Another Priestess Gone

I am very sad today to learn of the passing of my friend Beki Filipello. She was a lovely woman and a wonderful (NROOGD) Witch. She had found the love of her life in David. She had moved to a place she'd longed to live in, grown a splendid garden, joined in doing good deeds in her local community. Beki is gone too soon. Her memory will live within all of us, her friends.

More on Sequoia

Altar at Sequoia's Wake

There will be a memorial for Sequoia at Greenfield Ranch on November 16. Terri sent me a wonderful collage showing many faces of Sequoia at her best, but evidently they're in a form that this blog does not want to upload. As soon as I get them as individual photos, I'll try again. In the meantime, here is one of her at her wake:

I love it when people take these last photos. One of my friends who didn't know her who saw this whole series of photos said it made her cry to see the evidence of love it showed. She wondered how something like this might look to archaeologists in the future. Moot, of course, since she chose cremation.

A Mighty Redwood Has Fallen

I write today of the death of a mighty priestess. Sequoia Greenfield died in her sleep early this morning of leukemia and other blood disorders. She was in the loft of the house at Greenfield Ranch in Mendocino County that she built with her own hands -- with the help of friends for wall-raisings and such.

Sequoia was one of the first members of Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1, founded by Z Budapest, in Los Angeles in 1971. Born and reared in Cleveland and escaped to California in her teens, Sequoia was a force to be reckoned with. In an early incarnation as a biker chick, Sequoia was known as Super Pat. She changed her name for good after LA bikers put a price on her head. Soon thereafter, she headed north, where she ended up at Greenfield Ranch.

I met Sequoia in the early days of Reclaiming Collective, and when my then-coven, Holy Terrors, first joined CoG in 1981. I found her overbearing and intimidating at first, until I learned that when you stood up to her, she wasn't such a bully. From then on we did lots of things together, most notably (to others) a ritual called "Kali, the Terrible Mother, and Other Dark Goddesses" at CoG's MerryMeet in 1987 at Saratoga, California.*

The one thing Sequoia was most vain about was her long "naturally red" hair. She never considered chemo because she intended to go out with that head of hair of which she was so proud. She even mentioned it again yesterday when Corby and I were visiting with her, that when she was laid out, it was going to be with her hair unbound and spread around her head and shoulders.

This is a woman who traveled the world, mostly alone. I remember when, on her first trip to India, she wrote wonderful travelogues to her friends describing her experiences. (This was before the Internet.) She once described how she was in an unfamiliar small village in India, when there was a celebration to a Hindu goddess (name lost in the recesses of my senior mind), the villagers grabbed her and put her at the head of their procession. Evidently, that particular goddess had red hair and here came this stranger with red hair just on the goddess' feast day, so I guess they considered Sequoia to be the goddess incarnate.

A licensed pilot herself, Sequoia's heroine was Amelia Earhart.

Many years ago Sequoia, who took many classes in town (Ukiah), was working with a saw in some sort of woodworking class, when she looked up. They tell you, "Never look up." She had sawed off her left thumb and forefinger. After the wound had healed, Sequoia spent the Fall and early Winter of that year learning to reuse her hand by stringing bead necklaces as Yule gifts for her friends.

At Earth First! events, she often dressed as either a mountain lion or a redwood tree. She had a full mountain lion outfit she road her bike with, with fur and ears on her helmet and a fake fur tail streaming behind her. So if you see published photos of a redwood tree standing next to the Secretary of the Interior at Yosemite National Park, that's our Sequoia. She wants to be cremated with wearing that tail and holding a Susan B. Anthony dollar in each hand.

Her devoted partner of recent years, Rev. Jim, also an activist, cared for her tenderly during her dying days, and before then. He and the Greenfield community will be doing a spiral dance on the Tor on Samhain. They are waking her in the farmhouse for the next day or so, painting her casket, drinking tequila, telling Sequoia stories. At a later date I will be coordinating a memorial for Sequoia in the SF Bay Area.

Yesterday Corby and I sang "Weaver, Weaver" to her. She loved it. We observed her face soften as we sang. Corby and she had grown a warm friendship over the last 15 years or so. He worked on her neck yesterday, relieving her of much of her pain. She told him he was the best thing that ever happened to her friend Macha; I agree. Rev. Jim was one of the best things that ever happened to Sequoia, as our late mutual friend Judy Foster used to attest.

Here is Sequoia ready to dance the Crone in Reclaiming's annual Spiral Dance ritual in 1982:



I feel fortunate to have been Sequoia's friend and honored to memorialize her at a future date. "In love may she return again."


