My Brigid Offering

Stars

Here in my head, language

keeps making its tiny noises.

How can I hope to be friends

with the hard white stars

whose flaring and hissing are not speech

but a pure radiance?

How can I hope to be friends

with the yawning spaces between them

where nothing, ever, is spoken?

Tonight, at the edge of the field,

I stood very still, and looked up,

and tried to be empty of words.

What joy was it, that almost found me?

What amiable peace?

Then it was over, the wind

roused up in the oak trees behind me

and I fell back, easily

Earth has a hundred thousand pure contraltos -

even the distant night bird

as it talks threat, as it talks love

over the cold, black fields.

Once, deep in the woods,

I found the white skull of a bear

and it was utterly silent -

and once a river otter, in a steel trap,

and it too was utterly silent.

What can we do

but keep on breathing in and out,

modest and willing, and in our places?

Listen, listen, I'm forever saying,

Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof,

to the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit -

then I come up with a few words, like a gift.

Even as now.

Even as the darkness has remained the pure deep darkness.

Even as the stars have twirled a little, while I stood here,

looking up,

one hot sentence after another.

Mary Oliver

5th annual Cyberspace Poetry Slam for Brigid

Feel free to copy the following to your blog/facebook/website and spread
the word. Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!

WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2010

WHERE: Your blog

WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day

HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to
post February 2nd.

RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on
this post. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in
cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear
about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.


Please pass this invitation on

message recieved

I've been thinking a lot lately about the core tenets of my practice as a Pagan psychotherapist.  Buddhism is currently in fashion in my profession,  mindfulness turning out to be just as useful (if even more) in creating emotional well-being as analyzing family dynamics.   Are there particular things that we earth-worshippers do that inform my profession?  Psychotherapy truly is more art than science, and it figures that many of us who are in the Craft have something to teach other healing artists of hearts and minds

This week one of my core tenets has me laughing. I believe, and try to transmit to my clients, that the world wants to be in meaningful conversation with us.  Once we accept this as true, and cock our ear towards it, the world will not shut up.  

Under great distress, of course, it's hard to listen to anything or anyone. Anxiety and fear can operate as mighty misfiring car alarms, drowning out any truth of the real threat or danger. The Buddhist gift of  mindfullness  is a damn fine tool for re-calibrating the human car alarm. But then what? That's where I think we Pagans have something to offer. We know how to carry on mytho-poetic conversations with the world, and any rich conversation like that makes human life a hell of a lot more meaningful, if not more interesting.

The other day I was with a group of friends, all stressed or beleaguered in some fashion. There were, of course, those who were newly unemployed, and those who were worried about their jobs. There also was a friend had just mid-wived her mother's death from cancer, and another friend who waiting for biopsy test results. And, I had just received a notice from the IRS that I was being audited.  Despite all the stress, there was much laughter, warmth, and gallows humor.  I left the gathering, my heart stretched with tenderness for my friends, and also beginning to contract with worry and mounting anxiety.

It only took me several steps on Cortland Avenue until the world interjected and had something pithy to say.  There, in a window of a small shop, was a big red poster with white lettering.   "Calm down, and Carry On",  it simply stated.  Yes, indeed.

Calming down, is of course, hard. Breathing helps, and slowing down thoughts. Carrying on, well, that's hard too, but it's made easier by the world carrying some of the burden of the ongoing conversation. Cock your ear, and really, the world, it just won't shut up. 

Thankfully, it's pretty darn smart. Carrying on, we would all do well to deeply listen.

divination bordello

 

On Saturday, I had a benefit at my house for the restorative retreat, A Fool’s Journey, that I’m part of putting on at fall equinox.  We raised seed money and 

 money by turning my house into a Divination Bordello.  As it turns out, my house LOVES being a Divination Bordello!  Every room and cranny comfortably held a couple of people intensely engaged in opening up to the divine. I could almost hear the house purring.

 

Our customers trooped up the long front stairs and were offered choices; tarot, dreamwork, aura reading, psychic consultation, reiki,  and prophecy board.  Julian, a talented twelve year old, offered readings from a deck of cards he had made himself.  Between reading for others, I got a reading from him, pulling three cards – Phoenix, lake, and mist – which assured me that I could rise from some challenges I have at the moment if I stay calm, look deep, and stop trying to see into the future.

 

It was a glorious spring day, with fresh air gently blowing in from the bay, and I was happy to read for others on my  deck, surrounded by lemon trees and countless containers of new seedlings waiting to be put into the garden.  The garden too held readers, and my attic art studio as well.

 

It was a perfect day for the flat downstairs to receive its new tenant, and he wandered up and down the stairs, a little disoriented by the beauty of the day and house’s ebullience.  He picked my friend Robin, who has a deep affinity for mermaids, to do a tarot reading for him.  We knew the house had chosen the right tenant when she came away illuminated by stories he had told her regarding how mermaids figure into South American mythology.

 

The house found Gregor through our network of friends, as he came to a party downstairs several months ago. He’s a young British environmentalist who has been living in the Amazon for the last seven years. He’ll be traveling back throughout the year, but for now, he’s ensconced in exotic San Francisco.  His open countenance, and the fact that he literally came with just a few bags of stuff,  made him the Wise Fool of the day, stepping off the beaten path onto a whole new journey.

 

At the end of the day, we readers  contently collapsed in the living room, ordered Chinese food, and drank some good red wine.  We sprawled around the good upholstery, telling new stories and old. 

 

I’m thinking I truly am done with spiritual intensives.  Spiritual restoratives, like the Fool’s Journey, are rich enough for my tastes. As someone said during the day,  “let’s get restored, not floored.”

 

I am for it, and love that here in the beauty of spring, I can imagine us all in the fall, under the grape arbor, eating figs, lounging by the pool, opening our foolish hearts to the what the Magician has to teach us. 

breathing balance

 

My friend,  Donald Engstrom,  years ago coined a phrase worthy of generous usage. Every time I say this phrase or write it, his voice resonates in my consciousness.  Every equinox, I think of Donald, for my good friend is deeply committed to the building and nurturance of the emerging "Cultures of Beauty, Balance and Delight."  Beauty, balance and delight – for that is his phrase - are certainly the stuff of equinoxes.

 

The spring equinox is today, and as luck would have it, it is a beautiful day in San Francisco, The sun is shining, the breeze is sweet and fresh, and on the way to my office I was met with more smiles than eyes avoided. San Franciscans tend to take honest delight in a sunny day.

 

Today light and dark are in perfect balance. How rare a thing that is!  Every other day of the year the light is trumping the dark or the dark is trumping the light. But today, they face each other equally….not to do this again until the fall equinox. Tomorrow, light will be a little stronger, and at this point, I’m yearning for that increase in strength.

 

Therapists treat depression, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing – hour upon hour since the economic free fall. Even with my clients who are not depressed, we can't overlook the effect the great economic shift has had on them. For weeks now fear has been a frequent guest to my office.  People are uncertain, anxious, and off balance.  Many are cutting down how much they see me, and some have left therapy completely.  And, old clients I haven’t seen for years are back on my green couch, struggling to regain equilibrium in an unsteady time. I'm seeing more clients than I ever have, but the majority can't afford to come weekly.

 

So, I’m breathing and getting my clients to do it with me. That steady and slow kind, where the exhale and inhale are of equal strength, balanced by the place between.  Our breath is a bridge between the para-sympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, connecting what we have no control over with what we do. Balancing these two physiologically has an existential ripple effect, taking us out of the state of fear and able to step forward into an uncertain future with a sense of calm. 

 

It’s spring equinox and I’m breathing into balance, taking delight in the beauty that surrounds me, accepting there's a lot I can't control and taking the reins where I can.  Less money being spent has resulted in landfills receiving 30 percent less trash. 

 

All hail the mysterious power of balance! 

California Marriage and Family Therapist for Marriage Equality

In the summer of 1986 , while attending Reclaiming’s first summer intensive,  I called home and received  news that I had passed my licensing exam.  From that moment on,  I have been a licensed marriage and family therapist in California.  For years before that moment, as a registered intern, and for every year since, I have annually sent checks of a couple hundred dollars off to CAMFT, the California association that represents those of us in my profession.

 

Several weeks ago I found out that CAMFT is NOT representing me, or any other GLBT therapist in the state.  The CAMFT board members have refused for months to take a stand for marriage equality.  All the other major associations representing mental health workers have public statements regarding the importance of marriage equality and see homophobia as an important issue that effects mental health.

 

Because, it does. 

 

I am a marriage and family therapist who’s own marriage is in jeopardy of becoming legally invalid.  I work up close and personal with couples, all kinds of couples. Gay, lesbian and queer couples are no less loving, dysfunctional, loyal, short or long lasting than straight ones. Why should anyone be barred from being legally hitched if they want to take that leap?  And even for those who don’t believe in marriage or would never choose to marry, being denied the same rights as other folks is something that affects identity and self esteem. There's plenty of studies that have shown this. Discrimination is not emotionally healthy.

 

I’m proud that my alma mater, Antioch college, has issued a public statement regarding CAMFT’s refusal to join other associations representing my profession in doing the right thing.  This weekend, one of my colleagues from my association of GLBT therapists, GAYLESTA, will be presenting the case , yet again, to the CAMFT board, on why we need CAMFT to stand up for marriage equality and against homophobia.

 

Hopefully, this weekend the board will do the right thing.  Being spring equinox, I’m hoping that the spirit of balance, fairness, and justice is contagious.

 

Homophobia is something we therapists need to treat, not perpetuate.

blessings

It rained almost nonstop for the entire span of Pantheacon. Pretty much every conversation contained expressions of gratitude, as most Pagans were cognizant of the serious threat of drought hanging over California. The rain fell as a blessing on the land and as a blessing on this year’s conference.

This year was a significant one for me. It marked the anniversary of my diagnosis of Type II Diabetes. I’ve kept my blood sugar within normal levels for a full turn of the wheel by making big changes in my diet and by keeping moving. I am healthy, and that has been a major magical working. Shifting consciousness by going into trance and working between the worlds is a breeze for many of us Pagans. Shifting consciousness to brussel sprouts and a brisk walk, not M&M’s and a good novel, being what the body wants, is a heck of a lot harder.

But, I’ve done it, and I kept it up at Pantheacon, where the easiest food to obtain is chocolate chip cookies and pizza and the exercise room is one of the few rooms in the hotel not teeming with Pagans. Working out is a great way to get some solitude, and the hotel is hospitable enough to provide a lot of comfortable seating areas where you can spread out picnics you’ve brought in. Judy wouldn’t eat in the area where she’d witnessed a woman holding court with her five snakes, including a massive white constrictor big enough to eat one of us. My guess is that even next year she’ll give that area a wide clearance, she’s that snake phobic.

I’m a lover of panels, of watching a variety of folks discuss a topic and then taking questions. This year was no different, and going to the panel with the wonky title of ”The Non-Dual, Polytheism, and Magic” led me to become enamored of Lon Milo DuQuette. It true synchronistic fashion, he turned out to be the author of the only book my non-Pagan partner bought. Who can’t resist a book called “The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford”? The title grabbed her (being a lover of all things chicken) and then he impressed her mightily by answering the very question she was thinking when he signed her book. He drew a little picture of himself with the caption “No, Judy”, he wrote, “I am not the Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford”, thus making her sure that he is, indeed, a mighty magician. I’m for any mind-reading magician who says “I can change only one thing with magic – myself”.

There were well over 2,000 Pagans at Pantheacon, with a breadth of workshops ranging from Tibetan Buddhism to a Jim Morrison ritual. One of my friends almost lost her 20 years of recovery at the Morrison ritual, and another is all geared up to start studying Tibetan Buddhism in earnest.

