St. Patrick and the Snakes

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I'm a always a little ambivalent about St. Patrick's Day. Being of largely Irish descent, I enjoy the day as a celebration of the culture, people, and spirit of Ireland. But St. Patrick's legendary conversion of the country's people to Christianity is not something I get terribly excited about. It has been suggested by many sources that his miracle, driving the snakes out of Ireland, is a metaphor for driving the indigenous, pagan practices from Irish culture. There is no way to know for certain, because St. Patrick's life is more mythologized than the legend of the leprechaun.

Today we raise a glass of warm green beer to a fine fellow, the Irishman who didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish. St. Patrick, who died 1,507, 1,539, or 1,540 years ago today—depending on which unreliable source you want to believe—has been adorned with centuries of Irish blarney. Innumerable folk tales recount how he faced down kings, negotiated with God, tricked and slaughtered Ireland's reptiles.

The facts about St. Patrick are few. Most derive from the two documents he probably wrote, the autobiographical Confession and the indignant Letter to a slave-taking marauder named Coroticus. Patrick was born in Britain, probably in Wales, around 385 A.D. His father was a Roman official. When Patrick was 16, seafaring raiders captured him, carried him to Ireland, and sold him into slavery. The Christian Patrick spent six lonely years herding sheep and, according to him, praying 100 times a day. In a dream, God told him to escape. He returned home, where he had another vision in which the Irish people begged him to return and minister to them: "We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more," he recalls in the Confession. He studied for the priesthood in France, then made his way back to Ireland.

He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland. (He did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism. Nor did he invent the Shamrock Trinity. That was an 18^th-century fabrication.)

There is some evidence that serpent worship was practiced by the Druids; one of the ancient religious orders replaced by Catholicism.

It will probably be a matter of surprise to many, but it is a fact that even in Britain in ancient times Ophiolatreia largely prevailed. Deane says: "Our British ancestors, under the tuition of the venerable Druids, were not only worshippers of the solar deity, symbolized by the serpent, but held the serpent, independent of his relation to the sun, in peculiar veneration. Cut off from all intercourse with the civilized world, partly by their remoteness and partly by their national character, the Britons retained their primitive idolatry long after it yielded in the neighbouring countries to the polytheistic corruptions of Greece and Egypt. In process of time, however, the gods of the Gaulish Druids penetrated into the sacred mythology of the British and furnished personifications for the different attributes of the dracontic god Hu. This deity was called "The Dragon Ruler of the World" and his car was drawn by serpents. His priests in accomadation with the general custom of the Ophite god, were called after him "Adders." 1

In a poem of Taliessin, translated by Davies, in his Appendix No. 6, is the following enumeration of a Druid's titles:---

"I am a Druid; I am an architect; I am a prophet;

I am a serpent" (Gnadr).

From the word "Gnadr" is derived "adder," the name of a species of snake. Gnadr was probably pronounced like "adder" with a nasal aspirate.

This would place the Druids in good company. Great serpents weave their way through numerous world traditions; the Chinese Lung, the Naga serpents of Hindu and Buddhism, the Pythia channeled by Greek oracles, the serpent mounds of Native Americans, the feathered serpents such as Quetzalcoatl throughout Latin America and in the hieroglyphs of Egypt, where serpent power also emerges from the foreheads of pharaohs as the Uraeus cobra goddess Wadjet... The list goes on and on. The serpent is the original mother goddess and divine creatrix. That the pagans of Ireland would have revered the serpent simply puts them in context with the rest of the pre-Christian world.

From the Book of the Kells

Across Ireland there are hundreds of crosses, many of which can be proven to have pre-Christian origins, and many are entwined with images of serpents. The same is true of other locations, such as Malta we have just mentioned - although here the snakes are found upon ancient megalithic monuments. These are remnants of a pre-existent serpent-worshipping cult that we discovered existed across the known world in ancient times. In fact, the very reason that Ireland was said to be infested with serpents, was in reality a Christian code word for serpent worshippers. And Ireland has not been the only place infested and eradicated of serpent worshippers. Malta, Rhodes, India, Greece and many more have all at one time or another been laid waste of the serpent cult, so often misread as solar worshippers. The truth of the solar worship becomes obvious once one understands the beliefs of the serpent cults. They worshipped the esoteric or inner light of themselves or wisdom which was manifested in the sky as the sun and this light came about via methods pertaining to the inner serpent energies, [1] as they perceived them. These inner serpentine and solar linked visions were then manifested or physically represented in megalithic monuments, oral folktales and art.

The existence of this universal cult can also be discovered in other elements of the Irish and Celtic tradition. It is my view that Celtic Knotwork is entirely derived from the image of the serpent and this is prevalent across the Celtic world and especially Ireland. We can see influences of this in the spirals and other serpent shapes seen upon many of the world’s ancient monuments. In Scandinavian literature and stone art we can also see how the serpent appears, looking remarkably like Celtic Knotwork. In Roman and Greek wall paintings there are running spirals thought to be symbolic of the protective snake and emerging later on as Ivy or Vine, the symbols of the serpentine Bacchus and Dionysus.

A Neolithic vessel, now in the museum of Henan in China, shows a distinct correlation between the idea of the snake and the Knotwork. The idea of the Knotwork coming from the snake was probably discontinued due to Christian influence. The proof is simple; there is scarcely a design or ornament in Ireland from ages past that does not show the serpent or the dragon. There is scarcely a myth, a folk tale or a legend, which does not include the serpent. And these are not just pagan ornaments or myths - they also bled into the Christian world, or more simply, the Christians could not keep them out. So deep was the culture of the snake in the mind of the people and so entangled within the folds of the snake was the story of Christianity itself that no amount of tinkering could tear them apart.

All over the "civilized" world, people are reclaiming their serpent power and wearing it proudly.  Patti Wigington of About.com explains how to make a "Spring Snake Wreath" to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. To celebrate my Irish heritage I wear green; a pair of handmade snake earrings made of green glass that I bought at a craft fair years ago.

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Of William Henry, the Capitol Dome, Stargates, and Battlestar Galactica

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Posted below is a fairly recent interview with William Henry. For the discussion of the Capitol dome and stargate metaphysics, skip ahead to video 7. The first six are more focused on the Norway spiral and a somewhat paranoid read on the climate conference. I've discussed Henry's analysis of the Capitol dome and Brumidi's fresco previously here and here. Now that I'm back in the DC area, I'm determined to fight my way up I95 to visit the Capitol and see this for myself. Maybe I'll take the train. Time is a precious commodity.

In this interview Henry also points out that stargate images are turning up in art and sculpture all over the place and suggests that we could be having a collective awakening. I totally agree. But it was when I looked at the image of the dome above, that it clicked for me just how powerful a trigger that image is.

In my original review of Battlestar Galactica, I described my fixation with an image in my head very reminiscent of Kara Thrace's fixation: the Eye of Jupiter.

See here for some background on the geometry and symbolism of eyes and why they speak to something seminal in our consciousness. This particular image of spheres within spheres is one that has entranced me for years. I thought seriously at one time about doing a giant canvas of that image. I never got around to it, and frankly, I'm not much of a painter. But the following image looks very similar to what I saw in my head for a period of years. Stare at it for a while. It's hypnotic.

Coincidentally, or not, I first became borderline obsessed with that image when I was last living in the DC area. At the time, the most obvious association to me was the iris and pupil of the physical eye, which speaks to seminal sacred geometry depicting creation itself. William Henry's work points out another correlation which is the stargate images he's found in numerous paintings depicting resurrection and, now, in the Capitol dome and in Constantino Brumidi's fresco "The Apotheosis of George Washington."

