On Sunday there was a Reclaiming initiation at my home, up in the ritual room in the attic. Reclaiming is a tradition of witchcraft in which initiation affords you no status or special standing in the community. It is a personal journey, a private commitment to the gods and the guardians of the elements. It is a process in which you commit to the path of priestess and witch, letting go of the life that came before, and in the rite you symbolically die and are reborn.
Reclaiming is a child of Feri tradition wedded to the feminist spirituality movement of the 1970's. After close to thirty years, it has now grown up. It appears that some new children are in gestation.
As I did the intitiation, I knew that this was the last one for me in this form. Something is passing for me, and I am paying exquisite attention. So much of this form of initiation involves the letting go process, the surrendering and sitting in the dark. It usually leaves me drained and exhausted. So different from the last initiation I did, where I joined the Feri back and it ended with the honeyfire of the lifeforce coursing thru the room, coursing thru the initiate, coursing thru me. This was the point, the joy and ecstacy of being alive, the vow to be in service to life.
For me, Feri energy not grounded in Reclaiming's principles of unity tends to flow towards a kind of psychotic fierceness, and the magic of a Reclaiming initiation without the Feri aspect feels a bit like coming away from a feast with no nutrients. Even as write this, I know this is not truth for many, if not most. But it is truth for me. One of the best things for me about becoming a witch is that at this point I think/feel/sense that I have truly dropped monotheism, deeply knowing that there is no "one way" and that many truths can exist, even in conflict, at once. Hurray for paradox!
And what a paradox exists in this "tradition" that I have been such a part of crafting. It is non inititiatory, but a child of the purely initiatory Feri tradition, in which the core of the teachings, the wave and pulse of the current, isn't passed until initiation. Reclaiming aims to be for everybody, it's the great includer....while Feri is so clearly not for everybody, and sometimes I wonder if it actually suits anybody. It taps into what Reya has said is an strong amoral natural current within the earth, but so often when run thru us humans, becomes immoral. And if not immoral, certainly hard to get along with. As part of the coven Triskets, I am responsible for glamorizing and thus infusing the Feri current within Reclaiming. As my friend Lilith said, "it's a trainwreck". And with Thorn now teaching big workshops labeled Feri trainings, the clash between what it means to work the tools of Feri, which so many Reclaiming folks do, and becoming Feri, which is purely initiatory, gets closer.
As I did the initiation, I thought of my friend Reya, and how she is letting go of the current. And I envied her. This is not my work. I wish it was. My work appears to be to attempt to clean up the mess I have been so part of creating by now wedding Feri and Reclaiming in a different way, a different strain....creating a way to initiate into Feri which is in accordance with those luscious principles of unity, and in which the mysteries passed resonate with our belief that we are our own spiritual authority, where we not only hear the name we are called between the worlds, but we open to what we call those we work with between the worlds, the guardians, the mysterious ones. and where we speak from hearts that are not only black, but green with consciousness, pink with compassion. And to infuse that mighty lifeforce current, that ancient power, with the best of humanity. The best of humanity lies within the threefold law and the wiccan reade. The questioning attitude that is one of Reclaiming's principles of unity I am now employing with everything regarding Reclaiming Feri. Is it possible to be more transparent about the privacy involved in initiation and let go of the feeling of secrecy? Perhaps. One gift of the initiation was working with Rose, who pointed out to me that black, pink, and green can be found in watermelon tourmeline. I will be looking for heart made of this.
This was the last "Reclaiming" initiation I have done. I can't split myself into two parts anymore. Who knows what will come out of this, but I'm grateful for the clarity of the moment.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
ten of pentacles
My household is changing. Patti, Karl, and Colin will be gone by June. And yet, my household will also remain the same. It is a house of spirits, and it is a house full of life. The first time I walked into it, I felt at home. When we moved in, my then two year old would talk about the “giant in the attic”. At two different initiations - magical weddings to the divine - the initiates, after spending time alone in the attic, talked about meeting a tall ghost who gave advice and guidance on a variety of things. He is not the only one. I know that this house has slew of spirits who oversee our goings on. The bones of this house are ancient redwood, built back before the last century, the house surviving the big earthquake and privy to several generations of stories. The well in the backyard is now covered with concrete, but up until the 1920’s it provided water for the local fire brigade. I can sense the water flowing deep under the ground in my backyard, adding it's harmony to the song of this place.
On the night of my birthday, that mystical door, the house was alive and humming. Many dramas and mythic tales had their origin on that night, all still unfurling. But what remains for me so striking was the variety of generations that partied down within these walls in those hours. There were babies, young children, adolescents, teenagers, and on up. The youngest was under seven months, the oldest above seventy. All seemed to be having the time of their lives.
In the last several weeks, I’ve realized how wonderful it is to have a variety of ages in this household, and how the house seems to invoke it. All of us suddenly want to have Lyra, my teenage goddess daughter, move in permanently. There are a handful of thirty-somethings who would also fit in, but the spirit of this house calls for things to be more mixed, for the chaos of multi-generations to be called forth. Spencer, Lyra’s love interest from my birthday party, and the son of one of my old friends, will be coming to visit soon. The house hums; life goes on, love goes on. Ilyse, Fern, and even my son Casey can feel it.
