You Know That He's Going To Use Nukes On Iran And He's Going To Do It Soon

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

~Terry Pratchett, Eric

Oy. Impeach now. We can send him to the Hague later.

Bingo!

And here is the problem with the big Man-God of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: he creates the world of his own will, and very much alone. Where a great Goddess once generated the world . . . now a masculine "God" has taken her place. Why? Because this is a reflection of the opinions of the masculine powers that took charge of the first societies to suggest such a blatantly counter-intuitive thing: that a "God" could "create" things out of nothing. It's not a statement of reality; it's a statement of politics.

This guy is long-winded, but unusually intelligent in his discussions of Pagan topics

MILF

So this post, concerning fundie art and its use of sexual imagery, has been getting some attention on Pagan blogs. But what caught my eye was this statement: "A Mother's Love," as this painting is titled, shouldn't be expected to bear the standard of female eroticism.

Why?

Because there is something about becoming a mother that, in our society, renders a woman no longer sexual. How sick is that?

But does it serve the "needs" of the patriarchy? Absolutely. By making it "ok" for men who have impregnated one woman to go off and have sex with other women.

Why do you think they've promoted the whole madonna/whore insanity for so long?

I have, however, hope for the young people, who've made MILF a recognizable acronym.

Were You There?

My madly creative friend K. and I went to the protest at the White House last night. I was at the front edge of the crowd and it was difficult to estimate crowd size in the dark, but K. guessed that there were about two hundred people. The organizers said that our protest was one of almost 1,000 taking place last night.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee addressed us and said that the voice of the anti-war movement IS being heard on Capitol Hill, but that the people need to keep "the heat on the street."

Our next big chance to let Congress know how strongly we feel about this issue will be Saturday, January 27th, when a mass protest is being planned.

I know there's some debate as to the value of protests. Maybe you've been to one or two big marches and, yet, here we are: waist deep in the big muddy while the big fool says to push on. But I think that protests are important. It's a way to physically put your body together with all the other bodies out there and say, "No. Not in my name. Not with my consent." It's like voting, in a way. You can tell yourself that your one vote won't matter. But you should still vote. And my spider sense tells me that the MSM may finally begin to cover protests seriously, for a change.

I noticed one thing different last night from almost all of the other protests that I've been to over the past several years. There were no counter-protesters last night, no one who stopped to argue with us. Of course, it was pretty cold.

Robert Anton Wilson Has Died

Wilson wrote: The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance. The web of life is a process with a moving goal. The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now.

May the Goddess guard him. May he find his way to the Summerlands. May his friends and family know peace.

Go Barbara

From today's EEI newsletter:

Sen. Boxer Plans Climate Change Hearing Jan. 30; EPA Faces March 1 Review

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will conduct its first hearing on climate change on Jan. 30, focused on airing a wide range of opinions from colleagues that are designed to reduce man-made influences on the environment, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Wrote the newswire: "There's no consensus on how to reduce emissions and several questions remain as to how and whether policymakers in Washington should implement a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide - thought to be the main global warming culprit - or institute a tax on the greenhouse gas. Either option would have a significant impact on electric utilities that rely heavily on coal. The fossil fuel releases substantial greenhouse gases when burned to generate electricity. Meanwhile, certain policies could boost nuclear energy, which is seen as an emissions-free way to produce power."

Boxer used a news conference to challenge the "Christmastime environmental massacre" approach that she says the EPA used to rollback several environmental standards associated with public health law. Boxer was quoted as saying: "We're going to shed the light of day on these rollbacks" and try to reverse them. "The days of these middle of the night rollbacks without scrutiny are over." A hearing on the EPA actions is set for March 1.

Dow Jones also noted that President Bush has again nominated Alex Beehler to serve as EPA's inspector general, Roger Martella to serve as an assistant EPA administrator and William Wehrum to serve as assistant EPA administrator of air policy. The nominations on all three were blocked by the Democratic minority last year, and Boxer signaled that she was displeased with the White House for failing to pick up on that signal.
Dow Jones Newswires , Jan. 10.

Pray. Just Fucking Pray.

Justice John Paul Stevens was born in 1920. 87 years ago.

Go get on your knees and pray. He's all that stands between us and the "unitary executive."

If he needs blood, get in line to donate.

Stem cells? Some of you still-fertile chicks better conceive.

Sweet mother.

A Hero Denied - Short Trailer

His last full measure of devotion.

A Healthy Priestess Makes All Things Whole

In the fairy tale Twelve Wild Swans, Rose, the heroine, asked a million persistent questions, until she found out what she needed to know about her past and her own purpose. Once she found out what she needed to know, she walked out the door of her old castle, away from her old life, into the wild. . . . The disturbing dream, image, or sensation is your personal doorway out of the castle and into the wild, into the work of the Inner Path. . . . Something of ourselves has flown into the wild, through no fault of our own, We must search for it and pull it back into our human lives. . . . We choose to commit ourselves to our own healing, to our own wholeness, because a healthy priestess makes all things whole . . . .

~Twelve Wild Swans by Starhawk & Hilary Valentine

Is This A Great City, Or What?

Imagine that I live in a city of Sufi podcasts.

All my life, I've been in love with Rumi, twirling and twirling and twirling around with him, while Rumi imagined that he was in love with Shams.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

The Beckoner by Theodora Goss

She rises at night with her robes all around her,
Rises just like you rise from sleep,
In a fairness of heavy unbound tresses
So rich they could make you weep.

The moon is a pale and a horrified witness,
The cypresses moan as they sway in the dark,
And even the grasses lament in whispers
As she surveys the park.

Then she is away, and soon we will see her
Reaching her hand like an alba rose
To tap, so lightly, upon our window,
Holding an elegant pose.

Beauty is deadly – how well we know it –
Her cheeks have a treacherous living stain,
And we will kiss them, and come to her beckoning,
And never return again.

Why Witches Study Fairy Tales

If we set off on a path with nothing but courage, determination, and a kind heart, we will reach our goals no matter how impossible they may seem. [Fairy tales] promise that, in return for our greatheartedness, the universe will provide miraculous assistance that can bring about huge, impossible change for the better. . . . [E]ach and every story promises that we can become the main character in our own triumhant life story.

~Twelve Wild Swans by Starhawkand Hillary Valentine.

At Blackwater Pond by Mary Oliver

I drink a long time

Rev. Bill Crystal Interview - Pentacle Quest

Frightened of my government.

Keep it up DoD. We were here long before you existed. We'll be here long afer you are gone. We'll carve pentacles in places that you can't imagine.

I'm Appalled

There are some things that I simply accept as a matter of course. I'm a bit odd -- I don't "feel" odd to me, but, if "odd" means different from most other folks, then I have to accept that I'm a bit odd. I really don't watch much tv at all and, for most of my life, I never have. But I sometimes fail to appreciate just how odd that makes me.

I had a long, leisurely lunch today with a bunch of the people that I work with, all lawyers and legal secretaries. At least half of the entire conversation was based on tv -- either sports or other tv shows. I was amazed at how many of these people, all really smart, well-educated people, spend what must be most of their non-work time watching tv shows. Amazed is the wrong word. The right word is: appalled. Their days begin with GMA, they return home from work to watch some weird "reality" (hah!) shows, and fall asleep to some sports event or another. All of them! I'm the only one sitting there thinking, "Yeah, I've heard of that show, but I've never seen it."

