Buzz Coil: March 2014

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

The Retiring Mind: In a extensive March 13 post, "The Decolonized Goddess, Part I," Wendy Griffin recalls a trip to Mexico during which her field work led to several experiences related to the re-emergence of the Aztec Goddess Coatlique. 

Annelinde's World: In her March 21 post, Annelinde Metzner's poem, "Ix Chel in my Window,"  is accompanied by several pics and portraits of the Mayan Goddess.

Veleda: Among Max Dashu's six March 6 posts are two about an Ethiopian Goddess: "Oromo women protest male violence under banner of goddess Atete," and "Atete, Goddess of the Oromo People in southern Ethiopia." The Suppressed History Archives, which Max founded in 1970, is nearing the end of an indiegogo fundraising campaign. Max explains the reasons for the campaign in her Feb. 24 post, "Suppressed Histories Archives: the Next Step."   

Woodspriestess: In a  March 11 post, "The Goddess of Willendorf and Does My Uterus Make Me Look Fat?" blogger talkbirth discusses her feelings and findings (including pics of statues and jewelry) related to one of the best known ancient goddesses, unearthed in what is now Austria.

The Rowdy Goddess: On March 23, "The Gifts of Durga," is the second of Gail Wood's two posts on this Hindu Goddess.

Love of the Goddess: Blogger Tara writes about "Rhiannon, Welsh Goddess of Horses and Magic," in her March 22 post.

The Goddess House: In a March 21 post, "Green Tara at the Goddess House," blogger As't Moon gives background on this Goddess in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and tells how the Goddess House in Adelaide, Australia, honors her.

Broomstick Chronicles: On March 22, Macha NightMare (Aline O'Brien) writes a long and personal memorial post for "Judy Harrow, 1945-2014" ,who died on March 21. 

Hearth Moon Rising's blog: In her March 21 post, "Feasting with the Dead," Hearth Moon Rising speculates about whether Sumerians practiced menstrual seclusion, based on the their timing a family celebration honoring ancestors at the time of the "disappearing moon." 

Panthea: Blogger Lisa shares "Musings of the Sacred Masculine" in a March 10 post, in which she writes:
"For years I struggled with ideas of a male god. I didn't understand him nor did I want to based on the examples of war-mongering, vengeful sky gods that I'd been presented with in my life. I had a clear picture of the Goddess and realized he was a part of her....In the last few years....I've been realizing that the God concept needs a reworking based on the fact that the male divinities we've known for many millennium are all rooted in a system that was never meant to represent the true nature of the male human, let alone his inherent divinity...."

Tamis Hoover Renteria: In her March 22, post "In Defense of Men," Tamis worries that she may be getting an reputation for "man-hating" and explains:
"It’s not men that I’m railing about...it’s the systems of patriarchy that men and women together have created across the world which privilege men and men’s way of looking at things...."

Radical Goddess Thealogy:  In her March 20 post, "Switch or Die? What'll It Be?" blogger Athana (author, under another name, of Switching to Goddess), writes:
 "If humanity doesn’t switch back to its old mother goddesses soon, it will lolligag on down the road after the dinosaurs to extinction....When you worship war gods, you do war...."
Her March 20 post,  "Baby, Baby, Get Down On Your Knees and Pray," takes Ian Hodder to task for claiming that "there’s no such thing as female figurines at the 8000 year-old site Catalhoyuk...."  

Works of Literata: In her March 24 post, "Columbia and Justice for women's choices," blogger Literata shares her prayers to Goddesses Columbia and Justice just before the U.S. Supreme Court's hearing of arguments related to the coverage of contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act (Sibelius v. Hobby Lobby).

HecateDemeter: In her March 11 post, "Monday Evening PotPourri," blogger Hecate shares some "INTJ tips for surviving a conference" before attending Sacred Space in Maryland.

My Village Witch: In her March 20 post, "A Dubious Balance," Byron Ballard writes about preparing for Spring Equinox while being aware that winter weather in Appalachia is probably not over, and she distinguishes between "balance" and "stasis."

The Wild Hunt: In a March 27 post, in preparation for its blogiversary March 29, Jason Pitzl-Waters looks back on "Ten Years of the Wild Hunt," and reveals plans for the blog's near future, including the addition of more writers. He asks:
 "Think you could be a part our team in the future? "

 Brandy Williams: In her March 15 post, "A Pagan Future, " Brandy tackles the question: "What does Paganism look like in 50 years?"  
She writes:
That question begs an underlying one, “What does the world look like in 50 years?”
She then looks at the present situation, the relevance of the question to magic workers, and two alternative outcomes.

House of Inanna: In a title-less March 20 post, blogger Idris tells why he has returned to blogging after a long absence.

Large Group Blogs
Because of the large number and variety of bloggers and posts on these blogs, we are now suggesting that you visit them and select the posts that interest you most.
Feminism and Religion: Many bloggers from many different religions and paths.
Pagan Square: This blog of many mostly-Pagan paths is sponsored by BBI Media and includes SageWoman blog posts.
Return to Mago: A Goddess-centered blog whose administrator/owner is Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.
  

Spring Global Goddess Oracle Online

Global Goddess Oracle Spring 2014 opens with editor Dawn Thomas' Welcome to Spring based in Florida, in which she tells what happened to a Monarch that "froze the night before the butterfly left the chrysalis." Articles include "Imaginary Friend," in which Molly explores, in prose and poetry, whether Goddess is a type of imaginary friend; Jeri Studebaker's "Newsflash: Fairy Tales Are All About Goddesses," in which she brings together opinions from a number of sources; "Our Loss of Od," in which Deanne Quarrie connects changes in many people's childhoods  to the mythology of the Icelandic Goddess Freya's loss of her first consort, Od; two excerpts from Barbara Ardinger's book, Pagan Every Day: "Tellus Mater," and "Veritas"; A "Spring Equinox Ritual for Women," by Deanne Quarrie; and Heather Kohser's prose and poem, "This One Is For the Birds."

