coming home

“Sitting in a park in Paris, France,

Reading the news, it sure looks bad.

They won’t give peace a chance,

That was just a dream some of us had.

Still a lot of lands to see,

But I wouldn’t want to stay here.

It’s too old and cold and settled in its ways here.

California, I’m coming home.

I’m going to see the folks I dig…..

California I’m coming home.”

Joni Mitchell

When I was fifteen, way back in 1970, I came to Europe for the summer. I was forced to come, actually. Shipped off with my twelve year old sister, a list of phone numbers of people my parents knew who were living here (mostly who were working for IBM) , a jar of valium (for jet lag, my mother said), all my life savings, and Joni’s new album (for comfort) in hand. The last thing I wanted to do in the summer of 1970 was be in Europe.

Janis was still alive and my best friend’s older brother was always willing to drive us to the city to go to the Fillmore West or Winterland. It was my own money I had to use, money I had been saving for years for my longed-for escape from my family. Plus, I knew that the last thing my parent’s “friends” would appreciate would be a teenager and young adolescent descending on them. Nevertheless, we were taken in, and we traversed ourselves from England to Belgium to Germany to Switzerland to France and back home again. Every stop, I would set up my suitcase in altar like fashion with Joni’s Blue album tucked into the opened top.

This story has made even seasoned therapists blanch, although it’s one that is best told in detail with my sister telling her own version. She felt she was on a marvelous adventure. My memories are all colored with Joni’s longing to be back in California.

I’m now waiting in the airport in Paris. Tomorrow, we will be home. It’s been a wonderful trip, a truly marvelous adventure. I added my lipsticked kiss to the thousands covering Oscar Wilde’s tomb. I walked out of a romantic and delicious meal in a jewel box of a restaurant and looked up to the Eiffel Tower just coming alive with light. And yet, once again, the soundtrack in my head is all from the Blue album. Unfortunately, the part about the bad news still rings true, peace still is just a dream. But, I’m still ready to come home. I want to see the folks I dig….

California, I’m coming home.

stories from Paris

Our second day in Paris started with a visit to the Clignancourt flea market. It’s the biggest in Paris, and we spent hours there, but only managed to traverse a small portion of the whole. After blocks of vendors hawking cheap clothing and souvenirs, we turned a corner onto a street that led to a maze of antique dealers. Dusty old dolls, ancient stuffed lions, and mirrors darkened with age surrounded us. Despite thousands of other weird and beautiful old things, we came away with only one purchase, an old Limoges souvenir plate of Paris. The dollar is so low, even the flea market prices seem exorbitant.

Then a bus to Montmartre and a walk around the bustling streets filled with other tourists trying to capture the spirit of the place. The artists were priced out almost a century back, and what is left is an aggressive contingent of guys who will sketch a caricature of you for far too much money. And beauty everywhere; with a breath taking view of Paris from the cathedral and old bistros, cafes, and cabarets lining the streets. There was a store selling absinthe in bottles shaped like the Eiffel Tower, so perfectly ridiculous I almost bought one. But, again, the dollar is so low here that there is no such thing as a small purchase.

We rode the funicular down the hill and caught another bus across the city and the river to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I could better imagine Gertrude striding across this timeless park with Alice in tow than Toulouse drinking absinthe in the tourist ant hill which is now Montmartre. While children played with rented small wooden boats in the big fountain, statues of deities dear to me watched with ancient stone eyes. We rested up on one of the many benches before starting to stroll tiredly towards the river.

The sky was darkening up when we arrived at Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore that expatriate poets and writers frequented. They still are, apparently, because inside a poetry reading was going on. It was too crowded to enter, so we sat outside and watched while George Whitman, the eccentric nonagenarian proprietor, agitatedly tried to move the reading outside. Everyone else was too afraid of rain, so it continued where it was. I perused books from the shelf outside and was surprised when I looked at the price of the one that seemed particularly interesting and found it to be free. Were all the books outside free? No, the one I was holding appeared to be the only one. “FREE!” was written in the inside cover, with the following below it:

(FREE)

(GRATUIT)

(GRATIS)

wonderful!

beautiful stories!

