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Director's Message
At Hallows we experienced the myth of Kore's decision to descend into the Underworld, into the world of the unconscious,
to begin the next chapter in Her life story. We, as ritual participants, walked the path of the Dark Divine, and embarked on our personal journey, committed to writing our personal myths.
Why We Need Ritual and Myth?
In 2011 we will continue the theme we began at Hallows: Writing our personal myth, our always-evolving journey, consciously writing the story of our lives. The spring myth will focus on the centuries-old symbol of Death and Resurrection. Just as the Earth renews itself and the plants, flowers, and trees magically resurrect themselves with the warmth of the sun, we too renew our lives with each turn of the yearly wheel. We will explore the evolution of our own personal journey, our life story-how we are fulfilling the call of destiny, and creating our personal myth.
Since Hallows many of you have expressed that everything in your lives--your consciousness, your personal myths--are accelerating. That, I believe, is the power of myth and ritual-to rapidly accelerate spiritual, emotional, and mental growth. Why is this?
Myths are filled with symbols and archetypes that resonate in the collective unconscious. These symbols, when internalized, provide meaning for humans and help to integrate, guide, and unify the changes that fill our lives and existence.
When we step into the other-world of myth and journey with the heroine/hero, we too step out of the mundane world of everyday life and begin the quest for the Self: the integration of the ego-conscious mind with the shadow-those aspects of our unconscious mind that ego finds unacceptable such as pain, fear, struggle, mortality. The quest of the heroine is fraught with trials and she must confront adversaries and battle inner demons with a sword of truth, or arrows of enlightenment.
At Temple of the Goddess, we offer a modern-day myth within the context of our seasonal rituals. These celebrations take place within "the Wheel of the Year," an ancient and sacred ritual calendar marking the Earth's changing seasons and the Sun's never-ending journey across the sky. The Wheel represents the life cycle of continual birth, death, and renewal as expressed in the changing seasons. These changing seasons also represent a psychological "map of consciousness" facilitating human growth. They contain the framework for personal transformation, rites of passage, healing, empowerment, and manifestation.
Ritual brings the sacred into our lives. Rituals require thought and intent, which force us to step away from the accelerated pace that most of us live by and move into a space of timelessness. No matter what your religious beliefs, rituals can enhance the moments of your life by giving focus and attention to those things you have designated as important.
Rituals bring a sense of the divine into our lives, and they affirm and enhance our connection to the sacred, however we choose to define it. Joseph Campbell explains this connection with the divine in The Power of Myth: "A ritual can be defined as an enactment of a myth. By participating in a ritual, you are actually experiencing a mythological life. And it's out of that participation that one can learn to live spiritually."
Rituals are a collective way of relating to the divine energies and celebrating them. In the process of celebrating these life-affirming energies, we have the opportunity to change our lives for the better, to create our lives the way we want them to be.
Please join us at Spring Equinox and continue writing the story of your life. Blessings, Xia
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 Wendy Rule Fundraising Concert a Wonderful Success Thank you Wendy, and Tim, for a beautiful evening of ritual song and music. Your gracious gift to Temple of the Goddess is greatly appreciated. You are a treasured Pagan resource and we value you deeply. |
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Temple of the Goddess Announcements
Monthly Events If you are feeling the need for more frequent, intimate spiritual gatherings, please join Temple of the Goddess priestess Pythia for our monthly Full Moon Celebration. See notice below for dates and more information.
Goddess Choir Rehearsals
Sundays 2:00-4:00
March 6, 2011
March 13, 2011
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! - Goddess Choir: If you'd like to be a part of the ever-growing Temple of the Goddess Choir, please contact us at choir@templeofthegoddess.org
Click here to find out about Community Events. If you would like to post an event with Temple of the Goddess, please let us know by submitting the date and pertinent information to: Events@TempleoftheGoddess.org. |
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Ostara by Helena Nelson Reed
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A Poem for Springtime
by Jude BaileyMurfin
Deep in the womb of Mother Earth
New life begins to stir.
She bids the sun to send warm rays
As she turns on the Wheel of the Year.
The sap is rising in the trees,
There's a quickening all around,
Buds on branches are waiting to burst
And snowdrops push through the ground.
The squirrels scurry through the grass,
Fresh from their Winter's rest,
The frogs croak out their courting song
And the blackbird builds her nest.
Everything looks so new and bright
Washed by a shower of rain,
A lightened time when life renews
And we welcome Spring again.
