life preservers all around!

This is a particularly challenging solstice to be a therapist. Usually during this time I can rely on my fierce optimism to not only get me through, but to be a beacon and ballast for my clients who are in the depths of despair. This season, I've had the experience of several of my clients being my messengers of hope, shining their light to guide me through the dark.

When I got to work yesterday there were several cards from past clients, all wishing me well and extolling praise and gratitude for my past sturdiness. One of them, from someone who moved to the Rockies over twelve years ago, asked; "Have you dumped that husband and gotten with a woman yet?" I laughed and laughed. I could hear her voice in the words. She was a complete handful as a client, a challenge and a joy. What a mystery, this thing that prompted her to write this card, when I hadn't heard from her in a decade!

As the hours went by, and I sat with clients who are currently struggling with depression, and those who've stopped wrestling and have sunk down, I kept thinking of the cards I'd received, and every time I did, my heart got a little more bouyant. How incredible this ability of humans to serve as life preservers for each other! This time of year is so damnedly cold and dark. No wonder we created these rituals of sending cards and giving presents. Sometimes they actually save lives. I'm sure of it.

all stirred up

I cancelled my clients this morning. Nobody needs a therapist who’s breaking into tears unexpectedly. What’s up with me? What has this trip to the coast broken loose in me? This week is the anniversary of my father’s suicide, a time I tend to be battling the blues, so that’s definitely a factor. Reya says I don’t sound depressed, just sad. There’s some mighty grief running thru me, and I’m giving it free rein, not trying to busy myself out of it, or numb it with glasses of wine. Curiously, I find I’m envying LeeAnn her one love, her long years of battling and making up with Max. Maybe, finally, I’m grieving my marriage. I know I’ve grieved the loss of my husband, but the loss of my marriage, that’s another kettle of fish. That marriage had it’s beginnings on the Oregon Coast.

Cannon Beach is such a crucible of love for me. All the great loves of my life, except my last one, hold some history in this place. I went there to heal, drawn by the power of the elemental forces; the ocean, that great rock, the brambles of the persistent blackberries. I also went there to flee the love that I was being offered in Northern California, that I couldn’t receive or let in after my father’s act closed off some chamber of my heart. I’m wondering if some indelible scarring took place in my ostensible healing, and if this trip has broken open that old scar tissue.

It was here in Cannon Beach that I began to work with the tides and the phases of the moon, that my love affair with the Craft began. It was here that I began correspondence with Starhawk, and found out that we would both be going to the same graduate school in San Francisco. Michael told me how he every so often reprints in October the article I wrote for him about witchcraft. We laughed and marveled at the full bookcase of tomes on witchcraft which are now in the store he works at. Even as I write this, I feel the pull and tug of sorrow. How strange to no longer want to attend my local public rituals, to feel embarrassed and discomforted by my association with Reclaiming!

It’s cold and relentlessly grey out. I’m back in San Francisco, gathering the pieces I left on that Oregon coast, trying to make sense of the last few days, trying to make sense of my life.

lost and found

I’m back at the airport, waiting for my flight to San Francisco. I just left LeeAnn at her gate, and she’s heading back to Idaho to an empty house. The phone rang somewhere before eight this morning, and it was her. She was outside my motel in a pick-up truck, and she couldn’t climb the stairs to my room as she’d sprained her ankle. Clearly, the wake for Max had happened. I threw together my clothes and went down to join her. She’d decided we needed to drive down to Cannon Beach, the place I’d fled to after my father’s suicide. At the time, it was a funky little artist colony on the coast, dead in the winter, and catering to the tourists in the summer. It was a place where half the waitresses and bartenders were either working on a novel or painting in their spare time. When they weren’t drinking, that is.

We cruised down the coast in the large truck, and I noticed all the changes. There’s a huge outlet mall in Seaside, and the patches of wild are smaller all around. When we turned the big curve coming into Cannon Beach, I choked up. Haystack Rock is a commanding presence in the town, sitting out past the tide line, as tall as that nuclear haystack I’d seen yesterday, and millions time more majestic. It will be here way after the houses here are gone, and my, are there way more houses! The sight of that rock helped me keep perspective on all the changes. In Cannon Beach, every change is so darn tasteful! Gone are all the funky buildings on Hemlock, replaced by all wood shingled buildings designed to weather gracefully. The funkiness of the town has completely disappeared, replaced by artful wealth and tasteful design. I was so glad to be with LeeAnn, and we reminisced about her and Max, and what life was like here before.