The ten of pentacles is the tarot card of family ties, of the wealth that comes from interaction with many different age groups. It is a card of comfort and a lesson that what one needs for survival is combined within the power of a multi-generational group’s energy. This house is teaching me about the ten of pentacles. I feel wealthy as a result. There may be a new baby here in a few years, eventually there will be elders who are dying.
I welcome the changes, and more than anything, I trust the spirits of this house, who, like me, love a good party.
On the night of my birthday, that mystical door, the house was alive and humming. Many dramas and mythic tales had their origin on that night, all still unfurling. But what remains for me so striking was the variety of generations that partied down within these walls in those hours. There were babies, young children, adolescents, teenagers, and on up. The youngest was under seven months, the oldest above seventy. All seemed to be having the time of their lives.
In the last several weeks, I’ve realized how wonderful it is to have a variety of ages in this household, and how the house seems to invoke it. All of us suddenly want to have Lyra, my teenage goddess daughter, move in permanently. There are a handful of thirty-somethings who would also fit in, but the spirit of this house calls for things to be more mixed, for the chaos of multi-generations to be called forth. Spencer, Lyra’s love interest from my birthday party, and the son of one of my old friends, will be coming to visit soon. The house hums; life goes on, love goes on. Ilyse, Fern, and even my son Casey can feel it.
The ten of pentacles is the tarot card of family ties, of the wealth that comes from interaction with many different age groups. It is a card of comfort and a lesson that what one needs for survival is combined within the power of a multi-generational group’s energy. This house is teaching me about the ten of pentacles. I feel wealthy as a result. There may be a new baby here in a few years, eventually there will be elders who are dying.
I welcome the changes, and more than anything, I trust the spirits of this house, who, like me, love a good party.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
arts and crafts
One of my clients came in today and asked me if I was a witch. Being the psychotherapist that I am, I of course couldn’t just answer straight out, but had to first explore how he came to ask that question. He’s a client who is very interested in Jung, who’s actually borrowed books of mine he’s spotted on my bookshelves.
He has an amazingly rich dream life, and is certainly embarked on leading a mythic life.
He said he’d dreamt of me as a witch, the kind of witch who is a healer, and I was telling him something about magic, but he couldn’t remember exactly what it was. So he’d been wondering, given that it’s San Francisco and all, that maybe I actually AM a witch, and then walking here, he passed a bookstore and there was a book in the window about witchcraft, and he thought he’d ask me.
So, my questions answered, I answered his question. The excitement that ensued was sweet, excitement that his intuition was dead on, and excitement that he had finally met a witch who seemed like the “real thing”, not a new ager or as he said, “totally wacky”. It remains to be seen if this will deepen the work he sought out to do by entering therapy, or if it will prove to be a distraction. I’m seasoned enough at this point to stay on track and not get diverted into the task of teaching him magic, although as I write this, I’m thinking how good therapy actually does teach one the art of changing consciousness at will.
Awhile back I realized that I have identified as a witch now for longer than not. It permeates everything I do, this belief in magic, this art and craft of shaping and shifting reality. Sometimes the craft is a little of the hideously knitted tea cozy caliber, sometimes it reaches high art. But one thing is true, it’s never boring. Today I'm grateful for finding this calling, of being both a psychotherapist and a witch. It's great art, it's a fine craft.
He has an amazingly rich dream life, and is certainly embarked on leading a mythic life.
He said he’d dreamt of me as a witch, the kind of witch who is a healer, and I was telling him something about magic, but he couldn’t remember exactly what it was. So he’d been wondering, given that it’s San Francisco and all, that maybe I actually AM a witch, and then walking here, he passed a bookstore and there was a book in the window about witchcraft, and he thought he’d ask me.
So, my questions answered, I answered his question. The excitement that ensued was sweet, excitement that his intuition was dead on, and excitement that he had finally met a witch who seemed like the “real thing”, not a new ager or as he said, “totally wacky”. It remains to be seen if this will deepen the work he sought out to do by entering therapy, or if it will prove to be a distraction. I’m seasoned enough at this point to stay on track and not get diverted into the task of teaching him magic, although as I write this, I’m thinking how good therapy actually does teach one the art of changing consciousness at will.
Awhile back I realized that I have identified as a witch now for longer than not. It permeates everything I do, this belief in magic, this art and craft of shaping and shifting reality. Sometimes the craft is a little of the hideously knitted tea cozy caliber, sometimes it reaches high art. But one thing is true, it’s never boring. Today I'm grateful for finding this calling, of being both a psychotherapist and a witch. It's great art, it's a fine craft.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
fragile spring
Easter is approaching. Some years I celebrate spring on the Equinox, and some years on Easter. For over ten years now this celebration has entailed going up to the land I bought way back with my then coven sisters. Spring is stupendous there, daffodils and wild iris everywhere, the earth erupting in beauty. My friend Anne always comes up with her children, and I sit on the deck of the decaying cabin we call “the cookhouse” and make psyanky eggs and eventually we have big egg hunt and build a beautiful altar to Easter, the goddess of spring.
