T is for the Tree Goddess

One of the things about gods is that they have theophanies, particular appearances and mysteries tied to that appearance.  (I know several people for whom the question "Which Brighid do you get?" is a sensical question.)

And life can get interesting when multiple gods have the same theophany.

So consider the Tree Goddess.  She appears in a number of mortuary texts as a shelter for the dead and source of food for the spirit.  Sometimes she turns up in vignettes as a tree with a woman's head and breasts (and the sycamore fig, the relevant tree, produced sap referred to as milk, so those breasts are rather more literal a figurative than many).  She was a manifestation of the only large tree that grew in pharaonic Egypt, a source of food and shelter and timber.  The gate of dawn was a pair of sycamore figs made of precious turquoise, and the sun passed out between them in the morning.

The Lady of the Sycamore, Hetheru, can be assumed to have the fig as one of her theophanies.  And she brings herself to sweep through that filter: the lady of joy and wealth, perhaps her intoxication coming in the form of a fig wine, the stately lady who is Queen of Heaven.  She comes as the healer of Heru's wounded eyes, and she comes as the Lady of the West who shelters and welcomes the spirits of those who go forth upon their mooring day.  The Tree Goddess is therefore filled with regenerating life, the magnetic draw towards joy that characterises being and creation.

Nut also appears as the Tree Goddess, as lady of the coffin and womb of the dreaming dead, extending her shelter and protection to those beneath her branches as well as those she conceals within her body.  She comes as starry heaven, mother of all things manifest including her grandfather the sun, and perhaps those twin sycamores from which he emerges at dawn are her thighs as she births him.  The Tree Goddess is therefore filled with the power of manifestation and eternity, the light of the unwearying stars, and the birth of reality.

And also, the Tree Goddess is Aset, whose shapeshifting might shall not be limited to merely animal forms.  She comes as the lady of the throne, the one who establishes and nurtures power, whose standards are high and whose glory is great.  She comes great of magic, whose words are underlaid with the ultimate power of the name of the Creator.  She comes as the mourner of the dead, who throws open the coffin and pleads with eternity for the return of temporality.  The Tree Goddess is therefore filled with power and dedication, with yearning and with continuity, the power that takes what is ancestral and makes it live in the now.

Here she is, the great tree: her roots sink deep into the earth, twining with her (Nut's) husband Geb in eternal aching, separated save for this touch at the horizon.  Here she is, the great tree: branches embracing heaven, reaching to mingle with her (Hetharu's) husband Heru in eternal celebration, a house great enough to hold him.  Here she is, the great tree, cradling each star as she cradles her (Aset's) husband Wesir in his eternal reign in the lands of twilight and dawn, standing at the boundary between worlds.  Here she is, the great tree, offering food and drink, offering shelter and healing, her strength an eternity and her trunk reaching across even the horizons between all worlds.

Best Anonymous Comment Ever

Followed a link from a friend on livejournal and read the comments, and for once it was worth it because I found this, from a point where the discussion was commenting on how 'food policing' was often 'woman policing':

If you read the Bible, it turns out that apparently all the sins of the world were caused by one woman making an inappropriate food choice.

Marinated Spicy Baked Chicken with Chard and Sweet Rice

Yes, I have other things on my mind, but I scored a critical success on my food roll tonight, so I'm going to write about that instead. This is a low-preparation-effort but high-planning dish.

The night before: marinate the chicken in buttermilk. How much buttermilk? Enough to cover it, I don't know. This is why it's high planning; one has to think to marinate the stuff in advance.

Preparation for chicky:

Line the bottom of a baking dish with chard. I think I had five or so leaves of it, and I stripped out the stems and lined the dish with the leafy bits. (Stems are saved for making stock with next time we have roast chicky.) Chop a yellow onion (I actually used a sweet onion) and three or four garlic cloves and layer them over the chard. Add a half cup or so of olive oil. Pour the chicken (and the buttermilk) on top of that, spread it all out. Coat the top surface of the whole shebang with a teaspoon of cayenne, and a tablespoon each of cumin, coriander, and whole mustard seed. If you can see the meat, there isn't enough spice on it.

Put in the oven and bake until done. I'd lost my original recipe for this so I played it entirely by ear, and I eventually wound up cranking the heat a good bit in aggravation, which did it no harm.

I know from past experience that this recipe will rehabilitate freezerburnt chicken; I blame the buttermilk.

When done, I pulled out the chicken onto a plate so people could cut off what they wanted of it, the chard into a bowl, and left the onions floating in the jus (to be fished out with a slotted spoon).

Sweet rice:

Standard-issue rice preparation in a pot (twice as much water or a little more if brown rice, low heat, lid); added some honey, some shredded ginger, and a pinch or two of saffron.


The meat is nicely spicy, and the coating is such that spice wusses like my husband can scrape most of it off and still enjoy the meal. I like the sweet rice as a balance for the pepperyness (honestly, I like the sweet rice in general; I nicked that out of one of Steven Brust's Dragaera novels).

A Personal Note

Provoked somewhat by discussions on Bastante Already and in reference to Carol Hanisch's 'The Personal is Political', a personal note to the internet.

Those pesky personal problems that I drag into the public arena when I have the time and energy:

Mental health concerns being treated as strongly distinct from other health concerns. Shaming of people with depression and other mental health issues, treating those concerns as being moral failings rather than health matters. Frequent lack of coverage for extended therapy and other mental health concerns in American health care coverage. The dependence of adequate health care coverage on adequate employment in the United States. Attention to diagnosis depending on the sex, ethnicity, class, and other privilege status of the sufferer, such that a suburban kid may actually get the care they need while an inner-city kid may get kicked out of school for being 'disruptive' or something similar. Socially deranged attitudes towards body shape and health that encourage eating disorders, among other consequences.

