Open Letter to Pinterest

Dear Pinterest,

I want to get back the pictures that I hid by accident.  Please fix the “Hide” button.

It was very frustrating to see pins that I wanted disappear because I slipped onto the wrong button.

I am writing to let you know about what I am doing on Pinterest.  Did you know that I was (probably) the first person to write about Trabzon wire weaving in English?  I mean since the computer age began - because I found one book that mentioned it in the 1980’s.

I love searching Pinterest for knitting and yarn.  I can look at new knitting techniques for hours on end.  But the really exciting stuff on Pinterest relates to my research.  I am trying to make a book:  my book would be a bridge between the books of Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Mary B. Kelly.  So, I am exploring ideas that combine these books by E. W. Barber: The Dancing Goddesses;  When They Severed Earth From Sky; and Women’s Work, The First 20,000 Years... And the four books on Goddess Embroideries by Mary B. Kelly.

It’s not exactly research, actually it’s more like a meander through the anthropology and art history of Europe.  Anyway, most of what I do on Pinterest relates to my so-called research.  I love that people let me look at their thoughts.  I wish that I could interview these people but they are too far away.  We say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well, Pinterest is worth a bizillion words... Yay, Pinterest!

All this so-called research is about European Pagans.  What did they believe?  What happened to them? -all their history.  I can’t prove it yet, but I think I found some exciting new bits of pagan history.  I’m not a believer but I like pagans well enough to stay focused on them for a long time.  Yay, Pagans!

Oh, I forgot to mention- I’m also kind of obsessed with fashion.  I’m just good at making my own clothing.  I knit and sew.  I’d like to think that I’m an artist, although I don’t have much time for making stuff theses days.  I use Pinterest to dream about all the stuff I want to make.  Thanks for everything, Pinterest !

Sincerely, Virginia Miller

...

Pagans In Plain Sight

I dream of writing a book.  The idea right now is to call the book, Pagan In Plain Sight.  It would be a survey of European art from a pagan point of view.  This is stupid, but I'm also calling it, "Virginia's theory of everything."  I mean this research is an octopus.  No, it's a millipede -you know, it has a million legs going every which way (very bad witch pun.)

I think that I can draw a line of research from these 2 books [Goddess Embroideries by Mary B. Kelly, and The Dancing Goddesses by Elizabeth Wayland Barber] that goes all over everything European - and ties it all together in one big explaining story about pre-Christian European cultures.

Seems like I'm insane because this story would explain why firetrucks are red, why our flag is red, white and blue, why Harlequin wears patches, and why Santa Claus flies through the sky.  It explains all the flowers in medieval manuscripts, why we have dragons, and why the decorative arts exist.  I'm trying to tie together also why we have stripes, polka dots and flowers on women's clothing.  It explain the Baroque and Rococco art of the 1700's - so far, I have not been able to find an art history book with a decent explanation -where did Baroque come from, why does it exist, what did it mean to people?  Paganism - that's what Baroque art is.  Up until recently, I think, you could not say that as an art history scholar.

I'm tying together opera and carnival rides, zoos and ballet.  It all fits together.  This is the story of a world-view that was everywhere hidden in plain sight.  It was so obvious that people did not need to write it down nor explain it, until sometime in the last 100 years most people forgot about it.  And then, all the efforts to prevent traditions from dying out... all those Ministries of Culture and Tourism were unable to say why the traditions exist.

I see why we have American quilts with the same patterns as Norweigian sweaters -- the same designs are found in traditional art from the Netherlands to Palestine to Kazakhstan, and Iceland to Iberia/Spain and Portugal.

I see continuity across time from the Stone Age to the Victorian Age and beyond.  I see a connection between Slavic Goddesses, Mother Goose, and country ducks wallpaper from the 1980's.  I see people everywhere today repeating the handicraft motifs of the past - and most people not understanding the symbols that they are using.  People are still knitting the sweaters with the Auseklis  8 pointed stars but they don't know what that star says anymore.  People are still stitching quilts with pinwheel designs (kolovrati, the swastika now a rejected symbol) or just quilts with patchwork flowers - I see meaning in almost every quilt design but I'm almost certain that most quilters do not understand these symbols.  Tell me if I am wrong about this.

I don't have time to explain it all now.  But I'm putting just about everything I have into this blog.  This blog is my book about pagan symbols.   -Virginia Miller, Campton, New Hampshire, 18 May 2018

Chalupas - Edible Sun Shallops

Notes

-- there's a recipe in my Betty Crocker Cookbook for chalupas.  It had a nice photo so I tried it.  It's delicious, if you are ok with fried food.  I looked up the word, chalupas.  It's boat and I'm guessing it's similar to the word, shallop.

Shallop: like Sun Shallop in the Goddess Embroideries from Russia...  I was fascinated to find a game called, Lotteria , from Mexico.  It's full of mysterious images, and one of them is labeled, La Chalupa.  It's a picture of a beautiful woman in a canoe filled with fruit and flowers.  I made a guess that this game dates from a time when THEY KNEW pre-Christian culture.  Because I feel certain that La Chalupa matches up with the sun shallop.  I keep thinking about the water beneath her canoe...

