by Spartan women loving priestesses like Agido and Hagesichora.

The Roman goddess Bona Dea was worshiped in a special women-only ceremony which was kept secret from men. Draw your own conclusions.

How about the story of Parvati and Malini... The two female deities loved one another and together conceived and became mothers to the god Ganesha. Malini was the servant of Parvati, she rubbed her body with scented powders and oils (this is a traditional Indian method of skincare), then when it came off her skin, she loved her so much instead of throwing it away she ate it and became pregnant with Ganesha.

The Hindu fire goddess Arani has been seen in lesbian terms, since in her ritual two pieces of wood are rubbed together to make fire, and both of them are given female names.

Diane Mariechild, author of Lesbian Sacred Sexuality, does a Buddhist tantric meditation during sex to experience her lover as the goddess Tara.

In Vodun, the lwa Erzulie Dantor is a patroness of lesbians.

In Cuba, the orisha Inle or Erinle is a patroness of lesbians and trans women.

Oshun is another orisha revered by lesbians. Audre Lorde's poem "The Winds of Orisha" has the lines "the beautiful Oshun and I lie down together / in the heat of her body truth my voice becomes stronger."

The Aztec goddesses Xochiquetzal and Tlazoteotl are protectors of patlaches, women who love women. Gloria Anzaldúa revived the word patlache. Chicana lesbian Cherrie Moraga has interpreted the Aztec moon goddess Coyolxauhqui as a lesbian deity.

In Feri, the Star Goddess and other deities contain all genders and sexual polarities within Herself, so might be understood as queer in all sorts of ways.

In 1989-1990, JoAnn Loulan took a survey of almost 600 lesbians and found that their favorite Goddess was Artemis/Diana, their second favorite was Aphrodite, and third favorite was Athena.

A great reference source in which I found some of the above examples: Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lore (London, 1997).

Facing a difficult challenge, I don't go forward without gathering up my strength in advance. When I don't feel strong, to tell myself to be strong--to order my own strength around like a military officer--or to give myself a rousing pep talk-- may persuade me to show some bravado for a while. But ultimately it just feels fake. I don't think it works to command strength into existence.

But maybe that's just me, whose main element is water. What strengthens me is to be receptive to the gift of strength. My self-strengthening magick works by opening to awareness that it is being given to me... and then accepting it, appreciating it, welcoming it in. Trusting that it's always there for me. Air opens my awareness of the fire of strength, as earth supports my sense of trust, and spirit gives thanks which increases my feeling of sacredness--and central to the whole process is the receptivity of water.


The Mother Goddess of Çatalhöyük, Cybele, Inanna, Durga, Kali - all ladies with lions - remembranced in this image of Strength. Χαιρε Μεγαλη Μητηρ Κυβελη.



Cybele as Strength in the Tarot by modern Galla artist Laura Anne Seabrook.
Ave Magna Mater Idaea!

I took the "The Nine Muses" quiz on gURL.com
		My muse is... Polyhymnia Polyhymnia is the patron goddess of sacred poetry. Her name means "She of Many Hymns" and is often depicted with a pensive look upon her face. Polyhymnia is said to bring immortal distinction to writers. Read more... Who is your muse?

Η Πολυμνία
I like her.

The Russian artist Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) traveled in the Himalayas and Central Asia, and with his wife Helena founded the Agni Yoga Society based on occult interpretations of Central Asian mythic geography. I've always admired his use of light and color in painting mountainous scenery.

In this 1924 painting, Vedushchaya 'She Who Leads' or 'The Female Leader', Roerich expressed his vision of an important role played by women in shaping the future of humanity. His frequent use of tiny human figures shown in one corner of a vast landscape reminds me of Chinese Zen painting. This picture shows a typical Roerich mountain landscape in rich colors and luminous shadows. But it's the human figures in this one that caught my attention.



The woman walking in front pauses and turns around to look at a man crawling behind her on all fours, who is grasping her skirt. My discovery: This image was apparently lifted from a 16th-century illuminated manuscript miniature of the Herat school done in Bukhara.


