The Da Vinci Meme

When the novel The Da Vinci Code came out, I was told by a variety of friends and relations that I had to read it. The movie is now out , and once again, it seems not a day goes by without somebody telling me how I’ll enjoy it. I read the book. I won’t be seeing the movie. Actually, probably at some point I’ll cross paths with it, either in flipping channels or it being the best of a bad selection at the video store, and I will see it. But I’m not standing in line, or paying close to ten bucks to watch it.

Now that I’ve read the book, I’m pretty sure I’ll feel the same way towards the movie. It’s not the kind of story I find compelling, but I sure appreciate its cultural importance. So many people told me I’d love the novel that I started reading it with the expectation that it would be pleasurable, that I’d sink down into the kind of magical world that is familiar to me, where the earth is alive with spirits and the goddess is immanent. That wasn’t the case. It was a pretty run of the mill “thriller”. The big deal about the book is certainly not the writing or the character development. Even the plot is pretty standard. What makes it important, why so many people thought that I’d like it, is that it centers around the secret breaking out which just happens to contain the major memes that we pagans, witches, and goddess worshippers have been trying to get across for years. The popularity of The Da Vinci Code is a great success for us, meme wise.

I love the concept of memes. I know that they are in many ways just a high faluting way to say ideas, but still, I like the concept. My friend Patrick is part of the SmartMeme Project, and I love to talk to him and the other “memers” about their work. The memers get the whole idea of magic, of changing consciousness at will. The De Vinci Code is no work of magic, but it does show our magic is working.

Here’s the Wikipedia definition of meme:

‘The term "meme" labels a theoreticl concept introduced in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, and refers to any unit of cultural information which one mind transmits (verbally or by demonstration) to another mind. Examples might include thoughts, concepts, ideas, theories, opinions, beliefs, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods. Different definitions of memecultural evolution having an analogous resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetic information). generally have in common, very roughly, that a meme consists of some sort of a self-propagating unit of

Proponents argue that memes have, as their fundamental property, evolution via natural selection in a way very similar to Charles Darwin's ideas concerning biological evolution, on the premise that replication, mutation, survival and competition influence them. For example, while one idea may become extinct, others will survive, spread and mutate — for better or for worse — through modification.

Some meme theorists contend that memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, memes that are the most effective replicators spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes might prove detrimental to their hosts.”

Isn’t the whole concept kind of wacky? A meme is an infectious idea, a life form in itself. The success of The Da Vinci Code points to several of our memes having started to survive and spread in popular culture. Here’s the ones that stick out for me, but since I barely remember the book, I’m sure there are others -

Sex is part of spirituality and sacred.

The pentacle is an ancient symbol connected to the divine – which is also female.

Women are equals in the divine department.

I’m realizing that the ideas/memes we’ve been struggling to get across for years just may not be attributed to any of us who birthed the ideas, or “reclaimed” these memes. They will flow into popular culture not thru any witches being on magazine covers, or any of us having best selling tomes on earth magic. No, our memes will spread by things like the Harry Potter series or books like The Da Vinci Code. Probably even as I write this, somebody somewhere, with no background in magic or the Craft, is writing what will be a best selling romance novel which will carry some of the same memes as The Da Vinci Code, and may popularize the idea that there is such a thing as The Goddess, and that heaven is here on earth.

But, I still may not want to see the movie.

walls and winds

As the walls came down in the flat below me, the effect was felt all the way in Portland, Oregon. For many years I owned this house of spirits with Patti and Karl. The walls that came down this week were the walls of their son Colin’s room, for they have moved and my friend Ilyse has bought their flat. She’s removing the walls of their old bedrooms to create a big living room, kitchen and dining room space, using their old living room as the new bedroom. This has been in the planning for almost a year, but of course as it actually happens, it coincides with so many other things moving, changing and opening up in our lives. My housemate of four years, Fern, moved out this week, just as all the walls came down. And, Patti called from Portland, saying Colin had been struck by a sudden attack of homesickness for this house. Of course he had. The walls had all come down to his room, and even the ceiling no longer remained the same.

