the same story

I can feel the dark descending, each day getting shorter, and the cold streaming in thru all the many cracks and crannies in this old Victorian house. Coming back to my beloved San Francisco, one of the first things I heard about is how some of my friends have been struggling to get an accurate telling of our experience in Seattle challenging the WTO. There’s a movie being made, The Battle In Seattle, which comes complete with real Hollywood stars like Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson. For years, hanging out at the Black Cat, reminiscing about various actions and uprisings we’d fermented, we’d imagine movies being made about us, and who would play us. Finally, this day has come. Characters will be amalgams, mixtures of many of us, but at least one comrade will play herself, facilitating a spokescouncil meeting, I think. It helps that she’s stunningly attractive, but heck, it is a Hollywood production.

As fate would have it, last night I saw Bobby, the movie just out centering on Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and the cultural climate of the time. The characters, other than Bobby, like the ones in the Seattle movie, are fictionalized, each reflecting a facet of that particular moment in time, a time not unlike now. It was a troubled time, a time of war and fear for the future, a time where anything or anybody who inspires hope becomes a beacon. The movie was an ensemble piece, with no one person playing the hero, where reality is woven out of a mixture of stories. I love Aquarian films like these.

I’m fearful that this will not be the case with this Seattle film. A real paradox, because although Bobby centers on an heroic figure, it’s strength as a film is that it is ensemble, made up of many stories. What happened in Seattle was totally an ensemble piece, with no one hero emerging, but many stories. As my friend Patrick says, “It’s not the story of the battle, but the battle for the story”. Some of those I organized with before Seattle and was eventually arrested with have been battling for this film to reflect our stories, and visions. I’m hoping that something we value shines thru, and at the very least, the heroic nature of non-violent civil disobedience is showcased. My guess is the role of witches both inside and outside the jail will not be mentioned, but hopefully there might be a glimpse of a sign that says "Wake Up, Muggles, Banish Corporate Rule and Conjure Justice!" I still smile to think of the little blimp we had and the many signs, ponchos, and bumper stickers with these words enscribed.

Solstice approaches. It is the dark of the year, that time when many humans do rituals of hope for the return of the light, for peace on earth, celebrating that which gets us thru hard times, rejoicing in bonds of community, showing gratitude by giving back to those who we feel gifted by knowing.

It’s been seven years, pretty much to the day, that the tumult in Seattle happened. It’s been thirty-six years since that terrible summer of 1968, that year which marked many of us indelibly. The cells in my body have changed once over from Seattle, many times over since 1968. But what really has changed?

Today I’m thinking about violence, about the power of stories, about my love of ensemble reality, and about light returning. For every hope dashed, others spring up. Damn, I really am one fierce optimist.

Global Orgasm

Our first night in New York, my girlfriend made a beeline with me in tow to Katz’s Deli, where she introduced me to half sour pickles, and I did my best to finish a pastrami sandwich of gargantuan proportions. Then we hit the streets again. New York is a city for walking, and walk we did.

We found ourselves soon at Toys in Babeland, a much better feeling place than Good Vibrations. There’s something to be said for a sex-toy store that is completely woman owned and run. It was a perfect place to spread the word about GlobalOrgasm.org. The store clerks there got quite exited and swore that they would be spreading the word. I’m glad, as this is a magical endeavor of proportions bigger than the sandwich I was busy digesting.

It could be argued that all magic IS sex magic, as all magic involves the life force, which is inherently sexual. Given that, magic that literally uses sex packs a powerful punch, and tends to be effective. A call to action to have people around the globe orgasm on the same day while invoking peace is a call I have to answer. This really could work. This call enlists a snappy little video, a smart website, scientists measuring the impact, and even its own melodious instrumental. Heck, this call to action is one classy call.

But then, it’s a call put out by the same folks who started Baring Witness, which has people all over the world spelling out invocations of peace in both word and symbol. Buck Naked. Naked people on beaches and in parks, coming together, taking their clothes off and becoming part of a potent spell. Who hasn’t by now run across a poster, card, or calendar with the brilliant photographs of Baring Witness? Each time it’s happened, it’s gotten more media coverage than most peace marches, and according to my friends who’ve participated, its loads more fun. Baring Witness is great magic, getting bunches of folks sky-clad and spelling out a spell of peace, one which then inspires with it’s photographic images.

Walking back to Aurora’s (our friendship a gift of Spiral Heart witchcamp) co-op apartment, I thought about how some of the best magical acts are done by those who don’t define themselves as witches or magicians. J and I laughed and laughed about taking GlobalOrgasm to Babes in Toyland. We felt so thankful to be in New York, a city which truly never sleeps, which is always awake and alive with human possibility. My hope and prayer is that on Friday, December 22^nd, we all participate in raising the most ancient and natural cone of power, and we raise it for peace. Come, all ye faithful, come. Peace on Earth might just depend on it.

as within, so without

This week brought the first rains of winter. I thought of my friend Reya, and the way she writes about the weather defining her. Witches have the saying “As above, so below”, a sentiment which is echoed in our belief that what happens between the worlds, affects all the worlds. The relentless grey skies of this week and my interior landscape have been perfect mirrors to each other this week. This week has been a case study of “as within, so without”. The grey hasn’t lifted yet, in all the realms.