(click on the pictures to enlarge, then click a second time)

This painting has been called "A Maiden and her Persistent Lover" and is attributed to the Herati painter Shaykh Zadah (a student of the great Herati master Behzad), after his move to Bukhara, dated circa 1530. Bukhara was at that time the capital of the Uzbek dynasty, patrons of the Herat school of art. The Uzbeks sometimes kidnapped the great artists of Herat and took them to Bukhara to work.

Look at the attitude of the woman's arms in both pictures, the curve of her back, the meeting of eyes, the placement of the man's knees at a lower level than her feet. Can the resemblance be coincidental? How Roerich might have gotten a look at this picture is a puzzle. I found it on page 100 of a book titled Pages of Perfection: Islamic Paintings and Calligraphy from the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. Coincidentally, Roerich was a native of St. Petersburg. However, the Bukhara painting belongs to the private collection of the expatriate Iranian art historian Abolala Soudavar, resident in the USA. I can only wonder where this painting existed during Roerich's lifetime and if he ever saw it. Or if he saw a copy of it in Russia or Uzbekistan. A third possibility would be if this figure composition is a repeated theme in Central Asian art. It was first printed in Soudavar's book Art of the Persian Courts (1992).

The Persian text with the painting says (if I've translated it right): dâman chon to negâri ze kaff âsân na-deham / sayyâr be-dast âmadeh 'As you are a beauty, I don't let go of your skirt easily / The wanderer has come into my grasp'. This guy just has no respect for women's boundaries.

The contrast that caught my imagination is in how the two artists interpreted the exact same composition so differently. The woman in the Bukhara miniature seems to be saying "Hey, what's the idea of grabbing my skirt?" and the guy is like "Don't go, I want to be your boyfriend," and she's like "Let go of me, you stalker, before I get a restraining order," as she pulls her robe out of his hand. But Roerich envisions Woman leading Man into a more hopeful future for humanity. She is looking back at him with care and concern to make sure he's able to follow her as he struggles to keep up.

Roerich's philosophy was partly drawn from Shamanic traditions of the Altay Mountains. The most ancient levels of Siberian shamanism were attributed to women, shamanesses whose widespread name udagan was derived from a name of the Altaic Mother Goddess of the Hearth, Etügen (in Mongolian She is called Etügen Eke, 'Mother Earth'). Roerich's Goddess figures like Mater' Mira 'Mother of the World' come from this Altaic shamaness tradition. The artist looks to (idealized) women as future saviors of the human race.

This is just a look at current relations without going back over the whole history of my experience with Christianity.

By choosing a focus on interfaith work (why not--I'm a one-woman interfaith group myself) in the USA, obviously I have chosen to get involved with Christians a lot. We may have had our differences, but the level of dialogue and cooperation I'm engaging in through the Network of Spritual Progressives precludes any adversarial attitudes between us. Which is a relief because I don't like fighting over this stuff.

As an Italian feminist Pagan with a penchant for ancient history, two incidents stand out for me from the time when Christianity consolidated its power over the Roman Empire and violently crushed out the heritage of Paganism all over the Mediterranean.

391 - The Theodosian edict which resulted in the abolition of Cybele's religion, the massacres of Her transsexual priestesses the Gallae and forced conversions of their followers, the conversion of their home into the Vatican City, the devotion for the Mother Goddess shifted to Mary--resulting in the eternal question of how do you subordinate a Mother Goddess when Her religion is encapsulated within a patriarchal system ("hyperdulia" and such), when the Church Fathers want Her subordinate but She continues to hold first place in the people's hearts. If you know Sicilians, you know what I mean. All of Cybele's temples were destroyed, with orders that they should never be built upon (in contrast to the usual practice of converting non-Christian religious sites). The religion of Cybele was targeted in particular for obliteration, it had been the principal religion of Rome with Her temple right on the Palatine Hill (the most prestigious real estate in all Rome)--but who remembers nowadays the central importance She once held?

415 - The murder of Hypatia in Alexandria.

That said, when I get together to dialogue and cooperate with Christians today in a civilized way, for the purpose of helping our nation's politics to care more for people, more for the environment-- one thing becomes immediately obvious: We all have far more in common with each other than any of us has with those ancient people.