I’ve been making psyanky eggs since I was 13. They are traditional since pre- Christian times in the Ukraine. Using a mini batik type tool, you paint the egg with beeswax and using the method of wax resist, you keep painting symbols of rebirth on the egg and dipping it in different colors, until finally you gently hold it near a candle flame and melt the wax off. Ukrainian women made these over the winter and early spring, and then used them magically all thru the year. For almost every type of human endeavor, there was an egg that could assist. Given at weddings, births, and funerals, psyanky eggs are symbols of the regenerative powers of life, and also remind us of life’s strength and fragility.
This year, for the first time that I can remember, I have no impetus to get myself and my son up to my land, and no desire to create psyanky. The constant rain certainly makes a weekend in the country lose appeal. But even without the rain, I know my heart just isn’t up to it.
Last year when I came home from our weekend of psyanky making, I learned that my lover’s brother had hung himself from the tree in the backyard of their childhood family home. He was found soon after I had left for the country. My lover had not gone with me, as she wanted to go to her mother’s for Easter. My land does not have a phone and its remoteness challenges every cell phone it has encountered. While she was in the shock and horror of grief, I had been making her an egg to invoke joy.
I drove down to be with her and her family, bringing with me a basket of my psyanky eggs. I fed the family, and I went to the backyard and put some of the eggs in the tree. Some of the eggs also ended up in David’s coffin a few days later, when we gathered at the family viewing of his body.
That week I time traveled more than once back to my father’s suicide twenty some years ago. Strangely, the tree my father climbed was just a few miles from my lover’s childhood home. The quality of light, the feel of the air, the smell of that valley, all took me back in time. And the peculiar mix of grief, confusion, guilt, and anger that flows thru a family who has just lost someone to suicide.
Something was lost by me not being there for the woman I loved in those first few days after David’s death. There were cracks and fractures between us well before, but nothing could have prepared me for the gulf that happened in the ensuing weeks. Despite the cracks in our relationship, the tender fierceness of my love for her gave me the sense we would always endure. I was wrong. It was hard that I hadn’t been there. It seemed to be harder yet that I could be there, that I did understand. Within a month, she had broken up with me and was involved with another woman. Over this past year she has been emotionally careening, and has many times sideswiped me in her pain and confusion. The last time she came close was a direct hit and run, so devastating that at this point I can no longer have her in my life. Like David and my father, she is has made herself dead to me. This is incredibly challenging for someone with Venus in Capricorn. I don’t like to let go, to give up, to walk away from those I love. It is not my nature.
In a few days, it will be Easter, the day of resurrection, of redemption. I know that I eventually will find it in me to change our house altar, to move from the time of Brigid to full blown spring. I’m hoping I can find it in me by Beltane to do at least one psyanky egg, to hold the fragility of the plain white egg between my fingers and transform it into something beautiful and unique. This year, this will truly be an act of magic.
I’ve been making psyanky eggs since I was 13. They are traditional since pre- Christian times in the Ukraine. Using a mini batik type tool, you paint the egg with beeswax and using the method of wax resist, you keep painting symbols of rebirth on the egg and dipping it in different colors, until finally you gently hold it near a candle flame and melt the wax off. Ukrainian women made these over the winter and early spring, and then used them magically all thru the year. For almost every type of human endeavor, there was an egg that could assist. Given at weddings, births, and funerals, psyanky eggs are symbols of the regenerative powers of life, and also remind us of life’s strength and fragility.
This year, for the first time that I can remember, I have no impetus to get myself and my son up to my land, and no desire to create psyanky. The constant rain certainly makes a weekend in the country lose appeal. But even without the rain, I know my heart just isn’t up to it.
Last year when I came home from our weekend of psyanky making, I learned that my lover’s brother had hung himself from the tree in the backyard of their childhood family home. He was found soon after I had left for the country. My lover had not gone with me, as she wanted to go to her mother’s for Easter. My land does not have a phone and its remoteness challenges every cell phone it has encountered. While she was in the shock and horror of grief, I had been making her an egg to invoke joy.
I drove down to be with her and her family, bringing with me a basket of my psyanky eggs. I fed the family, and I went to the backyard and put some of the eggs in the tree. Some of the eggs also ended up in David’s coffin a few days later, when we gathered at the family viewing of his body.
That week I time traveled more than once back to my father’s suicide twenty some years ago. Strangely, the tree my father climbed was just a few miles from my lover’s childhood home. The quality of light, the feel of the air, the smell of that valley, all took me back in time. And the peculiar mix of grief, confusion, guilt, and anger that flows thru a family who has just lost someone to suicide.
