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Introducing Pomona
Nov. 12th, 2004 03:29 amRecently, the County of Los Angeles changed its Seal. ACLU had protested that the inclusion of a Cross on the Seal violated the First Amendment separation of church and state. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the County agreed to remove the cross. (They replaced it with a church, which IMHO rather misses the point.)
Then someone spotted that the Seal also contained a prominent image of the ancient Roman goddess Pomona, patroness of gardens and fruit trees. At first, officials couldn't take the complaints about Pomona's presence seriously, but they agreed to remove her as well. Not only were certain Christians claiming this as persecution of their downtrodden faith ("Didn't Pagan Romans feed Christians to lions? Is that why the ACLU of Southern California wants her to stay on the seal?" spluttered one commentator*), but even some Pagans were miffed at the implication that we don't count.
Now, when the goddess was incorporated into the design in the late fifties, there probably wasn't a single Pomona worshipper on the planet; she was a wholly abstract symbol, like Lady Liberty. With the rapid growth of Neo-Paganism in recent decades, however, there could well be a few thousand followers of Pomona in the US. One group, the Numinists, have adopted Pomona and her consort Vertumnus as their patrons, and there are Neo-Pagans attempting to reconstruct the religion of ancient Rome. Plus there's the gallimaufry and ferment of individual Pagan beliefs, in which (to pick an example entirely at random) Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Celtic deities may find themselves cheek by jowl. (Of course, most Pagans don't worship Pomona and have probably never heard of Her)
It's no use protesting that Pomona is merely a historical symbol, as this is also one of the arguments for keeping the cross on the Seal. In fact, a lawsuit claiming that the removal of the cross showed hostility to Christians failed because the plaintiff also argued the cross on the Seal was not a religious symbol.
So the County made the right decision in taking poor old Pomona off the seal. (She's been replaced by a Native American lady who reminds me unavoidably of Land O' Lakes margarine.) But it seems slightly unbalanced to equate a deity with a handful of followers in world terms with one who has about two billion adherents. The solution? Create more Pomona worshippers! It's the only way make this tempest in a teacup worth all the trouble. As deities go, you could hardly find a more inoffensive one.
But through Her involvement in this imboglio, Pomona has taken on fresh meaning. She is no longer just a demure numen of avocadoes. She is now the Goddess of the Separation of Church and State. She is now the Goddess of the Peaceful Co-Existence of Faiths. She calls for people of different religions to make each other welcome, to speak and listen to each other with respect. She calls for respectful dialogue between believers and non-believers. She calls for an end to the misuse of the tools of the state, including education and the law, to force others to conform to any religious worldview. In fact, in her new incarnation, She would be the first to require the removal of Her likeness from a government symbol. She represents the way of the future - a secular state in which religions flourish in friendship.
Spread the word.
(To really mess things up, of course, what someone needs to do is to start worshipping Pearlette the cow.)
Feel free to repost this message, unedited, to any appropriate forum.
___
I shall do more research on Pomona and her historical worship and present it here. In the meantime, some further reading:
The County of LA Seal
The California State Seal. Heh heh heh. >:-)
The Faith-Based Perspective for a Non-Sectarian Seal, by two Rev.s from All Saints Church, Pasadena
A little article about Pomona from the strikingly named Fruit Explorers of North America
Vertumnus and Pomona from Bullfinch's Mythology
Vertumnus woos Pomona from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
__
* He further warned, "The Republican Party has been moving ever leftward". Others remarked: "What we have here is an American version of the Taliban," and "Don't speak of paganism as a dead religion. It is simply a tolerated religion, unlike Christianity."
Then someone spotted that the Seal also contained a prominent image of the ancient Roman goddess Pomona, patroness of gardens and fruit trees. At first, officials couldn't take the complaints about Pomona's presence seriously, but they agreed to remove her as well. Not only were certain Christians claiming this as persecution of their downtrodden faith ("Didn't Pagan Romans feed Christians to lions? Is that why the ACLU of Southern California wants her to stay on the seal?" spluttered one commentator*), but even some Pagans were miffed at the implication that we don't count.
Now, when the goddess was incorporated into the design in the late fifties, there probably wasn't a single Pomona worshipper on the planet; she was a wholly abstract symbol, like Lady Liberty. With the rapid growth of Neo-Paganism in recent decades, however, there could well be a few thousand followers of Pomona in the US. One group, the Numinists, have adopted Pomona and her consort Vertumnus as their patrons, and there are Neo-Pagans attempting to reconstruct the religion of ancient Rome. Plus there's the gallimaufry and ferment of individual Pagan beliefs, in which (to pick an example entirely at random) Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Celtic deities may find themselves cheek by jowl. (Of course, most Pagans don't worship Pomona and have probably never heard of Her)
It's no use protesting that Pomona is merely a historical symbol, as this is also one of the arguments for keeping the cross on the Seal. In fact, a lawsuit claiming that the removal of the cross showed hostility to Christians failed because the plaintiff also argued the cross on the Seal was not a religious symbol.
So the County made the right decision in taking poor old Pomona off the seal. (She's been replaced by a Native American lady who reminds me unavoidably of Land O' Lakes margarine.) But it seems slightly unbalanced to equate a deity with a handful of followers in world terms with one who has about two billion adherents. The solution? Create more Pomona worshippers! It's the only way make this tempest in a teacup worth all the trouble. As deities go, you could hardly find a more inoffensive one.
But through Her involvement in this imboglio, Pomona has taken on fresh meaning. She is no longer just a demure numen of avocadoes. She is now the Goddess of the Separation of Church and State. She is now the Goddess of the Peaceful Co-Existence of Faiths. She calls for people of different religions to make each other welcome, to speak and listen to each other with respect. She calls for respectful dialogue between believers and non-believers. She calls for an end to the misuse of the tools of the state, including education and the law, to force others to conform to any religious worldview. In fact, in her new incarnation, She would be the first to require the removal of Her likeness from a government symbol. She represents the way of the future - a secular state in which religions flourish in friendship.
Spread the word.
(To really mess things up, of course, what someone needs to do is to start worshipping Pearlette the cow.)
Feel free to repost this message, unedited, to any appropriate forum.
___
I shall do more research on Pomona and her historical worship and present it here. In the meantime, some further reading:
The County of LA Seal
The California State Seal. Heh heh heh. >:-)
The Faith-Based Perspective for a Non-Sectarian Seal, by two Rev.s from All Saints Church, Pasadena
A little article about Pomona from the strikingly named Fruit Explorers of North America
Vertumnus and Pomona from Bullfinch's Mythology
Vertumnus woos Pomona from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
__
* He further warned, "The Republican Party has been moving ever leftward". Others remarked: "What we have here is an American version of the Taliban," and "Don't speak of paganism as a dead religion. It is simply a tolerated religion, unlike Christianity."
