Why Women Need The Goddess

In Beyond God the Father, feminist theologian Mary Daly detailed the psychological and political ramifications of father religion for women. "If God in 'his' heaven is a father ruling his people," she wrote, "then it is the 'nature' of things and according to the divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male-dominated. Within this context, a mystification of roles takes place. The husband dominating his wife represents God 'himself.' The images and values of a given society have been projected into the realm of god and 'Articles of Faith,' and these, in turn, justify the social structures which have given rise to them and which sustain their plausibility."

Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir was well aware of the function of patriarchal religion as legitimater of male power; she wrote, "Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a soverign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vestred in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jew, Mohammedans, and Christians, among others, man is Master by divine right; the fear of God will, therefore, repress any impulse to revolt in the drowntrodden female."

From "Why Women Need the Goddess" by Carol P. Christ in The Politics of Women's Spirituality ed. by Charlene Spretnak

First of the Month Bazooms Blogging

It's the first of the month. In addition, it's the first of October. October is national Breast Cancer Awareness month. You're about to see so much pink shit advertised that you'll want to puke. That doesn't mean that you done't need to check your beautiful bazooms.

Women, now is a good time to do a breast self-exam. BSEs are very easy to do. Here's how. BSEs save lives by detecting breast cancer early, when it is easy to cure. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular point in your cycle, now is the best time to calendar it so that you don't forget.

Men, are there women who you would miss if they were to die from breast cancer? If so, now is the best time to remind your wife, lover, girlfriend, sister, best friend, mother, sister, etc. to do a BSE. Offer to watch the kids or do the grocery shopping while she does a BSE.

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Quan Yin is the first, in what I hope will be a series of posts on various Goddesses. I imagine that, after this week, when the Bush junta, and its enablers in Congress and the Senate, abandoned habeas corpus and embraced torture, we could all use a dose of Quan Yin.

Quan Yin, as Wikipedia explains is the bodhisattva of compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. She is also known as the Chinese Goddess of Compassion by many. Quan Yin once came to me when I was called upon to mediate a bitter dispute between two wonderful women in my coven, both of whom had pretty much decided that they'd like to tear each others' hair out. Strangely, in the end, she counseled me to be compassionate to myself.

Another story, describes Kuan Yin as the daughter of a cruel king who wanted her to marry a wealthy but uncaring man. The story is usually ascribed to the research of the Buddhist monk Chiang Chih-ch'i in 1100AD. The story is likely to have a Taoist origin. Chiang Chih-ch'i however when he penned the work believed that the Kuan Yin we know today was actually a Buddhist princess called Miao Shan who had a religious following on Fragrant Mountain. Despite this however there are many variants of the story in Chinese mythology.

The story surrounds is that of Miao Shan (??). Miao Shan who would later become Kuan Yin told her father the king after he made his demands that she would obey command. That is so long as the marriage eases three misfortunes.
The king asked his daughter what be the three misfortunes that the marriage should ease. Miao Shan pointed out that the first misfortune to be eased was that the marriage should alleviate the suffering people endure as they get older in age. The second misfortune is that it should ease is the suffering people endure when they fall ill.The third misfortune it should ease is the suffering caused by death. If the marriage cannot ease any of the above then she would rather retire to life of religion forever.

When the father asked who could ease all the above, Miao Shan pointed out that a doctor was able to do all the above.
The father grew angry as he wanted her to marry a person of power and wealth, not a healer. He forced her into hard labor and reduced her food and drinks but this did not cause her to yield.

Everyday she begged to be able to enter a temple and become a nun instead. Her father eventually allowed her to work in the temple, but asked the monks to give her very hard chores in order to discourage her. The monks forced Kuan Yin to work all day and all night, while others slept, in order to finish her work. However, she was such a good person that the animals living around the temple began to help her with her chores. Her father, seeing this, became so frustrated that he attempted to burn down the temple. Kuan Yin put out the fire with her bare hands and suffered no burns. Now struck with fear, her father ordered her to be put to death. After she died she was made into a goddess for all of her kindness and began her journey to heaven. She was about to cross over into heaven when she heard a cry of suffering back on earth. When she turned around she watched the myriad of suffering beings. Filled with compassion, she asked to be sent back and vowed to stay until all suffering had ended.