Something was lost by me not being there for the woman I loved in those first few days after David’s death. There were cracks and fractures between us well before, but nothing could have prepared me for the gulf that happened in the ensuing weeks. Despite the cracks in our relationship, the tender fierceness of my love for her gave me the sense we would always endure. I was wrong. It was hard that I hadn’t been there. It seemed to be harder yet that I could be there, that I did understand. Within a month, she had broken up with me and was involved with another woman. Over this past year she has been emotionally careening, and has many times sideswiped me in her pain and confusion. The last time she came close was a direct hit and run, so devastating that at this point I can no longer have her in my life. Like David and my father, she is has made herself dead to me. This is incredibly challenging for someone with Venus in Capricorn. I don’t like to let go, to give up, to walk away from those I love. It is not my nature.
In a few days, it will be Easter, the day of resurrection, of redemption. I know that I eventually will find it in me to change our house altar, to move from the time of Brigid to full blown spring. I’m hoping I can find it in me by Beltane to do at least one psyanky egg, to hold the fragility of the plain white egg between my fingers and transform it into something beautiful and unique. This year, this will truly be an act of magic.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
island life
It has been raining now for days. As a result of the rain and mercury going retrograde, my house of the spirits cut off communication with the outside world. The internet and phone have been off for two days. This is the first post out. We've been an island.
Tonight it looks like the storm is passing. There were small cyclones down in South San Francisco and a water funnel appeared up the coast. If a frog is in a pot where the water is steadily heated until boiling, it will not know the point to jump out, and will die. Like the frog, we are steadily getting accustomed to stranger and stranger conditions. Frogs jump out of hot water if thrown in, knowing the right action for survival. If we were thrown into this time period from ten years back, would our actions be different?
The phone rang a few minutes ago, I'm hooked back into the web and the net. No longer an island, I join the mainland.
Tonight it looks like the storm is passing. There were small cyclones down in South San Francisco and a water funnel appeared up the coast. If a frog is in a pot where the water is steadily heated until boiling, it will not know the point to jump out, and will die. Like the frog, we are steadily getting accustomed to stranger and stranger conditions. Frogs jump out of hot water if thrown in, knowing the right action for survival. If we were thrown into this time period from ten years back, would our actions be different?
The phone rang a few minutes ago, I'm hooked back into the web and the net. No longer an island, I join the mainland.
Monday, March 21, 2005
hard rain
It's really raining today. The soft spring rain of the weekend has turned into a deluge. It is pouring. I'm thinking of the fetid waters of the world that got poured out on Brigid. I'm thinking of the Inanna chant that I sang so much in the years leading up to my son's birth. "pour it out for me, pour it out for me, all you send me I will drink". That song is rarely sung at Reclaiming rituals now. I now know that if you ask for it to be poured out, it will be. There has been a lot to absorb. There still is.
What a relief to have the waters of the world be poured out....to keep the water moving. This spell is working in me and on me. There is a sea change at hand, everything moving and shifting and changing. And meanwhile, this hard rain is falling.
What a relief to have the waters of the world be poured out....to keep the water moving. This spell is working in me and on me. There is a sea change at hand, everything moving and shifting and changing. And meanwhile, this hard rain is falling.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
strange spring
It continues to rain off and on all weekend. Not a hard winter rain, but a soft, almost warm, spring rain. It's officially the equinox, a time of balance. From now on, light returns. It is also the second anniversary of the official war our empire is waging in Iraq.
This weekend anytime I turn attention to major media new stories, what is front and center is the fight to keep a woman who is on a life support alive. Her husband goes along with the medical opinion that she is brain dead and wants to take her off life support - her parents are arguing it, backed up by the strange right to (some aspects of) lifers. What a weird nation. What a wierd time. All sorts of brouhaha about protecting the life of the brain dead woman while as I write this the majority of my tax dollars are going towards killing.
Spring equinox is a time to reflect on rebirth, which by it's nature involves something dying. This nation wants to hold on, to not let go, of this woman. Why? In the dream of my life, I notice that on this weekend of light and dark being held in balance, with the tip of the scale soon going to light, with the dark soon being released, this particular weekend and time my nation is obsessed with keeping alive someone who floats constantly in that dark place below consciousness. Our time in the sun will soon be over, in fact it is. Our democracy is no longer a beacon for the rest of the world. We float in our own world, unconscious to others, costing the world an incredible price to keep us alive, to support us in our coma of consumption. A brain dead nation on costly life support.
Outside it rains, it drizzles, it sprinkles. A cleansing rain. I breathe in the freshness of the air, and savor it. What a strange time. What a beautiful planet.
This weekend anytime I turn attention to major media new stories, what is front and center is the fight to keep a woman who is on a life support alive. Her husband goes along with the medical opinion that she is brain dead and wants to take her off life support - her parents are arguing it, backed up by the strange right to (some aspects of) lifers. What a weird nation. What a wierd time. All sorts of brouhaha about protecting the life of the brain dead woman while as I write this the majority of my tax dollars are going towards killing.
