Know What I Love? I Love How "The Shadow" Is Such a Part of This. Literally.

Flight From Embodiment from Alliance for Wild Ethics on Vimeo.

Shadows WILL show up and make themselves known, no matter how hard we try to squish them down. It's not just what they do; it's who they are.

Tell Me A Poem

I tried to write something about National Poetry Month, and poetry, and Paganism, and ecstasy, and Pagan Practice, but, you know, you can write poetry, but almost any attempt to write ABOUT poetry is doomed to awful failure.

Good poetry cuts through Talking Self, by diverting it with lovely or effective or unusual language, and goes straight to Younger Self, and, once in a while, when you're giving as much as the poet, straight to your Higher Self.

That's why.

Picture found here.

Little Messages Everywhere.

What if Gaia had been talking to you all the time and you just hadn't been listening? What if that could change tonight?

Both Thorn:

[The homeless man] staggered to his feet again, unsteadily weaving, trying to catch his balance and muttering, more like a person in a mystic trance than like one drunk. Before the doors opened, he paused and looked directly into my eyes. After several long seconds of our staring he spoke, clearly and cogently, "Look at the Temple. Thank you." The doors opened, he walked out onto the platform, arms spread and head tilted toward the gathering rain clouds above. I wondered if he would catch the train he needed. The doors closed again, and I returned to his words, that had penetrated to my core: "Look at the Temple."

Indeed. Elijah had spoken and there is work for me in the prophecy that fell upon my ears. I am thankful I was open enough to hear them today and wonder what will unfold.

Magic is every place and any moment.

I am off to Baltimore first thing in the morning and will carry thoughts of the Temple with me. Blessed be.

and Deborah Oak

I left the gathering, my heart stretched with tenderness for my friends, and also beginning to contract with worry and mounting anxiety.

It only took me several steps on Cortland Avenue until the world interjected and had something pithy to say. There, in a window of a small shop, was a big red poster with white lettering. "Calm down, and Carry On", it simply stated. Yes, indeed.

Calming down, is of course, hard. Breathing helps, and slowing down thoughts. Carrying on, well, that's hard too, but it's made easier by the world carrying some of the burden of the ongoing conversation. Cock your ear, and really, the world, it just won't shut up.

Thankfully, it's pretty darn smart. Carrying on, we would all do well to deeply listen.

are getting messages.

There's a full moon in Libra tonight. Go listen to what it, the World, your Spirit Guides, your Higher Self has to say.

I love what Deborah says about Pagans:

[W]e Pagans have something to offer. We know how to carry on mytho-poetic conversations with the world, and any rich conversation like that makes human life a hell of a lot more meaningful, if not more interesting.

"I was the I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. I was the Pagan carrying on a mytho-poetic conversation with the world." Carve those words on my gravestone and you'll have told the truth.

What messages have you gotten this Full Moon?

Cursing Song

A College Of Priestesses

Following up on my earlier post, I see that Sia is also talking about the circles that we form.

I wanted to add that, this isn't easy.

It sounds as if it should be: get together for brunch every couple of weeks and really get to know each other. But, it's not. Not in DC, not in today's world, not in my experience. My circle is made of career women, one of whom is posted to Europe for the foreseeable future, two of whom are in government, one of whom is in associations, one of whom is raising young children and involved in education, one of whom is in law, and one of whom, now retired from the WH, is busier than any of us. Each of us has other interests: family, politics, gardening, writing, alternative sexuality, dance, bridge, tv scripts, blogging, life, that take up our time.

To meet on every Sabbat and on either the full or dark moon means 21 meetings a year. Add to that 12 meetings to just have brunch or coffee or whatever and get to know each other and you're at 33 meetings a year. That's almost 3 meetings a month. Not easy to find 3 times a month when our schedules can congeal. Sure, if you attended a "traditional" xian church, you'd go to church 52 times a year, and that's before you attended choir practice or the church council or taught Sunday school. So, on the one hand, what we ask is impossible. But, on the other hand, it's really not to much.

In the end, it comes down to whether or not the time spent is worth it. And, IMHO, that's the rub. It often takes six months, nine months, twenty-four months spent with a group of women before you "really" know whether or not it's worth it. When do you realize that it deepens the magic or that it wastes your time?

How do you decide when it's time to cut your losses and move on or time to stay and start investing for the long haul?

Picture found here.

Yes, But The Plastic Chairs?