Driving back to Astoria, we stopped in to surprise Michael McCusker, at the bookstore café he’s working at. I thought he would never recognize me, hell, it’s been over twenty-five years since we’ve seen each other. But he knew me right off and even made a comment about seeing the young woman in me that use to sunbathe naked at Hug Point. Is she still there? It’s a surprise to think so, but this trip is stirring up memories and senses that have been dulled for years. Michael gave me copies of his paper, The North Coast Times Eagle, and surprised me with an edition in which he’d reprinted old articles I’d written for him. He also told me that my old lover John is in Majorca with his ex-wife. I threw myself on the rocks of that relationship as I grieved my father and cousin’s deaths. John and I pushed every envelope we could find in hurting each other, sharpening the point where pleasure and pain meet in every way we knew how. Way too old for me, John and I made Last Tango in Paris look like a cake walk in Duluth. I’m glad to know he’s alive, and that he’s repaired things with his ex-wife. Some soul retrieval is happening here, some taking back of parts that I thought I had left behind. It’s not real comfortable, or easy, there’s some loss I’m feeling that goes beyond the changes to the town, and the changes to LeeAnn and Jody’s lives. So paradoxical, this feeling of both retrieving and recognizing loss at the same time.

Driving back along the river to Portland with LeeAnn, she told me various stories of her grand love affair with Max. She had that rare and peculiar thing that so many love songs and romances hold out as the ideal. She had the great one love. They struggled mightily, breaking up and then getting back together; she was married to him three times. We both know how precious this life and death of Max’s was. So precious and special that in the end, it was death that parted them, and up until that moment, they were together. I heard LeeAnn say many times this weekend how well Max faced death, how great he was at both living and dying. As she tells me stories of their life, I can see the young girl in her, as well

Minutes from now, I’ll be going back to San Francisco. I’m taking back a lot from this trip, none of it in bags or packages. My heart is full, my mind is working overtime. I think I’ll be crying a lot in the next few days.

river into the sea

I’m in my motel room in Astoria, overlooking the water. Below me, the Columbia river widens to meet the Pacific. LeeAnn booked the room for me, and when I got here I found out she’d paid for it as well. It’s perfect, not a chain motel, but one with distinct character and a sense of place. I’m deeply touched. Touched. How right that word is! Moved and touched by the power of human connection, by this incredible day.

Picking up my rental car in Portland, I headed off after consulting with the rental guy about the best route. I promptly got lost in the wastelands of industrial Portland, driving this way and that until I finally found my way back to the place I’d gone wrong. I’d taken a wrong turn just blocks from the bridge I needed to cross. I noted the crossing of it, hoping that it was a portent, that all the turns and wanderings of this life time lead me exactly back to where I need to go. This is a bridge I’d never seen or crossed before, this Saint John’s bridge. An elegant, gothic, suspension bridge, my guess is it was built in the late 1920’s or early 30’s. It soars above the Willamette, and my heart soared crossing it, and I wondered for awhile if there really was such a thing as a wrong turn. If I hadn’t have been lost, I might not have marked the crossing with the same verve.

Driving down Highway 30, just as I was settling into the beauty of the landscape, the winter palate of muted colors, what loomed large but the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. It was a shock. Have I ever actually seen a nuclear power plant before? I always drove on Highway 26 to the coast and I came to San Francisco the week my soon to be comrades were getting arrested at Diablo. I can’t draw up a memory of seeing one before, but I know instantly what it is. Seeing that iconic shape rising in the winter mist was chilling. Perhaps if he hadn’t live downstream from this monstrous giant, Max would be alive. And Jody wouldn’t have breast cancer.

