Obama Restaurant Watch

Michelle Obama has been making news championing cooking with local and sustainable ingredients. . . . She put in a pitch for the superior flavor of local and sustainable food and for healthy eating, a recurring theme for her during the campaign and since she has come to Washington.

Sam Kass, the chef who cooked local, sustainable and healthy food for the family in Chicago is now an assistant chef in the White House kitchen. And both the executive chef Cristeta Comerford and the pastry chef Bill Yosses, well known to many New Yorkers who enjoyed his work at Bouley, made it clear they, too, cared about sourcing ingredients locally and regionally.

Mrs. Obama had high praise for the chef’s healthy creations, remarking on the creamless “creamed” spinach on the menu that evening, and she spoke glowingly of several “creamed” soups Chef Comerford had made that were also without cream.

So, in addition to Nora, which basically introduced local, organic cooking to the city, there are several DC restaurants that they're sure to enjoy (they've already been to Equinox):

The following ten eateries - listed alphabetically - were chosen based on their stated commitment to sourcing organic, local and sustainable fare - not to mention that they're all cooking up delicious food. So enjoy, and when you head in for lunch or dinner, be sure to mention that you appreciate their efforts to source your food responsibly - the more they know you're paying attention, the nearer we approach attention to sustainabilty becoming an integral facet of our local dining culture.

1. Equinox

2. Charlie Palmer Steak

3. Founding Farmers

4. Harry's Tap Room - Arlington and Pentagon City, VA

5. Hook

6. Kemble Park Tavern

7. Mio

8. Poste Modern Brasserie

9. Sonoma

10. Volt - Frederick, MD

More here.

Photo found here.

Manifest

Susie's got up a good post about making lemonade out of these difficult (liminal) economic times. Not to get all Pollyannaish, but I do think some good things may be coming, including less emphasis on consumption and overbuilding. Are you seeing anything good that might come out of this debacle? Either personally or on a broader level?

It's difficult to tweak one strand of the web without causing waves all through the web.

Photo found here.

Plant Magic

This waxing moon is the perfect time, here in the Mid-Atlantic, to start seeds indoors so that they'll be ready to plant outside as seedlings in a month or so. I've read that magic was first done to ensure successful hunts, but agriculture lends itself to so much magic, and it's doing magic with and for my plants that often connects me at a deep and cellular level with my many-times-great grandmothers. From the soil, to the seeds, to the containers, to the compost or other fertilizer, to the land where the seedlings will ultimately go, there are plenty of opportunities to do magic for plants. And there's something about plants that seems to make them receptive to our magic.

Like many gardeners, my eyes are often bigger than my yard and my budget. I spend a few months in the winter going through catalogues, reviewing my landscape plans, dreaming about what I'd grow if my yard got more sun or if I had a bit more space/time/water, etc. By January, I order -- mostly seeds, but some seedlings, as well, which will come sometime in April.

This year, I'm planting both curly and Italian parsley in the herb bed instead of dill, which, again, didn't do well for me last year. I'm putting in basil seedlings and I'm planting more French Thyme seedlings to supplement the few plants that I was able to grow last summer from seed. I think the lavender, rosemary, and sage will all come back, and I'm hopeful that maybe the pineapple sage will, as well, although I've bought more seeds, in case I need to fill in a bit. The woad, very faithful performer every year, is already looking green and strong. I've bought peppermint, spearmint, and chocolate mint seeds; I'm tearing up the mint bed for the patio and I'm going to rip the Night Owl roses out of their pots on the deck and grow mint in all those pots. I'll move the gardenia pots out there, as well, once it's warm enough, and am looking forward to the smell of mint and gardenia on warm summer evenings. I've tried for years to grow Bowles Black violas; I'm giving it one final shot this year in some small pots that go on the ledge shelf on my garden shed. And, of course, from last year, I have tons of datura, woad, black-eyed susan, morning glory, moonflower, and black hollyhock seeds, and I'm planning to grow the datura, moonflowers, and black hollyhocks all around the new fence.

I do a lot of simple sex magic for plants: cast a circle, call the directions and a Goddess, have an orgasm, direct the energy to the seeds, soil, land, etc. I also surround myself with the seedlings and ground, strongly feeling my own roots and the roots of the plants growing and strengthening, pulling in needed energy and nutrients. The night before I transplant the seedlings and the week or so after they're transplanted, I often do a lot of magic to help them over that transition (liminal) period.

I save the plastic pots that I get when I buy seedlings and re-use them, but I also make my own little pots out of newspaper and a wooden mold, although you can do the same thing with newspaper and a glass. This year, I may try inscribing the pots with some runes, although I'm still thinking about which I'll use.

What are you growing this year? What are you giving up on? What kind of magic do you do for your plants?

I've got a few packages of vegetable seeds that Shumway sent me for free. I don't have room to grow them, so I'll bless them and send them to the first person to send me their snail mail address at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com.

Photo found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What She Said.

And, it might be a good idea for feminists and progressives and, hell, anyone sane in America, to call or write the WH and thank Mr. Obama for taking this v important step. You know he's going to hear lots of whining and bitching from the christianists.

Also, What watertiger said.

Cartoon found here.

Dobson Done

So long, Motherfucker.

Motherfuckers

And people wonder why I drink.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga & Youth

Ostara's Coming

My New Name For A Blog

What echidne Said.

I swear I'm going to start taking hostages.

You Saw Her Here First, But It Won't Be The Last Time

The amazing Hallie. When she's a big star, just remember that you saw her here, first.

Amazing voice, amazing stage presence, amazing ability to own the stage.

