OPM (Other People's Marriages)

One of the enduring stories about the marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton is that it's a "political" marriage -- whatever that means. I've often tried to puzzle it out and, near as I can tell, it means that they don't "really" love each other, instead, they stay together in order to promote each other's political aspirations. One thing I do know: it's never said as a compliment. It's always meant to denigrate both of them, to imply that she's a cold shrew, that he's a slimy cad, and that they're, as a result, somehow "anti-family" (in spite of having stayed together through thick and thin and having raised a, by all accounts, amazingly well-adjusted and accomplished daughter.

My own notions are that (1) other people's marriages are none of my business, my own were so complicated that I'm still trying to puzzle them out and I was actually involved in them, instead of standing on the outside looking in; (2) most people that I know stay together for a variety of reasons and for different reasons at different times in the marriage; and (3) staying together "for the kids" or because you have a comfortable life together with mutual friends and a bank account that is greater than the sum of its post-divorce parts or because your religion frowns on divorce, or "for politcal reasons" is nobody's business but your own.

That said, I was fascinated to read an account today in the WaPo of the marriage between two local politicians: Virginia's Republican Congressman Tom Davis, of Fairfax and his (second) wife, recently-defeated Virginia State Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis. (She kept her own maiden name and only hyphenated his! She must not "really" love him!) The entire tone of the article is so different from the tone of articles on the Clinton marriage that I believe that it's worth quoting at some length:

Theirs is a partnership of politics and ambition that formed a decade ago and grew into something more.

He was a powerful congressman. She was a fledgling state candidate with promise. A master politician with a national profile, he took her under his wing and found his life's love.

They both craved the game, and they both sought power. When he moved on to the Senate, she could run for his seat, or perhaps a statewide office in Virginia. Together, they made a life centered around these ambitions.

. . .

The story of how the Davises' success became interdependent is not hard to trace through those who have watched the political romance blossom over the years.

. . .

Most friends and associates of the Davises won't talk openly about when the romance began. Tom and his first wife, Peggy Davis, a Fairfax County gynecologist who, by most accounts, despised politics, were divorced in the fall of 2003, just a few months before the new couple declared their plans to wed.

"Jeannemarie is Tom's perfect soul mate," said Baise. "Peggy was not. I think everybody sort of sees that. They live, breathe and love the action."

John and Jeannemarie Devolites filed for divorce in 2000 but remained united as parents. They appeared together in court in 2002, when their daughter, Ashley, then 20, was sentenced to a nine-year prison term for her role in a series of armed robberies in Fairfax City.

After their wedding, the new Davises moved quickly to forge a marriage that seemed inseparable from their public life. They did joint speaking engagements and campaign events. They scheduled a vacation once with a return date timed so both could attend the Vienna Day Fourth of July Parade -- and later bragged about it to friends. During Virginia's winter legislative sessions, the Davises started a tradition of reserving Mondays for "date night." He would meet her at the Capitol in Richmond, say hello to their Republican colleagues, and have dinner alone with her before heading north for the busy week on Capitol Hill.

"They seem infatuated with each other," said Del. Thomas Davis Rust (R-Fairfax), also a Davis recruit to state politics. "He is the congressman, he is the more influential, powerful person. But" -- and Rust chuckled here -- "she treats him as her husband, if you know what I mean. It's an equal partnership."

Davis often seemed to defer to his wife in public. He hovered near her at the state Capitol. He even agreed to a joint photo session wearing matching light blue shirts and white slacks, his fair hair nearly as coiffed as hers, and their two white Maltese dogs on their laps.

After walking away from his own ambition, Davis used every page in his playbook to save his wife and, at the same time, the Republican majority in the state Senate. He brought in his own seasoned staff and arranged for New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to join Devolites Davis at a campaign event and praise her votes for gun control. As she flashed her white smile and flipped her always-perfect dark hair, her husband watched from the back of the room, his dual roles of doting husband and tactical genius in full effect.

It was a pure Davis move, helping his wife court Democrats in an increasingly left-leaning district and offering Bloomberg the prize of heavy media coverage.

But it wasn't enough.

Davis's investment in his wife's career clearly has come to be about more than politics.

. . .

Thompson believes that Davis chose to throw himself into his wife's reelection campaign not to salvage his own political career but out of love. Others believe it was a little bit of both.

How fascinating that it's apparently completely ok for these twice-married Republicans with problem children to base a marriage upon a love of politics, but it's somehow wrong for the Clintons to have done the same.

Saturday Goddess Blogging

The Triple Goddess

You Never Know

It's odd, I'd have thought that Brown would have several active and public Pagan groups.

And, I know that they're young, but it would be nice if these students didn't feel the need to say that witches don't eat babies and that Wiccans are their own worst enemies. Our own worst enemies would be the patriarchy. Just sayin.

Of course, other people have no excuse. Kali on a Klondike Bar, would you just stop it? Because it just gives credence to shit like this.

Friday Cat Blogging

Krikit, U iz ded meat. I can haz cat sushi.

My New Name For A Blog

What She Who Said.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting, "What a bargain! Let's buy it!"

Ruh Roh!

