june 1st, 1942: 927 calories, 63 deg. fahrenheit. by, meredith kathryn-case gipson hoogendam

what is it like, to measure time

in calories, each moment a caloric collection

of seconds, each month a record

of how many grapefruits eaten, how many

pieces of cake or slices of cheese denied,

days upon days stretching into the absense

of every fat gram you did not eat,

every desire you did not pursue,

every dream you did not have.

i know a girl with eyes as hollow

you can see

her soul beneath them.

she traces her lineage

with harsh bone fingers, counts

the birth that hangs like plump apples

from her family tree,

each little red ball

a reminder of her own

empty branch,

devoid of apples and menstruation.

her grandmother keeps a diary, records

calorie intake and degrees fahrenheit

on the same top line of each page.

june 1st, 1942: 927 cal, 63 deg. fahrenheit.

the girl imagines her grandmother, sixty

years younger, measuring

milk for cereal and checking

the window thermometer

for signs of change.

the girl wonders if her life, too, could be traced

with such precision, each bite

the anniversary of a birth or a death, each pound

weighing the girth

of her heart, the measure

of her place on the earth.

the girl asks God;

if i get so small that you take

my place, will my feet still press imprints

into the ground, or will i simply disappear?

but God gives no answer

and her feet become so light

she nearly vanishes;

like a levitating Eve,

who picks the apple

and then gives it to Adam,

so that he might ingest the calories

she does not deserve.

veil

as our own personal universe expands,

its difficult to watch the separation,

what we cling to,

what doesn’t hold well to courage.

eventually, that wall will stretch to a saran wrap,

even making god transparent,

and penetrate beyond the veil of his flesh.

robert b. bushway

a jungian approach to feminist theology: lilith, Innana and the joining of sacred opposites.

Excerpts from Behold Women: a Jungian approach to feminist theology. By carrin dunne.The mythology of the anzu-birdIn ancient Egypt, its correspondence is the vulture. One question that carrin asks is ” what modern nation would choose as its emblem the vulture or the snake”. She links the repulsion of the modern stigma of the vulture, of that which devours dead flesh and it’s overall association with death in the same manner to which the goddess, in the story of Gilgamesh, turned in horror from her own huluppu-tree. Carrin articulates the tree in its tangled root, the snake that cannot be charmed, the strong trunk, the body of Lilith, to its far-reaching branches to the anzu-bird and her offspring. One central point here is in the far reaching distinction in the attitudes towards death today from that of ancient times. And from this carrin presents the question, “how is it that we admire the devourer of living flesh but turn shuddering from the devourer of the dead? Is it that we are more horrified by decomposition and decay than by killing?” The inference here and as in chapter 1 regarding the unmasking of intention, it would imply that death suggests the end of ambition or rather, the disincorporation of intention. And so is revealed a juxtaposition between the ancient Egyptian mind wrapped in a motherly archetype verses that of a patriarchal one today. Or it is as carrin referring mother as “filth eater” or in mother Mary, as the “refuge of sinners”. For the modern mind, I find it interesting that for all the inventions of the patriarchal mind, the linear intention of the day, there seems to be something about creation relationship within uncreation that it is horrified by. The dearth of the day is the earth of our origin, the very thing that the patriarchy, in his intention, has sought to possess since its divergence from the goddess. The mythology if Lilith Isaiah 34:14fWildcats shall meet with hyenas,goat-demons shall call to each other;there too Lilith shall repose,and find a place to rest.There shall the owl nestand lay and hatch and brood in its shadowA note regarding the translation debate- “The difference between this translation and the one you are using reflects a fundamental difference in translation philosophy. Your version represents an approach to translating the Bible (esp. the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) that seeks to naturalize any references to mythological or supernatural creatures (except angels) into known animals” humm.According to the myth, God makes three attempts to present a companion for Adam. Lilith was his first attempt and, rather than forming her out of the pure dust like Adam, nor out of Adam’s rib, but rather, from the slimy viscous decomposition of the earth.  After Lilith deserts Adam, god tries again by allowing Adam to fashion a women out of his own blood, bone, muscle, tissue and organs. According to the myth, Adam was so horrified in seeing the insides of his material nature that god took her away and put him in a deep sleep, and alas, eve was formed. Carrin links Lilith and the huluppu-tree in the untamable “uncarved block” in them. Just as Lilith left Adam when he insisted that she take the “subordinate position in love making”, Gilgamesh carved a throne and a bed for Inanna from the wood of the huluppu-tree. Kind of mimic’s the New Testament passage, when Jesus was equated with the “stone the builder’s rejected”. I can’t help but recognize a sense of irony in our modern day feminism that links that which has become the “capstone” as any attempt to balance the nature of the gender equation. Nature being that the reflection of tamable is untamable, carved is uncarved, that which comes from the innocence of a child is a lover, the untouched mother and the Magdalene. Another very interesting parallel between the old Jewish myth’s and New Testament is in the way Jesus would associate himself with them. Carrin mentions the comment Jesus makes of the women weeping for Jesus when he quotes the proverb: “if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” (Luke 23:31) and so here Jesus identifies himself with the green tree, where the snake that cannot be charmed dwells, the “Anzu-bird and Lilith, rather than the hewn tree, Inanna’s throne and bed.”Lilith wants to remain the things we cannot control for, the wild and pure things, untainted by domestication, whereas Inanna prefers to become civilized, tamed and desired by men. Jesus more than not, associated himself with the things outside the law. He ate with the prostitutes and pagans; the religious authorities constantly called him on on his “breaking of the Sabbath”. Yet, and although subtle, I think what gives proof of Jesus as a very smart feminist is that he didn’t come to “abolish the law, but to fulfill it”. These parallels could easily put paint an image of Jesus as light bearer of the sacred opposites principle, or as carrin states it, “Jesus operates a turnabout on Inanna’s perspective. He is the green tree nailed to the hewn tree (or the new wine in old wine skins), which is his throne or bed”. A key point worth repeating is this, Jesus “joins” the two trees, and he does not do away with either. However, his mission in his preference to the untamed, to Lilith is depicted in his decent to the underground, like where Persephone was regained by her mother from the overbearing patriarchal nature, Jesus too, wrestled for three days. And when he ascended, greeted the Magdalene first, the daughter principle to reunite the mother principle, with the earth…”In the garden of Eden, there were two trees planted in the middle, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Oddly, no one takes notice of the tree of life until after the fall. Then god says, “behold, the man is become like one of us, to know good and evil, and eat, and live forever…” (Gen. 3:22). It is as though partaking of the tree of life does not emerge as a genuine possibility until after sin with the kind of complex awareness and disrelationship it entails. It casts some light on why the serpent apparently turns against itself in prompting the women to seek knowledge. Nature turns against nature for the sake of civilization, but finally, with the view of a greater life, a recovery of nature at a higher level, where the green tree and the hewn tree are joined. (proverbs 3:18).

