Facebook is an extraordinary phenonmenon. Originally ocnceived as a 'social network' that would be, above else, the very 'coolest' of 'cool' institutions, it has become a veritable hydra with a thousand heads. Over the course of its fairly brief existence, it has developed, inter alia, as a gaming platform, social connection for family and friends, dating platform, advertising platform for corporations and cottage industries and a political platform for activists.
The powers that be attempted to require users to limit themselves to a single account as well as making full disclosure of their identities. For a gamer, this is the kiss of death. For the various governments worldwide that seek to obtain as much information as possible about their citizens and inhabitants, it was an incredible windfall. Instead of being forced to rely on wiretaps and traditional forms of surveillance, all any government agency needs to do is monitor Facebook. The account of a single user can net a multitude of like-minded individuals literally through their Facebook 'Likes'.
My daughter refers to Facebook as the 'Book of Faces' and, apart from being more lyrical, the title is very apt in a philosophical sense. Of all the groups that use the platform, gamers probably are the most innocent in their motivations for having multiple accounts. They do so not to trick any individual into unwise attachments or revelations but simply in order to play the games more effectively. When Facebook embraced gaming as a lucrative addition, it should have recognised the NEED to be lenient with respect to gamers and their use of more than one 'identity'. The fact that an individual who registers as a Facebook user still must promise not to have more than one account means that gamers have to be slightly dishonest. This is couterproductive to every one. Instead, Facebook should allow more than one account as long as the indivdual makes full disclosure of his/her actual identity, not to other users necessarily but to Facebook itself. This effectively would divorce the gaming world from the seamier world of potential predators who engage in false identities for the purpose of their own financial, sexual or other gain.
I came to Facebook initially to see photographs posted by a friend and then to interact with my daughter. I became involved with Facebook games as a form of relaxation and diversion from severe chronic pain and physical disability. Although I was a political activist much of my life, I initially decided not to engage in political posting on Facebook.
A number of considerations persuaded me to remain silent in the political arena. For a start, actual family and friends often have views that are diametrically opposed to mine. Add to that the political views of gaming 'neighbours' and 'friends' and I probably would alienate 95% of my Facebook 'friends' if I were to engage in political posting. This could have an extremely negative effect on my gaming activities as my 'neighbours' might 'unfriend' me for oo other reason than my political views.
The arrogance of Facebook users in terms of politics never ceases to amaze me. They post bald declarations of unqualified support for 'God' or 'Country' and attempt to dictate that all their 'Friends' 'Like' their declaration, adding their support to what usually amounts to blind obedience to the Will of the Government and whatever religious authorities they espouse. I have learned to 'hide' these declarations now, after enduring them initially, because I actually find them rather offensive. Even when a user's political position coincides with my own, I often find the actual posts slightly arrogant and offensive. Kind of an 'in your face' throwing down of the gauntlet...
I never was the sort of person to 'bite my tongue' at society events when some one made a political claim. I immediately would make my position clear, whatever the consequences. I would do so politely and I would not be willing to come to blows over any political differences, but I always believed that silence was a crime in such circumstances.
Enter the 'Book of Faces' and a sudden attack of moral cowardice on my part. I realised that I was silent mainly because I didn't wish to lose my gaming 'Friends' and 'Neighbours'! It is shaming to confess this but on the other hand, a part of me finds it rather interesting in a sociological sense. Could World Peace be achieved through 'social gaming' and the need to accept diverse political opinons in the interest of obtaining necessary 'building materials' for online games?
In the early days of the internet, I joined political chat groups and discovered that one invariably became involved in a verbal cul-de-sac, reiterating the same arguments to the same opponents over and over. My own desire always has been to educate. I remain an idealist to some extent, despite the evidence of general apathy among the masses where anything that does not affect them directly is concerned. I believed that facts and figures might sway the ignorant and turn them away from their blind acceptance of their governments' domestic and foreign policies. Above all, though, I believed that friendship and love always should be more important than politics and that however much I disliked or even was disgusted by a friend's political stance or actions, I would be loyal to that friend or loved one outside the political arena.
Alas, my idealistic approach to politics and friendship was unshared by my friends and loved ones. I have lost more than one REAL friend because of a difference in political attitudes. Even if I remained silent after making my position known, the individual often would DEMAND that I change my views to correspond with his or hers. He/she would threaten an end to friendship should I refuse to capitulate. This is emotional blackmail of the worst sort and naturally I would not betray every ounce of moral fibre that I possessed, however much I loved the individual or however important he/she might be to me. The person then would end the friendship.
I still cannot understand why any individual would repudiate the real for the imaginary. 'Imaginary' may be the wrong term of it, but in fact, I am referring to the actual effect and influence a person's political views have on the affairs of the world. In fact, it is an immoral test of friendship rather than anything to do with real politics. Political views tend to be held fiercely. To force a person to relinquish his/her political opinions in order to retain love or friendship may have fewer real effects than an attempt for force a person to move a thousand miles from home or to give up his/her pets for a relationship but it is nonetheless an act of subjugation of the will and cannot be justified.
To any one who would attempt to forced a loved one or friend to relinquish his/her pets for a relationship, I would say: 'How can you ever be certain of that individual's love if he/she was willing to sacrifice beloved animals to the altar of your ego? If that person can surrender helpless creatures who depend totally on him/her, it should be easy to relinquish a relationship with YOU when some one more attractive appears.'
In any event, this is irrelevant to the issue of Facebook and the images we project there. It is the 'Book of Faces' because we usually have the sense not to make full disclosure of all of our attitudes, emotions and actions. Those who are foolish enough to do so may find themselves social pariahs or at worst, in gaol!
Nonetheless, when Gaza was attacked once again by the Israeli military machine after being subjected to almost 2000 days of an inhumane siege, I felt that continuing silence would be a crime. I had to speak out or be guilty of complicity in the attacks.
How many of my Facebook 'Friends' and gaming 'Neighbours' are aware of the facts about Palestine. How many of them know that the original Charter of the PLO declared the aim of creating a 'single, democratic, secular State'? How can any fairminded, objective human being believe that the idea of a 'wholly Jewish State' imposed on Arab land with a 95% Arab population and only 5% Jewish population can be just or right? Yes, those are the facts. The idea of a 'Jewish State in Palestine' was forced upon the native population by a foreign power. The Jews have spent over a century now attempting to make the 'dream' a reality by dispossessing, imprisoning and killing the native Arab population yet the Palestinian people have the effrontery to continue to EXIST and to demonstrate that the old Zionist declaration of 'a land without a people for a people without a land' never represented the truth.
Furthermore, the idea that Palestinians are a Muslim people is erroneous. There are Muslim Palestinians certainly but there are Christians, Jews, Druze, agnostics and atheists among the Palestinian people which is why the idea of a 'single, democratic secular State' is the only one that makes any sense. Palestine is the birthplace of Christianity, as a matter of fact, and the Palestinian Christians are an ancient enduring presence in the land. Those Christian fundamentalists who support the Israeli State have no knowledge whatsoever of the facts but that should be no surprise. Politics usually relies more on propagnada and emotional manipulation than facts. Many of the truly religious Jews repudiate the very concept of a 'State of Israel', declaring that it should be a spiritual entity and not a physical one. Look at the manifesto of 'Naturei Karta' if you doubt me.
Regrettably, although I myself am part Pagan and part Roman Catholic but deeply spiritual for all my distrust of organised religions, my own family does include some Christian fundamentalists. In fact, one of my cousins is devoting herself to a study of the 'Book of Esther'.
