branches up, roots down

In the past few months, in the ongoing conversations about Lucifer, I’ve heard from several witches something to the tune of “I don’t believe in the devil.” Not worship, invoke, or work with him, that I understand. But not believe in him? Years back I remember reading something by a Native American elder, speaking to how and why his people had lost so much, including old traditions. I wish I could remember his exact words, the exact quote. I wish I could remember the name of the elder. What I do remember is that he said that Native Americans, being believers in many gods, many spirits, were amazed at the power and strength of the white man’s god. He was fierce and mighty, so many of the Native American people let go of their gods and turned to him, as soon as they encountered him, making way for a real loss of culture and way of living. Given the white man’s power, they assumed God and his son, Jesus, were more mighty than their gods put together. Polytheistic cultures, those who’ve be...

Soon after 9/ll, as the president was beating war drums, and I could feel a blood-dimmed tide being released upon the world, I pledged myself to a particular piece of magic. Believing strongly that what happens between the worlds affects all the worlds, I pledged myself to working towards my spiritual community being in alignment with it’s principles of unity. I remember being on the deck of what we call the “cookhouse” up at my land in the Sonoma hills, talking to my friends about pulling in my energy and working on making a difference in our local community, a community that many of us were disillusioned with. I spoke passionately about my belief that this was a spell, our tending to our own backyard, creating a climate in which those principles of unity would flourish, a community which we were all proud to be part of, of our microcosm affecting the macro. I drove back to the city committed to no longer staying silent when I saw us veer from our principles, committed to acting as if...

One of the unexpected gifts of this past year has been my relationship with my clairvoyant body worker. I’ve always felt that finding the right therapist/body workers/healer is a bit like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. It can be done, but it’s an act involving both intense focus and luck. I scored big with Zoe. Not only does Zoe tune into what my body needs, knows where energy is stuck and how to move it, but she can read the stories that swirl around me. Early on she told me she was a clairvoyant, that she did past life readings. This was something I had to take my time with. A few years back I walked a gauntlet line of police with my friend Fern, moving quickly as we sensed they were about to charge the group of protesters we had been marching with. As we walked, I kept flashing on the two of us in high heels, walking down a dusty road in the South, getting out of town to avoid the law. I laughed heartily that the only past life that made itself known to me was one i...

I’m back from Portland , that verdant stew of a city. And I’m exhausted. I’ve slept over nine hours, and I could sleep even more. The wedding was at a renovated poor farm built in the early part of the twentieth century. The big brick building which previously housed the poor and then the elderly (it also has been a nursing home) now is a hotel, decorated by a slew of artists to soften the institutional residue. Almost every surface is painted, many of the paintings reflective of the building’s past, so instead of softening things, it’s actually intensified them. The grounds are beautiful, and it’s a popular spot now for weddings. I slept there two nights, and they were restless ones. The place is thick with spirits. I kept thinking of the movie “The Shining”, it was that kind of hotel. Fraught. Mormons, Jews, Wiccans, and my wacky eggroll family all came together to witness Jim and Dawn make their vows. And of course all the poorhouse spirits. I particularly appreciate...

Tomorrow I fly off to Portland for the last wedding of the season. I just got a call from a friend who’s already traveled there from the Bay Area. She called to talk to me about her neighbor dying suddenly this week. She’s feeling guilty she went to Portland instead of being there for the teenage daughter. Listening to her, I realized that she’s in grief, that it’s starting to hit her that a friend is dead. We are both witches, and this wedding is a wedding of two witches. After the wedding of last week, I’ve been thinking that this one will be a cakewalk, a stroll in the park. During the phone call I made peace with the fact that I am gearing up for another piece of monumental magic. It’s clear she is supposed to be there, that her grief will be a thread in the magic woven this weekend. This wedding too will have its human drama, human drama that’s already taking shape. I spent last evening talking to my soon to be ex-husband up on my deck, with the city lights flickering ...

Last night I had dinner with the couple I married and our friend who had caught on fire during the ceremony. His bandages were off, and he looked like my imagining of what a chemical peel would look like; tender, raw and reddened. Most importantly, he was not on fire. Our memories of him can now move forward, being replaced with images of him laughing, of him washing dishes. Over the evening, which included my housemates and two others who had been there, the conversation would regularly return to the retrieval of moments on that hill. All of us held different facets of what happened; all of us had focused on different things. All the bad jokes, the gallows humor, were shared. Over and over again, we returned to laughter, to the camaraderie of sharing an intense experience from different vantage points, of viewing it all now with humor. As the evening progressed, I recognized the similarity to conversations with those I’ve done political action with. War stories, we’ve called t...

It’s Monday, and usually on this particular Monday I would be out at the Oregon Country Fair. For over twenty-five years now I’ve gone there each year and made eggrolls at the Roll-On Eggroll booth. I know that at about this moment, the booth is packed up and everyone is about to roll into town, tired, dusty, and enriched by living for several days in the kind of world that many of us want to bring into being. I didn’t go this year, as there was a piece of magic I was asked to priestess, a piece of magic that is also about bringing into being the world of our visions. I was asked by two close friends to officiate at their wedding. This was the second of three weddings in three weekends. My friends are dedicated activists. The community of family and friends that participated in the wedding teemed with those who work on a variety of fronts for social and environmental justice. Many of us worked closely together in Seattle , many have worked in variety of groupings at a variety of...

I’m surfacing. It’s been an amazingly chock full last couple of weeks. Patti, Karl and Colin moved out soon after solstice and their flat is empty, awaiting the massive remodeling that Ilyse is planning. Soon after they left, my son came back from New Mexico and brought along his cousin, who stayed for a week. They went to Chinatown and came back with a variety of things that go boom and stink. Our neighborhood always sounds like a war zone around the 4 th of July, and the boys added to it. Gus the dog took to literally climbing the fence to escape. Casey is now in Oregon with his dad, and I’m alone in my house. Fern and Ilyse have not come back yet from the wedding we were all at this weekend in Mendocino. There’s no bombs going off, the neighborhood is settling down, this house is settling down, and after a series of stressful events, I committ myself to settling down as well.