Life is Like a Lazy River

 
     I felt like I was holding on by a thread after my husband’s heart attack.  I found myself a caretaker while working a full-time job, dealing with our out-of-touch employer, editing my new manuscript for my publisher, keeping my radio show on the air and trying to pay the bills.  Then the opportunity to spend a couple days floating on the Lazy River at a resort in Las Vegas presented itself.

Yes, it was in the hottest part of summer in Las Vegas, but anything was better than being in the office where I could not shake off my boss’ demoralizing words.  I thought our performance for the last thirty years in his employ buffered us from the angst and vulnerability so many workers were feeling these days, but no.  His reply to my query if my husband could expect sick leave during this health crisis kept echoing in my ears.  “I don’t want to pay Roy for sitting home on the couch!” It took all my strength to refrain from hoping in his next life he came back as a migrant worker picking strawberries or the guy who cleans out port-o-potties.

So we packed up the car and headed for Las Vegas and the Lazy River.  Days of floating in quiet contemplation was just what I needed to recharge my batteries and have a moment to think about something besides stents, pills and doctors and how unappreciated I was feeling.  At first the Lazy River just allowed, allowed, allowed me to just be, with no pressure.  I could drift with no place to go but round and round, softly, gently, and quietly.  Even the kids sharing the Lazy River were not a source of aggravation.  It was peaceful and my brain could click off for a few hours.

As the hours turned into days, I began to feel like myself again and before I knew it the creative juices were flowing and this Lazy River became a source of inspiration. 

Sometimes we can just float along in life, easily avoiding the chaos all around us, without having to put forth much effort to avoid turbulents.  We see others around us going under but somehow we’ve managed to catch the current that just steadily pulls us along out of harms way.  We may be lucky enough to continue like that for a bit but sooner or later we’re going to brush up against the rocks.  We might even feel as if we're drowning as we are unable to avoid getting sucked beneath rapids and struggle to the surface gasping for air.   If we’re lucky, in the next few times around the bend, we might be able to catch our breath.  We feel lucky to maneuver ourselves away from the crushing weight of the waterfalls, large and small, we see along the journey. 

As we go round and round, with each turn of the wheel, we learn to adapt.  We try different positions to discern how to place ourselves so that we float along as stable as possible.  We stretch and strengthen our muscles to avoid the rocks and waterfalls.  We  keep an eye on the horizon so we might manage to avoid chaos and not get stuck in  log jams.   We wear protective covering to ward off direct hits we might not avoid along the way.  And sometimes, if we look for it, gifts present themselves during the struggle, and it is oh so important to embrace those moments in gratitude.  I am thankful.  I am thankful.  I am thankful.

Before Gordon Gekko There Was Star Trek

Before Ayn Rand became a household name or Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in the movie, Wall Street, captivated the masses with his "greed is good" ideals, a license to callously cheat and exploit, we believed in the progressive values of Star Trek.  Remember, in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982) when Spock's dying words to Kirk were "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."  Or a few years later, in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) Picard explains the world view of the future when he says "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives.  We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." In fact, Star Trek's mission was one of exploration and humanitarianism rather than the Right Wing rejection of science or the Ayn Rand values to spurn collectivism and altruism.

That said, I wonder how many have considered how much more Trekkies and Goddess Advocates have in common?  Let's see.

Let's start with how Goddess ideals are about the "we and the us" rather than the "I and me."  Sounds synonymous with the words of Spock, does it not?

Goddess advocates have talked about a gift economy rather than the predator capitalism of Gordon Gekko causing vast income disparity and massive suffering of the 99%.

Women certainly were equal in the world of Star Trek, as are they in Goddess Spirituality.   Vaginal probes and pay or gender inequity were not something they endured.

Goddess, by her many names and faces across the globe is the poster girl for diversity and tolerance.  Think back to Captain Kirk and Uhura's first inter-racial kiss and the multi-cultural Star Trek crews throughout the series.

With our finite resources, we can no longer continue to exploit Gaia. We must reject unfettered growth and opt for the development of our species.

I'm sure this will get you thinking to the many episodes of morality within the long-running and beloved Star Trek series.  What was your favorite episode?   What values did Star Trek teach you or your kids? How did the series make you feel as you saw the bravery and selflessness of the crew?  Were they your heroes and heroines?  Did you aspire to be like them?

Star Trek may no longer be aired in prime time on major networks but with recent movies the franchise is far from buried and forgotten. I certainly remember when the series' ideology held sway within our hearts and minds.  Can we afford to bury what Star Trek taught us or shall we revive it?  So many of us yearned for a world akin to Star Trek.  Can we remember when the values of Trekkies showed the way and held the promise for the future?

What will it take for the collective consciousness of Americans to return to those values of caring and sharing, of justice and equality, of science and humanitarianism? How do we unplug from the hive mentality of greed and fundamentalism?  Perhaps we just have to remember who we once were and what we once valued.  Resistance is not futile.

