And, As Derrick Jensen Says, Our Discourse Just Rapidly Gets Soooo Weird

The Other Side Of Sacrifice Is Blessing

Reducing reliance on corporate food is probably going to mean you’ll spend more time cooking and preserving food, and that you might not be able to eat strawberries in winter or oranges at all.

Reducing fossil-fuel use might mean you’ll have to spend more time walking, or that you’ll give up some of your freedom in order to carpool. Or it might mean you won’t just ask what BP the corporation is doing about the oil spill, but what we the people are doing about it.

Fortunately, the other side of sacrifice is blessing, and the journey away from corporate-reliance toward self-reliance and local-reliance, though I have barely begun it myself, seems full of blessing.

Anyone who grows their own food or who has gotten to know their farmer at the farmers market knows this.

Anyone who has done without a particular technological gadget knows this.
Anyone who has organized to protect the interests of small farmers from the greed of corporate agriculture businesses knows this.

And anyone who has looked into the course catalogue of the Driftless Folk School — which is educating our community about everything from blacksmithing to mowing with a scythe to pickling to soap-making — sees how delightful the journey toward self-reliance can be.

This reminds me of something that Derrick Jensen, I think, once wrote. Which is that, yes, the move from consumer culture and big oil is going to involve sacrifice. My G/Son won't live the hedonistically creature-comfort-loaded life that I've led. But he might gain something, as well. If our children and grandchildren gain an increased closeness to the Earth, to the seasons and cycles and processes of Gaia, well, then, they will, indeed, be blessed.

Of course, Jensen also posits our descendent, starving to death on the banks of Yukon River, cursing us for killing off the salmon in return for cans of corn syrup that we could throw away. Cursing our great grandparents for killing off the buffalo for sport and the flocks of passenger pigeons so large they darkened the sky for days at a time for no reason at all other than the love of destruction.

And, yet.

Read the whole thing here.

Picture found here.

We finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

The World Below the Brine
~ Walt Whitman


The world below the brine,
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick
tangle openings, and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the
play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes,
and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling
close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting
with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy
sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,
breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed
by beings like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

Picture found here.

Smudge Sticks

As I've blogged about before, I live a busy life and one of the challenges that I face is how to live as a Witch in this world, this modern one, this one full of conference calls, deadlines for briefs, emails to answer, investment accounts to manage, a home and garden to attend. One of the things that I often find myself missing is time for what I think of as the "routine duties of a priestess," -- time to grind incense, oil candles, harvest herbs, make smudge sticks.

This week, having met a major deadline at work, I'm taking a some time off to stay at home and get things in order before the "next big push." Back in March, when the unheard-of February snowstorms melted, I cut back an armload of dead branches from the German Mountain Sage and the French Thyme in the herb bed. And those dried-out branches have been sitting on my altar, ever since, waiting for me to turn them into smudge sticks.

I use smudge sticks a lot in my workings, often using them to smudge the boundaries of my property, the edges of my home, the liminal space between where things are stuck and where they can change. And, so today, I sat down to make smudge sticks, just like any old hedge witch, minor crone, witch of "this" place. It felt so good.

I love the homonym of "thyme" and "time" and use smudge sticks of thyme when I need to move between time. Sage is the more traditional, more grounded, use of smudge, although smudge is v much an element of Air. I use cotton embroidery thread, which burns well, in colors that represent Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. I ground, cast a circle, enter sacred space, bind the herbs, and call upon the Goddesses to make my intention manifest.

May it be so for you.

The Obligation To Endure Gives Us The Right To Know

Rachel Carson's homepage credits her mother with instilling Ms. Carson with a life-long love of nature. I'll die happy if I'm able to give G/Son such a love.

She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article "Undersea" (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941). In 1952 she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955. These books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.

She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including "Help Your Child to Wonder," (1956) and "Our Ever-Changing Shore" (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life. Embedded within all of Carson's writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.

. . .

Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.

Wikipedia says that the title of Ms. Carson's masterpiece, Silent Spring, was inspired by a poem by Keats:

The book argued that uncontrolled and unexamined pesticide use was harming and even killing not only animals and birds, but also humans. Its title was meant to evoke a spring season in which no bird songs could be heard, because they had all vanished as a result of pesticide abuse. Its title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contained the lines "The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing."

Tomorrow, May 27th, is the 103rd anniversary of her birth. And, a full Moon. As we contemplate the full catastrophe that is the Gulf of Mexico, I intend to invoke Ms. Carson on the full Moon and call for her aid. You come with me, now, won't you?

Picture of La Belle Dame sans Merci found here.

I Was Not Angry Since I Came To France.

I am so sorry that I voted for Barack Obama. Not that I had a choice (thanks, sexists!) and not that I wouldn't vote for him again over McCain/Palin, but what a sorry excuse for a Democrat he is.

The Obama administration is backing the Vatican’s claim to immunity from lawsuits over sexual abuse by US priests. In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the administration’s solicitor general’s office says an appeals court wrongly allowed an alleged abuse victim to proceed with a lawsuit against the Vatican. The plaintiff’s suit says the Vatican should be held responsible for transferring the priest to Oregon despite previous allegations of abuse.

Fuck this shit.

/Hat tip to Quentin Composin in comments at Eschaton.

Picture found here.

Afternoon Of A Faun

Go Listen.

My dreams last night were full of really aggressive fauns, both old and young. I kept telling Son to get G/Son inside. Funny time for fauns to fill my sleep.

Picture found here.

The Heavens Rejoice

Discovery Of Ancient Pagan Altar

Here's an interesting article about the discovery of a Pagan altar, possibly dedicated to Roman deities. The altar was found at the site of a new hospital wing, which has created a good bit of controversy in Israel. The new wing is being built on the site of an ancient grave and, although the bones have been removed for re-burial, Orthodox Jews, believing the bones to be Jewish, have protested. The government, on the other hand, says that the bones are Pagan.

