Gimbutas Interview
Stephen Morgan
http://www.levity.com/mavericks/gimbut.htm
David: What was it that originally inspired your interest in the
archaeological and mythological dimensions of the Goddess orientated
religions of Old Europe?
Marija: It has to do with the whole of my life, I think. I was always a
black sheep. I did what I saw with my own eyes - to this day, in fact. I
was very independent. My mother was also very independent. She was one
of the first students of medicine in Switzerland and Germany when there
were no other girls studying.
I was born in Lithuania when it was still fifty percent pagan. I had
quite a lot of direct connections to the Goddesses. They were around me
in my childhood. The Goddess Laima was there, she could call at night
and look through the windows. When a woman is giving birth she appears,
and the grandmother is there organizing things. She has gifts for the
Goddess towels and woven materials are laid for her, because she weaves
the life, she is the spinner. She may be on the way to disappear, but
fifty years ago she was still there.
Rebecca: When you say pagans, you mean people living in the countryside,
close to nature?
Marija: Yes, well Lithuania was Christianized only in the fourteenth
century and even then it didn't mean much because it was done by
missionaries who didn't understand the language, and the countryside
remained pagan for at least two or three centuries. And then came the
Jesuits who started to convert people in the sixteenth century.
In some areas, up to the nineteenth and twentieth century, there were
still beliefs alive in Goddesses and all kinds of beings. So in my
childhood I was exposed to many things which were almost prehistoric, I
would say. And when I studied archaeology, it was easier for me to grasp
what these sculptures mean than for an archaeologist born in New York,
who doesn't know anything about the countryside life in
Europe.(laughter)
I first studied linguistics, ethnology and folklore. I collected
folklore myself when I was in high school. And there was always a
question; what is my own culture? I heard a lot about the Indo-Europeans
and that our language, Lithuanian, was a very old, conservative
Indo-European language. I was interested in that. I studied the
Indo-European language and comparative Indo-European studies, and at
that time there was no question about what was before the
Indo-Europeans. It was good enough to know that the Indo-Europeans were
already there.(laughter) The question of what was before came much
later.
Then, because of the war, I had to flee from Lithuania. I studied in
Austria, in Vienna, then I got my Ph.D in Germany. I still continued to
be interested in my own Lithuanian, ancient culture and I did some
things in addition to my official studies. I was doing research in
symbolism and I collected materials from libraries. So that is one trend
in my interest - ancient religion, pagan religion and symbolism. My
dissertation was also connected with this. It was about the burial rites
and beliefs in afterlife and it was published in Germany in 1946.
Then I came to the United States and had the opportunity to begin
studies in eastern European archaeology and in 1950 I became a research
fellow at Harvard and I was there for twelve years. I had to learn from
scratch because there was nobody in the whole United States who was
really knowledgeable about what was in Russia or the Soviet Union in
prehistoric times. So they invited me to write a book on eastern
European prehistory and I spent about fifteen years doing this. So that
was my background of learning.
Rebecca: Did you anticipate the incredible interest that this research
would fuel?
Marija: No. At that time I was just an archaeologist doing my work,
studying everything that I could. And after than came the Bronze Age
studies, and this gave me another aspect on this Indo-European culture.
In my first book I wrote about eastern European archaeology, I started
my hypothesis on the Indo-European origins in Europe and this hypothesis
still works and hasn't changed much.
Rebecca: Could you describe your hypothesis?
Marija: These proto-Indo-European people came from South Russia to
Europe, introduced the Indo-European culture and then European culture
was hybridized. It was the old culture mixed with the new elements - the
Steppe, pastoral, patriarchal elements. So already at that time, thirty
years ago, I sensed that, in Europe there was something else before the
Indo-Europeans. But I still didn't do anything about the Goddess, about
sculptures, or art, or painted pottery. I just knew that it existed but
I didn't really have the chance to dive into the field.
The occasion appeared when I came to UCLA in 1963 and from 1967 I
started excavations in south-east Europe, in Yugoslavia, Greece and
Italy, and did that for fifteen years. When I was traveling in Europe
and visiting museums I was already building some understanding of what
this culture was like before the
Indo-Europeans, before the patriarchy.
It was always a big question mark to me; what could it be? This is so
different. Painted pottery, for instance, beautiful pottery. And then
the sculptures. Nobody really was writing about it. There were so many
of them, wherever you went you found hundreds and hundreds. I was just
putting in my head what I saw. So then I started my own excavations and
I discovered at least five hundred sculptures myself.