Obama Restaurant Watch

Here's a v young Barack Obama extolling the virtues of Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop. He's a fan of johnny cakes and peach cobbler. Nothing wrong with that. And, BTW, it's National Pancake Week. G/Son is a huge fan of pancakes, esp. w strawberries. This coming weekend, I'm going to take him and his 'rents out for brunch and I know that he'll order pancakes. Ever see a three-year-old put away an adult order of pancakes? The good thing is that the carbs send him straight into Nap Heaven.

A Witch Takes Responsibility

There are a number of people who blazed the trail out of the broom closet back in the late fifties/early sixties, long before I'd ever heard of any witch besides the one on The Wizard of Oz, who scared me -- as she was meant to scare little girls considering female power -- shitless. I owe a debt of gratitude to all of them, including Yvonne and Gavin Frost. And I'm as disinterested in witch wars and controversy as it's possible to be. Oddly, I've never found that sort of thing to contribute to my growth as a witch, to my connection with Divinity, or to my general well-being.

So it's with a bit of reluctance that I note a grave concern that I have with Gavin and Yvonne Frost's book: Good Witches Fly Smoothly: Surviving Witchcraft. In general, it's an easy read and it contains some advice that I'd just ignore as not relevant to me as well as some generally helpful suggestions. Chas Clifton has a good review of some of the helpful advice offered.

I particularly agree with a point that the Frosts make early in their book, when, via a few entertaining stories, they note that it can often be a mistake to cling:

too tightly to some ancient tome for your circle casting. Just as with other subjects, examine the validity of the information. Would you make a potion by grinding up the magical bugs that appear in horse dung that stays warm and moist? That is the recipe from the widely-acclaimed book The Magus. . . . If you have a new way of doing something that's easier and/or more effective than the "traditional" way generally accepted, you may have to endure the slings and arrows of the traditionalist knee-jerk reactionaries; but you will be doing the whole community a giant favor. . . . [Pagans and Wiccans] are not dinosaurs unable to adapt -- follow your path and grow. Grow and learn. It is a mistake for modern people with modern mindsets to stick with rituals designed by and for people who had less knowledge and a different mindset, people who lived in a different time and place with different perceptions. See Chapter 2.

And, so, it's particularly disconcerting to see the Frosts assert that:

Any initiatory sex should be with a "stranger" -- an initiated Witch of the coven [that] the neophyte plans to join. . . . The underlying tradition here is sometimes overlooked. If the Craft means enough to you that you are willing to abide by its tenets then abide by them! If you cannot transcend your cultural brainwashing and accept the assignment to have sex one time with an assigned partner, in accordance with centuries of Craft tradition, the Craft can't mean that much to you. Here's the door. Don't call yourself a Witch. See Chapter 12.

This is just wrong.

And I need to point out the wrongness so that any young or impressionable people new to Wicca, who may stumble upon the Frosts' work, don't believe what the Frosts say about initiation and sex. The Frosts are, I'm sure, lovely people and have much to offer. And I'll preface my comments by saying that I'm a big believer in sex magic, I do it often and find it effective, and I imagine that, in the right situation, the sort of initiation that they advocate could be quite empowering and effective. But I have never had sex with an "assigned partner" and I think I'm a reasonably devoted and powerful witch. So, sex magic: good, however, also possibly: devastating.

I've no idea how far "back" the notion of initiation into Wicca involving sex with another coven member may or may not go. It's hardly the universal that the Frosts proclaim. Uncle Gerald, may the Goddess hold him in her arms, loved nudity and flagellation, and he swore that they were key elements of ancient witchcraft, going back to the dawn of time. He swore that less than a century ago. How far back before that period initiation into witchcraft may or may not have involved sex with a "stranger" is anyone's guess.

But I can tell you -- without qualification -- that you can certainly adhere to the tenants of Wicca, that you can call yourself a Witch, and that the Craft can mean the world to you even if you never allow someone like Gavin or Yvonne Frost to order you to have sex with some "stranger." What, Solitaries aren't witches?

Especially for women, sex in this society is a loaded proposition, and you can decide never to have sex, never to have hetero sex, never to have sex with anyone but your chosen partner, or to have sex with whomever you -- not some High Priest or Priestess -- like, and you can still be a dedicated, magnificent, initiated, powerful Witch. I would never let anyone tell me that if I decided to control my own sexual behavior, I was therefore the victim of "cultural brainwashing" or that the Craft didn't "mean much" to me, or to suggest to me: "Here's the door. Don't call yourself a Witch."

As the Frosts, themselves, note, It is a mistake for modern people with modern mindsets to stick with rituals designed by and for people who had less knowledge and a different mindset, people who lived in a different time and place with different perceptions. That's as true of rituals designed by and for people who came to Wicca in the 1940s and 1950s as it is of people who wrote Books of Shadows centuries ago. One of the most important things that I ever read about Wicca, and I apologize for forgetting who wrote it, is "A witch takes responsibility." That sentence guides all of my practices within Wicca. Above all, I am responsible for what I do or do not do with my body, which is my only tool for being immanent in this reality. And I will never give that responsibility away to anyone, not even some v eminent witch, or High Priestess, or elder.

Sia, as is often the case, has some simple, common-sense advice about sex and Wicca here.

Sunday Trakl Blogging

Psalm

It is a light, that the wind has extinguished.
It is a pub on the heath, that a drunk departs in the afternoon.
It is a vineyard, charred and black with holes full of spiders.
It is a space, that they have white-limed with milk.
The madman has died. It is a South Sea island,
Receiving the Sun-God. One makes the drums roar.
The men perform warlike dances.
The women sway their hips in creeping vines and fire-flowers,
Whenever the ocean sings. O our lost Paradise.