Note once again the capitalization of one religious group, in this case "Jews," while using lower case to describe Pagans. I'm not sure what's so complicated about applying your capitalization rules consistently.

Israel on Thursday announced the discovery of a 2,000-year-old pagan altar at the site where plans for a new hospital wing have come under fire from ultra-Orthodox Jews who fear bones found there may be of Jews.

The find of what the Israel Antiquities Authority calls a "magnificent" altar gives a boost to the authorities at a time when ultra-orthodox Jews condemned the removal of bones from ancient graves at the site in the southern city of Ashkelon.

"The find further corroborates the assertion that this place is a pagan cemetery," the IAA said in a statement.

The altar is about 60 centimetres (24 inches) tall and is decorated with a bull's head from which dangle laurel wreaths. Such altars usually stood in Roman temples, the statement said.

Picture (of a similar altar) found here.

Sunday Dance Blogging

12,500 Years

I Am The Witch Of This Watershed

A weird river thing, a thing of the marshes am I.
A creature with small green shoots growing out of the gentle flesh behind the curl of my ear.
With weird-shaped dead branches growing through my cunt.

I am not like these people among whom I move.
I am not.

I can think through their problems, but I am not "of" them.
I can, hmmm, look. Over there. The sunlight sparkles on the river and the water laps against the trunks of trees. There are wood ducks and there were, a few hundred years ago, great swans.

A weird river thing am I.
The word of fairie claims me, calls to me, shows me myself all water-reeds among the waves of this river. This one. The one that flows so closely to the hall of power. This one.

A weird river thing, a thing of the marshes am I.
A creature with small green shoots growing out of the gentle flesh behind the curl of my ear.
With weird-shaped dead branches growing through my cunt.

This Potomac.

Picture found here.

Religion Of The Moon

There are some things that you just know about yourself, know in the bone.

One of the things that I know about myself is that I will always, no matter what else, come what may, chance what might, I will always be a complete sucker for good poetry. Is it my Sun in Pisces, my Ascendent Gemini, the placement of Neptune in my chart? I don't know, but I do know that when I am coughing my death rattle, I will still be in ecstatic love with good poetry.

Here's some:

Remember the moon? Remember the night when you were fifteen and you crept out of your house at night when you were supposed to be asleep, to see the moon? And it was so bright you could barely believe it was real, and the glare from its shining made an enormous cross in the night sky, and the grass was a dangerous carpet of silver blades, and the trees all had sweet dark secrets they told you, carried to you on the wind that touched your bare arms, cold as butter? You saw it then for a minute – the great map of the planet and all the stars and whirlpools in the black honey of space spread out before you, and you stood as though you had been driven feet first and planted in the earth, knowing this would be your religion, forever. Well, somewhere inside you there is a story and a dance for that moon and that night and they are waiting for you to give them breath and body. Because the more you dance the moon, the less you will forget Her in the face of terror, clocks[,] and currency. Birds covered in oil. O Religion! Bind me to the moon. Bind me to unforgetting, and in that binding[,] the unfettered freedom of Knowing how to continue, and going about the Work with holy resolve.

OK, it purports to be prose, and, wracked, I'd admit that it's prose, but it's very poetic prose, isn't it?

If we can just read enough poetry to "go about the Work with holy resolve," we can all die happy, I think. I can, at least. Can you? What does it take for you?

Picture found here.

Saturday Poetry Blogging

Close your eyes
And do not peek
And I'll rub Spring
Across your cheek-
Smooth as satin,
Soft and sleek-
Close your eyes
And do not peek.

-Aileen Fisher

We're experiencing a rare prolonged Spring, here in the MidAtlantic. Often, we go from 40 degree weather straight into the nineties, with high humidity. But, this year, we've had a lovely, real, Spring. It's such a gift. Have you had a real Spring where you live?

Picture found here.

Can You Face The Goddesses/Gods And Claim That You Are "The Witch Of This Place"? If Not, Why Not?

Joanna is asking some good questions. How many can you answer? How many will you commit to being able to answer by Samhein? Ostara? Beltaine? If not, why not? What else are you doing that is more important than being the Witch of your place?

- What are the trees in my neighborhood? When do they bloom? What do their fruits and seeds look like? What insects use the trees? When do they shed their leaves? How do their seeds get to new sites to grow?

- What is the flowering sequence of local flowers? When does the first bloom of each species appear? When are half of the flowers of a species in bloom? When does the last flower of each species bloom? Are some species found growing together more often than others? What does the dead plant look like in winter?

- How do the patterns of clouds and light change over a period of weeks? What things are happening around me that seem to be affected by changes in the sky? 8

Like many other spiritual practices, spending time in nature each day encourages us to slow down, to pay attention, to breathe deeply, to practice gratefulness, and to connect with Mystery. I have found that a sure-fire cure for depression — even in the depths of a gray and gloomy winter — is to go for a walk to my secret place and soak up the energy there.

Joanna's discussion of finding your own, secret place in nature reminds me of one of my all-time favorite poems by David McCord:

THIS IS MY ROCK

"This is my rock,
And here I run
To steal the secret of the sun;

"This is my rock,
And here come I
Before the night has swept the sky;

"This is my rock,
This is the place
I meet the evening face to face."

Now that Landscape Guy's put a real rock in my garden, it is where I go to "meet the evening, face to face."

Picture by the author. If you copy, please link back.

Worth A Read

Africa's chief witch hunter is on the defensive.

May she reap what she's sown.

Friday Poetry Blogging

Invocation of Hecate
By Aleister Crowley

O triple form of darkness! Sombre splendour! Thou moon unseen of men! Thou huntress dread! Thou crowned demon of the crownless dead!

O breasts of blood, too bitter and too tender! Unseen of gentle spring, Let me the offering Bring to thy shrine’s sepulchral glittering!

