Alighting from Starwood '07

Honor and praise for Aphrodite is perennial.

Starwood is a phenomenon unto itself, a wonderful one!

This year Corby came with me. That made the entire experience so much more fun. (Not to mention the ease of traveling with a companion so you can buy coffee without dragging all your carry-on with you, and use the restroom without having to struggle getting the carry-on into the stall with you. Whew!)

The weather is difficult to adjust to for us soft, spoiled Californians. Stickiness is the operative word when it comes to Starwood weather. We had rains off and on, plus a brief but intense, and close, thunderstorm just as I was concluding my "Earth Religion & the City" workshop. That workshop, I think, went well. There were people from inner-city Detroit, Phoenix, Shreveport, LA, and several closer Northeast locations.

This year I managed to get to a few workshops other than my own. One was Ian Corrigan's "Building a Personal Paganism," which was excellent and informative and provided a good lead-in to my two-part "Buffing & Polishing for Self-Taught Witches & Covens."

My thanks to Liafal & Ian, Steph, AC, Maddox & Sydney, Bruce & Linda, Gnorm the charioteer, Jeff Rosenbaum, Lisa the registrar, and all the other hardworking Chameleons who made our participation possible.

And no thanks to whatever it was that bit me and whatever it is that has made my feet, ankles, lower legs, hands and fingers so marred, weepy and itchy! Hopefully it will be gone by the time I reach Amherst, Massachusetts for CHS' biannual intensive/CoG's Leadership Institute, followed by Grand Council amidst MerryMeet.

Remembering Marin's Homeless

Memorial Tree and Plaque

This wicked hot Sunday afternoon the Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy held a procession and memorial ceremony for the homeless in Marin who've died in the past year. Through Carol Hovis, Director of the Marin Interfaith Council, I volunteered to participate on behalf of Pagans.

I had done this last December in San Francisco. I offered the same short prayer and longer chant. This time I had sent it to the Rev. Paul Gaffney, the organizer, beforehand. He expressed delight in its appropriateness.

About 50-60 people gathered at Albert Park and, carrying signs, swinging a censor, and chiming Tibetan bowls periodically, walked in silence to the courtyard of St. Raphael's Church. Just in front of the church grounds the interfaith community planted a Japanese red leaf maple, marked by a plaque, in memory of the homeless of Marin who've died in the streets. Prior to the ceremony, marchers placed photographs and flowers in this space. When I returned afterwards to shoot these pictures, the photos were understandably gone; the flowers remained.

Standing in the hot sun across from the reconstructed Mission San Rafael Arcángel, we were welcomed by Father Rossi. Unfortunately, I never got a program so I was not primed for who was doing what when. The 125 names of the dead printed in the program were read by individuals and repeated by all. One was a baby. Some were only first names or nicknames. After the list had been completed, Paul invited the assembly to add others names. About seven more names were added to the memorial. A man read a Buddhist poem.

Then it was time for me to speak Starhawk's prayer "For One Who Has Died Violently or in Great Distress." I could barely see the words on the page for the salty sweat that was stinging my eyes. I taught Anne Hill's and Starhawk's chant, "When We Are Gone," line by line, then two lines at a time, then all four. I was pleased that nearly everyone sang, including the Dominican nuns -- you can always count on the local Dominican sisters to walk their talk when it comes to issues of social justice. When I did this in San Francisco last December, getting everyone to sing was all uphill. The most willing were the Buddhists and the Quakers. Today, we continued the chant for five full repetitions. A man with a deep, strong voice spoke each line after we sang it. I loved it. It enhanced what we were doing. I'd have tried to break us into a three-part round if I'd had a couple of shills in the courtyard to help carry it. I find that when I try to do that myself, people get confused when I sing the first line a second and third time, even when I've told them at the outset that we'll be breaking into a round and I'm looking at and signaling a different segment of the group with each repetition.

Paul concluded with a reading from Isaiah.

As soon as the crowd began to disband to make its way to the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Marin a few blocks away, a young man wearing a pentacle came up to me and thanked me for remembering to honor Pagans. He said there are other Pagans among Marin's homeless. He lives in a local shelter and attends Mass at St. Raphael's because he was brought up Catholic in Salem, Massachusetts and finds comfort in group worship. He directs his attentions to Mary, Mother of God.