Spring equinox is a time to reflect on rebirth, which by it's nature involves something dying. This nation wants to hold on, to not let go, of this woman. Why? In the dream of my life, I notice that on this weekend of light and dark being held in balance, with the tip of the scale soon going to light, with the dark soon being released, this particular weekend and time my nation is obsessed with keeping alive someone who floats constantly in that dark place below consciousness. Our time in the sun will soon be over, in fact it is. Our democracy is no longer a beacon for the rest of the world. We float in our own world, unconscious to others, costing the world an incredible price to keep us alive, to support us in our coma of consumption. A brain dead nation on costly life support.
Outside it rains, it drizzles, it sprinkles. A cleansing rain. I breathe in the freshness of the air, and savor it. What a strange time. What a beautiful planet.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
balance returns
"How beautiful is the black, lascivious purity of small children and wild animals" - Victor Anderson
For years I've embraced the metaphysical Feri concept of the Black Heart of Innocence, a state where we are coming from our raw, wild and primal nature - connected to the power and force of sheer being alive, feeling our sexuality and the pleasure of being embodied, devoid of shame or self consciousness, and able to speak with the honesty, directness, and innocence of a child not edited by social convention.
This concept has proved to be a useful tool for me. It has helped me access and draw from a state of being which is authentic, it taps into the joy and fierceness of the life force. The Black Heart is being back in the garden with the absence of shame. The paradox of lascivious purity is a good one, and I love the mysteries of paradox.
And yet. I'm a parent. I have a thirteen year old son. I'm thinking of how so much of parenting has been channeling that lascivious purity into creating a being who is thoughtful and kind to others, who unlike a wild animal, will take turns and knows how to share, who won't bite or kick when their primal will is thwarted. Having been raising a child, I know up close and personal the lascivious purity of which Victor speaks. It's not always beautiful - and that's a problem with working with the Black Heart.
By working with the Black Heart, I've worked on being able to feel the strength and connection to my animal self, the part of me that lies beneath my social construction, not ruled by social niceties and convention. The uncivilized part. I'm thinking right now of the id - and how it is important in my work as a therapist to assist others in acknowledging their primal urges, to release the shame and disavowal of irrational lascivious desires. In doing so, we also often marvel - how beautiful the construction of a superego!
One of the birthrights of our humaness is our ability to feel desire and strong impulses and to choose not to act on these impulses and desires. Part of the art of parenting is not shaming children for their lascivous nature, but assisting them in creating consciousness in regards to the feelings of others around them. What is commonly called "morality" is what the small child and wild animal usually lack. This seems to be created as a function of living in the culture of other human beings - it develops in relationship to others. Freud called this the superego, in Feri tradition many call it the divine self.
The Black Heart beats from the younger self - it is the heart of that self, the id. What does it mean to only aspire to work from the Black Heart of a small child and wild animal? Shouldn't the other aspects of the human soul also have a heart? How much more potent to strive for the black heart of innocence, the green heart of consciousness, and the pink heart of compassion to beat together in us at the same volume, none drowning the others out, creating a rhythm that is divinely human.
How powerful this equinox is proving to be! Balance is returning. Thank Goddess.
For years I've embraced the metaphysical Feri concept of the Black Heart of Innocence, a state where we are coming from our raw, wild and primal nature - connected to the power and force of sheer being alive, feeling our sexuality and the pleasure of being embodied, devoid of shame or self consciousness, and able to speak with the honesty, directness, and innocence of a child not edited by social convention.
This concept has proved to be a useful tool for me. It has helped me access and draw from a state of being which is authentic, it taps into the joy and fierceness of the life force. The Black Heart is being back in the garden with the absence of shame. The paradox of lascivious purity is a good one, and I love the mysteries of paradox.
And yet. I'm a parent. I have a thirteen year old son. I'm thinking of how so much of parenting has been channeling that lascivious purity into creating a being who is thoughtful and kind to others, who unlike a wild animal, will take turns and knows how to share, who won't bite or kick when their primal will is thwarted. Having been raising a child, I know up close and personal the lascivious purity of which Victor speaks. It's not always beautiful - and that's a problem with working with the Black Heart.
By working with the Black Heart, I've worked on being able to feel the strength and connection to my animal self, the part of me that lies beneath my social construction, not ruled by social niceties and convention. The uncivilized part. I'm thinking right now of the id - and how it is important in my work as a therapist to assist others in acknowledging their primal urges, to release the shame and disavowal of irrational lascivious desires. In doing so, we also often marvel - how beautiful the construction of a superego!
One of the birthrights of our humaness is our ability to feel desire and strong impulses and to choose not to act on these impulses and desires. Part of the art of parenting is not shaming children for their lascivous nature, but assisting them in creating consciousness in regards to the feelings of others around them. What is commonly called "morality" is what the small child and wild animal usually lack. This seems to be created as a function of living in the culture of other human beings - it develops in relationship to others. Freud called this the superego, in Feri tradition many call it the divine self.
The Black Heart beats from the younger self - it is the heart of that self, the id. What does it mean to only aspire to work from the Black Heart of a small child and wild animal? Shouldn't the other aspects of the human soul also have a heart? How much more potent to strive for the black heart of innocence, the green heart of consciousness, and the pink heart of compassion to beat together in us at the same volume, none drowning the others out, creating a rhythm that is divinely human.