Rebecca: How deep did you have to dig?
Marija: It depended. Sometimes at a site of 5,000 B.C, it was on top.
You could walk through the houses of 7,000 years ago! Other times you
have to dig deep to reach that. Usually you excavate sites which are
already exposed, which are known and where people are finding objects of
great interest. Many things have been destroyed in this way. Some
interesting excavations were made, especially in Greece and I started to
understand more and more about sculptures. I don't know how it happened,
at what moment, but I started to distinguish certain types and their
repetitions. For instance, the bird and snake goddess which are the
easiest to distinguish.
So I slowly added more and more information. The first book was called
Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. Actually the first edition was called
Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, because I was not allowed to use
Goddesses first.
David: According to who? Was it the publisher?
Marija: Yes. The publisher didn't allow me. In eight years a second
edition appeared with the original title, Goddesses and Gods of Old
Europe.
Rebecca: That first edition could be very valuable one day. (laughter)
Your work appeals to a very broad audience and even people who don't
have an academic background often feel they have an intuitive sense of
what you're saying.
Marija: The intuitive people are always the first to say that. Then
eventually academia catches up, because these are the least intuitive.
(laughter)
Rebecca: Could you briefly describe to us the major differences between
the old European Goddess traditions and the Indo-European patriarchy
which came to domite, and what aspects of the patriarchal culture caused
it to want to control the matrifocal one?
Marija: The symbolic systems are very different. All this reflects the
social structure. The Indo-European social structure is patriarchal,
patrilineal and the psyche is warrior. Every God is also a warrior. The
three main Indo-European Gods are the God of the Shining Sky, the God of
the Underworld and the Thunder God. The female goddesses are just
brides, wives or maidens without any power, without any creativity.
They're just there, they're beauties, they're Venuses, like the dawn or
sun maiden.
So the system from what existed in the matristic culture before the
Indo-Europeans in Europe is totally different. I call it matristic, not
matriarchal, because matriarchal always arouses ideas of dominance and
is compared with the patriarchy. But it was a balanced society, it was
not that women were really so powerful that they usurped everything that
was masculine.
Men were in their rightful position, they were doing their own work,
they had their duties and they also had their own power. This is
reflected in their symbols where you find not only goddesses but also,
Gods. The Goddesses were creatrixes, they are creating from themselves.
As far back as 35,000 B.C, from symbols and sculptures, we can see that
the parts of the female body were creative parts: breasts, belly and
buttocks. It was a different view from ours - it had nothing to do with
pornography.
The vulva, for instance, is one of the earliest symbols engraved, and it
is symbolically related to growth, to the seed. Sometimes next to it is
a branch or plant motif, or within the vulva is something like a seed or
a plant. And that sort of symbol is very long-lasting, it continues for
20,000 years at least. Even now the vulva is a symbol in some countries,
which offers a security of creativity, of continuity and fertility.
Rebecca: Why did the patriarchal culture choose to dominate?
Marija: This is in the culture itself. They had weapons and they had
horses. The horse appeared only with the invaders who began coming from
South Russia, and in old Europe there were no weapons - no
daggers, no swords. There were just weapons for hunting. Habitations
were very different. The invaders were semi-nomadic people and in Europe
they were agriculturalists, living in one area for a very long time,
mostly in the most beautiful places.
When these warriors arrived, they established themselves high in the
hills, sometimes in places which had very difficult access. So, in each
aspect of culture I see an opposition, and therefore I am of the opinion
that this local, old European culture could not develop into a
patriarchal, warrior culture because this would be too sudden. We have
archaeological evidence that this was a clash. And then of course, who
starts to dominate? The ones who have horses, who have weapons, who have
small families and who are more mobile.
Rebecca: What was daily life like, do you think for the people living in
the matrifocal society?
Marija: Religion played an enormous role and the temple was sort of a
focus of life. The most beautiful artifacts were produced for the
temple. They were very grateful for what they had. They had to thank the
Goddess always, give to her, appreciate her. The high priestess and
queen were one and the same person and there was a sort of a hierarchy
of priestesses.
David: Was the Goddess religion basically monotheistic?
Marija: This is a very difficult question to answer. Was it
monotheistic, or was it not? Was there one Goddess or was there not? The
time will come when we shall know more, but at this time we cannot reach
deep in prehistory. What I see, is that from very early on, from the
upper Paleolithic times, we already have different types of goddesses.
So are these different Goddesses or different aspects of one Goddess?
