Thriving in Difficult Times - Part the Second

It's the first of the month. Women, I'm begging you. Either do a breast self-exam today or, if you prefer to do it during a certain segment of your cycle, put a note to yourself into your calendar RIGHT NOW.

Buy a bottle of calcium supplement and keep it by your computer so you'll remember to take it.

See how easy it is?

Has the Government Been Spying on You? Find Out

This is neat. People for the American Way (PFAW) has made it incredibly easy to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out if the government has been spying on you.

"Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), anyone has the right to request information from the government. Last strengthened by Congress in response to the Watergate scandal, FOIA gives citizens a way to demand transparency from the Administration -- and take the government to court if necessary.

Many Americans -- especially those with family and friends abroad -- are wondering whether government agents have been listening to their phone conversations or reading their email. If you're worried this has happened to you, you can use this site to help you find out.

We can't guarantee that the Bush administration will disclose all this information in compliance with the law, but we can help you through the process. By filing a FOIA request, you will send a strong signal that American citizens believe in the rule of law and aren't afraid to stand up to the President when he violates the Constitution!"

It occurs to me that an avalanche of FOIA requests might be a good way to let the government know that Americans do not appreciate being spied on.

Thriving in Difficult Times

Go on, take someone you love out to eat. If you go to one of the linked restaurants on March 9th, "25-100% of your bill will support men, women and children facing life-challenging illnesses.

Participating restaurants will donate a portion of the day's proceeds to Food & Friends, the only organization in the Washington metropolitan region providing specialized meals and nutrition services to men, women and children facing HIV/AIDS, breast and lung cancers and the many other illnesses that grip our community."

Georgia Brown's had great Southern food, Firefly is one of my favorite lunch spots, Aquarelle is nice, and I've been wanting to try Corduroy and Blacksalt.

You have to eat anyway, you know.

Scout's in New Orleans and I Helped!

Scout Prime is blogging live from New Orleans. You go read what she says right now. Scout! Go have tea at the Ritz. And tell Janeen Garafalago to shut up and let you talk!

It's OK to Threaten Women in Abortion Clinics as Long as You're Not Trying to Steal Their Purses

In Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., 04-805 together with No. 04-1352, the Court held that the Hobbs Act only forbids acts or threats of physical violence in furtherance of a plan to engage in robbery or extortion. In Scheidler, the National Organization for Women brought claims under the Hobbs Act and RICO against organizations opposed to legal abortion, arguing that the organizations’ activities amounted to extortionate acts creating a pattern of racketeering activity. The Court, however, dismissed these arguments, stating that the text and legislative history of the Hobbs Act clearly requires actions in furtherance of a plan to engage in robbery or extortion. Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court in which all other Members joined, except Justice Alito, who took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases.

This is how women's rights are destroyed. One chip at a time.

Action Item from Planned Parenthood -- Do This Now!

Urge Wal-Mart to stock EC!

Wal-Mart operates 3,837 pharmacies in the United States, and until recently, refused to stock Emergency Contraception for undisclosed "business reasons." This could all change with a recent court victory requiring Wal-Mart to stock EC in all 44 of its Massachusetts pharmacies. As a result of the lawsuit and ruling, Wal-Mart has publicly stated that it may consider stocking EC in ALL of its U.S. stores.

TAKE ACTION: Call Wal-Mart at 479-273-4000

Tell Wal-Mart to stock and dispense EC at all of its stores, nationwide!

If there is a Wal-Mart in your community, make sure you give the receptionist your name and hometown. You can also use these talking points:

Women should never have to worry about whether their valid prescriptions will be filled at any Wal-Mart store.
Prevention is the key to avoiding unintended pregnancy, and access to contraception, including emergency contraception, is sound public health policy.
The sooner emergency contraception is administered, the better it works, making timely access critically important.

Composters, Quakers, Vegans -- Why Do They Hate America???

An interesting short article in Sierra by Dashka Slater, who reports that in November, the FBI "agreed to pay $100,000 [your tax dollars at work!] and issue a letter of regret to 27-year-old Josh Connole, who was mistakenly arrested at gunpoint two years ago and held for four days on suspicion of setting fire to four Southern California Hummer dealerships, spray-painting slogans like 'SUV=Terrorism' . . . ."

Slater explains that, "The 'evidence' that led the FBI to finger the wrong man reads like the resume of many a lanky, goateed vegetarian. At the time of his arrest, [the] solar-panel installer was living at an ecological co-op called Regan V that engages in such subversive activities as composting, graywater reclaiming, and solar electricity generating. Tipped off by a neighbor about 'suspicious' activities, government gumshoes put the house, and its members' online activities, under surveillance and sniffed out other incriminating evidence: use of electric vehicles, opposition to whaling, and criticism of fossil-fuel reliance.

Alarmed to discover that he was being followed by shadowy figures in unmarked cars, Connole called 911 and was promptly arrested. Fifty [yes, that's correct, FIFTY, as in 50!] FBI agents then descended on Regan V to ransack it and make off with residents' computers.

Connole's arrest provoked the real arsonist, William Cottrell, to write a letter to the Los Angeles Times claiming responsibility for the vandalism."

Now, you know, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've read an apologist for Bush's domestic spying claim that, "If you are not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to fear," from having the government snoop into your business. Well Josh Connole wasn't doing anything wrong. But he had his life disrupted, his computer (and those of his housemates -- also people who'd done nothing wrong) seized, and spent 4 days in jail. The article in Sierra doesn't say, but I'm guessing he shelled out money he didn't have for a lawyer and went through a bit of emotional turmoil as well.

Now, it appears that, in this case, the FBI got a warrant, etc. So if this kind of this can happen when the government must get a warrant, and when they throw you into jail rather than GITMO, you can just imagine what can happen without the protection of a warrant or the other civil rights that disappear when you get thrown into GITMO. So the domestic spying apologists need to start qualifying what they say; it should go something like, "If you are not doing anything wrong, and you don't live near a suspicious neighbor, and the FBI is staffed by geniuses who never make a mistake, and you can afford to have your computer seized and spend four days in jail, then you have nothing to fear." Or, they should just shut the fuck up and spend about six seconds realizing that the REASON we have restrictions on what the government can do is the fact that our founding fathers realized that even innocent people sometimes wind up accused of things they didn't do.

And, WTF? FIFTY FBI agents? We can't catch Osama bin Laden or the person who mailed anthrax to US Senators, but we've got FIFTY FBI agents to run around and try to arrest some slob who burned a Hummer dealership?????

Knock Down the Gates on the Gated Communities or We Are All So Screwed

Interesting article in this month’s Sierrra, the magazine of the Sierra Club. Carl Pope, the executive director or the Sierra Club, writes in “Fuel Folly” that, “We’re better off without cheap gas.” Pope references Jared Diamond’s recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, noting that societal collapses often “spring from outdated notions of past abundance.” He suggests that “Greenland once had enough grass to support cattle, so Viking settlers stubbornly stuck with pasturage even when the Little Ice Age drastically cooled the climate.” Pope then argues that, “Our own folly is cheap fuel,” suggesting that American society is based upon unending supplies of cheap fuel and that, unless we realize that we no longer live in a world of cheap fuel, we’re headed for collapse. Thus, “our governing folly paralyzes us, and we continue to focus on price instead of waste and inefficiency. Last year, Congress threw billions of dollars in new subsidies at the oil industry, but gas still rose to $3 a gallon. Airlines went bankrupt. Homeowners chose between paying for heat and buying food.” His argument reminds me of the old axiom that, whoever first discovered water, we know it wasn't the fish. It also got me thinking about the Japanese, who seem to have incorporated the idea of being resource-poor into their national psyche to the same extent that Americans have incorporated the notion of unending abundance into ours. Which may explain why conserving energy is now a mania in Japan, while Americans continue to act as if our only problem is building more roads for all of our Hummers.

Pope’s article has also got me thinking more seriously about Diamond’s work. You can like Diamond -- he won a Pulitzer -- or you can dislike him. But he’s asking interesting questions. The one I love is: “What was the Easter Islander who chopped down the island’s last tree saying as he chopped it down? Was he saying, ‘What about our jobs? Do we care more for trees than for our jobs?’ Or maybe he was saying, ‘What about my private property rights? Get the big government chiefs off my back.’ Or maybe he was saying, ‘You’re predicting environmental disaster, but your environmental models are untested, we need more research before we can take action.’ Or perhaps he was saying, ‘Don’t’ worry, technology [or more statues?] will solve all our problems.’”

What I find most important about Diamond’s work is that it shows that societies don’t always pull back from the brink. Another of America’s “governing follies” may be our optimism, our notion that somehow we’ll find a way and things will work out, that we can keep on using more than our share of the Earth's resources and it will go on being ok. Sometimes, people don’t change, even in the face of evidence that they need to change and sometimes, they pay the ultimate price for it. The difference between societal collapses of the past and the environmental crisis that faces our society today is that, this time, the collapse threatens to be planet-wide. We’re all living on Easter Island now.