From today's EEI newsletter:

International Energy Agency Forecasts Big Jump in GHG Emissions

The International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2007 report shows that GHG emissions are expected to surge by 2030, potentially causing a rise in global temperatures of at least 5.4 degrees and bringing along with that flooding and disease, Bloomberg reported. To keep temperature increases below that mark would need "exceptionally vigorous policy action," the report said, adding: "A later peak and less-sharp reductions in emissions would lead to higher concentrations and bigger increases in temperature."

To limit the surge in GHG emissions, the report found that the cost of building new electricity generating capacity would be "very high," with cumulative investments through 2030 at least $1.8 trillion higher than a scenario in which emissions were allowed to rise significantly. The report said: "Early retirement of fossil-fuel generating capacity will comprise almost $1 trillion of the additional investment."

The IEA said China's emissions were likely to more than double to 11.4 billion tons by 2030, largely as a result of increased coal-based power generation. Wrote Bloomberg: "Carbon dioxide output from fuel combustion could peak around 2025, with China probably overtaking the U.S. this year as the world's biggest emitter." China and India together could account for 56 percent of emissions growth, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg , Nov. 7.

Why Women Need The Goddess

we need a god who bleeds
spreads her lunar vulva &
showers us in shades of scarlet
thick & warm like the breath of her

/From Ntozake Shange, “We Need a God Who Bleeds Now,” in A Daughter’s Geography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 51., quoted in Ochre.

A Respectful And Thoughtful Conversation

Two days after the dinner, out of seemingly nowhere, Starhawk called and asked me for mediation. We met and were successful in talking thru an old issue that has festered for years. It’s been great to clear it out, and we talked at length about our pretty polarized positions on what she sees as confidentiality versus what I see as transparent process. I can’t say anything was really solved or we swayed each other to the other’s position, but it was a respectful and thoughtful conversation. We even talked about collaborating in the future in envisioning what could make for healthier community. A complete turn around from the energy between us for the last several years.


I’m choosing to believe at this moment that the dead we feasted with at the dinner are actively involved in trying to help us. And my goodness, the world and Reclaiming sure need help.

Wow.

I am lucky enough to live on the East Coast. I am lucky enough to live within an eclectic circle of women, some of whom have had Reclaiming Training (I have), but many of whom have not. I light incense for Reclaiming; may the Goddess guard all of us.

No, Really, Prof. I Was Out Dancing Naked Under The Full Moon. I Couldn't Study.

The recent decision by Marshall University in West Virginia in West Virginia to allow Pagan students the same right to miss class for religious holidays as students from other religions have long enjoyed continues to generate comments.

Here, a student from another college responds to the news.

Here, a reader in West Virginia responds to a recent article in the local paper about the new policy:

Cheers to Marshall University for protecting pagan students’ right to celebrate their holidays. Jeers to the Gazette for trying to create a furor where none is needed. Your headline “Marshall policy now observes pagan holidays” is misleading. Marshall University is not observing pagan holidays. It is merely recognizing that they exist, and are as important to some students as Christmas or Hanukkah are to other students.

Silenced By Pagan Wife

This is the sort of really bad reporting about Pagans that drives me batshit insane. As near as I can tell, the fact that his new wife is a Pagan has nothing to do with this guy deciding to end his singing career. It sounds more as if she told him she'd only marry him if he got a real job -- something xian women have been known to proclaim, as well. But the headline implies that there's some relationship between her religion (which he appears to share, according, at least, to one quote) and his decision to retire.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Yesterday was a good day for the Old Dominion. Virginia Democrats seized control of the State Senate and made big gains in the House. Virginia now has its second Democratic governor in a row and one Democratic Senator. Next Fall, Virginia is almost certain to have two Democratic Senators, as Democrat Mark Warner is predicted to coast to victory over former (disasterous)Republican governor Jim Gilmore for the seat to be vacated by Republican John Warner. (The current set of Virginia's members of Congress includes 1 Independent, 7 Republicans, and 3 Democrats. That may take longer to change.)

Once considered a safely Republican state, Virginia has become quite blue in heavily-populated Northern Virginia (Arlington, Alexandria, and (now) Fairfax) and, interestingly, in Hampton Roads, which has a large military population. Virginia has 13 electoral votes -- enough to require the Republicans to spend time and money trying to defend it this coming Fall. That's good news in a year given that the Republicans have less money than the Democrats and would have preferred to have been able to count on a safe Virginia. Local Republican leaders appear to all be blaming the loss on the national party and the White House, and that may be true, as a number of the defeated Republican incumbents were, in fact, fairly moderate. Heck of a job, W.

It's going to be a fun twelve months to live in Virginia.

More Common Than You Think

Great article in today's NYT

Dr. Wicklund, 53, said that at current rates almost 40 percent of American women have an abortion during their child-bearing years, a figure supported by the Guttmacher Institute, which researches reproductive health policy. Abortion is one of the most common operations in the United States, she said, more common than tonsillectomy or removal of wisdom teeth. “Because it is such a secret,” she said, “we lose sight of how common it is.”

. . .

Dr. Wicklund said she would put more credence in opponents of abortion rights if they did more to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies. Instead, she said, many of the protesters she encounters “are against birth control, period.” That is unfortunate, she said, because her clinic experience confirms studies showing that emphasizing abstinence rather than contraception may cause girls to delay their first sexual experience for a few months, but “when they do have intercourse they are much less likely to protect themselves with birth control or a condom.”

