The Venus of Brassempouy (French: la Dame de Brassempouy, meaning "Lady of Brassempouy", or Dame à la Capuche, "Lady with the Hood") is a fragmentary ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic. It was discovered in a cave at Brassempouy, France in 1892. About 25,000 years old, it is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face and hairstyle.

            The Venus of Brassempouy with various Artistic affects applied to her sculpture, rendering her Regal, Adorned and Stately… as she so deserves.         

 This Goddess appears to me to be in the maiden stage and even though she is depicted without a mouth I imagine this young woman was brought up using hers with dignity. This image captivated me from the start with her youthful stare, her determined visage of strength over circumstance, let this Youth's only circumstance be one of age, we pray. I cannot see a smile being on her face but not for the lack of happiness but for the right to be who she was in life and her defiance allowed, even admired, she chooses her pretty visage moments, when SHE wants. I imagine the artist had begun to create an homage to this Goddess and something took him from his task… therefore the lacking details in the ivory sculpture lead us to wonder and wonder. This Venus of Brassempouy, is she telling us as we are taking our first look at a maiden Goddess in all her glory and feminine power? Or is she trying to scream and tell us ... Win the fight of feminine dignity and revel in your strength sisters, I lack the mouth, and too,  the voice; but yet, I speak, I speak!.

Last night I had two dreams and in those dreams were Eagles!

Last night I had two dreams and in those dreams were Eagles! Two very different types of eagles but there they were EAGLES in my dreams.

The first dream we were eating ribs that were supposedly cooked to be eaten while watching a film of the Eagles (the band with Don Henley in it) while they were young and just a newly discovered band. It was weird because in the film THEY were eating ribs too. I am sitting around with friends and we are all eating these ribs and watching the film and I can’t recognize the members of the band and I keep asking where Don Henley is and someone idiot, tells me he is gay. Now I know he isn’t and I still don’t know why I don’t see him in this film because he is the one in the band I like intensely and love his songs.  Any way that is pretty much how that dream goes…

Then I am in a bedroom and there is a friend of mine and someone else in the room and we are just hanging and one friend is lying on a bench at the bottom of the bed and the window is open, at the end of the bed a few feet from it.  I am talking and I am looking out the window and I see coming toward us an eagle. It is flying at the window so I say: “There is an eagle flying toward us!”. My friend, a male and a pagan who is a Native American says: “Yes they do that”… just lays still and lets the thing fly across him and land and walk across the bed and across the white sheet… it is massive and turns to look at me and then turns back towards the window and flies out. I have always wanted to see an eagle in real life and that is the closest I have come. I have seen large ravens and hawks and even a vulture… but never a real life eagle. So those were the two dreams!

I looked up the meaning of the eagle in a dream and the meaning of an eagle as a spirit animal here is what they signify:

Eagles

To see an eagle in your dream symbolizes nobility, pride, fierceness, freedom, superiority, courage, and powerful intellectual ability. It also represents self-renewal and your connection with your spirituality. You will struggle fiercely and courageously to realize your highest ambitions and greatest desires. Alternatively, if you live in the United States, then the national bird could represent your patriotism and devotion to country.

Here is the Totem Spirit Animal, meaning for this animal-

Eagle sacred messenger, Master / Mistress of patience, Bringer of visions from spirit, Ability to hear spiritually, Potential Ability to heal, Lightness, and Able to see beyond the horizon

I am quite pleased with these readings and I do see very significant links with what is happening in my life right now. I am grateful for all the dreams I am having at this time as there have been many and I am going to try and record and decipher them now to find the links and puzzles in them, since I have not remembered so many dreams in very many years.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook...
That is the Question ...

These days I have been a bit of a quandary about a few things in my life... One of them being my life on Facebook (FB). I do love my FB friends and I do love keeping up with the events and the things people are doing  but on the other hand I don't like some of the idiotic things that go on on FB. I am a bit upset about the new advertising that is happening too. I guess they must pay for the thing somehow but what have they been doing about that up till now?

Recently, the election between Romney and Obama made me realize that some of my friends are die hard Republicans and that made me angry enough to want to UN-Friend them! I even got angry at some of the Democrat ones that had a nerve to post slightly negative points of view concerning the new term for the President. I find that I would have said the same thing if my friends were in front of me and we were talking but something appears to be more profain about writing the stuff down and putting it on the Internet for all to see, forever!