Before 35,000 or 40,000 B.C there is hardly any art but the type of the
Goddess with large breasts and buttocks and belly, existed very early in
the upper Paleolithic. The snake and bird Goddess are also upper
Paleolithic, so at least three main types were there. But in later
times, for instance, in the Minoan culture in Crete, you have a Goddess
which tends to be more one Goddess than several. Even the snake
Goddesses which exist in Crete, are very much linked with the main
Goddess who is shown sitting on a throne or is worshipped in these
underground crypts.
Perhaps, even in the much earlier times, there was also a very close
interrelationship between the different types represented. So maybe
after all, we shall come to the conclusion that this was already a
monotheistic religion even as we tend now to call it - the Goddess
religion. We just have to remember there were many different types of
goddesses.
Rebecca: Do you see remnants of the Goddess religion in different
religions throughout the world today?
Marija: Yes, very much so. The Virgin Mary is still extremely important.
She is the inheritor of many types of Goddesses, actually. She
represents the one who is giving life, she is also the regenerator and
earth mother together. This earth mother we can trace quite deep into
prehistory; she is the pregnant type and continues for maybe 20,000
years and she is very well preserved in practically each area of Europe
and other parts of the world.
David: Do you see the Gaia hypothesis as being a resurgence of the
original Goddess religion?
Marija: I think there is some connection, perhaps in a Jungian sense.
This culture existed so deep and for so long that it cannot be
uninfluential to our thinking.
Rebecca: It must have conditioned our minds for a long time. How do you
respond to criticism that the Goddess religion was just a fertility
rite?
Marija: How do I respond to all these silly criticisms? (laughter)
People usually are not knowledgeable who say that, and have never
studied the question. Fertility was important to continuity of life on
earth, but the religion was about life, death and regeneration. Our
ancestors were not primitive.
David: Did you experience a lot of resistance from the academic
community about your interpretations?
Marija: I wouldn't say a lot, but some, yes. It's natural. For decades
archaeologists rarely touched the problem of religion.
Rebecca: So far back in time, you mean?
Marija: Well, they probably accepted the existence of the Upper
Paleolithic and Neolithic religion, but the training was such that the
students have no occasion to be exposed to these questions. There was no
teaching about prehistoric religion. Only in some places, like in Oxford
University, sixty or seventy years ago, Professor James was teaching a
course on the Goddess. Nobody at that time was resisting. Now we have
more resistence because of the feminist movement. Some people are
automatically not accepting.
This kind of criticism (ie. rejection of the Goddess) is meaningless to
me. What is true is true, and what is true will remain. Maybe I made
some mistakes in deciphering the symbols, but I was continually trying
to understand more. At this time I know more than when I was writing
thirty years ago. My first book was not complete, therefore I had to
produce another book and another book to say more. It's a long process.
Rebecca: Wasn't it incredibly difficult to find written sources and
references for your research?
Marija: There was so little, it was amazing! There were some good books
in the 1950's. In 1955 a book was published on the mother Goddess by a
Jungian psychologist, Eric Neumann. Then there were very good works on
symbolism by Mircea Eliade.
Rebecca: When I tried to get hold of some of your books from the library
they were all checked out and the librarian said that this was normally
the case, so works on this subject are definitely in demand now.
Marija: I never dreamed of that. I always thought that archaeology books
are not generally read and that you just write for your own colleagues.
David: Were you surprised in yours and others' excavations by the
advanced designs of the habitats and the settlements of the Goddess
religion?
Marija: Yes, I was. This was a revelation, to see that the later culture
is much less advanced than the earlier one. The art is incomparably
lower than what was before, and it was a civilization of 3,000 years,
more or less, before it was destroyed. For thirty years now we've had
the possibility to date items, using carbon dating. When I started to do
my research, chronology was so unclear and we were working so hard to
understand what period the object belonged to. Then in the 1960's it
became so much easier. I spent a lot of time doing chronology, which is
very technical work.
That gave us a perspective on how long-lasting these cultures were, and
you could see a beautiful development from the more simple to the really
sophisticated, in the architecture and the building of temples. Some
houses and temples were two stories high and had painted walls. Catal
Huyuk was such a great discovery in Anatolia. The wall paintings there
were only published in 1989, twenty-five years after Myler's excavation.
One hundred and forty wall paintings - and archeologists don't believe
him because it's so sophisticated. And this is from the 7th millennium!
Rebecca: Do you think the matrifocal society could have sustained
cities, or do you think that the nature of the religion and the
lifestyle kept it small, usually no bigger than the average village?