It occurs to me that these two things are interrelated. As Henry and others have suggested, the human body may be a dormant stargate opening, resurrection machine. What awakens and activates it is the kundalini energy which rises up the spine and opens the pineal gland, or third eye. I should also point out that Battlestar Galactica is replete with kundalini imagery:

• The Pythia prophecies which Laura Roslin (rose: symbol of the Virgin Mary) accesses by taking kamala extract (lotus).
• The spines in humanoid cylons glow red when they have sex.
• Cylons have a single eye like a cyclops, in the middle of the forehead, evocative of the third eye. Colonel Tigh also ends up with one eye. ("The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." ~ Matthew 6:22)
  
• The use of "All Along the Watchtower" as the key to awakening the cylons and Kara Thrace and leading them through the Eye of Jupiter (pineal gland). Tower images are often used as symbols of the spine as the conduit for kundalini. See here for some background.

Coincidentally, William Henry references another Jimi Hendrix song, "Purple Haze," in this interview; one actually written by him. ("All Along the Watchtower" was written by Bob Dylan.) He describes a far more esoteric inspiration than the generally accepted purple haze marijuana theme. I say listen to the songs, which are both in the player above and make up your  own mind. I've also included a Battlestar Galactica tribute version. About a third of the way through that video, there's a nice image of Kara Thrace's obsessional painting of the Eye of Jupiter.

It also shows the emblem. At a certain point, it all seem kind of obvious.

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Money Myth Exposed

U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion

WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world's largest economy.

"Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…" said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. "You know what? It doesn't matter. None of this—this so-called 'money'—really matters at all."

"It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless."

. . .

For some Americans, the fog of disbelief surrounding the nation's epiphany has begun to lift, with many building new lives free from the illusion of money.

Okay... It's from The Onion, but a girl can dream.

Actually, I posted this because it's one of those really poignant, "funny 'cause it's true" things. Not the part about Bernanke suddenly losing his religion. That won't happen. But the simple truth is that our current monetary system is a giant, soul sucking illusion. Also true, people are waking up to that fact.

If you haven't seen the Zeitgeist movies, I recommend doing so. Not that I necessarily support all of their conclusions or proposed solutions. The movies have been very fairly, I think, described as slickly produced agitprop. But they do lend some insight into why our economic model... well... doesn't make any sense. Notably, they explain in graphic detail the fact that money, from the moment of its creation, represents debt; not work, not material goods, not gold (not anymore), not anything of actual value. Debt. It represents debt. This sets up an underlying paradigm that is truly alarming. I know that most economists reject that characterization of fractional reserve banking, but symbolism matters. It is how we create our reality.

I have pointed many times to Marianne Williamson's lectures on money, in which she explains that money is barter. "You give this. You get that." I have also described money as "an abstraction of goods and services." In an ideal sense, that is true. Unfortunately, under our current economic model, divorced from the gold standard or any other material backing, it is more accurately described as "an abstraction of debt." This is a serious, serious problem. We are dealing with a financial system that is entirely faith based.

One of the most outspoken thinkers on our unsustainable economic model is Daniel Pinchbeck. In recent articles and projects, he calls for a total re-envisioning of our financial paradigm.

Opportunities such as this one don't come along very often and should be seized once they appear. When the edifice of mainstream society suddenly collapses, as is happening now, it is a fantastic time for artists, visionaries, mad scientists and seers to step forward and present a well-defined alternative. What is required, in my opinion, is not some moderate proposal or incremental change, but a complete shift in values and goals, making a polar reversal of our society's basic paradigm. If our consumer-based, materialism-driven model of society is dissolving, what can we offer in its place? Why not begin with the most elevated intentions? Why not offer the most imaginatively fabulous systemic redesign?

The fall of capitalism and the crisis of the biosphere could induce mass despair and misery, or they could impel the creative adaptation and conscious evolution of the human species. We could attain a new level of wisdom and build a compassionate global society in which resources are shared equitably while we devote ourselves to protecting threatened species and repairing damaged ecosystems. Considering the lightning-like pace of global communication and new social technologies, this change could happen with extraordinary speed.

In this Coast to Coast interview, Pinchbeck discusses his views in some detail. The interview is more broad ranging than that, focusing primarily on 2012 and his experiences with the archetype Quetzalcoatl.  But, the crumbling of our financial edifices appears to be an integral part of the great shift. (As I've previously noted, both Karen Bishop and Time Monk Clif High see us moving away from our current money based system; although their perspectives on this are quite different.)

One particularly compelling item actually forecasts the financial collapse of 2008. I missed this when I first listened to this interview -- probably because the even had not yet occurred. Pinchbeck points to the prediction of Carl Johan Calleman. The discussion starts near the end of video six. I also located the germane passage in Pinchbeck's 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. (p.391)

ALTHOUGH WE DO NOT KNOW how the Classic Maya interpreted the prophetic culmination of their Long Count, Carl Johan Calleman has elaborated a meticulously exact fractal model of time from the Mayan calendar, in which human consciousness evolves through nine "Underworlds," each twenty times faster in linear time than the previous one. Each underworld passes through a thirteen-stage process of alternating light and dark energy currents -- or seven "days" and six "nights" of creation -- culminating in a new level of realization. According to Calleman's model, sometime around the year 2008 -- the "fifth night" of the current underworld, ruled by the energies of Tezcatlipoca, the jaguar god of night and black magic -- our current socioeconomic system will suffer a drastic and irrevocable collapse.

One rather noteworthy synchronicity I'd like to point out: At the very end of the interview with Daniel Pinchbeck, a clearly knowledgeable caller gives an interpretation of the return of Quetzalcoatl. He associates it with the Venus transit and offers some analysis about how its reflective nature points us to oneness consciousness. In glancing over the latest info posted on the Zeitgeist website, I noticed that they call their action plan the Venus Project. Second on the list of its goals: "Transcending all of the artificial boundaries that separate people." Not reading a whole lot into that. Just thought it was a curious synchronicity.

And now, more on creating a new mythology of money from Daniel Pinchbeck:

Addendum: Yes. I know the above is extremely disjointed, tangential, and may even make absolutely no sense at all. I apologize. I am currently experiencing what I will henceforth term Ascension Related Fatigue or ARF. It involves, among other things, entire nights spent in endless, action-adventure dreams that leave me needing a nap after I wake up. Said naps include more exhausting, technicolor dreaming. You get the picture.

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John Lash on the Gnostic Mysteries

Some really good interviews with Gnostic scholar John Lamb Lash recently popped up on YouTube. Both allow him to explain pretty thoroughly his unique take on the Nag Hammadi Codices. I've posted a few things on Lash and his Metahistory site, previously, although I should caveat that whatever links I've posted are probably dead. The site seems to be constantly undergoing reorganization, and becomes more confusing with every innovation.

Lash's take on the Gnostics is unusual in its rejection of the idea that what is written in the Nag Hammadi texts is associated with Christianity. His book Not in His Image explores a Gnosticism that is entirely pagan, and a Judeo-Christian movement that is adversarial to these ancient teachings and cultures.

In these interviews he explains the Sophianic creation mythology presented in Gnostic texts and how it relates to everything from Lovelock and Margulis's Gaia hypothesis to the origin and nature of the Archons. (As I've previously stated, Archons are most easily analogized to the Smiths in The Matrix.) Some of the material is challenging and Lash can be prickly when confronted with ideas he ascribes to the salvationist world view he vehemently rejects. But, these interviews, like all of his work provide ample food for thought.