Diamond has a checklist of five factors that play a role in societal collapse. The first four certainly apply to us, and, I’m afraid the fifth one may, as well. It’s perhaps ironic that Diamond chooses my ancestors, the Vikings, as an example of a culture where all five factors were evident.

Check out Diamond’s factors:

1. Environmental damage, inadvertent damage to the environment through means such as deforestation, soil erosion, salinisation, over-hunting, etc.
2. Climate change, such as cooling or increased aridity.
3. The society’s relations with hostile neighbors.
4. The society’s relations with friendly neighbors and whether or not those friendly neighbors run into problems of their own (e.g., we depend upon Middle Eastern countries for oil imports; those countries are politically unstable, dependent upon a dwindling resource, are situated in an environmentally less-than-friendly location, etc.)
5. The society’s cultural response. Why do the people in the society fail to perceive or to solve the problems that would eventually cause collapse? Why are some societies able to perceive and recognize their problems while others don’t?

Discussing the fifth factor, Diamond says: ”Finally, why would people perceive problems but still not solve their own problems? A theme that emerges from Norse Greenland as well as from other places, is insulation of the decision-making elite from the consequences of their actions. That is to say, in societies where the elites do not suffer from the consequences of their decisions, but can insulate themselves, the elite are more likely to pursue their short-term interests, even though that may be bad for the long-term interests of the society, including the children of the elite themselves.” Diamond contrasts Norse Greenland (where the chiefs and bishops were isolated from the consequences of their continued insistence upon raising cattle and focusing on the trade of walrus ivory in order to build big churches even though the climate of Greenland favored sheep over beef and the walrus ivory trade became less and less profitable due to both the Little Ice Age and the re-opening of the Mediterranean which allowed Europeans access to more-desirable elephant ivory), with Holland. Holland, Diamond says, has the highest environmental awareness of any “modern counties.” He attributes this to the fact that all Dutch, rich and poor alike, depend upon the dykes.

You know, we could be screwed.

The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowing In the Wind. The Answer Is Blowing In the Wind.

Interesting article in today’s Milwaukee Journal. Discussing Bush’s visit to Wisconsin last week, the MJ notes that: ”During his talk at Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, President Bush reiterated his State of the Union pronouncement that America is addicted to oil, and that alternatives need to be pursued to help make America less vulnerable to spikes in the prices of oil and natural gas.

That's the same rationale Gov. Jim Doyle and lawmakers in Madison are using as they promote the bill that would prompt the state to increase its reliance on wind turbines and other renewable sources.

If the state measure becomes law, energy experts expect an infusion of investment in new wind power projects in Wisconsin.”

We’ve heard for too long from those with a vested interest in the status quo that protecting our environment will somehow harm the American economy. That’s bullshit. Note the magic words above: An Infusion of Investment. Building new wind power plants will also create J-O-B-S, jobs that can’t be outsourced.

Wind power’s not perfect. It kills birds, for one thing. And, it can be erratic (some days are windier than others), and it can’t be stored, so you still need other sources of power to back it up. Some people object to the aesthetics, but no power plant -- coal, gas, nuclear, or wind -- ever won a lot of architectural awards. However, wind doesn’t pollute and it doesn’t create toxic waste materials that have to be stored for more generations than we can begin to imagine. No cartel can seize control of it and hold us up over it either.

And yet, Dick Cheney is still alive. Go figure.

Octavia Butler, probably THE best SciFi writer ever, has died. May the Goddess guard her. May she find her way to the Summerlands. May her friends and family know peace.

Garden

I spent part of today ordering seeds and plants for this summer. I get a boatload of garden catalogs, and I spend most of January just going through them, dreaming, changing my mind about what to grow, longing for one of each. Over time, I've learned that I'm better off buying enough of a few things rather than one of each. By early February, I have made some decisions, and I go through the catalogs again, folding over pages. Four or five companies are likely to sell something I want, and I fold over the pages in each catalog that has, for example, ruby thyme. Then, but late February (aka NOW), I get serious. I make a chart with the names of the plants i want down the side and the names of the catalogs across the top. Then, in the proper square, I fill in the price, whether its for seeds or live plants, etc. Finally, I order. For some reason, I like to do it by hand, on the order form. Maybe because I write checks, whereas on line or by phone I'd put it on a credit card and that would provide just a little bit less of a leash for me.

This year, I'm growing the standard herbs, although many of these will come back from last year: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Woad, Mint (chocolate, peppermint, and spearmint), Sweet Woodruff, Wormwood, Nasturtium and Marigold, Lime Balm, Dill, Basil, and Rue.

I'll grow coleus, which I love, but which are annuals and, thus, expensive, around the tree in my front yard and, along w/ black elepahant ears (this year, I WILL be successful!) in containers near my driveway. I'll grow white foxglove and black hollyhocks (planted from last year's seed; they're biennials) in the front cottage garden along with deep purple Grandpa Ott's morning glories, white moonflowers, and white datura.

For my backyard woodland garden, I've indulged in some jack-in-the pulpit bulbs, absolutely gorgeous and very witchy, but quite dear. I'm hoping the bulbs will make more bulbs and, if I buy a few every year, in a few years, I'll have a lovely bed of them. I bought several kinds of violas, Bowles Black and Psychydelic Spring, which I planted once before and they didn't do too well, so this is their last chance!

I wanted to buy about a hundred lilly of the valley bulbs for the woodland garden, too, but decided I'd have to wait another year to afford those.

Lots of what's already planted will come back. I have two yellow daffodills about to pop and hundreds more just behind. I have black iris ready to go and pink peonies. I'm hoping the black calla lillies that I planted last year and got a few blooms from survived our draught last summer. I have astilibes (white) and day lillies (orange -- they were planted by the people who lived here before me), and tons of hosta, and some helibore I keep threatening to pull out but haven't yet since they come so early. There are a few stray crocus, from the people before me, and some black dianthus I planted in a container that I hope will bloom this year.

I'd have liked some ferns in the side yard, but will have to wait a year or two and, in a perfect world, I'd have liked a few more lilac bushes. But I have two and they're covered with hard little buds, and I can buy more blooms at the farmers' market, so I'll wait until after I tear the whole yard up in a few years and hire a landscaper.

What are you growing? What are you longing to grow? What have you given up on growing? I've been in love with gardening since I read The Secret Garden as a child. How did you fall in love with putting seeds in the earth?

What's Worse Than Eating Your Seed Grain?

This terrifies me. A big part of my retirement plan is to have my home completely paid off by the time I retire.

Also scary is the fact that Americans aren't saving enough for retirement. Social Security may be almost all that many people have. Why DO we keep buying crap we don't need?

Sacred Spaces in the Modern World -- Second in a Continuing Series

I’ve blogged before about the need for Sacred Space and, in particular, the need to find Sacred Spaces in urban areas, which is where most modern Pagans live. My friend Renee, aka the Greatest Cook in the Entire Universe, and my incredibly creative friend Kathy have introduced me to a form of Sacred Space that is springing up throughout urban areas -- the labyrinth.

Labyrinths have become popular again, after falling into obscurity for hundreds of years. Interestingly, they appeal to both Xians and Pagans, although many, but not all, of the labyrinths I’ve seen are in Xian churches (well, to be fair, Xians tend to have churches, while Pagans -- not so much). Renee tends a labyrinth at the local UU church. Our circle has walked an outdoor labyrinth at a Protestant church in Bethesda. The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. has a monthly labyrinth walk that I keep meaning to get to. Kathy showed me a charming outdoor labyrinth hidden in a garden behind the local HIV/AIDS clinic; it’s there for patients and their families to walk.

What is it about labyrinths that creates Sacred Space? They provide a place for meditative walking. They require enough attention (at least for my deficient right brain!) that the monkey mind shuts down. They remind the participant that the way in and the way out are often the same and that twists and turns are part of the journey. But, like all Sacred Spaces, there’s something undefinable that makes labyrinths sacred space.

Labyrinths are great for urban areas as they can fit into a small area -- either inside or outside (or even online!). The ones at the National Cathedral and the local UU church are painted on canvas and can be rolled up and put away.

Have you ever walked a labyrinth? Would you?

Even If We're Just Dancing in the Dark

Lately, I've been incredibly impressed by the blogging NTodd's been doing. It's creative. It's emotional. It's real. It's raw. And, it's revelatory. That's why it's creative, emotional, real, and raw. His recent podcasts will be examples, I think, when they get around to studying podcasting as an artform, of creative and non-derivative (of, for example, radio) podcasts.

I'm amazed, because NTodd and I have fairly similar Myers-Briggs profiles. And they both start with "I" for introvert. One of the things I enjoy about communicating over the internet is the ability to share only as much as I want. To dart behind the curtain any time I choose. To edit myself before presenting myself to the world.