There are lots of stories to tell, and perhaps I will be telling them here now and then. But, at the moment there is a break in the blessed rain. Gratefully, I know exactly what to do with it. Time for a walk! It’s such a darn fine thing to be healthy.

a step into the unknown

 

 

I’m sitting in one of those hotels for people who are on business trips of over a week – you know, the ones with small kitchens, that are more like truncated apartments?  I’m here because the hotel that hosts the Pagan conference Pantheacon sold out months ago.

 

Both hotels are in San Jose, located amidst several office parks. Most of the offices have emptied since we were here last year, with almost every one sporting a “for lease” sign.   Things are so desperate that the lonely Denny's is offering a big discount for customers with a Pantheacon badge.  It has the feel of a place that has just become a ghost town, with no hope of coming back to life for quite a spell.

 

But there is life at these hotels, both full of all manner of folks interested in places between worlds, comfortable with working with spirits and all that is not visible to the naked eye.

 

It’s always been a very kooky thing, this conference of Pagans in a corporate hotel, but this year, amidst this rainy ghost town of corporate businesses, it feels like we truly are in dreamtime.

 

Last night, the group of us who put on the restorative retreat The Fool’s Journey did a ritual to help conference goers drop their expectations and step into the shoes of the Wise Fool.

 

It felt right, this piece of magic about stepping into a future we cannot see, going forward with an open mind, open heart and outstretched arms. What I loved about the ritual was the breadth of age in the circle. There was a pregnant woman, a new baby, kids of all ages, and my guess is just about every decade of humanity was represented. All of us together did a spiral dance (the baby was strapped to a parent, the very old in the middle in their scooters) and good humor filled the room.

 

When I am done with my coffee I’ll go back to the conference. Who knows what will happen? We step into a future that we cannot see. Best to do it with a bunch of wild earth loving visionaries.

Jupiter aligns with Mars

 

Today is my birthday.   As far as I am concerned, February 9^th  is a great day to have a birthday. The plum trees are in bloom, plump red hearts are in the store windows, and the hills of California are green.  Last night it rained, and now the sun is shining on the damp earth. Yes, a great day to celebrate the miracle of this one specific life!!

 

Next weekend I go to Pantheacon, the annual Pagan conference in San Jose.  The last couple of years I’ve done a lot of reflecting on what it has meant to follow my particular spiritual path, and something about being at Pantheacon makes me acutely aware of the trials and tribulations of being a modern Pagan.  Recently I realized that I’m in my Saturn return of being a Witch, as is the particular tradition I’ve taken part in creating.

 

A Saturn return is an astrological event that happens 27 to 30 years after we were born.  This is the amount of years it takes    Saturn to move through its orbit and return to the exact point that it was at our birth. A Saturn return signals the time when we grow up astrologically. It is the time to release structures that no longer serve us, and a time to mature into our new adult selves. My first Saturn return has long past, my second one looms ahead, but I, along with a lot of other Pagan folks, are actively being challenged in a Saturn-like way to examine ways in which we and our spiritual tradition need to mature and come of age. Many modern Pagan "traditions" were born about thirty years ago, so despite all the claims of being "the old religion", this is our first go around with Saturn.

 

A friend wrote me today that besides some whopping cosmic eclipse, today is a day that Jupiter aligns with Mars.  I’m not sure what that means, but it makes me happy. It feels almost as great as the birthday that fell on the day that The Beatles played for the first time on Ed Sullivan. I know almost every lyric to the entire soundtrack of the musical Hair. Today, I've been singing that song about the moon being in the seventh house and Jupiter aligning with Mars all day long. You know, the one that starts with "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...".

I’m thinking today about my spiritual Saturn return and loving this dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I'm pretty darn sure it is officially here. And something about the Saturn return of being a Pagan and this new age  intersect. The grandiosity is fading away, and more and more I feel comfort in being a miniscule part of a much bigger whole. And that's what the tradition I use to believe would change the world actually is - just another small little group among many groups, all of us putting our shoulders and prayers to the wheel, trying to move things in the direction of peace guiding the planets and love steering the stars.  The world is changing, you can feel it in the air. But, that is the nature of things, and no person or small group of folks was or is the linchpin of change, or maybe we all are. Every one of us. Yes, I like that idea much more. It's so Aquarian!!!

Can I tell you again just how much  I love the plum trees in bloom?  It is a damn fine day to have a birthday!! 

a perfect day

Yesterday was a good day. I got drunk on poetry, all the plum trees on my street burst into bloom, as if on Brigid's cue, and the day ended with hearing my all-time favorite bad poem.

Yes, my favorite bad poem.

Years back, a friend had a birthday party where all the guests read a bad poem they had written or did some bad performance art. It was fantastic! There's something completely liberating about creating Bad Art. It's also not quite as easy as it sounds. Try it! There's lots of words that are crying out to be included. Reading poetry all day yesterday, I learned from a lover of Tennyson that we can now adopt abandoned and neglected ones as our own at Savethewords.org. Your poem need not be full of tortiloquy, it just needs to be bad.

My favorite poem at that reading years back was one that my friend's partner, Bill Simpich read. It has stayed with me for over 15 years. This year, I went to their house for a small Brigid ritual which included poetry (mostly good) being read. Bill contributed his bad poem...substituting the line about 12-steppers with something more of the times. You will know that line when you read it. And, please read it. What would the light be without the dark? And what would this ocean of good poetry be without some bad poetry? It was a perfect way to end a perfect day.

Yesterday I posted Walt Whitman's beautiful poem. Today, I am giving you:


BILL SIMPICH'S REALLY GOOD BAD POEM

I am suffering.

I am offering my suffering

To you.

For your enjoyment

And your education

And your edification

And the inevitable reification

Of my suffering


I am suffering

Because our planet is dying

My family is fucked

The facebookers ae everywhere

And the man is at the door


I am suffering

Because our lives are without meaning

But for those values we impose upon them

In these fleeting moments of existence

Dominated by the slavery of a living wage that is nonpareil,

The glossy slickness of advertisements of an utterly vacuous ghostlike form

Of electronically opiated and mediated and emaciated and masticated

Entertainment


I am suffering

Because I cannot see the sun

My eyes are red and hurting

I can only stare at the moon

I adore you, Dark Mother

But now you are dead

Before I join you over there

Won't you join us over here?

Deep in the core, is your heart still beating?

Wasn't your Sea of Tranquillity once teeming with salmon?

Were your meadows filled wtih apples?

Did your inhabitants bask in the earthglow?

Did they suffer from earthburn?


And I am suffering

Because it would be, if nothing else, insufferable

To grow old and die

Without being there

At the creation

And in bringing

To a close

Completely and totally

Once and final

Caving and breaking

That leads to the inevitable

Crashing and burning

That concludes

In the demise

And the fall

Of the American

Empire

Poem for the Fourth Annual Brigid Poetry Reading

In honor of Brigid, Goddess of Poetry and Healing, this year my contribution is a poem written in 1860 by one of my favorite American mystics, Walt Whitman.

Follow the links in the comments section of this post and the original invitation to the great web of poetry that is being spun today.


States!

by Walt Whitman

STATES!
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms?

Away!
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held together.

The old breath of life, ever new,
Here! I pass it by contact to you, America.

O mother! have you done much for me?
Behold, there shall from me be much done for you.

There shall from me be a new friendship—It shall be called after my name,
It shall circulate through The States, indifferent of place,
It shall twist and intertwist them through and around each other—
Compact shall they be, showing new signs,
Affection shall solve every one of the problems of freedom,
Those who love each other shall be invincible,
They shall finally make America completely victorious, in my name.

One from Massachusetts shall be comrade to a Missourian,
One from Maine or Vermont, and a Carolinian and an Oregonese, shall be friends triune, more precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan shall be wafted perfume from Florida,
To the Mannahatta from Cuba or Mexico,
Not the perfume of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers,
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one,
The Kanuck shall be willing to lay down his life for the Kansian, and the Kansian for the Kanuck, on due need.

It shall be customary in all directions, in the houses and streets, to see manly affection,
The departing brother or friend shall salute the remaining brother or friend with a kiss.

There shall be innovations,
There shall be countless linked hands—namely, the Northeasterner’s, and the Northwesterner’s, and the Southwesterner’s, and those of the interior, and all their brood,
These shall be masters of the world under a new power,
They shall laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the world.

The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie and band stronger than hoops of iron,
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! henceforth with the love of lovers tie you.

a reason to believe

“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.” Barack Hussein Obama, from his Inaugural Speech

The power of these particular lines continue to resonate with me. It is these lines that have been most marveled at between the four walls of my therapy room. Why?

With these words, Obama opened the door to an enormous group of Americans who have been not only disenfranchised, but have been rendered downright invisible. He included folks who’ve never been mentioned by an American president before, who were never included as a valid part of the whole. Up until now, every politician has had to distance themselves widely from these Americans, even if they were, in truth, solidly one of them. Our Christian-centric leaders have given lip service and a nod to other faiths as being part of the American tapestry, but never to those of no faith. Hearing the term “non-believers” used in such an inclusionary way was striking. It was a shift in the national consciousness.

As a Pagan, I don’t consider myself to be a“non-believer”. I could by no means be called “Godless”. We Pagans for the most part have more Gods than less. We even have countless Goddesses. And boy, do we believe in ALL kinds of things! I believe that spring follows the harshest winter, and that all matter matters. My spirituality is chock full of faith. However I find myself deeply reassured that Obama’s vision of America includes not only ALL faiths, but those who don’t have any faith. And, of course, in doing so, he is giving those of no faith, some faith. He is giving non-believers something to believe in.

These words got mused, mulled, and commented on a lot in the past week in my therapy room. We live in a time when growing up Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or Pagan doesn’t’ necessarily mean you will BE that as an adult. Many people are either searching for a spiritual system that fits their own personality, or cobbling one together out of several. Many of my clients under thirty-five were brought up by parents who had no spiritual practice or affiliation, who didn’t have the conviction to call themselves atheists, but had, for one reason or another, disavowed organized religion. This phrase “non-believers” catches and holds a lot of people who either firmly don’t believe in God, or don’t believe that there’s one system of faith that has all the answers. This past week, I was amazed at how many of my clients identified with that phrase and how important it was that it was named.

For many of the folks I work with, their spiritual quest rides not in embracing Gods of the Sky or a Goddess of the Earth, but in embracing the strength and sacredness of our common humanity. Obama’s words go far to legitimize this quest as valid and brings us closer to truly seeing each and every person as divine. Even those who don’t believe in divinity.

Thank the Gods for this new president! Or don’t. No matter, we all matter in this new era.

hope and history rhyme

Last night, as I was watching the television coverage of the festivities in Washington, I found myself sobbing yet one more time. How many times in a day can the heart break open, releasing cynicism, letting in joy? I turned the television off and cried a good long time after witnessing Joe Biden quote a line from a poem of the poet Seamus Heaney. As if life wasn't good enough, it turns out our Vice President is the kind of guy who quotes Irish poets.

Brigid is pleased. She can't wait until her feast day to have the whole poem shared..so I'll do that right now.

What poem will I find for February 2nd?

Doubletake

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home

History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
if there's fire on the mountain
or lightning and storm
and a god speaks from the sky.

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.

Seamus Heaney,

Elizabeth Alexander's Poem for Today

I love the tradition of poetry being read at inaugurations. Words are potent, are powerful. They give shape to our thoughts and sensations, they change our consciousness with complex simplicity. Poetry is the mindful/soulful use of words and images. Wasn't this morning poetry itself?

This moning there was an ocean of words and images, coming in waves that brought relentless tears. Poetry was part of today. Today was and is poetry. My family, the cats, the downstair's neighbor and his dog all gathered around our television to bear witness to the change of power. The warm sun of San Francisco streamed in the window, yet we yearned towards the exhilarating cold of Washington. I know that in the future, I will remember feeling and seeing my breath in icy crystals, although the truth is that the only air made visible was the steam rising from my hot coffee. Nevertheless, I know I will remember us all as one, in the cold sharp sparkle of our capitol, cheering for the promissory note that was delivered today.

