View From The Porch, Two Days After Beltane

Now THIS Is A Fire Festival

BBC has some amazing pictures of the Beltane festival at Edinburgh. The May Queen has a pretty neat kabuki, Theda Bara, Princess Leia, Sacre du Printemps vibe going on.

The value of theatre -- costume, props, lighting, dance -- has seldom been more evident in a modern Pagan ritual. Something to consider when you figure you can just skip all that stuff. Younger Self will not be fooled.

Photo (and lots more amazing ones) found here.

Bodies

Giselle Vincent is doing some serious thinking about Goddess Feminists and how, and why, they practice Drawing Down the Moon.

Goddess Feminists have a strong sense of being able to know the divine through body experience. The body becomes a locus for the divine, and a medium through which to experience and learn about the divine. As Amy Hollywood writes, “the goal of consciously pursued bodily practices and rituals is ultimately to render conscious training unnecessary” (2004: 63): that is, in repeatedly enacting the empowering transformation of embodiment rituals, Goddess Feminists render the empowerment permanent in the individual.

Embodiment rituals enable a woman to be not Other to the divine. At the same time, embodiment admits the Other and admits that the divine is (at least partially) Other.[4] This is especially so in the context of Goddess Feminist groups wherein the divine is personal rather than (or in addition to) psychological or archetypal. In embodiment, a woman’s self (or selves) does not disappear. The Other becomes part of the woman’s self and yet is not part of her. Hence, embodiment requires a woman to have a sense of self that can be multiple and can change.

Embodiment is an active opening of the self to the unknown Other, an opening to change and transformation. That each woman embodies a goddess in a different way reflects the Goddess Feminist teaching that no goddess can be fully defined because Goddess is always changing. For Goddess Feminists, the self lives in the simultaneous multiplicity or becoming with/in the divine. The becoming of self or selves and the becoming of the divine are intersecting, reciprocal, and particular or non-universal.

You can read the whole thing in this quarter's Matrifocus.

Picture found here.

First of the Month Bazooms Blogging

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

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

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

Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year.

I think that I owe several of you readings. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading.



Photo found here.

The Lusty Month Of May

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth
to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees
bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart
that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty
deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage,
that lusty month of May.
- Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485

Picture found here

Sex In The Fields And The Forests On Beltane

Here's an article from the News Scotsman that starts off well enough and that has a nice slidshow. And, then, it runs off the rails:


IT'S the festival that heralds the start of the summer and if Beltane 2009 is anything to go by it's going to be a hot one.
The Beltane Fire Festival, which takes place every year on Calton Hill as April turns to May, lit the sacred fires of summer in front of 11,000 revellers last night.

The May Queen started the summer by evoking all four elements – air, earth, water and fire – before banishing the horned-god of winter and bringing forth her consort the Green Man to breathe new life into the Earth.

The festival is renowned for its lustful atmosphere as this year's May Queen and Green Man proxies Fenella Hodgson and Rupert Smith found out when their three-month-old son Reuben was conceived on the night of Beltane 2008.

It's enough to make any mother want to lock up her daughters . . . .

No, it's not. Pagan mothers may v well be happy if their daughters have sex on Beltane. Protected sex, yes, unless the daughter wants to conceive. It's like writing an article about catholic confession and saying, "Of course, most parents don't want some creepy old guy in a skirt sitting in the dark and making their kids feel guilty for having sexual feelings." It's not true. That is what (at least some) catholic parents do want.

Pagans believe that sex is good, sex is holy, magical sex makes the world fertile and happy and good. We don't think that locking up our daughters is good, or holy, or makes the world fertile and happy and good.

And, of course, no mention of fathers locking up their sons. Ever.

Photo found here.

Beltane

DC is famous for its azaleas. These are from the southwest corner of my yard, surrounding the Japanese Temple Pine.

Door To Rivendell

Wholesome Or Un

Divine Mistakes. Oh, yes.

Thorn's singing about it here.

Altar In The Southeast One Day Before Beltane

I knew when I bought this little cottage that I was going to have to change the landscape. But I lived for half a dozen years with the land, talking to her, learning her, entering into relationship with her. About a year ago, I found Landscape Guy, who, while not Pagan, I knew would work with me in the way that I needed. We started the hardscaping and moved on to trees and bulbs and plants.