This man, Jon, asked me where he could do ritual with Pagans. I told him about the public sabbats Reclaiming puts on in San Francisco, and reminded him they'd be doing a Lammas ritual this coming weekend. He'd forgotten Lammas was so close. He has internet access so he's going to check Reclaiming's website and go to San Francisco for the rite.

There was press present. I was aware of photographers along the route, and I noticed someone interviewing Father Rossi at the conclusion of the service.

I walked with Paul and his wife Anne and some others to the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. I've been by this place countless times, never expected I'd be in it. There, I chatted with some of the people who'd approached me to tell me they liked what I'd contributed. I felt good about being so welcomed and evidently useful. The event concluded with refreshments, music and socializing in this blessedly air-conditioned space.

Here you can read the words on the plaque.

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

Some of the questions this experience generates are: What is interfaith all about? How can people of so many belief systems work together on a common cause? Why do this? When we do this sort of work with people of other religions, are we not doing a form of magic? My answer is yes.

How can emerging Pagan culture address the overculture assumption of the availability and desirability of regularly offered group worship? How much of what we do is worship? How much is magic? How much is 'other'?

I want to learn more about the phenomenon I recently found out about called the "protestantization" of religions practiced in America. This is a term used in the field of religious studies. It refers to the tendency of non-Christian religions to adapt a template of the organization of Protestant churches for their own use, even though these religions in their native locations aren't organized that way. For instance, rabbis, originally those who studied Jewish sacred texts and commented on them, now assume additional roles associated with Christian clergy, such as the administration of the synagogue. The Buddhist woman who heads Green Gulch Zen Center isn't a "reverend," but uses that term in the context of relating to the public. Some Pagans use this title, too. I think it's inaccurate and can lead to a separation between practitioners and priest/esses.

Fodder for lively discussion and many more blog posts.

What's in a Name?

For the past few years I've been considering "coming out" with what we Witches call our mundane names.

I have a perfectly good mundane name, Aline O'Brien, given me at birth by my parents. It has served me well for over 60 years. Except for the fact that many people, in my experience, have some kind of "name bank" in their heads, so if you give a name that's unfamiliar to them, they try to fine a file folder for it in their minds and they tend to put you in one they already know. For instance, my given name, Aline, is uncommon in this country. Upon hearing it, people file it under Eileen, Elaine, Helene, Arlene. When they see it in print, they transform it into Alice, Alien and even Olive. ??? When hearing or reading Macha, they call me Martha, Monica, Mocha, and Macha with a "ch" sound as in cha-cha. It's a breathy "k" sound made in the back of throat, or even a hard "h."

How I came by the name M. Macha NightMare is a convoluted tale dating back to around 1980, nine years after I first encountered NROOGD Witchcraft. I arrived on a Pagan path via four routes: Second Wave Feminism; lifelong love of mythology and folklore; concern for the environment; and inchoate awareness of the value of intuition.

I grew up the child of what was considered in those days to be a "mixed marriage." My mother is from a long line of Methodist ministers and my father was Irish Catholic, both of them hardcore. I had a bunch of Catholic cousins and a bunch of Protestant cousins. My social environment was primarily Christian, with a token Jew here and there. That is all I was exposed to, and believe me I was totally immersed. My mother took my sister and me to church all the time -- two to three services on Sundays (church service, Sunday School, and sometimes an evening service); I went to Vacation Bible School and some church camps in Summertime; weekly choir rehearsals; and Methodist Youth Fellowship when I was older.

If I were annoyed with my mother, I'd simply go to Mass with my dad and that got me by on attendance. When I stayed with my paternal relatives, I went to Mass with them. I managed to genuflect on my left knee one time and incurred a reprimand from the nun who was corralling my Catholic school cousins into a pew at the O'Brien family parish, Our Lady of Good Counsel in Moorestown, NJ. (Isn't that a great name for a church? I still revere Our Lady in all Her aspects.)

Christians had no feminine image of the divine. Well, Catholics had Mary and some female saints, but they remained secondary to the father god. Protestants had an empty cross. As a lover of iconography, an idolator* even, I've always found Protestant iconography rather plain and institutional.