On Brigid, poetry will fill the blogosphere. Today, poetry spilled across our nation and perhaps, the whole world. I print here Elizabeth Alexander's poem she read at the inauguration. While she read it, the camera went to the crowds, and then, to birds flying above in the cold winter sky.

There is magic in every sentence we begin. There is magic in this poem.

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Invitation to The Fourth Annual Brigid in the Blogosphere Poetry Slam

Feel free to copy the following to your blog and spread the word. Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!

WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2009

WHERE: Your blog

WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day

HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.

RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on this post. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.

Feel free to pass this invitation on to any and all bloggers.

Thank you, Reya, for beginning what is now an annual event.

i'm back

Yes, I'm back in the blogosphere.

It was great to take time out, to slowly stop writing blogs in my head, to free psychic space for internal processing of the big changes at hand. For several weeks now I've stayed, for the most part, off the internet. I've attempted to stay simply dialed down to the home and work front. And, it's been good. I've needed to keep it simple, because right now, things are really complex.

I'm in the business of change, being a therapist and all. Personal transformations are challenging enough, but when we all together are riding a wave of economic, environmental and social change...well, that has me grounding and doing mindful breathing pretty much on an hourly basis.

Some of my friends and clients have lost considerable amounts of money. Some have been laid off and more are dreading upcoming "re-orgs" at their work. Which translates into more lay-offs.

Friends in Portland were snowbound at home for days in December. Here in San Francisco, we've had our windows open and are wearing flipflops in January. And... in the midst of the climate change and financial freefall, excitement is building for the inauguration on Tuesday.

I'm back. It's time to join in with everyone else and celebrate. Change is hard. Really hard. But, miraculously, this election my country didn't resist it, didn't vote to pretend it was not happening. We voted for the kind of change we want, we voted for hope and we voted for getting through the hard changes together.


Sometimes the most unsettling changes are those which are the changes for the better. I know that for sure from my long years as a therapist working with people who are struggling to let in love and trust their fledgling ability to be happy. I know this from the painful stretch of my own human heart to take in just how beautiful and precious life can be.

These next few days, I plan on relishing and savoring our ability to change. I know my heart will be having a healthy workout. Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King. Then, the inauguration.

And now.... I'm going to watch Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger, and a whole bunch of others sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial on television, celebrating the unity of our nation. Even writing that has me shaking my head in wonder.

Martin had a dream. This week, we seem to be living it.

team player

My son spent his summer rising at 5am to get to football practice by 6am. When September came, he went to practice every weekday afternoon until 6pm and sometimes on Saturday mornings as well. Thanksgiving has always been a favorite holiday for him. He usually goes with his father to Oregon and hangs out with beloved cousins. This Thanksgiving, he stayed home. Alone. His team had made the championship for the first time in forty years, and even on Thanksgiving morning, they were on the field, practicing.

I watched all this with parental wonder. I don’t get sports, period. I spent most of my P.E. hours in high school feigning cramps, and I associate football especially with a whole bunch of things I am against. Like running into people and hurting them. I went to his games when he was a freshman and sophomore, patiently waiting for this reactionary phase of being raised by a Pagan - activist - therapist - artist - mom to be over. I imagined that by junior year he might find theater, art or the chess club more his style. But no, here he still is, more dedicated than ever, now on the varsity team.

My son is easy going and perfectly happy to not attend to homework, garbage removal, or room cleaning without maternal threat. Focused, driven, disciplined, and hardworking are not attributes I’d assign to him. And yet, this sport I abhor has brought these traits to light. Is this world not full of mystery?

Last year, on the junior varsity team, he was the quarterback. It took me awhile to get that this position was akin to high priestess, the center of the circle, the Grand Poobah of the game. For awhile, I just understood it to be the position where everyone tries to knock you down. This should have clued me in. This year, on varsity, he was in a different position, and given that he broke his elbow the first week of school, he didn’t play for most of the season, and when he was healed, he was demoted to second string. This means not playing much, if at all, during the games.

Nevertheless, even with the broken elbow, he went faithfully to every practice and to every game. Standing on the sidelines, he’d watch and cheer on his teammates. He stayed home during Thanksgiving, knowing that odds were good that he might not play that Saturday, the game that would decide if they would be in the final championship. He ended up being in the game for about five minutes, and thankfully, they won.

Last weekend was the final championship. Again, he was in the game for mere minutes, and again, they won. He is now part of a championship team, the first time his school has held this position.

And I, his mother, am amazed at the way things can unfold. My son, the football player, turns out to hold at sixteen a whole slew of values, and to practice them, in a way that I have spent a lifetime aspiring to. He is the quintessential team player, not doing it for the glory or the ego, but the experience of being part of the whole. He got up early in the mornings, practiced late into the afternoons, and forfeited all kinds of fun, making peace with being primarily on the sidelines.

Soon, he will receive a championship ring, something I hope he wears proudly for a lifetime. He is a champion of a season that he primarily could not play, and when he could, he didn’t play much. Not being the star or the Grand Poobah, he nevertheless, kept showing up. Throughout his life, my wish is that his ring reminds him of this mighty accomplishment.

His smile, upon his team winning, is the one every parent hopes to see on their child’s face.

A few nights ago, we went to see one of his friends perform the lead role in the school’s production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. All during the performance I relished my contentment. Things are just as they should be, although in a different form than I could ever imagine. And isn’t that just how it should be?

American Dream

The arc of the moral universe is long,
But it bends toward justice.
-Abolitionist Theodore Parker, c. 1850's

I slept away the holiday visit to my spouse's family in Philadelphia. I managed to stay awake for Thanksgiving and the day afterward, but then I surrendered to the fierce cold I'd been battling and took to my bed. My hotel room bed, that is.

It would have been surreal in the best of health, this visit to new "in-laws" who clearly aren't anywhere close to accepting this as true. Homophobia is as potent in its silences as it in its taunts.

Spending two of the four days sleeping tipped it over into pure dream time. There was genius in the timing of the cold, as it excused me from half of the family get-togethers. I arose from my fever dreams just in time to participate in packing up and going home.

My dreams in Philadelphia were full of phantoms of two United States of America. One is a place of doublespeak and lies, a nightmare in a house of mirrors. It’s place where promises of independence, freedom and equality are made by a privileged few and meant only for the privileged few. The other is the America where the documents created in Independence Hall are mighty spells, cast out over centuries, a place where consciousness unfolds as the spell of the words take hold, eventually holding every one of us…all the people. The times I awoke amidst my clammy sheets, I always felt a wave of relief to see Obama still on the cover of the tossed newspaper on a chair.

On Friday, in a junk shop in south Philly I bought an American flag pin. I was feeling good that day, in the company of an old friend, and my spouse was giving us her version of a city tour. Philadelphia was the epicenter of the American Revolution. It was here where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were forged and signed, and it was here that Betsy Ross sewed the first flag. Buying the little flag in a store in South Philly, run by an Italian-American who left his family's business selling fish to follow his dream of running a junk store, felt as right as it did strange and dreamlike.

For all the years that I can remember, anyone wearing an American flag was sure to be against anything that I was for. Growing up in the 1960's, the flag symbolized the sentiment of "love it or leave it". As a teenager I perceived our founding fathers as hypocrites; slaveholders who fought for their own rights, leaving women and all people of color behind. As a young feminist even the term “founding fathers” set my teeth on edge.

And yet, here in Philadelphia, I found myself buying a flag and pinning it on. Could it be this small act contributed to two days spent in fevered dreamtime?

Symbols are magical things. They stir the imagination and shift consciousness. I notice how I want to add some other symbol to my little flag, like maybe put it in the middle of a bigger peace sign, how I fear wearing it I will be perceived as a right-wing bigot or simply stupid. The American flag waved through my dreams in Philadelphia, in both shadow and light. The ghosts of those old rebels whispered to me, giving me some idea of what Betsy’s sewing meant to them, familiar colors stitched into a revolution. "Mistakes were made", I dreamt Ben Franklin saying, and we laughed together. This is something I know about. Like those founding fathers, we all have blinders on due to our own cultural contexts, and I trust that future generations will have plenty to take us to task for. Consciousness unfurls itself over time.

I’m back in San Francisco and I haven’t worn my little pin yet. But I’m getting more comfortable with it. You might even say I’m reclaiming it as my own.

Anything can happen in a lifetime.

blue light

Last night, as my spouse and I were driving across the city to go to my son's football game, we passed city hall. It was bathed in blue light. We'd never seen this before, and both wondered what it meant. To me, it looked like our city hall was lit with the blue fire I learned way back when to cast circles with, the blue fire of magic. It felt strange, it felt out of the ordinary, it felt a little weird. Magic can be like that.

Today I will be getting on my bike and riding over to city hall to take part in standing up for my unalienable rights with queers and our allies across the country. I know now why the city hall was bathed in blue light. It is the blue light of transformation. It is the blue light of magic. And it is spreading.

We, the People

"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."

These are Barack Obama's words. Look and feel what they spell out. What spell they cast. Check out the website for the transition - change.gov

Patriotism was just reclaimed. My teenage son said last night how weird he feels, as it is the first time in his life he is feeling proud to be an American. It both feels like we are in a dream, and that we've waken up.

The American Dream just expanded into something completely different than the selfishness of the past decades. It no longer is a nightmare.

We, the People. All of Us. Obama, you can count on me to be serving. I am for this dream.

the truth is self-evident

Yesterday morning, as my spouse (and using that word is a spell) was sobbing, she kept repeating "why do they hate us so much?".

I told her...amidst my own tears.... that it wasn't so much hate as fear. Fear of difference, fear of change, fear of sexuality, and fear of all of us being fully in our power. Love is the antidote and it will prevail. Harvey Milk was right when he said we must "come out, come out, wherever you are".

I've been a therapist for many years and have worked with countless folks in the coming out process.The coming out process is essentially iron pentacle work. It involves reclaiming sex, pride, self, power and passion. The process of becoming self actualized means all of us, straight or gay, come out in one way or another. All of us go through a process of claiming our authentic selves, a process that never truly ends. Those of us who are queer, well, we have a bit of a rougher road to hoe in coming out.

For many, coming out means standing up to extreme prejudice and fear. Some lose their families completely. That does happen. But a lot of times, love triumphs...or at the least occasionally gets the upperhand over fear.

I've personally experienced this. My spouse's family actively struggles between the poles of love and fear, and my son struggles with his love for me and my spouse and teenage fear of
embarrassment and ridicule from peers.

Last Sunday, as my son hugged me and my spouse, with a big smile on his face, I felt love triumph. He said our wedding "was tight". He became less afraid. Knowing gay/queer/lesbian/transgender people makes people become less afraid. Especially when so many of us are so damn likable.

There have been long years of fear of women and people of color having rights and a claim to power. Imagining all people sharing power and sharing equal rights has always been a revolutionary act. And it's a revolution we've steadily been winning. Tuesday night we won a
crucial battle and I am choosing to believe that victory is in sight. The slave owners who started the American revolution cast a spell with their words;

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

That spell led to Obama being our president...it will lead to equal rights for the LGBT community. Obama cast his own spell by saying "gay and straight" in his speech. Our words hold power. What we spell out is certainly a spell. We shall overcome. Yes, we can.

I am choosing to believe that the losses in California, Arizona, and Arkansas will bring victory sooner than later. The absurdity of taking away our right to marry, the obscenity of passing laws that won't let us adopt because we can't marry, makes it perfectly clear in that we need federal protection of our rights. Discriminating against us is unconstitutional. Before Coretta Scott King died, she clearly stated that gay rights is a civil rights issue. Because, it is.

