life preservers all around!

This is a particularly challenging solstice to be a therapist. Usually during this time I can rely on my fierce optimism to not only get me through, but to be a beacon and ballast for my clients who are in the depths of despair. This season, I've had the experience of several of my clients being my messengers of hope, shining their light to guide me through the dark.

When I got to work yesterday there were several cards from past clients, all wishing me well and extolling praise and gratitude for my past sturdiness. One of them, from someone who moved to the Rockies over twelve years ago, asked; "Have you dumped that husband and gotten with a woman yet?" I laughed and laughed. I could hear her voice in the words. She was a complete handful as a client, a challenge and a joy. What a mystery, this thing that prompted her to write this card, when I hadn't heard from her in a decade!

As the hours went by, and I sat with clients who are currently struggling with depression, and those who've stopped wrestling and have sunk down, I kept thinking of the cards I'd received, and every time I did, my heart got a little more bouyant. How incredible this ability of humans to serve as life preservers for each other! This time of year is so damnedly cold and dark. No wonder we created these rituals of sending cards and giving presents. Sometimes they actually save lives. I'm sure of it.

all stirred up

I cancelled my clients this morning. Nobody needs a therapist who’s breaking into tears unexpectedly. What’s up with me? What has this trip to the coast broken loose in me? This week is the anniversary of my father’s suicide, a time I tend to be battling the blues, so that’s definitely a factor. Reya says I don’t sound depressed, just sad. There’s some mighty grief running thru me, and I’m giving it free rein, not trying to busy myself out of it, or numb it with glasses of wine. Curiously, I find I’m envying LeeAnn her one love, her long years of battling and making up with Max. Maybe, finally, I’m grieving my marriage. I know I’ve grieved the loss of my husband, but the loss of my marriage, that’s another kettle of fish. That marriage had it’s beginnings on the Oregon Coast.

Cannon Beach is such a crucible of love for me. All the great loves of my life, except my last one, hold some history in this place. I went there to heal, drawn by the power of the elemental forces; the ocean, that great rock, the brambles of the persistent blackberries. I also went there to flee the love that I was being offered in Northern California, that I couldn’t receive or let in after my father’s act closed off some chamber of my heart. I’m wondering if some indelible scarring took place in my ostensible healing, and if this trip has broken open that old scar tissue.

It was here in Cannon Beach that I began to work with the tides and the phases of the moon, that my love affair with the Craft began. It was here that I began correspondence with Starhawk, and found out that we would both be going to the same graduate school in San Francisco. Michael told me how he every so often reprints in October the article I wrote for him about witchcraft. We laughed and marveled at the full bookcase of tomes on witchcraft which are now in the store he works at. Even as I write this, I feel the pull and tug of sorrow. How strange to no longer want to attend my local public rituals, to feel embarrassed and discomforted by my association with Reclaiming!

It’s cold and relentlessly grey out. I’m back in San Francisco, gathering the pieces I left on that Oregon coast, trying to make sense of the last few days, trying to make sense of my life.

lost and found

I’m back at the airport, waiting for my flight to San Francisco. I just left LeeAnn at her gate, and she’s heading back to Idaho to an empty house. The phone rang somewhere before eight this morning, and it was her. She was outside my motel in a pick-up truck, and she couldn’t climb the stairs to my room as she’d sprained her ankle. Clearly, the wake for Max had happened. I threw together my clothes and went down to join her. She’d decided we needed to drive down to Cannon Beach, the place I’d fled to after my father’s suicide. At the time, it was a funky little artist colony on the coast, dead in the winter, and catering to the tourists in the summer. It was a place where half the waitresses and bartenders were either working on a novel or painting in their spare time. When they weren’t drinking, that is.

We cruised down the coast in the large truck, and I noticed all the changes. There’s a huge outlet mall in Seaside, and the patches of wild are smaller all around. When we turned the big curve coming into Cannon Beach, I choked up. Haystack Rock is a commanding presence in the town, sitting out past the tide line, as tall as that nuclear haystack I’d seen yesterday, and millions time more majestic. It will be here way after the houses here are gone, and my, are there way more houses! The sight of that rock helped me keep perspective on all the changes. In Cannon Beach, every change is so darn tasteful! Gone are all the funky buildings on Hemlock, replaced by all wood shingled buildings designed to weather gracefully. The funkiness of the town has completely disappeared, replaced by artful wealth and tasteful design. I was so glad to be with LeeAnn, and we reminisced about her and Max, and what life was like here before.

Driving back to Astoria, we stopped in to surprise Michael McCusker, at the bookstore café he’s working at. I thought he would never recognize me, hell, it’s been over twenty-five years since we’ve seen each other. But he knew me right off and even made a comment about seeing the young woman in me that use to sunbathe naked at Hug Point. Is she still there? It’s a surprise to think so, but this trip is stirring up memories and senses that have been dulled for years. Michael gave me copies of his paper, The North Coast Times Eagle, and surprised me with an edition in which he’d reprinted old articles I’d written for him. He also told me that my old lover John is in Majorca with his ex-wife. I threw myself on the rocks of that relationship as I grieved my father and cousin’s deaths. John and I pushed every envelope we could find in hurting each other, sharpening the point where pleasure and pain meet in every way we knew how. Way too old for me, John and I made Last Tango in Paris look like a cake walk in Duluth. I’m glad to know he’s alive, and that he’s repaired things with his ex-wife. Some soul retrieval is happening here, some taking back of parts that I thought I had left behind. It’s not real comfortable, or easy, there’s some loss I’m feeling that goes beyond the changes to the town, and the changes to LeeAnn and Jody’s lives. So paradoxical, this feeling of both retrieving and recognizing loss at the same time.

Driving back along the river to Portland with LeeAnn, she told me various stories of her grand love affair with Max. She had that rare and peculiar thing that so many love songs and romances hold out as the ideal. She had the great one love. They struggled mightily, breaking up and then getting back together; she was married to him three times. We both know how precious this life and death of Max’s was. So precious and special that in the end, it was death that parted them, and up until that moment, they were together. I heard LeeAnn say many times this weekend how well Max faced death, how great he was at both living and dying. As she tells me stories of their life, I can see the young girl in her, as well

Minutes from now, I’ll be going back to San Francisco. I’m taking back a lot from this trip, none of it in bags or packages. My heart is full, my mind is working overtime. I think I’ll be crying a lot in the next few days.

river into the sea

I’m in my motel room in Astoria, overlooking the water. Below me, the Columbia river widens to meet the Pacific. LeeAnn booked the room for me, and when I got here I found out she’d paid for it as well. It’s perfect, not a chain motel, but one with distinct character and a sense of place. I’m deeply touched. Touched. How right that word is! Moved and touched by the power of human connection, by this incredible day.

Picking up my rental car in Portland, I headed off after consulting with the rental guy about the best route. I promptly got lost in the wastelands of industrial Portland, driving this way and that until I finally found my way back to the place I’d gone wrong. I’d taken a wrong turn just blocks from the bridge I needed to cross. I noted the crossing of it, hoping that it was a portent, that all the turns and wanderings of this life time lead me exactly back to where I need to go. This is a bridge I’d never seen or crossed before, this Saint John’s bridge. An elegant, gothic, suspension bridge, my guess is it was built in the late 1920’s or early 30’s. It soars above the Willamette, and my heart soared crossing it, and I wondered for awhile if there really was such a thing as a wrong turn. If I hadn’t have been lost, I might not have marked the crossing with the same verve.

Driving down Highway 30, just as I was settling into the beauty of the landscape, the winter palate of muted colors, what loomed large but the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. It was a shock. Have I ever actually seen a nuclear power plant before? I always drove on Highway 26 to the coast and I came to San Francisco the week my soon to be comrades were getting arrested at Diablo. I can’t draw up a memory of seeing one before, but I know instantly what it is. Seeing that iconic shape rising in the winter mist was chilling. Perhaps if he hadn’t live downstream from this monstrous giant, Max would be alive. And Jody wouldn’t have breast cancer.

I met LeeAnn outside of the Logger Restaurant in Knappa, a small town filled with people who depend on the bounty of this coast, making livings from fishing and logging. It's going to take weeks to truly process all that came next. The memorial service was in the high school gym, the same high school that Max had attended. Max was man in his seventies who had died of pancreatic cancer, but in that room his presence came in the form of a youthful basketball star. Almost all his highschool teammates were there, and his friend Bud guided the service. Max’s favorite songs were played, among them songs by Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Max was a big man in many ways. He filled the room. The gym was crowded with family and friends and you could spot his relations by looking for those who towered above the rest of us. I sat between LeeAnn and Jody, with pictures and stories of Max flooding the room, creating what Jody had so intended, a celebration of his life. We left the gym and ate in the cafeteria, feasting on an incredible array of food, countless tables laden with home-made dishes.

