Goddess Notices...

 Happy Birthday Isis!

As I prepare to write a book on sacred sites of Goddess in Turkey and consider leading another tour to Anatolia, my mind returned to our last trip to a rural and out of the way place there called Pessinus.  Pessinus was sacred in ancient times as a center dedicated to Cybele, though her temple remains hidden beneath the sands of time and as yet undiscovered by contemporary archaeologists.

 This might all sound trivial, but I remember feelings of sacredness in Pessinus presenting itself in surprising ways.  Although we didn't find Cybele's temple, I believe I   felt  her there.  It seemed her essence was in the people and the energy of the place, still today.  Burned into my memory were the kids playing with their cows, adorning their heads with costume jewelry, walking them down the main road, not much more than a mud pathway.   It was obvious this was just a daily occurrence, this joyous and playful relationship to their cows.  For a city girl, it was revealing also seeing the cows responding to them.  Like they were pets  But what hit me like a ton of bricks was this old crone, sitting in a doorway.  She was dressed in what we Westerners would call a costume, though I suspect it might have been her native dress.  She wasn’t there selling anything or trying to make herself visible in any fashion.  There was something about her gaze.  It grabbed me and seemed to follow me.  Even though it was years ago, it feels like it was yesterday.  Don't laugh, but if felt as if she was a conduit to Goddess, or Goddess in human form overseeing our pilgrimage.  I had this sense that our visit was not going unnoticed.  

Then just a couple weeks ago, it happened again.

On Saturday night, June 22, under a the fullness of a super moon, the newly installed, larger than life-sized statue of the Egyptian lion-headed Goddess, Sekhmet, was consecrated at the Goddess Temple of Orange County in Irvine, CA. She was welcomed to a packed house of women and men on hand to welcome her to her new temporary home. High atop her four feet tall, pyramid-shaped base, Sekhmet dominated the room in regal splendor. It was hardly a surprise, during the instant of her unveiling, smoke alarms suddenly went off and lights began to flicker, leaving no doubt to all assembled she was definitely in the sanctuary

 The evening was filled with music, singing, dancing, drumming and recitations to dispel the disinformation about her most well known myth, a patriarchal myth perhaps designed to cause women to be feared, or women to fear their own power. Sekhmet, a solar deity known today to help women and men transform and empower themselves is rising at a crucial time in our history. Have no doubt she is on the rise as people strive to find their strength, tenacity, passion, creativity, courage - their sacred roar

Some readers might not know me well yet, but I don't have these kinds of feelings often or casually.  I tend to be more  skeptical and question everything, not allowing myself flights of fancy.  Turkey, however, felt more potent to me than a lot of places.  That veil between past and present, Goddess and mortal felt a little thinner.  Certainly at the Goddess Temple of Orange County Sekhmet was with us. 

Why am I sharing this with you?  Well, I want you to have no doubt the things we do do not go un-noticed.  So while you’re busy recovering from the Fourth of July festivities, consider the end of July marks the birthday of Isis.  Get your group together or if you are in a solitary mood, go it alone, but remember Isis in the latter days of this month and remember our relationship with Goddess is about reciprocity.  We give to her and she most definitely notices!
 

Femme: Women Healing the World Screenings in July in Los Angeles

Finally, a documentary that addresses the issues of patriarchy, of women's rights, of our desperate need for partnership. Femme: Women Healing the World is a brave film that starts at the beginning, unafraid to talk about pre-patriarchal times, when women and Goddess were revered and people were more concerned about the We and the Us instead of the current climate of greed and selfishness, the I and the Me. Femme is unafraid to examine the relationship between religion and the oppression of women and the economic disparity that is the result of our following a patriarchal or male-dominated agenda.

With Red States and Republicans around the country taking away women's dignity and their rights to their own reproductive health, to abortions and birth control in the year 2013, never has such a film been more needed. With women doing 80% of the work with only 20% of the assets, never has a film been more important. With so many women retiring in poverty and austerity measures being thrust upon the poor, disproportionately affecting women and children, information in this film is vital to help shift consciousness toward a more equitable and sustainable future. With the daily assaults on our finite resources and Mother Earth, it is time to wake up and this film is a wake-up call!

