New Websites and "Threads of Spider Woman" Blog

I have not been active on this Blog for quite a while, sharing work and articles  instead on my other blog:  Threads of Spiderwoman  

Other sites:  

My  Web Site:    www.laurenraine.com

The Masks of the Goddess Project: www.masksofthegoddess.com

The Rainbow Bridge Oracle: www.rainbowbridgeoracle.weebly.com

Thanks for visiting!

Masks for the Parliament of World Religions: White Buffalo Calf Woman

WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN

As a beautiful young maiden I appeared bearing a sacred pipe,
And inside the village’s big medicine tipi,
together we conducted ceremony.

I showed the people
How to lift the pipe up to the sky,
toward Grandfather,
And down to the earth,
toward Grandmother.
And to the four directions of the universe.

I told them the smoke rising from the bowl
Was the living breath
of the great Grandfather Mystery. 

“With this pipe,” I said,“Walk a living prayer.
With your feet resting upon the earth
And the pipestem reaching into the sky,
Your body forms a living bridge between
The Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above.
Now we are one:

Earth, sky, man, woman,
And all living things.
We are all relations,
The pipe holds them all together.” 

Next I instructed
In the seven sacred ceremonies of the pipe: 

The first was the sweat lodge purification ceremony.
The next was for naming the children.
The third was for healing,
The fourth was  the adoption ceremony.
The fifth  the marriage ceremony.
The sixth was the vision quest.
And the seventh  was the sundance ceremony.

As I walked away, I became a Buffalo, and I rolled over four times:

First I turned into a black buffalo;
Second  into a brown buffalo;
The third into a red buffalo;
And the fourth time I became a white buffalo calf.

 As soon as I departed that day
Great buffalo herds appeared from beyond the horizon
And some of their number allowed themselves to be killed
So the people might live.

I have not forgotten you.
That white buffalo calf born not so long ago,
Is but one glimmer from the beyond
Of My imminent return.

To grant your people
who are My people
another bridge
To knit the world above
And the earth below
Together again.


by Mary Kay Landon

Selu/Corn Mother Mask

Prayers for the Dying

"Form Is Empty" (2009)

    Do not stand at my grave and weep,
    I am not there; I do not sleep.
    I am a thousand winds that blow,
    I am the diamond glints on snow,
    I am the sun on ripened grain,
    I am the gentle autumn rain.
    When you awaken in the morning’s hush
    I am the swift uplifting rush
    Of quiet birds in circling flight.
    I am the soft star-shine at night.
    Do not stand at my grave and cry,
    I am not there; I did not die.

    Ann Frye

In 2008 my brother suffered a brain stem stroke.  Because he did not have a living will, since then he has been on complete life support.  In 2009 he was pronounced brain dead.  My other brother has finally agreed to allow me to withdraw life support for Glenn, which we will do on the 15th of this month.  

 "We have been raised to think that our body ended here, with this bag of skin, or with our possessions or education or house.  Now we begin to realize that our body is the World."  ...... Joanna Macy

"Form Is Empty" is one of the sculptures I made for Glenn, honoring his long interest in Buddhism. All of them have tiles with words and phrases pressed into the clay, symbols and antique designs, all of them, like pottery shards, broken, disordered, "de-constructing".  In this realm of being, words and symbols are what we construct our ideas of life from, the "shells" we create our identities from.  In  "Form is Empty" I saw the hand of the dying reaching through the shattering of form toward the offering hand of the Divine, the greater Self. 

"The Heart Sutra" (2009)

 In the 2nd piece, "The Heart Sutra",  I used the hand of a 90 year old woman and a 9 year old child.  The Heart is what lies between.

"Holy Mother Take Me Home" (2009)

"Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. "

Norman MacLean, "A River Runs Through It"

The last piece, "Holy Mother Take Me Home",   is a prayer to the Goddess, the Source.  I used a child's hand again, and the broken shards, with all the words, float down the river of light.  We're all children, really, all children.  She reaches out Her hand to take us Home.  It doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, what kind of life you think you've led or not led.  She waits.  

It's been a long journey Glenn.  Be at peace. 

Descanso for Glenn

 

New Mosaic - "Our Lady of the Summer Garden"

My exploration of mosaic work continues.............I like that they're kind of irregular, vaguely Byzentine looking and hopefully, suggesting a little bit a long-ago time.

New Mosaic - "Our Lady of the Waters"

"Our Lady of the Waters" (2014)

 I've been experimenting with clay and my collection of Afghani fabric presses.  There is something so wonderful about putting these antique presses, all cut by hand, to use again - they have so much spirit or mana in them.  This piece is dedicated to WATER, which is so important here in the desert.  Without the blessings of the Lady of the Waters, there is no life.

Lady of the Desert Spring

Nuestra Senora de las Aguas,

Our lady of the Arroyo,

Come quietly to us,

Come to us, and hear our prayers,

For  those who suffer thirst,

Spread your mantle of green and turquoise

 Among the red, parched lands

Bright artery of life

Nuestra Señora de las Aguas

Mother of the cottonwoods, the Palos verdes,

Snake and mallow, coyote and child

Hear our prayers

O desert spring,

Our lady of the  waters.

Tile made from antique Afghani fabric press (2014)

The Song of the Dry River

Dry.  All you hear

 is the litany of traffic,

a dusty haze obscuring the distance.

Nothing sounds now

where once water  sang

among the stones,

voices of the living

where once a river ran

a river, once, here

before  cattle came,

 the cars

the mines

living as if the waters

would always flow

to green the red and barren lands

as if the breast would never run dry.

As if  there none yet unborn

Who must know  thirst.

Are there only stones

And pottery shards

Left to remember me?

I sing to their  ghosts now,

I sing

where once a river ran .

(2002)

Songs of Ancient Midwives and other Arisings

This piece is brand new (as of Christmas Eve, 2013).  I don't yet know what to title it:  "Our Lady of _____________?"  I think I'm going to contact a few friends and request a title, and see if  Her archetypal name is floating around out there somewhere.

But there is a surprising sense of Arising in these Icons that  I've felt compelled to finish  these past few weeks.  The Arising of the life-giving, creation-giving Goddess, arising from the past, arising from the mythic body of the Earth, arising from the shadows in this time of need.  And now that I think about it, this day is about the birth of the new Sun God, the Christ Child..............

So why, when I searched the internet, was it so hard to find any poems about Birth, let alone Midwives?  Believe me, there are plenty of poems about Battle and the glories, or not so glorious, realities of War.  I think this is another indicator of our world's  patriarchal priorities (death is way more important, and interesting, than the bringing forth of life.  And even that becomes trivialized or co-opted.) 

Anyway, these works surfaced from the depths of my own creativity, and some dreaming part of me, some collective part of me, had to bring them forth...............

 "Sings with the Voices of Ancient Midwives the Songs They Once Sang, Singing the New Life Into The World.........."

"Shrine for the Ancient Midwives"

"Bloom Where You Are Icon"

"Reliquary for the Flight of a Phoenix"