I left the high school and came to the motel, knowing that Jody and LeeAnn will probably go out to the local taverns tonight. At least I’m hoping they do, Max needs a wake element to this day. I’m exhausted from getting up so early, plus my intuition told me that if I went out with them, I’d end up sleeping in my rental car. Better to be here, cozy in the motel, high above the river, thinking about life and death, about aging, about what it means to have one great love in a lifetime, about the power of small towns, about my working class roots, and about my intense love for the ocean that this river is flowing into. Some of who I am was forged in this place. Some of me is being forged here again. This is an important weekend.

the trip begins

I’m at the airport, waiting for my plane to Portland. I’ve made it thru the congested clutch of the security checkpoint and am at my gate. The plane leaves in about 50 minutes, so we should be boarding soon. It’s so darn early, not quite six in the morning, and I’m barely awake. I’m not on the plane, but the trip has begun.

The cab came within five minutes of my call. I stumbled down the stairs with my stuffed overnight bag, and slid into the backseat. I’d imagined a quiet ride thru the darkness, but my driver was talkative. I’m a highly relational person, whose favorite animal is hands down the human being. Despite this, or maybe because of this, I like the indulgence of silence when in a cab, a salon chair, or dealing with dental hygienists. That indulgence was not to be. The cabbie didn’t pick up on my cues of giving short answers to questions, with no questioning reciprocation on my part. By the time the cab was coming close to Candlestick, mindful of how grouchy I was becoming, I decided to stop resisting and engage in active interaction with my driver. I also considered that he may have been up all night and talking to me might be a useful strategy for not falling asleep at the wheel.

By the time we pulled up to the departures curb, I was bemused at the riches that can be gained from not resisting, from going with the flow. The flow of conversation in that cab turned out to be one that moved me, which will no doubt be part of the current running thru this weekend. My cabbie came to San Francisco after graduating from Kent State. He was on the little rise of lawn when the National Guard started shooting. He was one of the protesters there, and he lost a good friend that day. We talked about this and my experience at the WTO in Seattle, about the addiction to adrenaline, tear gas, and jail cells that we’ve seen some of our friends get hooked on, the peculiar mix of hope and desperation involved in taking direct action, the scars that are left by encountering violence. The cabbie lives in the same apartment he moved into twenty-five years ago, paying a pittance for rent. He drives cab twice a week, and plays music the rest of the time. He does what he loves, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

So, I’m sitting here, waiting for my plane to board, and I’m thinking about resistance, and activism, and doing what you love. I’m returning to the coast of Oregon, where LeeAnn and I cobbled together a crisis center for women who were battered or raped, a crisis center that is still operating. I’m thinking of meeting up there with Michael McCusker, my friend who served in Vietnam, who then came home and served on the streets of Washington D.C. and Chicago, battling it out for peace. I feel tender towards us all, the cabbie, LeeAnn, Michael, and myself. We’ve been through a lot. The plane is boarding. Gotta go.

Bio-parents adopt

A few weeks ago I noted a change in language, a new term easily rolling off people’s tongues. It entered my therapy room twice today. In San Francisco people are no longer saying “biological mother/father”. It is simply bio-dad or bio-mom. So short, so friendly, so easy to use!

This is going to make the term “real” mom/dad obsolete in no time. Having been surrounded by parents with adopted children, and being the mother of a child who has both a dad and a bio-dad, I know the sting the “real” can cause. Does this make the other parent “unreal”? Up until now, there hasn’t been anything to substitute the “real” with that hasn’t sounded clumsy or veering on too much information. “Biological” is just too damn long, too clinical, and somehow makes one think of science class and dissecting frogs. I’ve always stumbled over it in introducing/explaining Jay’s place in my son’s life. Once, I introduced him as “Casey’s birth father”. He kidded me about this later, making the good point that “birth” only makes sense in regards to mothers, and the truth is he was nowhere in the vicinity when Casey made his grand entrance. Lesbian couples and parents of adopted children can easily use the term but, even so, invoking the thought form of childbirth every time you introduce yourself is a bit much. “Bio” on the other hand, is kinda hip and kinda sporty. It’s the kind of word you can imagine wearing a beret or zipping around on a moped.

One of useful teachings I’ve gotten from the Feri tradition is understanding the power of names, the distinct energy and magic contained in each and every word we speak. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but our experience of the flower is influenced mightily by the distinct cadence of the collected vowels and syllables of it’s name. Speaking to Jay tonight on the phone, I told him about the new label. We both agreed, it’s a term that is comfortable in the mouth, one that gives information without invoking an uncomfortable intimacy. Suddenly, some awkwardness of his role in Casey’s life fades away, is made right with this simple name. It’s one both of us will be readily adopting.

a light goes on

As I was rushing around the house this morning, getting ready to take my son to school, the phone rang. It was LeeAnn. The memorial service for Max will be this weekend in Astoria. It’s a rush job, due to the fact that their son is on a short leave from the military, flying in soon from Kuwait. When she asked me to come, part of me balked. This was the weekend I planned to devote myself to the making of solstice presents. I’m sure she could hear the hesitation in my voice as I said “I’d try”. There was short silence and then she said “It would mean a lot to me”. I took a deep breath and felt the hesitation leave on the exhale. What better solstice magic, what better gift to give, than to show up for an old and beloved friend in their darkest of hours? I bought my tickets as soon as I got off the phone.

the times they are a'changing

I drove down Third Street today and into Hunter’s Point. The violence of poverty reverberates here, it’s a district my son is afraid to come to, one which the hungry homebuyers give wide berth. It’s predominately black. It’s also houses the largest colony of artists in the Bay Area, oddly located in an old navy shipyard. Studios are cheap here, out beyond cell phone range, safe at the moment from gentrification. There was a time that North Beach and the Haight teemed with artists studios. Now even Ferlinghetti, the poet king of Columbus Street, has his painting studio out here. The barrack buildings are rough and rickety, and even full of artists, there’s a feeling of dislocation in the air.

As I drove down Third, I noticed that the new street car tracks are almost done. This street car will run from downtown thru Hunters Point. Once that train is up and running, the division between Hunters Point and the rest of the city will begin to erode. I give it a year until you can hop off the train near Evans and get a cup of coffee costing over two bucks with the option of soymilk. So interesting how coffee, that dark liquid amphetamine, is such a marker for everything we relegate to that term “gentrification”. For every action, there is a reaction, for every small change, ripples of transformation spread out. My guess is the coming of the streetcar will change even the ambiance in the shipyard of artists.

I was going to a holiday celebration that some of the artists were throwing, having been invited by a new acquaintance, a lesbian my age who’s art I luckily like. Hanging out for the afternoon with her and the other artists in her building is a small change I’ve made, opening to new friends, new circles of community. I spent the afternoon chatting with a variety of people, talking about art, color, and changes in this city so many of us adore. Running into a woman I had briefly dated, I was grateful for the sweet ease of our interaction. I bought a small painting of two blackbirds on a wire, loving the quirkiness of it, the way they are looking at each other. Coming home, I wanted nothing more than to be up in my own studio. A profound subtle shift happened while I was at Hunter's Point. For the last few years I’ve been working on claiming myself to be an artist, on inhabititng that fully. For a variety of reasons, this has been a struggle. Today, strolling thru the warren of studios, I could fully imagine myself among those showing their work. The moniker of artist rolled easily off my lips among the various introductions that were made. What a change! We’ll see what comes of it.

a pleasing afterlife

This weekend I had planned to be up at my land in the Sonoma hills, land I share with old coven sisters and their partners. As I prepared to go, I found out that there was going to be quite a crowd up there. Robin and Rocky were going up with their troupe of Morris Dancers. At another time, this might have been a hoot, but not this weekend. The unsureness I’ve been feeling has led to a general feeling of vulnerability and unsteadiness. Things are in flux, and my roots are searching steady ground. Best to stay home.