How powerful this equinox is proving to be! Balance is returning. Thank Goddess.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
leaving the dead behind
My pledge at Brigid was to know the difference between what was dead and what was living and to put my energy into the living. A week ago or so I couldn't for the life/death of me remember my pledge. A few days ago, while soaking in the beauty of this glorious spring in San Francisco, it flew back into memory. The rains of winter have given way to the green of spring. The glory of new life is everywhere, in the blossoms, in the buds, in the fragrant air. Spring equinox is within the week.
My friend and neighbor Moj is Iranian-American. She celebrates the Persian new year at spring equinox. Tonight the cleansing for the new year begins by jumping a fire (so very like my own tradition of jumping the fire at Beltane) and consciously leaving behind what you don't want to take into the new year. My son and housemates will be going over to her house soon to join in this rite. Unfortunately I will miss it, being at work. But I've spent the day musing on this moment in time, and on my pledge to Brigid, the triple Goddess so important to my tradition.
Brigid has for many years now served as an intermediary for me with both the Fey and the Feri energy. Years ago I learned to call on her when I felt the particular fierce energies I associate with both. She is a mitigating force, helping me keep my compassion and grounding me in my humanity. In the Reclaiming tradition she is much loved. Of all our deities, she has to be the one most widely worked with, as we even call one of our sabbats after her - Feb. 2nd, what other call Imbolc or Candlemas, we call Brigid. I believe she is an important part of blending reclaiming and Feri, an important part in Reclaiming Feri. She is the movement into spring, into life returning - she pushes us towards healing, towards poetry and coming out of the fire stronger.
Having experienced so much death as a young adult, I have had a long history of trying to keep things alive, even things that should be allowed to die. Attempting relentlessly to resuscitate the dead is something I am well familiar with. I find it almost impossible to walk away from what and who I have loved - even when that love is clearly for something long gone. The last several months I have been forced to confront this, and to face how debilitating it has been for me. Today I breathe into my pledge and walk towards the equinox, the turning of the wheel, leaving behind things I have loved, have held dear, but have had to face are dead (even if not buried ) and walk into and towards life. It is everywhere.
My friend and neighbor Moj is Iranian-American. She celebrates the Persian new year at spring equinox. Tonight the cleansing for the new year begins by jumping a fire (so very like my own tradition of jumping the fire at Beltane) and consciously leaving behind what you don't want to take into the new year. My son and housemates will be going over to her house soon to join in this rite. Unfortunately I will miss it, being at work. But I've spent the day musing on this moment in time, and on my pledge to Brigid, the triple Goddess so important to my tradition.
Brigid has for many years now served as an intermediary for me with both the Fey and the Feri energy. Years ago I learned to call on her when I felt the particular fierce energies I associate with both. She is a mitigating force, helping me keep my compassion and grounding me in my humanity. In the Reclaiming tradition she is much loved. Of all our deities, she has to be the one most widely worked with, as we even call one of our sabbats after her - Feb. 2nd, what other call Imbolc or Candlemas, we call Brigid. I believe she is an important part of blending reclaiming and Feri, an important part in Reclaiming Feri. She is the movement into spring, into life returning - she pushes us towards healing, towards poetry and coming out of the fire stronger.
Having experienced so much death as a young adult, I have had a long history of trying to keep things alive, even things that should be allowed to die. Attempting relentlessly to resuscitate the dead is something I am well familiar with. I find it almost impossible to walk away from what and who I have loved - even when that love is clearly for something long gone. The last several months I have been forced to confront this, and to face how debilitating it has been for me. Today I breathe into my pledge and walk towards the equinox, the turning of the wheel, leaving behind things I have loved, have held dear, but have had to face are dead (even if not buried ) and walk into and towards life. It is everywhere.
Monday, March 14, 2005
What were we thinking?
Yesterday I talked to someone who I may eventually initiate in Reclaiming Feri, and one of my original initiators into the confusion of "second initiation/Feri initiation". Both I told about my recent realization of what I am; a witch who is of the Reclaiming Feri tradition, and both enthusiastically claimed to be Reclaiming Feri as well. Reclaiming Feri
does not have a system of wands, does not have grandmasters, does not condone hexing or cursing , abides by the Wiccan Rede and the threefold law, and doesn't have (or doesn't aspire to have) what Thorn calls "Luciferian aspects", distinguishing it greatly from Anderson Feri tradition. Talking to both of them, I felt free from a maze of confusion, and I kept thinking of clean, clear water. My eyes are open.
I was recently talking to my friend Reya, lamenting the stark reality that we'd embraced a tradition that overtly dismisses the law of three and the Wiccan Rede, and I found myself repeatedly saying "what were we thinking?". Could this be in any way, shape, or form what Thorn has termed, "evolutionary witchcraft"? Without the Rede, without the threefold law, doesn't this practice actually become as Reya laughingly called it "de-evolutionary witchcraft"?
