Goddess of the Week

Blodeuwedd has come up twice before; once for the last week of November and then again the first week of December.

Blodeuwedd is a Welsh Goddess Whose name means "Flower Face," and in The Mabinogion, which dates from medieval times, She is said to have been created by two magicians from the blossoms of the oak, broom, and meadowsweet, to be the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Who was cursed by His mother Arianrhod to never have a wife from any race of the earth. Lleu (don't ask me to pronounce that) is connected with the Irish Lug Lámfhota as well as the Gaulish God Lugos; He is probably originally a God of the sun or of light, as lug in Old Irish means "light" or "brightness."

It is not surprising, I suppose, that the sun or light should be connected with flowers in myth; after all the growing light and heat of springtime is what causes the whole shebang, at least in the temperate regions. And it makes sense that Blodeuwedd and Lleu, flowers and light, should show up in the week that includes Beltaine, that merry festival of union and blossoming.

But something about Blodeuwedd's story bothered me. The springtime element is only a part of it. For She is also an owl Goddess, connected with autumn and dying; and Her story does not end happily.

Not long into the marriage of Blodeuwedd and Lleu, it happened that Lleu was away for a time. While He was away, a hunter by the name of Gronw Pebyr came by, and since it was late in the day and he was far from home, Blodeuwedd invited him to stay the night in the castle, in accordance with the customs of the time. But at the feast it was quickly obvious to both of them that it was love at first sight; and in bed that night they contemplated their situation. It was Gronw's assertion that for them to be together Lleu had to die; and he convinced Blodeuwedd to find out how Lleu could be killed, as special protections had been placed on Him by the magicians.

So She did, and a year later Gronw gored Lleu with a magical spear, in odd and predestined circumstances; and Lleu, grievously injured, changed into an eagle and flew away. He was eventually found by the magicians and restored both to human form and good health.

For Her part in it, Blodeuwedd was punished by being transformed into an owl; and Gronw was killed by Lleu.

Rereading Her legend this time, I was struck by how the blame for Lleu's death always falls squarely on Blodeuwedd. Even though She was not the one to throw the spear. Even though it was not Her idea. Even though Lleu didn't actually die.

She gets more blame than Gronw does, Gronw who spent a good year of Sundays crafting that spear with ill intent, Gronw of the strong arm and sure aim. In The Mabinogion Gwydion (one of the magicians who created Her, and let me tell you, no favorite of mine) tells Her that for Her part in the plot 'I will not slay thee. I will do to thee that which is worse; that is I will let thee go in the form of a bird.' Whereas Gronw, though he is killed, is allowed the mercy of holding a stone between himself and Lleu's spear, since 'it was through a woman's wiles that I did to thee that which I did.' It doesn't help, of course; Lleu is so strong that the spear goes right through the stone and into Gronw, killing him.

(Incidentally, all of Blodeuwedd's maidens are killed as well, though it is not always mentioned--they are driven off a high cliff into a lake, where they drown. Gronw's men are not similarly punished.)

Now, the argument can be made that Blodeuwedd is the force behind all this, as She is really an old Goddess of transformation, of spring and autumn and the changing year, disguised as a princess in a medieval fairy-tale; and I wouldn't disagree with that. She is Maiden and Crone both. And I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised that a medieval version of a myth would place the blame on the woman; I mean they were working under the influence of Christianity and its foundation myth of Eve. I get that. (Though The Mabinogion does have more than a few outspoken and intelligent women in it--Rhiannon and Arianrhod for starters.) But in all the retellings I've seen it is always said that Lleu is 'killed' by Gronw's spear, even though he obviously wasn't; even in my own quick retelling on my web site, written some years ago, I use the word.

Because the blame always falls harder, and the punishment is always harsher, for women in this society. And it is taken as normal, such that people who are supposed to be aware (and I include myself) don't even see it.

Sure, this week is Beltaine, and the beginning of May and flowers and all that happy stuff (and don't get me wrong, May is my absolute favorite month, and Beltaine my absolute favorite holiday); so it is entirely appropriate that a Goddess made from flowers should show up. But I think the deeper message this week is about that misplaced blame. We women have internalized it for so long.

But to weed it out of ourselves we have to be able to see it first; and I don't know what kind of advice can be given to help that. If we don't see it, we can't see it, you know? But I think we have to try. Maybe take a situation from your past, one where you blamed yourself, and try looking at it with fresh eyes. How has the expectation of blame affected what you believe? What part of the blame have you taken? What part does not actually belong to you?

This is properly Blodeuwedd's realm, after all, as She is both owl-Goddess Who sees in the dark as well as Goddess of springtime's rebirth; and it is inevitable that one runs into the other--that one causes the other.

Well, after all that blathering on my part, what does She say?