As night increases its reign, I marvel at how much has changed since last solstice, when the sun ruled the sky. My household is configured in an entirely different way, my office as well. Relationships which once were integral to daily life have diminished to an occasional phone call. Doors have closed, some windows have been cracked open. My son has morphed in front of my eyes from child to teenager. Puberty has hit, and hit hard. His voice has changed, he’s shot up, and he even smells different. And those are just the physical changes. My spiritual affiliations are in transition, I’m much more a solitary witch than ever before, not defined by my relationships to traditions or community. This is the longest I’ve been single, a mere year and a half. Up until now, not three months have passed without embarking on a love affair. The first ride began at fifteen. Being single is new and strange territory. I’m settling into it, starting to notice the rightness of it, realizing it in itself is a journey. I’m staving off opening my heart to the roller coaster of love, feeling protective of these last remaining years of parenting. Things can change so quickly and do.

Today I went with a friend to Chrissy Field, an amazing stretch of beach nestled under the Presidio. We went in the hour before sunset, when the sky and water hold on to the light in a wondrous and particular way, eventually letting it go with the magic of opalescence. Getting chai lattes at the warming hut, we walked along the beach, with the Golden Gate looming to the side, and the city shining in front of us. Coit Tower, the Palace of Fine Arts, The Transamerican Pyramid, the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz Island - all the markers of this city I love so much were brilliantly on display from Chrissy Field. In the HBO production of Angels in America, heaven is portrayed as San Francisco. Today, walking in the twilight, with a warm cup of chai in hand, I smiled at the truth of this and felt my heart swell at the miracle of this dream city, this dream life. Amidst the changes, some things remain certain. I love this city, I love this life. It’s heaven.

It's witchcraft

As I sat with a client today, my mind kept drifting to my friend Lee Ann. I knew it wasn’t anything my client was saying, and it wasn’t that I was bored. There was a tug on the line that connects us. I felt the tug, and I worked to re-focus on the man in front of me, who was in the throes of a career crisis. He needed my full attention, and during that hour, I struggled diligently to stay with him, but my mind kept wandering back to Lee Ann. She was on my mind.

After the session was done, I dialed her number in Idaho. She answered, and her voice was shaky. Max, her husband for some thirty years, had died within the past hour. He died at home, where he had been battling cancer for the past few months. She kept exclaiming “Why did you call? How did you know?” Both in tears, we marveled at the miracle of our connection, at the mystery of love. We don’t talk often, sometimes not for years, but when we do connect it is uncannily at the right moment. This was one of those moments.

In the midst of the tears, Lee Ann laughed. “You really are a witch!” she said. Even now, the remembrance of those words makes me smile. Indeed, I am a witch. More and more, this being a witch has little to do with words of power, with the notion of sorcery or manipulating the elements to do my will. Being a witch to me means listening to my intuition, it means paying attention to what tugs at me, it means making a call to an old friend when I keep thinking of them. One often touted definition of magic is the art of changing consciousness at will. This is a good definition, certainly. As a therapist, I employ this kind of magic all the time with clients, invoking with them the will to change, even if the change is to accept what is. But magic is more than using our will to change our consciousness. It’s willing ourselves to simply be conscious. I find much magic occurs in the simple act of paying attention, of listening to what we commonly call our intuition, of following where this leads, of attempting this with an open heart and mind, of not letting our will drive the bus, but our attention.

Today the storm of the last few days abated, leaving the city awash with light, the air clean and crisp. Lee Ann is grieving Max, the great love of her life. On the phone, amidst the tears, she told me how grateful she felt for having had Max in her life. I too, feel grateful for their great love and to the mystery of our interconnectiveness. I send out my attention, my awareness to Lee-Ann. This attention, this awareness, is the stuff love is made from. It’s magic.

unsure

After returning from my uncle’s funeral, I cleared pictures of the dead off the altar and removed all traces of the festival of Samhain. With every day, the dark of winter encroaches. All last week we had beautiful weather here in San Francisco, warm and bright. On Thanksgiving, a cold front moved in. Winter is here. Putting away the remains of Samhain, I found myself hesitant to bring out the Solstice decorations. I’m going more slowly into this season, and I’m not quite sure why. Usually at this time, the house is full of a variety of craft projects, which started a week or so after Samhain and fill the house by the time Solstice comes. Instead, yesterday after clearing the altars, I finished up the last (for the time being) of the spirit bottles, and still am not sure what gifts I want to make.

I’m settling into this time of unsureness. I’m unsure of my spiritual affiliations, unsure of what craft projects to embark on, unsure of whether to work on some relationships or let them go, and unsure of whether I want to be dating or not. This is new territory for me, and I’m finding it curious and almost enjoyable. For the most part, I’ve been a woman of primary and strong colors, knowing my own mind, having clear opinions, and decisive in my actions. Fern says Neptune is strong in my chart right now, so perhaps this unsureness, this sense of the ground shifting and changing beneath me, has something to do with the pull of Neptune on my senses.

Today Janet and Katite took me to brunch at the home of two friends who recently had a baby. One of them is from New York City, and she eschewed life in a house on Bernal Hill and insisted on an elegant condo downtown next to the ballpark. The brunch was a set-up; they’d all decided that a mutual friend and I might have chemistry. I was dubious, given that she’s a captain in the police force, and I’m an anarchist witch. The brunch was lovely, good conversation, easy rapport, and best of all, lots of laughter and good humor. But was there chemistry? I’m just unsure.

I came home and puttered around my house, doing those small preparations you do, like putting on flannel sheets, when winter settles in. Now I wonder, what should I have for dinner? Perhaps when the light returns, I will be once again regain my sense of sureness.

Who knows? At the moment, I'm just not sure.

spiritual/non-affiliated

One of the life themes running thru this past year or so has been the reviewing of my spiritual affiliations. This theme rears its head again and again, and hit me full force this last couple of weeks, and from a variety of directions. My son is in eighth grade, and is in the process of applying to San Francisco high schools. He’s decided he really wants to go to Catholic school. He can play football there, and being raised fully pagan, he’s interested in learning about Catholism. Going to Catholic school will perfectly suit him. He can pull my chain by threatening to convert, and I’m sure he’ll be asking questions at school such as “do we really think monotheism is such a good idea?”

So, as I fill out the applications to the several Catholic schools in the city, I’ve found myself checking off the box for “Spiritual/Non-Affiliated”. There’s no box for Witch, Wiccan , or Pagan. As I’ve checked the boxes, I’ve wondered at the truth in it. I am spriritual, and my strong affiliation with both Reclaiming and Feri are falling away.. Like clothes that are not the right size, I can’t get comfortable in either. Am I truly moving into a period of Spiritual/Non-Affiliated?

I’m teaching at a Reclaiming witchcamp this summer, and I continue to question the meaning of this. The less I have to do with Reclaiming, the better teacher of magic I become. The last three years I’ve enjoyed being of service on the teams I’ve been on, and have been proud of the work we’ve done, some of it clean-up work. I seem to be particularly skilled at mopping up after camps have gone thru some years of working with divas and those who take the camp on magical binges, running off to Fairy or madly opening portals to the unknown. My style of teaching is rooted in transmitting Reclaiming’s principles of unity and staying clear on our magical/practical intent, and I strive to keep the magic practical.

Paradoxically, it’s my love of those principles that’s made it become more and more untenable to affiliate with local Reclaiming. I think the thin thread connecting me to it was severed last week. I employed the questioning attitude in regards to the precedent being set by Rose and Starhawk in taking community money to buy a new rug for their ritual room. There wasn't money to send a spokes to the international spokescouncil, but apparently enough money to buy their household a rug. I was polite about it, pointing out there really hadn’t been community consensus process on the decision to fund the rug, but I can still feel the steam rolling out in my direction. I know that plenty of other people agreed with me and even appreciate my questioning this rug being a financial priority of Reclaiming, but of course the agreement is kept private. It was a personal slip of sorts for me to be the one to voice concern, , but it reminded me that this is my position/role in Reclaiming, a role and position I no longer want to be affiliated with.

Meanwhile, on the Feri intiates e-mail list, there’s been an incredibly lively discussion regarding several topics. I’ve so far refrained from jumping in, but following the discussions, I feel a curious alienation. Several have written about Feri amorality, and of course there’s been countless references to the black heart. With Reya’s break from Feri, and Thorn’s bringing to light my problems and differences with Anderson Feri Tradition, I’m questioning what I still want to affiliate with in Feri.

In the midst of this, my uncle died. He had a long life, and was, for the most part, a very unhappy man. Today I drove down to Morgan Hill, and entered the Episcopal church of my childhood, Saint John the Divine. It was here that I went to Sunday School, and it was here that I was confirmed. Close to thirty years ago it was here that the services were held for my father’s and cousin’s funereal. Those deaths served to open me spiritually to witchcraft, and propelled me far from this church of my childhood.

