so from 9,000 to 3,000 bc we began the process of no longer being nomadic and growing crops instead of hunter gathering. the hearth became the most important fire of all, the centre of familial and social life. thus the cult of brigid rose up, the goddess of fire, healing and herbs. from brigid comes the words brew, bread, breed and even brick. she provided nurturance, food and emotional support. and we worshipped the goddess for her life-bearing properties. at that time in the matriarchal society, the biggest fear for males was castration by the female.
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then around 3,000bc, the babylonian creation myth of marduk, tells of a god who killed Tiamat the great mother, and gained the ability to create and destroy, not through the soil and fertility but through the power of the word. this signified the end of the matriarchal line and the beginning of the biblical story.
unlike our creation myth of adam and eve, most primitive myths begin with the deep mystery female yin, which creates the yang male principle. females created males as an evolutionary drive towards conscious oneness. the single celled organism can reproduce itself but cannot be self-aware.
males provided the ability to divine the future through thought, and to analyse the deep wisdom of the female and translate it into grounded action.В the greats, einstein, nostradamus, william blake were able to plum the deep unconscious wisdom, and provide a road map for our path to enlightenment.
and in the great myths the females tear the men apart and then put them back together. our deep wisdom is great, but only when channelled. like calypso in pirates of the caribbean, the great power of the unconscious seas can lead to the destruction of those mortals who cannot command her. calypso like kaliВ has the ability to bring down the tower, to destroy worlds. as 2012 approaches and that goddess energy continues to rise, it is paramount that the female in the psyche understand this destructive tendency and temper it with reason and thoughtfulness, for the sake of the children.
men play a part in this in having the courage to stand up to their mothers and other females, with honesty and compassion. in britain the fathers for justice movement, has been demanding equal rights for fathers to interact with their children. the benefit of the doubt in the courts so often rests with the mothers, yet in so much research a good connection with the father leads to happier healthy youngsters.
freud called the female ‘the dark continent’ and said he wasn’t going there.
2nd august is venus opposite pluto conjunct the moon.В venus, is also known as earth’s evil twin, a poisonous and volatile mix of sulphuric acid and noxious boiling toxins. we see her as the height of grace and benefit, and see mars as violent and aggressive, yet mars is the most likely place to hold life and water. these subtle twists in our psyche make it difficult for us to treat our children fairly, girls are nice and boys are bullies. the same with the heart. ‘oh i was just following my instincts’, ‘my heart told me it was right’. the heart is the most vicious organ in the body, and if challenged will cut off supply to other organs in order to continue pumping. its main instinct is survival and it will aggressively and competitively win at all costs.
i’m highlighting the shadow in order to get to the jewels. william blake said an unconscious woman should be treated like an animal, but a conscious woman should be treated like a goddess. animal is probably a bit 17th century, but certainly, we don’t need to take ignorant people so personally.
once we do take responsibility for the problems of the world we get on with finding solutions. and working out what to do about the sea levels rising. we’re thinking of setting up a website ‘fuckweneedaboat.com’
so we have the sequence, vesta conjunct sun on the solstice – the return to the perpetual flame and female compassion and service;В then cancer leading into leo on the solar eclipse – the return of the king and the male confidence and compassion; and then moon and nessus in leo for another lunar eclipse – a resolution of co-dependent monogamous relationship dramas.
the myths are a guide, and as we revisit them we can raise them up. what about a threesome with heracles nessus and deianara. it would certainly avoid a lot of unnecessary death.
lots of love
sari
sari,
Ah. I remember my twenties, when I was having a lot of men and realized just how vulnerable they really were to women. Sometimes I think that male violence against women is directly related to how males have been treated by the earth mother (as well as their mothers) and women in their lives.
As Steve said to Susan in “Coupling,” women always know if they are going to get lucky……men never do.
Look at today’s American sitcoms….they show men as bumbling fools, ever seeking the pussy, ever eager to please the all-powerful woman. The women in these sitcoms have all the smarts and all the power; both men and women are but shadow caricatures of who they really are.