Addenda and Supplemental Reading:

I stumbled on a thought provoking review and feminist critique of Not in His Image by Medusa, which includes Lash's rebuttal.

In looking over the most recent changes on the Metahistory site, I noticed a series of articles on Carlos Castenada. I have been somewhat baffled by Lash's reliance on some of Castenada's books, which seems to ascribe to Castenada a credibility I don't think is merited. His study here, though, is one of the most compelling analyses of the fictional nature of Castenada's work and persona I've read.

Still more interviews with Lash can be found in the playlists on my YouTube channel.

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Doctor Who and Grandmother Spider

(The following is my attempt to shamelessly ape the stylings of Christopher Knowles. It is my first such attempt. Developing...)

An interesting article on how the forming Earth avoided falling into the sun caught my eye this morning. I read it with avid interest to see if, perhaps, it pointed to a giant arachnid queen organizing the particles of the developing planet, a la Doctor Who's "The Runaway Bride" (Season 3, Episode 0).

I fully admit to having been stuck to my leather couch during the two day Doctor Who marathon on BBC America -- the lead in to David Tennant's swan song.  It kept sending my husband screaming from the living room, so I recorded a few to watch later. I was that engrossed by it. Something to do with the paucity of new Doctor Who content this year, although the specials have been quite special.

So, "The Runaway Bride," which introduced the delightful Catherine Tate to Doctor Who's pantheon of sidekicks, also introduced the Racnoss, an alien species of giant spider-humanoid chimeras.

As the episode moves to its climax, we learn that it was the Racnoss who coalesced, into its current form, this giant rock we sit upon, and, presumably, kept it from falling into the sun.

The Doctor takes the TARDIS back in time to the creation of the Earth to discover the final piece of the puzzle: the planet actually formed around a Racnoss spaceship which is still in its core. The Empress's goal is to use the Huon particles to reawaken those still on board and devour the human race.

Okay, so she's not very nice.

What follows is a sequence very similar to that described in our MSNBC article.

Planets like the Earth are thought to form from condensing clouds of gas and dust surrounding stars. The material in these disks gradually clumps together, eventually forming planetesimals – the asteroid-sized building blocks that eventually collide to form full-fledged planets.

Except that in our Doctor Who episode, sitting smack dab in the middle of the coalescing space junk is a giant Racnoss space ship.

In watching this episode for the third or fourth time, I considered anew the possibility that this was the Doctor's nod to indigenous creation mythology, even though this Grandmother Spider isn't very nice. As I wrote in my exploration of the spider totem, I always have a bit of ambivalence about spider.

Depending on how one feels about the physical world, spider can be a benevolent or a more ambivalent construct. When I was deep in my ponderings about why spider was such a constant reflection, one friend suggested that it might be a warning about not becoming entangled in human dramas. There could be some truth in that. But the drama in which we are all entangled is manifest creation itself; maya. Or, what Morpheus calls, "the world that has been pulled over your eyes."

Consciously or unconsciously the writers of Doctor Who have tapped into one of the most universal creation myths and had a bit of fun with it.

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Horn of Plenty

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When we study sacred geometry, we begin to see the world of form differently. We gradually begin to recognize how these seminal shapes and proportions repeat themselves over and over, in nature. We also look at symbols, religious and otherwise, with new eyes. I had one of those moments of realization this morning, when I glanced at a Happy Thanksgiving post, on a blog. An image of a cornucopia, overflowing with harvest bounty, topped the page. I haven't really thought much about cornucopias since I was in grade school, tracing my hand to make Thanksgiving turkeys, and looking at pictures of happy "Indians," with their pilgrim friends. It had never occurred to me how profound a form the cornucopia is.

This symbol of the abundance, for which we give thanks each November, traces to ancient Greek mythology.

The cornucopia is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5th century BC, also referred to as horn of plenty, Horn of Amalthea, and harvest cone.

In Greek mythology, Amalthea was a goat who raised Zeus on her breast milk. When her horn was accidentally broken off by Zeus while playing together, this changed Amalthea into a unicorn with 17 whiskers. The god Zeus, in remorse, gave her back her horn. The horn then had supernatural powers which would give the person in possession of it whatever he or she wished for. This gave rise to the legend of the cornucopia. The original depictions were of the goat's horn filled with fruits and flowers: deities, especially Fortuna, was depicted with the horn of plenty. The cornucopia was also a symbol for a woman's fertility.

This magic horn, then, creates something out of nothing. It is a tool of manifestation. Like so many objects in mythical context, it is the geometrical form that is significant. Horns have a special place in myth and ritual, as objects of power, because their form is vortical. This vortex is derived from the golden mean spiral. According to sacred geometry, this is the very foundation of manifest creation.

Simply put, the Golden Mean Spiral is a doorway that weaves the ethereal and material dimensions together. In another context I would say that God left us one door of eternal mystery and exploration¾ the Golden Mean Spiral or the door of love.

The vortex unfurls from the void -- the vast potential of the unmanifest -- and animates creation itself.

In studying the Sacred Geometry of Creation, we first understand that creation takes place in what is known as "no time and space," and that it then enters into dimensionality through the intra-dimensional doorway known as the Golden Mean Spiral.

Why do we utilize Sacred Geometry? The purest answer is because it creates for us the frequencies of a controlled place of deep silence, the place of The Silent Watcher, that has no beginning or end. The Golden Mean is the doorway to this place known as "no time and space," where we can interact with Creation. It is the sacred doorway to the intuitive, the space to where we once again are God in action.

So, with our Thanksgiving horn of plenty, we are literally celebrating the divine mystery of creation itself. Through conscious interaction with these geometries and archetypes, we begin to reawaken to our true function as co-creators of the reality with inhabit.



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A Christian Prayer for Obama

"Pray for Obama." At first glance it seems well meaning. After all, there were many such admonitions, from the Christian Right, to pray for President Bush. Prayer cards were even distributed to some deployed troops, committing them to pray for their Commander in Chief. Then we read the verse in question, Psalm 109:8. It isn't well meaning at all. And the Psalm gets worse from there. It is one of those dark passages in the Old Testament that belies idealized notions of Christanity as a religion of love and peace.

8. Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
10. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
12. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
13. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15. Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

There is a very dark undercurrent to the Bible. Like most eruptions of the shadow, our first impulse is to split it off and deny it. As Diana Butler Bass explains on Beliefnet, Psalm 109 is a tough one for theologians to reconcile.

Psalm 109 belongs to a special category of the psalms known as "imprecatory" prayers--it is a lament in the form of petition to destroy one's enemies.  It is the personal prayer of an individual, someone who has been dealt an injustice by another--and usually more powerful--person.  The words of Psalm 109 are those of deep agony, the longings of a victim for retribution and justice.  This psalm is considered one of the most difficult of all the psalms--full of violent images of vengeance and death.   Many a biblical critic has struggled with its words--and not a few--including Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant theologians--recommend that it not be used in public worship, much less as a bumper-sticker political slogan.

I keep coming back to one of my favorite quotes from Joseph Campbell, who was no fan of the Bible, nor of Abrahamic religions, in general.

[The Bible is] the most over-advertised book in the world. It's very pretentious to claim it to be the word of God, or accept it as such and perpetuate this tribal mythology, justifying all kinds of violence to people who are not members of the tribe.

The thing I see about the Bible that's unfortunate is that it's a tribally circumscribed mythology. It deals with a certain people at a certain time. The Christians magnified it to include them. It then turns this society against all others, whereas the condition of the world today is that this particular society that's presented in the Bible isn't even the most important. This thing is like a dead weight. It's pulling us back because it belongs to an earlier period. We can't break loose and move into a modern theology.

