Is This the Oldest Depiction of the Virgin Mary?

The Virgin Mary/Maria is a Christian incarnation of the ancient Mother Goddess, She who has gone by various names throughout written and unwritten history: Mariah/Maya/Mari/Mare/Amaya/Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna/Isis/Hathor/Mut, etc.

The myth of a virgin giving birth to a "god" or demi-god through an "incarnation" is nothing new -- having shown up throughout the ages in various forms and cultures around the world (not just the Middle East). What I find most fascinating about this article is the association of the ancient Mother Goddess with water symbolism which means, essentially, She is the giver and sustainer of life itself.  No water - no life. Thus, she is feared above all others because she controls life itself, and her representatives on Earth -- females -- are feared above all else by the males of all species, and by male homo sapiens sapiens most of all.

Article at The New York Times:

Is This the Oldest Image of the Virgin Mary?

By MICHAEL PEPPARD

JAN. 30, 2016

THE Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the most revered woman in the Christian tradition. In the history of art, she appears almost as frequently as Jesus himself. But for the past 80 years, one of the oldest paintings of her may have been hiding in plain sight.

At the Yale University Art Gallery hang wall paintings from one of the world’s oldest churches. Buried by the middle of the third century, this house-church from eastern Syria had images of Jesus, Peter and David. The gallery showcases a well-preserved procession of veiled women that once surrounded its baptistery, a room for Christian initiation.

Off to the side, seldom noticed among the likes of Jesus and Peter, stands a different wall fragment, faded but still discernible: a woman bent over a well. Holding the rope of her vessel, she looks out at the viewer or perhaps over her shoulder, seemingly startled in the act of drawing water.

A detail of the baptistery painting from Deir ez-Zor, Syria, that may portray the Virgin Mary.CreditTony De Camillo/Yale University Art Gallery

Who is she? The museum’s identification is certainly plausible: “The painting most likely depicts a scene from the encounter between Christ (not shown) and a woman from Samaria,” as recorded in the Gospel of John.

But historians also know that the Samaritan Woman, a repentant sinner who conversed at length with Jesus, was usually depicted in dialogue with him. This woman appears to be alone. Is it possible that a painting from a building excavated in 1932 and publicized around the world has not been correctly identified?

These murals come from the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, a military outpost variously called “Dura” or “Europos” in antiquity. Perched high above the Euphrates in the region that is now called Deir ez-Zor, the ruins of Dura-Europos have yielded more distinct artifacts than almost any other ancient archaeological site: an intact Roman shield, a lavishly painted synagogue, a temple to the gods of nearby Palmyra. It is the “Pompeii of the Syrian desert,” declared Michael Rostovtzeff, director of Yale’s excavations at the site.

 But no Vesuvius buried this Pompeii. Portions of Dura-Europos were buried intentionally, to bolster a rampart against a Sasanian army invading from the east in the 250s. The misfortune of the Roman garrison, which lost the battle, would become good fortune for historians. The earthen rampart sealed cross-sections of many buildings, including the house-church, so that both contents and date were secure.

The church’s painted baptistery remains a unique discovery. Outside of funerary contexts, such as the catacombs in Rome, there are precious few Christian paintings from before Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century. These also offer a glimpse into the beliefs and rituals of Syrian Christians, a community currently in peril.

While the Samaritan Woman at the Well was a respected biblical figure for early Christians, there was actually a more prominent “woman at the well” in Syria: the Virgin Mary during the Annunciation, when an angelic visitor informed her of her miraculous pregnancy. Where does this episode take place? The setting of the canonical account, in the Gospel of Luke, is not specified. But the second-century biography of Mary’s early life, usually called the Protevangelium of James, describes how one day, during a break from her work, “she took the pitcher and went forth to draw water, and behold, a voice said: ‘Hail, you are highly favored, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women.’ And she looked around on the right and on the left to see from where this voice could have come.”

During this first encounter, at a well or spring, the angel was heard but not seen. Mary appeared to be alone. Most people, when they imagine the Annunciation, have in mind some western Renaissance masterpiece: a studious, cloistered Mary welcoming the angel from the comfort of home. But Byzantine images of the scene, though coming centuries later than the figure from Dura-Europos, bear an arresting formal resemblance to it.

An annunciation scene from a Byzantine 12th-century illuminated manuscript.CreditBibliothèque Nationale de France

The brilliant illumination in James of Kokkinobaphos’s “Homilies on the Virgin” and the grand mosaic from the Byzantine monastery at Chora in Istanbul both demonstrate the importance in eastern Christianity of placing Mary at the well.

Some manuscripts even depict this type among illuminations of the Gospel of Luke itself, showing that artists preferred the evocative iconographic traditions of the noncanonical text over the unspecified setting of the canonical one. At Chora, Mary’s figure can also be contrasted with the portrayal of the Samaritan Woman in the same church, who looks across a well at a pictured Jesus.

The woman at Dura-Europos has yet more secrets to reveal. Archival photographs and drawings made by the archaeologists on site show that the supposed absence behind the female figure is not totally silent — it speaks a couple of lines. That is to say, a field sketch of the wall done “to show additional details” depicts two painted lines touching the woman’s back, along with a kind of starburst on the front of her torso, features described as “unexplained” in the archaeological report. But with the new interpretation of the figure, in connection with the Eastern iconography that came later, the lines invite a rather evident meaning. They appear to represent a motion toward the woman’s body and a spark of activity within it, as if something invisible were approaching and entering her — an incarnation. If correct, this woman at a well is the oldest securely datable image of the Virgin Mary. [Ed. Note: Absolutely major!  There will be vehement scholarly protests, let's see if they trickle down into The NYT in future editions!]

Devotees of the Roman catacombs may demur, since a few female figures there are often presented as Mary. But these are challenging to date with certainty, and many scholars argue that the proposed examples have insufficiently specific iconographic signifiers.

Identifying the oldest image of Mary isn’t an end in itself. Re-identifying this woman helps us to ponder anew the distinctive emphases of early Christians in Syria, who in this baptistery celebrated salvation through images of marriage, pregnancy and birth — as much or more than through participation in a ritualized death [the symbolic eating of the corpse and drinking of its blood]. This is not to undermine the power of Jesus’ passion and resurrection accounts, but rather to rebalance the perspective of modern Western viewers, looking back after centuries of art focused on the cross. In the extant art from Dura-Europos, we see the hope of new spiritual birth, but the death of Christ is not pictured once.

Today the paintings from this church are safe. But further opportunities to understand early Syrian Christianity are slipping away, as the archaeological sites of Deir ez-Zor are being systematically plundered under the auspices of the Islamic State. According to satellite images and reports from the ground, the looting pits at Dura-Europos are innumerable. Even while the human tragedy of the refugee crisis justifiably occupies our attention, the destruction of cultural heritage tells a parallel narrative. Images from this ancient Syrian church are thus much more than museum pieces. They illuminate a people and heritage that need salvation — and not the kind of salvation found in a baptistery. [Ed. Note: And thus damn good reason to NEVER REPATRIOT ANY ARTIFACT THE WEST HAS REMOVED from the Middle East or elsewhere.  There are ISIR/Daesh lurking around every corner, every era.]

