Manifesting Fun Stuff!

The Goddess is alive & well in New Mexico, and being honored this Christmas Eve. NEW SITE

I just returned, and my feet have almost thawed out, from attending the Procession of the Virgin at Taos Pueblo on Christmas Eve. As you may know the Native tribes practice a combination of Catholic and their own historical, largely nature-based, religious traditions. Every year on Christmas Eve the Taos Pueblo celebrate Mass and bring the statue of the Virgin Mary out on a litter and parade her around the village and then return her to the church till next year. It is an amazing & beautiful spectacle.

The events begin in the late afternoon when the non-Native townsfolk and tourists begin gathering around the central courtyard of the pueblo. The Taos villagers have shoveled the walkways in preparation for the Procession and have built many large bonfires of cut and split piñon and juniper around the courtyard. As the sun sets, the bells of San Geronimo church ring to signal the beginning of the Christmas Eve mass, and the bonfires are lit. The temperatures this year were around 20 degrees so the bonfires are very welcome as the visitors wait for the Procession to begin.

As we wait, the billowing black smoke adds an ethereal element to the sunset and incipient festivities. We wait patiently outside the church for events to unfold on the schedule of the Taos Pueblo people. Finally the church doors swing open and Native children and parents flow out into the night, followed by the Virgin, carried on a litter by four pueblo women, and sheltered from the night sky by a white fabric awning supported on four poles by four Native men. She is stiff but beautiful and regal, with dark hair and dressed in lace.

The Procession begins with a series of rifle shots into the air from the group of men out front. I don’t know why. Next come 4 men with stick-bundle torches 8 feet tall or more. Behind them are a dozen or so children, dressed in their finery, shaking their rattles and dancing a way out in front of the Virgin and the Procession and then dancing their way back to her. And then, the one we’ve been waiting for, the Blessed Virgin carried and protected by her faithful entourage. She goes by so quickly! Behind Mary come the Priest and the congregation singing a hymn to her. It is in Spanish, which I don’t understand well, but I believe I heard “Oh Madre Mia.”

The whole procession is past us too quickly, and then we fall in behind as they proceed to loop through the courtyard. The entire way is lined with worshipers and observers. The gunshots continue throughout. The light from the bonfires illuminates the faces of the participants in the early evening dark. The billowing black smoke from the fires adds a surreal element. On the path back to the church, the front of the church is completely lit up and forms the perfect backdrop for the Virgin as she is carried back to the church.

Mary means so much to many people here in New Mexico - Catholics of all races, and hangers on like me. She’s not part of the Holy Trinity, but she’s the one people talk to, the one they pray to. Her likeness graces many homes in the form of painted tiles embedded in courtyard & home walls. If she’s not a Goddess, then who is she? To me she seems to be the approachable side, the feminine side, of the Christian God patriarchy. She is gentle and comforting, and not interested in judging. She’s the kind of God(dess) that I can feel comfortable with! Thank you, Mary, for giving us Jesus and being part of our lives.

Merry Christmas & Feliz Navidad everyone!

Judy

To me she seems to define New Mexico almost as much as our Zia sun symbol.

Wow, it’s been so long since I posted that I doubt anyone will notice this post!

I’ve been really caught in a funk lately, a non-writer’s block of sorts. I’ve just not been sure what to do with myself, what my next business goal should be. nothing has really inspired me; nothing has felt quite right. I’ve really felt fairly frustrated with myself, thinking that I was being lazy or just avoiding work, when in reality, I think I have been searching for the right opportunity, the right project.

I’ve had this idea for a while now, but this morning for some reason it just hit me full force. I would really like to create a social networking site about empowering women, titled something like the Goddess network. That name is already taken, but I’m looking for something similar.

I like the basis of the site to be established around helping each other. I envision sections where we all post what we need and what we can offer each other, and a way to make this information searchable so we can match up our skills with others’ needs.

I’d also like to offer lots of valuable content provided by specialists in the area as of sexuality, health, empowerment, beauty, spirituality, the environment, etc. I have this grand vision of a membership site that is very vibrant and very supportive, now I need to work on the details of how to build it, solicit expert involvement, market it and monetize it. It sounds like a big task, I hope I’m up to it!