So, when people ask me, as they have recently in e-mails, what my daily spiritual practice looks like, for example, I tend to want to retreat, move to generalities, obfuscate. I'm a nobody, in the Emily Dickinson sense. Why would anyone care what I do? Mostly what I do is do it wrong. And, yet, lately, part of what I'm working on is what I refer to as "inhabiting my life." By that, I think I mean pretty much the same thing that Ram Dass meant when he urged people to "Be Here Now." (Goddess, I am old.) By that, I mean, living in the real moment and not in either the future where I really WILL have gotten things together, (I once heard Christine Northrop talk about how in the he 1980s we all though that, if we could just get the right daytimer or Filofax, we'd really get it all together and it elicited one of those "Oh YES!" responses from me.) or in the past when I completely fucked it up. So, living in the present, here's my attempt to describe my spiritual practice.

Katrina Messenger once looked me dead in the eye and said that if you are not writing down your dreams, you are inhibiting your spiritual growth. So, even though, when I finally admit that I'm awake, I'm usually an hour or so behind where I'd like to be, I take a few minutes to jot down a few evocative phrases so that I'll be able to recall my dreams. Then, I'm off. I generally look up and gasp for air at about noon. Whatever I'm eating, and it can be lobster at the Palm with an interviewee or it can be a scoop of tuna salad and an banana at my desk, I try to stop and thank the dead fish and the dead fruit and vegetables, and the dead tea leaves for giving me life. And, then, I'm off. Somewhere in there, I try to walk on the treadmill, or do ecstatic dance, or, if I'm very lucky, swim. That's part of my spiritual practice. I don't enjoy it, generally, but I do it. My body IS the tool I use to do magic. I need to take care of my tools. I often work 10, 12, 14 hour days. By the time I drag myself home and feed the cat, I'm tired. And hungry. And wishing I'd gotten more done.

And there are times when my spiritual practice, and I am dead serious about this, is to go to sleep. We are, as T. Thorn Coyle has noted, embodied consciousness. We either take care of our bodies, or we don't. But to have a spiritual practice, I have to have a body. And, as I've learned the hard way from night school and the first years of practicing law, I need sleep.

But, if I can stay awake, I sit down, breathe slowly, and ground. Starhawk describes grounding in The Spiral Dance, and, for me, it is the basis of a spiritual practice. When I ground, it's specific. I see specific roots spreading from my orange and yellow chakras into the specific hummusy ground of my yard. I see my roots pulling up specific energy from my Mother, the Earth, and spreading throughout my specific body. I see any cancer cells being recognized by my immune system and destroyed, I see my right brain, which I often underuse, being filled with light. I see the light from the moon flowing through my violet chakara and blending with the energy from the Earth. This can take me a long time and a great deal of concentration.

At this point, I often call the quarters: "Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Come be with me, I'm your daughter." I call Center and I call the Goddess(es), generally Hecate and, recently, Cerridwen. I do an exercise from T. Thorn Coyle's book, Evolutionary Witchcraft, that ends in what she refers to as "feeding the sacred dove," and then, I do some magic.

Lately, I do some magic designed to protect my son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild during the birth. I've adapted a prayer of St. Patrick (that mothefucker), one that Madeline L'Engle, one of my favorite authors, used. It starts, "In Columbia, at this sacred hour . . . " All the rest, the incense, the altar, the athame, the herbs and stones, and sacred flames are just ways to involve my entire being, subconscious, consciousness, and Higher Self in the process, to seduce my entire being into whatever my left brain has decided is needed.

Then, I thank the Goddess(es) and the quarters and go take a bath, blog, read a book, throw in laundry, mow the lawn, sleep.

It's not much. But tonight, and for the next 29 nights, I'm doing it in complete darkness. We'll see if it makes a difference. Tonight, I went to the dark after about a half an hour of ecstatic dance. I found it lovely, peaceful, deep. I realized that, although I've found a place that's very dark, it's still noisy. i can hear my sump pump. I can hear my furncace. I can hear my monkey mind, just below the surface.

Dancing in the dark. Wherever you go, there you are. Are you ever alone in the dark? On purpose?

The Ability to Change Consciousness at Will??

T. Thorn Coyle has a brilliant post today about the nature of magic and what magic is, and isn't, good for. She opens with an amazing quote I've never seen before:

"Many Buddhist teachers have described compassion as the ability to react freely and accurately in any situation. Being nice or feeling sorry for someone may be called for, but so may being fierce and unyielding. When sweetness is applied indiscriminately, it is seen as 'idiot compassion.'" - Issan Dorsey

She goes on to discuss her reaction to a question she received recently when speaking at a conference: "Someone asked a question along the lines of, "how about social justice? How can our magic affect that?" I believe the first words out of my mouth were: "Go work in a soup kitchen." I went on to talk about how magic changes us from the inside out and we need to patch the ozone layer in ourselves before working magic to patch the ozone layer in the sky. And that we need to do other work for that one in the sky. I don't recall exactly what I said - I was running on too little sleep. Later, a woman chased me down in the hallway to ask about my response. We talked a bit about what magic can do, and I said it could change our consciousness, for one, and then she said "But, can magic clean the air?" I looked at her and said "No. We need to get our shit together."

I was fierce. And it feels better to be affirming, despite the fact that those around me say that being fierce is good.

In retrospect, I wish the first words out of my mouth in both cases had been "What do you mean by magic?" Because the picture I had, from the way both questions were couched, was a group of people holding hands and visualizing global human rights or clean air. And that can be a powerful step in creating an image to work toward, but it also frustrates me because too often that is the only step people take. And it doesn't change carbon dioxide into oxygen, like planting trees and reducing toxic emissions. And when it is the only step taken it becomes not magic, but a salve to make us feel better, and feel like we've done our part. Sometimes we step too quickly to magic to try to affect things outside ourselves when we haven't done enough basic work to affect our insides, nor enough work just doing basic, physical activity. It can, in some cases, become a route of avoidance, like doing ritual by yourself to heal a friendship in lieu of hashing things out with your friend. When I was a baby Witch of 17, I got some great magical advice: "The best spell to do when you need a job is to fill out an application and drop it off.""

I agree completely. But then Ms. Coyle says something I'm not sure that I do agree with: "And unless our insides truly change, change will never come about outside. We'll just keep slapping bandages on gaping wounds." I wonder if that's correct. At first, it sounds completely logical. But change in the outside world can eventually change what's going on inside us, as well. For example, when women first pushed our way into the workforce, scared, unsure of ourselves, feeling a bit guilty for "taking" a job "away" from "a man," men didn't like it. But today, inner attitudes have changed in many ways. Not only do women feel much more entitled to be in the world of work, men today are, more than their fathers and grandfathers, accepting of that. They've changed inside. And other things -- how work gets done, how children get cared for, how involved men are as parents -- have changed too. I don't mean we live in Nirvana, yet, by any stretch. But people's attitudes have changed. Young people, and I include Ms. Coyle in that group, grew up with completely different ideas about race than did my generation. That's largely due to an external change -- they went to school together.

At any rate, something else to think about. Ms. Coyle's brilliant and worth being added to your daily list of places to check in.

Where Are All the American Chestnut Trees?

Once upon a time, there were four billion American chestnut trees. Not so long ago, the American chestnut was one of the most important trees of forests from Maine south to Florida, from the Piedmont west to the Ohio valley. In the heart of its range only a few generations ago, a count of trees would have turned up one chestnut for every four oaks, birches, maples and other hardwoods. Many of the dry ridgetops of the central Appalachians were so thoroughly crowded with chestnut that, in early summer, when their canopies were filled with creamy-white flowers, the mountains appeared snow-capped.


And the trees could be giants. In virgin forests throughout their range, mature chestnuts averaged up to five feet in diameter and up to one hundred feet tall. Many specimens of eight to ten feet in diameter were recorded, and there were rumors of trees bigger still.

Native wildlife from birds to bears, squirrels to deer, depended on the tree's abundant crops of nutritious nuts. And chestnut was a central part of eastern rural economies. As winter came on, attics were often stacked to the rafters with flour bags full of the glossy, dark brown nuts. Springhouses and smokehouses were hung with hams and other products from livestock that had fattened on the harvest gleanings. And what wasn't consumed was sold.

Then came the blight. First discovered in 1904 in New York City, the blight - an Asian fungus to which our native chestnuts had very little resistance - spread quickly. In its wake it left only dead and dying stems. By 1950, except for the shrubby root sprouts the species continually produces (and which also quickly become infected), the keystone species on some nine million acres of eastern forests had disappeared.

The American Chestnut Foundation is devoted to bringing chestnut trees back to America. Goddess knows, we need more trees. Trees make the air we breathe. It's that simple.

I love the work the ACF is doing. In one way, it's this hopeless, romantic cause. And, in another way, it's one of the best uses of science there is.

Can you help them out? They need money, but they also need people to grow chestnut seedlings and report their results. They also catalog trees that have survived the blight. If you think you've found one; let them know!