Michael Peppard is an associate professor of theology at Fordham University and the author, most recently, of “The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria.”

Virgin Mary Sighting

It wouldn't be Christmas without a story about the Virgin Mary.

Has she appeared, miraculously first noticed on December 12th, the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe - or is it just an optical illusion - at a church in Marietta, Georgia USA? Check it out and see what you think.

CBS NEWS December 24, 2015, 1:46 PM

Virgin Mary image seen on Ga. church window

MARIETTA, Ga. -- What some are chalking up as simply a "faulty coating" has others believing that a divine phenomenon has touched the window of one local church, reports CBS Atlanta.

That's because an image that bears a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary seems to have appeared on a portion of glass at the Transfiguration Catholic Church, bringing throngs of onlookers eager to see what some are calling a Christmas miracle.

Father Fernando Molina-Restrepo posted a photograph of the window on Facebook this week and explained that image appeared on December 12, which is also the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He wrote that many are offering their own interpretations of how the foggy figure formed, perhaps the pane's coating reacting to a mixture of the outside elements, though there are plenty of spectators who are happy to point to their faith as the true cause.

Parishioner Victor Jose Alvarado was at the church when the image appeared on the window inside Bishop Hall. He wrote on Facebook: "We started praying and singing songs to the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe, and immediately started feeling peace and the smell of roses!!! We just finished having lunch when someone noticed a very bright sun ray and in front of our eyes her image starting to appear in the window."

Source - article.

Wrote the pastor: "We may never agree on why or how this image appeared on the window. The true gift to us will be in how we are inspired to be MORE: more forgiving, more accepting, more loving to those with whom we share our lives."

© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Mother Goddess in Her Queen of Heaven Dove Form

Hola darlings!

Soooo sorry for being absent for so long!  This new old house I downsized to is taking up way too much of my time -- but it's now all decked out for the holiday season and I am sitting back and enjoying it for the next few months.  I'll eventually get around to packing away all "Christmas" decor near the end of February :)

I celebrate the Winter Solstice (a/k/a the Festival of Lights, under its various names), not Christmas, per se, but since Christmas is a Christian expropriation of this ancient Goddess celebration (despite the Romans trying to turn it into a male god thing), I'll take it.  Check out my newest "Christmas" decoration -- the Queen of Heaven:

Do you see her?  She's a crowned dove, and I've got her up on the highest spot I could in the living room, where She is overlooking everything!  She is sparkly white with a gold crown.  I tried to get some close-ups but, frankly, I'm not very good at taking photos and my camera is nearly an antique now, purchased in 2005 (I use that, and my shaky hands, as excuses for crappy photos).  Here are a couple more looks at her, just because:

Please excuse the pea green "metallic" accent wall, I did not paint it that way, it came with the house.  It will disappear as if by magic during the spring of 2015 when I can once again have windows open to air-out paint fumes.

You probably already intuited that when I saw this beautiful crowned dove, I just had to buy her, because I was thinking of the entire criscrossed web of herstory, including: (1) the ancient bird (or eye) goddesses from prehistoric times:

Alabaster eye icon from Tel Brak

(2) the cross-cultural transfers that took place over thousands of years through migration and trade that transformed the ancient bird (or eye) goddesses into iconic goddesses such as Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Isis, Artemis, etc.:

Bird Goddess, predynastic Egypt, c.
4000-3500 BCE, Brooklyn Museum

Goddess Artemis in her "Lady of the Beasts"
form (notice the wings) and checkerboard
gown, from Francois Vase. c. 570-560 BCE Greece

(3) the Christian Church's transformation of the Mother Goddess into the Mother of God who was still, somehow, on a lesser footing worship wise than the god she gave birth to whom would not have existed, but for her, LOL!; and (4) those pesky Egyptian Coptic Christians, who keep materializing the Queen of Heaven every so often in the form of white doves flying around church steeples, just to remind everyone that Isis never dies, she just transforms herself into the latest version of goddess chic :)

"Virgin Mary" apparition with dove, appeared outside a
Coptic church, Cairo, Egypt, 1960s.

I am very much looking forward to December 21st, because after that day passes, the days will incrementally begin to get longer once again, and there will be more light.  I am, most definitely, a creature of the Light. So, during this period of celebration of the ancient Festival of Lights (in all of its various forms) which, in this Newton household, is about three months long, I wish you all blessings, joy and prosperity for the fast-approaching new year.  Meanwhile, I am eating too much rich food, drinking too much liquored-up egg nog, far too much wine and hot toddies, burning way too many candles and using far too much electricity lighting a ridiculous amount of Christmas lights around the home and thus contributing to the world's carbon footprint, and spending way too much money on gifts to charities and friends and chessly endeavors.  Oh well.  What the hell, why not!

Super Moon Over Rotterdam

Hola darlings!

Yesterday was the "super Moon" event - as I understand it, the Moon happened to be a point in its rotation around the Earth closest to it and this coincided with the "full" Moon, making the Moon look super-large and particularly close in the skies in the northern hemisphere last night.  I happened to see this breathtaking photograph at Xinunet while I was checking out a story on the upcoming excavation of an ancient Shang Dynasty capital.

What struck me was the juxtoposition of the lunar crescent on the top of a mosque against the full Moon Goddess in all of her glory rising above Rotterdam in The Netherlands!  A truly international symbol as well as an international event published in international news coverage.  How connected we have become.  If only we would remember that underneath our different skin colors and cultures, we're all the same, too.

Does that crescent symbol look familiar to you?  It sure does to me...

Above is one of the sides of the incredibly beautiful and ancient Narmer Palette from pre-dynastic Egypt, although some historians call it Dynasty Zero.  Zero because it was right around the time Narmer was united Upper and Lower Egypt into one kingdom.  Check out Hat-hert a/k/a Hathor, the cow/lunar goddess, who was later turned into a daughter of the Sun god, Re, and became a solar goddess. But her first, and most ancient, association is with the Moon, and in some depictions of Hat-hert and later, Isis, she wears the "horns" of the Moon (a/k/a cow horns) enclosing the sacred solar disc.  Hat-hert also prominently appears on the reverse side of the Narmer Palette.  The Palette's antiquity is attested to by the fact that Hat-hert is depicted in her original cow form.  In later incarnations during her long herstory in ancient Egypt, Hat-hert was depicted as a woman with cow-ears, and still later, as a woman wearing a "crown" of cow horns. 