One of the great promises of mythology is, with what social group do you identify? How about the planet? To say that the members of this particular social group are the elite of God's world is a good way to keep that group together, but look at the consequences! I think that what might be called the sanctified chauvinism of the Bible is one of the curses of the planet today.

For me, the poignancy of Campbell's observation has never been so stunningly clear. The use of this piece of scripture comes against the backdrop of a campaign to make Barack Obama an "other," a member of a foreign tribe, and not a "real American." Some continue to insist that he was born in Kenya, despite repeated verification of his Hawaii birth certificate. Some of this rhetoric is downright frightening, with ominous hints at potential violence. Former evangelical Frank Schaeffer explains the urgency of concern in this interview on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow." (A complete transcript of the show can be found here.)





It may well be that use of Psalm 109:8 was not intended to be read beyond that line, by people who simply wanted him out of office; not dead. There is enough ambiguity to grant plausible deniability.

Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights at the Anti-Defamation League agrees that the bumper sticker falls within acceptable political discourse.

For it to be considered hate speech, it “would advocate actual violence or cite scripture that was more clear in its message.”

But that doesn’t mean that it’s completely innocent.

“Are we concerned about real hostility towards [President Obama]? Absolutely,” says Ms. Lauter. “Is this a part of that movement? It may be, but in terms of this message itself, we would not criticize it.”

“The problem is you don’t know if people who are donning that message in a shirt or on a bumper sticker are fully aware of the quote or what follows. Obviously that message makes the ambiguity disappear. If they’re just referring to him being out of office, that’s one thing. If they’re referring to him being dead, that’s so offensive. It’s protected speech, but it’s clearly offensive.”

It is hard to miss the subtext, however, or to separate the one verse from its scriptural context. A good segment of the target demographic are fundamentalist Christians. They know the Bible far better than much of the populace.

The larger issue, which Campbell calls on us to consider, is how our core mythologies shape our culture. While this is not a theocracy, or a "Christian nation," there is no denying that the United States is underpinned by the Judeo-Christian beliefs that held sway at its inception. More to the point, we are still largely shaped by the rigid, Calvinist beliefs of our earliest settlers. This goes a long way to explaining the punitive, moral authority that permeates our social institutions, from our schools to our judicial system. The "Pray for Obama" campaign is a painful reminder of just how pressing this issue has become. Can we overcome the divisiveness, tribalism, and violence, inherent in our Judeo-Christian mythology?

Diane Butler Bass  turns to C.S. Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms for a viable answer; one which invites us to face the dark underbelly of these beliefs and bring them out into the light.

Lewis suspects that it may be best to leave such psalms alone. But then he says that we must face "facts squarely."

The hatred is there--festering, gloating, undisguised--and also we should be wicked if we in any way condoned or approved it, or (worse still) used it to justify similar passions in ourselves (p. 22).

Lewis refers to these psalms as horrible, devilish, cruel, hateful, and evil. He believes that Psalm 109--and the poetry of its kind in the psalter--should point us back to the evil we carry within and teach us each how to behave with goodness, humility, and love.

According then, to the venerable C.S. Lewis, a "Prayer for Obama" is really a prayer for ourselves to go beyond "festering, gloating, undisguised" hatred. "If the Divine does not call to make us better, it will make us very much worse," he reminded his readers, "Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst."

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Battlestar Galactica: The Conclusion (With Spoilers)

“A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.” ~ Simone Weil

The take-away from the "Battlestar Galactica" finale is that technological advancement, at the expense of spirituality, dooms us to an endless cycle of cataclysm and destruction. In looking through the reviews, I see that some don't know quite what to make of that conclusion.

The finale could have been all about failed hopes, dreams, lives. But Moore chose a much sunnier - and arguably more overtly religious - ending. I found that somewhat surprising even though the religious overtones had always been there. Hell, you don't have something called Resurrection without Biblical overtones, much less references to "gods" and a "one true god." These issues were always in play - and "BSG" always got critical credit for tackling them when most writers wouldn't go near it, other than in some darkly metaphorical way. But to have many of the key final twists and explanations come down to what can best be described as divine intervention was, for me, very much unexpected. Stunning, even.

I, myself, was somewhat surprised at how overt the spiritual message was at the end, but for me, the esoteric elements of the show have been among it's most compelling features. My original post on the spiritual and mythical thrust of the show is here.

In the concluding episodes, we saw the introduction of still more spiritual themes, including references to "angels." The possibility that this ties in to "Galactica 1980" is discussed here, and is probably one of those things that will be discussed and debated by fans, for years to come. But, after the last episode, it's clear that for whatever else Starbuck was, her return from the dead was in angelic form. She, indeed, had a "special destiny" and it was to lead the survivors, human and cylon, to the new earth. But, Starbuck was only one of the players who was "dialed in" to a higher plan. Starting with Laura Roslin, whose use of kamala extract allowed her to pierce the veil and tap into the Pythia prophecies, these glimpses of supernatural intervention underscored the narrative, from the outset.

I should note here, because I failed to do so in my original BG entry, that Kamala is a Hindu name and means lotus. (It is also, it would appear, one of the names for the Goddess Laxmi.) The association of the lotus with spiritual enlightenment, and with the god-head itself, appears in many myths; notably Buddhist, Hindu, and Egyptian. I wrote a bit about my own strange journey with the mythical lotus here.

In the final season, the division between the spiritual and purely analytical came into sharp relief. The show's lone atheist, Cavil, is revealed to be hostile, not only to humans, but to his own humanoid form. Cavil: The name means "to quibble." But, it derives from the Latin calvi, which means "deception," as in "calumny." I would not be surprised if it is this darker aspect that the writers were alluding to, with the name. Dean Stockwell has done some of the finest work of his career in "Battlestar Galactica." Cavil is a perfectly drawn character; his rage cool, measured, and methodical. Only in flickers do we see the petulant, disappointed child, driven by hatred for the mommy who has doomed him to a life he thinks imperfect and foolish. In the brilliant "No Exit," (Season 4, Epicode 15) he confronts Ellen, fifth cylon and progenitor of the seven cylon models with his contempt for her effort to build bridges between humans and machines. In this final season he emerges as a bitter saboteur, whose disdain for the all things human -- emotion, irrationality, spirituality -- is a key motivation.

In the climax of the final episode, we see these two operating principles collide when Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six find themselves in the opera house, and the final five above them, just as they were in the dream they have shared with Laura Roslin and Athena, repeatedly. There, the final battle over Hera plays out on what is actually the CIC of Galactica. Baltar, who the New York Times aptly compares to none other than Joseph Smith, pleads the case for a broader spiritual vision, to a recalcitrant Cavil.

“Whether we want to call that God or Gods or some sublime inspiration or a divine force that we can’t know or understand doesn’t matter,” he says. “God is a force of nature beyond good and evil.”

And so, this mysterious force that has revealed glimpses of its divine workings in sacred scrolls, dreams, visions, hallucinations, and the from-the-gut decisions of inspired leaders, takes them to their conclusion and new beginning. The show leaves us with no question that neither spirituality, nor pragmatic science is enough. The duality represented by cylon and human forms, and merged in their hope for the future, Hera, is the necessary balance to break the cycle of destruction that has typified human history as we know it... and as we may not.

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For Auld Lang Syne

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New Year's Eve is probably my least favorite holiday. Something about the forced frivolity over the single tick of a clock. I've always felt tremendous pressure to have a lot of fun on New Year's, whether I've felt like it or not. I've spent huge sums of money, only to find myself sitting the corner of some bar, crying into my champagne. Why? Boredom. Boredom and the incredible sense of peer pressure to have mad, stupid fun. The best New Year's Eves I've ever spent have been quiet gatherings with family and friends, so that's how I'll be spending this one. If I'm lucky I won't even know when the ball drops. It will slip quietly away like any other moment. Time simply passes. That's it's nature.

