What Lies Beyond, Part Two

The Seeds of Hope

Joan Ann Lansberry

April 1, 1998

TIS' THE PENSIVE SEASON Sweetest reverie tinged with bitter, Richer flavor for it. Rarely life is simple. JAL, 4-1-98

April 4, 1998

Our aloe vera has responded to all the rain we've had.

April 5, 1998

"The Rarest Blooms"

I took heed, knowing the arboretum must be at its most fragrant beauty and urged Laura and Julia to go there. The irises in deep purple, lilac and yellow were blooming in their tri-partite glory. Vivid red tulips opened their petals wide for the inhaling of their sweet essence. Yellow daffodils nodded their perfumed heads to the sun. The rains have made all the bushes along the paths grow thick and richly green.

As I remember the many varieties of blossoms I have seen today, I think of how we humans are like flowers. Some are common, like the dandelions which flourish in eastern soils. Some are rare and sensitive, like violets, and require special care. Some sturdy plants defy the weather. However humanity doesn't always regard its own blooms as they do the petaled kind. As a child, the common dandelion delighted me with its bright yellow cheeriness. I loved the wispy puffs the seeds made and would blow on them to watch the wind take them far. I didn't understand why my father pulled them out of the yard. "They're just a weed," he'd say. Too common, alas! But he would carefully cultivate roses. Their beauty is rare, and thus the more valued. However in humanity, the rare varieties are not always valued. Why is this so?

I love all beauty, both common and rare. The common reassures me with regular and dependable appearances. Yet it is the scarce beauty which holds a special allure for me. I climb high to the tall cliff where the exotic plants grow and wonder at life's myriad possibilities. The unusual shakes me out of complacent routine. It briskly alerts me to fresh combinations of characteristics. My senses awaken keen and I feel more alive.

And thus it is the rarest blooms which grow in the garden of my heart. There, my love for Laura and Julia has taken deep root. It grows, rampant as the weeds which will not die. It grows, despite wind and weather. It defies all who would endanger it. For I have found these two exquisite one of a kind beings and I will shout their colors loud to the world.

April 10 is the culmination of the Megalensia, Cybele's birthday and the anniversary of the consecration of Her temple (Mêtrô'on) on the Palatine Hill, in 191 B.C.E. "The cult of Magna Mater, the Great Mother, is probably the oldest religion of all. The earliest stone-age sculptures depict the mother-goddess, and an idol found in Catal Hüyük, 6000 years old, depict her in the form she later became worshipped as Cybele in Phrygia, as a seated woman flanked by two leopards. The worship evolved through the millennia, but the goddess remained a symbol of the powerful female forces in the universe." (Anders Sandberg, http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/Mage/magna.html)

"...The cult was a tumultuous, noisy and ecstatic affair which attracted many people." However it was only women, and eunuchs, honoring the sacred feminine within themselves, who were considered able to receive the deeper mysteries. Only they were allowed to attend the main celebrations of the Goddess.

The image of First Source as Great Mother is natural since all living animals (excluding the likes of amoebas and so forth) come from the womb of woman. When men got smart enough to figure out they had a part in the reproductive cycle, they lost some of their awe at this female capacity. Perhaps that's when the war of the sexes began.

What changes a few centuries wrought, however, when in 325AD, the first Nicene council decided by one vote that women, pitiful wretches, did indeed, have souls. However despite christian efforts, worship of the Goddess was tenacious. Christians in their attempt to obliterate it built St. Peters Cathedral in the Vacation "right on top of the old temple of Magna Mater, and some parts are presumably left under the foundations. Cybele was worshipped under the names Kubaba and Kuba in Arabia, and Khaba in Mecca was originally a shrine to her. Many early Christians identified her with Mary."

Unfortunately they did eventually succeed in removing from people's minds the power of the feminine. Women were made to think of themselves as polluted and sinful. They were "to keep silence in the church." Their thoughts were considered of no importance. When Hypatia, the Greek mathematician, philosopher and scholar, one of the most intelligent people of that time, was flayed alive by a mob of christian monks, it gave a clear message to women, "SHUT UP!" Terrified, women did so.

