Beauty Becomes Her

 ©Cameron Altaras

Words and Vocals: Cameron Altaras

Sounds, Effects and Mixing: Jeff Altaras

(Length: 5:55 minutes)

“Where she walks,

beauty becomes,

beauty becomes her.”

“It is said that wherever Brigid [the Celtic goddess of fire, poetry, healing, childbirth and unity] walked, small flowers and shamrocks would appear.”[1]

To speak of creation streaming from and through a feminine source, akin to a mother giving birth, is found in many retellings of the creation of the world in which we live. To understand that the creative force continually creates, through us and through all of nature, evokes within us a sense of reverence, for we are woven in as part of the living, breathing, ALL that surrounds us. Conversely, to adopt the mindset that we are set apart from and have a position of privilege from which we can dominate and subjugate the earth, leads not only to the destruction of the earth, but in the end, to our own annihilation. And whether we care or not, if we disappear, the source of creation will still continue; for the natural order of things of this earth -- birth, life, death, rebirth -- supersedes even us.

This short piece is truly a collage. The lines of melody which both begin and end the recording, are adapted from a poem I wrote many years ago regarding the birth of my daughter and her talent as a young child to create beauty, whether on the page or in her room.

“Where she walks, beauty becomes

Where she walks, the world is beautiful”

When I came across the article about Brigid, in an online course on Ritual taught by Starhawk, the lines quickly transitioned from the personal to the universal and a melody presented itself. Another course on Great Mother, led by Rabbi Miriam Ashina Maron and Rabbi Gershon Maron Winkler, expanded the picture that was building in my mind. And then there were the counter images, those words of “anti-purpose” – a phrase of Rabbi Winkler’s – describing the desecration we as human beings have wrought on this planet. In Ursula K. LeGuin’s phrase, “the ejaculative acts of ego,” I found the perfect description all acts and words and policies and philosophies and doctrines and theories, and on and on, that seek to justify the pillaging and destruction of the earth and all life on it.

And after having completed the recording, I read the following from the just-published book by Perdita Finn, with whom I had engaged in many conversations on the topic. In Take Back the Magic, Perdita summed up with exacting clarity the rationale upon which such destruction stakes its claim: “Industrial capitalism depends upon the Earth being an inert commodity that can be minced, mutilated, and marketed, rather than a vibrant vessel for both this world and the next.”[2]

The question is what can we do to turn this around? Is there a word that can unbind us from the trajectory of annihilation on which we seem to be headed?

Sources:

·       The following phrases were all either quoted directly from or were inspired by the fifth session in the online class, “Great Mother,” in the Shamanic Jewish Series, taught by Rabbi Miriam Ashina Maron and Rabbi Gershon Maron Winkler.[3]

o   “She is the voice streaming creation’s dream through creation’s coming into being.”

o   “She is the voice of creation calling things to be, threading the bigger picture through the smaller one and weaving the collective story through the individual one, creating Creator’s dream through creation’s unfolding.”

o   “She is the living, breathing intent of creation, continuously conceiving and creating.”

o   “The ever-present song of creation, creating itself, again and again.”

·       The following phrase: “Après nous, le deluge,”[4] is French for: “After us, the flood.” It is attributed to to Madame de Pompadour, a favorite of King Louis XV of France, who is to have said the same thing, but in the singular form: “Après moi, le deluge.”  Although most often understood as “a nihilistic expression of indifference to whatever happens after one is gone,” it can also refer to a more literal ruination that one is expecting, as in the case of the flood in Genesis 6-9. One interpretation is: “When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care.” Both Karl Marx and Fyodor Dostoevsky used the phrase to “describe the selfishness and apathy of certain corrupting values.”[5]

·       The following are either directly quoted from or inspired by the Commencement Address given by Ursula K. le Guin at Bryn Mawr College in 1986.[6]

o   “…some ejaculative acts of ego.”

o   “Claims of privileged position become dangerous and destructive.”

o   With reference to “the Father tongue” as opposed to “the Mother tongue,” both of which Le Guin describes in her Commencement Address, she states that it “describes with exquisite accuracy the continuing destruction of the planet’s ecosystem by its speakers.” And then she speaks of how “words, separated from experience for use as weapons, words that make the wound, the split between subject and object, exposing and exploiting the object but disguising and defending the subject.”

·       “[T]he world has been propelled, [to a large extent,] by rage and retribution…” This is from Martha Nussbaum who indicates that this phrase is basically the message of The Eumenides, a play of the Classical Greek period, written by Aeschylus. Nussbaum finishes her sentence with the following: “…but let us create something better, in ourselves and in our political culture. Let’s not be the way the world is right now.”[7]

·       “One need only accept the possibility that fear will not always rule,…” The second half of the sentence is as follows: “…and that the image of another possibility is a trustworthy guide.” From a marvelous book by James Hollis.[8]

·       “Let us not forget that our lack of imagination always depopulates the future; …” This is one of the concluding statements with which Simone de Beauvoir finished her magnum opus, The Second Sex.[9]

·       “The Word of Unbinding” is the title of a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin.[10]

[1] Liz Turnbull, “Brigid: Celtic Goddess of Fire.” https://goddessgift.com/goddesses/brigid/

[2] Perdita Finn, Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World (Philadelphia, PA: Running Press, 2023), 26.

[3] “Great Mother” A 7 session online class in the Shamanic Jewish Series, Rabbi Miriam Ashina Maron and Rabbi Gershon Maron Winkler July 13, 2023 – August 23, 2023.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%c3%a8s_moi,_le_d%c3%a9luge

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ursula K. Le Guin, “Bryn Mawr Commencement Address,” 1986. https://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/leguin/

[7] Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 247.

[8] James Hollis, On this Journey We Call our Life: Living the Questions (Toronto, ON: Inner City Books, 2003), 141.

[9] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex. Translated and edited by H. M. Parshley (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), 730.

[10] Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Word of Unbinding,” in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (New York, NY: Bantom Book/Harper & Row, 4th printing, 1979), 65-72.