Buzz Coil: September 2013

 A look at some posts of interest from our blogroll and sometimes beyond: 

Association for the Study of Women and Mythology: ASWM announced two deadlines in two different posts on Sept. 25: 2014 Conference Film Series,  announces a Nov. 22 deadline and gives guidelines for submission of  films to be included in film series at its 2014 conference in San Antonio, March 28-30; The 2013 Kore Award for Best Dissertation  gives information about and an form for applying for this award, with a deadline of Jan. 31.  In an Aug. 24 post, ASWM posted  an "Updated Call for Papers" for the conference.

Living Inside Gaia: In his Sept. 10 post, Honoring the Broken Circle of Life, Stormy Seaside tells how he approaches the extinction or threatened extinction of organisms and writes of "Mother Gaia"
as the intricate web, upon which we are but a single drop of dew on one of her many strands. Each time an organism goes extinct from one or more of humanity's actions, we are in fact snipping away at the strands which support us. This realization, is what some call the "Gaian Mind" a much clearer vision of our deep relation with the planet.
Stormy goes on to discuss Samhain, for which he creates two altars, one of which is "the Altar of Extinction," an idea he learned of from  Reclaiming Quarterly.

 HecateDemeter:  Blogger Hecate's Sept. 20 post, Hail, Columbia,  shows a wonderful pic of the statue Goddess Columbia (aka Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace) atop the U.S. Capitol, and tells who originally posted it. In her Sept. 5 post, Dark of the Moon. Old Beginnings.,accompanied by video of Loreena McKennitt singing "Dark Night of the Soul," Hecate begins:
Tonight is the night of the Dark Moon.
What does it mean to be a Witch on such a night? We only get 13 of them a year. If you live to be 80, you will only have just over 1,000 of them and you’ll spend quite a few while you’re too young to know what to do with them, or sick, or working, or too old to care.
What are they for, these Dark Moon Nights?
Her intriguing saga, "A Place Without A Witch," continues on Sept. 4 with Chapter 28, on Sept. 9 with Chapter 29, and on Sept. 26, with Chapter 30.

The Wild Hunt: A rock-throwing and insult-hurling attack on the Maetreum of Cybele in Palenville NY is among the news Jason Pitzl-Waters covers in his Sept. 24 Pagan Community Notes. Included in Jason's Sept. 17 Pagan Community Notes is info on a new Goddess-themed film, The Book of Jane, due for release in November and premiering in Berkeley CA. Jason's post has a video a from part of the film that includes a dream sequence in which a woman believes she is in contact with the Morrigan.

My Village Witch: In her Sept. 26 post, The Only Constant is Change,Byron Ballard relates a noise on her front porch to the change of seasons in what she calls "the Long Dying of the Year," and preparations for Samhaintide.  

Works of Literata: Blogger Literata's Sept. 11 post,  Sept. 11 and shadows,  brings "the skills of shadow work," into the contemplation of "national shadows" associated now with this date.

Amused Grace: Some new art from Thalia Took in her Sept. 15 post, Xochiquetzal. Includes background info on this Aztec Goddess of flowers.

Love of the Goddess: On Sept 7, Blogger Tara explores the mythology of Sedna, Inuit  Goddess of the Deep Ocean, and on Sept 23 writes about Cerridwen, Welsh Goddess of Magic and Transformation.

Annelinde's World: On her mostly poetry blog, Annelinde Metzner's Aug. 30 post, The purple decree, responds to the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi and to a related statement Annelinde's cousin made in Sunday school after which
She was asked to refrain.
Then came the purple decree.
In each parishioner’s mailbox, the purple paper
stating homosexuality is a sin.
The poem continues, describing her cousin's response.  Annelinde's Sept 5 post, Legacy, shares a poem she wrote in in 1980 that resonates today. It begins:
I clutch at my eyes when I think of you, nuke.
I remember your soft hum and icy aura
and I always think “We’ve gone too far....”
The poem is followed by a prose comment. Both posts with pics.

Theapoetics: In her Sept. 13 post, Gaea Goddess Gathering: Listen to the wise woman…blogger talkbirth tells of getting a huge wasp sting just as she was about to go to a Goddess gathering in Kansas, going even though the sting was getting larger, the healing help of the women at the gathering, and the many other things she learned there.

Musings of a Quaker Witch: In her Sept. 9 post, Building the labyrinth, part I: Laying it out on paper,  Stasa Morgan-Appel gives us a "how-to" for the pattern of a labyrinth one of her workshops built this summer. With 9 illustrations, including the seed pattern and 6 connections.

Group Blogs

 Pagan Square: A few of the posts from this blog of many blogs, including SageWoman:

In a Sept 24 post, Goddess Underground: Bath, Jen McConnel tells how she discovered that a site in  Bath, England, was an ancient Goddess temple and to which Goddess it was dedicated.
 
In a Sept. 20 post, Fall (autumn Equinox--Mabon, Ffiona Morgan writes about what this holiday means to her, placing in the midst of her narrative, this beautiful passage:
Blessed Be the day, for in the day we see what we must change: blessed be the night, for in the darkness we confront ourselves. Habondia, Goddess of Abundance, come to us in our time of need, and grant us the power to create our reality as we wish it to be.She also discusses similarities of Mabon to the Jewish New Year, and the ancient Greek Thesmophoria.
 