* This ritual was originally created by Sharon Devlin, Beth Bone Blossom and I for Ancient Ways/MerryMeet at Harbin Hot Springs in 1984.

Death of a Priestess

Last night my friend Tara Webster passed through the veil. My friend Thorn was among those in attendance at her crossing. Here's the first announcement:

With great sorrow I must report that early on the evening of October 8th, Tara Webster - Ishtara, Soror Adessa of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Witch, Mage, Dancer and Healer - has succumbed to brain cancer and passed peacefully beyond the Veil into the next world.

Her husband Sam, along with many witches and magickal folk were with her, surrounding her with love and singing hymns of Hecate to her as she departed. Sam asks for whatever thoughts, prayers, and energy work you can bring to this transition, with focus on the highest chakras, from now until three days after, or up to 49 days.

Prayers and offerings to Hermes, Psychopomp and Lord of Thresholds, and to Tara's matron goddess Hekate, Keeper of the Keys of all the Universe, are particularly appropriate.

E-mails of condolences may be sent to cancellarius@osogd.org and will be forwarded to the family.

- 555

"Term of all that liveth, whose name is Death and inscrutable, be thou favorable to us in thine hour. And unto her, from whose mortal eyes the veil of life hath fallen, grant that there may be the accomplishment of her true Will, should she will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with her chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labor and heroism of incarnation on this planet, or another, of any star, or aught else, unto her may there be the accomplishment of her true Will, yea, the accomplishment of her true Will. AUGMEN."

I knew Tara as a Priestess of Hekate. For many months Corby and attended small New Moon rituals to Hermes and Hekate with Sam and and Tara in their chapel. A graceful bellydancer, Tara wore the mask of Isis* as she danced Her into manifestation at the first incarnation of my goddess masks ritual, part of the Goddess 2000 celebration, at PantheaCon in San Francisco.

Although I knew Sam better than Tara, when Tara and I first met, we discovered we had a lot in common in terms of both approach and praxis. My experiences with my first coven, the Holy Terrors*, paralleled hers in many ways. I spoke of a cartoon published in an East Coast Pagan rag, Harvest (defunct), in the '80s that we Holy Terrors couldn't believe was so like we were. When we HTs first discovered this cartoon, we rolled around laughing. No one we knew subscribed to Harvest (if it even had subscriptions). We treasured our photocopies of the few episodes we'd found; later I found an opportunity to mail away for better copies of a full set. The cartoon was the Death Crones, and Tara was part of the Flaming Crones, the circle from which this cartoon arose!

When I heard she was weakening, I planned to go see her this weekend. I regret I didn't make it in time. I will visit her viewing and offer prayers for her easy transition. My life was enriched by my having known Tara. I will dance with her in Samhain circle. In love may she return again.


* A coven of nine women, Holy Terrors was the first coven to form from classes taught by Witches in what later evolved into Reclaiming Collective, and still later, Reclaiming Tradition Witchcraft. Some day I'll write more about the HTs, maybe even scan the only extant photo of us together.

Susan

More about Susan soon, but for now I'm testing to see if this photo works. Well, it does, but it's only teensy. If I try to enlarge it, it only gets fuzzy. I copped it from SnapFish because Jan Dance, the photographer, is not at her computer in Portland, where the photo lives, but instead is here in the Bay Area dealing with Susan's death. It was taken just a few days before Susan passed. She's reclining on the couch in Vibra's living room. You can see that her hair is gone and her skin has that translucent appearance I've often observed in those who are close to the other side. More importantly, you can see her shining spirit.

Lilith Is Gone

Corby and I decided it was time to give our kitty Lilith the peace of passing. She'd lost her eye some time ago, and it only got worse, just a dead eye in her head. The vet could do nothing about it. She'd basically been well except for drinking a lot of water because her kidneys weren't working well.

When our friend Raven Moonshadow was ill and dying, he wanted his two cats, Lilith Nightmare (perhaps named for me?) and Shadowfax, to remain together. We adopted them and brought them to live with us and our grey-and-white longhair tuxedo cat, Buster. Raven, who had AIDS-related dementia by that time, had told us that Lilith was 10 and Shadow was 5; that was in 1996. We only know that they were adults when they came to us and both had 10 good years with us. Both were black, Lilith shorthaired and round; we called her our Sicilian cat for her robust swarthiness. Shadow was more elfin, fine-boned, fluffy and longhaired.

Lilith was always the more social of the two. She got out of the carrier first. She greeted people and explored fearlessly. She took longish, for a cat, neighborhood walks with us. She even followed us one night when we were walking to downtown San Rafael. That means she had to cross Second and Third Streets, both main arteries to and from Highway 101. She loved laps but never wanted to be picked up and carried. She protested when we insisted on carrying her across those two streets; we did it anyway. The walk was maybe a mile and a half, quite a hike for a little cat.