So that's where Second Wave Feminism intersects with a goddess-centered spiritual life. A polytheistic goddess spirituality, not Yahweh-in-drag.

Another cultural phenomenon American society experienced around that time was Alex Haley's Roots, and all the heritage-searching it inspired in hyphenated Americans of various ethnicities. Until then, America was a society that encouraged assimilation whose immigrants were more than happy to comply. Now I have some understanding of why my Irish grandmother from County Galway, in Connaught, the Irish-speaking area in the West, never taught me Gaelic, her native tongue, though I often asked her to -- mainly because of my interest in languages.

Feminist Witches often took goddess names as their magical names. Sometimes because we admired a particular goddess, or if we wanted to grow stronger in some of her attributes. Or because a particular goddess came from our ethnic heritage. Or because our personalities resembled them in some way.

In my case, I have always been drawn to the Dark Mother. I'm of Irish (and other European) descent. Macha is often, but not solely, a war goddess. Taking the form of a hooded crow (Corvus cornix), she incites warriors in battle frenzy. I identify strongly with crows, ravens and other corvids. Both crows and I talk a lot. We hang around the edges and keep an alert eye on things. We move our vantage point from place to place. We're common, we're found everywhere.

Irish warriors had a custom of taking the heads of their slain enemies and hanging them from the ridgepole of their lodges. This act showed respect and admiration for the qualities of the opponent. These heads were called "Macha's acorn crop."**

Macha is swift of foot and also takes the form of a mare. The Ulster Saga, The Cattle-Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúalnge), speaks of her famous race on Emain Macha, now called Navan Fort, where she was forced to race King Conchobar's mounted men when she was about to give birth. She won, and immediately gave birth to twins. Then she cursed the men of Ulster that they may be struck with pains as a woman in childbirth in the hour of Ulster's greatest need.

The NightMare part ties in with the darkness and horses. The horse is one of the forms Macha takes. When I was young, I often felt like a horse as I ran through meadows with my long hair streaming behind me like a mane. The NightMare is the mare who rides through your dreams.

Macha is also midwife to the dying, easing their passage through the veil. (This last tidbit I only learned after the death of my friend Raven Moonshadow.)

There's much more to the story of how I came to be called Macha. This I can say for certain: it was not done with any marketing in mind. It was intended to be used solely within the context of my religion.

However, as I became more active in both Reclaiming and CoG, I became known among my co-religionists by that name. So when Starhawk and I were signing the contract for the publication of The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, I had the opportunity to choose which name to use. Because Pagans would have been unlikely to know who Aline O'Brien was, I chose Macha NightMare.

Pagans are known for taking some outrageous names. Obviously, with a name like mine, I cannot throw stones. It's not been easy to wear in public. Still, it's who I am.

There was also a time when prudence dictated discretion in terms of public identity as a Witch. Further, my family would never have understood. All of my living relatives I'm still in contact with know who I am. Whether it bothers them or not, I don't know. I do think it bothers my conservative born-again Protestant cousins. That's their problem. My father is gone and my mother's mind is gone, so there's no chance of misunderstandings or hurt feelings in my immediate family. My daughter grew up in a Pagan household, with two Pagan parents and a host of Pagan friends.

During the past several years I've been doing more and more work in the field of interfaith relations. This is where my funny name can be off-putting to some folks. Plenty of other religious folks take religious names. Catholic nuns do. But people are not threatened or amused by their names. They are of the name NightMare. One thing, though, is that people never forget the name NightMare. In my own interfaith counsel I'm known as Macha.

I'm not ashamed of either Aline or Macha, and at this point in my life I don't feel the need to have a separate identify in the Pagan world. We've seen tremendous changes in the past 30 years in terms of how Pagans and Witches are perceived. In fact, the whole Pagan identity thing has become something of a pop phenomenon as much as a spiritual path.

So this public name change, particularly in light of the fact that I'd like to do more writing about other things besides Pagan topics, is something that's been simmering on the back burner of my mind for some time now. I haven't quite decided yet. I guess this very public rumination is something of a test run.

If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, would Macha?


* More about idols and idolatry another time.
** Considering the fact that my matron goddess is Kali Ma, who is often depicted wearing a necklace of skulls, I find this attribution in Macha startlingly appropriate.