Darkness

One of the principles that attracted me to Wicca was its equal emphasis on darkness and light. We're coming to the end of the "dark half" of the year, but I'm still thinking about darkness. I'm thinking about how darkness seems to harbor and nourish our fears and about how exploring the dark can help us to thrive.

As someone who's had her first bout of breast cancer, I'm always interested in research related to preventing breast cancer. Some very interesting research indicates that women who aren't able to sleep in darkness are more likely to contract breast cancer than are women who sleep in the dark.

Lately, I've been thinking about how almost no one in our society is ever, literally, in the dark. No, I don't mean that the Bush administration doesn't "treat us like mushrooms, feeding us shit and keeping us in the dark." I mean, how often are you literally in a place with no light? Even at night, when you turn off your light to go to sleep, there's a lot of light. From the street. From your clock-radio. From your computer. From the tv. Even when turned "off" these devices glow; telling us the time, the amount of battery juice left, the fact that a movie is being tivoed.

In my old apartment, I couldn't even see the stars, I was so close to the city. Here, in my little cottage, I can see the stars, but it's still not that dark. My sweet neighbor across the street has these huge bright outdoor lamps that shine even through the pulled blinds in my bedroom. The electric heater I put in my bedroom to avoid paying huge natural gas bills this winter glows to tell me the room temp and that it's on. Even when I turn my clock-radio to the wall, there's a glow.

So, tonight, I went looking for the darkest place in my house. My half-bath in the finished basement, which has only a tiny window to my backyard is the darkest place I could find. I can't see my hand in front of my face there. It's tiny, but it's where I'm going to do my daily practice for the next thrity days. Just to see what i can learn from the dark.

Where is your dark place? Have you ever seen the stars way out in the country away from the lights of any city? Do you ever seek out the dark? When? What for? Are you afraid of the dark? How does the darkness help us thrive?

My Reality TV Show

One of the many ways in which I'm weird is that I almost never watch tv. I mean this literally. Months can go by and I don't turn the tv set on. Especially when there's no new Sopranos. I watch a clip or two on Crooks & Liars, but, generally, I just don't have time.

And I have to admit that I think I'd genuinely prefer having a root canal to watching what Americans are pleased to call "reality tv" shows. I've read enough to understand the idea behind Survivor. I once made myself watch a reality tv show that was on SciFi, called, I think, Weird, Weird House, because one of the participants was a Wiccan who's managed to turn herself into a minor celeb and I wanted to see if I thought she was helping or hurting -- was she showing that lots of normal folks practice Wicca or was she making it seem weirder than it really is? In the end, the show had so little to do with Wicca, that I really couldn't decide.

But I've come to realize that this form of narrative -- the "reality" tv storyline -- is a narrative that lots of Americans do understand and are willing to follow. I'm the weird one out on this. (But, honest, I'd rather have a root canal. Two root canals.) And I've been wondering if there are worthwhile ways to use this narrative format.

A few weeks ago, there was a bit of a dust-up when some tv stations refused to show a reality tv show that asked neighbors to consider several possible new neighbors and the gay (male) couple won (i.e., was selected to move into the neighborhood). The xian right was up in arms over the notion that people might actually accept gay neighbors. (Duh! Are they that stupid? EVERYONE knows a gay couple will improve property values. It's happened all over Capitol Hill!)

So, I got to thinking, there should be a reality tv show that follows some women through their abortions. And, it should be graphic. If we can show plastic surgery on tv, we can show abortion. People should get used to seeing it. They should see what a simple procedure it is and how quickly women recover from it. I guess at the end, some judges could vote on who moved on with her life the best or whatever, just as there's some reality tv show that's always on in my gym where judges vote on the person who lost the most weight that week or whatever. People should see that women have abortions for lots of reasons, that the women who have abortions are pretty normal folks, that the doctors who do abortions are kind, caring healers.

I don't like this narrative form. But maybe there's a way to use it.

Gather the Women

I am a real n00b at astrology. I resisted learning anything about it for a long time because most of what I had read seemed like bunk to me. But over the last few years, I've begun to study a bit of astrology and realized that it's too complicated for short paragraphs in newspapers to be anything but bunk.

One astrologist that I like and have had read for me is Janet Kane, who combines astrology with her background as a Jungian. Janet sends out a monthly newsletter that normally discusses archetypes behind the various astrological signs; this month, however, her newsletter focuses on a group called Gather the Women (GTW). Although I'm familiar with the works of Jean Shinoda Bolen, upon whose work this group seems to be based, I'd never heard of GTW. It sounds so interesting that I've taken the liberty of printing Janet's newsletter below.

Tell me what you think. Part of me thinks, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. ANOTHER movement. Another attempt to 'save the world.' And Hubbard and Sheldrake! They're too woo-woo evern for a witch!" This part of me is afraid -- afraid that, like other groups, GTW will dissolve into disputes, afraid that it will take too much time and energy for any results it produces, afraid that it will get my hopes up only to dash them. Another part of me remembers the Margaret Mead quote about how the only real changes in the world have come from small committed groups of people, leaps with hope at the idea that the potential of women -- especailly what Janet Kane refers to below as the new human species on earth of women over 50 -- could be tapped into in more effective ways to help change the world for better. Fear and thriving; thriving and fear -- they keep showing up in my life these days. Do they figure into your calculations as well? Here's Janet's newsletter.

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March 8 is International Women's Day. During the month of March GTW DC is planning events for each weekend starting with a free March 4 event at the Washington Society for Jungian Psychology. See our website for a list of other March events here.

I guess I feel like a lot of people -- that the world is in such a mess and I want to do something to make it a better place; but what can I do? The problems are overwhelming. We have environmental devastation, social injustice, war and other major global problems. The Buddha said that one of the major requirements for doing great work is sangha (community). Where would I find a community of others who feel as I do? Then, one day as I was surfing the web I discovered a website with the evocative title of "Gather the Women".

Gather the Women Global Matrix (GTW), is a web-based gathering place for women and women's organizations who share a belief that the time is now to activate the incredible power of women's wisdom on a planetary scale. GTW is a place where new models of feminine leadership are being born. It is a new kind of organic, self-organizing grassroots initiative to awaken the leadership potential of the women of the world. GTW recognizes the ancient tradition of gathering in circles where one woman reaching out to connect with another woman can experience the power of shared intention.

GTW is not exclusive and is not about women taking over from men and building another hierarchy, but about bringing feminine values into global decisions. Studies have shown that there are differences between men and women in how they handle stress. Men will go into fight or flight syndrome, women will tend and befriend. When women are stressed they look for bonding and communication with others. Many men advocate bringing feminine values into politics and governance. One of the stories that author Jean Shinoda Bolen tells is that in a meeting to resolve an international conflict someone noticed that only men were at the negotiating table. When that was pointed out to an official, he said "We can't let women in here. All they will do is compromise."

GTW has no paid staff, no budget, no hierarchy and the organization is totally web based. The web site was launched in 2001 and they now have 9,000 members in 75 countries. This combination of empowered women and current internet technology has the potential to affect unprecedented positive change.

In 2004 GTW held a national congress in Dallas, Texas. Internationally known lecturer and Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen attended, and out of this experience she was inspired to write the book, Urgent Message from Mother, Gather the Women, Save the World.

In her book she states that, "Compassion, spirituality, the desire and necessity for peace, and maternal concern, combined with feminism is the force that can save the world." She also says "Women are experienced in looking after the children and fragile elders, cleaning up, setting the house in order, being frugal with resources, putting food on the table, maintaining peace in the family and staying on good terms with the neighbors. These are the same tasks that need doing in the community and on a national and planetary scale. The world needs what women can do. The world needs 'mother' to set things right in our unbalanced world… Women all over the world are on the edge of recognizing that the possibility of peace depends upon women becoming involved – at the grassroots and in great numbers."

Three current streams of thought have come together to spur the phenomenal impact and growth of the GTW. First, Barbara Marx Hubbard said there is a new human species on earth today -- women over 50. There are 50 million educated, skilled, wise women on earth. In the past century the life span for women was 49, now it's 79. Therefore women of 50 have about 30 more years in which to contribute to the world.

Another idea that resonates with the work of GTW is Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance. It explains how new or learned behavior can become a natural or instinctual way of doing something once a critical number of a particular species performs this behavior over and over again. A morphic field is then created which persists and grows over time. The human morphic field is similar to the collective unconscious of depth psychologist C.G. Jung. Women connecting with the same intention anywhere in the world draw from and contribute to the "collective unconscious" which affects everyone on the planet.

Finally, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, said that when a critical number of people embrace a new idea, value, or perception a "tipping point" occurs. These ideas or values can become contagious and spread like a virus throughout the population. This principal applies to Gather the Women. I believe our ideas about a global transformation are about to reach a critical mass and cause a tipping point.