Here’s the book that I’ve been reading which has encouraged me in my Goddess quest; I’ve really been enjoying it & it’s what got me out of my mental block. It helps you get in touch with your higher/better self (your Goddess Queen vs. your Drama Queen - sick of her yet?!):

If you have any interest in participating in this project, either as an expert or as a member, please drop me an e-mail, I’ll be very interested in your feedback.

Blessings, Judy

Buon giorno! I am sorry that this is so long overdue. Internet access has been sporadic and expensive, plus we’ve been running around doing stuff rather than spending time inside chained to glowing screens (i still like ‘em tho, although i must say that each public access computer poses its own set of challenges, and i can’t get this one to recognize my camera today, although the one next door eventually acknowledged my video camera last night). My two proudest accomplishements since i’ve been in Italy: i figured out how to place a phone call night before last (although it was a special phone and i’ve still never gotten a payphone to dial the toll-free number necessary to use a calling card), and yesterday i negotiated a 50% discount for using the internet all day - IN ITALIAN!

me: “prezzo Internet giorno?” (price internet day?)
him: does the math out loud for me in italian, 8 hours times 3 euros (abt $4.50) per hour…
me: flip through phrase book and find the word for discount, “sconto?“
him: euro cinquanta
me:thinking a second, then realizing i’d gotten a 50% discount. yay! va bene!

i know that doesn’t sound that exciting, but you’ve got to realize that i just paid about a dollar fifty to poop, the keyboards are laid out differently for punctuation, i can’t read the train schedule, and there are all kinds of odd frustrations about functioning in a foreign country, so that any accomplishment may feel large!

Okay, no new photos since I can’t get this computer to recognize my camera, so you’ll have to settle for my narrative. We are on our third day in Pisa. It only needs one day, to head to the Campo dei Miracoli (field of miracles) and see the leaning tower (really leaning in spite of lots of attempts to right it) and the associated Duomo (church) and Babtistry. We have seen a lot of churches, and I think I’m “churched out.” They all have fantastic paintings &/or frescoes, often top to bottom, amazing carved columns, fantastic altars & pulpits, stained glass etc. It would be great to take an art & history of Europe class before embarking on a trip like this. Oh, and the churches often have pieces/parts of saints in them too. This one has mummified San Ranieri sitting in a glass coffin wearing a hair shirt in a side chamber. There’s lots of gruesome stuff in the religious art too, lots of inventive torture & war & violence. Religion is weird if you ask me.

The amazing thing about the Babtistry here is that it has this huge dome and when you sing into it there are 10 seconds of reverb so you can sing chords with yourself. This is a huge round building, 250′ diameter for the dome, and the accoustics are amazing. I really wanted to try it myself (a security guard demonstrates it on the half hour) but I was pretty sure I’d get in trouble since there were signs saying “Silenzio” everywhere.

We’re here the extra day today so I can work online all day. Davy’s visiting nearby Lucca. Tomorrow we’re off for the Cinque Terra, 5 quaint little towns on the west coast without roads & connected by a trail. We’ll probably hang out there for several days.

Okay, after Rome we went South through Naples to Sorrento, a small town on the West coast at the top of the Amalfi Coast. From there we day tripped back north to Pompei and Herculaneum (similar to Pompei) which were amazing. We wanted to go to the top of Vesuvius (who buried both those towns) but we were running out of time and it was too cloudy & hazy to see much anyway. Then we took a bus trip down the Amalfi Coast which is a very steep coastline populated with little towns (such as Positano, featured in Under the Tuscan Sun) cascading down to the sea. It was really beautiful & dramatic.

This was as far south in Italy as we were planning to go, so it was time to try to figure out how to get to Malta, which we really had no idea how to do. All of our inquiries pointed to needing to catch a ferry from Pozzalo, Sicily, which was a long train ride all the way down mainland Italy, then a ferry across to Sicily, then another long train ride down & around the east coast of Sicily. Then of course the ferry to Malta where we had no camping or other solid visitor information. We got about 3/4 of the way to Pozzalo in about a day and a half with lots of confusion and backtracking and finally decided that this was too hard and too time consuming. So I’ll be planning a goddess trip sometime to visit there & other good goddess sites, if anyone wants to come along!