According to the Guttmacher Institute, about a quarter of pregnancies in the United States end in abortion. Dr. Wicklund says that is why she believes far more people favor abortion rights than are willing to admit it in polls. For example, she said in the interview, an abortion ban that seemed to have wide support in South Dakota was put to a vote and “when people got behind those curtains and nobody was watching it was overwhelmingly defeated. Unfortunately, people are not willing to say what they really think.”

It's Important.

If you live in Virginia, remember to go to the polls tomorrow and vote Democratic. It's time to turn Virginia blue.

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

Update: An email from the Clinton campaign reminds me that on Nov. 5, 1872 Susan B. Anthony [went] to the polls in Rochester, NY, and vote[d] in the presidential election. She [was] later arrested for voting and ordered to pay a $100 fine. If you won't go vote for any other reason, go vote in gratitude to Susan B.

The Year Without A Summer

Sad

I seriously can't read this all the way through without being physically ill. I've tried three times.

East

Samhein is the beginning of the new year for me and I make resolutions, just as many other Americans do on January 1st. One of my resolutions this year was to work through a structured plan for spiritual growth, rather than to just commit, as I did last year, to simply spend time at my altar. In order to achieve that goal, I'm working through the final 8 chapters of Evolutionary Witchcraft by T. Thorn Coyle. That means that I'm beginning with Air. Thorn associates the wand with air and, good though her reasons are for doing so, I'm not going to undo 17 years of living as a witch; for me, the sword (or athame) is the tool of air, followed by the finger. I simply transpose what she says about tools. I'm old and I've built up a long magical practice in which Air=East=Athame.

Thorn says: A serious practitioner can develop emotional connections w/ her Gods [sic], intellectual rigor and honesty, and physical and psychic discipline, with no one thing cancelling out another. She quotes Doreen Valiente, who said, By developing their powers, the magician and the witch develop themselves. They aid their own evolution, their growth as a human being, and in so far as they truly do this, they aid the evolution of the human race. It reminds me of what I loved about the Bene Gesserits, who searched, and searched, and searched, confused as their search became.

It's a good reason to begin with Air, in the East, athame in hand.

To Aunt Het

I do declare, it's hardly fair to get a joke on Het
For on every hand she has to stand being called a suffragette.
The Anti's scoff, but then hats they'll doff as she motors about the town
And her flaming car will be seen afar to add to her renown.
When the vote is won and the talk is done the jokes she will not resent,
For you can bet we'll all vote for Het, when she runs for President!"

by Margaret Olmsted Ogden

This poem was written in 1914, 93 fucking years ago. I. Am. Just. Saying.

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Old White Men's Heads 'Aspoding.

Yeah.

What Digby said: Hillary goes to her alma mater and says that her education at the women's college prepared her to do battle with the political boys club and the gasbags' eyes roll back in their heads and they start drooling and whining that she's she's broken the rules.

Well boo fucking hoo. The rules are changing. Get used to it.

Half of this country is female and they've noticed, in case these manly men haven't, that presidential politics is a very exclusive a boys club and we don't find it all that odd to mention it. Certainly, if it's ok for politicians to literally walk around with a codpiece to show their masculine bona fides, I don't think it's out of line for a female candidate to speak to a younger generation of women at her college and take a little bit of pride in the institution and her own accomplishments --- since she does happen to be the first serious female contender for president in the whole history of the country. Excuse me for thinking she has the damned right to do it.

What Matt Stoller said: I'm going to enjoy watching the male spasms of cowardice unleashed if Clinton wins, as she's sworn in and represents the more than half the population that is interrupted on a regular basis by men.

And, what Atrios said: [W]hite males are the most aggressive practitioners of so-called "identity politics" and always have been.

I swear that if Hillary is elected, I am going to enjoy every single minute of her entire term just for the agony that it's going to cause the sexist assholes who can't understand that we are almost an entire goddamn decade into the twenty goddamned first goddamned century and it's time for this bullshit to fucking stop fucking now. Really, I am.

And I'll note that white men like Matt Stoller, and Atrios, and Son, who hate this sexist bullcrap almost as much as I do, give me immense hope for the future.

The Dead

This is the time of year when The Dead are closest to us.

I've posted some pictures of the centerpiece from the dumb supper that my circle celebrated on Samhein. GWPDA sent me pomegranates from her v. own trees. The food of the underworld, so delicious that they kept calling Persephone back for part of every year, pomegranates seemed somehow appropriate for a dinner with our beloved dead. We told stories about our dead, those who passed this year and those who passed long ago and are still remembered. We remembered both the Ancestors of our DNA and the Ancestors of our Spirit; I invoked Molly Ivins and Madeline L'Engle, who passed this year.

Then, last night I attended a celebration of Dia De Los Muertos, hosted by my dear friend, R., aka the World's Best Cook, and her friend, Javier. It was a wonderful evening, spent mostly with people I'd never met before, from an incredible variety of backgrounds, and a few old friends from my tradition. M., who led the ceremony, invoked Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and smudged everyone with incense (both of which steps made me feel right at home), before telling a wonderful story about her grandmother. Next, a v. young man told about the time when he was 14 and his grandfather let him drive the riding mower. He was enjoying it so much that he cut down some of his grandfather's flowers, but his grandfather didn't get angry at him. Each person shared a memory and then picked someone else to tell a story, share an experience, recall an ancestor. I was struck by how often the ancestor being remembered was a grandparent who was not at all extraordinary, but was simply kind. After the stories came the feasting: delicious tamales, a wonderful mole, a mango sauce for the empanadas that was out of this world, Angela's fantastic corn pudding, and on and on and on.

