People Of Faith

The term "people of faith" has always been a kind of Trojan Horse, designed to sneak one concept into public discourse while pretending to be another, particularly when it's used as a criterion for public office, as in: Would you vote for someone who was not a "person of faith"? Although it sounds somewhat inclusive, it's always been understood to exclude, for example, Wicca, which isn't a religion based on faith, but on experience. In actuality, it's never really stood for anything other than, at most, the three Abrahamic sects, xianity, Judiasm, and Islam. Since 9/11, it's clearly stood for, at most, xianity and Judiasm. And, as the recent kerfluffle over Barak Obama's religion indicates, it really only includes certain types of xianity, to wit, mainstream (white) and evanglical xinity.

Obama may think that he can win the votes of "people of faith"; he "began his presidential announcement with the phrase 'Giving all praise and honor to God,'" and he's tried in various ways to make himself attractive to evangelicals, but he's mistaken. And, as the picture of Obama's stepgrandmother (that's right, that's how far they're willing to stretch to find the "taint" of Islamic faith, all the way to a stepgrandmother, for Goddess sake) shows, it's not only the fact that he's the wrong type of xian that disqualifies Obama as a "person of faith," it's also the fact that somewhere in his family tree, there may be "people of the Islamic faith."

There are excellent reasons that our Founders wrote separtion of church and state into the Constitution. One reason for that important separation is that no matter what Trojan Horse phrases they may use, the majority religion will discriminate against anyone who doesn't share their "faith" by turning membership into a requirement to hold public office. And that's a big mistake.

Pagans And Sex Holidays.

Great Green Man on a Gondola! These folks sure do know how to celebrate Beltane! Sia has a lovely post up to accompany the calendar and a good discussion of what Beltan's all about.

Now, if I can just find one of those buttons . . . .

One Of My Favorites

Swan by Oliver

I save this poem, only parcelling it out for special occasions. I believe that the lines: A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned/into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,/Biting the air with its black beak? are far too sacred to be used without care. But, for Beltane, I'l bring it out.


The Swan


Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?



- Mary Oliver

The Feathered Glory From Her Loosening Thighs. Happy Beltane.

Leda And The Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins, engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?


William Butler Yeats

Beltane Poetry Blogging

He may have written it for the Solstice, but I believe that Graves' poem is for Beltane:

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
All fish below the thighs?
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When, with her right she crooks a finger smiling,
How may the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow is falling, winds roar hollowly,
The owl hoots from the elder,
Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses
There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild
But nothing promised that is not performed.

Robert Graves

Saturday Goddess Blogging

You can find quizzes all over the internet, and books, as well, to help you to locate the "Goddess type" with which you most closely identify. You will, perhaps, be unamazed to learn that I identify strongly with Athena, the Goddess of Politics. Long before I realized that there was such a thing as a modern Goddess religion, I'd loved Athena. The city of Athens, of course, takes it's name from her. She wears armour and an owl perches on her shoulder. One of the most cherished gifts of my life is an owl hand cooler, made of Steuben glass, a gift from Son and D-i-L. For me, it represents the wisdom of Athena.

Athena gets a bum rap in some feminist circles. The patriarchs tried to say that she sprung, sword-in-hand from the forehead of Zeus, motherless, and unconnected to any woman. That she supported men against women. That she used her political acumen to benefit the patriarchy. They lied, trying to absorb Athena and her power into their world view.

In truth, Athena beckons women to the world of politics. She calls to Nancy Pelosi, a father's daughter for sure, and to Hillary Clinton, to Media Benjamin, to Ariana Huffington, to Shakespeare's Sister, and to Twisty, to the Mad Melancholic Feminista, to Echinde, and, of course, to Athenae; calls to them to enter the fray, to join the rumble. To strategize, to bestow blessings upon their favorites.

Where can Athena help you? What part of your life would benefit from Athena energy? Is there some part of you that has been dancing, dancing, dancing for centuries on the steps of the Parthenon, on the steps of Pallas Athena?

Come, dance. Come dance the dance of politics, which long, long ago your mother Athena declared to be a dance in which you could excel, a dance in which you belonged.

Eli Whitney Debevoise II. I Swear That I Am Not Making That Up

Today's WaPo has an article about a leaked World Bank report showing that Wolfowitz broke bank rules -- clearly the World Bank still thinks that it can shame Wolfowitz into resigning. They can't; he's George Bush's man and Bush's men apparently are incapable of shame. See, e.g., Alberto Gonzales. You can have their jobs from them when you pry them from their cold, dead hands. An option which becomes more attractive by the minute.

