pumeyamann

[divaricca]

God Herself

Unlike religious traditions that posit a God outside the physical earth, the Star Goddess may transcend the earth, but not our cosmos. With intimate connection, She is woven into the fabric of the natural world, in space, time, stars and green growing grass. This is immanence, the Divine in all things. In Her vastness, the Star Goddess may feel transcendent, but God-out-there is not separate from the immanent God-in-all-things that many call Goddess, and Victor and Cora called God Herself. She is akin to Egypt’s Nuit, Babylon’s Ishtar, Hine Turama of the Maori and the Welsh Arianrhod, lovers, creators and Star Goddesses all. She creates from lust and bears from her womb, messy, sticky and full of life. Hers is not the creation from pure intellect, birthed only by wind and word. Feri Tradition names Her Quakoralina. (2)

A Feri practitioner’s beliefs can range from the pure polytheism of many Gods (3), to an adapted monism, in which God Herself functions as the unifying force of all life. The Gods and Goddesses who embody particular energies that work in the world are said to have spiralled out from Her creative impulse. Victor would say that “The Supreme Being is God Herself. She needs no-one to help Her. She is male and female. The male is translated out through the female.”

As Hers was the first act of creation, God Herself – the Star Goddess – is present in all of creation. Immanent, She fills the interstices of our lives with mystery and beauty: in the pineapple weed pushing through the sidewalk cracks, or the flash of lightning, shattering the sky. Immanence is the voice of the breeze in the trees and the pounding of the waves on sand. Immanence is a kiss, a touch, a breath. It is your body sliding across your lover in lust and celebration."

T. Thorn Coyle

[spiritscraft]

Announcing a new biography about Victor Anderson 1917-2001, of interviews taken with him and his wife Cora, founders of the Feri Witchcraft Tradition. As a child, Victor Anderson was initiated and trained into different spiritual traditions as his family travelled across the old west. As an adult Victor fought a lot of erasure, racism and bigotry in the pagan community that to this day whitewashes both him and the roots of American witchcraft. This text shares his interviews, documentary evidence and analysis to restore the history of the witchcraft revival in America, showing how a man of mixed race reconciled his own heritage and trainings with founding an influential witchcraft tradition for the neopagan community.

Victor and Cora taught in the apprenticeship model, no charge, from their modest home and from the love and passion of their hearts. Heritage was so important to who Victor was and how he taught. A student of Feri could expect to learn the folk ways of their own people under the mentorship of their teacher as well as the unique approach, tools and theology of Feri tradition.

In this new biography read never before seen material by Victor, Cora and his student of 20 years Cornelia Benavidez with an appendix of genealogical and historical material by William Wallworth and an essay by Sara Star about Quakoralina 304 pages. Available in time for Victor Anderson’s centennial May 21, 2017.

[trollhuldren]

Love & Death

The Love of God Herself is like the love of a scorpion for its prey. The cosmos is a dark forest of predation and merciless give-and-take. But for the Gift that is Love, a secret Quakoralina whispers on the Winds that blow in the darkness between the stars. It is perfect Love for the stars spinning in the swirling eddies of a galaxy, all dancing around Death (the Supermassive Black Hole) at the center. The Love that Old Fate has for Creation is Self-Love, most-true, as all our souls are like holographic images of Hir. Each of us the whole cosmos. For those who approach the Le Grand Belle Dame Sans Merci, and ask of Her Hand, she will first rend us apart before making us whole...if she chooses us. We must suffer--experience friction and disintegration and identity-death, being "Cleft from the Herd"--before we can become Wise. Before we can bear the sign of the True King, whose brow is as polished ivory, who has tasted the three drops from the poison cup, who wears the Crown of Thorns. This is the crown offered to each of us who take the risk to pluck the Rose. The Aulraun raises us to Hir, to be gods, but first dismembers us and then grinds our bones to powder. There is no godhood without death; even the etymology of "god" has linguistic associations with the grave mound. Phenomenally, this looks like being messy, having our lives fall part, facing challenges, and even coming undone. All of our Flow is being redirected. It is the quest to make the Pearl. All the old rules no longer hold sway, for we become part of the hidden covenant, those who ride back and forth re-membering the whole, repairing the world and ourselves. Dr. Cornel West reminds us that "Justice is what love looks like in public." If this is true, and I believe it is, then the work of the witch is to extract justice. Love like God loves, and it is a hard love that coddles no weakness. There is no mistake that witchcraft is associated with poisoning, and is the toxin that is medicine. This looks like toppling institutions of social power that oppress the people. This looks like being in service of the Land, the bioregion, the whole body upon whom we live, move, and have our being. And if the body of the Land is the body of the witch, this looks like reifying our wholeness thru practice and discipline, literally "taking on the teaching." I am a child of earth and starry heaven, and I am whole and complete unto myself.

[amoret-briarrose]

I'm Callin' On My Generals:  Marching Orders

I do a lot of work with Quakoralina/Star Goddess. What She says to me can be pretty well encompassed in the following statement:

I Demand Joy.

So even in the darkest moments, that is her rallying call. She has asked me not to turn my face from the face of God Herself, no matter how bleak that face may appear, no matter how it shades the days of my life.

So hear my battle cry, friends:

Know It All, In All Its Parts. Love It All, In All Its Parts. Dance It All, In All Its Parts. I Demand Joy.

[valerieherron]

A simple book jacket design with my illustration, an assignment for Advanced Illustration.

I love it when I can make a commission work for an assignment at the same time.

illustration and jacket design © Valerie Herron, 2013

[valerieherron]

Divided for Love's Sake

traditional and digital media

© Valerie Herron, 2013