A Poem for Springtime © Jude BaileyMurfin
For poetry, articles, recipes and more visit:
Gaia's Garden: The Natural Magic of Mother Earth
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 Spring Equinox Ritual & Celebration
Saturday March 19, 2011,
Doors Open 5:45, Ritual from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
The Wheel of the Year turns and we open our arms to welcome new beginnings, a year filled with wondrous possibilities. We start the year with a celebration of spring and plant our consciousness with seeds of hope and dreams for 2011. As we emerge from the last days of Winter, we celebrate the Resurrection of the Earth and the power to, once again, renew ourselves with new directions, new dreams, new goals.  Our evening of ritual theatre opens with a song and meditation on the paths and possibilities before us. In song, dance and spoken word, we explore the power and potential that comes with Resurrection. We follow Inanna as she descends into the Underworld of her sister Erishkigal, her shadow-self. This ancient myth is filled with powerful symbolism of the shadow. The shadow is not to be ignored or conquered but must be embraced and integrated into the conscious ego.
In her descent, Inanna is confronted by forces that challenge and strip her of the outer persona of the ego. She must enter the realm of the Dark Goddess, Erishkigal, and meet the shadow with herself laid bare-stripped of all that she thought she was. The work of meeting and embracing the shadow is a divine dance of integration. Yet integration requires the ultimate sacrifice, death. The old self, as we've always known it to be, must die so that a new self can be reborn. We celebrate Inanna's resurrection, the blessed rebirth of the Earth, and our own divine renewal. Like Inanna, we die, are reborn, and rise again-to share with the world what we learned when we were underground.  | |
Inanna by Lisa Hunt
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Oh Inanna. Oh Inanna. Oh Inanna. It is you who teaches us to Die be reborn and rise again Die be reborn and rise again Die be reborn and rise. I am the maiden from the Earth arising planting the seeds that grow in the spring I am the maiden from the Earth arising Teach us to grow the garden of our dreams Oh Inanna Oh Inanna Oh Inanna It is you who teaches us to Die be reborn and rise again Die be reborn and rise again Die be reborn and rise. (Inanna Lyrics by Lisa Thiel) Journey with us as we follow Inanna's descent, death, and Her glorious resurrection into the spring. As we witness Inanna's rebirth, we create our own resurrection journey and continue creating the mythic story of our lives. Temple of the Goddess, and The Mythic Players, invite you to join us for an evening of art and ritual theatre in celebration of the Spring Equinox. Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91103 818-771-5778 www.TempleoftheGoddess.org |
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Some Of Our Own
Ananda, aka Cheryl Caddick, is featured in Tom Tom Magazine, a magazine for female drummers.Click here to read full interview.
 Minni Jo Mazzola stars as Bobbi in The Homes, the only girl in the band, a guitar player with a lot of passion and kindness under her tough attitude in the indie rock musical webseries. Click here
to see episode five of The Homes on Lockerz.
Marcella Lentz Pope, our own Inanna, will be guest starring in CBS'Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior on Wednesday, March 2nd. |
SAVE THE DATE "The seasons and all their changes are in me." -Henry David Thoreau
Our multi-cultural Earth celebrations are open to families and community. Our Sabbats are multi-media ritual theater combining mythology, music, visual art, dance, liturgy, spoken word, and participatory theater which fuses drum and dance with personal enactment to re-connect us to the seasons and the Earth.
- March 19, 2011 Spring Equinox*
- Summer Solstice 2011, Date & Location TBA
- September 24, 2011 Autumn Equinox*
- October 29, 2011 All Hallow's Eve*
*Rituals scheduled at the Neighborhood Church. Click here for more information and to download an event flyer. Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91103 818-771-5778 Website: www.TempleoftheGoddess.org
We hope you will join the temple, in community, to honor the seasons, the Earth, and our own personal growth for our 2010 Ritual Sabbat.
Artwork from Ritual Path DVD by artist John Banks of Artek Images and music by Fritz Heede. Available from Temple of the Goddess Music & Media Store.
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Egypt's Peaceful Revolution A Blow To Al-Qaida by Mike Shuster
February 16, 2011
For many years, Hosni Mubarak was the target of Islamist extremists, including al-Qaida, committed to overthrowing him by force.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is an Egyptian who was long associated with violent attacks there. So far, though, the terrorist group has been silent on the popular, nonviolent uprising in Egypt.
"For now, at least, it's quite a blow to bin Laden's ideology," says Daniel Byman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. "What Egypt shows is that peaceful demonstrations, peaceful protests can topple autocratic governments that are quite repressive.
"This is a direct refutation of bin Laden's claim that only violence will work to effect political change."
'Moral Force'
The implication of the recent events in Egypt was not lost on President Obama. He spoke from the White House last Friday after it was learned Mubarak was stepping down after nearly three decades in power.
"Egyptians have inspired us, and they've done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence," he said. "For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence, not terrorism, not mindless killing, but nonviolence, moral force, that bent the arc of history toward justice once more." Click for full article...
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DONOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Temple of the Goddess wishes to acknowledge, honor, and welcome those who have joined, tithed, or donated to the temple this month. You keep the temple doors open for all of us.