Privilege-fraught access to education in general. Failure to put forward advancement of actual learning in the schools rather than constant grinding over the same topics repeatedly. Lack of care for students with special needs, whether those are remedial, medical, advancement, or something else. High costs of education. Lack of learning actual essential skills for living. Failure to teach how to evaluate and weigh evidence. The promulgation of misinformation about socially denigrated activities in the hope that fear will keep people from having sex, smoking pot, or whatever else is being discouraged by propaganda. Lack of informed status on such things as the basic beliefs of Islam, the principles of supply and demand, the mechanics of disease transmission, and any of a number of other matters that have worldwide import.

The equation in the United States of form of employment with selfhood. The shortest span of paid vacation in the supposedly civilised world. The expectation that employees, especially but not limited to men, will work overtime rather than have time to spend having their actual lives. The lack of childcare facilities available in most workplaces. The cultural prioritisation of financial gain as measure of success.

The shaming and fetishisation of rape and assault victims as Damaged People. The lack of adequate awareness of social coercion and date rape. Slut-shaming and other tools of oppressive normative sexuality. Seeking to diagnose and pathologise whatever is wrong with people who do not have normative sexuality on the assumption that nobody could be like that without having been abused. Treatment of people who do not constantly adhere to normative sexualities as being intrinsically dangerous, antisocial, abusing, or otherwise disruptive. The unpersoning of sex workers. Treatment of sexuality as something intrinsically unable to be approached with rational thought, commitment-keeping, or human respect. Treating personal sexuality as a political statement.

Lack of awareness and consideration for verbal and emotional abuse. Boys will be boys. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.

Lack of social and legal support for alternate family structures. The inability of same-sex partners to legally marry in most of the United States. The presumption that any non-monogamous family unit is polygynous.

The social presumption of Christianity. The fact that questioning the hegemonial status of someone else's holiday leads to accusations of hostility to Christianity, "War on Christmas", anti-religion sentiments, secularism, or whatever other deranged slanders crop up especially around this time of year. Generalised religion-bashing sentiments that only make sense if one assumes the axioms of a particular flavor of Abrahamic monotheism. Anti-Christian sentiments expressed in the assumption that nobody present could possibly object.

Sexism. Including anti-male sexism. Gender essentialism. Mystical frou-frou womb worship. Sexual reductionism. Transphobia. Ableism. Calling things "lame". Calling things "retarded". Calling things "gay". Homophobia. Anti-bisexual bigotry. Racism. Presumption that the customs of one's people are laws of the universe. Ethnic supremacy. Male supremacy. Female supremacy. Kink supremacy. Polyamorous supremacy. Reconstructionist supremacy. Imperialist treatment of non-Western nations and ethnicities.

And quite likely rather a few other things I can't think of right now.

They could sometimes admit that women were oppressed (but only by "the system") and said that we should have equal pay for equal work, and some other "rights." But they belittled us no end for trying to bring our so-called "personal problems" into the public arena - especially "all those body issues" like sex, appearance, and abortion. Our demands that men share the housework and childcare were likewise deemed a personal problem between a woman and her individual man.

From the new intro to "The Personal is Political", linked above.

Whoa.

Little Light is guestblogging at Feministe. And has written this spectacular piece about street medicking. Which is ... full of philosophy.

She has also written about food, family, and the continuity of human experience, which has a bunch of stuff that I know down in the bone too.

Shoo, shoo. There's good reading to be had.

More Cheerfully and Better Fed

My liege's birthday was this weekend; his father took us out to dinner to celebrate it.

By us, I mean myself, my liege, and his fiancee.

There are layers upon layers of what this meant to me. That my liege treats me as a partner to the extent of thinking of seeing about having me along on such little expeditions is a big damn deal. That he asked, and that his father was willing to take me along -- and feed me! -- and that gets into the conversation I'm having with Little Light about the social rituals of feeding other humans. That the conversation included not only casual discussion of the state of the wedding plans, but asking after my husband, who is out of town this week. That my holding my liege's hand or resting my hand on his shoulder was not a matter of comment or alarm, just the normal interactions of people who touch.

The whole thing was just a quiet experience of being treated as real. As visible as a person, not needing to hide any of the little bits or pretend to get along.

And the food was fucking amazing.

The bread with the oil to dip in was freshly made and still steaming when my liege cut it, not pre-sliced. The oil was full of pepper flakes. Crusty bread with soft, generously yielding innards.

We got a salad and an appetiser. The salad was sort of five-parted, and since there were five of us, that worked out quite well -- a big slice of yellow tomato with some thin-sliced salty ham of some sort (prosciutto?) and buffalo mozzarella on top, with basil and greens and viniagrette, and the combination of the flavors was just ... spectacular. Amazing stuff. The appetizer was some sausage thing on I think polenta with a sauce, which I only had a little of (not a sausage fan, me, except in the metaphorical raunchy ways), but the rest of the table thought it was quite good. (I just don't have the space to judge from.)

And then the entree thing, I got chicken with a white wine, lemon, and garlic sauce, which was that perfectly tuned sharp bite of delicious goodness that a lemon sauce should be. With broad noodles and greens. It was spectacular, with that edge of pepper and ... oh, so good. I had the half of it I couldn't eat for lunch today, and it was still so good. Glorious, glorious stuff.

(I won't even get into the staff, who were a trip and a half.)

Well-fed helps with feeling real. But not as much as just the being there, and acknowledged, and having it not be a giant production.