I slay the swart beast! I bestow the bloom Sown in the dusk, and gathered in the gloom
Under the waning moon, At midnight hardly lightening the East;

And the black lamb from the black ewe’s dead womb I bring, and stir the slow infernal tune
Fit for thy chosen priest.

Here where the band of Ocean breaks the road Black-trodden, deeply-stooping, to the abyss, I shall salute thee with the nameless kiss

Pronounced toward the uttermost abode Of thy supreme desire. I shall illume the fire Whence thy wild stryges shall obey the lyre, Whence thy Lemurs shall gather and spring round,
Girdling me in the sad funereal ground With faces turned back,

My face averted! I shall consummate The awful act of worship, O renowned Fear upon earth, and fear in hell, and black

Fear in the sky beyond Fate!

I hear the whining of thy wolves! I hear The howling of the hounds about thy form, Who comest in the terror of thy storm,

And night falls faster, ere thine eyes appear Glittering through the mist. O face of woman unkissed
Save by the dead whose love is taken ere they wist! Thee, thee I call! O dire one! O divine! I, the sole mortal, seek thy deadly shrine,

Pour the dark stream of blood, A sleepy and reluctant river
Even as thou drawest, with thine eyes on mine, To me across the sense-bewildering flood
That holds my soul for ever!

Picture found here.

Modern Witch

Lots of great comments in response to this post about living as a Witch in this modern world.

I thought that I'd mention a few of the things on my iPhone that aid me in my practice. Obviously, there are songs on my iPod that reflect my religion. From this to this to this to this. And, I keep this YouTube on my iPhone and have whipped it out and played it at Sabbats more than a few times. I also have an iPhone "app" (see how hip I am?) that tells me what phase of the Moon we're in and the astrological sign in which that Moon appears. I have the (oddly accurate) Goddess Tarot on my iPhone and, wonder of wonders, I have a compass on my new iPhone. I can be out in the middle of nowhere on a foggy day and determine the directions, and, thus, the elements, and, thus, cast a more accurate circle. I've used the camera/video app to take pictures of altars pre- and post-ritual, pictures of my sisters, shots of tarot spreads to preserve for later review.

I don't keep my BoS online, but, eventually, I probably will. Still too attached to being able to draw pictures, tape in recipes and pics from magazines, seed packets, and dried herbs to go there yet. I keep a lot of photos online and use them to illustrate rituals, illustrate blogs, keep me inspired.

And, here, via a wonderful friend of mine, are a bunch of gardening "apps."

As I say every morning upon awakening: "It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more."

(Slightly disturbing) picture found here.

And This Is Why

I am known in my circle as the "One Who Loves Birthdays". Honestly is it too much to ask that once, just once a year, each of us gets to feel like this?

No! No it is not too much! All acts -- all -- acts -- all acts of love and pleasure are rituals of the Goddess. All. Acts.

Picture found here.

Wednesday Garden Blogging

These are Bowles Black Violas; I've been trying, not v successfully, to grow them for years. Ordered seedlings this year from Select Seeds and they've gone gangbusters. Deadheading helps, but I'm too hammered at work these days to be meticulous about it.

It's As If Nature Were Some Awesomely Powerful Force That We Can't Control

I completely stole this from watertiger.

I can't help but wonder how different it would have been if the people involved had grown up with any conception of the worship of nature. How would a group of Pagans have reacted differently to this storm?

A Woman Clad With The Sky

Here's a fascinating article about religious and political uses of nakedness throughout the ages. The interview, with Druid Philip Carr Gomm includes an interesting discussion about the Pagan practice of worshipping skyclad.

Speaking of angels, nakedness has been put to many uses in religion. You’re an expert in English magic, including Druidism and Wicca. How do these interests overlap?

In Wicca, and to a lesser extent in Druidism, worshiping "skyclad" (i.e. clothed only with the sky) is used as a way of getting closer to Nature and to Deity. One might think that conventional religion, in contrast to these modern pagan approaches, would shun nakedness. But in reality there are numerous examples of religious leaders using nakedness to engender mystical states or get closer to God. The first third of my book focusses on this largely unknown history: looking in particular at the way nakedness has been used not only in classical Paganism and its modern revivals, but also in Hinduism, Jainism, and most remarkable of all, Christianity. I finish this part of the book with a quotation from Dolly Parton which nicely unites Pantheistic and Christian themes: “Sometimes I like to run naked in the moonlight and the wind, on a little trail behind our house, when the honeysuckle blooms. It's a feeling of freedom, so close to God and nature.”

The skyclad rituals that I've done have been some of the lovliest and most intense ones that I've experienced. IANAFP (I am not a festival Pagan) so maybe my experience is not the norm. Do you worship skyclad? In a group or alone? Only for certain workings or certain times of year?

Picture found here.

Listen To My Amazing Friend Amy

What I Do

One of my chief interests is: How do we live as Witches in an urban, 21st Century, professional world?

How do the tenents of ancient, Earth-based, religion -- e.g., respect for nature and matter, connection with the cycle of the seasons, manifestation of the Goddess(es), worship of the fleshy, female-body part of life, Moon-based community, and, well, and everything in the Charge of the Goddess -- translate to life in the "capital of the free world," modern office buildings, iPhones, calendars kept on computers, Facebook, commuting in rush hour, conference calls, briefing billion dollar cases? How do we live as a Witch at work, keeping up modern homes, gardening in this ecosystem, having the modern families that we have, being in the circles that we're in, communicating mostly "on the grid," being unable to schedule a dinner with two other Witches on less than a month's notice because one of us travels extensively for business, one of us has a big deadline at work, one of us is juggling theatre subscriptions, belly dance class, several blogs, and work?