I got involved with GTW in 2005, when the founders of GTW sent out an email asking for volunteers to coordinate a regional congress in their city on the theme, Building the Field, based on the Rumi quote, "Beyond Rightness and Wrongness, there is a field, I'll meet you there." The field is an invisible energetic space where the collective wisdom of thousands of women can coalesce to become a source of knowledge and power to catalyze positive change. We felt we could tap into this invisible field of feminine collective consciousness that is real and powerful. When we align with this field, we connect with others and with the source of collective wisdom.

As an aside, a really fascinating point was brought up in my conversation with Kathe Shaaf from GTW Global Matrix in California. She said that she gave a workshop in Nov 2001 around these same women's issues. "That's weird," I said "I gave a workshop on Wisewomen here at the Jungian Society in Oct 2001." She told me that she learned from talking to women all over the world that amazingly many, many women started gathering in circles or giving talks and workshops within the period of 6 months before or 6 months after 9/11. Coincidence or women's intuition at work?

The regional congresses were planned for the same weekend, Nov 11-13, 2005 in Washington, DC, Big Bear, California, Juneau, Alaska, Little Rock, Arkansas, Naples, Florida, North San Diego, California, and Seattle, Washington. I volunteered to coordinate a congress in Washington D.C. and the Washington Society for Jungian Psychology agreed to sponsor it. As I was planning the conference, a marketing expert looked over my promotional materials that only consisted of email notices. He said that without a major advertising campaign costing a few thousand dollars I wouldn't get the word out to attract enough women to make it a success. I thought he was living by the old paradigm. So I just sent out emails to the women I knew and asked them to forward to the women they knew. The room was packed; seventy-five women attended. There is no stopping an idea whose time has come!

The purpose of this congress was for women leaders and women's organizations to find new ways to address our most serious world problems. We did this by helping each other focus on our individual passions and to network with each other to plan actions to help transform our planet for the benefit of all humanity. Regional congresses are being planned again for 2007, including Washington D.C.

An important part of the Nov 12 congress was the forming of wisdom circles. Jean Shinoda Bolen wrote a book called the Millionth Circle. She felt that if we had a million circles of women around the world we could change the planet. I agree. I have had several years' experience with circles and can attest to their power. In the early 1970's I was involved with consciousness raising circles in the women's movement. Later, I initiated simplicity circles on the East Coast. Now I lead a Wiseweoman circle at the Jungian society embodying similar goals to that of Bolen and GTW. As a result of the D.C. congress, wisdom circles are being formed in West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Circles lead to lifelong friendships and open up your life to new experiences and ideas. Wisdom circles are being formed throughout the United States based on the ideas of GTW. In these circles women work on community, national or global projects. They support each other in their activism. Each circle differs in their mission. The main link between them is that they are using feminine ideas and values to transform the world.

If you are interested, there are many ways for you to be involved in GTW. You can join the GTW global matrix, start a wisdom circle, join one that is already in existence, attend one of our events and join our on-line discussion group.

To join our Gather the Women DC area listserv send a blank email to GTWDC-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

In 2006, GTW is hosting congresses on 6 continents, for more details and to join Gather the Women Global Matrix go to http://www.gatherthewomen.org

Janet Kane

This is a free email list is for those interested in astrology, Jungian Psychology, and Mythology.

Janet is available for personal consultations on the phone. Call her at 301-345-2571 or email her for a brochure of her services. Read her articles at http://www.astrologypowerzone.com

Janet's Planets · P.O. Box 1101 · Greenbelt · MD · 20770
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Heading to Zimbabwe

While I think the political structure in Vernon, California is precisely where today’s Republican Party wants to lead our country, apparently the social structure they’re driving us towards looks more like Zimbabwe. CNN is reporting that: “The corpses of at least 20 newborn babies and fetuses are found each week in the sewers of Zimbabwe's capital, some having been flushed down toilets, Harare city authorities said, according to state media Friday.” The CNN article makes clear that these are “illegal abortions.”

This simply demonstrates a point I find myself making all the time on the subject of abortion. CRIMINALIZING ABORTION DOES NOT PREVENT ABORTION. IT DRIVES IT INTO BACK ALLEYS (AND APPARENTLY BATHROOMS AND SEWERS) BUT IT DOES NOT PREVENT IT. So one has to ask oneself why some Americans are so desperate to criminalize abortion. It sure isn’t because criminalizing abortion will prevent abortions. I’m sure once Roberts and Alito overturn Roe v. Wade (and, don’t kid yourself; they are going to overturn it), Republicans will express shock at newborn babies and fetuses in American sewers. But that’s exactly where we’re headed.

A second point this article demonstrates is that if you criminalize abortion and make it difficult to obtain, you get infanticide. We’re headed here, too. Again, I expect the nice suburban Republicans who voted for Bush will be horrified. They shouldn’t be. Infanticide is and was a predictable consequence of their actions. Maybe they prefer it to abortion; I don’t.

The article goes on to explain that: “Acute shortages of revenue and gasoline in the nation's worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 have crippled public utilities and garbage collection services across Zimbabwe. Hospital fees and charges for scarce medicines have soared. Church and charity groups blame economic hardships for an increase in illegal back-street abortions.” This demonstrates a third point I’ve often made. The lack of a safety net and poor economic policies increase the number of abortions -- legal or illegal. People who can’t afford to feed the children they’ve got are more likely to abort than people who know they’ll have the resources they need.

No one in their right mind believes that providing obscene tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while cutting the social safety net can lead to anything but more abortions. No one in their right mind believes that economic policies based upon borrowing exorbitant sums from China to finance a vanity war can lead to anything but more abortions. Bush and his Supreme Court picks are leading us closer and closer to the same conditions that Zimbabwe is experiencing: acute shortages of revenue and gasoline, soaring hospital fees and charges for scarce medicine, economic hardship -- and increased abortions and infanticide.

Culture of life my ass.

Vernon, California -- Bush's Vision for the Rest of Us

Republican Secretaries of State across the nation stand in awe.


Wow. Just, wow.

Southern Governor Who Balanced the Budget and Cut Taxes

Mark Warner wants to run for president. I can think of worse choices.

Love in Hiding from the Soul; the Soul Determined to Gaze Upon Love

Just before the full moon on the 13th, I was a part of a ritual based on the myth of Psych and Eros. It's an interesting relationship, the one between our Soul and our Love, isn't it?

Almost immediately, I began to have VERY INTERESTING DREAMS. You know, the kind that you remember easily, that keep coming back to you throughout the day, more as a feeling than anything else. There were two general themes to these dreams.

In some of them, I'm in the middle of a move related to renovations to my workplace and I'm having to deal with stuff all over the place, records left in inconvenient places, spreadsheets left by the former occupant that will have to be moved before I can be effective in this new space. I'm still puzzling quite a bit over what these dreams mean. I have no intention of changing jobs and although we recently went through some renovations, they didn't inconvenience me at all and, in fact, resulted in my moving to a larger, nicer office. So, whatever they're about, I think they're not about my work, but I may be mistaken.

In the second set of dreams, I'm downstairs in the basement of my house. Sometimes, it's a new house I've just acquired and I am getting my first chance to explore the basement. It's lovelier than I could have imagined, with richly-patterned wallpaper all over the place and a secret courtyard with a fountain in the rain. What you have to know is that I love fountains better than almost anything else in the world and that fountains in the rain are a sign to me of divine grace. They're so amazingly redundant. A watery planet with water that is used to decorate and delight, water shooting into the air, and water falling down from the sky. As above, so below and as below, so above. So finding a courtyard in my own basement with a fountain in the rain is like finding, well, like finding out that the world is really wonderful, after all. Sometimes, I'm in the basement of my real own home and everything's safe and I hear THE BAD SCARY NOISE upstairs. I immediately go up, even though I'm scared and I wake myself up saying, "There's no need to be evil; there's no need to go to evil."

What's funny, is that I've been a casual student of Jung for years, and it wasn't until today that I realized, "Duh. Basement: subconscious. Upstairs: conscious. Duh." So, I'm still puzzling out what I'm trying to tell myself, but I think I may be one step closer. Do you record your dreams? Do you have dreams that reoccur? Have you ever learned something about yourself from a dream?

One final note. I took a class a few months ago from a teacher who mentioned that one of his teachers had told him to try to focus on his hands in his dreams. Ever since then, I've been trying, with no success so far, to notice my hands in my dreams. But I have reached the point that as soon as I wake up from a dream, I notice my hands. Can you give yourself an instruction while you're awake and carry it out in your dreams? Dreams are so full of our fears. Do dreams have anything to do with thriving?

Really, Officer, I Only Had One or Two Beers

So now Cheney admits that he had one or two beers before shooting the crap out of the rich donor that he went "hunting" with. Every cop in the world knows what that means. It means he was drunk as a lord.

Many Happy Returns of the Day!

Today is my daughter-in-law's birthday and, although she is one of the most active people I know, she's spending her birthday on bed rest in order to help my grandchild be born at the right time. My daughter-in-law is smart, funny, gorgeous, brave, down-to-earth, kind, inquisitive, understanding, open-minded, and one of the best prosecutors in the business. She makes my son incredibly happy and she's going to be an amazing mom. One of the luckiest days of my life was the day she said, "Yes" to my son's proposal and became a member of our family.