International Forgiveness Day

To my surprise, one of the guests at the Marin Interfaith Council Annual Meeting last month was an old friend of mine I haven't seen since 1965 (no, that date is not a typo), an attorney named Bob Plath. Bob has founded the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance. WFA sponsors International Forgiveness Day on the first Sunday of August each year.

I asked Bob what was behind his founding this group. He said it was a lot of things, but much concerned his relationship with his father, his anger at his father after father's death. He says forgiveness can be hard. I can attest to the truth of that.

Forgiveness doesn't mean we forget. It doesn't mean that we expose ourselves again to sources of potential hurt or harm. Without working towards forgiveness, we drag along all kinds of old, cumbersome, unnecessary emotional baggage that impedes our forward momentum. Our growth. Forgiveness benefits the forgiver more than the forgiven.

Between now and August 5th, think of someone or something you are willing to forgive, including yourself. Write a message of forgiveness -- a letter, prayer, or a simple statement -- and send it to the Temple of Forgiveness at templeofforgiveness@gmail.com. These messages will be taken to Nevada's Black Rock Desert where a magnificent "Temple of Forgiveness" is being built this summer as part of the Burning Man Festival. The messages will be placed in the Temple and consecrated for individual and planetary healing. As is the custom, on the last night of the Festival, the Temple and all of its contents will be ceremonially burned.

Please consider joining others around the globe on Sunday, August 8, 2007, in a ceremony of your own creation or by simply gathering and talking about the value of forgiveness. I know I will -- in Amherst, Massachusetts at MerryMeet.

Disappearing Spell

I haven't posted much of a magical bent lately. Writer Barbara Ardinger reminded me of an ancient disappearing spell. I offer it here:

GEORGEWALKERBUSH
GEORGEWALKERBUS
GEORGEWALKERBU
GEORGEWALKERB
GEORGEWALKER
GEORGEWALKE
GEORGEWALK
GEORGEWAL
GEORGEWA
GEORGEW
GEORGE
GEORG
GEOR
GEO
GE
G
|

My friend Susan in Kalamazoo wonders where he might reappear should this work. Does disappearing assume reappearing?

Then there is the matter of ethics re: interfering with another's free will. Well, maybe he'd like to disappear. Besides, we're talking about a mass murderer here.

Here's another one:

RICHARDBRUCECHENEY
RICHARDBRUCECHENE
RICHARDBRUCECHEN
RICHARDBRUCECHE
RICHARDBRUCECH
RICHARDBRUCEC
RICHARDBRUCE
RICHARDBRUC
RICHARDBRU
RICHARDBR
RICHARDB
RICHARD
RICHAR
RICHA
RICH
RIC
RI
R
|

Come to think of it, this would open a door for Nancy Pelosi. What an improvement that would be!

Love Abloom Everywhere

On June 30th, Corby and I celebrated Max and Nava's 25th anniversary with them. Someone with a camera promised to send me a photo of the two of them for this blog, but since it hasn't arrived yet, this will 'go to press' sans photo. Max Dashu is a truly amazing independent scholars and founder of the Suppressed Histories Archives. I've mentioned Max and her work before on this blog. I would love it if more people knew of and supported her work. Check her website if you or your group or one you know of might be interested in sponsoring one or more of her awesome slide presentations.

What came to mind during their brief ritual when we were invited to offer blessings was a poem by one of my all-time favorite poets, the imagist Amy Lowell. Called "A Decade," this poem was written by a woman to a woman. To me, it's from a lover to a lover, and suits any committed relationship that's lasted, for a decade or for a quarter century, or more.

A Decade

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

Then again on 7/7/07 at 7:07 p.m. Corby and I celebrated my sister Catherine's wedding to painter Anthony Montanino. They exchanged vows at 7:07. The reception was held out on the Palo Alto Baylands Preserve. They had a drawing at the reception for two tiles painted by Anthony, as well as a painting of a scene of the cable car line at Mason and Union Streets in North Beach, San Francisco, directly across the street from the Mason Street flat where Deirdre was born. We didn't win the drawing, though.

Anthony's possessed of a remarkably even disposition, in contrast to his wife's more high-strung one. And Gods know he's more than proven himself as he's supported Catherine, and us, through some challenging domestic crises! I'm glad to have him in the family.

