Director's Message

Happy Spring!  Thank you to everyone who joined us at Spring Equinox to celebrate the seasonal turning of the Wheel of the Year. Thank you to all the temple singers, dancers, musicians, artists, actors, and facilitators . . . you are beyond magnificent. I am deeply grateful for our community. 

This issue we are announcing a wonderful new program that honors those in the Pagan community who have contributed so so much to so many and guided younger generations who've put their feet on the path of Earth-based spirituality. We honor and celebrate these elder women, and men, whose work has laid the spiritual groundwork for us through the Hagia Sophia Lifetime Achievement Award. Hagia Sophia is Greek for Holy Wisdom. In conjunction with this award, Temple of the Goddess is creating the Wisdom Legacy Library to house the writing and art work of recipients who wish to share their life's legacy with the world. 

Plans are underway for our Summer Solstice celebration in the park. We hope you bring your family and children and join us for a day under the trees as we connect with the land, sing, tell stories, create art work, and welcome the Sun Goddess into our midst. Information for Summer Solstice will be going out soon. Please plan to join us for a day of play and connecting with the Earth and community on June 18, 2011. We hope to see you there. Spring Blessings, Xia   

Temple of the Goddess Announcements 

Memes Warfare

Memes are ideas that travel. Memes spread and infect us -- trends, logos, slogans, tunes, cultural norms, ideas about race and sex, domination and entitlement.  In this culture, 3000 marketing messages are rammed into your neocortex every day.  It's one-way, nonconsensual, and violent.  Potent memes can change minds, alter behaviors, and transform cultures.  In an authentic culture, memes ooze down from the top, and the most repeated ideas win.  We live inside this culture-manufacturing machine.

Global capitalism is in its cancer stage, and metastasizing to kill its host, our only planet.  We're the first generation to get our sense of the world mostly through one screen or another.  Our "truths" come from our machines, not from contact with the world or each other.  Abstractions seem more real than reality: logos, movie stars, the Dow Jones are more real than trees, starving children, or climate change.  We are fighting not just the destruction of nature, but the destruction of meaning.  How can we win?

Not by technology, and not by force.,  Only by imagination: the ability to tell ourselves different stories.  There's more to life than being rich, fast, young, thin, beautiful and technologically advanced.   We need new ideas, new meaning, new memes.  Social change agents spreading our ideas throughout the culture will create maps for getting to there from here.  This is the literal battle for the hearts, minds, and attention spans of an ever more anesthetized society.  We can consciously, deliberately, and fundamentally redirect the trajectory of history.

What are memes that clearly communicate Life -- inter-connectedness, democracy, biocentrism, renewable energy, freedom?  Think about it.  Pass it on.

Excerpt *Oak Chezar 2008, Courtesy of We'Moon 2011. **the bold indications were not made by the author   

Inanna Reborn: A Spring Equinox Celebration

By Joanne Elliott  

Spring begins in song, the song of life, a life made more brilliant by the greening of plants and the bursting of flowers upon their ends.

This Spring Equinox Celebration echoed the world coming to life outside with the beautiful voice of soloist, Eryyka Jimenez as she sang the classic song "Do You Know Where You're Going To" by Michael Masser and Gerald Goffin. This in turn echoed what was yet to come in the evening's myth.

But first the choir sang "Ostara" by Lisa Thiel, "Blue Green Hills of Earth" by Kim Oler and David Jacks sang "I Dream of Spring" by k.d. lang. With the mood set the myth began.

 Inanna entered, played by Briana Murray. Fully arrayed in her queenly robe and crown she approached the gate to the underworld. Korybantes, played by CandyJo Dahl, would not let her pass. Korybantes pounded her staff on the ground and kept asking Inanna what she would give for self-knowledge. Inanna removed her royal garb bit by bit until she stood defenseless. Finally, she was allowed to pass and visit her sister.

Dressed in a dramatic red feather headdress, Inanna's sister, Erishkigal played by Ananda, greeted her searching sister. During their mirrored dialogue Inanna finally surrendered and died so that she could be reborn. Spring had arrived as Inanna began anew now dressed in her robe coated with butterflies.

The audience, having followed Inanna on her journey rose and danced in celebration and planted their own seeds of renewal before they visited Inanna in the grotto for a blessing.

After sharing peanut butter communion cookies and the prosperity blessing the choir filled the air one last time with their beautiful voices before the circle was opened. Soon the celebration continued in the lobby where people gathered to share their experiences.