Leave a note for her in Comments. She could use a bit of cheering up!

Crystal Moment

The broohaha over Cheney's "hunting" accident has had me thinking all day about real hunters. About people for whom the success or failure of a hunt could mean the difference between life and death. About the animals who are killed so that we might live. Again, fear is all tangled up with thriving in a very interesting dance. Those thoughts sent me hunting for a poem I'd copied down years and years ago, in fact, on April 30, 1987, according to the journal that I finally dug up this evening. Here's Robert P. Tristram Coffin's poem, Crystal Moment:

Crystal Moment


Once or twice this side of death
Things can make one hold his breath.

From my boyhood I remember
A crystal moment of September.

A wooded island rang with sounds
Of church bells in the throats of hounds.

A buck leaped out and took the tide
With jewels flowing past each side.

With his head high like a tree
He swam within a yard of me.

I saw the golden drop of light
In his eyes turned dark with fright.

I saw the forest's holiness
On him like a fierce caress.

Fear made him lovely past belief,
My heart was trembling like a leaf.

He leans towards the land and life
With need above him like a knife.

In his wake the hot hounds churned
They stretched their muzzles out and yearned.

They bayed no more, but swam and throbbed
Hunger drove them till they sobbed.

Pursued, pursuers reached the shore
And vanished. I saw nothing more.

So they passed, a pageant such
As only gods could witness much,

Life and death upon one tether
And running beautiful together.

Whatever Cheney was doing on that "ranch" in Texas, it didn't have anything to do with this.

A Little Protestant Work Ethic, Please?

You know, I've spent more of my life than I care to admit at work. When a client of mine is in trouble, I figure it's my job to do everything I possibly can to help. I've slept at the office in order to be sure to be there the next day in spite of snow in order to file a pleading. I've worked all the way through the night and into the next day in order to make sure I'd read every case that needed to be read. The joke in my office on Friday is that it's only two more work days until Monday.

So, as res ipsa noted over at Eschaton, I find it incredibly puzzling that Bush and, now, more to the point, Cheney take so much time off to go hunting and fishing and shit. Last week, Heckovajob Brownie told us that he tried to tell Bush that Hurricane Katrina was going to be a nightmare, but Bush was off fishing when Brownie called and never got back to him. Course, the VP was on vacation AT THE SAME TIME. That's weird, because I always coordinate vacations with the people who work for me so that we're not all gone at the same time. And, in case you've forgotten, which, under the circumstances would be pretty understandable, Cheney is in charge of rebuilding New Orleans. Last I heard, New Orleans is still pretty fucked up.

So why did Cheney take this weekend to fly half-way across the country to, no, not New Orleans, but to some rich bitch's "ranch" in Texas to shoot at birds who were raised and uncaged for that specific purpose?

America is in trouble, yo! There are sick troops at Walter Reed who could stand to have the VP's big black SUV pull up and take them out for dinner at the Palm. There are homeless people who won't be able to move back to New Orleans for months. We've got a budget deficit that my great grandchildren will be cursing us for and, in case Cheney hasn't noticed, he and Bush are not real popular at the moment.

Look, clearly Cheney was drunk and his SS protected him from the local law guys -- let's all say Cheneyquiddick and chuckle. And Cheney has a spokesperson who should have talked to the press rather than leaving the rich bitch to do it. And, yeah, apparently Cheney's now officially too old and feeble to be out "hunting" even caged birds.

But I want to know why the hell these guys are always fiddling while Rome burns? You're only the Vice President of the United States of America for, at most, eight years. Maybe you could try working once in a while?

When the Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Bwhahahah

Thank you, Diana.

Fields of Emerald and Steel -- Gee, I Wish I'd Written That

Mystique by Arthur Rimbaud

On the dark side of the slope, angels revolving
Their dresses of wool, in fields of emerald and steel.

Flames shoot out of meadows, to the top of the hill.
To the left, the face of the ascent is pitted,
By all homicides and every battle,
And the sounds of disaster string out on a curve.
Behind the ascent on the right, the orient line of progression.

And while this band in the distance
Is made of the whirling, leaping sounds
Of conch shells and human nights,

The flowery softness of the stars and all the sky
Flows over the side of the slope
Like a basket poured out in our face,
And turns the abyss beneath us a flowering blue.

Journaling

So, do you, too, have authors like this? Authors you like so much that you space out their books, being careful not to read them all at once? For me, Sheri S. Tepper is one of those authors. I've loved her for some time, but I only read a book or two of hers every year. I just finished Six Moon Dance, which I think may be one of her best.

And, do you do this: do you fold over the pages with absolutely amazing passages so that you can copy those passages into your journal? I've kept a journal since I was young enough for that to be presumptuous. And going back once every couple of years and re-reading all my journals, and remembering where I learned a particular concept or turn of phrase is one of my real pleasures. I'm going to turn fifty in a few weeks, and I'll probably go back and start with my first journal and read all the way up through my current one. Interestingly enough, my father was a "journalist" and my grandmother even used the same kind of notebooks that I use to keep her journals. So I at least figure that I come by it honestly.

Here are some of the passages that I'll be copying from Six Moon Dance into my journal. I think you can read them and not find any real spoilers.

* Who could feel claustrophobic in space? One either was well off inside or one was outside and dead.

*Simon leaned forward and laid a rough hand on his shoulder. "Look, Mouche, you've got to understand what Newholme men are about, not from Madame's point of view but from our own. Now most men get taught early on that being dutiful is good, so they think they're being good when they work themselves into exhaustion and meanness. And most men know that pleasure distracts them from duty, so that teaches then pleasure is shameful. But at the same time, we have these restless brains inside that tell us to keep pushing toward the top so we can make a hole, crawl through, and see what's up there. All of us, even Consorts and supernumes, figure we've got a natural right to be there, on top and we use whatever we've got to get there. Humor. Or eloquence. Or skill. Whatever.

Bayne and Dyre, now they've got the idea mutual pleasure is sissy stuff, so the only pleasure they get is sniggering and bullying and destruction. And they don't like duty either, so they avoid it. The only thing that gives them satisfaction is anger, so being angry is how they go looking for themselves, like vandals taking a city: throw, hit break, kill, shatter -- it's all one to them. Destroy enough stuff, suddenly they'll find the hidden door with heaven behind it."

Simon looked at his glass, swirling the liquid in it, watching the patterns it made. "I try to tell you boys, best I can, that there isn't any door. You climb over people, you push and shove and get up there on top, it's empty. I try to tell you pleasure is a good thing, and it's easier with Hunks than most, because you're being trained to give it. And I try to tell you that duty's good, too, but you've got to balance it. And you've got to study yourself to know how much of each you need, for no one man is a measure of all."

* "What does fathers and mothers have to do with who you are? Your planet is your mother; time is your father. Your insides know this! All life outside you is your kin-folk. Even we dosha are your kin, born of another planet but with same father as you. Starflame makes your materials and live-planet assembles them, and time designs what you are, not your fathers and mothers. Pff. You could be genetic assemblage; Bofusdiaga could make you without fathers or mothers; and you would still be persons! But you could not have material without stars, or life without planet, or intelligence without time and be any way at all. It is your stars and your world and long time gives you legs to dance and brains to plan and voices to sing. "

* "We are made of the stuff of stars, given our lives by a living world, given our selves by time. We are brother to the trees and sister to the sun. We are of such glorious stuff we need not carry pain around like a label. Our duty, as living things, is to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise. As Ellin says, we can choose to dance."

*She complained, "But the Hags didn't have to choose that way of doing things. Surely there's a better solution!"

"If you can suggest one, I know they'd be happy to hear it. They aren't monsters, Questy. They're the descendents of the cultural historians on the second ship, and their ancestresses knew very well that surpluses breed contempt. Too much of anything reduces the honor in which it is held: too many men, too many women, too many children, too many people. "

Six moons. How would our world be different, how would we be different if we had six moons? How would we be different if we weren't afraid of pleasure, if there weren't too many of us?

It Doesn't Get Any Simpler Than This

Once more, slowly, and in short declarative sentences, with pictures for those whose minds have been almost destroyed by listening to Chris Matthews.

The Scariest Words in the English Language

Last night, my lovely friend Angela identified THE five scariest words in the English Language:

1. Michael
2. Moore
3. Ann
4. Coulter
5. Slash

Goddamn, This Pisses Me Off

Bush is selling off our national forests.

Let's be clear. This is nothing but a transfer of wealth. Bush is funding tax cuts for the richest Americans by selling off national treasures, and, given that these are irreplacable assets, no matter what he gets for the forests, he'll be selling them off at bargain basement prices. Those are your forests that are being transferred into new Hummers and plasma screen tvs and Juicy Couture sweat suits for people who are so much wealthier than you are that it's difficult for you to truly imagine how well off they are. But you and your children and your grandchildren and your great grand children are buying them their brand new Hummers.

