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Undermining the Patriarchy Every Chance I Get. And I Get a Lot of Chances
Hail Columbia!
Today the Goddess Columbia got quite a bit of attention.
There are a number of Inaugural altars floating around the internet. Here are a few:
From Selena Fox: https://twitter.com/Selena_Fox/status/293415734984470529
From Hail Columbia: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/369899/inauguration-2013.jpg
Another from Selena: https://twitter.com/Selena_Fox/status/293437596854525953/photo/1
And here's Chuck Schumer praising the statue of the Goddess Columbia ("a woman!" he says, almost in surprise) which stands atop our Capitol building.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruo8iHyC5lI
Her official title is "Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace." Schumer tells a bit of the story of her installation atop the halls of our government. You can read much more, including the story of how Jefferson Davis, later President of the Confederacy, intervened to change her headdress, in Freedom's Cap: The United States Capitol and the Coming of the Civil War. ( http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780809046812 )
Love the current President or not, and I've got several bones of my own to pick with him, it's a lovely practice to set up altars to Columbia, Libertas, and Justica. You can buy for your own altar very reasonably priced replicas of the statue of Columbia (containing marble from the East Front of the Capitol) from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society: http://www.uschscatalog.org/Prod-31-1-46-91/Marble_Statue_of_Freedom.htm
Who's on your altar today?
Comments
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Monday, 21 January 2013
I love all the ways we honor such figures as Lady Liberty, but to be clear, they are allegorical figures. At what point, if any, they transmute into goddesses is uncertain.
That said, I often feature Lady Liberty in particular on my altar. She stood as the only "idol" on my local interfaith council's altar in memory of 9/11. When the wind blew out all other candles, our little Lady Liberty candle just kept burning till it was burned all the way to the end. -
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Freedom as a "woman"--imagine that. Thanks for this inspiring piece, sister. Hail, Columbia!