Regular features include Mama Donna Henes' "Ask Your Mama," in which, this month, she replies to a question from a woman who says she isn't a Goddess follower but her 6-year-old daughter is; Moon Schedule for Spring and two book reviews by Dawn Thomas. 

'Interfaith Observer' devotes March issue to Embodiment of 'Divine Feminine'

The March issue of the monthly e-journal, The Interfaith Observer focuses its special feature section on "The Divine Feminine Embodied." The issue begins with an editorial, "Women – the Heart of Interfaith Culture" by Paul Chaffee. The special feature section has 10 articles, including an article about the Hindu Goddess Radha by Catherine Ghosh, "The Divine Feminine Emerging, Embodied, and Emboldened" by Kathe Schaaf and Kay Lindahl, "Missing in Action for 5,000 Years, Great Mother Found Alive" by ALisa Starkweather, and "Finding a Worthy Consort for the Divine Feminine" by Matthew Fox. 

Goddess Conference 2014 in Vienna, Austria

A Goddess Conference will be held May 1-3 in Vienna, Austria. The conference honors the water goddesses in particular and is being held in the Schloss Laudon, a castle turned conference center situated on a lake (once a moat). The conference, under the matronage of Zsuzsanna Budapest, will include workshops, music, dance, and ceremonies led by various presenters . Z will also lead a separate workshop there on May 9-11.

The sites linked to in this announcement are in German.  Google Translate and other translation sites can be used to translate the German into whatever language you speak most fluently.

Forty Goddess Banners Take a Detour

[Note from Medusa: Lydia Ruyle is creator of renowned and beloved Goddess Icon banners that have flown internationally at many events. She will be speaking  on "Dark Mothers" at the Association for the Study of Women & Mythology Conference in San Antonio March 28-29.]

Forty Goddess Banners take a detour in 2014

by Lydia Ruyle 

The Goddess Banners have traveled millions of miles around the globe since their debut at the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey in 1995. I’ve schlepped them in my luggage, sent them with friends, trusted chaperones, UPS, Royal Mail, US Postal Service, DHL, FEDEX, etc. But sometimes, the girls take detours much to my concern and dismay. It’s a miracle only four out of 300 have been lost permanently in nearly two decades of constant travel.



Crow Mother by Lydia Ruyle
 one of "detoured" banners

On February 1, I sent 40 Goddess Banners to Seattle for the 22nd Annual Women of Wisdom Conference where I was speaking and doing a workshop. I've been sending the girls there for more than ten years. On February 10, I got an urgent email that they had not shown up. We traced them with UPS and found they had been delivered on February 6 to the front porch of the conference organizer and were definitely missing.  

Needless to say, I was devastated and in shock as the forty banners represented 19 years of work including several of the original banners that flew at Ephesus. All of the banners I created in 2013 were gone.  

We reported the box missing to the police and the Seattle trash collection department. Volunteers posted flyers in the neighborhood. I took out an ad in the Seattle Times and reported them missing on the internet, radio and TV networks. Many friends around the globe sent heartfelt messages of their experiences with the girls and were doing ceremonies to help call them home. 

I took another 30 Goddess Banners with me in my roll aboard and attended the WOW conference in Seattle the next weekend. When I returned to Colorado my intuition told me to ask for more help.

A woman shaman friend suggested I do a despacho to quiet the negative energies surrounding the loss. Bob and I created one burying the energies in Mother Earth for transformation just outside my home studio where many of the girls were created. It’s been a cold winter and the ground was frozen but he managed to dig a small hole. Bob is a GEM--Goddess Empowered Man! I burned prayer papers collected from my travels, written with negative words/fears on them, in the tin bread cauldron my maternal grandmother used for bread rising. We live in Greeley, Colorado in and on my German Russian grandparents land as our home/studio is made out of rammed earth from the land.  

Bob sacrificed a Cuban cigar for tobacco, my shaman friend gave me a bottle of spirit water from the Amazon, we sprinkled cornmeal, truffle salt from one of our daughters, cacao bits and Jack Daniels to feed the spirits. I rattled the spirits with my Grandmother Turtle rattle then placed a faded Valentine rose on the despacho.  

Last night, a week later, the conference organizer called me @ 10:00pm to tell me  great news ! She had the girls ! A kind, wise woman in the neighborhood had returned the box with a Missing !!! flyer and the banners in it to her (the organizer’s) address. The woman's son had seen teenagers throwing the banners in the street and saved them.  

I had a hard time sleeping. It’s not my first experience with a despacho, which is another story, but it is Bob’s. We are both amazed and humbly grateful. We’ll enjoy a big celebration when the girls are finally home and I can see and hold them in my hands! 

LYDIA RUYLE 3/6/14

P.S. After creating the despacho in Colorado, Bob and I took off the next day for California and six weeks in Palm Springs where he plays golf and I paint Goddess Banners. Our route took us through northern Arizona and the Hopi reservation. We stopped on Third Mesa to see the Hopi Cultural Center and Museum which tells their cultural and spiritual story. On one wall is a huge photo mural of the Powamu Ceremony with Crow Mother. She was one of the missing Goddess Banners at that point. I stood in front of Crow Mother and asked her to help bring the girls home.

Copyright 2014 by Lydia Ruyle. All rights reserved.

[UPDATE from Medusa 3/9/14: Lydia reports that she received the banners in good shape---on March 8, International Women's Day!]