For me, the process of
creating performance art has been the process of
self-creation. Each time I present my work
before an audience the process of my own
evolution is accelerated. I believe that it is
time for conscious acceleration of our own
evolution. I feel that all Life-loving people
are being called to deliberately cause an
acceleration of human evolution in the direction
we want it to go, away from violence and
self-annihilation and towards a reality created
out of our Love of Existence and Reverence for
Life. Mythology is a way our species
communicates, through stories and symbols that
define our collective perception of reality. In
my work, I am reframing the ancient myths to
serve a contemporary spiritual mission &emdash;
to create a psychic blueprint that will turn
humanity back to the worship of women and nature
and accelerate human evolution toward the
co-creation of paradise on Earth.
To shift out of the
programming of the necro-technocultural legacy
and towards a world that honors the Lifeforce,
we need to find ways to invoke a reality other
than the domination of women and nature. When we
tell and re-tell the myths that have been
invented or co-opted by the patriarchal mindset,
we reinforce patriarchy on the deepest psychic
level. That's why scholars such as Charlene
Spretnak, Barbara Walker, Z. Budapest, Merlin
Stone and others have chosen the logical path of
figuring out what a non-patriarchal version of a
myth would be, and then telling it that way. All
mythology is born of the human mind; the mind
turns experience into symbols by which to
interpret experience. The mythology of
patriarchy tells its story, over and over again,
reinforcing its grid, re-creating itself in the
human psyche each time it's told. Unless we tell
a different story, we cannot change the grid.
It's time to tell the myths of the future, those
that will lead us out of this obsolete,
self-annihilating global paradigm. We are being
called upon to be the mythographers of the
future, telling the story of our exodus from
patriarchy.
My current work is
called BLOODSISTERS, and in it I transform, in
front of the audience, into three ancient
goddesses, Artemis, Medusa and Aphrodite. I
begin with Artemis because she is the core of
womankind, the original, autonomous female soul
who cannot be captured by patriarchy. She is
wild, untamed and self-defined. She's also very
crafty about how she avoids being mentally and
psychically colonized by patriarchy's toxic
messages. In fact, as Amazon huntress she shoots
the menacing voices of patriarchy with her arrow
of death. Bing! and they're out of there. She's
very playful and free in her body, sensual in
nature, and can switch instantly to fiercely
protecting the Lifeforce and standing up for the
liberation of all womankind.
"I touch the Earth. I
touch Myself. The warm breeze that kisses me is
the kiss of my lover. This is my religion. And I
worship naked, squirming in mud, rolling in the
soft green grasses. The flowing springs are my
lover's tongue. I am one, I am one with her. And
I lie upon her as a lover, and I press myself
into her as I nuzzle my face in her dewy moss.
She gives and receives Life. Giving and
receiving is my birthright...
"It is my birthright to
be a wave of ecstasy!"
"They burned me for
that. They burned us all. And although I have
burned, I now return to you as Protectress of
womankind, and my presence is known and felt
throughout the land. Because my will is strong,
and I walk upon my own true path. . . not just
any path that's been laid out for me. . . NO!
I've got my arrow and my bow. I go where I go
and I know what I know. And I know the Earth is
sacred. And that's all I know. No other truth is
real to me. No other notion exists for me,
because I am a nature spirit. . . like the tree
or the river. I am THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. I am
the spiritual nature of womankind."
Whereas recognition of
female autonomy has always elicited the fear
that women will disrespect the male and not care
for him, Artemis conveys the truth that female
self-love and autonomy enable women to be true
allies with our brothers:
"I, Artemis, am a true
sister to men. Through bringing strength to
women, I deepen the hearts of men. For I know my
brothers well, and I know that they are strong
and wise, and capable of feeding their own sweet
souls with life when I am not around. When I'm
out feeding my own soul. I know we can have it
all. And my arrow protects the baby boys as
well.
"The Great Mother brings
you forth by all, all, all the love and strength
in her body. She turns herself inside-out, tears
Herself in two, to bring forth the jewel, the
jewel that is you. I will always stand by you,
brother, and protect you from all harm. Will you
stand by me? Stand with me to honor
Life?"
Artemis is unwavering in
her defense of the Lifeforce as the highest
human principle, and her fearless and
uneuphemistic honoring of menstrual blood
signifies her determination to return human
consciousness to the ecstatic worship of Life
itself:
"How far must I go to
teach the human soul to honor Life? That the red
in your bed is the church, is the temple, is the
holy land! My eyes are open, and with our eyes
open we deny the lie. And I will not stop. I
will not stop until the blood of Life is honored
once again. And I will stop at nothing to
protect the Lifeforce."