White the blank sheet
White the snow
White the hawthorn
White the bones

It is my nature to be both. It is the Earth's nature to be both; it is not betrayal. It is both day and night; both together make a whole. It is simply the seasons. One after the other, each to the other. Remember spring here is autumn there, as the Earth is a whole, a circle, a globe; and opposites are always present at the same time.

If you can get your head around that, you'll be getting somewhere. For Earth as well as for yourself.

What do you think?


Quotes from the Gwyn and Thomas Jones translation of The Mabinogion.

Kicker

Speaking of shedding skin...

A few of you may have noticed that I have a CaféPress store called The Cat and Cauldron. I have worked hard on it in the past few years and have managed to get it to the point where, though it is not a luxurious living, it does pay the bills.

But now I'm not so sure.

Yesterday we all got an email from CaféPress announcing a change in the policy regarding the CaféPress Marketplace, that big search engine of theirs. Starting June first, CaféPress will be setting the prices of products in the Marketplace at a set rate and giving the artist/designer a flat 10% commission.

See, now, this is how CaféPress has always worked: they have a product, say a white t-shirt, that they charge a set price for (they call it a 'base price'). This price includes everything on their end--the actual product, the labor involved in printing it, &c.,--plus whatever they need to make a profit. And then, the artist/designer, the person who has set up a shop with them, adds what they think their design is worth and what they think the market will bear.

So let's break this down. Let's take the example of that white t-shirt. For the sake of round numbers, let's say their base price is $14.00 (that's rather low for the vast majority of shirts, but, you know, round numbers). Let's say then that I add a $6.00 markup (which is about the usual) so that it sells for $20.00.

Under the old system, if I sell a t-shirt I then get $6.00. But under the new system, if that t-shirt sells in their Marketplace for the same price, I will get $2.00. That's one third what I was making.

Now I'm one of the lucky ones, in that I get 70% of my sales through my store, which will not be subject to the 10% rule; still, I'm figuring I stand to see my paychecks drop to 80% of what they were. Some people make 90% or more of their sales through the Marketplace and are now looking at not being able to pay their mortgages and medical bills.

Also, in reading people's stories over at the CaféPress forum (which is really only begrudgingly allowing the discussion there) I am realizing just how much of a Godsend CaféPress has been to people with disabilities. I had just thought it the perfect job for me since I'm an anti-social deeply anti-authoritarian late-sleeping hermit who can't stand the idea of a boss (you could charitably read that I suppose as an 'eccentric artiste' if you like); but I had not realized just how big a difference it was making to people who can't work the standard nine to five.

I am not sure right now what I'm going to do. The loss for me is not huge, though it is still significant; and the nasty moral I'm getting is that I should never have put all my eggs in one basket. Which is unfair, really. If I were working in an office somewhere, and it paid the bills, I would not be expected to have more than one job, would I?

I have already looked at other print-on-demand companies, and I imagine I will be shifting over to Zazzle sometime in the future. But it's a daunting prospect. I have a few hundred designs on, and this floored me when I did the math, some 10,000 products. I'm not going to be able to replicate that somewhere else overnight.

The kicker (and I do mean kicker, as in the phrase kicking someone when they are down) is that in their announcement CaféPress says:

5. How did CafePress determine the commission rate of 10%?

This decision was a combination of what was realistically affordable, what we thought felt was right, and what industry experts recognize as a fair design licensing fee. A 10% commission is lower than the average seller margin in the Marketplace, but fair – relative to current retail design licensing models.

I can think of a lot of four-letter words describing that percentage; fair is not one of them.

Goddess of the Week

Tlazolteotl is an Aztec Earth and Mother Goddess, Whose name is sometimes glossed specifically to 'Dirt' Goddess, or even 'Filth' Goddess. She is a both a Goddess of lust and sexual impurity, and a Goddess of purification and cleansing.

And so She both inspires and absolves sins. She had the ability, if the proper rituals were followed, to pardon a petitioner absolutely; and this pardon even extended into the world of law, for the petitioner was also freed from the legal consequences of his/her sinful actions.

Now, I have included Aztec Goddesses as part of my Goddess Oracle Deck because to not do so would be a slight and an offense; but I will confess they make me rather nervous. Because, in addition to such innocuous things as being the patroness of spinning, Tlazolteotl, as a Goddess of the Earth and renewal, required the sacrifice of a handsome young man every year. After he was killed, his body was flayed and his skin wrapped around a statue of the Goddess.

