And Witches And Gay People Caused 9/11 And Katrina

It's that evil Voodoo.

ROBERTSON: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.



More here.

When America threw out the British, they apparently didn't make any such pacts. Nice white people, in America.

Robertson knows this how? He doesn't know which French ruler, but he knows all about this pact with the devil? What is it with these xian freekazoids and their complete inability to not act like jerks whenever there's a natural disaster?

h/t to trifecta in Comments at Eschaton.

Picture found here.

Update: Apparently, evangelicals have been telling this story about a deal with the devil, conflating the devil with Voodoo deities, for some time now. In Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince today you can see an iron pig statue. It commemorates the ritual of the African religion Americans today call Voodoo conducted by Boukman on August 14, 1791.

A pig on that day was ritually killed. The escaped slaves joined in drinking its still-warm blood as part of a pact. Boukman led his followers in vowing that they and their children would serve the pagan gods of the island, including the devil, for exactly 200 years in exchange for freedom from the French.

Seven days later the slaves of Haiti rose in rebellion, soaking Haiti in the blood of the French overseers and plantation owners who had enslaved them.

On January 1, 1804 – exactly 200 years ago – a beaten France acknowledged the independence of Haiti. This, as you soon shall see, is a key fact in our story.

No need to point out how racist this is, is there?

May The Goddess Guard Her. May She Find Her Way To The Summerlands. May Her Friends And Family Know Peace.

Miep Gies, who helped to hide Anne Frank and who saved her diary, passed away at 100.

Born in Vienna to Christian parents on February 15, 1909 with the name of Hermine Santruschitz, she moved to Leiden in 1920 to escape food shortages and was raised by a Dutch family who moved to Amsterdam two years later and nicknamed her Miep.

She started work as an office assistant at a textile factory but lost her job in 1933 as the economic crisis deepened. She then came under the employment of Anne's father, Otto Frank, who was director of a pectin producing company.

Gies avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan, in 1941. Their son Paul was born in 1950 and they lived in Amsterdam until 1993, when Jan died at age 87. Paul has now opened a condolences register on his website.

Gies and her husband became family friends with the Franks and when Otto asked for help, they agreed to hide him and his family at the secret annex, bringing them daily groceries and providing a link to the outside world.

In August 1944, after 25 months in hiding, the Frank family were arrested but an Austrian SS officer spared Gies from captivity out of sympathy on condition she promised not to flee.

Gies found Anne's diaries in the debris left by the raid and kept them in her desk drawer without ever reading them. After the war ended, when it became clear that Anne was not coming back, she handed them over to Anne's father.

She received honors from several governments and institutions, and last year had an asteroid named after her by the International Astronomical Union.

May we all be as brave when life demands it.

More here.

Picture found here.

Caledonia

This weekend, when I was driving G/Son home, we had on a CD of songs by Emerald Rose, including their version of Caledonia. G/Son was interested in the songs, asking me what each was about. When we got to Caledonia, I said, "This is a song about a man who's lonely for his home in Caledonia, which means 'Scotland.'" G/Son said, "Is it the real man who was lonely for it, or is it just a song?" I said, "Well, a lot of people have sung this song, ever since the first lonely man sang it the first time. But I think that they were all, at some point, lonely for Caledonia. Sometimes, I'm even lonely for Caledonia." G/Son said, "Nonna! Your home isn't in Caledonia; it's in Virginia!" and I said, "I know, but my heart's home may be in Caledonia, where our Pictish ancestors ran to hide from the Celts," and G/Son said, "My heart's home is in Maryland," and I said, "So, it is."

Now It Can Be Told

Holy Shit, I think that I AM Mrs. Johnson.

Can't wait to read this book to G/Son.

Come To The Dance

Making Change

This weekend, I needed to plan a dark Moon ritual and I turned, as I often do for inspiration, to Judika Illes' Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells. I don't know that I've ever actually done one of the spells in Illes' book, mostly because (Bad Witch!) I'm usually lacking some important ingredient such as High John the Conqueror's (not that my garden isn't full of bindweed, but I'm always trying to get rid of it, not preserve it for magic) root, or Abra-Melin Oil (which I'd make, except that I lack galangal and myrrh), or kyphi. But I always come away with a ritual in mind after spending a few hours with Illes.

Just now, when my friend NTodd is talking about what we all CAN do to change things and when so many of us are feeling as if some things just never seem to change, and while I am contemplating a ritual with some new witches with whom I've never before done magic of this sort, I was struck by something Illes said:

Why would anyone send a hex or a curse, anyway?

The first reason is the obvious: bad people do bad things. The destructive impulse can be extremely potent.

Other answers are more complex and ambiguous. In some cases, there may be an extremely fine line between a hex and a justice spell. We're very quick to jump to conclusions these days and automatically brand every hex-caster as evil; however, this perception may derive from the luxurious vantage of comfortable ties. People don't create or cast courtcase spells unless there's at least a remote possibility of legal justice. What if you exist in a time or place where you or your loved ones are at the mercy of others more powerful than you and there is no recourse, none, not at all, to justice? What do you do then? Hexes are not an uncommon response. Hexes may be cast as a desperate attempt to end persecution and abuse.

I don't know that I've ever hexed anyone, but I've definitely done plenty of magic that would worry a lot of 21st Century witches who were raised hard on the "Rule of Three" and the notion that you should never interfere with another's will. When it's some powerful man's will that women be denied access to abortion, just as an odd-for-example, I've got no problem interfering with that man's will. (He, as I used to say to my mother, started it. And used his access to power that I don't have.) And if I feel ok about moving on the "mundane" plane to make a political impact (writing my Senators a letter or showing up at a protest), I've got no problem doing magic to make those "mundane" actions more effective. YMMV and one of my few hard-and-fast-rules about magic is that no one should do any magic when she's uncomfortable with either the objective or the means.