There was an old belief (maybe Old English?) that evil can not cross water.  It shows up in the The Lord of the Rings movies several times...  suppose people once thought that water is life (in Europe, not as today's slogan from the protest at Standing Rock, North Dakota.). What would be the most ancient word that we can find for "river"?  I keep coming back to "mer" - sea...

I mean this stuff about the sun shallop explains why Santa flies through the sky in.a sleigh.  Right?  The sleigh is the sun shallop, I think...  which tells me that THEY KNEW.  What I want to know:  what did they know about pagans?, and when did they know it?  I found a quilt covered in red and white Auseklis in a resale shop.  It was stuffed with polyester, so it was not very old, maybe 1940's, but the design and color told me that someone who made quilts knew what these symbols mean.  How could they not know?  This quilt said something loud and clear about apotropaic magic - attracting the abundance and holding off misfortune.

I'm seeing a coherent story pretty much wherever I look.  I hope I can write a book about it.  Maybe just a booklet, a picture book, something easy - I am intimidated by the work involved.  I want to write an explanation that ties together most of the art of the 1700's - 1800's... a grand theory of European pagans hiding in plain sight all over the place.

But the more I think about it, the more I notice problems with pagans.  Hidden underlying problems at the root of the environmental crisis.  Too much fertility at the expense of the natural world.  Culture wars (family values vs. freedom, and USA politics of conservative vs. liberal) based on assumptions that go back to European pagans.  Not to even mention the Natzis and their misuse of the sun sign/swastika.  I would have to write about the problems and it's a big subject that I want to avoid.

--I'm thinking that I need to update what I wrote about the Taraskon.  Maybe I was wrong what I said, maybe the Taraskon is not a recipe for a drug.  I'm thinking now that the Taraskon is really more of a fertility wish.  The Taraskon has both breasts and a very phallic tail, you know, human fertility, plus symbols of crop fertility...

Pays d'Auge

Some notes on what I'm thinking about now.

Who or what was Auge?  I found a city named Augsburg,Germany.  It was the starting place of German Rococco.  Plus, Augsburg has an interesting location where two rivers meet.  And I found a region of France that was once called Pays d'Auge.  Probably got my spelling wrong here.

Can we link Auge to gold?  And then link gold to the sun & sun worship?

I found a book in the library with the amazing title, The Survival of the Pagan Gods.  Originally it was in French with an even better title.  But this copy is in English.  It dates from 1940, and was reprinted several times.  I'm kind of surprised because  it seems to me that nobody today thinks about theses things except me.  Yes, it's lonely and maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.  I still don't have colleagues.  I want a circle of people willing to talk about this stuff.

I looked up the Wikipedia page for Rococco.  There's no mention of pagan themes in the whole page.  I want to rewrite it.  Also no mention of why => why the heck are there pagan symbols in 1700's art?  I thought that Europe was mostly Christian during that time?  Was it something to do with the Reformation?

I've got two ways to describe my research right now:  1) I'm studying European pagans to e plain the roots of our environmental crisis.  I thought pagans were better forthe earth than Christians.  But I find there's a problem with pagans:  too much fertility.  2). I'm studying why the Rococco art period happened.  And I'm uncovering symbolism hiding in plain sight everywhere.  Every flower and leaf in art says something about wishes for abundance and good fortune.  Plus I'm trying to draw a connection between European heraldry and pagans.  I'm curious about all the flourishes around the outside of the heraldry - more leaves and flowers.

Sea-horses in Assisi Embroidery

I found something, but it's just weird.  I was looking at Assisi Embroidery on Pinterest.  I noticed that several examples of this embroidery have sea-horses.  And they look a little like Russian Goddess Embroideries.

While I was looking for something else (I wanted the meaning of the Auskelis / Morning Star symbol from Norweigian sweaters)...  I found a fairytale from Lithuania that might explain those sea-horses.  But Lithuania is not the same country as Assisi, Italy.  I'm getting too careless by sweeping material from one end of Europe to the other.  I've found clues that sweep Norweigian sweaters together with ancient artifacts from Kazakhstan.  If I'm not careful, people will dismiss me with the words, "confirmation bias."  That means finding exactly what you want to find.  Isn't that how people discredited Maria Gimbutas?  And she was educated, while I am not.

On the other hand, I might be correct.  Maybe the symbols I'm studying pop up in distant countries because they are very ancient.  So, they had plenty of time to spread all over Europe and Asia.  Some fairytales could be 10,000 years old.

I'm just going to give a link to the fairytale from Lithuania here:

Wikipedia page for Ausrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aušrinė

In the tale, there is a beautiful maiden, the daughter of the sun.  She has 3 appearances:  she can be a girl, a star - the morning star - Venus, and a sea-horse...

In mythology, I'm noticing some gender confusion.  Who drives the sun across the sky?  Is it a male or a female?  Russians have a female figure on the sun shallop.  But Greeks have Apollo driving the sun chariot (I should check on this later.)  Maybe it did not matter much?  You could see your own life reflected in the tales no matter what your gender.  Or maybe men and women had separate but related beliefs?  One set of tales told around the women's fire, and another set of tales for the men's camp fire?