I could figure out, I like to imagine, how to live each moment as a Witch in a small cottage in a wood, waking with the birds, gardening, praying with the cycles of the Moon, gathering herbs, spinning wool, dancing the Spiral Dance at established community festivals, and doing divination for village girls. I could determine, I think, how to live each moment as Priestess of Mother Earth, on that mist-shrouded Isle of Avalon, surrounded by sister-Witches, outdoor temples, sacred studies. I could have been, I tell myself, a kick-ass Priestess of Athena or the Eleusian Mysteries, had I lived in a time when society, itself, was organized around those religious lynchpins. I even think that I could live well as a Witch in some dystopian future Bene Gesserit convent (a word so like "coven") or some Honored Matres group. But those are not the challenges that Hecate's set for me. Oddly, she wants me to live as a Witch in this distinctly un-Witchy world.

Yet, I am a Witch, and I need to be a Witch. I need to fully engage that spiritual practice in a big city, commuting twice a day in congested traffic, confronting homeless people, needy young lawyers, frustrated paralegals, a super-hero-obsessed G/Son who already knows how to access YouTubes on my iPhone and needs me to help him connect to nature, and a circle of women who are all more busy than is good for the functioning of any circle (I, myself, being chiefly to blame). I need to invest in the stock market as a Witch. I need to decide which mosquito-repellants (if any) to employ as a Witch who (1) needs to be outside and (2) needs to respect Nature. I need to function as a Witch in the death-match that is modern, high-stakes law and as a woman whose spiritual practice demands integrity from her. I need to be a Witch when I take clients out to dinner at the Palm, to be a Witch when I send e-mails, to be a Witch when I write letters to my Senators, to be a Witch when I do dark Moon magic to impact legislation, elections, the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

It's never been easy: living as a Witch. It's never been, even for those foremothers we envy, clear how, in any given time, one could live the life and be a Witch. And, at least today, it's more often a choice between: living as a Witch and staying employed, as opposed to: living as a Witch and staying, well, alive. I get that. And there's not, on first glance, a lot in the ancient texts to give me guidance. And, yet. And, yet.

What I do is to wake up each morning and re-dedicate myself, wake up each morning and pray. What I do is to take the route to work that takes me past a river, past weeds, past a homeless man with whom I have to interact. What I do is to try, consciously, to interact with young lawyers, paralegals, secretaries, and, yes, even co-counsel as a Witch would interact and not, merely, as another lawyer would interact. I try to pay attention to dreams (oh, look, we'd already cut off that branch w/o realizing it!), tarot, intuition. I try to buy food for me and for my family from local sources and to knit intention into the sweaters that I make for G/Son when I sit on conference calls, to invest with intention, to support with the money I make causes close to my heart. What I do is to garden consciously, after spending hours and hours in meditation with that land. And, what else I do is to sit every day at my altar, currently heaped with sage stems and leaves that I cut away from the living sage that returned from this winter's bad storms and will make into smudge sticks, and to ground, cast a circle, say the Ha Prayer, run the Iron Pentacle, go to my place of power, do magic, and, with gratitude, return.

What do you do?

Are there Witchy uses of email, iPhones, Blackberries, microwaves, lawn care services, investment advisors, YouTube, cars, computers, antidepressants, Facebook, and smart meters in today's world?
Picture found (warning) here.

German Mountain Sage And French Thyme In Bloom

Sunday Dance Blogging

Sunday Feminism Blogging

Sacrament

Sacrament: 1 : a religious act that is a sign or symbol of a spiritual existence


The evening air along the banks of my beautiful Potomac River is thick with the scent of honeysuckle. Which I finally realize is part honey, part rose, part wild bergamot. I've been trying almost all my life to identify its components.

Driving home along the river this evening, I was reminded of what they say about those who experienced the Eleusian Mysteries: that those who had experienced them no longer feared death. Honestly, if, just a few times in your life, you get to inhale this scent, why should you ever fear death?

And that is how I take the sacraments.

Picture found here.

What Phila Said

Really. Go read Phila's Friday Hope Blogging.

I especially love this bit:

The world's oldest beehives have been found in a Scottish chapel:
Located in the medieval Scottish Rosslyn Chapel, which dates back to 1446, two ancient hives have been found, skillfully carved in the stone work under the roof's peak. They are thought to be the first man-made stone hives ever found....
The only clues to the hives' existence were flowers intricately carved into the pinnacles -- it is charming that there were holes through which the bees could enter and exit. These were visible from the outside....
Since the hive was so high above the ground, it is clear that no one would be able to reach it to get the honey. It is thought that the ancient stone masons who built the chapel simply wanted to provide a safe location for a wild honeybee hive, protected from bad weather.

Timely, Indeed.

Here's an interesting review of Isabel Allende's new novel, Island Beneath the Sea, which takes place in the French colony that was to become Haiti. Allende's apparently worked in some interesting discussions of Voodoo.

The slave Tété . . .dreams of the island beneath the sea, a paradise where "rhythm is born … it shakes the earth, it cuts through me like a lightning bolt and rises toward the sky, carrying with it my sorrows so that [voodoo god] Papa Bondye can chew them, swallow them, and leave me clean and happy."

Tété, in short, dreams of freedom.

According to the reviewer: Particularly enjoyable are scenes in which the religion of the slaves — a form of voodoo originating in Haiti — mixes with the Catholicism of New Orleans. Tété, who becomes a kind of healer, helps the wife of the plantation manager, an Irish Catholic immigrant, care for a slave they fear is about to die in childbirth. " 'Erzulie, mother loa, help it be born,' Tété prayed aloud [to the voodoo goddess]. 'Saint Raymond Nonatus, pay attention, do not let an African saint get ahead of you,' Leanne answered in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing."

Even Père Antoine, the priest known as the Saint of New Orleans, does not seem to object to this intermingling of faith. In one scene, in which Tété is helping the good father in treacherous conditions, Tété calls out to the Goddess Erzulie, asking her to watch over them in their efforts. "Jesus watches over us, Tété," the priest assures her when he hears her pleas. "And if his attention wanders, mon père?" she asks.