The 'Book of Esther', if viewed objectively, would horrify any individual who believes in justice and peace. Although it includes allegations of plots against the Jews, it primarily is a tale of political manipulation by a beautiful woman and her ambitious uncle, betrayal of guest rights and ultimately the massacre of a native population whose only crime was to empower the Jews who lived in that land.
I have little respect for politicians or 'leaders' of ANY nation. I believe the old adage that 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. I cannot idealise or idolise ANY human being, except perhaps a few who have been in their graves for centuries and therefore cannot change the course of events unduly at this point in time. My admiration for T.E. Lawrence and Napoleon are examples of this and, despite my sometimes flowery expressions of admiration for these individuals, i am well aware of their feet of clay. I always have declared that I believe in a constitutional monarchy, mainly because I think that a figurehead who is born and educated to the role and who has very little real authority is a better symbol of any nation than a real politician.
I was brought up to believe in the Left, to believe in socialism and the rights of every human being to shelter, food and medicine. I still believe in these principles to some extent. I find greed, especially corporate greed, extremely distasteful. I never dreamed of being rich or of controlling the fates of the masses. I dreamed of having a home of my own and enough money to survive comfortably. Yes, I love little luxuries but I would not ride roughshod over other human beings to obtain them.
I believe a person's political beliefs should have NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH PERSONAL INTEREST. I support Palestinian rights and aspirations for no other reason that the cause is right and just. Freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people never could nor would benefit me personally. As a matter of fact, my political stance has been a liability again and again. Perhaps my small post about the current attacks on Gaza will result in 'unfriending' on the Book of Faces'. I sincerely hope not. I hope that my gaming friends and neighbours have enough decency and fairness at least to respect the right to differ even if they refuse to investigate the realities of the situation in Gaza.
Ultimately, I long for a peaceful life. I do not thrive on arguments the way I once did when I embraced the study of the Law with enthusiasm. There is a residual part of my soul that continues to believe that education is the answer, if only people cared enough to learn the facts. Political realities from the results of national elections in which all contenders are corrupt and self-seeking to wars based upon false propaganda such as 'weapons of mass destruction' and 'terrorism' constantly demonstrate the fallacy in my idealistic beliefs. I retreat to farming and fantasy games partly on the Book of Faces partly because Neighbours and Friends in that arena help one another... if the aid is limited to imaginary building materials and animals, it nonetheless shows a positive side to human nature. Furthermore, when Facebook friends who do not know me in the real world still wish me a Happy Birthday or comment sympathetically when disaster strikes, is that not reality of some kind? I would like to believe that the Book of Faces can point the way to world peace.... why not? I certainly prefer that vision to that of many people I know who spend their days in total negativity, cursing their teams when they lose a bet, cursing their (real) neighbours when a dog barks and cursing every one on the roads... My own body generates more than sufficient pain to drive me towards despair. Anything that can combat that is a blessing.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
A Song of Ice and Fire is Ruthless!
I wrote a post about George R.R. Martin's series a few months ago. At that point in time, I had watched the first two seasons of 'Game of Thrones' on HBO and had read only two of the books. The book series of which 'Game of Thrones' is but the first novel is entitled 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. I do believe that 'Game of Thrones' however is the title of the television series. 'Television series' sounds wrong in this context. It really is an ongoing epic film, divided into episodes.
As I read the third book, 'A Storm of Swords', I began to realise how utterly ruthless this particular novelist is. One by one, characters he has created are mangled, mutilated, abused, defeated and often, finally destroyed. I do not understand how he is able to create such wonderful characters, to walk in their skins for awhile, as it were, and then force them to bite the dust. It is difficult for me to read these books now, because I am almost holding my breath waiting for the next tragedy or loss. Life is not half as brutal to our family and friends as Martin is to his characters...
That having been written, I still think the books are marvelous and I hope that he will continue to write his way through the history of these kingdoms. His writing is vibrant and he has a gift for description as well as dialogue. His style is not as literary as Tolkien but he does remind me of Tolkien in many ways, especially in his layers of history and storytelling. All the tales that are half-told or simply earn a quick mention. One is conscious of the extraordinary detail in his creation. Every character has a history that is felt by the reader even if unwritten.
I wish, however, I could resuscitate at least half of the characters who have died since the start of the series. I wasn't DONE with them by any means.
As I read the third book, 'A Storm of Swords', I began to realise how utterly ruthless this particular novelist is. One by one, characters he has created are mangled, mutilated, abused, defeated and often, finally destroyed. I do not understand how he is able to create such wonderful characters, to walk in their skins for awhile, as it were, and then force them to bite the dust. It is difficult for me to read these books now, because I am almost holding my breath waiting for the next tragedy or loss. Life is not half as brutal to our family and friends as Martin is to his characters...
That having been written, I still think the books are marvelous and I hope that he will continue to write his way through the history of these kingdoms. His writing is vibrant and he has a gift for description as well as dialogue. His style is not as literary as Tolkien but he does remind me of Tolkien in many ways, especially in his layers of history and storytelling. All the tales that are half-told or simply earn a quick mention. One is conscious of the extraordinary detail in his creation. Every character has a history that is felt by the reader even if unwritten.
I wish, however, I could resuscitate at least half of the characters who have died since the start of the series. I wasn't DONE with them by any means.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Calligraphy in Indelible Ink
There is an old saying to the effect that knowledge never is wasted. Some people learn skills for practical purposes. I was fascinated by books and lettering as long as I can remember. From the age of two or three, I loved to look at the page of a book or periodical while some one else read it aloud. From the age of five, I had an ambition to become a writer and in fact, wrote a little 'book' of my own. My own reasons for learning any skill, however, seldom has been truly practical and certainly never was prompted by the desire to make money. (I am no longer proud of this character trait and now consider it a flaw rather than a virtue!)
I loved lettering almost as much as the words themselves and calligraphy fascinated me from my earliest days. I began to practice different alphabets, however, mainly because I was left-handed and found that conventional teaching of lettering at school did not really help me. I could not place the paper the way I was told, nor could I hold the pen at the same angle as other students. Stupidly, the teachers I had when very young did not make any allowances for the left-handed student... I therefore found books of my own and taught myself to write in a fine hand. Actually, I ultimately devised my own calligraphic alphabet and was quite chuffed when three friends and family members asked for a copy in order to learn and use it themselves! Even to this day, the handwriting of two of those individuals is closer to my original lettering than my own now as I developed a simpler style ultimately.
My mother suggested that I use the skill to create wedding invitations and menus but I found that difficult because I am a perfectionist and I would develop so much anxiety when faced with the creation of the 'final copy' that I almost invariably would make a silly error. I used my knowledge of calligraphy therefore to write letters and greeting cards to friends and family. I never, never dreamed that I would design a calligraphic tattoo.
My daughter is an amazing girl. I never desired to create a little duplicate of myself but although she is very different from me, I do see some of my own headstrong, stubborn and individualist nature in her. There are some skills that she learned for my sake originally. Taekwondo is one of them, although she has surpassed me, having attained the rank of 2nd Degree Dan or black belt. Although I doubted for a time that she would embrace a love of reading with the fervour that I had, she has become a serious reader and is a wonderful writer. She has a sharp wit and is very vocal, although far more ready to make sexual innuendos than I ever was. She is from a different background and a different generation from mine, of course, but apart from that, she is very much 'her own person'.
From the age of 13, she was determined to have tattoos. I forbade it and kept her from doing it until she reached the tattoo 'age of consent' which is 18. As a mother, I have been bedevilled by the complexity of my ethical duties, feeling that I constantly am sailing between the shipwrecking threats of Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, I feel obligated to exercise the 'voice of caution' when she has desires that could be life-changing. On the other hand, I do admire courage and individuality and I am not about to become a hypocrite who attempts to crush my daughter's spirit and unique character.