Here is a much later depiction of the lunar crescent worn as a crown by this beautifully formed alabaster goddess who "may" be Ishtar (Astarte), from a "necropolis of Hillah, near Babylon" with a 400 year swing date of 2nd Century BCE or CE, at the Lourve (photo from Wikipedia Commons):

 
At Carthage, the Moon goddess was worshipped as the fearsome Tanit, sometimes depicted with a lion's head (Hat-Hert was sometimes transformed into a lioness to wreak destruction upon sinning Egyptians, harking back to predynastic depictions of Hat-Hert as a warrior goddess:

  Tanit, to whom infants and young children were sacrificed by the CARthiginians (CAR is another archaic Moon goddess, whose worship is found in ancient place-names, I've written about her, too) is said to be an incarnation of Astarte:

The photo above is from Wikipedia Commons.  Do you see a resemblance between this form of the Goddess and the ancient Egyptian "ankh" symbol?  I also couldn't help but notice that in this depiction of a lunar goddess, the crescent Moon is "inverted" over the Goddess' head and I was much struck by its resemblance to some depictions I've seen of doves, so often associated with the Roman Catholic Mother of God, the Virgin Mary.  Periodically in modern-era Egypt (prior to the Islamists taking over the government after the overthrow of Mubarak), thousand of people attested to seeing the Virgin Mary appearing in the skies above Coptic Christian churches, often surrounded by "doves."  I've written about some of these apparitions of the Virgin Mary. 

If you're interested in learning more, please check out:

July 2, 2009:  The True Origins of the Koran (formatting is screwed up on this post, and many of my older posts, due to various changes that Google Blogger has gone through since the founding of this blog.  I hope you will take the time to slog through it despite no paragraph breaks!)

April 15, 2008:  Goddess Tanit. 

July 4, 2008:  The Goddess of the Moon. 

Did you know that the Moon Goddess has an intimate connection with Chinese Xiang'qi and the even older "pre-chess" game of Xiang'xi?  Oh yeah, if you read herstory between the lines, sometimes one can discern the truth.  Please check out my post from October 27, 2007:  The Chinese Moon Goddess and Chess. 

And if you would like to read more about some of the Virgin Mary apparitions:

August 24, 2007:  Goddess Sighting: Our Lady of Guadalupe (check out the nice crescent Moon the Our Lady is standing upon)

Our Lady of Zeitoun, from Wikipedia (I'm sure I posted about this and other Virgin Mary apparitions occurring in Egypt, but right now I cannot find them in my blog and I don't have time to hunt and peck at the moment)

At Tour Egypt:  Egypt: Egypt's 1960's Remarkable Virgin Mary Sightings, Egypt
Check out the "dove" above the "Virgin Mary" figure -- does it remind you of the crescent Moon depiction in the ancient stone carving above Tanit's head at Carthage (above):

She reappeared again in 2009, at a different location, but this time the birds around here were described as a swirl of pigeons and the Goddess had been reduced to appearing as an amorphous "flash of light."  Well, maybe.  Depends who you talked to when it happened...  Such things, after all, are in the eye of the beholder:

December 15, 2009:  EGYPT: Is it the Virgin Mary or just a curious flash of light?

For my part, I think the Mother has been, and is still trying, desperately, to reach out to us, but we're just not getting Her message.  Beware when she returns as Kali or Car.  And those in the know won't be able to say we weren't warned.

Virgin Mary: Limited Time Only, Now Appearing in Tree

From the San Francisco Chronicle Online

Faithful see Virgin Mary in tree, flock to NJ city

Updated 02:58 p.m., Friday, July 13, 2012

WEST NEW YORK, N.J. (AP) — People are flocking to a tree in northern New Jersey where some say they see the image of the Virgin Mary.

Makeshift shrines have sprung up by the tree in West New York. People have been praying, crying and leaving flowers and candles as they look at the small opening where the bark was stripped away.

A fence and other barricades also have been set up around the tree, which is in a sidewalk along a commercial strip.

Newark Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness tells The Journal of Jersey City (http://bit.ly/ShP4sI) the image is likely "some discoloration that resembles Our Lady of Guadalupe."

___

Information from: The Jersey Journal, http://www.nj.com/jjournal

 

Some prior Virgin Mary sightings I've reported on -- a note -- Blogger changed its formatting protocols without telling anyone ahead of time in 2008, and so many of my prior posts that used to be perfectly formatted lost ALL of their formatting when the change-over was made.  There are just too many prior posts that have had their formatting destroyed to go back and try to fix them all -- I'm not even going to bother!  So, please bear with the block structure with no paragraph breaks or differentiation for different size/color/types of fonts, etc.


Virgin Mary Sightings to Be Investigated By Vatican
July 3, 2008

Virgin Mary in a Tree Trunk
August 28, 1008

Worship at Site of Virgin Mary Apparition Banned
February 5, 2009

Irish Spot Virgin Mary in Tree Stump, Oy Vey!
July 10, 2009

Donegal Shrine Virgin 'Comes to Life' (not a Virgin in a tree - a Virgin in a statue of the - Virgin!)
October 27, 2009

"Mother of God" Making Miracles Near Green Bay, Wisconsin
July 15, 2011

The Virgin seems to have an affinity for trees and tree stumps, doesn't she.  This could not possibly be because she was a goddess of nature for thousands of years before she was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church as its Mother of God  (Theotokos)-- surely not! 

The Virgin (Our Lady) from the Battle of Lepanto

Well, when we were in Madrid a few weeks ago Mr. Don sort of wanted to go see the Naval Museum, but I said - do you think there would really be anything of interest in there for us?  He didn't press, and we never toured the museum.

Now I learn they are restoring this incredible statue.  Never heard of her until I read about her tonight.  she's awesome - take a look at her, and if that blue eye isn't enough to send shivers up and down your spine I don't know what ever would!

Information in English:
Statue of Our Lady at 1571 Battle of Lepanto comes to light!

Posted on 26 January 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

 

Article in Spanish:

From ABC.es

La Virgen que vio Lepanto

El Museo Naval recupera la talla que iba en la Galera Real durante la decisiva victoria de 1571

MANUEL DE LA FUENTE / MADRID

Día 25/01/2012

 

Solo para que se hagan una idea... ¿Han visto los portaaviones de la VI Flota que patrullan en el Estrecho de Ormuz? Pues algo así era ella aquel 7 de octubre de 1571, cuando los buques de la Liga Santa, de los que era la nao capitana, se zurraron la badana contra el Turco en Lepanto.

Ella, la Galera Real, era el buque más formidable de su tiempo, y además de reunir toda la tecnología punta del momento, era en su zona de popa un auténtico palacete, diseñado por un gran humanista y afamado poeta en su época, Juan Mal de Lara, quien fue el responsable de la lujosa ornamentación en rojo y oro y las numerosas esculturas y bajorrelieves, muchos religiosos que la convertían en un buque a la medida de su dueño, Su Majestad Católica Felipe II y de su bravísimo huésped y capitán, Don Juan de Austria, Almirante en Jefe de nuestra arriesgada marinería en aquella batalla que cambió el curso de la Historia. «La Real» se vio cara a cara con «La Sultana», el buque insignia de los otomanos, en el que viajaba Alí Pachá, que fue abordada por los nuestros, no sin altísimo coste en vida y esfuerzos, que acabaron con el tal Pachá finiquitado por un infante de marina español. Era tal el portento de la galera que se cuenta que dos navíos auxiliares tenían que pegarse a su popa para empujarla.