How could such evil happen? How can we heal the world from all the ills it has caused? How many women have been silenced? How many works of art, truth and beauty have never come into being? How many lives have been made insignificant, all for the glory of the male "True God"?

What tendrils of this pernicious evil still influence us to this day? Are they still there, like unconscious roots? The outer poisonous foliage may have been cut down, but do these roots remain to spring up again if nurtured?

I looked in the mirror yesterday to find a a ready subject for drawing. No longer afraid to face the mirror, it was a tender exploration of features I used to dread. It is only now that I am coming into my maturity that I smile back at my reflection.

Why is this? When I was a teenager, thin, with small perky breasts, I found the face in the mirror a stranger. It was embarrassing to claim it. Why is this? Was it just the insecurity of youth that caused me to fear I didn't meet the standards of beauty? Or was it because the fashion magazines were filled with only tall, long legged models? No matter how thin I was, I could never look like them. What if the magazines had been filled with large boned, long waisted and short legged models? Would I have felt any different about myself? Or would my insecurity still make me fearful? Is it something peculiar to only females? Or are young males plagued with it as well? Yet medical statistics show many more young females have anorexia nervosa, the disease which causes them to believe they are fat, no matter how thin they are. Skeletal creatures, they starve themselves ever seeking almost to disappear. How bad can the self-hatred get?

Were women during the age of Goddess worship more appreciative of their bodies?

Against all the forces which would stifle us, it is so important to see women making a difference in the world. When I was young and learned of Ayn Rand, the founder of Objectivism, what impressed me more than her actual philosophy, was that a WOMAN had done it. Today I learned of another female author who hopes to make the world a better place with her prolific writings of all genres. Barbara Kingsolver has been called an "eco-feminist" by some. Her vision of the way things are and the way they should be has attracted many readers and many awards. She has been filmed talking about her life and works in an hour long show which aired on PBS this afternoon. Although small and fragile appearing. it is clear a deep insightful mind is powering her soft voice.

In the first scene of the midnight horror picture show, I am playing Madonna, the thin, blonde haired singer and actress. In a recent TV Guide interview, she spoke of how she has become more aware of her femininity. The melding of the night images has superimposed her feminine awareness on to my own.

I am alone and seeking a place to live. It is in a large city where I used to live, big enough to be impersonal. Everything is gray, the sky, the leafless trees, the exterior of the building I am about to enter, even the vehicle which I drove to the gray graveled parking lot is gray.

A chill of foreboding enters me as I open the entrance door of the building. An old building, the floor creaks as I walk across it. I ascend the stairs leading to the second floor, where the available apartment is. As I approach to claim it, I see the huge figure of a man standing sentinel, between me and the apartment door. He is a "Man in Black". Over six feet tall, extremely broad shouldered, he is wearing a black raincoat, black leather gloves, black goggles, and even the tiny bit of flesh which showed was ebony.

A frightening vision, it's the way he stares at me. I don't need to see his eyes to know I'm a target. Why is he hunting me down? As I approach the apartment door, he keeps himself between me and it. "Afraid of me, bitch?", he taunts. There is something strangely alluring about him. I try feminine wiles to seduce him. It's exciting, in a dangerously erotic sort of way.

I realize the danger and decide the best plan is escape. I'll let someone else have that apartment. Somehow I slip into its door, and find a tiger cat costume. It is the kind with a long tail. Able to leap about, I get away, and am over him, climbing on the ceilings visible rafters. I could pounce down on him if I chose. He realizes it is no animal over him, but me, and the chase is on. Seeking my exit, I make for the run. The cold air chills the air in my lungs painfully as I pant. I run as fast as I can through the alley ways filled with dead fallen leaves and twigs, but he quickly catches up with me, determined to have his prey. I find a small, thin object which was partially obscured among the leaves to poke him with. As I stab at him, I discover he is no man at all, but a robot! I poke at him several times before I awaken to the dark and cold night air.

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