And so a common representation of Tlazolteotl is as a woman giving birth while wearing the flayed skin of a human being over Her own. It is a quintessentially Aztec symbol of renewal and springtime, which draws, I assume, on such phenomena as the snake shedding its skin. Though nowadays it is only metaphor, still, once it was taken quite literally; and I just can't get my modern American brain around it. Which, I guess, is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think, though, that this card's message this week is a reminder that some things, some changes, some renewals are only had through blood and sacrifice. Birth was, until recently, a very dangerous prospect, one many women did not survive; and even though modern techniques can handle things better if something goes wrong, the process itself has not changed. Babies aren't any smaller, or women's hips any larger, than they ever have been; and there is still much blood and pain involved.

This is not usually how I read things. I have had to do a lot of work with fear, personally, and my motto in the recent past has been one of kindness and allowing myself to not do something if I am uncomfortable or afraid. But then, this isn't just about me, since I asked advice for the world. Some things, this card would seem to be telling us, have to be done the old fashioned way, and require walking the hard road. Whatever it is this week, whatever is being born or reborn, it would seem, this is the path.

It is well to remember, also, that one cannot, actually, sacrifice another. It must be something of your own that is offered.

What does She say to the World?

Blood, blood, blood, it all ends and begins in blood. You think that is frightening, dark, pagan, evil?

Who said spilled blood? I am the mistress of lust, of life, of experiments and experiences; I am the mistress of the blood singing in your veins. You may certainly keep it there, and that is fine by me. We all adapt to the times, you know.

But yes. Shedding your skin is painful, and rightly so. It is a newness, a softness, a vulnerability in this hard world. But it is necessary. And it is especially necessary now.

Peel that old skin away. Dig your nails into it, as you dig your nails into the Earth to plant a seed. For it is this Earth, also, Who is shedding Her skin. You do not believe this? Look around you. Change has begun, and cannot be stopped. You can sacrifice the old to keep up with it, or you can remain trapped and suffocating and unable to see. Which do you think will be less painful in the long run?

Goddess of the Week

Well, though I'm not a Christian it is Easter Sunday. So it makes sense that this week's 'Goddess' is the Black Virgin, a somewhat mysterious form of the Christian Virgin Mary depicted with dark or black skin. Though there can be various reasons why Her skin is dark (depending on the individual Madonna), more than a few are linked with ancient Goddess worship.

Now, I was operating under a fairly loose definition of 'Goddess' when I did these cards originally, which is why folk like Joan of Arc and the occasional Buddhist Bodhisattva have been included; but this one, particularly, has more claim to being a Goddess than most.

Black Madonnas are a mostly medieval European phenomenon, with between 450-500 of them in existence, a good part of which are in France, though there are famous examples in Belgium, Spain and Poland. Now, there are various reasons given for the dark color of Her skin, some of which are quite mundane: for example pigments changing over time, or soot from candles darkening the colors (though oddly enough in a lot of cases this seems to only affect the paint of the hands and face, not the clothing. Hmmmmm.) Still, it's quite clear that a number of them were painted dark on purpose.

It's also clear that quite a few of the sites with Black Madonnas were at one time sacred to some form of the Goddess, mostly Isis, Cybele, or Artemis. This isn't particularly mysterious--when the Roman Empire officially dedicated itself to Christianity, the Church's policy with the more stubborn holdovers of Paganism was to adapt them over to Christian purposes. So in the same way that elements of the Saturnalia, the great Pagan Roman winter festival, were adopted into Christmas, so churches were built on old Pagan holy sites. And if they had been dedicated to a Goddess, well it just made sense to dedicate the Church to the Christian version of the Mother, Mary.

And so then, because these Madonnas are connected with the old Earth Goddesses, the color of their skin is that of the rich, black, earth.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is perhaps the most famous Black Madonna. She is originally Spanish; but in Mexico one Juan Diego had a vision of Her in 1531, and so since then She has become a symbol of Mexico. She has been linked, incidentally, with the Aztec Earth-Goddess Tonantzin or their Great Mother Coatlicue.

I should probably offer a little bit of explanation on the art of this card. When I painted it I had in mind the Goddess Cybele, also known as the Magna Mater or Great Mother. Cybele was native to Phyrgia in central Anatolia; but the Romans adopted Her. Quite formally, actually: in response to a crisis in 204 BCE (there was always a crisis in Rome), the Senate consulted the Sybilline books, and came to the conclusion that Cybele's worship should be brought to Rome. Which they did, by bringing Her icon from Phyrgia. This icon was in the form of a conical (or needle-like) uncarved Black Stone, and was a meteorite; which I suppose makes it a conical aniconic icon.

Anyway, so that is why I only painted Her face black, to represent Cybele's Stone. The blonde hair, blue eyes and doll-like features are meant to evoke the European shell put over the ancient Eastern Goddess.