When do you do justice spells? And where do you buy Jezebel Root?

Picture found here.

What Is This Stuff We're Surrounded By?

One thing I'll say about Winter sunshine: It may not warm as much as I wish, but it sure does illuminate. The quality of light in Winter is so different, so much more stark and revealing than the warmer sunlight of Summer. This morning, G/Son and I were getting him dressed for a foray out into the bitter cold and a drive from Nonna's house back to his house. We were in my guest room, which has SouthEastern windows and the sunlight was pouring in. G/Son likes to jump on the bed in between articles of clothing, so it can be a lengthy process: put on undershirt and underpants/jump on the bed; put on sweatpants/jump on the bed; put on shirt/jump on the bed; put on socks, well, you get the idea. Finally dressed, G/Son got down from the bed while Nonna was folding up his pajamas and putting them into his overnight case.

Suddenly, clearly enchanted, he cried, "Nonna! What's this stuff we're surrounded by?" I looked down, saw him looking all around, and said, "What? Do you mean the walls and the wallpaper?" G/Son said, "No, Nonna! Look into the sunlight! What's this stuff we're surrounded by?" The smile of wonder on his face was one of the loveliest things that I've ever seen. I knelt down so that I was on the same level that he was and slipped my face into the ray of Winter sunlight in which he'd been standing. And, then . . . I saw. Tiny specs of dust, raised by G/Son's jumping on the bed, were floating in the sunlight. Aware of a teachable moment, I said, "Oh, I see! What do you think it could be?" G/Son said, "We're surrounded by it. Are we always surrounded by it?" And I said, "Yes, we're always surrounded by it, but we usually only see it in certain kinds of sunlight. Some people say it's dust, but that just gives it a name; it doesn't answer the question, does it?" G/Son was slowly turning around by now, hands out in the universal gesture of wonderment, and he said, again, "Nonna, what is this stuff we're surrounded by?" I said, "Well, I think it's a little way of seeing just how much wonder and magic is around us, all the time. I think the sun shows it to us some times to remind us how wonderful our world is. A long time ago, a man named Gerard Hopkins wrote a poem about it. Would you like to hear it?" G/Son looked up as if just remembering that I was there, and said, "Yes." So while he stood, and looked, and slowly turned in the sunlight, I went into the kitchen, grabbed the correct book of poetry, and read him "God's Grandeur".

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I don't think that he got more than the feeling; he stopped for a minute and said, "Are we surrounded by it even at night?" and I said, "Even at night. And, a few times in your life, when the Moon is full and the air is warm, you'll see it even then." G/Son said, "I will?" and I said, "I promise."


Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What NTodd Said:

I know not everybody can be in their Congressmembers' faces every day like a K-Streeter. However, we all can build up some level of relationship with our elected employees by making regular contact with them (e.g., through electronic means) and following up with more individual and/or collective actions on a less frequent basis (e.g., meeting with Reps and Senators during "district work periods").

More here.

May They Receive Exactly What They Deserve; May They Meet Their Namesake Every Minute, Forever

The free market at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Cerberus Capital, one of Wall Street’s most notoriously ruthless leveraged-buyout firms (or “private equity firms” in PC-speak), recently made a $1.8 billion killing on their human plasma investment, a company called Talecris, which they bought for a mere $82.5 million just four years earlier. Meaning Cerberus made 23 times their investment on human plasma. They did it by the most savage, heartless means possible: by paying peanuts to their impoverished human plasma donors, who increasingly come from Mexican border towns to blood-pumping stations set up on the American side, jacking up the price of plasma by restricting supply (a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission accused Cerberus Plasma Holdings of “operat[ing] as an oligopoly”), and then selling the refined products to the most desperately ill, patients suffering from hemophilia, severe burns, multiple sclerosis, and autoimmune deficiencies. The products cost so much—one, IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin) cost twice the price of gold as of last summer -- that American health insurance companies have been dropping or denying their policy holders in increasing numbers, endangering untold numbers.

More here.

I just can't think of anything to say.

Picture found here.

Saturday Poetry Blogging

vi. Prayer
Now rests the body and now rests the mind;
But for the soul the stars of heavenly things
Illumine space: a sweet celestial wind
Stirs in the lattice, and the sound of wings.

vii. The Dark Night of the Soul
Naked and stripped of all things but desire
(And even desire to its last sickness drawn)
The forlorn soul, crouched by a dying fire,
Remembers only that there once was dawn.

viii. The Consummation
Now the long day of His creation ends;
In that perfection which at first was willed
Activity its happy speed susupends.
Nothing is lost and nothing unfulfilled.

~Photo by the author of the blog. If you copy, please link back.

~Charles Williams

Friday Poetry Blogging

The Witch

I HAVE walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart's desire.
She came--she came--and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Picture found here.

Me, I'm Rooting For Mount Hecla

To Winter by William Blake

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.
He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain'd, sheathed
In ribbonened steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,
For he hath rear'd his sceptre o'er the world.

Lo! now the direful monster, whose 1000 skins cling
To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and in his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

He takes his seat upon the cliffs,--the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal'st
With storms!--till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driv'n yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla.

Breaking Toast Together

I'd still rather see the gov't leave religion alone, but, if it won't this is kind of nice.

Logic And Consistency Are Too Much To Ask

Dear Cardinal,

"Pagan" -- I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Muslims are conquering Europe because Christians have become too selfish and pagan to defend the spiritual heritage of the continent, a Vatican cardinal said this week.