Vuelta a nacer

Y como es habitual entre la gente del mar, máxime en la de nuestros navíos que debían aventurarse en la Mar Océana, en aguas infestadas de infieles y luteranos, no podía faltar entre los pertrechos de nuestra capitana lepantina una virgen que amparase y protegiese a nuestra tropa. «La Real» la llevaba y durante años se la perdió la pista, pero ha vuelto a nacer y está ahora mismo en una de las salas de restauración del Museo Naval a los cuidados del restaurador José María Gálvez Farfán que quiere volver a vestirla de gala. Es una Virgen del Rosario, que tal festividad era cuando le dimos lo suyo al Gran Turco y se la conoce también como Virgen de la Victoria pues ella nos guió hacia la gloria y el triunfo.

La Virgen fue un regalo hecho por los alilados venecianos a don Juan de Austria. Cuando éste dejó los mares quiso que la virgen, curtida también en el trance de Lepanto, descansara en manos de la Cofradía de las Galeras de la iglesia de San Juan de Lebrón de El Puerto de Santa María. Tras idas y venidas y algunas zozobras surcando los mares de la vida, llegó al Colegio de Guardiamarinas, en el año de 1854. Allí fue restaurada pero el tiempo fue inclemente con ella. Hasta hoy.

Cara a cara, la virgen impresiona y a fuer de ser sinceros el medio rostro que aquí se muestra sin duda debió infundir algo más que ánimos a los nuestros en aquel envite heroico y decisivo de Lepanto.

Restauración en vivo y en directo

Ni Elena Gallardo, ni Fernando Fernández, ni Vega Bautista habían nacido cuando aquello de Lepanto, pero cinco siglos después también son protagonistas de la Historia, porque son los tres jovencísimos restauradores que en el Museo Naval trabajan sobre «Visión del Papa Pío V de la victoria en la batalla de Lepanto», un cuadro de autor desconocido, cuya restauración se puede ver en vivo y en directo en el propio museo desde ayer. Un trabajo al detalle. Sonríe Vega: «No puedes pasarte un ápice, hay que tener un pulso muy bueno. Por eso no es extraño que los restauradores suframos tendinitis».

 

Aun teniendo en cuenta el carácter laudatorio del lienzo y hasta cierto tono propagandístico, es una obra impactante, con un sinfín de personajes, navíos, oropeles, rostros aterrorizados por el fragor de la batalla y hasta la presencia de Pío V, que como dice Ana Ros, Conservadora Jefe de pintura del Museo parece «como si estuviera recibiendo online la noticia de la victoria», aunque evidentemente tardó varios días en conocerse entre los cristianos. Otro detalle curioso es que Su Santidad tiene a sus espaldas el Vaticano, por supuesto, pero un Vaticano en el que es reconocible la ciudad de Málaga y varios de sus edificios. Sin duda, un cuadro que vale un imperio y una restauración que va viento en popa.

 

I was not familiar at all with the Battle of Lepanto and so I did a little research, and found this fascinating piece of history.  From about.com/military history:

 

At the Battle of Lepanto (Greece), the Holy League (Christian allies) lost 50 galleys and suffered approximately 13,000 casualties. This was offset by the freeing of a similar number of Christian slaves from the Ottoman ships. In addition to the death of Ali Pasha [against the express orders of Don John], the Ottomans lost 25,000 killed and wounded and an additional 3,500 captured. Their fleet lost 210 ships, of which 130 were captured by the Holy League. Coming at what was seen as a crisis point for Christianity, the victory at Lepanto stemmed Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean and prevented their influence from spreading west.

 

The statue of the Virgin Mary was given to Don John of Austria, who commanded the fleet of the Holy League.  He installed it on his ship, the Real.  She is some the worse for the battle but amazing to me she survived at all.  I am not clear on this -- was she lost and forgotten inside the Naval Museum in Madrid since the 1800s???

 

That eye - it's so ALIVE...

 

"Mother of God" Making Miracles Near Green Bay, Wisconsin USA

Holy Cow!  I don't know how I missed this story - but here it is - from December, 2010!  That Mother of God, she's here, she's there, she's everywhere, just like the Scarlet Pimpernel!

Virgin Mary apparitions near Green Bay shrine recognized as first in U.S.

Approval puts Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in same category as Lourdes, Guadalupe and Fatima
9:53 AM, Dec. 9, 2010

A shrine in the town of Green Bay is one of only a handful in the world — and the sole location in the United States — officially designated as a place where the Virgin Mary appeared.

David Ricken, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, announced today his official approval of the Marian apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion.

Ricken’s decision makes the shrine the first and only site in the United States of an approved apparition of the Virgin Mary. The designation puts it in the same category as other famous Marian apparition sites such as Lourdes, France; Guadalupe, Mexico; and Fatima, Portugal.

According to the diocese, the Virgin Mary appeared in the area to Belgian immigrant Adele Brise three times in 1859.

Brise’s account states the apparition appeared in dazzling white claiming to be the “Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners” and asking Brise to also pray for sinners and teach children about salvation. Adele’s father built a chapel at the site of the apparitions soon after. The current chapel, which is the fourth one built in the location, was dedicated on July 12, 1942.



Now, a local family says the Virgin may have cured their young son of leukemia after they visited the shrine and little Joe asked to be made better! Link.   Not sure if that link works - here is one from ABC News' Prime Time Nightline on July 13, 2011 where little Joe Anderson's miracle was discussed in the context of an examination of the now Holy Site. 

What is a "Lamiak?" - Part 3

I started the discussion yesterday when I came across the term lamiak in an article about the discovery of c. 25,000 year old cave paintings in Basque country, Spain.  Before searching for information on the internet, I consulted my worn copy of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker and I found a wealth of information under its entry for Lamia.  (Lamiak is the Basque plural for lamia).  I then went on the hunt for further information online about lamia, but intend to wrap up the discussion by exploring the cryptic note at the end of Walker's entry on Lamia - see Vagina Dentata. I know it's strange to be reading Part 3 last in the series, but that's the way the blog is set up and generally I like the format where the most current information is presented first; it doesn't work well for "series" posts like this one. Please scroll down to read the prior two posts on the subject "What is a "Lamiak?" or click on the link above to take you to the prior posts.