Marija: It would have sustained cities. It did start to develop into an
urban culture, especially in one area of the Cucuteni civilization which
is presently Romania and the western part of the Ukraine. There we have
cities of ten to fifteen thousand inhabitants in around 4,000 B.C. So
urban development began, but it was truncated.
Rebecca: You have said that you think the meaning of prehistoric art and
religion can be deciphered and that we need to analyze the evidence from
the point of view of ideology. Do you think that we can honestly do this
without being unduly biased by our own ideologies?
Marija: That's always difficult. Most archaeologists have great
difficulty in accepting that the life was so different. For instance, an
excavator publishes a plan of a village. This is a circular village in a
concentric circle of houses and in the center there is a house also. The
explanation at once is, here is a chieftain's house and around him is
his retinue and then the last ring around is everyone else.
And then, when you analyze the material, it is totally the reverse. The
large ring of houses were the most important houses, the largest houses
with the best floors and so on, then growing into the inside the smaller
houses are in the middle. So you can write anecdotes about the
interpretation because we see only through the twentieth century prism.
David: What does your research indicate about the social status of women
in the pre-Indo-European culture?
Marija: Women were equal beings, that is very clear, and perhaps more
honored because they had more influence in the religious life. The
temple was run by women.
Rebecca: What about the political life?
Marija: My findings suggest that the political life - of course, it's
all hypothesis, you cannot reconstruct easily, but we can judge from
what remains in later times and what still exists in mythology, because
this again reflects the social structure - was structured by the
avuncular system. The rulers of the country; the queen which is also the
high priestess and also her brother or uncle. The system is therefore
called avuncular, which is from the word, uncle. The man, the brother or
uncle, was very important in society, and probably men and women were
quite equal. In mythology we encounter the sister-brother couples of
female goddesses and male gods.
It is wrong to say that this is just a woman's culture, that there was
just a Goddess and there were no Gods. In art the male is less
represented, that's true, but that the male Gods existed, there's no
question. In all mythologies, for instance in Europe, Germanic or Celtic
or Baltic, you will find the earth mother or earth Goddess and her male
companion or counterpart next to her.
Also there are other couples like the Goddess of Nature, Regenerator,
who appears in the Spring and gives life to all earth animals and humans
and plants. She is Artemis in Greek mythology. She is called Mistress of
Animals, and there are also male counterparts of the same kind called
Master of Animals. His representations appear in Catal Huyuk in the 7th
Millenium B.C. and they are there throughout prehistory, so we shouldn't
neglect that aspect. There is a balance between the sexes throughout, in
religion and in life.
David: Is there any evidence that the takeover was violent and how much
did the people try to defend themselves?
Marija: It was violent, but how much they defended themselves is
difficult to tell. But they were losers. There was evidence of
immigration and escape from these violent happenings and a lot of
confusion, a lot of shifts of population. People started to flee to
places like islands and forests and hilly areas. In the settlements you
have evidence of murder.
Rebecca: What about the Kurgan, invading culture, were they always
patriarchal, when did the patriarchy begin?
Marija: This is a very serious question which archaeologists cannot
answer yet, but we can see that the patriarchy was already there around
5,000 B.C for sure and the horse was domesticated not later than that.
Rebecca: Do you think they came out of a previously matristic society?
Marija: It must have been so. But the trouble is that exactly there, in
South Russia, where it is critical to know, we don't have evidence. We
have no extensive excavations in that area of before 5,000 B.C.
Rebecca: The `sacred script' that you translated from the Goddess
culture, did it ever develop, as far as you know, into sentences or
phrases?
Marija: Again, that's for the future to decide. It is possible that it
was a syllabic script and it would have probably developed into
something if it were not for the culture's destruction. The script is
lost in most of Europe and it is the eastern and central Europe where we
have most signs preserved. In the Bronze Age, in Cyprus and in Crete,
the script persisted which is much related to what it was earlier in the
5th Millennium B.C. Some is preserved but we do not have very clear
links yet because of this culture change.
Scholars are looking into this question and I hope it will be deciphered
somehow. The difficulty is that this pre-Indo-European language is
studied very little. People study substrates of languages in Greece and
Italy, but mostly what they can reconstruct are place names like Knossos
which is a pre-Indo-European name. The word for apple, for instance, is
pre-Indo-European and so linguists little by little, word by word,
discover what words are not Indo-European. Names for seeds, for various
trees, plants, for animals, they're easily reconstructed. And also there
exist several pre-Indo-European names for the same thing (like for the
pig) and both are used; some languages use pre-Indo-European, some
languages use Indo-European names, or both.
