coindependence

Several weeks ago I went back to therapy. At this point in my life, I have a pretty good idea of the major storylines and mythic dramas that lay beneath the surface of everyday reality - and certainly have become skilled at the blended art of being both protaganist and author of my own epic tale. I'm blessed with friends who will hold a mirror up to me if I'm starting to hold myself in unattractive poses, or am putting myself down when I should be basking in my own radience.

Nevertheless, this is a time that calls for the engaged, non-invested paid witness - or as we know it, a damn good therapist. This year is a time of change. My household, my workplace, my spiritual orientation, and my relationship to my relationships -all are in transition. And of course, having a 13 year old son with raging hormones just as my hormones start to rage - well, that's enough to warrant more than one sturdy licensed professional.

My dear friend Reya coined the wonderful term "coindependence". This is turns out is what I am working on, working towards . I strive to feel my connection to the life force, to all living things, to my community and my loved ones, while also staying in my own skin, aware of what is and what is not my business, exercising the freedom and liberty to be myself, mindful of other's boundaries and of my own. As a therapist, I've savored Reya's concept, believing that it's always more powerful to work towards something, as opposed to against. It goes along with my magical beliefs in that I have found it is more effective to work with energies as opposed to trying to bind or stop energies. Love is the ultimate power, and I would LOVE to be coindependent rather than try not to be codependent.

So, it is with great joy and a smile on my face that I report that the experience of working towards coindependence in therapy really is quite a different experience than my work in the past when that other word was thrown around. I took in three vignettes to Jeb, my therapist, and told him I wanted to figure out what to do from the stance of coindependence - and wow! the work really hummed along with a smile. I marvel once again at the power of a simple word, of how changing a name changes the nature of the thing. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, and yet.....

granite

We cleaned the house today. Cleaning a house full of spirits is always eventful. The simple act of dusting can result in some new layer of reality being revealed. Casey and Lyra threw themselves into the cleaning endeavor as well, lending youthful juice to this spring cleaning. Lyra is still involved in the project of sorting and cleaning up the CD collection. She says it is a little like sorting magic beans or grains. She is my 17 year old goddess daughter, and like my son, Casey, she has grown up infused with magic.

As we were cleaning, Patti came up the back stairs. Fern took the opportunity to ask Patti why there were now two giant boulders in front of the house. Patti and Karl bought this house with me over ten years ago. They soon will be moving from their flat downstairs to Oregon. It is the right move for them, but like all major change, it is also difficult. The people next door were having work done on their sidewalk and curb and many of these boulders had been dug up and were being thrown out. Patti asserted that the granite was from the Sierras, and so hating to see it tossed, she asked the workman to give her two. Fern asked if Karl could move them to the back yard, Patti said she wasn't sure how he could do it - they are so heavy.

Yes, they certainly are heavy. And large, and not particularly attractive, looking like something left over from a construction site, no real strong life force emanating from either. So interesting, just as my housemates prepare to leave, two large boulders become placed in front of our home, stones that will take some real effort and energy to remove. The question is - who should work on getting them moved? Is this part of a shamanic dance of dispersal that I need to work the steps of, do I need to find a home for these boulders? Or, in order to make this move, do Patti and Karl need to leave behind these rocks in their stead? In any case, it seems we need to work together to find a place for these rocks to be that is not front and center of our lives, our home.

Cleaning a house of the spirits is a tricky business. The movement of a painting can shift an energy course. We are involved in a major spring cleaning, a dusting off and rearranging the matter in our lives.

power point

This morning was the power point class of the iron pentacle I am teaching with my housemate, Fern. For the most part, the students do not seem interested in the energy body of local Reclaiming - most don't even go to the public rituals. Every one I find interesting, and each brings something particular and valuable to the mix. There is kindness, humour, and a gentle smiling energy in the room. And yet, many have been fearless (and some fearful yet courageous!) in sharing hard truths about themselves. There is depth here, there is beauty.

I am thinking and feeling hard right now on what I in fact am teaching...on what I am passing on. I am a priestess of Reclaiming and Feri - and both I am uncomfortable with, both feel like ill fitting garments at times, both have wraiths and energy bodies attached to them that can be harmful and ill willed. Is it possible to pass on teachings and not pass on these wraiths, demons, and energy bodies? I am looking at my students closely, who will be drawn to those powers that tend to drive Feri practioners mad and make some Reclaiming priestesses tear each other up, all the while demanding silence from the circle of witnesses?