I’m doing my best to simply keep breathing, to keep focusing on balance –the balance of taking in and letting go, of giving and receiving, of holding on and releasing. Breath is so basic to living, it’s almost ridiculous. Focusing on the breath really is about the most healing thing a person can do. It’s the basic meditation, the most versatile tool in our human toolbox.

This will be the first time in my life I’ve lived alone. I have my son half time, so it’s not truly alone, but certainly the first time I’ve been the only adult in the house. So strange to realize this at fifty-one! I’m proud that Fern and I have been able to comphrehend that it was time for us to no longer be housemates without making each other bad or seperating with ill will and hurt feelings. Instead, we have spent the last few weeks nostalgic and grateful for our time together. My son will be in high school next year. As I write this, he and three friends are sprawled out in the living room, talking loudly and emitting adolescent aura. Who would live with this if they didn’t have to? This too, this teenagehood, is a transition.

The past two days have been bright but a wild wind has been whipping thru our hilly city. The walls are down, and the winds of change are upon us. Remembering to simply breathe, that’s the trick!

this epic life

In the past week or so my path has crossed with a preponderance of my old covenmates. This is saying a lot, because as far as covens go, I’m a bit Elizabeth Taylorish, she of the many famous husbands. I’ve been in three, and all have been stellar. After the coven Compost, out of which Reclaiming sprang, these three covens have probably been the most influential in the shaping of my fledgling “tradition” of the Craft, which is actually also in its infancy, despite our pretension of being “the old religion”.

Being part of the first generation of modern witches, I’ve had no elders to lean on or tell me their experience, and for all of us, this has been an ongoing experiment, with no time to sit back together and go over the results. Recently, there was a gathering called Dandelion in which Reclaiming witches got together to envision where Reclaiming is going. I found myself not interested in attending, for a variety of reasons, one which is that I’m in a phase of reviewing where I’ve been and that means not jumping into envisioning or trying to shape the future. About the only thing right now that would interest me Reclaiming wise was if we could get together a group of Reclaiming “elders” and just talk…a difficult task, as so many aren’t speaking to each other. Maybe that’s why it feels so appealing. I’d love us to just talk, without trying to fix anything, or come up with something new, or envision something. Just talk.

I feel such gratitude for my past, for the timing of my life. I was lucky enough to be of the generation that did consciousness raising groups, where groups of women came together to tell and examine the truth of their lives. I can still remember clearly the faces and voices of some of the women (a few still friends) as they spoke about obtaining abortions when they were illegal and voiced for the first time about being sexually abused. The power of individuals coming together and talking changed my life, and being in a coven, well, that took it another step further. In a culture of disconnection, the commitment to meet regularly and talk is in itself an antidote to alienation. Add doing magic and ritual to that, well, that’s the kind of medicine that can both hurt and heal. It’s potent. The strength of feeling for each other becomes strong, in both its shadow and light.

Matrix was Reclaiming’s first coven that combined magic with political activism. The Wind Hags existed for years, an all woman coven that almost made it the length of the Reclaiming collective. Did we really meet once a week? Could that have been possible? When Wind Hags broke-up I found myself in a new coven, the Triskets, Reclaiming’s first Feri coven, which now apparently is considered its own line of Feri. If someone in the future writes a Reclaiming version of Mary Greer’s Women of the Golden Dawn the characters from all these covens will be front and center, and our relationships just as rich with drama and cautionary tales.

Starhawk, Thorn, and Anne Hill have assured their place in Wiccan history by virtue of the printed word, yet in coven and community we have all been ensemble players, each playing a vital role. Would Reclaiming be the same without Rose May Dance, or Rocky?

Outside my covens, there are of course are others who were fundamental in the creation of Reclaiming – Macha, Raven, Cybele, and Robin Gaul (who I think was in Matrix before me and by marriage to my coven sister Rocky always felt like part of the male auxiliary of Wind Hags) to name a few - all played parts as well. But, one thing I came to learn in Reclaiming is that it is not only individuals who have different levels of power in communities, even communities wedded to non-hierarchy, but covens do as well. Covens are hard to form and to sustain. An established coven has enormous influence in a magical community. The sum becomes much more than it’s parts. I’ve made some amends to people because of how I behaved as a part of being in Triskets, my guess is there are those who’d love to hear some amends made because of Wind Hags and Matrix. All these covens certainly gave to their community, but I know we threw our weight around as well and I'm sure bruised more than a few.

