"Myth comes alive as it enters the cauldron of evolution, drawing energy from the storytellers who shape it." 

Elizabeth Fuller, The Independent Eye Theater

I want to thank all of you for contributing toward my Proposal - you have no idea how much encouragement you have given me!  It was an experiment, and I did not imagine that so many wonderful people would be willing to support the project.  Although the Kickstarter fundraiser hasn't been successful, the encouragement and connections I've made through this process has given me what I need to continue.

Please know that the collection will continue to grow, and I will continue to hold them as they evolve for the use of individuals and communities in the future.  Should any of you have a story to tell with the masks, please feel free to contact me.  If you still wish to contribute, you may send a check to my address below - and I will honor all the rewards posted in Kickstarter......just be sure to tell me what you would like me to send you in your letter, and where.

I'm also very happy to offer 1/2 price on any items in my Catalog (http://www.rainewalker.com/catalog.htm)  to all Kickstarter funders in support of the Project, and also the ritual Performance that Macha NightMare and Collaborators will be developing with the masks in the future.

The Goddess is within all of us, inhabiting us and speaking through us with a thousand voices and a thousand faces.  May She dance with you always!

Lauren Raine

4526 East 12th Street, Tucson, Arizona  85711

"Our flesh is simply our part of the dreaming body of the world.....and the persistence of the old stories is the continuance of a way of speaking that blesses the sentience of things, binding our thoughts back into the depths of an imagination much vaster than our own. To live in a storied world is to know that intelligence is not an exclusively human faculty,  is rather a power of the animate earth itself, in which we humans, along with the hawks and the thrumming frogs, all participate."

 David Abram, Wild Ethics.

With nine days to go, we still need to raise about $850.00 to make our goal.  I hope we do, and we're circulating the Proposal one last time.  If any of you wonderful sponsors know of someone who might like to support this project, you can email them a link to the Proposal at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166451574/the-masks-of-the-goddess-mythic-masks-and-theatre.

But even if this Kickstarter Proposal isn't funded, I need to tell you that I've already received more than I asked for - support and encouragement from you, and from an amazing community of priestesses, mythologists, dancers, storytellers, and ritualists.  That's the real currency I've been seeking, the feedback and inspiration that makes me want to go into the studio and make masks for collaborators, and the beauty they will make with them.

Funded or not, I'm going to continue to make these masks and I will hold them in trust for those who want to use them in the future (and I invite all of you to send me your stories and suggestions - I want to know what masks are needed as the collection grows.  This is, and always has been, collaboration.)

Because of unfortunate space limitations, the Women and Mythology Conference  http://womenandmythology.wordpress.com/  will not be able to host a full scale ritual as Macha planned.  Instead, excerpts from the evolving ritual performance will be shared, and Macha and the group are developing ideas for a full scale event at a future venue.  If we raise the funds here, at least $1,000.00 of them will go to the group to pay for a theatre or other site.  I'm going to be on an artists panel at the Conference as well.

I finished a "Sea Goddess" mask..........don't really know who she is yet.  And I share below the "Oya" mask again.  Oya is a powerful ouruban Orisha representing the energies of the Winds and the tempests.  She is a powerful agent to change, blowing away the old dead wood and old dead paradigms, and although this sometimes results in chaos, She is the force that makes way for the new ways, and new life.  In some images she bears a machete or sword, clearing away a path for new growth.  May Oya blow in the New!

I'm so happy to see that I'm almost at the $5000.00 mark........and thanks especially to a relative who is so kindly backing me as well as all of you!  I've created another new mask (photo below) - "Oya", West African Goddess of air, storms, and sometimes, the chaos and storm that occurs before a new beginning can come into being. 

I want to say here that, no matter what happens with achieving my goal with Kickstarter or not, I'm so grateful to all of you for giving me this encouragement for this project. 

With 23 days to go, I'm 60% of the way there!  But regardless, I'm rushing to finish up to 9 masks for the performance at the Women and Mythology Conference in May - at the end of the month I'll be doing the California Renaissance Faire, and life will be much more complicated.

Just wanted to share the latest, which the "mask council" that Macha has created is exploring presently with story and dance - this is "Pachamama".  I made the mask very colorful, because I thought of the bright, indigenous colors of South America, and the native clothing the dancer will wear.  One member of the group has suggested that the performer will hold a spindle, which is a common sight in Bolivia.  She might offer "threads" to the audience, to share in the "spinning" of a new way of understanding our relationship to mother Earth.

Thanks once again for your support with this project, and feedback is always welcome!  In fact, your feedback helps me tremendously to envision the masks.

This mask, which I'm adding to the new collection,  was suggested by my collaborator Macha, and is potentially "Skadi" a Nordic goddess. I envision it with a white veil behind the performer, and white costume, but that will depend on what the story, and those who perform them, evolve in the future. My hope is that these masks will travel to many performers, and collect stories.  What I was thinking about is the Arctic, the diminishing and breaking up of the glaciers (which is why her "crown" is made of white fragments).