This is a field of research which should be further developed in the
future and I think I am creating an influence in this area. It's
extremely important to have inter-disciplinary research. For a long time
in the universities, there was department, department, department, and
no connection between departments. Archaeology was especially so, with
no connection to linguistic studies and no connection with mythology and
folklore.
Rebecca: You've talked about the need for a field of archeo-mythology.
Marija: Yes. And when you don't ignore the other disciplines, you start
seeing many more things. That is such a revelation, to see in mythology
really ancient elements that you can apply to archeology. To some
archeologists this is not science, well, alright, let it not be science!
It doesn't matter what you call it. (laughter)
Rebecca: Many people used to believe that language started with men in
the hunt, and now there's more leaning towards the idea that it began in
the home. When and how do you think language first developed?
Marija: Early, very early - lower Paleolithic. And it developed in the
family. Some linguists are doing research in the earliest known words,
and some formations show that certain words are very, very old and they
exist all over the world.
David: You've collected a lot of European folk-tales. As creation myths
are found in almost every culture in the world, have you found any that
are relating to this theme?
Marija: Yes. Like, the water bird and the cosmic egg. The world starts
with an egg and the water bird is bringing the egg, then the egg splits
and one part of it becomes earth and the other part becomes sky.
David: Have you found any Lithuanian folk-tales to correlate with the
story of Adam and Eve?
Marija: No. But it's interesting that Adam's first wife was Lilith. And
who was Lilith? She was a bird of prey, the Vulture Goddess of Death and
Regeneration. She was the one who later became the witch, so she was
very powerful. She flew away. He could not control her. Then the second
wife was made from his rib, so she was naturally obedient and stayed
with him. (laughter)
Rebecca: There are so many transmutations of the Goddess in mythology
and folklore developing from a positive image into a negative one. Do
you see this as a conscious attempt to distort the feminine?
Marija: Yes it is. This is really Christianity's doing, because they
felt the danger. They demonized the one who was the most powerful. The
one who could perform many things, who was connected with the
atmospheric happenings, with rains and storms. So this is the Goddess
who rules over death and regeneration, the one who became the witch. So
she was really powerful and in the days of the Inquisition, she is
described as really dangerous.
From various descriptions you can sense that there was fear. She could
control male sexuality, for instance, she could cut the moon and stop it
growing, she was the balancer of the life powers. She could do a lot of
damage, this Goddess. But you must understand why she was doing this.
She could not allow things to grow forever, she had to stop, she caused
the death in order to have the cycle from the beginning. She is the main
regenerator of the whole world, of all of nature.
Rebecca: So the patriarchal culture had to make people afraid of her, so
they would abandon her.
Marija: Yes. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which are
critical for this change, she became a Satan, a monster. This image is
still with us. In each country she is more or less preserved. In the
Basque, she is still there and very much alive. She is a vulture, she
lives in caves. And sometimes shepherds arrange Christian Science
crosses to remove the vultures. (laughter)
David: You have been largely responsible for the reemergence of Goddess
consciousness in the Western hemisphere. How do you feel about the way
that this perspective is being interpreted socially and politically?
Marija: The interpretation of Goddess in some cases is overdone a little
bit. I cannot see that the Goddess as she was can be reconstructed and
returned to our lives, but we have to take the best that we can seize.
The best understanding is of divinity itself. The Christian God punishes
and is angry and does not fit into our times at all. We need something
better, we need something closer, we need something that we can touch
and we need some compassion, some love, and also a return to the nature
of things.
Through an understanding of what the Goddess was, we can better
understand nature and we can build our ideologies so that it will be
easier for us to live. We have to be grateful for what we have, for all
the beauty, and the Goddess is exactly that. Goddess is nature itself.
So I think this should be returned to humanity. I don't think that
Christianity will continue for a very long time, but it's just like
patriarchy, it's not easy to get rid of. (laughter) But somehow, from
the bottom up, it's coming.
Rebecca: The patriarchy has been around for about five thousand years
compared to the Goddess culture which was around for possibly millions.
Why did it endure for so long?
Marija: Because of what I've been talking about. It was natural to have
this kind of divinity and it is absolutely unnatural to create a
punishing God and warriors who are stimulating our bad instincts.