Photo taken immediately after Catherine and Anthony's wedding ceremony.


Very front row: Bride Catherine, with groom Anthony behind her; their UU minister.
Front row only: Corby in kilt, me, Vincent Porthé, husband of Catherine's daughter Rainbow in green strapless; Catherine's daughter Allie in yellow print sun dress; Anthony's daughter Gina; Anthony (mentioned above); Anthony's nephew Ray; his brother Lewis' girlfriend in pink and brother Lewis with arm around her; seated in pink is Victoria, an old college friend of Catherine. Two people behind me is my daughter Deirdre in dress with dark bodice and white sweater on shoulders.

Summer Fun -- Quilts & Needlework

I spent much of the Independence Day week/weekend staffing a booth at the Marin County Fair for Obama for President. I've been tabling at the Downtown San Rafael Farmers Market on Thursday evenings.

This county fair is just like a real old-time country county fair, with Ferris wheel and cotton candy, pig races and 4-H, judging of chickens, pies, orchids, jams, roses, bonsai, theme-related school projects, dressage, bee-keeping, sheep, and all manner of other things. The painting, photography and sculpture is always top notch, but of all the categories I think I enjoy the quilts and needlework the best.


When we first walked into the needlework section of the
exhibit hall, I was struck by this splendid baby block quilt.

I love the colors in this Tibetan Buddhist eternal knot.

This looks like a psychedelic fan dance.

This green geometric quilt took a blue ribbon.
I wish it didn't have that apron obscuring the center.

This magical Cretan labyrinth quilt reminds me of my friend Vibra.

This was one of Corby's favorites. It reminds me of a healing quilt Victoria* created for a sick friend. She gave friends the opportunity to cut out and assemble individual squares (these particular squares had little houses and trees, with skies and sometimes people in the windows or doors). I loved both process and result of the one I did. That quilt had colorful squares, but not quite as bright as this one, which has a lot of little Japanese images that might not be visible in this photograph.

* Victoria is currently Driving Audhumla to a family reunion in Seattle.

Cat Naps

Okay, folks. This post is for cat-lovers and friends of cat lovers.

Our lovely kitties, like all kitties, have their own favored napping spaces and styles. This afternoon these are Fernando's and Oona's styles.


On this hot Summer day, Señor Fernando chooses the cool of downstairs, on the rug in front of the couch.


Then he repositions himself. He's a sweet, trusting cat and will spread out on his back, belly up, for a scratching without even opening his eyes.


I found Oona upstairs in the bathroom sink. This is how she acknowledged my presence.


Then she spread out in this inviting pose. Check out that awesome multicolored plume of a tail.


As I was ready to leave with the camera, she bestowed this enticing pose, showing her lovely markings.

As I've said many times, I believe cats neutralize bad vibes. Call that California woo-woo if you want. It works for us. I know our recent, and ongoing, family crises are eased by the soothing, often playful, presence of these sacred beasts.

My operating principle is that our cats' job is to entertain and amuse us, and in return we adore and worship them. Corby gets mad when I say they have a job. He says they're animals and have their own lives; they owe us nothing. We humans have messed with them by domesticating them and owe them respect and honor and care, but shouldn't expect them to do a job for us. In spite of his feelings, as our symbiosis with these two critters has grown, he's come round to my way to thinking.

More Books

This is my unread but soon-to be-read pile, not to be confused with shelves of other unread books calling me, and shelves of previously read books inviting me to return to their pages. Meaning these are the ones most likely to be read after, or even before, the ones on the pile of books I'm in the middle of are read. Unfortunately, unlike my friends Victoria and Patricia, I don't read a book in an evening. :sigh:

Alice Walker's We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For is a Yule gift from my stepdaughter Dr. Lee Wolfer. I'll read anything by Alice Walker. I keep thinking that the words of the title are part of a chant I know from Reclaiming. I've been distanced from Reclaiming for so long that I don't know many of the more recently written ones, and those I do know I don't know as well as the older ones.

Yoruba Girl Dancing, by Simi Bedford, is on loan from Victoria. She thinks I'd like it based on our mutual appreciation of Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who, like Kiran Desai below, has received several literary awards. Purple Hibiscus gives a look into the life of a sheltered young African girl during a tumultuous period of Nigerian history. A life where "good" and "bad" blend so that there really is no black and white. (I'm speaking in terms of behavior, not skin color.)