Another time she was sleeping in the sunlight on the roof of the cab of Corby's yellow truck when he ran an errand to the local 7-11. He didn't know she was there and just drove off. People were waving at him and pointing to the roof as he drove but he didn't realize that they were trying to tell him there was a cat on the [hot tin] roof. When he pulled into a parking space in front of the store, this terrified kitty came sliding down the windshield onto the hood. It's a wonder she didn't fall off on the bumpy ride. There was nothing for her claws to grip. Corby put her in the cab and brought her home with his purchases.

We live in a condo complex on Picnic Hill. Lilith spent most of her days wandering around, sleeping in the sunlight on the steep driveway, wandering in the gardens, snoozing amidst the flowers, greeting one and all with her little barely-audible croak and wreathing their legs in hopes of some petting. For some of the younger residents, Lilith was their first encounter with a feline. Lilith made friends with everyone.

She quit eating about two weeks ago and just stayed indoors sleeping, mostly on the couch. She sought affection most of that time and purred when she got it. She loved her lap time. She'd go out on the deck from about five minutes at a time. Neighbors noticed her absence out front; they missed her welcomes and inquired about her well-being.

Sometimes it's difficult to judge when a living being has ceased living and moved on to simply existing in a miserable and often painful state. I've never believed there's any value in unnecessary suffering. I've had to make the decision to euthanize my share of animal friends. I'm glad to say that every one of them lived a long, good life in our family. They'd just reached the point where their bodies had worn out. We took Lilith to the Marin Humane Society where we'd taken her sister Shadow this past June. Lilith went easy, very easy.

From Peak to Pits

Honoring the Dead:

My day started out high from last night, when about 30 of us met on the hill to dance with the ancestors. It turned out to be a beautiful night, cold with a bright gibbous moon and wisps of clouds.

Starting with kEATH being an excellent gatekeeper, to Prudence’s witchy challenges and admonition to keep solemn silence, to the exquisite magic of those witchy voices (Corby, Pasha, Patti, Denise, Nicole, Maenam and whoever else I may be forgetting), the the purifications done so carefully by Juliana and Karen, to the partially lighted broken steps, courtesy of Kirk and Tansy -- no one had any accidents, thank the gods! -- to the welcoming and everything that came afterwards.

I loved the way people came together with salt and water in the absence of tools and supplies: plastic cup from someone, green tea, and flakes of salt and pretzel from a snack bag of pretzels.

I love the silent walk through the dark tunnel. I love the opportunity to sit in silence at the top of the hill while all, living and dead, gather.

This was the first time I heard every single name. I found myself leaning forward and listening intently to every soul Victoria called. The widdershins walk and chanting “what is remembered lives” fostered a trancelike state of mind.

I loved the silence while we communed with the dead before we danced the spiral beneath Moon and the swirling spiral of clouds.

The energy of that spiral dance Denise led, for me, was a sweet as they come. Utterly lovely, and loving.

I like seeing who actually turns up. If they don’t want to make the effort, they miss the magic.

This was the first year without Vibra; we missed her. I also missed due to last-minute crises in their prison ministries, Patrick and Barbara, for whom this is the only ritual of the year they have no responsibility for and can simply surrender to.

Surprise Package:

So when the doorbell rang today and the UPS man delivered a surprise package, I was in a good mood to receive whatever it was. It turned out to be a five-volume series of religious studies textbooks called Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, edited by Eugene V. Gallagher and W. Michael Ashcroft. British scholar and eco-Pagan Adrian Harris and I co-wrote a piece called "New and Alternative Religions in the United States: Ritual and Neopaganism" in the volume entitled Metaphysical, New Age, and Neopagan Movements." I note that several other colleagues from the Nature Religions Scholars Network have also contributed. I must say it's a heady feeling to be in a textbook. This is my first text contribution, other than encyclopedia entries. I'm working on another for a high school textbook now.

Perhaps I'll finally meet Professors Gallagher and Ashcroft at the upcoming American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting later this month. I know I'll finally meet Adrian face to face.

Ending in Sorrow:

Yesterday in my fit of Hallows posts, I scanned a photo of my paternal grandparents. I also emailed it to several family members, including my cousin Gerry Gregorio. Gerry and I had recently renewed our close childhood friendship -- there was never any falling out, just poor correspondents and life getting in the way. She still lives in the same town where our grandparents and fathers lived all their lives, Moorestown, NJ, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Last November her husband Joe brought her to Philadelphia for a brief visit at the hotel when I was there for the AAR. She had been suffering from colon cancer. She put on a brave face, but I could tell that the visit was taxing her. It was clear that Joe was devoted to her. We had fun catching up, we took some photos, and then I lost my camera later that night. That was the last time I saw her.