In a Sept 17 post, Ted Czukor delves into what may be a controversial history of  How Christianity Became Pagan , writing:
The common wisdom is that Rome became Christian. The reality, I think, is that Christianity became Pagan.
 
On Sept. 15, Emily Mills writes about African Beer Goddesses.

In a Sept. 13 post, Practical Priestessing: Who Does She Think SHE Is?  blogger Molly writes about confronting her reluctance to call herself a priestess:
After some reflection, I realized the difficulty was due to three personal reasons: doubt that I “deserve” to call myself a priestess, doubt about my own ability to fulfill the counselor part of the role, and fear of not being “good enough” or “perfect” enough to fulfill this piece of the priestess role.
She goes on to discuss the work of Caitlin Matthews and Kathy Jones in helping her assess her role as she wrote a paper for a course at Ocean Hill Seminary.

Also on Sept. 13, Anique Radiant Heart begins her post, My Sacred Blood, with a poem and goes on to recall her menarche and then reflect upon the meaning of "sacred blood" to a Crone.

Beginning her Sept. 11 post, Face to Face with Neglected Ancestors, Byron Ballard writes:
And they are kind of cranky.  Let me give you the backstory, if I may.
She goes on to write about her group that meets monthly for trance work in a room with a "big Ancestor altar" and her meetup with grandparents and great-grandparents on the other side.

In a Sept. 11 post, The Sorrowful Magdalene, blogger JudithAnn tells how creating a portrait of Mary Magdalene in crayon helped her through a difficult time; with pic of portrait.

In a Sept. 2 post, Summer's Bounty, Life's Mysteries, Mary Bettuchy begins by comparing baking cupcakes to the cycle of life-death-rebirth, and a little further on writese
I did not understand the goddesses of death and rebirth.  But in the past few months, those goddesses have started whispering to me. 
 
Feminism and Religion: A few of the many posts from this blog of many paths:

In a Dec. 28 post, Balance and the Autumn Equinox, Deanne Quarrie summarizes myths and stories about this time of year from a number of different cultures. 

Carol P. Christ's Sept. 23 post,  Wangari Muta Maathai and Sacred Mount Kenya,  marks the 2nd anniversary of the death of this Nobel Prize-winning Kenyan woman by writing about her tribal background, her founding of the environmentally educational Green Belt Movement which prompted the planting of more than 51 million trees in Kenya, and the possibility that Maathai thought of the sacred Mount Kenya in female terms.
In her Sept. 16 post, War, War, What Are We Fighting For, focusing on the threat of American military intervention in Syria and previous wars, she writes:
The notion that while women may be for peace, “real men must make war” is still operative in the American psyche.
In my years of opposing specific American wars, I have concluded that war is itself a greater evil than any it might seek to right.
Her Sept. 2 post, Goddess With Us: Is A Relational God Powerful Enough?" explores why the process theology concept of a "relational God" (rather than an omnipotent deity)  hasn't been more widely accepted by Goddess feminists and others.

In a Sept. 21 post, Judith Shaw discusses Flidais, Celtic Earth Goddess... with special focus on autumn and her own art portraying Flidais. 

Barbara Ardinger gives suggestions for equinox ritual in her Sept. 21 post, An Equinoctial Ritual for Balance. 

In a Sept. 17 post, Unjust Wars and 'Innocent Bodies', Kelly Brown Douglas discusses  child marriage and other forms of violence against women, the "notions" of innocence and violence, and "just war theory," writing:
As just war theory began to emerge, particularly during the middle ages, it provided a way not only to place restraints upon war, but also a way for the  church to legitimate its use of violence.

Oxana Poberejnaia discusses  differences and similarities between the  Soviet culture in which she was raised and the U.S. culture, focusing on her feminist outlook and including her understandings from Buddhism, in her Sept. 15 post, Cultural conditions and Spiritual Subtleties.

In a Sept. 5 post, When Some People Say 'Religion,' They Mean 'My Religion', amina wadud writes of her travels, and of her disappointment that in India, "the ideals of diversity have given way to exceptionalism and exclusivity." She also writes about issues that occurred in her own religion, Islam, in Southeast Asia.

Return to Mago: Some of this month's posts on this Goddess-centered blog of many bloggers:

In her Sept. 24 post, Lydia Ruyle is shares her art showing the Black Madonna Tindari, and explaining her significance.

Blog owner Helen Hwang's Sept. 23 post, Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia...discusses how to reconstruct Korean gynocentric identity, beginning:
Scholars in the West, upon assessing a religion or deity of the non-Western world, tend to pair the topic with a modern nation. Thus, they often project their modern knowledge of the nation or culture onto the indigenous religion or deity they study.

In a Sept. 22 post, Glenys Livingstone discusses Spring Equinox [in the] Southern Hemisphere..., relating it to the Autumn Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the Demeter-Persephone mysteries. In her August 30 post, Glenys presents the second part of her series on The Terms 'Masculine' and 'Feminine'.

A Sept 20 post by Luciana Percovich is an essay in Italian, Corea: la Musica cosmica di Mago.

Sept. 17's post by Angelika Hilka Rudiger marks the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, explaining the Roman Catholic saint's beliefs and quoting some of her poetry.

In her Sept. 16 post, Red Poppies Among the Ruins, Mary Saracino reviews the history of the ancient Kurgan invasion of Europe that, according to Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler et al.  replaced peaceful Goddess-honoring cultures with war-like ones. She then relates today's Western culture and her experiences in Italy to this history.