But what really struck me was this:

Monday was also shaping up as a test of the board's will on a controversial new bank strategy on health, nutrition and population.

In recent months, World Bank employees have shaped the strategy, which directs the institution's lending, to include the ready availability of "sexual and reproductive health services" for women in poor countries. That bit of jargon is widely known in some countries to refer, among other things, to access to safe and legal abortions.

But in recent weeks, Juan Jose Daboub, a conservative Christian whom Wolfowitz appointed managing director at the bank, directed the staff to delete that reference, effectively eliminating the endorsement for access to safe abortions, according to two bank officials. Daboub did not return calls.

In a letter sent last week to the bank vice president overseeing the strategy, several members of the governing board, including those representing Germany, France and Britain, demanded that the original language be restored, asserting that the bank would otherwise be breaking with a 1994 consensus embracing family planning.

This week, the American representative on the board, Eli Whitney Debevoise II, pressed again to remove the reference to "services" and replace it with "care," to eliminate any potential endorsement for abortion, the officials said. Debevoise did not return phone calls.


That's who that cowboy, that good ole' boy with whom you'd just love to sit down and have a beer, that man of the people who saved us from that elitist John Kerry, George Bush appointed to be the American representative to the governing board of the World Bank: Eli Whitney Debevoise II. And that's who gets to decide that some poor woman living in a shack in Africa or India or South America will have to bear one more child than she can care for, or feed, or even carry to term. Eli Whitney Debevoise II.

Young Mr. Debevoise comes from, well, shall we say, circumstances that were significantly removed from those of a poor, pregnant woman living in the Third World. The first Mr. Eli Whitney Debevoise (1899-1990) co-founded the New York law firm of Debevoise & Stevenson (later Debevoise & Plimpton) in 1931. During World War II he served as chairman of an Alien Enemy Hearing Board in New York City, where he ruled on the eligibility of aliens to remain in the country during the war. From 1950 to 1953 he was appointed deputy general counsel with the High Commission for Germany - Office of General Counsel (HICOG-OGC). His namesake, after spending time at Yale and Harvard, became a partner at Arnold & Porter. He testified just last month that he was eager for the great privilege and the responsibility to represent the United States at the World Bank Group institutions.

Hey, who could possibly be in a better position to decide what's good for Third World women? Please. Shoot me now.

The Fifth Sacred Thing

Recipe Blogging

So it was close, but JoAnna Colbert's Green Smoothies narrowly won the poll over Susn Weed's Cancer Prevention Cabbage. JoAnna's a wonderful artist and has one of the friendliest blogs on the internet tubes. Back in early February, when it seemed to me that Spring would NEVER come, she posted this recipe for a green smoothie. Every year along about February, I start to crave greens, longing for dandelion, baby spinach, leeks, butter lettuce, baby peas. So, odd as the recipe sounds, I tried it and have been having one or two a week ever since. A week or so ago, I tried it on the women with whom I get together once a week for exercise and a healthy dinner and they really liked it, as well. You really have to try the recipe rather than just imagining what it might taste like; it tastes lots better than it sounds. I've adjusted the recipe a bit for my taste, but the link will take you to JoAnna's blog for the original recipe

In a blender, mix the following:


1/2 ripe banana
1/2 cup frozen fruit (I use peaches or blueberries, but am thinking of trying rubarb)
LOTS of greens — salad greens, spinach, kale, etc — LOTS (I add broccoli sprouts, as well)
1/2 cucumber, peel and all (must be organic if you're eating the peel)
1 Tbsp. flaxseed oil (I buy this with lemon flavoring, but, trust me, you're not going to taste it).

Something about the banana and the cucumber make this taste fresh and springy and good.

Obviously, we're all supposed to eat lots more green vegetables than we ever manage to eat, so this is a great way to get several servings at once. Flax seed oil has been shown to have some cancer prevention properties and, depending upon which kind of fruit you choose, you're going to get phytochemicals. The banana has some potassium. Broccoli sprouts have been shown to fight breast cancer and I can't stand to eat them by themselves, but I can put quite a lot of them in this recipe and hardly taste them.

Oddly, the one time of day that I don't tolerate this very well is breakfast. It's good for lunch or dinner, though. And easy.

Update: In comments, JoAnna asks that her circle sister, Elaine Nichols, get credit for the smootie recipe. Thanks very much, Ms. Nichols for developing this recipe!

