The
"International Year Of Polytheism”
(powered by monochrom) wants to overcome the epoch of the monotheistic
worldviews (and its derivatives such as "The West"
and "The Arab World") through the reconstruction of
a polytheistic multiplicity in which countless gods and goddesses
will eventually neutralize each other. Polytheism is democracy,
Monotheism a dictatorship, even in its pseudo-secular form.
Freed from the servitude of monotheism and the fraternal strife
of the trinity, the world would be redeemed in a chaotic baptism
of multiplicity. Besides, we believe that polytheism is the
most suitable form of religion for a modern, dynamic and cosmopolitan
young culture. Improve your C.V. with polytheism. Create your
own heavens and hells. Or try it out yourself with our special
Gods/Goddesses trial subscription. Our qualified operators are
standing by to take your calls!
Fifth event:
Door Henge: Doors Of Polytheistic Perception:
Anonymous friends of the movement in San Francisco are erecting a polytheism monument on August 19, 2007 in an undisclosed public location. There is clearly a need for secrecy as a result of religious oppression from the monotheistic mainstream.
San Francisco, California.
Fourth event:
The Divining Pod
A balloon is a type of aircraft that remains aloft due to its buoyancy. A balloon travels by moving with the wind. The balloon is ONE BIG fabric envelope filled with a gas that is lighter than the surrounding atmosphere. A SINGLE balloon that is less dense than its surroundings, it rises, taking along with it a basket, attached underneath, that carries passengers or payload.
Cluster ballooning is an uncommon form of ballooning in which a balloonist is attached by a harness to a cluster of MANY SMALL rubber balloons.
Cluster ballooning is a perfect metaphor for the plurality and democracy of polytheism. Fight the concept of monotheistic single-balloon ballooning!
At Maker Faire San Francisco 2007 we want to present the world with the "Divining Pod".
Join our effort to fill ballons with helium, tag the balloons with names of air goddesses and air gods, and lift a human being into the skies of diversity! We want to see the heavens open!
San Francisco, California. Maker Faire @ San Mateo Fairgrounds. May 20, 2007.
Third event:
Eating A Persimmon For Zeus
A Persimmon is variety of species of trees of the genus Diospyros, and the edible fruit borne by them. The most widely cultivated species is Diospyros kaki. The fruit is very sweet to the taste with a soft to occasionally fibrous texture. Cultivation of the fruit started in parts of East Asia, and was later introduced to California.
Diospyros kaki translates as "The Fruit of Zeus".
Zeus, is (or was) the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus, and god of the sky and thunder, in Greek mythology. His symbols are (or were) the thunderbolt, bull, eagle and the oak. When the world was divided in three, Hades received the underworld, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus the sky.
We want to honor Zeus! We want to moan about the dreadful non-divisional monotheistic singularity! Long enough we were dominated by the concept of the God of the Abrahamic religions and/or the Platonic concept of God as put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite! We want to eat persimmons for Zeus! In anger!
Join the force! Eat his fruit! Get a certificate!
Los Angeles, California. Sidewalk @ 4810 Sunset Boulevard. February 23, 2007; 1 PM- 1:30 PM.
Second event:
Premature Burial As A Field Trial For Near Death Activities
The people present will have an opportunity to be buried alive
in a coffin for fifteen minutes. Volunteers will be able to
experience a semi-traumatic situation and possibly get in close
contact with various gods and/or afterlives.
As a framework program there will be lectures about the history
of the science of determining death and the medical cultural
history of "buried alive". People buried alive not only populate
the horror stories of past centuries, but also countless reports
in specialized medical literature. The theme of unintentional
resurrection by grave robbers also runs through forensic protocols.
Even in the 19th century it was said that every tenth person
was buried alive.
February 7, 2007. Blackwood
Gallery, Mississauga/University Toronto, Canada.
Grand Opening:
Free
Barium Nitrate!
The symbolic liberation of Barium Nitrate will signal the opening
of this "International Year of Polytheism". We would like to
invite you to join with us in igniting 10.000 bound sparklers,
free of any judaeo-christian intent. Nothing but a wonderfully
powerful fire signal, whose representational vacuity and lack
of otherwise traditional symbolic meaning might just wake some
of the ignoble gods exiled by monotheistic McKinseyism. We welcome
the gods back from their second-class beyond(s).
January 26, 2007. Symposion
Lindabrunn, Lindabrunn, Lower Austria.
Further
events are planned.
And never forget: One is the number of the beast!
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| Favorite Deity #1: Seamus Kealy About Mary, Loki And Cúchulainn |
We want to start an inspirational series about "Favorite Deities".
So we asked artist and curator Seamus Kealy (Toronto, Canada) to send us a statement about his most favorite god or goddess. He emailed us the following paragraphs...>>In the spirit of polytheism itself, deciding on one deity as a favorite is just not possible for me. So I will describe a few that have fascinated me since childhood:
Firstly, I'd like to counter the polytheism theme in a sense and propose that the Virgin Mary is actually a more subversive figure within Christianity than it might first appear. Along with the idea of the Trinity - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - the Mother of God figure makes Christianity polytheistic. This may be one reason why Catholicism made it so big with pagan cultures, such as the Irish who had many deities, including strong goddess figures, before Patrick converted them, or the Aztec and Mayan cultures, who along with the Irish, developed into some of the most devout practictioners of Christianity ... despite the colonial aspects to their conversions. The figure of the Mother of God also interrupts the patriarchal history out of Judaism, in another sense. The ambiguity of Mary's virginity, motherhood and her subsequent worship and adoration by Catholics and Orthodox Christians alike makes her, I argue, a goddess figure. Hail Theotokos!
After that brief return to the religion of my childhood, it's time to move onto a few figures that I became familar with in my adolescence, especially after becoming a Dungeon Master on a regular basis (for those unfamiliar - this is the 'master' who controls the role-playing game of Dungeons and Dragons). I learned about Norse gods, Greek gods, and some Indian deities. One of the characters that struck me immediately ... since he seemed to have the right approach to life, I thought ... was the Norse figure Loki. He was not only a trickster, he was actually an imposter. He is the only god-figure that I know who actually sneaked his way into becoming a god. Sadly, the poor fellow is trapped eternally now until the end of the world arrives.
Another figure who was less heavenly and more about
the here and now, and who epitomized Voltaire's "je préfère
le vin d'ici à l'au-delà", is Dionysus. He always interested
me with his love of life and hedonistic impulses, which in fact involves drunkenness, madness, ecstasy and music that is entirely liberating and would bring an end to misery or anxiety. As such, Dionysus is one who gives generously, and one who understands human suffering profoundly. This kinship of a deity figure with the earthly sensibilitiesis something that more monotheistic practises tend to avoid, which is a terrible blunder that isolates these more conservative religions from
humanity.
Lastly, where would one be without a hero? Although he's not a deity per se, I was always intrigued by the great Irish hero Cúchulainn. My father told me stories of Cúchulainn's deeds when I was a child in Ireland, and these impressions stuck with me since then. Cúchulainn's abilities and adventures were so outrageous and fantastical that they considerably provoked, I think, the Irish nation's imagination and identity formation for centuries and arguably fuel the Irish fighting spirit to this day: "The Warp-Spasm overtook him: it seemed each hair was hammered into his head, so sharply they shot upright. You would swear a fire-speck tipped each hair. He squeezed one eye narrower than the eye of a needle; he opened the other wider than the mouth of a goblet. He bared his jaws to the ear; he peeled back his lips to the eye-teeth till his gullet showed. The hero-halo rose up from the crown of his head". And so he would enter battle.<<
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