Ecuador grants rights to nature - September 29, 2008
Posted on behalf of Amber Dance They didn’t cast a single vote, but Ecuador’s monkeys, tortoises and orchids just acquired constitutional rights, along with the rest of the nation’s nature. On Sunday, Ecuador’s human citizens voted their approval of a new constitution; reports vary but approximately two-thirds of people voted yes (New York Times). The document included language making Ecuador the first nation to legislate rights for nature:“Nature or Pachamama [the Andean earth goddess], where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature before the public bodies.”The section was written in cooperation with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, which has helped individual communities legislate similar rights for nature. In June, Spain’s legislature supported rights for great apes (Great Beyond), but the Ecuador constitution appears to go much further.“With this vote, the people of Ecuador are leading the way for countries around the world to fundamentally change how we protect nature,” Mari Margil, associate director of the Fund, said in a press release. Actually, probably a lot of them were more concerned about the parts of the constitution that are meant to help the poor, by providing free education, giving homemakers social security, and providing building materials for first-time homeowners (Guardian). The nature section has been locally “derided,” according to Dot Earth. Despite the popular support, the Latin Business Chronicle suggests the new constitution will just increase president Rafael Correa’s control and increase problems for foreign investors.Ecuador’s natural bounty includes Amazon jungle with more than 300 tree species per hectare, parrots, jaguars and butterflies. The mountain cloud forest hosts orchids, hummingbirds, toucans and spectacled bears. The nation also includes the Galapagos islands, host to unique tortoises, iguanas, and birds.Image: Paul Guther, US Fish and Wildlife Service
Parvati, a Hindu goddess, is seen as sprung of earth, and fertility goddesses found not only in the Indian subcontinent but all over the world (Dexter 1990; 1997) attest to a widespread culture that associated the large and fertile mother figure with rich harvest and crops. In traditions that can be seen to stretch back at least until the early 1st millennium, Indian farmers will often see the welfare of their crops through the lens of their local goddess deity. (Jayran 2000)
The "Venus" or Goddess of Willendorf is one of the oldest known examples of a Goddess figure, many conclude to represent a Mother Goddess because of her large breasts and other motherly body features. Found near Willendorf, Austria in 1908, and estimated to have been carved 22,000 to 30,000 years ago, it shows a figurine with large breasts, and large, though not pregnant, belly (Pollack 1997: 63).
Many people involved in the Goddess movement consider the Earth to be a living Goddess. For some this may be figurative, for others literal. This literal belief is similar to that proposed by Gaia theory, and the Goddess-name Gaia is sometimes used as a synonym for the Earth. Many of those in the Goddess movement become involved in ecofeminism, and are concerned with environmental and ecological issues (Starhawk 1988). Goddess movement adherents claim the hierarchical scheme giving humans dominion over the Earth (and nature) has led to the lack of respect and concern for the Earth, and thus to what environmentalists feel are current environmental crises, (Eisler 1987) such as global warming. Rather than having dominion over the Earth, Goddess movement theorists see humans living as part of the Earth environment, and also refer to Earth as "Mother." (Budapest 1980, Starhawk 1979)
The Divine Feminine - Awakend Masculine Institute Embody your Ecstasy
Our Institute is committed to serving both men and women who are interested in awakening to their full human potential. We are a synergy of teachers from many lineages who have become enlivened through the nurturing, awakening, and healing of our essential sexual and spiritual energies. We have discovered that our sexual (life) energy is expanded and nourished by bringing a spiritual awareness to it.
We offer workshops and certification programs as well as on-line courses for those wishing to experience self-mastery in this area. The sacred teachings of Tantra, Tao, and Spiritual Psychology are woven together into a complete curriculum that provides powerful support for illuminated understanding.
Tread softly, Let your listening be like that of the beasts. Sense the spirits, the peace and the magick That dwells within all of creation.
Click on the following links for information regarding Gaia-Centered
gatherings and events happening around the world.
Goddess Community of Australia
Goddess Conference
Oct. 2011
http://www.goddessassociation.com.au/
Welcome to this place of learning and worship of our Mother God
This is an online sanctuary dedicated to the love and service of our Mother God.
Our aim is to spread both knowledge and devotion about the oldest form of religion known to humanity - the worship of Deity in Her original form: our first spiritual refuge; our surest sanctuary throughout the ages; our point of origin: our Mother God.
We shall be presenting pages about the various goddesses of history: but this has nothing to do with what some patriarchal religions call "polytheism". There is only one Absolute, only one Creatrix: only one Celestial Mother. And yet, through the Ages, She has been known by many Names.
Founded by Allyson Rice, offers life-changing programs, retreats, and weekend workshops that will help to expand your personal power and presence in the world. Whether the program centers on health and healing, enhancing creativity and intuition, yoga and meditation, vision questing, ancient women's teachings, or reconnecting with the healing power of nature, the goal is always to create the dynamic manifestation of your greatest untapped potential. The programs are holistic, mind-body-spirit in approach, with a focus on direct personal experience as the path to transformation.
