Beat Generation essay 1.8 | Page 48

ecology”.Loba is a multifaceted vision of woman as a she goddess as she shapeshifts into multifarious forms such as "Kore, Lilith, Eve, the Virgin Mary, Kali-Ma, Emily Dickenson, Lilith, Iseult and Persephone". Loba is a phantasmagoria of hermetic female realities. The onus is on Di Prima to summon Loba and preach to the female antimony. She states in Rant (1984) “There is no way out of the spiritual battle” and acknowledges in an interview circa 1978 that it is her position to “speak the truth when no one else dare to”. She is a luminary for women, a shaman-poet for feminists. In Paracelsus she waxes lyrical in the style of Ferlinghetti and pays homage to “the red man, healer” and she conjures up myriad semiosis, drawing upon “of the star soul that paces fierce”. Here the shamaness or high priestess of the major arcana tarot signature moves to the fore. In “Buddhist new year song”…she “in the dawn confronted Shiva” again drawing upon powerful female archetypes as guardian spirits. 47