branches up, roots down

Some time on Monday Fern somewhat groaned “I don’t know if I can take any more of this lust for life”. It's been that kind of weekend. On Saturday she had her initiation. This was an initiation into “Reclaiming Feri”, tying together what I see as the best of the two traditions, a rite where the initiate is wed to the life force, and vows to serve as priestess of it, working within the Wiccan Rede, to use the power of magic to heal, not hurt. It’s a lusty, intoxicating rite, and this one was especially so. This was the weekend we tipped over into summer. In San Francisco, summer sometimes lies just outside the fog, revealing itself in brief interludes. We know it’s out there; we need only cross one of our bridges, or drive south to feel it on our skin. We experience summer thru the swirling veils of this city’s ocean mists, savoring it when the sun beats down on us directly, relieved when several days of summer sun are overcast once again by incoming fog. By midday Saturday, as the...

Love After Love The time will come When, with elation, You will greet yourself arriving At your own door, in your own mirror, And each will smile at the other’s welcome, And say, sit here, Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart To itself, to the stranger who has loved you All your life, whom you ignored For another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, The photographs, the desperate notes, Peel your image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. Derek Walcott I turned fifty in February. Since that time, it’s occurred to me more than once how this time period parallels my twenties. In talking to friends, I think this may be especially true for those of us who made major life changes in our forties. The last part of that decade I began to seriously take stock of my life and jettison what no longer nourished or challenged me to grow. I broke up a twenty year marriage, faced the fact that the s...

Gosh, I love therapy. I like being a therapist, and I really enjoy being back in therapy. Having an engaged and attentive witness is proving to be incredibly valuable at the moment. What dots I can’t seem to connect, my therapist can. Right now several intense dramas are unfolding around me. I’m not the protagonist in any of them. Even in the ones that I am a part of, I play a supporting character, I’m not in leading role. There’s some grief attached to not being able to control some of the developing storylines of those I love. In the past, I would have tried to intervene, and felt responsible; believing I should be able to say the perfect thing, in the perfect way, at the perfect time to shift things for everybody. As I mulled all this, my therapist said the perfect thing, in the perfect way, at the perfect time. Sometimes therapists can do that. “Time to make popcorn”. Time to make popcorn. Comedy and tragedy are interwoven this week. Sometimes I’ve played a part, but as far as the...

AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18): You Aquarians have been getting ready for a big change and now it feels much closer, but you'll need to watch for the signals. Everything that happens is a sign. Don't, however, confuse the signs with reality. You still must connect the dots for things to make sense. Keep your eyes wide open and be ready to rock and roll. This is my horoscope for today. I’m printing it up and putting it on my altar. “Everything that happens is a sign. Don’t however, confuse the signs with reality” is damn good advice for me. As a child I loved being presented with the exercise of connecting the dots, trying to guess well before my crayon had completed the task what picture was going to appear. For some time I’ve described myself as a “connect the dots” kind of witch, good at making connections between things and ferreting out possible general storylines. Over the years, I’ve worried less and less about what is truly spelled out by all the dots connecting, knowing th...

Tonight there is a going away party for a priestess in the local Reclaiming community who I initiated, who has been dear to me. When I first wrote that sentence, it read; “my community” as opposed to “the local Reclaiming community”. The “my community” is no longer true or accurate. It hasn’t been for a long time. Coming to that realization has been an arduous and painful process. My acceptance of it is recent. It’s still habit to use “my” in connection to naming the community, and I’m just beginning to catch myself and mindfully change my reference. I’m assuming there will be lots of people from the local Reclaiming community at this party. Some of the people I like, even love. It's been home to me for decades. I joined the mix in 1980. But as a whole, I don’t feel welcomed in that community, and if I hold anyplace at all anymore, it seems to be the place and part of scapegoat. I know quite intimately what happens if you politely mention, put an item on the agenda, or wri...