Seeing my old coven sisters this week, or picking up the phone to hear yet another one of their voices, I thought about why so many religions use the moniker of sister and brother. Many of my coven sisters and brothers are no longer close friends, those I turn to for support, socialize with, or share my thoughts and feelings with. But all are still family. We share history, and the bonds of being between the worlds together on such a regular basis have turned out to be as primal as the bonds of blood. Way back when I joined my first coven, I had no idea that this would turn out to be the case, no sense of the depth of the connection I was forging.

Why in these past weeks have so many of these bonds tugged? Whatever the reason, I’ve found myself reminiscing this week, pulling up memories, joyous and hard, from my years in these covens. In writing this, I’ve kept thinking of Margaret Meade’s quote;

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Matrix set out to do exactly that, to change the world. Oh, the magic we did! Much of it remains a blur, but I remember traveling far out and into the very construction of reality and trying to tweak it, communicating with John Dee, looking for magical clues in the Velazquez painting Las Meninas, and eventually getting overwhelmed with just how true it is that everything is connected to everything else. If any of my old covenmates kept a cogent journal of our travels, it would make a good companion piece to The DeVinci Code, but all between the worlds. Perhaps another unwritten tome is in order, Everything I Know, I Learned in Coven. From Matrix I learned many things, including that it is fundamentally impossible for anyone to truly see the big picture in all its complexity, and that no small group should get invested in being THE ONE that changes the world. What I’ve learned from Matrix, the Wind Hags, and the Triskets, could truly fill a book, and the stories would make a good mini-series. The world that got changed was my world, my life. Small groups do this.

Way back when, I entered into marriage and covenship with such faith, and such an open heart, with no possible idea or conception of what exactly these commitments would entail, of how powerful they would be in shaping my life. Out of both now, I look back and marvel at my youthful naiveté, and most of all, feel a swell of gratitude and tenderness for the lessons I’m learning in this lifetime, and the incredible cast of characters that have played roles in this epic life. Like family, even when you leave home, I’ve carried these relationships around in both head, heart and gut. I’m glad for the synchronicity of the past few weeks, the way these relationships have tugged at my consciousness. What a story, what a life! Time for a little repose. It’s needed.

champagne toast to life

I subscribe to The Sun, primarily for its poetry and its back page of quotations. Every issue the quotations address some theme and I’m always amazed at the synchronicity of these themes with my own thoughts. I can’t get these two bits out of my head;

Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.

Kurt Vonnegut

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife…..Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest.

Beatrix Potter

Vonnegut’s words make me laugh, a chortle of mirth at the mystery of it all. And aren’t we so like the yeast, not able to really ever envision the big picture? I’m thinking back to my early days as a witch, and the naiveté we all had when we were doing the big spells to change the world. Who can ever know the effect our actions will cause? So many times I thought I was doing one thing, and in hindsight, it turned out to be something altogether different.

Potter’s words speak to the importance of believing that we are indeed involved in the art of making champagne, that there is some great force at work which is moving things along as they should be, even when it looks like doomsday. I find myself constantly amazed that I am in some place of trust that champagne is being made, even as species die. And this is where the behave part comes in. I do believe that there is a great power silently working all things for the good, and part of behaving means actively engaging in assisting that force, paradoxically knowing we are never sure what actually is in assistance. Nevertheless, we need to try, behaving in ways that strive to harm none, and following our intuition, which just may be the radio station dialed into that great force.