Those of you who pay attention to contemporary literature will no doubt recognize Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, winner of the 2006 Mann Booker Prize for fiction and, in 2007, the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award. I already read this book so I'm mistaken to have photographed it in this pile.

Frijof Capra's The Web of Life interests me because of my ongoing fascination with the interconnectedness and interdependence of everything. It remains to be seen whether I'll be able to understand the book.

The Life and Death of Great American Cities, by the late Jane Jacobs, has been on my list of books to read since I first heard of it, and her, from my late husband Rod Wolfer, who was an architect. When it was recently republished and offered by my book club, I bought it. This book interests me because we are faced with a growing human population, less space for us on our planet, and global warming.

Don Frew lent me Hypatia of Alexandria, by Maria Dzielska, after we'd talked about a novel I'd read and because she is the guardian ancestor of Cherry Hill Seminary.

Believe it or not, Antoinette May, author of Pilate's Wife, was one of my very first students in the earliest days of Reclaiming. Back in the early 1980s she contacted Reclaiming Collective (RIP) on behalf of herself and several women in Palo Alto, CA. Most of them were already part of a women's group, which subsequently coalesced into a coven called Stone Dancers that survives to this day. Though she didn't end up circling with the Stone Dancers, Antoinette, aka Minerva, writes a lively weekly astrology column in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle that I never miss.

Finally, it's always fun to reread different people's writings about the Greek myths. My mother read them to me when I was a child. Hence, Nigel Spivey's Songs on Bronze: The Greek Myths Made Real.

Quasi-Proof

Just in case you didn't believe that bit about working atop KT-22, here the proof, sort of. That's me on my daily ride up to the place where I took and sold the photos. The photographer is standing where I stood. Back in those days, money changed hands and photos were mailed later. The building at the lower center is Blyth Arena.

Personal Tidbits

Taking up Chas Clifton's challenge, with inspiration from Deborah Lipp, here are eight things about me, six true and two false, that most people probably don't know:

1. I first learned to drive when I was about 10 by driving a tractor and a flatbed truck helping my dad farm. He was a seedsman, specializing in tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (nightshade family).
2. The earliest ancestor we can trace who came to North America was a man (I don't know his name; will try to find out) who arrived in New Amsterdam around 1658 on a ship called De Vergulde Bever, the "Gilded Beaver." My maternal grandfather's name was Van Tine. I have lots of Van Tine relatives, the Protestant, anglophilic side. I see no Van Tines on the Gilded Beaver's passenger list, but I see "Gerrit Gerritsen van Gilthuys," which could be the name Gilruth, which is a maternal family name.
   
3. My orphaned grandmother, née Kate Reilly, from Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, Ireland, on the River Suck, came to Moorestown, NJ (founded by Friends in 1682) via Philadelphia point of entry as in indentured servant to a caring Quaker family. Her siblings dispersed around Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, PA and Australia.
4. I eat only organic food, very little in the way of carbs or dairy. I am a slender, fit gym rat.
5. I have a giant crush on Anderson Cooper (yes, I know). Also on multi-talented Heathen Viggo Mortensen (not because of his role in LOTL either), Irish charmer George Clooney, younger Irish charmer Matthew McConnaughey, Irish Irish charmer Pierce Brosnan, and hunky Henry Simmons, "Baldwin James" on NYPD Blue. Oh, yes, almost forgot Chow Yun Fat. I guess that shows my tastes are conventional. I like them for their politics as much as for their looks and talent. I should note that all of them are younger than I, some considerably. I'm just an old feminist with a lusty appreciation for men.
   
6. I'm a big fan of figure skating. My own ice skating experiences are limited to cranberry bogs in the Winter in New Jersey and a couple of ice rinks in California, such as Blyth Arena, built for 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, and demolished in 1983.
   
7. I love camping.
8. I worked atop KT-22 (elevation 8,000 feet) during the Summer of 1961, after my freshman year at San Jose State College (now University). I rode the ski jump up the mountain every morning, where I stood on the landing platform and snapped photos of tourists as they sat in the chairs suspended over the valley floor 3,000 feet below.
   