R. and Javier are already talking about expanding the event for next year; I was v. honored to get to attend and to listen to so many wonderful stories of the Dead. I've posted a few pictures of the wonderful altar, for which everyone brought a picture, some flowers, a small item of remembrance.

Blogs

I really like Moments of Grace.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


— Wendell Berry

Friday Evening Cuteness

Fifty-One to Forty-Three, Bitches!

From The Pew Research Center for the Public and the Press


The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 17-23 among 2,007 adults, finds that Hillary Clinton remains the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination. Clinton leads Barack Obama, her closest rival, 45%-24% among Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters. Clinton holds a substantial advantage over Obama and other rivals among most key Democratic voter groups, including liberals and African Americans. College graduates are among the only Democratic groups that splits its support between Clinton and Obama.


The nomination race among Republicans is more fluid, reflecting sharp ideological divides within the party. Giuliani maintains a modest 31%-18% lead over John McCain, with Fred Thompson at 17%, among Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters. Giuliani's lead has remained fairly stable since March, while Thompson has faltered a bit recently and McCain has lost support over a longer period of time. Since September, Mike Huckabee's standing has increased from 4% to 8%, giving him virtually the same level of support as Mitt Romney (9%).

The GOP nomination race among Republican evangelicals, in particular, appears to be wide open: Giuliani, McCain and Thompson each draw about 20% of the vote among white Republican and Republican-leaning evangelical voters, with Huckabee and Romney getting about 10% each.

In addition, a solid majority of Republican white evangelicals (55%) say they would at least consider voting for a conservative third-party candidate if the general election is between Giuliani and Clinton. Overall, 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters say they would consider backing a third-party candidate who holds more conservative positions than Giuliani on social issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Sen. Clinton holds a 51%-43% advantage over Giuliani in a general election ballot test among all registered voters. Clinton's lead over Giuliani reflects her strong backing from women (57%-37%). Giuliani runs slightly ahead of her among men (49%- 44%). Clinton's support is strongest among women voters younger than 50 (60%-36%), while Giuliani's support is greatest among men in the same age group (52%-45%). Younger women also are the voting group that most often says that, apart from their feelings about Clinton, it would be a good thing to elect a female president. Nearly half (47%) express this opinion, compared with just 34% of older women and 24% of men.

Clinton's supporters are much more positive about her candidacy than are Giuliani's. Roughly three-quarters of voters who favor Clinton (76%) say their choice is more a vote for the New York senator, compared with 20% who say their choice is mostly a vote against Giuliani. By contrast, Giuliani's support is divided fairly evenly between those who see their choice as a vote for Giuliani (46%) and those who say it is a vote against Clinton (50%).

Voters who favor Clinton more often cite her positions on issues as the reason they support her (35%), but many also mention her leadership ability (27%) and experience (24%). Giuliani's support is much more based on his leadership ability (46%), and much less on his positions on issues (15%).

In fact, Giuliani's stances on issues are cited less as a reason to support him than has been the case for any presidential candidate since 1992. At the same time, more of his supporters cite his leadership ability as what they like most about him than have the supporters of any candidate in the same period, including George Bush during his reelection campaign in 2004 (46% Giuliani vs. 41% for Bush in September 2004).

I am with my mother's mother's mother.

First Of The Month Bazooms Blogging

A v. kind monk just reminded me that it's the first of the month and I'd forgotten to do Bazooms blogging.

Ladies! It's the first of the month! An excellent time to do a breast self-examination (BSE)! It's easy to do a BSE; here's how. BSEs, by detecting breast cancer when it's in the early stages, can help to save lives. Set aside some time tonight to do a BSE. If you prefer to do a BSE at a particular time in your cycle, now's a good time to calendar it.

And, the year's almost up. Got $$$$$$ in your cafeteria plan? Had a mammogram this year?????? Schedule one and then schedule lunch with a friend, a manicure, a massage, a trip to a museum. You deserve it.

WTF??????????????=

Under siege in April 2006, when a series of retired generals denounced him and called for his resignation in newspaper op-ed pieces, Rumsfeld produced a memo after a conference call with military analysts. "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists," he wrote.

Am I the only person in America with any outrage left? I'm amazed that revelations from today's WaPoarticle, based on documents that WaPo FOIAed out of Rumsfeld, have slipped into our collective pond, producing nary a ripple. Even if these revelations did have to compete with, ZOMG, Hillary's scary vagina and some tennis star taking drugs. Retired generals, who almost NEVER criticize a sitting admin., demand Rummy's resignation and his reaction is to insist that his aids go out and try to scare the shit out of Americans so that they'll stop daring to criticize him. Dood. Halloween was last night. WTF? Anyone want to comment on this? Pelosi? Clinton? The NYT? Harry Reid? Hello? Is this thing (America) on??? Can I get a tar and feathers mob?