One version of this legend states that, at the point of Kuan Yin's father's execution of her, a supernatural tiger took Kuan Yin to one of the more hell-like realms of the dead. However, instead of being punished by demons like the other inmates, Kuan Yin played music and flowers blossomed around her. This managed to completely surprise the head demon. The story says that Kuan Yin, by merely being in that hell, turned it into a paradise.

Another version of the same legend tells that upon entering hell Kuhn Yin was overwhelmed with grief at the suffering souls must endure in hell. Out of compassion, she freed many of the souls from hell before being stopped by Yanluo, King of Hell. She then returned back alive on Earth and resided at Mount Putuo.

A variant of the legend says that Miao Shan allowed herself to die at the hand of the executioner. The legend goes that as the executioner tried to carry out Miao Chuang Yen's orders, his axe shattered into a thousand pieces. He then tried a sword which likewise shattered. He tried to shoot Miao Shan down with arrows but they all veered off.

Finally in desperation he used his hands. Miao Shan, realizing the fate the executioner will meet at her father's hand should he fail let herself die, forgiving the executioner in the process. It is said that she voluntarily took on the massive karmic guilt the executioner generated for killing her, thus leaving him guiltless. It is through this she descended into the Hell-like realms. While in the Hell-like realms she witnessed first hand the suffering and horrors beings there must endure. Filled with compassion she released all the good karma she had accumulated through her many lifetimes, thus freeing many suffering souls back into Heaven and Earth. In the process that Hell-like realm became a paradise. Yama it is said sent her back to Earth to prevent utter destruction of his realm. It is said that upon her return she appeared on Fragrant Mountain.
Another tale says that Miao Shan never died but was in fact transported by a supernatural tiger, believed to be the Deity of the Place to Fragrant Mountain.

Post her return to Earth or to the Fragrant Mountain Miao Shan was said to have stayed for a few years on Putou Island where she practiced meditation and helped the sailors and fishermen who got stranded. Kuhn Yin/Miao Shan is frequently worshipped as patron of sailors and fishermen due to this. She is said to frequently becalm the sea when boats are threatened with rocks. After some decades Miao Shan returned to Fragrant Mountain to continue her meditation.

The Legend of Miao Shan usually ends with Miao Chuang Yen, the father of Miao Shan falling ill with jaundice. It is said that no physician could cure him. Then a monk appeared saying that the jaundice could be cured by making a medicine out of the arm and eye of one without anger. The monk further suggested that such a person could be found on Fragrant Mountain.

Miao Shan when requested offered up her eyes and arms willingly. Miao Chuang Yen was cured of the illness and went to the Fragrant Mountain to give thanks to the person. When he discovered that his own daughter gave up her arm and eyes for him, he begged for forgiveness. The story concludes with Miao Shan being transformed into the Thousand Armed Kuhn Yin and the king, queen and her two sisters building a temple on the mountain for her. The story concludes with Kuhn Yin hearing a cry from the world below turned around and saw the massive suffering endured by the people of the world. Out of love for all man She returned to Earth, vowing never to leave till such time all suffering has ended.

It's easy to invoke Quan Yin. There is an implicit trust in Kuhn Yin's saving grace and healing powers. Many believe that even the simple recitation of her name will bring her instantly to the scene. One of the most famous texts associated with the bodhisattva, the ancient Lotus Sutra whose twenty-fifth chapter, dedicated to Kuhn Yin, is known as the "Kuhn Yin sutra," describes thirteen cases of impending disaster--from shipwreck to fire, imprisonment, robbers, demons, fatal poisons and karmic woes--in which the devotee will be rescued if his thoughts dwell on the power of Kuhn Yin. The text is recited many times daily by those who wish to receive the benefits it promises.

Devotees also invoke the bodhisattva's power and merciful intercession with the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM-- "Hail to the jewel in the lotus!" or, as it has also been interpreted, "Hail to Avalokitesvara, who is the jewel in the heart of the lotus of the devotee's heart!"

I am less compassionate than I might be. My Goddesses tend to be Goddesses who deal in less compassionate ways with the world -- Hecate, Coyote, Eris, Discordia, Athena, Artemis -- than does Quan Yin. But I pray to her now.

Lady of Mercy, Inspire mercy in the hearst of torturers everywhere. Bring comfort to those who are imprisoned unjustly, without due process, far from their homes and those that they love. Give strength to the International Red Cross, to Amnesty International, and to the UN; let them stand up to injustice and cruelty wherever it originates.