Dear Los Angeles Times, since you capitalize the names of other religions, ("Catholicism," for instance, in the very same sentence) you should capitalize "Voodoo." The fact that it's "the religion of slaves" doesn't give you a pass. This is not complicated. Please make a note.

A Self-Described Newpaper

Here's a pretty short article about the broo-ha-ha in Livingston Parish, Louisiana over some Pagans daring to want to get together. The author does manage to capitalize "Wiccan," but then adds "self-described."

So let's go over this one more time. Unless you refer to a self-described Catholic priest, a self-described rabbi, and a self-described Methodist minister, then you don't call Maeven Eller a "[s]elf-described Wiccan priestess."

It's not complicated.

The comments to the article are worth a look, as well.

We Were Young And We Had No Idea How Complicated It Was

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

The Gulf

What Thorn said.

Picture found here.

Big Ovaries, Baby.

My brilliant friend, E, introduced me to these great women.

I love "I compete every day and I don't need balls to play." Because, you know, I do and and I don't.

And, speaking of women named Elizabeth and of ovaries of steel, may I just say: Go Elizabeth Warren! Go!

Seriously. This Is One Of My Main Missions As A Nonna.

"As basic as reading, writing, and arithmetic." I'd argue: far more.

Also see, e.g., Gus.

No, I Do. No You Don't; I Do!

And, speaking of smiles, this is worth it for the cartoon at the end.

A Religion Based On An Oscar Wilde Quote.

I spent all day arguing against people who have a real penchant for undercutting their own best interests. So I needed a smile when I came home to sit out on my porch, eat dinner, and read the inter-tubes. And I got it here, in this charming description of a young woman converting from Islam to Wicca and explaining it to her parents.

I wanted three things from my religion:

1. A moral code based on the Oscar Wilde quote "some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go" – strive to be the first kind of person and not the second

2. A profoundly hedonist approach to life

3. Transcendence – be that through ritual or prayer or eating marshmallows in woodland

Reminds me of the saying on my morning coffee mug: You pray; I dance naked in the forest.

And:

The only thing that troubled me about my new tribe was its propensity to want to organise into groups that then try to get mainstream recognition. I quite liked the lack of organisation and/or dogma that paganism represents.

The lack of any structure, hierarchy (as a solitary person I never joined a coven with a priest or priestess), or rules meant that I was free to do as I pleased. I followed the guidance I received in dreams. I accepted and adopted that which felt true to me and rejected that which didn't. I celebrated the solstices and lived by the moon. It was a time of expansion and magic.

Like the author, I too, like the fluid and "disorganized" nature of Paganism, the lack of structure, the constantly shifting emphasis. My Sun is in Pisces -- two fish swimming in opposite directions -- and my Ascendent is Geminii -- the twins, looking over each other's shoulders with opposite points of view. And, my Matron is Hecate, that Goddess of the fluid, liminal, ever-changing place where change is possible. So it's no surprise I love our lack of structure. Whenever there are questions such as: Is there really only one Divinity with many forms or are there really separate Gods and Goddesses?" I love being able to answer: "Yes!" The prayer that I say every morning includes the line: It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more.

And I love the end of the story:

I ordered a raw salad, my mother's jaw tightened.

"Are you a Hindu now?"

"Nope."

"I see. You know you can't have a Muslim burial now?"

"Yep."

"Have you thought what family will say at your death?"

"I was hoping all you elders would die before me." My mother's face visibly relaxed. She even cracked a smile. "Ah, that's true. God willing."

• The author has used a pseudonym at the request of her parents.

I love the idea of using humor to deflect the concerns and that, in the end, the author is still working with her parents on "this issue."

It reminds me, too, of my catholic mother's reaction to my conversion to the Goddess religion. She kept telling me, "Catholicism has Mother Mary and the female saints. That's all that Goddess religion is; you already had all that." And I was always saying, "OK, mom. Whatever gets you through the Mass."


PS. And you know what Dorothy Parker said about Wilde's quotes:

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.
Dorothy Parker in A Pig's-Eye View of Literature, 1937.

So a religion founded on his philosophy makes sense to me. Plus, it's bound to be a snarky religion and, well, after Hecate, I do adore the Goddess Snark.

Picture found here.

She's A Witch! Burn Her!

Here's an interesting tidbit of an article that ties the increase in witch trials to bad weather in Europe. I wasn't aware of the research discussed (but sadly not linked) in the article. But, it makes sense. As the Little Ice Age impacted crops and livelihoods, the search for scapegoats focused on women -- esp. women with property to seize or women who were vulnerable.

I have to say that I often shake my head at many "modern" -- by which I mean, not from the 1970s and 1980s -- Pagans who are quite quick to run away from various feminist discussions of the persecution of witches in other centuries. That someone may have made a calculation error in the exact number of women killed and tortured as witches hardly seems to me to undo the importance of the fact that it was most often women being burned as witches, and that those burned were often women who were (take your pick) single, vulnerable, uppity, had something worth stealing, etc.

As we head into really bad weather over the coming decades, we Pagans might want to keep the above article in mind. I'm all for being as out as possible, forcing governments to recognize us, etc. But as monotheists demonstrate every time some terrorist attack occurs or some bad weather hits, we're the ones most likely to get blamed.

Do you have a hidey hole? A stash of cash for running? A plan?

Tuesday Garden Blogging

Iris Chrysographes. One of the prides of my garden.

Tuesday Poetry Blogging

How Killer Blue Irises Spread
By Kelli Russell Agodon

—Misheard health report on NPR

The quiet ones, the flowers
the neighbors said
kept to themselves,

Iris getagunandkillus, shoots

and rhizomes reaching
beneath the fence.
The shifty ones,

Mickey Blue Iris, the tubers

that pretend to be dormant
then spread late at night into
the garden of evil and no good.

