Pagan In The City

If you read this blog even periodically (for which, thank you!) you know that one of my themes is the need to incorporate into Paganism and Witchcraft the reality that most Pagans and Witches now live in urban areas.

A chunk of my heart -- and there's not a day goes by that I don't dream of being there, building a cabin, watching the sunlight make dappled shade among the trees -- lives in the mountains of West Virginia, but an even bigger part of my heart dances daily upon the shores of the Potomac just before it reaches the Lincoln Memorial, upon tree-covered Spout Run, upon the weeds that grow along the ramp from the GW Parkway up to the Roosevelt Bridge. I work in the city and live just outside it and I can't be a Witch only once or twice a year when I get up into the mountains. I'm a Witch every day and I'm the Witch of "this" place and that means that I need to be in relation with the natural world here. Here, among the tall buildings, metro stops, museums, cafes, fountains, statues. I'm the Nonna of a G/Son who's spent his whole life in a urban area and for whom, I truly believe, being in relationship with the natural world will be even more important than it's been for me.

So, I'm always delighted to find resources for connecting with nature within my shining city upon a swamp and a hill. Here are a few:

The Natural Capital, (a word play on The Nation's Capital) is a celebration of the wealth of nature right here under our noses in the Nation's Capital. We aim to open your eyes to the amazing plants, animals, and scenery in our region – much of it accessible by public transportation.

Natural Capital is also a concept in environmental economics: the concept that the ecosystem that sustains and surrounds us has inherent, but tragically overlooked, value. We need trees, for example, because they provide clean air and clean water. They are also beautiful, and the beauty of nature has value as well. Which brings us back to the purpose of this blog: getting outside to enjoy it all.


A DC Birding Blog is written by a birder who lived for years in DC. He currently blogs from NJ, but there's a significant bit of overlap.

Mountain Beltway got its name because [i]t turns out that a mountain belt runs right under the Beltway! The Appalachian mountain belt includes the modern-day Appalachian mountains, but also includes the hilly terrain immediately east of the mountains: the Piedmont physiographic province. Beneath these gentle hills are metamorphic rocks, granites, and a wealth of deformational structures that speak of a time when the Appalachians were young. These mountains were formed in the Paleozoic era of geologic time in a series of tectonic pulses called “orogenies.” The mountain-building culminated about 300 million years ago, when eastern North America collided with northwestern Africa. The story of how the Appalachian mountain belt got put together is a primary interest of the author of this blog. Lots of photos to help those of who who only took Geology 101.


Not specific to DC, but worth checking out if you are an urban Pagan: The Vigorous North, a field guide to inner city wilderness areas, is well-written, thorough, and explains "scientific stuff" in ways that even an amateur will find interesting.

It's not a blog, but the website of the United States Botanical Garden, smack dab in the middle of Capitol Hill, is chock full of information and events, including: Please join us for Yoga in the National Garden 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. starting June 9th and information on how to Green Your World: Big changes start with small steps – individuals, families, businesses, and governments can all make a difference in improving our planet’s potential to provide for generations to come.

One of my favorite places in DC, just a bus ride and a jaunt from the Capital Dome, is the National Arboretum. They do monthly Full Moon hikes that will warm the cockles of any Witch's heart: Four-mile-long, mildly strenuous hike through moonlit gardens, meadows and woods. Your guide will share several points of special interest and seasonal highlights. The two-hour walk over hilly and uneven terrain is more of a brisk hike than a tour so wear good walking shoes and dress for the weather. Please, no pets or children under 16. Fee: $22 ($18 FONA) Registration required. They do a lot of programs on bonsai, which can be a great way to bring a tree into your apartment, duplex, or office.

You may need either a car or bike to get there, but the DC Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens are truly spectacular, especially this time of year, and are great for making you feel as if you're a million miles away from the pavement and concrete. I've been there when DC cops were just chilling during their lunch hour, trying to get away from it all for a few minutes. I've seen beaver dams and dragon flies and lotus pods as big around as five dinner plates. The website explains that: Like a time capsule from the past, one finds remnants of Washington's natural past here. There are plants that fed the local civilization for thousands of years, mink skitter on the islands in winter, and colorful summer butterflies feed on wetland plants preserved here. By preserving a part of the flood plain of the Anacostia River, Congress authorized a park that serves the public by filtering water, reducing flood damage, and preserving the biological and cultural resources that let us see from the past into the future. A haven for artists and photographers.

TR Island, within a stone's throw of the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Memorial, and Red Cross Headquarters, is one of the best places I know to disappear into nature in the middle of the city. It has several walking trails. I've seen beaver, deer, eagles, and hawks.

Rock Creek Park has a number of programs designed for kids.

National Capital Astronomers can help you to focus on what's going on in the heavens (as above, so below), including Exploring the Sky . . . an informal program that for over sixty years has offered monthly opportunities for anyone in the Washington area to see the stars and planets through telescopes from a location within the District of Columbia, which sounds great for kids. Astronomy in DC has a calendar of local events, as does DC Astronomy. Our area suffers from a lot of light pollution, but these sites can help you see the planets and stars in spite of that.

You might also check out DC Nature, Trail Voice, and Potomac River Keepers.

What resources help you connect with nature in the city?

Picture found here.

