To the Goddess as DEATH
Under Your Milky Way
And slow-revolving Bear,
Frogs from the alder-thicket pray
In terror of the judgement day,
Loud with repentance there.
The log they crowned as king
Grew sodden, lurched and sank.
Dark waters bubble from the spring,
An owl floats by on silent wing,
They invoke You from each bank.
At dawn You shall appear,
A gaunt, red-wattled crane,
She Whom they know too well for fear,
Lunging Your beak down like a spear
To fetch them home again.
from "The White Goddess" by Robert Graves
(publishers: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. p 486)
To the Goddess as DEATH-IN-LIFE
Upon the soil--(crushed rubies? Or the pomegranate's garnet seeds?)
And ridged with mounds like graves
Of giants and earth-worms, two Noachian survivors contemplate
Their glories of the past, their future state.
The small red Worm, rubied with dews of Death, declared:
`My redness is from Adam. I, the coral-plant,
Built by a million lives, endeavours, toils, loves, glories,
Am the first and last Democracy. The sun
Is not more universal in its love. And I have brothers
Who live in the flesh of Negroes, and are thick
As lute-strings, and as powerful. I have others
Who sing the praise of Death with a sweet tongue
Great venomous serpents in the unknown Africa; they carry
A gold bell on their tails, which ever ringeth
As they proceed, and like an angel singeth.'
Then said her enemy the HenÄÄthe musty, dusty density,
The entity of primal, flightless, winged Stupidity:
`See how the Eagle falls like thunder from his height
And tears that continent of raging fire,
The heart, from the tiger roaring like the sea,
And bears it to his nest
Wherein the huge eggs rest
From whence will break the young, the unfledged Murders:
(So, young ambitions lie in the heart of Man).
O you into whose maw
The heart of Man will fall
As you will fall to mine:
I am more powerful than the father of those Murders.
It was no Eagle, but a fusty Hen
That pecked the fire-seed from Prometheus' heart, a crazy chilling
Hen-coop Laughter, the first Criticism, killing
The fire he brought to men,
As Age kills young Desire.'
The Worm said, `I am small, my redness is from Adam.
But conquerors tall
Come to my embrace as I were Venus. I
Am the paramour in the last bed of love, and mine, the kiss
That gives Eternity.
I am Princess of Darkness. Yet the huge gold world,
With all plantations, powers of gold growth that shall be the bread of man,
Arise from the toil of the small, the mighty Worm beneath the earth--
The blind, all-seeing Power at her great work of death and of rebirth.'
Bagatelle
FOR JOHN GIELGUD
by Edith Sitwell
from: Selected Poems - Chosen with an Introduction by John Lehmann
To the Goddess as EARTH
Earth ,
Divine Goddess,
Mother Nature,
Who dost generate all things
and bringest forth ever anew
the sun
which Thou hast given to the nations;
Guardian of sky and sea
and of all Gods and powers;
through Thy influence
all nature is hushed and sinks to sleep...
Again, when it pleases Thee,
Thou sendest forth the glad daylight
and nurturest life
with Thine eternal surety;
and when the spirit of man passes,
to Thee it returns.
Thou indeed art rightly named
Great Mother of the Gods;
Victory is in Thy divine name.
Thou art the source of the strength
of peoples and Gods;
without Thee
nothing can either be born
or made perfect;
Thou art mighty,
Queen of the Gods.
Goddess,
I adore Thee as divine,
I invoke Thy name;
vouchsafe to grant that which I ask of Thee,
so I shall return thanks to Thy Godhead
with the faith that is Thy due.
From a 12th. century English herbal (Brit. Mus. MS. Harley, 1585,
ff 12v-13r)
translated from the Latin by Robert Graves.
To the Goddess as EARTH
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty , how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)
e.e.cummings
To the Goddess as EARTH
To the Woman in the Earth
Who is my first and ever Beloved
Whose smiles and rages and storms and weepings
and tremblings and lashings and eruptions
and ripenings and witherings and musings
are my life, my terror, my thought, my wild joy
and all of beauty I ever want to know
Who takes me into Her after every journeying
Who is my source, my end, and my obsession
To my rainbow Warrior Women
May we walk in beauty
Paula Gunn Allen
invocation from: "The Sacred Hoop"
To the Goddess as GODDESS
Dialing all Goddesses everywhere
Please reconnect me
I'm in despair.
The harness of this mortal soul
Has broken in two
And I'm
Out
of
Control.
Don't go away -
I'm so ashamed that I said it
Don't go away -
I'd rather die than be alone -
Don't go away -
Whether it's animal urge
Or in my genes
My brain's on fire
And my thoughts are extreme.
Don't go away!
I'm so ashamed that I said it -
Don't go away!