Vagina Dentata
"Toothed vagina," the classic symbol of men's fear of sex, expressing the unconscious belief that a woman may eat or castrate her partner during intercourse.  Freud said, "Probably no male human being is spared the terrifying shock of threatened castration at the sign of the female genitals."(1)  But he had the reason wrong.  The real reason for this "terryfying shock" is mouth-symbolism, now recognized universally in myth and fantasy: "It is well known in psychiatry that both males and females fantasize as a mouth the female's entranceway to the vagina."(2)

The more patriarchal the society, the more fear seems to be aroused by the fantasy.  Men of Malekula, having overthrown their matriarchate, were haunted by a yonic spirit called "that which draws us to It so that It may devour us."(3)  The Yanomamo said one of the first beings on earth was a woman whose vagina became a toothed mouth and bit off her consort's penis.  Chinese patriarchs said women's genitals were not only gateways to immortality but also "executioners of men."(4)  Moslem aphorisms said: "Three things are insatisable: the desert, the grave, and a woman's vulva."(5)  Polynesians said the savior-god Maui tried to find eternal life by crawling into the mouth (or vagina) of his mother Hina, in effect trying to return to the womb of the Creatress; but she bit him in two and killed him.(6)

Stories of the devouring Mother are ubiquitous in myths, representing the death-fear which the male psyche often transformed into a sex-fear.  Ancient writings describe the male sexual function not as "taking" or "possessing" the female, but rather "being taken," or "putting forth."(7)  Ejaculation was viewed as a loss of a man's vital force, which was "eaten" by a woman.  The Greek sema or "semen" meant both "seed" and "food."  Sexual "consummation" was the same as "consuming" (the male).  Many savages still have the same imagery.  The Yanomamo word for pregnant also means satiated or full-fed; and "to eat" is the same as "to copulate."(8)

Distinction between mouths and female genitals was blurred by the Greek idea of the lamiae - lustful she-demons, born of the Libyan snake-goddess Lamia.  Their name meant either "lecherous vaginas" or "gluttonous gullets."(9)  Lamia was a Greek name for the divine female serpent called Kundalini in India, Uraeus or Per-Uatchet in Egypt, and Lamashtu in Babylon.  Her Babylonian consort was Pazuzu, he of the serpent penis.  Lamia's legend, with its notion that males are born to be eaten, led to Pliny's report on the sexual life of snakes that was widely believed throughout Europe even up to the 20th century: a male snake fertilizes the female snake by putting his head into her mouth and allowing himself to be eaten.(10)

Sioux Indians told a tale similar to that of the Lamia.  A beautiful seductive woman accepted the love of a young warrior and united with him inside a cloud.  When the cloud lifted, the woman stood alone.  The man was a heap of bones being gnawed by snakes at her feet.(11)

Mouth and vulva were equated in many Egyptian myths.  Ma-Nu, the western gate whereby the sun god daily re-entered his Mother, was sometimes a "cleft" (yoni), and sometimes a "mouth."(12)  Priestesses of Bast, representing the Goddess, drew up their skirts to display their genitals during religious processions.(13)  To the Greeks, such a display was frightening.  Bellerophon fled in terror from Lycian women advancing on him with genitals exposed, and even the sea god Poseidon retreated, for fear they might swallow him.(14)

According to Philostratus, magical women "by arousing sexual desire seek to devour whom they wish."(15)  To the patriarchal Persians and Moslems this seemed a distinct possibility. Viewing women's mouths as either obscene, dangerous, or overly seductive, they insisted on veiling them.  Yet men's mouths, which look no different, were not viewed as threatening.

"Mouth" comes from the same root as "mother" - Anglo-Saxon muth, also related to the Egyptian Goddess Mut.  Vulvas have labiae, "lips," and many men have believed that behind the lips lie teeth.  Christian authorities of the Middle Ages taught that certain witches, with the help of the moon and magic spells, could grow fangs in their vaginas.  They likened women's genitals to the "yawning" mouth of hell, though this was hardly original; the underworld gate had always been the yoni of Mother Hel.  It has always "yawned" - from Middle English, yonen, another derivative of "yoni."  A German vulgarity meaning "cunt," Fotze, in parts of Bavaria meant simply "mouth."(16)

To Christian ascetics, Hell-mouth and the vagina drew upon the same ancient symbolism.  Both were equated with the womb-symbol of the whale that swallowed Jonah; according to this "prophesy" the Hell-mouth swallowed Christ (as Hina swallowed her son Maui) and kept him for three days.  Visionary trips to hell often read like "a description of the experience of being born, but in reverse, as if the child was being drawn into the womb and destroyed there, instead of being formed and given life."  St. Teresa of Avila said her vision of a visit to hell was "an oppression, a suffocation, and an affliction so agonizing, and accompanied by such a hopeless and distressing misery that no words I could find would adequately describe it.  To say that it was as if my soul were being continuously torn from my body is as nothing."(17)

The archetypal image of "devouring" female genitals seems undeniably alive even in the modern world.  "Males in our culture are so afraid of direct contact with female genitalia, and are even afraid of referring to these genitalia themselves; they largely displace their feelings to the accessory sex organs - the hips, legs, breasts, buttocks, et cetera - and they give these accessory organs an exaggerated interest and desirability."(18)  Even here, the male scholar inexplicably "displaces" the words sex organ onto structures that have nothing to do with sexual functioning.

Lookng into, touching, entering the female orifice seems fraught with hidden fears, signified by the confusion of sex with death in overwhelming numbers of male minds and myths.  Psychiatrists say sex is perceived by the male unconscious as dying: "Every orgasm is a little death: the death of 'the little man,' the penis."(19)  Here indeed is the root of ascetic religions that equated the denial of death with denial of sex.

Moslems attributed all kinds of dread powers to a vulva.   It could "bite off" a man's eye-beam, resulting in blindness for any man who looked into its cavity.  A sultan of Damascus was said to have lost his sight in this manner. Christian legend claimed he went to Sardina to be cured of his blindness by a miraculous idol of the Virgin Mary - who, beng eternally virgin, had her door-mouth permanently closed by a veil-hymen.(20)

Apparently Freud was wrong in assuming that men's fear of emale genitals was based on the idea that the female had been castrated.  The fear was much less empathetic, and more personal: a fear of being devoured, of experiencing the birth trauma in reverse.  A Catholic scholar's curious description of the Hell-mouth as a womb inadvertently reveals this idea: "When we think of man entering hell we think of him as establishing contact with the most intrinsic, unified, ultimate and deepest level of the reality of the world."(21)

Notes:

(1)  Becker, D.D., 223.
(2)  Farb, W.P., 93.
(3)  Neumann, G.M., 174.
(4)  Rawson, E.A., 260.
(5)  Edwardes, 45.
(6)  Briffault 2, 657-58.
(7)  Assyr. & Bab. Lit., 338-39.
(8)  Chagnon, 47.
(9)  Graves, G.M. 1, 206.
(10)  Briffault 2, 667.
(11)  Campbell, F.W.G., 78.
(12)  Mapern, 1x.
(13)  Budge, G.E. 1, 448.
(14)  Bachofen, 123.
(15)  Wedeck, 153.
(16)  Young, 47.
(17)  Cavendish, P.E., 157-58.
(18)  Ellis, 239-40.
(19)  Lederer, 126.
(20)  Giffird, 143.
(21)  Cavendish, P.E., 160.