Wedensday Midsummer Night's Dream Blogging

My New Name For A Blog

What Wendell Berry Said.

In "Word and Flesh" Berry wrote, "The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do." Or do we? The Gulf of Mexico is currently experiencing the human equivalent of metastasizing cancer, and the governor of Louisiana proposes that the activities which resulted in that cancer be resumed immediately even as BP's underwater gusher continues to flow into the gulf. The picture that comes to mind is one of a smoker who, having had his cancerous voicebox removed, immediately resumes smoking through his tracheotomy, a permanent opening in the throat made necessary by the operation. It is a repulsive, grotesque, and yet darkly humorous image.

More, here.

Picture found here.

What Says Litha To You?

And, right on schedule, the daylilies, my Litha flower are budding like mad.

Maybe I'll serve this to my Litha gathering:

DAYLILIES STUFFED WITH ORIENTAL
CRAB SALAD
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
2 medium cucumbers, peeled, seeded and
sliced into matchstick-sized pieces
1/2 pound crab meat or crab substitute*
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar

* Blanche the bean sprouts by dropping them in
boiling water for about a minute. Then cool nder cold running water. They should still
have a crunch.

* Combine all ingredients thoroughly and
refrigerate. You can even make the crab salad a
day in advance.

*When you are ready to serve,
spoon several tablespoons of the salad into the
center of each daylily flower. You may also top
each filled daylily with a scattering of toasted
sesame seeds or finely chopped scallions for a
more colorful presentation.

* Smaller daylily flowers require less crab
salad, so this recipe makes enough to stuff two
dozen large daylily flowers or 30 smaller
flowers.

Recipe found here.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

More Like This

Sometimes
- Sheenagh Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Heck, In That Forest, I'd Have Done Him

Caledonia Is Calling Me

Someone ought to lead a tour.

Picture found here.

More Pagan Finds

The excavations in Israel continue to yield amazing Pagan finds. In addition to a stunning altar, archeologists have now found: A rare stash of more than 100 pagan worship vessels, all of them intact and dating back more than 3,500 years . . . . Among the items recovered were goblets and bowls, a vessel used for burning incense, and a cup featuring the moulded face of a woman, which would have been used for dedicating a ritual drink offering -- or libation -- to a god.

Also found were vessels from Mycenae in Greece, demonstrating eidence of trade links between the two regions.

The items may have been hidden away to keep them safe during a period of war:

The items were found at the foot of Tel Qashish -- or Tell el-Qassis in Arabic -- a Biblical city located to the east of Mount Carmel.

According to the First Book of Kings, recognised as scripture, it was at Tell el-Qassis, or close to it, that the Hebrew prophet Elijah slaughtered 450 prophets [I imagine what was meant here was priests] of the pagan god Baal.

And, I'll just add that, if you're going to capitalize "Biblical" and "First Book of Kings," and "Hebrew," then you should capitalize "Pagan" as in "pagan god Baal."

Sunday Dance Blogging

Sunday Garden Blogging

Asiatic lilies. As you get towards the center, they truly are black; the pictures don't do them justice. Heavenly scent, as well.

I Am Half Sick Of Shadows

High Summer

She's standing by the rhododendrons
Where the roses are in bloom
Looking out at the Atlantic ocean
And in her head she hums this tune

Thank God the dark nights are drawing in again
'Cos high summer has got me down
I'll wait till the end of August
And get off this merry-go-round

And they shut him out of paradise
Called him Lucifer and frowned
She took pride in what God made him
Even before the angels shot him down to the ground

He's a light out of the darkness
And he wears a starry crown
If you see him, nothing will shake him
'Cos high summer has got him low down

High summer's got him lonesome
Eyen when he makes the rounds
There's been no two ways about it
High summer's got him low down

I Defy You To Tell Me That You Have Not Been Here

My New Name For A Blog

What Cat Chapin-Bishop Said.

Here's how you begin: Breathe. Ground. Center. Take one action.

Picture found here.

GreenMan

Saturday Poetry Blogging

Night in Day
~ Joseph Stroud

The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light's great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun--
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.

Picture found here.

Saturday Garden Blogging

Drancunculus vulgaris. It's the perfect plant for a Witch's garden.

What's Wrong With Arizona?

America, you're breaking my heart here.

My New Name For A Blog

What Athenae Said.

Yeah, everybody's losing their jobs, there is nothing the boss man can't do and walk away from scot-free, your years of service to a company barely get you a shrug when you're shoved out the door, so far, so good.

Yeah, the rule of law's been destroyed, we basically live in a police state, Miranda rights no longer mean all that much, there's nothing the authorities can't do and walk away from scot-free, so far, so good.

Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to breathe, the ocean is filling up with oil, nobody gives a fuck about the polar bears, everyone has asthma, there's something in the drinking water the town said was safe and now the kids have cancer, so far, so good.

Yeah, the guy we elected to end the wars and close the torture prisons isn't doing that so much, Congress is still full of assholes, our state legislators are too busy gobbling corporate knob to take our calls, our school boards want us to worry about if Jesus rode a dinosaur and if our kids can't read it's because they just don't want to enough, so far, so good.

Yeah, poverty and ignorance have been institutionalized, walled off, and called the acceptable price of living the way the top five percent live while the parts of the city the tourists don't visit might as well rot for all anybody gives a damn, so far, so good.