Several pleasing ink drawings are interspersed thru the book, but carefully, so they don’t interfere with the printed words. “The Hakawati” is the book, by Rabih Alameddine, a writer who lives in San Francisco and Beirut. A hakawati is a storyteller, and this book is all about the transformative power of stories. Sitting outside Shakespeare and Company, a newly translated poem of Rimbaud’s being read inside, I sank contently into reading my free book. Who can understand how these exquisite and precious moments get constructed?

The dollar is low, but we have a metro pass for the week, which is good for every bus and train as well. That, along with our feet, is turning out to buy us a darn good time.

Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “The world is not made of atoms, but of stories”. I know she spent time in Barcelona. I wonder if she ever came to Paris?

unfettered and alive

We are now in Paris and its April and there are cherry- or are they chestnut? - trees in bloom everywhere and there is intermittent rain, but not in a cold way, just enough to give it that classic Parisian atmosphere and not enough to keep us indoors.

My girlfriend has shown a knack for renting perfect apartments in just the right place. In Barcelona we were in the old gothic quarter, on a narrow alley in the midst of a maze of streets only open to foot traffic. Here in Paris, we are up three – or is it four? – flights of ancient stairs in a sweet apartment above the Rue des Rivoli, a few blocks from the Seine.

Our apartment overlooks an old courtyard, and couldn’t be lovelier except for the fact that it’s about half the price of any “moderate” hotel. Thank the Goddess for Craigslist and a savvy girlfriend. Oh, and by the way, the dollar is at an all time low. There will be no shopping sprees on this trip. The treasures we will be bringing home will be the memories.

We are in the Marais, the old Jewish district. It was here that many Parisian Jews were rounded up and sent off to Auschwitz. The Jewish delicatessens and synagogues are back, amidst the high class boutiques. Although most delis were closed for Passover, Finkelsztajns was open. At our small table on Rue de Rosiers, amidst throngs of shoppers, we celebrated freedom from slavery and honored the turning of history with some gefilte fish, chopped liver and matzo. The Marais is now not only the Jewish district, but queer as well. Orthodox men in black hats walk in peace amongst men in the latest fashion holding hands. And us, too, of course! We toasted with our glasses of water and gave thanks that being a queer Pagan and a Jew, we feel and are so free.

lessons

It’s now a little over two months since I was released from the ring of hell which is commonly known as a hospital. The florescent light, the comings and going at all hours of the night to poke and prick, plus the silent noisiness of the dead, the entire experience has me bound and determined to do everything I can to stay on this side of the ring for the rest of this life.

I’m doing well, incredibly so. I am managing the diabetes without medication of any kind. This means being acutely aware of what I am eating and how much I am moving my body. I now am an expert on the glycemic index of almost any food, of knowing just how quickly anything I eat turns to sugar. I have managed to stay well within the normal range for the two months I’ve been out, despite some difficult challenges.

For years, especially in witchcamp settings, I had a humorous contempt for all of those with special food needs. Why do lesbians seem to be more lactose intolerant, allergic to gluten, and all around picky around food than the rest of the human race? This was a question I would ask frequently and with some irritation. Wouldn’t you know that now I find myself in these ranks and then some? When you choose to embrace the shamanic lifestyle, you can’t get away with anything. If you find yourself making fun of something, soon enough you become the butt of the joke yourself.

The priestesses of the hearth path were bending over backward to meet my needs, and over and over I found myself shaking my head and saying “no, I can’t eat that”. Who am I and what happened to that self I use to be? Gluten free pasta, rice, potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, and whole wheat pizza dough are all off the list of what I eat. A vegetarian diet is next to impossible, as beans and rice just don’t cut it for a diabetic and most carriers of cheese involve carbohydrates. At camp, despite some tromping in the wet woods, I was not getting the same level of exercise that I now consider essential to keeping my blood sugar low. I found myself in the bizarre situation of needing food other than that which was being prepared so lovingly for the rest of the camp.

I was not truly alone, as Donald Engstrom had similar issues to mine. We found ourselves being the only ones eating chicken bought on a run to town at the table with others with plates full of vegetarian fare, or alternatively, going off to the pub across the street so we could have a lamb shank or bowl of mussels. Donald kept reminding me that our needs weren’t “special”, that what we needed was normal and regular, but in the context of witchcamp, it felt vulnerable and strange to not be able to adjust for a few days to a vegetarian diet. Especially one that was so integral to the magic being made.