The nymphs have departed the golden woods.
One buries the stranger. Then arises a flicker-rain.
The son of Pan appears in the form of an earth-laborer,
Who sleeps away the meridian at the edge of the glowing asphalt.
It is little girls in a courtyard, in little dresses full of heart-rending poverty!
It is rooms, filled with Accords and Sonatas.
It is shadows, which embrace each other before a blinded mirror.
At the windows of the hospital, the healing warm themselves.
A white steamer carries bloody contagia up the canal.

The strange sister appears again in someone's evil dreams.
Resting in the hazelbush, she plays with his stars.
The student, perhaps a doppelganger, stares long after her from the window.
Behind him stands his dead brother, or he comes down the old spiral stairs.
In the darkness of brown chestnuts, the figure of the young novice.
The garden is in evening. The bats flit around inside the walls of the monastery.
The children of the caretaker cease their playing and seek the gold of the heavens.
Closing accords of a quartett. The little blind girl runs trembling through the tree-lined street.
And later touches her shadow along cold walls, surrounded by fairy tales and holy legends.

It is an empty boat, that drives at evening down the black canal.
In the bleakness of the old asylum, human ruins come apart.
The dead orphans lie at the garden wall.
From gray rooms tread angels with shit-spattered wings.
Worms drip from their yellowed eyelids.
The square before the church is obscure and silent, as in the days of childhood.
Earlier lives glide past upon silvery soles
And the shadows of the damned climb down to the sighing waters.
In his grave, the white-magician plays with his snakes.

Silent above the place of the skull, open God's golden eyes.


Art found here.

This Just Delights My Pisces Soul More Than I Can Say

And Phila does it once a week, every week.

Photo found here.

Everything I've Ever Had

Obama Restaurant Watch

Dear Mr. Obama,

Maybe this weekend, you can take Michelle and your two lovely daughters to Kramer's Books & Afterwords. It's a DC institution. You can buy some books and, then, have Obama Family Chili for just $12. At Kramer's, they make it from Café ground beef shoulder, onion, pepper & red beans, cumin, oregano, turmeric, basil, chili powder, and tomato; topped w/cheddar, red onion, scallion, sweet peppers & sour cream. Kramer's serves it with seasonal green salad w/apple, onion & walnuts.

I was there today for lunch and had the Narragansett Baked ½ Lobster w/ crabmeat, brushed w/sweet butter & fired under the broiler, w/Café mac & cheese, corn & lima bean succotash; grilled fresh asparagus. You can walk next door to Marvelous Market for v good brownies for dessert.

Come on. You live here. Take the girls out to eat and buy books here.

More on the Obamas' trips to various restaurants in DC here.

Picture found here.

Dear Liberals, This Is How It's Done

Hat tip to Eckcentrik at Eschaton.

Obama Restaurant Watch

Dear President Obama:

You've been spending some time this week out West, which is really smart politically and, heck, at a time when America needs to change and flow and experience some optimism for a change, it makes sense magically, as well. And it only makes sense to go to an old-home favorite restaurant for a holiday like Valentine's Day. Course, Denver decided to push back it's Restaurant Week rather than compete with your appearance there to sign the economic stimulus package (May Ganesh and Green Tara make it work!) But, by all accounts, the city was delighted to have you.

Here in DC, we're used to presidents and we're not pushing back our Restaurant Week, which started on February 16th and runs through February 22nd.

Hopefully, you and the First Lady will be able to have dinner (or even lunch) out a few times during DC's Restaurant Week. You can try some great food at some economic prices and boost the economy of DC all at once. A three-course lunch will set the WH budget back a mere $20.09 and a three-course dinner comes in at an economically stimulating $30.09

I'm a big fan of Acadiana Restaurant, 901 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001, (202) 408-8848,

Bistro Francais, 3124-28 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007, (202) 338-3830,

Napoleon Bistro1847 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009 , (202) 299-9630 (have the frittes),

and La Chaumiere, 2813 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007, (202) 338-1784 (which is perfect for a cold, February night),

but there are tons of choices on the list.

Come on, you're here for 8 years (Goddess grant), may as well settle in.

PIcture found here.

Deep Thought (W/ Apologies To Atrios)

I should be adding mushrooms to the Susun Weed Cabbage that I make each week.

Picture found here.

Resilient This

There's a fascinating article in the WaPo "proving" that girls are more "resilient" than boys. And, of course, my first response is a knowing smile. Damn straight, we're more resilient. We have to be. Plus, we're not missing that important bit of genetic material that gets cut off of an X chromosome to make it a Y.

But when you think about the article for a moment, it's interesting to consider the underlying sexism.

The article describes a study that looked at boys and girls raised in stressful situations: Besides having a drug-addicted parent, many of the children also had a parent who was jailed or mentally ill. Overall, 62 percent of the children had three or more childhood adversities. So those situations would seem to happen equally to both boys and girls. But, here's the interesting part:

[R]esiliency was defined as either working or being in school, not being a substance abuser and having no criminal record. It's interesting that resiliency was defined as doing what we expect men to do and as not doing those things that men with problems often do. Resiliency, for example, wasn't defined as not being involved with an abusive lover, as not having had early and unplanned pregnancies, as not engaging in anorexic behaviors or bulimia. Stay in school, don't use drugs, and don't get arrested and you're able to deal resiliently with a difficult childhood, I guess. That's what girls do.