Go read the whole thing.

Picture found here.

Echidne Asks Some Questions

Why you should always ask these three things.

I'll add a 4th: What about the 7th Generation?

Picture found here.

Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

The Story Of My Life

So many books. So little time.

hat tip to Moonbotica

Bangs Head On Desk

Go read this story and check out the picture used to illustrate it. I can't think of another disfavored group that would have a story about one of its possible members illustrated with such a biased picture.

I Love That One

My gosh, I LOVE this blog! Lunaea has a bunch of other fun ones, too!

What inspiration!

I Cry

In which Gus makes our heroine bawl like a baby.

An Update On Isaac Bonewits

Isaac is not doing well. He's been in the hospital since I took him to the emergency room last Wednesday. He had a colostomy Sunday morning, but they are unable to do surgery on the tumors themselves. We're not sure when he's coming home from the hospital, but it may be in a day or two.

The best place I can refer you to right now is this blog post by our friend Bill Seligman. http://crytolos.livejournal.com/22678.html

I post a lot of updates on our FaceBook page. You don't have to belong to FB to view the page: http://www.facebook.com/isaac.phaedra.bonewits

Phaedra Bonewits
www.neopagan.net

As Rumi Said: Wake Up! Don't Go Back To Sleep!

Tomorrow (Goddess willing) you are going to wake up.

You are going to wake up in the middle of Sacred Matter (sheets, pillows, mattress, nightgown, self), Sacred Relationships, Sacred Dreams. And you are going to go about your Work. You are going to go about your Work inside a temple that you may not recognize, surrounded by Acolytes of the Teachings of Patience, Priestesses of the Message of the Importance of Assistance, Demons sent from Hel, sent to prod you into Waking Up!

You are going to perform the sacred act of incorporating into the body of a Priestess: sacred grains from Mother Earth (grits or Cheerios or oatmeal or whole wheat toast), sacred beans from the Mountain Forests of the Last Inhabited Continent (coffee), or Tisanes made from Sacred Leaves, grown on the Hillsides of the Himalayas (iced tea).

You are going to accept the gift of ancient dying forests, dead dinosaurs, and the pressure of Mother Earth (oil) in order to get to where your destiny demands that you go: work, your child's daycare center, your school, a field where you will harvest food. (And, given the sacredness and diminishing availability of that gift, what v important thing will you do? How can you honor that gift where and as you are?)

You are going to access a privilege unknown to your mother, your grandmothers, your great-grandmothers, your many-many-many-many-many times great ancestresses and talk, over distances, to friends, employers, family, journalists, even weird bloggers. You are going to flip a switch and wash the dishes that would have taken your great-grandmother hours to wash, push a button and wash the clothes that she would have labored all day to clean, punch some numbers and communicate to distant relatives what she would have taken an hour to pen in a letter.

And, then, tomorrow night, you will go to bed, sigh, and wish that you lived in enchanted times.

But you -- you -- you are called to live as a Priestess, a Witch, a lover of Enchantment, now, today, in this world. This one. The one where you will wake up tomorrow and either add to Enchantment, Magic, the World of the Goddess, or sustain the myth of the mundane.

Whose side are you on, Sister? Whose side are you on?

Picture found here.

First Of The Month Bazooms Blogging

Ladies! Listen up! Detecting breast cancer early is the key to surviving it! Breast Self Exams (BSEs) can help you to detect breast cancer in its earlier stages. So, on the first of every month, give yourself a breast self-exam. It's easy to do. Here's how. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular time in your cycle, calendar it now. But, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And, once a year, get yourself a mammogram. Mammograms cost between $150 and $300. If you have to take a temp job one weekend a year, if you have to sell something on e-Bay, if you have to go cash in all the change in various jars all over the house, if you have to work the holiday season wrapping gifts at Macy's, for the love of the Goddess, please go get a mammogram once a year.

Or: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays all or some of the cost of breast cancer screening services through its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides mammograms and breast exams by a health professional to low-income, underinsured, and underserved women in all 50 states, six U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and 14 American Indian/Alaska Native organizations. For more information, contact your state health department or call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

I know that a recent study indicated that early detection via breast self exams might not be "cost effective." I'm not a scientist, but when I read those studies, they appear to be saying that sometimes women find a lump during the BSE that turns out not to be cancer. Those women have caused some expense and have gone through some discomfort in order to find out that the lump wasn't cancer. I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, as it has a few times since my first mammogram found a small, curable, cancerous lump, I go out and buy a new scarf, take myself out for a decadent lunch, call everyone I know, and declare it a good day.

Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading.




Picture found here.

Relax

Pagan Pride

Brief article about a large Pagan Pride gathering in London. Be sure to check out the slide show.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with the juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and, with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin. Let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message: “He is dead!”
Put crepe bows around the white necks of the public doves.
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my north, my south, my east and west,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can come to any good.

**************

Every death is personal.

Sunday Dance Blogging

Guerrilla Gardening With Gates

I LOVE this idea. (OK, I wound up all sobby and weepy and tingly about it. I'm a big baby like that.) The Garden Rant blog features a story about how neighborhoods are being cleaned up and communities created by the simple but bureaucratically challenging act of putting gates at the end of alleyways. [P]lants - potted or spilling over fences - are the most visible sign of the transformation. Urban gardening to the max!
The story's set in Baltimore, where there are 91 alley-gating projects in the works, and the nonprofit behind them wants to take the idea nationwide.