I'll burn some incense to Quan Yin tonight. Will you? With whom can you be more compassionate? In what three ways can you be more compassionate with yourself?

Root Vegetable Stew by Myra Schneider

When dark nights eat up afternoons
I sweat onions in sunflower oil,
weigh out carrots, a swede,
and tapering baby parsnips
with age-old skins on flesh
that fattened underneath the light
in a cradling of clay, grit, stones.
I take the swede, a misshapen globe
marred with scars, cut it in two.
The apricot bulk makes my head
hum with summer. I slice up
the snow-white parsnips, then tip
lentils, seeds of a butterfly-
petalled plant, into the pan.
Opening the door to throw peelings
in a pail, I bump into snouting cold.
It smells of woodsmoke, bites
as I stare at the park bristled
with black. Frost is stiffening leaves,
grasses, and I feel myself woven
to this landÂ’s Saxon past when winter
was a giant who trampled crops in fields,
snuffed breath with icicle fingers –
though this was not the country
of my forbears, though rootlessness
was a wound I bore till turned thirty,
I was warmed enough by love
to put down roots in myself.
When chill sinks its teeth in my ribs,
I retreat to the stove, dip a spoon.
The heat-swollen lentils are melting
among the hulking vegetables,
and yellow-brown as November woods.
I add lemon and fried spices,
stir them in, ladle the stew.


****************************

I think in these times of undeclared war between patriots and the Bush junta that is terrorizing our country, we all have moral obligations, obligations to each other. One of them is to nourish ourselves, emotionally, physically, spiritually, intellectually. The junta wants to make us believe that the world is dangerous, dark, narrow. We can fight back by not believing them, by doing both great acts and small acts that support the continued existence of the world as it really is: immanently divine, crammed with heaven, connected, determined to spawn and support life in all its forms.

Go make yourself some root vegetable stew. Freeze some for that night in November when an early dark, icy rain, and the junta's next act of terror drives you home in despair. We can never allow despair to win for more than the few moments it takes to beat it back. We owe that to each other.

Pagan Pride

Today is the beginning of Pagan Pride Week in the D.C./Baltimore area. Look out; they're everywhere!

What We Have To Look Forward To

Psychiatric torture. It's not just for Russians, anymore.

On March 23, [2006], police and emergency medical personnel stormed Marina Trutko's home, breaking down her apartment door and quickly subduing her with an injection of haloperidol, a powerful tranquilizer. One policeman put her 78-year-old mother, Valentina, in a storage closet while Trutko, 42, was carried out to a waiting ambulance. It took her to the nearby Psychiatric Hospital No. 14.

The former nuclear scientist, a vocal activist and public defender for several years in this city 70 miles north of Moscow, spent the next six weeks undergoing a daily regimen of injections and drugs to treat what was diagnosed as a "paranoid personality disorder."

"She is also very rude," psychiatrists noted in her case file.

Others have been subject to similar treatment because they suffered from "an acute sense of justice." Nikolai Skachkov, who protested police brutality and official corruption in the Omsk region of Siberia, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation last year because investigators said they suspected he was suffering from "an acute sense of justice." He spent six months in a closed psychiatric facility where he was diagnosed as paranoid

George Bush can now seize anyone he wants to and have them interred anywhere that he likes and tortured. Now we know why Haliburton was building those big detention camps inside the US. Gives new meaning to his long, deep look into Putin's soul, doesn't it?

Too Many People, Not Enough Resources. You Do The Math.

I know that lots of people think that I'm kind of a crazy old crank for going on and on about overpopulation. That was supposed to be a problem in the 1960s, not the 21st Century. Didn't new methods of farming produce more food and make a fool of Malthus? And, besides, facing overpopulation creates a host of ethical problems: Who gets to reproduce? What does society do about people who ignore the rules and overproduce; forced abortion, take a child from its parents at birth and allow childless couples to adopt? It creates political problems, as well: since Americans overpollute and overconsume relative to the rest of the world, should they be forced to reproduce at a lower rate? If one country controls its population but it's neighbor doesn't, what stops the teeming hordes from next door from flooding across the border, armed or not, in search of more land, water, etc.? What will we do about the fundies who are, even now, trying to criminalize all forms of birth control, not just abortion? Are there ways to avoid China's practice of allowing couples to make sure that their one child is a boy, thereby creating a generation of men who can't find wives? With so many problems, it's been easier for decades to ignore overpopulation and regard those who bellyache about it as slightly batty.

