Saturday, June 15, 2019

The Star: The Source

The view from earth:
Universal Waite Tarot
When we carefully examine The Star card of Tarot, important questions and messages emerge. (See my original blog on The Star January 20, 2012) It would seem this traditional card designed by Pamela Coleman Smith under the direction of Arthur E. Waite for the Rider-Waite Deck in 1910, has been imagined in the context of early religious traditions, both pagan and biblical.  First, you may want to know who the young woman is, shown pouring water from two vases - one into the water of a pond, and one poured onto the land. What is the significance of the water and land? What about the star itself and its relationship to the woman? What does the star mean? The key to understanding this card is the enormity of water. We know that without water, there would be no life. Without water, living creatures, plants, animal, human, and most living forms could not exist, and our verdant planet would look like the barren landscape of Mars.

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.
Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey, Time, Inc. 1962
The woman:
The woman represents raw nature. She is characteristic of the earth goddess of old, immanent in nature, who pours forth the essence of life symbolized as flowing water. She is the nurturing Mother Earth. For early peoples, the earth was considered sacred, and rocks, springs, rivers, and caves, were sacred places to contact higher powers and the spirits of nature. Waite refers to her as the Mother Principle of the Universe. (Arthur E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot) In early religious practices, and in mythical belief, several ancient primordial goddesses were associated with stars, particularly in ancient Middle Eastern religious observances and mythology. Merlin Stone discusses the reverence for nature goddesses in her book Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood (Beacon press, 1979). She writes: “The connection of a goddess with a star is also to be observed in the Semitic account from Canaan.” In their stories, the goddess (most likely known as Ishtar, as recorded in ancient texts) was imagined as a falling star, which landed in a lake in Lebanon. The lake was venerated as sacred and an altar was set up in reverence for the goddess.  A little tree may have been placed there as well. She concludes that, “Worship of the goddess continued until 330 A.D.” What about the star goddess of ancient Egypt? Stone continues and says that their goddess was Isis: “Isis was worshipped as the great divine mother of all nature.” In Ugaritic literature, she was called “Lady Asherah of the Sea; a title that may signify ‘She who treads on the Sea’” (Harper Bible Dictionary). In Tarot symbolism, this card is usually interpreted as a cleansing or renewal time – getting in touch with the flowing cosmic source of our life energy. It represents, grace, beauty, and the hope for a better future when we can see ourselves as we really are.

In a darker context, the goddess Ashtoreth (a.k.a. Ishtar) is mentioned many times in biblical stories as being problematic, an abomination to be gotten rid of, as patriarchal beliefs had deposed the goddess in certain Mesopotamian countries before the Christian era. In biblical, and other mythological texts, such as Ras-Shamra, from Assyria, (13th century B.C.)  the goddess is mentioned many times as either Asherah, Astarte, Ishtar, or Ashtoreth. In biblical literature,
BOTA Tarot
 (I Kings 18:19) she was associated with the evil Phoenician Princess, Jezebel, and her statues were destroyed in the priesthood’s prohibition against idol worship. Particular vessels, sacred to Asherah were deposited in the Jerusalem Temple, much to the consternation of the Priests. (II Kings 23:4) In ancient Grecian mythology, Astraea, daughter of Zeus and Themis, was a star-maiden who lived on earth and blessed mortals. In Northern Europe, she was Esther or Ostara, who appeared in the blooming of spring where, over time, her veneration was transformed into Easter celebrations by the Church. Easter eggs, such as Pysanky eggs were originally decorated with goddess symbols from the pre-Christian era but were repurposed by the Church with symbols of crosses. Then of course, in Christianity, there was the famous Star of the East, symbol of divine guidance leading the Magi to Bethlehem where Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12).

Through this and other mythic images one can trace the ancient goddess
who ruled the stars when they were thought to be the blessed souls in heaven –
heroes, gods, martyrs, deceased sacred kings and saviors…”
Barbara Walker, The secrets of the Tarot, (HarperCollins, 1984)

The Star Tarot of Cosmic Consciousness
Sources: Larousse World Mythology (Chartwell Books,1965)
               The White Goddess, Robert Graves (Vintage Books, 1948)
               Harper’s Bible Dictionary, (HarperCollins, 1985)
            Universal Waite Tarot (US Games Systems, 1990)

Water:  How do we think about water in our time: What is the status of water on earth today?
In the book, Meditations on the Tarot, (Tharcher/Putnam 2002) the anonymous author writes:

“It is necessary to postulate the existence of an active agent which affects the passage from the state of that which is only potential to one of reality….an acorn becomes an oak, or a fertilized egg becomes a mature man, or a primordial cosmic mist becomes a planetary system…” water!

In examining the full spectrum of Nature’s principle of growth, from the beginnings of cell-division to fully developed live beings, this process is happening because of water, the flow of which carries the source of our life’s blood and nutrients. We can’t express enough, the importance of clean available water for drinking and agricultural use, especially referring to the amount of pesticides and other poisonous substances seeping into groundwater. Scientists are investigating the question of an adequate flow of water in our rivers as glaciers that feed these rivers continue to disappear.