David: A lot of the major themes you discuss: life-giving, the renewing
of the eternal earth, death and regeneration, energy unfolding, are
well-known archetypal themes that occur during a psychedelic experience.
I'm curious about whether you think that the Goddess-orientated cultures
incorporated the use of mushrooms or some kind of psychoactive plant
into their rituals, and do you take seriously Terence Mckenna's notion
that the use of psychedelics was the secret that was lost at Catal
Huyuk?
Marija: I'm sure they had it. This knowledge still exists in rituals
like Eleusis in Greece where now it's clear that psychedelics were used.
From the depiction of mushrooms, maybe you can judge that his was
sacred, but this was perhaps not the most important. From Minoan
engravings on seals, for instance, you have poppies very frequently
indicated. Also, poppy seeds are found in Neolithic settlements, so they
were conscious about that, they were collecting, they were using and
maybe growing poppies like other domestic plants.
David: Do you see it influencing the culture?
Marija: Yes. From Dionysian rituals in Greece which can go back to much
earlier times you get all this dancing, excitement, always at the edge,
to a frenzy, almost to craziness. That existed even in the Paleolithic
times, I would guess, but what they used is difficult to reconstruct. We
have the poppy seeds, alright. Mushrooms? Maybe. But what else? The hard
evidence is not preserved by archaeological record. It's disappeared.
Rebecca: What do you think are the signifying differences between a
culture, like the Goddess culture, which views time as cyclical, as
opposed to a culture like ours which sees time as linear, progressing
towards some waiting future?
Marija: It's much easier to live when you think of this cyclicity. I
think it's crazy to think of a linear development like in the European
beliefs in life after death - if you're a king, you will stay a king,
and if you're a hero, you'll stay a hero. (laughter)
Rebecca: That aspect of the Goddess culture, the idea that things do
travel in cycles. Do you think this made them much more philosophical
about death?
Marija: Much more philosophical. And it's a very good philosophy. What
else can you think? This is the best. And the whole of evolution is
based so much upon this thinking, on regeneration of life and
stimulation of life-powers. This is the main thing that we're interested
in. To preserve life-powers, to awaken them each Spring, to see that
they continue and that life thrives and flourishes.
David: What relevance do you think that understanding our ancient past
to dealing with the problems facing the world today?
Marija: Well, it's time to be more peaceful, to calm down, (laughter)
and this philosophy is pacifying somehow, bringing us to some harmony
with nature where we can learn to value things. And knowing that there
were cultures which existed for a long time without wars is important,
because most twentieth-century people think that wars were always there.
There are books still stressing this fact and suggesting such crazy
ideas that agriculture and war started at the same time. They say that
when villages started to grow, the property had to be defended, but that
is nonsense! There was property, but it was communal property. Actually,
it was a sort of communism in the best sense of the word. It could not
exist in the twentieth-century. And also they believed that in death you
are equal. I like this idea very much. You don't have to be queen or a
king once your bones are collected and mixed together with other bones.
(laughter)
David: As rebirth is one of the major themes of your work, what do you
personally feel happens to human consciousness after death?
Marija: Maybe in the way the old Europeans were thinking. That the
life-energy continues to a certain degree, it does not disappear.
Individual forms disappear and that's the end.
David: Do you think part of your individuality perseveres?
Marija: Well, that's what I leave around me now, my influence, what I've
said in my books - this will continue for some time. So it does not
completely die out.
Rebecca: Are you optimistic that a partnership society can be achieved
once again?
Marija: I don't know if I'm optimistic. In a way I think I am, otherwise
it would be difficult to live - you have to have hope. But that the
development will be slow, is clear. It very much depends on who is in
the government. Our spiritual life is so full of war images. Children
are from the very beginning taught about shooting and killing. So the
education has to change, television programs have to change. There are
signs for that, there are voices appearing. So you should be optimistic
somehow.
David: Marija, if you could condense your life's work into a basic
message, what would that message be?
Marija: Well, I don't know if I can say it in one sentence, but maybe
the reconstruction of the meaning and functions of the Goddess is one of
my major contributions. It happened to be me and not somebody else. It
was just fate - Laima - that led me. (laughter)
--
*Sun can’t bribe George to come out of his £1/4m villa on the Algarve*
Traitor George Galloway refused to talk to the Sun at his Portugal
hideaway yesterday - even after we offered him a tempting wad of 50,000
Iraqi dinars.
-- "The Sun", 23 April, 2003
Bob
> For information purposes.
She demonstrates what happens when a little scholarship is mixed with a
lot of prejudice.
Bob