It has taken all these years, the pouring out of the waters of the world, Thorn's writing a book that crystallizes so much of what is precious with Feri combined with my concern that she is personally running a current reminiscent of Victor's(which arguably IS Victor's current), to clear away fog and bring into consciousness the reality that I had allied myself to a tradition that did not mirror my own values. In the twelve step programs there is the saying "take what you need and leave the rest". I've been doing that for years with Feri - but essentially I was ignoring the rest, not leaving it. Now I am carefully reviewing what it is that I need to leave, and I'm finding there is plenty. I feel lighter, what I'm leaving is dense, dark, and like the old waters of the world, full of particles that are poisonous to me. What I'm taking, the three souls, the pentacles of iron and pearl, the work with the guardians, the Star Goddess, the peacock god, all of this sings to my soul and spirit. And the Black Heart too, although I have to laugh, as that is exactly what things like the Wiccan Rede, the Golden Rule, and the threefold law were created to address and to mitigate - our natural lascivious nature.
does not have a system of wands, does not have grandmasters, does not condone hexing or cursing , abides by the Wiccan Rede and the threefold law, and doesn't have (or doesn't aspire to have) what Thorn calls "Luciferian aspects", distinguishing it greatly from Anderson Feri tradition. Talking to both of them, I felt free from a maze of confusion, and I kept thinking of clean, clear water. My eyes are open.
I was recently talking to my friend Reya, lamenting the stark reality that we'd embraced a tradition that overtly dismisses the law of three and the Wiccan Rede, and I found myself repeatedly saying "what were we thinking?". Could this be in any way, shape, or form what Thorn has termed, "evolutionary witchcraft"? Without the Rede, without the threefold law, doesn't this practice actually become as Reya laughingly called it "de-evolutionary witchcraft"?
It has taken all these years, the pouring out of the waters of the world, Thorn's writing a book that crystallizes so much of what is precious with Feri combined with my concern that she is personally running a current reminiscent of Victor's(which arguably IS Victor's current), to clear away fog and bring into consciousness the reality that I had allied myself to a tradition that did not mirror my own values. In the twelve step programs there is the saying "take what you need and leave the rest". I've been doing that for years with Feri - but essentially I was ignoring the rest, not leaving it. Now I am carefully reviewing what it is that I need to leave, and I'm finding there is plenty. I feel lighter, what I'm leaving is dense, dark, and like the old waters of the world, full of particles that are poisonous to me. What I'm taking, the three souls, the pentacles of iron and pearl, the work with the guardians, the Star Goddess, the peacock god, all of this sings to my soul and spirit. And the Black Heart too, although I have to laugh, as that is exactly what things like the Wiccan Rede, the Golden Rule, and the threefold law were created to address and to mitigate - our natural lascivious nature.
Reclaiming Feri
Things certainly are moving! In the last week or so I have crossed over some membrane into a different reality, a different sense of my world. A deep and profound reconciliation is occurring. I've been a priestess of Reclaiming and of Feri. Like I’ve said before, there’s been an intrinsic discomfort with both – and I’ve been somewhere between the worlds with both, not quite Reclaiming, not quite Feri. Events of the past few weeks have catapulted me into this new space, this taking on of what I actually am – a Reclaiming Feri witch, part of a tradition that has been gestating, that now begins to take form and find structure, that by naming, comes consciously into being.
Last summer, at Avalon witchcamp, Georgia and Susan had an encounter with the Goddess Brigid at Chalice Well. This encounter led to changing a spell that the Reclaiming community had been doing for years. Instead of collecting water from around the world and mixing it together and holding on to it as the pollutants became more and more concentrated, the water was poured back to earth, Brigid wanting us to keep things moving. Things are! I think this letting go of the polluted waters has been part of what has shifted perception and allowed myself, Reya, and others to recognize that we can let go of a powerful concentrated current we have been holding on to, to let it move out of us.
Years ago, wanting to deepen my practice, deepen my commitment to the mysterious ones, I asked for what was at that time called “second initiation”. Starhawk, Rose, Robin, Rocky(arachne at the time), Pandora, and Cybele were the only ones in Reclaiming who had passed thru the gate of this initiation – and I name them in what I am pretty sure is order of lineage. This initiation was not openly discussed in Reclaiming, it had an almost secret quality, and when I asked, I had no idea what it really entailed, only like the fool, I was ready to start a new spiritual journey, ready to leap off the cliff.
I’ve been on that journey now for ten years or more, and I recognize that on this journey I have a have moved thru every card of the major arcana. As fate would have it, the night of my birthday was truly the World card, a culmination of the journey that started when I took that leap so many years ago to ask for this “second initiation”. I had no idea when I started this blog that the leap I was taking would be so profound… or that the journey which was beginning was Reclaiming Feri.
Last summer, at Avalon witchcamp, Georgia and Susan had an encounter with the Goddess Brigid at Chalice Well. This encounter led to changing a spell that the Reclaiming community had been doing for years. Instead of collecting water from around the world and mixing it together and holding on to it as the pollutants became more and more concentrated, the water was poured back to earth, Brigid wanting us to keep things moving. Things are! I think this letting go of the polluted waters has been part of what has shifted perception and allowed myself, Reya, and others to recognize that we can let go of a powerful concentrated current we have been holding on to, to let it move out of us.
