AAR in Chicago

My friend and colleague, Jason Pitzl-Waters, has posted about the recent AAR Annual Meeting in Chicago. There's so much to say, so much juicy thinking crammed into a few days a year. For the most part, I had a great time. The air was charged with excitement about the then-upcoming election. I was as excited as anyone, wore my big Obama button at all times. The streets were being blocked off in preparation for the big celebration in Grant Park, directly across the street from the hotel where the main action of the AAR was taking place.

(Photo of me, Graham Harvey and Doug Ezzy, taken on my camera by someone. ?)

It's challenging for a night owl to make it to morning presentations. Sharon and I stayed at The Palmer House, not at the Hilton Towers where most meetings took place. That first morning we hustled to the first session of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Graup and Religions and Popular Culture Group. Chaired by Doug Ezzy from the University of Tasmania, its them was Talking with the Dead.

Sonja Spear of Indiana University gave the first paper, entitled "Haunted Irvington: Civil Pride, Memory, and the Klan." We came in during that presentation so missed much of it. She had photos and talked of an old house said to be haunted that was now owned by a Lesbian couple -- let's hear it for legalizing same-sex marriage!

Anne R. Key* of CIIS illustrated her talk, "Los Muertos Tienen Sed, los Vivos Culpas (The Dead Are Thirsty, and the Living Are Culpable): The Use of Image in Rituals Honoring the Ancestors in Pre-Conquest and Modern Mexico," with wonderful photos of many kinds of El Dia de Los Muertos altars from throughout Mexico. She explained the meanings of such things as marigolds, arches, marigold-petal paths, Katrinas, and cut paper designs on the altars, as well as the differences among the several days of the celebration. For instance, one day is for children who died, another for the unnamed, etc.

Following on the theme, Chas Clifton of Colorado and Wendy Griffin of Southern California presented on "Campus Pagans and the Day of the Dead: Civil Religions and Cultural Boundaries." Speaking from the perspectives of a small, state-supported university in Pueblo and a large, state-supported urban university in Long Beach, they too had photographs of El Dia de los Muertos altars, albeit less traditional ones. Their talk underscored how much more visible Paganism is and questioned the boundaries between "traditional" Pagan practices and Neo-Pagan syncretism.

Jason Winslade of DePaul University walked in the liminal realm between speaking about and doing by using a few props: hats and candles. His paper was called "'When the Veils Are Thin': An Occult Performance Theory." I'm eager to learn more and hope he will be able to join us at Cherry Hill Seminary soon.

Most exciting of all was Adrian Harris' paper called "The Halloween of Cross Bones," about a modern urban shaman named John Crow (aka John Constable) in London and the last resting place of a class of medieval streetwalkers known as the Winchester geese, with whom Crow had been in psychic contact. Here's some history and images, including shrines to the geese, of the Southwark area south of the Thâmes

And that was only the first session, folks!

* Anne R. Key is also the name of one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, for obvious reasons.

Hallows' Eve

By Mexican artist José Luís Serrano,
permission to use pending.

"This is the Feast of Samhain, when the veil is thin that divides the worlds, the seen from the unseen, the day-to-day from the mysteries. ..."

I've been so wrapped up in celebrating this, my favorite sabbat, in ritual, I've had no time to tend to this blog.*

A week ago Sunday afternoon some Witchen friends and I sat at the big table in Victoria's loft making El Dia de Los Muertos candles. This was a year for deceased men in my life. I made one for John Patrick McClimans, my brother Jimmie O'Brien, my dad James T. O'Brien, and my late husband Rod Wolfer. Victoria has taken some fine photos of the altar in her shared yard, but she's been so wrapped up in her demanding new job that she's disappeared from the Pagan blogosphere for a time. I'm happy with the way they came out.

My brother Jimmie at about age 20,
shortly after the accident in which
he lost his left arm and his right leg.
You can see that his right ear has
not been entirely reconstructed with
plastic surgery yet.

My Dad Jim (Seamus)

My friend John Patrick. As you can
see, he had lost his legs when this photo
was taken. It's not very high resolution
because this is a color photocopy of a
photo which was then scanned and
saved as a jpg to put on the candle.

Friday night some Dianic friends graciously included me in their Samhain rites, also in Victoria's loft.

Saturday night I proclaimed the feast at Reclaiming's 28th annual Spiral Dance ritual** in San Francisco. I went with my friends Michael York and his partner Richard, who were virgins to this experience. I told them they would love the spiral dance (meaning the dance itself, not necessarily the whole ritual), and they did. Michael's knees were hurting so I insisted he sit in a chair in the center of the spiral with the wheelchair-bound, sleeping babies, and the likes of me, whose arthritic back cannot take that long dance. We were just as much a part of the spiral as the dancers. We looked into each pair of eyes as they danced by. A most intoxicating experience!

Sunday Corby and I were back at Victoria's big table carving jack o'lanterns with Prudence and Pasha and her. We were among the later arrivals; everyone else was gone when we arrived. That's because I was so wiped out from the night before I couldn't get going any earlier.

When we finished, we took the jack o'lanterns out in front of the El Dia de los Muertos altar and sat in a circle in the firelight and sang Samhain songs to our Beloved Dead. Accompanied by Pasha's guitar, we harmonized, in particular, a song that begins:

Dark is the night, still is the Earth
As the veil unfolds.
Turn the shining Wheel of rebirth.
May Earth received thy soul.

For me, that was the most moving and magical moment of this year's celebrations -- so far.

Tonight we are going to use those jack o'lanterns to mark our circle as we dance with the dead under the starlight.

You think that's enough? Nope. Next Saturday we, meaning ICT (Independent Craft Teachers, a guild), will be presenting a Dinner with the Dead at Martin de Porres Hospitality House in San Francisco. We will bring foods our ancestors loved, laid out on tables draped with black lace and topped with sugar skulls freshly-made by Oak. I've never done this particular ritual and I'm looking forward to it.

"What is remembered lives." May your departed loved ones live on on your hearts and minds. Blessed Samhain to all!

*Come back soon for two posts that aren't ready yet, one about death and dying practices and the other about critiquing rituals.

** Stills and videos of this ritual will be made public shortly.