Bitching Not Optional

There are, let's not kid ourselves, a million ways to do magic, a million ways to grow spiritually, a million ways to be a witch. But, for me, all of those things happen best within a circle of women. And I need to KNOW those women before my magic will be most effective with theirs under the bright full Moon, or on the windy dark Moon, or at one of the 8 great Sabbats. There are public rituals made up of mostly-strangers that work, that are transformative, that change the world. But that path is not for me. I have loved, after my own fashion, every woman with whom I've entered Circle, dropped my masks, faced the divine. And, I like to know my lovers. My circle does brunch once a month, no rituals, nothing too serious, just coffee, and food, and stitching hands, and chatting, and bitching, and laughs. IM not so HO, that's a crucial ingredient in the lost art of creating a magic circle of women. Do you have a version of this?

Picture found here.

Rituals Are Body Techniques For Doing Thealogy

This article, in Matrifocus is well worth the reading. Here's a taste:

In Goddess Feminism, ritual is the most privileged way of learning and embodying individual and group thealogies and ideologies. Rituals are “body techniques which harbour the powers and potentialities of both our own subjectivity, as an embodied way of being-in-the-world, and those of the social world” (Crossley 2004: 46). Each new ritual re-creates and more fully develops Goddess thealogy. As such, Goddess thealogy is never static but always in flux, always being re-thought, and, importantly, performed and embodied. The emphasis on continual re-thinking and re-enacting Goddess, especially through ritual but also in everyday life, leads me to suggest that Goddess Feminists utilize what I’m calling “performance thealogy.”

Picture found here.

My New Morning Prayer

I'm downloading it onto my iPhone so that I can listen to it on the way to work.

Magic Is Changing Consciousness At Will

I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.


Karen Armstrong.


Photo found here

Dogma Is Not Particularly Important, Compared To Ritual And Experience.

Last night, I was talking w two dear friends about the interesting thing going on within Wicca.

Maybe it IS our Saturn Return as a religion. But whatever it is, there are certainly a number of people out there questioning their identity as witches, wondering where they go from here, asking hard kewshtuns. One of the things we noted is that, almost as a reaction to this questioning, there's a seeming movement on the part of some (and, no, this is nothing new; they call them "witch wars" for a reason) to insist that their way is the right way.

And, come on, we're talking about Paganism and witches.

I find her almost insufferable on some topics, but one thing that Ellen Evert Hopman said to me years ago makes perfect sense. Druids may be those people who study and know the laws so that society can go on. They work within the system, advising and teaching kings and preserving knowledge. But witches are those wily, wild, unpredictable, women who live outside the village proper and who ignore the laws that they don't like. They handle poisons and they consort with familiars and they fly around at night when it's windy and dark and proper women are all abed.

It's what makes them powerful. And it's what makes them dangerous. And it's what makes it impossible to "herd" them -- worse than cats.

And, it's what makes me love them, as well. My pipple.

And, here's Gus diZerega celebrating the out-of-control diversity of the Paganii:

Tomorrow I head off to Pantheacon, the largest Pagan gathering on the West Coast. It is always a treat to go and immerse myself in our larger community, the (statistically) 'normal', the granola, the techno, the weird, the geeky, the fey, and every other possible type of human being who can gather together in mutual respect and harmony, for with all the superficial differences among us, and some that I grant are deeper, we are still, all of us, Pagans. And that matters. A lot.
. . .

It is wonderful to see British Traditionalists (like me), Celtic, Asatru, African Diasporic folks, Druids, Erisians, and many more come together to celebrate the many ways human beings have to honor the Divine. (I have tried to provide reliable links here. If I error regarding YOUR tradition, please inform me.) The Sacred spins out its beautiful abundance and we respond in kind, Many old friends practice these other paths, and it is always a joy to see them again as we gather from all over the west, and sometimes even farther away.

In a separate post, diZerega also explains what witches have, in place of the "sacred texts" of other religions:

So what do we Pagans have as an alternative [to sacred texts]?

Fundamentally we are an oral and experiential tradition. We Wiccans have Books of Shadows, but they are more like ritual cookbooks tha[n] sacred texts along Biblical or even theological lines. Similar texts dominate in Brazil among the African Diasporic traditions. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. This also appears to have been the case in Rome.

Wiccans and Pagans in general do not look to revelations of other people's experiences with the sacred, especially revelations of long ago, we look primarily to our own experience in ritual, on vision quests, or through other practices. We also depend on the accumulated knowledge of our own spiritual communities to help us put what we have experienced into context. This means that we can never be completely confident of our understanding. What we know is ALWAYS provisional, it is ALWAYS open to revision. Pagan practice, wherever and whenever it has existed, changes, and that is OK.

She changes everything She touches
And everything She touches, changes.

This is a feature, not a flaw.

Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't think that can be said enough. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.