I choose to believe that soon, that even the churches/temples will change because it will no longer make sense to most people that their Creator would not give the same unalienable rights to the children they love. My ex's mother left the Morman church when her daughter
came out, because the fear of gays no longer made sense. Coming out changes the face of culture, and we are in the throes of change.

The truth is self evident. The American Revolution is not over yet.

On Tuesday night, I once again became proud to be part of it.

you may say I'm a dreamer

but, I'm not the only one.

This morning I woke to my new spouse (we married on Sunday) crying
beside me. She'd woken up, checked the news, and discovered that
proposition 8 here in California had passed....which bans gay
marriage. Last week, this city was full not only of the Samhain dead,
but full of gay weddings. It has been legal here for the last couple
of months. Today that has changed.

Last night we cried in joy and intense gratitude. The streets of San
Francisco were full of happy crying people. The election was not
stolen, and America woke up.

I am still exhilarated, still full of gratitude. And, full of resolve.

I know that in my lifetime there will be full civil rights for gay and
lesbians in this country. I can fully imagine it.

I cried too, this morning. But in my tears
there was joy. The tide has turned. Barack Obama included gays in his speech
last night.

Anything can happen if we imagine it.

Today....I am thanking all the dreamers who have ever dared to imagine.


Thank you.

the veil is thin

Today is officially Samhain, but who can tell the difference! The veil has been sliver thin all week. Heck, for way more than a week!

Last week the Chronicle photographer came over to photograph my house for the usual little article on real Witches and Halloween. I knew the dead were really here when my sister from Santa Cruz "just happpened" (like there's such a thing as coincidence!) to drop by. She ended up holding the martini glass that goes on the altar for my father. We laughed heartily, agreeing he really wanted to get his picture in the paper this year. And, usually the martini goes on Samhain night. This year, he wanted that drink ahead of time. Who can blame him!

The little article turned out to be a BIG article, with plenty of my dead being clearly featured. The martini got plenty of play as well. Good magic, as my plea this year was that they put their shoulder to the wheel of positive change. My father was a Republican who wrote JFK and apologized for voting for the wrong guy. Doing what he can on the other side of the veil this year to get the right guy in seems like a fine amend.

Last Saturday we did a Dinner with the Dead at Martin de Porres, the soup kitchen that Thorn has volunteered at for years. We decorate the room with sugar skulls, novenas with pictures of our dead on them, and cover the tables with black tablecloths. It's a potluck where the dishes are all food our dead and ancestors loved. We cast a simple circle and eat and toast to our dead. There's an altar in the middle of the room with a cauldron for donations to the project we want to magically support.

This year, the turnout was modest, but the magic potent. We were raising money for three projects aimed at building magical community; Fool's Journey, Solar Cross, and Stone City. The cauldron exceeded out expectations. All projects are now fed by both the living and the dead.

Today the fog is weighing heavy on Twin Peaks. It's sprinkling rain. My house is full of friends from England, one who will be initiated tomorrow morning, making a commitment to the Mysterious Ones to be their priestess. Perhaps we will dance with the dead in the Headlands tonight or perhaps we will stay comfortably dry inside, sharing sips of the bitter cup of death that I drink once a year and actually find quite tasty.

Whatever we do, the dead are here. And, my guess, is like the living, more than one of them need more than a stiff drink to get through the next week.

i am hoping and i am praying

let us hope.

let us pray.

let us remember that things can change.

for the better.

they can.

right?

Judy and I are registered with Against Prop. 8

Eight lesbian bloggers have come together in a coordinated effort to help place the discriminatory ballot initiative called Proposition 8 in its rightful place in the dust heap of history.

Just another reason to love the blogosphere. They are almost half way there.

Thank you,

Grace Chu and Grace Rosen - Grace The Spot

Lori Hahn - Hahn At Home

Kelly Leszczynski - The Lesbian Lifestyle

Dorothy Snarker - Dorothy Surrenders

Pam Spaulding - Pam’s House Blend

Sinclair - Sugarbutch Chronicles

Riese - This Girl Called Automatic Win

Renee Gannon - Lesbiatopia

Thank you. It's a damn fine wedding present.

an auspicious day

I sometimes really do feel like I am living in dreamtime. Yesterday was one of those days.

I had an appointment at city hall at 12 to get a marriage license. That in itself feels dreamlike….especially since that civil right may be voted away on the 5^th of November. As I slid into the parking spot that miraculously opened up right in front, a commercial against Proposition 8 was playing on the radio. The words were ringing in my head as I entered the hall full of gay and lesbian couples, looking for my partner. Here we all were, in this strange place between the worlds, going through motions that in a few weeks time may be denied other couples. Or not.

We found each other and took our place in a long line of stories. Everyone had one, and most were telling them. The man next to me told me about his cancer, and how he thought he’d never live to marry his partner. The cancer is in remission, and the wedding will take place in the Victory Garden in front of city hall. We told him about the Victory Garden in our back yard, and how we felt so grateful to have been chosen by this project. I breathed into the very words – Victory Garden.

With so much on the line right now, breathing into those two words felt useful, felt auspicious.

We signed the papers, got the license, and left. Judy went back to work, and I went home to meet the photographer from the Chronicle who was coming to do a photo shoot about Pagan decorating for Samhain. Fern had described me to a reporter as the Pagan Martha Stewart. The reporter had called and interviewed me a few days before. Helpfully, my teenage son would occasionally holler out things like “Don’t believe it, it’s really all about devil worship!” I explained to the reporter that having a teenager, no matter if you are Christian, Buddhist, or Pagan, seems to be universally the same. Your teenager believes everything you believe in sucks. And, they are rude. Mine is both rude and funny.

My sister was going to be spending the night in town, and she showed up just as the photographer was finishing up, just in time for us both to take part in a photo focusing on the part of my altar where our father is honored. I’m convinced our dad is doing his part for the election, that all the dead I’m working with are doing their part. The fact that this year’s altar might find its way into the paper feels as auspicious as the words Victory Garden. It will be interesting which names on the skulls and which photos on the candles make their way into the paper. Will Jeremy? Will Cora? Susan North? Paul Newman?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so anxious about feeling things are auspicious. And yesterday, that feeling just built and built.

After a good dinner, we set out to a Patti Smith concert. Judy had gotten the tickets weeks back…just another reason I love her. She is not the fan I am, and had told me if the music was too loud, she might leave. She knows I am crazy wild for Patti Smith, who gets played full blast along with Leonard Cohen, when I’m up in my art studio. She turned to me at one point, with tears in her eyes, and said it was the best concert she’s ever been to. And she’s a picky musician.

Patti had come to play for us because it was Arthur Rimbaud’s birthday and because this is San Francisco. And she was casting a spell. That was clear. She was in full shaman mode and we were transfixed, drawn into the magic that was being woven. She was putting her shoulder to the wheel of change, demanding that we all do the same. Putting our energy into actively and mindfully voting for change we can live with…auspicious change. Rimbaud was invoked and so were many other of Beloved Dead. At one point, the crowd was shouting out the names of musicians, writers and artists who have died this year, and I felt the dead filling the room, giving their spirits to us taking a particular turn at this mighty crossroads of change.

It was a full day, an auspicious day, a day where the air itself vibrated with possibility.

What will these next weeks be like? It’s hard to imagine.

the Arrival of the Beloved Dead

Today is day two of sugar skull decorating at my open studio...an open studio I share with my friends Ivory Fly, Gwydion, and Bart. Strangers drop in to see what kind of art is being created in the neighborhood, and so do old and new friends. It feels a bit like opening day for the dead...their first event of the season. Amidst the art, there always is an altar to them, and of course, the sugar skull decorating.

Soon I will be sitting at a table decorating sugar skulls again. I have more names of the dead to put on them. As I do it, the dead draw closer. My favorite moment yesterday is when Kore, Maia and Julian, three children I am fond of, were decorating the skulls. I think the dead ESPECIALLY like skulls made by kids.

pictures instead of words

I can't seem to write much this time of year. Maybe it's the overwhelming cacophony of words, opinions and predictions that are filling the air. Who needs even more? Maybe it's been a time to focus in a different way. I've been making art and getting lettuce seeds sprouting. Maybe it's been a time to focus too on my son and hearth and home. There's been long talks and a new ease between us. In any case, I'll let pictures be the bulk of my words.

My friend Jeremy was beginning to actively die at this time last year. This was the moment we all began to face that he was crossing over. I was painfully aware last October that this year I would be writing his name in frosting on a sugar skull.

This week I am finishing up on the spirit bottle I have been making him. It has on it a slew of beads, baubles, shells and stones that his family and friends dedicated to him. On it too are the buttons his mother wore constantly up until his death.





What is remembered lives. There's a lot of living and remembering going on around me. Here is my altar...still in process.

And here are the sugar skulls, just beginning to be decorated.

Soon, they will all have names on them. If you have a name of someone dear, let me know. There's plenty of skulls this year. There's plenty of dead to remember.

I'm hoping these dead all have some pull at the election. I know Jeremy does.

Official Battle in Seattle Movie Trailer

Go see this if it is your town. If it isn't...ask for it to be there.

It starts with a banner hang which we Witches were instrumental in creating. We helped put it together, we trained the climbers in working with the elements, I drove them to the action, and many of us were below grounding this action and working magic. Amazingly, the weather held until the climbers began to come down, and then a gentle rain started.

The next few days history was made. My friend Patrick says "it's not the story of the battle, it's the battle for the story".

This film tells some of our story.

I'll be celebrating that tonight in San Francisco.

The Battle in Seattle

I haven't blogged in awhile. Sometimes it is good to take a break. Last time I wrote I asked for help concerning keeping my son safe. Help seemed to come. One night I looked in his room at him asleep (a favorite pastime of parents) with his cat, Mr. Tickles. For a split second I thought he was curled up with a tiger, both sleeping peacefully, the tiger clearly an ally.

All around us there are shootings and murder, much more than usual. Our neighborhood is erupting with gang violence. But our home feels safe, and my son seems at ease. We've had good talks about violence, about choice, about taking stands, and about walking away from fruitless danger.

Meanwhile, I've read long reports from old friends who were putting themselves in harms way trying to block delegates from entering the Republican National Convention. The reports back have me thinking on when and why I am willing to put myself at high risk of violence. The reports back have me thinking a lot on the current state of activism and magic and wondering what we can do that would be effective, strategic and actually defuse violence.

This is the perfect time for the movie The Battle In Seattle to come out. I am taking my son this weekend. It will give us a lot more to talk about. I got arrested in Seattle and by being on those streets I put myself in harm's way. I would do it again in a heart beat, meaning I have absolutely no regrets and if we could unwind time, I'd make the same decision to do it at that time in that place. At this time, you couldn't have paid me to be on the streets during the Republican Convention.

This movie goes far to explain why. It tells of a time and a place and a spirit. It also points out how things have changed since. We need new strategies, that is clear. It is full of major movie stars, but it doesn't have the backing of a major studio. If you go see it, you'll know why. It getting distributed widely depends on how many people see it this first week.

Change has been invoked so many times in this election that now, no matter who wins, change is sure to come. Seeing this movie is one small thing to do that just may be effective and strategic in bringing change in service of the life force. And you don't have to risk getting tasered or tear gassed.

Plus, if you are here in San Francisco on Friday night, come meet up with a bunch of us at the movies....Landmark cinema at the Embarcadero.