I'd rather die than be alone -
Don't go away -
It's Your powerful influence over me -
Beverly Goodacre 7/26/82
To the Goddess as GODDESS
* I am a channel for the powers of healing and of change.
* I unite my will with all womyn who are making new the world.
* I am trust in my sisters: my spirit responds to their love.
* I am compassion for confusion, especially my own.
* I am a summer stream in the dry lands, miraculous and full. My
willows are the only trees for miles.
* My eyes grow sharper and stronger every day. I eat what my body
needs. I let my body be, all the way out to her edges.
* I am centered and calm, I let life ripen and fall, my will is
one with the Goddess.
* I see both outward and inward. My prophecy is clear and true.
* I accept all gifts of the Goddess calmly, without anxiety,
without wanting more, or less, or forever.
MEDITATIONS FOR WOMYN by Jean Sirius
(from a post-card mailed to me by Katherine Singleton.
On the
back "Meditations for Womyn" copyright 9981, 1981 by Jean Sirius.
Sirius P.P. box 28722)
To the Goddess as GODDESS
To the Goddess named Mary
O Dive custos Auriacae Domus,
Et spes labantis certior imperi,
O rebus adversis vocande,
O superum decus in secundis.
Seu te fluentem pronus ad Isida
In vota fervens Oxonidum chorus
Seu te precantur quos remoti
unda lavat properata Cami,
Descende, descende coelo non ita creditas
Visurus aedes praesidiis tuis.
Descende, descende visurus penates Caesaris et,
et penetrale sacrum, penetrale sacrum.
Maria a Musis flebilis occidit,
Maria gentis deliciae breves,
Maria occidit.
O flete Mariam,
O flete Camoenae.
O flete Divae!
Flete Dea moriente.
O divine One, guardian of the House of Orange, steadfast hope of a tottering
empire, you to whom we call in adversity, you our highest glory in times of
prosperity; whether a gathering of Oxford men by the flowing Isis prays
fervently to you, or whether they beseech you that are washed by the hurrying
waves of the Cam, descend from heaven and behold this household, entrusted to
your care when not thus [afflicted]. Descend, see the king's household and its
innermost sanctuary. Mary, mourned by the Muses, is fallen: Mary, so briefly
the delight of her race. O weep, Muses, for Mary; weep, Divine Ones, for the
dying Goddess.
Source: Three Elegies on the Much Lamented Loss
of Our Late Most Gracious Queen Mary,
by Henry Playford, 1695.
To the GODDESS as GRAND-EARTH-MOTHER
i must speak , o america, for i am angry
we live in many oft spacious rooms
of the house of the turtle ,
one of seven great houses
grand-earth-mother raised above her broad waters
for the life she has borne,
would yet bear for ages
_
we share this creeping crust house
with bugs and beasts,
grasses green and granites grey
scapes of sky, rinsing rain and clans of clouds
valleys vast and forests fervent
with ant, apple and antelope
white bass and waterlily
sparrow hawks and spring
___
hear me, o america, for i am angry
we bury our rooms,
heaping garbage on our grandmother.
we raze our splendid house,
felling our forests and other essential furnishings
fouling our waters and grandmother's breath
chasing, indeed erasing
our crawling and walking.
climbing and winging sisters and brothers,
then erecting metropolises of monuments
to mark the graves we gouge
from grandmother's ground of being
___
i cry out, o america, for i am angry
we wantonly renovate our clear open rooms,
ripping out grandmother's beautiful
and elegant furniture
and cluttering our spaces with trappings and luxuries.
we cram ourselves into abodes crowded into metropolises
after obliterating or evicting all other life
_
we waste ourselves,
piling ravaged minds and starving bodies
in rancid corners of our rotting metropolises.
we crush human life,
dumping throw-away people in societal gutters,
then thoughtlessly or callously
else haughtily or derisively
flushing their souls down social sewers
___
harken to me, o america, for i am angry
our house of love and sharing and equality
we sell to hate, greed and status
_
we gad thru-out the house,
hardening, then jackhammering the fertile floors,
slashing the floral curtains,
bashing the rock walls,
blocking off wind and lights-washed windows
and piling misery under carpets.
we clap squalor into countless closets,
frantic to cordon it off
from the eyes of emptied lives.
we poach on the porches
of native people who dwell there
hoping to hold them for grandmother
___
i rebuke you, o america, for i am angry
we prattle about mastering grandmother
about progress
about freeing ourselves from her cruel yoke,
while clinging to arrogance,
pride,
vanity
_
we praise our crazed ideas and ethics,
infesting all of grandmother with our industries,
infusing many of her human children with our lust
her houses now teem with termites ravenous for her wealth
and rapaciously devouring her walls and foundations
_
sewer rats gorge on oil and coal
aging in her special cellars.