I don't care what you believe. Did you find ecstasy in the ritual? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Did your hair stand on end and did the unknowable touch the buckle of your spine when that witch cast the circle? I don't care which "trad" you follow. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Did you meet the Goddess during the guided visualization? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care if you're a festival pagan or a solitary. Was there a moment when you really became a tree, rooted in the Earth, strong, in touch with the minerals and water and fire at the core? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care who initiated you. Did the Great Rite happen, did seeming opposites become one, did the orgasm make your boundaries dissolve and did you know, really know, for a few minutes that you're just Goddess pouring Goddess into Goddess? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care that you came to the Craft via Buffy. Did the magic change things? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care whether you wear a pentacle, which direction you call first, whether your practice is reconstructionist, or syncretic (hint: it is), or culled from the African Diaspora. Did you help to turn the Wheel of the Year? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.

Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.

I am a witch. I was born a witch and I will die a witch. What that means has changed for me over the decades and will, so mote it be, change with me as long as I live. But I'm happy for those who spend time as witches and then find something else more meaningful. I don't need the confirmation that would come from others also affirming this path. It's mine and it works for me. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.


Art found here.

And She Will Always Carry On. Something Is Lost, But Something Is Found. They Will Keep On Speaking Her Name.

This weekend, G/Son and I went to a new nature center and marveled at snakes climbing gracefully down trees and a v large, v lovely owl, recuperating in a wonderful space. And, there I am, in the middle of the small wood in McMansionsville, surrounded by parents and G/Parents trying to find something to do w their kids in deep winter, suddenly accompanied by animals sacred to the Goddesss. Wherever you go, there she is, and it's all real, it's all metaphor, there's always more. The owl's daughter, Beth, has up a lovely post about Imbolc, tomorrow, when we worship the Goddess Brigid, patroness of smithwork, birth, and poetry.

For millennia at Her temple at Kildare (or Cill Dara, which means Church of the Oak), Her priestesses, and later, the nuns of Her order, tended an eternal flame in Her honor. Although it was extinguished during the Burning Times (the Inquisition), in 1993, Sister Mary Minehan boldly re-lit St. Brigid's flame in Kildare. It was lit again in 1997, in the Kildaire town square by Ragny Skaisten, a member of the Norwegian Brigidine Sisters, at the opening of Her feast day, Feile Bhride.

Since then, despite reluctance from the Pope, each year on Brigid’s Feast Day, the Brigidine Sisters in Kildare have lit the flame in the town square for the day.

Then, in 2006, in Kildare, on St. Brigid’s day, with much ceremony, lit by the President of Ireland, Her eternal flame was restored permanently. And every year, in traditions that have remained unbroken, Her celebrations are enjoyed throughout Ireland, and wherever Her Irish sons and daughters have migrated.

Tomorrow, in the magical space between one snow storm and another, my circle of women will gather and do magic in Brigid's honor. And, tomorrow, all over Paganii Blogistan, Brigid will be honored w poetry. What a lovely way to welcome Spring. As my v creative circle-sister K said to me, as we made last minute adjustments to our ritual, "Whatever else, we'll turn the wheel." A witch's job is to turn the wheel, and round and round the wheel does turn.

May your life be touched by transformation, growing strength of will, poetry, fire.

Picture found here.

Feast Of The Red Dragon; You Have To Go

From the DC Radical Faeries:

Greetings Faeries and Friends of the Faeries,

The Feast of the Red Dragon is upon us again, and the dragon is calling to us!

Time and Place Date: Saturday, February 14, 2009
Time: 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Renaissance Hall, Westminster Presbyterian Church
Street: 400 I St. S.W.
City: Washington, DC

For complete information and to purchase advance tickets visit the Red Dragon page

here.

The Red Dragon Feast is an annual magical feast and fundraiser for healing blood-borne disease. Donations benefit community building and a local charity committed to healing blood borne disease. This year's charitable donation will go to Food and Friends. Along with nutrition counseling, Food & Friends prepares, packages and delivers meals and groceries to more than 1,400 people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses throughout Washington, DC, 7 counties of Maryland and 7 counties and 6 independent cities in Virginia. Since 1988, Food & Friends has provided food and companionship to our clients, their loved ones and caregivers.

Our local practice of the Red Dragon Feast is to…

gather near Valentines Day wearing red outfits
drum and dance with the Red Dragon
feast on red foods
offer raucus toasts of red drink
honor those who have died of blood borne disease
call for strength for healers
call for insight for researchers
call for comfort and healing for all who suffer

Our intention is to venerate the Red Dragon to battle against blood-borne disease.

All Hail the Red Dragon!
All Hail the Life Giving Blood!

