branches up, roots down

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 live...

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 me...

Today is Samhain, or Halloween, as it’s called by everyone else but us witches. The veil is thin, and it is time to deal with the dead. That means honoring them, working on healing any old relational wounds we still have with them, and asking them for help. As my beloved said to me this week, “Being a witch is a lot of work”. I’m particularly feeling that today. For the past few weeks I’ve been creating sugar skulls and for the past few days I’ve been creating tall votive candles with pictures of ancestors of spirit on them, all those who are our/my allies on the other side. There are a lot of them, and the binder keeps expanding in which I keep copies of all the photos and pictures I have collected. Google images is an incredible resource! As I’ve made both skulls and candles, I’ve felt the spirits come closer, and not an hour goes by when a new name or face doesn’t emerge from the memory bank. We witches say, “What is remembered lives”, and this week, I am remembering bac...