Did Goddess Dione Precede Hera As Lilith Preceded Eve As Adam's First Wife?

In what’s become a most interesting diversion, another devouring female has entered our discussion: the Venus fly trap, a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of America, is properly called Dionaea muscipula. (See Tears in Our Teacups: The Devouring Women of Ronit Barange)

Greek Goddess Dione

GlamTribale Lilith CollectionDione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer’s Iliad. In a mystery novel akin to Lilith being Adam’s first wife, not Eve, Dione appears to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia (also a GlamTribale goddess), whom Homer placed in Olympus.

Wiki writes that the Mother of the Gods Dione, aka Gaia, was “shunted aside” when the 12 Gods of Olympus came to predominate the public mythology. Dione (not to be confused with the Roman goddess Diana, another GlamTribale goddess).

Sailing to Ithaca

Dione was worshipped at Dodona, not Hera, as Zeus’ wife, according to many inscriptions now at the museum at Ioannina. Dodana was an oracle devoted to a Mother Goddess, similar to Rhea or Gaia. Wiki writes that the shrine of Dodona was regarded as the oldest Hellenic oracle, possibly dating to the second millennium BCE according to Herodotus.

Second only to the oracle of Delphi in prestige, Dordona remained an important religious sanctuary until the rise of Christianity. This Anne discovery is so relevant at 3:45 am, because Dodana is located near the Ionian Sea, in northwest Greece and away from Athens.

My first pursuit of women’s history and Jungian psychology was in Crete, where I wrote about evidence of goddess worship in my senior thesis at NYU. Rocking in the waves in a small sailboat moored in Ithaca a few years later, I awoke about 3am in what was one of the truly memorable nights of my life, detailed in one of my favorite Anne essays Sailing to Ithaca.

Momentary Shipwreck

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Tears in Our Teacups: The Devouring Women of Ronit Baranga

It’s pure coincidence — and rather extraordinary — that I wrote yesterday about the sirens and the devouring female and happened today on this ceramic tableware by Israeli female artist Ronit Baranga. One can’t disregard the artist’s pedigree: BA in psychology and Hebrew literature, followed by a degree in art history from Tel-Aviv University.

The comments on design blogs are ambivalent to the point of revolting about Baranga’s art. Clearly these images stir up the unconscious mind. While I want to study the artist’s work further, it appears to be largely focused on female body parts and the world of women. Are those not tears in her teacups?

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Aphrodite Joins Yemaya & Mami Wata for a Swim in Human Consciousness

It’s 30 months ago that I wrote this post about goddesses and my immersion again in studies of the collective unconscious and mythology. I had no vision of a GlamTribale jewelry collection when I joined Aphrodite and Mami Wata in a cohesive vision of female sensuality and its place in the male unconscious mind.

Writing just now about Lais Ribero as a Bahia beauty in L’Officiel Netherlands as ‘Toda Menina Baiana’ (strut your stuff), Mami Wata appeared and asked to have her story reshared once again. There’s a bit of hell tp pay that she wasn’t first in line in Benjamin’s goddess essays. I explained that she is such an utter handful to manage, that Ben is practicing on Lilith, Diana and Isis (on Sunday) before tackling her.

Mami W was not persuaded, but she has forgiven me. 

After a long and difficult journey for me — which is nothing compared to Mami Wata’s journey and suffering on the slave ships across the Atlantic and into Haiti and on to South America — the GlamTribale goddesses are here. And without a doubt we are swimming in the waters of human consciousness — further, deeper and with more incredible connections than I ever dreamed was possible in my life. What a spider web!! ~ Anne

Men have always been ambivalent about mermaids, the mythological aquatic creature with a female human head and torso but the tail of a fish. In many ancient cultures, mermaids were regarded as semi-divine aspects of the Goddess.

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Andreea Stancu's Shoes Sizzle in Oskar Cecere's Cori Amenta Shoes A/W 2012 / 2013 Campaign

When asked why women wear outrageously high heels and platform sheels, Trevor Davis, a consumer product expert with IBM’s Global Services has suggested that when the economy is suffering, “consumers turn to a more flamboyant fashion as a means of fantasy and escape.”

The truth is that heels are coming down again, with loafers and chunky heels alive and well again — but not so much with Smart Sensuality women. We always have our eye on pair of sexy ankle boots or stiletto hells like these from Cori Amenta Shoes autumn/winter collection.

Andreea Stancu is lensed by Oskar Cecere in a super sultry shot that would never fly in America. Oh those Europeans!!! On that subject, take a look at Tom Munro’s body beautiful editorial for Vogue Italia’s January issue. ~ Anne

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Anne's Sensual Apples Are Good for Body, Soul & Women's Rights Politics

Clara Alonso bites into the apple of sensuality — a green one — in this Chis Colls editorial for Elle Vietnam. Determining now that this is a Spring 2012 editorial, perhaps April, (grrrrh) we stick with it to promote the healthy eating of apples and taking a bite of sensuality regularly.

See the perfect pitch apple eating video and images ‘The Virgin Bride’ for Stone Cold Fox’s spring 2013 colelction.