The problem's getting lots harder to ignore. Turns out that growing more food doesn't solve the overpopulation crisis, after all. Which is not too surprising, when you think about it, as food isn't the only thing that people need. They need land. They need air to breathe and to emit gases into. And, they need water.

The NYT has run a series of articles concerning the growing water crisis in India, one of the world's largest, and most populous, atomic powers. Earlier articles have skirted the overpopulation issue, but today's begins to address it more clearly. With the population soaring past one billion and with a driving need to boost agricultural production, Indians are tapping their groundwater faster than nature can replenish it, so fast that they are hitting deposits formed at the time of the dinosaurs. . . . Electric pumps have accelerated the problem, enabling farmers and others to squeeze out far more groundwater than they had been able to draw by hand for hundreds of years.

This isn't an abstract problem. Here's what it means for the people involved: The growing water shortage has transformed life in Peeplee Ka Bas. Its men left long ago to seek work elsewhere. The women remain to spend the blistering summer mornings digging ponds in the barren earth, hoping to catch monsoon rains.

Where farming once provided a livelihood, now digging puts food on the table. For a day’s labor, under this public works program intended to help the poorest families, each woman is paid the equivalent of 40 cents, along with 24 pounds of wheat.

It was not always this way. Once farming made sense. Many of the women digging on a recent morning remembered growing their own food — peas, tomatoes, chili peppers, watermelons — and selling it, too, at the nearest town market.

Year by year, the wells began to run dry. And there were several years of little to no rain.

Meera, a mother of three who uses only one name, who is lucky enough to come from a landowning family, still watched her husband leave the village to find work in a cement factory.

There were times, she acknowledged, when it became difficult to feed the children. Now she finds herself digging ponds for a bag of wheat. And praying for rain. "Our life is not life," Meera said. "“Only when it rains, there's life."

I'm harping on India because I believe that it's a canary in the mine. The key words in the article are: "With a soaring population". India has too many people and not enough water for them to drink and use to grow food. They're digging more and more wells and are digging them deeper and deeper and they're using technology to pump and transport the water longer and longer distances and it isn't working. They are literally running out of water. As earlier articles have pointed out, global climate change will make that problem worse every year.

At some point, oh in say the next five minutes, India's going to begin looking around at nearby lands that do have water. They probably won't say: "Hey, [Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma]! We're invading you for your water." They'll create or exploit some political dispute and use it as an excuse to invade. I'm not picking on India, which has generally been a pretty non-aggressive state. They won't be able to help it. People dying from lack of food and water get restive and their politicians have to do something. They can't create more groundwater, so they'll have to steal it from their neighbors and then, sadly, engage in wildly inefficient programs to move water long distances from the conquered country to India and move Indians into the conquered country. And if this problem were only going to occur in Asia, it would be too bad, but possibly tolerable. But water shortages, and, therefore, water wars are going to occur all over the Earth as global climate change continues. Of course, one of the main drivers of global climate change is -- overpopulation.

There are ways to control overpopulation. You can pay people, particularly women, not to reproduce; you can pay even more if they'll (especialy men) become sterile. You can, and, yes, this unfairly favors the wealthy unless you make it pretty regressive, tax people who reproduce, charging more for each child above the first. You can make free, safe contraception available to all and you can pair that with serious sex education. And, one of the THE most effective ways to limit population is to simply educate girls. Teach them to read, write, do math. If there's only enough money to educate one sex, educate the girls. Of, we can continue to do nothing, in which case the overpopulation problem will likely solve itself in a few generations -- but in ways that will be far less palatable than even the most "icky" abortion ever was.

Earth To America. Can You Hear? Sending Out A Message That Is Loud And Clear

Let's talk about this in little words and short sentences. India, one of the world's most populous countries, is running out of water. People need water to live. India has more people than water. Global climate change is making this problem worse. All those people will go somewhere. They have an atom bomb.

Waterboarding

Just.Go.Listen.

