It's a big thing in my music to highlight being human - being emotional and powerful, like a goddess.
Each January, nearly half a million people visit the small town of Saundatti for ajatre or festival, to be blessed by Yellamma, the Hindu goddess of fertility.
Girls from poor families of the 'untouchable,' or lower, caste are 'married' to Yellamma as young as four. No longer allowed to marry a mortal, they are expected to bestow their entire lives to the service of the goddess.
I hope to grow another head and two more hands, like an Indian goddess.
Unless you burst into movies as a sex goddess, you're likely to play wives and mothers. I came into movies as a teenager in 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They' (1969) playing a pregnant waif from the Ozarks. I didn't get a chance to burst into movies in 'Body Heat.' My career isn't based on having a 23-inch waist and a big bust, though I do.
The simplest and most basic meaning of the symbol of the Goddess is the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of female power as a beneficent and independent power.
The Goddess of Old Europe and Ancient Crete represented the unity of life in nature, delight in the diversity of form, the powers of birth, death and regeneration.
Throughout the years, many Christian women have told me of their great respect for the bravery and courage evident in my work, perhaps even gesturing to their own Isis earrings or a Nile River Goddess pendants.
Our great symbol for the Goddess is the moon, whose three aspects reflect the three stages in women's lives and whose cycles of waxing and waning coincide with women's menstrual cycles.
I call Algonquin Books 'the gods and goddesses of publishing.' Not only did they give me a career, they care deeply about every writer in their flock.