I've said before and I'll say again that, much as many of us treasure the notion of the cottage Witch, living deep in the forest in her comfy, crooked cottage (and, Goddess knows, I do), the reality is that most of today's Witches (and other Pagans) live in urban areas. Which areas have, indeed, many advantages of their own: diverse populations, museums, concerts, cafes, walkable areas, populations large enough to include other like-minded folks, etc. But it can be a challenge to connect to nature, and, as a result, the landbase and watershed, when living in a large city. An alleyway filled with plants and a safe place to play, and with the birds and pollinators that will follow the plants, can be a haven in a big city like Baltimore, a place for kids to learn to connect to nature, a retreat from the concrete and traffic.

Indeed, when residents live behind locked doors and in fear, even connecting to neighbors can be a challenge.

At the beginning, "there was a fair bit of convincing neighbors that [gating the alley] was in their best interest -- by improving security, cleanliness and, ultimately, home value," Heslin said, explaining that most of the pushback came from those who still wanted to park and leave their trash in the alley (most residents later agreed to park on the street, and secure lock boxes now allow access to the alley for trash removal). The space has since blossomed into an open-air living room where neighbors mingle after work, toss parties and perform jazz. It seems worlds apart from an alley eight blocks north that a gunman used to approach a backyard cookout last July and wound 12 guests.

Picture (as well as many more) found here.

Fashion Statements

The witch's hat that Margaret Hamilton wore in the Wizard of Oz is going on sale and expected to sell for six figures.

It IS a great hat. I've never found a really good explanation for why witches are thought to wear pointy hats, but I do have a witch's hat, a gift from my creative friend K, that I wear at least on Samhein.

Do you have a witch's hat? What's it look like? Where'd you get it and when do you wear it?

Picture found here.

Saturday Garden Blogging

Iris, blooming lavender, tarragon, woad.

Demeter's Daughter

Saturday Poetry Blogging

A Penitent Considers Another Coming of Mary

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

For Reverend Theodore Richardson

If Mary came would Mary
Forgive, as Mothers may,
And sad and second Saviour
Furnish us today?

She would not shake her head and leave
This military air,
But ratify a modern hay,
And put her Baby there.

Mary would not punish men—
If Mary came again.

Picture found here.

A Message To My Younger Self

A large part of the magic that I do is magic from my younger self reaching forward into the future to my older self and magic from my older self reaching back into the past to encourage my younger self. It all has to do with an Autumn when I kept seeing stags and does, but that's another story.

If I could send just one email back to my younger self, who'd never gotten an email in her life, that email would say:

Hang in there. The mundane work that you're doing will allow your fifty-something-self to sit skyclad for an hour in the Spring rain, to chant with the dirt and the grass, and the trees that are part of you. It will allow you to become the rain and the dirt and the needles of the Japanese temple pine and the mint and the thyme and the chipmunk in the tiny hole.

And you will chant, over and over, a priestess of the Spring shower:

I am a manifestation of the Goddess.
Mother, help me to become my Better Self.
It's all real.
It's all metaphor.
There's always more.

The breath of my body will bless.
The cells of my being will sing.
In gratitude and reawakening.
Mother, make me a perfect priestess to your service.
And allow me, in all that I do, to help to repair the web.

Divine Lady, wash from my eyes the enchantment of forgetfullness.
Allow me, as much as I can know, as much as I can see,
To realize that we are all connected.
This is my will. So mote it be.

***

Just now, inside, soaked by a Spring downpour, I think I'd have thought it a fair trade.

Also

Because

What The Arch Druid Said

In a contracting economy, it becomes easier to notice that the less you need, the less vulnerable you are to the ups and downs of fortune, and the more you can get done of whatever it is that you happen to want to do. That’s an uncongenial lesson at the best of times, and during times of material abundance you won’t find many people learning it. Still, in the world after abundance, it’s hard to think of a lesson that deserves more careful attention.


Go read the whole thing.

Picture found here.

Agora

NYT gives Agora, opening today in NYC, a good review.

It's got to be better than SitC III or Prince of Persia.

And, As Derrick Jensen Says, Our Discourse Just Rapidly Gets Soooo Weird

The Other Side Of Sacrifice Is Blessing

Reducing reliance on corporate food is probably going to mean you’ll spend more time cooking and preserving food, and that you might not be able to eat strawberries in winter or oranges at all.

Reducing fossil-fuel use might mean you’ll have to spend more time walking, or that you’ll give up some of your freedom in order to carpool. Or it might mean you won’t just ask what BP the corporation is doing about the oil spill, but what we the people are doing about it.

Fortunately, the other side of sacrifice is blessing, and the journey away from corporate-reliance toward self-reliance and local-reliance, though I have barely begun it myself, seems full of blessing.

Anyone who grows their own food or who has gotten to know their farmer at the farmers market knows this.

Anyone who has done without a particular technological gadget knows this.
Anyone who has organized to protect the interests of small farmers from the greed of corporate agriculture businesses knows this.