Black Swan - A Film's Descent into Darkness

Written on February 25, 2011 by Daniel Ross in Film Reviews, The Asheville Jung Center

I could anticipate the reactions of fellow moviegoers to The Black Swan as I walked out of the theater. Those who were vocal about it thought it preposterous and laughable. I found it to be a wonderful depiction of a young woman integrating her shadow and ultimately being destroyed by it within a psychologically intense battle ground of the theatre of the ballet. The external manifestations of Nina's delusions, hallucinations were violent and disturbing but I believe to be a perfect mirror into the inner violence, drama, that this type of person might experience in real life. So one has to step back from the imagery and not take it too literally to appreciate the psychology of the film. Is this woman in need of therapy? Of course, but pathologizing her problem will only distance her struggle from our own. And is not some of the world's greatest art drawn from this very beautiful and brutal mosaic.

The Black Swan is directed by Darren Aronofsky who also directed Requiem for a Dream and Pi, both of which explored the darker aspects of human nature. He continues that journey with The Black Swan but in this film the beauty of the ballet is contrasted with the stark brutal realities of the day to day rituals of the ballerina.

We are confronted immediately with a world of bodily destruction from the daily exercise routines to the purging required to maintain a cachectic frame. In an interview by George Stephanopolous Natalie Portman chides a reviewer who called a ballerina "fat" in a production of the Nutcracker (retrieved from http://www.blogher.com/fat-ballerinas-black-swan-diet-dont-let-tiimes-set-tone) reheating the controversy behind the shadow realm of this beautiful art form. We have the tension of the opposites in the form of the extreme discipline of one's body and the need for control and its opposite the need to abandon the ego and lose one self. The character of Nina embodies this tension and the risk of going to far in abandoning the ego. But before we discuss the end we must go to the beginning.  Click here for full review.

THERE IS NO SOURCE OF NEW WATER

by Patrick Cleary 

There is no source of new water - all water is conserved.  Location, location, location - applies equally to real estate as it does water, where it flows and doesn't flow, above or below ground level.  Recently, George Skelton, writing in the Los Angeles Times ("Water, water everywhere, but not enough is saved," Capitol Journal, April 4, 2011) brought us back to Chinatown, and the Valley.  He was deriding the demagoguery of drought, but also seemed to be advocating for the very water bonds that he claimed benefitted from such hype.  He mentions approvingly a mooted reservoir in Colusa County and a new dam along the San Joaquin River near Fresno.

Meanwhile, the Public Policy Institute of California recommends "re-operating" existing dams and levees as part of a reconciliation approach to ecosystem management, especially as regards the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the most critical water supply for California.  In their February, 2011 report "Managing California's Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation," the authors advocate a "natural flow regime" for the Delta which would negate the need for pumping water in the middle of the Delta, and divert it to a peripheral canal that would distribute the waters south of the tidal islands to the distributary rivers.  A peripheral canal for the San Joaquin Delta bedeviled Governor Brown's first term, as he vacillated in support until finally abandoning the project. Click here for full article. 

Muslim-Americans Try To 'Write' Hollywood's Wrongs

It's Saturday morning, and several dozen Muslims are gathered in a college classroom in Los Angeles. There are men and women, young and old, U.S.-born and immigrants, but they all have a common dream: to break into show business.

In television and films, however, Muslims are often portrayed as the bad guys, like the terrorists seen in FOX's 24 or in the Bruce Willis film The Siege. A group called the Muslim Public Affairs Council has been working with Hollywood studios for years to foster more accurate portrayals.

And recently it has adopted a new tactic: The group is teaching Muslim-Americans how to become Hollywood screenwriters. 

Continued... 

CS Monitor: South Dakota anti-abortion law breaks new ground

March 18, 2011, by Amanda Paulson, The Christian Science Monitor

South Dakota today became the first state in the country to require women seeking an abortion to visit anti-abortion counseling centers.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) signed legislation that is precedent-setting in several ways. It also mandates a 72-hour waiting period - the longest in the country - and requires two visits to a physician and a screening for risk factors, in addition to the visit to a pregnancy crisis center.

"I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives," Governor Daugaard said in a written statement. "I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices."

Planned Parenthood announced before the bill was signed that it would file a lawsuit.  Click here for full article...

Join us for a viewing of

2012: Time for Change

Date(s) to be announced in May's newsletter!  

"2012: Time for Change" presents an optimistic alternative to apocalyptic doom and gloom.  Directed by Emmy Award nominee João 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!

Trance Journey Through Drumming 
Class offered by Temple of the Goddess.

• 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.