This evening I received an email from Gerry's daugher, Nicole, telling me that Geraldine Frances O'Brien Gregorio had passed away on September 17th. In the confusion of grieving and making arrangements, the family had forgotten to notify the few of us here on the West Coast. Here's a photo of her taken last May with daughter Nicole and grandson Chaz at the latter's confirmation.



I'm very, very sad she's gone. I didn't have her name to call last night. I'll dance with her next year.

What is remembered lives.

Shadowfax Is Gone

When our dear Raven moved into Maitri Hospice care, he needed people to adopt his pets. Two of them were his familiars, black cats named Shadowfax and Lilith Nightmare. He wanted his little kitties to stay together. They came to live with us in February or March of 1996.

At the time we adopted them we tried to get as much info about them from Raven as we could. He said Lilith was 5 and Shadow was 10. Neither seemed that old. We do know that they were adult cats, probably at least 3 or 4 years old. It also quickly became clear to us when they came into heat for the first time with us that they were the lesbians Raven said they were. However, our circumstances and our conscience dictated that they be spayed, after which they took no sexual interest in one another. They occasionally licked each other’s nose, more frequently harassed each other, particularly around mealtimes.

We sometimes call Lilith our little Sicilian cat for her muscular build and short glossy hair. She likes to roll in the dust and sleep in the sunshine. She’s the mascot of our condo complex, greeting everyone who comes up the driveway with a croaking sort of sound, wreathing their legs and soliciting attention.

Shadow, OTOH, was an elfin cat, with very fine, long, fluffy fur, very delicate of build, light, relaxed, a real lap cat who generally preferred male laps but would happily drape herself across a female if one sat down. Much shyer than Lilith, she preferred to stay closer to home and shade more than sun, indoors or outdoors depending on where her humans were, especially Corby.

Sometime over the years Lilith’s eye was damaged, in a fight, we think. Her left eye is dead now yet she seems generally comfortable. She’s too old to have it surgically removed, not to mention the cost. There may come a time when we’ll need to give her some pain medication as the eye gets worse. In the meantime, she’s a happy geriatric cat.

Not so with Shadow. She developed tumors on her teats. We monitored them and took her to the vet periodically for his opinion. They were not going to go away. He said they’d probably eventually grow into her organs and kill her, but again, she was old and somewhat frail so surgery was not an option. During the last few months we treated her with expensive oral antibiotics to retard the rotting of her flesh (and accompanying disgusting smell of rotting flesh). The antibiotics didn’t work so well after a while; we used a stronger one. We bathed her tumors in pau d’arco tea in hopes that would help retard their growth, or at least keep her relatively clean.

When I was away at Dandelion Gathering she took off and didn’t return for a few days. Corby had assumed she’d gone off to die. Then about three nights later she returned and curled up in the flower bed outside our kitchen window, but didn’t want to come in. She ate a bite or two of chicken out of Corby’s hand, and she purred for a few seconds when petted. She seemed generally responsive but very weak. Her breathing was labored. She disappeared in the morning and returned in the evening for a few more days.

During these last two weeks we phoned several house-call vets, emergency vet clinics, and her regular doctor inquiring about euthanasia. Even to take her into emergency the price we were given was $185. We kept in touch with the doctors but never made a firm appointment. We were conflicted, since she seemed to be passing in a manner of her own choice.

Then one evening she came indoors. I kept her indoors so we could monitor her better, even though she seemed to want to leave. She managed to get upstairs and rest under our bed for a few more days. She didn’t come out. She purred a bit when we reached under to talk with her and pet her. She got skinnier and skinnier and her coat lost its lustre. This Tuesday evening she came downstairs and wanted out. We let her. She’d walk a few feet and then lie down breathing hard. She managed to get herself down the steep, shady, leaf-strewn hillside where there was no human traffic and settle herself under some boards. Corby followed her. He went down to see how she was a couple of times that night and again in the morning.

On Wednesday we took her to the Marin Humane Society -- wonderful people! She resisted, the poor sweet thing, but she was so weak and so miserable we thought it best to give her deliverance. With her last little bit of energy, she bit on the lip the woman who’d been whispering in her ear to soothe and comfort her as she went.

She was a sweet, dear kitty, loving and much loved in return. Our lives were enriched by having her live with us these past ten years. We’ll miss her. In love may she return again.