Why eight, Chas? Why not five or nine or ten?

"Enlighten" Interfaith Board Game

This has been my month to immerse myself in interfaith activities, it seems. I already wrote here about interfaith and immigration on May 30th. I started to write about the Marin Community Foundation's second annual Celebration of Giving awards ceremony I attended on June 7th, but never got a chance to finish. In a nutshell, the Marin Interfaith Council I've mentioned so many times before received a $25,000 grant from MFC. There's lots more to say; that's the reason I was invited. A very swanky affair, I must say.

Then on June 11th, my daughter's birthday, Malendia, her friend Marianne and I attended another of MIC's quarterly retreat days, this time at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, lead by the Rev. Fu Schroeder, tanto of the center, and Fr. Paul Rossi, pastor of the Church of St. Raphael and Mission San Rafael Arcangel (twentieth and second most northerly of the original 21 missions established by Spanish Jesuits between 1769 and 1823 in Alta California). We spent a restorative day in contemplation and reflection.

Tonight I went to the MIC Forum & Annual Meeting. One of the things we did was play a new interfaith board game called Enlighten. The game is surprisingly comprehensive and not all that easy to play, since it requires a fair knowledge of many religions. Not to worry, we Pagans are represented in three ways, as I see it:

• Prehistoric Religions: Shamanism, Native American, African, Central & South America, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands

• Classical Paganism: Greek Gods, Egyptian Gods, Roman Gods, Persian Gods, and Scandinavian Gods

• New Religious Movements: Mormonism, Bahai, Jehovah's Witness, Unitarian Universalism, Unity Church, Krishna Consciousness, Rastafarianism and more.
  

NRMs are those which arose within the last 200 years. In the world of religious studies, Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, et al. are considered NRMs because they cannot be proven to be older. I call our religion(s) "ancient-future" because we draw upon our ancient heritages (all reflected in the list above), we apply them and live them in 21st Century society, with the hope that we leave a viable and satisfying legacy of a sustainable future for our descendants.

Today is Midsummer, when there are no shadows and nothing is hidden. May the light of the Sun illuminate our many paths as we travel life's road together on our precious life-giving green Earth.

So Many Books, So Little Time

Like many Pagans, I'm a big-time bibliophile. Here's a photo of the books I'm in the midst of reading -- never mind that at least one of them has not been picked up in a couple of years.

I'm nearly finished reading Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father. It's a very touching memoir, written before his arrival on the national political scene. I like his quality of reflecting, his depth, and his compassion for humanity. I'm working with Marin County for Obama, tabling at the weekly downtown San Rafael Farmers Market.

I'm also well into Jonathan Kirsch's A History of the End of the World, which about the Biblical Book of Revelations. I have a remote connection with the author: he was the attorney Starhawk and I consulted when we signed the contract for The Pagan Book of Living and Dying. Since then I've read his God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism and really liked it. Since the more manic of our neighbors among the religious right cry of the endtimes, it's good to have a sensible look at the underpinnings of this craze proffered by a rational, level-headed Jewish lawyer.

She Who Changes is Carol Christ's book about process thealogy. I resonate strongly with much of what she says, but find reading about it somewhat dry.

The Last Witchfinder and Boudica are both historical novels, the first about Enlightenment featuring Isobel, Lady Mowbray, as a character, aunt of the protagonist Jennett, and the latter about the Iceni warrior queen.

In the absence of the opportunity to take a class in basic geology and with a fascination with our glorious Earth, I began reading McPhee's Annals of the Former World. It's a wonderful book, but I'm unversed in the subject so it takes me a long time to digest what he's saying. His writing is accessible to the lay person; that's what makes it so great. Still, I have to work to understand and retain.

Many of the entries in Clifton and Harvey's The Paganism Reader I've read before, and many are new to me. I learn from rereading the familiar writings and encountering the newer ones.

The bookends in the photo are actually boxes, Yule gifts to Corby and me from our friend Victoria, who made them. Guess which is whose.

Yet Another Cool Pagan Blog

This one, Necropolis Now, is the effort of another cyber-friend, Caroline Tully, in Australia. She writes about some of my favorite entities. My assessment: "Very Witchy," a compliment coming from me.