Where tattoos or skin art is concerned, I admit a certain social prejudice that is a product of my own upbringing. 'Nice girls' in Western civilisation did NOT have tattoos until quite recently. My mother went further in declaring that nice girls did not have pierced ears. At the age of 16 at University far from home, I immediately went off to a local practitioner to have my ears pierced. The fact that he did a terribly job is neither here nor there. Later, a boyfriend of mine gave my ears a second piercing using no more than a needle and a potato and the result was far more professional. I regret the initial bad piercing simply because it never became any better and I have had to deal with it for years but now, almost every girl has pierced ears and I doubt they even make those old torture implements known as 'clip earrings' that gave the wearers terrible headaches. I tried a pair of my mother's clip earrings once and had a frightful headache within minutes...
Having been sent to Nepal as a child to experience a culture that revelled in jewellery, where earrings were as important to a girl as bangles, the love of ornamentation has been very much a part of my adolescent and adult life. I could no more live without bangles or earrings than I could live without clothes. Despite my mother's opinion that I 'looked like a gypsy', I continued to bedeck myself with gold and jewels and still do. One of my favourite arias is Marguerite's aria in Faust wherein she discovers a casket containing a treasure trove of jewellery and is transported with utter delight as she bedecks herself with them, declaring that she feels like a princess:
Marguerite's 'Jewel' Aria from Faust
The incomparable Victoria de los Angeles sings the aria here. Both the music and the voice of the singer display all of the exuberance of youth and the innocence of Marguerite without any foreshadowing of her ultimate doom.
'Ah! Je ris de me vois si belle en ce miroir.... Est-ce toi, Marquerite?... Non, c'est la fille d'un roi qu'on salut au passage!'
'Oh I laugh to see myself so beautiful in this mirror.... Is it you, Marguerite? ... Is it still you? No, it is the daughter of a king that one salutes in the passage!'
The sad part of all this is that it is on the advice of the crafty Devil, Mephistopheles, that Faust places the casket of jewellery where Marguerite will find it, in his plan to seduce her. The innocent girl reacts as expected:
'Ah, s'il etait ici! S'il me voyait ainsi! Comme une demoiselle il me trouverait belle.'
'Ah, if he were here! If he were to see me thus! As an aristocratic lady, he would find me beautiful...'
The poor simple girl has no self-confidence and it is only with the valuable and glittering jewels that she feels she could attract his notice, little realising that it is her utter vulnerability and naivete that draws her to him.
This is all beside the point, however, which is that the song joyfully expresses a young girl's rapture as she tries on each new item of jewellery and captures my own emotions as a young girl whenever I wore a pretty ring or set of bangles, even if the bangles were glass and not gold.
Oh, the meandering that is possible when one writes a post on a weblog... How far have I wandered here from calligraphy and the connection may not become clear until now: Yesterday, I designed a calligraphic tattoo for my daughter, after attempting frutlessly once again to persuade her to wait before she committed another indelible design to her own body.
Freya is terrified of needles for some reason, probably because as a five-year old child, she was taken to the local doctor by her uncle for a routine visit on a day when I was working. I had no idea that she would be given 5 jabs or injections and evidently it was a very traumatic experience. It was the first time she had gone to a doctor without me and in every other case when she had been given an innoculation, I held her on my lap and diverted her. (I had a traumatic experience of my own when, at the age of 10, I had to have 8 different innoculations in the space of 10 days before I went to Nepal and one of them hit a nerve... so I do understand, although I lost my fear of needles long ago.)
It is characteristic of Freya that she would challenge her own phobia by determining that she would have a tattoo on the inside of her wrist, the place that she felt was most vulnerable and where she feared a needle most. The tattoo? 'Conquer Your Fears'.
The best argument I could summon was the fact that it would be in a location that might clash with formal attire at some point. Not much of an argument really. The inside of the wrist is a very discreet location and one could wear a diamond bracelet on that wrist to a gala event and no one would see the tattoo unless she wanted to expose it.
Furthermore, she made a rather impressive statement when she declared: 'I don't know why people undervalue tattoos. They can be fully as valuable and beautiful as jewellery.'
Quite so. Even if I say so myself, having designed it, her new tattoo is very elegant.
I actually designed her first tattoo as well. It is a bind-rune of her name Freya and it is on her foot. Visible but discreet as well as one need only wear stockings to conceal it. She obtained her first tattoo to celebrate her 'coming of age' last August and I accompanied her and obtained a tattoo of my own. I wrote about that in another post. It was an extraordinary experience of bonding with my own child. I never would have imagined when I was her age that I would agree to a tattoo of any kind, although I always understood the potential shamanic significance of the act.
Mine is not a bind-rune, although that would be fitting as I worked with runes most of my adult life. Mine is the sigil of the Emperor Napoleon, a childhood idol of mine. Freya wants me to have another tattoo now and if I committed myself to that, I would have my own bind-rune incised upon my skin this time. In fact, it is rather curious that I chose Napoleon's sigil first rather than my own bind-rune design, especially as Freya took a bind-rune for her first 'ink'.
I am as much of an individualist as my daughter but I became rather schizophrenic in my attitudes when I assumed the mantle of motherhood. I try to be so responsible and far more conservative than I would be if my own destiny alone were considered. The fact that Freya was able to persuade me to obtain a tattoo last year to celebrate HER eighteenth birthday shows how strong the 'conservative maternal' side of my persona is in truth.
In any case, it gives me a curious pride to know that my daughter chose to have two of MY designs engraved on her skin and I am rather touched that she did, although she almost ruined it by saying, 'Well, I'd rather have calligraphy done by you than some crap writing done by somebody else!'
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Archaeology of my Life in Bed
Some one who was obsessed with me once declared rather disapprovingly that I had 'an alternative lifestyle'. He was a transplanted Brit who was living in the States but working for an enormous German firm at the time. He was soon to be 'laid off' by the same firm... At this point, he began to lead a very peculiar lifestyle himself and one that intersected with mine only at certain well-defined points. I am sorry to say, however, that I allowed his opinion to colour mine to the extent that I moved from the Lower East Side in New York to the Upper East Side.
Much water has flowed beneath that bridge. I haven't lived in Manhattan for a long time, but I have to admit that I never enjoyed the Upper East Side half as much as the East Village. The East Village was a real neighbourhood and a very international one. I could pop down the road for Tibetan noodles at a restaurant run by anti-communist Tibetan rebals or enjoy a marvelous Italian pastry at a rather well-known bakery on another corner.
It was not my life in Manhattan that was to be the topic of this post, however, but my more recent life outside New York. The changing of my bed linen is a HUGE task, as my bed occupies most of my tiny bedroom and is the place where I live for the most part. As a young girl, I read that Louis XIV during the Fronde was forced to sleep in a bed where the linens never were changed until they literally rotted. That always fascinated me for some reason, probably because his name is synonymous with sybaritic, excessive luxury.
In the process of moving all of the pillows, featherbeds, mattresses and technological appliances from my bed, a task that incidentally has taken two days, I discovered many lost treasures and rather odd items...
'The Princess and the Pea' is a tale that I loved as a child and recently I found an illustration of it. The tale is about the extraordinary sensitivity that distinguishes a true 'princess' from an imposer, but in fact, my tale is about a bed with five featherbeds and two mattresses.
As a child, my bed had an old headboard that contained two bookshelves. I therefore slept with my favourite novels and books of poetry above my head. I once designed a canopied bed with curtains, bookshelves at the head and shelves beneath the mattress. I always loved the idea of embracing a variety of experiences in bed but I never expected to be restricted to a life in bed for the most part. Unfortunately, that is my reality at present. I suppose it is fortunate that I basically LIKE to read and work in bed, even though many of the activities I love, such as walking, hiking, martial arts training, fencing and dancing are denied to me now.