I remember having a lot of one-night stands back in my twenties, and one thing stands out sharply about those; the men were always gentle with me, never forced me and never treated me badly. I know it is because I never made them pay for sex, either directly or indirectly (via dinner and a movie or chocolates etc) and I was willing to do a lot with them. Their amazing exuberance and happiness they had because I was giving them sex was so evident. I was doing it to get off but I also would touch them tenderly, as though they were my first loves. I was the sacred whore, giving myself for my own pleasure but also for theirs. What if more women gave of themselves? What if the sacred whore came back and was accepted as a healthy part of our society? Instead of seeing her work as sleazy, we would honor the service she does and honor the desire we all have for sexual union and satiation.
The anger and destruction that is women does indeed need tempering; men can help us with that even as we help them with their need for recognition, for sex, for love and for tenderness and acceptance. Both sexes need those but women are often emotionally the stronger; studies have shown that over and over.
Keep writing, sari. Yours is a careful, compassionate, and reasonable voice in the weirdness that is.
Sari,
Once again (from a different perch) thank you for your impressive scholarship, your generous sharing and for making the last few days entirely better for my personal and spiritual growth than they would have been. You have a lot of courage to step into such a subject with an unconventional and (it would appear) uncompromising perspective. Finally, thank you for freeing up my own thoughts and getting me past a point of being stuck on an intellectual / study project of my own. How fortunate you have made me feel! i feel as though i owe you somehow. i am not much of a traveller, so it is unlikely we will ever meet, so please accept my “thank you” and know that i mean it. If you ever write a book, let us know and i’ll purchase a copy.
Eric,
Thank you so much for giving Sari a forum – it’s made a difference for me.
Blessings,
Len Wallick
thanks to both half de witte and linda gm. i really appreciate the feedback.
its a tricky area to examine and brings up a lot of resistance – mostly from the grannies. if more of us have the courage to start the conversation, we can de-personalise it, and remove the blame.
in lord of the rings, its the female eowyn who slays the witch king of angmar – the ultimate warrior – the maman world can be brought to its senses if the women say enough is enough, and stop producing warriors trying to please mummy.
i grit my teeth when people call me a feminist, which shows just how loaded that phrase has become!
happy eclipse
sari
“…it is paramount that the female in the psyche understand this destructive tendency and temper it with reason and thoughtfulness, for the sake of the children.”
Indeed! I still recall the moment vividly in 1978 when I saw clearly for the first time what a destructive bitch I could be with men. The metaphor for that realisation was ‘one cut at a time – slowly bleed them to death.’
This insight happened at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Fran during an est training so I had the powerful opportunity to describe it to 250 witnesses. It was a real turning point and the beginning of owning and understanding the power I can wield for helping or harming others.
From wintry Sydney,
Linda
I’ve particularly enjoyed very much, in all sari’s writing posted on PW, this stimulating and suggestive convention of eradicating capitalisation. It is like a consistent, yet gentle and powerful, ‘deviance’ that formalises the feminist critique of patriarchy as a bastion for the power of naming (as dominance). This style therefore, to me, represents a plea to eschew the oppressive relations of power-imbued consciousness.
What I also very much like is a feminist (I don’t mean to label you sari), emphasising the male perspective. This is highly significant because when men express maleness or women express femaleness the polar opposite side often merely caricatures the polarity, effectively stultifying the debate. This has been one of the major reasons I have not been able to sell the merits of feminisms (there are many) to my most aware male friends – they have been conditioned to associate ‘criticism’ with defensiveness and power plays and they just see *feminism* as attempting to create a cloak of outer respectability for the sort of psychological battering they feel they’ve been enduring in their domestic situations or interactions with women for years. In other words, they reject feminism because of the limitations they perceive. i.e. “Why should I be open to/receive the truths of a flawed system that I see to be flawed but which takes no cognisance of this fact, while continuing to criticise (tear apart) men??”
Everyone seems to perceive the power struggle but remain largely clueless in how to break the dynamic in their own experience, without rejecting the opposite sex per se, and by seeking ‘bitching’ consolation in the stories of woe they share with their same sex friends, as a coterie of malcontent!!
sari, I feel that you have found an important platform with your approach. Good luck! It feels odd to find a feminist who is entirely secure in what she knows about womanhood, the theory and living traditions of it, and who is able seemingly to integrate this into her beingness and then champion the side of the male, oppressed by the dysfunctional female modalities. Much respect.
HdW