I used to teach special education for kids labeled "emotionally disturbed." Not surprisingly, teachers refer to such programs those kids who act out in the classroom and make it impossible for the teachers to teach. Not surprisingly, far more boys than girls got referred and "identified." I kept pointing out that there were girls with emotional problems, but they displayed those problems in ways -- retreating into silence and depression, cutting themselves, starving themselves, giving themselves away sexually in return for an illusion of love, etc. -- that didn't generally disrupt the classroom. And so they went untreated, while the boys, who tended to act out, disrupt, be aggressive, engage in "dangerous" behaviors, got help.

I think it's dangerous to pretend that girls can "take it" better than boys can. It's dangerous for the boys, but it's especially bad for the girls.

Picture found here.

Too Soft To Stand Up To Our Enemies, But Too Contrary To Our Stereotypes For Voting For The War

Once Obama was the Democratic candidate, I supported him wholeheartedly. I campaigned for him, blogged for him, showed up at the farmers' market and handed out literature for him, opened my home to Obama volunteers, did magic to ensure his election, made fetch birds to protect him, drove voters to the polls -- I worked to get him elected. And I cried like a big baby when he was inaugurated, delighted that my G/Son will grow up simply accepting that, well, yeah, of course African Americans can be president.

Throughout the primary campaign, lots of Democratic voters were simply indignant: I could NEVER vote for Hillary Clinton! She voted for the war!

Fair enough. The war was immoral and everyone knew that Bush was going to fuck it up. Voting for it was immoral.

Hil had the bad luck to be a woman w the first real shot at the WH just as Rove was punking the Dems. If she'd voted v the war, she'd have had to campaign against assertions that, as a woman, she was too "soft" to be willing to use our military "against terrorists." And, as a woman, if she voted for the war, she was going to, as she did, pay a price for being pro-war. We don't like our women being too warlike.

It's MUCH WORSE for a woman to be pro-war in this society than it is for a man.

Want proof? It was OK for Kerry and Edwards to be pro-war (But, but, but, they apologized BETTER than she did! Right. Sure. Whatever.) It was OK for Biden to have been "for the war." Crickets. And, today, Obama announced that he's ramping up the war in Afghanistan. I'm sure Move On will get right on this. No, I'm not. Crickets.

Look. I'm anti-war. I don't think it's OK for ANYONE to be for any war.

But it's v, v, v, v interesting to me to see the different reactions to men who are "for war" as compared to Clinton. As usual, women are damned if the do and damned if they don't. In patriarchy, it's a feature, not a bug.

Picture found here.

Obama Restaurant Watch

How Can We Tell The Gardener From The Garden

Is there anything quite as depthless as the flower beds that deck the entrances of corporate high-rise buildings in our cities? In these raised, granite-bordered ovals and rectangles, the flowers are always in their prime. Neither strife nor decay is visible, nor the mark of Cura, as a full bed of pansies is replaced overnight by one of full-blown petunias. Here the sublime artifice of Versailles has become the paltry ornamentalization of decorative "landscaping." Here the "perpetual spring" of Eden indeed seems to reign, but it is as arid and worldless as the forced air and artificially regulated environments inside the offices and hotel towers. As we "cute up" the habitat, the gardens become more perfect, yet the gardener recedes further from the scene, to the point of disappearing altogether. These formulaic gardens that are cropping up in our midst are not sustained by personal dedication, but are mechanically maintained by anonymous agents. In short, the specious garden world of Aeon Flux is already upon us.

Picture found here.

Why We All Adore Twisty

Hear me, O afflicted dudes: If you truly do “get” feminism, you know that, like all oppressed classes, women, as a matter of survival, are intimate to the point of exhaustion with the drives, appetites, illnesses, angsts, yearnings, hopes, dreams, great works, and bodily functions of the oppressor. We grasp these things utterly and without omission because we do not live in a cave; they are the default subjects of all art, literature, music, science, film, blogs, dinner conversation, science fiction, advertising, journalism, legislation, TV, the Internet, religion, technology, sport, and miscellaneous culture both low and high. The minute some dude tells me something I don’t already know about dudeliness, I’ll eat a bonobo.

Go read the whole thing.

Cartoon found here.

Gee, How On Earth Could That Have Happened? Must Be The Way Folks Are Always Persecuting Those Pauvre, Pauvre Xianists.

Butcha Are, Gary! Butcha Are!

Gary Bauer said this week, “There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate. It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the ‘American Taliban,’ ‘fundamentalists,’ ‘Christian fascists,’ and ‘extreme Religious Right.’”

Hat tip to the divine Athenae.

Picture found here. (Site not safe for young children).

Endlessly Disposable

If at present we are seeking to render the totality of the [E]arth's resources endlessly available, endlessly usable, endlessly disposable, it is because endless consumption is the proximate goal of a production without end. Or, better, consumption is what justifies the frenzy of production, which, in turn justifies consumption, the entire cycle serving more to keep us busy than to satisfy our real needs.

~From Gardens, An Essay on the Human Condition by Robert Pogue Harrison/

Picture found here

Obama Restaurant Watch

So instead of eating in DC, the Obamas went out to Table 52. for Valentine's dinner.

No word on what the First Couple ate, but I think I'd have gone for the Kansas City Lamb Strip Loin with Parsley-Mint Sauce, Braised Tiny Red Potatoes & Green Lentils. The desserts look tooth-achingly sweet and I don't see a cheese tray, so I'd hope the lamb was enough.

I hope that next year they'll try one of DC's lovely restaurants. Dear Mr. President: You may want to write this on a shirt cuff: DC in the winter, Chicago in the Summer. No one goes to Chicago in February!