Are all outward forms of religion almost useless? I came to the Craft because I was turned off by organized religion, and the big joke here is that somehow I’ve been part of creating one, although hopefully it stays the most disorganized of organized religions. In my lifetime I’ve seen my little tradition of Reclaiming grow like wildfire, and now Feri seems to be doing the same. I love that Potter says “outward forms of religion” which I think I do agree with, feeling that the only thing that really makes a difference is our own inward and individual sense of spirituality/religion. With more people having died or killed as a result of religious beliefs than can be counted, outward forms of religion sure appear to be useless in making humans behave. Whether Witch, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, or Muslim, we all can behave like jerks. From what I’ve seen in Reclaiming, the more involved some people get in the outward organization, the more hideous they behave and the more they operate from ego. I know this from direct personal experience, having been one of these people when I was in the center and fully invested in the outward organization. The champagne that was made from being essentially cast out of Bay Area Reclaiming is that the farther I’ve gotten, the more my relationship to the wondrous great force has been strengthened. What I thought was so hurtful, hideous and horrible, has actually turned out to be an incredible gift. Who knew? Who could have?

guerilla gourmet

Last night I found myself at a renegade restaurant at a large loft a few blocks from home, talking to a charismatic black butch artist who was wearing a Wallace kilt. Her large canvases of naked women were scattered thru the loft, as she was a good friend of the host of this guerilla gourmet experience. Our conversation was lively, and at some juncture she exclaimed, “But of course, I’m an Aquarian”. I laughed out loud, answering “Well, of course! I’m one too!”

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that many of us Aquarians share an affability of perspective, almost as if we are all immigrants from some other land, who can relax in each others presence, knowing our strange ways are nothing but familiar to each other. Beltane being the season that Aquarians are conceived, and having spent the last weekend with an Aquarian friend, my birth sign has been on my mind. A perfect May evening, this event was in itself also a perfect Aquarian happening. With the full moon beaming in thru the huge loft windows, thinking about the stars and planets was inevitable.

These renegade restaurants are collaborative efforts between established chefs who want to branch out into something new or test an edge, artists, whose works go up on the walls, providing them with exposure, musicians who get a venue to play in, and the host, who gets to priestess the rite. The guest list seems to be both open and closed. You have to know someone, but there was in no way any feeling of exclusivity. There can’t be that much profit in it other than the pleasure and the networking, as the price is minimal. The food itself, well, incredible! It’s a ritual of connection, of people breaking bread together and entertainment for the sheer pleasure of it, with no big stars or focal point other than the collaboration. It’s damn Aquarian, and at the moment, it's one of the hottest trends in town.

The theme was Spanish, and the chef was moonlighting from his job at a well known French restaurant in the city. Over sangria, listening to a great flamenco guitar player, I talked to a couple who are part of overseeing the Peace Corps in Cameroon about magic, witchcraft and culture. We talked about the strange experience of so many of us in this culture trying to revive an animist perspective, of getting people to believe that magic is real, while in Cameroon, it’s not something to believe in. There, it’s considered a fact of life, as real as the exquisite tapas we were consuming. Witchcraft and sorcery are commonplace and widely respected and feared, as there is just as much emphasis there on the hexing as the healing. It was a great conversation, and once again, I was struck by what an incredible experiment and endeavor this is, the reawakening of magic in this culture. The power of it is immense, this I both believe and know.

As we talked, I kept imagining the Temperence card of the Tarot, with two cups, one holding magic, the other ethics, being poured back and forth to an even mix. Can this be accomplished? Or does the very bringing back of magic means that the cups themselves will inevitably hold hexing and healing? Mostly, I thought about how little we know, or are in control of, and what a wild ride this one lifetime has been!

By the time I came home, my Aquarian mind was spinning. I went up on my deck and made my saluations to the brilliant silver disk of the moon, asking for sleep and sweet dreams. Mercifully, my wish was granted, and I woke to my son bringing me coffee and a bouquet of flowers. Loving this lifetime, loving this ride. It's groovy.

mother's day

One of my clients uses the term “child of my heart”. I’ve used the term “goddesschild”. Both sound saccharine, a bit goofy, but both also point out the lack of good language we have to describe the particularness of some relationships. Mother’s Day is tomorrow, and today has been a day the children I am related to not by blood, but by spirit, have been in my thoughts. These are children who are kin, and who I feel a guardianship that is not anything to do with legal, but purely natural and perhaps karmic law.

Lyra left on Thursday to show her portfolio to a Chicago art school. She left me a voice mail message on Wednesday, hoping I could see her finished portfolio before she left. Our schedules didn’t mesh, and I was on pins and needles waiting to hear what happened. Yesterday I found out she was admitted. I look forward to her triumphant return, and I know that we’ll soon be sitting together on my couch, going over her artwork. Just imagining the sound of her excited voice makes me smile.

