branches up, roots down

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in", says Michael Corleone in Godfather III. It's damn hard to leave a family, especially a Mafioso family, and Michael never succeeds. This is his story. And in some ways, it's my story too. His family was involved in organized crime. Mine disorganized religion. I can't seem to leave Reclaiming . Here I am in Seattle, in a big house with a gaggle of witches. We aren't a coven, but after this week we will have formed a magical bond, hopefully deep. We spent yesterday planning the night rituals for witchcamp. As I sit here, I can hear laughter and the soft chatter of people enjoying each other. It's going well. So far working together is easy and there is a good creative flow. Soon we will be packing up to drive up above Vancouver. Witchcamp begins tomorrow. Most likely I will be off line until after labor day. I'm thinking about why I continue to be pulled back in, and why too I sometimes want...

Everything comes to an end. Everything. I know everything comes to an end, yet, it seems impossible to accept when something I am attached to does disappear into the ether. There's been other endings this summer, but this one I didn't see coming at all. I thought it would outlast me, that it would remain a staple of my life. It's something that has never failed me. But then, it has billed itself as "the world's only reliable newspaper". And rely on it, I have. I love the Weekly World News. I will miss it beyond reason. I'm not sure when I started reading it, but it was over a decade or so ago. I'd pick it up in the supermarket line and find myself laughing and end up buying it. Unlike the Onion , which is outright satire, The Weekly World News lies somewhere between, invoking a kind of magical realism that plays to me as more realistic than many major newspapers. I've longed for a Shamanic Times, a newspaper that reports on the happenings that ...

Every Living Vessel Is Sacred . Today is the anniversary of Elvis leaving the building. And yet, he remains, and is indeed, everywhere. On my trip to New Orleans in June, I found the words Every Living Vessel Is Sacred scrawled on this chalkboard outside a tavern in the French Quarter. It gave me quite a start, as this phrase I thought was part of the Elvisynian mysteries. This is a saying that came to another Priestess of Elvis and was passed on to me by Paul Eaves, my brother in worship at the Temple of Elvis. Had one of them been passing through New Orleans? Had this bit of wisdom come through another of the King's priestesses? It is a mystery. Thank you, Elvis, thank you very much. You opened the sex chakra of white america, and changed life as we know it. Read my article on Elvis and join in embracing him as true Pagan God. He is.

I'm feeling a tad wrung out, for the last two weeks have been quite a soul washing. I've walked the beaches of my youth, crying as the sun set over the waves, wishing a dear friend a good journey to the other side of the veil. I've flown across the continent to priestess a handfasting in the rolling hills of West Virginia , stepping into the last night of the week's worth of magic and mayhem which is Spiralheart Witchcamp . I'm home now and in the midst of a week of seeing clients, many who have experienced the wheel being in spin too. Funny how that works when you are a therapist! Breathing and listening, this is what I am trying to do, encouraging my clients to try as well. And I am trusting my intuition, that gut/heart feeling you get that flies across all reason or logic. I trusted this last year, and trusting this allowed me to be both at Spiralheart this last weekend, and in Cannon Beach the weekend before. I followed my intuition, and it lead me where...

There is such a thing as time travel. It doesn't involve fancy machines, casting circles or calling allies and spirits from other dimensions. Time travel is part of the human experience. Heck, for all I know animals and plants do it too. As a therapist, I kind of specialize in it. I invite people to journey back to an earlier chapter of their lives, encouraging them to tweak and twiddle with perceptions of events, thereby changing the present and the future. But you don't need to be in therapy to time travel. Just attend a high school reunion or call a friend you haven't talked to in years. This past weekend I was trundled back in time to the era I lived in Cannon Beach. In many ways, I'm still there. Jan dying will probably mean that I spend a lot of the upcoming months back in time. Every few hours a new memory pulls me back. Rooms open up that I haven't been in for decades. Moonlight on sand and smoke in bars are ventured back to. I am time traveling, ...

It is Lammas, the cross-quarter point between solstice and equinox. The reign of the Sun King is on the wane. The clients I see at 7pm I now need to turn on the lights for and I’m no longer waking early with the sun. This week, for the first time, I can sense the dark waiting just off stage. Here, right before summer begins its descent into autumn, I am grieving. In every life, there are key people who, like points of stars making up the zodiac, help create the story of our lives. I’ve had many of these, and I am blessed with a complicated and sparkling tale of a life. One of these stars died in the past week, but just like real stars, her light will still shine long past her death. I graduated high school early, desperately wanting to escape the confines of my family and Morgan Hill , just south of San Jose , California . Immediately I set out with my friend Diane in her VW van to discover America . I didn’t get very far, just up to the top of the Oregon Coast . In that short...

I've been spending a lot of time on my rooftop garden. For me, it's the best place to get quiet and to listen. And to pray. For many years, as a witch, I felt funny using the "P" word. But praying is something I've always done. Doesn't everybody who has any sort of a relationship to the Divine pray? How could you not? Annie Lamott says there are essentially two kind of prayers; "Help me, Help me" and "Thank you, Thank you". I think there is actually a third, which is the blend of the two. This is the kind of praying I've been doing recently. Gnome Chomsky has been a great addition to the garden and has become the Protector and Guardian of Strawberries. I think it has something to do with his red hat. Thank you, Mary Oliver, for this beautiful poem. Praying - by Mary Oliver It doesn't have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and do...