This card represents ancient secrets in plain sight, then, or the layers of the past showing through in the present; and despite the rewritten history the origins of things are easily discerned. So this week, be on the lookout for old patterns underneath current circumstances; it may not be apparent on first glance, and may require a little digging, but you may well find that what you thought was something new is actually a manifestation of an old issue or old way of doing things. Or, it may be less about old habits you're falling into and more about ancient themes of the sacred popping up in unusual or modern-looking places. I think, mostly, it is advice for the week to be aware and look closely at what is just beneath the surface, to see the patterns, habits, connections, or old ways of worship there.

What does She have to say?

I am Earthshaking Cybele, rattle your bones, bang on my drums! Rattle rattle BOOM! Dance the ecstasy, run up the mountain; you are all wild still in your bones, under your veneer of civilization. I cannot be stopped; I cannot be forgotten; I will always be here and I will always be powerful, whatever veil you throw over me. I am the Old Mountain Mother of the Mural Crown; I walk with lionesses at my side.

Rattle rattle BOOM! Let the kettledrums thunder! Every drumbeat is mine. Every drumming heart is mine. This is as it is. From the beginning to the end, it is mine.

I am the Great Mother. I always have been, and always will be. I am always here. And you are always my children, all of you. If you have need, ask. Even as a pretty Madonna, what do I do but bridge Earth and Heaven? For I am the Black Stone that fell from the Sky.

Well. She is very strong, and that was not what I was expecting. Two letters in to typing that I found I had hit the CAPS LOCK key; I turned it off but She is LOUD! I think, then, I will add to my advice above and say that reclaiming our wildness is also part of the message. Get your heart beating: go dancing, running, be loud! I am reminded of the boom of a firework, how it is so loud it almost stops the heart; but at the same time it opens the heart WIDE.

Wait a minute. I just remembered! One of Cybele's Roman festivals was the Megalensia, held from April 4th through the 10th, marking both the arrival of Her Stone to Rome and the founding of Her temple on the Palatine. There was also a (probably earlier in origin) festival of Cybele in March, the Hilaria, held from the 15th to the 28th; and some of the rites of the Hilaria are strikingly similar to those of guess what, the Christian Easter.

Well then!

Creative Every Day Update

I'll tell you whut, it is waaaay easier to make little dresses for the Sims than it is to:

Find the right combination of fabrics
Draft the pattern
Cut it out and
Sew it up
Embroider the Hel out of it
Try it on and
Start cussing because it doesn't fit, I've put on weight, it doesn't look good on me anyhow, it's running headlong into body image issues, and where would I wear it anyway? &c., &c.

Never mind finding all the proper accessories and jewelry that are made out of gold or something that would cost a pretty penny. Nope, much easier to just make a 512 by 512 pixel texture map.

So, here are a couple of wee Viking women:

Goddess of the Week

This week it is again Pele, the Hawaiian Volcano-Goddess; She is the latest in a string of repeated Goddesses. Last time I picked Her, three weeks ago, She spoke of change and adaptation and anger.

I think we are in a turbulent time right now, and I mean not just the times in general but this week in particular. Something old is being destroyed, and is coming to an end, right now. And it is a big change.

Something is boiling over.

One thing I'm seeing is that this past week there seems to be a rash of Dudes Who Can't Handle It. You know the type--something bad happens in their life and so they open fire on nursing home residents, immigrants, strangers, their own children. Sometimes they kill themselves, too. (Though really, I can't help thinking, can't they just do that bit first? You know, and spare the rest of us all the misery? But then spreading the misery around is the point, isn't it?)

It's entitlement clashing with the reality of a painful life, or a negative change; and instead of changing themselves to fit, or adjusting their expectations, they decide the world is the one that has to change.

This is a peculiarly male phenomenon in this society. And I'm afraid I have no sympathy for men who do this; even less when I read the articles, which are usually careful to point out in what way the man was 'driven' to it. 'Driven,' really? As if it's all understandable, all justifiable, and the man had no choice.

Yeah, well, I call bullshit on that.

Something is boiling over.

The thing about volcanoes, about Kilauea, is that you cannot make them adjust to you. A lava flow will do as it likes; you cannot stop it, and it will destroy anything that does not move. So you move. You get the hell out of its way. And you don't expect anything else.

Also I cannot help but think this card is about the Earth pushing back. We have abused Her for so long; and in some ways it is already all coming undone.

I don't know; that's not exactly cheery, is it? I don't know what advice to give that doesn't sound like I'm telling us to devote our time to quelling a mutiny on a rapidly sinking ship.

What does She say?

Oh honey, it's not that bad. Though, my idea of bad and yours are probably different, true. But as something is destroyed remember that something else is born. To be reborn you must first die, remember? Your resistance is what will make it difficult, or less difficult. Sorry, it's true; easy is not an option right now. Okay maybe it is that bad. The world will end in fire, you know that, right?

Oh great. The only thing I can think of that might help is to look at what is going on, as honestly, as bravely, and as humbly as possible (there is no room for ego in this), and then being willing to change.

