Queen of Heaven, the Great Goddess and God of the Vine

My own view of Christianity is a synthesis of the classical civilisations of Europe with the life of Christ.  It has little in common with the 'Old Testament'.  It is Rome that gave us the great sacred depictions of the Holy Virgin, Queen or Heaven and her Divine Son.  Christ is Dionysus, and indeed, himself says as much when he declares that he is the 'living vine'.  Dionysus similarly WAS the Grapevine and the Grape, the Divine Sacrifice.

I love woodcarvings and for me, this particular depiction of Our Lady is a favourite as she embodies all that is most beautiful in the portrait of the Goddess, whether she be called Aphrodite, Venus or Mary.  She wears a crown of roses and the Divine Child in her arms is clutching a cluster of grapes.  How can this not be perceived as a thread that runs uncut from ancient pagan Rome to Christianity.

Some people denounce ancient traditions that were adopted by Christianity simply because they were followed by people who worshipped BEFORE Christ's birth.  To me, this makes the tradition more genuine, more sacred, as it is Universal in nature.

Thus, I perceive Our Lady as the same Divine Mother who was worshipped by the ancients before the time of the birth of Christ, and Christ as the same Divine Child who was worshipped long before Jesus was born in the cave or stable in Bethlehem.  I do believe that the name of that village, translated as 'House of Meat' originally denotes a place of very ancient sacrifice.

In any event, although I have many statues of the Holy Virgin and many carved from wood, most of them Italian, this is one of my very favourites for its ethereal quality and its ancient symbolism.  I would like to do a little research as to the position of the Child in her arms actually.  In most cases, he is held on the other hip, on her right side.  In this instance, he is held on her left hip... is there a reason for this or does it simply follow another depiction, perhaps a painting?

In medieval times especially, symbolism was extremely detailed and every gesture, every accessory had significance in art.  Being left-handed myself, I rather like the fact that the Christ Child is held on her left hip here, as I held my daughter Freya on the left side for the most part.

I believe all three of these woodcarvings were made by Anri, even though the labels were lost long ago.  There are reasons why I love all of them, and they all are very different one from the other.  On the far left is the Queen of Heaven.  I love the regal beauty of this small statue, her delicate features and utter perfection. 

On the far right is a portrait of Our Lady as a young mother, seated with her son.  I am not certain why I love this position but I do and one of my favourite Goebel statues of Our Lady depicts her seated, holding a book as whe shows it to the infant Christ. 

The statue in the centre, however, is my own ideal of motherhood and beauty I think, combining as it does all the gorgeous symbolism of the Goddess and Divine Mother, across all religions.  I love the fact that her hair is loose, flowing down her back freely, that her chaplet is of roses and that she carries a cluster of grapes, symbol of the Bacchantes.  I have collected a number of cameos that depict Bacchantes.  To me, the Goddess and Virgin Mary are one and the same.  Why would a real divine being be limited to one time and place, one incarnation???

Ancient Greek Gods and Modern Anri Statues

When we studied Greek mythology and ancient Greece as children, we became familiar with the gorgeous blindingly white marble statues of the ancient Gods and Goddesses.  It was only later that we discovered that the ancient Greeks did not see them like that.  They once were painted in bright colours!

I love wood and have a number of wooden statues of Our Lady, many of them carved in Anri studios at different points in the 20th century.  They are old and for the most part, only the natural wood ramains... but when new, they were painted as well!  It is odd to consider how our perceptions depend on the time when we encountered something for the first time.  Whether it is a city, an ancient Greek statue made of marble or a wooden statue made by Anri.  What is conjured in our minds when we think of these things is our own point of encounter, often quite different from the original.

In the case of the ancient Greek statues of marble and the Anri wooden carvings, I think I prefer the item ravaged by age.  Perhaps this is somewhat sad and I should hate to think that I myself am more the 'honest' version of my own self now that I have aged, with the brightness and hope chipped away by the decades than I was when I was newly minted by my Creeator... but in the case of these objects, representations mainly of gods and goddesses, I do prefer the medium stripped down to itself rather than obscured by paints.

Even in India and Nepal, for the most part, when I encountered the Hindu gods and goddesses in their temples or on their carts in procession, they being ancient no longer were painted either, but displayed the dimmed lustre of the brass from which they were fashioned.  Curious, isn't it?  I spent a great deal of my childhood in museums.  My own vision of history and other civilisations therefore probably was determined by the fact that I first encountered most objects and symbols in an altered setting, behind glass, preserved for the future, rather than finding them when they were new, before the value that history imposes on such items had accrued.

Moghran ya Layl by Ragheb Alama' and Time Travel

In the first half of the '90s, I was involved passionately with one of the great causes of my life and it was at that time, when my daughter was a toddler, that I encountered 'Moghram ya Layl' on the site of a fellow activist.  He was a very compelling individual and I suppose we became infatuated with one another based almost entirely on our intellectual internet postings, articles and work.