A few weeks ago, Landscape guy called me and said, "I don't care that you think you need to work this weekend. I've found your altar stone. Meet me at the quarry." I dropped everything and raced there and, amazingly, Landscape Guy was right. A lovely boulder, found in the Shenandoah River Valley, with a corner perfect for offerings. I touched it, and it spoke so clearly to me. There were lots of folks wandering around the quarry that day, and Landscape Guy said, "If you want it, we should go pay for it now. It may not be here too long." So, I wrote a three-figure check for a rock, although no one can ever "own" a stone like this. (I've done dumber financial things, trust me, so I hardly batted an eye.)

We've been on and off since then about schedules and the weather, but, in the end, Landscape Guy was able to get a crew out here today, the day before Beltane. They planted lots of things, including all the black ariseama that Landscape Guy could find, moved bushes around, and pulled out stuff that needed to go. I planted rosemary so it would be in the ground on Beltane night. And, they installed my altar stone. Now, after all these years, the woodland garden in the southeastern corner feels "right."

Beltane Babies

I've been an avid reader since the day that Sister Mary Michael showed me how the letter "S" says "Ssssss." (When I was growing up, in the late fifties, parents were warned NOT to teach their children to read. I think that cost me about three years, and I've been making up, ever since.)

And although I've read and forgotten more stories than I can count, what stays with me, far more than the names of the characters or the specific events, are the archetypes. (I still remember my impatience when I was, in the mid 70s, in college and all my friends were reading Lord of the Rings. I didn't, as they did, want to master Elvish or remember the exact names of all the characters or the precise sequence of the battles. Who cared? That wasn't, for me, what the books were ABOUT. The books were about the archetypes and themes, and, those, I got, w/o having to speak Elvish or remember the name of the third set of Hobbit cousins.) And although I can't name the books that mentioned it, "baby conceived at Beltane," (born in January, so Capricorn or Aquarius) is one of the archetypes buried deep in my soul.

So it's with joy that I read this report of a "Beltane Baby":

He said: "We basically know that Reuben was conceived at last year's Beltane. There was a sex ban imposed on all the Red Men before the event as we were to be charged with as much energy as possible for the night."

Although Reuben will be staying at home tomorrow while his parents entertain more than 12,000 people on Calton Hill, he has been taken to watch rehearsals this week.

His dad said: "We really wanted him to be there, but we thought it would just be too much this time."

12,000 Beltane revelers. It blows my mind. May you, as well, perform the great rite, together or alone, and may you, as well, give birth to something wonderful.

Picture found here.

Obama Restaurant Watch

Here's a great report on Obama's favorite pizza pie, from pi.

I tried two of the most popular pizzas served to Obama: the Bucktown, with mozzarella, chicken, artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, green olives, red onions, feta and tomatoes on a thick crust; and then a thin-crust version called the Lincoln Park ,with mozzarella, garlic olive oil, zucchini, fresh tomatoes, feta and basil. While both of those pies are named after St. Louis Chicago destinations, he also has many Bay Area references, such as the Berkeley (mozzarella with portobello mushrooms, kalamata olives, red bell peppers, garlic and zucchini), and the Western Addition(mozzarella, spinach blended with ricotta and feta with mushrooms, onions and garlic).

Photo found here.

And, Now, A Word From Our Moderator

Lately, the comments section has been filling up with folks posting ads, especially, it seems, for some sort of games or gaming stuff. I'm not talking about the kind of blog-whoring that is expected in Blogtopia. I'm talking about flat-out ads. I delete these as soon as I find them and will continue to do so.

I am going to ask, nicely, once, that the people doing this, whom I don't think are even regular readers, please stop. I've already gone to the trouble of making people enter word verification before they can comment, in an effort to try and stop advertising spam. That ought to serve as a clue that I don't want your ads in my comments section. Thank you in advance for your compliance.

Photo found here.

Beltane Oak

I live in a small oak grove, and tending that grove is part of the way that I observe the turning of the year. I spend a lot of time noting how the oaks impact my tiny world, here on the banks of the Potomac River.

And this, as most years, here at the place where the river runs past the marble city, the oaks are having sex. I mean, they are having mad, prolific, insane sex. Oak trees have the kind of sex that overwhelms the world. They literally cover my yard with the results of their sex, they cover the cars, they create huge piles of oak sex in the streets, they spend about four or five days having mad oak sex. I left this morning aware that it was happening and came home this evening to a carpet of oak sex all over my herb bed, my lawn, my woodland garden, my deck.