That and that we support each other. That, I think, is crucial.

Art Journal Pages

A couple more art journal pages for Creative Every Day; April's theme is color.

Coincidentally enough I did that 'Blue' page in March, before the theme was announced; guess I'm just ahead of the curve. Or psychic, or something. It's a collage of blue things cut out of magazines with some painting over the top. The second one is a 'quilt' made of origami papers cut up and pasted together. I apologize that the photos are not as good as I would like; the lighting wasn't that great and I'm afraid they are a little blurry.

Goddess of the Week

Well, I was wrong. I thought for sure it would be Kamrusepas again!

Instead I picked a different recurring Goddess: Ishtar, the Babylonian Great Goddess of Love and War, Goddess of the planet Venus. She came up just over a month ago, in a February 22nd post. She is a later version of the Sumerian Inanna, seen through Babylonian eyes; and similar stories of Her descent to the Underworld are told.

As Goddess of both Love and War Her character is properly one of contradiction; though perhaps it is simply that She is a Goddess committed to passion. Her somewhat bipolar nature is also related to the fact that Venus can appear in either the morning or evening sky. As the morning star that marks the beginning of the day, Ishtar is war and hunting Goddess; but as the evening star She is the Goddess of love.

I have shown Her here at one of the gates to the Underworld, making Her way with determination into the deep and the dark; and She carries a little bit of the light of heaven with Her, shown as the Star above Her head. I painted Her hair in deep ultramarine blue, a pigment originally made from ground lapis lazuli, a precious stone associated in the Near East with the Gods.

Last time She came up I noted the difference between Her character and that of Her earlier Sumerian counterpart Inanna; while Inanna was portrayed as adventurous, powerful, and sexual, Ishtar, in much the same circumstances, is seen as tempestuous, unreliable, and slutty. This still smells like propaganda to me; and Her message that week was one of honoring our anger, especially us women.

And looking back over the cards that have come up every week it is remarkable to me to see how they vacillate between anger and kindness: Ishtar (anger), Kamrusepas (kindness), Pele (anger--She is a volcano Goddess!), Gaea (a bit of a break, but still kind, I'd say), Kamrusepas (kindness), Ishtar (anger), Hathor (kindness)--rather a roller-coaster ride at first glance.

At second, though, I wonder if it's not more of a call for balance. After all I am only picking one a week so there are never two chosen at the same time, never a two-card reading to balance out. Perhaps the overall message here is both to be kind to ourselves and to honor our anger. And perhaps the latter is a part of the former.

I don't know. It is difficult as always for me to separate the personal message from the general; and it's true that this is what I have been working on lately, honoring my anger, taking it seriously and acknowledging it, trying to listen to it with compassion as a way to validate my feelings and be kind to myself. For me, anyway, I am learning that I can't get to forgiveness or peace if I am only skimming over my own negative feelings. They must rightly be acknowledged, without judgment, as the proper first step.

Balance, perhaps, is what this is about; a strong theme of anger followed by an equally strong one of kindness, reminding us that we are capable of holding both at the same time, and that the two are not mutually exclusive; and that, most importantly, they may in some cases be the same thing.

What does She have to say?

Descent, also, you forgot descent; this is a journey we are all making. Accepting your anger, claiming your strength is a journey into the dark, an unburying of treasure, new life brought back from death; and it is spring, which describes life-from-death exactly. Accepting your anger with kindness to yourself is transforming dark into light; instead of turning against your own strength you are accepting it.

Always, even in the dark, you have that little bit of light that belongs to you, that you bring with you. Always, always. Never alone, never without that little spark that will save your life. Some of the most amazing things are found in the dark--have you seen that crystal cave in Mexico? Not just dark, but underwater too, Apsu's realm, the true primeval matrix.

There are great wonders there. Why do you think I went?

You are called, too. You all are. That is what it is to be human. That is what it is to be divine. What do you think that little Star is?

Goddess of the Week

Good grief. I am starting to wonder. After all it is a homemade deck, of photocopies and bristol board assembled with rubber cement, and each card was cut out by hand; and a decidedly untrusting and un-magical thought has come to me. Is this card simply wider than the others and so more likely to be picked?

I do not think, really, that is what this is about. (And I did check Her card against the others. No, it is very much of average width.)

At any rate, this week's Goddess of the Week card is again Kamrusepas, the Hittite Goddess of magic and healing. She has come up three times already, on December 27th, a week later, and again on February 28th. She is remembered for bringing the Grain-God Telipinu back into the company of the Gods after He stormed off for some reason or other; and She cast an elaborate spell of healing and soothing which made His anger disappear.

Her message, in the past, has been one of kindness, especially towards ourselves. Of healing ourselves gently, steadily, thoroughly, and with compassion.