Really, This Isn't All That Complicated

Via Witchvox comes an editorial from the North County Gazette, Serving New York State and Beyond that touches on the recent settlement reached with the Veterans Administration that will allow the use of the Pentacle on gravestones. It also discusses a story that I'd missed:

A few days earlier, on April 17, a religious group called Summum won a key round in its fight to place monuments in Utah city parks alongside Ten Commandments monuments. (Summum, founded some 30 years ago, is difficult to summarize, but the group describes its beliefs as consistent with Gnostic Christianity.)

. . .

In the Summum case, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an injunction that would allow Summum to place its Seven Aphorisms in a public park in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The park already has a Ten Commandments monument donated years ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Summum had argued that if the city allows one group to put up a monument in a public park, it must allow other groups the same opportunity.

Pleasant Grove officials could have avoided the problem entirely by not allowing any private groups to put up monuments in the park. Instead they decided that the Ten Commandments monument should be treated differently because of "historical relevance" to the city.

The court unanimously rejected that argument and ruled that "the city may further its interest in promoting its own history by a number of means, but not by restricting access to a public forum traditionally committed to public debate and the free exchange of ideas."

The story reminds me of the one this past December in southern Virginia where local Pagans took advantage of a 4th Circuit opinion that required the local school board to send home notices about xian bible classes. The Pagans sent home notices about a Yule program and the xian parents went ballistic. The message, though, was the same as in Utah. If you're going to allow some religions to have access to government-run spaces and services, you're going to have to allow all religions -- even the ones that most Americans don't like, such as Wicca or Islam -- the same access.

Or, you could act like grown-ups and respect the separation of church and state that the Founders wrote into the Constitution precisely to avoid this sort of nonsense over which religions get favored treatment.

Now, who's up for a monument with the Wiccan Rede for that nice little park in Utah? I'd contribute.

Al Gore, Just In Case You're Still Thinking Of Running, Here's Some Good News

NYT story shows that Americans "get it" about global climate change and that Democrats would be well-advised to run, and run hard, on this issue. For example:

Americans in large bipartisan numbers say the heating of the earth’s atmosphere is having serious effects on the environment now or will soon and think that it is necessary to take immediate steps to reduce its effects, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds. Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.

That's SIXTY PERCENT OF REPUBLICANS! Yes, one American in five is either an oil company executive or a retard, but when you've got 90% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and SIXTY PERCENT OF REPUBLICANS, you can ignore the twenty percenters.

The poll also found that Americans want the United States to support conservation and to be a global leader in addressing environmental problems and developing alternative energy sources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels like oil and coal. Contrast that with Karl Rove's diatribe this weekend when he castigated Cheryl Crowe for wanting the U.S. to lead on global warming by asserting that China isn't doing enough. Kkkkarl's polling may be a bit off; he doesn't have THE numbers on this one, either. Which may help to explain why:

Respondents expressed little confidence in President Bush’s handling of environmental or energy issues, and a majority of those polled, including many Republicans, said Democrats were more likely than Republicans to protect the environment and foster energy independence. Note again that even Republicans, SIXTY PERCENT OF WHOM want the U.S. to take immediate action to curb global warming, believe that the Democrats are more likely to do so.

Democrats have got to use this issue. Asked how they would respond to a presidential candidate who said all Americans would have to pay more for fuel or use less of it to protect the environment, one-third said they would be more likely to vote for that person and 15 percent said they would be less likely. Almost half said it would make no difference.

Only 15% of Americans would be less likely to vote for a candidate who told the truth; that we're going to have to use less fuel (which is what paying more leads to) in order to protect the environment. If the Dems couple that with a works program to build mass transit, they'd likely have a very popular package to sell, even on the tough issue of using less fuel.

Other good news:

*Americans broadly support using renewable energy sources like solar and wind power and say fueling vehicles with ethanol, which is now made largely from corn, is a good idea, the survey found.

**By a substantial margin, Americans continue to oppose drilling for oil and natural gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as they have for the last six years.

Although respondents split almost evenly on whether Washington can effectively address global warming, they almost unanimously (92 percent to 6 percent) supported requiring automobile manufacturers to make more fuel-efficient cars.

***A big majority, 75 percent, said recent weather had been stranger than usual, an increase of almost 10 percentage points from 1997. Of those who said the weather had turned weird, 43 percent attributed it to global warming and 15 percent to pollution or other environmental damage. Four percent cited the coming end of the world or biblical prophecy, and 2 percent blamed space junk.

