ZYGO Zygon® 0591-2385 1467-9744 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1990.tb00877.x BODY‐VESSEL‐MATRIX: CO‐CREATIVE IMAGES OF SYNERGETIC UNIVERSE Carter Nancy Corson 02 06 1990 25 2 10.1111/zygo.1990.25.issue-2 151 165

Abstract: In his essay “Goddesses of the Twenty‐first Century,” R. Buckminster Fuller's use of woman and goddess as metaphor suggests a fruitful source of images illuminating synergetic principles. Using five images, clustered as odyvessel‐matrix, the article suggests an epistemology and a heuristic for connecting the personal‐physical and the universal‐metaphysical. These images are (1) the Egyptian goddess Nut, (2) the Greek earth goddesses, (3) Neolithic Maltese goddess temples, (4) the double spiral, and (5) the Apollo Mission's Earth photographs. These images are intended as transformational synergetic/ecofeminist figures to replace images of deprivation, alienation, and destruction with images of abundance, intimacy, and co‐creation.

 body ecology R. Buckminster Fuller Gaia goddesses and goddess images synergy Argüelles, Miriam, JosC Argüelles. 1977. The Feminine: Spaciousas thesky. Boulder London : Shambhala. Berry, Thomas. 1988. The Dream of the Earth. San Francisco : Sierra Club. Cameron, Ann. 1989. “First Mother and the Rainbow Children  .” In Healing the Wounder: The Promise of Ecofeminism, ed. JudithPlant, 54–66. Philadelphia and Santa Cruz : New Society. Capra, Fritzof. [1976] 1977. The Tao of Physics. New York : Bantam. Dames, Michael. 1976. The Silbury Treasure: The Great Goddess Rediscovered London : Thames and Hudson. Eliade, Mircea. [1957] 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask. New York : Harcourt, Brace. Eliade, Mircea. [1957] 1960. Myths, Dreams & Mysteries, trans. PhilipMairet. New York : Harper Row. Fuller, R. Buckminster. 1968. “Goddesses of the Twenty‐first Century  .” Saturday Review, Mar. Fuller, R.Buckminster. 1975. Synmgetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking. New York : Macmillan. Lobell, Mimi. 1978. “Temples of the Great Goddess.” Heresies (Spring), 32–39. Lovelock, James. 1988. The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth. New York and London : W. W. Norton. Marquand, Robert.1986. “Search for the Cutting Edge of Change. The Christian Science Monitor  , 3Jan, 18–19. Neumann, Erich. [1955] 1974. The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Manheim. Bollingen Series 47. Princeton : Princeton Univ. Press. Purce, Jill. 1974. The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul. London : Thames and Hudson. Rawson, Philip. 1971. Ceramics: The Appreciation of the Arts/G. Cambridge : Oxford Univ. Press. Schwaller de Lubicz, R.A. [1949] 1977. The Temple in Man: The Secrets of Ancient Egypt, trans. Robert and Deborah Lawlor. Brookline , MA : Autumn Press. Spretnak, Charlene. 1978. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre‐Hellenic Myths. Boston : Beacon Press. Ulanov, Ann Belford. 1971. The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology. Evanston : Northwestern Univ.