Realm of Air
Briana Murray
 Realm of Fire
Ruth Ann Anderson
Kamala
Realm of Water
Carol Holst
Realm of Spirit
Nancy Ann Jones
Dawn Bodnar Sutton
J. Clark
J. Tatum
Click here for information on becoming a member of TOG. Temple of the Goddess has a variety of ways that you can participate fiscally in our vision. To learn more about making a tax-deductible donation to the temple, go to Gifting Opportunities.
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 Analysis: The Tea Party and Religion February 23, 2011 The Tea Party movement clearly played a role in rejuvenating the Republican Party in 2010, helping the GOP take control of the House and make gains in the Senate. Tea Party supporters made up 41% of the electorate on Nov. 2, and 86% of them voted for Republican House candidates, according to exit polls. But the precise nature of the Tea Party has been less clear. Is it solely a movement to reduce the size of government and cut taxes, as its name - some people refer to it as the Taxed Enough Already party - implies? Or do its supporters share a broader set of conservative positions on social as well as economic issues? Does the movement draw support across the religious spectrum? Or has the religious right "taken over" the Tea Party, as some commentators have suggested? A new analysis by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that Tea Party supporters tend to have conservative opinions not just about economic matters, but also about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In addition, they are much more likely than registered voters as a whole to say that their religion is the most important factor in determining their opinions on these social issues.2 And they draw disproportionate support from the ranks of white evangelical Protestants. The analysis shows that most people who agree with the religious right also support the Tea Party. But support for the Tea Party is not synonymous with support for the religious right. An August 2010 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that nearly half of Tea Party supporters (46%) had not heard of or did not have an opinion about "the conservative Christian movement sometimes known as the religious right"; 42% said they agree with the conservative Christian movement and roughly one-in-ten (11%) said they disagree.3 More generally, the August poll found greater familiarity with and support for the Tea Party movement (86% of registered voters had heard at least a little about it at the time and 27% expressed agreement with it) than for the conservative Christian movement (64% had heard of it and 16% expressed support for it). Click for full transcript. |
You are sitting around a fire after a hard day of work. The air cools and the sun sets, the frogs and crickets begin singing as the sky darkens. Suddenly the person you have been eagerly awaiting leaps to the center of the circle. You have heard the story a hundred times, but the antics of the animals and the wisdom in the story never fail to give you pleasure. As she weaves her tale, the knowledge that every thing is alive, carrying its own power and wisdom, soothes your soul.Let us join together, in this virtual circle, and share these Animal Tales. Let us once again feel how the stories connect us to the natural world and remind us that we are all part of a vast Circle of Life. Listen now as the Shaman whispers tales of animal power and wisdom in your ear.
Tonight under the full moon it is a story of a butterfly from the Native American Shoshone people. The butterfly has special meaning in cultures around the world. They often are related in some way to the idea of a person's soul, or of a transformation taking place in life. In fact, the ancient Greek word for butterfly is psyche, a word which actually means "soul" or "mind." The Shoshone say that the Ladies Fancy Shawl Dance is a representation of the following Butterfly Legend.
The Butterfly Many, many years ago when the Earth was still quite new, there was a beautiful butterfly who lost her mate in battle. To show her grief, she took off her beautiful wings and wrapped herself in a drab cocoon. In her sadness, she could not eat and she could not sleep and her relatives kept coming to her lodge to see if she was okay. Of course she wasn't, but she didn't want to be a burden on her people so she packed up her wings and her medicine bundle and took off on a long journey. She wandered about for many days and months, until finally she had gone all around the world. On her journey she kept her eyes downcast and stepped on each stone she came to as she crossed fields and creeks and streams. Finally, one day as she was looking down, she happened to notice the stone beneath her feet, and it was so beautiful that it healed her sorrow. She then cast aside her cocoon, shook the dust from her wings, and donned them once more. She was so happy she began to dance to give thanks for another chance to begin her life anew. Then she went home and told The People about her long journey and how it had healed her. To this day the People still dance this dance as an expression of renewal, and to give thanks for new seasons, new life, and new beginnings. (Retrieved from http://www.hospiceofthegorge.org)
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Look for upcoming viewings of the new film
2012: Time for Change
"2012: Time for Change" presents an optimistic alternative to apocalyptic doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee Joćo Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method. As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 heralds the birth of a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.
"We readily admit that 2012: Time for Change is a teaching tool as well as a piece of propaganda masquerading as a somewhat slick, somewhat street, feature documentary. The secret purpose of 2012: Time for Change is to get you to look at your world differently, and to begin to participate in a conscious movement toward personal and social transformation.