And anyone who has looked into the course catalogue of the Driftless Folk School — which is educating our community about everything from blacksmithing to mowing with a scythe to pickling to soap-making — sees how delightful the journey toward self-reliance can be.

This reminds me of something that Derrick Jensen, I think, once wrote. Which is that, yes, the move from consumer culture and big oil is going to involve sacrifice. My G/Son won't live the hedonistically creature-comfort-loaded life that I've led. But he might gain something, as well. If our children and grandchildren gain an increased closeness to the Earth, to the seasons and cycles and processes of Gaia, well, then, they will, indeed, be blessed.

Of course, Jensen also posits our descendent, starving to death on the banks of Yukon River, cursing us for killing off the salmon in return for cans of corn syrup that we could throw away. Cursing our great grandparents for killing off the buffalo for sport and the flocks of passenger pigeons so large they darkened the sky for days at a time for no reason at all other than the love of destruction.

And, yet.

Read the whole thing here.

Picture found here.

We finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

The World Below the Brine
~ Walt Whitman


The world below the brine,
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick
tangle openings, and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the
play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes,
and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling
close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting
with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy
sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed
by beings like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

Picture found here.

Smudge Sticks

As I've blogged about before, I live a busy life and one of the challenges that I face is how to live as a Witch in this world, this modern one, this one full of conference calls, deadlines for briefs, emails to answer, investment accounts to manage, a home and garden to attend. One of the things that I often find myself missing is time for what I think of as the "routine duties of a priestess," -- time to grind incense, oil candles, harvest herbs, make smudge sticks.

This week, having met a major deadline at work, I'm taking a some time off to stay at home and get things in order before the "next big push." Back in March, when the unheard-of February snowstorms melted, I cut back an armload of dead branches from the German Mountain Sage and the French Thyme in the herb bed. And those dried-out branches have been sitting on my altar, ever since, waiting for me to turn them into smudge sticks.

I use smudge sticks a lot in my workings, often using them to smudge the boundaries of my property, the edges of my home, the liminal space between where things are stuck and where they can change. And, so today, I sat down to make smudge sticks, just like any old hedge witch, minor crone, witch of "this" place. It felt so good.

I love the homonym of "thyme" and "time" and use smudge sticks of thyme when I need to move between time. Sage is the more traditional, more grounded, use of smudge, although smudge is v much an element of Air. I use cotton embroidery thread, which burns well, in colors that represent Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. I ground, cast a circle, enter sacred space, bind the herbs, and call upon the Goddesses to make my intention manifest.

May it be so for you.

The Obligation To Endure Gives Us The Right To Know

Rachel Carson's homepage credits her mother with instilling Ms. Carson with a life-long love of nature. I'll die happy if I'm able to give G/Son such a love.

She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article "Undersea" (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941). In 1952 she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955. These books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.

She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including "Help Your Child to Wonder," (1956) and "Our Ever-Changing Shore" (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life. Embedded within all of Carson's writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.

. . .

Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.

Wikipedia says that the title of Ms. Carson's masterpiece, Silent Spring, was inspired by a poem by Keats:

The book argued that uncontrolled and unexamined pesticide use was harming and even killing not only animals and birds, but also humans. Its title was meant to evoke a spring season in which no bird songs could be heard, because they had all vanished as a result of pesticide abuse. Its title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contained the lines "The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing."

Tomorrow, May 27th, is the 103rd anniversary of her birth. And, a full Moon. As we contemplate the full catastrophe that is the Gulf of Mexico, I intend to invoke Ms. Carson on the full Moon and call for her aid. You come with me, now, won't you?

Picture of La Belle Dame sans Merci found here.

I Was Not Angry Since I Came To France.

I am so sorry that I voted for Barack Obama. Not that I had a choice (thanks, sexists!) and not that I wouldn't vote for him again over McCain/Palin, but what a sorry excuse for a Democrat he is.

The Obama administration is backing the Vatican’s claim to immunity from lawsuits over sexual abuse by US priests. In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the administration’s solicitor general’s office says an appeals court wrongly allowed an alleged abuse victim to proceed with a lawsuit against the Vatican. The plaintiff’s suit says the Vatican should be held responsible for transferring the priest to Oregon despite previous allegations of abuse.

Fuck this shit.

/Hat tip to Quentin Composin in comments at Eschaton.

Picture found here.

Afternoon Of A Faun

Go Listen.

My dreams last night were full of really aggressive fauns, both old and young. I kept telling Son to get G/Son inside. Funny time for fauns to fill my sleep.

Picture found here.

The Heavens Rejoice

Discovery Of Ancient Pagan Altar

Here's an interesting article about the discovery of a Pagan altar, possibly dedicated to Roman deities. The altar was found at the site of a new hospital wing, which has created a good bit of controversy in Israel. The new wing is being built on the site of an ancient grave and, although the bones have been removed for re-burial, Orthodox Jews, believing the bones to be Jewish, have protested. The government, on the other hand, says that the bones are Pagan.

Note once again the capitalization of one religious group, in this case "Jews," while using lower case to describe Pagans. I'm not sure what's so complicated about applying your capitalization rules consistently.

Israel on Thursday announced the discovery of a 2,000-year-old pagan altar at the site where plans for a new hospital wing have come under fire from ultra-Orthodox Jews who fear bones found there may be of Jews.