BATTLE IN SEATTLE MOVIE
Opening Night

Change Everything (again!)

http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com

WHEN:
Opens Friday, September 19

WHERE:
Landmark Embarcadero Theater
1 Embarcadero Center Cinema
Promenade Level
San Francisco, CA 94111
http://www.landmarktheaters.com

SHOWTIMES
12:00 p, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30*, 10:10 pm

*NOTE: 7:30 is currently sold out but we have 100 tickets for sale.
please rsvp with Emma: emmatree02@yahoo.com

TICKETS:
Selling out - Buy your movie tickets now:
http://www.moviefone.com/search/battle%20in%20seattle

More screens may be added.

Group tickets: (866) 758-1258
25 or more receive a 20% discount

Map to Theater:
http://www.embarcaderocenter.com/ec/about/directions.html#maps

Friday, September 19
7:30 pm - Midnight
Westin SF Market Hotel Ballroom
50 Third Street, San Francisco

Schedule:

7:30 pm Doors Open/Hors D'oevres/Drinks
9:00 pm Honoring Veteran Activists from Seattle

9:30 pm Welcoming the Next Generation

10:00 pm Dancing & More Partying

Complimentary drinks and food from 7:30 pm - Midnight

ENTRY:
Please show your Battle in Seattle ticket for party entry.
Can be a Friday ticket stub or a Saturday/Sunday order.

Hotel Rooms RSVP:
First come first serve for guests who have purchased 2+ tickets.
Please bring proof of purchase.
Rsvp for one free hotel room to:
Veronica Carnero at 5actionsnow@gmail.com

HOST COMMITTEE:
Harold Linde, Mike Brune, Lisa Conte, Emma Cramp, Kevin Danaher, Claire Greensfelder, Randy Hayes, Matt Leonard, Jerry Mander, Marianne Manilov, Lora O'Connor, Jeremy Paster (in memorial), Ahmed Rahim, John Sellers, Thomas Van Dyck, Tad Walker, Nadine Weil

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS:

5 Actions (a Project of EarthWays)

Global Exchange
Greenpeace
International Forum on Globalization
Rainforest Action Network
Ruckus Society

THANKS TO:
Numi Tea
ChicoBags

MOVIE:
A feature film by Stuart Townsend
http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com

Battle in Seattle this weekend:

---------------

www.5actions.com
www.battleinseattlemovie.com

"You Are About To Change Everything!"

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

Thomas Jefferson

a call for help

“There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible"
Atticus Finch

It lives close by. For the few, it’s kept at bay for a lifetime. For most of us, there is at least one close encounter and many near misses. For all of us, from birth to death, it lurks within our peripheral vision, with its ubiquitous threat.

Violence.

I grew up in household where it seemed to explode out of nowhere, rocking the house and shaking me to the core. This was during the decade where it also came through the television in relentless waves. At seven I witnessed my President’s killer shot dead in real time in black and white. My generation grew up with that hopeless little screen pulsing it to us directly, uncensored and unfiltered.

As an adult, my body has felt its impact only when I’ve faced it down. Taking action against it often has meant putting myself in its way and wake. I’ve been shoved, hit, choked, and gassed as a result of peacefully standing up for a more peaceful world.

The past few weeks I’ve worked with others who have recently done the same. From the therapist chair I’ve witnessed the confusion, fear and pain that are wrought by a sudden encounter with violence. Can you ever really prepare for the visit? When I did trainings in civil disobedience, I thought so. Certainly it helps to find a resoluteness of spirit and connect to something bigger than yourself. But, there is always a toll taken, a scar on the soul if not the body.

This week my son had an encounter with violence. His best friend was beaten and kicked repeatedly in the head, while my son ran and called the police. His friend is alive, with no major damage, and three gang members are in jail, two of them adults. My sixteen year old son has replayed the encounter many times, questioning whether he should have stayed and fought. That’s what boys are supposed to do, to put up their dukes and fight for their friends. He’s my son, and he did not fight. He called for help, and help came.

Now I question whether he should to stand up against violence, to bear witness against it, and in doing so, possibly bring it on in full force against us. Tuesday we meet with a district attorney who specializes in gang violence to assess what ramifications my son testifying could have. I think I already know.

I have believed it’s important to try and do as little harm as possible in traversing life and to do what I can to devoke violence and face it down. That’s why I like the Wiccan Rede. That’s why I have no truck with calling myself a warrior. Because I have the power to heal, I know I could also hex. True strength means not doing so.

Like my son, I won’t put up my fists on this. But, damn, I sure as hell am calling out for help.

One world, one dream.

The slogan for this year’s Olympics is “One World, One Dream”. A perfect slogan, a perfect spell for us to invoke.

The Olympics seize our imagination in that they are a direct tie to the old gods. The Olympics are also a coming together of humans in our divine bodies...taking those bodies - from all the countries of the globe - to their limits, and celebrating what we humans are capable of. Hercules is said to have been the founder of the games, and one of the stated purposes of the games is to promote global unity and “sound minds in sound bodies”.

They have historically also held a foreshadowing of things to come and/or mirror what is happening on our planet. Think of the 1968 games or the games that were held in Germany before the holocaust. Think of Munich. The Olympics serve to bring the world’s attention together and into focus. There’s a kind of magic in the choice of the city that will be the focus of that attention at what time.

At the Olympics, the whole world….or at least a heck of a lot of it…actually IS watching.

These games are held in Beijing. They are in a polluted city in a country strong with economic clout and record wreckage of the environment. And countless human rights violations. I am imagining and I am invoking that as the world focuses in on the games, we as a world begin to truly dream together.

This is a time to actively dream and envision what we want the future to look like.

I have dear friends who are in Beijing working energy and planning actions to invoke the dream of a free Tibet becoming a waking reality. I dream that they are successful and unharmed. I dream a free Tibet. I dream all rivers in the world running as clean and clear as the pure air we all are breathing. I dream we as a species begin to truly value sound minds in sound bodies. I dream we wake up.

One World. One Dream.

What are you adding to the dream?

mission accomplished!

I love it when magic works!!! And it always does. I especially love it when the fates/elements dance along with me in the way I requested on the multi-versal dance card…only just a tad more delightfully. Yes. That happened last weekend.

From Friday night to Sunday afternoon I was with a group of my friends in Sonoma planning the restorative retreat – A Fool’s Journey – that we are creating for right after fall equinox. My wish was that the planning session contain within it what we intend the restorative to be; both deeply satisfying and restorative. Check!!!! Mission Accomplished!

Somehow we managed to question and theologically pull apart everything we usually do in ritual and at witchcamps, put it back together in ways that suited all of us, open to inspiration and watch it come, take that inspiration and plan several rituals , structure the retreat and when things would be offered, swim, read, go on walks, cook, and feast. And somehow, doing all of this was profoundly easy, spacious, and relaxing.

A swimming pool and a nicely appointed kitchen really helped. Not to mention the many allies that were swirling around, happy to help us in our work. Below is a picture of the swimming pool at the retreat center. It somewhat resembles the pool we were in and out of all weekend.

So…now my wish/intent is that the actual retreat be as easy, spacious, and relaxing as our planning weekend. It’s on your dance card, multi-verse! I’m prepared to be delighted.

It was a darn good Lammas. Completely delicious.

A Plum of a Lammas

The fruit hang heavy on the old plum tree in the back yard. Tomorrow morning I will pick a bucketful to share. I’ll be spending the weekend in Sonoma with friends, planning the restorative we are offering at fall equinox – A Fool’s Journey.

Tomorrow is Lammas, a cross-quarter marker in the turning of the seasons that Witches and Pagans hold sacred. A year ago I was grieving an old friend’s death and feeling the harbingers of the increasing dark. This year Lammas finds me harvesting fruit, celebrating good work done, and tending the planting for a further harvest.

Just this week, a project/revolution I envisioned well over a year ago was finally fully manifested. The Reclaiming web page now has in it’s resource section a huge list of blogs and webpages. Furthermore, there is even a widget we can add to our blogs that streams in new entries.

Taking this juicy success, along with my plums, to the retreat this weekend is satisfying beyond words. I am hopeful I can sustain that feeling throughout and beyond the weekend.

After years of teaching “intensives”, I am looking forward to being part of creating a “restorative”. Teaching Witchcamp intensives has historically involved meeting for a few days before the camp. Holed up in someone’s living room or basement, teachers meet for hours and hours upon end, breaking only to eat and minimally stretch, than back to meeting. Oh, and usually at least two of the people are completely jet lagged. Out of this comes an overview of the week’s rituals, most usually scrapped by day two or three when the magic takes a different turn. However, the intensity of the meetings does forge a bond between the teachers that at best creates a solid team. At worst, all the irritations and power struggles between the teachers creates a template for that week’s interpersonal drama.

I’m hopeful that the planning of this restorative in itself follows a different pattern than planning an intensive. No one will be jet lagged. We don't have the crunch of planning for a camp that starts in three days. We will be talking around and in a pool, modeling the sacred lounging I hope to invoke at the restorative. No doubt there will be some interpersonal struggles and/or small irritations, but we all know each other pretty well and nobody in the group tends to run with scissors. And...what's the problem with community? People. We are the fly in our own ointment. That's a given.

There’s so many ways to practice magic.

One of them is by growing, harvesting, sharing and eating plums.

The Internet Dances in the Aquarian Age

As Bowie sung, "Let's Dance."

Yes, across this green globe, let's dance.

Thank you, Matt Harding and friends. You know that heaven is under your feet and it is here and here and here.

the spell of the staycation

This past weekend I embarked on what hopefully will be the beginning of an annual tradition. I went on a staycation; staying close to home but experiencing it from a different angle. Traveling a few short miles across the Golden Gate, I took the first turnoff, and checked in at the newly restored Fort Baker, now called “Cavallo Point”.

What better way to spend the fourth of July than at the transformed army base in my backyard? For three blissful days I inhabited a world where soldier housing and marching grounds have morphed into a restorative retreat center, complete with a healing center, spa, and basking pool. What was once a new military base in 1905 is now a new luxurious eco hotel in 2008. I spent the weekend living and envisioning a world in which military bases become obsolete and are converted into retreat and educational centers.

I went on my staycation with my girlfriend and two other queer San Francisco couples. This, too, was part of the magic. Three years ago, three of us were becoming friends, and all of us were single. This staycation was the first outing for us together as couples. The ghosts and spirits of place seemed happy to welcome us, and I felt the power of three in the relaxed way that conversation flowed, laughter erupted, and we eased into time alone and together.

On the Fourth of July, we walked up the hill as the night fell to find a place to watch the fireworks and happened on a spot where we could see them from Sausalito, Napa, Marin, Berkeley, Oakland, and just barely over the fog of San Francisco. Fireworks behind fog look and sound like a city under siege…like bombs bursting in air. Watching my beloved city across the water being eerily lit in red and fog, like smoke, swirling with each boom was an experience I won’t soon forget. Especially given that I was watching this while so much of our state is still burning.

Usually I spend the fourth of July at home, where the Mission district looks and sounds like a war zone. My guess is my neighborhood would win hands down in the contest for most illegal and dodgy number of fireworks going off per block. I watch anxiously from my deck, hoping and praying that sparks don’t fall and catch my roof on fire, making sure the hose is within easy reach. Meanwhile, the sound and light of explosions is constant in the night sky as well as the sound of police sirens going this way and that.

Standing on the hill across the bay, flowers of fire blooming above the hills across the bay in all directions, explosions lighting the city behind a dark fog bank, I wasn’t worried about where the hose was and I wasn’t on edge hearing howls of terrified neighborhood dogs. From across the bay, I was awestruck. We entertain others for miles with brilliant and inventive fireworks. We remodel forts into hotels serving up organic fare from local farms. Our creativity seems limitless. Breathing into that night sky, I prayed for peace and I prayed for transformations of all kinds, beyond my imagining.