In one of his longer ruminations, in May 2004, Rumsfeld considered whether to redefine the terrorism fight as a "worldwide insurgency." The goal of the enemy, he wrote, is to "end the state system, using terrorism, to drive the non-radicals from the world." He then advised aides "to test what the results could be" if the war on terrorism were renamed.

Again, am I the only one who thinks this is just amazing, shocking, absurd? Our nation is founded upon the notion that [w]hen, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them all that is necessary is that a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. And this criminal is suggesting that America wage a "war on insurgency"???? Dood! We were insurgents to the British! Fuck the motherfucking "state system." WTF is wrong with your soul?

And, of course, it wouldn't be complete without the racism and the ruling class' complaint that the "others," here, Muslims, just won't work hard enough: He also lamented that oil wealth has at times detached Muslims "from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed," he wrote. " For more on this important topic, you really need to read Barbara Ehrenrich's Dancing in the Streets. Is his argument even logical? (Don't answer that.) They're "against physical labor" -- obviously the only kind of work for which "they're" fit -- so "they" bring in immigrants to do the hard work that their young people would, apparently, otherwise love to do (so I guess that they're not aginst physical labor). Remind you of anyplace coughAmericacoughfarmworkerscough?????

I really hope that bad things happen to this person. He's done so much evil and he's such an idiot and he's really a phenomenol ass.

Paxcast

NTodd talk, you listen.

Duh!

Professor Glick also concedes that much of this data — like his 2000 study showing that women were penalized more than men when not perceived as being nice or having social skills — gives women absolutely no way to “fight back.” “Most of what we learn shows that the problem is with the perception, not with the woman,” he said, “and that it is not the problem of an individual, it’s a problem of a corporation.”

I actually think this "concession," reported in today's NYT, is important. For too long, women have been told that it's our fault. Somehow, each individual woman out there struggling on the job is led to believe that if she could just precisely calibrate the exact proportions of being smart -- but not too smart, aggressive -- but not overbearing, demanding -- but not castrating, ambitious -- but not grabby, etc., etc., etc. that she could run the obstacle course that it is to be a woman in the work-a-day world and still succeed. That's not true. The fault, dear sisters, to mangle Cassius, is not ourselves, that we are underlings, but in our culture. It's true, an individual woman up against an impossibly toxic mix of Catch 22 expectations, has no way to "fight back." It's not the woman who needs to change. I am just saying.

Winter

Well, then, there it was. The wheel of the year did what it always does -- it turned. The veil, although it is still thinner than it is in, say, Midsummer, is already beginning to thicken a bit. The dream images that I received this morning from the ancestors won't be coming so clearly,nor so forcefully, until the wheel winds all the way round again. From here on, it's darkness and cold and turning inward. It's introspection and waking up to the cold kitchen floor when it's still dark outside and worrying about slipping on the ice. It's the discipline part of achievement, where you just make yourself do what you've promised to do, even when it's too early to see results, when you really don't want to do what you promised, when your very own Shadow that you very carefully constructed all by yourself lunges up and suggests, in its iron voice, that you go back to sleep. Now. Just this once. Now. It will be like this through Yule, and on into Imbolc (my least favorite time of year), and it won't start to change for the better until Ostara, at the earliest. Every year, I want to love the winter, but every year I wind up longing for sun, for the Caymans, for fruit, for light, for fresh greens, for bare feet.

I've written down my goals for this new year, journaled about what I want to accomplish. I've remembered the honored dead, and recited my matrilineal line (child of a dysfunctional family, mine is simpler than my sisters': "I am Hecate, daughter of the Great Mother Goddess"), and released some things and people that I needed to release. And now it's time for me to hunker down inside my cozy cottage, cat on my lap and cup of tea in my hand, and think, reflect, plan, do magic. I'm looking at my calendar and longing for a few days in a row for an in-home retreat, time to rake leaves, think, walk, sit at my altar, listen to my own thoughts. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe when I crank this pleading out.

Winter is the time to plan a new garden, a new project, a new article, a new brief, a new way of living in the world. Will we or nill we, here we go.

Our Honored Dead

The wheel's gone round another time, and some wonderful people set sail for the Western Isles.

Lloyd Alexander, author of children's books that sustained me.

Ingmar Bergman. Director of one of my all-time favorite movies, the Seventh Seal. Jag var Doden.

Father Drinan. A v. smart guy who enjoyed living in several worlds.

Molly Ivins. What can anyone say? Lady, you are missed. A wonderful writer from Texas who tried to warn the world about Shrub. I fucking hate fucking breast cancer.

Lady Bird Johnson. What lovely grace. Thank you for the wildflowers.

Madeline L'Engle. For me, this was the greatest loss of this turning of the wheel. L'Engle's fiction saved my life when I was a young child. When I was a young woman, she taught me how to write, how to take writing seriously, how to be a woman leading a spiritual life, how to integrate family and writing. Over and over throughout my life, I've come back to her work to ground myself, to remind myself of what's possible, to relive the person (Meg/Madeline/Mrs. Murray) that I wanted to be. I'll be placing her book on my circle's Samhein altar, toasting her as the mother of my writing self at our dumb supper, sending my energy to help her to find her way to the Summerlands where, I've no doubt, she'll hear them playing the Tallis Canon. Lady, thank you. I will remember you. The witches say, as I imagine you knew, that what is remembered does not die. I will remember you.