It happens every year, just before Beltane. I've yet to celebrate a Beltane here that didn't involve sweeping oak sex off my deck so that we could jump over candles. Tonight, after days of waiting, my woad has bloomed. The sage has blossoms all over it. Wisteria is blossoming all over the place. Violets are everywhere. The rosemary is blooming. Parsley is just sprouting.

It's Beltane!

Image here.

They Don't Misuse Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and the Fifth Sacred Thing By Accident

The Trouble With Two-Year Old Brains

Robes? We don't wear no stinking robes!

Photo: here.

Stonehenge

I've got no history nor special insight into this story, but one wonders if the tone of coverage would be the same if the story were about, for example, catholics being excluded from Lourdes or some ancient European xian church.

I'm not sure what the answer is. At the same time, Stonehenge is holy ground for me and it is susceptible to ruin by overuse. But building highways just beside it (again, imagine that done to some xian holy site) and keeping Pagans out all but once or twice a year doesn't seem the answer.

Picture found here.

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, If It's The Last Thing We Ever Do

The people at Pew (heh! I said "pew" and they study religion!) have been doing lots of interesting research, lately. The WaPo reports that Pew has been studying how often and why people leave their religions This will likely only be true for another generation, or so, but most of today's Pagans come from other religions. In my circle, there are a few "failed Catholics," a few women raised in fundie homes who walked away and never looked back, and a formerly very secular Jew. Your average Pagan gathering. I suppose we fall within the ten percent who found a religion that we liked more.

And, hey, WaPo! It's two thousand and fucking nine. Link to the damn study that you're discussing. You troglodytes.

Picture found here.

Bush, Not Those Who Would Prosecute Him For Torture, Turned Us Into A Banana Republic. Only In The Patriarchy. Only.

Media Matters has the full story about Republicans' attempts to portray prosecution of Bush officials for torture, rather than Bush's use of torture, trashing of the Constitution, and impoverishing of Americans, as turning the United States into a "Banana Republic."

Wiki explains what a "Banana Republic" is; compare and contrast w the U.S. from 2000-2008. Substitute corn syrup, or weapons, or chemicals for the word "banana".

More from Jensen concerning the parallels between our culture and abusive families: here.

We must prosecute the Bush torturers. For our own sake.

Audio by Derrick Jensen from Now This War Has Two Sides

Thoughts On Life And Death

My wonderful madcap friend R. loaned me her copy of the new CD, Songs of the Waning Year, by Sharon Knight and Thorn Coyle. I am v much enjoying it. While it seems odd to be listening to these songs mere days before Beltane, they remind me that death and life are two sides of the same fish. And I want to, just once, touch the v magical drum that someone plays in these songs.

I met Derrick Jensen tonight and he autographed one of his books for me with a saying that I think he usually uses: "Choose, life or death, choose." I get his point, but I'm a witch. (Even Jensen does a riff on how odd it is to say that dualism is bad and non-dualism is good.) I don't choose; I celebrate both, not because I'm "evil," but because I know that both are part of the cycle. And, yet, of course, I can choose between a culture of corporatism and a culture of sustainability. There's a difference between premature death by poison or, more broadly, patriarchy (but I repeat myself), and death from an old age serene, and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night.

Speaking of cycles, Jensen had interesting stuff to say about the difference between cultures w cyclical myths and those w linear myths. I'll type up my notes later, but I want to ask him how we move "back" (or forward, or around the wheel) towards a culture based upon cyclical myths. Goddess knows, Pagans have a role to play in that process.

So, Knight and Coyle have a lovely song entitled, inexplicably, "For Tara," that's about the Greek Goddess Hecate. One of my problems with xian services is all the time they spend going, "Wow, god, you're amazing. Jesus, you are our savior, Father, we worship thee, Thou art great, etc." I just don't get the point. If he's god, I'm guessing that he knows. If he needs the affirmation, WTF is wrong with him? And, since it's all about me, I just don't get what I'm supposed to get out of that part of the ritual. But I find oddly moving their chant: "Hecate, keeper of the crossroads; Hecate, holder of the flame; Hecate wisdom of the darkness, guide our way." Well, I'd like it, wouldn't I?

