A Night with Kellianna - Book signing and acoustic concert. 

May 21st.
Cerridwen's Keep
21 Charles St
Holliston, Massachusetts 01746

https://www.facebook.com/kelliannamusic/posts/1172259596127603

Goodreads giveaway - enter for a chance to win one of 3 copies of Tapestry of Dark and Light

Tapestry of Dark and Light (Book One of The Warrior Queen Chronicles)
by Kellianna, Kaalii Cargill 

Enter for a chance to win a copy of the first book of a new fantasy series: Tapestry of Dark and Light, Book One of the Warrior Queen Chronicles. 

Enter Giveaway

Giveaway ends in:12 days and 23:05:19 

Availability:3 copies available

Giveaway dates:Apr 27 - May 10, 2016

Countries available:US, CA, and GB more

Warrior Queen Chronicles available now

Tapestry of Dark and Light - Book One of The Warrior Queen Chronicles - is now available through

www.warriorqueenchronicles.com

Amazon

Book One of the fantasy trilogy based on Kellianna's much loved song Warrior Queen. Tapestry of Light and dark follows Llianna from her birth to her trial as a sorceress. Llianna is a child of prophecy, and the Norns have woven her fate, but all she wants is true love  . . .

What readers are saying about Tapestry of Dark and Light:

"I have just finished reading your book 'Tapestry of Dark and Light'. First I would like to congratulate you for a job well done. The character development and the worlds you create are beyond ordinary. You took me on a journey that allowed me to become part of the story. I look forward to continuing this adventure in your future books."

"Just finished your book. Oh my goodness!!!!!! Wow. I just loved it. It was a wonderful read which left me wanting more. Really and truly I've done a lot of reading in my life and I have to say this book is right up there in my most memorable and favourites."

"This book was such treat to read. I picked it up and couldn't put it down! The characters are interesting and well-developed. The storytelling keeps you on the edge of your seat wanting to find out more as you become immersed in the world the authors have created. Excellent read and I can't wait for the second book."

For the last 7 months I have been working on a new fantasy novel with co-author Kellianna - www.kellianna.com 

The Warrior Queen Chronicles are based on Kellianna's song Warrior Queen - http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kellianna 

The following story makes a cameo appearance in the novel and is adapted from a story of mine previously published in the Abacot Journal (Say My Name). 

Warrior Queen Chronicles, Chapter Thirty Five 

The first light of the sun slipped over the horizon, a soft, golden promise of clear skies and warm breezes.

An old man stood by the Well of Memory, his gnarled hands grasping the stone rim. A sound of music rode the breeze:  deer hide frame drums, mouth harps, goat horns, lur, fiddles and tagelharpe, making music to raise the dead and entice the living. The old man turned his head to listen. A single tear rolled down his papery cheek. When the music stopped, he turned from the well and walked into the sunrise.

He walked all day and into the night. When his legs buckled, he slept beneath a yew, sheltered by the sacred tree. He rose before the dawn and continued his pilgrimage. The sun set and rose again before he saw the domes of Asgard glowing in the morning light. For a moment he imagined the others there; he could almost hear them, chanting and laughing. He hurried towards the gate, hoping to find someone who remembered his name. It had been so long since he had heard it spoken, in song or prayer.

He entered through the eastern gate, feet barely touching the ground. The place was deserted, but for dogs and pigeons. He wondered if they, too, were waiting for Gods who no longer came. He walked slowly through the ruins, lured by the cool green of a giant ash tree. Older than the oldest story, the tree sheltered a well beneath its spreading branches. The old man lowered himself to the ground and sat next to a discarded bundle of rags.

“What are you doing here, old man?” asked the bundle of rags, voice like pebbles in a dry riverbed.

“Resting,” said the old man, turning his back on the beggar-woman.

“Not here, you old fool,” said the beggar-woman. “Here. In Asgard. Here.”  

The old man went very still. The beggar-woman’s voice had softened, like water flowing cool and sweet from the mountains. He wanted to turn and look at her, but his longing had played tricks on him before. He closed his eyes and sighed.

The beggar woman moved to sit before him. He opened his eyes to see a beautiful face, golden hair, just like . . .

“Frigg?“   

“Who do you think it is? Of course it’s me!” The rags fell away to reveal the Goddess in all her glory:  luminous eyes, golden hair cascading around her voluptuous body, rosy-tipped breasts . . 

The old man began to cry.

“I know. I know,” said Frigg, voice soft as swanskin. She stroked his face. “They have  forgotten us.”

