I always seem to get some fabulous reading done on airplanes ~ on this trip, I've been greatly impressed with Demetra George's Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess www.amazon.com/Mysteries-.../0062503707 <this link on Amazon allows you to search inside the book a bit, if you are a previous customer there>

here's a few blurbs that caught my eye from the first few chapters <I'll get into some more detail later> ~

The dark prefaces the light in the same way that gestation precedes birth & sleep allows for rejuvenation. In the human psyche we experience dark periods when we feel turned inward & nothing seems to be happening. However, in retrospect we often realize that these fallow times were germinal periods preceeding outbursts of creativity & growth.

If we correctly understand the dark, however, we can use the cover of darkness to learn the magic of our own particular secret rites, which can lead to a revitalized & replenished life.

The sun & moon are not opposite forces, in the sense of being conflicting & irreconcilable.

All things were concealed under the cover of night's darkness & so the moon came to be associated with all hidden things & mysteries of the unknown. The moon guarded over the secret teachings concerning sexuality, divination & magic & protected this knowledge from being abused by the uninitiated.

Because the light that we see as coming from the moon is the sun's reflected light, the dark moon is in a sense the moon's true face.

The serpent, with its power to shed & renew its skin, was likened to the moon, who also renewed herself each month after her apparent death.

The gifts of inspiration, prophecy & divination were believed to come from the dark moon, carried by serpents, whose venom was used to induce transcendent visionary states.

The dark phase of the moon is the closure phase of cyclical process, as well as transition to the next spiral of unfoldment. All cycles have a dark phase, a naturally occurring recessive period where the continuing life entity experiences an essential mutation & regeneration of form. When life is perceived from a linear perspective, the closure phase signifies an absolute finality that gives rise to fear of the unknown. However, when life is understood as cyclic, the closure phase is known as the transition to renewal.

When we resist this inward motion in our psyche, then anxiety, stress & fear are more likely to take hold of our emotions.

We travel through the dark of the moon whenever we are immersed in the closure phase of a relationship, job, belief system, family, specific identity, responsibilities, living environment or addiction & whenever we face the loss of that form which has given our life a structure & sense of identity. Caught in the chaos of formlessness, we may experience free-floating anxiety. What has been is no longer & waht is to come has not yet appeared.

The Goddess's teachings held that death was but the precursor to rebirth & that sex can be used not only for procreation, but also for ecstasy, healing, regeneration & spiritual illumination.

The English word "hell" comes from the land of the Scandinavian subterranean goddess Hel, but her underground was not a place of punishment. It was only the dark womb, symbolized by the cave, cauldron, pit or well. The Dark Goddess was not feared & her abode was not a place of torture.

The serpent sons of Gaia, Typhon & Python, were killed by Zeus, wielder of thunderbolts & by the Sun God, Apollo, Marduk murdered his dragon mother Tiamat, Perseus decapitated the serpent-haired Gorgon Medusa & Yaweh destroyed the serpent monster Leviathan.

The final destruction of the ancient Triple Goddess transpired when her threefold nature became transformed into that of the Father, the Sun & the Holy Ghost.

This denial of the ecstatic & healing powers of seuality led to its becoming the ultimate temptation to holy men ~ ever wary of the seductive & licentious nature of women forcing them to weaken & sin.

For most people anything that takes them beyond the security of their conscious boundaries often evokes the compulsion to hold back & deny its existence.

If we look closely at the rhythm of the moon's cycle, we may percieve that the development & flowering of the Goddess, her subsequent disappearance & her current reemergence may be due to her natural cycle of waxing & waning phases.
~~~~~~~~~~

While reading this book (which I've almost finished) I was happy to note that Demetra George points out that the "patriarchy" overtaking & dismissing the Goddess worship amongst humans is a natural & predictable part of the cycle ~ that doesn't end there. I had come to a similar conclusion myself with my Lilith research. Although she doesn't "white wash" the violence, warfare, planned censorship & domination of the "patriarchy's" history in it's attempt to abolish all that it feared & disagreed with ~ she points out that it was all part of a larger play that the Goddess was always an intrinsic part of. No one is really at "fault" ~ we were all transitioning through the Dark Phase of our own conscious evolution & that the real challenge is to be able to find forgiveness & compassion for all the frightened & mis-led humans, male & female alike, who felt abondoned, betrayed & tricked by a seemingly 'absent' Mother Goddess.

love all-ways,
mem