OK, six percent of Americans are complete idiots. I think we can safely quit governing towards the six percent. Kick Dobson, Falwell, et al. to the curb.

Bye, Bye, Bumble Bees. Thanks For Hanging In And Feeding Us As Long As You Could.

It may not be, as Lovelock imagined, a case of decades in which to prepare for a soft landing. It may be, rather, only one or two summers without bees. It may be, as Lori Weitzel, suggests, a mere

Drought in the meadery.


Silent Thriae

They’re called back to sweeter, darker places,
away from our quilts of tailor-made maize, triticale,
sorghum and soy. Hives empty as ruins, leaving just
enough honey so, drunk on that gold, we’ll forget
how to hum in the fields of the tripled bee-goddess.

The children of the Thriae are leaving us; no
good-bye note written by fallen corpses, they
have gone, in secret, to caverns full of wax.
The oracle is silent. Hordes, mining a fools' gold,
riddled how nature speaks herself: but she refused
to speak about the bees, and her queens, dimmed
as if lit by an eclipse, host no more dances.


I killed a bumble bee yesterday, when it snuck into my house and buzzed upon me, threatening, surprising, and far too early in the season to inspire sacrifice. As my friend Rachael carried the body outside to give it to the Earth, I understood of what I might be guilty.

Part of me wants to cry out, "Don't give up on us, Sisters! We'll get better; we'll figure out how to live in peace with your work." And part of me says, "We deserve to be abandoned. My deepest wish is to follow the swarms to go to wherever it is that they go when they abandon the hives that have sustained us." If it turns out to be the Amazon, the lungs of Gaia, I won't be surprised. The white blood cells go where they are needed most.

So mote it be.

Thanks to Gold Poppy for directing me to this post.

Beltane and SCOTUS. Not As Unrelated As You Might imagine.

Wicca is often accused of being a-male. I certainly practice a Dianic form of Wicca that, well, that generally ignores the male. It works for me.

Perhaps it's the coming of Beltane, when my circle-sister K. always demands that we invoke the Green Man, that has me considering what it means to be a male: the union of the king and the land. Perhaps it's seeing Son being such a wonderful father to G/Son, changing diapers, cuddling, gentling to sleep, providing for, ensuring the future of.

Miniver Cheevey explains what it can mean to be a man in 21st Century America:

Nothing is stopping the bleeding. There seems to be nothing they can do. They talk about trying some drugs, but then they decide things are going too fast to give time to let them work. So that leaves only surgery as a possibility. Surgery means hosing her out. It means killing the baby. So obviously, we look into other options. Only now, my wife is so out of it, from blood loss, from the painkillers, that the doctor said she is no longer able to legally consent. Now I'm handed a clipboard. On it is consent to basically give my wife an abortion and kill our future child. And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I'd ever face, ever have to deal with. Made worse by being a decision of either kill the baby or potentially watch both my wife and the baby die. The doctors did not say at this point that it was absolutely necessary. Maybe more blood could be transfused in. Maybe she wasn't dilated—they hadn't figured it out yet. Still too much blood. So then there I was, facing the sort of choice that you usually see only in hypotheticals in ethics and philosophy classes. Only it was real. It was my wife. And I didn't have exactly a lot of time to think about it. It was just me and the clipboard. An empty line there, marked for my signature. My wife bleeding right next to me. The ultrasound of my baby, and its heartbeat, fresh in my mind from minutes before. I cannot begin to describe how I felt at that moment.

At an early point in D-i-L's labor, when the doctor was trying to impose his will on D-i-L, Son said calmly to the doctor, "Let's step outside and discuss this." He was calm, "Let's step outside." The doctor was freaked out; he thought that Son might be about to punch him in the nose. The doula was amazed; she came out later and told me, "Your son is stronger than almost any father that I've ever seen." Son just wanted to discuss the issue someplace where it wouldn't interfere w/ D-i-L's work of breathing, concentrating, bringing G/Son into the world. To me, that's the epitome of male power, the ability to protect wife and child, to deal with the outside world so that the inner world of childbirth and magic isn't imposed upon.

I'm sad that SCOTUS did what it did. Something in me doesn't believe that this will be allowed to stand. Sometimes, men are, they just are, called upon to stand in that doorway between life and death, that place where their wife's blood and their child's heartbeat run into each other. Sometimes, they are handed a clipboard and asked to step up, to be the Green Man, Pan, Dionysis, and Apollo all at once. Sometimes, they are called upon to stand in the breach, to tell the doctor to step into the hall, to do what they'd hoped not to have to do. I'm sorry that SCOTUS has made that moment so much more fraught, so much more difficult. I think that living male in this patriarchy is already way, way, way too difficult.