Please, do NOT bring food. Please, DO bring red items for auction.

Please do bring cash or cards for donations.
Please wear your dancing shoes.
Please, wear RED!

With blessings and Love,
Fritter

Every year, this event is one of the most fun, and most magical, Pagan events in DC. Put on something red and go!

Picture found here.

What's Wrong With Wicca

Dianne is asking some v good questions. One of the more difficult things to do in Wicca is to grow to a certain point and then to stand upon the mesa and ask, "What now? Now who's going to help me to grow spiritually?" And, to realize, well, no one. It's mostly just you and the Goddess and Air. And Fire. And Water. And Earth. And the Fifth Sacred Thing. And to smile, raise your face to the Moon, breathe, and . . . Dance the next step.

Everyone has gone here before you, but the footprints that they left are deliberately vague. Clad your own dear feet in thousand-league-boots, or only a bracelet of silver around your ankle, or in ballet flats, or in Manolos, or in Renaissance moccasins, or, hell, just go barefoot. But whatever you wear, slip your feet into the almost-invisible footprints left by your older sisters and your mothers and your great-aunts and dance that dance with your own shimmy of the hips.

I feel it, too, the longing for someone lots farther ahead on the path than I am who can at least lay down breadcrumbs. But, too, I love the fact that this religion, more than any other, invites me to dance off into the thorns and weeds and figure out my own path to my better self.

It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more.

Let's dance off into the weeds, shall we?

Picture found here.

To Dance The Dances That Our Grandmothers Danced, And To Dance Them Upon A Changed Earth

I've bitched before about how badly many Pagans use YouTube. Too many slideshows of sexy fairies set to Lorenna McKennit and too many completely embarrassing, "debates," and not enough informative, creative, inspiring video that gives everyone a chance to learn from Pagan teachers and conferences. So I'm delighted to learn from Jason's blog that Starhawk's got a great new YouTube (actually up several weeks ahead of the event! Take that!, you advocates of Pagan Standard Time!) to publicize San Francisco's Spiral Dance and to explain why Pagans care about Samhein.

It's, IMHO, quite good. There's a lot that I love about this work, including the amazingly lovely prayer for the coming year at the end. I love that there are so many people shown. Scary Sarahwants to come for us, she's going to have a big job. (Since I practice in a v small circle, it's always lovely to re-learn that there are so many of us!) I love the altars with apples, and the dances, and the fact that people have been publicly dancing the Spiral Dance in SF for nigh-on thirty years. I love the pictures of the dead and I love the mother dancing in the middle of the Circle with her completely contented little baby. To me, she says what I wish all mothers of new babes could say to their community: "Look! Look what I've begun! I'll raise a new human to be a guardian of ALL THAT IS!" And the community says back, "Thank you, Demeter! We are here and we will help."

Samhein's coming. For witches, it's a time to remember our beloved dead ("What is remembered does not die," we say), to welcome new babies born, to communicate through the thin veils with our ancestors. This year, Samhein comes just before an historic election, one of the first in a while that WON'T be happening in the middle of a Mercury Retrograde. It comes at a time when, for many of us, the veil appears to have begun an early thinning. I'm not sure why the veil began to dissolve before Summer was even gone; I wonder if it's because our grandmothers are standing on their side of the veil, shouting as loud as they possibly can: Pay attention! Listen! Act! (OK, and mine are saying, "Push your hair out of your face. Stand up straight. Don't slump. You're failing. Look out! Duck! Work harder!") You know what we really lack? We really lack good historical records of this kind of thing. Hidden BoS don't lend themselves to good research.

My beloved circle of amazing women will have our traditional dumb supper, work magic, call our beloved dead and newly born, work magic, have fun, make resolutions (Samhein is the witches' new year), work magic, and prepare for "a year of beauty, a year of plenty, a year of planting, a year of harvest, a year of forests, a year of healing, a year of vision, a year of passion, a year of rebirth, [a year of renewing] the Earth." May it be so for you.

When I Get Old, I Want To Be Like Mamma Dragon

Aw Fuck

John Lyon Burnside III 1916 - 2008

John Burnside, inventor of the teleidoscope, Gay rights activist, and co-founder of the Radical Faeries, passed away on September 14th due to complications from brain cancer. Burnside was the lifelong companion and partner of Harry Hay (1912 - 2002), another co-founder of the Radical Faeries, and a seminal figure within the Gay rights movement.

More at the Wild Hunt.

The simple fact that there were RadFay, esp here in DC, has made my life so much richer.

It's All Real; It's All Metaphor; There's Always More

And So Mote It Be

My World, And Welcome To It