They know hell, their blue flames

fooling van Gogh, the knife
he stuck into soil before he sliced
the bulbs in three, nights

he spent painting in a mad heat.

They swell before the cut
and divide of autumn.
An entire field of tulips,

flattened. Daylilies found

like lean bodies across the path.
The wild blue iris claims
responsibility, weaves through

the gladioli, into the hothouse
where the corpse flower blooms
for a single day, its scent
of death calling to the flies.

Photo by the blogger; if you copy, please link back.

British Pagan Police Officers Get Pagan Holidays Off

Well, this is totally cool.

In Which Our Heroine Rants

So I'm driving home from work and I have the radio set to WTOP, the local news station, mostly because I want to find out if I need to move the potted brugmansia BACK into the house tonight because May has decided to turn cold (I do, damn it.) And they have on some "experts" to talk about recent and proposed changes to legislation concerning credit cards, including a proposed change that will limit "interchange" fees (fees charged by credit card companies to retailers every time a customer uses a credit card; generally about 2% of the price of the purchase).

The moron "expert" says: well, if the credit card companies can't charge this fee to retailers, they'll just charge it to consumers, one way or another.

Dude. Do you think I'm so stupid that I don't get that the retailers are ALREADY charging consumers these fees? In fact, unless my understanding is wrong, they now have to charge ALL consumers, even those who pay cash, a price high enough to cover these fees, because the credit card companies specifically prohibit retailers from charging a lower price to consumers who pay cash.

Kali fuck, WTOP, could you please just not insult my intelligence?

And, weather every five minutes vs. every ten, esp. if you fill the other nine with this kind of brain-eating stupidity.

Dear Readers: Don't buy stuff on credit unless you're going to be able to pay it all off at the end of the month and you're getting money back or airline miles. That is all. (Mortgages and some student loans excepted, but you didn't use credit cards for those, anyway, at least, I hope.)

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

AP reports that: In a statement Monday, Obama called Horne a most cherished entertainer who warmed hearts with her beautiful voice and dramatic on-screen performances. The president also hailed her efforts to promote justice and equality.

Horne was the first black performer to tour with an all-white band, and she refused to perform for segregated audiences while entertaining soldiers during World War II.

Obama said he and the first lady join all Americans in appreciating the joy Horne brought to their lives and the progress she forged for the country.

Horne died Sunday in New York at age 92.

Horne was an important voice for civil rights for African Americans:

In 1945, during World War II, Horne was scheduled to perform at an Army base in Fort Reilly, Kansas. Horne, unyielding in her stance against racism, refused to perform for the segregated military audience in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen at a USO sponsored show. Horne immediately left the stage headed to the local NAACP office to file a complaint. MGM yanked Horne from the tour, forcing her to use her own money to travel and entertain the troops.

Horne, an outspoken advocate during the Civil Rights Movement and an active member of the NAACP once worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws and [was present] at the March on Washington, and spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP. She marched alongside Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss. at an NAACP rally the weekend before he was assassinated, joined 250,000 Americans in 1963 on the March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech and met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before his assassination.

By the 1960s, Horne was one of the most visible celebrities affiliated with the civil rights movement. It was reported that the feisty diva once thr[ew] a lamp at a customer in a Beverly Hills restaurant after the customer spouted a racial epithet.

Horne's dedication to the Civil Rights Movement and tenacious fight against racism came as no surprise to many who knew Horne, the granddaughter of a freed slave and a descendent of the John C. Calhoun family. Calhoun, the seventh Vice President of the United States, was a writer, orator and nationalist who began his political career as a politician from South Carolina during the first half of 19th century who made his name with his redefinition of republicanism to include the approval of slavery and minority rights.

Calhoun's concept of concurrent majority, that a minority had the right to object to and even veto hostile legislation directed against it, secured his name within American history when it was later incorporated into the American value system.

More here.

Lena Horne had that almost indefinable quality: real class. It's what makes her rendition of "That's Why the Lady is a Tramp" so deliciously ironic.

Witchy Work

I've been thinking a lot about this post, in which an African Witch blogs about preparing for Winter:

As I weed and rake leaves, I spend some time recalling my animal companions who gifted me with their presence so briefly and from whom I have learned so much. It is a time of the year when seeds are sown in darkness, a time of dying and gestation. In preparation for the coming winter, I store firewood and sacks of charcoal, make sure that the guttering is not choked with leaves, lay down mulch on beds of pak choi seedlings. garlic chives and broccoli. Since this is a winter rainfall region, steps need to be taken to ward off damp or mildew, the loft checked for leaks, electrical connections kept dry and insulated. Some of this may not sound very witchy, but it is practical magic, burrowing down for the dark months ahead. Out here the wind blows from the north strongly enough to uproot unstaked trees and I have some young olives and pecan nut trees as well as a pomegranate that need extra protection. And I keep a watchful eye out for birds who may have chosen to over-winter here rather than flying south.

My first reaction, upon reading it, was, of course making sure that the rain gutters are clear of leaves is the work of a Witch. Of course mulching vegetable beds and staking trees is witchy. Of course feeding birds is a ritual of the Goddess. Maybe we tend to see the work of Spring -- planting seeds, enjoying flowers, watering plants -- as more witchy. But only if we're fluffy bunny witches and, well, we're not.

I was thinking about it this morning, as I pulled out of the fridge all of the veggies that my CSA has delivered and concocted a stir-fry with them. I don't pretend that belonging to my CSA is the same in terms of, for example, carbon footprint, as growing my own food. But it's closer to local and, IMHO, better than the grocery store. Not the least because my CSA knows from where they've gotten the food. Thus, this week, when there was a recall of some tainted lettuce in the US, my CSA was able to tell us: Please be assured that none of the Romaine lettuce that you would have received from us is affected in any way by the recall. All of our Romaine was sourced from one farm.