Why Good Writing Matters -- Now, More Than Ever

All my life, I've been a lover of language. The story in my family was that I learned to talk early and then never shut up, talking up a blue streak to anyone who would listen (and often to plenty who didn't). Well, my rising sign is Gemini, so I come by it honestly, I suppose. As soon as I learned to read, I began to devour books, literally reading every book in the children's section of the little public library in Four Corners. My mother's most frequent instructon to me was, "Put down that damn book and [do some chore that she wanted the oldest girl of five children to do]." I love all kinds of writing: rhetoric, speeches, quips, and, of course, maybe best of all, poetry.

One of the things that I love best about good writing is its ability to recall for us our better selves, to remind us of who we really are. It's as if we can take what we only really know about ourselves in those few hours when we are truly ourselves and store those feelings by writing them down, making them accessible to us in the many more hours when the business of life makes us forget. Years before I knew anything at all about Wicca or magic, I learned the incredible power of just writing down my vision of what I wanted my life to look like, of imagining on paper what a perfect day would look like for me in a month, a year, a decade. Many Wiccans and thamaturgists define magic as the ability to change consciousness at will. That's what good writing can do for us. Change our consciousness at our will, by recalling us to who we really are, to what world we really live in.

One of the great dangers of this world is our tendency to allow other people to define the world and, thereby, ourselves for us. My sun is in Pisces, so perhaps I'm even more fraught with the tendency to allow this to happen than are many others, but it seems to me to be one of the greatest dangers of living and of getting older. The voice of our Better Self can be so quiet sometimes and the voices of the rest of the world can be so loud. But it's the most important thing of all: to cling to what we know about who we are and what the world is and to screen out all of the noise that tries to overpower that knowledge. When I was in law school I took Contracts from a Crazyman. I don't remember much of what he tried to teach me about contracts, but I've never forgotten something that he said to the class the night before our first ever law school exam: after explaining that exams would be graded on the curve and that this meant that many people would be getting their first-ever "C"s, he said, "But don't let that define you. Don't ever let anyone else define you to yourself. Don't ever believe that you are the grade that someone else gives you."

Perhaps I'm the only one who sees the connection between what I've just been saying and what I'm about to say, but, for me, they're completely intertwined. I came home last night so broken by the Senate's abandonement of habeas corpus and embrace of torture that I couldn't stand it. I was literally in pain. My heart physically hurt; I felt as if I'd been kicked in the stomach. I felt worse than I felt when the Bush junta stole the election from Kerry. Worse than I felt when Roberts and Scalito waltzed into the Supreme Court. Worse than I felt when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Worse than I felt when my marriages fell apart. The world, it suddenly seemed to me, was a darker and more horrible place than I'd ever imagined. All of my hopes for helping to create a better world seemed like vanities and nonsense. I felt weak, ineffective, anachronistic, unfit to live in such a world. I could literally feel a dark, heavy wave of evil and hatred flooding west from the Capitol, over my home and on towards the rest of the world.

Blogging seemed pointless, perhaps even foolish, waving a red flag for the jebuzites who can't wait to start torturing the witches again. Political activism seemed a waste of time and energy. Donating money to good causes looked like a waste. My hopes for saving at least some of the Earth and civilization from global climate change appeared dashed. Maybe what I really needed to do was figure out how to liquidate everything and convince my family to relocate to another country. Maybe what I needed to do was to find a very sharp knife and begin running warm water.

Then, this morning, I read Athenae.

Thank you, Athenae. Your wonderful writing did for me what great writing does. It reminded me that the Bush junta does not, no matter how dearly they might wish it to be so, create reality. They are not going to define the world in which I live nor are they going to define me. I'm going, as you suggest, to take this bodyblow and then I'm going to get back up. I differ from you in that I don't think Diebold will allow a Democratic victory this Fall, although I'm going to work for one. Nor do I agree with Atrios that just getting shrill (and as a mouthy, opinionated woman, believe me, I've been called shrill!) is going to be enough. I think it's going to take pitchforks and torches. I think it's going to take people -- lots and lots of people -- willing to pledge "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." But you know, whatever it takes, that's what I'm going to do.

And I'm going to do it because of who I am and what the world is and because I am not the naive and powerless anachronism that the Bush junta wants me to believe that I am and the world is not the evil, dark, vile place that they want me to believe that it is. So, I'm going, as Atheane urges, to get back up. You come, too.