I really don't mind about posting with some of my friends and their responses because they are cool with anything I say and it is just cool to chat with them and just say anything... but there are a few that never even post on my page and that I am just slightly acquainted with (like my former minister), that I really do want to tell them what I think but they just post a kind of a sermon and want everyone to say... 'Ya man your so right and cool', that when I come along and disagree I feel like a bad guy doing it. On top of that he never responds just posts some condescending crap on his next post that is so miss-mashed that you don't even know if you have been trashed or forgiven!! Oh well, so many people agreed with me anyway, I couldn't of been that far off.

I guess to post on FB you have to just do it... like ripping a band-aid off, let the burn happen, feel good about what you did and move along. I am so bad at UN-friending people that I keep the people on my list even if I have nothing in common with them and I maybe played a game with them 5 years ago.
 
I do have family that I live many miles away from and I do keep in touch with them, Friends have found me that I haven't seen in years, People that I hang with on a month to month basis and things I do are reflected on the pages of my FB (Via Photos),  I also have my Dark Artist page where I can post many things that reflect my POV... It's just the minor things like people IM'ing me that I may not want to talk to... or people who have mental problems who rant about things that you wish they would just get over. I do love the people I am talking about, I just find that having these things and pictures of silly kittens, or other nonsense things that are to me inane attempts at humor... are like dealing with the guy at work who greets you daily with the same line "You working hard... or hardly working... He he he (AKA LOL)?". On the other hand, some of my FB friends post deep things that make you think, and funny things that also make you think... They get my sense of humor and even read my notes, which to me is an aspect that is under used on FB. My aforementioned former Minister uses his notes all the time, but again he is not one to comment on anyone else's, unless you are on his favorite list, and that is a short list... Not cool for a minister in my opinion. Lot's of people tell me I am a good writer and yet he has never ever commented on anything I have written... Why not? It really has hurt me and has been a minor factor in my leaving his church. Others have commented on his favoritism too. But that, in this statement, is hearsay, so it doesn't hold water, not even Holy water!

 I have been hardly on FB these days and when I am it usually is because I have an agenda. I have quit quite a few things these days; my Church, my Fire Circle group, and a few close relationships too. I have thought about discontinuing my FB account too... But I guess I am too attached to it and I have some parts that I do need to a great extent. Interesting considering I chose to discontinue relationships, before FB!!!

I may consider cutting down my list of friends... the 386 friends I have could use a trimming... but that is for another day. Too many things have been cut from my life these days already. Enough is enough... FB with all your flaws and your irritations for now your SAFE!!!

Losing Weight... is not so dull anymore!!!

To me losing weight is a dreary topic... I have never enjoyed talking about it "Ever" in my life. I have recently enjoyed some success at it and I wanted to pass on some of my secrets to anyone that may need a few pointers on the fly.

I am a user of the Diabetic Diet and the Atkins Diet, in combination, so please refer to these diets to get info on what to eat and recipes to prepare. I find that if you reduce carbohydrates you will lose weight, simply by reducing the amount of sugar in your intake. I tend to run better on this diet anyway and feel really energetic while on it, so to me it is the best route and it appears the kind of livable diet to just go with for long term, with the occasional adding of carbohydrates, in the way of vegetable carbohydrates, so that they are clean to the system.

I also found that using FITDAY.com has been a fun side thing and I can put in all my calories easily as well as look up recipes and also plug in my goal weight and the date I want to accomplish this and "Voila" it tells me how many calories to eat to accomplish this task, You easily can get a FREE account that is very user friendly and you can even calculate down to the last calorie you burn (including sitting here typing in my Blog). Having all this MATH capability is definitely fun and I love the stats as they change and plot from week to week. Including the inches you lose. I suggest you fill in all the stats when you begin and then you have a full picture of your baseline, from the start of your journey.

I Don't usually share dieting with people and will not continue to talk about this on this blog... just thought these pointers might help someone else... Peace!

Boston - Your my Home

Although I am not into smoking unless there is some Ghanga involved, this picture would pretty much tell you what my sensibilites are, over all... I like dark things, being darkly sexy, and I love a good city.