But it is work belonging to the CSA. I sometimes work some long hours, have to eat out with clients, etc. And, somehow, I have to cook and either eat, freeze, or give away what the CSA delivers. It's different from the standard American method of meal planning: "Let's see, I'd like to have grilled tilapia, asparagus, and a pear tart so I'll go buy ingredients for those things." Instead, it's: "CSA delivered carrots and fennel and oranges this week; I'll go on line and look for a recipe for fennel and orange salad to which I can add grated carrots." Or, "If I make tuna salad for my bag lunch tomorrow, I can use up the celery from the CSA, add some grated carrots and leeks, throw in some brocco sprouts." That's, to my mind, the work of a Witch. You can do it while working at being fully present and in relationship with the food that you're preparing. You can spend time sending blessings to the people who grew it, picked it, delivered it. You can do it with intent, imbuing each meal with health, vitality, strength. And, then, there's the waste. You can't chop up a bunch of vegetables without making a lot of compost. My compost bin is one of the most serious magical sites on my property and Goddess knows there's scraps of paper, poppets, egg shells, and other things in there that I've magicked with stuff that I want to go away, stop being harmful, be transformed. And, after a marathon peeling and chopping session, I'm left with a delicious stir-fry and a paper bag full of peels, ends, etc. I take a minute, imbue them with something that I want to see transformed, and into the Sacred Compost Bin of Transformation they go.

Is it the work of a Witch? it must be. I'm a Witch and it's my work.

It's Almost As If Everything Were Part Of Some Great Big Whole

It's become rather fashionable to poo-poo the notion that was popular for a while that some of the theories of quantum physics "prove" what many Pagans believe: that everything is connected, that magic works, etc. And, I get that, in the sense that some of that discussion may have been a bit simplistic. And, Goddess knows, I am not a girl with a mind for the maths. Still, articles like this one always make me smile.

ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER called it the "defining trait" of quantum theory. Einstein could not bring himself to believe in it at all, thinking it proof that quantum theory was seriously buggy. It is entanglement: the idea that particles can be linked in such a way that changing the quantum state of one instantaneously affects the other, even if they are light years apart.

This "spooky action at a distance", in Einstein's words, is a serious blow to our conception of how the world works. In 1964, physicist John Bell of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, showed just how serious. He calculated a mathematical inequality that encapsulated the maximum correlation between the states of remote particles in experiments in which three "reasonable" conditions hold: that experimenters have free will in setting things up as they want; that the particle properties being measured are real and pre-existing, not just popping up at the time of measurement; and that no influence travels faster than the speed of light, the cosmic speed limit.

As many experiments since have shown, quantum mechanics regularly violates Bell's inequality, yielding levels of correlation way above those possible if his conditions hold.

. . .

Or is there really an influence that travels faster than light? Cementing the Swiss reputation for precision timing, in 2008 physicist Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues at the University of Geneva showed that, if reality and free will hold, the speed of transfer of quantum states between entangled photons held in two villages 18 kilometres apart was somewhere above 10 million times the speed of light (Nature, vol 454, p 861).

Magic happens. When we move between the worlds, (Hel, even when we don't) what we do in one, affects them all. Welcome to what lots of native peoples and mystics of every time and culture have always known. And it's not "spooky" at all; it's glorious.

Hat tip to Moonbotica in comments at Eschaton.

Picture found here.

My Japanese Maple

Goddess Sexuality

I blogged a while ago about a festival in Kerala, a monthlong festival that begins in Kumbha (February-March) and finishes in Meena (March-April). It’s . . .the annual gathering for thousands of largely lower caste, practising oracles (among whom women appear to lead) from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. At the Bharani, old oracles offer themselves to the goddess again and new ones are chosen.


Here's an interesting discussion of the cultural issues inherent in the festival.

And, some additional information about the festival:

The festival is also unique for its ‘Bharani pattu’ – sexually explicit songs, meant to appease the Goddess. These songs deal with the sexuality of the Goddess and humans and emphasises sex as part of natural life, while deriding sexual hypocrisy – especially of upper caste women. The songs make it clear that sexuality is not only natural, but is also present everywhere. In a place like Kerala, with itfrighteningly crude mechanisms of sexual repression, the Bharani provides a venue for people to be freed of the need to pretend that the sexual does not exist.

Picture found here.

Um, OK

The ever-controversial Kevin Carlyton, who is now, apparently, not only the "High Priest of British White Witches," but also "The Official Protector of Lock Ness and the Loch Ness Creature," is is organizing an event to "show" that Nessie is a ghost.


The High Priest of British White Witches, Kevin Carlyton - who calls himself "The Official Protector of Loch Ness and the Loch Ness Creature" - is organising the one-off psychic gathering and is hoping to prove the monster is in fact a ghost.

The white witch, who claims to have thwarted the plans of "monster hunter" Jan Sundberg from Sweden coming to Loch Ness to attempt to capture Nessie a few years ago, believes the monster will never be caught, because she's not actually alive.

Kevin explained: "The creature is a ghost from a bygone era and its image has been captured by the surrounding landscape. On certain weather conditions, particularly very warm or thunderous with a lot of static in the air, images of the creature are 'replayed' and people who are slightly psychic see the creature as if it is here now."

Now the white witch hopes to prove his point about the monster, which drums up hundreds of thousands of pounds in tourism business every year for the area, by organising the coming together for those who have psychic abilities.

He said: "I predict there will be at least 200 people present at the event. I've only mentioned a small bit about the event on my website and the interest so far has been phenomenal.

I'm sure the lovely people from the Loch Ness Tourist Association will welcome the visitors.

Picture found here.

Are You A Good Witch Or A Bad Witch?

Here's an interesting discussion about the difference between witches and witch doctors in African tradition. Interesting contrast with European traditions, as well.

Old map found here.