It was a small turnout for my uncle, but many of the faces I recognized. There was Mr. White my six grade teacher and Jean Patterson, the organist and mother of a high school friend. I found my memory stretched to put names to the faces that were both familiar and disconcertingly aged. The service was short and simple, and I strained to find some comfort or spiritual succor in the words said and hymns sung. I kept thinking of Reya, who is immersing herself in Judaism and finding treasures. Would this church hold out anything for me? I spotted the names on small plaques of my father and cousin in the small dining room we retired to after the service. The plaques were under decorated plates dedicated to the dead of the congregation. Again, many of the names I recognized.

I wanted to feel the connection of history, to feel in some way like I’d come home. I wanted the service to make emotional sense to me, to feel waves of love and the breathtaking sense of mystery that connection to the divine brings. I felt love for my aunt, and certain nostalgia for the building, but I could not find the divine at Saint John. My affiliation with the Episcopalians is long gone, and can’t be dredged back up. Reclaiming and Feri I continue to wriggle with, struggling with the discomfort of the fit. Would trying on Spiritual/Non-Affiliated, be just as discomforting? I wish I’d felt at home at Saint John the Divine. Wouldn’t that have been something?

step away from the voodoo

Before Samhain, I felt called to make a spirit bottle for Marie Laveau, the legendary New Orleans voodoo priestess from the 1800’s. One of the highlights of my last visit to New Orleans was seeking out her tomb. Power radiated from it, perhaps because of the vast array of offerings that had been left, making it a breathtaking altar. As I worked on the bottle, I felt I needed to know more about her, so ordered what books I could find online, all of them used and at a good price.

When I opened the first one that came, Voodoo Dreams, my mouth fell open and a shiver ran up my spine. Written inside the front cover, in the handwriting I know so well, was my mother’s name. Having trouble believing my own eyes, I called my mother and asked her if she had ever read a book on Marie Laveau. She answered immediately; “The Voodoo queen? Oh yes, I’ve always been interested in Voodoo!” This was news to me. She proceeded to tell me about a business trip she had taken years ago to New Orleans and how someone at the conference took her around the city and she met all sorts of people into Voodoo. My mother’s stories are always fantastical and embellished. When my son and I saw Big Fish, my son recognized his grandmother in the character of the father with the impossibly tall tales. Nevertheless, this all was confirmation that this book was indeed, once my mother’s.

What to make of all of this? The refrain that continues to go thru my head is “Step Away from the Voodoo”. In another lifetime, another setting, I may have taken this as evidence I needed to immerse myself in Voodoo, that this meant I needed to become a full-fledged practitioner. The fact or the fancy is, in another lifetime I was a full-fledged practitioner. I know it well, it comes easily to my imagination and resonates in my bones.

The first piece of magic I consciously did in this lifetime connects back to my past. In adolescence my sister and I were being bullied by a girl every day on the bus. We took out every book on magic and Voodoo we could get from the library. We culled what information we could get, and did our first spell. We made a poppet, and feeling it was too violent to put in pins, we simply buried it in the garbage on the day the trash was to be taken away. The next day, Cathy Oakly was not on the bus. We eventually heard she’d run away from home, a home, that no doubt, given her behavior towards us, had made her feel like garbage. She was gone, and we never saw her again. This was so disturbing to me that I completely blocked it out of my memory, using my incredible power of disassociation, a power that was much utilized in my childhood. The memory only resurfaced after my Reclaiming initiation, where I received the name Oak. In the aftermath, my sister reminded me of Cathy, and the lightening shock of this memory returned.

Voodoo has beauty and breadth as a tradition. In so many ways, it has more substance than this odd strand of magic and practice I’ve been initiated into called Feri. Feri is a strange hodge-podge of magical traditions, including Voodoo. In both Voodoo and Anderson Feri, there is no prohibition against hexing, of using magic to thwart or hurt those who are seen as enemies. How and why I ended up being initiated into this, I’m still trying to make sense of. As I make this bottle for Marie, I honor the power of magic and mull on what seems to be part of this lifetime’s work, stepping away from the power to hurt, and staying strongly and mightily in the power to heal. I know I need to step away from the Voodoo, and I'm distancing myself from what Thorn's called "the Luciferian aspects of Feri".

That spell in high school showed me the power of hexing, a power I know I've used in other times with horrific percision. This lifetime, I've sworn off vengeance magic, something my clairvoyent bodyworker applauds. She continues to counsel me that I have to trust my ability not to strike, but to not give up the practice of hissing. Honing my ability to hiss, while laying down the striking, is a challenge I'm up for. The spirit bottle is almost done. Many thanks to Marie Laveau, who through the veils shines brightly, illuminating for me my work as a priestess.

awesome

Today I had the strange experience of viewing my own heart. It was awesome. I don’t mean that in the surfer dude sort of way. Seeing my own heart filled me with awe, the simple beauty of the steady beat, the contraction and expansion, the emptying and then filling. The ultrasound technician noticed my tears welling up and smiled broadly. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?”, he said. Yes, incredible. Seeing it, I remembered so clearly the first time in pregnancy I saw my son’s heartbeat, looking like a little light blinking on and off in the kidney bean of his body.

After my recent illness, I took leap and scheduled a doctor’s visit, something I haven’t done in five years. I have something close to a phobia regarding doctors. I don’t do an annual pap, and have never had a mammogram. My mistrust of western medicine is high. I generally regard it as something to use as a last resort, or in case of disaster, like broken bones and non-stop bleeding. The paper gowns and long periods of waiting give me the jitters, set my teeth on edge and make me sweat metallically. It feels like the antithesis of engaging in a healthy activity.

In the last month or so, all signs have pointed to a check-up. Western medicine, like a good automotive center, can render good diagnostic tests. I turned fifty this year and the persistent little cough I suppose warrants a good check-up, although my gut instinct is that it’s asthma. The physician I went to quickly grasped that my visit was an aberration, and she had to make the most of it. She jumped while the fire was hot and ordered up a full range of testing. By January, I will have had a multitude of tests done, including the dreaded mammogram. I’m choosing to look at this all as a piece of magic, believing that ruling things out will bring peace of mind, and if there’s something wrong, I can than take charge of the next step. Something else in me says cancel all tests, and stay the hell away from the doctors, it will only bring sickness and bad news.

The technician was able to show me my heart, but only from one angle. He brought in the doctor and they confered on how to proceed. They assured me that nothing was wrong, but they want me to come back and they will get what they need by injecting something which goes thru the heart and allows them to photograph it. I’m mulling on the wisdom of taking such a test. My strong sense is that this is neither necessary nor healthy for what I saw so elegantly pumping on the screen a few hours ago.

Seeing my own heart today I felt such gratitude for the life force coursing through me, the miraculous gift of the steady beat in my chest. What to do in the service of this gift, this can be truly confusing. Is taking all these tests really what I should be doing? Maybe this is really about taking a good look at my heart, outside of tests and monitors. Have I really mended my heartbreak? Like Reya, should I be letting go of the Feri current, or at the very least, letting go of any image or idea of my heart being black? If something is wrong, won't they just tell me to have a better diet and do more swimming and walking, so why not cancel the test and treat my heart better? I have lots to think about and a decision to make on this particular test. One thing is for certain, I know I have a beautiful heart. Truly awesome

to be continued....

What a Samhain season! The days have been jam packed for weeks. After my illness,I had a burst of creative energy, feeling compelled to make more and more spirit bottles with all my old Mardi Gras beads, which then brought into focus my old connection to Voodoo. With that percolating in me, I flew with my son to Minneapolis to be part of the weekend long wedding party for Reclaiming priestess Donald Engstrom and his beloved Mark. We stayed at what my son called the Haunted Mansion and alternatively, the Hostile Hostel. Then back to San Francisco just in time to put on a big party in honor of the Day of the Dead. At the same time, Anne-Marie arrived from England to join Georgia, who’d also traveled with us to Minneapolis, in preparing for their Reclaiming Feri initiation. I initiated them last Saturday, and they left on Monday. I have several blogs in me about all of the above, and hopefully in the coming days, I will have time to write them. So mote it be!

healthy, wealthy, and wise

Death serves to make us appreciate life, and sickness serves to make us appreciate health. Today I've been giddy with gratitude for my health and the incredible energy of this living body. Wow! What a miracle!

