the veil is thin

Today is officially Samhain, but who can tell the difference! The veil has been sliver thin all week. Heck, for way more than a week!

Last week the Chronicle photographer came over to photograph my house for the usual little article on real Witches and Halloween. I knew the dead were really here when my sister from Santa Cruz "just happpened" (like there's such a thing as coincidence!) to drop by. She ended up holding the martini glass that goes on the altar for my father. We laughed heartily, agreeing he really wanted to get his picture in the paper this year. And, usually the martini goes on Samhain night. This year, he wanted that drink ahead of time. Who can blame him!

The little article turned out to be a BIG article, with plenty of my dead being clearly featured. The martini got plenty of play as well. Good magic, as my plea this year was that they put their shoulder to the wheel of positive change. My father was a Republican who wrote JFK and apologized for voting for the wrong guy. Doing what he can on the other side of the veil this year to get the right guy in seems like a fine amend.

Last Saturday we did a Dinner with the Dead at Martin de Porres, the soup kitchen that Thorn has volunteered at for years. We decorate the room with sugar skulls, novenas with pictures of our dead on them, and cover the tables with black tablecloths. It's a potluck where the dishes are all food our dead and ancestors loved. We cast a simple circle and eat and toast to our dead. There's an altar in the middle of the room with a cauldron for donations to the project we want to magically support.

This year, the turnout was modest, but the magic potent. We were raising money for three projects aimed at building magical community; Fool's Journey, Solar Cross, and Stone City. The cauldron exceeded out expectations. All projects are now fed by both the living and the dead.

Today the fog is weighing heavy on Twin Peaks. It's sprinkling rain. My house is full of friends from England, one who will be initiated tomorrow morning, making a commitment to the Mysterious Ones to be their priestess. Perhaps we will dance with the dead in the Headlands tonight or perhaps we will stay comfortably dry inside, sharing sips of the bitter cup of death that I drink once a year and actually find quite tasty.

Whatever we do, the dead are here. And, my guess, is like the living, more than one of them need more than a stiff drink to get through the next week.

i am hoping and i am praying

let us hope.

let us pray.

let us remember that things can change.

for the better.

they can.

right?

Judy and I are registered with Against Prop. 8

Eight lesbian bloggers have come together in a coordinated effort to help place the discriminatory ballot initiative called Proposition 8 in its rightful place in the dust heap of history.

Just another reason to love the blogosphere. They are almost half way there.

Thank you,

Grace Chu and Grace Rosen - Grace The Spot

Lori Hahn - Hahn At Home

Kelly Leszczynski - The Lesbian Lifestyle

Dorothy Snarker - Dorothy Surrenders

Pam Spaulding - Pam’s House Blend

Sinclair - Sugarbutch Chronicles

Riese - This Girl Called Automatic Win

Renee Gannon - Lesbiatopia

Thank you. It's a damn fine wedding present.

an auspicious day

I sometimes really do feel like I am living in dreamtime. Yesterday was one of those days.

I had an appointment at city hall at 12 to get a marriage license. That in itself feels dreamlike….especially since that civil right may be voted away on the 5^th of November. As I slid into the parking spot that miraculously opened up right in front, a commercial against Proposition 8 was playing on the radio. The words were ringing in my head as I entered the hall full of gay and lesbian couples, looking for my partner. Here we all were, in this strange place between the worlds, going through motions that in a few weeks time may be denied other couples. Or not.

We found each other and took our place in a long line of stories. Everyone had one, and most were telling them. The man next to me told me about his cancer, and how he thought he’d never live to marry his partner. The cancer is in remission, and the wedding will take place in the Victory Garden in front of city hall. We told him about the Victory Garden in our back yard, and how we felt so grateful to have been chosen by this project. I breathed into the very words – Victory Garden.

With so much on the line right now, breathing into those two words felt useful, felt auspicious.