Good grief, people! Turn off the goddamn tv set. For the love of god! What if this IS your only chance to go around the wheel? What if this is your only ONE and precious life? Is this really how you want to spend it? Didn't you read 1984 and Brave New World? Stop it! Just stop it!

Mamma's Boy

Pull Out Now (If Only Bush I Had)!

Goddess help me, I agree with everything Sally Quinn has to say today. (It's still, as it always is, ALL ABOUT SALLY, and it provides some interesting insight into a woman who married a man much older than she is, but, beyond that, she's spot on.)

After regaling us with several paragraphs about (natch) herself, Quinn explains what she saw as a child on an army plane full of soldiers wounded in the Korean War:

The thing I remember most vividly is the soldiers screaming in pain and crying out for their mothers. My mother went up and down the aisles holding their hands, stroking their brows, giving them sips of water. My sister helped light their cigarettes. Many of them were amputees. Some had no stomachs, some had no faces.

The soldiers in the litters above and below me both died, blood dripping from their wounds. Many other soldiers died while we were in the air. We had to stop in Hawaii overnight to refuel and to leave the bodies.

Turning to the boyking's plans to defy his own father and escalate the war in Iraq, Quinn says: I hope that when President Bush discusses sending more troops to Iraq, knowing that we will have to pull out sooner rather than later, that the conversation comes around to the human suffering. Does anyone at the table ask about the personal anguish, the long-term effects, emotional, psychological and financial, on the families of those killed, wounded or permanently disabled?

When I hear about the surge, all I can think of is those young soldiers on the plane to Texas. We have already lost more than 3,000 soldiers, and many more have been wounded and disabled.

Quinn then makes what I think is an incredibly important and almost-always-overlooked (or at least unstated) point about the situation in Iraq: We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge [and then, Quinn doesn't add, but I will, pull out]; or we can pull out now. You know --and I realize that this concept is anathema to religious fundamentalists and producers of Hollywood westerns, but -- there are many situations in life where we can find ourselves without any completely moral choices. They usually happen after we've backed ourselves (and sometimes others) into a bad situation. Sometimes the only choice left to us is to try and figure out how to select the lesser of several bad options. I've been there; I'm sure that you have once or twice, as well.

We, as a society, are going to be facing a lot of these situations over the next couple of decades. We've backed ourselves into corners on this war, on the environment, on our economy, on our relations with the rest of the world, on health care, on education, on the role of religion in public life, on the role of corporations in our society. We need to face up to this fact and start figuring out now how to deal with these issues.

In the end, Quinn comes to the correct conclusion: When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.

Still

We are SO not going away.

Santorum: Americans Will Never Be Conservatives

People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch publishes some comments from unhappy wingnuts concerning 2007. Most amazing, to me, was this admission from Rick Santorum:

Perhaps the most pessimistic response came from defeated Senator Rick Santorum who appeared to be so despondent that he could barely muster a few vague platitudes about making “judicial activism” a bigger issue – and even that was overshadowed by his own apparent sense of hopelessness:

Conservatism, of course, will never be the political disposition of a majority of Americans. Conservative objectives, however, will from time to time find the support of such a majority; the success of the conservative movement depends in large part on leaders taking advantage of such moments.



Did Santorum just admit that most Americans aren't conservatives and that the only way for the conservatives to impose their minority will on the rest of us is to "take advantage" of scams to get most Americans behind some vague "conservative objectives" coughhatethegaycough???

I bet a quick Lexis search would find dozens of Santorum quotes about how liberals are "out of the mainstream," and how conservatives express "the values of the heartland."

Confession

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Two of the most thoughtful witches on the web, Sara Sutterfield Winn and Diane Sylvan have been writing about Pagan Dark Nights of the Soul.

I have to say that, since I realized that I was a witch, I've never had a Dark Night of the Soul. Maybe that's just how unevolved I am.

Nine years ago, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I did go through what I'd call a "general re-consideration of the purpose of existence." Heh.

I remember being in the metro station and thinking, "Well, shit. If all that happened was that I got to this point and then died, well, shit, what was it all for, any way?" And: Grace.

Standing there, underground, in the metro station, as clearly as if it had been written out in flaming letters in front of me, I knew. "It was all about what everything's about. It was all about what every life on earth, human and nonhuman, is, has been, and always will be about. It was all about Goddess finding out what it would be like to be Hecate Demetersdatter." And, somehow, that was enough. (I adamantly refuse to be one of those "cancer survivors" who proclaim cancer to be a "gift," (it sucks), but that realization has certainly become one of the bedrocks of my existence. Thanks. I'll take it w/o so much nausea next time, if it's all the same.)

It was the very moment in which I really understood that, as I say every morning in my daily prayer: I am a manifestation of the Goddess. There's really only one Consciousness; it simply enjoys -- maybe that's the wrong verb, maybe "needs to" is a better verb -- experiencing existence in as many different manifestations as possible. It's a good idea for me to enjoy being the particular facet on this diamond-- which is all, and yet, which is everything -- that I am. And to do that as much in MY OWN WAY as I can. Otherwise, the "point of it all" is defeated.

Beyond that, I've had no Dark Nights. I've never doubted that divinity has a feminine face and that my purpose was to manifest and to worship that face. I've never doubted that magic exists --how could I? I've done magics large and small for lo these many years and, well, my magic works. I've never doubted that duality was the biggest lie they ever told me and that "yield who will to their separation, my goal in living is to unite, my avocation and my vocation, as my two eyes are one in sight."

When I was a teenager, though, raised catholic, I had a Dark Night of the Soul. The thing that made me unsuited for catholicism is that I took them seriously (won the Religion award, every year, to the consternation of several Christophers, I assure you). I assumed that they meant what they said and that sainthood was the (completely possible) goal. Reminds me of a great line from Thomas Merton that I once copied into my journal about there not being too many true believers in the monastery.

I became a catholic pentacostal -- of course: my sun is in Pisces. I developed an amazing prayer life and then: bam. I crashed into a wall. I hit my Dark Night of the Soul. There was an impenetrable marble ceiling between me and the deity in "heaven" to whom I was praying. I was, Goddess guard me, 16. The priests that I talked to about it couldn't help me; they told me to keep praying. My pentacostal advisors told me not to take myself so seriously. I decided to start having sex, which provided, on a basis that I wasn't ready to understand, some ecstacy, which is, really, nothing more than connection with divinity.

I can, again, so clearly, remember being in the bathtub trying to pray, hitting the slab of marble above me, and saying, "Well, fine. You're a full-of-shit god if I ever saw one. I'm trying to pray and this is how it works? Fuck you; that's a shitty way, in the words of St. Theresa, to treat your friends. No wonder you have so few." And, surprisingly, Deity answered me. Diety said to me: "I will surprise you."

And, for about 15 years or so, that was it. "I will surprise you."

I'd try to go back to church, or to pray, or I'd read something about deity, and, again, all I'd hear, although I'd hear it loud and clear, was: "I will surprise you."

