Rewriting History II

I wanted to write a little more about rewriting history because I have had a few more thoughts and rememberings.

I grew up when the IRA terrorist activities were at their height. When bombs went off in England. When there was daily trouble in Ireland. There was no avoiding the fact that there really was trouble in Ireland and they were cross with the English.

One day our English teacher decided to get us to have a debate on the Irish situation. I actually went away and researched it, unlike my class mates. I got the encyclopedia from the library and I read. I was pretty horrified by what I found out. I discovered, in short, the potato famine. I had never, ever heard of this before. No mention of it had been made in my presence, despite the troubles. And I was a teenager.

So I put together my argument and I was proud and passionate about what I had to say. And off to class I went. I didn't get the reaction I expected.

When I mentioned the potato famine, the class laughed. They had never ever heard of it. Not one of them. My opponent thought I was making it up and egged them on. The teacher and I locked eyes in horror and sympathy. My opponent won the debate.

Most of our history is taught in school but certainly when I was there, it was a sanitized version. All the bad nasty bits taken out. All the things we did wrong removed. The crusades were not an attempt at religious genocide. The Romans persecuted Christians but no mention of the start of the Roman Catholic church.

We are not the only nation guilty of this. I know that a lot of people won't like this next comment... but the whispers about how the IRA funded itself suggested US ex-pats. After 9 11 it all changed that's for sure. The IRA lost it's bite and learned to talk very quickly.

We all reinvent things. Sometimes it is reinvented for us, marketing, spin, political secrets, non-disclosure agreements, trade agreements. Where do all those warring third world countries get their weapons from?

When my descendants look back on these times, how will history have been written? What things will have been exposed as documents become unclassified? What events will be forgotten? Which shameful things will be left out?

Tara the Devi

I want to investigate Tara, the Goddess. She is found in Hinduism, Buddhism and is a Celtic Goddess of Ireland too. I have also found some references to her as being found in Chinese culture but also in Native American culture as the Star Woman. Depictions of Tara have been found in caves and there is a believe from these that her worship could go back as far as 30,000 years. this goes some way towards explaining how she appears in so many cultures. In Latin she is Terra, in Scandinavia she is Tar, to a South American tribe she is Tarahumara.

I am going to start with Tara the Devi of Hinduism...

A Devi is a Goddess, an aspect of the divine feminine known as Shakti.

She is the second of the ten Goddesses of great wisdom which are aspects of the feminine ranging across the spectrum. She is guide, protector and saviour. She offers knowledge as salvation. She is the star that self combusts. She is the unquenchable desire that propels all life. She is the words and the mantra and the music. She can englamour you. She is the supreme creator and mother of all buddhas and bodhivistas. She is the mother of liberation. she is the virtue of success from work and achievements. She embodies womans ability to survive terrifying times. She can be fierce and wild. she helps us centre and be at one. She helps us journey through the depths of our minds.

She governs the underworld, the earth and the heavens. She has power over birth, death, love, war, regeneration, the seasons, the lunar cycle, all that lives and grows

Kali is the foremost of the wisdom Goddesses but there are many similarities between the depiction of the two Goddesses. Lord Shiva actually forbade seeing any difference between them, that they were aspects of each other. In the hymns which list there names they both have each others names listed. Tara is more maternal and approachable than Kali

Tara is blue with a tiger skin shirt and a necklace of severed human heads. Her tongue lolls and blood oozes from her mouth. She has four arms and carries a sword, scissors, a lotus and a severed head or skull cap.

The Hindu Gods and Demons were churning the oceans which created a poision which the Lord Shiva drank. He saved the world but turned his throat blue. In his unconscious state Tara came an laid him in her lap and allowed him to suckle. Her milk saves him.

She has a liking for blood and practices involve depictions of her having sex with Mahakala which were engraved in copper and then smeared with menstrual blood.

An old lady made a statue of Tara but then realised she had made it facing the wrong way so that is faced away from Mahabodhi (I think this is a temple?). She felt awful but the statue spoke to her and turned the other way out of compassion to the old lady.

She is a Goddess to help us find our lost feminine.

Rewriting History

History is written by the winners.

Nowhere is this more (or less) true than the British Isles. The 'English' version of the history of these Isles is the one that has been taught but there is a resurgence. This history is no longer seen as threatening to Great Britain and people are interested so the tales are being told more widely.

Most British people have blood drawn from the four quarters of the Isles so as the history is explored so we are able to explore some of the less English aspects of our family history. I definitely have Welsh and Scottish blood. I have a Liverpudlian branch of the family so given all this, I am likely to have a little irish somewhere in there too. Much of my English blood is fenland and Suffolk based.

Britain is a set of islands, many, many islands. This enabled the many tribes to remain distinct in many ways. Waves of invaders did not settle equally across the islands. The Celts remained strongly present in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall. I have also read that the fenlands, being an impenetrable, undrained bog retained a lot of Celtic blood as well.