Miloslav Vlk, who has served as archbishop of Prague since 1991 and was considered as a successor to John Paul II, launched an outspoken attack on Christians living in Europe and accused them of allowing Muslims to "Islamise" the continent.

He warned that Europe would "fall" to Islam if people continued to deny their Christian roots.

Of course, Europe has has a Pagan "spiritual heritage." Kali on a cucumber sandwich, if Cardinal Vik were doing his job, wouldn't Europeans be flocking to xianity? Wouldn't the Moslems who moved to Europe observe the love, warmth, charity, and joy of the xians and long to convert? Maybe Europeans don't like child abuse, pederasty, and cover ups?

t was Muslims and not Christians, said Vlk, who were shaping the spiritual outlook of Europe. "The Muslims definitely have many reasons to be heading here. They also have a religious one – to bring the spiritual values of faith in God to the pagan environment of Europe, to its atheistic style of life."

In a separate interview, a second cardinal criticised Islam for repressing religious freedom.

Which, you know, is true in some places, but, pot, kettle, black.

Cardinal Tauran: also commented on the Swiss referendum to ban the construction of new minarets, and seemed to approve of the outcome. "Naturally it is necessary to harmonize construction with the atmosphere in which it comes to be a part, with the city landscape, the cultural context, and the complex of the laws and norms that regulate the life of the society."

Which is odd, because that wasn't the church's position when it built xian churches on sacred Pagan spaces, nor when it built Spanish churches in North and South America.

How Did We Get Here?

Or, If There Are, They're Silly

Nothing Comic About It

So instead of Peter Parker it's Pavitr Prabhakar. Aunt May becomes Auntie Maya and Mary Jane Watson is Meera Jain.

Even better,

It's another Virgin Comics cover, this time spotlighting the story of the female divinity Devi, the Sanskrit word for goddess. Clad in skintight black leather from neck to boots, the contemporary version of the mother goddess has been transformed into a modern-day superhero. Only unlike Wonder Woman, Devi can also be seen (albeit in more modest attire) immortalized in a ninth-century sandstone sculpture in the adjoining Gallery of South Asian Sculpture.

"This would probably be on the outside wall of a temple in a niche. It's an icon that's worshipped, but it also depicts this climactic scene in the Devi Mahatnya, the origin story of the goddess, where she conquers the evil demon Mahisha, who takes the form of a buffalo. In a way, this is like the first comic-book story," Ms. Romain says, laughing.

More, here.

If you're anywhere near LA and care about Goddesses and/or comic books, this sounds like a great exhibit. I may try and swing by if I get out there on business.

Online collection here.

And, girls, getting into the act.

Picture found here.

I Love That One

May The Goddess Guard Her. May She Find Her Way To The Summerlands. May Her Friends And Family Know Peace.

Some news stories make you burst into tears.

Mary Daly, hugely influential Goddess scholar, widely-read feminist, and a woman whose writings rocked my world and changed my life, is dead at 81. I disagreed with a few of her ideas about sexuality, but she taught me most of what I know about the poison of patriarchy. She lived her ideals, making academia back down once, and quitting rather than violating her principles when the religious right went after her. Just how much the catholics hated her is made clear in catholic "culture"'s post on her death:

Daly’s feminism grew more radical over the years, and her attacks on the “patriarchy” of the Church evolved into condemnation of most Christian doctrine. Her many books often carried outlandish titles, pointing to the extremism of her thought:

Gyn/Ecology:The Meta-Ethics of Radical Feminism
Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage [her autobiography]
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy
Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big.

Love the quotation marks, you jerks. Those titles seem anything but outlandish, these days, thanks, in large part, to Dr. Daly's courage over the last few decades.

The subtitle to my blog, and, indeed, the purpose of my life -- Undermining the Patriarchy Every Chance I Get -- are in humble homage to Dr. Daly. I will call her name at Samhein. What is remembered, does not die.

Photo found here.

Going To The Cons

The Goddess only knows what is wrong with my pipple that we schedule our serious conferences for February, aka, the worst travel month of the year. Well, there's no mystery, we're a poor people, and that's when conference space is cheap. Here's a v, v, v small sample of what's going on in February, Brigid's month. Feel free to add your own events in comments and/or go here for updates and a far more complete listing. There is, even for we INTJs, a great value in coming together, hearing some new ideas, getting a fresh perspective.

Pantheacon. If you live in the Western US, you should go.

This year’s Theme is Back to Basics --- As energy and economics implode we look for more simple ways of life. Our pagan ethics and worship of our Earth Mother help us forge new sustainable lifestyles as we honor the old ways. What we know about the old ways of life, others now acknowledge as new imperatives to be the custodians of our earth. What is the bottom line when it comes to our lives and our spirits? What living skills of our traditions are especially needed for the future?

The National Capital Region Pagan Leadership Conference is a great East Coast event.

The 2010 conference meets critical needs by emphasizing financial vitality for Pagan organizations, which is especially relevant during these tough economic times. The conference breakouts are built on participant feedback, and include expanded workshops in four crucial areas of interest:

Financial planning and discipline,
Fundraising,
Publicity & Promotions, and
Branding.
Expanding topics from last year's workshops and integrating material based on feedback from conference participants, this year's instructors and facilitators are preparing innovative sessions to help equip you and your board members to gauge and to guide your organization through the next ten years. An updated format featuring all plenary sessions ensures that you and all members of your group, organization, or business can benefit from the training provided.

This year's conference opening provides a provocative speaker with an excellent topic: Christine Woodman, a doctoral student of sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University, will present a framework for studying the financial makeup and health of religious and spiritually oriented organizations and businesses.