Embracing The Other

I was recently interviewed on a radio program and the host asked me if I might name one way my mother influenced my life.  I immediately knew the answer to her question.  Evelyn, my mother, taught me to fight for the under-dog.  She never verbalized it, but I think she felt like an under-dog.  She grew up in Louisiana in the 1940's.  It was a time when women had little choice about the direction their life would take.  She had no protections like Roe v Wade.  Her mother was a janitor and education for women was not a priority.  Her world view consisted of getting married, keeping a roof over her head and her kids fed.  I can still remember her and my step-father, too poor for a decent meal because selling vacuum cleaners door to door was not putting food on the table, eating corn chips with some cheese spread for dinner.  Sometimes my breakfast cereal did not come with milk, but water to moisten it.  Ham was out of the question and I came to love bologna sandwiches, especially if I had potato chips to slap between the slices of bread instead of lettuce.  I didn’t know how poor we were and that seemed like a fun treat!

Never having taken a class in Women’s Studies and a product of the conservative South, I don’t think Evelyn can name the cause for her circumstances.  I can still hear her misplaced loyalty to her Southern roots as my step-father, a northerner from Iowa,  would tell her of the rampant ignorance and racism in the South.  Sexism never came up, however.  Afterall, women just had their role in society.  Evelyn’s life path was not in question - it was normal for the times, but I doubt she was happy.  I wonder if she even felt happiness was something she could hope for.  I got the feeling she was happy surviving.   I wonder how her life would have been different if she had the option to finish high school and go on to college or if she could make enough money not to have to get married or fulfill society’s expectations that women have children.  So, yes, Evelyn instilled in me to fight for the under-dog, probably because she felt there was no one fighting for her. 

She encouraged me to reach out to the lonely kids on the playground who were rejected by the popular kids.  We shared what little we had with neighbors who had less than us.  She told me to go out and get what I wanted in life because it would not come “knocking on my door.”  She tried her best with what she had to work with, which wasn’t much materially or education-wise, but she had compassion and empathy, which I believe, made her very rich.

So it’s no surprise, today I consider myself a social justice advocate.  I fight for “THE OTHER” because today, so many more of us are THE OTHER.  We are the ones with a boot on our neck. The boot of white, male, fundamentalist Christian men and their female counterparts who benefit from the oppression of others.  Yes, this is the root of so much of the oppression and denigration and it’s not just oppression from the elites.  Often it’s poor, white, male, fundamentalist Christian men and their female counterparts who play their part in this patriarchal scheme. 

Naming this foe sounds radical or scary to some, especially coming from a white woman.  They don’t recognize white male privilege in our society because it just has always been the norm.  They don’t recognize institutionalized sexism, misogyny, racism and homophobia because it’s also always been the norm, taught at their dinner tables and spewing from the pulpits on Sunday.  Poverty is a punishment from God, some say.  Capitalism, the free market and rugged individualism cures it all, no matter there is no level playing field out there and everyone doesn’t have the ability to get into a good school or borrow $20,000 from their parents to start a company.  It’s survival of the fittest out there - no matter the teachings of Jesus.  If you need help, you’re a taker - no matter corporations get corporate welfare with our tax dollars everyday, but helping human beings is becoming less and less a priority. 

Predator capitalism, injustice, inequality, voter suppression, human rights violations, poverty, destruction of the social safety net, infrastructure crumbling, environment being poisoned, militarism,  income disparity at all time high levels, children going to bed hungry, women being subjected to state sanctioned vaginal probes for exercising their constitutional rights.  So what?  We used to have a name for some of you, though it has gone out of fashion.  WASPs.  White, Anglo-Saxon-Protestants.  Google it.  

So, you just keep scrap booking.  Keep listening to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh so you’re safely insulated in that cocoon of media-sanctioned callousness.  Don’t learn how your religion has devalued women and decimated cultures.  Don’t explore how history has been re-written.  Those things don’t touch you.  You’re comfortable.  Why should you care?  That suffering is the plight of The Other, those people not like you.  The ones that don’t really count, at the margins of society.  Their suffering is their punishment for not being like you and playing by your rules and worshiping your God, or more accurately your version of religious dogma written by men.  

Only more and more of us are becoming The Other:  black and brown skinned people, immigrants, gays, non-Christians, the poor and elderly, workers and women.  Now imagine if your life path suddenly takes an unexpected turn. What if suddenly you’re The Other?  Will you be sorry then you did not stand in solidarity with the unions before they are destroyed for supporting worker rights against multi-national corporations as they give workers less and less while they pay no taxes and become extraordinarily wealthy from human exploitation?  Will you ever be sorry you did not care about our violent and male-dominated culture’s domestic violence against women or women having to resort to back alley abortions?  Will you ever be sorry you did not fight for equal pay and reproductive rights for women so they might achieve independence?  Will you wait to care about environmentalism until your water is poisoned by fracking or all our food is GMOs?  Will you care when it’s your daughter’s life in danger but she cannot have an abortion because white Christian men have obliterated the separation between church and state with their ideology?  Next time you go shopping do you  know, or care, that the cashier standing there works a 38 hour week rather than 40 so her employer does not have to pay her any benefits and her wage is so low she has to get tax-payer funded food stamps, but food stamps too are under attack by Republican men who would rather spend all our tax dollars to further enrich corporations already making sky-rocketing profits. 