Inter alia, I found a knife that commemorates the battle of Austerlitz entangled in a duvet along with a small Italian Amaretti di Saronno biscuit tin containing my collection of Lake District jet fossils. I found my .360 Colt pistol but alas, did NOT find any bullets, nor have I uncovered the magazine. I did find my jewelery repair tools and my shepherd's cloak from Tunisia.
Much water has flowed beneath that bridge. I haven't lived in Manhattan for a long time, but I have to admit that I never enjoyed the Upper East Side half as much as the East Village. The East Village was a real neighbourhood and a very international one. I could pop down the road for Tibetan noodles at a restaurant run by anti-communist Tibetan rebals or enjoy a marvelous Italian pastry at a rather well-known bakery on another corner.
It was not my life in Manhattan that was to be the topic of this post, however, but my more recent life outside New York. The changing of my bed linen is a HUGE task, as my bed occupies most of my tiny bedroom and is the place where I live for the most part. As a young girl, I read that Louis XIV during the Fronde was forced to sleep in a bed where the linens never were changed until they literally rotted. That always fascinated me for some reason, probably because his name is synonymous with sybaritic, excessive luxury.
In the process of moving all of the pillows, featherbeds, mattresses and technological appliances from my bed, a task that incidentally has taken two days, I discovered many lost treasures and rather odd items...
'The Princess and the Pea' is a tale that I loved as a child and recently I found an illustration of it. The tale is about the extraordinary sensitivity that distinguishes a true 'princess' from an imposer, but in fact, my tale is about a bed with five featherbeds and two mattresses.
Inter alia, I found a knife that commemorates the battle of Austerlitz entangled in a duvet along with a small Italian Amaretti di Saronno biscuit tin containing my collection of Lake District jet fossils. I found my .360 Colt pistol but alas, did NOT find any bullets, nor have I uncovered the magazine. I did find my jewelery repair tools and my shepherd's cloak from Tunisia.
The Personal Sacrifice in Contemporary Western Culture
When I was a child, piercings and tattoos were taboos in our culture for any child with parents who had either pretensions to gentility or a place in 'Society', whether real or imagined. My mother forbade me to pierce my ears. Not surprisingly perhaps, when I went off to University, one of my first Acts of Independence was to have my ears pierced. Within a decade or so, almost all women had pierced ears and some men had them as well irrespective of social class or status.
As a matter of fact, my mother's attitude about ear piercing never made much sense to me as even as a child I had read descriptions of Charles I's preparations for his death. His ears were pierced and he went to the headman's block wearing a stunning pearl earring.
This earring, shown above, now resides in a gallery in Nottinghamshire. If a King annointed by God Himself could pierce his ears, how on earth could it be 'lowborn' to do so?
Tattoos likewise were perceived in Western 'Anglo-Saxon Society' in the 20th Century as appropriate only for the lowest classes. The stereotype was that of a drunken sailor who awakened the next morning with tattoos obtained entirely without premeditation or much thought. That too has changed.
Tattoos, known as 'skin art' or 'Ink' is now common among men and women of all classes in Western culture. Usually undertaken after much thought and planning, it has become a 'tribal' rite, a permanent form of art that symbolises something personal to the individual who wears it.
Who am I to recoil in horror from this? I always was an individualist myself, always some one who felt that no one else should dictate my choices. When one has a child, the dangers of hypocrisy loom immense on the horizon but how can one deny a child the same freedom of expression one claimed for oneself? Furthermore, I have marveled at some of the 'skin art' I have seen in the past decade.
In fact, I entered a tattoo parlour some years ago when tattoos were becoming fashionable with a rather vague thought of obtaining a monochromatic necklet in a Celtic style. As some one who admired the Odhinic tradition of self-Sacrifice in the quest for wisdom, such an ordeal would be apt. (Less radical than plucking out an eye for a start!) I was told by the proprietor that a necklet of the type I envisioned would be terribly painful and rather expensive. At the time, I really could not have afforded it even if I had decided that it represented a necessary rite of passage. Whether or not I would have had the courage to undergo that particular procedure remains a question unanswered.
I always aspired to be a true 'Warrior Woman' and pursued fencing and martial arts as well as collecting edged weapons. My daughter followed the same tradition and now is a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo at the age of 18. She asked me to design her first tattoo. As her name is Freya, the bind-rune I created for her contains all the power inherent in the name of the ancient Northern Goddess. She was determiined upon a tattoo. In all honesty, my choices were limited. I could prohibit the ritual and be ignored or I could participate in it. I chose to be part of it after repeating all of the old, worn arguments against permanent skin art.
Argument: 'You are only 18. Your tastes will change.'
Answer: 'I am in my prime now. I lke the person I have become. It is truly ME. Why shouldn't I create a permanent record of this stage in my life?'
For the comparative mythologist, such a response is unanswerable. It IS a valid rite of passage and one that bears a profound significance. It is far less radical than some of the rites of passage I once contemplated. Furthermore, I must recognise that her motivations are solely positive. There is nothing self-destructive in her desire to create a record of her soul upon her own flesh. Finally, it is her flesh ultimately and not mine.
As a matter of fact, my mother's attitude about ear piercing never made much sense to me as even as a child I had read descriptions of Charles I's preparations for his death. His ears were pierced and he went to the headman's block wearing a stunning pearl earring.
This earring, shown above, now resides in a gallery in Nottinghamshire. If a King annointed by God Himself could pierce his ears, how on earth could it be 'lowborn' to do so?
Tattoos likewise were perceived in Western 'Anglo-Saxon Society' in the 20th Century as appropriate only for the lowest classes. The stereotype was that of a drunken sailor who awakened the next morning with tattoos obtained entirely without premeditation or much thought. That too has changed.
Tattoos, known as 'skin art' or 'Ink' is now common among men and women of all classes in Western culture. Usually undertaken after much thought and planning, it has become a 'tribal' rite, a permanent form of art that symbolises something personal to the individual who wears it.
Who am I to recoil in horror from this? I always was an individualist myself, always some one who felt that no one else should dictate my choices. When one has a child, the dangers of hypocrisy loom immense on the horizon but how can one deny a child the same freedom of expression one claimed for oneself? Furthermore, I have marveled at some of the 'skin art' I have seen in the past decade.
In fact, I entered a tattoo parlour some years ago when tattoos were becoming fashionable with a rather vague thought of obtaining a monochromatic necklet in a Celtic style. As some one who admired the Odhinic tradition of self-Sacrifice in the quest for wisdom, such an ordeal would be apt. (Less radical than plucking out an eye for a start!) I was told by the proprietor that a necklet of the type I envisioned would be terribly painful and rather expensive. At the time, I really could not have afforded it even if I had decided that it represented a necessary rite of passage. Whether or not I would have had the courage to undergo that particular procedure remains a question unanswered.
I always aspired to be a true 'Warrior Woman' and pursued fencing and martial arts as well as collecting edged weapons. My daughter followed the same tradition and now is a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo at the age of 18. She asked me to design her first tattoo. As her name is Freya, the bind-rune I created for her contains all the power inherent in the name of the ancient Northern Goddess. She was determiined upon a tattoo. In all honesty, my choices were limited. I could prohibit the ritual and be ignored or I could participate in it. I chose to be part of it after repeating all of the old, worn arguments against permanent skin art.
Argument: 'You are only 18. Your tastes will change.'
Answer: 'I am in my prime now. I lke the person I have become. It is truly ME. Why shouldn't I create a permanent record of this stage in my life?'