I realized this morning that I had no idea how the tradition of celebrating New Year's Eve began. Nor, how it was determined that January 1st was designated the beginning of the year. Because understanding the underlying and forgotten myths that weave quietly through our traditions is my passion, I did a bit of googling. It's really kind of interesting. This, of course, pertains to New Years in our Gregorian calendar. The year has many different start dates around the world. But, we can thank Julius Caesar for placing our holiday in the bitter cold days following the solstice.

The Romans continued to observe the New Year in late March, but their calendar was continually meddled with by a number of emperors so that the calendar became out of synchronization with the sun. To set the calendar right, the Roman senate declared January 1st as the beginning of the New Year in 153 BC.

Tampering continued until Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar in 46 BC, once again establishing January 1st as the New Year. But in order to synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days.

The first of January was dedicated by the Romans to their God Janus of Gates and Doors — a very old Italian god — commonly portrayed with 2 faces … one regarding what is behind and the other looking toward what lies ahead. Hence, Janus represents the reflection on the activities of an old year while looking forward to the new.

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From a mythological standpoint, that at least makes sense, marking a metaphorical threshold into the new year.

From there, things got even more interesting.

Caesar celebrated the first January 1 New Year by ordering the violent routing of revolutionary Jewish forces in the Galilee. Eyewitnesses say blood flowed in the streets. In later years, Roman pagans observed the New Year by engaging in drunken orgies -- a ritual they believed constituted a personal re-enacting of the chaotic world that existed before the cosmos was ordered by the gods.

As Christianity spread, pagan holidays were either incorporated into the Christian calendar or abandoned altogether. By the early medieval period most of Christian Europe regarded Annunciation Day (March 25) as the beginning of the year. (According to Catholic tradition, Annunciation Day commemorates the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would be impregnated by G-d and conceive a son to be called Jesus.)

After William the Conqueror (AKA "William the Bastard" and "William of Normandy") became King of England on December 25, 1066, he decreed that the English return to the date established by the Roman pagans, January 1. This move ensured that the commemoration of Jesus' birthday (December 25) would align with William's coronation, and the commemoration of Jesus' circumcision (January 1) would start the new year - thus rooting the English and Christian calendars and his own Coronation). William's innovation was eventually rejected, and England rejoined the rest of the Christian world and returned to celebrating New Years Day on March 25.

So we're clear, under an ancient Christian calendar what we're actually celebrating is a Bris. The date became firmly solidified again under Pope Gregory XIII; he of the Gregorian calendar.

On New Years Day 1577 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services. On Year Years Day 1578 Gregory signed into law a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a "House of Conversion" to convert Jews to Christianity. On Yew Years 1581 Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.

Throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods, January 1 - supposedly the day on which Jesus' circumcision initiated the reign of Christianity and the death of Judaism - was reserved for anti-Jewish activities: synagogue and book burnings, public tortures, and simple murder.

Is it any wonder I hate this holiday?

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Totem Series: Turtle

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Long before the world was created there was an island, floating in the sky, upon which the Sky People lived. They lived quietly and happily. No one ever died or was born or experienced sadness. However one day one of the Sky Women realized she was going to give birth to twins. She told her husband, who flew into a rage. In the center of the island there was a tree which gave light to the entire island since the sun hadn't been created yet. He tore up this tree, creating a huge hole in the middle of the island. Curiously, the woman peered into the hole. Far below she could see the waters that covered the earth. At that moment her husband pushed her. She fell through the hole, tumbling towards the waters below.

Water animals already existed on the earth, so far below the floating island two birds saw the Sky Woman fall. Just before she reached the waters they caught her on their backs and brought her to the other animals. Determined to help the woman they dove into the water to get mud from the bottom of the seas. One after another the animals tried and failed. Finally, Little Toad tried and when he reappeared his mouth was full of mud. The animals took it and spread it on the back of Big Turtle. The mud began to grow and grow and grow until it became the size of North America.

Then the woman stepped onto the land. She sprinkled dust into the air and created stars. Then she created the moon and sun...

-- Iroquois Creation Myth

As I mentioned in this recent entry, the attrition of turtle populations is raising alarm bells, not only of environmentalists, but indigenous peoples for whom they hold deep spiritual significance. Turtles are one of the oldest species on the planet and their mythology speaks to their ancient associations with earth itself. In many cultures, turtle is the very firmament upon which their civilizations stand. Turtle is the solid ground where waters recede.

There's an apocryphal story about an old woman at an astronomy lecture. Upon hearing about the earth orbiting the sun and the sun swirling through the galaxy, the woman pronounces this lesson nonsense and explains that the world sits on the back of a giant turtle. When the scientist asks her, "But, what is the turtle standing on?" she replies, "It's turtles all the way down." If it ain't true, as the saying goes, it oughta be.

Great myths like the turtle who carries the world are rich symbologies, not literal descriptions of any cosmology. When we examine them, we tend to find that they are encoded forms of actual events and principles. The ubiquity of the turtle emerging from the water and supporting civilization could very well be explained by a prehistoric flood. Much like turtle mythology, flood myths are globally ubiquitous, arousing scientific interest in that possibility.

More intriguing, turtle mythos speaks to the geometry behind creation itself.

Turtles have been and are held sacred in many traditions. In the Far East the turtle shell is seen as a symbol of heaven while the squarer underside is symbolic of mother earth.

Ponder this for a moment. Again, the idea of the merging of heaven and earth; above and below. More to the point, we have a conceptualization of spirit (heaven) becoming manifest form (earth). And the turtle represents this through the geometry of its body; the circle and the square.

That message comes through quite directly in the Eastern conception of the tortoise supporting 4 elephants, supporting the earth; the alternating forms of circle, square, circle, square.




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This is a creation myth rich in geometric function. As sacred geometer and mandala artist Charles Gilchrist explains, the squaring of the circle and the mythical four directions are seminal to the way we conceptualize earth.

C.G. "One of the most obvious examples is seen in the natural human creation of maps and their consistent orientation to the four directions. Virtually all maps, no matter where or when they were made, make reference to the four directions, North, South, East, and West. This world wide and timeless phenomena proves our human concept of the four directions is coming from within, as we keep reinventing it again and again and again. The four corners is a root psychological archetype naturally developing through the deeper sacred geometric archetypes of The Vesica Pieces and The Dynamic Square."

L.P. "So Charles, you are saying the ancient concept of the four directions evolved directly from the cross and the square which is to be found in the Vesica Piscis, and somehow bubbles up from the deepest aspects of our consciousness.?"

C.G. "Yes, exactly. The repeating revelation of the four directions comes from the deepest archetypes of our consciousness which are effecting our view of the material world. Sacred Geometry is at the heart of literally everything and is continually shaping our understanding whether we realize it or not."

. . .

And Leslie, here's the answer to your first question: a squared circle is created by duplicating its diameter four times, enclosing that circle (Fig. 10). In that sense, a square which perfectly encloses a circle is equivalent to that circle. That circle and square are like the left and right hands of the same energy. In that sense, The Square equals The Circle. That is what your Hindu author was writing about. Compare the squared circle enclosing a dynamic square and you have the graphic roots of classical Mandala (Fig. 11)"

Gilchrist points out that the astrological symbol for Earth is a circle around an equilateral cross. This form will also be familiar to anyone who has ever cast a ritual circle and called in the four directions. It will likewise be familiar as the Native American medicine wheel:



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And, the Celtic cross:



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People I've known with turtle totems have been very connected to earth energy. Their medicine is extremely complex, embracing the mystery of our origins. In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews describes turtle as the "keeper of doors," explaining that it's association with shore areas connect it to the portals of the faerie realm.