For a few years, I won some middle ground by thinking of deity as a juggler who juggled the sun every morning with just as much difficulty and work and desire and care and uncertainty as I juggled being a single mother, teacher, student, young woman, writer, "wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving." I'd spend time with trees and wonder, "Does it matter to deity that we appreciate creation?" But, still, if I delved any deeper than that, all that I'd hear was: "I will surprise you."

Having been raised catholic, with a mother and several nuns who kept telling me that I was "destined for the religious life," I thought I knew what that meant. I thought it meant that I was convent-bound, although I couldn't figure out what or why or how I'd ever wind up in a convent, bitter as I'd become towards xians and their anti-woman ways. I even, and this is how dense I was, read several books by Zimmer-Bradley about ancient priestesses with the words "I WILL SURPRISE YOU" literally ringing in my ears, without figuring it out.

And then, just like that, a year or two later, having figured out, I imagine, just how dense I truly was, Deity surprised me.

By being cunt-blessed like me. By being womb-blessed like me. By lactating like me. By being a mother like me, a writer like me, a teacher like me, a learner like me, a lawyer like me, by being, biggest surprise of all, like me. By being a woman, like me. Diety surprised me, as promised so many times, by being feminine -- the one thing, the very ONE thing, that, catholic-raised as I was, I could NEVER have imagined.

Since then, I've been discouraged, thinking that I'd never find a coven to work with. I've been disappointed, usually in my own abilities, my own attempts to know myself, my own need for almost daily transcendence. But Dark Night of the Soul? No.

And, if I had one, well, I no longer deal in dualities, as that 16-year-old did so long ago. So how would I know? Trips to the underground, honorary recreations of Innana's long journey to the meat hooks: those wouldn't upset me any more. They'd simply be yet another way for Goddess to find out what it's like to be Hecate Demetersdatter in THIS situation.

I've been having too much fun finding out.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a Dark Night of the Soul (I was raised catholic; I know that it was St. John of the Cross who coined this phrase) patiently waiting out there to surprise me.

But the words of Mary Olive sustain me:

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

From West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems, by Mary Oliver. Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. Copyright 1997 by Mary Oliver.

So, this is what I say to the Dark Night of the Soul:

Let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

The Goddess taught me this. She taught me this on the day that she surprised me, as she'd promised me that she would do. I've worked hard at learning the meaning of that surprise. It's what Divinity wanted to learn in this incarnation, this time around. So mote it be. May it be so for you.

Oh, Disney? Heeeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Get your daily dose of Spocko goodness right here. Do it just to piss off Disney. Do it because he listens to the right wing hate mongers so that we don't have to. Do it for Rachael Carson.

The Reason That Bush Wants More Soldiers Is The Reason Why He Mustn't Be Given Any

From Endgame, Vol. I:

[Leading consultant to Karl Rove and one of the most influential advisors on U.S. policy in the Middle East, Michael Leeden] wrote that "Creative destruction is our middle name. . . We do it automatically." he speaks of "exporting the democratic [sic] revolution," which can be done through a process called "total war," best described by his colleague Adam Mersereau:

"By 'total' war, I mean the kind of warfare that not only destroys the enemy's military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural trends that spawned the war in the first place. A total-war strategy does not have to include the intentional targeting of civilians, but the sparing of civilian lives cannot be its first priority . . . ."

[Leeden also says that]: "Societies with a majority of good people are rare and are constantly threatened by the evil-minded world outside. . . . Since we want peace, we must win the war. Since our enemies are inclined to do evil, we must win decisively and then impose virtue on their survivors, so that they can't do any more evil to us. . . . The only important thing is winning or losing. Don't worry about how the world will judge your strategy. Just worry about winning. Machiavelli tells us that if you win, everyone will judge your methods to have been appropriate."

No way should we give these people even one more American soldier to throw at their evil, disgusting, immoral, and completely unrelated-to-reality insanity. No way.

I'm sure Leeden's final sentence is what Bush has based his entire junta on, starting with the theft of the 2000 election. He thinks that if he "wins" -- whatever the fuck that means -- everyone will say that what he did was ok.

I won't. What they are doing is evil. They shouldn't be given more soldiers; they should be put somewhere quiet, and soothing, and safe, with padded walls and nice, friendly doctors to talk to. For their rest of their lives.

For Spocko!!

Disney sure does have some not-so-bright lawyers working for it.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

A Shadow

You swim up from the past, of all our set
the one most rosy, elegant, and tall.
Any your transparent profile -- how it sways
through carriage windows! Why does memory insist?
Angel or bird -- we argued which you were.
The poet said you were his girl of straw.
Through the black lashes of your Georgian eyes
Affection flowed on everyone around.
O shadow! Forgive me, but the clement weather,
Flaubert, insomnia, the smell of lilacs
have turned my thoughts to you, as if that day
could bloom again, cloudless and languishing . . .
your day, beauty of the year '13.
But I am troubled by such memories,
O shadow!

Hammerin' Time

Look.

We just can't go on this way.

We can't keep distracting ourselves with war, no matter how big it makes your penis feel. I know that you can't truly imagine this, but some things matter more, even, than your penis.

We have to start paying attention to Mother Earth, no matter how much of a drag you may think that this is. Yes, this means you. It means that you will have to make lifestyle changes and that the magic technology fairy isn't going to get here in time to save you. The fairies have been telling you for years that steel creeps them out.

Really.

We have to control our population, no matter how much that makes some people unhappy (I'm looking at you fundies and catholics).

Don't make me hurt you.

Come Together

Orgasms for peace. Scientifically shown to be effective.

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Bast

I think of Bast as a Goddess of sensual pleasure -- the sort of sensual pleasure that a cat takes from napping in the sun, stretching, and being petted. She is sometimes referred to as the Goddess of perfume -- yet another sensual pleasure.

Originally a Sun Goddess, she came eventually to be considered a Goddess of the Moon

Wikipedia tells us that: Due to the severe disaster to the food supply that could be caused by simple vermin such as mice and rats, and their ability to fight and kill snakes, especially cobras, cats in Egypt were revered heavily, sometimes being given golden jewelry to wear, and being allowed to eat from the same plates as their owners. Consequently, as the main cat (rather than lion) deity, Bast was strongly revered as the patron of cats, and thus it was in the temple at Per-Bast that dead (and mummified) cats were brought for burial. Over 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bast's temple at Per-Bast was excavated.

While all acts of love and pleasure are rituals of The Goddess, you can honor Bast by really enjoying a nice stretch, a warm nap, a heady breath of gardenia, and, of course, petting a cat.

Fuck Disney

What watertiger said. Fuck Disney.

Pelosi! A Million Years From Now, May It Be A Rallying Cry For Women!

I'm old.

I'm so old that, when I grew up, school teachers explained to roomsfull of children that women could never lead the country because they were too unstable, had periods, couldn't handle the pressure. I'm so old that, out on the playground of St. John the Baptist, boys, with fewer brains and smaller balls than I had, teased me on the playground about that, and relied upon the strength of what Sister said to bolster their arguments. What could I say in return? I'm smarter than you and, deep inside, I simply believe that you're wrong? I think that I'm better suited to lead than you are, the words of all the authority figures in our lives notwithstanding? Yeah, right. That works on 12 year olds. No, it doesn't. I just had to dig my nails deep into the side of the cliff and hope, against hope, that time was on my side. That didn't keep me very warm at night.