What Ericka Said

No women? WTF? How can we be 52% of the population and be unfuckingvisible?!!??!??!

Picture found here.

Sunday Trakl Blogging

In Hellbrun

Once more following the blue grief of the evening
Down the hill, to the springtime fishpond—
As if the shadows of those dead for a long time were
hovering above,
The shadows of church dignitaries, of noble ladies—
Their flowers bloom so soon, the earnest violets
In the earth at evening, and the clear water washes
From the blue spring. The oaks turn green
In such a ghostly way over the forgotten footsteps
of the dead
The golden clouds over the fishpond.

Picture found here.

Damn. This Is Good.

And, oddly appropriate for early Spring. The combination of two root vegetables -- parsnips and horseradish -- with two Spring vegetables -- parsley and chives -- somehow really works. I used vegetable broth and tripled the amount of parsley and chives. Parsnips have a lot of fiber and some vitamin C, vitamin K, and potassium.


INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 pounds of parsnips, peeled and cut into 2 1/2 inch batons
4 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup of stock - turkey stock, low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable broth
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
4 teaspoons drained, bottled horseradish (how to make homemade horseradish)
1/2 Tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 Tbsp minced chives
1/2 small garlic clove, minced.

METHOD
1 Pre-heat oven to 400°F. In a large roasting pan, toss the parsnips with the olive oil, salt and pepper. (Use a roasting pan with sides no more than 2 inches high.) Add the broth, cover with aluminum foil and roast, stirring once or twice, until the parsnips are tender and the stock has evaporated or been absorbed, 30-45 minutes. Check often to avoid their getting mushy - especially if they are to be reheated later.
2 Combine the softened butter with the horseradish, parsley, chives and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Toss the warm roasted parsnips with the horseradish-herb butter and serve.
3 The parsnips (with the oil, salt, pepper, and broth) can be pre-cooked in a covered container in the microwave for 5 minutes. Transfer to oven to finish cooking in a much shorter time. You may want to uncover them to help evaporate the liquid when in the oven.

Recipe found here.

Picture found here.

Date Rape

I agree with everything that Foser says here, but I'll add that Obama set himself up for this criticism months ago when he made "bipartisanship" a keyword of his campaign. He insisted it was of prime importance long before the media decided that his administration would rise and fall based upon its appeal to his opponents. Many of us suggested months ago that it takes two to do the bipartisan boogie and that Republicans will never dance nice with a Democrat. We were told that we just didn't understand his incredible ju jitsu. Someone close to Obama once told me that he has a "very strong sense of his own abilities." I hope he's learned that even he can't get blood out of a stone or help from the Republicans. Now, Barack, tell them to go fuck themselves and govern from the Left. You can do it.


And, as always, What Digby Said. She's been especially brave and amazing and spot on the last few weeks.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tomorrow's the Feast of St. Valentine, and the incomparable Sara Sutterfield Winn pointed me to this wonderful discussion of what love means to Pagans:

I am stuck on the morning light. So much so that I can barely think about aught else. It bleeds all over the wet, dark grass, revealed after a weekend of soaring wind and rain, swaddling February in March’s clothes. The prairie grass that clumps and bends by the roadside lights up like candles in the morning, the tall stems and feathery tips unnamed due to my ignorance, but that I have come to think of as Wing Grass. Poets and biologists may differ over Names, but no matter, it’s the same willowy grace, the soft nimbus haloed behind by the globe of the sun, the roots thrilling in the spongy earth.

The city has its own hard grace, but I do miss the sky. Driving out in the countryside this week, the great vault opened above me, and its vast, empty richness spilled down in huge lungfuls, and I became instantly awash in tears. Love was the message, and the wind in the sky, the blazing of the trees, was the medium.

Love. You know, that’s a tricky subject for a lot of folks, and rightly so.

. . .

Our gods are complex and ten-dimensional! They aren’t simply giant laps we lay our heads on when times get hard - we grapple and wrestle with them, make deals and sacrifices, laugh and clink cups with them, dance and mourn with and for them, and yes, we love them….and sometimes they love us…but Love with a capital “L”? Universal Love? Love, the chemical makeup of organic bedrock…floating there in the dark matter between photons and electrons? Love that pours down from the sky and is swirling around in our cells, motivating the blood through our veins and pumping out of mountain springs, up through black caves made of limestone, out on the wings of the wind, rustling and shouting in leaves and the cry of birds? Eh, wevs.

Well I disagree (and I’m so painfully subtle about it all, I know). I think we can and should speak of Love again as a people - strive to wonder about a Pagan theology of Love - what would this look like? To speak in its language, as the ancient Greeks, who possessed a wide vocabulary of love. Philia, Eros, Agape. The sophisticated, beautiful love that Aphrodite reigned over, the dangerous, ecstatic love of Dionysos. When we engage as Pagani in the discourse of Love, we have a staggeringly rich world from which to pull. To bring Love down from the meaningless aether and work it like clay into the form of embodied theologies, into discourse, into reflection, into the vetting of our ethical beings, into right relationship with the Land. Love is there - love meets us there - we can invoke it with integrity and meaning - it can be something as real to us as our hands.

And then, of course, there’s the sky and the Land burning like roman candles in the midday - paradoxically laying a hand on my forehead and cooling the fever of my mind…forgiving faults…easing pain…and breaking my heart open like a walnut shell, flying into a thousand pieces, weeping stormily and crying out to that divine shade of blue the first thing that rises to my mouth, summoned from the depth of such a feeling… “O I love you. I love you.” Oh there, friends, there. What are we to make of that?

Love…magic…the numinous…the Mama….what’s the difference?