When turtle shows up in your life, it can be a reminder to connect to mother earth and to bring your spirituality into physical manifestation.

If you have a Turtle totem, you must be mindful of returning to the Earth what she has given you. Honor the creative source within you. Use water and earth energies to create a harmonious flow in your life. Ask the Earth for assistance and her riches will pour forth.

If a Turtle totem shows up in your life, slow down the pace of your life. Bigger, stronger, faster are not always the best ways to reach your goals.

Turtle is fine teacher of the art of grounding. When you learn to ground yourself to Earth's power and strength, you place focus on your thoughts and actions and use the Earth's limitless energies rather than your own to accomplish your will.

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Addendum: Orion7 emailed me with a link to a posting on a blog called, appropriately enough, Waking Up on Turtle Island:

“In the Mayan Myth of Creation, the paddler gods transported the Maize gods in a huge canoe that corresponded to the Milky Way until they arrived at the place of creation that we know as the belt of the constellation Orion. The Maya saw Orion's belt as a huge cosmic turtle. The god Chak cracked open the back of the cosmic turtle with a lightning stone. Watered and nurtured by the Hero Twins, the Maize Gods grew from the crack in the back of the turtle, which is now represented by the Ballcourt all across the Yucatan.
This structure is a representation and hommage to the great cosmic turtle.”
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/261970
In addition, the Maya used three stars in the constellation Orion: The great blue giant, Rigel, Kappa Orionis, the star Saiph and the belt star, Alnitak. These three stars form an equilateral triangle called, “The Three Stones of the Hearth”. They represent the Maya hearth, made of three stones placed in a triangular pattern.
http://www.astras-stargate.com/orion.htm

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Sun Caught Live on Camera

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Splendid You rise in the lightland of the sky,
O living Aten, creator of life!
You have dawned in the eastern lightland.
You fill every land with your beauty.

from Great Hymn to the Aten

Hat tip to the The Huffington Post, a NASA pictorial, of the sun in active periods, with solar flares and winds. The sun is currently experiencing an unusually quite phase.

The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites.

I can't speak to the significance either, but these pics are stunning. (One note of caution. If you want to look at the whole, magnificent pictorial in The Boston Globe, it may take some time to load the giant, bandwidth intensive images. It's worth it.)

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Sarah Palin and the Religion of Ecstacy

There has been a good deal of discussion, in recent weeks, about Sarah Palin's connection to the Pentecostal church Assemblies of God, and even to a possibly heretical sect of that church. Much of it, in both the blogosphere and the mainstream press, has been extremely critical of her participation in the church. Some of those concerns are, I think, quite valid. There are possible ties to dominionism; a philosophy which seeks to tear down the Jeffersonian wall and establish a Christian theocracy. For those who hold the First Amendment dear, I should think that would be a reasonable area of inquiry, when assessing Palin's viability as a candidate. As would concerns about how her religious beliefs may inform her political positions on issues like reproductive freedom and the environment.

However, I am somewhat dismayed to see how much of the coverage of Palin's religious background has focused on the religious practices themselves. It would seem that Steve Waldman at Beliefnet agrees with me. He recently called on a Washington Post cartoonist to apologize for mocking Palin's Pentecostalism.

Did the Wa they [sic] run a cartoon ridiculing Joe Lieberman for thinking that God spoke through a burning Bush? Or Barack Obama for thinking that Jesus rose from the dead?

Here's a general rule of thumb: if you look closely, every religion's practices and beliefs seem idiotic to those who aren't part of that faith. Yet they're profoundly meaningful to those who believe.

Really best not to go there in a political campaign..

The video posted at the beginning of this diary puts Palin's church under scrutiny. (If the YouTube version is deleted, as a number of versions of this have been, Vimeo also has one posted, which seems to be holding.) It cannot help but raise eyebrows. Some of the things depicted in the video: speaking in tongues, a cell phone anointing that apparently "blitzes" phone call recipients, intense emotional outpourings... None of this should come as a shock to anyone who's ever been in a Pentecostal church, but to those who haven't it can't help but seem very foreign and strange. Somewhat alarming is Palin's connection to a minister whose claim to fame is having driven a "witch" out of a village in Kenya. Horrible, but not inconsistent with some of the Christian/indigenous hybrid religions that occur in the wake of missionary work in tribal cultures. And, it's certainly not the worst of those. Which is to say, no one died.

What strikes me in viewing that video, and not for the first time, is how much Pentecostal ritual looks like the ecstatic religious practices of many non-Christian, tribal peoples. At moments, I could swear I'm watching a National Geographic documentary. As I've pondered this issue over the last week or so, I've been forced to reconsider some of my own negative impulses regarding Pentecostalism. Full disclosure: I was a born again Christian for a brief period in my youth and attended a number of Pentecostal services. It never moved me as it appears to do many of the believers in that video. I left that experience deeply disenchanted, on many levels. Bitter, even. But time, distance, and years of studying a range of religious and mythical beliefs have enabled me to put the experience in some perspective.

One of the staples of evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity is the claim of a "personal" relationship with God and/or Jesus. That didn't resonate for me then, and it sounded strange to my ear when I heard it repeated in that video. But, the more I watched, the more it made sense to me that people in those services are having a very personal and transcendent experience. It is those very intense outpouring, the glossolalia, the sometimes violent tremors, that more mainstream and secular viewers find most disturbing. But, they are what I find most fascinating. Quite simply, because they look like elements of some shamanic practices.

The use of rhythmic drumming, singing, and dancing, are elements of many tribal rituals. This is covered somewhat in Graham Hancock's Supernatural. While Hancock's book focuses largely, even disproportionately, on the use of psychotropes, he does get into some discussion of trance dancing and the evidence that it is depicted in paleolithic cave paintings. These techniques have been used since time immemorial to alter consciousness and "pierce the veil." Many who have had these ego shattering experiences have the tangible sense that they have touched the numinous; that they have seen "god."

This experiential connection is seminal to the defining practice of Pentecostals: speaking in tongues, or glossolalia.

The most scrutinized and least understood aspect of the Assemblies of God Church and Pentecostalism in general is the ancient practice of "speaking in tongues."

"Speaking in tongues is a heavenly language," said Donna Morgan, a member of the Pennsylvania-based Freedom Valley Worship Center who embraces the experience. "That we're going to God and Jesus intercedes for us."

"It's almost as if I'm able to tap into God's heart and what he wants," said Amber Crone, who is also a member of the Freedom Valley Worship Center.

But, glossolalia is not the exclusive province of Pentecostals, who base their belief in the practice on the second chapter of Acts.

¹ And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

² And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

³ And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

⁵ And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

⁶ Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

According to Wikipedia, glossolalia appears in a variety of religious traditions.

Aside from Christians, other religious groups also have been observed to practice some form of theopneustic glossolalia. It is perhaps most commonly in Paganism, Shamanism, and other mediumistic religious practices.^[68]

Glossolalia was exhibited by the renowned ancient Oracle of Delphi, whereby a priestess of the god Apollo (called the Pythia) speaks in unintelligible utterances, supposedly through the spirit of Apollo in her.^{[citation needed]}

The Jewish religion has various citations of unintelligible speach beginning with the verse in Psalms 81:6...