But I wonder. In my own life these are themes I'm working with, healing and unbinding and undoing past knots so that I can then invoke the new; and it is, I think, a big magic I am doing, mise mi fein, me myself. So it is hard not to take this personally, though I suppose in any reading the messages are both for the reader as well as the querant, in this case the world. And when I asked what She had to say to the world, this is what She said:

I am here because you are working Magic, and I love to see that. Deep magic, and not just you singular but all of you plural. There is powerful Magic being made in the world now. Not only the Magic of springtime and the turning seasons, but people-Magic. Something good and beautiful is coming into being, and so many of you have a hand in it.

Yes, I'm checking in again as a reminder; self-kindness should be as common as breakfast, or grounding rituals. Not something for special occasions, or only after everyone else has been taken care of; but first. It is ever important, that you are kind to yourself, yes, but it is vitally important now, that you do this, while this Great Magic is being made. And I will keep reminding you. This is a time of magic and healing. Now.

Yes, you are doing this. Yes, you are pushing it along. I am here to remind, to give the momentum that extra force. Things are moving, things are accelerating; it is spring now for many of you. And part of this movement is in undoing, yes, even as you are doing. How are you loosening paralysis? What has been bound that you are untying? What knots still need to be unpicked?

Mainly I am here, though, to offer encouragement, to let you know it is working and that things are moving. Yes, for you, but also for all the world--you do not think you are not part of it, do you? You are remarkably prescient if you would just trust it. Yes, all of you.

What is this Magic we are doing? What is your part in it?

Blessings of Ostara!

Happy Spring!

This is one of my favorite pieces. I will always hear XTC's Easter Theatre when I look at this, as I had it on repeat the whole time I was drawing Her. So here She is, Ostara, Eostre, Easter, with Her dress of yellow yolk and the ribbons She ties everywhere.

Trashholes

It was a lovely day here in New England, sunny and warm; and after attending to some errands I decided I would pick up some trash from the side of the road in front of my house. I do this, or try to do this, every year or so at this time, before the leaves come in and I can't find anything among the undergrowth.

I live on a fairly busy stretch of road. Though it's residential, and rural, my road is the only road into a part of my town that is otherwise cut off by a loop of the river. So if a car goes by once it goes by twice, if you know what I mean.

Now, my town has recycling, so the stuff I pick up has to be sorted before I can get rid of it. So, today, just for kicks, I thought I'd keep track of the crap I picked up. I only did about half the frontage today, which I'm estimating to be about 275-300 feet's worth, at least if the Google map scale on the satellite picture of my house is accurate.

And just what did I find?

Bulk-wise, it was about half bottles, cups, and cans, with the other half miscellaneous bits of junk like lottery tickets, candy wrappers, shopping bags, a good sized cardboard Dell box, a single purple latex glove, and a plastic VW hubcap someone didn't miss. That's bad enough. But when I broke down the bottles and cans, good Christ.

There were a total of 52 beverage containers that I could identify (if I found a hunk of styrofoam that was more than half of a cup, I counted it as a whole). Of those: 22 were liquor containers (42.31%), another 22 (42.31%) were from fast food joints, and the remaining eight (15.39%) were either soda or water containers.

Let's stop a moment, here. Let that sink in. Did you notice that?

42.31%, getting close to half of the bottles/containers/cans I found on the side of the road in front of my house, were ones that had held alcohol.

Keep thinking about that.

Now, ask yourself, where does stuff on the side of the road come from? Well, okay, true, some of it does blow in from the neighbor's when they don't pack up their trash well (which is I suspect where the Dell box came from). But bottles and cans? Don't blow around all that much (and shouldn't be in the trash in the first place since they a) are not burnable, the prerequisite in my town if the truck is going to pick it up, and b) they get returned for the deposit). This stuff, these alcohol containers, are most likely being thrown from peoples' cars. Alcohol containers. That many of them.

Let me tell you it freaked me right the fuck out.

It matches, if you remember, the number of fast food beverage containers I found. That means, or it sure looks like it means (I am not a statistician, after all), that people are just as likely to be barreling down my road sucking down a Bud Lite or Busch or fucking Christ, one of those 50mL bottles of the hard stuff--Wolfschmidt vodka or Jack Daniels or Goldschlager, as they are to be sipping on a Dunkin' Donuts coffee or a soda from Wendy's or McDonald's.

I find this really, really frightening.

Happy Manannán Mac Lir Day

Well, no, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a Pagan to be celebrating the guy who converted the Emerald Isle, does it? Rumor has it that this day has been semi-officially reclaimed by one Anne Johnson for Manannán mac Lir, a.k.a. Little Manxman Son of the Sea, who, despite the name, is actually an Irish God (though maybe it's close enough to make no nevermind, I don't know). And why fancy that, I already have a pretty picture of said Sea-God; so, count me in!

