As we careen toward ever more terrifying surges in the Covid pandemic, with experts predicting apocalypticcatastrophes by Christmas time, I find myself reacting to the vast majority of modern Christmas songs, stories, movies, and cultural norms with increasing distaste. In these scary, painful weeks leading up to Christmas, my culture has very little to offer other than distraction and superficial jollity. Ho ho ho, Santa Claus is comin’ to town.
As we strive to create a better future, we can look to our rich heritage of global goddess and heroine tales for insight into peaceful, creative, and effective means to achieve our goals. Let me introduce you to the delightful ancient story of two young Chinese heroines, Gum Lin and Loy Yi Lung.
Summarized from Merlin Stone’s Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood: Gum Lin’s village was starving due to a drought. Even the bamboo she needed to make objects to sell had disappeared. Searching for bamboo on a nearby mountain, she found a lake, but a locked gate stopped its abundant waters from flowing down to the village. A dragon living in an underwater cave held the key. Gum Lin sang sweetly until the dragon’s daughter, Loy Yi Lung, arose from the depths and together they hatched a plan. They sang in unison to draw the dragon to the surface. While Loy Yi Lung continued her song and the dragon listened, Gum Lin swam to the cave where she encountered treasures she could easily steal for herself. She ignored them and found the key. She unlocked the gate and the waters gently flowed down the mountain in a newly-made river, nourishing the rice and bamboo. In time, Loy Yi Lung moved to the village where she and Gum Lin happily sang at the edge of the water.
She climbed steep hills
and rubble to reach the meadow.
The flat – topped mountain peered down
at the woman
gathering stones
as if they were diamonds.
Amber, moss, pearl white,
rose red and orange,
gray and ebony – a luminescence
emanated from each,
almost as if the moon had
infused each flake and boulder
with her translucent light.
The Pedernal absorbed
her child-like wonder
and gifted her
with stones
that told a story
of a sea of shells and plants
that once lived there
before people.
Stones speak to
those who love them.
Notes on the Pedernal:
In Abiquiu, New Mexico there is a flat – topped mountain that is called the Pedernal that can be seen from most directions and has been painted and photographed from every angle. Indigenous peoples considered this mountain to be sacred. The mythical (Navajo) Changing Woman was born on this mountain, and it is said that she lives there still. Each year she is born in the spring, emerges as a young woman during the summer, becomes a mother in the fall, and turns into an old woman during the winter season, only to be born again. In the East she is Earth Woman, in the South Mountain Woman, in the West she is Water Woman and in the North she is Corn Woman. Changing Woman embodies Nature’s as a whole and since the Navajo trace their lineage through a matrilineal line she is the Mother of all the People.
The first way Changing Woman saves the world is by birthing the twins, the male aspects of herself. This embodied female/male energy is capable of taking action on behalf of all the people, ridding the world of monsters. It is important to note that the twins require the help of Spider Grandmother’s wisdom, guidance and protection because Spider Grandmother is Changing Woman’s older wisdom aspect, a continuation of her mother – line.
The second and most critical way Changing Woman saves the world from “monsters” is because she secures the matrilineal line for the People. The matrilineal system traces descent through maternal roots. Men who marry move to the wife’s residence (matrilocal) and become part of the maternal family. Mothers, aunts, and grandmothers bring up the children, protecting, guiding, and teaching the children the ancestral family stories. This system unites Navajo society and creates the social structure of the culture connecting generations through kinship.
Although in present day Navajo culture Patriarchy has eroded women’s power the four tenets (harmony, beauty, balance, peace) remain part of the judicial system of the Navajo people.
The multicolored stone called chert and its darker twin, flint, are structural (quartz) parts of this mountain. These stones were once collected to craft the finest arrowheads for hunting.
This collection of chert fragments lies on my desk along with a vessel made by an Indigenous woman. These stones remind me of the power of Changing Woman and how she continues to work through my life even as I return to the North, my homeland.
The mountain absorbed
her child-like wonder
with pleasure,
and gifted one
who climbed to her summit
with a stone
that told a story
of a sea of shells and plants
that once lived here.
Stones speak to
those who love them.
In the myth Changing Woman never dies; she grows old and young again with the seasons. In the East she is Earth Woman, in the South Mountain Woman, in the West she is Water Woman and in the North she is Corn Woman.
Changing Woman embodies Nature’s as a whole and since the Navajo trace their lineage through a matrilineal line she is the Mother of all the People.
According to Navajo mythology the first way Changing Woman saves the world is by birthing the twins, the male aspects of herself. This embodied female/male energy is capable of taking action on behalf of all the people, ridding the world of monsters. It is important to note that the twins require the help of Spider Grandmother’s wisdom, guidance and protection because Spider Grandmother is Changing Woman’s older wisdom aspect, a continuation of her mother – line.