What we believe and continue to learn from sometimes painful personal experience is that we can't hope to make the world a better place unless we start within, learning to nurture our own soul and spirit. Among other objectives, 2012: Time for Change wants you to become your own coach and spiritual adviser, taking good care of yourself."
While waiting for scheduled viewing dates, you can go to the website, 2012- Time for Change for movie details as well as information on the many organizations and individuals that are doing something to create positive and substantial changes in our world. See how you too can contribute to creating positive change!
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Is Egypt Calling You?
Join Temple of the Goddess astrologer, Rosemary Clark, on one of her extraordinary journeys into the ancient world of Egypt.
Egypt is calling us once more, and the sacred world of its temples, tombs and pyramids will become accessible with a truly memorable expedition planned from May 5 to 18, 2011. A group of Charlottesville, VA egytophiles have formed the core group of our expedition, while other students and associates from around the U.S. and Europe are invited to join us.
This will be a ceremonial project, with living history recreations at many of the sacred sites. This year's program will reprise the approach that makes us so different from all other journeys -- we undertake all-land excursions to allow more time for photography, personal exploration, and meditations on the grandeur of the ancient places. No rushing through the sites with crowds of tourists -- only time to reflect, inspect, and renew our connection to the divine world.
We'll depart from Washington DC to Cairo via Europe. Or meet us on site when your travel plans coincide with ours. You'll find the complete itinerary at: http://www.templeharakhte.org/expeditions
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Temple of the Goddess ~ Full Moon Celebrations
 | Image by Felix Navin
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Monthly Celebrations are held on the night of the Full Moon, unless listed otherwise. Time for Full Moon Celebration is 7-10:00pm. Led by Temple of the Goddess Priestess, Pythia.
Upcoming Dates:- March - No Full Moon Meeting. Join us for Spring Equinox March 19th at the Neighborhood Church
- April 17
- May 17
Moon Children are those born under the Zodiac sign of Cancer. But in reality, we are all Moon Children. We live half of our lives in the light of Grandmother Moon. She, like Mother Earth, has power. She shows us her power with the rising and falling tides caused by lunar gravitational pull interacting with specific attributes of our oceans. She shows us her power by lengthening the calendar 15 microseconds every year. And finally, she shows us her power by women's reproductive cycle.
At the Full Moon Celebration we will draw down Lunar Power to aid us in releasing that which no longer serves us, thereby actively creating room for an increased abundance in our lives. So, join us as we honor Grandmother Moon, using sacred tools in sacred space to create magick in order to enjoy a more fulfilling life.
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 Trance Journey Through Drumming
Class offered by Temple of the Goddess.
This is not a "learn how to drum" class, but deep meditation instruction based on Dr. Michael Harner's book The Way of the Shaman. In this class you will learn about Shamanism and what a Shaman does when she or he moves into a trance and enters another reality. If you've wanted a different way of meditating to "sort things out" then this might work for you. In addition to the trance work, the class will study various topics including:
- Shamanic Trance Drumming-what it is and where it has been in practice.
- Spirit Guides-how to obtain one and what a Guide does for you.
- Relevancy of Shamanic Trance Drumming in today's world.
Classes led by Pythia, Temple of the Goddess priestess and a practioner of Shamanic Trance Drumming for 20 years. These will be "classroom" lectures and include working sessions at $10.00 per class. Since repeated sessions are advised in order to understand and become familiar with the basics, a series of 7 sessions is offered for $50.00 (need not be attended consecutively).
Classes ongoing. For dates and times, contact Pythia@templeofthegoddess.org and put Trance Journey in the subject. Click here for more info and a downloadable pdf flyer. |
Temple of the Goddess Moon Lodge for Women
We gather to honor and celebrate the Moon Mother and her cycles which we embody with her sacred gift of rhythm and blood. Together we will celebrate stories of our own moon-time, from our experiences of menarche to menopause. We will share stories of Her ebb and flow, reconnecting ourselves with these divine and timeless cycles. Our repose in this dreamtime within the safety of a circle of sisters has the power to heal and reunite our deeper selves with the natural world.
The Moon Lodge is held on Wednesdays between 7pm and 10pm. - On hiatus until further notice.
Dress comfortable and bring a comfy pillow and blanket to snuggle in. Bring any sacred offerings you may wish to share with the Goddess on Her Altar. And a decadent snack to share with your sisters. Led by Temple Priestess, Kamala. Contact Kamala@templeofthegoddess.org.
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 In a Sacred Circle of Sisters, Come Home to Your Authentic Self
The Shamanic Tantric Dance is a meditation in motion, a sacred dance spontaneously sourced from body impulse.
Mondays, 7-10:00pm
Classes are on hiatus and will resume in the future.
$30.00 (no one turned away for a lack of funds)
No Dance Experience Necessary.
For more info click here.
Contact Kamala: kamala@terrakino.net
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