branches up, roots down

After the break-up of my twenty year marriage, my friend Fern moved in with my son and I. We live in a large Victorian, full of spirits and odd happenings. Fern will be moving out in July, but for the past five years, she has added her own special something to the potent mix on York Street . Fern has a fascination with offbeat methods of healing, and is a real sucker for self-help systems. When she moved in, Byron Katie’s four questions were relentlessly invoked. (The four questions are; Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it's true? How do you react when you believe that thought? Who would you be without the thought?) One of the things I like the best about Reclaiming's principles of unity is the invocation of the questioning attitude, but damn, did my attitude suck in regards to those blasted questions! I was deeply relieved when this g ave way to some method of tapping yourself when you have upsetting thoughts. Given she was going thru a bad break-up, Fern ended up t...

Was it only a week ago that I came back from Britain ? It’s so hard to believe, because I’ve been going full tilt ever since. My trip was great, I feel blessed by my connections to my friends on that isle. Andy, Brigid’s British Bard, even gifted me with a poem on his blog! It kind of makes me blush, but I'm breathing into it, trying to stretch the heart to take in the love I've been given. What a gift that I can now picture so many of my friends in their own homes, and have met their partners, children, and pets! My trip was great, but whew!, my life at home is the real whirlwind! The last few days have been the days of glamour. The only thing missing is some paparazzi lurking about taking pictures. Come to think about it, that actually happened as well, there was picture taking! On Saturday night I went to the big NCLR gala, which some call the lesbian prom, and others refer to as the lesbian Oscars. Three thousand women dining and dancing and celebrating common ...

I’m in a writing group, presumably to work towards writing a book. That’s why we formed the group, but so far what I’ve gotten out of it is the startling realization that I just may be against being an author, although I love to write. Back before my nasty expulsion from the garden of Bay Area Reclaiming , I loved the exercise of coming up with a quarterly column for the magazine. I sorely missed that, until the creation of this blog. How incredible to be able to write without censor, without being asked to toe a party line…a party line which is taboo to even acknowledge! Reya’s blog Declaimed touched a nerve, one that’s still tender. But I digress… Why don’t I want to write a book? Friends have questioned if it has to do with self esteem issues, with not seeing myself as capable of producing something of value. I’ve questioned this too, and it may have been true at some time, but doesn’t seem to be the issue presently. Do I have something to say? Oh, yes! There’s a shelf...

I always love returning to San Francisco . This is one of the great reasons for traveling, because no matter how green the field or stunning the city, when I come home, I fall in love all over again. The entire time I was gone, all news from home included a sense of dismay over the constant rainfall. I landed on Monday to a city awash in sunshine, the first in weeks. The last few days have been glorious. Am I being grandiose to feel my city is welcoming me back? Believing there is no coincidence, I can only deduce that I truly live in exactly the right place. A week ago today I was in a little antique shop in a small village in Wales . I pulled out an old book on West Wales just as a song starting playing about San Francisco …that hippie favorite about wearing a flower in your hair when you come here. Susan, who loves living in West Wales , bought the book, it having information on local holy wells and sacred sites that she hadn’t seen elsewhere. There’s no coincidenc...

On my last evening in Wales , two other friends I met thru witchcamp came over to dinner at Susan’s. Isobel has been both heart and backbone of a collective organic farm community for many years, and she bought along her youngest of three children, a babe in arms who radiated calm good will, bearing a Welsh name that’s slid right off my memory bank. Sid, once a journalist, tried living at the farm, but the moistness and mildew brought on a near death experience of pneumonia, and he now runs a record shop in the nearby town. The evening was delightful, and much of the talk, as it can do in these times, ran down the course of what preparations need to be made for oil running out. Armageddon/Apocalypse or The Great Turning, the two ideas seem almost interchangeable in conversations I’ve recently been part or privy to. I’m noticing a shift slightly towards The Great Turning, a time of tumultuous change, which results in a more sustainable way of living….and I find myself breathing into ...

It’s been over a week that I’ve been in Britain , first in England , and now in Wales . Tonight I’m in what is considered the spiritual heart of Wales , St. David’s. I can see why. This afternoon I sat on a cliff above the sea, paying homage to the beauty all around me. Behind me were the ruins of an ancient chapel, with its accompanying holy well. And as with most sacred Christian sites in this land, it happens to be surrounded by the remains of a stone circle. St. David’s is a small village, remarkable for its ancient cathedral that would be better suited for a major city. It’s sacred site a-go-go around here! Sitting on the cliff, with the myriad light jewels sparkling in the water below, I felt the thrum of life humming in everything. Tonight is the first time I’ve been alone in a long, long time. At home, it’s unusual to have a night alone. Since landing in Britain , I’ve spent every evening in the company of friends. After the week of build-up to doi...

One of the first things I noticed after I landed at Heathrow was the daffodils. Alongside the roads, bordering homes and sidewalks, and streaking across fields, the brilliance of their yellow pronounced the arrival of spring. Back in San Francisco , the spirits of seasons seemed to be in a battle, one day winter holding sway with gales of cold rain, the next the spring sun shining triumphantly. The tension between the two, along with the intensity of the eclipse, the construction below my home still in limbo, and my being the only non-disabled person in my household, made this a perfect time to dodge out of my beloved city. Hurling my body across the time and space tends to be tough on me, but as soon as I saw those daffodils, I knew that it would all be worth it, that I was in the right place. The last few days I’ve stayed with a friend I’ve met thru teaching at witchcamp. She lives in Chesham, a small town/village in Buckinghamshire, which is literally the last t...