For the comparative mythologist, such a response is unanswerable. It IS a valid rite of passage and one that bears a profound significance. It is far less radical than some of the rites of passage I once contemplated. Furthermore, I must recognise that her motivations are solely positive. There is nothing self-destructive in her desire to create a record of her soul upon her own flesh. Finally, it is her flesh ultimately and not mine.
More about 'Game of Thrones'
When I was a young girl, admittedly quite arrogant and elitist, the fact that a book, film or series was popular among my contemporaries would have caused me to swear off it completely. I hope I have learned to be part of the human race now and to judge artists on their own merits rather than their general popularity or lack thereof.
Unfortunately, when George R. R. Martin first was recommended to me by my stepfather shortly after the publication of his first 'Game of Thrones' novel, I eschewed it mainly because I was not in the mood for new fantasy novels. Furthermore, the fact that he had been compared to Tolkien made me cross. For me, Tolkien had been the very backbone of my childhood dreams and visions and NO ONE could compare with the Master.
I have come to admire 'Game of Thrones' late and, contrary to my usual way of being introduced to an artist, through the series rather than the novels. As a voracious reader, I usually have read a book before it ever was translated into any visual medium. With 'Game of Thrones', however, I was seduced by the HBO series and only then began to read the novels. As marvelous as the series is, the novels are even better. Not surprising really... A writer can be far more detailed in a novel than any film that attempts to capture his/her work.
My daughter Freya unfortunately is almost as elitist as I was at her age and refuses to watch the series or read the books because 'every one at University' talks about them endlessly. Her loss, but I expect she will come to both in the end as they are too wonderful to be ignored forever.
There are so many reasons to love the weaving of the tale, both in cinematic and written form. For a start, Martin is fully as precise and detailed as Tolkien was in his creation of Middle Earth. Although everything in 'Game of Thrones' is related to something in our own universe, whether taken from reality, history or myth, he has created something entirely new from the threads. Flora and fauna, landscapes and history all possess an extraordinary attention to detail. His characters are profound and each has a distinct personality, character and history. The kingdoms are various and each has its individual landscape, cuisine, history and culture.
With all of this, there is an aspect to the series that makes it truly great. The characters include a number of individuals who are unusual, even eccentric and who are ill-equipped either by Nature, their circumstances or their upbringing to fit into conventional society. And yet they overcome their difficulties or their disabilities to carve a place for themselves in the world. For me, this is one of the qualities of 'Game of Thrones' that proves it to be a classic in literature.
Whether it is the dwarf who is born to a noble family and father ashamed to acknowledge him, the young girl who would rather learn to wield a blade than a needle, the Amazonian woman who demands recognition on the battlefield, the self-confessed obese young 'coward' who is forced to serve on the Wall or the young noble bastard who in childhood never had equality with his siblings nor affection from his stepmother, each of these characters somehow becomes an inspiration to any one who has been forced to find his/her unique path in life.
Even the wicked or the characters who generally are unsympathetic have moments of humanity... the Kingslayer and his sister Cersei who are bound by incestuous love are villains for the most part, but his courage and her love for her children must be admired even while the reader may wish defeat upon them both.
I do believe that, like 'Lord of the Rings', these are books and films that I will watch again and again for the pleasure of being immersed in the rich landscapes and tales from the imagination of George R.R. Martin.
Unfortunately, when George R. R. Martin first was recommended to me by my stepfather shortly after the publication of his first 'Game of Thrones' novel, I eschewed it mainly because I was not in the mood for new fantasy novels. Furthermore, the fact that he had been compared to Tolkien made me cross. For me, Tolkien had been the very backbone of my childhood dreams and visions and NO ONE could compare with the Master.
I have come to admire 'Game of Thrones' late and, contrary to my usual way of being introduced to an artist, through the series rather than the novels. As a voracious reader, I usually have read a book before it ever was translated into any visual medium. With 'Game of Thrones', however, I was seduced by the HBO series and only then began to read the novels. As marvelous as the series is, the novels are even better. Not surprising really... A writer can be far more detailed in a novel than any film that attempts to capture his/her work.
My daughter Freya unfortunately is almost as elitist as I was at her age and refuses to watch the series or read the books because 'every one at University' talks about them endlessly. Her loss, but I expect she will come to both in the end as they are too wonderful to be ignored forever.
There are so many reasons to love the weaving of the tale, both in cinematic and written form. For a start, Martin is fully as precise and detailed as Tolkien was in his creation of Middle Earth. Although everything in 'Game of Thrones' is related to something in our own universe, whether taken from reality, history or myth, he has created something entirely new from the threads. Flora and fauna, landscapes and history all possess an extraordinary attention to detail. His characters are profound and each has a distinct personality, character and history. The kingdoms are various and each has its individual landscape, cuisine, history and culture.
With all of this, there is an aspect to the series that makes it truly great. The characters include a number of individuals who are unusual, even eccentric and who are ill-equipped either by Nature, their circumstances or their upbringing to fit into conventional society. And yet they overcome their difficulties or their disabilities to carve a place for themselves in the world. For me, this is one of the qualities of 'Game of Thrones' that proves it to be a classic in literature.
Whether it is the dwarf who is born to a noble family and father ashamed to acknowledge him, the young girl who would rather learn to wield a blade than a needle, the Amazonian woman who demands recognition on the battlefield, the self-confessed obese young 'coward' who is forced to serve on the Wall or the young noble bastard who in childhood never had equality with his siblings nor affection from his stepmother, each of these characters somehow becomes an inspiration to any one who has been forced to find his/her unique path in life.
Even the wicked or the characters who generally are unsympathetic have moments of humanity... the Kingslayer and his sister Cersei who are bound by incestuous love are villains for the most part, but his courage and her love for her children must be admired even while the reader may wish defeat upon them both.
I do believe that, like 'Lord of the Rings', these are books and films that I will watch again and again for the pleasure of being immersed in the rich landscapes and tales from the imagination of George R.R. Martin.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Sexual Taboos in Creation Myths
Sexual taboos and unusual acts of procreation are found both in myths about the creation of the cosmos or world and the creation of our human species. In terms of the birth of a Godling, avatar or intercessor whose primary purpose is to act as a living ladder connecting heaven to earth, there are more cases of human beings who mated with gods, rocks, trees or engaged in an incestuous relationship than there are deities born of ordinary sexual intercourse between a man and a woman or ordinary sexual intercourse between a male god and a female god. Thus we find the myth of Myrrha, mother of Adonis as described in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Im Ovid's version of the myth, incest between a drunken father and an infatuated daughter is the vehicle for the conception of Adonis, one of the most popular gods in the ancient lands that one day would become the Arab Nation. Adonis simply translates to 'Lord', much like the name 'Ba'al' and he occupies much the same position as the Beloved whose life is forfeit in the cause of fertility.
Acts that are taboo in any culture usually are acts that possess great power in spiritual terms. Robert Graves and Sir James Frazer both recognised this fact. Food that is prohibited originally was considered sacred rather than 'dirty'. The pig was a symbol of the Great Goddess and its flesh was consumed as a sacred Communion Rite. In the realm of the gods, sexual intercourse between parent and child or sister and brother often produce the most powerful offspring. In ancient civilisations, rulers often married a sibling to keep the line pure and the sacred power undiluted.
Myths that originally promoted these practices later were infected with prevailing social attitudes against incest. Thus, the introduction of the concept of intoxication that prevents at least one of the participants from full knowledge of the nature of his/her action and the idea that a curse must be linked to an act of this sort.
