Art

Holy Shit.

I knew when I took Matrilineal off my wall and gave it to D-i-L for her Aquarian B/Day that something was coming along to replace it, but I had no idea. Nine Ravens is all over it. Goddess guard my checkbook.

When We All Come To The Dance

Ah, well, it's becoming more and more clear that we're twins.

Go read what Sara says about dancing.

It's The Noticing Part That Makes You A Magician.

I admit that the essays at Witchvox often don't impress me, but Violet Sound has one up today that I think gets it just right. You should read the whole thing, but here's a taste.

What’s important? The beat, baby. It’s got to make you move. It’s got to make you groove. It has to be repetitive, but it can’t be so boring that you want to sit back down with your drink and wait for something better to come on. Not being musically inclined, I can’t tell you the magic equation that induces trance (although I’ve heard it’s 4.5 beats a second*) – I can only tell you to get out there and shake it until your thoughts fall away and the only thing that is left is The Beat, The Pulse, The Rhythm.

Try it.

Go on, I’ll wait.

Dance as a sacred expression is not a new idea. (Walk like an Egyptian.) There are schools of dance that can trace themselves all the way back to temples, or to a bunch of drunk peasant folk boogying down to make the crops grow. And I am not the first person to feel that when she hits the dance floor she is GOD [sic] in platforms. I’m not the first person to invoke GOD [sic] in platforms, either. I remember dancing in utter exaltation of a certain deity, and then suddenly feeling His touch upon me, gently nudging my ego aside. I moved with Him, and He with me, and I wished it would never end.

“I offer this to you,” I’ve said, “as an expression of love.” And then I speak with my body.

Under the flashing strobe, surrounded by the pulsating mass of your fellow man [sic], you can feel Shiva’s dance of destruction through the floor. You can hear the raised voices of a thousand shamans in the background wail of an electronic track. You only have to open yourself to the idea.

Magic isn’t something you take out of the closet for special occasions. It isn’t present only in dark rooms with pentagrams chalked on the floor and pervy old guys in robes mumbling ‘ancient’ incantations and it isn’t solely in the undefiled glory of Nature; magic is alive and around you no matter where you are and whether you notice it or not. (Hint: it’s the noticing part that makes you a magician.)

So magic is in the disco. It’s in the raves held way out in the cornfields, in that gay club you dragged your conservative cousin to just because you felt like watching a dude dressed as Cher hit on him, in that concert you attended that made you feel like you were dying, in your basement when your stereo is cranked up to max volume and you’ve polished off a bottle of Jaggermeister.

Hell, magic could possibly be in a country and western bar, but I’m not brave enough to try and find it there.

What Alice said. Both points.

Portrait Of The Artist

Oh, lead me to a quiet cell
Where never footfall rankles,
And bar the window passing well,
And gyve my wrists and ankles.

Oh, wrap my eyes with linen fair,
With hempen cord go bind me,
And, of your mercy, leave me there,
Nor tell them where to find me.

Oh, lock the portal as you go,
And see its bolts be double....
Come back in half an hour or so,
And I will be in trouble.

~Dorothy Parker

Have You At Last Sir No Shame? Resign.

Hillary explains why Gonzales must resign:

Why should Gonzales resign? Because he is at the center of a widening scandal over the firing of several U.S. attorneys -- firings we now know to be political. These attacks on the impartiality of the federal government's prosecutors are a genuine threat to the foundations of our justice system.

It's so bad that one U.S. attorney in Arkansas was fired to make room for a former aide to Karl Rove.

Gonzales's chief of staff has already resigned over the firings, but the attorney general himself is ultimately responsible for what happened. Join me in asking for him to resign now.

Gonzales isn't the only one who needs to answer for this scandal. President Bush and his staff must come clean about their involvement in these politically motivated firings. I've joined the call for a full and thorough investigation to determine all the facts.

But it is time for the attorney general -- who repeatedly and falsely claimed the firings were based on performance -- to step down. He has clearly forgotten the difference between his current job as America's top law enforcement officer and his old job as President Bush's personal attorney.


Hil's right.

Chants

Ivo has a wonderful chant for Ostara. Go listen and let it just wash over you.


Art found here.

Ivo! Evohe!

Aquilia ka Hecate has a lovely poem to Pan - a great poem for Spring.

Surely, Wilde was right. The modern world has an aching need for Pan.

Bare Feet

Maybe it's because my Sun is in Pisces, the sign that rules feet and ankles, but one of my life's greatest pleasures, and I mean this seriously, has always been going barefoot.

