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.