Remembering The Salem Dead

At Samhein, we remember our dead. The population of Salem, Massachusetts, location of many of America's witch trials, swells during Samhein. Which is odd, because the people tried and, generally, executed at Salem almost certainly were not witches. And, yet, I find it somehow appropriate, as a witch, to recall their names at this time of year. According to the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project, the following people were executed as witches.

Bridget Bishop
Rev. George Burroughs
Martha Carrier
Giles Cory
Martha Cory
Mary Easty
Sarah Good
Elizabeth How
George Jacobs Sr.
Susannah Martin
Rebecca Nurse
Alice Parker
Mary Parker
John Proctor, Sr.
Ann Pudeator
Wilmot Redd
Margaret Scott
Samuel Wardwell
Sarah Wilds
John Willard

Additionally, these people died in jail:

Lydia Dastin
Ann Foster
Infant Girl (daughter of Sarah Good)
Sarah Osborne
Roger Toothaker.

Now, when the veil is thin and all times are one time, is a good time to to say: May the Goddess guard them. May they find their ways to the Summerland. May their friends and families know peace. It's also a good time to say: Never again, the witch trials.

Never Blog About What You Ate For Lunch

In one of those, "this is what I love about my life" moments, I had lunch today with my wonderful, wise friend B. at Kaz Sushi Bistro. She was coming from getting her nails done. I was coming from (and going back to, sadly enough) trying to turn co-counsel's unmitigated mess into an actual legal pleading. We talked about mothers-in-law and grandchildren and grammar -- and planned the Dark Moon ritual for next month. B. had a plum wine sakitini; I, virtuously, abstained (I probably should have had a drink; it would have made the afternoon's chore less painful).

I just want to say: the Plum-Wine-Infused Foie Gras w/Plum Wine Jelly was one of the most amazing things that I've had in my mouth in some time. If you can possiby get to Kaz, order about half a dozen of these. (B. and I contented ourselves w/ two apiece, but I wanted several more all afternoon long.) I love my life.

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Twisty, come to DC and order some of these. You'll never brag about Austin ever again!

Robin Givhan Is A Complete Idiot And A Talentless Hack

Lilith on a lamb chop! Why does anyone let Robin Givhan, aka the world's worst writer and stupidest person, anywhere near a keyboard? What a load of rehashed, trite crap. If there's a point to this article, it's buried so deeply as to be completely impossible to locate. Old feminists = bad/Hillary Clinton=fake, is I guess, her message, not that you can really tell.

They Will Help Us Get Peace

There's a really interesting article in today's NYT Magazine concerning the crack-up of the xian right. It may be overly optimistic; reports of Mark Twain's death and all that. I'll have more to say as the election heats up about a group of supposed "values voters" who, as the article notes, will vote overwhelmingly for thrice-married, estranged from his children, mobbed-up, abortion-favoring, gay-loving Rudy Guiliani over Hillary Clinton, who honored the part of her marriage vows that say "for better or for worse," whose Methodist religion actually has influenced her entire life, who raised a lovely daughter, and whose elderly mother lives with the Clintons. What I'll have to say will be mostly: See? I told you that it was always about patriarchy and never did have anything to do with "values" or "family" or the "culture of life."

But what really struck me was this quote from former president Jimmy Carter -- who, lest we forget, has always been an evangelical xian. Carter said: “I think that a superpower ought to be the exemplification of a commitment to peace,” Carter told Hybels, who nodded along. “I would like for anyone in the world that’s threatened with conflict to say to themselves immediately: ‘Why don’t we go to Washington? They believe in peace and they will help us get peace.’ ” Jimmy, I'd like that very same thing and I'd like it very, very much.

A Veil So Thin, It's Like Cobwebs And Moonlight And Frost

Advice for Lou Dobbs

It's Weird When They Openly Admit That All They Really Want Is To Foster Needless Discrimination

Keith Olberman has a point. Bill O'Reilley, who runs around pretending to be horrified over a nonexistant "campaign" to "indoctrinate" children so that they'll won't hate gay people and treat them like shit (no, really!), begs women to engage in threesomes with him. And his idiot listeners are fine with that.

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Calaveras

Every year, I promise myself that NEXT year, I'll get my act together in, oh, late August, and make sugar skulls for Samhein. I didn't manage it this year, but for next year, I'm determined!!

It looks pretty easy, and maybe G/Son will be old enough to have fun "helping" me. I think they'd make an amazing Samhein altar, and, as Kathy Cano-Murillo from The Arizona Republic notes, a Día de los Muertos altar without sugar skulls is like a Charms Blow Pop without the bubble gum inside. Inkubus adds that: Sugar Skulls (Calaveras) are a traditional folk art from Southern Mexico used to celebrate El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This is a happy occasion in Mexico. The spirits of the dead are welcomed back . . . home with these beautifully decorated skulls as well as with altars, flowers candles, incense[,] and special foods. Families take the flowers and sugar skulls to the cemetery to decorate the tombs. Sugar skulls are colorfully decorated with icing, pieces of bright foil, [and] colored sugars[,] and usually bear the name of the deceased loved one being honored. If kept dry, the skulls can last a year .