I live in a small city now maybe three tall buildings and it is sweet and charming, for the most part. I did live in Boston, Mass. and I found that city to be exciting and diverse and contained in it a sense of being able to be who you wanted without the feeling of someone saying - looky there a freak!!! There were people who loved to draw attention to themselves and the Gay population was out and proud!!! I like knowing I am living somewhere that people generally are allowed to live FREE!

The City I live in now is the buckle of the Bible belt and it's also in the deep south *sigh*, I knew before I came here that I had expectations of what it would be like and yet to find it all too true, has been a bit too much for me to deal with on a month to month basis. I have found the people here to be openly racist, and completely intolerant for anybody who is NOT a born again Christain or at least a near facsimile of the same. I am a Witch and even though I pretty much hang with the local pagans, I still get my fill of what the "Others" have to say and feel about EVERYTHING.

First, they, the Christians seem to always want to tell you what to do with your life, they always want to tell you that you need to find Jesus. I have found him, he is a friend, but the Churches that his so-called followers have created and the doctrines and the bylaws of what they stand for do not, to me, seem to reflect anything that Jesus (Joshua *hebrew) would believe in at all... but these people don't seem to realize that hate was never part of his sermons.

Second, it is so easy to speak this hate down here and people actually think you will agree with them... Like they think you have come to the south to buy into their bigotry! I am horrified by this idea and I know that not all southern people are like this but, the ones who are (and there are many) give this place a nasty name... Christians being one of the biggest culprits of the whole problem.

I have been living here 4 yrs now and I really am beginning to wonder if I can survive the mentality, the government (Republicans), and this last part is kinda weird, the weird way they act like they have sunshine up their butts all the time and they love everybody and yet with this one line "Well, Bless your heart" it means F-YOU or You Suck!!! How special!! Everybody calls you Ma'am and I am not an old woman, and I hate the Ma'am thing!!!! They say it is a sign of respect... well, respect my wishes and stop calling me damn Ma'am!!

Boston... Your my Home!!!

Persephone Rising

This is one of my latest paintings, sorry about the picture quality. I recently did a meditation on the Dark Goddesses including, Demeter, Persephone, Hecate and Lilith. This is a rendition of what Persephone looked like in that meditation and along with Lilith each had skeletal appearances. I call this painting "Persephone Rising", as she rises from Hades in spring through the swamp. Still dressed in her bridal gown she springs forth desiccated and picked clean to join her enraged and yet relieved mother.

The Raven in my Life...





This is a fairly recent painting of a Raven on a ice/snow laden area. It has been proven that these birds are the smartest birds (Raven/Crow) in all of the bird families. I have a sweet story about a Large Raven that I would like to share and it formed a life time attachment to these birds that has created a dynamic that is unforgettable.

One day when I was walking in the quads between the buildings at my small community college. I came upon a large Raven. I was late for my class and it was just me and the Raven in the quad. I came upon the Raven who stood about two feet high and when it talked to me raised its wings out to a full wing span of at least six feet across! I was frightened by his size and stopped in my tracks... We stood there him with his big ol self and I wanting to get by but staring into his black eye's for any warning and we just looked at each other. My fear diminished but I must say it did not vanish, for he was a ghastly large bird. Though I have never seen an eagle I would approxomate his size to be one of that. Time was ticking and I had to get to class so, in a burst of courage I made a wide bee-line around him and ran for the door. The door had a window in it so even with my sense of hurry I turned and looked at him and he simply just stood there on his stately rock and waited for his next victim, I laughed at myself and went on to class. I must say that since that time I have noticed the black birds, and anytime I have seen anything about them I tune in . I saw a Public Broadcasting Show (PBS) about them telling about how smart they were and in that story they told about after a fisherman set up a ice fishing hole with a string and a hook and of course the hook is baited the Crow came down and stole the well won fish by pulling up the fish bit by bit between his feet and then just chomping away at the fish, hole side. I nearly created that scene in my painting, still might, since I still have the painting! I do have a feeling of kindred spirit with these smart birds now and I am thankful for my trembling meet with this large Raven. Mind you I was on my way to an advanced English Literature Class and The story of Poe's Raven took on new dimensions from this time on. Blessed be.