Ever since the full moon I've been battling the flu. Actually, it pretty much won a few hours into the initial skirmish, and then I fell into bed. Taking time off from my practice is always hard. Besides the loss of income, it means a massive amount of work in rescheduling every appointment. I don't remember the last time I took three days off in row. I was really sick.

Today I woke up and was delighted to feel something other than ill. I felt like myself!!!! I've been savouring that all day, just how fabulous that is! I know I'm not totally up to speed, but just to feel the level of energy that I do now, to feel an appetite again, to have a clear head; that's making me feel like a million bucks! Rich as rich can be!

The weather co-operated with my elation today by being glorious, one of those pearly San Francisco days, which culminate in one of those twilights where the city appears bathed in iridescent fairy fire. I don't even know what the last three days have been like, or what the sky's looked like at night. Oh, to have my health, that is precious beyond belief!

nightcaps and spirits

Yesterday the day started with ten young co-eds from a Jesuit college descending on the house as part of a city wide volunteer fair. They came to create blankets for the project I had started with a few friends in response to hurricane Katrina. Our website, theblanketproject.com is up and running, and hopefully soon people will be able to upload pictures of the blankets they are doing onto the site. It’s just the kind of pragmatic magic I like. It serves a purpose, and it’s a spell to blanket the country in warmth, kindness and compassion. The blankets that have come in have been beautiful, with great designs and powerful sentiments attached. The young women jumped right in, and in a few hours there were several unique blankets that not only will keep those who survived that hurricane warm, but are works of art as well.

It was a warm day, and with that very specific golden thickening of the air that is particular to this season. The dead are pouring on in through the veil. As the young women sewed and chatted, Fern and I created our house altar for the dead. We set out a fine place setting and filled the plate with pomegranates and chocolate and filled a glass to the brim with dark rum. The offerings may change between now and Samhain, but it was clear that today was the day we needed to start feeding the dead.

Lucy dropped by, and then Nancy came by to look at my spirit bottles for the altar to New Orleans she is creating for the Spiral Dance. We had a great discussion about what spirits to fill the bottles and the mosaic oversized cocktail glass with. I will be on the hunt for some real absinthe in the next few weeks.

The volunteers left and then the unexpected happened. Lyra’s roommate came over to cut Fern’s hair and I ended up getting a cut as well. Jesse is completely untrained, and her cuts are wild art installations. Somehow they work well, managing to be unusual but also attractive. Maybe it was the dead, maybe it was the fact that my divorce had become finalized on Yom Kippur, but something told me the beginning of this New Year calls for a new do. A lot of dead weight came off, and my hair feels and is acting more alive. It’s spirited!

I then spent some hours in my studio working on my new bottle. This one is dedicated to the spirits of rebirth/renewal. As I made it, a new bottle demanded to be made, one devoted to Marie Laveau. Marie Laveau made sure I woke up and took notice.

Early into the evening Denise talked me going with her to see if we could slide into the talk that the astrologer Caroline Casey was giving at the Bioneers conference. Everything lined up to make this as smooth as possible, we even got a parking spot right out front. Caroline covered a lot of ground, but spent considerable time praising and invoking Marie Laveau, saying that given Marie’s chart, she’s really up to some work right now. Caroline’s talk addressed so much of what my day had focused on as well; New Orleans, the thin line between the dead and the living, and taking creative action. I’m happy with my new haircut, loving the idea of an astrological chart having meaning far after our death, and full of juice for making these bottles. I topped off the amazing day by crawling into bed and finishing the movie I’d started the day before “What the Bleep Do We Know?” Perfect, just perfect. Count on a little quantum physics to be the perfect nightcap!

back to the garden

The longer I’m a witch, the less need I have for the formal casting of circles or raising of cones. Every inch of this planet is sacred space, and each second we’re involved in casting some spell. The trick is remembering this, and that’s where Buddhism and Witchcraft meet. The more I’m mindful, the more I’m amazed at the magic involved in mundane life. Rose told me often; “the mundane before magic”. I’m beginning to feel there’s absolutely no difference between the two.

I set out to my place in the country with the intent on diminishing the rat population, getting the composting toilet working properly, and planting trees. Clearing out the vermin infesting the house, dealing with my shit, and planting trees that will bear fruit, these are all so called “mundane” tasks that are fraught with the power of changing consciousness at will, and are each the most potent of spells. You don’t really need to be anointing candles with oils to be make things move in your life. Cleaning the house, weeding, or planting seeds with magical intent are just as effective.

My coven, Wind Hags, along with our partners, bought these 40 acres in the wilds of Sonoma about 11 years ago. Part of a big land association formed as a result of hippies heading to the country in the early 70’s, it was perfect for a group endeavor. Having been an old commune of sorts, it came with several ramshackle cabins and the standard Northern Californian Yurt. About two years after we purchased it, Wind Hags had dissolved and the rest of us had bought Starhawk out. She bought a place of her own down the road and everything has remained almost as it was over the years. It’s as if not only the structures on the land, but the very structures of our relationships have not been altered or improved on much, just become more weather-beaten and eroded by time. A big shift in energies happened this year, with Patti and Karl moving to Portland. The installation of a packrat in the cookhouse and the encroachment of thistles and brambles call for yet another shift. This is magic I’m interested in.

I went up this weekend with the intent of approaching the land with a new sense of responsibility, a new commitment. Another couple went with me, new friends who are unique in that they are a bridge between the Reclaiming and RAN communities. Nancy is on the board at RAN and has taken magical classes with me, and is one of those people who when I met, I thought “Oh, there you are! I know you!”. The amazing thing is I felt the same way when I met her partner. They have a farm in Cortez and are much more familiar and experienced with the magic of gardening and country living than I. They made me think a lot about dead and living soil, and showed me clearly that I have a lot to learn about digging holes, and tending to that which feeds me.

My old coven sister and her partner, both of them my initiators into Feri, came up on Sunday. It was a delight to see them and hang out together, something we haven’t done in years. Nancy has set her intent on more magical training, and it was clear that meeting the two of them is part of the spell she is involved in. She's going into Reclaiming with eyes wide open, being privy to seeing it though the sight of those who both helped form it, and have left it. For me, reconnecting with them, enjoying each other’s company and planning out how to tend to the land together, this was part and parcel of the magic I’ve embarked on.

Three new trees are now planted and two rats are dead, with more to follow. I freed the drawer of composted shit and the composting toilet is now working well. Driving home, amazingly, Joni’s song came on the radio. We are stardust, billion year old carbon. I’m paying attention, and working on getting back to the garden.

We Are Golden

The new moon with its eclipse has time and space slipping and sliding, there is feeling that literally anything can happen! This week the wheel clearly turned and the air is different. For one thing, it’s full of noise. There’s something always surreal about the week in San Francisco when the Blue Angels are flying overhead. It’s such an aberration in this left of center city to have a sky full of jet bombers showing off, it’s truly disconcerting. The city is full of people like myself muttering in disgust or dismay. Gus the dog got so upset he climbed the fence and some poor guy came home to find him cowering on his couch! He could be Houdini reincarnated into a hound. Dealing with this was part of Ilyse and my last minute preparations for the big RAN party.

Dressed in our finery, we took a cab to the event, and walking in, I knew it was going to be fabulous. And it was! The city that had dive bombers overhead all day had also dedicated the day to the Nigerian activist who had been killed for exposing the atrocities done in his country as a result of oil profiteering. His brother spoke, and there were tears all around. We reveled in the many victories RAN has had in the last twenty years, and ended up dancing for hours to a great band who is known, but not to me. I can’t for the life of me remember their name, but the music was great to dance to. I especially enjoyed Bob Weir jamming with them and singing old 60’s standards, like “What it’s Worth”. Some of my Deadhead friends would have plotzed. All through the night I felt an immense sense of gratitude for knowing the people I do. What a cast of characters!!!!

Today I pack up the car and take the fig, pomegranate, and avocado tree to my land. I’m also taking pity on Gus and getting him out of the city. The Blue Angels are on his nerves. Ever since yesterday I’ve been humming Joni’s song….given how things are going, this dream might actually happen. Heck, I actually think it is happening!

And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

History Lesson

Tomorrow night I go to the 20th year anniversary celebration of Rainforest Action Network, the organization that my ex-husband was director of thru the late 1990’s. Kelly was one of those instrumental in the environmental community in linking forest issues to globalization and RAN played a big role in the magic in Seattle at the mass mobilization against the WTO. Up until he was unceremoniously let go of as director, we had both considered RAN a locus of cherished community. Victories, such as Home Depot stopping using old growth, were beginning, and a strong network of friendships was being built.