Sure, Samhein is, for me, a holiday of Celtic origin, and Día de los Muertos originates, according to Wiki with the indigenous peoples [of Mexico and surrounding areas] such as the Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Mexica, Maya, P'urhépecha, and Totonac. Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by these civilizations perhaps for as long as 2500–3000 years. In the post-Hispanic era, it was common to keep skulls as trophies and display them during the rituals to symbolize death and rebirth. The festival that became the modern Day of the Dead fell in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar, about the beginning of August, and was celebrated for an entire month. The festivities were dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl known as the "Lady of the Dead", corresponding to the modern Catrina. But that's what I love about modern Paganism: the chance to create a completely syncretistic religion (yeah, I know that, for some, that's a term of derision) that blends together amazing elements from all over the world. And I've always found the beliefs surrounding the Day of the Dead to be, well, pretty Pagan.

Wiki explains that: Some Mexicans feel that death is a special occasion, but with elements of celebration, because the soul is passing into another life. Plans for the festival are made throughout the year, including gathering the goods to be offered to the dead. During the period of November 1 and November 2, families usually clean and decorate the graves. Most visit the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried and decorate their graves with ofrendas, or offerings, which often include orange marigold called "cempasuchil", originally named cempaxochitl, Nahuatl for "twenty flowers", in modern Mexico this name is often replaced with the term "Flor de Muerto", Spanish for "Flower of the Dead". These flowers are thought to attract souls of the dead to the offerings.

Toys are brought for dead children (los angelitos, or little angels), and bottles of tequila, mezcal, pulque or atole for adults. Families will also offer trinkets or the deceased's favorite candies on the grave. Ofrendas are also put in homes, usually with foods such as candied pumpkin, pan de muerto ("bread of the dead") or sugar skulls and beverages such as atole. The ofrendas are left out in the homes as a welcoming gesture for the deceased. Some people believe the spirits of the dead eat the "spiritual essence" of the ofrenda food, so even though the celebrators eat the food after the festivity, they believe it lacks nutritional value. The pillows and blankets are left out so that the deceased can rest after their long journey. In some parts of Mexico, such as the towns of Mixquic, Pátzcuaro and Janitzio, people spend all night beside the graves of their relatives.

Some families build altars or small shrines in their homes.

How could I not love a holiday that has people building altars in their homes, leaving offerings of alcohol for their beloved dead, and growing marigolds all summer long in order to be able to celebrate the passage from life to death, the turning, to use a Wiccan term, of the Wheel? I've always loved the scene in the movie Frida where Diego Rivera comes, after a long and difficult absence, to see Frida in the cemetery on the Día de los Muertos and asks her to house Leon Trotsky who had fled from the Soviet Union to Mexico. It's night. It's a cemetery. It's completely festive. She grants him his wish (and then fucks Trotsky).

So, that's it. Next year, I AM going to make sugar skulls, and decorate them, and make an altar. Hail Mictecacihuatl! Hail Catrina!

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Oddly, I find that more and more of my high holy days require the acquisition of plastic molds. My circle celebrates the rising of the Yule sun by banging on pots and pans and blowing whistles and beating drums (gotta wake up that sleepy sun!) and drinking strong drink in glasses made of ice that we then break upon the frozen ground (see, above, re: waking up the sun).

Friday Cat And Decoration Blogging

Friday Decoration Blogging

May It Be So For You

In a life of unearned joys, being able to live in a circle of amazing women is one of my greatest joys.

I've slept, in Stevie Nick's words, with poets, legends, priests of nothing.

I've been mother to a kind, good, sly-humored young man who has turned out to be, all unmentored, the most amazing father, a great writer, a v. good cook, a wonderful person, and a better son that I ever deserved. I've been lucky beyond luck to have a good and brilliant and kind daughter-in-law with whom I love to spend time. I have a G/Son whose picture I show to my dentist and to strangers on the train and who I knew immediately that I would love beyond imagining. I've lived past breast cancer to hear him say "Nonna," and if that's all that chemo bought for me, well, then, it was cheap at the price.

I've spent a lifetime reading poetry and seeing art and attending the ballet and walking in the gardens and the parks of some of the most amazing cities in North America.

I got to study law and to work for one of DC's best law firms and to handle fascinating, precedent-setting cases in great courts for a fantastic client.

And, yet, I count myself in nothing else so fortunate, in the words of the The Bard, than as a witch, in a circle of women. Tonight, a full moon under a rainy sky, was a confirmation of that for me. Wonderful, unearned things have been happening all my life, but having a circle of women sitting in my living room, eating dinner, drinking wine, relaxing from magic, sharing lives -- that's a gift from the Goddess that I never really expected to receive. Women applying for new jobs, sharing information about obtaining security clearances, renovating homes, going through pregnancy, watching their family members die, dealing with middle school girls who get called "easy," and coping with law firms where the chairman tells sexist jokes -- I count myself so lucky to be inside this swirl of energy.

May it be so for you.

Take Those Nooses Down

Code Pink Completely Rocks

What watertiger said. More here. Code Pink rocks.