To me, there is something just incredibly sensual and luxurious about feeling the floor, or the dirt, or the grass, or the sand, or the ceramic tiles, or the wood of my deck, or the bricks of my walkway under my feet. It's like making love to the world, over and over and over -- moment, by moment, by moment. It's as if the nerves on the soles of my feet are connected directly to my hips, to my red chakara, to my deepest core. A large part of my practice is being "grounded" and bare feet are the best way that I know to practice that, well, practice as a moment-by-moment meditation.

Walking barefoot through the surf is a huge religious metaphor in my life, a symbol to me of being so blessed by the Earth that you're almost completely unaware of how blessed you really are, the waters of life rushing and flushing and gushing around your ankles, over and over, step by step, never stopping.

Sadly, as I've gotten older, I've also become very sensitive to having cold feet, although I'm still good for a few runs out in the snow or out onto the freezing ceramic tiles of my screen porch every winter, just to remind myself, through the pain, that my feet are alive and can touch the ground. But, most of the winter, I wear warm socks and slippers, cuddling my feet, but denying them what they want most -- contact. Having broken my ankle badly a few years ago (not an uncommon injury for a Pisces), I wear boots with a heavy tread and Yaks Tracks every time there's even a hint of snow or ice. For me, it's like walking around with blinders on or ear plugs that muffle everything.

Which is all a long way of saying that I went out back this afternoon and spent an hour picking up twigs and sticks that have blown down over the winter (my yard was spic and span last Fall, but living in an oak grove has its good points and its disadvantages) barefoot. Every twig and stone and dried up holly leaf "hurt" in some sense, but the sensation of contact with the wet, muddy Earth, the ability to stand with my back pressed tight to the maple tree and feel its roots thrumming and sucking through my feet was almost more pleasure than I could bear (or bare; pun intended). And, then, I came inside and walked barefoot on my old wood floors, through which I can feel so much of what's gone on in this cottage during the 51 years before I came to live here and in the 3+ years since I've been here, as well.

Miss Thing looks at me quizzically; she gets to go barefoot all the time. For me, though, it's an April through October pleasure. And I adore it.

What is it that you love most about the warming of the Earth?

My Town

Go listen to the sound of Spring in Washington, D.C.

It's War

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Listen.

How We Did It by Muriel Rukeyser.

Family Holidays

The Onion is pretty good today. Here's a taste:

Despite evidence that the planets are aligned in his favor, local pagan Jeff Birch, 27, said Monday that he would "rather have a peaceful weekend at home" than attend his family's Vernal Equinox celebration on March 21.

"I realize it's supposed to be a festive time of conception and new growth in the womb of Mother Earth and all," Birch said. "But I just know that within an hour of arriving, things will get so bad that I'll be reverting to my 12-year-old self, hiding in the rec room downstairs, wearing my Iroquois false face mask and fingering my runes for comfort. It's not worth it."

. . .

"Talking to Mom the other day, it was the same old manipulative 'You're coming home, right?'" said Birch, referring to a recent phone conversation with his mother, Freyja Birch. "If I hesitate for even a second, she piles on the guilt—like how this may be the last year Nana Hippolyta can perform the garden fertility ritual, or that without my masculine energy, the yin-and-yang balance will be thrown off—until I finally give in."

. . .

Besides the usual maiden-mother-crone conflicts, the strained relationship between Birch's sister, Pythia, who recently converted to Wicca, and his father, a devout Dionysian, is another source of tension, according to Birch. "Last year, Pythia brought her covenmate home, and Dad's still having a hard time with it," Birch said. "It's obvious that he doesn't approve of her lifestyle. He's always asking her why doesn't she find a nice warlock to settle down with, or telling her maybe what she really needs is a good old-fashioned bacchanalia. Are other pagan families like this?"

Pythia isn't the first family member to stray from the fold. Fifteen years ago, Birch's uncle Jack married a Presbyterian and has raised two children in the faith. While he is still included in family celebrations, his eccentric monotheism is the source of much awkwardness, Birch said. Two years ago, the black-sheep uncle almost didn't get invited back.

"Having a celestial deity worshipper in our home angered the Goddess Eostre and she punished us with an April freeze," Birch said. "My mom was barely able to salvage her herb garden."

It's funny because my circle is experimenting this year with doing a few rituals that include our families. The first was Yule and the next, probably the last for this year, will be Eostara. K, one of our "new" members, is planning a ritual that she calls a "Gigglalia." I kind of love the idea of G/Son growing up complaining about "having" to go to his crazy Nonna's Spring Equinox ritual.

What Athenae Said

Just go read what Athenae said about what Robert said. Someday, I'm going to start two blogs called "What Athenae Said" and "What Robert Said". They will be brilliant.

Hurrah!

Today, while I was at work, the sun shone on the crocuses in my front flower bed and they bloomed! Purple, gold, and white; they're the most welcome things that I've seen in such a long time! Other things are beginning to poke their heads up through the dirt to soak up the sun, day lillies and daffodils and some parsley.