Yesterday Fern and I taught a four hour workshop on divination. I’m finding one of the great gifts of teaching is the figuring out what it is I actually know. It turns out I know a lot about divination, about engaging in an ongoing conversation with the divine. As I prepared for teaching by typing up a long list of methods of divination, I marveled at the ways humans have embarked on decoding the messages of everyday life. This conversation with the divine, listening to the forces of nature, looking for what is being communicated, has been going on throughout human history, in every culture. Listening to the wind, watching the patterns of birds, noticing chance remarks of strangers, all of these have been established practices of divination. This looking at life as a dream, and interpreting it as such, this is as old as the hills. In the past year or so, Reya and I both have realized how for the most part we don’t rely on our tarot decks anymore; just paying attention to how life unfol...

Last night, just as I was settling comfortably into bed, Tickles the cat strode triumphantly into my room. He had a mouse in his mouth. I found myself trying to figure out who to call out to, who to ask to deal with this. With a start I realized that there was nobody to turn to except myself. Everyone else was asleep, and even if the house was fully awake, the only one who’d readily take on this task is Karl, who will be moving away in a few weeks. Karl has always been reliable in regards to dealing with spiders, mangled birds, rats, rattlesnakes and other assorted unpleasantnesses. He’s also willing to carry heavy objects, no questions asked, or objections made. As I looked Tickles in the eye, I faced the fact that this was one of the downfalls of not being involved with someone. It’s been a year now that I’ve been single; the longest stretch since I first hooked up with someone at fifteen. Every one of my exes would have readily dealt with this situation, would have assumed ...

It’s raining. It’s been raining now for a few hours. The reservoirs all around California are full to the brim, and the snow hasn’t even completely melted. It’s a banner year for water. I learned today (I heard it on the radio) that this makes the probability of summer fires even higher, as the grasses are thicker, more abundant than usual. By midsummer they will be a fire hazard. The knowledge of this has really thrown me. I’m a Californian. I’ve lived thru many drought years, and have those years inextricably linked to fear of fires. How strange to learn at this juncture that heavy rainfall is as much a harbinger of summer fire as a winter of drought. Hearing this news today, I recalled the summer of my childhood when grass fires were a constant fear and threat. My family lived in the country, in the rolling hills south of San Jose. That summer there were several fires in the hills, and my parents had impressed on me the danger of fire hitting our large propane tank. It was out in th...

I’m loving being in my office. Morgaine, my office partner of twenty years is leaving her practice. She has a new business selling yarn and spinning wheels. As a result I’ve inherited some of her furniture. The new sand tray shelves and bookcase inspired me to move everything around and clean up my clutter. I’ve cleared out all the old papers and all the objects and books that no longer hold interest. Everything that is left is there because I want it to be there. Thus, it all gives me pleasure. It’s making me look at my space with new eyes, and to be more present in my work. When I walked in today, I felt like a kid at Christmas, every object giving me a sense of wonder, all feeling like gifts. A woman I once went to for consultation, who was brilliant in regards to the theory I was interested in, would go on at length how the “clinical container” (the therapy office) should be devoid of personality. I took a lot of what she said to heart, but not this. Never this. I coul...

The last few days have been so chock full I’ve had barely time to catch up with myself, much less write. The weather has been a magic mirror to my internal state, one minute the sky is bright and clear, the next overcast and tearing up. And every day I am struck by what a festival of fertility this month truly is. It is crazy beautiful in this city by the sea. While the city is aglow in blossoms and greenery, so many things that have been in the works personally have finally come to fruition. Today the last of the divorce papers got notarized. Yesterday the contract on the house was finally signed. There’s so many beginnings and endings right now I can’t keep up with them. It all seems in the spirit of May, and tuning into that spirit is what is helping me go with the flow and not get scared. It feels a little like going downhill on a bike, one part of me wanting to put my feet down or brake, the other loving the feeling of the air rushing past, trusting my ability to steer and ...

Last June I picked up Love Poems from God at the bookstore on the corner near my office. It was an impulse buy, one of those impulses that turns out to be close to life saving. It helped me make it thru that terrible summer, went to witchcamp with me, and even still, like my well thumbed Mary Oliver collection of poetry, it tends to fall open to just the right poem. This is my favorite of the moment: IT’S RIGGED It’s rigged – everything, in your favor. So there is nothing to worry about Is there some position you want, some office, some acclaim, some award, some con, some lover, maybe two, maybe three, maybe four – all at once, maybe a relationship with God? I know there is a gold mine in you, when you find it the wonderment of the earth’s gifts you will lay aside as naturally as does a child a doll But, dear, how sweet you look to me kissing the unreal; comfort, fill yourself in any way possible – do that until...