Three lesbian couples go a few miles from home, with the tip of the Golden Gate always in sight and the city shimmering in view according to the whim of the moving curtains of fog. At least once an hour there is an exclamation of gratitude from somebody for the beauty we surrounded by, and by the incredible feeling of peace that emanates from this renovated fort. We watch fireworks together, imagining a future where fireworks are the only man-made explosions that light up the sky of cities and towns around the world. We laugh, feast, throw the tarot, take hikes and bask around the pool. We love.

There’s many ways to do spell work. The best is living it.

Life is a Bridge

It’s been an action packed solstice season. After spending that evening contentedly feasting and conversing with some of my magical family, I crossed the Bay Bridge to go back home. Right after Treasure Island, the traffic slowed down and soon after my car became engulfed in noxious fumes. Several motorists started yelling “Lady, your car is on fire!” The moon was bright and full above the bridge, and the night was unusually warm. Everything was beautiful, except of course that my car was smoking to high heavens in the middle of a traffic jam. We all survived, the car included, but it was hard on both the nerves and the bank account. What I remember most vividly that night, besides the smell of my burning car, is just how exquisitely breathtaking the moon was above the city and how the bay was sparkling with light.

I was going to write so much more, but I think I’ll stop with what happened that night, because, really, what more needs to be said? Pretty much everything that has happened before and since could be encoded into the living dream of my solstice night. I have pleasant encounters with people I love, I've gone forward and gotten stuck, something dramatic happens, it costs me, and somehow, eventually, I go forward again, with plenty of slowing down and breaking/braking to eat good food and enjoy the company of those I love. And, through it all, the sun or moon is high above, and there’s beauty all around.

a poem I found this solstice

SUMMER SOLSTICE,
BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA


The war had turned inward until it resembled
suicide. The only soothing thing was water.
I passed the sentries, followed the surf out of sight.
I would sink into the elements, become simple.

Surf sounds like erasure, over and over.
I lay down and let go, the way you trust an animal.
When I opened my eyes, all down the strand
small crabs, the bright yellow of a crayon,

had come out onto the sand. Their numbers, scattered,
resembled the galactic spill and volume of the stars.
I, who had lain down alone, emptied,
waked at the center of ten thousand prayers.

Who would refuse such attention. I let it sweeten me
back into the universe. I was alive, in the midst

of great loving, which is all I've ever wanted.
The soldiers of both sides probably wanted just this.

- Marilyn Krysl

love conquers all

One great thing about great loves is that just when you think you couldn’t be more in love, you find yourself turning it up another notch. Today, my love affair with this city called San Francisco went up to eleven.

Standing in the morning light in the rotunda of City Hall, with the bust of Harvey Milk beaming at me, I, for the second time this lifetime, performed a wedding ceremony for my friends Morgaine and Lann. It was nineteen years ago today that I handfasted them on the beach at Point Reyes in Northern California. Afterwards, the wedding party went back to their Lagunitas home to feast and celebrate into the night. I still can remember the mountain of summer strawberries. Today, there was no feast or party afterward, except for the cupcakes that were given to each couple when they received a marriage license and the cheer that went up when they flashed it to the crowd that was waiting outside of City Hall. My friends were legalizing something that had come to fruit many years back. We took only a few hours off this morning to get it done. But, those few hours proved to be potent.

I didn’t expect to cry so much. Is there any force quite as powerful as love? The slyness of it never ceases to amaze me. I invoke love often, but still, so often it sneaks up on me. The way the heart seems to catch, and then expand, the welling up of inexplicable tenderness…it comes when it will, and I should have expected it to hit me like tidal wave today, but somehow, I didn’t. No matter how often invoked, there's no way to prepare for when it truly comes and for the workout it gives the heart when it fully inhabits it. There's a reason some pray on their knees. When love overtakes you, it both exalts and drops you down.

Last night, watching the news, my girlfriend sobbed watching Del and Phyliss make their vows. I was moved, but was also savoring what Jewelle Gomez, a black lesbian who got married last round when it was an act of civil disobedience and wasn’t going to this round when it has become legal, recently said; “Just because we sat in at Woolworths didn’t mean we liked the food”.

But there I was today, crying my eyes out in the rotunda, my heart opening like a golden gate, falling all over again in love with San Francisco, in awe of the craziness of licensing love, and the exquisite wackiness of humans and their rituals. A Pagan Priestess legally marrying her lesbian friends in the rotunda of City Hall, with cameras clicking and love conquering all.

I live in a city that has a bust of a gay rights activist smack dab in the middle of City Hall. He caught and held my eye in the midst of it all. I think that golden idol was as alive as anything. He was smiling today.

I am too.

a movement or a market?

"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." Philosopher Eric Hoffer

An aspect of embracing a magical life that I love is that when I'm musing on something, the world tends to jump in to engage in conversation with me. I open books to just the right passage, or overhear conversations that illuminate my thinking. Yesterday I opened the latest copy of The Week to the quote above. Perfect!

Like anything, it doesn't hold the whole truth, but doesn't it speak to something we've all seen? It certainly speaks to what's been going on in my head about three communities I inhabit which are movement/cause based.

This month is Pride month in San Francisco. My girlfriend is an organizer for the Dyke March. What makes the Dyke March both a difficult and a worthy thing to put on is that it's put on completely free of corporate sponsorship. And, they've had offers. Big Ones. The Pride parade is brimming with corporate advertising, and this month there is money to be made in hawking rainbow colored tote bags, hats, and other assorted trinkets from China. I don't think the cause for rights for the LGBT community could ever degenerate totally into a racket, but certainly there are rackets to be developed along the way. If we continue to hold onto our right to be legally married, you can bet there will be a tide of queer wedding and divorce rackets rising up. There's truth that in movements gaining popularity, there's good and bad money to be made.

My post on narcissism got picked up and widely spread throughout the internet Feri community. Feri is a tradition of magic, which I suppose could be called a movement. It started out small, and now is gaining some popularity. Like when Reclaiming was gaining steam, I'm seeing a growing number of people attempting to teach Feri as a career. . My post prompted some great questions, including if the wand system and the idea of a Grand Master draw people to the tradition that are prone to narcissism and needing to feel special. These "merit badges" hold meaning for many, but I'm not alone in fearing they bring us closer towards rackets. I love and respect the holder of the Black Wand I know, but I foresee a day when the business of teaching Feri will degenerate into the racket of selling black wand training to any students who can pay the price.

While this respectful discussion was going on in Feri cyberspace, there was a discussion in the Reclaiming community that came at this from another angle. Reclaiming is a tradition of magic that strives to be a movement and has causes aplenty. Over a year ago I'd suggested that links to blogs by community members go up on the tradition's web page. My suggestion got no argument, but no action either.

Suggesting it again, in response to a request for teachers to send in new or revised links to their pages, created a brouhaha that shed light for me on the split within that community. The main arguments against it were; the webpage is a kind of "front porch" and shouldn't lead to any of our dirty laundry being displayed, reading blogs that say anything critical of Reclaiming would prematurely end the "honeymoon phase" for those new to the tradition, and, last but not least, the web page is for "marketing". Thankfully, for my side of the split, there was a swell of voices who wanted the web page to be a community resource and not purely a recruitment tool. It looks like a list of blogs will go up, and my guess is that they won't affect business as usual in Reclaiming, but maybe they will slow down the degeneration into it becoming simply one more racket.

Writing this, I realize that actually there are four of my communities this discussion is pertinent to. Blogging in itself is a movement. It's a movement I've loved being in, with its different voices and multitude of individual stories, for the most part not selling anything. There are those who have turned it into a business, and my guess is there are plenty of rackets out there too. But what I have appreciated in the blogosphere is being able to access stories of peoples lives and their thoughts and opinions devoid of the motive of profit.

The moment that occurs when there is money to be made in a movement or cause is an important one. That's a moment to seize and really stretch out. I don't know if there is any way to stop the slide into racketeering, but perhaps there are ways to slow it down.

The Dyke March, blogs without advertising, respectful discussions on community e-lists, and websites that are a community resource and not advertising copy, these things slow down the degeneration into the racket which is the predominate culture. But, I'm sad to say, even the Dyke March is selling tote bags this year from China.

Oh, well.

please and thank you

There should be a name for that moment right before you get news that could change your life. Don’t we all know that moment, know that feeling? The phone rings in the middle of the night, and before we pick it up, we have it. We hold the envelope in our hands and it comes on strong. It is fear, but also something else, particular unto itself. Many times that moment is actually hours, if not days. We wait for the results of the biopsy, for the results on the big test we took, we wait to hear if loved ones survived when disasters hit. We wait for friends to come out of a coma, we wait to see if a surgery is successful, we wait to hear something and we hope that it is good, that it won’t involve loss or suffering.

That moment, whether an actual minute or a stretch into days, is the place where no matter the faith, no matter the religion, we all tend to enter the same psychic space. Whether anxious, shut down, self-medicating, or stoic, most of us are emitting a mighty PLEASE.

I think even atheists emit this PLEASE, this strong psychic request that the outcome be good. Whether our beliefs or not, it’s part of our humanity to experience and enter this moment when we know life is held in the balance, where we wait to hear or see which way it falls, and we hope and can’t help but emit the psychic request for a good outcome. An atheist might say that it’s moments like these that humans invented a God for. And, they’re probably right. Because, in these moments, I do think we all are asking like crazy, something, somebody, make this turn out right. And, it’s much more comforting to believe something, somebody, is listening. I believe an atheist can be in foxhole and not believe in God. However, I think atheists and the devout alike enter a similar state of please. The devout just have a name to attach it to. And the devout Pagan, well, we have names of countless Gods, Goddesses, and all the elements to say please to.

I’ve been in this moment now since Thursday. A huge fire is raging in the hills above Santa Cruz. My sister’s family and animals had to flee, and they now are being housed amongst friends. They are safe, and that of course, is what is most important. But, the house is beloved, having been designed and built by them off the grid, with a garden that took twenty years to get to where it is. If it gets burned, they all will be devastated. Plus, it’s under-insured.

There have been moments when things have looked pretty bad, like when leaving they could see the fire approaching their hill. There have been times it’s looked good, like now, when we just heard the house is still standing and that the firefighters have created a fire break right before it. But, the fire is still raging, and the fire fighters told them there are hot spots all around that could still erupt. It’s not yet a sure thing that the house will survive the fire.

Besides my sister and her family, I know and care deeply for another family who has been evacuated. I know they are safe, but I don't know about their home. The moment that I am writing about most often occurs when we are aware that things are in the balance for ourselves or those we love. But, occasionally we feel it more globally. Cyclones in Burma, earthquakes in China, towers hit in New York, hurricanes in New Orleans; for most of us there are times we come to attention and enter that moment for others we don't know or personally love.

Annie Lamott says there are two basic prayers, help me, help me, and thank you, thank you. I think she’s half right. I think there are two basic prayers and thank you is definitely one of them. But the other is not help me so much as PLEASE!!! Isn’t it funny that good manners really are the language of spirit? My allies demand them, don't yours?

I sent out word on Thursday to many of my Pagan friends and family to send their Pagan prayers. A friend devoted to Brigid assured me she’s on the case. Another friend put rainwater on her altar and asked for rain. Others are working with air for the winds to become still. Everthing and everybody seem to be cooperating, as the winds died down on Friday morning and drizzle and fog covered the mountains.

Moments like these you become acutely aware of the precariousness of life and circumstance. There is gratitude, fear, tenderness and strength all mixed up together. There is deep yearning for things to turn out right, and for the Fates and the universe to work in our favor. This is the moment we want to believe in magic and know that it will work. We all know this moment, and yet there is no name for it. Or is there? Maybe this moment is really a concentrate of what is actually always happening, what is always going on in and around us. Maybe this moment is simply life.

Please let this fire be contained and no more homes burned. Please let my sister’s home be safe and standing. Please let me get to the place where the thank yous take over. Please? Thanks!

i feel pretty oh so pretty!