Ecumenicon is almost in February:

The Hanging Man–Dark Night of the Soul

Ecumenicon Interfaith Conference 2010
Rockwood Manor
11001 MacArthur Boulevard
Potomac, MD 20854
301-299-5026
Cell (240) 764-5748 (Charles Butler)
March 25-28, 2010

Sponsored by Ecumenicon Fellowship and the Ecumenicon School of Interfaith Studies. If you wish to cosponsor go to our Sponsor Page for ways you can help.

The conference takes place from Thursday night until Sunday afternoon, beginning with The Feast of Four fundraiser banquet Thursday evening, continuing with Classes all day Friday and Saturday, with final classes and Closing Ceremonies on Sunday.

I am hoping to have the time off from work to attend Sacred Space in Baltimore.

Featured Presenters:
Raven Grimassi & Stephanie Taylor
Christopher Penczak
Judika Illes Also, Carolyn Kenner and Ivo.

And, of course, the (still to be scheduled) Feast of the Red Dragon, held by the DC Radical Faeries.

What's on your "outside my sphere of comfort" list for the first part of this year?

Picture found here.

Neil Gaiman's New Year's Benediction

I hope that you surprise yourself.

So mote it be.

On The Other Hand.

I'm not a believer in the death penalty; people who do horrific things should, IMHO, live a long time inside a jail with no chance of parole, but with plenty of chances to understand just how horrific a thing they've done. That said, I am glad to see some governments seriously prosecuting people who kill old women for being witches.

Here's the article.

TWO men who killed an old woman in Bushenyi District on suspicion that she was bewitching them are to hang, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Paul Kakubi, 38, a cultivator, and David Muramuzi, 28, a builder, both from Kangore village in Sheema county, shivered as the registrar read the court’s judgment last week.

The men had appealed against their conviction and death sentence, arguing that the trial judge had failed to properly evaluate the evidence on record.

“On thoroughly perusing the record, we are in complete agreement with the trial judge that only logical conclusions on the available circumstantial evidence are that the appellants are the ones who committed the offence,” the court ruled. The deputy Chief Justice, Laetitia Mukasa-Kikonyogo, headed the-three-justice-panel. The other members were judges Alice Mpagi-Bahigeine and Amos Twinomujuni.

The High Court had earlier convicted the two men of murdering Jolly Ntegyereize, their neighbour, on July 13, 2004. The culprits were identified by the grand-children who were present during the murder.

Ntegyereize was hacked to death as she was fetching water outside her kitchen.

Hacked. To Death. Outside her kitchen. Hacked. To Death. For Being a Witch. While fetching water. How often do you turn on the faucet?

Picture found here.

You Want Outrage?

As a member of religion about which people often say "grossly abusive or insulting things" that "cause outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion," (never mind that the person making the statement is often a member OF my religion), I'd say the Irish atheists have this about right:

SECULAR campaigners in the Republic of Ireland defied a strict new blasphemy law that came into force on New Year's Day by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The law, which was passed in July, means blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros.

It defines blasphemy as ''publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted''.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has said the law was necessary because while immigration had brought a growing diversity of religious faiths, the 1936 constitution only extended the protection of belief to Christians.

But Atheist Ireland, a group that claims to represent the rights of atheists, responded to the legislation by publishing 25 anti-religious quotations on its website, from figures including Richard Dawkins, Bjork and Frank Zappa.

Michael Nugent, the group's chairman, said it would challenge the law through the courts if it was charged with blasphemy.

Mr Nugent said: ''This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

. . .

''Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.''

Mr Nugent said the group's campaign to repeal the law was part of a wider battle to create a more secular republic. ''You would think that after all the scandals the Catholic Church endured in 2009, the introduction of a blasphemy law would be the last thing that the Irish state would be considering in terms of defending religion and its place in society.''

More here.

Here, BTW, are the 25 blasphemous quotations. They include some good ones:

Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

and

Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”

They left out HecateDemetersdatter, who said, "Fuck you, Padrick, you woman-hating, Celt-hating, nasty slave."

Picture found here.

Hat tip to my amazing friend NYM.

Day Late 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.

I know that a recent study indicated that early detection via breast self exams might not be "cost effective." I'm not a scientist, but when I read those studies, they appear to be saying that sometimes women find a lump during the BSE that turns out not to be cancer. Those women have caused some expense and have gone through some discomfort in order to find out that the lump wasn't cancer. I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, as it has a few times since my first mammogram found a small, curable, cancerous lump, I go out and buy a new scarf, take myself out for a decadent lunch, call everyone I know, and call it a good day.

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. 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.

Saturday Poetry Blogging

ANTIQUE – by Robert Pinsky

I drowned in the fire of having you, I burned
In the river of not having you, we lived
Together for hours in a house of a thousand rooms
And we were parted for a thousand years.
Ten minutes ago we raised our children who cover
The earth and have forgotten that we existed

It was not maya, it was not a ladder to perfection,
It was this cold sunlight falling on this warm earth.

When I turned you went to Hell. When your ship
Fled the battle I followed you and lost the world
Without regret but with stormy recriminations.
Someday far down that corridor of horror the future
Someone who buys this picture of you for the frame
At a stall in a dwindled city will study your face
And decide to harbor it for a little while longer
From the waters of anonymity, the acids of breath.

Photo found here.

New Years' Day Poetry Blogging

I love New Years' Day. I love the fresh start. I love cracking open a clean, new calendar, full of possibly wonderful days, accomplishments, chances to get it right. I always have.