The Sunday after camp I found myself crying in frustration after expending the whole day doing an initiation and then going to a feast for the initiate where all that I could eat was some salad and two pieces of salmon picked off of some sushi. The days of taking it for granted that I can eat whatever is served and that nourishment will be found at any table I sit at are over.

This is harder than I could ever have expected.

Now I am in Barcelona, a city full of dishes I can eat, where tapas of every kind of fresh seafood are readily available and huge platters of spinach, arugula, and asparagus abound. I am walking well over 10,000 steps a day, and my blood sugar is easily staying in the low range of normal. One day, it was so low I braved a cup of hot chocolate and shared some bites of a raspberry tart at the exquisite patisserie Escriba. Now a days, a dessert is truly a treat, something to be had only occasionally. Blessedly, maybe because of all the walking, I stayed within normal range.

There’s no shortage of lessons to be learned in one lifetime.

Thanks to my little glucometer and my handy pedometer, I’m staying an alert and willing student.

close quarters

Witchcamp is spellwork. It’s also a week of teaching and training others in the art/craft of making magic. But how can you teach or train others in this art without it being unleashed as well? By casting a circle and working in sacred space for a series of days, a spell is inevitably cast. Also it needs to be factored in that as the years have rolled by, less people come to camp to learn magic, but to practice it in a community setting. Seasoned witches abound now at most witchcamps, and even the newbies have read more books than I had on my shelves for the first decade or so of being a witch. From the moment we all join hands in circle, a major magical working begins.

Most camps clearly state the intent for the working in the beginning, but sometimes, even with a set intent, the magic takes another turn and something entirely different is brewed. I find this unfolding immensely interesting and I try to pay close attention to what is being mixed in the cauldron of our blended energies.

Avalon Spring had a lovely intent, but once we traveled to the new venue, a youth hostel in Epping Forest, it was clear that there definitely was going to be a parallel and quite powerful other working happening as well.. Six of us had planned in teams of two to teach morning “paths” covering a variety of theological and experiential material. We’d hoped to be meeting in the forest, amidst spring blossoms and warm sunshine. Four others had formed a “hearth path’, which besides doing all the shopping and planning for our meals, was prepared to lead the camp in the experience of cooking and eating food with sacred intent.

However, the “spring” was hard coming, with snow covering the ground the day before camp started and hail pelting us the day of. The forest was beautiful, but muddy and going outside entailed a kind of bundling up that invoked brisk walking, not laying around doing trance work.

There was somewhere between 30 and 40 of us, from a variety of countries. Walking in to the hostel, I kept looking for rooms other than the enamel yellow one which held a small kitchen in the corner and was the size of my living and dining rooms put together. The only other spaces to be found were the ones off the small hallway to the side, which all were small and cramped with bunk beds. Could several dozens of us really co-exist in this space and create something particular and precious?

We could. And did.

Our separate paths became one path, and occasionally huddling around a portable fire bowl on the small patio outside, we spent the days and nights together in good humor and with spirits buoyant. We traveled between the worlds, took stock of what stories we chose to tell in this lifetime, and spoke to the allies and ancestors who love us beyond all reason.

All the while, vegetables were being chopped, dishes being cleaned, and people being fed. One morning I found myself blissfully scrubbing dishes as Anne-Marie and Susan Farley were leading a trance on becoming different states of water. Did I say that everything happened in one small big room? It was no metaphor that we were all in the magic together, cooks, cleaners, and trance priestesses. We were.

The magic in Avalon Spring was about working together in close quarters, negotiating space and needs and doing it with grace and good will. The spell that was spun was about this rippling out in to the world and into the future. As the days went by, I kept hearing the Rolling Stone’s refrain that I sang to my son when he was small and prone to whining. “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes, you get what you need.”

This was not a glamorous camp. There were no glorious and glittering outfits, no dramatic aspecting of Gods, no raucous and bawdy talent shows. Yet, the sense of the sacred shimmered in all that we did. At Avalon Spring, there was no division between the mundane and magic. I believe we were better for it.

We human beings are such a mix of shadow and light, of the cranky and the affably adaptable. That mix was potent and palpable at Avalon Spring.

And it was Divine.