The progressive Christians who I work with today are nothing like Bishops Ambrose of Milan and Cyril of Alexandria who instigated pogroms against the Pagans of their day to seize power over the Roman Empire. Not by a long stretch! They're the heirs of the German Protestants who made the Declaration of Barmen in a heroic act of resistance to Fascism. For that matter, honestly, I scarcely resemble ancient pagans. Witches today don't even sacrifice chickens let alone humans. (There's more human sacrifice to be found in Christianity, heh, just teasing you guys.) Witches I admire like Starhawk and T. Thorn Coyle (yezida), in their resistance to the Fascist developments of our day, are just as much the spiritual heirs of Barmen. When I blog against theocracy, guess who's right alongside me--a church pastor.

When I look around at Christians and me in dialogue, all I see is people of Modern Western Civilization. And what is that? The result of synthesizing both Pagan and Christian sources into one thing. My people (the Italians) invented this too, in the Renaissance. Let's face it, folks, today's American Christians and American Pagans are born joined at the hip, so let's get hip to one another.

If anyone has noticed I've been using a lot of Greek, Arabic, and Italian mixed with English in my journal, well yeah. It all has to do with my Sicilian origin, the three main languages spoken by my ancestors (in historical times, anyway).

When I was about 13 or 14 and felt motivated to learn about my ethnic roots, I read a book with an article about Sicilian history that began with the myth of the primeval Mother Goddess, who was worshiped in the Neolithic culture there, the culture that also left better-known underground Goddess temples in Malta. When the Greeks came along much later and found this old religion in the Mediterranean, they called it chthonic, meaning worship inside the earth. My heart still answers Her call because it beats in this body made of Her earth substance that came from ancestors born from the soil of Sicily, who reproduced and then went back into the soil as it kept growing wheat, grapes, olives, almonds, lemons, sesame to nourish their descendants, and so on... Reading that myth was my first exposure to Neolithic Goddess religion, it resounded in me immediately, and hasn't stopped since. Like in the Gandhi movie, I've traveled so far . . . and all I've done is come back home.

I'm Virgo and ecofeminist, I need the earth element, my religion happens when I touch the soil, take someone's hand, plant a garden, help to heal... Wiliam Carlos Williams said "No ideas but in things." Johanna-Hypatia says no theology but in the warmth of human touch or the cycle of the seasons. I'm done with lofty skygod metaphysics, give me direct heart to heart contact with Mother Earth and Her children, this precious planet and its amazing biosphere. Let me feel your touch on my skin, let your warmth radiate to warm me.

Edit:
"Deeds not creeds."
A UU motto I just learned today while reading Margaret Atwood. I could have said my whole meaning in just 3 words.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/starhawk/2007/02/to_be_a_true_friend_of_the_jew.html

I'd like to think Starhawk is onto something valuable here. There is already a small and rapidly growing Pagan movement in Israel that has been restoring worship of the goddesses indigenous to the land like Asherah. Considering how the God of Abraham has been implicated in a lot more bloodshed than peacemaking there, why not give the Goddess a chance?

All the Israeli Pagans I know of come from Jewish backgrounds, like Starhawk. There have been hints of Arab Goddess revival in the Middle East too, but little information because of the extreme secrecy needed, especially when it's a question of uppity Arab wimmin.

So I dream of Arab and Jewish Pagans miraculously getting past the barriers that separate them... and joining together in the worship of the land's Goddesses that they all share in their common ancestry, to cooperate in working toward peace. I have a CD of Israeli Pagan songs with the same phrase sung in Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic:
"One hug per day brings peace that will last"
חבוק אחד ליום
מביא את השלום
hibbuk ehad le-yom
mevi’ et ha-shalom
معانقة وحدي في يوم
بحلي السلام يدوم
mu‘anaqah wahdi fi yom
bi-halli al-salam yidum

שלום
יוחנה

Farouk Mohammed Atwa, a bus mechanic who worked across the street from the church, thought that the apparition was a woman attempting suicide by jumping from the structure.

Despite the police, the street was packed with the faithful and curiosity seekers. "There were Muslims and Christians, and everyone was as one, one religion together."

"Some anthropologists suggest that Mary's popularity in Egypt is a vestige of the Isis cult, itself an incarnation of primeval mother-goddess worship. Virgin sightings may be among paganism's contributions to monotheistic mysticism."

