slow sips

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 rite was about to begin, we moved out of spring. The morning fog was burning off, and all the trees and plants seemed as saturated by sun and light as by water. Thru the veil of mist, summer was slipping in. It also has turned out to be the weekend of Carnaval, a two day festival here in the Mission district. Carnaval is a celebration of Latin-American culture in all its diversity. Besides a big parade, there is a huge street fair only two blocks away. Carnaval is a cacophony of smells, sights and sounds. Like Feri, it is a dose of concentrated life force, with a constant backbeat of sex. Being the two day festival, that back beat was with us until late into Sunday night. Our neighborhood, normally a lively one, became even more so. People filled the sidewalks, charter buses drove down the street, and the air itself seemed to become denser.

Fern had chosen to be initiated by myself and one other person; a woman with the quixotic magical name of “Ivory Fly”. Both of us are eccentric artists and, befitting priestesses of Feri, both of us are devoted ecstatics. We worked well together creating a space of beauty, filled with blossoms, buds, and all manner of food for the senses. By the time the ritual was over, all of us felt suffused by the lusty current of life, intoxicated by the magic. In truth, it was just the beginning of a big binge.

Summer slipping in, the persistent beat of Carnaval, lead to another saturated day on Sunday. Sunday evening found us, with the rest of my future household, in a garden of roses overlooking our psychic seaport of San Francisco. The entire party kept making reference to the precious sunlight. Throughout the party, the sun moved, and the party with it. Feasting on a variety of delicacies, we soaked up the good company, the incredible setting, and the start of summer. Forced to leave, due to my son’s discomfort with my conversation and instant connection with a mask making artist from Bolinas (such is adolescence!), we drove home. My goddess daughter Lyra, resplendent in a new jacket she had scored at a garage sale, drove. It was if the lusty current was propelling us home, the car being full of laughter, love, and the kind of familial warmth that expands hearts.

On Monday, which was Memorial Day, we all tried to recover. Lyra brought home a shopping bag full of an incredible variety of pastries left over from her work. The sweetness of life continued to fill our home, and tempted us at every turn. Going a bit slower, none of us at full throttle, we all seemed to be reeling from weekend that seemed it would never end. Summer is here. Time to sip slowly.