Next stop, Assisi! Lots more churches. I focused on St. Clare and the Temple of Minerva, being in my goddess mode. The Romans thought all these same places were cool too. Assisi is a walled midievil town on top of a bluff, easy to defend. I like the fort here, but learned that it wasn’t for the protection of the town as I’d thought, but more of a center for the government to raid the local townsfolk when they were in the mood. There was a nice campground here too with fireflies blinking at night!

Then another hill town, Orvietto, where we wandered and had a fabulous dinner, lots of gelato, more churches, and toured underground Etruscan chambers that served as kilns, trash chutes, a huge well, a cistern, tombs, etc.

And from there to Pisa and the present. There are fireflies in our camground here too. Yay! I will get you pictures as soon as I can outsmart a computer somewhere. I hope all is well with all of you.

Lots of love,
Judy

Hi everybody!

Sorry it took me so long to write. We’ve been madly running around seeing all the amazing sights of Rome and when we get back to the room the jet lag has had me unconscious almost immediately.

So far we’ve seen the ruins at Palatine Hill, the Forum, the Leonardo da Vinci museum, Trevi Fountain, the Vatican Museum, the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, the Temple of Fortuna, and miscellaneous other piazzas (plazas, not pizzas!) and interesting stuff along the way. We have eaten record amounts of gelato, but I still fit into my clothes.

Tomorrow we head for the Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, Pompei, Mt. Vesuvius & Naples. We’re camping out in a reportedly spectacular campground & I’m very excited about that.

The photo uploading that I practiced at home isn’t working as it did from home, so we’re slowed down a little bit on uploading, but we’ll figure it out. I’m also frustrated by this keyboard & it’s late, otherwise I’d tell ya more.

PLEASE send me an email at judy at judyschaefer dot name (splice that together - I don’t want the spammers to figure it out!) so I will have your direct email address. I also had a technical snafu with uploading my email addresses. Thanks!

Love & blessings,
Judy

Sorry y’all, but I’ve gotta learn the ropes somehow. I JUST got my new flip video camera in the mail. It’s a little bit bigger than my cell phone. I put in the batteries & pushed the big red record button on the front, holding the camera in front of Cocoa’s face. Then I plugged the camera into my computer & uploaded it to YouTube with just a few clicks. As my final accomplishment I’m about to attempt to embed the video here. Here goes! My First Video - Cocoa\’s not excited… Okay, that turned out as a link. Here’s another try at embedding it…

Okay, that was EASY! Now that I know I can do it I can promise you lots of videos from Europe. Well, maybe not lots, what if I can’t figure out what to video? The technical part was easy, I’m less certain of the creative part. I appreciate any advice you might offer.

Love & blessings,
Judy

Hi everybody,

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am finally entering the 21st century personally, instead of only professionally. I set up this blog so I can keep you appraised of my European travels this summer in a timely fashion. I hope to be able to update it two to three times a week and include images and possibly even some video. Wow!

My big news is that after many years I finally got some new glasses yesterday. I was shooting for “stylish” and I don’t know if I succeeded or not. It’s nerve wracking picking out something that’s going to sit on your face for a few years without any help or supervision. I sent cell phone pics to Mona for final approval. I was pretty nervous about ‘em, but now that I’ve had a day to get used to ‘em I think I like ‘em.

Yesterday at the bakery a guy walked up & said “don’t I know you from Telluride?” It took us a while but we finally remembered that we worked together on Lift 10 for TelSki in the winter of 1991-92. When he said “yeah, that was 17 years ago” my jaw dropped. How is that possible?! He lives in Santa Fe &/or Taos now and his Colorado exodus parallels mine a bit. Nice to see you again, Tony Finochio!

How are my preparations going? All my cats have very wonderful summer homes arranged for them. I retrieved the Honda from its captors and some things on it work a little better. Clients are reasonably prepared. Most major tasks are complete. Apartment is a horrific mess. Friends are signed up to help me move & pack. 2/10 of the strays have been neutered and I have time to get 4 more done before I leave. Whew!

Love & blessings,
Judy