Featuring Jean Houston, Marianne Williamson, Riane Eisler, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Sharon Stone, Gloria Steinem, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and numerous other women across the globe, including myself, speaking out on how we might change the world along-side our beloved men. Come see it and celebrate with your friends! If you saw an earlier screening, come again, you'll see the powerful final cut!

The Dalai Lamma said it would be Western women who would save the world. Certainly it can be women across the globe, stepping up, taking on their mantle of leadership, DEMANDING they no longer be diminished and oppressed under male authority, that can begin to tip the scales toward love, balance, peace and an inter-connection among us all. Nothing less is acceptable. Nothing less will save humankind and the planet.

Femme: Women Healing the World
Directed by Emmanuel Itier of Wonderland Entertainment
Executive Produced by Sharon Stone
Edited and Produced by Amanda Estremera

Los Angeles Screenings in July -
July 12th: The Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival ( http://www.dffla.com/ ) at 8pm, Downtown Independent Theatre at 251 S. Man St -Downtown
and
-July 25th: The Awareness Film Festival ( http://www.awarenessfestival.org/ and http://awareness.festivalgenius.com/2013/ ) at 7:30pm Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica

Femme will be in various film festivals across the globe. Check to see if it is showing near you.
For more information go to www.WonderlandEntGroup.com

Freedom & Independence or Oozing Patriarchal Oppression?

Sure I’m going to eat my share of festival food this weekend. I might light some sparklers and try to get in the spirit of the holiday, but I won’t for a minute be in denial about the actual lack of freedom and independence for women, minorities, workers, the poor and the middle class in our country and across the globe.   I can't forget the patriarchal oppression oozing out everywhere, especially in the Red States!

The statistics and current trends warrant repeating and repeating often. Women do 80% of the work around the globe while owning 20% of the assets. That sounds more like servitude than freedom and independence! Women and children are more likely to be adversely affected by austerity measures imposed upon the multitudes by conservative men running governments across the globe. Imposing unnecessary suffering and struggle is not something to celebrate. Women’s rights to birth control and abortion are being threatened around the United States while they are being subjected to state mandated vaginal probes that neither they nor their doctors want. Last time I checked being penetrated against one’s will was called rape! Republican congressmen and governors have literally made themselves state sanctioned rapists.  Sound like hyperbole to you?  I don't think so.

Workers in places like Wal-Mart work a 38 hour week but make so little money they must be on tax-payer funded food stamps. Too many Americans have shot themselves in the foot and drank the Kool-Aid making villains of teachers, fire fighters and union workers rather than hold the real culprits to freedom and independence accountable. Thanks to an activist Supreme Court, with the majority acting as an arm of the Republican party, corporations are now people and can contribute to political campaigns without limit and decades of voter protections for minorities have been gutted, disproportionately affecting people who vote for Democrats. Power over tactics are hardly freedom inducing.

Then there is this woman who has been in the news a lot this week. Her name is Paula Dean. She admitted to having said an awful word years and years ago when she was less conscious about such things. I know how it can be.  I grew up in the South, too. We all don’t evolve at the same pace. What gets me about this story is Paula Dean is paying a price that far outweighs her crime, while oppressive and racist political parties are allowed to stay in business. The GOP gets a pass for their sexism and racism, both of which rob women and minorities of their freedoms, only they aren't getting the same pressure as a single woman who makes no laws that affect people's lives.

Knowledge is a form of freedom, but not in Kansas where doctors must lie to women now, saying they put themselves at greater risk of breast cancer if they have an abortion. Still more lies and trumped up faux-facts to ram-rod male-dominated religious dogma into law as Republicans go about saying the fetus masturbates in the womb,  to make the point if it feels pleasure, it certainly feels the pain of an abortion.  In Texas some female congresswoman in a pink suit tries to explain the reason their extreme abortion bills do not allow for abortion in cases of rape or incest is because the rape kit, used to collect DNA, will “clean out” the woman, so an abortion will not be necessary. Interesting isn’t it these are the same people who pride themselves in applying the death penalty so easily to adults.   They also are cutting Head Start and food stamps and gutting education all the while they only agree on immigration progress if we spend millions on helicopters to protect the borders.  Of course we can always justify more money for the military industrial complex while we starve children's bellies and minds!

There is so much more I might say, but let this suffice: With brilliant minds of such depth as these steering the country maybe it’s clear why I don’t feel much like celebrating freedom and independence until more people at home and around the world actually have it!