I graduated Order of the Coif from law school, single-motherhood intact, went to a white-shoe law firm, won billion dollar cases -- and they didn't -- but it wasn't truly until this afternoon that, merci maroon-suited grandma Pelosi, that I felt truly vindicated. I've been half grinning like an idiot and half sobbing like a baby all day long.

Thank you, Ms. Pelosi. It was always going to be someone, but it turned out to be you and, thank you. Thank you for being there, for being the one, for being, when the time came, a grandmother just as I am. It's been such a long slog from the late 1950s to here. Young women have no idea -- no idea -- what's it's cost some of us some from that time. We paid, and paid gladly. We'd pay all over again.

But, damn. Just, damn. They voted in a woman as Speaker of the House, third in line, today, and damn. Just damn. Every protest that I ever went to. Every meeting where I refused to be the one to take notes. Every LttE that I ever wrote. Every time I raised my hand to answer in class (which was a political act, all through the late 80s, believe me). Every man that I ever told, no, thank you, I'm not interested, even if you do have a job/promotion to offer. Every night that I went without sleep wondering if Shirley Chisholm, Robin Morgan, bell hookes, and Pat Schroeder were really going to pull it off. I'll gladly sign off on all of them, declare them little enough to pay, for the joy of today.

Nancy Pelosi! May the Goddess guard you! Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, please guard Nancy; she's your daughter. Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, to her better self, now give birth. Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, make her brutally fair. Water, Earth, Air, and Fire, grant to Nancy her heart's desire. Mother Hera, at the Center, stand by your child and give her mentor.

Booo Yaaah

The Adicts - Ode To Joy

Nancy Pelosi Sworn in as Speaker of the Motherfucking House!

Eat it, sexist motherfuckers. Eat. It.

Hey, G. Felix Allen, Jr., thanks! We couldn't have done it without you.

The Gift

If you've never taken the Myers Briggs personality test, you really should. It's available several places on line.

I'm, according to the Myers Briggs, an INTJ -- introvert, intuitive, thinking, judging -- type. Emphasis on the "introvert." It's not that introverts don't like people; we do. I, for example, am happiest when entertaining people in my home or at a restaurant. I can make small talk like you've never seen and draw everyone, and I mean everyone, into the conversation. For me, conversation is a glass bead game, an art form, the most natural platform for my creativity. It's just that introverts need time alone in order to "recharge" our batteries. While an extrovert will get recharged being out among other people, we introverts get recharged spending time alone, listening to our own thoughts.

I still remember the very first time that I, oldest daughter of five, was ALL ALONE in the house. It was a moment of complete magic for me, a time that I still, forty years later, treasure, a revelation. I still remember the complete and lonely silence of the San Gabriel Mountains, ten years later, the deep, deep, deep longing that this silence filled for me.

It's funny; supposedly only about 2% of the population is comprised of INTJs, but, whenever I'm around a bunch of Pagans, there's bound to be a large percentage of INTJs present.

Which is all a long way to say that I may either post a ton of new posts over the next few days or that I may hardly post. I've blocked out almost four days to be all alone, to go "on retreat," in my own home, to spend some blessed time recharging my batteries. I worked and socialized all through the holidays. I sooooooo need some time sitting zazen at my altar, walking in the woods, listening to my own thoughts, digging in the dirt of my garden, being home alone.

I'm giving myself the gift of time alone. Give yourself the gift that you really need. Do it now.

A Kick Ass Group Of Women And They're Dianic But They're Not All Dykes*

Full Circle News is truly one of THE best pagan blogs on the net. The current posting is no exception.

Discussing dysfunction w/in families and the carryover to pagan groups, FCN notes that: Starhawk, in Truth or Dare, describes four main types of groups; intimate groups, whose purpose is "being"; task groups, whose purpose is "doing"; support groups, whose purpose is "changing"; and learning groups whose purpose is "education." Purposes may overlap, but when they get crossed, such as learning groups who try to make people change, there may be some covert manipulation going on to which members have not all agreed.

My circle is an amalgam of all except for the final purpose. We're an intimate group with a definite task --doing magic, right now, magic related to the Goddess Hygeia and to healthy growth. We also function as a support group; my circle is THE first place I go to announce that I've won a case or to ask for help when something in my life "goes wrong." (Really, things don't "go wrong" do they? They just go different from our plan. But that's a different post for a different time. You can bet that when, a year ago, D-i-L went into the hospital w/ early dilation, the women in my circle were the first people that I called, even before I left for the hospital. "Quick! Do magic! Quick give me a tarot reading! Quick; give me some hope that this will all work out ok." That's what circles of women have done for each other for thousands of years. That's what my circle does for me.)

The one thing that we don't do is train new witches, mentor anyone for a year and a day, proscribe the steps that you must take in order to be considered a priestess. (Although some of us will flog you if that's what you'd really like! :) ) We're a college of priestesses and you'd better come to us ready to priestess, even if you've only just recently learned of Wicca. Maybe someday a true teacher will join us, but, for now, we'll read tarot for you, do Reiki for you, celebrate your successes, commiserate, share what we know, but we won't train you.


Having "non-work" time is replenishing to group energy. Our coven schedules socials once a month in addition to our magical workings. In the Church of All Worlds, non-work time makes us remember why it is we work so hard or put up with this crazy family. It gives us fuel for our work and our vision and the love and bonding to get through the difficult parts when they arise.


My circle has always done this. We get together once a month for what we call Stitch-n-Bitch -- stitching optional, bitching mandatory. It's where we really get to know each other, understand each other's lives, become friends. We haven't been together since Yule and already I'm wondering: what happened when C. was cooped up w/ her M-i-L for three days? What happened when E. told her boss that she was leaving? How'd K. handle the commotion of her family's holiday? Is N.'s daughter over her illness? How did B.'s bridge tournament go? Did B. get some time alone w/ her husband? How's K. handling the new job w/ her boss out of town? Is M.'s foot better? Did R. take the job in Alexandria?

I suppose it's possible to work magic with people that you don't know, but it's not what I do. I work magic with women that I love, women that I know, women who know me, in all my parts. We sometimes treat the monthly get-togethers as less crucial than our monthly lunar magical workings or our 8 Sabbats, but that's really not quite accurate. The monthly brunches (they're usually brunches) are when we discuss circle business, catch up on each other, re-establish the threads of our (sorry, B!) web. I'm bound to these women. They're (poor souls!) bound to me. These are the women who have a key to my house, who know where my journals are and who have instructions to burn them at my death, who blessed my new house moments after the movers (motherfuckers) left, who will go to lunch with me and really listen to my legal theories concerning the always-fascinating Federal Power Act of 1935, the women that my will instructs D-i-L to allow to select their favorite Hermes scarf from my collection. Sometimes it's messy, sometimes it's glorious, sometimes, to quote Hebert, it's melange; sometimes it's bitter spice. But it's always the web and woof of my existence; this circle of women. This college of priestesses. I am so blessed. May it be so for you.

*How an outsider recently described our circle.

Would You Do Something Really Easy To Save The Earth?