  **********************************************

I didn't realize how right-on I was about that Star Wars symbolism until I read this.  Here's a photo shot of the "mouth of the beast" from that Star Wars movie I mentioned in Post 1:

And I know it's really bad manners to put up such a image after typing up Walker's encyclopedia entry on the Vagina Dentata.  The Devil made me do it.  I feely admit it - I'm a demon woman.  Particularly after realizing that the sheer ignorance and stupidity of the fears represented by thousands of years of customs designed to "ward off" being castratred by some woman's vagina are much alive and well today, and responsible for all sorts of evil in the world: continual suppression and repression of women in the Moslem world and elsewhere, veiling in the name of "modesty," the perversion of child prostitution and pornography, the perversion of Moslem "dancing boys," female "circumcision" (an attempt to remove the vagina's alleged "teeth?"), "honor" killings of females, acid attacks, gang rapes administered as "justice" by sharia courts, and on and on and on.

We're still living in the Dark Ages, people.  The Dark Ages.

Goddess Guanyin Enroute to Taiwan

From People's Daily Online (notice the "see how nice we play with Taiwan" touch by the Chinese government, but then, this is the propaganda newpaper geared toward English language folks)  By the way, the photo is hilarious!  The Goddess is gettng ready to do some deep sea diving  by the looks of it :)

1,000 statues of Buddhist goddess to be sent to Taiwan temples
19:38, September 27, 2010

Statues of Buddhist goddess Guanyin are seen at Laotangshan port in Zhoushan, east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 27, 2010. More than 300 Chinese monks and nuns boarded an Italian passenger ship with 1,000 statues Monday to the port of Keelung in southeast China's Taiwan. The statues, which are to be given as gifts to several temples in Taiwan, are from the Putuoshan Mountain that is famous for Buddhism culture. (Xinhua/Wang Dingchang)

Guanyin is also known as Kuanyin (and various other spellings), the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, and she has been ever popular. 

Check out Seven Syllable Kuan Yin Mantra by Robin Beck - you'll see the iconography is often identical to that of the Christian Virgin Mary with (and without) Christ Child

Celebrating the Feast of the Assumption, the Orthodox Indian Way

Excerpted from The New York Times:

By PAUL VITELLO
Published: August 16, 2010

WEST SAYVILLE, N.Y. — Without doubt, many more people line the sidewalks to see the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan than to watch the St. Mary Malankara Indian Orthodox Church’s annual Assumption Day Parade, which began here on Sunday with the usual blowing of the kumbu horn and the dancing of the koladi by the congregation’s teenage girls, dressed in saris and banging sticks.

None of St. Mary’s 100 or so parishioners live in West Sayville, a predominantly white, middle-class community on Long Island’s South Shore where in the last few decades a surfeit of empty church buildings has attracted various religious communities on wheels.

The Indian congregants drive in from Queens, Brooklyn, western Nassau County and even New Jersey and Staten Island, to worship in a former Dutch Reformed Church building they bought in 1992. Inside, they speak Malayalam, the dialect of the Indian province where most have their roots, and they worship according to an Orthodox Christian liturgy that traces its origins to the teachings of the apostle Thomas.

On Sunday, people watched with a mixture of fascination and neighborly nonchalance as the procession made its way around the block, marking the annual observance of Mary’s ascent into heaven. At the front was a float with posters of Mary and Thomas and other saints perched on cottony white clouds. Then came the men playing the Indian kumbu horn and chemda drums, the women keeping time with little brass cymbals called Ilathalam, then the littlest girls in angel wings and then the teenagers dancing.

The congregation’s women followed behind, pastel-colored saris billowing in the breeze as they flung paper flowers of red and blue. Bringing up the rear was a car carrying the Rev. Paulose Adai, the parish priest, whose plaintive singing of the devotional hymns was greatly amplified from a loudspeaker on the vehicle’s roof.

Photo:  James Estrin/The New York Times   Slideshow (11 photos)

Malankara Christians trace their origins to the first century A.D., when St. Thomas is said to have taken the heavily traveled trade route from the eastern Mediterranean to Kerala, a province on the southwest coast of India where today about 20 percent of the population is Christian. They have had churches in the United States since the early 20th century, but have grown significantly since the 1970s, when immigration policy opened the doors to many nurses trained in the Christian hospitals of Kerala. Nationwide there are about 100 parishes.

Though the churches hew closely to Orthodox Christian liturgy, members also sustain many Indian cultural traditions. Worshipers remove their shoes before entering the church. Men and women sit separately.

Mr. Bodkin, the former councilman, suggested there was an oddity in the move: The Indian Orthodox congregation, with its bells and drums, had taken over what was once an outpost of the strictest Calvinist worship.

There is no Dutch Reformed Church in the United States anymore. It has splintered into several new churches. But Jim Stasny, a former pastor of one of those offspring churches in West Sayville, who now lives in Washington, D.C., said he was pleased that someone was putting the building to good use.

“It would be better, perhaps, if they weren’t honoring saints, of course — we don’t believe in saints, you know,” he said. “But hey, things have changed. We wish those folks well.”

Donegal Shrine Virgin 'Comes to Life'

A Virgin Mary apparition site - and some very interesting happenings earlier this month. From The Belfast Telegraph Donegal grotto statue 'took on human form' Friday, 2 October 2009 Visitors to a remote grotto have claimed a statue wept and crosses appeared and disappeared in the night sky this week. A group of 14 people, who had gathered at the statue of the Virgin Mary, in a rocky outcrop near the town of Dungloe, Co Donegal, on Tuesday night, were transfixed as they watched the phenomenon, which they said lasted almost an hour. "It was a crazy evening. It was absolutely amazing. I am still on an emotional high. All but one person seemed to see the same thing," recalled James Boyle, from Ardara, who was at the site with his wife Margaret and children, Martin (10) and Mary (11). The Kerrytown shrine is visited by thousands of pilgrims annually, after first becoming the subject of a religious apparition 70 years ago. James explained how the group had been drawn there last Tuesday night because of a claim by Ballyfermot-based faith healer Joe Coleman that the Virgin Mary had told him in a channelled message that she would appear at the shrine on September 29 at 8pm. "We went into the shelter facing the rock and at a few minutes to eight someone suggested we should start the rosary. We had no sooner started than someone shouted 'look up'. "To the left of the cross, another cross appeared in the sky and as soon as it disappeared, another one appeared. It lasted about 10 minutes," he explained. Then people began noticing that the white statue with its red heart had begun changing colour and form. "She appeared to have a human face and her head turned and she looked at people. She looked down at the children who were at the front," he said. One woman explained how the statue began crying and she went up to dry the tears. "The tears were running down from her eyes," she told Highland Radio. Speaking to the Irish Independent from his Dublin home, Mr Coleman said that the Virgin Mary, who has been appearing to him for many years, had communicated to him that she would make herself known at Kerrytown on September 29. He had passed on the details of that message to a small group of people who attended a healing service organised by him in Dungloe last June. He added that a lot of priests in Co Donegal did not believe he was doing his healing work for the love of God. Dungloe parish priest, Father Seamus Meehan, said last night that there had been talk about the Kerrytown grotto for years. "But I would be kind of sceptical about it myself," he added.

