Goddess of the Week: Oya

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Baffled Human asks for a goddess who can help her hold her ground and say no AND who possesses the divine secret to cleaning up fur balls. Amazingly, I have just the one! Oya: the Yoruban warrior goddess who uses natural disasters to keep her opponents at bay.

When the god Sango was looking for a wife, he checked out all the Yoruban goddesses, but none compared to Oya, who controls wind, lightening, fire, earthquakes and hurricanes and who always looks fetching in a flouncy gray skirt that doubles as a tornado. With a wife like that, Sango knew that no one would try and furlough him, or expect him to bring snack to the entire soccer team, or make three separate dinners for three separate people every night of the week. No! With Oya on his side, Sango would totally rule. Why? Because Oya could fricking blow people away, that's why! You don't want to mess with Oya. You mess with Oya and you'll end up in Oz.

As for furballs: put your vacuum cleaner away! Oya will blow those suckers into the backyard of those totally mean neighbors you hate. (WARNING: Oya Super Tornado Power is not for use on actual cats.)

All of this is a long way of saying that the next time someone at works asks you to head up the Christmas toy drive or when that mom from the PTA asks you to spearhead the Science Fair, you just dial up a little Oya. Say, "Oh-yeah. I don't think so."

Channel this goddess: When people try and take advantage, when people ask too much, when the virus of volunteer-to-doism knocks you down like a case of swine flu, and, of course, when your cat leaves you one of those "special" presents.

Baffled Human: Go! Say No!

Need a goddess: Leave me a message in the comment section and I'll see what I can do.

Wise Women Friday: Madame de Stael

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Words of wisdom from French writer Madame de Stael (1766-1817):

One must choose in life between

boredom and torment.

Hardly a day goes by when I don't contemplate unplugging my computer and never writing again. Why write? Why? It's masochistic. You doubt your talent. You doubt your words. You doubt that anyone cares, and you think that nothing you write matters. You know for sure no one will ever pay you a penny for your darling sentences and your precious paragraphs. You go to bed saying, "That's it. I'm done. From now on I will train to be an ironman, or I will learn French, or I will feed the poor -- I will spend my time doing noble, intrinsically-oriented deeds." Then you wake up the next morning twitching like a junkie for your cold, smooth keyboard.

It is a torment to want to write. Better your children long to be engineers. But without writing, what's left? Your poor imagination, bored beyond repair, will trick you into believing that you have every disease profiled in "House." It will convince you that delayed spouses are lying mangled in their cars and that your creaking house is filled with ghosts. You will likely go insane, driven mad by the boredom of mundane complaints and too real problems that cannot be tied up into neat life lessons.

You can be bored or you can be tormented. You will suffer either way. But if you choose torment, at least you can edit the script.

Goddess of the Week: Demeter

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When my daughters were babies, I read many parenting books, and from these books I learned that I must always tell my children to use their words. So I did. "Use your words," was my mantra, and, lo-and-behold, one I turned around to discover that I couldn't shut my kids up. Every moment was, and is, talk-talk-talk-talk-bicker-bicker-bicker-bicker.

That, right there, is what you call unforeseen consequences -- which is the big lesson the parenting books don't cover.

The Greek goddess of the harvest, Demeter, knew all about unforeseen consequences. When her brother Hades -- lord of the underworld -- stole her daughter Persephone, Demeter played hardball to get her back. She threatened to let all plant life die unless her daughter was returned. Alas, Persephone had eaten the food of the underworld and could not permanently return to the world of the living, but a deal was struck. Persephone would stay winter with Hades and the rest of year with Demeter. And everyone lived happily after. Right?

Not quite. Here's the thing. Persephone like being queen of the underworld. Hades, for all his doom and gloom and lordship over the dead, wasn't such a bad guy. He didn't cheat on Persephone. He gave her good bling, a cool throne, a three-headed dog; she had a lot of power, and she liked having a lot of power. She even had this cool jar of everlasting beauty that she could dole out however she wanted. Goddesses asked to borrow it all the time. No one ever gave them jars of everlasting beauty.

That, right there, was the unintended consequence that smacked Demeter in the face. Demeter was willing to let the whole world die for Persephone; Persephone couldn't wait to get back to her jar of everlasting beauty.

If mothers are lucky and if they do things right, their children leave them. Their children go off to college or they get their own apartments and exciting jobs, and while they love us, we aren't so much the center of their universes anymore. We sacrifice the world. They hunt down cold cream. Again, that's if we are lucky. Demeter was lucky. Demeter got to let go yet know that her daughter was all right.

May you be so lucky, and may you always know spring when the seasons change and you and your Persephones are brought together again.

