This is a reading response to “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Leonard Shlain.

In the first 50 pages, Shlain goes over the history of how women interacted in the world during hunter/gather time.  The woman was valued for her skills in foraging, gathering food for her lover and/or family.  Without these feminine skills the masculine beings would suffer, especially when hunting was scarce or unsuccessful.  These two roles were essential in life and were each valued.

Leonard Shlain says, and I find it important to note that, “Every individual has encased in his or her skull both a feminine brain, and a masculine one. Any particular society can accentuate one or the other of these two ways of interacting with the world, depending on the demands of the environment or the shaping influences of its inventions.” (Shlain 27)

Things started to shift when our environment moved from a more nomadic style, or a more settlled way of being in the world. Once people began to become steady on land, things shifted, men no longer went out on hunts, and instead they would stay on the land, learning how to take care of and raise animals. They also began to take part in the, once strictly feminine role, of gathering food.  Men learned to pray to the earth goddess to bring fertility to the land.  It is mysterious still, how these prayers changed towards masculine like gods, and why they no longer prayed to the goddess. Maybe it was simple that the masculine brain wasn’t getting worked in the same way because of the lack of hunting, that the “masculine brain” needed to be manifested elsewhere?

A poetic response to The Alphabet Versus the Goddess:

Woman gathered food to disperse in trade for iron,

to enrich her bleeding body.  She must have done this

or either traded her sex for their huntings.

She later watched as the words were stolen from her body, from her cherished skills, to now engage in an act that brought apon shame to her collecting, to her giving.

The words were stolen from her body they say.

Because they no longer speak in prayer

for her to bring them fertility. They no longer ask for nourishment as the crops grow plump by manipulated man hands.

She watched

and she, the giver of light, shed on this shift; of body to word

of right, to left

brain

gracefully allowing the

embarking on endeavors that could not hold the sight of her slippery hips, and sturdy hands.

They moved they’re hands to the stolen spaces of the page

the page filled with imageless faces and heartless prayers.

they stole the words from her body

and now her vessel is missing

the piece of fulfillment

that the valued iron gave her.

and yet, She walks on,

handing out poppy’s to the still outstretched hands.

Liberty P.

My hands become the vessel

squeezing the clay into shape

to center.

If I am not centered, the pockets of air cause a wobbling

ending in destruction

-wedging gone askew.

As if I hiccuped and forgot to place my foot correctly

oh the moments of slippage, spilling out from beneath perfectly placed fingers.

wobble

wobble slip and ripple.

Like many things done with time

finding the rhythm of patience becomes a practiced virtue

the clay demands-

be graceful, or i’ll cave in on you

like jello, like a rocky mountain shore

like a booby trap.

I find solace in the blind relationship of fingers on clay,

feeling the depth and the waves in my slow slow motions.  I close my eyes, and a deeper sense of knowing kicks in, a still point within my hands, between my heart, my eyes shut.

expanding my vision to extend to finished pieces.

I dont see the end,

Instead I Feel the movement, a slow one, opening – can be swift, shutting, if there is patience it is centered in the end.

The relation of I on eye

on eye,

and I on hand

with no eye

I

stop trembling, and form the vessel on center.

centering my hands.

Authors note: This was created after a day of centering on the wheel.  Learning to embody patience with the pieces I was opening and creating. I found I could tap into my own center when I was patient with the clay, allowing it to slip past my fingers, blindly, rather then pulling and pushing, working together with this element and with my body. With the simplicity of my hands i formed centered vessels, my eyes were getting in the way of me feeling centered, so i shut them. I like this metaphor and I like knowing I can accomplish a certain beauty while manipulating earth.

Dear Ocean,

As a child, you tested my will to breathe

dominoing your rippled bodies over my child eyes

The humans said they rescued me, yet I always knew it was you

who gave me a chance – a chance to trust.

Looking out at the ever-sweet dense fog –

my fingers numb

I recount the lessons

learned

I am lulled by a freshening of your breath, of my breath

in relation.

Amoungst the winds of the west

lie the rippled waves of my home tide

your’e bundled matter of molecules radiate comfort

miles and miles

stretched through time and space

A vantage point:

The old worn wood caressed into shape by your force

waves

whittled down to smooth bones of stillness

beneath me.

Then today:

Your forested ocean  filled with ancestors

awaken my ming to the scattered time pieces…

pieces of

pieces of mountains,

washed up

Foraging my neurons like

shapes of

pebbles…

stones…

rocks…

to be picked up and pondered upon,

twistedthroughtrustingfingertips.

 

 

Day:

Today we played with dandelions in class, what a rich medicine! it certainly has so much to offer! Try eating them , making elixirs, infusing oil and making into wine!

They can be harvested from spring to fall, such a giving plant with such elegance, sometimes it appears that they lay clusters of dining tables, enjoying the feast of life in your yard, what welcoming and comfortable medicine.

I really enjoyed tending to the harvesting of Dandelions, washing them and picking them apart was a task that got me feeling such spring euphoria, while munching on the sweet little surprise blossoms at the bottom of the leaves, yummy

Evening:

This evening I got on the pottery wheel, I wanted to focus on Centering

I really enjoyed the quote from M.C. Richards inCentering on page 36 that finishes in talking about the space between two things, the interaction and reflection of the relationship between two by saying:

“It is a marriage of forces.”

When i approached the wheel I had in mind this quote and asked myself,

how can I recognize and work with this other force (the clay), how can we create a safe and harmonious relationship?  I decided to approach it with some confidence but also with the care of how I would treat a delicate friend, gently.

I had in mind the letter A

a letter in which when the greek language started writing, the letter A was not a sound per say but a moment for a breath.  What a beautiful thing that a letter represented breath.  This idea of A’s being breaths directed to me thinking about spherical vessels, ones filled with breath and curve.  This is what I attempted. The inhalation, the tension in the chest so beautiful.