My other goddessdaughter is a high school junior in an art intensive called Oxbow. Talking to her mother yesterday, I found out about the piece she is preparing for her final art project. Already an incredible conceptual artist, besides an accomplished poet, Hazel’s digging a six feet deep hole and placing at the bottom a model of a modern city. It’s a piece on climate change and theories of apocalypse, and a big part of the piece is the experience of digging the hole. I laughed and laughed talking to her mom, imagining my earnest goddessdaughter digging that hole. I can’t wait to hear the poetry this will give birth to!

Last night my son’s best friend for the past eleven years spent the night. Together we watched the latest movie version of Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, which they both will be doing in the next few weeks for their eighth grade play. My son is playing Snout, and Harris has the role of Oberon, the Fairy King. Nothing could be more perfect.

Many times I’ve had the feeling that Hazel and Harris found me, that they had it all set up coming into this world to have a magical mentor waiting. Perhaps Lyra did too, but in her case, with her own mom a witch, she had the magical mentoring already covered. All come from loving homes, so my “adopting” them has nothing to do with emotional dismissal by their birth parents, but I know that for all of them, our relationship is important and even vital. I serve an important purpose in all their lives. I’m thankful that Harris and Hazel’s parents are simply bemused at the altars in their kid’s rooms, and feel fine about both of them learning the tarot from me at such young ages. In all my questioning of my spiritual path, I know that the steps taken with these children have been the right ones.

Walking into the disheveled living room this morning with my boys of both body and spirit sprawled out on the couches sound asleep, I found myself leaking some tears. What a mystery it is, these connections! I was lucky enough to be given one boy to raise as my own, the perfect child for me, and graced by being spiritual kin to this other. And with two fabulous goddessdaughters to boot!!! Could a cup be more full?

the practice of being

One potent part of the heady cocktail of the last weekend was all the great talks with my friend Reya. She’s been abstaining from the practice of magic, yet our time together was anything but a vacation from the shamanic lifestyle. After this weekend, I’m full of germinating thoughts on the difference between “practicing” magic and “being” magic, and questioning the old standby definition of magic being “the art of consciousness at will”. That may be the definition of practicing magic, but I’m considering that the definition of being magic might be completely different. Is it possible that with enough “practice”, the art of magic can shift into “being”? Couldn’t there be an art to abstaining from trying to shift consciousness, but to be simply aware of the living dialogue/dance between our own consciousness and the collective’s?

This past weekend was magic. Pure and simple. We interacted with the world and its spirits constantly. It was a lively conversation. Reya made me aware of how constant my invocations are, and so ingrained. I’m thinking about the balance between our conscious intent and being open to what the world offers. For me, this is a dialogue, an ongoing conversation. When does my focused will and intent shout down what I’m being offered, close my ears to what the world is whispering? When do I feel overwhelmed by the loud demands of the world and its spirits and need to find my own voice and directly make clear what I want and need?

Another friend has repeatedly said that she thought Reclaiming was about teaching magic aimed at changing the world, but found out it really was about learning how to get good parking spaces. I’m wondering if that might actually be a nobler goal, the simple art of interacting with the world in the moment, of asking for help inserting ourselves into it in a comfortable and easy way. Annie Lamott said there’s two prayers; help me, help me, and thank you, thank you. I’ve found this to be true, and my “spellwork” in most recent years involves them both. It’s been ages since I embarked on a big spell to change the world, having lost confidence in these awhile back. Bringing down the fortress most likely will mean that we’ll all end up being the first with bricks on our heads. Throwing yarn about to weave a new world looks to the objective eye like creating a chaotic pattern to get tangled in. For me, at the moment, I feel much more comfortable with requesting a nice restaurant to materialize around the corner when I’m beat tired, and then offering up my thanks when it appears.

