Goddess, Revisions, and Meditations

I *do* hope to write more about my epiphany about duality, once I figure it out more. I started a new book THE MYTH OF THE GODDESS: EVOLUTION OF AN IMAGE by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. I'll let you know if anything comes of it.

Right now, I'm concentrating on finishing up a rather major revision for HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD, which is due at the publisher in May for a '10 release. For those that have been following this blog, you probably remember I wrote most of this over the course of two months as part of a contest with a fellow writer. As a consequence, it's a bit patchy and rough. I'm actually quite fond of this kind of revision, i.e. when large section are already written. But I'm finding it hard to find enough hours in the day, what with grocery shopping, sick kid, late-night field trips for school, and such.

Given all that craziness, I'm really glad that a friend turned me on to this web site: Meditation Oasis. I've been shamelessly downloading their podcast/guided meditatoins by the fist-full for use on my .mp3 player. I have to say, if you're at all the sort who, like me, has always wanted to meditate but usually end up falling asleep... these might be for you. I'm really enjoying them, at any rate, and I'm totally the sort to conk out when I try to do it without "guidance" as it were.

Duality Sucks

I've been a student at WitchSchool.com for several months now. Despite a heavy writing load this year, I've dutifully continued my studies and have even found time to read a number of supplemental books on Wicca and Witchcraft. (The nice thing, of course, is that my writing and my religious reading intersect in so many ways!)

As part of lesson seven, I think, in the first degree program, we're encouraged to do some research into Gods and Goddess -- their history, myths, lore, etc... and I think I'm all about reclaiming the Goddess as the All.

I "blame" those feminist Dianic Wiccans for this epiphany. I'm not sure Patricia Monaghan would consider herself a Dianic (though she seems to clearly be a feminist), but that book of hers that I raved about here before (RED-HAIRED GIRL FROM THE BOG) kind of blew open my head in terms of thinking about Earth as the Mother's body.

Her book made me crave more stories about the first Goddesses, which lead me to THE GREAT COSMIC MOTHER by Monica Sjoor and Barbara Mor, which is quite unapologetically feminist and Marxist. Truth is, we just happened to have THE GREAT COSMIC MOTHER laying around. Shawn and I have a compulsion to pick up any Goddess book we stumble across at used bookstores, so we actually have a number of books like that we haven't ever read, though we've had them in the house for years. (I'm sure none of you book-a-holics out there can understand that!)

Anyway, I gave up on the GREAT COSMIC MOTHER a hundred pages into it because it's very much one of those books from the 1970s that seems intent on reminding us every paragraph that the PATRIARCHY IS BAD!!! (As my friend Naomi would say, "Patriarchy bad! Wham! Wham!" as in the sound of being smacked by a two-by-four.)

Yet... in between the pages, and after I put the book away, my brain started percolating. And the basic thought I kept returning to is: duality sucks.

What's with all this division by twos anyway? Yes, yes, there's a sun and a moon, a day and a night, boys and girls, two eyes, ears, arms, and legs.... but when did one thing become the purview of gender? What I mean is: WHY is it that traditions, like the one I'm studying at WitchSchool, always give their gods the cool powers (IE, the Goddess is involution, darkness, the moon, quiet contemplation, while the God is evolution, manifestation, light, the sun, action!) I'm sick of it. It's all ONE.

And I've decided it all comes from the feminine. You don't get more manifest that birth, damn it.

Already Off to a Bad Start

For some reason I thought TODAY was New Moon, not, uh, this coming Saturday...and now I just feel dumb. But to be fair, the rest of the day started well. The weather is very... European today. The air is moist and chilled, but the temperature is a very mild 50 (F). Most of the traveling to Europe that I did with my family was during the cheaper winter months, so this kind of cool, wet, overcast, but warm enough day always reminds me specifically of Paris.

Anyway, Mason and I took a walk this morning before school. Mason mostly ran along Summit Avenue (near my favorite coffee shop where I was FORCED, I tell you, FORCED to stop because we ran out of coffee in the house). We walked on retaining walls and played, "don't step on the cracks." Despite the cold, wet wind, it was actually very nice. I found my vision sharpening, if you will. I noticed bird's nests and the vibrant colors of the painted lady houses we passed.

I think I need to get out more....

Today also promises to be a good day because last night my friend and fellow writer Sean M. Murphy came over and critiqued my latest novel, HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD, which is due at the publishers in a couple of months. I'd written a very rough frame very quickly and I needed some professional help... er, as it were. Anyway, last night we had an awesome brainstorm session and I really feel ready today to conquer the draft and make it a real novel, Ghepetto.

Wish me luck.

Awesome Poetry

This is from GODDESS COMPANION by Patricia Monaghan (my new favorite writer on pagan/Goddess subjects:

I am the goddess, mistress of the land.
It is I who created the unbreakable laws.
It is I who divided earth and heaven.
It is I who charted the stars.
It is I who set the moon and sun overhead.
It is I who ordered the tides.
It is I who brought men and women together
and I who created all the mysteries.
It is I who made justice stronger than wealth,
and I who designed penalties for evil.
It is I who first created mercy,
and I who metes it out.
I am the queen of the earth and wind and sea,
queen of the thunder, queen of the sun.
Only I can overcome fate.
Only I can overcome death.

-----Song of Isis, Egypt

It is I who added the emphasis, but today with all the economic injustice that's being practiced that line really sang to me.