The islands remained a hodge podge of tribal feifdoms, slowly united. England, Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and Ireland emerged as separate nations of united tribes. Slowly they all came under the sway of the English. The history of this integration is not really taught in schools. A little mention of the whole Scottish Kings and Queens is made perhaps, with Mary Queen of Scots.

My Scottish ancestor was a MacDonald from the Cairngorms who moved to Suffolk to work at the Naval College, as a bursar I think. He must have been well educated for the time but all connection to his Scottish ancestry seems to have been cut. He changed his surname to Donald and married a local farmers daughter. I think he was my great great great grandfather maybe an extra great in there too. My Mum was often told that we were directly descended from Robert de Bruce. This is all I know of my Scottish Ancestry.

Nothing of the Scottish history was taught me. I learnt of Robert de Bruce in films such as Braveheart. Now there is a series on TV about the History of Scotland. I have just sat and heard for the first time, the story of how the MacDonalds and the Stewarts divided Scotland into Lowland and Highland. How the MacDonalds ascended and descended in power. How the Scottish identity became divided. How the Lowlanders became Scots and the Highlanders remained Gaels.

Cornwall is a land of forgotten history as well. I wish more of this had been taught... Good job it is never too late to learn! I am truly British, not English. I am Celt, Angle, Saxon and Dane. I am no one thing. The English didn't win in me, they are just another part... They only won in history. Time makes us complete. Things come full circle.

Downward

I had lots I wanted to say last night. I lost three more pounds and we went and picked up F's new car. But yesterday has gone and those things and the excitement that went with them has waned.

So today. Today has been an odd day but I am not sure I wish to talk about that either. Talking about work gets old.

I am going to talk about food though and this has been sparked today....

At school we had to eat all our lunch. Our main course with it's two veg and our desert. If you wouldn't eat it, you stayed there until you did. If your parents gave you permission you could gain a green card which was a get out clause that let you not eat the foods listed on it. The only food I got out of eating was prunes.

There was a girl in my class who wouldn't eat the meals provided. She took to not going to lunch to avoid eating the things she didn't want to eat. She would have different people sneak food out for her, but only the things she wanted to eat. It was all a high drama. A game between student and staff. Hide and seek with a lot of sneak thrown in.

It was however all about attention and control. I can't remember a huge amount about the girls life but I do remember she was powerless between her divorced parents. Desperate for love and attention. She had a huge crush on her cousin. She used to say he was her boyfriend but I am not sure how true that was. He killed himself. Shot himself with a gun. I think it was after that that the whole food thing picked up pace.

She eventually became anorexic. Playing games like this with food for love and attention doesn't tend to take people anywhere good.

I know I have different tendencies. I comfort eat and hide behind my blubber. It isn't that I don't understand the whole control thing though but the attention craving thing is somewhat alien....

So I know someone at the moment who is not sleeping properly, not eating properly, loosing weight and generally looking manky. Lots of comments are made about looks, appearances, how she feels. She is overly focused on it all. I get fed up of hearing about it. I am not interested in all that stuff at the best of times and this isn't it.

Having had my own trials and tribulations, I know no one gets help until they are ready. Too much attention and focus on it all is counterproductive, it is aiding and abetting her self-destructive behaviour. I can't make her eat properly, or sleep for that matter.

It isn't me the behaviour is aimed at anyway, it is aimed at her family and her boyfriend and the lack that she has in her relationships with them. It is nothing to do with me. I don't want my energy sucked away in that aiding a negative habit thing, I have been there before. I don't want to be involved in someone destroying themselves. I can't give her what she needs. I don't even like her. But I do feel sad about it all, sometimes. The rest of the time it makes me frustrated and cross.

This award was ceated in response to the following post 'Telling It Like It Is' by Sue at The Creative Spirit.

WE ARE Honest Blogger!
the Sisterhood of
SHIfT HAPPENS!

As honest bloggers we:

(Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Add To...As You Wish)

* Speak our truth from the heart and tell it like it is.

* Share openly and honestly our true feelings without fear of judgement, Blame or shame.

* We write to share our achievements so others can also share our joy.

* We write about our bad times too, knowing that the love and support of others is around us and perhaps heal another’s pain in the process..

*We are human beings will real feelings and emotions and REFUSE to hide behind a mask.

* We dare to be different

* We are Free Spirits

* We realsie that by spilling out, we lighten our load.

* We acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses and don't see them in terms of success or failure.

* We laugh together and cry together

* We are all following our own journey in our own unique way

* Above all else, we may lie on the floor, screaming and kicking, or feel like life is collapsing around us once in a while….but at the end of the day, we drag ourselves up, dust ourselves off and rise to fight another day.

So Sue has given me this lovely, lovely award. I do try and be honest. I do try and let it all hang out. I shall try and think of some people to award it to tomorrow for I should be in bed!