mermaidcamp

mermaidcamp

Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water

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Themis, Titan Goddess

November 22, 2013 — 10 Comments

Themis

Themis on Delphic tripod

Themis is the Titan goddess of law, order, and prophecy. She gave birth to the Horae, the seasons, who determine the timing of all things in this world and beyond.  The scales of justice are associated with her.  The oracle at Delphi was founded by Themis and her mother Gaia.  both of them are in associated with prophecy.  She was an early bride of Zeus, and acted as his councilor, instructing him in divine law.  Man made law often is in direct conflict with divine law.  Themis defends her mother Gaia, the earth.  In this age of eco-consciousness and efforts to both save and restore natural resources in peril, Themis is the pure spirit of ecology.  She defends the beings, all the animal, mineral, and vegetable offspring of the Earth.  In the War of the Titans, she took the side of the Olympians.  She was the most important goddess in the first generation of Olympians. Today her significance is as a defender of our earthly mother.  Can you think of people or institutions that embody divine justice?

Selena, Goddess of the Moon

October 17, 2013 — 2 Comments


Selena bears good tidings at the full moon. She rides through the sky in a silver chariot reflecting all that is true and eternal.  She was a Titan goddess, predating the Olympians. Selena bathed during the day and rode around the heavens at night.  Her love affair with a handsome mortal resulted in 50 daughters.  She has the power to control time, mask reality, and  expose the truth.  She had her lover put to sleep eternally so she could visit him in a cave forever.  She is distant, cold, and yet kind.

The full moon is associated with mania and extreme states of mind.  The time between the last new moon and the full moon tonight was characterized by the loony government shutdown and all it entailed.  When the old men in the Senate had nothing, the women organized to end the stalemate.  They shed light on a ridiculous situation.   I am reminded of a saying attributed to the Buddha:

“There are three things that will not long stay hidden, the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

Selena

Selena

Fear, Blame, Revenge, Repeat

October 16, 2013 — 1 Comment

skull and crossbones

skull and crossbones

The human condition known as revenge is ancient and well documented.  The Greek goddess Nemesis represents retribution.  She lives in the underworld with Hecate.  She feels no remorse and hesitates at nothing to deal out vengeance when it is required.  She is a neutral spirit with a balanced approach.  She has the task of taking happiness from the undeserving while bringing more joy to those who earn it.  She is pictured with a balance scale, doing  calculations.  She is concerned with issues of money.  Her name is related to the word number, and the word economy.  She is not vengeful,  but is an accountant from the underworld.

The collective as well as your personal consciousness about wealth, money and right livelihood are the province of Nemesis.  She keeps the accounts in balance.  Abundance and prosperity follow the laws of nature.  Knowledge as well as belief influence the outcome of all your earthly investments.  Spiritual integrity in work and business ethics are measured against one’s degree of avarice and destructive behavior.  Can you find ways that your beliefs about receiving limit you now?  Can you think of ways to budget a more secure financial future for yourself through awareness?  Some Americans call her “Death and Taxes”, to say she is hard to avoid.  She is impossible to avoid, and she is counting all the time.  She will deliver what is due from the wheel of karma because that is her job.

Trickster Archetype

September 24, 2013 — 6 Comments

The trickster is a character popular in many ancient mythical stories. This archetype pranks us and fools us in various ways.  Like all of the Sacred Contracts, our interactions with this particular role will continue until we finally recognize the trick.  The joke may be on us, or we may be the joker in the case.  Good natured pranking can be done in a kind spirit; Often the dark side of the trickster misleads and harms the easily duped.  When the joke is recognized as a dark misdeed the trickster is usually nowhere to be found.

I can see a pattern in my life of believing in financial tricksters.  I did not carefully identify or  assess risk to my own finances in my youth.  I was a hedonist on a roll with no fear of failure.  Even now when I believe I have done careful due diligence and consideration I am too lenient and trusting of others.  While I don’t think anyone has been out to get me financially, I could have been surrounded with more trustworthy and helpful folks in my early years.  The very good news is that I have become more cautious.  I investigate potential partnerships and investments with much more vigor than I did in the past.  I have some residual financial damage that keeps me vigilant today for any possible tricksters at work in my life.  I hope I am all done with them.  I can’t afford to be around them.  If you have been tricked by tricksters were they stealing love, money, security, or all of the above?