behold women: a jungian approach to feminist theology, chapter 1.

excerpts from BEHOLD WOMEN: A Jungian Approach to Feminist Theology, by carrin dunne.chapter 1. does women have a soul? (five approaches to an image)”there are biblical passages, both in the old and new testaments (specifically Nm. 21:4-9 and john 3:14), which hint broadly that god and the serpent are not altogether separate. in fact, if we were to think in greek terms, we might say that the serpent is god’s animal form”.my notes- for the western mind, i think it’s a moderate step back into the medieval mind to ask the question, in what manner was the serpent associated with evil, more specific, which lust and deception? then ask, how did it come that women were aligned with the snake, the seductress? why do most fundamentalists today still believe that a women does not belong in the soap box of the pulpit? it’s always important to remind yourself that “feminism” is not just about understanding the emotions of a women, but rather, about balance. jung’s main premise was that in every man there is a mirror(women), and in every women there is a mirror(man).god asks the man, “who told thee thou wast naked?”(3:11) the man points to the women, women points to the serpent, the successive gesture reveals to god his own nakedness. can god handle the revelation? god sows distrust between man and his wife, and concomitantly between man and his own soul- “because thou hast harkened unto the voice of thy wife…”(3:17). why doesn’t god say in like manner to the women, “because thou has harkened unto the voice of the serpent…”? is it because it would be to much like saying “because thou hast heard me to well, because thou has overheard that part of me which i do not care to acknowledge…”?my notes- from a child i always found it curious why in all christian literature, in sermon’s, at dinner tables (typically the table of the folks down the street), during easter, was there never talks of a mother in the “greater story”. but as a kid, i kept most things to myself, or at least, there really wasn’t anyone for such talks other than a few old drunks and hillbillies my parents hung around and got high with. in those environments children are “seen but not heard” anyway. in catholicism, yes you have mary, the mother. but her legacy ends at the cross. you would think that, in those times, the most controversial mother in all judea would have come to some history of her own. it’s a funny double standard how we prize the ideal of family with the role of women as multi-tasker, and the man as the unseen, unavailable provider. it’s kinda that way in modern day christianity still. god is this unseen father up on a throne. but when it comes to positions of power, then it is the women who is to be unseen, or rather, the things that carry more of a feminine characteristic in the world unseen.  any level of world domination, whether by war, or industry, social stratification and trade agreements, religion, has been carried out under the patriarchy, the linear personality of our time. in contrast, the feminine personality has always been associated in ancient myth with the earth, soil, dirt and things that spring out of it, the life cycle, time, care-giving, balance. it’s funny, the scene in the matrix when its the machine telling the human that in his studies he learned that human behavior is that of a virus. a life that can never stay still, never balances out. it consumes quickly, then spreads to another area and consumes that. it never gives life back, it just takes. the irony today is that, as humans, we’ve accomplished not only the ability to devastate the habitat we reside in, but to devastate the entire planet. we pay lip service to these issues like we give compliments to the women in kitchen who baked this lovely pie. now, who’s left to help with those dirty dishes? farewell compliment…“harmlessness requires the abandonment of intention, even so-called good intentions. (side note- this is a returning to intuition. this comes from the nose, and the snake to the ground seems a good hint as any for humans to return to dialogue with the earth, with women.) “to make the unconscious conscious, to move from innocence (in the negative sense) to awareness- one of the major jungian psychologies – is the truly human step on the way from innocence to harmlessness…the divine gift is in masking the two- intuition(the “shrewdness of the snake”) with the “harmlessness of the dove”.my notes- – funny thing about the dove, or in the bible referred to as the holy spirit. the spirit in old testament translated as sophia or wisdom, now, the ghost of god, the wisdom of god. could it be that the wisdom of god has been clocked sophia, delivered by this jesus, yet still, to this day, we do not see her? According to the Pistis Sophia, Christ is sent from the Godhead in order to bring Sophia back into the fullness of Pleroma following her repentance. read “the sacred prostitute” and ask, what is the shadow of god, who was this rebel son that upturned tables and dinned with hookers?look at history, at ancient myth, when sexuality was a powerful and spiritual gateway. then consider why in our modern mind, is sexuality still a dirty thing, a “daddy’s little girl” thing. where is the magdalene of our day who can plead her belly and still bring home the bacon without explaining herself away in service to the patriarchy? where do we go to see the mother mary and the whore dance together in one voice. why did he tell us to be as shrewd as snakes and as harmless as doves. maybe we should go asks the bee’s instead, ask them how they thunk up the idea to make a hexagram out of two triangles? i wanna taste that honey! 

