Dark Sentiments Season 8 — Day 16: Goddess Remembered
Posted By Randy on October 16, 2017
“Twenty-first century human culture worldwide still tolerates murder, torture, and eradication of entire cultures on religious grounds. Before, after, or entwined with all that, we have that covetous constant called greed. No matter the driving force behind it, we’ve proven ourselves to have a tendency to accept attack on dissent, or even attack on those daring to be different from what is graciously granted the definition of “normal”, based on the premise that such deviations represent the thin edge of the wedge for the entrance of evil into the world. This is done by forcefully equating the dissent with specific alternate agendas that are defined as evil in the extreme, thereby creating an “us or them” framework of the power monger’s devising. The alternate agendas always turn out to be little more than being contrary to the interests of people of means who have an agenda of their own, a big part of which normally includes maintaining those means at the expense of people they want to keep under their heel. Good news though. It’s not just our society of today that’s prone to this. It’s ALL societies that have ever existed, because if there’s one thing we learn from history, it’s that people don’t learn anything from history. Oh sure, some of us do, but society is a really big crowd, and elections prove my thesis that any crowd is only as smart as its least intelligent and drunkest member.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 1 – Day 15
On day 15 of Season 1 in this series, we made reference to the National Film Board of Canada‘s Women and Spirituality Trilogy., and featured the first title in that series — The Burning Times. Tonight’s Dark Sentiment will be a revisit to that subject matter in the form of all three documentaries followed by own commentary.
Tonight we’ll begin with Goddess Remembered, thus described by the NFB:
This poetic documentary is a salute to 35 000 years of “pre-history,” to the values of ancestors only recently remembered, and to the goddess-worshipping religions of the ancient past. Goddess Remembered features Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Luisah Teish, Starhawk, Charlene Spretnak, and Jean Bolen, who link the loss of goddess-centred societies with today’s environmental crisis. They propose a return to the belief in an interconnected life system, with respect for the earth and the female, as fundamental to our survival.
I make no claim to unqualified acceptance of arguments you will see and hear presented in this series, and some of you will find your interpretations coloured by the political rebranding of some of the terms used in these documentaries. As we go forward in this season of Dark Sentiments, I will be offering my own observations, and on those Goode Reader, I will strongly encourage and greatly enjoy your comments.
So now, please do pour an hour’s worth of relaxation and watch Goddess Remembered.
… “elections prove my thesis that any crowd is only as smart as its least intelligent and drunkest member.” I like that a lot.
Moving along and now, I shall invest one hour based on your suggestion, which I know is not to be overlooked.
Random notes:
Nature as a resource for industrial growth.
Always the female, always, and without doubt, for a good reason.
The phallic representation of the serpent in acknowledgement of the female’s raison d’etre of creation.The masculine principle as ever seeking union aware of the nurturing of the female without
which the masculine would have no reason to be.
Temples in the shape of the female deity.
Aside from the obvious, and I won’t dwell on psychological issues with this, in my view the female has always been the primary force of creation. Certainly in ancient cultures, but notwithstanding that, only in relatively recent times has the woman been subjected to a ‘lower’ position and essentially a slave to a male oriented society. In ancient cultures there was equanimity and no sexual differentiation was evident as both played a significant part in the society. With the onslaught of religiosity, and the male dominance factor, it became the standard for the male to prove his virility by domination of women in the same manner as in the hunting function. As deftly pointed out in the film, woman has been the progenitor of all of the reasoning and functional values that essentially control civilization with only certain aspects that are male related out of necessity, but there as well, the Amazon overrides that, too.
What is presently happening throughout the world, is a feminist movement to ascertain the rightful position of woman in the overall cosmic sense of things. I think this is good, but at the same time it will take time for the male phallus-driven ego to be able to come to terms with the reality of woman as the definite equal.
Looking ahead to more Dark Sentiments.
Thank you for this most well considered parcel of “random notes” Steve! I’ll be quoting you in the next episode.