My brilliant friend, E., makes only fun resolutions at this time of year: going to acrobat school, learning to mix perfect cocktails, eating at each of the Washingtonian's 100 Best Restaurants. Her theory is that if you need to lose weight you can just decide to do that when you realize that you need to do it. But E. is an Aries, and starting things is, shall we say, not a problem for her. Me, I hit the laziness trifecta of the Horoscope and I love the hit of energy that the New Year can give me.

Joanna Colbert recently wrote about what seems to me like a genius idea: choosing a word or theme for the year, as opposed to just listing a bunch of unrelated resolutions.

I'm picking "Vitality!"

Chasing Vitality by Lloyd Lofthouse

The wake-up call arrived
In 1981,
While swimming
In a bottle of Scotch
With mouth open.

The alarm was
A mountain hike
Followed by
Stiff, hellish,
Lactic acid pain,
A week of aching agony!

Thirty-six pounds overweight,
One for each year;
Popping anti-acids
And pain ‘killers’
like candy kisses;
Shooting pains
Cramping fingers;
Not exercising;
Endless sinus infections
Due to chemical
Classroom exposures.
Wheezing!
Afraid to sleep!
Might never awake!

That mountain hike pushed
Me over the edge.

It was a long fall
From carnivore to vegan
Escaping eggs, milk and meat;
Giving up whiskey;
Being chased by
Sodas, pizza
And beer
In ‘bad’ dreams.


After that transformation,
Most of the pain was left
In the sun blasted dust
Climbing endless
Mountain trails.

Sage advice:
“To eat what you don’t want,
drink what you don’t like
and do what you’d rather not.”
— Mark Twain

After a few months of distress,
It gets easy.

I met a couple in line at
Orion’s Express vegan fast food
In Pasadena, California.
He showed me his
Stroke scars
Where the doctor
Cracked his chest.

It’s all about restraint
Instead of Sinatra singing,
“I did it my way”
For people headed
Toward an early grave
Like my brother, Richard.

Why not hunt for
The Vampire Lestat?
Summon him
And seek the true
Fountain of Youth.

Could it be that
Ponce De Leon was looking
In the wrong places
Leading us astray?

******

What word would you like to define the coming year for you?

Picture found here.

Go On, Wheel, Turn For Goddess' Sake! Turn!

It did, this decade did suck. But, still, some amazing things happened to me.

1. Son married the loveliest, kindest, most down-to-Earth woman -- a kick-ass, take-no-prisoners prosecutor of whom I am in awe, an amazingly, instinctively wonderful mother, a creative cook, and a lady with the deadly accurate instincts of a risk-taker and a yogini. I get to be not only the mother of the gentlest gentleman, funniest Scorpio, strongest father, and all-round kindest person I have ever known, I also get to be the MiL to a DiL that I love. May your children, too, marry well.

2. G/Son. And, as Mr. Frost said, that has made all the difference. I hope that, just once in your life, you get to love someone as much as I love G/Son, that the simple fact of someone's existence can make you as inordinately happy as G/Son's existence makes me every minute of every day.

3. I found my long-desired cottage home and a collaborator (thanks, Landscape Guy!) for the garden that I've been wanting ever since, at about seven years old, I read The Secret Garden. I was born to be the human part of this tiny landbase. Like a good lover, it completes me. May you find your "bit of Earth" and may it love you back as this bit of Earth loves me and I love it.

4. The Witches. My wonderful circle of amazing women. We've grown, shrunk, grown, done amazing political and personal magic. We've sunk our roots into this city and become a part of its magical infrastructure in ways that the denizens of this city never suspect and we've done it flying well below the radar of the city's Pagan community. We support each other, infiltrate, do magic in places where it should be impossible. As Barbara Starrett said:

I am a secret agent
Of the moon

Ex-centric
Extra-ordinary
Extra-sensory
Extra-terrestrial

Celestial subversive
Con-spiratorial
Spirita Sancta

Holy
Holy
Holy

And then some
And I have friends.

May you, too, have such friends.

5. I took a tiny, obscure bit of United States Code -- moribund for decades and decades -- and turned it into a several-billion-dollar win. It was the sort of pure fun that no one ever tells you that you can have doing law. It's addictive; it can cost an awful lot of nights' sleep and produce an awful lot of of grey hairs, but it's like riding a wave of pure energy. May you, too, have breakthrough wins. I have a job where I get paid to read, talk, and write about issues that matter to me and where, more often than not, I get a published opinion that says: Hecate wins, you other guys, not so much. I like to win. I do. I never expected to have such a great job. May it be so for you.

6. One late afternoon, on the balcony at Morton's, Son explained to me about this guy called "Atrios," and these things called "blogs" and, well, who knew? May you, too, find the creative outlet that works for you.

May this coming decade bring you delightful surprises, unearned gifts, Moon-lit dances, and serious wins.

What were the highpoints of the Aughts for you?

Photo by the author from her garden. If you copy, please link back.

Fare Thee Well, Aughts!

What a decade. It was Sandra Day's fault, but it was my fault, too, and yours, for not rioting in the streets. Well, done is done and, thank the Goddess, the Aughts are done.

Come with me. Strip. Shed your past as cleanly and as decisively as the snake sheds her skin. Leave all the old markers behind. Stand naked on the high hill. Ground. Take a huge lungfull of the icy cold air, the clarity; right now, this is all about the element of Air. Then, leap. Open your heart and let go of everything. Leap into the energy of the enormous Blue Moon that will end this decade and begin the next, spread the wings you didn't know that you had, and soar into the Teens with me.

This song always reminds me of the poem by Mary Oliver:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

But, we can do so much more than "just" save our lives. We can, with prodigal abandon, begin to spend our lives. Which, of course, reminds me of the Rumi poem:

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
"What a bargain, let's buy it!"

