I finished the figure of Mary for the creche. Her eyes are a little different, but othewise I'm very pleased with how she came out. I made her of Sculpey but with a cloth veil and skirt. She's about four inches tall, kneeling. Her hair is black and her eyes are blue, because I think that's a very pretty combination. I didn't mean her to be historically accurate because if I were being accurate I wouldn't have 19th century villagers flocking around the manger, either. But it annoys me when she's blonde. So even if she does blue eyes, the hair is at least accurate. Her dress is white and she's wearing a veil made of scraps from a bright blue skirt I made myself last winter. I wanted to have her in the posture of the Madonnas you see in all the old manger scenes with the head tilted to one side and the hands held up in adoration or something. My first attempts looked like they were either applauding or doing the hokey pokey, but I finally got the hands right. She looks as she should. I'm happy.

When I was actually Christian, Mary never held much interest for me, but these past few years she's become rather fascinating. There are all these beautiful old prayers to her. The first one I discovered through Evita - during her funeral Che is singing this fast, angry song, but between verses you can hear the crowds slowly singing the Salve Regina I looked up the full text and loved it - "O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Maria" - for some reason, the words brought tears to my eyes. One night I had been in an argument with my father and ended up yelling and crying and running out of the room, three things I almost never do. We were going out to dinner in a few minutes, and I knew I had to calm down quickly. I could think of nothing but my anger until these words came into my head. I recited them over and over and in a few minutes, I was calm. Another time a friend was IMing me in absolute despair. The words "We sigh to you, weeping in this vale of tears," seemed appropriate and I sent her the translation. She liked it. Twice this has happened to me - once with the Salve Regina and once listening to "Motherless Chil'" by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Suddenly I heard those words and it was so sweet, so needed, I could do nothing but cry and listen. The only thing I can compare it to was that wonderful cup of water at the contra years ago. It was like there had been this great lacking I didn't even know I had and it had suddenly been filled.

Henry Adams would say that the impact of the Salve Regina was the result of the lack of the Virgin figure in Protestant America. Maybe that's true - I've been trying to find Demeter, but Mary's so much more available and so much more defined. I'm doing my research paper for history this year on "The Decline and Evolution of the Goddess in Middle Eastern and Western European Religion", which is the best topic I could possibly have picked. I had originally planned to write about how the subordination of Gaea and Rhea mirrored the overthrow of matriarchal societies, but it ended up going a lot farther than that. The more I researched, the more information I found on the similarities between Mary and the old pagan goddesses. Star of the Sea - that was a title of Isis. Queen of Heaven - that was Juno and Hera. Greek and Sumerian myth is full of virgin births, (although sometimes by men, which is even stranger.)

Wow, I've really hit something here. I've been thinking a lot about goddesses lately, which I'll delve into when I have the time, but I've enjoyed this. This is a good place to explore. I'm going to bed now.

May 9
May 13