Rites of Eleusis

September 18, 2013 — 2 Comments

On September 21 the ancient Greek feast celebrating life, beauty, death, and rebirth began. The Rites of Eleusis resembled All Saints/Thanksgiving/Christmas is some obvious ways.  Harvest celebrations started on the equinox and continued until the end of September, with ritual and a secret sacred mystery school.  The drama of Demeter and Persephone was reenacted to symbolize the descent of  the queen of the underworld every fall, and her rebirth every spring.  These celebrations were well attended by people from all over Europe who came to participate in a secret initiation.  Rituals celebrating goddess power continued day and night until September 30 when the last of the initiations were performed, deep in caves of the temple.

The British occultist Aleister Crowley produced his own version in 1910 in London, which later seems to have become a rock opera:

Rites of Eleusis

Rites of Eleusis

How do you celebrate the end of summer and the return of darkness? Octoberfest?

The Three Book Diet

September 13, 2013 — 7 Comments

library girl

library girl

I went along with a fad diet started by one of my social media teachers, Chris Brogan. Last November he proposed that  limiting the number of books one read would change the way one learns and absorbs the art and information in the books.  As a proud and profuse library addict I looked at my own reading habits and wondered if I might benefit from reading less and studying more.  The Three Book Diet commenced with a bang and ended with a whimper very shortly after it was begun.  I, however, had chosen three very deep books that deserve a lifetime of reflection and contemplation, as well as physical homework, so I stayed in.

The Sacred Contracts book is the text used in an on line course I have enrolled in to do deeper study in archetypal psychiatry.  I have an extensive and comprehensive set of video lectures and appropriate homework assignments in the course.  The student is required to look very deeply into the past and identify archetypal patterns and write about them in detail.  The self analysis is heavy, and the written work required to make progress is lengthy and serious.  I have started the work, but see that it could require a lifetime.

The Leonardo book has been on my shelf for years, as has the workbook with active homework assignments to help the reader become more like Leo.  It ranks as one of my favorites, so I knew I could stay busy in these books easily for a year without scratching the surface.  I was right about that; 10 months into this diet and I do not seem to be the least bit more brilliant or innovative.  It is for the same reason it always is….because I do not do my homework to rebel.  At least the Sacred Contract study has taught me that this rebel is a teacher and my teacher is a rebel, so maybe I will soon break out of my will to avoid my own assigned homework.  That would be such a fabulous breakthrough!!

Impact Equation is a great book that I read once and looked at a couple of times during the diet.  Chris is the new kind of guru.  Perhaps I think this because he is my guru of social media and disruptive positive change.  I subscribe to his newsletter and correspond with him all the time, so his voice and his attitude are very well known to me.  I am actually happy he gave up the diet; I told him he was too young for it.  Now he has launched a new magazine/biz school, Owner, which is very exciting, so obviously this was not his year to diet.  I have learned from Sacred Contracts that Chris is my teacher and visionary.  He doesn’t need a contract with me, but I am signed up to learn and emulate.  It will end when I have done my homework.  This brings me to the brilliance of the diet for me.  I needed to blog and develop my own skills, but while consuming hundreds of books a year I had no time dedicated to my own writing.  Now I have a small but growing group of Gentle Readers that I love very much.  I would never have found them, or my discipline to write, had I not gone on the book diet.

When I break the fast I will decide what is prudent. I have a pile of books I bought and had signed by my favorite author of all time, Thomas Moore.  I have preordered his new book, which will be released into my Kindle in January.  I will read A Religion of One’s Own with great gusto.  Chris Brogan is my guru of worldly wisdom, but Thomas Moore is my idol.  He is teaching the world to be monastic….in a good way…in a meditative way….in a kind way. Contemplative reading is one way to meditate.  The book diet has taught me the great value of learning more by consuming less. I may go on a One Book Diet next year..it could be fabulous.

