a hard week

On Valentine’s Day, an enormous cold front rolled into town. Here on Sunday, five days later, it still hasn’t left. It feels like the whole city is in shock, like the cold drink of winter was splashed back in our face, just as we were getting use to intoxication of spring.

It’s been a hard week. I spent the evening of Valentine’s Day seeing a slew of couples. I’d tried to convince them last week that it might not be the healthiest thing to go to couples therapy on Valentine’s Day, but none of them were having it, several calling it a “Hallmark Holiday”. In my book, it’s the one holiday not associated with a religion, or war, or a famous dude, but one purely focused on celebrating love. After a friend pointed out that so many of my past pledges to Brigid in some way or shape involved relationships with others, I made my pledge this year to fully embark on a romance/love affair with myself. My birthday week was a great start, but I should have not seen those couples on Tuesday. It certainly made me not miss being in a couple, but I should have taken the night off and done something I loved.

Luis Keminzter, one of the people I’ve known the longest from the intersection of the anarchist/Reclaiming communities died this week. He died the morning of the day I’d planned to visit him at the hospital. This is still sinking in.

And then I put my two cents into a discussion on the international Reclaiming e-mail list, called Spider. Jeesh. As I’m writing this I’m shaking my head. Even from the midst of the chaos of cleaning up New Orleans, Starhawk had time to write a missive directed at me. This time, it for some reason really made me laugh. I’ve always liked that about her, that she’s feisty and funny. She’s got the Emma Goldman in her, that’s for sure. I wonder what comrade of Emma’s had the ability to piss her off royally? I take this coven stuff pretty seriously, believing I’ve spent lifetimes with all those I’ve covened with, that we are bound by karma. Have Star and I been fighting for centuries? Did we have one lifetime where we just fully enjoyed each other? This lifetime we’ve seemed to do both equally, but this fighting just may be starting to outweigh the enjoyment. No more covens this time round, that’s for sure. Between Matrix, the Wind Hags, and Triskits, my dance card is full.

I’ve been working on rewriting my old article about Elvis that I did for the Reclaiming Quarterly. Last night I dreamt about it and saw my articles from the Quarterly on my blog. I’m going to go thru them and see if any make sense anymore and perhaps archive them in the blogosphere. Or maybe that’s just indigestion from the Spider spat working itself out in my dreams.

What a week! I’m glad I’m not at Pantheacon, the big pagan conference in San Jose this weekend. That would just be too damn much. Friends from England, Peter and Alex, have been visiting out here and are now down there. Peter is a historian interested in writing the history of Reclaiming. Macha’s already given him an earful, and he’s looking to talk to Thorn and Anne down at PCon. Tonight they will be involved in a big Feri ritual at the same time a bunch of other Reclaiming folk are involved in a Brigid ritual. I’m happy to be home, bundled up against the cold. This was a hard week.