I should note that Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance (whom I'm convinced is a reincarnated Delphic Sybil), is often described as singing in glossolalia, but which she describes as her own language. I find it fascinating that many people hear comprehensible words and stories in her vocalization.



Beyond tongues, there is another form of Pentecostalism, which reflects deeper mythical underpinnings. Not practiced, to my knowledge, in Sarah Palin's church, but rooted in Appalachian Pentecostalism is the practice of snake handling. Billy Ray Cyrus explains:



It's hard to miss the layered symbolism in both the practice and the scripture upon which it is based.

It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to judge negatively some of the more outré charismatic Christian practices and simultaneously justify pagan and shamanic practices here and around the world. Graham Hancock posits a connection in Supernatural (pp. 495-498).

Despite the advance of science, which has no space and no patience for the supernatural, roughly two out of every three human beings alive today continue to hold strong beliefs in supernatural entities and in the existence of spirit worlds. Hindus and Buddhists recognize the veridical existence of limitless non-physical realms, entities, intelligences, and states of existence. Traditional Jews believe that Moses talked to God face to face, as the Torah states, and received from him "heavenly writings" in the form of the Ten Commandments. Muslims are taught that Muhammad had encounters with a majestic supernatural being, later identified with the Angel Gabriel, whose apparitions were preceded by a "peculiar sound like the tinkling of bells," and who subsequently revealed to the Prophet the entire text of the Koran.

. . .

Since religious beliefs are so important, it should not be controversial to state clearly what the evidence shows about their ultimate source and inspiration. And what the evidence shows, if we probe deeply enough into the foundations of all the world's great religions, is that they rest upon a bedrock of supernatural encounters and experiences involving powerful and charismatic individuals with the gift to communicate what they knew to others. Although such beliefs quickly crystallize into dogmas passed on from generation to generation, it is clear, even from the few examples given above, that they were not originally conjured out of thin air, or arrived at through scholarly study, or deliberately devised to assuage supposed human needs, but that they arose in every case solely out of attempts to describe, depict, and explain the supernatural experiences of their founders -- who were, by any standards, shamans of the highest order.

. . .

In the case of all the great religions of the modern world, the original supernatural experiences and revelations of their founders are now so far in the past that salaried priests, ministers, rabbis, mullahs, and bishops have taken over entirely -- presenting themselves not just as adminstrators but as true and exclusive intermediaries between humanity and the otherworldly powers.

. . .

What hope do we have of rediscovering the truth? In a sense it is always there waiting for us. Indeed, it is our birthright. Shamanic ecstasy lies at the root of all religions and, Weston La Barre admits, "the nature of the shamanic ecstacy may be illuminated by attention to ancient hallucinogens..."

But hallucinogens are not the only path, as Hancock, himself, admits. I would suggest that some of the practitioners of Pentecostal Christianity are periodically accessing the hidden world through their own ecstatic rituals, even if the confines of their over-arching belief system do not allow a fuller exploration of those experiences. For some it may just as easily be mimicry; a "fake it 'til you make it" approach. Either way, it is a personal experience best not judged by those who don't understand it. Again, I quote Steven Waldman:

It's impossible to know about the absolute genuineness of someone's speaking in tongues experience -- just as it's impossible to know whether a Christian is faking when he describes being saved, or a Catholic is faking when they claims to believe in transubstantiation, etc. In interpersonal relations, it's an easy call: just assume they're telling the truth and go about your business.

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Totem Series: Spider

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I have this long list of power animals I've been intending to write about. I had no intention of starting with spider, but she has other ideas. Every time I've thought about starting this series, she has been dangling before my third eye. In this vision, she is large, about six inches across, brown, and slightly furry. She has made herself impossible to ignore.

Spider has not been a primary totem in my experience for some time, but for years she was ever-present. My journey with spider began innocently enough one morning as I was awakening. As the fog was clearing from my head and my eyes regained their waking focus, I saw something large, black and furry scurry across my pastel green duvet cover. I bolted from my bed and was on my feet in a fraction of a second. It normally takes me a good while to achieve perpendicularity. I am not a morning person.

The spider in question was really only about a half of inch across. It seemed much larger and more menacing when it was barreling across my blankets. But it was a muscular looking thing; black with orange striped legs.

I was working in a new age bookstore at the time. I'd been at work for several hours, that day, when a customer I knew well came in to browse. We chatted pleasantly, as I polished some of the silver jewelry, when I noticed an identical spider crawling across the top shelf of the jewelry display case. Black, furry, with orange stripes. I shrieked. My friend laughed and offered to remove the spider for me. He reached into the case and tried to grab it, making several vain attempts before finally cupping it in his hand and placing it outside in a potted plant. "Oh yeah. She's here for you," he said, with a knowing wink.

For years, she was everywhere -- In my home, in my path, in my dreams -- compelling me to ponder the meaning of her medicine. Now, I have long known that spider is the divine creatrix, in many world traditions. I consider spiders sacred and won't intentionally kill one unless I'm genuinely concerned that it's poisonous. Spiders are helpful. They kill other pests. I generally leave them be and sweep away the old cobwebs when they're done. But, for a particular part of my journey, she was so ubiquitous that I was forced to dig deeper.

One aspect of spider is creativity. She creates from her own body by spinning, sometimes, very elaborate structures from these secretions.

Spider Woman used the clay of the earth, red, yellow,
white, and black, to create people. To each she attached
a thread of her web which came from the doorway at
the top of her head. This thread was the gift of
creative wisdom. Three times she sent a great flood to
destroy those who had forgotten the gift of her thread.
Those who remembered floated to the new world and climbed
to safety through the Sipapu Pole the womb of Mother Earth."

~Navajo Creation Story~
. . .

For the two-legged beside whom Spider crawls, there will exist a depth of creativity that may manifest in any of a myriad of ways. Perhaps the talent is in writing prose that conveys depth of feeling and spirituality, or it may be the human counterpart is particularly skilled at creating beautiful and intricate jewelry that will often have an etheric quality to them, much like glimmering strands of a spider’s web.

Whatever channel this creativity flows through, it is a quality and gift that must be expressed and allowed the freedom to flow. If creativity is not acknowledged in the Spider individual, then a very necessary and integral part of their Life’s Purpose is being denied.

Such creativity is divinely inspired and a Gift that is given by the Great Mystery. The paradox in this for the Spider individual may be that they will deny an awareness of their own creativity for many years in deference to other areas of their lives which seem to call for attention. Often, the area that distracts the Spider soul most often is that of relationships as much like Grandmother Spider was forever aware of her Children, so the two-legged with this creature being as a Totem will tend to focus much of their attention on loved ones rather than nurturing and fulfilling their own needs. Yet if the Spider Soul does not give license to this creative spark, it will feel as though their life’s blood is slowly ebbing away or they are being "drained" of energy.

That last bit is interesting, isn't it. Being drained of energy seems to be my life condition, no matter how much creative work I undertake. But then, I've long suspected that I have not yet discovered my truest work, and in resisting it, on some unconscious level, I'm wearing myself out. Hmmm... something to ponder.



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According to the same entry, the Senneca spider myth speaks directly to communication.

Another area in which Spider has been recognized as being a Creative Force, is in communication of all forms. The Senneca People believe that Spider created the first alphabet of the Two-Leggeds so that we could leave a written history of our travel, lessons learned and progress made on this walk around the Wheel of Life. Following is a recounting of the story behind the creation of that alphabet.

“Spider wove the web that brought humans
the first picture of the alphabet.
The letters were part of the angles of her web.

