branches up, roots down

In many ways, I’m still recovering from the party that was held here last Saturday night. It turned out, as the best parties usually are, to be a bigger piece of magic than expected. It was a party for prana , a party for the life force, and had a silent auction as a component, raising money for my friend Jeremy, who wants to try some experimental treatments for his cancer. I live in a huge Victorian with two large flats, the other being owned and occupied by my friend Ilyse. Like Jeremy, she’s worked for an assortment of organizations geared around envisioning and transforming bad things into good things..or at least sustainable things. At the moment, she works for MoveOn . We filled our flats with flowers and greenery, and we both put huge cauldrons on our house altars, which called to be filled with green. Money, that is. Our goal was to raise $3000. At the end of the party the cauldrons held $10,000, with another $3000 said to be still coming. Thirteen thousand dollars!...

In the first week or so of my son attending Catholic high school (what better rebellion for a pagan raised teenager!) he said to me; “There’s a lot of people who have cancer, aren’t there?” In quizzing him on why he said this, I found out that there was a daily go-around in one of his classrooms where each student could ask others to support them in their prayers. Casey was struck by how many of them had family or loved ones with cancer, and that this is what most of the prayers were concerned with. This, along with finding out that every class and event starts with the call of “Let us remember” and the response being “we are in the sacred presence of God”, has softened my resistance to this school he fought so hard to attend. I like him being reminded the sacred is always present. There was a time my feminist witch self would have rankled with the term "God", but Casey has been raised with so much Goddess imagery, I trust that for him, this God that is being invok...

In response to my last blog, the fabulous Aquila questioned if Mary Oliver is “One of Us”. That question in itself opens up all kinds of other questions, ones I’ve been ruminating on, and thankfully, last night those questions were settled. This came due to my great fortune of having tickets to see Mary Oliver in person. She read her poetry for fifty minutes – a time period as a therapist I found amusing – and then she answered questions. Although I wasn’t one of those who raised my hand, she gave me the answers I needed. In essence, all of us are just that - One, and yet, in our infinite variations, Mary Oliver speaks for those of us who worship this green earth above and below anything else. Years back I was interviewed for the book “ Modern Pagans ” and asked to give a list of books that I found core to living as a pagan and a witch. It was a short list, and it included most predominately the poetry of Mary Oliver. Her poems resonate with love for the natural worl...

I love this world! Who could have guessed that this trip to Portland would end with my son and I sitting here for so long at Gate 13? Oakland Airport has no Gate 13, or at least it didn’t on Friday the 13 th . Reality has been so malleable that I wouldn’t be surprised if now a Gate 13 has appeared. Or, maybe here in Portland , bastion of so many earth worshipers, the number 13 is held in good repute. Whatever the case, I’m getting a kick out of the fact that here we sit, waiting for our flight which is delayed, right under a big sign for Gate 13. The trip has been a good one. I met Archer, the six week old son of my friends Lilith and Scott. Lilith and Scott are the kind of people who whatever they engage in, they do it well. Thank goddess their extreme competence is leavened with a great sense of humor. Going out to dim sum with them along with my friend Dawn’s and my teenage son, I found myself savoring the feeling of the movement of time, of new and upcoming generatio...

Standing in line to get on a plane, there was a brief flurry of conversation between strangers about the date. I was traveling by myself up to Portland , happy to end a very hard week with a change of location. I really don’t remember how the conversation started, but suddenly several people were talking about the fact we were flying on a date that is seen as unlucky. Part of me loves that there are still pockets of superstition in the fabric of modern life. As one woman pointed out, we were at gate fourteen, between gate twelve and fifteen. At the Oakland airport, there is no gate thirteen. I like that the power of the number thirteen is somehow still recognized, if even thru a dark mirror. I sensed that launching into why thirteen came to be so maligned and how Freya is connected to Friday would take this casual conversation to a place these nervous strangers wouldn't really want to go. Instead, I smiled and said “For me, thirteen has always been a lucky number, I like i...

The outrage over the chocolate Jesus is being discussed all over the blogosphere. Meanwhile, the full moon is shining down and I’m full of gratitude for being part of a tradition where the only blasphemy is in the degradation of the life giving elements of this green planet. Toxins in a river, clearcutting a forest, this is sacrilege. There is nothing a pagan could make in chocolate that would be profane, thank Goddess! Chocolate Gods and Goddesses, the only response is YUMM….even if unrobed and buck naked. Reading about the hubbub I took even more pleasure in Steward passing on the work of the )APAUSICOTS( . This apparently stands for the All Powerful and Ultra Secret Inner Circle of the Spiralheart. There’s one of these in every community, but count on those east coasters to make it official and produce documents. And what a document they have produced!!! Proudly, the document us west coasters produced was and is the Reclaiming Principles of Unity . I love these p...