I'm also loving their Winter Solstice chant. My circle spends Yule night together and gets up before dark to greet the waking sun. Knight and Coyle sing: "We wait in the dark for the light to appear. Mother give birth to our brother, the Sun. We wait. We watch. Out of the cold comes the promise of newness. We wait. We watch. Out of the cold comes the promise of day." I can imagine listening to it on that important and highly arcane ritual tool, the iPod, just before we pour shots into glasses of ice and drink a toast to the sun when it peeks over the East. You can see why we then repair to a greasy spoon for eggs and bacon. New life and death. May you honor both on this dark Moon in Taurus.

The Time Of The Gentleman Is Expired

How it's done

Really

Looks as if I AM going to get a chance to interview Derrick Jensen. I want to focus, mostly, on his views on population control, spirituality that recognizes divinity as imminanet, etc. I need your help! What should I ask him????

Grrrr

One can only hope that the author strangles on quotation marks. Ceres, I am sick of articles such as this one.

Blessed Beltane

Obama Restaurant Watch

Michelle has been eating at Five Guys.


Photo found here.

A Poem For April

TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIME

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

That's My Girl

Love the look on Pence's face. Eat it.

The End Of The Conference Call

Why I Am A Witch

Gus has up another typically thoughtful post about Starhawk's recent call -- in response to the question posed to her -- for the pope to apologize to witches. I agree, unlike some other thoughful Pagans, with Starhawk. What the catholic church did to witches was horriffic and the church should apologize for it. That doesn't mean that I am all wrapped up in victimhood, anymore than calls for the U.S. to apologize for slavery mean that African Americans are all wrapped up in victimhood.

Gus notes that Starhawk wrote:

One of the reasons many of us modern-day Wiccans still proudly call ourselves Witches is to consciously identify with the victims of those persecutions. The Witch persecutions are a suppressed history of abuse. Just as suppressed memories of childhood abuse can hamper us in adult life, suppressed cultural histories still constrain our emotions and our imagination in subtle ways. The Witch persecutions left a residue of fear inside women--that if we speak too loudly or too forcefully, become too strong or visible, we will be attacked. They made imagination, intuition, and magic suspect. They set a pattern that judicial torture is sanctified once your enemy has been labeled 'evil'. And they made nature herself something a dangerous and suspect.

We use the word "Witch" consciously, as a way of reclaiming our power as women and as men. . . .


Gus is bothered by those words, and says:

I think it is a bad reason, and not one worthy of legitimizing. I call myself a Witch and likely always will. It was a word Gerald Gardner's New Forest coven used, and accurately describes many of the activities we do, activities that were savagely persecuted until not that long ago. But I never used the word to "consciously identify" with victims of persecutions.

I know that the first moment that I understood how Pagans and Wiccans used the word "witch," something deep inside me responded; I knew that I'd been a witch all my life and using the word was a kind of coming home for me. But I do also use it deliberately to identify (grammar error! I know, but it's late and Roddenberry got rich on it) with the victims of the witch hunts, including the many (likely majority) of those women who probably considered themselves good xians. I want to identify with the part of the word "witch" that makes people uncomfortable. I want to continue to be "out there" and "in your face" about being a witch. For me, being a witch is all about being the somewhat unacceptable old wild woman who lives outside the boundary of the lawful village, gives the powerless charms against the powerful, provides herbs when the male doctors were reduced to using leeches, understands the things that "nice" women didn't understand, went out into the dark when "good" women were home abed. You know, the women that the catholic church rounded up and burned.

Would I, like Gus, call myself a witch even if the xians had never persecuted women by labeling them witches? I think that I would. But, like Starhawk, part of the deep identification that I have felt with that word is a desire to identify with those who were persecuted, with the women who were made to seem ugly, mad, dangerous. That desire has much more to do with my emotional commitment to the word than, say, Gerald Gardner's use of the term.

I suppose that, in the end, it doesn't matter why you call yourself a witch. If you walk out into the woods on a dark moon and say: "I am a witch, I am a witch, I am a witch," then, you're a witch. (Or if you do it in any of a number of other meaningful ways. You're a witch.) What matters then is how you live, day to day, as a witch. How does that impact what you do on the subway, at work, at the grocery store, just before you fall asleep? How does that impact what you do when powerful women are portrayed as ugly, evil, aligned with the forces that must be destroyed, bad? How does that impact what you do when magic is portrayed as evil, unlawful, malificent? How does that affect what you do when the powerless need help against the powerful, when women need help against men, when the power of the church is brought to bear against some poor woman whose land the church wants?