My new life style involves lots of walking. Walking involves lots of seeing. Yesterday in Noe Valley I ended up walking closely behind two men. I followed them around a corner I didn’t need to turn on, and continued on for a block or so purely because I was intrigued by their conversation. Actually, that’s not true. I was intrigued by their energy.

The two men were a large white guy in saffron robes and a much smaller Asian guy in jeans and a tee shirt. Both were American. The visuals were striking, and kind of funny. But, again, more striking and to me, amusing, was the energy. The smaller guy was looking up to the other, and not just physically. He was asking questions. The big guy was giving ANSWERS. He used the word attachment several times, explaining how unproductive it is in a spiritual life. And, he was clearly attached to giving answers and being looked up to. Everything about him radiated narcissism, and not the healthy kind.

I’m so glad I observed this. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about narcissism and how my spiritual traditions seem to exacerbate and sometimes even create it. Reclaiming is a fertile ground for extroverted narcissistic tendencies to blossom, what with easy access to being in the center of the circle, a focus on empowerment within a climate of no accountability, and the persistent thought form that our magic is the only thing that can really change the world. Feri is fertile ground for narcissistic introverts, with its ooga booga, secrecy, and persistent thought form that those who receive “the current” are special. The hexing that is so glorified in some Feri circles suits narcissists nicely. Somebody pisses you off? Well, gather your energy and do a spell to annihilate them! In Reclaiming, the spellwork is not encouraged, but character assassination and female style bullying are rampant.

How to deal with narcissism is one of the things I think a lot about as I endeavor to integrate and make sense of my two traditions. Is it possible to create spiritual community where healthy narcissism is encouraged, but not the disorder? In the over-culture ruthless self interest is encouraged above all else, and those who are narcissistic tend to be successful in business. Is it really that different in spiritual communities? Following the man in the saffron robes and his acolyte, I was provided the visual aid that we are not alone. Spiritual narcissism happens in all traditions. Heck, it even happens among the Gods!

Yahweh is a classic narcissist. Charming and with lots of charisma, he turns on a dime and smotes those who don’t look up to him or have the audacity to disagree with him. Zeus, too, is a classic case. Narcissus himself, well, he is the cautionary tale that those who focus solely on the love of their own beautiful reflection literally starve. As with us humans, the male’s narcissism is more overt, and the female’s not so easy to point at. There certainly are Goddesses who are raging narcissists, but I’m not naming names.

The literature on narcissism says that the majority of narcissists are men. I think that’s wrong. Or maybe those who’ve researched it have never been in feminist, activist or magical circles. The new research on situational narcissism has a lot to offer those of us from these communities. Fame can create pathological narcissism. So can continued teaching of witchcamp. The energy between the men I followed down the street was familiar to me. It went beyond the student/teacher dynamic. There is danger in being looked up to. Especially spiritually. We can start to expect this and see it as the natural order of things, creating grandiosity that is fed by adoration and that grows hungrier and hungrier instead of becoming satiated.

There’s so much I could write on this topic. And maybe I will. Knowing about narcissism and how it operates is useful for everyone who lives in human community. Being able to name it, even better. I’m grateful for my little turn around a corner I wasn’t expecting. I know we witches are not alone. I’ve seen it, with my own eyes. I’ve felt it, with my own sixth sense. And now, its time for another walk.

a lot can change

“Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences.”

Isadora Duncan

A lot can happen in one lifetime! I just got off the phone with my girlfriend and I am stunned. The California Supreme Court has just overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that will make our nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings. We live in this state. So, she proposed to me. Again.

In my early twenties, when I was riding high on the second wave of feminism, I had to be bought off to attend my sister’s wedding. I was against marriage and loved to quote Isadora Duncan on the subject. In fact, I quoted her immediately to my sister when she called to ask me to be her bridesmaid. My father followed this call up with one of his own, and in this call, he exasperatedly said that given that he wouldn’t have to pay for a wedding for me, he’d buy me a car if I would be a bridesmaid. Another condition for this deal was that I shave my legs and armpits. The ’72 Pinto that I received for selling out lasted far longer than my sister’s marriage.

A lot can happen in one lifetime. I got married in the eighties. I blame it on being a witch. Ritual and ceremony had become meaningful, and we decided that making it legal would help our families (his, staunch Irish-Catholics, including a nun) recognize our witch wedding as valid and legitimate. Starhawk and Rose May Dance priestessed the handfasting, and it was quite a spectacle. It is my strong belief that we never bothered to turn in the papers and that the marriage never was truly “legal”. We never possessed or received in the mail a marriage license. It is typical of us both to not follow through on paperwork, which came up again in getting our very legal divorce, which took over six years to complete. At no time did we ever get asked to provide legal proof of the marriage, which was good, as we had none.

A lot can happen in one lifetime. I am now no longer married to a man but living with a woman. She asked me to marry her and gave me an engagement ring soon after we started seeing each other, but somehow, it all has seemed kind of like a sweet joke. I accepted, as I love her and felt like this relationship could really work. Plus, I really liked the ring. We took our time moving in together, and we’ve been taking our time in regards to doing any big ceremony. I priestessed a handfasting of a lesbian couple last year and as soon as it was over, she whispered to me “I want THAT”. We like to talk about the great party we eventually will have and all our diverse friends and family coming together. We’ve been way more interested in this than getting domestic partnership.

And now, it appears we actually can get married. Unlike me, she’s the type to follow through on paperwork. Could it really be that I might get legally married in this lifetime to a woman?

I’m stunned. And somehow, I can’t help thinking of the cartoon in the New Yorker portraying a straight couple in which one of them is reading the paper and the caption has her saying - “Gay Marriage – haven’t they suffered enough?”

It’s a big day. A lot has changed in one lifetime, and a lot changed today. Tonight I will join my girlfriend in the Castro to celebrate. This is a major victory. Isn’t it?

amazing grace

It was almost exactly a week ago that I landed back in my beloved city. This afternoon I finally feel fully at home. There’s a barley risotto simmering on the stove and the smell of rosemary, sage, and fresh spring garlic is wafting through the house. Barley is very low on the glycemic index, something that is important if you have diabetes. Using herbs from my garden, it is on its way to becoming just as tasty as the arborio rice risottos I cooked in the past. If you are managing diabetes with diet and exercise, rice, for the most part, is out. This Beltane is a time of change, the barley being one of many.

I spent a lot of time today on my rooftop garden, weeding, watering, and cutting the herbs that would go into tonight’s meal. Amidst the plants and with the lovely gnome Chomsky presiding, I mused on all the Beltane energies at play. At Samhain and again at Beltane, the veil is thin between the worlds. At Samhain, the veil is thin between the living and the dead, but at Beltane, the veil is thin between humans and the spirits of the wild and green. Seventeen years back I saw a giant toad in my back yard amongst the foxglove and made a wish for happiness. That day I conceived my son. Is it any wonder I believe in magic?

On Saturday I danced the maypole at my friend Anne’s, staying well past when most folks had left. My son and his best friend had come with me, their condition for coming being we would leave when they were ready. I never imagined they wouldn’t want to leave. Anne’s daughter is a year younger than my son, and after years of ignoring each other, they suddenly are back to being friends. The Beltane grin on his face when he turned to tell me it would be just a little bit longer, and then walked off to the beach with a hair tossing passel of teenage girls is now firmly implanted in my memory bank. This is a memory that will always have the power to make me smile.

It was good to be at Anne’s, amidst those we have come to call “Remaining”. Cora Anderson had died early Beltane morning, her timing being nothing but impeccable. Years back, I had visited the Andersons several times with my Feri coven, of which Anne and Thorn were a part of. I can’t remember much of what Victor specifically talked about, but I remember clearly Cora talking about making soup. I learned from her that the energy put into making a meal is just as important as the ingredients. Cora was a gardener and a cook, and practical magic was her specialty.

This morning at her memorial, many talked about Cora’s pragmatic magical practice. Looking around, I noticed that the only people from Reclaiming that were in attendance were those of us who are Remaining, the very same people who I’d visited with at Anne’s on Saturday. Anne, Thorn, Medusa, and Macha were all there to pay their respects. Cora had become real family to Thorn, but for me, this was a simple matter of honoring an esteemed elder. Robin and Rocky were there too, a couple who were instrumental in the development of early Reclaiming, but, like the bulk of other seasoned priest/esses of Reclaiming's past, they no longer count among the small group of us Remaining.

It struck me that this was also pretty much the same group that showed up for Susan North’s memorial service in January. For all the talk in Bay Area Reclaiming about community, it is striking how unimportant it seems to be to honor the history of individuals who have contributed to and made up the "community". Feri is one of the strong strands out of which Reclaiming is woven. Without Feri, without Cora, Reclaiming would look entirely different. This seems to be another form of practical and pragmatic magic, this putting energy into showing up for memorials and funerals, ritualizing the fact that people’s individual lives have mattered. As time goes on, it becomes clearer to me that potent magic doesn't just happen in cast circles, but in kitchens and the small kindness of good manners.

The service for Cora ended with her son leading us all in reciting together her recipe for coleslaw which was printed at the back of the program. Then, pie was served.

Anne drove me back to the city and I spent the afternoon in my rooftop garden. I thought about Beltane, about my son, and about Cora. And then, I started to make dinner. Magic is simple. It is everywhere, and it is in everything. Barley takes the place of rice, herbs are thrown in, and I stir in a good helping of health and well being. I know who will be showing up for dinner, and I count my blessings that I have people in my life who show up.

Thank you, Cora, for what you added to this world. Thank you, spirits of green and of the wild, for what you have added to my life.

This morning, a bag piper played Cora’s favorite song, “Amazing Grace” after everyone had spoken. I can’t have pie, but the sweetness is still everywhere. And, it’s amazing.

coming home

“Sitting in a park in Paris, France,

Reading the news, it sure looks bad.

They won’t give peace a chance,

That was just a dream some of us had.

Still a lot of lands to see,

But I wouldn’t want to stay here.

It’s too old and cold and settled in its ways here.

California, I’m coming home.

I’m going to see the folks I dig…..

California I’m coming home.”

Joni Mitchell

When I was fifteen, way back in 1970, I came to Europe for the summer. I was forced to come, actually. Shipped off with my twelve year old sister, a list of phone numbers of people my parents knew who were living here (mostly who were working for IBM) , a jar of valium (for jet lag, my mother said), all my life savings, and Joni’s new album (for comfort) in hand. The last thing I wanted to do in the summer of 1970 was be in Europe.

Janis was still alive and my best friend’s older brother was always willing to drive us to the city to go to the Fillmore West or Winterland. It was my own money I had to use, money I had been saving for years for my longed-for escape from my family. Plus, I knew that the last thing my parent’s “friends” would appreciate would be a teenager and young adolescent descending on them. Nevertheless, we were taken in, and we traversed ourselves from England to Belgium to Germany to Switzerland to France and back home again. Every stop, I would set up my suitcase in altar like fashion with Joni’s Blue album tucked into the opened top.

This story has made even seasoned therapists blanch, although it’s one that is best told in detail with my sister telling her own version. She felt she was on a marvelous adventure. My memories are all colored with Joni’s longing to be back in California.

I’m now waiting in the airport in Paris. Tomorrow, we will be home. It’s been a wonderful trip, a truly marvelous adventure. I added my lipsticked kiss to the thousands covering Oscar Wilde’s tomb. I walked out of a romantic and delicious meal in a jewel box of a restaurant and looked up to the Eiffel Tower just coming alive with light. And yet, once again, the soundtrack in my head is all from the Blue album. Unfortunately, the part about the bad news still rings true, peace still is just a dream. But, I’m still ready to come home. I want to see the folks I dig….