The find of what the Israel Antiquities Authority calls a "magnificent" altar gives a boost to the authorities at a time when ultra-orthodox Jews condemned the removal of bones from ancient graves at the site in the southern city of Ashkelon.

"The find further corroborates the assertion that this place is a pagan cemetery," the IAA said in a statement.

The altar is about 60 centimetres (24 inches) tall and is decorated with a bull's head from which dangle laurel wreaths. Such altars usually stood in Roman temples, the statement said.

Picture (of a similar altar) found here.

Sunday Dance Blogging

12,500 Years

I Am The Witch Of This Watershed

A weird river thing, a thing of the marshes am I.
A creature with small green shoots growing out of the gentle flesh behind the curl of my ear.
With weird-shaped dead branches growing through my cunt.

I am not like these people among whom I move.
I am not.

I can think through their problems, but I am not "of" them.
I can, hmmm, look. Over there. The sunlight sparkles on the river and the water laps against the trunks of trees. There are wood ducks and there were, a few hundred years ago, great swans.

A weird river thing am I.
The word of fairie claims me, calls to me, shows me myself all water-reeds among the waves of this river. This one. The one that flows so closely to the hall of power. This one.

A weird river thing, a thing of the marshes am I.
A creature with small green shoots growing out of the gentle flesh behind the curl of my ear.
With weird-shaped dead branches growing through my cunt.

This Potomac.

Picture found here.

Religion Of The Moon

There are some things that you just know about yourself, know in the bone.

One of the things that I know about myself is that I will always, no matter what else, come what may, chance what might, I will always be a complete sucker for good poetry. Is it my Sun in Pisces, my Ascendent Gemini, the placement of Neptune in my chart? I don't know, but I do know that when I am coughing my death rattle, I will still be in ecstatic love with good poetry.

Here's some:

Remember the moon? Remember the night when you were fifteen and you crept out of your house at night when you were supposed to be asleep, to see the moon? And it was so bright you could barely believe it was real, and the glare from its shining made an enormous cross in the night sky, and the grass was a dangerous carpet of silver blades, and the trees all had sweet dark secrets they told you, carried to you on the wind that touched your bare arms, cold as butter? You saw it then for a minute – the great map of the planet and all the stars and whirlpools in the black honey of space spread out before you, and you stood as though you had been driven feet first and planted in the earth, knowing this would be your religion, forever. Well, somewhere inside you there is a story and a dance for that moon and that night and they are waiting for you to give them breath and body. Because the more you dance the moon, the less you will forget Her in the face of terror, clocks[,] and currency. Birds covered in oil. O Religion! Bind me to the moon. Bind me to unforgetting, and in that binding[,] the unfettered freedom of Knowing how to continue, and going about the Work with holy resolve.

OK, it purports to be prose, and, wracked, I'd admit that it's prose, but it's very poetic prose, isn't it?

If we can just read enough poetry to "go about the Work with holy resolve," we can all die happy, I think. I can, at least. Can you? What does it take for you?

Picture found here.

Saturday Poetry Blogging

Close your eyes
And do not peek
And I'll rub Spring
Across your cheek-
Smooth as satin,
Soft and sleek-
Close your eyes
And do not peek.

-Aileen Fisher

We're experiencing a rare prolonged Spring, here in the MidAtlantic. Often, we go from 40 degree weather straight into the nineties, with high humidity. But, this year, we've had a lovely, real, Spring. It's such a gift. Have you had a real Spring where you live?

Picture found here.

Can You Face The Goddesses/Gods And Claim That You Are "The Witch Of This Place"? If Not, Why Not?

Joanna is asking some good questions. How many can you answer? How many will you commit to being able to answer by Samhein? Ostara? Beltaine? If not, why not? What else are you doing that is more important than being the Witch of your place?

- What are the trees in my neighborhood? When do they bloom? What do their fruits and seeds look like? What insects use the trees? When do they shed their leaves? How do their seeds get to new sites to grow?

- What is the flowering sequence of local flowers? When does the first bloom of each species appear? When are half of the flowers of a species in bloom? When does the last flower of each species bloom? Are some species found growing together more often than others? What does the dead plant look like in winter?

- How do the patterns of clouds and light change over a period of weeks? What things are happening around me that seem to be affected by changes in the sky? 8

Like many other spiritual practices, spending time in nature each day encourages us to slow down, to pay attention, to breathe deeply, to practice gratefulness, and to connect with Mystery. I have found that a sure-fire cure for depression — even in the depths of a gray and gloomy winter — is to go for a walk to my secret place and soak up the energy there.

Joanna's discussion of finding your own, secret place in nature reminds me of one of my all-time favorite poems by David McCord:

THIS IS MY ROCK

"This is my rock,
And here I run
To steal the secret of the sun;

"This is my rock,
And here come I
Before the night has swept the sky;

"This is my rock,
This is the place
I meet the evening face to face."

Now that Landscape Guy's put a real rock in my garden, it is where I go to "meet the evening, face to face."

Picture by the author. If you copy, please link back.

Worth A Read

Africa's chief witch hunter is on the defensive.

May she reap what she's sown.

Friday Poetry Blogging

Invocation of Hecate
By Aleister Crowley

O triple form of darkness! Sombre splendour! Thou moon unseen of men! Thou huntress dread! Thou crowned demon of the crownless dead!