Very little that I can see, beloveds.

Describing mystical experience, of whatever variety -- xian, islamic, buddhist, Pagan -- is almost impossible. (Which is why the Charge of the Goddess says: "And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without. For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.")

Rumi managed it and, in the post excerpted above, Ruby Sara does, as well.

Meanwhile, my v creative friend, K. points me to THIS GREAT IDEA FOR VALENTINE'S DAY [concerning] the dreadful incident . . . in which a group of men (associated with the right-wing Hindu group Sri Ram Sena, who oppose violation of "traditional values," especially by Indian women natch) [went] into a pub on a Saturday afternoon and attack[ed] the female patrons.

A group of Indian women have started the awesomely-named Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women and launched a campaign to send pink panties, or chaddis, to Pramod Muthalik, leader of the Sri Ram Sena, in protest of his misogynist horseshit.

[Then, on] Valentine's Day, women across the world are being encouraged to: "Go to a pub wherever you are. From Kabul to Chennai to Guwahati to Singapore to LA women have signed up. It does not matter if you are actually not a pub-goer or not even much of a drinker. Let us raise a toast (it can be juice) to Indian women. Take a photo or video. We will put it together (more on how later) and send this as well to the Sri Ram Sena.".

Picture found here.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

If you get lost, I'll come and find you.

Picture found here, and above my hearth.

Dogma Is Not Particularly Important, Compared To Ritual And Experience.

Last night, I was talking w two dear friends about the interesting thing going on within Wicca.

Maybe it IS our Saturn Return as a religion. But whatever it is, there are certainly a number of people out there questioning their identity as witches, wondering where they go from here, asking hard kewshtuns. One of the things we noted is that, almost as a reaction to this questioning, there's a seeming movement on the part of some (and, no, this is nothing new; they call them "witch wars" for a reason) to insist that their way is the right way.

And, come on, we're talking about Paganism and witches.

I find her almost insufferable on some topics, but one thing that Ellen Evert Hopman said to me years ago makes perfect sense. Druids may be those people who study and know the laws so that society can go on. They work within the system, advising and teaching kings and preserving knowledge. But witches are those wily, wild, unpredictable, women who live outside the village proper and who ignore the laws that they don't like. They handle poisons and they consort with familiars and they fly around at night when it's windy and dark and proper women are all abed.

It's what makes them powerful. And it's what makes them dangerous. And it's what makes it impossible to "herd" them -- worse than cats.

And, it's what makes me love them, as well. My pipple.

And, here's Gus diZerega celebrating the out-of-control diversity of the Paganii:

Tomorrow I head off to Pantheacon, the largest Pagan gathering on the West Coast. It is always a treat to go and immerse myself in our larger community, the (statistically) 'normal', the granola, the techno, the weird, the geeky, the fey, and every other possible type of human being who can gather together in mutual respect and harmony, for with all the superficial differences among us, and some that I grant are deeper, we are still, all of us, Pagans. And that matters. A lot.
. . .

It is wonderful to see British Traditionalists (like me), Celtic, Asatru, African Diasporic folks, Druids, Erisians, and many more come together to celebrate the many ways human beings have to honor the Divine. (I have tried to provide reliable links here. If I error regarding YOUR tradition, please inform me.) The Sacred spins out its beautiful abundance and we respond in kind, Many old friends practice these other paths, and it is always a joy to see them again as we gather from all over the west, and sometimes even farther away.

In a separate post, diZerega also explains what witches have, in place of the "sacred texts" of other religions:

So what do we Pagans have as an alternative [to sacred texts]?

Fundamentally we are an oral and experiential tradition. We Wiccans have Books of Shadows, but they are more like ritual cookbooks tha[n] sacred texts along Biblical or even theological lines. Similar texts dominate in Brazil among the African Diasporic traditions. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. This also appears to have been the case in Rome.

Wiccans and Pagans in general do not look to revelations of other people's experiences with the sacred, especially revelations of long ago, we look primarily to our own experience in ritual, on vision quests, or through other practices. We also depend on the accumulated knowledge of our own spiritual communities to help us put what we have experienced into context. This means that we can never be completely confident of our understanding. What we know is ALWAYS provisional, it is ALWAYS open to revision. Pagan practice, wherever and whenever it has existed, changes, and that is OK.

She changes everything She touches
And everything She touches, changes.

This is a feature, not a flaw.

Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't think that can be said enough. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.

I don't care what you believe. Did you find ecstasy in the ritual? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Did your hair stand on end and did the unknowable touch the buckle of your spine when that witch cast the circle? I don't care which "trad" you follow. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Did you meet the Goddess during the guided visualization? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care if you're a festival pagan or a solitary. Was there a moment when you really became a tree, rooted in the Earth, strong, in touch with the minerals and water and fire at the core? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care who initiated you. Did the Great Rite happen, did seeming opposites become one, did the orgasm make your boundaries dissolve and did you know, really know, for a few minutes that you're just Goddess pouring Goddess into Goddess? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care that you came to the Craft via Buffy. Did the magic change things? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. I don't care whether you wear a pentacle, which direction you call first, whether your practice is reconstructionist, or syncretic (hint: it is), or culled from the African Diaspora. Did you help to turn the Wheel of the Year? Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.

Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.

I am a witch. I was born a witch and I will die a witch. What that means has changed for me over the decades and will, so mote it be, change with me as long as I live. But I'm happy for those who spend time as witches and then find something else more meaningful. I don't need the confirmation that would come from others also affirming this path. It's mine and it works for me. Dogma is not particularly important, compared to ritual and experience.


Art found here.