Early this week, the rain came down in a torrent soon after the phone call where I learned that my mother has breast cancer. My mother has been dying ever since I can remember. The diseases and maladies have been more phantom than real, and the last time I was worried that she was being operated on for cancer it turned out that she was actually having a face lift. This time, however, it appears she has The Real Thing. It looks like she will have a double mastectomy. As a witch, I’ve marveled for years that she hasn’t been sicker, there’s been so many invocations of serious illnesses. Haven’t we all used the excuse of illness to get out of something only to find that soon our throat is itchy and a cold or worse is coming on? Something worse is here big time now for my mother.

After I found out and had talked to my mom, I started to clean house. For me, more than anything, my house defines me. Given what I had just heard, it was time to empty trash and do laundry. Down at the washing machine I met up with Sarah, partner of Ani, who lives in our studio apartment. Sarah had tears streaming down her face due to the salsa Ani was making. She dared me to try to enter the kitchen. I could only take one step in before the heat of the peppers chased me out. Ani is a Mexican American activist who is a real force here in the Mission, working at the Cultural Center and Galleria de la Raza. Being able to cook up this hot salsa unfazed just underscores how tough this Chicana is. Standing back out under the landing, with rain pouring all about, we laughed about the power of both the peppers and of Ani. When the laughter died down, I told them about my mother and had the strong sense that those burning peppers were doing their part to help me prepare for what comes.

The rain of that day made clear that there are leaks in the house that need to be repaired, including a leak we spent a great deal of money on fixing last winter that has mysteriously reappeared. The roof is holding, it’s the sides that need attention. Going into this winter requires some real work to be done, work I thought was no longer needed.

As without, so within. This has been one grey week. Saturday I fly off to New York with my girlfriend. When I come back I have a lot to deal with. Much of it stuff I thought I’d worked out a long time ago. Gosh, things circle back, don’t they?

san francisco values

Several days before the tide-turning election, The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about the newest slur sound bite from the Republicans. Even the most arrogant of them could feel a shift in the wind, the distinct possibility that this election couldn’t be stolen, and that not only could the speaker of the house be from the west, but that speaker could be a woman. The slur that started being slung was “San Francisco values”. As soon as I read that term I broke into a grin. I knew that change was coming and that magic was once again at work.

“San Francisco Values”. I know that this term is meant to invoke fear of gays, wierdos, hippies, beatniks, and radical stances of infinite variety. And I’m sure it does. But what else does it invoke? Beauty, more than anything. New York is full of intensity, New Orleans full of debauchery , and San Francisco, well, San Francisco is full of beauty. It invites poetry, and anything that takes away your breath also makes you slow down and breathe, makes you remember how fabulous it is to be alive on this knockout beautiful green planet.

Each time that term was used, “San Francisco Values”, not only was radicalism invoked, but images of stunning beauty. There’s poverty here, no doubt. But images of the homeless is not what that term calls up. Cable cars, the span of the Golden Gate bridge over the bay, sailboats, gentle hills, outdoor cafes, North Beach, art, and music, that’s what San Francisco invokes. San Francisco is a delight for the senses. It calls out to the fetch, the younger self, the wide eyed child in all of us. The talking self may be against the "values" of San Francisco, but what child doesn't yearn for such beauty? Only the most hardened of hearts can resist it. It’s a sought out place for conventions of all kinds, and it shows visitors, of all parties, a damn good time.

When the war started in Iraq, I started doing a piece of magic involving the TransAmerican Pyramid that dominates our skyline. Downtown, that day, I noticed how the corners were lined up. One corner faced directly down Columbus Avenue, that street of dreams with it’s ghosts of beatniks and poets. A small grove of redwoods is nestled next to another corner, trees that remember what came before the towering buildings. Another corner faces towards Union Square and the energy of downtown. I, with some other witches, started imagining the pyramid actually transmitting San Francisco values to the rest of the country. Several times we went down to the pyramid and all took our place on the corners, sending love, peace, poetry, beauty, joy, and justice up and out of the concrete structure. Crystals and special rocks have been planted all over and in that building. Without us, it still serves as a transmitter, but bringing our consciousness to it has brought a smile to this face many a gray day. On my deck, looking downtown, whenever I’ve seen that pyramid, I’ve seen the beauty and magic of this city being transmitted, being beamed across the miles of this continent.

My housemate came home after the election, battered and bruised energetically by her frontlines job at MoveOn.org. They’ve been all working hard, putting their shoulder to the wheel in turning the direction of this lumbering beast of a so-called democracy. The direction turned the other day. So many of us have played a part in this turn. I’m grateful to all. And I really do believe in magic.

But then, I actually do have San Francisco Values.