“Waters create an alive pulsating world…That steady beat of your heart,
that pulse of life is 100% dependent on the pulse of water”
Betsy Damon, (Keepers of the Waters Newsletter, 2019)

Recently, “Surge,” an art exhibition at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Connor, Washington (10/06/2018 - 01/07/2019), displayed an important visual dialogue between artists and scientists from the Skagit Climate Consortium, regarding the scope and health of the Skagit River in the upper Puget Sound area. Their collaboration focused on issues concerning the current status of the glaciers, rivers, wetlands and estuaries, and the tidal marshes of Washington State. Of utmost concern were the scientist’s data on the receding glaciers on peaks and volcanoes that feed the Skagit River; one of the largest watershed drainage systems in the US. The scientist’s candid truth is, that since 1900, the glaciers have receded 50%. The Skagit River and several other rivers are fed by the drainage from the surrounding peaks of the North Cascades Mountain Range, the Picket Mountain Range of British Columbia, Canada, and the receding glaciers on the ten thousand foot majestic volcanoes - Mt Baker and Glacier Peak. The Skagit River Basin covers 3,100 square miles and includes 394 glaciers, most in the North Cascades National Park. Scientists, artists, local farmers, and representatives of the Swinomish tribe also held discussions open to the public in the museum on climate change and its effects on the health of the Skagit River, the local people, farms, and wildlife. 

The Artists: A group of 25 artists and several top climate scientists coordinated their efforts, which resulted in this extraordinary art exhibition showing the effects of global warming on the Northwest Coast. The museum provided a, “…forum for artists together with environmental researchers and educators to present the public with new perspectives such as flooding, sea level rise and storm surge” (Surge Events Flyer, Oct. 2018). The artists brought visible form to the scientist’s findings through maps, paintings, sculptures, installations, and poetry, which greatly enhanced my perspective.

Alice Dubiel: Lay Of the Land    Photo: C.B. Bell 
Alice Dubiel’s colorful installation, “The Lay of the Land: Glacial Biocenosis” consisted of seven paintings of large topographical maps from 1959, which showed the positions of the surrounding glaciers on Glacier Peak, Mt. Challenger, and Mt Baker at that time. In small, delicate acrylic paintings, she depicted threatened wildlife, king salmon, birds, insects, and other life forms, including organisms that live within the glaciated areas. Her scientist collaborator was Jon Riedel, geologist from North Cascades National Park. On her website, she mentions several websites of scientific studies on the Skagit River and glaciers, well worth studying:  https://www.planetart.space/

 Mary Ashton’s slowly rotating paper pulp and painted images of the receding South Cascade Glacier (Loss), and woodblock prints (Glacier Regression, 1929, 1960, 2004, 2016) were inspired by geologist Jon Riedel’s studies. She showed its shape in 1929 and slow disappearance to its present size today in four time frames, making clear its considerable loss.

Phillip Govedare’s four large landscape paintings presented an aerial perspective on the lay of the rivers, streams, and imprint of roads, canals, mining and agriculture on a broad scale in the Skagit area. He collaborated with Professor Phil Levin from the University of Washington on work for the Nature Conservancy on the Fischer Slough tidal marsh restoration on the South Fork Skagit Delta.  http://www.phillipgovedare.com/

Three Canadian artists, Erica Grim, Tracie Stewart and Sheinagh Anderson, collaborated on Salt Water Skin Boats, “six evocative forms [that] take the shape of coracles: ancient vessels used to traverse global waterways…” combining sound, branches, twigs, animal skins and bathymetric maps in “…fleshy boat-like objects [that] float overhead…” Anderson’s Ocean Constellation soundscapes were recordings of water, wind, creatures, sonar, ship and plane, creating eerie undertones within the museum.  “Salt Water Skin Boats,” (Catalogue, The Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsford, BC, Canada)

Mary Coss’s cold, dystopian landscape installation, Silent Salinity, explored the effects of saltwater intrusion in local estuaries of Puget Sound showing how salt water changes the plant and animal life in those tidal areas. In her dramatic and powerful message, her white (salt bound) installation piece, with grasses, bulrushes, pools of standing water and dead creatures and mollusks, appear to be frozen in place. She says in her statement accompanying Silent Salinity: “Where there was once fresh water, it is now saline. Silent Salinity is my homage to this fragile ecological balance.” She worked in collaboration with Roger Fuller, Spatial Ecologist from Western Washington University. She says, “Barnacles appear here on the bulrush like canaries in a coal mine signaling danger to the ecosystem.” Her website: https://marycoss.com/portfolio/silent-salinity/

Sources:
The many scientists and artists involved in this collaboration are included on the website of the Museum of Northwest Art: https://www.monamuseum.org/

Other Resources:
Betsy Damon, and her organization, Keepers of the Waters, have been working on implementing the importance of centering society around water, such as her Living Water Garden in Chengdu, China: https://keepersofthewaters.org
Yes! Magazine “China’s Living Water Garden,” by Anne H. Mavor, October 29, 1999
Goskagit.com article: Study Shows North Cascades glaciers have shrunk dramatically since
1950’s, by Kimberly Cauvel, (November 20, 2016)

Easily accessible articles:
Discover Magazine, “Meltdown,” by Eric Betz, June 2017
National Geographic, “Water,” November, 1993; “Water,” April 2010
National Geographic, “Into Thin Ice,” (Arctic Melt) January 2016

Side note: Since 1979, the Arctic has lost more than one half its volume of ice. Scientists believe this is the result of man-made greenhouse gases. For more information, refer to the article in National Geographic Magazine, January 2016, about the Norwegian research vessel “Lance” and the scientist’s study.