Obama Restaurant Watch

Everyone in DC wants to tell the the Obamas where to eat on Valentine's Day. If I had to do a quick pick of romantic places, I'd pick Nora, the patio at Morton's on Connecticut, Tabard inn, Iron Gate Inn, and Citronelle. But I'm old fashioned and what I'd really like is a young lover who could show me some new places.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Obama,

Ignore that idiot Tom. You can have lots of good meals in and around DC.
Or, if you really want to hang out in suburbia, Willow. Willow is good.

Your Friend,

Hecate

Yarn Lust

Pure and Unadulterated.


Picture found here.

Fire!

If Samhein is a good time of year to set goals and then let them germinate through Yule, Imbolc, for me, is the shot-in-the-arm time, the pep talk, the time to really use that extra fire that comes with the longer-lasting sunlight and the occasional Spring-like day. (And Eostara's about play, something not reserved for maidens. I'll have more to say about this soon.) People who work off of the secular calendar often set new goals on January 1st and then dive right in. By now, though, the gyms are starting to seem a bit less crowded: people are beginning to flag.

I've been thinking a lot about fire, lately. About how one ignites it and how one keeps it lit. There's not much fire in my chart, and I've always kind of used that as an excuse to have an indifferent reltionship with fire. When I had to, I just relied on my earthy stubbornness to get me through. But I need it: I need more fire in my life. I've finally satisfied some of my earthy and watery needs for security and material comfort and structure and, now, at almost 53, I find myself needing more fire.

And, so, after living in this house for six years, I finally got the chimney cleaned so that I could start having fires. I had one; it was nice. I tried to have another one and somehow screwed up the draft; smoke all over the living room. I cleaned that up, learned how to start a good draft, and had a third fire. It broke the glass fireplace screen. I ordered a new one. It got delayed in production. You can't make this stuff up.

Today, my new screen arrived and I managed to get it inside and assembled all by myself. Even though it's rather warm this evening, I'm going to have a fire. If you hear tomorrow about an old woman and a cat burned in a freak fireplace accident, you'll know it was me. I am going to make a special offering to the house elves before I strike a match.

Image found here.

Update: Of course, when I went out to get the wood, the pile of what I thought was firewood on the backporch was nothing but FatLogs, used to start fires, but no actual firewood. As I said, you can't make this stuff up. I'll get some firewood and try again this weekend when it's supposed to turn cold again. Meanwhile, I love the Universe's sense of humor.

Spring

So, I have several good posts planned out, about what's terribly wrong w Obama's approach to "faith-based" governing, about who should be Sec'y of HHS, about what the upcoming Eostara has to say to crones, and we to it, and, of course, poetry.

But it's sixty-six degrees and sunny outside; the birds are going almost as mad with joy as I am, and I am BLOGGING ON THE BACK PORCH, BYOTCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, thank every god and Goddess and nymph and dryad and elemental and power of nature that there is; it's sunny and warm and Spring Is Coming.

This morning, before we got in the car to head to his home, and while it was still chilly and overcast, I was showing G/Son the daffodils that are poking their heads up out of the still-quite-cold ground and I said, "Soon, it's going to get lots warmer, and we'll be able to play outside all the time, and Spring will be here." G/Son, who's into the "why" stage, said, "Why Spring will be here?", and I started to explain about the Earth and the sun and an ellipse, and then I stopped and said, "Because Nonna really, really, really needs it to be Spring." That was good enough for G/Son. About halfway home, he remembered something that I'd told him the night before, and he said, "Nonna, when you get home, those hungry rabbits may be eating your crocus. So you should put out carrots for them so they will have full tummies and not eat your crocus." And, so, I did.

Once, a student of mine, and once a dear friend, said to me that, if they knew right then that their lives were always going to be as they were at that moment, they'd kill themselves. And, I know that feeling. There are times for almost all of us when you figure that when you're going through hell you should keep going, but you do that because you imagine that hell has borders and that, eventually, you'll reach them. One of the things that I do is to try and deliberately "bottle" days like today, the kind of days that remind you that, eventually, things get better. And that can be potent medicine when the cold, grey Novembers of life transit from autumnals, etc.

The breezes get soft, the light returns, the green reclaims the planet, the sun shines so brightly on my copper windchimes that it creates it's own tiny, teeny, micro ecosystem and makes music from earth and fire and air on my porch. May it be so for you.

Photo by the author. Wooden garden sculpture from Garden Plum.

Freeway Blogger Rocks II

That Is All.

Women You Have Known Intimately In Sacred Space For Years.

Oh, Joanna, I'm Jealous!!!!!

Last weekend, I traveled with my mermaid sisters to Orcas Island for our annual Imbolc/Brigids Day retreat. We are a circle of women who first gathered together during the Goddess classes I taught in the 90's. They went on to complete the priestess training program I created. I have long since stepped down as "leader" and am glad to be one of a circle of equals. I have many other dear friends locally and around the country — but there is something very special about sharing your soul with a group of women that you have known intimately in sacred space for nearly fifteen years.

We spent most of the weekend talking and listening, cooking and eating, walking and laughing. This year we chose topics for our rounds — Health, Finances, Work/Career, Relationships, Spiritual Path, What We Care About the Most. And at the end, we set goals for the coming year. We would go around the circle by topic and each woman had a chance to speak as briefly or as long as she liked about that issue in her life. Then the rest jumped in with feedback or questions. The process becomes a cauldron for self-discovery and reflection, and I believe we all emerge from the Retreat with new energy and new clarity about our lives.