Yesterday, we had an interesting discussion over at Eschaton concerning what sacrifices we may need to make in the coming years in order to deal with global climate change caused by greenhouse gases. The Toronto Star recently ran an article that shows how easy it would be for many of us to cut our greenhouse emissions significantly. Lots of these suggestions aren't new; you've heard them over and over. Why not make a new year's resolution to implement these simple steps right now?

To demonstrate how easy it would be for each of us to make a difference, we have prepared a list of 10 simple, inexpensive things residents could start to do over the holidays. For a typical middle-income family of four in the Greater Toronto Area, these small steps could cut emissions of greenhouse gases by up to 25 per cent without causing any big lifestyle changes.

1) Lower the thermostat on your water heater from 60 to 55 degrees C. All it takes is a screwdriver, but if you are not sure how to change the setting, have a professional do it for you.

2) Replace the shower heads in your home with low-flow models, and install faucet aerators on all of your taps.

3) Run your washing machine with cold water to both wash and rinse your clothes instead of using hot or warm water.

4) Install a programmable thermostat for winter heating and summer cooling, setting it to automatically lower than the room temperature in winter by 1 degree C during the day and 2 degrees C at night.

5) Run your air conditioning system in the summer with the thermostat set to 24 degrees C.

6) Replace the five light bulbs you use the most in your home with compact fluorescent bulbs, which, unlike incandescent bulbs, do not waste energy by creating more heat than light.

7) Turn off lights in rooms that are not in use, or install sensors that do the job for you in bathrooms, hallways and utility rooms.

8) Maintain the pressure in your tires at the appropriate level at all times, which will improve your gas mileage. Because your car is the source of most of the greenhouse gases your household produces, such simple measures can make a big difference, especially if you drive to work.

9) Follow the regular maintenance guide recommended by the manufacturer of your car, and

10) Drive the speed limit and you won't waste gasoline.

According to Environment Canada, such seemingly insignificant measures would actually produce a 24 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions for our representative Greater Toronto Area household, which would make for a good start in the fight against global warming.

Why not get started now?

Thank You, Al Gore

From the EEI newsletter:

Arlington County, Va., Launches Plan to Reduce GHG Emissions

Arlington County, Va., a Washington, D.C., suburb, has announced a plan to reduce GHG emissions by 10 percent by 2012, a goal that could cost the county $6 million to improve energy efficiency in public buildings, plant 1,200 trees, buy more wind-generated power, and hand out more than 2,000 fluorescent light bulbs at fairs to promote energy conservation, the Washington Post reported today. The Post reported that Arlington County Board Chairman Paul Ferguson (D) said "he was moved to launch the plan after studying environmental theories and seeing former vice president Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth."

Ten percent isn't much, but it's a start! And if we could get even more county boards to see An Inconvenient Truth, maybe we could get more counties to take these important steps. Planting 1,200 trees in Arlington will be great for wildlife, in addition to soaking up carbon dioxide.

Go Gansler!

From Today's EEI newsletter:

Md. Attorney General Focuses on Coal-Burning Plant Sites as Civil Rights Issues
Incoming Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said he would use a new approach to tackle the issue of the environment – focusing on how coal-burning power plants "tend to be in less-affluent areas and are responsible for respiratory ailments that disproportionately affect African Americans," the Washington Post reported today.

Gansler, a long-time Montgomery County, Md., county prosecutor, said that he would focus on the issue in an innovative manner, indicating that the "prevalence of those ailments should be viewed as a civil rights issue, one that could presumably be addressed in court," wrote the Post. Gansler also vowed an "all-out assault" on Chesapeake Bay polluters.
Washington Post , Jan. 3.

Ursula LeGuin, She's Like A Goddess To Me

CARMAGNOLE OF THE THIRTIETH OF JUNE

I will grow fingernails
to scratch the scab
that stops the sore’s lips on the scream
the pusty whistle of escape
EEEEEeeeooooooo steamboat annie comm roun the bend
I will grow fingernails
ten feet long and walk on them like stilts
& breathe steam out my nostrils
& split boards with my eye
HAI!
don’t get near me with your martial arts
unless you want to get split right down between the balls
neat as a colonel’s chicken
I got Real Bad Vibes
I have been talking to my father
who died in 1960
he’s 101 years old not feeling very perky
he gets left out of things
locked out.
I will grow fingernails
and claw down the Lubyanka
stone by stone by stone.
Yeah. Sure.
Listen, my vibrations are so bad
they’re Richter 87
look out down there in Daly City.
My toenails are growing too.
I can dig up graveyards with them
and dance on the burning ground.
I use the urns for footballs & my tongue hangs out a yard.
I am WUMMUN, ta doody boo-bah,
but even worse than that I’m me
and feeling mean
God’s stomach
rumbles like a drum when I jump on it
when I dance on his chest he snores
when I dance on his gut he farts
when I dance on his cock he comes
when I dance on his eyes he wakes and all the stones fall down
ashes, ashes
all fall down.
Get up and dance, creation!

Pagan Rome

Whatever. By this time, the Kurgans had pretty much infiltrated everything. But all hail Hestia!

Like Lions After Slumber

Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Throw off your chains, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many they are few!

-Percy Shelley
The Mask of Anarchy

A Forced Shove Into A Distant Unknown Shore

This is such a lovely post that all I can do is to beg you to go read it in its entirety. Honestly.

It is a common human failing- what Wulf the Seidman from Brian Bates' work "The Way of Wyrd" calls the "fungus" that grows in our minds: we assume that we all have so many years left to live, so much so that a dream-life takes over in our brains. We put off today what we assume we'll be able to do later, even though there may be no "later". Death is our constant companion, and the sorcerer, as well as the warrior, must accept that death may come for us today, any day, at any moment.

It's one thing to say it, but something else to really put your whole mind and body into it. This isn't a clever mind game; this isn't just some line of wisdom you read in a book or see on a screen. This is death, the sometimes violent destruction of our lich or our bodies; it is the end of our dearly loved and familiar routines and activities, a farewell to our friends, and the release of the fetch and the mind into the vast and mysterious reaches beyond this world of animals, growing things, and human beings. It is a forced shove into a distant, unknown shore, and we can lose our wits easily in such a radical change.

I'd like to make this totally clear, to remind myself as much as to remind you- and you can't be reminded of this enough: the time to be alive and truly aware is now. Wyrd only gives us this moment, right now. It may truly seem like it, but there is no future out there somewhere, waiting for us. What you have- what everyone has- is here and now, wherever you are, whatever you are. Do not trust in a hope for some fantasy future that you have dreamed of in your head. Do not assume that your friends and family will be there with you, one day far from now, to discuss with you about the good times you had long ago. Let the future arise as it will; we don't live there. It is impossible to live in a place that doesn't yet exist.

There's this incredibly kind and incredibly magical thing that the universe does for me and I'd love to hear if it does the same for you: suddenly some word on concept that I've never heard of before or that I've completely ignored keeps jumping up in front of me. For me, suddenly, it's "blot," and "seid," and "heathenry." Expect more posts on these concepts as I explore them this year.

Tort Cases -- What Happens When Regulation Is Absent Or Doesn't Work

From the December 25, 2006 edition of Inside Energy:

[G]reenhouse-gas-emitting power companies must be held legally responsible for fueling global warming and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, according to papers filed recently in a federal court in Mississippi.