In our years together, I became close to many of his colleagues and cohorts who worked at RAN, Greenpeace, and other environmental groups. I taught workshops to longtime activists on using magic, coining the term “magical activism” and incorporated using magic in the teaching of civil disobedience tactics. After Seattle, Starhawk took this on as well, and I eventually turned my attention to other work. I had introduced my ex to Reclaiming when we were in our twenties, and he returned that favor in our thirties by introducing me to this particular sector of the environmental activist community, a community that as it turns out, is one which I feel more valued in than in local Reclaiming. Ilyse, a campaign director at RAN, just bought into my building and has become chosen family. Over the years, my priestessing skills have been well utilized in helping people of this community marry, do rituals for their children, and deal with grieving the dead.

Kelly was ousted from RAN at the same time as our twenty year marriage was coming to an end. Like with so many things that come to a close, there is no one clear cut reason for the ending of his directorship, or our marriage. In both, a variety of factors mounted up, an assortment of straws accumulated, and eventually a break occurred. In the lead up to this anniversary celebration, I’ve puzzled over the curiosity of my ex having more resentment, hard feelings, and heart break over his fracture with RAN than with our break-up. I’ve been a mirror of this in my estrangement from local Reclaiming. Strangely, we both have struggled with disillusionment with communities we once were in the thick of, that we once believed we would be part of forever, while more easily making peace with letting go of our commitment to a future together. Perhaps all those years of couples counseling were effective! If not in keeping us together, than in allowing us with some grace to let go. It’s so much harder to let go of something which matters to you deeply when you are treated as if you don’t matter!

Although I still can’t see myself attending the Spiral Dance, I’ve found myself badgering him to take his place at the anniversary dinner, feeling he‘s played an essential part in RAN‘s history. Inspired by the Reya Letters, I wrote him the letters he would wish to receive from those he still feels injured by. They were incredibly healing for me to write, in ways I still don’t quite understand, and I hope they’ve been healing for him to receive. Reya gifted me in a similar way with a letter from the Spiral Dance cell, something I’ve reworked until achieving utter perfection, until each word is now a gem giving off light and eliciting laughter.

As I prepare to go to this celebration, I’m thinking once again on the topic of community. True community is made up of the people you actually spend time with, who you commune with, and who you both create and then share history with. It’s not necessary that you like everyone, in fact, creating real human community means working together even when you actively dislike each other. There’s something powerful about accepting that even those we can’t stand do matter, do serve some purpose. I’m thinking of all the stories, not all of them pleasant, which will be in the room tomorrow night. Good and bad, I’m thankful for them all. They are my history.

new moon

In popular culture, it’s only the full moons that grab attention. Associated with werewolves, love songs, and full emergency rooms, everyone expects something dramatic to occur on a full moon. But, living the shamanic lifestyle, the trick is to pay attention to the energies surrounding the new moon, where the seeds of the future seem to be planted. This is the best time to make wishes, to set intent, to pay attention and get down to some life interpretation of the dream we are leading. This new moon really packs a punch, being also the beginning of the Jewish high holy days and one in which there happens to be an eclipse.

Fern had told me that given my astrological chart, to expect this new moon and eclipse to bring changes and transformation to my relationships - both to individuals and in communities. Now, change and transformation seem to be a constant in this e-ticket ride of my life, but I’m sensing the change right now is not in the form of the Tower card, there’s no catastrophic falling apart of any relationship. Those seem to be all around me, couples breaking up and mighty struggles happening. Given the battles I’m witnessing or hearing about, I’m rather happy to be going it alone at the moment. I think the changes this time round are more subtle, more fluid; this is a sea change. In this change, I’m setting the intent of continuing to discard old patterns that aren’t in my overall best interests, and to find myself easily be drawn to situations/relationships/adventures that give as much as they take, and that are essentially pleasing. I’m so ready to be fully pleased and delighted!

This new moon felt auspicious as it was a rare day I had hours of time to myself. Inspired by the Reya Letters, I spent some of the day writing my own set of letters. These letters are not only profoundly healing, but also hysterically funny. I wrote out my new moon wishes, and was surprised at the simplicity of them. I finished one big spirit bottle dedicated to New Orleans, and began another, and who and what that is dedicated to is in process of becoming. Perhaps the new moon! Naomi called during the day and invited me to a Rosh Hashanah dinner, and I noticed both how lovely the invitation was, and how important it seemed to decline. What seemed to be the magic at hand was to make a very nice dinner for myself and my son. It’s not often that there’s just the two of us home for dinner, and the meal was delicious in every way. In the past week, I’ve been acutely aware of his voice beginning to change. Like every change, it leads to more change. One of those changes will, of course, be in our relationship.

The day is over and it was a good one. Seeds have been planted into fertile soil. Here’s a new moon wish; May I travel thru this winter and on up into spring, rewarded and nourished by all that was planted today. So mote it be!

Invoking lost luggage

Tomorrow is the new moon, and Rosh Hashanah begins. In the giving up of monotheism, I’ve found myself open to working and being worked by a variety of other different tradition’s holy days. As newbie witch, way back in the late 1970’s, I pushed away from what I was raised with, and looked down my nose at any religion that centered around one male deity. I was pretty darn monotheistic in my polytheism! Now I invoke the wisdom of twelve step programs in regard to other religions; I take what I need, and leave the rest.

I was raised as a Episcopalian, but it’s the Jewish holidays that have been drawing me over the past year. Passover lent me it’s spirit of liberation in the spring, and these High Holy Days look like they will be generous to me as well. They are working on me, making me review old resentments, and what I’m ready to let go of. I’m looking at too, what I have to atone to and for. At Beltane, we have the moment of jumping over the cauldron, where we are symbolically purifying ourselves of what we don’t want to take into the next turn of the wheel. How much more powerful this moment would be if there was an actual lead up to it, if we all spent a week or so really looking at what baggage we needed to let go of, and taking some action around this - even if totally internally, that lead to the moment of cauldron jumping really having some breadth and power.

Beltane is at the height of the earth’s mating dance, it’s a frenzied and intoxicating swirl of life force energy. Maybe it’s just not the time for the kind of work that letting go of old baggage entails. Letting go of old resentments at Beltane is kind of like having a few drinks at party and spontaneously hugging someone you usually have conflict with. Who can really be in touch with resentments when such a great and wild party is going on all around? Those moments of ecstatic dancing with the Fey usually are just that, moments. There’s usually a hangover, and sometimes even the kind of remorse that comes from a drunken binge.

This time period right after Equinox, when the veil begins it’s thinning, this seems to be a great time to think about what we don’t want to take into the dark. This is a perfect time to review what I want to descend into the dark with, knowing that basement space can already be cluttered. How much better to go down those stairs free of old baggage, with the ancestors are all around, whispering their stories and tales, ready to assist in lightening the load.

Reya’s been busy writing the letters she wishes she’d received (goldpoppy.blogspot.com), and in doing this, she is healing old hurt and dropping baggage by the pound. She’s shared some of the letters with me, and as I have practically a matching set to some of her baggage, those letters have been healing for me as well. Tomorrow I will be writing down my new moon wishes, and one of those wishes will be sure to be a lightening of my load as I descend into the dark.

there is no end to the circle

I’m exhausted. This has been one tiring turning of the wheel. Here in San Francisco, the door that opens through which the dead pour in usually produces a wave of heat. That door swung open today and the temperature rose. In my office, every session seemed to involve the dead. Those who weren’t actively grieving were mulling and musing on their relationship to the afterlife. I could feel the city get a little denser, a bit more crowded, as the dead began their steady stream over Twin Peaks.

The power of the Spiral Dance, the Samhain ritual that Reclaiming has performed for well over two decades, also made it’s appearance. I’ve responded to two posts of Macha, that mighty priestess of the dead, on a Reclaiming e-mail list, about “community” dynamics and history regarding the Spiral Dance. It’s kind of great to be able to speak my mind, and not have expectation of result. What a difference it makes no longer being invested in things changing, or even being invested in being heard. What a difference it makes to accept the death of things! The heat, the door opening, and the e-mails have me thinking a lot about the Spiral Dance.