symbiosis to victimization: an evolving out of the aggressor and explorations into form.

rollo may, in his book “courage to create”, talks about humans need, as creative beings, to find form. i think it’s the way the life of the inner world stands to the mirror of endless existence in reflecting the outer-world, the movement we witnesses in our co-creation. so nihilism, although can disguise itself within human emotion, has no form. nihilism is forever separated from itself in any attempts to bring together, to unify itself with the whole. m. scott peck, in his book “people of the lie” describes victimization as symbiosis. it is the parasitic attempt to survive vicariously off another life form without reciprocating its own life-giving energy on another’s behalf. on the contrary, what is reciprocated is a lie, a pretense of reciprocation.just as in our unwillingness to take ownership of our wish fulfillments and deflection of responsibility to the destruction created through our unfulfillment, we make our form nameless and faceless. human beings, in their desperation have broken down to a science, the skill of leeching off the life giving force of another. m. scott peck defines the lie as, not those who commit deemed acts of “sin” or “evil”, but rather, those who are unable to admit the harm they cause others. what’s implied is here is that the evil is in a person’s unwillingness to correct the aggressor within. peck acknowledged the risky but necessary step in developing a “psychology of evil” if we are to better understand a deeper nature to our narcissism. furthermore, i suggest that, if we are to arrive at the name, or better, the forms we create, as rollo may suggested, then we must find a better way to recognize that form in what it does, in its potentiality, in what needs it serves by penetrating beyond the veil of the flesh. the trickiest stage out of our victimization thus, is a sorta juxtaposition in this, the perpetrator is unwilling to admit that he too is a victim, just as the one violated remains unconvinced that he/she has to remain a victim.then it is an unwillingness to move.  there are many ways people walk around in their own garden with figs leaves for explanations and justifications, “if i love him enough, he will change”, “it’s your fault i am this way”, or, i love this one, “i know he/she is a good person deep down”, ridiculous! deep down where? do you mean “deep down” in the black madonna soil where persephone speaks of abduction? in that case, you better get ready to get naked and dirty before you start claiming redemption, cause both zeus and demeter had a lot of explaining to do then and so would anyone when lovers becomes mother’s, when daughter’s play the mother’s.  and if any attempts at overhauling your internal dialogue doesn’t cut it for you, i suppose you can always go back to hiding behind a crooked cross god isn’t even hanging to any longer, sloshing around at the bottom of that barrel. either way, there is no pain without going beneath, and no intimacy without trust, no transcendence without having something substantial enough to ration the ride back up  just to say, “please to meet you”.

thoughts on sacred sexuality