I met LeeAnn outside of the Logger Restaurant in Knappa, a small town filled with people who depend on the bounty of this coast, making livings from fishing and logging. It's going to take weeks to truly process all that came next. The memorial service was in the high school gym, the same high school that Max had attended. Max was man in his seventies who had died of pancreatic cancer, but in that room his presence came in the form of a youthful basketball star. Almost all his highschool teammates were there, and his friend Bud guided the service. Max’s favorite songs were played, among them songs by Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Max was a big man in many ways. He filled the room. The gym was crowded with family and friends and you could spot his relations by looking for those who towered above the rest of us. I sat between LeeAnn and Jody, with pictures and stories of Max flooding the room, creating what Jody had so intended, a celebration of his life. We left the gym and ate in the cafeteria, feasting on an incredible array of food, countless tables laden with home-made dishes.

I left the high school and came to the motel, knowing that Jody and LeeAnn will probably go out to the local taverns tonight. At least I’m hoping they do, Max needs a wake element to this day. I’m exhausted from getting up so early, plus my intuition told me that if I went out with them, I’d end up sleeping in my rental car. Better to be here, cozy in the motel, high above the river, thinking about life and death, about aging, about what it means to have one great love in a lifetime, about the power of small towns, about my working class roots, and about my intense love for the ocean that this river is flowing into. Some of who I am was forged in this place. Some of me is being forged here again. This is an important weekend.

the trip begins

I’m at the airport, waiting for my plane to Portland. I’ve made it thru the congested clutch of the security checkpoint and am at my gate. The plane leaves in about 50 minutes, so we should be boarding soon. It’s so darn early, not quite six in the morning, and I’m barely awake. I’m not on the plane, but the trip has begun.

The cab came within five minutes of my call. I stumbled down the stairs with my stuffed overnight bag, and slid into the backseat. I’d imagined a quiet ride thru the darkness, but my driver was talkative. I’m a highly relational person, whose favorite animal is hands down the human being. Despite this, or maybe because of this, I like the indulgence of silence when in a cab, a salon chair, or dealing with dental hygienists. That indulgence was not to be. The cabbie didn’t pick up on my cues of giving short answers to questions, with no questioning reciprocation on my part. By the time the cab was coming close to Candlestick, mindful of how grouchy I was becoming, I decided to stop resisting and engage in active interaction with my driver. I also considered that he may have been up all night and talking to me might be a useful strategy for not falling asleep at the wheel.

By the time we pulled up to the departures curb, I was bemused at the riches that can be gained from not resisting, from going with the flow. The flow of conversation in that cab turned out to be one that moved me, which will no doubt be part of the current running thru this weekend. My cabbie came to San Francisco after graduating from Kent State. He was on the little rise of lawn when the National Guard started shooting. He was one of the protesters there, and he lost a good friend that day. We talked about this and my experience at the WTO in Seattle, about the addiction to adrenaline, tear gas, and jail cells that we’ve seen some of our friends get hooked on, the peculiar mix of hope and desperation involved in taking direct action, the scars that are left by encountering violence. The cabbie lives in the same apartment he moved into twenty-five years ago, paying a pittance for rent. He drives cab twice a week, and plays music the rest of the time. He does what he loves, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

So, I’m sitting here, waiting for my plane to board, and I’m thinking about resistance, and activism, and doing what you love. I’m returning to the coast of Oregon, where LeeAnn and I cobbled together a crisis center for women who were battered or raped, a crisis center that is still operating. I’m thinking of meeting up there with Michael McCusker, my friend who served in Vietnam, who then came home and served on the streets of Washington D.C. and Chicago, battling it out for peace. I feel tender towards us all, the cabbie, LeeAnn, Michael, and myself. We’ve been through a lot. The plane is boarding. Gotta go.

Bio-parents adopt

A few weeks ago I noted a change in language, a new term easily rolling off people’s tongues. It entered my therapy room twice today. In San Francisco people are no longer saying “biological mother/father”. It is simply bio-dad or bio-mom. So short, so friendly, so easy to use!