O breasts of blood, too bitter and too tender! Unseen of gentle spring, Let me the offering Bring to thy shrine’s sepulchral glittering!

I slay the swart beast! I bestow the bloom Sown in the dusk, and gathered in the gloom
Under the waning moon, At midnight hardly lightening the East;

And the black lamb from the black ewe’s dead womb I bring, and stir the slow infernal tune
Fit for thy chosen priest.

Here where the band of Ocean breaks the road Black-trodden, deeply-stooping, to the abyss, I shall salute thee with the nameless kiss

Pronounced toward the uttermost abode Of thy supreme desire. I shall illume the fire Whence thy wild stryges shall obey the lyre, Whence thy Lemurs shall gather and spring round,
Girdling me in the sad funereal ground With faces turned back,

My face averted! I shall consummate The awful act of worship, O renowned Fear upon earth, and fear in hell, and black

Fear in the sky beyond Fate!

I hear the whining of thy wolves! I hear The howling of the hounds about thy form, Who comest in the terror of thy storm,

And night falls faster, ere thine eyes appear Glittering through the mist. O face of woman unkissed
Save by the dead whose love is taken ere they wist! Thee, thee I call! O dire one! O divine! I, the sole mortal, seek thy deadly shrine,

Pour the dark stream of blood, A sleepy and reluctant river
Even as thou drawest, with thine eyes on mine, To me across the sense-bewildering flood
That holds my soul for ever!

Picture found here.

Modern Witch

Lots of great comments in response to this post about living as a Witch in this modern world.

I thought that I'd mention a few of the things on my iPhone that aid me in my practice. Obviously, there are songs on my iPod that reflect my religion. From this to this to this to this. And, I keep this YouTube on my iPhone and have whipped it out and played it at Sabbats more than a few times. I also have an iPhone "app" (see how hip I am?) that tells me what phase of the Moon we're in and the astrological sign in which that Moon appears. I have the (oddly accurate) Goddess Tarot on my iPhone and, wonder of wonders, I have a compass on my new iPhone. I can be out in the middle of nowhere on a foggy day and determine the directions, and, thus, the elements, and, thus, cast a more accurate circle. I've used the camera/video app to take pictures of altars pre- and post-ritual, pictures of my sisters, shots of tarot spreads to preserve for later review.

I don't keep my BoS online, but, eventually, I probably will. Still too attached to being able to draw pictures, tape in recipes and pics from magazines, seed packets, and dried herbs to go there yet. I keep a lot of photos online and use them to illustrate rituals, illustrate blogs, keep me inspired.

And, here, via a wonderful friend of mine, are a bunch of gardening "apps."

As I say every morning upon awakening: "It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more."

(Slightly disturbing) picture found here.

And This Is Why

I am known in my circle as the "One Who Loves Birthdays". Honestly is it too much to ask that once, just once a year, each of us gets to feel like this?

No! No it is not too much! All acts -- all -- acts -- all acts of love and pleasure are rituals of the Goddess. All. Acts.

Picture found here.

Wednesday Garden Blogging

These are Bowles Black Violas; I've been trying, not v successfully, to grow them for years. Ordered seedlings this year from Select Seeds and they've gone gangbusters. Deadheading helps, but I'm too hammered at work these days to be meticulous about it.

It's As If Nature Were Some Awesomely Powerful Force That We Can't Control

I completely stole this from watertiger.

I can't help but wonder how different it would have been if the people involved had grown up with any conception of the worship of nature. How would a group of Pagans have reacted differently to this storm?

A Woman Clad With The Sky

Here's a fascinating article about religious and political uses of nakedness throughout the ages. The interview, with Druid Philip Carr Gomm includes an interesting discussion about the Pagan practice of worshipping skyclad.

Speaking of angels, nakedness has been put to many uses in religion. You’re an expert in English magic, including Druidism and Wicca. How do these interests overlap?

In Wicca, and to a lesser extent in Druidism, worshiping "skyclad" (i.e. clothed only with the sky) is used as a way of getting closer to Nature and to Deity. One might think that conventional religion, in contrast to these modern pagan approaches, would shun nakedness. But in reality there are numerous examples of religious leaders using nakedness to engender mystical states or get closer to God. The first third of my book focusses on this largely unknown history: looking in particular at the way nakedness has been used not only in classical Paganism and its modern revivals, but also in Hinduism, Jainism, and most remarkable of all, Christianity. I finish this part of the book with a quotation from Dolly Parton which nicely unites Pantheistic and Christian themes: “Sometimes I like to run naked in the moonlight and the wind, on a little trail behind our house, when the honeysuckle blooms. It's a feeling of freedom, so close to God and nature.”

The skyclad rituals that I've done have been some of the lovliest and most intense ones that I've experienced. IANAFP (I am not a festival Pagan) so maybe my experience is not the norm. Do you worship skyclad? In a group or alone? Only for certain workings or certain times of year?

Picture found here.

Listen To My Amazing Friend Amy

What I Do

One of my chief interests is: How do we live as Witches in an urban, 21st Century, professional world?