The 11-page motion, filed December 14 in the U.S. District Court in Jackson is the latest salvo in a novel lawsuit brought by Ned Comber and other people who own property that was damaged when Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on August 29, 2005.

Comber and other plaintiffs maintain that [companies that generate electricity] bolstered Katrina's destructiveness by pumping millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the environment. These emissions warmed the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and caused Katrina to grow larger and more destructive than it otherwise would have, the plaintiffs maintain.

Comber and his colleagues are seeking millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages from the energy companies. In all, some 21 electric utilities and numerous oil and coal companies are named as defendants in the suit, which is referred to in some legal circles as the "Katrina case."

. . .

The Katrina case is one of several global-warming-related lawsuits targeting power companies and other greenhouse-gas-emitting industries. In another closely-watched case, a group of states led by Connecticut is seeking to force . . . large utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on the grounds that they are a "public nuisance" that is fostering global warming. A ruling in that case, which is lodged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, could come any day. ~Brian Hansen

It's been too long since I took Torts to remember how liable you can be for helping to cause the situation that led to someone's damages. The defendants argue that everyone pollutes so that, if they're liable, so is the dad firing up the grill or the mom driving the SUV to take the kids to soccer. The danger here is that the Katrina case or the nuisance case in the Second Circuit may result in bad precedent.

Hopefully not. But I don't view either of these fora as particularly favorable.

Bow Before the Power Of These Amazing Crones

Crones rule.

A group of anti-war grandmothers gathered Monday to call attention to the growing loss of lives in Iraq by reading the names of the dead -- a day after the American death toll in Iraq reached 3,000.

About 60 people from the group Grandmothers Against the War and their supporters read the names of the war dead from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center as curious tourists took their photos.

And yet, In New York, a group of counter-protesters said the grandmothers were insulting U.S. troops, who need support during the Iraq war.

The granny group later walked to the military recruiting center in Times Square.

Fuck the counter-protestors. Just fuck them. Fuck them.

Where Do We Place The Levers, The Fulcrums?

Are the fulcrums spiritual? Perhaps we should attempt to desacralize power for power's sake. Perhaps we should attempt to break down the divine right to science, the divine right of corporations, the divine right of production, the divine right of nation-states. Perhaps we should attempt to help people to remember that spiders who live in their bathrooms are sacred, as are salmon who spawn in rivers outside their homes, plants who push up through sidewalks, salamanders who live high in the hollows of ancient redwoods, their own bodies, their own experiences, their own sexuality, their own flesh free from industrial carcinogens. Where do we place the levers, the fulcrums, to help people remember that they are humans living in a landbase, that they are animals?

~Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Vol. I

For One White, Singing Hour Of Peace, Count Many A Year Of Strife Well Lost

Barter
by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.

********

My father, who went to his grave singularly unimpressed by anything that I had ever written, was visibly moved by my ability to recite this poem during a meteor shower at the beach. More than a decade later, I'm less impressed by the value of the bargain than I was at the time. At least as it pertains to the "many a year of strife well lost." I'm still willing to trade, for one breath of ecstacy, all that I have been, or could be. Does anyone ever approach ecstacy with anything less in hand to trade?

At any rate, I think it's very good advice for the New Year.

And, I'm a passing writer, if, in Dorothy Parker's words, passing grade is minus D.

PS I learned of this poem through a series of short stories that the first-ex-Mr.-Hecate left with me called: The People: No Different Flesh. I spent 17 years in education on the strength of those stories.

New Years Bazooms Blogging

Dear Women,

Today is a wonderful day to make a resolution for better breast health. Resolve today that you will do twelve or thirteen breast self-examinations this year and that you will have a mammogram! Go to your computer's calendar right now and schedule them! The first of every month is good. The day of your birthday is good. A day calibrated to your period (if you still have them) is good. Anything is good as long as it's regular! Reward yourself by scheduling something that you like -- a massage, a pedicure, a lunch with a friend, some quiet time -- for the same day. Do the BSE and then reward yourself. It helps to make BSE become a habit.

BSE is easy to do. Here's how. Breast self-exams save lives because the earlier that you find a breast cancer lump, the greater your chance of survival.

Dear Men,

Can you think of 9 women that you really like and would miss if they were gone? Mother, Sister, Wife, Lover, Daughter, Niece, Granddaughter, Best Friend, Secretary, etc.? One in nine women will get breast cancer. You can help. Calendar for yourself a time to relieve those women for an hour or so -- give them the gift of time for a BSE. Take their kids to the park for an hour; pick up the dry cleaning and the groceries; or fix and clean up dinner while she does a BSE. We need your help!

Can You Find Even One Fulcrum In 2007?

In cases where it's not the individual CEO, but the position -- where social framing conditions make it so that most people who would take up that position share the same deadend worldview that would cause them to commit the same atrocities -- where[,] then[,] do we place the levers and the fulcrums? Do we go CEO to CEO, "removing" them one by one? We always hear that the machine-like characteristics of corporations mean the CEOs are simply cogs -- albeit large ones -- in their community-destroying institutions, and[,] so[,] it would do no good to remove them. It's an odd argument to make . . . . There are few who suggest that simply because arresting or killing one rapist does not stop other men from raping, that this means we should not stop whatever rapists we can [--] through any means necessary. Yet when it comes to CEOs[,] the argument seems to hold: Someone else will just take this one's place, so we must not stop this one personally. In fact, we must allow him [it's usually a him] to continue to be rewarded with millions of dollars per year in salaries and stock options. Where are the fulcrums to stop these people, these institutions? Where are the bottlenecks?

~Endgame, Vol. I by Derrick Jensen.

2006

2006 was quite a year. It will always, for me, be the year when:

I turned 50;

Grandson was born: hale, healthy, redheaded, and blue-eyed -- I am with my mother's mother's mother and my son's son's sons.

My circle decided to add new members in a serious, deliberate manner;

I had a wonderful crop of violets for Beltane;

My circle took Pagan Pride week by storm;

I won two big cases in the Ninth Circuit and Jeff Skilling went to jail;

All year long, I didn't get to the mountains. I mean to fix this in 2007;

The oak trees masted;

I began blogging for real;

I saw Son develop into THE most amazing father, ever;

A baby dove got caught in my rosebush and then got free and lived;

I read Derrick Jensen;

A one-sentence essay: "I am Macca," won a UVA student a seat in Larry Sabato's grad student course;

E, D, and I had the "mad hat" tea at the Mayflower;

My black iris flowered;

America stepped back from the abyss;

I pulled Baba Yaga from the Goddess Oracle to guide me through the coming year. This will be interesting;

I carried the amazing Michael Kors bag that, all summer long, got so many compliments;

I didn't buy even one single Hermes scarf, although I have my eye on the one that shows the roofs of Paris;

Son, D-i-L, and Grandson came to my circle's Yule party.

My woad flowered but my dill was abysmal and my black hollyhocks had rust.

We had a bad drought in July and August and I tried desperately (we'll find out this Spring) to keep all the arisemea that I planted in the Spring alive.

D-i-L looked me straight in the eye following Grandson's birth and said, "I had exactly the birth that I kept envisioning. I kept saying affirmations and, you know, those things really work."