Prehistoric well found in Apulia

Italian archaeologists have unearthed temples attesting to the strength of fertility rites in prehistoric Italy. The discoveries were made at a major site in Puglia (ancient Apulia) during a dig led by Anna Maria Punzi Sisti.

The new dig at Trinitanapoli has uncovered a huge well used for sacrifices to an unknown fertility goddess, Punzi Sisti said. "This is a major discovery which shows the importance of these rites to Bronze Age peoples, around 3,500 years ago," she said. "It should enable us to decode the ritual of this ancient religion," she added, revealing that traces of sacrificed animals and offerings of corn and other plants had been found. As in other such rites, these offerings presumably asked the goddess to bless crops as well as keeping communities well supplied with fresh hands, Punzi Sisti explained.

Tombs have also been found, spanning out from a central religious area which is believed to have been used as a full-fledged temple, she said. "The purpose of the site is unmistakable. Its opening architectural lay-out is similar to a vulva and the corridor that leads to the inside is narrow, like a birth canal. There is no image of the fertility goddess inside, but the temple itself, in its very shape, is an icon of fertility".

Two years ago the site yielded a remarkable find, the skeleton of a man - carbon-dated to 1,600 BCE - which was taller than the average height of modern men, at 1.85m. The media was quick to declare that a race of giants walked the Earth in Italy in prehistoric times. Scientists explained the Trinitanapoli giant as a product of unusual cross-breeding with tribes from the Balkans.

Source: ANSA (23 January 2007)
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2007-01-23_12327488.html

I feel a strong intuition that Vicofertile Woman is my ancestor.* I want to make contact. I have her picture on my altar. I want to visit her world. Don't want to wait until Samhain.

She was buried with the Goddess statue cradled to her breast.



Vicofertile is near Parma, in Italy's most agriculturally rich area with regard to soil, climate, and everything. Its name means 'fertile village'. It is right where the lower slopes of the Apennines begin to rise above the Po plain, an area watered by tributaries of the Po from the mountains, one of Europe's ideal spots for agriculture, or even for hunting and gathering, since Vicofertile Woman lived 7,000 years ago. She was given a careful burial, suggesting at least that her family was well respected. The Goddess statue is a finely worked piece of art, a valuable item for a grave. Vicofertile Woman died in middle age, so she probably lived to see her grandchildren. She may have been a priestess. If her family was prominent, that much better chance that her genes continue living in the Italian people.

*Not a claim of being special. She may well be ancestral to a majority of Italians, if not all Italians.

As a woman of faith, trying to understand what makes me tick here.
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I just got back from Northwestern University. I had a brilliant time at the conference, the organizer Barbara Newman is such a cool lady (and she wears the most fantastic caftans). Starhawk not only gave the keynote address, she drummed and led a Spiral Dance afterward. How cool is that! I spent a whole day and parts of two other days immersed in constant spiritual intellectual discourse and activity with other Goddess people comparing many different traditions. I found it easy to make friends there, all the people there were so cool.

Carol Christ gave a talk on feminist thealogy and death. She was talking about the understanding of death and afterlife as one of the main differences between Goddess religion and patriarchal theology. Her research was based on not only studying Minoan Goddess culture but also living in Greece and participating in traditional rituals with Greek village women, figuring the basics wouldn't have changed over the years even if the name changed to Christianity. Carol said the Christian formula "do ut des" (I give so that you may give) does not work in Goddess culture. The tradition she traced back to Minoan religion is "I give back in gratitude because you always keep giving."

It was a small conference, about 100 people, and the attendees were over 90% women. I wanted to say a shout out to the handful of men there, men who were cool with sitting in a room full of women talking about girly stuff. More power-from-within to them! :)

I heard a lot of scholars and students talking about Islam, but mostly how they don't know much about it. I don't know why hardly anyone so far has done anything to build bridges between Paganism and Islam. One Witch who has done that is yezida. She was doing it years before I started it independently of her, and when I started saying it, Witches told me "Thorn is doing that." I was pleased to learn that she and sista S.R. were doing it too. In fact, S.R. and I started it going for each other when we first met. Several people at the conference spoke up and asked about Islam, so I began to speak out about what I've been finding there. Carol Christ thanked me for telling her about it. It was the fulfillment of a dream I've long had: attending such a conference, sharing my thoughts on this with scholars in the field, and being well received. I really want to do this some more.

