branches up, roots down

Sometime around solstice, when I was still in shock from the sleeper wave that destroyed my marriage, my good friend Donald suggested that I work with Hera. Looking around my home, with its rich reds and abundance of peacock feathers, I realized that Hera already had been welcomed here. Today, she really established residency. I’d taken the day off to spend with one of my newest friends. She turned 60 today and asked me to spend the day with her. How could this offer be refused? I rescheduled or cancelled clients and freed up my calendar to celebrate my friend. Yesterday it stormed all day. This morning, the sky was still grey and overcast. After doing a tarot reading at her house, we drove valiantly across the Golden Gate Bridge and climbed through the fog up Mount Tam, until we were above the clouds , seemingly alone on the wet and glistening mountain. As we hiked, we alternately viewed swirling fog below us and the beautiful panorama of life which is the S...

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 ...

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...

" These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. " – Thomas Paine, published 12/23/1776 Two nights ago there was a vigil in downtown San Francisco organized by the Veterans for Peace to mark the U.S. death count in Iraq reaching 4000. Last week was the fifth anniversary of the war. As this war progresses, there will be a growing number of those in the military who turn against it and realize that they can not in good conscience keep fighting. In times where war is waged for unjust reasons, there are always those who do not shrink from speaking out and resisting. During the Vietnam War, once that resistance came from within the military itself, the war drew closer to its end. In a brilliant twist on Thomas Paine's term "summer soldier" those veterans who did not shrin...

I’m back from a week between the worlds. I’m back from B.C. Witchcamp . When the teaching team gathered in Seattle , I invoked a piece of magic which worked on us all week. I've invoked the same thing before, with great results. This time an entirely different thing occurred, but that’s the nature of magic. How the elements respond to our requests and interact with us shifts and changes. It can’t be scientifically quantified or counted on. Magic is mysterious. We know that by working magic, something will happen, but we never can really know what that something is. Working magic is engaging in a relationship. Being just one piece of it, you can’t really know how the interaction will turn out. While we were planning the night rituals, something that can take hours and hours to happen, and all of the “free” time at camp, I invoked that for every 3 minutes of clock time, we would have 9 minutes of experiential time. In that planning day we did a lot, planning all of the ri...

I’m coming down from a mighty cone o’ power. All around the city you can feel the effects of the magical hangover which is the Monday after Gay Pride Weekend. I’m sure that for many, the magical hangover is more complicated. Dionysus loves this crowd, and the Queer Gods grace this party with their perpetual indulgences. It’s a great rite, with a constant gathering crowd, starting with a Tranny March on Friday, the Dyke March on Saturday (which ends up in the Castro where the Sisters of, yes, Perpetual Indulgence preside over a huge street party), and then the humongous Pride March on Sunday. All the while, a huge pink triangle graces the city from the heights of Twin Peaks . My girlfriend is one of the eight women who put on the Dyke March , which is feat of magic in itself. The Dyke March is actually an afternoon concert, a political action, a huge picnic party, and a march, all rolled into one. Oh, and it’s also transformative ritual. Somehow they do this all without any c...

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!...

The candles are lit and the house vibrates with the thrum and hum of magic, that change of consciousness that opens up the lines of communication with the elements, with the sacred, with the divine. The tulips, daffodils, and blossoms of plum on the altar attest to the beauty of this green planet, beauty beyond comprehension. Tonight I honored earth, air, fire, water and spirit and asked for their help. I called to the ancestors and those who will come in the future. I invited and invoked the mysterious ones, all those deities and guardians who are able and willing to be of assistance, who might also need or want my assistance, or at the very least my attention. I dropped down and felt the change that has already begun, the polar ice caps that are melting, the rising of the ocean, the changes in temperature, the changes in seasons. How hard it is to really sit with this, to feel it and keep breathing. And I prayed and asked for assistance in people having the strength to change. T...

A very Merry christmas And a happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear War is over, if you want it War is over now. John Lennon I can’t get these words out of my head. Tonight is 12 th night, and Solstice, Christmas and New Year's Eve are several steps back. But the song remains. It came on the radio as I drove to my sister’s house on Christmas day and then my girlfriend’s band was asked to play it at midnight at the big Code Pink New Year’s party. Both times hearing it, I found myself surprised by a choke in the throat and the welling up of tears. What is it about these words that elicit such a strong response, and that won’t leave me? It’s got to be more than menopause. I’ve been thinking about John Lennon and his song “ Imagine ” almost daily since right before Samhain. At that time, there was the usual repeating kerfluffle on a Reclaiming community list about California witchcamp ...

My horoscope for this week according to Rob Brezny says I should throw parties in 2007, that I am to be the zodiac's premier networker, getting people to play harder and take themselves less seriously. He also says this may very well save the world. Perfect. Last night I was hostess to a night long vigil for the solstice sun’s rebirth. I’d been preparing for this for days, cleaning the house, shopping for food, making menu plans, arranging altars, and gathering materials for the various spellwork that’s done thru the night. If I’m to be the zodiac’s premier networker this next year, it’s no big surprise or stretch. I’ve been in training for this for years. And I didn’t learn this in any Reclaiming class or witchcamp. My house has been my guide and mentor. I’ve stood in the center of more cast circles than I can count, raising my arms and invoking this that or the other thing, or leading those gathered round in a trance journey between the worlds. I know very well...