May this be the decade when energy becomes green, civilization becomes sustainable, the noosphere comes into its own, women assume half the power in the world, witches are honored instead of murdered, art matters more than war, and your life becomes an amazing collaboration with your very own landbase, watershed, biosphere, higher self/sacred dove/Goddess-self.

Make one wish for yourself on December 31, 2019. Go write it down here. Then, do what witches do: you begin by casting a circle.

Blessed new decade to you.

What's Real?

Daffodils

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

It's really brutally cold outside this evening, with strong winds and the kind of cold that seeps into your bones, the bones in your hand, the ones that ache for a long time after getting so cold.

But, in the bed of the now-invisible hostas, I can see tiny green tips -- the miniature daffodils that Landscape Guy and I moved this summer -- poking bravely up through the dirt. And, then, my heart with pleasure fills.

One of the best things about gardening is the anticipation. The watching for tiny signs. For me, this has a lot to do with being in relationship with a specific piece of land. It's trite, but true:

And then he added:
"go and look again at the roses.
You will understand now
that yours is unique in all the world.
Then come back to say goodbye to me,
and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away,
to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said.
"As yet you are nothing.
No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one.
You are like my fox when I first knew him.
He was only a fox
like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But I have made a friend,
and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on.
"One could not die for you.
To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think
that my rose looked just like you
--the rose that belongs to me.
But in herself alone she is more important
than all the hundreds of you
other roses: because it is she that I have watered;
because it is she
that I have put under the glass globe;
because it is for her
that I have killed the caterpillars
(except the two or three we saved
to become butterflies);
because it is she that I have listened to,
when she grumbled,
or boasted,
or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is MY rose."


And he went back to meet the fox.
"Goodbye" he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox.
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye,"
the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose
that makes your rose so important.


More here.

What's pushing up through your frozen ground? Are you grounding often enough to know?

Oh, Yes.

Mercury sure the fuck is in retrograde. It's been several years since one kicked my ass the way this one is doing. Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Picture found here.

May The Goddess Guard Him. May He Find His Way To The Summerlands. May His Friends And Family Know Peace.

It was a long, rough, day for civil rights:

NEW YORK -- Percy Sutton, the pioneering civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, has died. He was 89. Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for Gov. David Paterson, confirmed that Sutton died Saturday. She did not know the cause. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment Saturday when reached by phone at her New York City home.

The son of a former slave, Percy Sutton became a fixture on 125th Street in Harlem after moving to New York City following his service with the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. His Harlem law office, founded in 1953, represented Malcolm X and the slain activist's family for decades.

and

South African poet and former political prisoner Dennis Brutus has died. He was 85. Brutus' publisher, Chicago-based Haymarket Books, says the writer died in his sleep at his home in Cape Town on Saturday.

Brutus was an anti-apartheid activist who was jailed at Robben Island with Nelson Mandela in the mid-1960s. His activism led Olympic officials to ban South Africa from competition from 1964 until apartheid ended nearly 30 years later.

Exiled from South Africa in 1966, Brutus later moved to the United States and taught literature and African studies at Northwestern University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Over the years, he wrote more than a dozen collections of poetry, including two while imprisoned. He is survived by a wife, eight children and many other relatives.

He wrote:

No Banyan, Only

The quiet wisdom of the body’s peace:
Carnality, in this our carnal world, is all
Bamboo and iron having sealed
Our mundane eyes to views of time and peace.
Now I am strong as stones or trees are strong,
Insensible, or ignorant with vibrant life;
Streams or the air may wash or pass me by
My mind breathes quiet, lying yours along.
(Upon what meat is this man fed
That he is grown so great?
Diet of eloquent delectable accolades
Warm, soft, kindly, sweet and red.)

Under no banyan tree I strip no onion skin
To find a néant kernel at the still center:
“A little winter love in a dark corner?”
No, Love (for Chrissake, no) no love, no sin.

Sublunary no more, yet more acutely mundane
now
Man’s fingers claw the cosmos in gestures of
despair,
Our souls, since Hersey, seek the helix of
unknowing
Save mine, you-saved, now leafing like a bough.

Breaking through theory-thickets I thrust
To this one corpus, one more self
That gives Content and content to an earth
Littered and sterile with ideas and rust.

Let alphabetic electrons bloat on Freudian
excrement,

Picture found here.

Kali On A Cracker

One wishes so that the Frosts would just stay away from the issue of teen pregnancy.

For example: Nearly 90 percent of teen girls are now single mothers. Well, no. More here. Ninety percent of teen girls are not single mothers. And saying so just makes you look ridiculous. Please. Stop.

America has a huge amount of growing up to do w/r/t sex. Wiccans could be a large part of that maturation process, with our sex-positive attitudes. It saddens me to see elders, such as the Frosts, make that process immeasurably more difficult.

Picture found here.

Still And Always The Anthem Of My Youth

The first cut is the deepest:



The older I get, the more that I've got to lose.

That, I think, is what I failed to grok in my teens. Well, as Rumi said: I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life. Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
"What a bargain, let's buy it."

That's what I've got to lose.

Living In A World Of Polytheists

It might be disappointingly monotheistic, but, then again, it might not. Also, Polly Walker, who can act.

Caprica. Capricorn. Watch here. The important thing to note: it's a religion for teenagers.

It Was A Good Day For Soup

Misty and grey all afternoon. I pulled some of this soup out of the freezer and had it with bread topped with goat cheese and scallions. Perfect.

When There Were Wolves In Wales

I like maybe two or three things about xmas. One of them is this poem:



And one of them is this music:

.

And one of them is this book:



And, of course, who, among us, has not seen that blue light?