I am blessed. May it be so for you.

2007 Tarot readings for the first 10 readers who post their three cards in comments. Check out Lunea's website, in my blogroll, for a lovely on-line tarot.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

Cleopatra

She had already kissed Antony's dead lips,
she had already wept on her knees before Caesar . . .
and her servants have betrayed her. Darkness falls.
The trumpets of the Roman eagle scream.

And in comes the last man to be ravished by her beauty --
such a tall gallant! -- with a shamefaced whisper:
"You must walk before him, as a slave, in the triumph."
But the slope of her swan's neck is tranquil as ever.

Tomorrow they'll put her children in chains. Nothing
remains except to tease this fellow out of mind
and put the black snake, like a parting act of pity,
on her dark breast with indifferent hand.

~1940

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Aphrodite, Kallipygos

Aphrodite was the Greek Goddess of beauty, sexuality, lust. The Romans knew her as Venus. Wikipedia notes that her feast day was known as the Aphrodisiac (also referred to as Aphrodisia), which was celebrated all over Greece but particularly in Athens and Corinth. In Corinth, intercourse with her priestesses was considered a method of worshipping Aphrodite. She was sometimes referred to as Aphrodite, Porne, meaning: Aphrodite, the Temple Prostitute, although, as noted above, temple prostitutes were priestesses who helped worshippers to find communion with Aphrodite, so the expression was one of sacredness.

She was also known as Aphrodite, Kallipygos, or Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks. It is in this form that I worship her, as she shows how healthy it can be for women to love their bodies and to enjoy themselves. There are several famous statues of Aphrodite, Kallipygos. Wikipedia tells this story to explain how she came to be worshipped:

"The people of those days were so attached to their sensual pleasures that they even went so far as to dedicate a temple to Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks, for the following reason. One upon a time a farmer had two beautiful daughters. One day these girls, getting into a dispute as to which one had a more beautiful backside, went onto the public street. And by chance a young man was passing by, the son of a rich old man. They showed themselves to him, and when he saw them he voted in favor of the older girl. And in fact, falling in love with her, when he got back to town, he took to his bed and told his younger brother everything that had happened. And the younger brother also went to the country and saw the girls, and he fell in love with the other daughter. And so when the boys' father tried to get them to marry someone of the upper classes, he couldn't persuade his sons, and so he brought the girls in from the country, with their father's permission, and married them to his sons. And so these girls were called fair-buttocked by the citizens, as Cercidas of Megalopolis says in his Iambic Verses: "There was a pair of beautiful-buttocked girls in Syracuse." And so these girls, when they got wealthy and famous, founded a temple of Aphrodite and called the goddess the Fair-buttocked, as Archelaus tells us in his Iambic Verses."

The fact that there was a religious cult of Aphrodite Kallipygos at Syracuse is also mentioned by the Christian author Clement of Alexandria in a list of erotic manifestations of pagan religion. Clement cites the poet Nicander of Colophon, and generously quotes the alternative term (kalligloutos, "with a beautiful bottom") that Nicander used.

Hail Aphrodite, Kallipygos!

What Are You Doing To Get Ready?

I took a class from Thorn Coyle this Fall and it SUCKED. She sat on her ass and did no teaching at all. She let a couple of folks who love the sound of their own voice (with little justification, trust me) talk, and talk, and talk. I mean, if I take two evenings out of my life to take a class from Thorn Coyle, who presumably spent all the time that I spent in law school learning from Victor and Cora Anderson and thinking about Pearl Pentacle concepts while I was learning to write briefs, I'd like to hear what Thorn has to say, at least before she starts in with the Socratic method crap that I hated wasting my time and money on in law school. I talked to a friend of mine who's taken Thorn's intensive Faerie training and she said, "Well, Thorn's bright, but she's an uneven teacher." No duh.

And, yet, there are times when Thorn hits it all the way out of the ballpark. I think that her post from today deserves to be repeated every day, all year long, throughout 2007:

I went to the market, to realize my soul. What I need, I just don't have... - the Clash

What is your capacity during crisis? What is your capacity during sustained crisis? Do you rally, do you push forward, do you organize, do you grow numb, does depression grip you, do you escape into the brightness of fantasy?

I'm asking because I've been trying to think of ways in which we need to prepare. In the midst of the glories of life and all the things I am truly grateful for, there is a persistent current of impending doom. It could be that I listened to too much Shriekback, Crass, UB40, and Sisters of Mercy as a young lass, or it could be that all my psychic friends keep having ominous visions. My Traditional Jewish Christmas of Chinese food and a movie didn't help, either, because the movie was "Children of Men." No, I'm not Jewish, just culturally omnivorous, and the pan-fried string beans were very tasty, thank you.

See, in case you haven't noticed, the US is creeping further and further toward fascism and inching ever (possibly - I'm no economist) closer to complete economic collapse. The current trade deficit of 4.5 trillion dollars, coupled with the rising appeal of the Euro as a new trade standard, coupled with the fact that the US is dependent on cheap goods made abroad (by workers who probably aren't too happy about their conditions) coupled with the fact that foreign countries who have been happy to buy US debt are getting tired of it... Coupled with the visions of gloom by my personal Psychic Friends Network and from most economists... Coupled with a soupcon of global warming (so long, Ayles Ice Shelf)...

I just want to make sure we are prepared. Hopefully the doom won't come to pass and we all will be able to only focus on the things that make us feel happy, wealthy, hopeful, and in love. But if times harsher than these are in order, at least we will be strong. And heck, how bad is being strong in any case? Strong people make better lovers.

And yes, in the larger scheme of things - say five billion years - none of this may matter. But I am part of a non-transcendent religion, and I like living in this material plane very much and don't want to see things further messed up than they already are. And the polar bears likely agree. Now, I'm preaching in this forum to a lot of "alternative culture" people who are already doing most everything they can to live closer to some anarchist ideal, but the words still need saying sometimes.

So: How are you in a crisis? What are you doing to get stronger? Are you doing more yoga? Lifting more weights? Are you looking at your propensity to explode or to hide? Are you figuring out how to bolster your alternative communities into more viable networks of support? Are you learning to govern yourself? Learning to garden? Buying less? Re-using more? Are you learning not to always place the blame on other people? Are you telling your friends how much you appreciate them? Are you crying when you need to and laughing when you wish? Stopping to smell the flowers? Are you spreading beauty as far and wide as possible? Pick two from this random list, or add two of your own. But do them. Two of them. At least.

Doom only spells doom if we let it. We should throw parties in the coming year and go dancing. We should also sit longer spells in meditation and at our altars. We should make it into a wild space at least once, and support those who are defending the last of our wild spaces. We should feed strangers. We should get as physically and mentally healthy as we can.

Have what you need and need what you have. A cold wind may blow, but we can keep each other warm.

Kisses - Thorn

I am part of a non-transcendent religion, and I like living in this material plane very much and don't want to see things further messed up than they already are. And the polar bears likely agree.

