janelle
08-06-2003, 03:28 PM
Posted on Wed, Aug. 06, 2003
Goddess craze goofy
KATHLEEN PARKER: GODDESS CRAZE IS GOOFY
At great risk to my standing in the zeitgeist, I have a confession to make: I'm having trouble locating my inner goddess. I've looked everywhere. I even consulted my inner child, who was still moping from the encounter when I gently suggested, "Oh, grow up!" No sign.
I began my goddess search, as doubtless thousands have in recent weeks, immediately upon finishing Dan Brown's summer blockbuster, "The Da Vinci Code," the relentless page-turner about the search for the Holy Grail and the lost sacred feminine.
Brown's book -- the new bible for Ya-Ya sisterhoods everywhere -- curtseys to the notion that modern western religion is part of a male conspiracy, facilitated by metal weaponry and the Vatican, to keep women down. This was accomplished in part by tossing out the Mother Goddess allegedly worshipped by early man, and demonizing women as crones and various apple peddlers. Bye-bye, Isis; hello, Medusa.
I won't spoil Brown's book by revealing the really dark secret that predicted modern gender relations. Suffice it to say that his novel may represent the tipping point for the far cosmic wing of modern feminism, and predicts a tsunami of goddess-ness for the foreseeable future.
Goddesses galore
Goddess book clubs, goddess hiking troops and goddess support groups already abound. Any time three or more women gather these days, the goddess word is likely to bubble up.
Michelle Pfeiffer gives voice to Eris, goddess of Chaos, in DreamWorks' animated film "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas." There are goddess pillows, goddess T-shirts and a "Goddess" exhibit at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Even Stonehenge has a new sacred feminine interpretation. The stone monument that has puzzled humans for some 5,000 years is really -- a girl! Not a landing platform for alien spaceships at all but a fertility symbol in the form of female genitalia, according to a retired gynecology professor, Anthony Perks, who, one might argue, retired none too soon.
If you type in "goddess" on Amazon, 1,302 entries pop up, including diet books and tarot-card guides, as well as scholarly works on reclaiming the sacred feminine, invocations and rituals. Google "goddess" and you get 2.4 million entries, a review of which might lead us to reasonably conclude the following:
Oogedy-boogedy.
Latest self-absorption
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the culture that made the feminist gynecological encyclopedia "Our Bodies, Ourselves" a coffee-table book -- followed by the riveting scene of women discovering themselves by squatting over mirrors in "Fried Green Tomatoes" -- inevitably would morph into the self-absorbed, self-worshipping goddess movement.
Fast-forwarding from "I am woman, hear me roar" to "I am goddess, back off, Bubba," the goddess movement is a logical extension of the narcissistic self-esteem movement. Emotion and superstition congeal in a spiritualized version of Revlon meets Rosie the Riveter.
Whether ancient times really were more female-centered, as Brown fictionalizes -- and as some scholars suggest -- it is increasingly clear that modern times are leaning that way. As we invent new matriarchal myths to sustain us, however, we might remember that for every alluring Georgia O'Keeffe receptacle in nature, there is an important-looking pinnacle nearby.
The real name of the game is balance, yin and yang, male and female. And real goddesses, as with everything else, do not have to declare themselves.
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Goddess craze goofy
KATHLEEN PARKER: GODDESS CRAZE IS GOOFY
At great risk to my standing in the zeitgeist, I have a confession to make: I'm having trouble locating my inner goddess. I've looked everywhere. I even consulted my inner child, who was still moping from the encounter when I gently suggested, "Oh, grow up!" No sign.
I began my goddess search, as doubtless thousands have in recent weeks, immediately upon finishing Dan Brown's summer blockbuster, "The Da Vinci Code," the relentless page-turner about the search for the Holy Grail and the lost sacred feminine.
Brown's book -- the new bible for Ya-Ya sisterhoods everywhere -- curtseys to the notion that modern western religion is part of a male conspiracy, facilitated by metal weaponry and the Vatican, to keep women down. This was accomplished in part by tossing out the Mother Goddess allegedly worshipped by early man, and demonizing women as crones and various apple peddlers. Bye-bye, Isis; hello, Medusa.
I won't spoil Brown's book by revealing the really dark secret that predicted modern gender relations. Suffice it to say that his novel may represent the tipping point for the far cosmic wing of modern feminism, and predicts a tsunami of goddess-ness for the foreseeable future.
Goddesses galore
Goddess book clubs, goddess hiking troops and goddess support groups already abound. Any time three or more women gather these days, the goddess word is likely to bubble up.
Michelle Pfeiffer gives voice to Eris, goddess of Chaos, in DreamWorks' animated film "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas." There are goddess pillows, goddess T-shirts and a "Goddess" exhibit at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Even Stonehenge has a new sacred feminine interpretation. The stone monument that has puzzled humans for some 5,000 years is really -- a girl! Not a landing platform for alien spaceships at all but a fertility symbol in the form of female genitalia, according to a retired gynecology professor, Anthony Perks, who, one might argue, retired none too soon.
If you type in "goddess" on Amazon, 1,302 entries pop up, including diet books and tarot-card guides, as well as scholarly works on reclaiming the sacred feminine, invocations and rituals. Google "goddess" and you get 2.4 million entries, a review of which might lead us to reasonably conclude the following:
Oogedy-boogedy.
Latest self-absorption
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the culture that made the feminist gynecological encyclopedia "Our Bodies, Ourselves" a coffee-table book -- followed by the riveting scene of women discovering themselves by squatting over mirrors in "Fried Green Tomatoes" -- inevitably would morph into the self-absorbed, self-worshipping goddess movement.
Fast-forwarding from "I am woman, hear me roar" to "I am goddess, back off, Bubba," the goddess movement is a logical extension of the narcissistic self-esteem movement. Emotion and superstition congeal in a spiritualized version of Revlon meets Rosie the Riveter.
Whether ancient times really were more female-centered, as Brown fictionalizes -- and as some scholars suggest -- it is increasingly clear that modern times are leaning that way. As we invent new matriarchal myths to sustain us, however, we might remember that for every alluring Georgia O'Keeffe receptacle in nature, there is an important-looking pinnacle nearby.
The real name of the game is balance, yin and yang, male and female. And real goddesses, as with everything else, do not have to declare themselves.
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