I had only one child, Son. Son and D-i-L have likely had their only child, a son. And in this insane patriarchy, in this culture of war and domination and acquisition, I have tried, Son and D-i-L are trying, to raise a man who can thrive and do the right thing in this world, a man who can face this scenario:

And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I'd ever face, ever have to deal with.

May the Goddess guard our sons. May she guard them as they must navigate this Roberts/Alito world.

May the Goddess and the Green Man guard Justice Stevens. It's already as difficult as it needs to be.

Blessed Beltane

Anne Hill is talking about doing magic, and what she's learned about magic from akido:

So, back to the candle. Preparing for a strike and then letting it go is a very good way for me to conceptualize doing any kind of magic. It gives me a kinesthetic sense of the largely mental process of asking the spirits to manifest something. And it has helped me understand that there is a middle ground between worrying and controlling something on the one hand, and ignoring it on the other.

I tend to over-prepare for rituals, well, ok, for everything, not just for rituals. My idea of the perfect ritual involves women showing up to a calm, clean, well-ordered space, where wine is poured, tensions are dropped, flowers release their scent into the ritual air, muscles relax, women remember who they are and from whence they came. I want intent clearly specified, ritual supplies laid out, incense alight, and grounding done right.

Like Anne, I prepare like hell for the strike, and then I let that sword just fall as it will. My Younger Self responds better that way.

But, that's not THE only way to do ritual. I've been reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing In The Streets every day at lunch, four or five pages a day. She talks about how women left their spinning to run into the streets to follow Dionyisis, how ecstacy can overtake even the most repressed, at times. Beltane is all about living in the moment, all about feeling, after a long winter of parsing out the left-over seeds and saving enough back for planting, that it's ok to let go, ok to burn fires on the high hills, ok to have sex in the fields, ok to act without thinking it all through. About finding what Anne calls the "middle ground between worrying and controlling something on the one hand, and ignoring it on the other."

Blessed Beltane.

Out Now!

Gee, I Am Very Surprised No I'm Not.

From today's EEI newsletter:

Research Shows Deregulation Hasn't Brought About Lower Rates Promised

According to an analysis by the Associated Press, "Not one of the 16 states - plus the District of Columbia - that have pushed forward with deregulation since the late 1990s can call it a success." In fact, wrote the AP, "consumers in those states fared worse than residents in states that stuck with a policy of regulating their power industries. The idea was to move from a monopoly situation to robust competition for electric customers, with backers promising potentially lower rates in state after state. But competition, especially for residential and small business customers, rarely emerged."

As a result of politically-imposed deregulation, utilities were often put into a situation where their rates were artificially frozen for several years – an action that the AP suggested "drove potential competitors away. [Analysts] point to states like Illinois, where rate caps just recently were lifted and where there already is talk of reinstating them." Utility officials also pointed to the price of fuel for the power plants as the critical factor in higher costs to consumers.

The evaluation by the AP was based on the average electric rate that residential customers paid annually from 1990 to 2006 and a comparison of regulated and deregulated states. Wrote the AP: "The analysis found more than a widening price discrepancy. Consumers in deregulated states also have suffered from bigger price swings, as rate caps in place when deregulation began in the late 1990s were lifted in the last couple of years."

Associated Press via the San Gabriel Valley, Calif., Tribune , April 25.


Hmm, maybe those old farts knew something back in 1935 after all.

Rejoice

Beltane's coming. Better start getting ready.

(Art found here).

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

The Elephant is Slow to Mate
by D.H. Lawrence

The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait


for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse


and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.


So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.


Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.


They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.


From The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence, edited by V. De Sola Pinto & F. W. Roberts. Copyright © 1964, 1971 by Angela Ravagli and C. M. Weekly, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli.

Even The Freepers Get It

Jason at the Wild Hunt, a braver man than I, checked out Free Republic's comments concerning the VA's caving in on the issue of Pentacles on gravestones. Surprisingly EVEN THE FREEPERS are generally pretty sane about this issue. I admit to being amazed. If the VA was dragging its feet on this issue in deference to the boyking's notions of religion (and it's pretty clear from e-mails received in discovery that they were), it's worth noting that the boyking is way, way, way to the right of THE FREEPERS on this issue.

Once in a while, my fellow Americans give me a pleasant surprise.

Angela, at Nine Ravens, has some amazing pictures.