Water.

I adore my wonderful city of Washington, D.C. There isn't a morning that I drive over the TR Bridge and see the gleaming Lincoln and Washington monuments and the distant statue of the Goddess Columbia that I don't ground and feel a deep privilege. And, living here, it's been, more times than I can say, my privilege to march in national demonstrations, starting when I was a kid and my dad and I stood underneath the guns of Nixon's guards on the Capitol grounds and he said to me, "If I tell you to drop, you drop and don't worry about what comes after."

This week, I'm watching what's happening in Wisconsin and feeling what the rest of the county must feel when all of the action is out here in DC. I keep hearing Henry V's speech at Agincourt.

Enter the KING
WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home/Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd. The feast of the Wisconsin Uprising.

I just got off the phone w/ a dear friend of mine who is inside the capitol, and has been for days. His spirits are high. He and the others there are ready for tomorrow when the tea baggers show up. He's prepped to start doing teach-ins. (I'm an old woman. Long time and long since I heard @ teach-ins.)

What they need, he told me, is bottled water. A lot of bottled water.

I don't know how to get it to them, but I am going to go sit at my altar and begin manifesting water. Cold water. In bottles. Lots of it.

Can you help?

******

Update: If you can get through on the phone, this place will deliver to protestors at the WI capitol

Weary Traveler 1201 Williamson St Madison, WI 53703 (608) 442-6207

We Need It All

Do what you love. Do what you can. Do what best serves your landbase.

Thank You, Miss Parks. I Kiss Your Feet

Wiki says: On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind. Irene Morgan in 1946, and Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, had won rulings before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Interstate Commerce Commission, respectively, in the area of interstate bus travel. Nine months before Parks refused to give up her seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. In New York City, in 1854, Lizzie Jennings engaged in similar activity, leading to the desegregation of the horsecars and horse-drawn omnibuses of that city. But unlike these previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks' action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

At the time of her action, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for workers' rights and racial equality. Nonetheless, she took her action as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although widely honored in later years for her action, she suffered for it, losing her job as a seamstress in a local department store.

I massage your seamstress hands with thyme-infused beeswax. I send reiki to the tired muscles of your calves. I ground and send courage to your frightened center. I whisper the thanks of many daughters into your ringing ears. I bring you hot soup (full of astragolus, garlic, mushrooms, and chicken broth), in jail. I bring you clean hair in the court-room, fresh underwear when you face the police, and the warmth of magic when you try to go to sleep, afraid of what they will do to you. I bring you the scent of lavender and rosemary from my garden and the warmth of all the wool that passes through my knitting hands.

I was not born when you refused to give up your seat on the bus. But I will bless you always. Thank you for making my world a bit more just. Thank you for the example that you set. May we, who come behind you, imbibe a bit of your courage.

My New Name For A Blog

What NTodd Said.

Also, What Ed Brayton Said:

Fuck you, Bob Barr. You obviously lied to me and you are just as bigoted and stupid as you were when you were in Congress.

It's Easy; Anyone Can Do It

NTodd describes the completely unscary, not-intimidating, and v American act of having a meeting with his representative's staff. More of us should do this. I'm going to commit to do it twice this year, on issues that really matter to me: the environment and women's rights.

Will you commit as well? It's easy. They come to your area and you can schedule 15 minutes with them. You can precede yourself with an email discussing the points you want to make. You show up at the local office with some cookies or muffins or photos of your area for the rep's walls, you make some small talk, and then you tell them what you want your rep to do and what you'll do to back your rep if they do the right thing. You say, "Thanks," and you follow up the next day with a nice email. You can do this, and you should.

A lot of 18 year olds died so that you could. So you can do it for them, if for no other reason. Email me when you do it and I'll go put a flower on a grave at Arlington for you.

Picture found here.

Go! Listen!

Katrina Messenger once told me a story about a time when she saw a beggar on the street. The man was wailing and complaining of his misery and, Katrina believed, probably putting on something of an act. And yet, coming upon this archetype of suffering, Katrina was forced to realize something not about the beggar, but about herself: She couldn't, being who she was, walk past someone in that much apparent pain, and do nothing.

I'm not sure why, but I was reminded of Katrina's story last night as I listened to this very inspirational podcast of a discussion between T. Thorn Coyle and Selena Fox. I am someone who can't listen to Selena's invocation without sobbing and recommitting to the cause, just as I cannot read the inscription "Equal Justice Under Law" on the SCOTUS without sobbing with love (professionally embarrassing on more than one occasion), or vote in the smallest local election without holding back tears. (Maybe the message is Katrina gives alms and I blubber, I don't know!)

You should listen to the entire discussion; it's well worth it.

It's awfully easy to get activists' fatigue, and I find that now, having worked like hell to elect a president of whom I can only say, this week, that he sucks less than McCain would have sucked, activists' fatigue is waiting for me around a lot of corners, ready to pounce at every opportunity. Listening to the work that Selena's been doing for years, as well as to her successes, is an incredibly good talisman to carry around in defense of activists' fatigue.

Of course, we witches say that the best spell for getting a job is filling out a job application. So one of the best magical talismans against activists' fatigue is taking some small, positive action.

Good talismans available right now include Sia's current post about micro-loans and my brilliant friend E's post about, inter alia, the D.C. Central Kitchen. And if you won't even, as Susie says: Call Them you've got bad activists' fatigue. And here's a great idea for simple activism in the waning part of the year.

Hail Libertas! Hail Justica!

Picture found here.

Play It At My Funeral, It's What I Am

Sinfonian!

Here's my brilliant friend, Sinfonian, taking on the poor, deluded racists in Florida. He rocks like a big rocking rock.