The second and most critical way Changing Woman saves the world from “monsters” is because she secures the matrilineal line for the People. The matrilineal system traces descent through maternal roots. Men who marry move to the wife’s residence (matrilocal) and become part of the maternal family. Mothers, aunts, and grandmothers bring up the children, protecting, guiding, and teaching the children the ancestral family stories. This system unites Navajo society and creates the social structure of the culture connecting generations through kinship.
Although in present day Navajo culture Patriarchy has eroded women’s power the four tenets (harmony, beauty, balance, peace) remain part of the judicial system of the Navajo people.
Above photo of plant and shell fossils in the chert was taken by Iren Schio
Working notes:
In Abiquiu, New Mexico the flat – topped mountain we call the Pedernal can be seen from most directions and has been painted and photographed from every angle. Indigenous peoples considered this mountain to be sacred. The mythical (Navajo) Changing Woman was born on this mountain, and it is said that she lives there still. Each year she is born in the spring, emerges as a young woman during the summer, becomes a mother in the fall, and turns into an old woman during the winter season, only to be born again. The multicolored stone called chert and its darker twin, flint, are structural (quartz) parts of this mountain. These stones were once collected to craft the finest arrowheads for hunting.
I have a passion for all stones but especially chert because of its colors. Chert and flint are microcrystalline varieties of quartz. Their crystals are so tiny that chert and flint fracture more like glass than quartz crystals. Skilled Native peoples chipped chert and flint pieces into arrowheads, spear points, scrapers, and other tools. The only difference between chert and flint is color: flint is black or nearly black, while chert tends to be white, gray, pink, or red and can be plain, banded, or preserve fossil traces.
Sara is a naturalist, ethologist ( a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.
This is a continuation of an earlier blog in which I discuss home altars as a way to bring beliefs about women’s spiritual power into the body and daily life.
In my bedroom, images of the Snake Goddesses of Knossos sit on a cabinet painted by a Greek woman with images of birds and flowers. Between them is a crystal ball, while before them are three shells, the smaller of which was given to me by a Maori woman from New Zealand. Above them is an image of the sea in Molivos, Lesbos, painted by my friend Judith Shaw in the year we were both living in the village.
All things being relative, remember that collective and individual histories are cyclical but open-ended, and discern the kind of moment you are in and part of.
Remember how to make it better by holding on to all that is dear in life, and becoming more prayerful and thoughtful.
When deprivation comes, return to what is essential— first, beauty, so look for and create beautiful behavior and encourage it.
My wife and I woke up to the fact that Joe Biden surpassed 270 electoral votes needed and that it appeared that he was in all likelihood going to be our next president and Kamala Harris our new VP, and the first ever female, first Black and first Asian American to hold that position. We watched television daring to believe these facts for four hours. Then I said, “We need to drive around.” I just felt we needed to celebrate with all of us who have wanted this so badly.
We yanked the lawn sign off the lawn and drove all around Long Beach, honking the horn, as I jumped up through the moon roof in the rain, my wife honking the horn and folks high-fiving us, thumbs up, waving and yelling shout-outs.
In the United States turkeys are equated with Thanksgiving. But there is so much more to Turkey – a gentle creature who forms strong attachments. Reputed to be dumb, Turkey is in fact quite intelligent and curious, with the ability to solve problems. Turkeys have an excellent understanding of the details of their location which makes them so successful at feeding themselves. They also love to play and to cluck along with music.
Four years ago I made a trip to New Mexico to spend the winter and returned for three more winters in a row. A true Night Journey through the Desert. I hadn’t been there three weeks before a Great Horned owl appeared at my door. My dead mother (with whom I had had a devastating relationship and who loved owls) was surfacing as a threat…and I just did not want to believe it.
After a few months I was thrilled to make what I believed to be a genuine woman friend. Ironically, I met her at a feminist gathering. Oh, at last! Up until that point the only woman I currently had a close relationship with was a woman who was a former editor that became a virtual friend. I had only met her once (caveat–watch out for FB friends). My dearest friend Lise (we were thirty years strong) lived too far away for us to see each other although we talked and argued periodically! I was so lonely for a real woman friend that I could see regularly, and share my feelings with honestly … When this woman sought me out I could hardly contain myself. I was that excited. Continue reading “Coyote Woman Unmasked….by Sara Wright”
One of the symptoms of my chemotherapy is neurasthenia or partial numbness in my right foot. When it first occurred, I fell three times in my apartment because I was not lifting my foot automatically. I became afraid to move without holding onto the walls or furniture. I resisted my friends’ advice to get a walker, but finally agreed that I needed some form of physical support. I arranged for my friend Eirini Kouraki to have a rubber tip added to the shepherd’s cane I sometimes use walking in the mountains. When she brought it too me, I decorated it with three ribbons I saved from rituals at the Holy Myrtle Tree at the Paliani monastery in Crete. The most recent were brown, the color of the earth, and red, the strong energy I will need to heal. I added a light green-blue ribbon, representing the calm and clear optimism I feel as I face a crisis of life and death. The ribbons remind me of the healing power of the Holy Tree that I have called upon many times, turning a symbol of my infirmity into a symbol of healing and hope.
