It's a Generational Thing: Musing on Our Youth

Greg Harder  © 2011

At this year's 32nd Annual Spiral Dance Samhain ritual, amidst about 15 glorious altars, the East altar in particular delighted me.  I found it beautiful with all the white and lights and several different kinds of knives.  One of my most valued magical tools, the blade clearly fosters discernment, allowing us to separate this from that, truth from fantasy, fact from fiction, the pertinent from the irrelevant.  With it we can delineate crisp boundaries when we want them.  We can envision blue flame when we trace sigils in the air with the tip of the blade..

Also on the altar were feathers and wings, a recorder and a violin and bow, an open book of musical notations, and other books.  Books!  Intellect!  Something I value highly and find undervalued and underused in many Pagan communities.

When I asked who created this altar, I learned it was the youth from Teen Earth Magic (TEM).  They obviously have learned their magical symbolism well.  From the looks of the altar, they also enjoy working together to create something of beauty to share with their larger community.

Calling the Beloved Dead

Once the ritual had begun, I sat watching various invocations being offered, waiting for the activity I had really come for, the big, intoxicating spiral dance itself, when I was shocked out of my complacency by a powerful invocation that stood out among all.  About six young adults came into the central circle amidst the big crowd, and they called, "Beloved Dead, we call you."  From various parts of the crowd arose black-veiled persons, each making her or his way to the center and joining one of the living callers in an embrace.  In silence.  The reverence, respect and love embodied in their invocation honored the memory of all those we love who have passed from this world of the living in a way not often seen.  With minimal words, masterful movement, and solemn silence.

I learned that this invocation of the Beloved Dead had been created by guess who?  The young people from TEM, with the help of dancer and performance artist Keith Hennessey.

These are kids who grew up in our community.  Many attended Witchlets in the Woods family camps with their parents when they were younger, then joined the older kids in TEM camp.  I know a few of them a bit and one well.  Many of their parents are the generation of my children.  When my contemporaries were young parents, our Craft was truly occult, being hidden deep in the dark recesses of the broom closet.  As a movement, we were comprised of younger adults rather than having grown up in Pagan families.  All of us had sought, and ultimately found (and/or created/co-created), an alternative, more spiritually satisfying religion from the ones, in any, in which we were brought up.  Most of us came to Craft from mainstream Abrahamic religions.

I'm heartened to know that these children are hearing our ancient, and new, stories, learning songs and magic, being steeped in Pagan ideals, all changes that enrich our Pagan culture.  As it behooves younger people to listen and learn from those who've walked a Pagan path ahead of them, so too it gladdens the hearts of those of us who are older to listen and learn from our vibrant youth.  Only when all of us -- the full spectrum of humanity, from the Beloved Dead through all the ages of the living, to the yet-to-be-born -- work and play in concert can we enjoy a religion that draws upon ancient wisdom, applies our knowledge and creativity to the present we inhabit, in pursuit of a sustainable world for all humanity.

The Wheel Keeps Turning

© 2009 Richard Man*

Last night we celebrated Samhain at Reclaiming's 30th Anniversary Spiral Dance. The stated intention of this year's ritual was: "With joy and courage, we join together across generations and differences to move forward on the good road." To that end, my young friend Rhiannon, age 13, and I co-invoked the Mighty Dead of the Craft to come to our circle and dance with us. She and I had worked hard on this small piece and our work paid off. I felt that we did right by those who watch us from beyond.

When I finally arose today, I indulged in my Sunday ritual of reading the paper. I regularly read the "Irish sporting green," meaning the obituaries and death notices. What do you know but that the very first person listed today is an old friend with whom I'd lost contact. Her name is Judith Kuster Ackerly.

I remember so clearly the night in June 1968 when she and I had gone to see Battle of Algiers. Afterward, when she dropped me off at my home in the Haight, she summoned me back to the car. She'd just heard on the radio that Robert Kennedy had been shot that night in Los Angeles. It's funny the things one remembers and forgets. I have fond memories of beautiful red-haired Judy in her days as a young lawyer. I'd always regretted that we'd lost touch with one another when she and her then-husband, Tony Serra, divorced. I know she went on to live a rich life with people who loved her. May memories of her live.

* Richard Man took a wonderful series of photos of setup and ritual yesterday. He's done this for several years and now has quite a fine archive. Bless our documentarians.

The First Spiral Dance

After seeing the video clip of Spiral Dances on YouTube and being told by Chas that he couldn't identify me in clips of the first one in 1979, I found this still from the same event. I don't know who shot it: I suspect it may have been Kevyn Lutton. Here you can see me on the right (second person in, about a third of the way down from top of the photo), wearing a velvet and brocade robe and leaning back a bit because Deirdre's on my hip, but you can't really see her, or her bald father, the late Rod Wolfer. I think the woman in the right foreground is Glenn Turner.

The dancer in the big white Maiden mask in the video is Diane Baker, co-author of Circle Round. The three goddess masks were made by Medea Maquis and weighed a ton. They are now in a private collection. The Elements masks, which you can't see but are also big heavy suckers, were made by Eleanor Myers.* They were clay and I think that over the years all of them have broken.

I remember Selene Kumin Vega dancing one of the goddesses. Forgive my senior mind for not recalling exactly which one -- Mother, I think. It was a long time ago. Selene is slender and graceful. She choreographed the Goddess dance at one Spiral Dance (at the SF Women's Building) in which I dance one of three crones (the late Judy Foster being another). Selene has the ability to bring out the best in people. She never made me, who's not much of a dancer, feel clumsy or awkward, just magical. Or "priestessly," if you will.

* If anyone knows Eleanor's current whereabouts, I would dearly love to know too. Please contact me at herself@machanightmare.com if you have any information.

The Veil Grows Thin

It's that time of year again, my favorite, when the shadows lengthen and the sunlight produces a magical quality of light. Here's a video clip of several Spiral Dances. If you know what I look like, you can see me clearly in some of them. This past year, when filmmaker Susan Stern shot the ritual, I'm wearing red. In the one from 1979, I'm slim, with long brown hair and a toddler on my hip. In 2007 I'm round and grey-maned.

The sweet soprano you can hear on this video is the late Susan North, of whose death I wrote last January. You can also see photos of two other significant Reclaiming Witches in this video: Raven Moonshadow and Judy Foster.

I think this video gives you an idea of how intoxicating dancing a spiral with hundreds of others can be.

Alas, I won't be there this year. I'll be dancing with the Dead in Chicago with other visiting Pagan scholars who are there for the AAR Annual Meeting. I surely do hope we dance a spiral.

So Many Thoughts Running Round in My Head

I sure wish I had more time to blog. I have a good half-dozen juicy entries in my head. I hope they're not getting stale while they await my attention.

In the meantime, post-Samhain, I direct readers to Blog o'Gnosis and branches up, roots down, and my comments therein.

I'm off on my trusty broomstick to Between the Worlds in Wilmington, Delaware, and very excited at the prospect.

Triple Goddess

This is one of my favorite photos. Taken by the late Ken Willard either before or after, but not during, the Spiral Dance in San Francisco's Women's Building in 1982, it features Sequoia as the Crone, an eight-months-pregnant Cerridwen Fallingstar as the Mother, and the Maiden will remain unnamed because I suspect she's in the broom closet back in her home state in Dixie.

This year the Spiral Dance number 27 is in Kezar Pavilion, a basketball stadium in the Haight-Ashbury District with an incredibly live, bouncy floor, a delight for dancing. I'll be proclaiming the feast.