mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Fortuna, Roman Goddess of Abundance
January 17, 2013
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The Romans had a pantheon similar to the Greeks. Fortuna represents wealth, commercial success, and abundance of all kinds. She is intimate with the infinite source of wealth, and acts as a conduit, bringing it to life on earth. Lakshmi is busy doing the same thing for the Hindu pantheon. In America, unfortunately, the Puritans have directly linked wealth to purity of behavior (as described by them). This narrow view of abundance is a vicious cycle of a bummer drag. They arrived in Plymouth Colony and were greeted by sophisticated and generous souls. Since the hospitable tribes did not read the Bible the Puritan fathers decided it would be fine to totally rip them off for everything they had. Things have gone downhill from that point.
As a priestess of Fortuna, you are required to make friends with money. She is the power behind all propitious events. It is possible to procure her guidance through meditation. You can ask questions with your dominant hand doing the writing, then pass the pen to Fortuna in your non dominant hand and let her answer. The handwriting may be very bad, but let it go. You are the only one who will read and interpret it. If you really wonder about your fate, your fortune, your lot in life, ask. Ask deeply, and you will find the answer. Oracles did some gas inhaling at you will not need in this exercise, but the concept is the same. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will open. Same deal. Don’t allow some Puritan nerd from the past to rob you of your right to know. Be still, know. The truth will set you free….a whole lot freer than Salem during the witch trials, anyhow. Speak to Fortuna. She has something to tell you.
Winter of Our Disco Tent
December 31, 2012
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John Steinbeck wrote American novels that richly described in detail the place and time. His final book was about greed and ethics. The title, Winter of our Discontent, was taken from a line in William Shakespeare’s Richard III. When I look back in history by studying my ancestors I see a constant struggle, sometimes ignorant, sometimes violent, about greed and ethics. Our current crossroads and choices are similar to the ones found in history. “There may be better times, but this one is ours.” J P Sartre. We have to go with what we’ve got.
Since nobody has free time for an epic Greek drama, or even Shakespeare, our morality play has to be formatted for a smart phone and be shorter than 2 minutes to have impact. I admire Alan Simpson as an artist and a scholar. The essence of his distinguished career as a statesman and public servant could not possibly be summed up better than his dance with the can. The medium is the message. He knows how to communicate. Get down on it, Alan.
What Would My Ancestors Do?
December 23, 2012
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Sears Cemetery, Barnstable
You do not need to hold a seance to contact the spirits of the dead. You can use a few facts, or many facts if you have them, to query your ancestors. These are not fictional characters of history, but your DNA connection to the past. The novels you have read in your life can not possibly match the drama of the story of your particular historical survival. Your ancestors handed down to you an ethical will. Those who left no written document have nonetheless passed values to the future, with less precision. You are now actively creating the history and the ethics you want to survive in the world.
I started to study my ancestry to learn about the ethical will of my people, whoever they were. My mother had never described her family in any racial terms. I was taught that the Taylors were, in no uncertain terms, Confederate Rebels. My mother, Ruby Taylor’s very large family all lived in Texas. They were involved in religion to a much greater degree than our family living in Pittsburgh. The went to church at least three times a week, including Wednesday. They did a bit of holy rolling and other practices foreign to me. Indeed, my great grandfather Taylor fought in the civil war and received a Confederate pension in Texas in his old age. He was a farmer and preacher in the Church of Christ. This story was the known history of the Taylor tribe, and even this information was never retold to the Taylors of the 1960’s.
What nobody knew at the Taylor family reunion in Houston on the 4th of July each year in the 1960’s was that our Taylor forefather and his wife’s uncle had been burned at the stake as Protestant martyrs in England. Now that is what I call a Rebel. The roots of each family feed the ethical expression (also known as fruit) of the family spirit. The tongue speaking, chicken frying Taylors of Humble/Houston all shared a particular extreme view of the Bible that freaked me out when I was young. The Pentecostal experience, when I was exposed to it, frightened me. Now that I know about the stake burning it all makes perfect sense.
My forefathers and mothers in the grave yard pictured above lived in Holland, then sailed to Plymouth to build a shining city on a hill, creating a strong, complex ethical will. They had a lot to say about the way they thought all cosmology worked in harmony with government. They had strong convictions by which they lived and died. Now that I know more about the lives of these elders in my tribe I have a greater responsibility. I can no longer look at Thanksgiving as a bunch of stuffing. I need to discover the meaning of the Puritan Ethic they created. The values they held are more significant than the physical goods they once owned in old Cape Cod.
On the surface they all seem to use the Bible as an excuse for their own human folly. Just under the surface is the fact that humans have always indulged in folly to learn the folly of our ways. What did they learn? How can we acquire wisdom from their knowledge?