California, I’m coming home.

stories from Paris

Our second day in Paris started with a visit to the Clignancourt flea market. It’s the biggest in Paris, and we spent hours there, but only managed to traverse a small portion of the whole. After blocks of vendors hawking cheap clothing and souvenirs, we turned a corner onto a street that led to a maze of antique dealers. Dusty old dolls, ancient stuffed lions, and mirrors darkened with age surrounded us. Despite thousands of other weird and beautiful old things, we came away with only one purchase, an old Limoges souvenir plate of Paris. The dollar is so low, even the flea market prices seem exorbitant.

Then a bus to Montmartre and a walk around the bustling streets filled with other tourists trying to capture the spirit of the place. The artists were priced out almost a century back, and what is left is an aggressive contingent of guys who will sketch a caricature of you for far too much money. And beauty everywhere; with a breath taking view of Paris from the cathedral and old bistros, cafes, and cabarets lining the streets. There was a store selling absinthe in bottles shaped like the Eiffel Tower, so perfectly ridiculous I almost bought one. But, again, the dollar is so low here that there is no such thing as a small purchase.

We rode the funicular down the hill and caught another bus across the city and the river to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I could better imagine Gertrude striding across this timeless park with Alice in tow than Toulouse drinking absinthe in the tourist ant hill which is now Montmartre. While children played with rented small wooden boats in the big fountain, statues of deities dear to me watched with ancient stone eyes. We rested up on one of the many benches before starting to stroll tiredly towards the river.

The sky was darkening up when we arrived at Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore that expatriate poets and writers frequented. They still are, apparently, because inside a poetry reading was going on. It was too crowded to enter, so we sat outside and watched while George Whitman, the eccentric nonagenarian proprietor, agitatedly tried to move the reading outside. Everyone else was too afraid of rain, so it continued where it was. I perused books from the shelf outside and was surprised when I looked at the price of the one that seemed particularly interesting and found it to be free. Were all the books outside free? No, the one I was holding appeared to be the only one. “FREE!” was written in the inside cover, with the following below it:

(FREE)

(GRATUIT)

(GRATIS)

wonderful!

beautiful stories!

Several pleasing ink drawings are interspersed thru the book, but carefully, so they don’t interfere with the printed words. “The Hakawati” is the book, by Rabih Alameddine, a writer who lives in San Francisco and Beirut. A hakawati is a storyteller, and this book is all about the transformative power of stories. Sitting outside Shakespeare and Company, a newly translated poem of Rimbaud’s being read inside, I sank contently into reading my free book. Who can understand how these exquisite and precious moments get constructed?

The dollar is low, but we have a metro pass for the week, which is good for every bus and train as well. That, along with our feet, is turning out to buy us a darn good time.

Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “The world is not made of atoms, but of stories”. I know she spent time in Barcelona. I wonder if she ever came to Paris?

unfettered and alive

We are now in Paris and its April and there are cherry- or are they chestnut? - trees in bloom everywhere and there is intermittent rain, but not in a cold way, just enough to give it that classic Parisian atmosphere and not enough to keep us indoors.

My girlfriend has shown a knack for renting perfect apartments in just the right place. In Barcelona we were in the old gothic quarter, on a narrow alley in the midst of a maze of streets only open to foot traffic. Here in Paris, we are up three – or is it four? – flights of ancient stairs in a sweet apartment above the Rue des Rivoli, a few blocks from the Seine.

Our apartment overlooks an old courtyard, and couldn’t be lovelier except for the fact that it’s about half the price of any “moderate” hotel. Thank the Goddess for Craigslist and a savvy girlfriend. Oh, and by the way, the dollar is at an all time low. There will be no shopping sprees on this trip. The treasures we will be bringing home will be the memories.

We are in the Marais, the old Jewish district. It was here that many Parisian Jews were rounded up and sent off to Auschwitz. The Jewish delicatessens and synagogues are back, amidst the high class boutiques. Although most delis were closed for Passover, Finkelsztajns was open. At our small table on Rue de Rosiers, amidst throngs of shoppers, we celebrated freedom from slavery and honored the turning of history with some gefilte fish, chopped liver and matzo. The Marais is now not only the Jewish district, but queer as well. Orthodox men in black hats walk in peace amongst men in the latest fashion holding hands. And us, too, of course! We toasted with our glasses of water and gave thanks that being a queer Pagan and a Jew, we feel and are so free.

lessons

It’s now a little over two months since I was released from the ring of hell which is commonly known as a hospital. The florescent light, the comings and going at all hours of the night to poke and prick, plus the silent noisiness of the dead, the entire experience has me bound and determined to do everything I can to stay on this side of the ring for the rest of this life.

I’m doing well, incredibly so. I am managing the diabetes without medication of any kind. This means being acutely aware of what I am eating and how much I am moving my body. I now am an expert on the glycemic index of almost any food, of knowing just how quickly anything I eat turns to sugar. I have managed to stay well within the normal range for the two months I’ve been out, despite some difficult challenges.

For years, especially in witchcamp settings, I had a humorous contempt for all of those with special food needs. Why do lesbians seem to be more lactose intolerant, allergic to gluten, and all around picky around food than the rest of the human race? This was a question I would ask frequently and with some irritation. Wouldn’t you know that now I find myself in these ranks and then some? When you choose to embrace the shamanic lifestyle, you can’t get away with anything. If you find yourself making fun of something, soon enough you become the butt of the joke yourself.

The priestesses of the hearth path were bending over backward to meet my needs, and over and over I found myself shaking my head and saying “no, I can’t eat that”. Who am I and what happened to that self I use to be? Gluten free pasta, rice, potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, and whole wheat pizza dough are all off the list of what I eat. A vegetarian diet is next to impossible, as beans and rice just don’t cut it for a diabetic and most carriers of cheese involve carbohydrates. At camp, despite some tromping in the wet woods, I was not getting the same level of exercise that I now consider essential to keeping my blood sugar low. I found myself in the bizarre situation of needing food other than that which was being prepared so lovingly for the rest of the camp.

I was not truly alone, as Donald Engstrom had similar issues to mine. We found ourselves being the only ones eating chicken bought on a run to town at the table with others with plates full of vegetarian fare, or alternatively, going off to the pub across the street so we could have a lamb shank or bowl of mussels. Donald kept reminding me that our needs weren’t “special”, that what we needed was normal and regular, but in the context of witchcamp, it felt vulnerable and strange to not be able to adjust for a few days to a vegetarian diet. Especially one that was so integral to the magic being made.

The Sunday after camp I found myself crying in frustration after expending the whole day doing an initiation and then going to a feast for the initiate where all that I could eat was some salad and two pieces of salmon picked off of some sushi. The days of taking it for granted that I can eat whatever is served and that nourishment will be found at any table I sit at are over.

This is harder than I could ever have expected.

Now I am in Barcelona, a city full of dishes I can eat, where tapas of every kind of fresh seafood are readily available and huge platters of spinach, arugula, and asparagus abound. I am walking well over 10,000 steps a day, and my blood sugar is easily staying in the low range of normal. One day, it was so low I braved a cup of hot chocolate and shared some bites of a raspberry tart at the exquisite patisserie Escriba. Now a days, a dessert is truly a treat, something to be had only occasionally. Blessedly, maybe because of all the walking, I stayed within normal range.

There’s no shortage of lessons to be learned in one lifetime.

Thanks to my little glucometer and my handy pedometer, I’m staying an alert and willing student.

close quarters

Witchcamp is spellwork. It’s also a week of teaching and training others in the art/craft of making magic. But how can you teach or train others in this art without it being unleashed as well? By casting a circle and working in sacred space for a series of days, a spell is inevitably cast. Also it needs to be factored in that as the years have rolled by, less people come to camp to learn magic, but to practice it in a community setting. Seasoned witches abound now at most witchcamps, and even the newbies have read more books than I had on my shelves for the first decade or so of being a witch. From the moment we all join hands in circle, a major magical working begins.

Most camps clearly state the intent for the working in the beginning, but sometimes, even with a set intent, the magic takes another turn and something entirely different is brewed. I find this unfolding immensely interesting and I try to pay close attention to what is being mixed in the cauldron of our blended energies.

Avalon Spring had a lovely intent, but once we traveled to the new venue, a youth hostel in Epping Forest, it was clear that there definitely was going to be a parallel and quite powerful other working happening as well.. Six of us had planned in teams of two to teach morning “paths” covering a variety of theological and experiential material. We’d hoped to be meeting in the forest, amidst spring blossoms and warm sunshine. Four others had formed a “hearth path’, which besides doing all the shopping and planning for our meals, was prepared to lead the camp in the experience of cooking and eating food with sacred intent.

However, the “spring” was hard coming, with snow covering the ground the day before camp started and hail pelting us the day of. The forest was beautiful, but muddy and going outside entailed a kind of bundling up that invoked brisk walking, not laying around doing trance work.

There was somewhere between 30 and 40 of us, from a variety of countries. Walking in to the hostel, I kept looking for rooms other than the enamel yellow one which held a small kitchen in the corner and was the size of my living and dining rooms put together. The only other spaces to be found were the ones off the small hallway to the side, which all were small and cramped with bunk beds. Could several dozens of us really co-exist in this space and create something particular and precious?

We could. And did.

Our separate paths became one path, and occasionally huddling around a portable fire bowl on the small patio outside, we spent the days and nights together in good humor and with spirits buoyant. We traveled between the worlds, took stock of what stories we chose to tell in this lifetime, and spoke to the allies and ancestors who love us beyond all reason.

All the while, vegetables were being chopped, dishes being cleaned, and people being fed. One morning I found myself blissfully scrubbing dishes as Anne-Marie and Susan Farley were leading a trance on becoming different states of water. Did I say that everything happened in one small big room? It was no metaphor that we were all in the magic together, cooks, cleaners, and trance priestesses. We were.

The magic in Avalon Spring was about working together in close quarters, negotiating space and needs and doing it with grace and good will. The spell that was spun was about this rippling out in to the world and into the future. As the days went by, I kept hearing the Rolling Stone’s refrain that I sang to my son when he was small and prone to whining. “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes, you get what you need.”

This was not a glamorous camp. There were no glorious and glittering outfits, no dramatic aspecting of Gods, no raucous and bawdy talent shows. Yet, the sense of the sacred shimmered in all that we did. At Avalon Spring, there was no division between the mundane and magic. I believe we were better for it.

We human beings are such a mix of shadow and light, of the cranky and the affably adaptable. That mix was potent and palpable at Avalon Spring.

And it was Divine.

I'm at the kitchen table at Anne-Marie's, using Dawn's laptop. Dawn and I are teaching a "path" at witchcamp on air. We will be working on getting across the idea that our thoughts and words matter, in fact they tend to be part of what creates the matter of our lives, being a large part of directing it.

Outside, it's snowing. Like REALLY snowing. I'm a California girl, and not the Tahoe type.  For me, snow has NOTHING to do with spring. We are heading off to camp in a few hours, a camp optimistically entitled "Avalon Spring".

So, it's snowing. Oh, and the car broke down yesterday.  So, we are not quite clear now how we will be getting to camp.  My phone didn't work for a few hours right after the car broke down. Every number I called was met by the same response - number not in use. After an offering to the fey, the phone started working again.  That didn't fix the car, but I'm hoping just maybe there will be some good news now on my computer.

So,  we are listening. And laughing a lot. Who knows why things go awry when the best plans are made? Who knows what it is we are suppose to learn from this. We have THEORIES.  There's nothing more amusing and rather psychotic sounding than a bunch of witches using their psychic decoder rings to interpret a series of events.  Offerings and honorings to a variety of folks of course need to be made. 

But mostly, we are slowing down. Trying to listen. And marveling in just how alive and communicative this world of matter and spirits are. E-mails would be so much simpler....but then, of course, your internet has to be working.