For Runnymeade!

What's Really Important

Every moment that we spend defending basic concepts of democracy such as habeaus corpus is time not spent working on saving the planet from global climate change created by overpopulation and carbon-based sources of energy.

I'm just saying.

For Runnymeade!

Go On. Make Me Laugh

Keith is good. He's really good. He hasn't made me laugh the way that Lewis Black does, and, so, he doesn't get the same offer from me that Lewis Black gets. But I am given to understand that a number of ladies at Eschaton will gladly make Keith completely forget my reticence.

For Runnymeade!

Now They're Calling Traitor At The Fabled Round Table

Go listen to my brilliant friend Amy. You'll be glad that you did.

The Air Of England Has Long Been Too Pure For A Slave, And Every Man Is Free Who Breathes It

What is habeas corpus and why does it matter? Wikipedia explains that: The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

Further, Known as the "Great Writ", the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a legal proceeding in which an individual held in custody can challenge the propriety of that custody under the law. The prisoner, or some other person on his behalf (for example, where the prisoner is being held incommunicado), may petition the court or an individual judge for a writ of habeas corpus.

Although the form of the writ of habeas corpus implies that the prisoner is brought to the court in order for the legality of the imprisonment to be examined, modern practice is to have a hearing with both parties present on whether the writ should issue, rather than issuing the writ immediately and waiting for the return of the writ by the addressee before the legality of the detention is examined. The prisoner can then be released or *bailed* by order of the court without having to be produced before it.

The right of habeas corpus, or rather, the right to petition for the writ has long been celebrated as the most efficient safeguard of the liberty of the subject. Dicey wrote that the Habeas Corpus Acts "declare no principle and define no rights, but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitutional articles guaranteeing individual liberty". In most countries, however, the procedure of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of national emergency. In most civil law jurisdictions, comparable provisions exist, but they are generally not called "habeas corpus".

As Wikipedia notes: Since the 18th century the writ has also been used in cases of unlawful detention by private individuals, most famously in Somersett's Case (1771), where the black slave Somersett was ordered to be freed, the famous words being quoted from an earlier case: "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it."

Habeas Corpus appears to predate even the Magna Carta: From Magna Carta the exact quote is: "no free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed except by the lawful judgment of their peers or by the law of the land."” The practice and right of Habeas Corpus was settled practice and law at the time of Magna Carta and was thus a fundamental part of the unwritten common "law of the land" as was expressly recognized by Magna Carta.

The air of England must be better than the air of America. By the end of this week, the Bush junta will be able to imprison and torture anyone they like and the person imprisoned and/or tortured will have no legal right to challenge that. Thus, Americans will have fewer rights than did those Englishmen who gathered on the meadow of Runnymeade in 1215. In just five short years, the Bush junta has driven this country 800+ years backwards. May the bitch-goddess Karma give them extra special attention. May they have all that they deserve.

Telling The Truth

This post was technically for a remote group working scheduled for yesterday, but there's no reason not to add some follow-up booster power to it. I worked late last night, but will do this spellwork some time this week. This is, to be honest, the kind of working that I especially love.

If the spell rebounds, the worst that will happen to you is that you'll speak truth -- hopefully to power.

It involves Gods and Goddesses that I love best. Pappa Isaac suggests: Coyote, Loki, or Ellegua are the appropriate ones to invoke, as well as truth-telling deities such as Athena, Tyr, or Obatala. I'll add Eris and Discordia, for the effect they can have on the plans of those who believe themselves to be in control of the world when their lies fall apart.

I think we already saw some of the effect of this spell -- projected backwards in time, as effective spells can be -- when G. Felix Allen, Jr. called a young man of Indian heritage by a racial slur known only to those, such as G. Felix Allen, Jr.'s mother, from French Tunsia. G. Felix, was, in effect, forced to tell the truth about himself and his racist leanings. Since then, the truth about his racist past has continued to come out in dribs and drabs.

Will you work with me? What magic will you do?

More Maccaca.

Virginia Centrist has corroboration of the deer-head-in-the-mailbox story.