Deer asked Spider what she was weaving
and why all the lines looked like symbols.
Spider replied, "Why Deer, it is time for Earth’s children
to learn to make records of their progress in their Earthwalk."

Deer answered Spider, "But they already have pictures
that show through symbols the stories of their experiences."

"Yes" Spider said, "But Earth’s children are growing more complex,
and their future generations will need to know more.
The ones to come won’t remember how
to read the petroglyphs."

***When Spider is present as a Primary Totem, she will bring with her a gift of communication. Most often, this skill is conveyed via the written word, rather than orally delivered, as Spider Souls can be quite shy, though they are capable of weaving beautiful words in the form of poetry or fiction (think of a Spider spinning its web), that can leave the reader spellbound and enraptured.

If this talent is not obviously present, it has likely been repressed during early childhood. If this is the case, concentrated effort will need to be taken in resurrecting this suppressed talent, as part of what any Spider Soul is here to do, is to convey profound insight and wisdom via the written word. Again, this can be paradoxical, as often times the one beside whom Spider walks will be rather oblivious as to the true power of his/her words and ability to elicit strong emotions.

There is much that I relate to in these tellings of spider as creatrix. Writing and journaling have been a large part of my expression, lo these many years. But, as is my wont, I felt compelled to dig still deeper into the myth of spider. Spider is connected to very fabric of the world, and that is more fascinating to me than the various acts of creative expression within it.



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I had an experience some years ago that brought the deeper meaning of spider mythos home to me. I was vacationing at the Jersey shore. It was a strange trip for many reasons. There was a full moon that week; a blue moon. Laying on the beach one night, staring at the stars, images kept flickering in and out. The material world felt eminently permeable. Staring at the sky I kept seeing something that looked like lightening, but wasn't. And for moments at a time, fragments of the night sky disappeared, revealing a kind of grid pattern.

I mentioned this experience in a session with Virginia Sandlin, the Cherokee Mystic, with whom I studied for a number of years. When I described the grid pattern, she said, "Well, that's what it looks like." She explained that, as in the telling of so many native cultures, spider spun the great web, the matrix upon which all of material reality came into form. "Now picture," she said, "a giant spider web as if you were encircled by it. What would it look like? Wouldn't it look like a grid?"

I could not help but notice, in my first viewing of "The Matrix," the numerous spider images associated with the machine world. Most vividly, when Morpheus shows Neo what the matrix is and how human beings are being grown as crops, machines that look like white, translucent spiders can be seen crawling in amongst the pods.

Depending on how one feels about the physical world, spider can be a benevolent or a more ambivalent construct. When I was deep in my ponderings about why spider was such a constant reflection, one friend suggested that it might be a warning about not becoming entangled in human dramas. There could be some truth in that. But the drama in which we are all entangled is manifest creation itself; maya. Or, what Morpheus calls, "the world that has been pulled over your eyes."

When we know that maya is the power that blinds us, binds us and deludes us, we become aware of the extent of its influence and its role in our lives. Out of this awareness comes a senseof caution and discriminating, which ultimately leads to our salvation. But till we reach that stage, we remain in the grip of maya, like fish, caught helplessly in a net. Saivism recognizes maya as one of the pasas (bonds) or malas (impurities). It is responsible for our animal (pasu) existence or beingness and becomingness. It causes in us ignorance and egoism and binds us to the objects we desire and seek. It makes us believe that the objective world in which we live and experience alone is true. It draws us outwardly and binds us to the things, we love or hate or we want to possess or get rid of. It is responsible for our experience of time and space which otherwise do not exist. It conceals our true nature and makes us believe that we are mere physical and mental beings. Through its powerful pull, it draws us forcefully into the objective reality of the world in which we live and binds us to things and events through our thoughts and desires. Unlike the western religion, in Hinduism God is not separate from His creation. His creation is an extension of Him and an aspect of Him. This world comes into existence, when God expands Himself outwardly, like a web woven by a spider. In His subjective and absolute state, His creation is unreal and illusory, but in our objective and sensory experience and real and tangible. It is a projection or reflection of Him, like the objects in the mirror and the mirror itself, different from Him somewhat, but also not so different, dependent but virtually distinct. He uses the concealing power of His own maya to draw Himself into Prakriti and conceal Himself in it as a limited and diluted being.

Along those lines, I happened upon this story of an ancient Hindu temple that became the battleground for a spider and an elephant.

There was once a vast forest that surrounded the interior lands around the Kaveri river in Trichy district. It was a forest rich with Jambu trees under one of which was installed a Shiva Linga. Back in the serene world that surrounded this Linga lived an elephant that used to come and worship the Lord every day. The elephant was an ardent devotee of the Lord.

At the same time there was yet another unassuming devotee who used to worship the Lord with as much devotion. A spider used to live around the shrine and tie a web above it so that the leaves from the Jambu tree would not fall on the Lord himself. But there was a problem for every time the spider made his web to protect the Lord, the elephant would destroy it thinking it was absolute sacrilege. This resulted in a mounting fight between the spider and the elephant, a massive clash of egos.

Finally the spider decided one day that it would not take this any more. The next day when the elephant came to worship the Lord he as usual decided to destroy the web the spider had spun over the Linga. This time the spider got smarter and entered into the elephant’s trunk and bit him. The following duel killed both the elephant and the spider. This is when Lord Shiva appeared before both of them, and said that they both had pleased him well with their devotion.

The spider in his next birth was born as King Kochchengan who built the current temple at Thiruvanaikkaval, in the island city of Srirangam to worship Lord Shiva. Interestingly, he built the sanctum sanctorum in such a way that no elephant would be able to enter the Gharbha Griha. Hence this is the only temple where the Garbha Griha is built low, has a very small vestibule (Antarala) and an even smaller chamber within which the Lingam resides. The entrance is extremely small such that no elephant can even find its way in. The only way to view the Lord is through a Jali window placed in front of Nandi, through which the Lord can be seen. It is considered very auspicious to be able to view the Lord through the horns of Nandi Bull through the Jali window.

So, it would seem, that spider both expresses and conceals "god." He, or she, depending on the myth, is associated with the creation of the world, and with maintaining the illusion that keeps us feeling separate.

Indeed, in some tellings, spider is something of trickster. Anansi, a key figure in West African folklore, is such a character.

Anansi stories are known as Anansesem to the Ashanti, Anansi-Tori in Suriname and Kuent'i Nanzi in Curacao.

In some beliefs, Anansi is responsible for creating the sun, the stars and the moon, as well as teaching mankind the techniques of agriculture. Another story tells of how Anansi tried to hoard all of the world's wisdom in a calabash. In the end he realizes the futility of trying to keep all the wisdom to himself, and releases it.

Most cultures which feature Anansi in folktales also tell the story concerning Anansi becoming the King of All Stories, not just his own. In the original Ashanti version of this story, Anansi approaches Nyame, the Sky God, with the request that he be named King of All Stories. Nyame then tells Anansi that if he can catch The Jaguar With Teeth Like Daggers, The Hornets Who Sting Like Fire, and The Fairy Whom Men Never See, he will be King of Stories. Anansi agrees, despite Nyame's doubt that he can do it. Anansi then tricks the jaguar, who intends to eat him, into playing a game that allows Anansi to tie him up. He tricks the hornets by pretending that it is raining, and telling them to hide in a calabash. He tricks the fairy with the gum/tar baby trick addressed below. He then takes them to Nyame and becomes King of All Stories. Other versions, notably Caribbean variations, of this story involve Anansi getting Snake for Lion/Tiger.

So, I am left with deep ambivalence about spider. She brings both wisdom and trickery, creation and illusion. And sometimes, she bites.

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