This is going to make the term “real” mom/dad obsolete in no time. Having been surrounded by parents with adopted children, and being the mother of a child who has both a dad and a bio-dad, I know the sting the “real” can cause. Does this make the other parent “unreal”? Up until now, there hasn’t been anything to substitute the “real” with that hasn’t sounded clumsy or veering on too much information. “Biological” is just too damn long, too clinical, and somehow makes one think of science class and dissecting frogs. I’ve always stumbled over it in introducing/explaining Jay’s place in my son’s life. Once, I introduced him as “Casey’s birth father”. He kidded me about this later, making the good point that “birth” only makes sense in regards to mothers, and the truth is he was nowhere in the vicinity when Casey made his grand entrance. Lesbian couples and parents of adopted children can easily use the term but, even so, invoking the thought form of childbirth every time you introduce yourself is a bit much. “Bio” on the other hand, is kinda hip and kinda sporty. It’s the kind of word you can imagine wearing a beret or zipping around on a moped.

One of useful teachings I’ve gotten from the Feri tradition is understanding the power of names, the distinct energy and magic contained in each and every word we speak. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but our experience of the flower is influenced mightily by the distinct cadence of the collected vowels and syllables of it’s name. Speaking to Jay tonight on the phone, I told him about the new label. We both agreed, it’s a term that is comfortable in the mouth, one that gives information without invoking an uncomfortable intimacy. Suddenly, some awkwardness of his role in Casey’s life fades away, is made right with this simple name. It’s one both of us will be readily adopting.

a light goes on

As I was rushing around the house this morning, getting ready to take my son to school, the phone rang. It was LeeAnn. The memorial service for Max will be this weekend in Astoria. It’s a rush job, due to the fact that their son is on a short leave from the military, flying in soon from Kuwait. When she asked me to come, part of me balked. This was the weekend I planned to devote myself to the making of solstice presents. I’m sure she could hear the hesitation in my voice as I said “I’d try”. There was short silence and then she said “It would mean a lot to me”. I took a deep breath and felt the hesitation leave on the exhale. What better solstice magic, what better gift to give, than to show up for an old and beloved friend in their darkest of hours? I bought my tickets as soon as I got off the phone.

the times they are a'changing

I drove down Third Street today and into Hunter’s Point. The violence of poverty reverberates here, it’s a district my son is afraid to come to, one which the hungry homebuyers give wide berth. It’s predominately black. It’s also houses the largest colony of artists in the Bay Area, oddly located in an old navy shipyard. Studios are cheap here, out beyond cell phone range, safe at the moment from gentrification. There was a time that North Beach and the Haight teemed with artists studios. Now even Ferlinghetti, the poet king of Columbus Street, has his painting studio out here. The barrack buildings are rough and rickety, and even full of artists, there’s a feeling of dislocation in the air.

As I drove down Third, I noticed that the new street car tracks are almost done. This street car will run from downtown thru Hunters Point. Once that train is up and running, the division between Hunters Point and the rest of the city will begin to erode. I give it a year until you can hop off the train near Evans and get a cup of coffee costing over two bucks with the option of soymilk. So interesting how coffee, that dark liquid amphetamine, is such a marker for everything we relegate to that term “gentrification”. For every action, there is a reaction, for every small change, ripples of transformation spread out. My guess is the coming of the streetcar will change even the ambiance in the shipyard of artists.

I was going to a holiday celebration that some of the artists were throwing, having been invited by a new acquaintance, a lesbian my age who’s art I luckily like. Hanging out for the afternoon with her and the other artists in her building is a small change I’ve made, opening to new friends, new circles of community. I spent the afternoon chatting with a variety of people, talking about art, color, and changes in this city so many of us adore. Running into a woman I had briefly dated, I was grateful for the sweet ease of our interaction. I bought a small painting of two blackbirds on a wire, loving the quirkiness of it, the way they are looking at each other. Coming home, I wanted nothing more than to be up in my own studio. A profound subtle shift happened while I was at Hunter's Point. For the last few years I’ve been working on claiming myself to be an artist, on inhabititng that fully. For a variety of reasons, this has been a struggle. Today, strolling thru the warren of studios, I could fully imagine myself among those showing their work. The moniker of artist rolled easily off my lips among the various introductions that were made. What a change! We’ll see what comes of it.

a pleasing afterlife

This weekend I had planned to be up at my land in the Sonoma hills, land I share with old coven sisters and their partners. As I prepared to go, I found out that there was going to be quite a crowd up there. Robin and Rocky were going up with their troupe of Morris Dancers. At another time, this might have been a hoot, but not this weekend. The unsureness I’ve been feeling has led to a general feeling of vulnerability and unsteadiness. Things are in flux, and my roots are searching steady ground. Best to stay home.

