Echoing Multiverse

Chang e or Chang o, the Chinese moon goddess. The details of her story vary, but generally she is married to an archer who shoots 9 of the 10 suns to prevent the Earth from scorching drought.  He is awarded elixir of immortality by the Great Queen Mother Goddess of the West.  To keep the elixir from burglars, Chang e drinks it.  The elixir causes her to float up to the moon, where she is separated from her husband, but at least has a jade rabbit and busy woodcutter for company. China's lunar landers are named after her. Chang E, Moon Goddess original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints, and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America . In older stories, she also births the 12 moons.  In some versions of the story with the archer, Chang e is reunited with him during the 8th moon of each year.  The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates this reunion, and is one of the largest holidays in China.  According to Wikipedia, "The Mid-A

 I first saw a version of the feminist protest fist symbol on a t shirt that said, "I'd rather be fighting the man."  I really wanted it, but didn't have the money to buy it at the time.  If I was making a new version, I'd pair the symbol with "I'd rather be fighting the patriarchy."  It's a system, not an individual.   Feminist Protest Fist - I'd Rather Be Fighting the Patriarchy, original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers, t shirts, and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Patriarchy is also not a universal system.  There are many matrilineal cultures still existing in the world, even with the global imperial capitalist missionary patriarchy actively working to squash them into submission.  Patriarchy with patrilineal descent is not the natural state of humanity.  It is one possibility, that is actually pretty rare historically.  Fighting the patriarchy is not futile. Figure 1.  M

 The Mercury symbol is one of the symbols that has been proposed to represent nonbinary gender.  Mars is traditionally the male symbol.  Venus is female.  Originally the Mercury symbol was a representation of Mercury's staff with its two entwined snakes.  Mercury was a male god to the Romans, their version of Hermes, but snakes have represented the divine feminine since much further back than their co-opting by the Roman patriarchy.  For example, the Egyptian Goddess Wadjet was depicted as a snake entwined around a papyrus stem as early as the Predynastic Era (prior to 3100 BCE).   Someone crossed the staff sometime in the 11th century to look more Christian, which also makes the symbol look more feminine.  Nonbinary, a mixture of masculine and feminine traits. Mercury, nonbinary symbol, original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers, buttons, and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Solar System Symbols.  Source: NASA Painte

It's Diversity and Inclusion week at the offspring's school.  Last year they had Wear the Rainbow day and of 1700ish students and staff, the teen saw three others participating.  So afterwards I asked teachers and her guidance counselor to consider participating next time because it didn't make the kid feel good diversity and inclusion vibes to be so alone.  Direct result or just coincidence: this year's Diversity and Inclusion week substituted On Wednesdays We Wear Pink day in the place of Wear the Rainbow day.  Mean Girls peer pressure totally says diversity and inclusion to me.  So, in protest, the kid has made every day this week gay day with their wardrobe choices.  So proud. And it coincided with me reading I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston, which is an amazing book.  Quote from the author: "...you deserve ridiculous, over-the-top high school rom-coms about teenagers like you, just like the straight kids have!"  Recent surveys have shown that mor

I've been reading a lot about evolutionary psychology lately.  It seems that what really made us human was the bond between mother and child.  Our big brains force us into the world before we can even hold up our own heads.  We essentially must continue gestating outside the womb.  The learning and empathy that develops between mother and child in infancy forms the basis of everything we call love, and lays the foundation for our cooperative culture.  Evolution, driven by the mothers.  It's been a series of fascinating reads, and it's reminded me of the quote about how having a child is like forever having a piece of your heart walking around outside your body.  Or, in the case of my painting, your whole heart.  My heart and I, walking through the parking lot of the New York Renaissance Faire a couple of years ago. Having a Child Is Like Having Your Heart Walk Around Outside Your Body, original painting by Echoing Multiverse.  Available via Saatchi Art .  Prints, stickers,

 Homo Habilis as a species lived from about 2.8 - 1.5 million years ago.  They are best known for the vast quantity of stone tools found with their fossils, and according to Cat Bohannon, "associated intelligent sociality".  Old, sexist, white male anthropologists associated the development of tools with men's needs during the hunt.  However, based on primatology studies, that theory seems unlikely to be correct.  In modern chimpanzees (with whom we share 99 percent of our DNA), females are three times more likely than males to hunt with spears. Female chimps are also more adept than males at using stones to crack nuts.  In Eve:  How the Female Body Drove 200 Millions Years of Human Evolution, Cat Bohannon discusses how female chimps use sticks to stab sleeping bush babies (nocturnal squirrel-like creatures).  Using sticks while hunting allows her to keep her distance, which is important, since she's often carrying her offspring while hunting.  Male chimps are bigger

 Ardipithecus ramidus.  Our first great grandmother to walk upright.  The Eve of bipedalism.  Dating to about 4.4 million years ago.  Males and females of the species are similarly sized and both have canine teeth that are feminized.  The males don't bare their fangs to scare off rivals.  They don't have fangs.  Based on these features, it can be assumed that Ardipithecus society was likely relatively egalitarian and cooperative.  That's nice.  Inspired by Cat Bohannon's new book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Ardipithecus ramidus, Eve of Bipedalism, original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America .

 Purgatorius, our earliest primate grandmother.  Purgatorius, Great Grandmother Primate, original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers and other merch available via RedBubble or Fine Art America . Purgatorius fossils were first found by scientists in the 1960s on Montana's Purgatory Hill.  Her teeth were specialized for both crunchy bugs and squishy fruits.  Unlike her earlier ancestors, Purgatorius had hinged, rotating ankles, which were especially good for climbing trees and skittering along branches.  Life in the trees also selected for differences in sensory organs, compared to life on the ground.  Gradually, our sound sensors evolved.  Interestingly, they evolved differently in male and female primates. Today's primates are able to hear much lower frequencies than many other mammals.  Consider the dog whistle.  Or hearing range is low enough that we can't hear it.  The best theory for this difference is our move to the canopy.  Accordin

 Protungulatum donnae is the Eve of placental mammals.  The first mammal to give birth to live young.  She is "the lovely lady squirrel from whence all extant, placenta-having, non-marsupial mammals evolved." Our great-grand rat.  A very early ancestor Goddess.  She appears in the fossil record right about the time of the giant asteroid impact apocalypse and following apocalyptic winter that wiped out the dinosaurs.  She ate beetles and didn't have to worry about keeping her eggs warm.  She was small, about squirrel sized.  The mutations that led to live birth apparently gave her a post apocalyptic advantage, as her DNA lives on.     Eve of the Apocalypse. Protungulatum donnae, in her burrow, resting after live birth. (Not to scale).  Original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers and other merch available via RedBubble or Fine Art America .   Inspired by Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon.

 Religion is thought to have begun as ancestor worship.  Today I present the ancestor Goddess Morganucodon, who lived roughly 205 million years ago.  She is the Eve of Mammalian milk.   Morganucodon, Eve of Mammalian Milk.  205 million years ago, in her burrow.  Inspired by the new book, Eve:  How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon.  Original painting available via Saatchi Art .  Prints, stickers, and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Morganucodon's fossils were initially found in Wales, but since have been found as far afield as China.  She was a widely spread, highly successful creature, about the size and shape of a mouse.  She is the most well known species of early mammal, one of the first to evolve lactation.  She could hunt for beetles alone at night, under cover of darkness and return to her burrow in the morning, full of nutrition to share with her babies.  She did not have nipples, the milk oozed from g