Thursday Garden Blogging

Blue barlow columbine.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

Thursday Poetry Blogging

A Mermaid Questions God by Kelli Russell Agodon

As a girl, she hated the grain of anything
on her fins. Now she is part fire ant, part centipede.
Where dunes stretch into pathways, arteries appear.
Her blood pressure is temperature plus wind speed.

Where religion is a thousand miles of coastline,
she is familiar with moon size, with tide changes.
She wears the cream of waves like a vestment,
knows undertow is imaginary, not something to pray to.

Now her questions involve fairytales, begin
in a garden and lead to hands painted on a chapel's ceiling.
She wants to hold the ribbon grass, the shadow of angels
across the shore. She steals a Bible from the Seashore Inn;

she will trust it only if it floats.

Picture found here.

Forty Years? Where Are Ms. Krause's Grandchildren?

Where the Hel did the time go?

Why the Hel aren't we farther along?

And, Right Away, I Know: My Pipple

Four horses passed us, their riders cloaked in maroon blankets, their faces painted black. At the top of the hill of Uisneach in County Westmeath there is a vast saucer-shaped meadow, of more than 40 acres, which was dotted with wicker huts, wigwams, and sculptures of horses and other creatures, made from willow rods. There were stalls selling cider, and roasted pig, potato cakes and rashers. There was a vegetarian soup, a bouncy castle, and hundreds of people eating sausages, and listening to Sharon Shannon.

. . .

Everyone was unwinding. Phoning each other. Eating bacon. Looking for music sessions. There were ribbons on a hawthorn bush in the middle of a clump of stones.

. . .

Summer had been inaugurated. People sat around the fire as if some fragment of eternity had broken through the night, for everyone.

Teenagers wrapped in blankets, gazed at each other, full of desire, as if they had stepped, not just into summer, but through a portal to some magical “now”, where they were about to enjoy the time of their lives.

Being old, I left them there and walked back down the path, where sculpted angels stood in line with outstretched wings. I passed a boy and girl hugging each other at an upturned barrel of flames, their faces lit like something from Carravaggio’s dreams.

Read about the whole thing here.

PIcture found here.

Tuesday Poetry Blogging

A reader sent this to me and it seems quite appropriate as we all focus on the Gulf:

BY JACK SPICER

Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the
water hardly moves
You might get out through all the waves and rocks
Into the middle of the poem to touch them
But when you’ve tried the blessed water long
Enough to want to start backward
That’s when the fun starts
Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural
You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown
Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth
But it takes a hero to get out of one
What’s true of labyrinths is true of course
Of love and memory. When you start remembering.

We're Witches. Maybe We Can Do Something About This.

As noted below, the Moon is currently waning (in Sagittarius, today), which makes this a good time to do magic to decrease the flow of the oil well that is threatening the Gulf of Mexico. I'll be at my altar tonight; please join me if you feel moved to do so. This sort of disaster seems to me to be ideal for knot magic, but whatever works for you works between the worlds. And, what we do between them, affects them all.

Here's a short list of Goddesses and Gods associated with the Ocean:

Yemaja - Goddess of the Ocean

Mama Cocha - Inca Goddess of the sea and provider of the sea's bounty. She is a favorite of sefarers and fishermen.

Enki - God of Water

Branwyn - Goddess of love, sexuality and the sea

Latis - Goddess of Water and Beer

Morgan LeFay - Goddess of Death, Fate, the Sea and of Curses

Aegir - God of the Sea

Njord - God of Fire, Wind and Sea

Oceanus - Produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs with his wife Tethys

Tethys - Produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs with her husband Oceanus

Poseidon - God of Horses, Earthquakes, Storms and the Sea. Brother of Zeus

Naunet - Goddess of the Ocean

Nun - God of Water and Chaos

Namu - Goddess of the Sea

Since the oil is gushing forth from the Underworld, here's a list of Goddesses and Gods associated with the Underworld:

Cernunnos

Hades

Persephone


Dress your altar with shells. Go skyclad or clad in shells. Burn candles of blue and green. Wear water and fish, listen to the sound of waves, burn incense related to water.

Call the Elements, with an emphasis on Wind and Water. Invoke the Goddesses and Gods of your choosing and cast your circle with salt water and visions of dolphins.

Meditate on your objective: seeing the gushing of oil from the Underworld stopped, capped, undone. See the proper seals between the Worlds restored.

Raise energy. Raise it by dancing, swimming, singing, chanting, floating. And, then, release the energy into the Gulf.

Ground. Thank Deity. Thank the Elements. Open your circle. Enjoy rum and seaweed crackers or water and shrimp skewers or margaritas and cerviche for cakes and ale.

Ground again.

Blessed be.

Picture found here.

I stole the title from a comment by Mr. Penzack.

Waning Moon

Good time to do some magic to decrease the flow of oil in the Gulf. You in?

Sunday Dance Blogging

My State Has The Stupidest Attorney General In The Entire Country

No. Really. We do.

Good thing there's no crime or consumer fraud or anything here in the Old Dominion and we've got tons of tax dollars to spend on making colleges discriminate against gay people and covering up the Goddess on our state seal. Oh, wait.

I have come to understand that xianity is about nothing -- and I do mean nothing -- so much as control of sex and the female body.

May the Goddess Virtus (lovely naked breast and all) guard us.

Picture found here.

Sounds Like Fun

Now here's a book I'd like to read with G/Son. Positive children's story about witches, plus, you know, raspberry pie.

Picture found here.

Local Coverage

Here's a nicely-done article about Ontario Pagan groups and how they practice and perceive Beltane. It avoids the usual, "And they really don't eat babies or worship the devil!" trope and includes some interesting discussion of volunteer burn-out.

Now if only they could manage to capitalize the name of a religion. I don't suppose they'd write about catholics at xmas, jews at Passover, or moslems at Ramadan.