On the subject of Islam-Witchcraft relations: One woman in the audience at Starhawk's lecture said that the burning times came about as a direct result of repressive changes in laws made as a result of threat and fear to Christendom from Islam. First they made repressive laws to get the Muslims, then they turned around and used this repression on the Witches. She drew a parallel between that sequence of events and the Patriot Act in present-day America. It's enough to make a Witch feel uneasy.

In discussions the conference kept touching on subjects I'd long thought about, and it was good to know others were thinking about these things too--for example, what are Goddess religion and feminine divine spirituality doing as the predominant faith in some patriarchal social orders? Some scholars who have published books on this are Alf Hiltebeitel, Is the Goddess a Feminist? and Sarah Caldwell's work on Kali. At the conference they discussed a dualistic model: The feminine divine can be either a model to empower women-- the Goddess does this so you can too-- or "compensatory"-- only Goddesses can do this, so you can't. Do what? Be powerful, independent, fierce, respected beings. Like Kali. Also during the conference a third model to answer this question came out, which some called "subversive." ;) Another very popular theme at the conference, which came up in several papers and discussions, was gender fluidity. They loved that concept. Wait till I tell them about the gender fluidity of Allah...

Chün-Fang Yu spoke on Kwan Yin and told an anecdote from her childhood during World War II in China. Her maternal grandmother was a very devout Buddhist and prayed to Kwan Yin early every morning. Her mother was a modern intellectual. One day they were about to board a river ferry. Suddenly Professor Yu's grandmother had a vision of Kwan Yin dressed in white, standing in the river gesturing to her to go back, to get away. So her grandmother refused to board the boat. Her mother was not persuaded by the vision and argued that they should go ahead and get on. They kept arguing for a long time, and finally her mother gave in. Then when the boat pulled away into the river, it struck a mine that had been left by the retreating Japanese, which exploded and killed everyone on the boat. "So if we hadn't heeded Kwan Yin's warning, I wouldn't be talking to you today." Naturally, this audience loves nothing better than women telling such cool anecdotes of their grandmothers.

Throughout the brief conference, Barbara Newman got much applause and gratitude for bringing us together, and the applause for her and Starhawk included zagharît ululation. When the main form of cheering heard is ululation, you know you're at a feminist event. :)

There were only two other Reclaiming Witches who registered for the conference (yeah, I was hoping to see more of youz), two women of Chicago Reclaiming, including my dear friend Jennifer B. who is a brilliant ritualist--although more folks showed up to see Starhawk--her talk was free and well attended. At the reception afterward everybody there (with only a couple exceptions) joined in the Spiral Dance around a table full of food and floral arrangement which she suggested as an image to use. People who had never even heard of Starhawk or Spiral Dances before joined in. Not everybody got the concept of looking into everyone else's eyes, but I'm glad they got an experience of the dance. I was there representing SpiralHeart--that's what I had them put under my name--so lots of people who had never heard of Reclaiming asked me what SpiralHeart is, and I got to tell them.

Thanks to Goddess my ideas were well received, and I was personally well received. I feel very blessed at fitting in among them, because gatherings like this are my favorite things. You can intuit when people in a movement aren't sincere in what they're doing, when they're faking it or their heart isn't in it. At this conference I really did feel the spirit bringing people together in perfect love and perfect trust. I felt the participants truly were acting and speaking from their hearts. Goddess's blessing.

I just saw Pacific Multigrain Beverage in the store and thought I'd try it.
Ingredients: Filtered water, oat groats, triticale, barley, organic soybeans, brown rice, amaranth, tricalcium phosphate, sea salt, riboflavin (B2), vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D2.

My first swig of it tasted exactly like a bowl of cereal and milk. Except that the cereal was completely dissolved in the milk. Imagine that. And the milk itself has been replaced by cereal that has taken on the form of milk. Isn't that like a Thomistic theory for transubstantiation--but in this case the form of milk and the substance of cereal?

Hoc est enim granola meam. Hoc est enim calix lactis Terrae Matris ex mammae.