There was a time I couldn’t imagine not participating in that ritual. It’s been such a part of my history that it has a sense of timelessness in my memory. My son didn’t grow up clamoring for Raffi, or a Disney soundtrack. From his carseat behind me as I drove, he’d demand for me to play the tape of “let it begin now” just one more time. All the voices were familiar to him, part of his extended family. For years before his birth, I’d ask on the isle of apples to be given a child. I remember dancing it six months pregnant. I remember clearly his name being called after his birth., and when he was four and created his own ritual, The Spiraled Ants, involving all his stuffed animals and a trance led by Pooh. Reya and I once created a cartoon of us above the ritual, marveling at the fact that we now were the mighty dead. Recently we marveled at how it was possible our names might not even be called at the ritual, or even if called, we might be elsewhere. If I don’t feel comfortable attending in life, why the heck would I want to be there in death?

And yet. Yet, I know that anything can happen, and usually will. I think of Raven’s death, and how the years of him being outcast from the “community” faded away when it was time to cross over. Watching Macha take him thru the veils is a memory that still gives me a kundalini shiver. Maybe even though I don't feel welcomed there in life, I'll be happy to dance in dead. The last time I was at the Spiral Dance I had to fight to be there. Not allowed to priestess in any way, I’d been told I could do an altar. Even doing the altar was a struggle, and given how that night turned out, I wish I’d just stayed home.

Unfortunately I know more than I want to about the fights and conflicts of the last few years in the group that now puts on the Spiral Dance over whether to allow me to participate. I would unfailingly have bad dreams about my bones being chewed on after the nights they met, and find out later that there was some truth to those dreams. The usual wierd dynamics of humans trying to work together can get even wierder when those humans are openly psychic. This year, I've been dream free, and given that I've been asked to do an altar, I'm thinking the tide must have turned and my bones are no longer being chewed on. It's all a bit ironic, as the group is now more functional as the Spiral Dance is now truly a collective effort and no longer produced by one person, given the reason I became such a locus of controversy is I publicly stated that I didn't believe it was a great idea to have major community events, like the Spiral Dance, produced by one person. I've heard for the past few years how much better it feels to have it produced collectively, but has of yet not heard one word of acknowledgement for my part in this. My guess is that it's not safe to do so, as what comes next is me being right about the other major community event, California Camp. Many in the Spiral Dance cell teach or want to teach at that event, and so it's not politic to acknowledge me as worthy of any respect or given any credence. Better for me to serve as some kind of Cassandra on the edge of town.

I'm sick of that role, it's not gratifying in the least. I miss what the Spiral Dance once was to me, but am so fearful of attending again and having a repeat of the last time, which all in all felt like the worst kind of magic. When we sang "Let it begin now", all I could see was abuses of power, flagrant narcisssim, selfishness, and petty meaness. A great beginning for the Bush years, as it turned out. The goddess has been kind, giving me compelling magic to attend to each year I haven't gone. This year I’ll be in Minnesota, helping priestess my beloved Donald Engstrom’s wedding. My friend Nancy is doing an altar to New Orleans at the Spiral Dance, and I will be lending her my spirit bottles, which I’ve made with Mardi Gras beads, to sit on that altar. So strangely, I will have a presence this year in the form of my art.

I wonder if I ever will go to another Spiral Dance here in San Francisco. Whether or not I do, the past ones still resonate in me, in all their beauty and excess. If you do something annually for over two decades, it has the tendency to stay alive in memory, whether you participate actively in it or not. Maybe it will take seven years, the seven years it takes all the cells to be replaced in the body, to really let the ritual go as a body memory. Or maybe it goes beyond body memory by now. No wonder I’m so tired.

the weight of return

Over the weekend, I began to work on my garden here in the city. I'm clearing out what was planted by others that doesn’t suit me, and putting in plants that do. For my land in the country, I’ve ordered a battery operated ultrasonic rat repeller and bags of owl friendly rodent poison. I also bought a fig, avocado, and pomegranate tree at the farmer‘s market and have full instructions on their planting. Roots down, branches up!

As I invoke the work of inhabiting myself fully, the universe cooperates. I’m being reconnected to old friends and reminded of the array of things that make my spirit soar. The last two nights there's been a fantastic documentary on television on Bob Dylan, made by Scorcese. I love Bob Dylan. His music has been a steady contributor to this life's soundtrack. Full of interviews with incredible beings, I was particularly struck by the treasure of Allan Ginsberg. Both he and Bob have the trickster working thru them, both are natural shamans, both are nothing but fully themselves. But Ginsberg, his heart stayed open until the end. Dylan’s heart, that’s more elusive.

There are new plants both in the front and in the back of the house. I ate a copious amount of raw oysters in the last few days and spent two lovely evenings with friends who cooked delicious meals for me. Each day, I feel the weight of love and wonder. I am returning to the body where I was born.

Song - by Allan Ginsberg

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living

Yesterday morning I was awoken with yet another phone call from an old friend. Lee-Ann and I hooked up on the Oregon coast in my early twenties. We started a crisis line together for women which dealt with both rape and domestic violence. I was fresh out of college, and she was a mother and housewife on the front lines of domestic violence. She’d walk into a bar, talk to guys she knew who had a history of wife-beating, and come out with enough money for us to pay the rent and phone bill at our small office. Over the years she’s gone in and out of her great love affair with her husband and the father of her children. Their battles have been the stuff of legend. In Lee-Ann, he surely found a worthy adversary. I woke to the news that he is now dying of pancreatic cancer.

Years ago Lee-Ann dropped her husband’s name and took up Jones for the woman she admired so much; Mother Jones. Like Mother Jones, she’s had more than her share of personal tragedy. She’s lost a child and her fortunes have gone up and down wildly. Thru it all, she’s been a constant agitator for social justice, an outspoken feminist, and she always can make me laugh. She’s another of those who was conceived at Beltane and born at Brigid, and I love her dearly. I told her I’d come to the small town in Idaho where she now lives when she needs me. There’s been years when we haven’t spoken at all, yet, when we do, the years fade away and the connection remains solid.

In the last few weeks, I’ve thought more than once of Mother Jone’s famous quote; “Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living”. Here at this equinox, I’m aware of the delicate balance of these two. Max will be dead soon, and I know I will pray for him. And I’ll be fighting for the living, and being there in any way I can for my friend, Lee-Ann. Oh, this may be a very hard winter.

connecting with the equinox

Today was a quintessential San Francisco fall day. The air was as crisp as a granny smith apple, the light had that honeyed hue I love so much, and there was the occasional gust of wind to picturesquely toss around leaves. The energies of the day turned out to be all about reconnection. Operators were standing by, and the calls came pouring in.

I called a friend on her cell phone and she just happened have just run into my old coven mate, Gwydion. Gwydion and I rarely see each other any more - but I trust him to show up in my life when I really need him. Today, by so called coincidence, I found out that he was about to embark on a trip to Iceland. I’m glad to know it, Iceland figured into some of our coven’s fantasies, spurred on by Reya and her desire for a puffin farm. It will be good to imagine Gwydion there in the coming weeks. So strange that at this juncture one of us is actually heading for Iceland!

A call from another friend prompted me to call someone I haven’t spoken to in months. I’m glad I did. This is one of my oldest friends. He’d just told the truth to his wife about something he’s been hiding for way too long. The power of the truth never ceases to amaze. His voice was so much fuller of life and spirit. In the past, he has been in incredible fear of what was going to happen if the truth came out. I know he’s still afraid, but it has such a different quality. It’s expansive and not constricted. He’s no longer afraid of what’s going to happen, he’s facing that many things could happen, and outside of staying truthful, he hasn’t much control. That’s scary, but oh so different from the fear involved in trying to keep a lie under control.

I got off the phone, and there was a message waiting. An old initiate of mine was about to fly back home from a visit here and wondered if we could get together this evening. We’d lost contact for many years, and her initiation was one which triggered an intense reaction afterwards. I’ve always wondered how it had all been processed, and if she still considered herself a priestess and/or witch. I met her over at some other friend’s house and there was instant re-engagement. She’s now a homeopath and clearly the name she got at that initiation and her identity as a witch is still strong. We had one of those rich conversations which affirms that more is going on between the worlds than we can ever know, that our connection has never been severed and even although we haven’t been in literal contact, our connection has still been cooking.

After visiting awhile, I went to dinner with another of my oldest friends and her partner. She and I were lovers years ago in college, and she just moved back here last early spring. Her partner is a delight, and our friendship is experienceing a renaissance. We ate an assortment of delicately flavored dishes of a Himalayan restaurant and made plans to spend time up at my land. After the meal, coming home, I felt full in a way that went far beyond taking in a good meal. The whole day was a dish to digest!

