Domina Tempora

The art of dance was incorporated in many religious rituals and festivals of ancient civilizations. From the third millennium BC, ancient Egyptians started to use dance as an integral part of their religious ceremonies, using dancers to perform important events such as divine tales and celestial patterns of shifting sun and stars. In ancient Greece, dance was very freely used for public purposes until it eventually brought about the birth of the popular Greek theatre in the 6th century BC. The Hindu faith has a close connection to music as they claim that it was the dance of the Supreme Dancer Nataraja, a representation of the Hindu god Shiva as the supreme dancer, that formed the entire Universe. Indeed, each of the Hindu gods and goddesses has their own manner of manifesting power through dance movements. Buddhism is also known for their Korean Seungmu dance performed by Buddhist monks.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/22/ancient-mothers-of-drummers-and-the-art-of-dance/

The art of dance was incorporated in many religious rituals and festivals of ancient civilizations. From the third millennium BC, ancient Egyptians started to use dance as an integral part of their religious ceremonies, using dancers to perform important events such as divine tales and celestial patterns of shifting sun and stars. In ancient Greece, dance was very freely used for public purposes until it eventually brought about the birth of the popular Greek theatre in the 6th century BC. The Hindu faith has a close connection to music as they claim that it was the dance of the Supreme Dancer Nataraja, a representation of the Hindu god Shiva as the supreme dancer, that formed the entire Universe. Indeed, each of the Hindu gods and goddesses has their own manner of manifesting power through dance movements. Buddhism is also known for their Korean Seungmu dance performed by Buddhist monks.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/22/ancient-mothers-of-drummers-and-the-art-of-dance/

Rangda is electrifying, dangerous and otherworldly. She embodies power. She has protruding eyes, pendulous large breasts and a large red tongue hanging down her body. Her mouth is full of big teeth and curving fangs, her fingernails are extended to long pointed claws and her unkempt mop of gray hair hangs down her back. Legends of Rangda include her fondness for eating children as well as causing disease and pestilence.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/03/01/vilifying-the-ancient-goddess/

Rangda is electrifying, dangerous and otherworldly. She embodies power. She has protruding eyes, pendulous large breasts and a large red tongue hanging down her body. Her mouth is full of big teeth and curving fangs, her fingernails are extended to long pointed claws and her unkempt mop of gray hair hangs down her back. Legends of Rangda include her fondness for eating children as well as causing disease and pestilence.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/03/01/vilifying-the-ancient-goddess/

Throughout history, women were pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were also nurses, counselors and midwives who traveled from home to home and village to village. They have always been healers.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/15/healers/

Throughout history, women were pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were also nurses, counselors and midwives who traveled from home to home and village to village. They have always been healers.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/15/healers/

When their people are in danger, good men and women will find a way to help, even if it means sacrificing themselves. According to Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice in Ancient Rome was abolished by a senatorial decree in 97 BCE, although by this time the practice had already become so rare that the decree was mostly a symbolic act. The Vedic Purushamedha (“human sacrifice”) is already a purely symbolic act in its earliest records. This was then followed by a period of embarrassment about violence in rituals of this sort as this period corresponds to the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, both of which place emphasis on ahimsa (“non-violence”). This period also corresponds to the composition of the Chandogya Upanishad (c. 8 – 6 BCE) which lists non-violence as a virtue. The Yasiitomi-ki, a diary of the fifteenth century CE, contains an old tradition called Hitobashira (“human pillar”) in which maidens were buried alive at the base or near some constructions to protect the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks. Therefore, apparently for a time, a very very long time ago, virgin sacrifice could be done for a number of widely accepted reasons – from winning a war, appeasing an angry deity, to architecture. 

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/08/the-virgin-sacrifice/

When their people are in danger, good men and women will find a way to help, even if it means sacrificing themselves. According to Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice in Ancient Rome was abolished by a senatorial decree in 97 BCE, although by this time the practice had already become so rare that the decree was mostly a symbolic act. The Vedic Purushamedha (“human sacrifice”) is already a purely symbolic act in its earliest records. This was then followed by a period of embarrassment about violence in rituals of this sort as this period corresponds to the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, both of which place emphasis on ahimsa (“non-violence”). This period also corresponds to the composition of the Chandogya Upanishad (c. 8 – 6 BCE) which lists non-violence as a virtue. The Yasiitomi-ki, a diary of the fifteenth century CE, contains an old tradition called Hitobashira (“human pillar”) in which maidens were buried alive at the base or near some constructions to protect the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks. Therefore, apparently for a time, a very very long time ago, virgin sacrifice could be done for a number of widely accepted reasons – from winning a war, appeasing an angry deity, to architecture. 

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/08/the-virgin-sacrifice/

Green is a colour that is universally known as representing nature and the environment. It is also the color of growth, renewal and rebirth. However, green also forebode death. In Egyptian wall paintings, Osiris, the ruler of the underworld, was typically portrayed with a green face. In Ancient Greece, green is associated with Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. For the Romans, green was the color of Venus who, despite being the Roman counterpart of the Greek Aphrodite, also served as the goddess of the gardens, vegetables and vineyards. The Roman poet Lucretius ( c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC) opens his didactic poem De rerum natura (“On the Nature of Things”) by addressing Venus as a mother of nature and a personified symbol for nature’s generative aspect.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/01/the-colour-green-the-earth-and-the-goddesses/

Green is a colour that is universally known as representing nature and the environment. It is also the color of growth, renewal and rebirth. However, green also forebode death. In Egyptian wall paintings, Osiris, the ruler of the underworld, was typically portrayed with a green face. In Ancient Greece, green is associated with Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. For the Romans, green was the color of Venus who, despite being the Roman counterpart of the Greek Aphrodite, also served as the goddess of the gardens, vegetables and vineyards. The Roman poet Lucretius ( c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC) opens his didactic poem De rerum natura (“On the Nature of Things”) by addressing Venus as a mother of nature and a personified symbol for nature’s generative aspect.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/02/01/the-colour-green-the-earth-and-the-goddesses/