The song still sends shivers down my spine.  It is curious but I never liked romantic songs in English.  They are rather off-putting to me.  The songs I like tend to be rather caustic... songs like Lou Reed's 'Sweet Jane', 'Heroin' or at an extreme, Kimmel's song, 'STFU'.  In French, Italian or Arabic, however, I love romantic songs, listen to them without ever tiring of them.  Is it because the lyrics, filtered through interior translation, are not as obvious?  Is it because I do not dissect them intellectually the way I would do always with English lyrics?  Who knows?  The truth is therefore, that most of the romances in my lifetime have been accompanied by songs in another language or entirely intstrumental mainly Classical pieces, even when the object of my desire was an English-speaking individual.  He probably never knew which songs conjured his image.

So here I am, decades later, listening to 'Moghram Ya Layl', thinking about a man I never met but whom I knew very well over the course of the two years when we were in almost constant contact.   Although tempted, I never succumbed to his invitations to visit him, mainly because I felt he had a false image of me and I realised that he fundamentally would expect me, despite my persona as a social and political activist, to be a submissive partner in any personal relationship.  Indeed, he wanted me to officiate on a cooking show on cable television at one point... a role to which I was entirely ill-suited.

But never mind all that... in retrospect, I see that Romance with the capital R is mainly built on illusions and dreams.  Real relationships, however successful or satisfying, usually are not THAT romantic at the end of the day.  What sustains ordinary life is support of all sorts and not romantic illusions.  One still sometimes dreams of having it all, but I have come to the point where I would be satisfied if my physical mobility were restored.

So A...., this is for you... memories of opportunities not taken, a future never created, just as the Homeland never has come into being either...  I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had I gone to Al Khalil ... but I was more responsible than that, more practical than that, once I became a mother.  Before that, I probably would have gone as an adventure, even if not ultimately a Romance... and perhaps we would have worked well together on the ground as well as the very new world of the internet that was.

I look back on the early '90s when we were pioneers of the chat rooms and internet sites, finding that politically, cyberspace was as revolutionary to politics as the gun was, giving us equality and a voice to the whole world when otherwise no one listened.  A thousand protest marches and nothing changed but a few internet publications and our cause was HEARD at last, even if hostility often was the result... I always felt that if we could educate even one individual, we had not wasted our time and I still believe that.

What happened ultimately was that I realised my political activism could endanger my child potentially in the post-11 September atmosphere, and I stepped back gradually from my reckless, if entirely honest stance...  gradually I lost the fire that was at the very heart of my soul.   I do regret that a little, although, in fairness, I began to realise that the leadership was corrupt and that, while noble individuals were willing to sacrifice their lives and livelihoods for a JUST cause, the vultures would be the winners in the end, greedy entrepreneurs and ego-swollen politicians, rather than the  people for whom we tried to speak and act.  People who lived in refugee camps still while their so-called Leaders swanned about the world acting as though they were the heroes.  Nor was there any unity even within the cause.  From the earliest days of my activism when I discovered that, if one faction were invited to an event, two others would refuse to attend, this sorry state of affairs continued to bedevil us and that only benefited the enemy and made a mockery of our attempts to change the political map.  Division between political factions and between religious factions and different religions and traditions... when very real and significant problems such as lack of water, lack of a home, lack of any livelihood was destroying the real PEOPLE.

It is very easy to tear down a structure, but not as easy to rebuild, and that is the problem that afflicts many revolutionaries and activists.  They can criticise and protest, but they are not terribly good at creating a firm foundation of unity for the future.

So there it is.  My life in that decade was very circumscribed socially but politically, I was a firebrand and I lit fires thousands of miles away on occasion, whether or not they had any real effect ultimately.  It still made me feel I was doing something worthy.  I have not felt that way for a long time.

The lyrics of Moghram Ya Layl:

 مغرم يا ليل يا ليلي مغرم يا ليلي بسهر الليل
مغرم يا ليلي يا ليلي مغرم و قلبي مايل ميل
x2
ميل لقمري و غناله وقمري مش واخذ باله
x2
محلى القمر محلى جماله في كل ليله بشوفه
جميل جميل يا ليل
لو عالنجوم عديتهالك
لو عالبحور عديتهالك
x2
و اعنتني وعديتهالك
و لحد امتى حتبقى تقيل
x2
ميل لقمري و غناله وقمري مش واخذ باله
x2
محلى القمر محلى جماله في كل ليله بشوفه
جميل جميل يا ليل
سهرتني و سهري حلاله
و اعشقت حلك و حلاله
x2
طب ليه بعادي بيحلاله
مكفايا بعد كفايا رحيل
x2
ميل لقمري و غناله وقمري مش واخذ باله
x2
محلى القمر محلى جماله في كل ليله بشوفه
جميل جميل يا ليل

In English, the title translates to 'I'm in love with you, O Night!'

Moghram Ya Layl 

Moghram Ya Layl, live 


Moghram Ya Layl, early live rendition