Channel this goddess: When your little ones leave the nest, when you're having a hard time letting go, when you wish your Persephones would at least peek over the nest, or when the hard work of mothering seems just that: work.

PaperTurtle: You did everything right. This goddess is for you.

Need a goddess: Leave a message in the comments section. Tell me what you need or what you'd like to honor. I'll do the rest.

Spooky story: Read it if you dare

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I hope you'll click on over to the flash fiction website Rose City Sisters and read my just posted story "Death Dealer (Or Bob Strikes Back)." Clocking in at less than 500 words, it is the dramatic, spine-tingling follow up to my story "Sweet Revenge. It's just right for Halloween.

My fascinating, secret life!

Georgie has given me this award, which was awfully nice of her and for which I say thanks. She has a pretty sweet blog herself. I'm supposed to say seven things you don't know about me and nominate seven other blogs. I'm going to wimp out on choosing the other blogs. I love all the blogs I read and I nominate them all. As for the seven things...well, will it shock you to know:

1. I am unnaturally good at hula hooping and unnaturally bad at every other sport in the entire world (and, yes, I think I'm stretching to consider hula hooping a sport).

2. My greatest regret is that I gave away my entire collection of original (circa 1970s) Star Wars action figures only to find out latter that the jawa alone was worth $200.

3. I also had an original Star Wars movie poster. I have no idea what happened to it, and I don't even like to think about it. It's too upsetting.

4. I also had a model R2D2 that I made.

5. And a model Ty Fighter.

6. Yes. I know that not many girls were this obsessed with Star Wars. Yes, I do think I was strange.

7. Until very recently, the Darth Vader theme song was the ringtone on my cell phone. I finally changed it because, once, I was walking down the street when my phone rang. This homeless guy was sitting nearby, and as I was frantically searching through my purse for my phone, he looked up at me and said, "Is that the Darth Vader song?" He looked at me like I was so pathetically nerdy that I was shamed into switching into this sort of zen garden ring tone;it sort of reminds me of Yoda.

Goddess of the Week: Mictacacihuatl

Image by Thomas Milne via Flickr

True story:

I knew this professor -- an historian -- at UCLA. She was staying with this very modest family in rural Mexico who were allowing her to sleep on their couch while she did her research. She woke up in the middle in the night and this woman she'd never seen before walked past her and then just evaporated, like steam, like a thin fog. The woman was gone. When the professor mentioned this to her hosts they shook their heads. They didn't know what she was talking about, only then did the professor realize she'd seen a ghost.

Ghosts needs goddesses too, of course, and so, on this week before Halloween, I give you Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of the underworld, who watched over the bones of the dead, lest they be stolen. With her skull face, serpent skirt and sagging breasts, I'm thinking she was pretty good at keeping thieves at bay.

I know what you're thinking: why would anyone want to steal the bones of the dead? Turns out bones are precious. The Aztecs said they were like seeds and could be used to germinate new life. In fact, the god Quetzalcoatl took Mictecacihuatl's old pile of bones to create humans, so now she must guard her bones even more carefully in case Quetzalcoatl comes back and tries to create something even more dangerous.

To placate the aggrieved Mictecacihuatl, the Aztecs worshipped their lady of the dead in a month long festival that, despite a few changes in venue and ritual, is still celebrated today. Happy Dia de Los Muertos to you.

This goddess is for my daughter, a Halloween baby.

Channel this goddess: when confronting goblins, ghosts and wee little beasties or when bra shopping (because sagging breasts really work for no one, even people with totally cool serpent skirts).

Need a goddess: Leave me a comment in the comment section telling me what you need. I'll see what I can do.

Wise Women Friday: Helen Fielding

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Words of wisdom from English novelist Helen Fielding:

...although we have discovered our Inner Bitches,

we have not yet unlocked them.

It is hard to unlock your Inner Bitch if you have been advised your whole life to be nice. Nice is good. Nice is fine. Nice sweetens the coffee, just like sugar helps the medicine go down. But, the truth is, nice doesn't always work. Nice doesn't always get you what you want. It doesn't always open doors. Sometimes, nice blows up in your face.

There are times in life when you need to unlock your Inner Bitch. You must let her out. You must let her do the work that needs to be done. You must be tough. You must be professional. You must NOT WORRY about nice.

You will worry that if you let your Inner Bitch out, people will actually call you a bitch. Let them. Own this word. Take it back from your detractors. Language is power. Take power. If people said you were a tiger or a lion, you would feel strong and powerful. If people say you are bitch, feel loyal, protective, courageous and true. That's what a female dog is.

Whatever power you need to fight, fight it. Go. Be a bitch.