In the older versions of the myth, the participants may be forces of Nature rather than gods in human form. For example, in one tale, the 'Lord' who is Attis ultimately is born of a relationship between the seed of a castrated hermaphrodite and the daughter of a river. The genealogy is as follows: Cybele or Kybele, the Great Mother Goddess, was 'born from stone', issuing from a Rock or Sacred Mountain. In some myths, the god of the sky mates with the Rock or Mountain to produce the Goddess but she predates any tales of her own conception and indeed often was worshipped in the form of Meteorite, a Stone fallen from the Sky.
Myths mutate as they are stolen, borrowed or assimilated in the cultures of invaders and the myth of Cybele is no exception. In Greek myth, Cybele was downgraded into a woman who was desired by the God Zeus but who spurned his advances. He therefore very characteristically planted his seed while she slept. In another version, while Zeus slept, he simply spilled his seed upon the earth which is, of course, the Great Goddess in her primal form. She gave birth to an hermaphrodite named Agdistis. In fact, Agdistis and Cybele probably were one and the same originally but in this version of the tale of Agdistis, the gods were so threatened by the potency of one who was both male and female that they castrated him/her. From the severed manhood of Agdistis or from the blood grew an Almond Tree. The fruit of this tree was consumed by the daughter of a river god named Nana and she gave birth to Attis.
Nana was a Virgin naturally and the birth of a child was simply 'not on' in ordinary social terms. She therefore exposed the child in time-honoured ancient fashion. Like so many heroes and godlings exposed on mountaintops or locked in coffins and set adrift upon the waters, the infant Attis was rescued and raised either by a he-goat or by shepherds. In the course of time, he became an exceptionally handsome youth, attracting the desire of his own mother or grandmother Cybele.
He, however, had fallen in love with a mortal priincess. The Great Mother could not stomach this and cursed him with divine madness. Attis then castrated himself beneath an evergreen. Violets were created by his blood. His spirit entered the evergreen or Pine.
Here you see a naked woman embracing a tree that has been cut almost to the root. Apples are strewn on the surrounding ground. It is a work by Steven Kenny. When I saw it, I thought of all the Tree Myths and in particular, the myths that involve castration and rebirth. I cannot pretend to know the mind of the artist, but to me, this painting speaks eloquently of Attis whose priest castrated themselves and who often threw their discarded genitals into the 'lap of the Goddess'. Each year, an Evergreen was cut almost to the root, an image of Attis was nailed to the trunk and it was carried through the streets while devoted worshippers wept loudly to the accompaniment of flute, drum, sistrums and cymbals. This frenzied mourning often culminated in the act of self-castration. The Tree then was taken to a cave or crypt where it was wrapped in a burial shroud and where it remained for three days. In the dead of night, his devotees then would proceed to the cave and the cry would be heard: 'He has risen!'
This painting evokes the Christian Pieta, where the Mother of God cradles the body of her crucified Son and Lord in her arms tenderly.
The photograph above shows a lovely statue of the Pieta against the background of the Cross. This statue once graced St. Mary's Cathedral in Middlesbrough. The Cathedral alas was destroyed by arsonists in May of 2000.
The Cross is the Tree, ladder to Heaven and instrument by which rebirth as well as martyrdom is effected. As a phalllic symbol and Tree that points to heaven while living, the Cross itself is the solar wheel and the axis mundi.
In some versions of the myth of Attis, he pledged eternal chastity to the Mother Goddess. When he broke that vow, his manhood was forfeit.
The fruit of an Almond is a Nut and it is no accident that a slang term for male testes is 'Nuts'. Nuts are an ancient symbol of fertility and Yuletide traditions of stuffing the stocking with Nuts and Fruits mirror ancient rites.
Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother of God inherits the mantle of Kybele. The insistence of Christianity upon this and upon Christ's chastity corresponds to the most ancient traditions of the Great Mother and her Son as undiluted pure examples of Male and Female. Virgin in this context is pure Woman rather than a woman who never had intercourse and never gave birth. Virginity in ancient mystery religions was a magical trait that could be restored or renewed and was not something that would be lost irrevocably with the loss of the maidenhead.
Mystery religions or cults are secret religions and it is more than possible that the myriad conflicting accounts of Attis and Cybele resulted from incomplete knowledge or deliberate misdirection.
Some of the conflicting ancient sources of the myths include:
From Ovid's Metamorphoses 10: 'Pines, high-girdled, in a leafy crest, the favourite of the Gods' Great Mother, since in this tree Attis Cybeleius doffed his human shape and stiffened in its trunk.'
From Ovid's Fasti 4:
'What causes the impulse [of the devotees of Kybele, Cybele] to self-castrate?’ I was silent. The Pierid began: ‘A woodland Phrygian boy, the gorgeous Attis, conquered the towered goddess with pure love. She wanted to keep him as her shrine's guardian, and said, 'Desire to be a boy always.'
He promised what was asked and declared, 'If I lie, let the Venus I cheat with be my last.' He cheats, and in the Nympha Sagaritis stops being what he was: the goddess' wrath punished him. She slashes the tree and cuts the Naiad down. The Naiad dies: her fate was the tree's. He goes mad, and imagines that the bedroom roof is falling and bolts to Dindymus' heights.
He cries, 'Away torches!', 'Away whips!' , and often swears the Palestine goddesses have him. He even hacked his body with a jagged stone, and dragged his long hair in squalid dirt, shouting, 'I deserved it; my blood is the penalty. Ah, death to the parts which have ruined me!'
'Ah, death to them!' he said, and cropped his groin's weight. Suddenly no signs of manhood remained. His madness became a model: soft-skinned acolytes toss their hair and cut their worthless organs.
From Statius, Silva 1:
The hollow caves of Phrygian Synnas Attis bedewed with the bright drops of his own blood'
N.B. Red stone was quarried from these caves.
From Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20:
'A dream came to Bakkhos (Bacchus)--Eris (Discord) the nurse of war, in the shape of Rheia the loverattle goddess, seated in what seemed to be her lionchariot. Phobos drove the team of this dream chariot, in the counterfeit shape of Attis with limbs like his; he formed the image of Kybele's charioteer, a softskinned man in looks with shrill tones like the voice of a woman...
Dionysos spent five years laying siege to a city in India.
While Bakkhos was thus despondent, came a messenger in hast through the Skythian mountains from divine Rheia, sterile Attis in his trailing robe, whipping up the travelling team of lions. He once had stained with a knife the creative stalk of marriage-consecrating youth, and threw away the burden of the plowshare without love or wedlock, the man's harvest-offering; so he showered upon his two thighs the bloody generative drops, and made womanish his warm body with the shearing steel.
This was the messenger who came driving the car of goddess Kybele, to comfort discouraged Lyaios. Seeing him Dionysos sprang up, thinking perchance he might have brought the all-conquering Rheia to the Indian War. Attis checked the wild team, and hung the reins on the handrail, and disclosing the smooth surface of his rosy cheeks, called out a flood of loud words to Bakkhos--
‘Dionysos of the vine, son of Zeus, offspring of Rheia! Answer me: when will you destroy the woolly-headed nation of Indians and come back to the Lydian land? Not yet has Rheia seen your black-skin captives; not yet has she wiped off the sweat from your Mygdonian lions after the war, beside the highland manger, where the rich river of Paktolos runs; but without a sound you roll out the conflict through circuits of everlasting years! Not yet have you brought a herd of eastern lions from India as a token of victory for the breeder of beasts, the mother of the gods! Very well, accept from Hephaistos and your immortal Rheia this armour which the Lemnian anvil made; you will see upon it earth and sea, the sky and the company of stars!’
Before he had finished, Bakkhos called out angrily--‘Hard are the gods and jealous . . . Hera keeps me back from victory . . .’