“I thought I was the last,” said the old man. “I thought you had gone.”

“You were the last,” said Frigg. “I missed you. We all missed you. I came back to find you.”

“Say my name,” said the old man. “Let me hear it again.”

Frigg laughed. “Which name shall I say? There are so many! Aldaföðr – Father of Men! Foldardróttinn – Lord of the Earth! Sanngetall – Finder of Truth! Angan Friggjar – Delight of Frigg! I like that one,” she said.

The old man nodded. “More,” he whispered.

“Draugadróttinn – Lord of the Undead! Arnhöfði – Eagle Head! Biflindi – Spear Shaker! Asagrim – Lord of the Aesir! Báleygr – Flaming Eye! Itreker – Splendid Ruler! Böðgæðir – Battle Enhancer! Ein sköpuðr galdra – Sole creator of magical songs! Faðmbyggvir Friggjar – Dweller in Frigg’s Embrace! Another of my favorites,” said Frigg, leaning closer.

“Limbultýr – Mighty God! Grímnismál – Wanderer! Göllnir – Yeller! Hangi – Hanged One! Oski – God of Wishes! Hrafnagud – Raven God! Hveðrungr – Weather Maker! Jörmunr –  Mighty One! Rúnatýr - God of Runes! Svidur –Wise One! Uðr – Beloved.” 

The old man remembered what it was to be a God. He straightened his back and took a deep breath.

“Say my name,” he said, eyes twinkling.

“Odin,” she said and kissed him on the lips.

A gentle breeze lifted the spirits of men and women toiling to feed their children. Merchants stopped counting their money and gave food to the hungry. Mothers walked with swaying hips and a secret smile on their lips. Two men searching for the Gods turned back to the World; a woman left her sorrows and danced, moving to a rhythm as old as time. 

“Come,” said Frigg. “The others are waiting.”

The God and Goddess left together, dissolving in the old way, like mist in the morning sun. 

Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? by Kaalii Cargill

Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? by Kaalii Cargill

Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to believe that Nature should be dominated by humans.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to cut down old-growth forests, annihilate species, and poison waterways.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to blame our mothers for everything; we are more likely to take responsibility for the joys and sorrows of life as mature adults living co-creatively with other mature adults.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we can no longer believe exclusively in a single male deity and in the life-denying dogma of religions based on that belief.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we embrace the embodied experience of being here now in this abundant World, and we recognise our role as care-takers of the Earth.

Valuing and honouring the life-giving power of the Feminine is the pathway of survival . . .

Kaalii Cargill, Melbourne, Australia.http://kaalii.wix.com/soulstory

______________________________________________

This is an ongoing collective writing project, initiated by Magoism: The Way of S/He and Mother Tree Sanctuary in response to the question, "Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality?" 

Contributions are welcome.  Please email magoism@gmail.com or kaalii@kairoscentre.com or join the discussion on the Magoism group on Facebook.

Originally posted on http://magoism.net

Reposted from Feminism and Religion - Exploring the F-word in religion and the intersection between scholarship, activism, and community.

 

O Madre Nostra Cara by Kaalii Cargill

By Guest Contributor on October 19, 2014 • ( 22 )

 My historical novel, DAUGHTERS OF TIME, traces a line of mothers and daughters through 4000 years as they carry the way of the Goddess from ancient Sumer to the present day. In 1926, a daughter in the lineage is born in Southern Italy:

“Maria’s family had lived in the village and surrounding area for longer than anyone could remember. Like all the girls of her village, she grew up a Catholic, yet on Christmas Eve she gathered with the other women to perform a ritual in the Church that no man was allowed to see. The words she spoke would have been familiar to her many, many times great grandmother, Meh-tan, who once met a Queen in Ursalimmu.It did not occur to Maria that the ritual was not in keeping with the teachings of the Church; it was what her mother and all the mothers before her had done on Christmas Eve to honour the Great Mother.“

Five years after writing about my fictional Maria, I stood in the church in Calabria where my grandmother Carmella once met with the other women on Christmas Eve. And the Great Mother was still there – the Madonna del Carmine a Varapodio, whom the people call “O Madre nostra cara.”

The transition from Goddess to Madonna is very tangible in Calabria . . .