So much to think about, and as usual, more questions than answers!

mixed drinks

Monday night I arrived home to my beloved primary partner of a city, bedraggled and bedazzled by my affair with the big apple. I’d spent my last day with my oldest of New York friends, the paintings in MOMA. I realized as I stood before A Starry Night, that of each of the four times I’ve been to this city, this is the one constant, visiting the MOMA. In my exhaustion and overwhelm, I found myself imagining I was at a rarefied cocktail party, mingling and chatting with Jasper, Andy, Pablo, and Vincent, among many others. Loving them all, I couldn’t help laughing out loud in front of a Lichtenstein when in my daydream, the Guerilla Girls barged into the party in full regalia. So nice to be able to hold a tender love for these paintings/artists along with my longing for a more mixed up cocktail party! An hour or so later, I was in a small gallery down the street, at a show of Louisiana Artists centered around rebuilding the New Orleans Museum of Art. The walls held much more art by women, and I’m kicking myself for not retaining their names. It was funkadelicious, and I got on my plane home intoxicated with the heady and hearty cocktails I’d been served up all weekend. Is there a hangover to follow? So far, so good, I just feel fabulous!

every moment has been full

What a day! If life is a dream, today was an epic! We walked thru a silent Times Square, empty of everything but the neon and brilliant signage, red and white confetti drifting in the air. I went to order something at “Wichcraft” in Bryant Park, only to have a woman hold up a huge hand lettered sign that said “CLOSED!”, right as we were engaged in a great discussion on spellwork and the craft. We walked thru the Morgan Library and saw an early Morte de Arthur, some of the first tarot cards, and books covered with handwritten author’s notes and annotations, including Oscar Wilde, Mary Shelley William Blake, and Hemingway. We ate in a converted garage, every plate different, and chandeliers a-go-go, while a jazz quartet wowed us with young coolness. We shopped on Canal street, with vendors whispering and chanting “Coach, Fendi, Vuitton, DVD’s” with knock-offs a plenty surrounding us. We had drinks at a bar where the bathrooms themselves were an art installation. We went to an art opening populated primarily by Russians,. We met up with Reya's fabulous niece and her husband, seasoned New Yorkers and showed our age by not being able to carry on thru the night to see the do-wop band in the east village. By that time, it was just too much.

Every sense is satiated, every moment has been full. Reya took some pictures, but how can either of us really explain the intensity and brilliance of this day? This epic needs 1oo,ooo words and counting to really be told, but I'm just too tuckered out.

What will happen tomorrow? It’s New York. All bets are off.

U2 Lyrics - New York

In New York freedom looks like too many choices
In New York I found a friend to drown out the other voices
Voices on the cell phone
Voices from home
Voices of the hard sell
Voices down the stairwell
In New York, just got a place in New York

In New York summers get hot well into the hundreds
You can walk around the block without a change of clothing
Hot as a hair dryer in your face
Hot as handbag and a can of mace
New York, I just got a place in New York
New York, New York

In New York you can forget, forget how to sit still
Tell yourself you will stay in
But it's down to Alphaville

New York, New York, New York
New York, New York, New York

The Irish have been coming here for years
Feel like they own the place
They got the airport, city hall, concrete, asphalt, they even got the police
Irish, Italians, Jews and Hispanics
Religious nuts, political fanatics in the stew
Living happily not like me and you
That's where I lost you...New York

New York, New York
New York, New York

In New York I lost it all to you and your vices
Still I'm staying on to figure out my mid life crisis
I hit an iceberg in my life
But you know I'm still afloat
You lose your balance, lose your wife
In the queue for the lifeboat

You got to put the women and children first
But you've got an unquenchable thirst for New York

New York, New York
New York, New York

In the stillness of the evening
When the sun has had its day
I heard your voice a-whispering
Come away child

New York, New York

nine one one

I took the red eye to New York last night, and thankfully slept. I woke up to the incredible sight of the sun rising over the city as my plane was descending. As I rode from JFK into the city, I realized that, although I’ve only visited here twice, I know this city. New York City has got to be the city most portrayed in movies and television. How many different ways have I seen it destroyed? There’s all the various creatures who’ve caused mayhem, King Kong, Godzilla, and of course a variety of aliens, and then there’s all the natural disasters and projections into the future. Being a lover of old Woody Allen movies, Law and Order, and having watched every episode of Sex In The City, this place is familiar.