In the past weeks as my cancer treatment continues, I have been feeling strong enough to finish unpacking (with the help of Vera, my cleaning lady) and organizing my new home in Crete. As I rediscover sacred objects, I create altars. Altars are physical reminders of our spiritual beliefs. Creating and tending them helps to create the embodied knowing that brings the spirit into our daily lives.
The living area of my new apartment has 3 glass shelving units. In one of them, I created a triple altar with images of the Goddess and female power from ancient Crete. Because the apartment is sleek and modern yet welcoming to my antique furniture, I kept the altar minimal.
The second shelf holds one of the oldest images from ancient Crete, the Neolithic Goddess from Ierapetra. She is seated on massive buttocks, securely rooted in the earth. Her face is beaked, symbolizing her connection to the birds that fly in the air. Her body is decorated with lines identified by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas as the flowing water that nourishes all of life. Her body too is shaped like the mountain. She represents the never-ending powers of birth, death, and regeneration in all of nature.
In front of the Neolithic Goddess I placed a twig from Paliani with a dark blue ribbon reminding me that my friend Tina Nevans is sending the healing energy of the Blue Buddha to me in her daily meditations, as well as several handsewn triangles holding leaves from the Holy Myrtle tree, and a crystal extracted from the Trapeza Cave, found on the path outside of it. To Her right is a small image of the long-necked turtle Goddess from Myrtos who holds a pitcher recalling women’s daily visits to water sources, and a small copy of a Kamares ware pitcher used to pour libations in the Sacred Centers. To the left are a bronze copy of a labrys, originally the double sacred female triangle transformed into wings and also a happy little bull who reminds us that animals experience the joy of life.
On the lower shelf, copies of dancing women from post-Minoan Paliakastro symbolize the transmission of Old European values of community, lack of hierarchy, and most of all, celebration of the joy of life as Laura Shannon has written. The dancing women are surrounded by images of later Mycenaean Goddesses and of Aphrodite who was worshiped at the Minoan site of Kato Symi in classical times, and a small reproduction of the Neolithic Goddess from Catal Huyuk, who reminds us that Crete was settled c.7000 BCE by farmers from Anatolia.
In the hallway I placed a copy of a drawing of the Holy Myrtle Tree of the monastery of Paliani created by one of the nuns. According to the story told, the area where the monastery was later built was burned in a fire but a small myrtle bush survived. It was watered by girls who saw the image of the Panagia (Mary the Mother of Jesus) in its charred branches. So, the monastery which was known as ancient in 668 CE was built. The monastery is a sacred place for the surrounding villages. The sacred tree and the icon of the Panagia in the church are said to have performed many miracles. Below the drawing of the Sacred Myrle Tree is a small image of a face in a twig from tree given to me by German artist Carla Randel.
On a small table under the drawing, I placed an image of Aphrodite who was earlier associated with myrtle trees, along with a candle, a star, a blue glass paperweight, and a triton shell, symbolizing Aphrodite as the morning and evening star, and her relation to the sea.
When I light candles in translucent glass holders on the altar with the pitcher Goddesses as the day dawns and in the evening as day turns to night, and when I gaze at my other altars, I remember that I am always surrounded by the nurturing love of the Goddess. This love takes root in my body, and I am inspired to share it with others.
In keeping in line with my last month’s post, movies are on the docket, 2018’s Mary Magdalene. It’s fairly recent with not a lot of discussion around it. Here we go. The film written by two women, Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett, focuses on Mary of Magdala who encounters Jesus. The film stars American Rooney Mara as Mary Magdalene and Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus.
As we careen toward ever more terrifying surges in the Covid pandemic, with experts predicting apocalyptic catastrophes by Christmas time, I find myself reacting to the vast majority of modern Christmas songs, stories, movies, and cultural norms with increasing distaste. In these scary, painful weeks leading up to Christmas, my culture has very little to offer other than distraction and superficial jollity. Ho ho ho, Santa Claus is comin’ to town.
She climbed steep hills
This is a continuation of an 
Four years ago I made a trip to New Mexico to spend the winter and returned for three more winters in a row. A true Night Journey through the Desert. I hadn’t been there three weeks before a Great Horned owl appeared at my door. My dead mother (with whom I had had a devastating relationship and who loved owls) was surfacing as a threat…and I just did not want to believe it.
Feminism and Religion 