they gorge on uranium and other deadly matter
threading thru and cashed in her basements.
besmearing her floors with their piss, whit and slime,
choking her rooms with their stench,
they scurry to her waters and bathe in her rivers
to fill her lifelines with filth
the gnats springing from the rat droppings swarm about her,
stinging her tearful eyes
stifling her wheezing windways
nesting in and logging her pores
___
listen, o america, for i am angry
some people refuse to gallivant
with hate, greed and status.
cherishing love and harmony with grandmother,
they isolate themselves on room edges
else in corners or closets
_
on these sacred people
we daren't lay our loathsome hands
or force our hollow lives
_
we must let those revering grandmother
live in peace and harmony with her
while all people struggle to live
in peace and harmony with one another
_
we swept aside the sacred ones.
doing so,
we sinned in the name of an overweening god.
ravaging grandmother's rooms and destroying her wombs,
we scorned our souls and lost our grace
_
now only those revering grandmother
can sweep her houses clear
and cleanse us of our sins.
the sacred ones along
can remove our dead selves,
returning to us our eternal selves
and remove our emptiness,
restoring our grace
___
heed me, o america
for destiny commands that
i change my cracking whip of anger
into a fan of compassionate reason
so that
i might waft you with inspiring feeling
and fragrantly compelling though
_
but let not my manner deceive you
for twill neither move one primal parent
nor sooth the other's wrath
_
hear, heed this:
"ah," cosmic father sighed,
as he and his spouse bent to tend
to their beloved wailing child.
"the maggots tormenting her also swaddle her
in heat and smoke
they shall destroy themselves
and their rotting corpses will nurture her
while she heals herself"
_
"yes," cosmic mother replied.
"they shall contort in agony and die slowly.
fittingly so
"but they also damn blameless life
and worthy maggots.
they scar her
"why should she suffer further
owing to maggot conceit?
_
"come, husband
let us bestir a flock of sun hawks.
let them swoop from their star abodes,
burn their talons into the wicked maggots
and carry them off writhing and aflame
_
"else let vajra 's lightning glance strike them"
o d ludyeh
january 1992
jerry mander wrote the book, "In the Absence of the Sacred"
the native american stories i've read refer to north and south america
as turtle island
creeping crust - a tv documentary said the continents move; america's west
coast drifts west at the rate of about an inch a year
vajra (thunderbolt) hell is an inescapable buddhist hell
To the Goddess as GODDESS
The smoke upon your altar dies,
The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
Has flown away.
What profit then to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?
"We know the Shrine is void," they said,
"The Goddess flownÄÄ
Yet wreaths are on the altar laidÄÄ
The altar stone
Is black with fumes of sacrifice,
Albeit She has fled our eyes.
For, it may be, if still we sing
And tend the Shrine,
Some Deity on wandering wing
May there incline;
And, finding all in order meet,
Stay while we worship at Her feet."
L'ENVOI by Rudyard Kipling
To the Goddess as MOTHER
My heart, my Mother ;
My heart, my Mother!
My heart of transformations.
from Ch. XXX, p. 147, The Book of the Dead
translated by E. A. Wallis Budge.
To the Goddess as MOTHER
You alone can grant us forgiveness,
Great Mother, Brahma-high,
You we salute,
Whose mercy lies all about us
Like a blaze of light.
Enthroned on high,
Higher than the most-high,
You too contemn the cosmic laws:
Oneness of mind and being, You are yet
Duality in Your union of the sexes.
Eternal creations eternally
Roll into being at Your mighty summons;
Beauty and love rejoice therein,
Ebbing and exulting
On the shores of everlasting joy.
You open Your eye and in whirl of color
Patterns of creation go dancing by,
A dance through eternity,
Going and coming in countless ranks,
O Mother, O mildness.
Your game of creation calls worlds into being,
Dashes them back into nothingess and ruin -
We laud you, all-powerful Mistress.
from the Saktigita
quoted in Myths by Alexander Eliot.
To the Goddess as MOTHER
The Mother of Songs ,
The Mother of our whole seed,
Bore us in the beginning.
She is the Mother of all races of men
And the Mother of all tribes.
She is the Mother of the thunder,
The Mother of the rivers,
The Mother of trees
And of all kinds of things.
She is the Mother of songs and dances.
She is the Mother of the older brother stones.
She is the Mother of the grain
And the Mother of all things.
She is the Mother
Of the younger brother Frenchmen
And of the strangers.
She is the Mother
Of the dance paraphenalia
And of all temples,
And the only Mother we have
She is the
Mother of the animals,
The only one,
And the Mother of the Milky Way.
It was the Mother Herself
Who began to baptize.
She gave us the limestone coca dish.
She is the Mother of the rain,
The only one we have.
She alone is the Mother of things,
She alone.