I tried, badly, to express this point a month or so ago in comments at Eschaton. I don't care that the Earth, in some different form and likely with less life, may still be here billions of years from now. I care that the salmon are dying today due to damns, and that the nature spirits (fairies) who live in trees are dying at an alarming rate, and that humans have entire industries devoted to sucking up energy to produce things designed specifically to be used once and then thrown away. I care about the real worms who live right now in my back yard and the black squirrels and grey squirrel who are right now engaged in a fight for territory in the oak forest where I live. I care about the arisaema that I planted last spring in my woodland garden. I care about the real water in the real Potomac River that looks pink some mornings and brassy green some mornings and misty grey on other mornings. I care about the climate that my grandson will live in 50 years from now, when he's just the age that I am now.

What are you doing to get stronger?

Thorn's question is one that all of us must ask ourselves. Now, at the end of one year and the beginning of another is as good a time as any. We can see, right now, that we're heading for choppy water. What are you doing to get ready? Turn off the tv; its only purpose is to drug you too long for you to veer off the road to extinction. Turn it off and do what you need to do to get stronger.

We Are So Fucked

Shit. Fuck. Damn.

Meanwhile, we distract ourselves with war. It's what patriarchies do.

From Greenpeace

Welcome to the World Below

Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Pan's Labyrinth

The Wild Hunt links to a review in The Guardian of Pan's Labyrinth.

'Pan's Labyrinth is a movie about a girl who gives birth to herself into the world she believes in,' del Toro continues. '

Now this is a movie that I want to see, even if del Toro ended his sentence with a preposition.

The review quotes del Toro as saying that, A maze is a place where you get lost. But a labyrinth is essentially a place of transit, an ethical, moral transit to one inevitable centre.

That's an interesting way of thinking about the difference between the two; for some reason, I've always liked mazes better than labyrinths. But several friends have convinced me to try labyrinth-walking over the past few years, and I see what del Toro is saying about a labyrinth as a place of transit, although what you find at the center can vary from one walk to the next and may be less inevitable than del Toro says.

The Wild Hunt also reports that: author Stephen King has made [Pan's Labyrinth] his number one movie pick of the year.

"I happened to see this in July and was completely seduced by its beauty and emotional ferocity. Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Mimic, Blade II) directed, and to call this his best work isn't enough. I think this extraordinary R-rated fairy tale for adults is the best fantasy film since The Wizard of Oz. And while it's much darker than Wizard, it still celebrates the human spirit.

I am so there.

Calling All Creative Types

Completely kickass.

Government of Occupation

What WOULD you do?

Rick Benjamin

We trust what we've buried in the ground. Damn, that's good.

The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughan Williams

Maybe there's a lovlier piece of music. But I've never heard it.

When You Sent Him Off To War, You Didn't Care What He Believed. Now He's Served You With His Blood, Grant Him His Dignity.

Via Witchvox, we have several articles on the continued quest. on behalf of slain Wiccan soldiers, to get the Veterans Administration to allow their religious symbol -- the Pentacle -- to be placed upon their memorial markers and gravestones. I've covered this story throughout the year and I'm going to continue to cover it until the courts force the VA to do the right thing.

Since 1978 the armed forces have recognized that they need to make accommodations for service members who are Wiccan. Wiccan soldiers have served in the armed forces at least as far back as the Korean War. Jill Medicine Heart Combs, a member of the National Board of CUUPS (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans) and a National Board member of Pagan Pride Project International spoke about her husband, Gerwin Dee Combs. "My husband is a Wiccan veteran. For the last two years he has been in a VA hospital. He is in a coma and his medical records reflect that he is in a persistent vegetative state. I know at any moment my husband could die and I know he would want a Pentacle on his headstone and as of now, he could not have one."

Jill became visibly more emotional as she spoke, "Congresswoman Jean Schmidt of Ohio's 2nd District wrote a letter to me this summer stating that the VA is concerned about the "legal and moral aspects" surrounding VA approval of the Pentacle. The First Amendment of the Constitution protects freedom of religion. It is not the job of the VA to determine the morality of any particular religion, but for the record my husband's religion is moral. I will tell you what is immoral. It is immoral for the VA to deny religious freedom to veterans who have served their country in the fight for freedom."

What's doubly ironic, and sad, about this is that the VA has a list of "approved" symbols -- something that no self-respecting government with a First Amendment should ever have -- and those symbols include religions of which I'm willing to bet you've never heard. The VA even approved a symbol for atheists. But not Wiccans.

If you are an American Wiccan and you volunteer to serve your country and are killed doing so, tough shit. No marker for you.

The State of Nevada, home to slain Wiccan soldier Patrick Stewart, has behaved more honorably than the VA, providing his widow with a plaque engraved with a Pentacle. [T]he Governor of Nevada, Kenny Guinn, intervened and provided a memorial plaque with the Pentacle on it, saying that Sgt. Patrick Stewart had died for his country and that was all he needed to know. At a ceremony to bless the plaque, retired military chaplain and Christian minister, Rev. William Chrystal . . . led a group of Pagan veterans in a salute to Sgt. Patrick Stewart, and then described his own relationship with Sgt. Stewart. He honored Sgt. Stewart's Wiccan beliefs when he said, "I wear this uniform proudly, as Pat's Chaplain and as a Christian minister. I think it was Red Cloud the Sioux who said that there many paths to the Great Spirit." If you haven't watched the video of this event, you owe it to yourself to do so, box of Kleenex in hand. Rev. Chrystal did a lovely, respectful job. I honor him.

Senator Reid's office and the Governor's office were also present. a representative from Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid's office, delivered the following statement, from Senator Reid, "This day is long overdue. Ever since Sergeant Patrick Stewart's death, his wife Roberta has worked to ensure he is properly recognized. I commend the Nevada Office of Veterans Services for making it happen. All of our troops deserve nothing less that to be properly recognized. I will continue to work closely with the US Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that the issue is addressed at the federal level."

Nicholas Vander Poel, Regional Representative for Nevada Governor-elect and Representative Gibbons also spoke at the Dedication: "I remember standing in Rancho San Rafael, telling Roberta if there was anything we could do, please do not hesitate. We did not want to let her down. We were constantly in contact with the VA and we wanted to make sure that Sgt. Stewart was recognized." Following the Dedication, Representative Gibbons released this statement: "Sgt. Patrick Stewart made the ultimate sacrifice defending the freedoms we enjoy, religion being one of them. Sgt. Stewart defended a constitution that said he had the freedom of religion and it was only fitting to see him receive a plaque honoring his beliefs. Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to Roberta and the family."

My bet is that most Americans react to this story the same way that Joe Soucheray, writing in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press does. Although Joe doesn't know anything about Wicca, and although he can't write about it without cracking a few jokes, for him the bottom line is this: Sgt. Patrick Stewart of the Nevada National Guard died for his country. That's more than all the lawyers and activists always hectoring each other about religious rights have ever done. I don't care whether Stewart's widow wants a likeness of Mickey Mouse chiseled into his stone, much less a pentacle. . . . But Wiccans? . . . I don't know what they do, or what time their Mass starts. All I know is that they haven't caused the world any big problems.

And if they die for us while wearing our uniform, they certainly should have their own proper markers at their graves.

Dear VA, 2007 would be a good time for you to start to act like Americans.

Happy BlogBirthday To Me!

I started this blog a year ago today. It's been a lot of fun for me. I just want to thank everyone who's read it , commented on it, linked to it, and emailed me about it. What a year!