Forty kilometres from my grandmother’s town, on the Ionian coast, lie the ruins of Locri Epizephyrii, one of the most important cities of Magna Graecia. Excavations have revealed a temple of Aphrodite, a sanctuary of Persephone, and numerous terracotta plaques and votive offerings. The famous marble sculpture known as the Ludovisi Throne is understood to have come from the temple of Aphrodite (Temple of contrada Marasa) at Locri.

The measurements of the sculpture fit perfectly with three great stones still standing at the site:

A book called The Locrian Maidens proposes that the abundance of female dominated iconography and mythology found at Locri suggests “… a distinct, perhaps even deliberate ‘third way’ in contrast to the systems of classical Athens and Sparta.”^[i] At the heart of this difference was a unique approach to the mythology and rites usually associated with Demeter/Persephone.

 

At the core of this difference was a joining together of two Goddesses usually seen as opposites: Persephone and Aphrodite. In most of the temples of Magna Graecia, Persephone was represented as daughter of Demeter and Queen of the Underworld. In this capacity, Persephone presided over the domain of legitimate marriage and child rearing, while Aphrodite was more explicitly erotic, presiding over love affairs outside marriage. The two Goddesses were often represented as opposites: at around the same time as the temples were being built at Locri, Hesiod’s poetry depicted Persephone and Aphrodite as rivals, fighting over a man (Adonis).

In many of the Locri images of ritual activities, the symbolism of Aphrodite and Persephone were represented together: the plaque opposite shows a girl offering a ball and a rooster to a goddess, “while a goose flexes its wings beneath the offering table.”^[ii] Roosters were considered chthonic birds, linked to Persephone. Geese were usually linked to Aphrodite. Here the identity of the goddess is ambiguous – Persephone or Aphrodite? Or Persephone/Aphrodite?

This integration of Persephone and Aphrodite – unique to Locri Epizephrii – suggests an emphasis on initiatory rituals, rites of passage exploring the intersection of death, sex and transformation. The transformation of the Kore to Queen of the Underworld was always a part of the story underlying the Thesmophoria rituals, yet the emphasis was usually on the Demeter/Persephone cycle of loss and renewal: Persephone’s descent = Demeter’s mourning and the barrenness of Winter; Persephone’s return = Demeter’s rejoicing and the renewed fertility of Spring. In Locri Epizephyrii there appears to have been at least equal importance placed on Persephone’s initiation as she crossed from Kore (maiden) to Queen (mature woman).

The ritual sites at Locri suggest that combined worship of Persephone and Aphrodite provided a pathway for maturation from girl to woman, wife, mother, and perhaps hetaira. Consistent with this, there seems to have been an “absence of discrimination against the prostitute.”^[iii] The sides of the Ludovisi Throne show two female figures worshipping the goddess: “on the left side, a naked hetaira plays an aulos,” and in the right, “a heavily draped matron burns incense.”^[iv]

It is not surprising that scholars have disagreed about the identity of the figure arising in the main panel of the Ludovisi Throne: Aphrodite arising from the waves, or Persephone arising from the Underworld?

Perhaps She is both together.
 

Or perhaps the image shows the initiate transformed, rising between Aphrodite and Persephone, guided and supported by both …

What if the pathway from Kore to Queen, from Maiden to mature Sovereignty involved walking with Persephone and Aphrodite together, making the crossing with their joint blessings? What might come from such an initiation?

I think we might find less rivalry between women, fewer women stuck in over-idealised youthfulness, and more experience of empowerment, choice, and control in women’s relationships with self, others, and the World . . .

Blessed Be!

^[i] J. M. Redfield, 2003. The Locrian Maidens. Love and Death in Greek Italy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
^[ii]  M. B. Skinner.  “Nossis and Women’s Cult at Locri.”  www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/fc04/Skinner.html. URL accessed 3/9/14
^[iii] Ibid.
^[iv] Ibid.

Why goddess feminism, activism or spirituality?

Re posted  from The Mago Circle - my response to the question: Why goddess feminism, activism or spirituality?


Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother's arms.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to believe that Nature should be dominated by humans.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to cut down old-growth forests, annihilate species, and poison waterways.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to blame our mothers for everything; we are more likely to take responsibility for the joys and sorrows of life as mature adults living co-creatively with other mature adults.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we can no longer believe exclusively in a single male deity and in the life-denying dogma of religions based on that belief.

When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we embrace the embodied experience of being here now in this abundant World, and we recognise our role as care-takers of the Earth.

Valuing and honouring the life-giving power of the Feminine is the pathway of survival . . .

Kaalii Cargill, Melbourne, Australia.
http://kaalii.wix.com/soulstory