Chanca/Wari Ruins Found in Peru

This is a very good example of sacred places/sacred spaces in the New World: Article from andina.com.pe Pre-Hispanic ruins found in Virgin of Cocharcas shrine’s subsoil in Apurimac Lima, Sep. 21 (ANDINA).- The ruins of a pre-Hispanic ceremonial site were discovered in the subsoil of Virgin of Cocharcas shrine in Apurimac’s Chincheros province, local authorities reported Monday. Pedro Fernandez Diaz, deputy director of works from the National Institute of Culture (INC) in Cuzco, explained that they are pre-Hispanic walls and a ceremonial building similar to an altar, where possibly offerings were made to divinities. He added that the pre-Hispanic ruins would be from chanca architecture with Wari influence. The excavations were carried out in the radius or perimeter fence of the sanctuary, in the free area or gardens, Fernandez told Andina news agency. Likewise, two crypts with bones of important people of that colonial period, as priests and leading citizens were also found in the shrine. The temple is located in Cocharcas district, northwest of Apurimac, whose main festival is celebrated on September 8 of each year with a massive pilgrimage. (END) VVS/JOT/AVC

Hondurans Turn to Virgin Statue for a Miracle

Article from The Wall Street Journal online October 2, 2009 At 3 Inches Tall, La Morenita Casts a Big Shadow in Honduran Crisis When All Else Fails, Nation Turns To the Virgin of Suyapa for a Miracle By NICHOLAS CASEY SUYAPA, Honduras -- In the past three months, a slew of Latin American presidents, foreign ministers, ambassadors and even a Nobel Peace Prize winner, have failed to find a solution to the political standoff that has split Honduras. Now, many despairing Hondurans say, may be time for a little divine intervention. So every day, more and more Hondurans are calling on the Virgin of Suyapa, a 3-inch statuette of the Virgin Mary, made of dark wood and nicknamed La Morenita, or the Little Dark One, for help. Over the centuries, La Morenita, which was found on a hillside in 1747 and now makes its home at a small whitewashed colonial church near the capital, has been credited with sundry miracles, from curing kidney stones to ending a brief war. "I've asked her to intervene," said Abad Zelaya, 42 years old, a pharmacist and no relation to ousted President Manuel Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy for more than a week since he sneaked back into Tegucigalpa. Mr. Zelaya's ouster three months ago has led many countries, including the U.S., to suspend aid to one of the hemisphere's poorest countries. "The Virgin can perform this miracle," said Gustavo Sauceda, a teacher waiting in a long line to pray to the Virgin, the patroness of Honduras and its armed forces. "She has resolved some of our people's largest problems in the past, and she can fix what's happening now." Mr. Zelaya is still in the Brazilian Embassy, alternating calls for dialogue and popular insurrection and sounding increasingly erratic. Last week he accused unnamed Israeli mercenaries of bombarding his refuge with high-frequency radiation. A short drive from the embassy, interim President Roberto Micheletti says that if Mr. Zelaya steps out of the haven he will be arrested and sent to jail while he faces charges of treason. If anyone can put Honduras back on the right path, believers think, La Morenita is the one to do it. Over the centuries, she is said to have cured the blind and made cripples walk. It is said that she appeared in white robes to aid Honduran soldiers during a bloody conflict. The challenge now is to get Mr. Zelaya and his foe, Mr. Micheletti, to settle their political differences. The political crisis began in June when Mr. Zelaya, a mustachioed, Stetson-wearing leftist nicknamed "Commander Cowboy," pushed for a national referendum that his critics say was a bid to stay in power past the legal limits. The country's Supreme Court said the poll was unconstitutional and sent the army with a warrant to arrest Mr. Zelaya. In the wee hours of June 28, soldiers rousted Mr. Zelaya from bed at gunpoint and put him on a plane to Costa Rica in his pajamas. Honduras has been in an uproar ever since. The tensions that have split the country have even sent tremors into this quiet, 18th-century sanctuary. Early on, Honduras's Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez, who had taught Mr. Zelaya as a teenager, went on television to tell him not to come back to Honduras. Doing so, the cardinal said, would risk causing a bloodbath. The cardinal's admonition didn't sit well with Mr. Zelaya's supporters. Since then, Father Víctor Ruiz, the pastor of the Virgin's church, said he has received four death threats. The statue was initially squirreled away. Last week, shortly after Mr. Zelaya's return, an angry mob of his supporters who call themselves La Resistencia stormed the square in front of the church, clashing with police. Shots were fired, but no one was injured. "Another miracle of the patroness," said Hilda Díaz, the church secretary. Legend has it that the statuette was discovered one February morning in 1747 by a laborer named Alejandro Colindres who was out clearing a corn field the day before. But darkness fell suddenly, and the farm worker went to sleep by the side of the road. When he rolled over, there was something poking at his side. Half asleep, he threw the object into the night -- only to find it poking at him yet again in the morning. It was the tiny statue of La Morenita. Her first supposed miracle took place in 1768, when Capt. José de Zelaya, perhaps an ancestor of the ousted president, was suddenly relieved of incurable kidney stones. Grateful, the captain had a church built to house the Virgin. Pilgrims -- some saying the Virgin had visited them in the night -- arrived from across the land. More miracles were reported. By the 20th century, the Virgin of Suyapa was Honduras's most loved symbol. Songs were written to her, daughters named after her. In 1969, La Morenita was even given the battlefield commission "Captain of the Armed Forces" when Honduras went to war with neighboring El Salvador after violence broke out in the stands in a World Cup qualifying match. The brief, bloody war took four days and cost 2,000 lives. A draw, it went down in history as the "Soccer War." "We were outnumbered," said Ms. Díaz. "But the patroness appeared in a white gown to our soldiers, guiding them along, giving them food and water." The pastor chimed in with an anecdote of his own. It was last February, and a family of three from near the Guatemalan border made the grueling journey across the mountains to visit the figurine. But the church had already closed that day. When he returned, "the church doors were open and they were all inside praying to her," said the priest who insists it was none other than the Virgin who let the pilgrims in. "I had locked the door myself." Last Sunday, parishioners gathered for the first Sunday mass since Mr. Zelaya's surprise return to the country. Two policemen on motorcycles circled the basilica, their rifles pointing toward the heavens. Inside, the church was overflowing with worshipers. Many stood before the altar, waving framed portraits of the Virgin as an assistant sprinkled holy water. Father Ruiz led the services, dressed in long white robes and a green cloak. "With all of the uncertainty now in the country, we beg for your help," he said. Honduras, Father Ruiz whispered, is like the baby held by King Solomon, in danger of being split in two by its current president and its ousted one. "Maybe the Virgin should be president. She is only 6 centimeters tall, but she has greatness," said the priest, gazing out the window of the church.