But, other than that, well, other than that, I like this, too:

Figuring Out What Winning Means

Years ago I was interviewed by a dogmatic pacifist (note to self: bad idea), who in his (grossly inaccurate) write-up said he thought I wanted all activists to think like assassins. That's not true. What I want is for us to think like members of a serious resistance movement.

What does that look like? Well, to start, it doesn't have to mean handling guns. Even when the IRA was at its strongest, only 2 percent of its members ever picked up weapons. The same is true for the Underground Railroad; Harriet Tubman and others carried guns, but Quakers and other pacifists who ran safe houses were also crucial to that work. What they all held in common was a commitment to their cause, and a willingness to work together in the resistance.

A serious resistance movement also means a commitment to winning, which means figuring out what "winning" means to you. For me, winning means living in a world with more wild salmon every year than the year before, more migratory songbirds, more amphibians, more large fish in the oceans, and for that matter oceans not being murdered. It means less dioxin in every mother's breast milk. It means living in a world where there are fewer dams each year than the year before. More native forests. More wild wetlands. It means living in a world not being ravaged by the industrial economy. And I'll do whatever it takes to get there (and if, by the way, you believe that "whatever it takes" is code language for violence, you're revealing nothing more than your own belief that nonviolence is ineffective).

More here.

You can't do effective magic without having a clear objective. You can't have a serious resistance movement without figuring out what winning means to you.

What's your objective? What does winning mean to you? What are you willing to do to get there? If the answer is less than: "whatever it takes," go back to square one.

Picture found here.

Stripped, Beaten, Paraded, Made To Eat Shit: She's A Witch

In November Jug Chaudhary, a 30-year-old mother of four children, was beaten up by her family members and paraded naked around a village in Kailali. They dragged her out from her home, beat her mercilessly and then forced her to eat human excreta. Her mother-in-law's brother had just passed away. She had been accused of putting a spell on him that caused his death.

When Chaudhary's husband, a labourer in India, returned the couple went to the police station but could not file a complaint. "They said it was a personal matter, it should be solved in the community." Jug Chaudhary did not receive justice. She is living in the same village, in the same Dalit community as those who accused and assaulted her.

***

Witch-hunting is an extreme form of gender violence and the reason it is not taken seriously is because the victims are usually from marginalised communities. Nepal's gender movement has made amazing strides, but it has done little for this community of victims.

Activists in Kathmandu can push for laws against witch-hunting while those in the field can work to spread awareness against the medieval superstitions that target these women. The Nepal Police, too, needs to include a chapter on how to address crimes related to superstition in their training manuals.

Three years ago in June, the interim parliament declared Nepal an 'untouchability-free nation'. Such empty proclamations mean little to women like Jug Chaudhary. This year, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal acknowledged the state's failure to deliver on its promises, saying, "it is unfortunate that we haven't been able to implement this declaration in practice."

Full article here.

You can contact the embassy of Nepal at:

Embassy of Nepal
2131 Leroy Place, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202 667 4550, Fax: 202 667 5534

Email: info@nepalembassyusa.org.

Nepal's ambassador to the United States is: SHANKAR P. SHARMA
E-mail: info@nepalembassyusa.org
Telephone: (202) 667-4450 /4551

Picture found here.

Now. Now Would Be Good.

Thursday Poetry Blogging

For the Animals

BY LAWRENCE RAAB

for my mother
I call to them
with the names you gave me

waiting for the new moon
watching for the trembling in the trees
where the wind hides out at night

I call their secret names and they
come to me finding
the home we made for them
so much like our own with yellow flowers
and books clear windows a door at each end
to go out and come back in
chairs and a good table and everything
you could want

Your poem fills with animals

Woodchuck and beaver the sly fox
the pompous rabbit otter deer
raccoon and owl

In my house there are more of us
than I ever thought we knew
smiling and bringing presents for you

The perfect wings of the owl lift with the wind
The earth hugs the mole as a friend
The bear offers honey from his hands

I let myself fall
into the soft arms of animals and then
into their dreams

all of our secrets
returning to me falling back to me
carrying me home




Picture found here.

Frigg

I've adored Renee Russo ever since her role in the remake of the Thomas Crowne Affair and I can't wait to see her as Frigg.

Taking My Own Advice

"Your breasts are perfect. Lovely. Completely fabulous. Just the kind I love."

For maybe two seconds, my snarky side (Geminii rising, what can I say?) thinks: "Now if only you were a man with curly black hair, blue eyes, your shirt sleeves rolled up above the cuff, your hands placed just so, the warm sea breeze playing gently . . . ." But on my next breath, my emotional side kicks in (sun in Pisces, so, again, no surprise) and I grab the hand of the stocky, middle-aged, midwestern doctor with her no-nonsense haircut and her good Polish last name and I break into tears of relief. She pats my shoulder, I blow my nose and start to apologize, she says, "It's more common than you'd think, especially with your history." I get my act together, dress myself and tie my Hermes scarf (moon in Taurus, what do you expect?), cab to my office, and give the driver a humongous tip. He probably thinks it's because of the holidays.

Every year when I have my mammogram, I sit there not-reading the magazine (I not-read Science and Time today, with special not-reading emphasis on the year-end articles on advances in the treatment of breast cancer), centering, grounding, telling myself, "They're taking too long. In a minute, the sweet little technician with the long hair and my sister's name will come back out and say, "Ms. Demetersdatter, doctor wants just a few more pictures, . . ." "and I'll know that "It" has returned. Because when it's all ok, they don't take "a few more pictures" in the rooms on the right side of the hall. When it's all ok, they send you to the sitting rooms on the left side of the hall so the doctor can come give you your results. I can tell by the tilt of the technician's head which way we're going before she opens her mouth. I've gone right and I've gone left, and, me, I prefer going left (and not only politically).