Witch.

Picture found here.

That Sound That You Hear

is me, banging my head on watertiger's desk.


Kali on a cracker, Pagans, just stop it. Stop cooperating with this kind of bullshit, even if it does "publicize" your "New Age" shop.

Stop it.

Picture found here.

Update: To clarify, my objection is to yet another "witches aren't really Satanists and don't really worship the devil" article. It's long past time that Pagans quit participating in these. I don't see Catholics having to assert that they wouldn't really attack the U.S. if told to do so by the pope or Jews explaining that, no, they don't kill xian babies. At this point, "witches aren't really Satanists" articles serve to perpetuate, rather than dispell, the ugly stereotypes and leave the Pagan subject of the article sounding defensive. Just stop it.

My New Name For A Blog

What Phila Said. This bullshit would be laughable, if it weren't taken so seriously.


Picture found here.

Nonna! Did You Know???

Son and DiL took G/Son on a hike today on the Rachel Carson Greenway.

My phone rang this afternoon and the most excited little voice said: "Nonna! We're in the WOODS! And, hey, Nonna! Did you know that frogs can SING?"

Swear to Goddess, this grandparent thing is the best thing, EVER!

And, thank you, Ms. Carson, that all these years later, there are still frogs to sing to my G/Son

More info: here and here.

Beltane's Coming

We're just a few weeks away from Beltane. I know that I say this about each of the Eight Pagan Holidays, but Beltane is really my favorite. It's one of the most "pagan" of the Pagan Holidays. For me, it's all about loving early Summer, and lying down in the fields and having sex to encourage everything to grow, be fertile, lay eggs, make babies, . . . GO!

Lately, my own life, especially at work, is going flat out, full of Beltane energy, more abundant than seems possible.

And, so, I do what I always do: I keep my daily practice. I ground. I say the Ha Prayer. I go to my astral temple. I light candles and incense and I remind myself that it's all real, it's all metaphor, there's always more. I record and work with my dreams. I do reiki on my morning cup of coffee, and my afternoon tea, and on the Stoli that I drink at sunset on the porch. I dig in the dirt and handle seeds and keep soil moist and stand, like the angel in the Talmud with the blade of grass, and whisper, "Grow. Grow." I'm always so delighted and surprised when something that I've planted grows. This Spring, in particular, I'm delighting in the 3 Japanese Maples that Landscape Guy and I planted last fall.

And, when I sit at my desk at work, I remind myself of all the women who, from time immemorial, played the glass bead game of the law with the joy and delight that can only come from shuffling precedent, and good prose. and logic, and thought. I open my mind and touch those (to me) silvery blue and green threads and ride them through to the end of my own motion, brief, answer, petition.

In a very few weeks, I'll weave flower crowns and dance with my sisters and, a tradition with us on Beltane, drink pink champagne. And I will be glad to have work in these hard times and grateful for some well-timed wins and hopeful that, come late summer, the harvest will be bountiful.

May it be so for you.

Photo found here

Pretty Much The Most Sensible Thing That I've Read

is here.


Hey.

Come on.

This is not why any of us went to law school.


Seriously.


And, I'm looking at you Mr. Harvard Editor of the Law Review, constitutional scholar, change we can believe in, rule of law Obama. I'm looking right at you.

Oh, photo found here.

Sinfonian!

Here's my brilliant friend, Sinfonian, taking on the poor, deluded racists in Florida. He rocks like a big rocking rock.

My New Name For A Blog

You should go read all of this. It's all about what it means to be a witch on a day by day by day by day basis.

Cobras? Really? Wow.

Photo found here.

I Still Think That "My Love Rode By With Sun-Stained Feet" May Be The Sexiest Thing, Ever

World's Wedding by Emerald Rose

As poppies fired the nut-brown wheat
My love rode by with sun-stained feet
With a longing call and horse hooves fleet
I followed her laughter all a summer morn
But, oh, from a distant palace of shade
I heard the rune of my nature played
I strained to listen and lost the maid
And walked the world forlorn

When the circle green was brown with leaves
My love rode by as one that grieves
I left my stand within the sheaves
And followed her weeping all an autumn noon
From beyond the sunset splashed with red
A circle weighed upon my head
I begged embrace but she had fled
Beyond the dawning moon

When the woods were covered with snow drifts deep
My love passed by as one asleep
I left the earth my horns to keep
And followed her dreaming all a winter's night
And all along the moonlit track
With thorny shadows printed black
I caught a scent and turned my back
And lost my life's delight

Maiden of the secret well
I strain for you, yearning
From upon the oak throne quivering
Mistress of the horned moon
I pain for you, burning
Underneath the blue stone shivering
I need you, I need you, I need you....