I’m not doing well. Tonight was the spring concert for my son’s school. Being paradoxically a progressive school that is rather conservative, usually the musical selections are limited to expanding our cultural awareness of folkways around the world. Tonight started out no different. There was some African dancing, Chinese melodies, Peruvian songs, and then my son’s class played the theme from The Exorcist . Casey started out on some weird instrument called a Thurman where you wave your hands near it and it makes sound. It wasn’t working at first, so the concert came to a halt while two people kept trying plugs in various holes in the thing while my kid waved his arms around. The audience was laughing nervously, and I got progressively more hysterical. It was weird, funny, and downright odd. Eventually it started working, and Casey “played” it, then did some drumming and then went on to a keyboard. I’m queasy. Why the hell is my son playing the theme from The Exorcist ?

My son is a Beltane baby, and as such, he’s amazed me with his magical gifts.In the last week I realized with a start that I am a child of Beltane too, and so is my beloved friend Reya. Reya and I are both born in early Feburary, meaning that our conception was in early May. My ex’s birthday is the same as my son’s, January 30 th , and my son was conceived on May 1 st . Sharing the birthday was somthiing that was problematic in our relationship, but now in retrospect explains some of why I have had such a deep connection to her. She was born smack dab in the middle of nine kids in a Mormon family, and her birthday was one day when she got special attention. To share her birthday with her lover’s son, whew…talk about triggering. Nevertheless, thinking about this now, of course they have the same birthday; of course I would not only have a child of Beltane, but fall in love with one. Conceived at the height of spring, when the earth is luminous with the life force, wh...

IT WORKS Would you come if someone called you by the wrong name? I wept, because for years He did not enter my arms; then one night I was told a secret: Perhaps the name you call God is not really His, maybe it is just an alias. I thought about this, and came up with a pet name for my Beloved I never mention to others. All I can say is – it works. Rabia of Basra (c.717-801) female Islamic saint who influenced Rumi In these months of working on integrating my two traditions into one, of becoming a Reclaiming Feri witch, I became clear I had to find my own names for the elemental guardians and goddesses. I've been working on it, and telling those I know who are interested in Reclaiming Feri to do the same. Fern found this poem in the fabulous collection love poems from god , and it's makes my heart sing to know that an ecstatic poet from way back when was on the same page. It works. It really do...

I’m hungover from Beltane. Liquid spirits were not involved in this hangover. The other kinds certainly were. This was some party. It seems this Beltane was about reconnecting and remembering ribbons/relationships from the past, of looking at the web of connection in my life in a new way and giving value to strands that had gone overlooked, or I’d let go of, but now show up later in the weft and weave. Mostly I got intoxicated with the wonder of how the story line of my life continues to be spun in ways that I never could have expected. Patterns continue to be woven, but this Beltane, the design really does seem to have changed. I was not alone in the magic of this Beltane. Jeremy was dancing the maypole and came face to face with an ex-love that had ended several years ago. It was one of those passionate breakups where not seeing or talking to each other is the only way to stay out of the fiery pit. Time to re-visit that! Fern saw two people she’d gone to high school with in Fresno a...

On the morning of Beltane Eve, I turned to my iPod for my daily dose of divination. The first three songs were; Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Ring of Fire and What a Wonderful World , as covered by K.D. Lang and Tony Bennett. Once again, when I heard the third song, tears began dribbling down my face. Girls having fun, the going down and the fiery heat, well, that makes sense at Beltane. Those songs had me smiling, as it was looking like that was exactly were the day would be headed. Back in the fall, I was talking to my sister about the possibility of invoking a long celibacy. I'd had the incredible realization that three months had been my limit on not having sex since the age of 15. There was short silence and Stacy said; “Yeah, but we’re just not the celibate type.” What a Wonderful World put me immediately in touch with why I’m not the celibate type, and why sex is such a magical act. At Beltane, with spring at it’s fullest, with the fecundity of nature showing off with grand g...