Like all women, I am
constantly bombarded with external and
internalized messages of what a woman is and how
we must act in order to fit into "civilized"
society. I have personally dedicated my life to
dismantling the oppressive system of patriarchy,
turning it upside down and myself inside out in
order to find and live in authentic truth, in
order to create a reality wholly other than
patriarchy. When women and men see my work, they
experience female being in a new way. Both women
and men begin to deepen their trust of essential
female nature and its power to transform
oppression. Thus they glimpse a real vision of a
world on the mend.
My second act is Medusa,
where I become the embodiment of female fury and
rage. This most misunderstood aspect of female
being is the key to our ultimate liberation
because the suppressed rage of women, when
unleashed, is the psychic propellant that can
cut through facades and, break the foundation
that upholds the patriarchal system. Women are
conditioned to reject this essential part of our
nature and trained in many disciplines to become
masters of self-denial. Medusa comes forth with
the message that our sanity and survival as a
species is dependent on the liberation of female
fury, which is born of self-love and a fierce
maternal love of the living world.
"I am here to set the
record straight and to reveal the true nature of
the nightmare of this world. Of course, this
sometimes makes me a little unpopular. . . BUT I
am here to unbind your mind from the insidious
poisoning thoughtforms of the patriarchy, and to
help you unmask more and more of who you truly
are.
"Maybe save you some
time in therapy.
"Speaking of therapy, so
many women are calling on me lately, to help
them with their 'nice girl' issues. They come to
me, 'Medusa, Medusa, help me Medusa. No matter
how many of these damn pills I take, I still
feel angry. And I don't feel very nice most of
the time. And I'm getting less good at
pretending.'
"And I say, well, let's
see. . .the environment, this sacred planet, is
being poisoned and destroyed every day. Every
day women and children all over the world are
raped and murdered by the thousands. Every day
guns and bombs are made and dropped on
populations. Every day we have to check our
breasts for lumps because the world is too toxic
for breasts to be safe. Could it be that your
anger is the appropriate response to these
unspeakable dire atrocities? Could it be that
it's time to get really angry, and STOP THE
PSYCHIC NUMBING OF THE WORLD!"
As I embody Medusa, my
own pain of having lived as a woman in
patriarchy is transformed into propellant rage
before the audience, and they glimpse a vision
of female power as an elemental force. The
energy of the audience begins to ride with
Medusa on a serpentine journey of
transformation. The audience becomes my snakes,
dormant energies begin to writhe and wiggle and
rise, and together we pull the plug on the
psychic mindfuck of patriarchy.
"Yes, we are the Creator
protecting Her creation, and we are everywhere.
"We are hurricanes, we
are cyclones, we are volcanoes, we are tidal
waves, we are earthquakes! We are the
cracking-open of consciousness. And we are
courageous, because courage is contagious and
courage summons courage everywhere. And we find
each other, and together we tear the fabric of
the fabricated world! And together, we bring
forth the creation, the jewel of existence,
again and again and again."
As Medusa, I am the
living embodiment of the No! that allows the Yes
to truly happen. How do we say 'yes' to the
wonder and beauty of Life on Earth unless we can
say 'no' to all that seeks to degrade, exploit
and destroy the living world? As each woman
finds her voice and power to say No to that
which is unacceptable within her own life, the
spirit of womankind is empowered as destroyer of
the old, obsolete distortions of the patriarchy.
It's astounding how many
male members of the audience express gratitude
for being able to witness Female Fury as a
beneficent, healing and protective expression.
Medusa's rant channels our collective,
previously sublimated outrage at the atrocity of
circumcision, of both the baby boys and girls of
this planet, as well as the use of our sons as
cannon fodder in war. Here again, the vision of
the uncolonized, authentic female presence as an
elemental spirit of nature with the maternal
emotional urge to protect Her creation is a
magickal working, one that brings the audience
into a consensual conjuring of a new
world.
