Seven Commandments of the Goddess

I wrote this at a writing conference held at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico taught by the truly gifted, award-winning writer Eunice Scarfe. It sort of "came" one early morning while I inhaled the beauty of that much Red Rock form in one place. I love how this writing calls us to journey always toward our true selves.

Enjoy your day!

Karen
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Seven Commandments of the Goddess

I went to the mesa.

I saw the goddess.

The goddess said, “Bow down. You are on holy ground. For every place you are is holy and every place I am is holy and one is not holier than the other. So bow down low and rest your head on your own holy of holies.”

Then her breath came as a cream wind, but it came and lifted me off the holy ground of me and you and her, and it lifted up my arm as if it was a puppet of the cream wind, and placed a thin stone in my hand. Then the voice, gentle and hers, that matched the cream wind again spoke.

“Carve.”

I knew what to do.

1. Always look back at Gomorrah. You don’t want to miss one thing. If you turn into salt, then salt the earth with your body, a human shaker across the bland lands.

2. Don’t wait for the sunrise to come on your dream. Arise, it has come. Look out your window. It has raised its balled fist of fire to say, I can. I will. No one can stop me. Just behind the mesa it rose and surprised us all. The power of it.

3. Abandon any thought of others “doing” life for you. You are the carver, the Red Rock your tablet. If the Red Rock remains without story, the etch of your four elements—air, wind, earth, and fire—nations will not know. Go alone. Do not fear the mesas.

4. You may want to bring your mother or father, brothers or sisters, or significant others to witness the holiest places you’ve been shown. You may do this if you wish. Know the price of pinning miniatures of your family to your garments for the journey. You see, they have their own journeys as well where you can’t go. They have their holiest place and you have yours. Allow. Allow the split in the rock to occur naturally.

5. About saving the world with whatever it is you carve in the Red Rock. Bow your head in humility—the world is saved as each one of us takes up our thin stone driven by the cream wind of goddess and drives epics into the walls that have held us captive. Save yourself. The world is nourished by one woman telling her story and the next and the next until we’ve created a weaving of story, a vibrant shawl of light we can wrap around the world as love gift. Remember, wrapping something in love and trying to save it are two different things.

6. Go where no woman has gone. That means if you stand on Kitchen Mesa, reach on your tippy toes as high as you can, your hands trying to touch the secrets of the lowest stars. Don’t stop there. “Bend and stretch. Reach for the stars. Stand on tippy toes. Reach for Mars." Reach farther, even though it may hurt a little, for the nine planets of women that haven’t yet been discovered. Be an astronomer of women. They sparkle about the earth undiscovered. They live in wells as holy water never drawn. They are embedded in rock waiting for lullaby hands. They smother underground. You see the sprig of their growth atop the desert. Dig down under the smallest green and you may find a vegetable or root you’ve never known.

7. Never forget each of you have the cream wind—no one different from the next. The cream wind blows the same for all. It comes down to who is willing to be on the mesa alone, take the tool in her hand, and change the shape of the Red Rock forever.

Shelnutt Copyright 2006

Pages I completed in Linda's book Winter Garden for round robin

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW OF PAGE

From Linda's Winter Garden Altered Book

"Queen of the Winter Garden"

Pages from Altered Book Round Robin/Sheila Frank's book What is Art?

"Art Attack"
"Artsy"

"We are born as works of art."

"Art Freaks me out!"

"Art is getting naked on the page"
"Naked"

"Art Stat"

"Art is swimming to the deep end."


"Art is in the eye of the beholder"
This is the first page I did in Sheila's What is Art?
book. I loved working on this theme. This page
is a pop-up.

"Art is Poetry"
These pages are from entries I did in Sheila Frank's
book in a round robin. Her book was called
What is Art? Some verses from a poem I wrote
appear on this page.