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The story of the "Dear Dark One" - the Virgin Suyapa Check out comparable statues (although I do not know how large or small any of these Goddess-Virgin Mary statues are) and their legends:

• El Salvador: Our Lady of Peace (1682)
• Guatemala: Our Lady of the Rosary (1592)

Virgin Mary as 'Terrorist'

I found this article absolutely fascinating! I do not understand why a female who becomes a suicide bomber (or by proxy, such a female's family) would feel flattered to be compared to the Virgin Mary who, after all, is a symbol of (1) Patriarchal Religious Repression and (2) an underground symbol of Goddess worship - both things which Islam purports to abhor :) From Yahoo News Israel: pictures of St. Mary as terrorist removed By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer Amy Teibel, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 3, 11:11 am ET JERUSALEM – The Israeli journalists' union on Thursday took down a series of pictures that superimposed the faces of female Palestinian suicide bombers on Madonna-and-child paintings after the images sparked a public furor. Yossi Bar-Mocha, the head of the National Federation of Israeli Journalists, said his organization removed the pictures from its Tel Aviv headquarters for fear they would offend people who lost relatives in militant attacks. One of the artists, Galina Bleikh, said their intention was not to glorify or justify the bombers' actions. She and her partner, Lilia Chak, tried to address a subject that "pains the whole country" in the exhibit, titled ""Woman, Mother, Murderer: An Exhibit on Female Terror," she explained. "How can a woman who comes into the world with the role of loving and giving life become a source of hatred and murder?" Bleikh added, speaking before the pictures were taken down. Neither of the artists could immediately be reached afterward. The seven canvases, part of a larger exhibition, splice the bombers' faces onto works by Botticelli, Raphael and other eminent artists. Bleikh told The Associated Press that the show's concept was sparked by a suicide attack near her Jerusalem home carried out by a female bomber. "The message is that the baby in the arms of a woman is in danger," she said. "The contrast of the symbol of love, the Madonna, with the face of a killer — it works. It hurts the souls of women who look at it." That message did not filter through to some of the politicians and relatives of terror attack victims who objected to the works. The art display was to open without the seven contentious pieces on Thursday night. Lawmaker Yochanan Plesner of the Kadima Party called the exhibit a "despicable" public relations ploy. Almagor, an Israeli organization representing victims of militant attacks, said the paintings glorified the bombers. "These pictures will become a hit in the Arab world," said Dr. Aryeh Bachrach, head of Almagor's bereaved parents forum. "Depicting Palestinian women murderers as saints is an important propaganda achievement for terror organizations," said Bachrach, whose son was killed by Palestinian gunmen while hiking in the West Bank in 1995. Journalists' union head Bar-Mocha said he was unaware of the pictures' content ahead of time and after consulting with board members and legal counsel, decided the sensibilities of terror victims' relatives trumped concerns over freedom of expression. "If I must hear the cries of the bereaved families who lost their loved ones at the hands of these murderers, then I would favor them over these murderers and the images that are depicted as Christian saints," he said. The uproar was reminiscent of a controversy that arose in 2004 in Sweden after an Israeli-born artist mounted an installation showing a small ship carrying a picture of a female suicide bomber sailing in a rectangular pool filled with red-colored water. The artist, Dror Feiler, said the piece was mean to call attention to how weak, lonely people can be capable of horrible things. But the then-Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazel, said the exhibit glorified suicide bombers and he threw a spotlight at the installation, trying to damage it and causing a diplomatic flap between the two countries.

Irish Spot Virgin Mary in Tree Stump, Oy Vey!

Is the alleged sighting of the Virgin Mary in the trunk of a cut-down tree a signal that the End Times Are Near??? I put this right up there with the conspiracy to kill off most of the population by innoculating them against the H1N1 virus (Swine flu, latest version). I don't know about you, but I sure didn't see any Virgin Mary in this photograph, not even while squinting without my glasses on. This Virgin Mary appears to not have a head. Hmmm... From the Telegraph.co.uk Virgin Mary spotted in Irish tree Religious fever has taken root in the Irish village of Rathkeale, Co Limerick, after workmen claimed the image of the Virgin Mary appeared in the remains of a felled churchyard tree. Published: 10:13PM BST 09 Jul 2009 The supposed vision surprised locals who have come in their hundreds to pray and light candles in the grounds of Holy Mary Parish church. While some believe the willow should be preserved and covered in glass, others think the believers are just barking up the wrong tree. Noel White, Rathkeale Community Council Graveyard Committee chairman, said workmen sprucing up the church land saw the image when they cut the tree. "One of the lads said look, our Blessed Lady in the tree," Mr White said. "One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock. It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby." Candles and rosary beads have been draped over the stump by prayerful locals with up to 700 holding a candlelight vigil last night and into the early hours of the morning. Mr White said people have been travelling from neighbouring Co Kerry as word of the phenomenon spread, while it is believed a local Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club from a nearby parish also brought two busloads of people. "It is just a tree, but it is what it depicts when you look at it," Mr White said. "It is just phenomenal what's going on. And it's not just Rathkeale, they're coming in from all over the place." But not all villagers have seen the supposedly divine image with some treating the discovery with scepticism. Local priest Fr Willie Russell refused to get caught up in the hype but said he was not surprised by the outpouring of interest. "This is just going to go on and on," he said. "My impression of it at the moment is that I have no impression of it. It doesn't interest me that much at the moment. I have seen the tree ... it's only a tree." Fr Russell also insisted not everyone in the area believes the image of Our Lady appeared on the tree. "The local views are kind of mixed," the priest added. Scepticism over the reported appearance is shared by the Catholic Church's hierarchy in Ireland, according to Fr Paul Finnerty, official spokesman for the Limerick diocese. "The Church's response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism," he said. "While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition." Cynics have already pointed to the coincidental timing of Ireland's latest "appearance" amidst a recession after the Celtic Tiger boom years. The last time the country was plagued by massive joblessness in the 1980s there were numerous reported sightings of moving statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of the first - and most prominent of the alleged phenomena - was in Ballinspittle, in Co Cork, where locals insisted they witnessed the statue of Our Lady floating in the air. The claims drew worldwide attention as busloads flocked from long distances to see the roadside grotto in the small rural village in the hope of seeing the same. The "sighting" sparked a wave of similar claims around the country as people held vigils at other roadside grottoes which mostly sprang up during the Marian Year of 1953. Former postmaster and councillor John Griffin said that while he had no difficulty with people coming together to pray, it was just a tree stump. "I respect everybody's belief but when I heard about this and had a look, what I saw were the remains of a felled tree," Mr Griffin said. "I see a shape, the shape of a felled tree. It is in the shape of a cloaked lady or cloaked person, but that's because of the way it was cut. I'm not attributing anything supernatural." But for believers the big question is what to do now? "If it is left there I would imagine we would have to get expert advice on how to preserve it, maybe cover it with glass or something," Mr White said. "Because people are taking bits off the tree or stroking the tree and taking the skin off, and if they keep doing that there'll be nothing there soon." [LOL! And - shame on you, those taking bits and pieces of the Virgin Mary.] Fr Russell added: "Whatever the people want, there's no problem there. It doesn't create a problem for me." _____________________________________________________________________ Tsk tsk. Compare this "Virgin Mary in Tree" image I found in my archives from 2008. I've probably got a blog about "Her" somewhere here. This one looks like the real deal, not something hacked about by a 17 year old with a chainsaw :) Try searching under "Virgin Mary" or perhaps "apparitions of Virgin Mary." I've had it for the night, darlings. Good night.