I'm at the kitchen table at Anne-Marie's, using Dawn's laptop. Dawn and I are teaching a "path" at witchcamp on air. We will be working on getting across the idea that our thoughts and words matter, in fact they tend to be part of what creates the matter of our lives, being a large part of directing it.

Outside, it's snowing. Like REALLY snowing. I'm a California girl, and not the Tahoe type.  For me, snow has NOTHING to do with spring. We are heading off to camp in a few hours, a camp optimistically entitled "Avalon Spring".

So, it's snowing. Oh, and the car broke down yesterday.  So, we are not quite clear now how we will be getting to camp.  My phone didn't work for a few hours right after the car broke down. Every number I called was met by the same response - number not in use. After an offering to the fey, the phone started working again.  That didn't fix the car, but I'm hoping just maybe there will be some good news now on my computer.

So,  we are listening. And laughing a lot. Who knows why things go awry when the best plans are made? Who knows what it is we are suppose to learn from this. We have THEORIES.  There's nothing more amusing and rather psychotic sounding than a bunch of witches using their psychic decoder rings to interpret a series of events.  Offerings and honorings to a variety of folks of course need to be made. 

But mostly, we are slowing down. Trying to listen. And marveling in just how alive and communicative this world of matter and spirits are. E-mails would be so much simpler....but then, of course, your internet has to be working.

between the worlds

I'm sitting at a table writing this amidst a household of chattering witches. We've just finished planning the second night's ritual of Avalon Spring witchcamp. I'm seizing this moment to write a quick blog, as it may be weeks before I have access to another on-line computer.

I brought my computer to England, but yesterday it lost it's wireless capacity. Maybe I'm meant to be fully here, and to let go of my connection to cyberspace. We'll see...right now it's in the hands of fate, and more specifically in the hands of the computer technician in the village of Chesham where I left it this morning.

Tomorrow we all head off to Epping Forest and Monday witchcamp begins. The following Monday I will head off to Barcelona, then to Paris and then home by Beltane.

Will I be blogging about this journey? You who are reading this, imagine the blue wireless button on my HP laptop lighting up. Otherwise, it will be catch as catch can, and there may not be blog here until the tail end of April.

cauldron of plenty

It’s such a mystery, the natural ability that some of us have for certain things. Some of us are great at getting parking spots; others always seem to be able to intuit which long line will move the fastest. I seem to have a knack at drawing money to ventures I am involved in.

Throughout the years, I’d never describe myself as a competent fund raiser. I’m not well organized enough for that title and since balancing my own check-book remains challenging, I’d never volunteer to raise, manage or direct funds outside my own. Plus, I am deficient in the shmooze factor which allows some people to easily hit up other people for money for causes they believe in.

Yet, it is clear I have a talent for throwing parties that successfully benefit things that I support. The Dinner With the Dead that I’ve been part of at Samhain always bring in just enough to fund whatever project is being benefited. Last year we were able to give a nice amount towards the care of Cora Anderson while also having enough left over to send me as a spoke to the Witchcamp Council. Years back, we raised a stunning amount which well funded our magical actions at the WTO in Seattle. The party I threw to raise money for my friend Jeremy’s cancer treatments exceeded expectations for such a simple affair. The amount of money raised at all of these events seems magical. And that’s because it is.

Sunday I hosted a “Divine Day of Divination” to benefit and seed the fall equinox restorative retreat I am part of creating - “The Fool’s Journey”. My partner and I cleaned the house thoroughly and created four “stations” where psychic readings, tarot and astrological charts could be read. We asked for a donation of $1 -2 a minute, and cash and checks were deposited in my money cauldron. As guests arrived, the house became a kind of psychic brothel, with folks mingling amongst us until they picked the reader they felt drawn to. Several had a go with more than one of us, and a great day was had by all. The cauldron was full, and we have a sturdy sum with which to fund our endeavor.

The trick, I think, is the money cauldron. I’ve mindfully charged it up to not only draw money, but to send it back. Anyone who throws money can expect to have it returned three-fold. It is not only a container for donations, it is an interactive spell. As the event goes on, people can see the money grow and there becomes a kind of group investment in the pot teeming. So far, the pot has always stirred up a surprise upon the counting of the money. My money cauldron works magic, of that I am sure.

It also helps to have generous and loving friends.

Of that, I certainly have a great knack.