jeremy crosses over

Last night, just after sunset, as the newly full moon began to glow, my friend Jeremy Paster crossed over. Crows surrounded the house a half hour or so before, cawing and calling out. I have no doubt they assisted in his spirit finding wings to leave.

Jeremy had been battling cancer for the last year and a half with all the loving energy any person could summon. I continue to have trouble with the whole "warrior" term, feeling uncomfortable with the war part that it invokes and I find myself struggling to find the right term to describe my friend. Jeremy was fiercely gentle, sturdily peaceful, and stalwart in summoning compassion in the hardest of circumstances. I met Jeremy in the course of organizing for the action in Seattle around the WTO. In the maelstorm that Seattle became, Jeremy was a touchstone of calmness.

Before being diagnosed with cancer, he had worked on many, many, many fronts imagining and taking action to create a world where love is the law. He ran medicine to the Karen people in Burma, worked to help the U'Wa in Ecuador fight big oil, and softened loggers anger as he strove to save ancient forests in Alaska, all the while weaving together a community of people who loved and admired him.

It's time to create a new word to describe those like Jeremy. "Loveior" or "Fierce Mystic"? I don't know, but I'm feeling strongly we need new language. "Warrior" and 'battling" and "fighting".....these aren't words that describe Jeremy and the energy he put to his actions. He didn't really work "against" anything, but had the ability to work in service of the life force in a way that stood out amongst our activist friends. He put his shoulder to the task of loving this earth with a verve that will rarely be matched. His dying had so much life force and love force in it that it is hard to believe he is really gone. Diagnosed with cancer, he created a foundation - Healing the Roots - which will aid and assist other activists who fall ill or are injured.

A month ago, I sat crying as I watched Jeremy walk to the podium at the Rainforest Action Award Dinner to receive a lifetime achievement award. Receiving the award in person was a testament not only to Jeremy's achievements, but to our community's skill at doing direct action mixed with magic. Jeremy had been "broken out" of the hospital. It was a 45 minute tight caper to get out and back without being missed. Surgery on his spine had happened on Tuesday, and he received the award Thursday night. All of the audience knew we were witnessing a miracle.

Two weeks ago, we gathered around him for what he termed a "living wake". He wanted to hear what we had to say about him while he was alive and he wanted to assure us all that we'd still be connected, that his spirit had no intention of dying. He summoned the strength to be there and to give us comfort even as we were grieving. We called in the names of those we loved on the other side and asked them to prepare to greet Jeremy when he crossed over. The air thickened, and I trust that Jeremy is now being feted by all those who came close two weeks ago. Jeremy said he would communicate to us in dreamtime, and that already is proving to be true.

Today I spent the afternoon at a houseboat in Sausalito with Jeremy's wife, mother, and other assorted family and friends. More than one recounted a powerful dream involving Jeremy that had come to them this week. The messages were all similar. He is alright with dying and wants us to know that. He will be helping us from the other side. The stories flowed today, and they will keep flowing. There was laughter, and of course there were tears. Above all else, there was gratitude.

Some are calling him a mighty warrior. All of us who knew him understand that he was a mighty agent of change. Someday the right word might emerge, one that describes the energetic akido master that he was and still continues to be. Maybe he'll even whisper it to one of us in our dreams.

What is remembered lives.

Long live Jeremy Paster.

The Best Policy

At Samhain in 1999, I was part of thowing a magical benefit to send a group of Reclaiming witches to join in on disrupting the WTO in Seattle. The benefit we called “The Dinner With the Dead” and it was essentially a potluck held at the Martin de Porres soup kitchen. We created sacred space, shared food, and as we ate, toasted our dead and asked for their guidance and help.

Help us they did. We raised a bundle of money, and we were part of shutting down the WTO. With a few friends, I repeated this magic for three more years, raising money for various magical actions.

The last few years none of us had the heart or fire to put the dinner on, being disaffected and disillusioned by our local Reclaiming community. It was at one of the last dinners that on cleaning up I found out that the undercurrent of weirdness I was feeling was because the small circle of folks who put out the Reclaiming Quarterly had just decided that week to give me the axe as a regular columnist.

I knew this was coming, as the fights for freedom of speech as per my writing were getting fiercer.and more surreal. In one of the last arguments over censorship of my column I was told that my challenging “leadership” was divisive to the community. Re-reading my rather tame column on the move from the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius - from the age of the individual being the hero to the community being the hero - this criticism remains more than ridiculous when applied to a supposedly anarchist community. But, that’s Reclaiming.

So, the dinner I’d worked so hard to put on for the “community” was filled with whispers and silence as I approached small groups of people talking. The group had agreed to not talk to me about their decision until one of them officially told me a week or so later. But, of course, people being people, it was being talked about. I was supposed to be being “protected” by the silence, but as most of us know, invoking a group to keep things quiet, usually does just the opposite.

Especially when what is being asked to be kept silent is fraught with controversy. One person had just left the group over it, and was especially upset about the mendacity of covering the decision of canning me by creating a new policy of no regular columnists. There were only two columnists, myself and Starhawk. Every issue from then on Starhawk’s articles would be featured, but no longer calling her a columnist allowed them to get rid of me without being honest. Creating a new policy to cover up dealing honestly with individuals is something I’ve seen done over and over again in Reclaiming. Who does it really protect?

So, after 3 years not doing the dinner, along with the ICT guild, I decided to do it again. The folks who are wedded to these old dynamics I no longer engage with, and also, I knew they’d stay away. The dinner was a resounding success. The entire room was filled with people toasting the dead, the novenas and sugar skulls added beauty, and the amount of food exceeded expectation. We raised a lot of money from donations for Cora Anderson, and the energy was in direct opposition to what had transpired at that previous dinner. I and others have been successful in disconnecting from the old energy body and creating something different. It felt great!

But, all around the edges of the dinner, before and after, that same energy swirled back into my consciousness, in a way it has not in many years. One of my guild sisters found out right before the dinner that she’d been lied to by the Spiral Dance Cell. Anne Hill’s accounting of what happened is written with breathtaking precision.

Two days after the dinner, out of seemingly nowhere, Starhawk called and asked me for mediation. We met and were successful in talking thru an old issue that has festered for years. It’s been great to clear it out, and we talked at length about our pretty polarized positions on what she sees as confidentiality versus what I see as transparent process. I can’t say anything was really solved or we swayed each other to the other’s position, but it was a respectful and thoughtful conversation. We even talked about collaborating in the future in envisioning what could make for healthier community. A complete turn around from the energy between us for the last several years.

I’m choosing to believe at this moment that the dead we feasted with at the dinner are actively involved in trying to help us. And my goodness, the world and Reclaiming sure need help.

Next week I go to a spokes council meeting for the witchcamps in New Hampshire. I’m hoping the dead are as of service there as they’ve been here for the past week or so. My vow is for honesty. As it turns out, it really is the best policy.