As night increases its reign, I marvel at how much has changed since last solstice, when the sun ruled the sky. My household is configured in an entirely different way, my office as well. Relationships which once were integral to daily life have diminished to an occasional phone call. Doors have closed, some windows have been cracked open. My son has morphed in front of my eyes from child to teenager. Puberty has hit, and hit hard. His voice has changed, he’s shot up, and he even smells different. And those are just the physical changes. My spiritual affiliations are in transition, I’m much more a solitary witch than ever before, not defined by my relationships to traditions or community. This is the longest I’ve been single, a mere year and a half. Up until now, not three months have passed without embarking on a love affair. The first ride began at fifteen. Being single is new and strange territory. I’m settling into it, starting to notice the rightness of it, realizing it in itself is a journey. I’m staving off opening my heart to the roller coaster of love, feeling protective of these last remaining years of parenting. Things can change so quickly and do.

Today I went with a friend to Chrissy Field, an amazing stretch of beach nestled under the Presidio. We went in the hour before sunset, when the sky and water hold on to the light in a wondrous and particular way, eventually letting it go with the magic of opalescence. Getting chai lattes at the warming hut, we walked along the beach, with the Golden Gate looming to the side, and the city shining in front of us. Coit Tower, the Palace of Fine Arts, The Transamerican Pyramid, the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz Island - all the markers of this city I love so much were brilliantly on display from Chrissy Field. In the HBO production of Angels in America, heaven is portrayed as San Francisco. Today, walking in the twilight, with a warm cup of chai in hand, I smiled at the truth of this and felt my heart swell at the miracle of this dream city, this dream life. Amidst the changes, some things remain certain. I love this city, I love this life. It’s heaven.

It's witchcraft

As I sat with a client today, my mind kept drifting to my friend Lee Ann. I knew it wasn’t anything my client was saying, and it wasn’t that I was bored. There was a tug on the line that connects us. I felt the tug, and I worked to re-focus on the man in front of me, who was in the throes of a career crisis. He needed my full attention, and during that hour, I struggled diligently to stay with him, but my mind kept wandering back to Lee Ann. She was on my mind.

After the session was done, I dialed her number in Idaho. She answered, and her voice was shaky. Max, her husband for some thirty years, had died within the past hour. He died at home, where he had been battling cancer for the past few months. She kept exclaiming “Why did you call? How did you know?” Both in tears, we marveled at the miracle of our connection, at the mystery of love. We don’t talk often, sometimes not for years, but when we do connect it is uncannily at the right moment. This was one of those moments.

In the midst of the tears, Lee Ann laughed. “You really are a witch!” she said. Even now, the remembrance of those words makes me smile. Indeed, I am a witch. More and more, this being a witch has little to do with words of power, with the notion of sorcery or manipulating the elements to do my will. Being a witch to me means listening to my intuition, it means paying attention to what tugs at me, it means making a call to an old friend when I keep thinking of them. One often touted definition of magic is the art of changing consciousness at will. This is a good definition, certainly. As a therapist, I employ this kind of magic all the time with clients, invoking with them the will to change, even if the change is to accept what is. But magic is more than using our will to change our consciousness. It’s willing ourselves to simply be conscious. I find much magic occurs in the simple act of paying attention, of listening to what we commonly call our intuition, of following where this leads, of attempting this with an open heart and mind, of not letting our will drive the bus, but our attention.

Today the storm of the last few days abated, leaving the city awash with light, the air clean and crisp. Lee Ann is grieving Max, the great love of her life. On the phone, amidst the tears, she told me how grateful she felt for having had Max in her life. I too, feel grateful for their great love and to the mystery of our interconnectiveness. I send out my attention, my awareness to Lee-Ann. This attention, this awareness, is the stuff love is made from. It’s magic.