Small, mean, petty, and viscious

One of the things I like about getting older is that I can do things I was afraid to do when I was younger. Had a late lunch with a friend today at the Old Ebbitt Grill and ate raw oysters and drank white wine and generally gossiped and chatted and had a fine old time.

But the most fun was before we were seated, when John Ashcroft came pushing his sour old face through the crowd at the door and had to walk right past us. I had plenty of time to give him the evil eye, which, I admit, I would have done when I was younger. But when he was directly even with us, I launched into a loud discussion about calico cats, loud, and rude, and mean-spirited. He turned the most satisfying shade of red, from the neck of his long wool coat to the top of his Criscoed-hair, got bug-eyed, and pushed his way out the door. As my friend Katrina likes to say: “I’m only going to get worse.”

I’d have kicked him, but I wanted to get my lunch. Which was very good.

A Nation of Indentured Servants

Yesterday, I was reading T. Thorn Coyle’s Musings concerning the difference between wanting something and needing something, between being hungry and being starved. My first reaction was negative; I adore language and enjoy the colorful use of language. What’s the big deal about saying you’re starving when you’re merely ravenous or that you’re ravenous when you’re merely hungry?

And, yet, Ms. Coyle does have a point, I think. In America today, we’ve more or less lost the distinction between wanting something and needing something. Of course, we have an entire industry -- advertising -- devoted to blurring that distinction and to making us “need” things we’d never even heard of before. Then, today, I began reading about Howard Karger’s new book, Shortchanged.

Mr. Karger looks at the growing “fringe economy” devoted to providing credit -- at usurious rates -- to poor and, increasingly, to middle class Americans. As Karger points out, there have always been pawn shops, rent-to-own furniture stores, and payday loan joints. What struck me is his description of how America’s increasingly cash-strapped, debt-ridden middle class is turning to these operations. Karger says, “Some readers may be put off by the book’s focus on the economic straits of the poor and the middle class, thinking that it minimizes the true impact on the poor. I had originally titled the book Scamming the Poor , but as I dug deeper, I soon realized that the fringe economy is also affecting a growing number of functionally poor households — those with above average incomes but with little or no assets and high debt. Indeed, many financial transactions have become so tricky that the middle class, especially the functionally poor middle class, is also vulnerable to the predations of the fringe economy. As Shortchanged illustrates, the lines between the fringe and mainstream economies are blurred, and the interests of the poor and the functionally poor middle class are growing closer.”

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Americans aren’t special, no matter how much we believe that we are. The world doesn’t owe us anything, including Chinese credit. We can’t, either as individuals, as families, or as a nation keep living beyond our means and using more than our fair share of the world’s resources. Quit living on credit. Get your credit cards paid off. Get at least six month’s net salary in a liquid form of savings. This is all about the two topics I’ve been pondering this year: fear and thriving. Living in debt means living in fear. Thriving is about so much more than acquiring new things. What do you need?

Odds and Ends

Several odds and ends today.

First, my brilliant friend Elizabeth sent me two interesting articles. She works with a group that focuses on the use of technology in education, so the No Child Left Behind program is a special bugaboo of hers. She notes that: "Bush is proposing eliminating Enhancing Education Through Technology funds (for the second year in a row). His idiotic No Child Left Behind legislation
requires "highly qualified" teachers. EETT funds are the ONLY funds in the entire federal budget that are specifically there for professional development for teachers and school administrators.

So no funds for EETT that is a direct support for
NCLB, but sure, you can have federal money to send
your kid to a private (religious) school! ARGH!!!!!"

She also pointed me to Garrison Keillor’s column in Slate in which he points out that: "Republicans believe in smaller government and deregulation, but it takes more and more of their friends and loved ones to not regulate us, and who can blame them? Washington is the perfect place for the slacker child who flubbed his way through college and flopped in business and whom friends and family kept having to prop up -- find him a government job. Government service is a broadening experience. It certainly has been for Mr. Bush. He has traveled to China and Europe and other places that never interested him before." And, interestingly enough, as Atrios reports, Republican spawn can apparently get jobs telling scientists what to say without even bothering to finish college.

Second, a bit of pimping.

(1) The D.C. Radical Faeries are having their Feast of the Red Dragon this Saturday, February 11th from 2pm – 5pm at the Universalist National Memorial Church, 16th ST and S St NW, Washington, D.C. Funds raised at the Feast of the Red Dragon will go to support the work at Grandma’s House. Grandma's House operates five homes in NW D.C. which care for HIV infected infants and children. The children range in age from newborns to 10 years, and require 24-hour attention. This is always a fantastic event, admission and food are only $10 and if you’re in or near D.C. you have GOT to go!

Shit.Fuck.Damn. I Hate This Goddamn Disease.

So, when I had breast cancer, I didn't enjoy the surgery or the chemo or the radiation or the five years of Tamoxifen. I didn't enjoy the fights with the morons who regularly lost my films or losing my hair or learning to live with the idea that, sooner or later, IT is likely coming back to finish me off, for good. But I'll tell you what I really hated. I really hated the way that having breast cancer defined me in a lot of people's minds. i became a "breast cancer survivor" first and Hecate second.

I.Am.Not.Breast.Cancer. I.Am.Hecate.

But, today, an aquaintance called me to tell me that she has to go in tomorrow for some more pictures because something suspicious showed up on her latest mammogram. She called me because, to her, I'm a "breast cancer survivor." We chatted for a while and it was clear that she's really worried, really freaked out. She's a single woman, fifty years old, all her family is in other countries and other states. And, then, offhand, I said, "Would you like me to come with you?" Her relief was palpable, even over the phone.

So send me a bit of light and compassion tomorrow. I'm short on compassion. I'm not good at warm and fuzzy. I'm going to have to beg off a conference call to do this and, well, if the news is bad, I'm going to take her out for martinis at the Palm and tell her, well, what can I tell her? When you're going through Hell, keep going? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Hair and boobs are overrated? You'll either live through this or you'll wish halfway through chemo that you were dead? If you fight really hard with the radiologist you can make them use markers instead of the tatoos they want to use to mark you up for radiation? Good thing you don't have a lover right now because mine left me as soon as he heard the word "cancer"?

I'm really fuckng glad we've spent so much money killing people in some country halfway across the world instead of finding a cure for this mother-fucking obscene dirty obnoxious miserable excuse for a disease.

Postscript: I never cease to be amazed at the support and kindness of this "community." Thanks to everyone for their kind words. And, if you're a woman, please remember to do self exams every month. Put a reminder on your calendar. If you're a man who loves a woman, you could remind her to do self exams. And, women, please insist that your doctor send you for a mammogram any time you feel something. I've heard too many tales of women whose doctors told them not to worry and then, a year later, found out that, if they'd had a mammogram, they could have caught the cancer before it turned into Stage 4. Early detection is still the best way to beat breast cancer.

Post Postscript: Good news. "Normal aging of breast tissue; no follow-up indicated." So we still had martinis mid-afternoon, but they were celebratory, rather than for solace. Here's to normal aging!

Sacred Places in the Modern World -- The First in a Continuing Series

So, celebrating Imbolc this week, and continuing to ponder how we thrive in today's less-than-gentle world, I got to thinking about the sacred wells where the Goddess Brigit, whom we honor on Imbolc, was worshipped. When the xians conquered Ireland and Scotland, many of Brigit's sacred wells became the sites of xian churches, often dedicated to St. Brigid or to the Great Mother Mary. Most peoples have found places in the natural world that seemed to them especially blessed, places where we Wiccans say that the veil between this mundane world and that "other world" that we sense is out there is thinner than it is in other places.

You can find lamenting in the Pagan community, and, Goddess knows, much of it is valid, that our sacred places are disappearing, being paved over, turned into dumps, strip malls, office parks. You can also find mystics who show us that every place is sacred, that a plastic bag blowing through a city street can be a thing of immense beauty, an avatar of East/Wind/Swords. The simple truth is that many, if not most, Pagans today live in apartments in cities, not in small cottages, surronded by herb gardens at the foot of Stonehenge. I'd love to wander the fields like Mary Oliver, but almost 99 days out of 100, I drive to an office building in a big city and then back to a suburb, stopping at a large grocery store, or the dry cleaners, or the taqueria on the way back.

So, how do we thirive? What do we do when we need to be in a sacred space? Where do we go? What places in the modern world help us to remember that Earth is alive, we're part of a larger whole, our entire lives are shot through with connection and glory, and, emobodied consciousness that we are, with sensual delight?

I'm not a New Yorker, but my first Sacred Space in the Modern World is Central Park. Watch the video. Take a deep breath. Sacred Space: wherever you go, there you are.

May the Goddess Guard Her. May She Find Her Way to the Summerlands. May her Friends and Family Know Peace

Thanks, Betty. You saved my life.