We signed the papers, got the license, and left. Judy went back to work, and I went home to meet the photographer from the Chronicle who was coming to do a photo shoot about Pagan decorating for Samhain. Fern had described me to a reporter as the Pagan Martha Stewart. The reporter had called and interviewed me a few days before. Helpfully, my teenage son would occasionally holler out things like “Don’t believe it, it’s really all about devil worship!” I explained to the reporter that having a teenager, no matter if you are Christian, Buddhist, or Pagan, seems to be universally the same. Your teenager believes everything you believe in sucks. And, they are rude. Mine is both rude and funny.

My sister was going to be spending the night in town, and she showed up just as the photographer was finishing up, just in time for us both to take part in a photo focusing on the part of my altar where our father is honored. I’m convinced our dad is doing his part for the election, that all the dead I’m working with are doing their part. The fact that this year’s altar might find its way into the paper feels as auspicious as the words Victory Garden. It will be interesting which names on the skulls and which photos on the candles make their way into the paper. Will Jeremy? Will Cora? Susan North? Paul Newman?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so anxious about feeling things are auspicious. And yesterday, that feeling just built and built.

After a good dinner, we set out to a Patti Smith concert. Judy had gotten the tickets weeks back…just another reason I love her. She is not the fan I am, and had told me if the music was too loud, she might leave. She knows I am crazy wild for Patti Smith, who gets played full blast along with Leonard Cohen, when I’m up in my art studio. She turned to me at one point, with tears in her eyes, and said it was the best concert she’s ever been to. And she’s a picky musician.

Patti had come to play for us because it was Arthur Rimbaud’s birthday and because this is San Francisco. And she was casting a spell. That was clear. She was in full shaman mode and we were transfixed, drawn into the magic that was being woven. She was putting her shoulder to the wheel of change, demanding that we all do the same. Putting our energy into actively and mindfully voting for change we can live with…auspicious change. Rimbaud was invoked and so were many other of Beloved Dead. At one point, the crowd was shouting out the names of musicians, writers and artists who have died this year, and I felt the dead filling the room, giving their spirits to us taking a particular turn at this mighty crossroads of change.

It was a full day, an auspicious day, a day where the air itself vibrated with possibility.

What will these next weeks be like? It’s hard to imagine.

the Arrival of the Beloved Dead

Today is day two of sugar skull decorating at my open studio...an open studio I share with my friends Ivory Fly, Gwydion, and Bart. Strangers drop in to see what kind of art is being created in the neighborhood, and so do old and new friends. It feels a bit like opening day for the dead...their first event of the season. Amidst the art, there always is an altar to them, and of course, the sugar skull decorating.

Soon I will be sitting at a table decorating sugar skulls again. I have more names of the dead to put on them. As I do it, the dead draw closer. My favorite moment yesterday is when Kore, Maia and Julian, three children I am fond of, were decorating the skulls. I think the dead ESPECIALLY like skulls made by kids.

pictures instead of words

I can't seem to write much this time of year. Maybe it's the overwhelming cacophony of words, opinions and predictions that are filling the air. Who needs even more? Maybe it's been a time to focus in a different way. I've been making art and getting lettuce seeds sprouting. Maybe it's been a time to focus too on my son and hearth and home. There's been long talks and a new ease between us. In any case, I'll let pictures be the bulk of my words.

My friend Jeremy was beginning to actively die at this time last year. This was the moment we all began to face that he was crossing over. I was painfully aware last October that this year I would be writing his name in frosting on a sugar skull.

This week I am finishing up on the spirit bottle I have been making him. It has on it a slew of beads, baubles, shells and stones that his family and friends dedicated to him. On it too are the buttons his mother wore constantly up until his death.





What is remembered lives. There's a lot of living and remembering going on around me. Here is my altar...still in process.

And here are the sugar skulls, just beginning to be decorated.

Soon, they will all have names on them. If you have a name of someone dear, let me know. There's plenty of skulls this year. There's plenty of dead to remember.

I'm hoping these dead all have some pull at the election. I know Jeremy does.