G. Felix Allen, Jr. is such a mean, nasty, little bully.

Lake And Maple By Jane Hirshfield

I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf;
as this lake that,
no matter what comes
to its green-blue depths,
both takes and returns it.
In the still heart that refuses nothing,
the world is twice-born --
two earths wheeling,
two heavens,
two egrets reaching
down into subtraction;
even the fish
for an instant doubled,
before it is gone.
I want the fish.
I want the losing it all
when it rains and I want
the returning transparanence.
I want the place
by the edge-flowers where
the shallow sand is deceptive,
where whatever
steps in must plunge,
and I want that plunging.
I want the ones
who come in secret to drink
only in early darknes,
and I want the ones
who are swallowed.
I want the way
the water sees without eyes,
hears without ears,
shivers without will or fear
at the gentlest touch.
I want the way it
accepts the cold moonlight
and lets it pass,
the way it lets
all of of it pass
without judgment or comment.
There is a lake.
Lalla Ded sang, no larger
than one seed of mustard,
that all things return to.
O heart, if you
will not, cannot, give me the lake,
then give me the song.

It's Like Lucy With Charlie Brown's Football

You'd think that, at some point, the suckers would get tired of being taken.

Today's LAT reports that Republicans have thrown some red meat to their rabidly anti-woman base, pretending to "try" to make abortions more difficult. But you've got to wonder, what's up with these clowns? They control all three branches of government and have a lock on the national media. AND THEY HAVE HAD FOR FIVE YEARS! Yet, somehow, they just can't manage to completely criminalize abortion or outlaw gay marriage.


The campaign to restrict access to abortions, meanwhile, has produced fewer successes than many conservatives had hoped.

"Have we had victories? Not enough," said Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), a leading abortion foe who championed congressional passage of the controversial ban on what opponents term "partial birth" abortion three years ago.

Chabot said he could point to only two major legislative accomplishments since 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress: the [so-called "partial birth"] abortion ban, which has been tied up in the courts, and a 2002 measure that requires a doctor who performs an abortion in which the fetus survives to turn the case over to another doctor or call 911 to have the baby transferred to a hospital.

Why, you'd almost think that they wanted to keep these issues around so that the same stupid fundies would keep showing up and voting for them. Nah, probably not.

She's Not Going To Allow Swiftboating.

Today's NYT reports that Hillary Clinton's remarks concerning the failure of the Bush junta to take any actions to capture bin Laden until after September 11, 20001:

were unusually personal in tone. But Howard Wolfson, one of her chief advisers, made it clear that Senator Clinton would be taking an increasingly aggressive posture to thwart any Republican attempts to cast Democrats as timid on national defense this election season.

“She is not going to allow her party, her husband or herself to get Swift-boated,” he said, referring to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked the Vietnam War record of Senator John Kerry when he was the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2004. “Democrats have to stand up and go toe to toe with Republicans on national security.”

Senator Clinton made her comments at a news conference on the Hill, where Democrats argued that President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and its aftermath had actually made America more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

“Their policies are failing, our military is breaking and the American people are demanding a change,” she said. “The administration has lost focus on winning the war on Iraq, and all Washington Republicans can focus on is winning elections here at home.”

NYT also notes that:

In her remarks, Senator Clinton also suggested that Bill Clinton’s animated defense of his own national security record as president, delivered only a few days earlier, provided a powerful example for Democrats, whom Republicans have sought to portray in recent national elections as too weak to lead the country in such perilous times.

If Hil's going to start hitting back and hitting back hard, if she and Bill have figured out that playing nice doesn't work with the vast right-wing conspiracy that's taken over our country, I'm all for it. Give 'em Hell, Hil.

Contemporary Feminist Rituals

Comprehend, we sweat out our rituals together. We change them, we're all the time changing them! But they body our sense of good! ~ Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time

The body is the image relator. In ritual, we embody and activate images of the archetypal, the eternal feminine, the Goddess. Images of power, of transformation, of harmony, and of duality. One woman empowering another. The crucial exchange of gifts. I cross the circle to give you something; you cross the circle to give her something. And so on until we have all changed places. Power is held powerless; power given is power for all. In feminist ritual we maintain a center of which we are all aware. It is our collective heart which beats there. We hold together, our center endures. Even the most painful separation, the dispersal which is feared but necessary, cannot disconnect us from the ritual circle. Once the circle is created and affirmed, chaos is subdued. We survive. We thrive.

From Contemporary Feminist Rituals by Kay Turner in The Politics of Women's Spirituality edited by Spretnak