Lydian Attis answered these words of Dionysos: ‘If you carry this starry shield of the sky inviolate, my friend, you need not tremble before the wrath of Ares, or the jealousy of Hera, or all the company of the Blessed, while All-mother Rheia is with you; you need fear no army with bended bows, lest they cast their spears and strike Helios or wound Selene! Who could blunt the sword of Orion with a knife, or shoot the Waggoner with earthly arrows? Perhaps you will name the nor strong father of Deriades: but what could Hydaspes do to you, when you can bring in Okeanos?
‘Be of good courage: to the battle again! For my Rheia has prophesied victory for you at last. The war shall not end until the four Seasons complete he sixth year. So much the eye of Zeus and the threads of the unturning Mora have granted to the will of Hera; in the seventh lichtgang which follows, you shall destroy the Indian city.’
With these words he handed the shield to Bromios; then he tasted the feast, and cheered his heart with umixed cups of nomorepain wine. When he had satisfied his appetite at table, once more he touched up the flanks of his lions with the whip, and guided the hill-ranging car on the road back to Phrygia. He drove along the heights above the Kaukasian valleys, the Assyrian peaks and the dangerous Baktrian mountains, the summits of Libanos and the crests of Tauros, until he passed into the Maionian land. There he entered the divine precinct selfbuilt of Rheia, mother of mighty sons. He freed his ravening lions from the yoke straps, and haltered them at the manger which he filled with ambrosial fodder.'
I have copied this tale as it is interesting in describing a meeting between the messenger of the Great Goddess Kyble, Attis and their devotee, Dionysos.
Elsewhere, Attis is described in similar terms as follows: 'Attis: is the recipient of special honor amongst Phrygians, for being minister of the Mother of the God'.
One can peer further into the mists of time to find parallels between Attis and the Sumerian shepherd king Dumuzi. Attis indeed often is depicted as a shepherd himself. Dumuzi the Shepherd is chosen by the Great Goddess Inanna as consort but he is found to be unworthy when she returns to the Earth (Aboveground) after her visit to the Underworld. His life thereby is forfeit as the laws of the Underworld demand a life as the price for her freedom and she proclaims him to be the Sacrifice.. Dumuzi is not willing, however and flees from the priests of Ereshkigal, Lady of the Underworld. His flight mirrors that of the ancient god Ba'al when HE seeks to avoid payment of his debt to Mot, Lord of the Underworld. Dumuzi as Ba'al before him ultimately is discovered and the Sacrifice is completed.
The Goddess who pronounces the doom upon her consort King/Beloved mourns him. In some fashion, she has offered that which she loves most as her sacrifice to allow the Earth to be fertile again. It is the Sacrifice of Attis/Adonis/Dumuzi that frees the Earth from the grip of Death. As the Great Goddess is Nature Herself, she cannot serve as Sacrifice. It is the blood of her Consort/Son that quickens her and ultimately effects his rebirth.
Who then are the Galli, the unmanned priests of the Great Kybele, who emulate the Sacrifice of the Beloved, the self-castration of Attis? What power does castration endow upon them? The Galli in fact must have believed themselves to be Agdistis, both male and female. Only by sacrificing the male portion of themselves could they experience the power of the Goddess. Their power to procreate remains external rather than internal, becoming the very gift of fertility to the Earth.
It is fascinating to realise that one of the Emperors of Rome in the person of Elagabalus was a follower of Attis. His religious fervour was mistaken by many for sexual perversion and yet every act described in the 'history' of his reign can be identified as traditional practices of the cult.
Acts that are taboo in any culture usually are acts that possess great power in spiritual terms. Robert Graves and Sir James Frazer both recognised this fact. Food that is prohibited originally was considered sacred rather than 'dirty'. The pig was a symbol of the Great Goddess and its flesh was consumed as a sacred Communion Rite. In the realm of the gods, sexual intercourse between parent and child or sister and brother often produce the most powerful offspring. In ancient civilisations, rulers often married a sibling to keep the line pure and the sacred power undiluted.
Myths that originally promoted these practices later were infected with prevailing social attitudes against incest. Thus, the introduction of the concept of intoxication that prevents at least one of the participants from full knowledge of the nature of his/her action and the idea that a curse must be linked to an act of this sort.
In the older versions of the myth, the participants may be forces of Nature rather than gods in human form. For example, in one tale, the 'Lord' who is Attis ultimately is born of a relationship between the seed of a castrated hermaphrodite and the daughter of a river. The genealogy is as follows: Cybele or Kybele, the Great Mother Goddess, was 'born from stone', issuing from a Rock or Sacred Mountain. In some myths, the god of the sky mates with the Rock or Mountain to produce the Goddess but she predates any tales of her own conception and indeed often was worshipped in the form of Meteorite, a Stone fallen from the Sky.
Myths mutate as they are stolen, borrowed or assimilated in the cultures of invaders and the myth of Cybele is no exception. In Greek myth, Cybele was downgraded into a woman who was desired by the God Zeus but who spurned his advances. He therefore very characteristically planted his seed while she slept. In another version, while Zeus slept, he simply spilled his seed upon the earth which is, of course, the Great Goddess in her primal form. She gave birth to an hermaphrodite named Agdistis. In fact, Agdistis and Cybele probably were one and the same originally but in this version of the tale of Agdistis, the gods were so threatened by the potency of one who was both male and female that they castrated him/her. From the severed manhood of Agdistis or from the blood grew an Almond Tree. The fruit of this tree was consumed by the daughter of a river god named Nana and she gave birth to Attis.
Nana was a Virgin naturally and the birth of a child was simply 'not on' in ordinary social terms. She therefore exposed the child in time-honoured ancient fashion. Like so many heroes and godlings exposed on mountaintops or locked in coffins and set adrift upon the waters, the infant Attis was rescued and raised either by a he-goat or by shepherds. In the course of time, he became an exceptionally handsome youth, attracting the desire of his own mother or grandmother Cybele.
He, however, had fallen in love with a mortal priincess. The Great Mother could not stomach this and cursed him with divine madness. Attis then castrated himself beneath an evergreen. Violets were created by his blood. His spirit entered the evergreen or Pine.
Here you see a naked woman embracing a tree that has been cut almost to the root. Apples are strewn on the surrounding ground. It is a work by Steven Kenny. When I saw it, I thought of all the Tree Myths and in particular, the myths that involve castration and rebirth. I cannot pretend to know the mind of the artist, but to me, this painting speaks eloquently of Attis whose priest castrated themselves and who often threw their discarded genitals into the 'lap of the Goddess'. Each year, an Evergreen was cut almost to the root, an image of Attis was nailed to the trunk and it was carried through the streets while devoted worshippers wept loudly to the accompaniment of flute, drum, sistrums and cymbals. This frenzied mourning often culminated in the act of self-castration. The Tree then was taken to a cave or crypt where it was wrapped in a burial shroud and where it remained for three days. In the dead of night, his devotees then would proceed to the cave and the cry would be heard: 'He has risen!'
This painting evokes the Christian Pieta, where the Mother of God cradles the body of her crucified Son and Lord in her arms tenderly.
The photograph above shows a lovely statue of the Pieta against the background of the Cross. This statue once graced St. Mary's Cathedral in Middlesbrough. The Cathedral alas was destroyed by arsonists in May of 2000.
The Cross is the Tree, ladder to Heaven and instrument by which rebirth as well as martyrdom is effected. As a phalllic symbol and Tree that points to heaven while living, the Cross itself is the solar wheel and the axis mundi.
In some versions of the myth of Attis, he pledged eternal chastity to the Mother Goddess. When he broke that vow, his manhood was forfeit.
The fruit of an Almond is a Nut and it is no accident that a slang term for male testes is 'Nuts'. Nuts are an ancient symbol of fertility and Yuletide traditions of stuffing the stocking with Nuts and Fruits mirror ancient rites.
Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother of God inherits the mantle of Kybele. The insistence of Christianity upon this and upon Christ's chastity corresponds to the most ancient traditions of the Great Mother and her Son as undiluted pure examples of Male and Female. Virgin in this context is pure Woman rather than a woman who never had intercourse and never gave birth. Virginity in ancient mystery religions was a magical trait that could be restored or renewed and was not something that would be lost irrevocably with the loss of the maidenhead.
Mystery religions or cults are secret religions and it is more than possible that the myriad conflicting accounts of Attis and Cybele resulted from incomplete knowledge or deliberate misdirection.
Some of the conflicting ancient sources of the myths include:
From Ovid's Metamorphoses 10: 'Pines, high-girdled, in a leafy crest, the favourite of the Gods' Great Mother, since in this tree Attis Cybeleius doffed his human shape and stiffened in its trunk.'
From Ovid's Fasti 4:
'What causes the impulse [of the devotees of Kybele, Cybele] to self-castrate?’ I was silent. The Pierid began: ‘A woodland Phrygian boy, the gorgeous Attis, conquered the towered goddess with pure love. She wanted to keep him as her shrine's guardian, and said, 'Desire to be a boy always.'
He promised what was asked and declared, 'If I lie, let the Venus I cheat with be my last.' He cheats, and in the Nympha Sagaritis stops being what he was: the goddess' wrath punished him. She slashes the tree and cuts the Naiad down. The Naiad dies: her fate was the tree's. He goes mad, and imagines that the bedroom roof is falling and bolts to Dindymus' heights.
He cries, 'Away torches!', 'Away whips!' , and often swears the Palestine goddesses have him. He even hacked his body with a jagged stone, and dragged his long hair in squalid dirt, shouting, 'I deserved it; my blood is the penalty. Ah, death to the parts which have ruined me!'
'Ah, death to them!' he said, and cropped his groin's weight. Suddenly no signs of manhood remained. His madness became a model: soft-skinned acolytes toss their hair and cut their worthless organs.
From Statius, Silva 1:
The hollow caves of Phrygian Synnas Attis bedewed with the bright drops of his own blood'
N.B. Red stone was quarried from these caves.
From Nonnus, Dionysiaca 20:
'A dream came to Bakkhos (Bacchus)--Eris (Discord) the nurse of war, in the shape of Rheia the loverattle goddess, seated in what seemed to be her lionchariot. Phobos drove the team of this dream chariot, in the counterfeit shape of Attis with limbs like his; he formed the image of Kybele's charioteer, a softskinned man in looks with shrill tones like the voice of a woman...
Dionysos spent five years laying siege to a city in India.
While Bakkhos was thus despondent, came a messenger in hast through the Skythian mountains from divine Rheia, sterile Attis in his trailing robe, whipping up the travelling team of lions. He once had stained with a knife the creative stalk of marriage-consecrating youth, and threw away the burden of the plowshare without love or wedlock, the man's harvest-offering; so he showered upon his two thighs the bloody generative drops, and made womanish his warm body with the shearing steel.
This was the messenger who came driving the car of goddess Kybele, to comfort discouraged Lyaios. Seeing him Dionysos sprang up, thinking perchance he might have brought the all-conquering Rheia to the Indian War. Attis checked the wild team, and hung the reins on the handrail, and disclosing the smooth surface of his rosy cheeks, called out a flood of loud words to Bakkhos--
‘Dionysos of the vine, son of Zeus, offspring of Rheia! Answer me: when will you destroy the woolly-headed nation of Indians and come back to the Lydian land? Not yet has Rheia seen your black-skin captives; not yet has she wiped off the sweat from your Mygdonian lions after the war, beside the highland manger, where the rich river of Paktolos runs; but without a sound you roll out the conflict through circuits of everlasting years! Not yet have you brought a herd of eastern lions from India as a token of victory for the breeder of beasts, the mother of the gods! Very well, accept from Hephaistos and your immortal Rheia this armour which the Lemnian anvil made; you will see upon it earth and sea, the sky and the company of stars!’
Before he had finished, Bakkhos called out angrily--‘Hard are the gods and jealous . . . Hera keeps me back from victory . . .’
Lydian Attis answered these words of Dionysos: ‘If you carry this starry shield of the sky inviolate, my friend, you need not tremble before the wrath of Ares, or the jealousy of Hera, or all the company of the Blessed, while All-mother Rheia is with you; you need fear no army with bended bows, lest they cast their spears and strike Helios or wound Selene! Who could blunt the sword of Orion with a knife, or shoot the Waggoner with earthly arrows? Perhaps you will name the nor strong father of Deriades: but what could Hydaspes do to you, when you can bring in Okeanos?
‘Be of good courage: to the battle again! For my Rheia has prophesied victory for you at last. The war shall not end until the four Seasons complete he sixth year. So much the eye of Zeus and the threads of the unturning Mora have granted to the will of Hera; in the seventh lichtgang which follows, you shall destroy the Indian city.’
With these words he handed the shield to Bromios; then he tasted the feast, and cheered his heart with umixed cups of nomorepain wine. When he had satisfied his appetite at table, once more he touched up the flanks of his lions with the whip, and guided the hill-ranging car on the road back to Phrygia. He drove along the heights above the Kaukasian valleys, the Assyrian peaks and the dangerous Baktrian mountains, the summits of Libanos and the crests of Tauros, until he passed into the Maionian land. There he entered the divine precinct selfbuilt of Rheia, mother of mighty sons. He freed his ravening lions from the yoke straps, and haltered them at the manger which he filled with ambrosial fodder.'
I have copied this tale as it is interesting in describing a meeting between the messenger of the Great Goddess Kyble, Attis and their devotee, Dionysos.
Elsewhere, Attis is described in similar terms as follows: 'Attis: is the recipient of special honor amongst Phrygians, for being minister of the Mother of the God'.
One can peer further into the mists of time to find parallels between Attis and the Sumerian shepherd king Dumuzi. Attis indeed often is depicted as a shepherd himself. Dumuzi the Shepherd is chosen by the Great Goddess Inanna as consort but he is found to be unworthy when she returns to the Earth (Aboveground) after her visit to the Underworld. His life thereby is forfeit as the laws of the Underworld demand a life as the price for her freedom and she proclaims him to be the Sacrifice.. Dumuzi is not willing, however and flees from the priests of Ereshkigal, Lady of the Underworld. His flight mirrors that of the ancient god Ba'al when HE seeks to avoid payment of his debt to Mot, Lord of the Underworld. Dumuzi as Ba'al before him ultimately is discovered and the Sacrifice is completed.
The Goddess who pronounces the doom upon her consort King/Beloved mourns him. In some fashion, she has offered that which she loves most as her sacrifice to allow the Earth to be fertile again. It is the Sacrifice of Attis/Adonis/Dumuzi that frees the Earth from the grip of Death. As the Great Goddess is Nature Herself, she cannot serve as Sacrifice. It is the blood of her Consort/Son that quickens her and ultimately effects his rebirth.
Who then are the Galli, the unmanned priests of the Great Kybele, who emulate the Sacrifice of the Beloved, the self-castration of Attis? What power does castration endow upon them? The Galli in fact must have believed themselves to be Agdistis, both male and female. Only by sacrificing the male portion of themselves could they experience the power of the Goddess. Their power to procreate remains external rather than internal, becoming the very gift of fertility to the Earth.
It is fascinating to realise that one of the Emperors of Rome in the person of Elagabalus was a follower of Attis. His religious fervour was mistaken by many for sexual perversion and yet every act described in the 'history' of his reign can be identified as traditional practices of the cult.
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