I’m so excited about being in New York and even more excited about spending time with my dear friend, Reya. We’ve had a series of visits that included magical intensity that we both have been ready to jettison. The last time we planned a visit together it turned out to be the same time a close friend of ours did an ill-advised ritual to have Lucifer dwell in her. It turned out to be a time of electrical storms and grief. This time, we were determined to have a different experience.

We laughed heartily at the strangeness of our room number being 911. And we quickly moved away from all the poor mummies at the Met, instead giving our attention to the Tiffany mosaics and stained glass. We were determined to walk and then seek refreshment, then walk again. We noticed that every time our urge for refreshment came up, there were establishments at hand with names like “The Slaughtered Lamb” or “Jekyll and Hyde”. Instead, we walked on until we found places bearing names like “Miracle”.

Reya and I are both actively engaged in shifting our storylines, and what better place to do it than in this city of stories, city of dreams? This city may never sleep, but the dreams of this place live in us all. When you bite this apple, you don’t fall into slumber, but become more vibrant and alive. We savored the beauty today, the aliveness, the thrum and hum of life that pulses so strongly here.

I love New York!

beltane

This was my first Beltane in about twenty five years that didn’t involve a Maypole. This year, I spiraled around Bernal Hill as my homage to this ripe and fertile season. I filled my house with flowers and friends, and gave thanks for the magic that went into the conception of my son, and to the national Beltane miracles; Stephen Colbert’s bravery and brilliance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, and the stunning May Day marches of immigrants around the country. Almost all the establishments in my neighborhood of the Mission closed up shop, with huge signs on the doors explaining why. Everything feels different now. There’s a palpable sense of pride and hope in the air. The power of the life force is strong and shimmering. Without participating in a formal ritual, I feel satiated with Beltane magic. The Great Turning is picking up speed.

My son Casey had been dead set against attending any mayday celebrations, and this was the first year we didn’t go to Anne and her kid’s annual party. At fourteen, the dorkiness of witchcraft has really gotten to him, and his teenage rebellion/individuation looks like it’s going to center around distancing himself from my form of spirituality. What better way to rebel when you are a child of anarchist pagan parents than to go to Catholic school and play football?

It could certainly be a lot worse. Conceived at Beltane, born at Brigid, this kid came loaded with innate psychic powers, or maybe the way he was raised allowed the innate power we all come wired with to blossom and bloom. Most likely, it’s combination of the two, nature and nurture being inextricably bound. In younger years, if we were waiting on someone, we’d ask Casey to imagine where they were and how long it would be until they arrived. He was amazingly accurate. He had a set of animal cards and gave awesome and insightful readings by age seven. Right now, even reminding him of this invokes his distain. His biggest longing at the moment is to be “normal”.

Beltane eve found me with my friend Patrick and my son catching up on the Sopranos (I love that show!). When we started watching it, something started to go awry with the transmission – the picture was breaking up. After doing all the fiddling with knobs that you can do on a television, I was ready to turn it off. “Alright,” my son said begrudgingly, “I’ll fix it”. He stood up, and began moving his body in what looked like a cross between Native American and hip hop dancing, something I’ve seen him do once before, two Samhains ago. At that time, it came across as some kind of shamanic movement all his own. Here on Beltane, he was doing it again. He did his dance, and the picture righted itself. I knew at the time to not make a big thing of it, but to simply say “Thanks, Casey!” The show we were watching was the third one of the season, where Hal Holbrook is a scientist who expounds on the interconnectiveness of everything. If you’re going to watch a Soprano’s show on Beltane eve, this is the perfect one. Even more perfect to be able to watch it due to your son’s dancing intervention.

This morning, as we drove to school, I brought up the dancing, as carefully as I could. “Don’t you think it’s a kind of magic?” I said. “No”, he answered, “it’s not magic, I’m not doing any stupid calling in things and making a circle or anything, I was just dancing to the TV.” I didn’t quarrel, grateful to have some window into his thinking. If he never castes a circle or calls in the quarters, so what? He has the gift of dancing, and that’s magic enough. More than enough, really!

What a Beltane!