The third of the three
acts is Aphrodite, expressed through me as the
Goddess of Lust, Compassion and Telepathy. As
goddess of lusty intimacy whose mission it
clearly is to teach the nature of the sacred
erotic to humankind, I am required to become
truly vulnerable before the audience in this
piece, something that at one time in my life was
the most unimaginable thing I would ever do. I
have spent most of my own adult life recovering
from the deep wounds of multiple forms of sexual
abuse. But in my performance, as is true within
my own healing process, there is no other way to
convey Her true nature. She is as vulnerable as
She is strong -- in fact, her vulnerability is a
vital part of the continuum of her strength. Her
open, erotic vulnerability so infuses her
strength with elemental potency that she is able
to use the dance of her body to whirl all forms
of violence against women off the planet. An
aspect of Aphrodite's exquisite vulnerability is
her humor. We experience from the moment She
takes the stage that she is a rascal and She
brings forth the humor effervescing within the
Lifeforce. In fact, her own yoni (Sanskrit for
female genital) sparkles in crystalline bubble
explosions when She is feeling safe and naked in
nature. This, Aphrodite tells us, is an aspect
of erotic justice , within the safe space that
women know how to create when we are
together.
"I am the Yoni oracle of
the Universe, or should I say, the Yoniverse. Oh
yes, I believe, I believe that the whole world
is just longing to know itself as a big, juicy,
open yoni. Open yoni! open yoni! open yoni! And
in my opinion, or should I say, my openyoni,
it's time for a global transformation! Or should
I say, transformatiyoni!
"I am Goddess,
Womankind, gushing forth my liquid wonder, my
cup of joy, my truth. Come drink of me, for I
hold the secrets of immortality, for everything
becomes something else, endlessly. . . Come
change with me, come join my dance of delirium."
[how about "delirious hilarity" or something
else &endash; delirium is not a desirable
state…]
Within the classroom of
Aphrodite's School for the Ecstatically
Impaired, the audience is guided through a
series of lessons, for example, that Empathy
leads to Telepathy, which helps us create erotic
justice in the world. That the act of witnessing
each other's pain is an aspect of the erotic
because it supports and conjoins us on a
profound emotional/psychic level, helps us
remove ourselves from the oppression which is
perpetuated by our isolation, and this liberates
us to experience ecstatic pleasure.
" When we spill the
beans we find
That we remember womankind
Re-member is the opposite of dis-member
We remember 5,000 years of rape
Of terror and cruelty, and no escape
Change the channel, press the mute button
It's just too much to bear
But I tell you, my fellow deities, there is
magick there
In circles create sanctuary to tell and to
feel
And as we bear witness, we become more real
Through empathy we connect to the Great
Mystery
Which leads to telepathy, and the weaving of
Sistery. "
The climax of the
Aphrodite piece, and of the entire performance
of BLOODSISTERS, happens when Aphrodite receives
an e-mail from God. She notes that's it's
astonishing that She, a deity who teaches the
principles of erotic telepathy. would resort to
technology. But as She explains, there are just
some energies She does not want in her psychic
space right now;
God, for
example.
She does, however want
to know what his email says:
"He says, 'Dear Goddess,
I'm so sorry about this whole patriarchy thing.
It's just a weird phase I'm going through, but
I'm just as sick of it as you are, at this
point. Please know that I really want to change,
and that I'm working on myself. I hope you can
forgive me. Love, God. P.S. Can we make love
now?'"
She tells him, "Not so
fast cowboy!"
And then she proceeds to
challenge him to worship the universal Yoni,
bear witness to the pain of womankind and undo
the harm patriarchy has caused. She seductively
invites him to help Her create erotic justice in
the world, and educates him that that's what it
means to make love to the goddess. God expresses
his heartfelt agreement to her terms, and she
agrees to go on a date with him. But he better
mean it. . . or else. . .
This sexy interchange
between Goddess and God offers a radical vision
of healing and reconciliation between the
genders . Suddenly, the idea of total healing
and the manifestation of a utopian global
society where justice is everyone's birthright
seems feasible.
My work has been called
outrageous because it sharpens the cutting edge
of truth-telling politics. Even
as I walk the edge of the comfort zone I
continually create a safe container for the
audience to bear witness and re-member. I have
heard from male audience members that every time
they began to feel threatened, I made it safe
again. I am very proud to receive this feedback,
because it is a measure of the healing I've
accomplished in my own story. This enables me to
gently and lovingly hold men accountable for
violence against women and the Earth in such a
way that incites them to action and
self-discovery rather than
defensiveness.
I am now embarking on my
national tour, to bring BLOODSISTERS everywhere
I can. All I want to do, for the rest of my
life, is to spark, inspire and accelerate this
revolution of the human spirit, which, from the
evidence that I see, is well
underway.
Felicity Artemis Flowers
is a feminist theorist and educator, writer and
ritual and performance artist residing in
Northern California and Maui. If you would like
to bring her performance of BLOODSISTERS to your
town, or for information regarding video and
audio tapes and other related materials, you can
contact her at (707) 795-8403 or email at
felicityartemis@earthlink.net.