I could go on and on but this is a blog entry, not a chapter or a book.  You either get it or you don’t.  You either have empathy for the planet and humanity or you think if they are not like you, hence, they are not your concern. Why think outside your bubble?  Why risk and rock the boat? What would your peers think?  Shudder!  You are either part of the problem by your ignorance or complicit in your comfort.  There are none so blind as those who will not see.  And you probably are not seeing the ground swell of The Other rising out of the ashes.  Peaceful rebellion is a’foot around the world.  Women, workers, gays, immigrants, brown and black skinned people, the young and elderly, the poor, the environmentalist are all weary.  We are weary of that boot of injustice and exploitation on our neck and we are calling out our oppressor. It is patriarchy.  It is white, male-dominated, mostly Christian fundamentalist authority, who would continue to control the masses because the Bible tells them they are entitled.  No wonder Republicans have to cheat to win elections.  More and more people are getting a clue their policies benefit no one but the 1%.

Do you hear our sacred roar?  We are coming armed with ideals of the Sacred Feminine. We
are carrying with us the archetypes of not just Mary and Kwan Yin but Kali, the Morrighan, Libertas and Sekhmet.  We’re tired of waiting for you to evolve and do the right thing.  No more will we tolerate a world of injustice and inequality.  No more will we allow the destruction of Mother Earth.  No more will be sit quietly and obediently as our dignity is stripped from us and our futures stolen.  No more will our sexuality and reproductive rights be in the hands of religious zealots and their handmaidens.  We want partnership.  We want accountability.  We want dignity and freedom. We want reverence for the earth and all of humanity.  We want a world of  compassion and empathy where we recognize our interconnection and practice caring and sharing for the 99%. 

And before you get the wrong idea, I don't hate Christians.  I know too many good ones doing good work in the world.  Myself, I'm a recovering Catholic and I see the Divine Masculine in Jesus and believe in his message as he taught women and preached empathy, compassion and charity while rejecting greed and wealth.  And no, I’m not a lesbian, nor am I on welfare, as some white men have assumed when they read my posts on Facebook.  Neither do I hate men or need sex as I've been told by far too many white men on social media.  I've been married to a wonderful man for more than thirty years.  So, call me feminist.  Call me a pagan.  Call me politically incorrect or divisive. Call me a loud-mouthed and uppity woman.  Call me radical if you will for shedding light and having the courage to name the root of our problems.  Call me anything you like.  That’s another thing my mother taught me: Stick and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.

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!

Rise Sekhmet Rise!

Sekhmet is on the Rise and Magic is in the Air!

On Saturday night, June 22, under 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 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!

Turn on the news and there is hardly a place families, women, workers, animals or Mother Earth herself are not under assault. Banks are still foreclosing on family homes with questionable legal authority.  Women are under assault as Republican congresses across the country attempt to thwart their access to birth control and demand they be penetrated with unwarranted, unprescribed and unwanted probes for exercising their constitutional rights to an abortion.  Dare I say, these government licensed rapes of women are just one of the many shameful indignities being imposed upon women across the country by religious zealots using their power in political office against women and their rights to their own bodies. Voters too are under assault across the nation as white power brokers in the Republican party use any means available to them to  rig voting districts, denying majorities of brown and black skinned people their real representatives in office.   Workers continue to suffer from their corporate oppressors, often times not making enough money in a  38 hour work week to pay for healthcare or feed their families, thus being forced to apply for tax payer funded food stamps.   Animals across the globe suffer every day in horrendous conditions of factory farms. Mother Earth is under assault by all measure of corporate abuse, the least of which is one of the newest threats to drinking water across the country from fracking practices of the energy companies.  Genetically modified food, pink slime and Frankenfish all potentially threaten the public welfare.

Sekhmet, like Kali, the Morrighan, Libertas and other political or warrior Goddesses are available to women and men the world over as they stand shoulder to shoulder seeking social justice and equality for all.

The community is so grateful to the Initiates, Melissae and Presiding Priestess Ava for their work in the world holding a center for Goddess Spirituality in Orange County, the oldest and original religion of the Earth that humanity, in modern times, can all share and celebrate.  We honor too the sacred performers, Vajra Ma, Lora Cain, Liz and Meredith, Miranda Rondeau, Saahira, Nancy Johnson and Carolina Amor.  Special thanks and gratitude goes to the many people working for months to bring Sekhmet to the temple and make this event such a success:  Mata Moerae, Marsha Works, Stan Gibson, Michelle Nelson, Gina Leslie, Ravenseye, Steve Wright, Oberon, Don Kinda, Jeff Faeth, and Rev. Karen and Roy Tate.

For anyone wanting to visit the newly installed Sekhmet at her temple, please consult the hours of operation and events calendar of the temple at www.goddesstempleoforangecounty.com
 

For full disclosure, readers should be aware it was myself and my husband who loaned the statue to the Goddess Temple from our private collection.