(Should any of y'all like to spread it around, you are free to use the above picture, if you like, on your blog or site. Just credit me.)

Edited to add: oh I can just see it now! Round sugar cookies with sea green triskeles piped on top in frosting! I suppose, though, the green beer phenomenon is too entrenched to change. Ah well. It's not like I drink the stuff anyway. What else could we serve at a Manannán mac Lir party?

And edited again: I am reminded that it is also the Liberalia, the Roman holiday to the Deities Liber and Libera, Who are Deities of fertility and the vine (Liber is often associated with Dionysos). They formed a triad with Ceres, the grain Goddess, and all three had a temple near the Circus Maximus.

Silly Meme, Cat Edition

Because it's way funnier when you type in The Cat's name for this particular Google-game; though you can try it yourself with your own name if you like. The basics: type in your/the cat's/the gerbil's name with the word needs into the Google search engine, and see what comes up.

First, to establish the mood, here is Maude seated on an old chair in the piano room (which is full of furniture that doesn't usually live there as I'm refinishing another room in the house; it looks rather like an old, cluttered antique store, doesn't it?) that makes her look right royal indeed. I like how the velvet matches her eyes, though I do apologize for the photo being a little blurry. She moved. Well, one can't expect the Queen to wait around all day, can one?

Okay, then, what does Her Royal Highness need?

Maude needs people, you know, not squirrels. (I don't know about that; she is a cat, after all.)

Maude needs no encouragement. (Well no, true enough.)

Maude needs recognition and appears to be replaying some hurts from the past. (Oh no! That's terrible. We all need recognition!)

Maude needs to be more of a hard ass. (Now, burying past hurts is not the way to deal with them; it only hurts more in the long run. It's okay to cry. Really!)

Maude needs to learn that respect is earned. (Fair enough.)

Maude needs the mystery to be solved before she can finish her book. (She's writing a book? She can type?)

Maude needs to perform some additional rewrites. (This is ever the way with writing, yes.)

Maude needs a science project to fill up the spare time between being a Cosmo advice columnist. (I had no idea. What else has she neglected to tell me? And what's that book about?)

Maude needs to go back to graduate school. (Wait. Back? And who's paying for this?)

Maude needs a real job. (Oh. Good. 'Cause I'm still paying off my own student loans.)

Maude needs some marijuana from her nephew, Jeff. (Ah, yes. Grad school.)

Hmmm. I think perhaps it's time Maude and I had a little talk.

Goddess of the Week

Pele is a powerful Goddess of volcanoes, fire, and the dance in Hawaiian mythology. Her name probably means "Lava," and She is said to make Her home on the island of Hawai'i itself, within the crater of the volcano Kilauea, which may well be the most active volcano on the planet. She is reputed to be of an appropriately fiery temper, and can take many forms; and She is still accorded a great deal of respect.

Pele is usually said to be the daughter of the Earth Goddess Haumea. She is one of many brothers and sisters, though Her favorite is Her youngest sister Hi'iaka, the Goddess of hula. Given Pele's passionate ways, however, She frequently quarrels with Her siblings; and even She and Hi'iaka do not always get along.

In one tale Pele is driven from Her home on the island of Kahiki (perhaps Tahiti), after She (successfully) seduces the husband of Her older sister Na-maka-o-kaha'i, the Sea-Goddess. So Pele goes to the island of Kaua'i, in the northwest of the chain of Hawaiian islands, coming ashore to thunder and lightning. But when She digs a hole in the earth to make Her home, Na-maka-o-kaha'i quickly floods it; and Pele is forced to abandon Kaua'i, moving on to Oahu. But on Oahu She is again thwarted by Na-maka-o-kaha'i; and so She moves on to Maui, where the same thing happens. Finally She comes to the island of Hawai'i itself, where She is able to build Her home inside Kilauea, which is too high for Na-maka-o-kaha'i to reach.

Interestingly enough, Pele's journey follows the order in which the islands were created, as the Pacific plate moves slowly across a hotspot in the earth's crust.

In looking things up for this post I followed a link to the US Geological Survey's web page on Kilauea; and I was bewildered and amazed by the photos there, of that wild and uncanny beauty of that most active volcano, this living Earth, which looks so deceptively like an alien world, though it is not.

Take my advice and go. Spend some time marveling at the photographs there, at the pahoehoe lava flowing like quicksilver, at the deep glow of red beneath it. And look at the maps of the recent lava flows; see how the black line of Highway 130 abruptly ends now.

Here are some to get you started.