The fashion sense in the Craft sucks, all that faux medieval style I find rather dorky. But holding the seasons as sacred, that's a great part of being a witch! Observing the sabbats serves to remind me to tune into the energies of the wheel turning. This sabbat, this equinox, I’m aware how important it is right now to strengthen and honor my connections. What a fabulous day this was. I'm full to the brim with this feast!

hand me a flashlight

Today was the equinox. I saw nine clients today. Every one made me mindful of the door we were stepping thru into our descent into darkness. The couple who had recently delivered a stillborn child, the fifty seven year old who was breaking up a 17 year old relationship, the couple who were scheduled for a c-section who just found out the placenta had moved and they were free to deliver “naturally”, the client who was struggling to let go of the substances he’s used for over twenty years; every hour today I stood with clients who stood on some threshold.

And then I came home. My son’s father was scheduled to come over to work out our calendar for this fall’s perusal of possible high schools for our son. My housemate Ilyse was leaving for a 10 day trip to Canada. When she returns, she will no longer be inhabiting her flat, but will have moved up a floor into new space. Fern was recovering from an intense spate of cramps due to her struggles with endrometritis. In this mix, I’d invited my goddess daughter over, knowing that she’d just found out her parents are separating and she could use the stability of the chaos at my house.

So, I roasted some free range chickens, prepared salad and various savories, and baked an apple pie. My goddess daughter and my son set the table and, once everyone arrived, we sat down to eat.

My goddess daughter was direct and on target. She looked at my son’s father and said, “I guess you know my parents are separating”. I’d told him, ,moments before we sat down for dinner, but he equivocated. She was relentless, and he finally conceded that he’d just found out.

I’m amazed by the evening. My ex-husband and I attempted to comfort my beloved goddess daughter, while our own break-up loomed large in the room. Old patterns and energies flew around the room, some catching, some passing on thru. It's clear to me what I've totally let go of, and what remains firmly stuck. There is balance in this, and the evening revealed what I need to shine a flashlight on.

What an equinox this is! Tomorrow I will eat the last piece of the pie for breakfast and prepare to descend into the dark. And somewhere off the Gulf coast, the storm is dancing.

interesting times

Tomorrow is the equinox, that most unusual time of balance, where for one brief day, dark and light are in equal measure. Then darkness slowly claims it’s reign. Already, I can feel that pull downwards. I kept getting the image today of standing in front of a door that leads down to a basement. I’m savoring this moment before we step thru the door, loving the last of the summer’s light. Darkness will come, soon enough.

I’ve had five calls since Monday from old clients who want to come back to therapy. None of the calls involved tragedy or loss, all seem to be coming from an urgency to get back to work, a need to attend again to old patterns and demons that have been rearing their head. They are ready to go down to the basement. There's a big work bench down there, I just know it! It seems we are entering a time for attending to and dealing with what needs repair. And there’s a general sense right now to take care of business, that something is coming. Or perhaps it's already come and we''ve just begun to notice.

Somewhere off the coast of Texas, another powerful hurricane is gathering strength. My housemate Ilyse’s family in Houston have twelve people on the way to stay with them who are evacuating from Galveston. Here in San Francisco, it seems everyone is busy preparing for a possible earthquake.

This equinox I’m filled with an exquisite tenderness, noticing and appreciating life as it is now, knowing it will rapidly be changing in ways I can’t foresee or imagine. I’m sensing how this very moment in time we stand at some portal of balance between past and future. This moment, the present, is alive with portent. When I'm not feeling in awe, I’m alternately feeling blessed and cursed for living in such interesting times. And I'm breathing into the meditation of balance - of my exhale equaling my inhale, love equaling fear, giving equaling taking, and gentleness equaling fierceness. What an incredible place this is, this green earth!

inhabiting

This past weekend I spent up at my land in the Sonoma hills, within crow fly of the ocean. I haven’t spent any time there for a year and a half. Being there was all mixed up with memory of the great unraveling of my last relationship. It was just too painful. It was there, while I was celebrating the spring equinox, that my lover’s brother committed suicide. That suicide, an ending for David, turned out to be the beginning of incredible heartbreak for me. Going there this last weekend, as fall equinox approaches, was a ritual of closure. As all of those rituals are, it was also a ritual of beginning. The time of heartbreak is officially over. The healing has been well under way for awhile, and it’s clear what the remaining work is to do.

Being there, it became abundantly clear that if you don’t inhabit a space, somebody else will. The cookhouse and other dwellings have been taken over by the rodents. To get them back, I or others will have to once again inhabit them. I cleaned up the mess, tore out the nests, boiled mint to fill the space with a smell I like and they detest, and poured mint water and also essential oil over every surface. Traps will have to be set or poison left. My cats may need to get more mobile. I’m obsessed now with this pursuit, searching the net for a poison that won’t affect the owls, hawks, or crows who might prey on a weakened and
fleeing rat. What a deep meditation this is! To rid oneself of something without hurting something else down the line.

The garden too is becoming overgrown, brambles choking out fruit trees and thistles spreading. My legs and arms are considerably scratched, but now a lime and pear tree are liberated, free to grow unencumbered.

I’m back in the city, but committed to once again fully inhabiting all parts of myself, of staying conscious of what is in danger of strangling that which bears fruit, of staying vigilant of ridding myself of pests and vermin, of staying responsible once again to that rickety little cottage in the wild. It will take some work, and I may need to enlist some help, but I’m finally ready and willing. It’s time.

loving and losing

I’m in love with San Francisco. It was love at first sight. I was eight when I first lay eyes on her, flying overhead, preparing to land on my family‘s move to California. We were moving south of San Jose, but the imprint of looking down on the bridges and the hills is so much stronger than any first impression of that city to the south. As I grew up, San Francisco lay north, a shining jewel I treasured visiting. Carol Doda, beat poets, Victorian houses, cable cars, and of course, the lure of the love-ins in the Haight, all seized my imagination. As a teenager, I came to the city as much as I could, and in the summer, I baked in the heat of the Santa Clara valley and longed to be enveloped in San Francisco fog. I snuck away to the Fillmore to see Janis many nights my parents thought I was spending the night with a friend. As a city, San Francisco truly has always had my heart.

I’ve lived here now well over two decades, and I’m a San Franciscan thru and thru. I’m a witch, a psychotherapist, queer, an artist, and I live in a Victorian infused with spirits. I’m an archetypal San Franciscan, merged and wedded deeply to this city of hills. I’m pretty sure my love affair will continue until I die. As committed as my love for this city is, I am not monogamous. I have loved others.

This summer, traveling to teach witch camp in England, and then on to Amsterdam, I had an affair. Not with London (much too full of pain), and not even with Glastonbury. Glastonbury is in some way family to me, I feel at home there at the holy wells and at the Tor, it’s like a coven sister I depend on now to work with me between the worlds. Traveling over the channel, I looked down from the plane and felt another great love affair begin. Amsterdam and I have chemistry. For the time I was there, I let myself love her with abandon, soaking up all she had to offer, mesmerized and enchanted as only you can be when you first fall in love. Giddy with delight, intoxicated with the pleasure of giving myself over to fully experiencing everything she had to offer, I thought a lot about my love affairs with other cities. San Francisco is not a jealous lover, a true free spirit, she has encouraged every love affair I've had, and my love of other cities had never detracted from the love I feel for her.

There are two other cities in my lifetime that I’ve fallen for, that hold a piece of my heart, that I feel blessed for every moment I spent in their embrace. Walking out of the train station in Venice, I almost swooned at her golden beauty. As I got to know her more, that beauty only intensified. The other city I’ve loved is and was New Orleans. The music that seems to permeate everything, old bars that pirates have frequented, voodoo priestesses, oysters at the Acme restaurant, decaying cemeteries, chicory coffee and beignets, the Garden District, and the languid air and spirit of the place-I loved every facet of that city. Even the frat boys puking on Bourbon Street, and how you could cross a street and feel you had literally crossed the poverty line. New Orleans was sex, death, mystery, and magic.

I am mourning her loss, grieving that she is forever changed, drowned and damaged, still soaking in a stew of poisons and misery. I am bereft beyond words. Something precious and particular is lost to this world.

My great love, San Francisco, has been an incredible comfort to me at this time. There is tenderness in this city, and a profound kinship for that city in the south that was such heady soil for all the exotic varieties not welcomed in the gardens of Walmart America. I am grieving. And as always in grief, I am amazed at the power of love. My heart hurts, and is once again, stretched.