When heather primed the morning air
My love arose, and I was there
A thousand flowers in her hair
And in her eyes was the Wheel of Time
Reached for her hand, I did not miss
Combining all this diverse bliss
Forged together in one single kiss
We made the world one in rhyme

Based on the poem by Alfred Noyes


Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What Susie Said

Picture found here.

Fuck That Shit

What She Said.

When the church cleans up its own act, it can get back to me about some poor woman in Africa who gives the powerless a charm against the powerful. Until then, the catholic church can eat shit and die.

hat tip: Gus, who is in no way responsible for my nasty attitude.

Picture found here.

Music

More here.

You Say That As If Poison Were A Bad Thing

Poison in the garden.

/Requisite disclaimer. I am, of course, kidding. Kinda. And, of course, the presence of small children does change everything.


PIcture found here.

Starhawk To Pope: Say You're Sorry

Starhawk is calling on the Pope to apologize to witches.

An apology is a way to take responsibility, to signal a change, and to assure the world that it won't happen again.
And if apologies are being given out, Witches would like one. It's more than time that the Catholic and Protestant Churches both apologized for centuries of persecution of Witches, Pagans and those they deemed 'heretics' for believing something different than standard dogma. How about an apology for the Papal Bull of Pope Innocent the Eighth, in 1484, that made Witchcraft an heresy and unleashed the Inquisition against traditional healers, midwives, and any woman unpopular with her neighbors for being too uppity? It's high past time to apologize for the Malleus Maleficarum, a vicious document written by two Dominican priests in 1486 that created a whole mythology of Satan worship, attributed it mostly to women, and unleashed a wave of accusations, torture, and judicial murder that have haunted us ever since. An apology won't do much good, now, to those accused, tormented, and destroyed because someone coveted their property or needed a local scapegoat, nor to their children left motherless or fatherless centuries ago. But it might clear some air.


I agree with her, but I hope she's not holding her breath. This pope seems to have gone out of his way to continue to hurl insults at modern Pagans. And others have asked, before.

How Do We Make A Revolution Happen?

Lierre Keith: That's a huge question. Basically, you're asking: how do we make a revolution happen? Naming the power and the agents of power is the first step, and most people stumble right there. And for a multitude of reasons: personal cowardice, the intellectual pitfalls of liberalism, the tremendous seductions of conformity and privilege, psychological identification with the powerful and their values, and a very real fear of retaliation, to name just a few. This is one of my favorite Andrea Dworkin quotes, "Feminism requires precisely what patriarchy destroys in women: unimpeachable bravery in confronting male power." That bravery is the linchpin of resistance. Without it, there's no possibility of hope.

More here.

Picture found here.

We Are So Fucked And Life Is So Good

Activist Knitting

Pick up your knitting needles!

A Radical Act of Knitting in honor of Mother's Day!


Calling all CODEPINK knitters! We are creating a beautiful, quilted cozy to cover the fence in front of the White House to honor Mother's Day. The message will be “We will not raise our children to kill another mother’s child”-inspired by Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation. We’ll be piecing it together from individual squares knitted by YOU as part of the 24 hour Mother’s Day vigil for Women who live in War Zones. The best part is you don’t have to be an experienced knitter to help! This is perfect for knitters of all skill levels—and a great opportunity for those who want to learn! Celebrate the time honored tradition of the radical act of knitting. ow-to-knit page here (just in case!)

What we need:
4” x 4” squares, as tightly knit as you can make them, but the stitch of your choice

Yarn in either dark green or a fabulous shade of pink- take a little inspiration from CODEPINK’s signature PINK. Note: We will need a ratio of about 5 pink squares to 1 green square to spell out the message.

We need all pieces by May 4th so get out your needles gals (and guys)!

Please take 1 minute to send us a quick email to tell us how many squares you plan to make and in what colors. We need to know in order to make sure we have enough to spell out our message. Email Janna at codepinkcozy[at]gmail.com

Send your knitted creations to:
CODEPINK House
712 5th Street NE
Washington, D.C.
20002