Sea-horses in Rococco Art puzzle me.  It's exciting to think that I may have found an explanation in that fairytale.  Yay!  Another bit of evidence to tie Rococco Art to pagan mythology.  Now why were they using pagan themes in Rococco Art?  There was a 400 page book of art history in the library (name of book?) --- everything you could possibly want to know about why Greek gods and goddesses turn up in this art...  But the author left out the possibility that people may have really believed that pagan stuff.  I will have to try again to read that book.  I'm not being very clear about what I want to say here.

So, that symbol from the sweaters, the Morning Star.  I'm still not sure if it represents the sun or Venus.  But it was fun trying to figure it out.  Along the way, I looked at the flags of Mordovia and Udmurta.  Ha!  Wouldn't it be funny to try to get my friends to say those place names?  (Sometimes as a practical joke, I try to get people to say Ouagadougou.)

But these flag will turn up in this story again.  I hope to use them to explain some other stuff...  I like weird place names.  So what.  I'm a geek.

...

This page is just some notes.

This page is just some notes.  I'm getting ready to write about sea-horses in Assisi Embroidery in my next page...

Bunch of questions-

About the Goddess Embroideries, I want to know whether the Berehynia is the same as the Blessed Virgin Mary?  Did people often see them as the same?  I think so.  But I would like to find some proof.

I'm wondering if pagans sometimes have disagreements about gender?  One tribe might believe that water is female, and another tribe might believe the spirit of the ocean is male...  bit of a problem with their neighbors...

I was fascinated to read that in the 1800's, Christian missionaries used to go around Africa saying, "the dead do not speak."  This was to oppose tribal beliefs.  It seems to illustrate the power of culture, because there are still people in Africa who believe that the ancestors do not go away but stay and guide their descendants.  I'm not into the occult at all, but I sat and read about the African origins of Voodon, Santeria, and Candomblé.  I asked myself, " do my ancestors speak?"  Which is a tough question since I'm married to a scientist, and I see myself as a practical person.  I don't go for things that can not be proven, and although I love a good fairy tale, I find it difficult to believe in anything.

But yes, sometimes my ancestors try to guide me.  They aren't noisy.  I make lots of mistakes, and they don't talk.  I imagine they are sometimes discouraged about me.  It's just that I sometimes try to think they still care for me.

It's like I'm attempting to believe that they could send me a sign if they needed to.  Right now I'm a Unitarian Universalist, which means 1) attend fellowship meetings on Sundays ("church") and 2) figure out what you believe regarding God, and 3) practice your religion.  I'm not attending church these days as I'm doing a radio show (that's another story).  I got tired of UU fellowship meetings because I'm not very good at being social nor friendly.  People exhaust me; I'd rather have books.  I'm sort of low energy - often tired because I don't sleep well.

What I believe about the God has everything to do with the Unitarian 7th principle:

7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

In other words, I'm an environmentalist.  For me, that's the first principle, the most important one...  that's the whole point of this blog: to change the culture where I live.  I want to see deep change in people's hearts.  I want to live where people don't have a throw-away culture.  I want it to be understood that there is no other planet we can go to.  I'm being too serious, I suppose.

Last night was Halloween.  So we watched the movie, The War of the Worlds. It was the one from the 1960's, so in the movie they tried to use a nuclear bomb against the invading Martians.  Not funny at all.  I was so horrified by the bomb, that's why I'm being serious.  My kid decided to be a bomb for Halloween.  Aargh!

...

Red and white martenitzas

Red and white - why are most of the Goddess Embroideries red on a white background?  Is it simply dyed versus undyed fabrics?  But I met someone who went to Transylvania; she said the churches there are filled with red and white embroidery.  That suggests a tradition that sees red and white as sacred...

Remember the story of Snow White and Rose Red?  It's not like the well-known Disney fairy tale.  I'm thinking of the tale about the two girls who entertained a bear at their cottage all winter.  When spring came, the bear left them, but just before he left, they discover that he is a prince.  The whole story is packed with symbols - it's a key to a pagan religion that we don't know much about.  I wonder if there were once many more adventures of Snow White and Rose Red?

Could they represent us, the living?  How similar they seem to Pizho and Penda, the little red & white man and woman from Bulgarian springtime traditions.  You can see thousands of them if you search the word, martinitsa.  I wish that I could just ask a person in Bulgaria!  I would love to travel there.  I see people who know the answers on the internet, but I don't know how to speak to them.

Or-- what if those islands, Lero and Lena, could be another version of Pizho and Penda? They are two little islands near Cannes, France now renamed for saints.  A monastery was built there long ago, probably on an ancient site of pagan ritual.  Now that would be an awesome travel destination, very sweet if I could go.  But unless I do a lot more research, they are just a bunch of rocks in the water.  I want information about pre-Christian cultures.  Maybe I'm just a romantic, hoping to find some noble savages hidden in Europe.

The point is to find the cultures we had before the Agricultural Revolution.