And, this year, I can tell as she walks down the hall: no more pictures. I get the coveted trip to a room on the left, a visit from the middle-aged doctor with the no-nonsense haircut, and a cab ride back to the office. I get to give my secretary, who keeps my calendar and who gives me the "eyebrows up" question, a thumbs up. When a guy with whom I work stops by and says, "You look happy today," I impulsively say, "I am. I had a perfect mammogram today," and I get lunch at the Palm: lobster and champagne. I'll be ready to kill him within days of the new year, but, this afternoon, we're old comrades at arms. I pretend to forget that he told our client that I had breast cancer, after I asked him not to, and he pretends to forget, as well.

Next year, who knows? But this year, twelve years out, I get the nice stuff. I'm going to try and remember it some year when I get the bad news.

A few weeks ago, my wonderful circle of amazing women gathered around me, listened to my wish: "If there is something there, let them find it," and then raised energy all around me to protect my health. I feel that circle of energetic protection every minute that I am standing with a sharp corner jabbed into my underarm and a plastic plate pressing down on my breast. I feel it and I draw upon it and I remind myself that, no matter what, I am not alone.

May it be so for you.

I came home and pulled a tarot card for myself and, let me just assure you, there is zero chance that I am pregnant. But if you feel inspired to read for me, leave a note in comments.

And go get your mammogram. If you've got some flexcare dollars to spend, it's not too late to get one this year. Early detection saves lives and I am living proof.

Photo by the author from the Robin Wood tarot deck.

Love Him Or Hate Him, Lon Milo Says What He Thinks

Peregrin is not impressed.

Axial Tilt: It Really Is The Reason For The Season

A modern religion, and, yet, who can deny its ancient DNA?

"It's not just those that see Stonehenge as a spiritual centre it is a whole multitude of people from both locally and oversees and they want to come here to celebrate the solstice.
"It's one of those things you must do at least once in your life and for many of those that come they will come again and again. It's a very special time for Stonehenge."

Fun video at the link.

As for this batty old broad, just as the Sun set last night, I went "roots down, branches up" and felt the tilt of the planet, felt that zing that reminds you that, no matter how lightly you may try and take it (and I try to take it pretty lightly), it's all still "Magik" with a capital "M" -- and in some ways, more foreign and mind-bending than we can ever remember for more than the space of a few wonderful, terrifying moments. There's no one, I'm willing to warrant, who's touched the stream of pure Earth Magik who doesn't stand there terrified, awed, off the ground, uncertain of surviving.

And, then, this morning, the deep zing of new energy, light, the turn of the wheel. What an amazing blue marble. What deep ley lines. What hidden caves of crystal.

And then I drove through the slush and ice to work. It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more.

Picture found here. Do follow this link, not only for the joke, but for the amazing picture of the ten-year-old Pagan. Goddess, she's lovely. What on Earth will this world be like when, in a generation or two, there are more of us cradle Pagans than converts? I'd love to stay around and watch.

Oh, Not Again. Wasn't She Just Out Here In The Summer Thunderstorm?

And, there it is. The Sun gone down on the shortest day of the year.

It was a day of almost surgically-white sunlight, bouncing off the two feet of snow and highlighting every speck of dirt and grime in the house, the way that only Winter sunlight can. I cleaned -- a lot, my housekeepers showed up in the snow and cleaned, and the old cottage is cleaner than it was before. I edited pre-appellate pleadings, interpreted the Code of Federal Regulations, and agreed with my associate's decisions about when to file motions. I dug a path out to my car where my wonderful neighbor helped me to dig out to the (still unploughed) road. I finished knitting a sweater vest for G/Son. I made roast turkey salad. I chatted with one witch about this week's CSA delivery (fewer green beans and lettuce this week; more oranges) and with another witch about grandchildren. I listened to Wynton Marsalis run up, up, up, up, up, all the way up into crystal. His music seemed to match the blinding sunlight.

I'm an old woman with a bad ankle and a recently-broken toe, but, at sunset, I whipped off my clothes and rolled in the snow on my back deck, startling a fox, a rabbit (whose life I think I saved), three squirrels, the demanding cardinal, and more sparrows and wrens than I could count. You can almost hear them thinking: "Fly away! It's the crazy lady! Tomorrow, she'll be out here with seeds and liquid water (which is rare and precious in this time of snow and ice), but, for now, this manifestation of the Goddess is in her crazy aspect. Best to wait it out here in the cryptomeria; it never lasts long. Damn! That is one crazy old woman." If there weren't two feet of snow and if I didn't have a broken toe, I'd have made it out to my boulder and the magnolias and back, but, we crones, we do the best we can and then we go back inside and have a martini. What do you think Baba Yaga has inside that house on chicken feet??? She has crystal martini glasses, that's what she has.

I have some magic to work this evening, and I will do it, but it will begin, because I am old, in a steaming hot bath filled with sage that I picked from my garden just as the snow began.

May the light return to you and yours, may your new projects grow and thrive in this bright light, may our lovely Planet continue to tilt upon her axis. Blessed Yule.

Picture found here.

I Told You It Was Going To Drive The Wingnuts Batshit Insane.

But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.

You can read the whole petulant tantrum here. It looks pretty standard to me, but you never know what will set the fundies off.

Io Evoe!

It's a day for feasting, focusing on the return of the light, and enjoying our connection to the ancient Pagans, (although Stonehenge will not be opening early today), and for adopting new traditions (like yurts!). And of course, humans will always be building Stonehenges.

May your day be filled with light! Sol Invictus, welcome back. You've been missed.