Spring!

Photo found here

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

I have no use for odic legions,
Or for the charm of elegiac play.
For me, all verse should be off kilter
Not the usual way.

If only you knew what trash gives rise
To verse, without a tinge of shame,
Like bright dandelions by a fence,
Like burdock and like cocklebur.

An angry shout, the bracing smell of tar,
Mysterious mildew on the wall...
And out comes a poem, light-hearted, tender,
To your delight and mine.

21 January 1940

Listen to the poem in Russian here.

A Great Way To Start A Book

In the course of my life, I have received some exquisite gifts. I have known love that melts your very bones, leaving the soul a shimmering pool of aching serenity. I've tasted death, I've seen its landscapes, and I've given birth. I've felt the pain that skids the mind in an endless crushing thrum; I've tumbled with the laughter of its release. I've known the warmth of my parents, the teachings of my bloodline. I've worked with, prayed and danced with, some extraordinary people, priests of different gods, performers, healers, and hermits. In so many ways I seem, in this lifetime of mine, to be forever landing in the most singular places, gazing about me amazed.

~Introduction to Druid Priestess by Emma Restall Orr

My Screen Porch

Sweet Mother of all the Gods, all the Goddesses, all the devas, all the nymphs, all the slyphs, all the Fairies, all the wee folk, all the odd spirits of this cottage, all the animals, all the plants, Sweet Goddess, thank you.

I just went out on my screen porch -- at 8:30 at night, in the complete dark -- and it was blissfully warm. Warm as in, barefoot on the ceramic tiles warm. Warm as in eat your dinner out here warm. Thank you, Mother.

I bought this little cottage for the screen porch. My agent had, by the time we'd been through so many other properties, finally begun to believe me that I only wanted to buy a house with a nice yard. So when we came here, she took me around back to the yard first. And, it was bad. Sloping. Neglected. Hodge-podge, one owner after another having stuck in "something," and taken out NOTHING. So she knew that I wouldn't buy, but she said, "The sellers' agent is a friend of mine. Let's walk through just to be polite." So we did and, even though I did like the kitchen, I had no plans to buy a house with a bad yard, too much shade to grow herbs, a difficult slope. But. But then, we walked out onto the screen porch and I knew that I would buy this house, that in the middle of a feverish market I would do what it took to get this house. Because of that screen porch. And, I did.

The yard still needs a lot of work. I've wallpapered the house and filled it with Stickley and art and new water heaters and basement drainage systems and ceiling fixtures. But the screen porch is perfect.

And, I love it. From about April until through almost the end of October, that's where I live -- out on the screen porch which has a view from which even my backyard doesn't look nearly as bad as it is. Out on the screen porch with its ceiling fan and big cedar table and skylights. I love my screen porch and, from now -- two weeks before Ostara -- until as close to Samhein as I can get, this is where I'll eat breakfast and dinner, read, blog, pet Miss Thing, sit and meditate, conduct rituals.

Thank you Mother of all the Gods. Thank you.

Clinton Supports Plan To End War As Soon As Possible

WaPo reports on Democratic bill aimed at ending the war in Iraq:

Clinton signed on as a co-sponsor when the final language was released Thursday. Although she differed with some Iraq Study Group recommendations, she did not dispute its withdrawal goal. The Senate resolution is also consistent with Clinton's view that a phased withdrawal should start as soon as possible and that Bush should end the war before he leaves office.

. . .

Clinton does support capping U.S. troops in Iraq at the number before the current buildup. She advocates a speedier timetable for beginning a troop withdrawal -- within 90 days, as opposed to 120 days in the new Senate plan.

[Thus,] Senate leadership aides circulated the record of a June 2006 roll-call vote, showing she had supported a similar nonbinding Democratic resolution. The measure urged Bush to "expedite the transition of United States forces in Iraq to a limited presence and mission" and to begin a phased withdrawal by the end of last year. The resolution did not specify a deadline, either as a goal or otherwise.

"Senator Clinton is firmly behind Democratic efforts to stop the president's escalation of troops into Iraq, to begin the phased redeployment of our troops out of Iraq and back home, and she fully supports this latest proposal to reverse his failed policy and end this war as soon as possible," her spokesman Philippe Reines said.

About Town

WaPo reports that:

Sen. Hillary Clinton dined on Thursday night at Penn Quarter restaurant 701, according to The Post's Al Kamen. She was joined by former ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame , as well as former Bill Clinton aide (and ex-Post writer) Sidney Blumenthal and his wife, Jackie. What they talked about is anybody's guess -- Wilson, reached on his cellphone yesterday, had no comment.