Years ago, wanting to deepen my practice, deepen my commitment to the mysterious ones, I asked for what was at that time called “second initiation”. Starhawk, Rose, Robin, Rocky(arachne at the time), Pandora, and Cybele were the only ones in Reclaiming who had passed thru the gate of this initiation – and I name them in what I am pretty sure is order of lineage. This initiation was not openly discussed in Reclaiming, it had an almost secret quality, and when I asked, I had no idea what it really entailed, only like the fool, I was ready to start a new spiritual journey, ready to leap off the cliff.
I’ve been on that journey now for ten years or more, and I recognize that on this journey I have a have moved thru every card of the major arcana. As fate would have it, the night of my birthday was truly the World card, a culmination of the journey that started when I took that leap so many years ago to ask for this “second initiation”. I had no idea when I started this blog that the leap I was taking would be so profound… or that the journey which was beginning was Reclaiming Feri.
Friday, March 11, 2005
The heat is on
It is nearing dusk here in this hilly city on the edge of the pacific. The fruit trees are in bloom, jasmine is flowering, and it looks like it will be one of those unusual San Francisco nights where the dark still holds the heat of the sun. It was downright hot today, and no fog is creeping over twin peaks. It will be a fragrant warm night, a night for walking around and taking in the beauty of this psychic seaport. I need to soak up some beauty, and it looks like the dark will be rich with it.
Today in the heat, I found myself thinking about Lucifer, and the incredible power of words, of names, of language. I've spent years reclaiming the word "witch". Back in my early twenties I never could say it without a big reaction, and of course, the inevitable questions about Satan worship. In the last couple of years I've noticed that it no longer seems to be such a big deal... a lot of times not an eye is blinked, and now questions about black magic and Satan are an aberration. It's so accepted that for the past several year I have donated an afternoon teaching children magic for my son's school auction, and this teaching of witchcraft to children draws high bids.
It is vexing that it would be at this moment in time, when I no longer commonly feel in a defensive position in regards to my spirituality, that one of my dear friends and coven sisters would decide she wants to do an indwelling of Lucifer. Well, that's not exactly fair. The indwelling was knocked down to an overshadowing, and now it's an alliance. I love her dearly. I know that her intentions are good, and that when she speaks of Lucifer she is speaking of something she perceives as beautiful and full of love and light. Nevertheless, everytime I roll this name around on my tongue, or even write it here, what immediately gets called up for me is Lucifer in his darker aspects - and I know that I can't be associated with this. I'm against this rite she has planned for so many reasons, but the most pragmatic reason is that I've spent the majority of my life defending the word witch, telling people it has nothing to do with Satan, trying to breath beauty and integrity into a word that historically calls up ugliness and a meanness of spirit. I, along with so many others, have been incredibly successful at this venture, and we now wear this moniker with more ease, not constantly having to defend ourselves. . I have absolutely no interest in now venturing to do public relatations work to reclaim the positve aspects of the name Lucifer. It would be a hellish endeavor.
So, I will walk the streets of this city, trusting that there is indeed magic in the night, and that something beautiful will come out of what now feels dark and devilish. God/dess help us, the heat really is on now!
Today in the heat, I found myself thinking about Lucifer, and the incredible power of words, of names, of language. I've spent years reclaiming the word "witch". Back in my early twenties I never could say it without a big reaction, and of course, the inevitable questions about Satan worship. In the last couple of years I've noticed that it no longer seems to be such a big deal... a lot of times not an eye is blinked, and now questions about black magic and Satan are an aberration. It's so accepted that for the past several year I have donated an afternoon teaching children magic for my son's school auction, and this teaching of witchcraft to children draws high bids.
It is vexing that it would be at this moment in time, when I no longer commonly feel in a defensive position in regards to my spirituality, that one of my dear friends and coven sisters would decide she wants to do an indwelling of Lucifer. Well, that's not exactly fair. The indwelling was knocked down to an overshadowing, and now it's an alliance. I love her dearly. I know that her intentions are good, and that when she speaks of Lucifer she is speaking of something she perceives as beautiful and full of love and light. Nevertheless, everytime I roll this name around on my tongue, or even write it here, what immediately gets called up for me is Lucifer in his darker aspects - and I know that I can't be associated with this. I'm against this rite she has planned for so many reasons, but the most pragmatic reason is that I've spent the majority of my life defending the word witch, telling people it has nothing to do with Satan, trying to breath beauty and integrity into a word that historically calls up ugliness and a meanness of spirit. I, along with so many others, have been incredibly successful at this venture, and we now wear this moniker with more ease, not constantly having to defend ourselves. . I have absolutely no interest in now venturing to do public relatations work to reclaim the positve aspects of the name Lucifer. It would be a hellish endeavor.
So, I will walk the streets of this city, trusting that there is indeed magic in the night, and that something beautiful will come out of what now feels dark and devilish. God/dess help us, the heat really is on now!
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