Living Soul

May 6, 2013

book signing

book signing

Kripalu is a yoga school and retreat center in western MA that is leading the way in yoga instruction in the US. With a long background, checkered, then revised, they had the head start on yoga when it hit the competitive mainstream of American fitness.  I have several friends who are certified by Kripalu in yoga, and they are all very well versed in the whole system and philosophy.  I enjoy yoga practice, but have been out of the habit of taking classes for years.  I like my yoga room at home for the freedom and variety that I practice.

My reason for spending a weekend at Kripalu was to be in a workshop taught by an author I really admire.  Thomas Moore instructed a group of about 40 students the difference between soul and spirit.  This seems like a small technical issue, but it is much more basic.  We had about 8 hours of class with him, and a special evening was offered to all Kripalu guests with his wife and daughter.  The Kundalini yoga session with live band chanting was a perfect counterbalance for the intellectual work we were doing.  They are quite a stunning family, described by Thomas as a kind of monastic group.  Each is a monk in a certain personal way.  The ladies are Sikhs with turbans and sheepskin mats, the distinctive look of the Yogi Bhajan followers. They teach Kundalini yoga.  Tom is an expert in the world of religion who has his own way of practicing reverence.  They radiate the power of individualization.  If nothing else (and there is plenty) they teach the value of following the individual call to a specific path without regard for anything else.

The alchemy of thought, dreams, poetry, and the ritual of Kundalini yoga were all thrown into the still and worked.  The distilled result is wisdom, the kind that sinks in and becomes useful over a long period of time. The time and space expanded to allow a remarkable level of teaching to take place.  An artful, and soulful lesson was delivered as if they were translating directly the language of  the sky.  We now have a lifetime to absorb our new insights.  Although in the last few years I have walked out of a couple of workshops I paid for and attended because I felt the teaching was unethical and possibly harmful, this one made up for all of that.  I notice that the presence matters more than the material to me.

Poppies

April 20, 2013 — 3 Comments

Poppies have been cultivated since ancient times.  Poppy seeds are used in magic as well as in cooking. They are associated with rest and remembrance.  It was mythically created by Ceres while she was in search of Persephone, as a symbol of grief.  Death and pleasure are symbolized by red poppies. The bees are very active on them, although red flowers are typically pollinated by hummingbirds.  I think they are being sedated.

Poetry and Plants

April 7, 2013 — 9 Comments

New this year at the Tucson Botanical Gardens is a collaboration with the U of A Poetry Center, bringing poetry to the gardens.  I attended the class next to the iris garden yesterday and was surprised at the depth and education they packed into the experience.  We learned about the Poetry Center’s history and the very good luck we have to live in a city with a center such as this. We learned about the botanical gardens and the history and meaning of the iris plant.  An enthusiastic docent from the Tucson Botanical Gardens opened the readings with a poem of her own about iris and the field of everyday glory we can find in nature.  We then read together a selection of poems, all in some way referring to the iris.  Our favorite reader was dressed like an iris and has a British accent that enhanced her interpretation.  It was an exceptional experience on all levels for me.  I enjoyed the crowd, and had time after the class to get some technical growing advise from the lady who represented the Iris Society.  Poetry and gardens do go together very well.  Next month the group will meet by the cactus garden….a thorny subject.  I am encouraged to use my poetic voice more often, and listen for stunning stories to tell.

Sister Kelly and Ishtar

March 31, 2013 — 2 Comments

True religion is a concept hard to grasp. The idea seems to be that divine providence has finally brought all wisdom and knowledge into the possession of one exclusive (chosen) group. This group, who thinks it is all that, persecutes other groups because they are not in possession of true religion. In some places one needs to handle snakes or fall down on the floor speaking in tongues to satisfy the veracity of one’s religion.  In other places one only has to donate funds, and then is totally off the hook. True religions distinguish themselves by claiming not to be connected or influenced by religions in history.  They often have dead or living prophets that rule the roost.  In the south they also have radio shows.  Sister Kelly uses her pulpit to explain how the Babylonian fertility and war goddess, Ishtar, got mixed up into Easter. Kelly McGinley of Mobile, Alabama  wants to get to the bottom of all this history and evil.

Yes, Sister Kelly, there is an Ishtar, and her fertility symbols are used in a mixed metaphor called Easter.  It is fine if you want to stay home while the rest of us go out to brunch and eat chocolate bunnies.  We have no need to cast aspersions on your beliefs.