Joanna's right; no matter what else happens to you, there's something very special about doing magic with women whom you've known a long time, with whom you're used to doing magic, with whom you've entered sacred space enough times to flow comfortably into it. A college of priestesses. And, at least for me, it's empowering to know that there are women who will show up when you need help, tell you to try one more time, enjoy your victories, listen to you bitch about your job/lover/life, bathe your body when you die, call your name at Samhein.


My circle has been doing an annual retreat for several years, but, reading about the Mermaid's weekend, I'm wondering if we could think thing about a longer period of time.

Photo found here.

About The Time I'm Ready To Scream At Him, He Reminds Me That He DOES Get It

But, Dude, lay off the "my wife picks on me jokes." They are so fucking old and sexist.


Hat tip to the Goddess Athenae.

Victory Gardens And Staycations

Hammered at work and with a bad cold. But there's an absolutely brilliant night sky outside tonight, with a half moon almost directly overhead and several constellations bright as can be.

Yesterday, Landscape Guy and I were talking about the bad economy and he told me that, although his business is really hurting, he's trying to look for good things that are coming from this economy. More time at home with friends, a less frentic pace, more home-cooked (and healthier) meals, less impulse spending. He was the first person I've heard who has had anything positive to say.

What are you doing to deal with these times? My madcap friend R. is teaching every First Aid class the county can schedule for her and putting away the fees in case her state job gets cut. Another friend has cut back on e-bay shopping to pay off credit card debt. Landscape guy and his cute new lover are planning a victory garden in the lover's yard. I'm knitting a lot more; I don't know why, but it makes me feel productive. List your strategies in comments below.

Normal blog-blog-bloggity-blog-blogging will resume shortly.


Poster found here..

Violence

And the value of bipartisanship.

Priestessing the Great Mother Earth

There are, as Rumi said, hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Hundreds of ways for witches to honor and care for Mother Earth. My v creative friend K. sent me this article from the WaPo:

The first brave blossoms of winter jasmine are shivering in freezing temperatures. Daffodil shoots are rising through the rock-hard soil, and pearl-like snowdrops are just apparent through the golden and lifeless foliage of the hakone grass. (I must cut that back.)

Gardeners notice these seasonal progressions even in the supposed dead of winter, and for that reason, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist named Jake Weltzin wants to tap into the vast reservoir of knowledge that exists in America's back yards.

"I would like to have 40,000 plant observers," said Weltzin, who is based at the University of Arizona at Tucson and is executive director of an organization called the USA National Phenology Network. Phenology is a bloodless scientific term for the miracles that occur every day in the garden: the morning in March a flock of cedar waxwings alights on the holly bushes, the first unfurling of the dogwood flower, the day the hummingbirds return, or the hour the frog lays her eggs. These life cycle events combine to form the tapestry of the natural world, and the more plants we use in the garden and the more wildlife we attract, the richer the experience.

Weltzin and his colleagues have a more prosaic reason to call on gardeners and backyard naturalists to log these phenomena: They are starting a 30-year project to gauge how climate change is affecting the world around us.

. . .

The unwitting father of this endeavor died 147 years ago. Henry David Thoreau, abolitionist, philosopher and naturalist, spent six years recording the flowering dates of 500 plant species of his native Concord, Mass., with the aim of producing a calendar based on a plant's first flowering.

Such was the scale of his task, and his legendary status as a naturalist, that his work inspired others in Concord to follow suit. Alfred Hosmer, a shopkeeper and amateur botanist, recorded the flowering times in various habitats of 700 species and varieties between 1878 and 1902. And from 1963 to 1993, Pennie Logemann, a landscape designer in Concord, methodically logged the bloom patterns of 250 plants. "I especially loved wildflowers," the now-retired Logemann said in an interview, "and more of my work was done with wildflowers than cultivated plants." She added, "I just noticed from year to year that something was going on."

All three sets of records have begun to give scientists a painfully clear picture of how global warming has affected our flora and fauna. Researchers at Harvard and Boston universities went back to Concord between 2003 and 2006 to record flowering data for 500 species (60 percent of Concord's green spaces have remained intact since Thoreau's day). They determined that temperatures have risen nearly 4 degrees in the past 150 years, that flowers now open a week earlier on average and that some plants are far better equipped to deal with this phenomenon than others. More than 60 percent of the plants Thoreau tracked either have gone extinct locally or are on the brink of disappearance.

"Orchids have declined, as have lilies and gentians; these are some of the most charismatic plants," said Abraham Miller-Rushing, one of the researchers and coordinator of the impending wildlife project.


Here's the link to volunteer; it's apparently going to be updated and made a bit more user-friendly in the near future.

This would be a great activity for Spiral Scouts, or just to do with your own kids, coven, lover, self. "Honoring the Earth" means more than just having a stone on your altar or a picture of giant tree on your desk. Being a witch is an activity, as well as a state of being.

Picture found here.

And, At The End Of The Day

I have two "Imbolc 2009" buttons for the first two people who email me at hecated emetersd atter ath otmaild ot com with their snail mail addresses.

Fourth Annual Brigid in the Blogosphere Poetry Slam

Song of Senlin by Conrad Aiken

IT is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops 5
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine-leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, 10
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight 15
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space. 20
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea...
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me....

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning 25
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, for him I will comb my hair. 30
Accept these humble offerings, clouds of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine-leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones;
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree 35
Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep. 40
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, and tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills 45
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains....
It is morning, I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more; 50
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor....

...It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where;
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, 55
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know.... 60

Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three dear tones.

Fourth Annual Brigid in the Blogosphere Poetry Slam

Pain by Emily Dickinson

After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?
The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

Picture found here.