The Lost Years of Jesus: The Life of Saint Issa Translation by Notovitch
"Reverence Woman, mother of the universe,' in her lies the truth of creation. She is the foundation of all that is good and beautiful. She is the source of life and death. Upon her depends the existence of man, because she is the sustenance of his labors. She gives birth to you in travail, she watches over your growth. Bless her. Honor her. Defend her. Love your wives and honor them, because tomorrow they shall be mothers, and later-progenitors of a whole race. Their love ennobles man, soothes the embittered heart and tames the beast. Wife and mother-they are the adornments of the universe." "As light divides itself from darkness, so does woman possess the gift to divide in man good intent from the thought of evil. Your best thoughts must belong to woman. Gather from them your moral strength, which you must possess to sustain your near ones. Do not humiliate her, for therein you will humiliate yourselves. And all which you will do to mother, to wife, to widow or to another woman in sorrow-that shall you also do for the Spirit."
The divine energy that makes our world go round contains both male and female aspects; a combination of yin and yang is the ONLY possible way to divine order! That which we know as God is a force that is the foundation and container of All That Is. Once we understand this, our spirituality changes dramatically.
A multi-platform film project about the awakening and transformation of global consciousness.
It is a witnessing of these times through the eyes of the world's Wisdom Keepers as we approach the year 2012.
In Time of the Sixth Sun, our protagonist guides us on a journey of awakening into a long prophesized new age. Civilizations throughout the ages have indicated through ancient calendars and visions that 2012 will be a pinnacle time in the evolution of mankind. In the West, many are noticing an increase in life's synchronicities and are experiencing time as speeding up. Scientists accept that global warming is a reality but how are these changes affecting our internal world?
Increasingly the world is seeking answers and the clock is ticking.
"I always had a sense that if there was a God, there had to be a Goddess. Host-Hostess. Steward-Stewardess. Actor-Actress. In my heart I knew there had to be a yin to the yang I grew up knowing as the Divine source of all that is. I just did not have a clue as to how to find Her."
SEARCHING FOR THE DIVINE FEMININE: Searching For "Her" In Between The Lines
Our planet has a need to reinstate a sense of the "Goddess" within its understanding of the divine; the nurturing principle of the female is needed to help guide our way through the maze of accelerated change which surrounds us. I would submit to you that many of our problems arise as a result of looking at God only as He , the He who appears to initiate holy wars and conquest. As the Taoist, Buddhist or Hindu would tell you, without the Divine Feminine Principle incorporated into one's concept of the Godhead, you have only told, at best, half the story regarding the divine nature; you have fallen short of a full appreciation of the divinity within and without.
*** The greatest ongoing force of Guadalupe is not her apparition on the tilma of Juan Diego, or even the healing of the dying uncle Juan Bernardino and the many subsequent healing miracles down to our own days. It is rather how she “lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52) as Juan Diego and millions after him are transformed from crushed, self-defacing and silenced persons into confident, self-assured and joyful messengers and artisans of God’s plan for America.
*** Many, including news titans, Time, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal are writing about the alternative spiritual phenomenon being embraced by millions ----- The Divine Feminine. The Divine Feminine has many faces and can be defined as Goddess, She of Ten Thousand Names, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother Nature, and many more. Some, but certainly not all alternative spiritualities who identify with a feminine or female face of divinity are Neo-Paganism, Nature Religions, New Agers and Wiccans. Converts are also within more well known religions who incorporate this principle within their spiritual repertoire, including Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians.
-This book is a celebration of the Sacred Feminine, the feminine face of God as it has been expressed in different cultures all over the world. The Divine Feminine is initiating a crucial new phase in our evolution: urging us to discover a new ethic of responsibility toward the planet; bringing us a new vision of the sacredness and unity of life. Wisdom, justice, beauty, harmony, and compassion are the qualities that have traditionally been identified with the Divine Feminine, yet it is also the irresistible power that destroys old forms and brings new ones into being, the inspiration of the love-in-action that is so needed to transform a culture radically out of touch with its soul. The Divine Feminine is this unseen dimension of soul to which we are connected through our instincts, our feelings, and the longing imagination of our heart.
Since the dawn of the new millennium, you see now that the great Pendulum of Life is swinging back to the other side. The spiritual awakening that you see all over the planet is an effect of the Divine Feminine being reborn in each of us again. As we were each starved from the Divine Feminine energy, it is now being craved from every angle. This is why we are experiencing one of the greatest times of transformation this planet has seen.
The priestess archetype is found in all religions throughout time, yet has been lost somewhere in our psyches for the past few thousand years. She is the vehicle through which the Divine Feminine, or the exiled Goddess, is returning to earth. Women everywhere are awakening to their Divine and Sacred selves, no matter what she is called. The priestess path is one vehicle for this return, while the shamanic path is another. Priestess consciousness teaches us to live our lives in a sacred way in service to the world, while shamanic consciousness teaches us about the natural cycles of death and rebirth, shadow and light, human and divine. Both show us how to embody both human and the divine through spiritual initiation and embracing transformation for the greater purpose of living our deepest and most powerful sacred purpose.
You are enthusiastically invited to contact us with your comments, submission of links to your sites and any Gaia/Goddess-centered happenings that you'd like to have announced on the Network Page.
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