I don't know what to tell you about this card. It is a raw and primeval type of creation that Pele brings, one that always goes hand in hand with a powerful destruction. It is something that cannot be controlled or stopped; and I can't think of any other sane approach except one of awe, respect, and honor. Along with the warning that though it is tempting to think of volcanoes as something from another planet, of something safe and far away, not to be found among us humans, they are most decidedly not. Kilauea swallows things whole, streets and houses and volcano visitor's centers; and it is dangerous to think one can get comfortable with this sort of thing.

I don't know if one can work 'with' Pele; or at least I would certainly not advise it. She is a force of nature, and Her rules must be followed to the letter. Even then, there are no guarantees. Perhaps that is the message.

I don't know what this card means for this week. All the ideas I'm getting are of things that are way out of our control; and I don't know how to relate it to a personal level, or what kind of advice to give. Perhaps that is just it, that some things are simply out of our control, because they are so much bigger than we are.

As to what Pele says to us, frankly, I am afraid to ask. But as if there's any stopping Her:

I am here and I will be heard. Burn away the chaff; it is all chaff. Burn it all away! Become new, raw, powerful, healed, cauterized. Let your anger flow, and flow, and flow. Then, let it cool. Let the seeds be dropped, the pioneer seeds, those colonizing new thoughts. Let it be. Let it be both anger and calm. One will follow the other. I am not always erupting! And, truth be told, the constancy of my lava flows mean that I rarely explode in a catastrophic manner. I take back what it mine, true, roads and houses and your little built things, but you must be reminded you live on borrowed land. It is not yours to own, and your built things are never permanent. And borrowed time. Live, and adapt, and embrace change. It is all there ever is.

Good grief. What do you make of all this?

Kicking and Screaming

Some time ago I followed somebody's link from somewhere around here to last summer's Soul Journaling prompts at Caspiana.

Now, normally art journaling is not my Thing; and I don't quite know what to make of an art style that incorporates collage and texture and layers of gesso purposely obscuring things, or God forbid, that uses pages ripped out of old books (this is in my mind high sacrilege); I am an old-fashioned sort, I guess, and it just doesn't make sense to me. I am naturally hopelessly meticulous and precise when it comes to my art, though it should be mentioned that I've actually loosened up considerably over the years. (!) All my watercolor paper must be hot pressed. I don't even like using canvas because I can't control the fact that it has a visible weave. (Not to mention that the damned stuff moves away from the brush when you apply the paint. Arggghhh!)

But when I went to a local odd-lot store a few weeks ago, I found myself at the register clutching a twelve by twelve photo album with thick brown pages (I suppose it didn't hurt that it was only $3.99). And so, though it is deeply uncharacteristic of me, I started in on the journal prompts. I suspect, uncharacteristic though it is, it is very very good for me to do something fast and loose like this. And it has been more fun that I would have thought. At first I was just doing them to be doing something, and had to tell myself that the faster I did it the sooner it would be over. Ah, we fight change so, don't we?

Anyway, here are some of them:

This one (above) gave a list of twenty-four things to cut out of a magazine, then arrange in a grid. I added the li'l Athena. She needed to be there. Oh and the sequins too.

This one uses various kinds of tape, which was weird and really not anything I thought I would like; but this medical tape I had did this odd thing when combined with a Sharpie (another thing I would never, ever consider using in a piece of Art, good God no!); though you can't really tell here it has a lot of metallic gold paint in it. It came out surprisingly Klimtish.

This one is a little house pocket with paper dolls to represent my 'family.' I collaged it together with some paper I'd done ink blots on in a fit of Rorschachian playfulness. So that's my house, sort of. Left to right it's my guardian angel, me in an uncommonly slimming olive green dress, then Maude and Sir Isaac Mewton. The cats are wicked funny, don't you think?

This was the next prompt from the Caspiana site, which involved a list of things to do (like 'use pencil,' 'throw a wash of color over,' 'fill the page with adjectives,' &c) which were done in random order; while I like the color, which is more of that metallic gold paint with shades of red and purple washed over it, I don't know what to make of it as it's a bit too abstract for my brain. I don't know how to judge when something like this is finished, you know?

Then this one, which I willingly did all on my own, and which is not from one of the prompts. It's a collage with some painting and some writing (if you look closely you may be able to make out that I spelled 'witch' wrong the first time!) I don't know what it means, though I like it, especially the view of Glastonbury Tor through the lintels of Stonehenge.

ETA: Oh, I had forgotten. The above collage was done after I read the latest post over at Leah's, where she talks about Dream or Vision Boards, which led me to Christine Kane's site where she explains how to make one. So this is what that's meant to be. I didn't know what my vision was, though, so it was the kind where you choose images that appeal or resonate, then try to figure out why. I'm still not sure what it's about. Home, Witchiness, Deity, Returning?

And lastly, this one. I don't know where that faery came from; I wasn't purposing to paint her at all. But, really, that's the best kind of art, don't you think?