From Chapter 2 of the Feminine Mystique:

In the early 1960's McCall'shas been the fastest growing of the women's magazines. Its contents are a fairly accurate representation of the image of the American woman presented, and in part created, by the large-circulation magazines. Here are the complete editorial contents of a typical issue of McCall's(July 1960):

1. A lead article on "increasing baldness in women." caused by too much brushing and dyeing.

2. A long poem in primer-size type about a child, called "A Boy Is A Boy."

3. A short story about how a teenager who doesn't go to college gets a man away from a bright college girl.

4. A short story about the minute sensations of a baby throwing his bottle out of the crib.

5. The first of a two-part intimate "up-to-date" account by the Duke of Windsor on "How the Duchess and I now live and spend our time. The influence of clothes on me and vice versa."

6. A short story about a nineteen-year-old girl sent to a charm school to learn how to bat her eyelashes and lose at tennis. ("You're nineteen, and by normal American standards, I now am entitled to have you taken off my hands, legally and financially, by some beardless youth who will spirit you away to a one-and-a-half-room apartment in the Village while he learns the chicanery of selling bonds. And no beardless youth is going to do that as long as you volley to his backhand.")

7. The story of a honeymoon couple commuting between separate bedrooms after an argument over gambling at Las Vegas.

8. An article on "how to overcome an inferiority complex."

9. A story called "Wedding Day."

10. The story of a teenager's mother who leerns how to dance rock-and-roll.

11. Six pages of glamorous pictures of models in maternity clothes.

12. Four glamorous pages on "reduce the way the models do."

13. An article on airline delays.

14. Patterns for home sewing.

15. Patterns with which to make "Folding Screens--Bewitching Magic."

16. An article called "An Encyclopedic Approach to Finding a Second Husband."

17. A "barbecue bonanza," dedicated "to the Great American Mister who stands, chef's cap on head, fork in hand, on terrace or back porch, in patio or backyard anywhere in the land, watching his roast turning on the spit. And to his wife wit without whom (sometimes) the barbecue could never be the smashing summer success it undoubtedly is . . ."

An All Volunteer Army

Go buy the New Yorker and read the article entitled “Swamp Nurse” by Katherine Boo. It will break your heart.

Boo follows Luwana Marts, a nurse in Louisiana’s Nurse-Family partnership, whose job is visiting poor young mothers in an effort to improve their babies’ lives. The mothers’ lives are chaotic; they move from one ruined trailer to another crowded apartment. They move from one convicted felon to another drug dealer. They don’t bother to have themselves tested for the hepatitis that Marts suspects they have since they can’t afford medical care anyway or they stop taking their hepatitis medicine because it makes them too tired for their cleaning jobs. And, then, they find out that their newborn has hepatitis.

Boo reports: ”Jose, who was with Maggie, [the young mother of the infected infant], then took her hand. Together, they informed Luwana [Marts] that decisions bigger than high school had also been made. Jose was joining the Marines, and he and Maggie had decided to marry. In the telling, their mouths were straight lines. Love and patriotism were not much on their minds.

“I’m less nervous about Iraq than I am about marrying Maggie,” Jose told the nurse as he and Maggie took turns pushing the talkative eighteen-month-old Maia around in an empty diaper box. Since they lived in a community with a particularly high death rate in the war, Maggie saw the Marine Corps and marriage as equally distressing propositions. But the couple had made a hard calculation, and there were two more things they wanted for their daughter that they didn’t know another way to get: good, possibly life-extending medical care and a habitable dwelling in which she might grow up.”

I’ve heard many times that we have a volunteer army. No we don’t. We have a system of enforced poverty and lack of access to basic human necessities that forces young men (including those like Jose who don’t have the sense that the Goddess gave a garbanzo bean) into the service in order to keep their children from dying of hepatitis. And we wonder why the oligarchs are against abortion and contraception and sex education?

Alanis, Where Are You When We Need You?

As Ms. Morissette would say, "Isn't it ironic?

I'm still too angry over Cindy Sheehan's treatment to write sensibly about it. This will have to serve for now.

May the Goddess Guard Her. May She Find Her Way to the Summerlands. May Her Friends and Family Know Peace.

The beautiful ballerina, Moira Shearer has died. She was best known for her role in the film The Red Shoes in which she played a ballerina.

Is Nausea Enough?

It’s not very often that I agree with Jack Danforth. In fact, his name simply conjures up for me bad memories of the way Anita Hill was treated. But my brilliant friend Elizabeth pointed out this article to me in today’s WaPo and I’m glad to see Mr. Danforth saying what he says. I especially agree with him about the meanness that is, for me, at least, the predominant characteristic of today’s Evangelicals.

The article quotes Samuel Lloyd, dean of the National Cathedral, who says, ”My hope and my guess is that there is a fair amount of revulsion and that the moment is right for one or more candidates who want to appeal to a more generous spirit in the American people.” I think that’s what I’m trying to get at with my discussions of Galway Kinnell’s poem about St. Francis and the Sow. When the poet says, “though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing,”
I think of America, which seems rather desperately in need of someone who can reteach it its loveliness, who can retell it in words and in touch that it is lovely, until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

Danforth says he’s “counting on nausea” to turn politics around. I’m not so sure that’s enough. I’m wondering a lot these days about the role of heroes and heroines. Do we need someone who can articulate for America what is good about it and remind it of its better nature? Or is it something that lots of smaller someones can do? And if so, how? Or is Danforth right and nausea alone will turn the tide?

Find a Sacred Well and Read Some Poetry -- or Write Some!

Happy Imbolc! February 2nd is one of the eight major Pagan holidays. It goes by several names, but in my Circle, we call it Imbolc. It’s been almost six weeks since the Winter Solstice and you really can tell that the days are getting longer. Spring’s not here yet, but we can tell that it’s coming.

We celebrate and honor the Celtic Goddess Brigit (pronounced Breed). Brigit was worshipped at various sacred wells throughout Ireland and Scotland. She was the goddess of, among other things, blacksmiths and poets. I’ve always loved that juxtaposition -- blacksmiths and poets. The connection, for me at least, is that they both work with fire.

I’ve been thinking lately about what poor poetry, what poor art in general, totalitarian regimes tend to produce. And here’s what I believe, although I know of no study that backs this up: I believe that the side with the best poets always wins in the end. In the sixties, the anti-war side had, by far, the better poets, albeit that those poets tended to put their poetry to music.

And, I’m wondering, where are our poets today? Who’s writing good poetry that explains what’s wrong with the theocracy that is being installed in the White House, Capitol, and Court Houses across America? Who’s writing the poetry that will, in the words of the poem by Kinnell, help America to remember how to blossom from within of self-blessing?

The Gift

So today pretty much sucked. In fact, it started sucking last night, when my throat started to feel scratchy and when our new moon ritual was only kinda ok, which happens sometimes, but it's so much nicer when everyone really clicks. And then, the cloture vote. Less said at the moment, the better. I'm still trying to process what to do next. At five o'clock, an absurdly early hour for me, I gave up and drove home, getting more despondent every minute.

When I opened the door, there on my floor was a package that the mailman had brought to me from one of the many dear friends I have that I've never met. For no reason at all, except to wish me a happy holy day on Imbolc, February, 2nd, was this amazingly gorgeous new tarot deck. And it's some kind of serendipity because, last night at the dark moon, we cleansed and consecrated divination tools, which for almost all the women in my group, means tarot cards. And, today, I have a beautiful and meaningful new tarot deck.

It's amazing, isn't it, how a kind act can help us to remember that we live in an enchanted world, in spite of the George Bushes and the Haliburtons, and the cold germs? Once, when I was doing chemotherapy, had just been abandoned by my lover of twenty-some years, and was about as sorry for myself as it was possible to feel, I was sitting in a restaurant trying to make myself eat something. I called for the check and the waitress said, "A man saw you sitting in the window, came in and paid for your meal. He left this." It was a tiny, dirty scrap of paper, torn off of an envelope and it said: "Believe." I still have that scrap of paper and it keeps me going sometimes when I feel like giving up.

So, while I don't have any grand strategy to save the Republic (the song I keep hearing in my head is "I need a hero!"), nor any deep philosophical explanation for what happened today, other than to say that evil, as it sometimes does, temporarily prevailed, I can say that I'm not giving up. I'm bloody, but I am not yet bowed.

And, because I've been reminded today of the power of gifts, I'll gift you with a tarot reading, if you like. Click on Lunaea's link in my Wicca section, ask a question, and pick a card from her oracle. Tell me in comments what you pulled and I'll read for you. As they said in Dr. Zhivago, "Ah, well then, it's a gift."

I Am Begging You

Call today and demand that Senators filibuster Judge Alito. Just go here for all the information on who to call and how to reach them. DON'T limit yourself to only calling your own Senators. Call the ones that blogger Thersites lists and tell them that if they can’t stand up for women, you won’t be donating any more time or money to the DNC or the DLC and that you’ll be telling the DNC and DLC which Senators are to blame.