And Then, It Rained

It's been such a long dry summer. I've watered, and watered, and watered my garden and my trees, getting a water bill that's double last year's. But that's only been to do triage, to try to keep alive my oak trees that were here when the American Revolution happened, to keep the expensive new toad lillies and the ancient rhododendron alive, to keep the moonflowers that Ruth sent to me, and the roses that I bought, and the gardenias that scented this entire Spring, alive.

But this morning, at about five o'clock, I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof. What an amazingly lovely sound. It's been so absent, lately. And, wonder of wonders, this evening, it was still raining. On Wednesday evenings, I get together with some amazing witches and we do ecstatic dance and eat a healthy potluck meal to which we each contribute. Tonight, after dancing and catching up with each other, we had collards and mustard greens, Susan Weed's cancer prevention cabbage and sea weed, garden squash and kashi, and cheese. We ate out on my screen porch and I kept interrupting the conversation to say, "Wow. I love the sound of the rain." My sisters indulged me. The rain is as if the Goddess just kept saying over and over and over again, "I love you. I love you. I love you."

Tomorrow, I'll gather with the women in my circle to do magic for two of us who need magic. Next week, I'll dance on Tuesday, instead of Wednesday, because Wednesday is the high holy day for my circle: Samhein. On Wednesday, we'll eat a dumb supper to honor the ancestors and do divination for the coming year. Magic matters, in my life, and my life is full of magic.

I wish that you could hear this rain, hear the thirsty earth drinking it in, hear the oaks and the datura and the thyme and the sage and the basil and the bee balm and the budelia drinking their fill for the first time in months. I wish that you could smell it through my open windows, dance in it with me under the full October moon, as we move from Libra to Scorpio, I wish that you could see, moment to moment, what it's doing for the thirsty plants.

What If They Invaded America?

My New Name For A Blog

What Diane Said.

Pretty Much

My New Name For A Blog

What Sir Oolius Said. What Natasha Said. What the NY Times Said:

Scientists have warned of impending disaster.

And life, for the most part, has gone on just as before.

The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains sprayed and football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola’s bottling plants chugged along at full strength. On an 81-degree day this month, an outdoor theme park began to manufacture what was intended to be a 1.2-million-gallon mountain of snow.

By September, with the lake forecast to dip into the dregs of its storage capacity in less than four months, the state imposed a ban on outdoor water use.



To which, I'll only add: Too. Many. People.

How Your Cat Wakes You Up

This, right up until the baseball bat, is EXACTLY how Miss Thing wakes me up every morning, including the nails in the archival fabric of the bedspread. And, although Son says that I'm mistaken, this is EXACTLY how G/Son says "meow," which is his word for cat. I'm not sure, however, that the artist accurately rendered the "dance of the kitty paws upon the full bladder" which Miss Thing has completely perfected.

/Hat Tip to plum p in coments at Eschaton

Oh! Shiny Things!

Like Lunea Weatherstone, I'm a huge fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. The amazing thing is that their scents do smell exactly as described. And I can read the descriptions all night long. Here are some lovely new ones:

THE GHASTLY GARDEN
Overgrown oleander, marshy water hemlock, the sugared nectar of carnivorous blooms, putrefying wet greenery, oozing sap, crushed rosary peas, withered climbing roses, and nightshade berries.

THE TWISTED OAK TREE
Blackened, rotted oak wood blanketed in moss and choked by a cloak of grasping ivy.

ARCHANGEL WINTER
Crystalline, glassy ice whipped by a snowstorm. Piercing ozone, winter darkness. (I really want this one!)

JÓLASVEINAR 2007
The Jólasveinar are the seventy-some offspring of Grýla and Leppalúði, an ogre couple with a taste for chomping naughty children. This impish brood delights in causing discomfort, sowing confusion, and all-out raising hell during the Yule season. Their names are indicative of their malicious intentions -- Strap Loosener, Door Slammer, Window Peeper, Sausage Snatcher, Doorway Sniffer, Icebreaker -- and their creepy natures -- Lamp Shadow, Smoke Gulper, Crevice Imp. The devillish Jólasveinar finally cease their mischief and head for home at Þrettándinn.

Their scent is a mishmash of snow, dirt, Icelandic moss, marsh felwort, and the smushed petals of buttercups and moorland spotted orchids, with the barest hint of the scent of pilfered Christmas pastries.

THE SHIVERING BOY
Cold, cold forever more. A winter storm roaring through empty stone halls, bearing echoes of despair, desolation, and death on its winds. The scent of frozen, dormant vineyards, bitter sleet, and piercing ozone, hurled through labdanum, benzoin, and olibanum.

I'm also a big fan of Elsa Peretti and am lately longing for her heavily-promoted round pendant. Something about her shapes is so modern and so organic at the same time.

And, this Spring, I want to plant about 25 of these bat plants in the woodland garden. Surely next year we'll get enough rain, right? I will, of course, always long for far more books that I have time to read.

In just a few weeks, I'll run to Whole Foods to buy this year's Beaujolais nouveau, which I'll drink all the way up to Yule. Speaking of Whole Foods, they've gotten me hooked on Brown Paper Chocolates. I especially like the dark chocolate, zapped by ancho chiles, almonds and aged tequila and the white chocolate fragrant with Lavender, Pimm's® No.1 and Chervil with a cracked pepper and lavender fleur de sel afterthought. A tiny shaving of one of these is all you need, much better than the cheap stuff.

What are you longing for?