Thursday, July 06, 2017

A New Goddess Joins the Magical Battle for America

I'm just off a short but memorable vacation, and when I got home my computer was so sick it can't be used. So this very important post lacks images (not that they are necessary).

Let's start with a mental image: Picture a beautiful Goddess of the Greco/Roman pantheon. She has curly hair and fine, keen features. Of course she is attired in a flowing toga. What makes her unusual is that wherever she walks, pristine water sprouts behind her steps. Her name is Cloacina.

In ancient Rome, Cloacina was charged with water purification. All of those elaborate sewer systems and aqueducts were dedicated to Her. Sometimes she is named Venus Cloacina, which tells you how beautiful She is and how highly the ancient Romans esteemed her.

Years and years ago, I petitioned Cloacina to safeguard a little dry run out in the land where I grew up. A developer bought a 900-acre tract and planned to build housing for 11, 000 people on it, mostly in the form of high-density townhouses. Since there's no infrastructure for 11,000 people in that part of the world, someone would have had to build stores. The local fire department would have had to expand, as would law enforcement. Traffic would have been a nightmare, since the only road to the entrance of this proposed development is curvaceous, two-lane Route 40.

The dry run's name is Terrapin Run. (A dry run is a small stream that can go completely dry, or just become a series of shallow pools, when the weather gets hot and dry.) I became involved in a citizens' campaign to save Terrapin Run and block the development. Since Terrapin Run is a Tier II waterway (meaning it's pretty damn pure), I thought Cloacina might be interested in helping with this campaign.

Cloacina is the very essence of a bored goddess. In modern times she is nothing more than a name for an orifice we all have below our waists. She was only too happy -- indeed, She was thrilled -- to have an important miracle to perform in the here-and-now.

And She performed it brilliantly. Not a spade of earth was turned on that development! The entire property sits idle, with Terrapin Run burbling through it, when it does burble, which is usually springtime.

Now I have asked Cloacina to take on a much bigger project. I'm sure you're all aware that our sitting president has ordered his cabinet members to roll back regulations on clean water and pesticides. This means that all of our major waterways could degrade from their current condition. Cloacina is all about clean water. She kept the Romans alive and healthy, and they loved Her for it! She can do this for us as well. We are, after all, another vast, militaristic, and far-flown empire, like the one that provided Her praise and worship team.

My friends, I am asking for you to find a place on your altar for Cloacina. I'm asking you to petition her to protect our sacred waterways from degradation. She wants to join the Magical Battle for America. She wants work. Let's give Her a big job, with full faith that, if we worship Her, She will deliver us from evil.

Please find room for Her in your heart! This Goddess delivers.

13 comments:

Janie Junebug said...

You did well in the past, Cloacina. We need you now more than ever before.

Love,
Janie

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Hail, Cloacina!

e said...

Space on my altar and in my heart! Ave Cloacina!

Anne, what are appropriate symbols for this important diety?

yellowdoggranny said...

send her to Flint

anne marie in philly said...

kick some ass, cloacina!

Anti Kate said...

How does one pronounce that name?

My limited Italian suggests CLO-UH-CHEE-NUH. (CLOthes-UH-CHEEtah-NUH) Anybody have Latin or Greek?

I definitely want an image. This is worship I can get behind!

Anne Johnson said...

Anti, no one knows for sure how Latin was pronounced, so I just go with the phonetic ... Clo - AY - kin - ah. I will have an image up as soon as my computer is fixed. As for a symbol, since she is Venus Cloacina, any Venus symbol would be appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Rodger C:

I'm going with clo-a-SIGH-na. Cf. Byron's outhouse inscription:

"O Cloacina, Goddess of this place,
Look on thy suppliants with a smiling face.
Soft, yet cohesive let their offerings flow,
Not rashly swift nor insolently slow."

Or Swift's poem in defense of pooping outdoors:

"Thee, faithful goddess Cloacine,
To temples why do we confine?"

Davoh said...

Ah; I give tributes to Cloacina every day - of a morning.

And if anyone thinks of this as some sort of 'ancient' phantasy or philosophy 'religion' ...

Recycling human body waste IS scientifically proven to be beneficial to this planet ... whether we like it or not.

Davoh said...

... or another name from ancient history - who really should be venerated - Hypatia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia).

Davoh said...

The contemporary Christian historian Socrates of Constantinople described her in his Ecclesiastical History:

There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.[6]

Meh.

Davoh said...

(she was murdered most cruelly by a 'christian' mob. Apparently not much has changed).

Anti Kate said...

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ancients-a-deity-worthy-of-respect.251682/


There's a great image at the bottom of the article...