How do the tenents of ancient, Earth-based, religion -- e.g., respect for nature and matter, connection with the cycle of the seasons, manifestation of the Goddess(es), worship of the fleshy, female-body part of life, Moon-based community, and, well, and everything in the Charge of the Goddess -- translate to life in the "capital of the free world," modern office buildings, iPhones, calendars kept on computers, Facebook, commuting in rush hour, conference calls, briefing billion dollar cases? How do we live as a Witch at work, keeping up modern homes, gardening in this ecosystem, having the modern families that we have, being in the circles that we're in, communicating mostly "on the grid," being unable to schedule a dinner with two other Witches on less than a month's notice because one of us travels extensively for business, one of us has a big deadline at work, one of us is juggling theatre subscriptions, belly dance class, several blogs, and work?

I could figure out, I like to imagine, how to live each moment as a Witch in a small cottage in a wood, waking with the birds, gardening, praying with the cycles of the Moon, gathering herbs, spinning wool, dancing the Spiral Dance at established community festivals, and doing divination for village girls. I could determine, I think, how to live each moment as Priestess of Mother Earth, on that mist-shrouded Isle of Avalon, surrounded by sister-Witches, outdoor temples, sacred studies. I could have been, I tell myself, a kick-ass Priestess of Athena or the Eleusian Mysteries, had I lived in a time when society, itself, was organized around those religious lynchpins. I even think that I could live well as a Witch in some dystopian future Bene Gesserit convent (a word so like "coven") or some Honored Matres group. But those are not the challenges that Hecate's set for me. Oddly, she wants me to live as a Witch in this distinctly un-Witchy world.

Yet, I am a Witch, and I need to be a Witch. I need to fully engage that spiritual practice in a big city, commuting twice a day in congested traffic, confronting homeless people, needy young lawyers, frustrated paralegals, a super-hero-obsessed G/Son who already knows how to access YouTubes on my iPhone and needs me to help him connect to nature, and a circle of women who are all more busy than is good for the functioning of any circle (I, myself, being chiefly to blame). I need to invest in the stock market as a Witch. I need to decide which mosquito-repellants (if any) to employ as a Witch who (1) needs to be outside and (2) needs to respect Nature. I need to function as a Witch in the death-match that is modern, high-stakes law and as a woman whose spiritual practice demands integrity from her. I need to be a Witch when I take clients out to dinner at the Palm, to be a Witch when I send e-mails, to be a Witch when I write letters to my Senators, to be a Witch when I do dark Moon magic to impact legislation, elections, the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

It's never been easy: living as a Witch. It's never been, even for those foremothers we envy, clear how, in any given time, one could live the life and be a Witch. And, at least today, it's more often a choice between: living as a Witch and staying employed, as opposed to: living as a Witch and staying, well, alive. I get that. And there's not, on first glance, a lot in the ancient texts to give me guidance. And, yet. And, yet.

What I do is to wake up each morning and re-dedicate myself, wake up each morning and pray. What I do is to take the route to work that takes me past a river, past weeds, past a homeless man with whom I have to interact. What I do is to try, consciously, to interact with young lawyers, paralegals, secretaries, and, yes, even co-counsel as a Witch would interact and not, merely, as another lawyer would interact. I try to pay attention to dreams (oh, look, we'd already cut off that branch w/o realizing it!), tarot, intuition. I try to buy food for me and for my family from local sources and to knit intention into the sweaters that I make for G/Son when I sit on conference calls, to invest with intention, to support with the money I make causes close to my heart. What I do is to garden consciously, after spending hours and hours in meditation with that land. And, what else I do is to sit every day at my altar, currently heaped with sage stems and leaves that I cut away from the living sage that returned from this winter's bad storms and will make into smudge sticks, and to ground, cast a circle, say the Ha Prayer, run the Iron Pentacle, go to my place of power, do magic, and, with gratitude, return.

What do you do?

Are there Witchy uses of email, iPhones, Blackberries, microwaves, lawn care services, investment advisors, YouTube, cars, computers, antidepressants, Facebook, and smart meters in today's world?
Picture found (warning) here.

German Mountain Sage And French Thyme In Bloom

Sunday Dance Blogging

Sunday Feminism Blogging

Sacrament

Sacrament: 1 : a religious act that is a sign or symbol of a spiritual existence


The evening air along the banks of my beautiful Potomac River is thick with the scent of honeysuckle. Which I finally realize is part honey, part rose, part wild bergamot. I've been trying almost all my life to identify its components.

Driving home along the river this evening, I was reminded of what they say about those who experienced the Eleusian Mysteries: that those who had experienced them no longer feared death. Honestly, if, just a few times in your life, you get to inhale this scent, why should you ever fear death?

And that is how I take the sacraments.

Picture found here.

What Phila Said

Really. Go read Phila's Friday Hope Blogging.

I especially love this bit:

The world's oldest beehives have been found in a Scottish chapel:
Located in the medieval Scottish Rosslyn Chapel, which dates back to 1446, two ancient hives have been found, skillfully carved in the stone work under the roof's peak. They are thought to be the first man-made stone hives ever found....
The only clues to the hives' existence were flowers intricately carved into the pinnacles -- it is charming that there were holes through which the bees could enter and exit. These were visible from the outside....
Since the hive was so high above the ground, it is clear that no one would be able to reach it to get the honey. It is thought that the ancient stone masons who built the chapel simply wanted to provide a safe location for a wild honeybee hive, protected from bad weather.