In a landmark decision for AOC, I decided to put a compendium of Treats! editorials and my writing on sensuality on AOC’s front page salon. If AOC is banned in the Arab world and now in many workplaces in America because we DO filter any questionable images, instead of just throwing them out there as so many others do, we just aren’t all that reliant on Google any more.

People are shaking their head that AOC would be banned. Sensuality News we understand, of course. This is why I separated the websites in the first place when 40 images got 40,000 wiped out of Google image search for 120 days. That was my 2010 nightmare. I got cute one day and began writing about food porn. DISASTER struck!

Guilty By Association

If AOC is still guilty by association — which is frankly the story of my life — fine. We’ve built a fantastic website and large roster of devoted readers without Google’s help. It just irks me to see people not playing by the rules not quarantined. It’s a bit like not paying your taxes and laughing all the way to the bank.

Nothing will change with my new attitude re Google, because my work in philanthropy and women’s rights is exploding with our new GlamTribale jewelry collection. Discretion is required of me when dealing with international women’s rights, although most know quickly and admire my maverick status. My friends in the Arab world say “don’t let up, Anne. Let us worry about the issues on the ground here.”

You will find me writing much more aggressively about sexuality again, and taking an occasional daring plunge with a raised middle finger status as I did putting a huge number of Treats! editorials on the front page of AOC and then tying them to my in-depth writing on female sexuality.

Authenticity Is Our Top Priority

That action is asking to be burned at the stake by social conservatives — except they spend far more time on Treats! material than progressives like my readers do, given their propensity to buy more pornography while wagging their fingers at the rest of us. It takes one to know one.

Authenticity is priority #1 at AOC. We will walk our talk this year as never before, with the arrival of several new writers and expanding plans for GlamTribale. Happy New Year to ALL our friends!!  As I always say, fasten your seat belts because I like driving fast. ~ Anne

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Chef Alvin Leung's X-treme Culinary Advice for Better Sex

I’m watching self-professed ‘Demon Chef’ Alvin Leung as if he’s promoting ‘50 Shades of Grey’. Known for his ‘X-treme Chinese’ cuisine that is a sexually-stimulating, kinky culinary experience, the Hong Kong chef detests favorite dishes. In particular, it seems that chef Leung has an aversion to anything recipe using vanilla.

Pushing Culinary Extremes

The British-born kitchen maverick views sexy cuisine as dangerous, pushing us to extremes. In the past, my own experience with the pleasure/pain principle in food was biting into a piece of sushi with too much wasabi. Clearly I’ve not had the right man presiding over my bedside table because chef Leung promises me Chinese cooking that is “X-citing, X-otic and X-traordinary.” Speaking to The Guardian about his new restaurant Bo London, this master of domination in cooking proclaims:

“I want to explore the borders between being a genius and being an idiot,” he continues. “Like having the diner on the end of a bungee rope; if the rope is too short then there’s no thrills; if it’s too long then his head is smashed in.”

Eating X-treme food sounds like the Italian obsession with ‘Shibari’ and that terrible accident when Italian engineer Soter Mule, 42, and his 24-year-old girlfriend experienced a tragic end to a kinky night of pushing boundaries. When their less experienced woman friend fainted as she hung from the rafters in a parking garage, her dead weight tightened the ropes on Caputo, who dies of asphyxiation while the other woman nearly died also.

“No one forced anyone,” Mule told the court. “Paola and her friend consented, but I was the master and I ultimately made the fatal mistake. I should have had the knife closer, as they suggest when practicing this type of bondage. By the time I found it, it was too late.”

We can assume that chef Alvin Leung would keep a knife handy.

No ‘Sex on the Beach’ for Brits

Bo’s London won’t feature Alvin Leung’s signature dish ‘Sex on the Beach’, writes The Guardian, although the restaurant will prepare the mixture of shitake mushrooms, tapiocas, yams, honey and ham when requested.

It’s alleged that the proper British would be horrified to find the concoction that looks exactly like a used pink condom, discarded on the beach, staring at them from a pristine white dinner plate. Given the British predilection for kinky sex, I’m confused.

Just because the Brits have a penchant for a proper cup of tea, don’t think that tea time is a boring event.I have a cup of tea story that will leave you gasping for air.

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Lewis Holland Clarke Is Tough Guy With Soft Edges By Andy Houghton for ADON Magazine #1 As 'One Blue Moment'

ADON arrives as an independent bi-monthly menswear magazine with a global community of creatives, founded by Roy Fire and Tal Peer operating out of New York.

In a debut issue story called ‘One Blue Moment’, model Lewis Holland Clarke [MINT Management NY] is photographed and styled by Andy Houghton with grooming by Lesley Wilks.

It appears that ADONS very cleverly slid under the watchful eyes of Kickstarter for about three weeks before their marketing campaign was pulled. I don’t think you can abandon a campaign in process because it’s not getting backers.

ADON promises plenty of skin, and if these images of Lewis Holland Clarke are an indicator, they’re not kidding around. The editorial carries plenty of gender fluidity, upscale eroticism, classic fantasy with the fireman’s helmet and a kick of fetish.~ Anne

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