There is something I am giving these students that I stand behind, that feels right and true. What is it? Perhaps it is simply the questioning attitude, having them question and poke at all the teachings. Why just three souls? What would they name the different souls? As I write this, I realize how important it is for me to teach students to question the energy bodies of traditions...to notice the shadows and what happens when those shadows are named. What is also clear is that I am at the point that I don't feel allegiance to either tradition...it's not what I really want to pass on. Does that help in not passing on the dangerous currents? I don't know. More questions than answers, as always!!!

mecca

Last night I went to Mecca. Could there be a better name for the nightspot where the dyke divas and power lesbians congregate here in San Francisco? Thursday nights women circle up around the circular bar, the lighting perfect, and imbibe the special cosmos of the evening with the intent to see and be seen. Lesbian politicians, those who are on boards, who run organizations, professionals of all types, movers and shakers of local community, they gather. Especially the single ones. Names are dropped liked jewels, with a flash and a glitter expected as they hit the air. "Do you know so and so? She does this that or the other wonderful thing!" As I we went thru the doors of Mecca, I said to my friend Carla,"Honor the threshold we cross, we are entering new territory!" And we certainly were.

I am currently teaching a class on the iron pentacle. This month the point we are on is power. Power is the point at Mecca. It pulses with it.Looking around at Mecca, I could feel the hum and thrum of power. In this crowd of women, power has a different vibration than in groups with men. Here it is more fluid, more permeable....less earthy and more oceanic. It gleamed. I had feared my inner 7th grader would emerge and I would have to hide in the bathroom. Instead, I felt myself strangely at ease, at home. I was in a group of women who were comfortable in their power, who sought to meet others powerful like themselves. For some, that power may be about income, about money. Certainly the surroundings exude affluence. But there is so much more that is going on. It was interesting to be in a crowd of women who clearly are successful in the overculture as well as being out lesbians, it was different than the outsider bars like the Lexington.

I had wondered how it would be in this crowd to be a witch. In the first 15 minutes I was introduced to a butch artist named Silverhawk and to a psychic counselor named Truthsayer. I steered clear of Truthsayer immediately (could there be a more dangerous moniker?) and ended up spending quite a bit of time with Silverhawk, who was not a witch but into some type of mayan shamanism. Naomi (who goes to Mecca quite often and is clearly established glitterati) kept introducing me as a priestess witch. No one blinked an eye, and my charm bracelet started more than one conversation.

I have entered new territory, and yet if feels familiar. I have now been to Mecca. I have a feeling I will return.

easier said

Last night I called my niece to wish her happy birthday. Seventeen years ago I saw her slip into this world, the first of many babies I would see born. My sister and I had shopped for presents for her at Pantheacon, the strange annual pagan conference in San Jose. My niece was delighted by the pentacle her mother had given her that morning. She hadn't opened my gift yet, a perfume bottle that has a silver dragon wrapped around it. She was saving that for after dinner and cake. Later I will fill it with a perfume oil I make especially for her. What a surprise, the normalcy of my niece's witchhood. I asked her about her boyfriend, knowing she had been disaponted on Valentine's day. She had made him a valentine and was met with nothing in return. I knew she was worried that the same thing would happen on her birthday. It did. As she said "no flowers, no card, not even a damn balloon!". She told me her friends were telling her to dump him. She said, "Well, that's easier said than done."

I hope she does say it. I hope she does do it. I am so struck by me family's heritage, it's legacy of magical women who certainly can pick them. And then have a damn hard time letting go.
This is her first boyfriend. So, this will of course be her first breakup. I'm hoping and wishing that the gifts her mother and I gave her are imbued with the kind of powers that will assist her in saying what needs to be said and following thru on what needs to be done, easy or not.

things are moving

Things are moving, energies are shifting. Transitions are taking shape and form. Today at lunch my office partner of close to twenty years acknowledged that it's time to let go of her practice and her office. When we first started talking, she was looking at letting go by the end of the year, but by the time we got back to the office she was ready to tell our officemates that they could take over the lease. Spring has sprung, and people around me are letting go of old stale patterns and freeing themselves of what is no longer living. What a powerful spring this is turning out to be! My household is also reconstructing itself, and hopefully by this weekend Ilyse will have committed to buy out Patti and Karl. I can feel the house yearning to come more alive and alive it will come when that middle flat is cleared out, floors refinished and lightened and walls repainted. Possibility beckons. How light I may be by next year, released from the weight of managing this office basically alone and released from the the fear and concern I've carried about Patti and Karl's ability to finanically survive. I'm ready.

the fool leaps

It's a beautiful spring day here in San Francisco. Two weeks ago I turned fifty and stepped off the cliff into new terrain. My birthday party was an ecstatic rite, my house filled with those I love, all beaming their love back at me. We danced to past four, and the night culminated with a new and surprising sexual adventure. The fifties has certainly started with a beautiful bang!
Today, in this new and delightful country, I find yet another small cliff to leap off, and I do! May this be the beginning of a rich and delightful journey. With all my allies around me, and the mysterious ones at my back, I venture out into this world of blogging. Tally ho!!!!