And the Mother
Has left a memory in all temples.
With Her sons, the saviors,
She left songs and dances
As a reminder.
Thus the priests, the fathers,
And the older brothers have reported.
Song of the Kagaba Indians, Colombia
from The Great Mother, page 85
quoted by Eric Neuman
To the Goddess as MOTHER
Your Mother is in you, and you in Her. She bore you; She gives you life. It was She
who gave to you
To the Goddess as MUSE
All saints revile Her , and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo's golden meanÄÄ
In scorn of which I sailed to find Her
In distant regions likeliest to hold Her
Whom I desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.
It was a virtue not to stay,
To go my heastrong and heroic way
Seeking Her out at the volcano's head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:
Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's,
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,
With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.
Greek sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir
Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,
And every song-bird shout awhile for Her;
But I am gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of Her nakedly worn magnificence
I forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
In Dedication, from The White Goddess by Robert Graves.
To the Goddess as MUSE
Lady, Lady , Clay-moulder, Fetus-former, Dough-kneader, Ancient Mother Evolution.
Earth, Earth,
sun round whirling hear thy daughter!
Make my matter true reflection, make my matter worth recalling.
Ach!
Fair Juno,
wise bowed Hag,
curl us each measure
th' shape of our thought ring.
Invocation, from Her Book of Transformations 1984 by FW.
To the Goddess as MUSE
Lady of life ,
Bride, Bread-baker, Provider;
Goddess of co-evolution
and the yearly revolutions
that goad and guide
permit,
absolve,
and dissolve it.
Thou art, Muse, most wonderful
beyond the greatest artist's imaginings.
Queen-Mother of generations,
Inexhaustible Mystery.
Ach!
Fair Juno,
Wise bowed Hag,
coil us each measure,
the shape of our thought ring.
Invocation, from Her Book of Transformations 1983 by FW.
To Several Goddesses
bare-bodied and bareback bestride their mounts, choking, sweating and
gagging, the dhughater deth girthed the earth.
"fucking fool arse!" gore grist suddenly bellowed smacking her skittish
mule's buttocks.
but hrim kill sat atop her dappled steed grinning, thinking folly and
doom behooved humankind, and eyes burning and tearing, blood lave gripped,
then tugged on her rearing stallion's black mane.
" hraesvelg wields fiery, not frost wings against them," lifter of sooth said
grimly on the other side of the circle, while, beside her, freedom lover
stroked and hushed her whinneying blue-brown mare.
lifthrasir , the dhughater leader, at last heeded her sisters' moans and
oaths, however, bade all fall deeper into the sky.
seeming to fly out of the very sun, a band of muses, graces and deities
shortly ascended the sky atop winged horses. they soared to lifthrasir's
rear, alit on an olympian cloud.
then wroth of fjorgyn , borne in twain with lifthrasir, galloped thru the
band, reined her horse to a halt beside her blood sister. peering high, low
and to both sides, she sat tall and mum, fidgeted with her horse's mane at
length.
"fuckers, assholes" she finally spat. "shitheads.
"live berserk, fell woods, foul water. darken the sky with filth and
bane, then stew your stupid enthralled selves, throwing all other life in the
cauldron.
"but before nidth-hogg swoops upon you, we'll find a home for true life
somewhere afar. then we'll sweep through your rotted breath to pluck native
elms and ashes from the grave, cart hymir buckets of water to clear ponds in a
holy land."
"peace, erinye" the graces implored. "patience, pardon."
"love ascended from the abyss of chaos, was borne of darkness and death,"
the titan, memory, spoke gently.
descend to the human host, radiant of reason," said the goddess of dawn.
"enlighten the enthroned, counsel courage, inspire intellects."
"restore the firmament with harmony," the muses chimed.
"balm the air with music, move souls with song. whirl away hostility with
dance and imbue the rivers, lakes and seas with poetry and the fervor for
peace."
o d ludyeh
august 1990
glossary
dhughater deth - the daughters of death
hrim - frost
sooth - truth
wroth - wrath
from norse myth
hraesvelg - a giant disguised as an eagle whose flapping wings cause the
winds
frost wings - a three year winter was supposed to precede doomsday
lifthrasir - eaager for life; the name of a woman who would survice
doomsday and mother children to repeople the earth
fjorgyn - the goddess of earth
elms and ashes - the first woman was made from a fallen elm;
the first man from a fallen ash.
hymir - a giant who had a five miles deep cauldron
from greek myth:
olympian - from olympus, the home of the gods
erinye - a fury; the furies pursued sinners on earth or in the underworld
graces - daughters of zeus, the chief god, and eurynome; they danced
and sang, gave life its bloom
muses - daughters of zeus and mnemosyne (memory); inspirers of poetry, song, dance, other arts
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