Caroline wrote a fine article about Cherry Hill Seminary in the Australian Pagan press a couple of years ago. Someday -- soon I hope -- it will be viewable on the CHS website.

Blog of a Pagan Artist

My friend, mask-maker extrordinaire Lauren Raine, has just begun a blog, Threads of Spiderwoman. Lauren has made a series of goddess masks for use in ritual that are utterly exquisite.

They were first used (20 of them) in the 20th Anniversary Spiral Dance in 1999 in San Francisco. I felt they were not used as effectively as they deserved, so was inspired to create a ritual I called "Goddesses Alive!," using only 13 of the masks, for PantheaCon 2000. Under the sponsorship of The Lilith Institute and New College of California Women's Spirituality Department, I polished and recreated this ritual, renamed "A Rainbow of Goddesses" to distinguish it from other non-mask-ritual entities with similar names, in December 2000.

The New College performance included original music for each goddess by Amy Luna Manderino -- koto music for Amaterasu, Mexican guitar for Guadalupe, bluesy jazz for Hekate. I loved it!

Since my original production, others have created different rituals using the masks.

The 2006 performance of Reclaiming's Spiral Dance ritual featured many more than the original 20 masks. The photo above, taken at that event, was published on the front page on the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle.

With a good sponsor, I'd love the opportunity to recreate the complete "Goddesses Alive!" masks ritual.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to alert readers to Lauren's blog.

Interfaith & Immigration

On May 30th I attended one of Marin Interfaith Council's periodic Religious Leaders' Luncheons. The topic was immigration. I learned a lot from the three speakers, all attorneys: Mark Silverman of Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Alyssa Simpsoon of Canal Alliance ("the Canal" is a neighborhood in San Rafael where many immigrants, mostly Hispanic, live), and Paul Cohen of Legal Aid of Marin.

When the INS was conducting ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids in "the Canal" in March, MIC was a strong presence. (Later update on ICE raids here.) Beginning at 5 am religious people from more prosperous areas of the county arrived with candles and flashlights to bear witness to the action and to stand alongside of those being raided to offer support and to thwart intimidation.

Most Hispanic immigrants in Marin County are from Nicaragua and other Central American countries and not from Mexico. They work to send money back to their countries for the betterment of their family and friends. This is where international aid could help ease immigration: instead of just relying on immigrants here to send money home, bigger government efforts at investments in those countries could provide employment and other opportunities to the citizens of those countries so they'd be less desperate to come here.

Legal Aid conducts workshops to educate immigrants about what their civil rights are. Most immigrants don't realize they have any rights at all. They do. Among the rights cited are:

1. Immigrants have the same rights as any other tenants (cannot be evicted without cause, or discriminated because of ethnicity);
2. They are entitled to access to interpretation services in the courts;
3. They have the same employment rights as any other employee (overtime pay, etc.);
   
4. They have the right to be "mirandized" if they are arrested; and
   
5. They have the right to be advised of any criminal charges.

Immigrants are also protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, to wit:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Obviously this is of particular importance in the case of ICE raids. But when ICE raids are conducted at gunpoint, what's a law-abiding immigrant to do?

Interest on attorney trust accounts is collected (I guess by the State Bar) and used to pay for the legal representaiton of indigents. All my years working in law and I never was aware of this! If immigrants are indigent, they are entitled to the same representation.

If a person or a company hires an undocumented worker, that entity can pay the worker up to $1,500 without being required to file any tax forms or to pay Social Security.

Mark Silverman told us that there are four elements needed to fix the system:

1. Legalize those who are here now. Seventy percent of Americans support amnesty.
2. Create a program whereby new workers can enter this country legally.
3. Bar further immigration.
4. Facilitate family immigration.

If a family member has a green card proving legal permanent residency, his or her family members are entitled to priority to enter the U.S. This is not as easy as it sounds, though, because it takes 12-15 years, and if you're Filipino, up to 23 years. This in partly due to the fact there is a limit of 20,000 people per annum from any one country. The countries that reach that figure are Mexico, the Philippines, China and India.

I know that my maternal ancestors who first came to these shores simply emigrated from the Netherlands and settled on Indian land in New Amsterdam. I know my paternal grandmother had Quaker sponsors when she arrived here some 300 years later. I know that the mass immigrations of the mid-19th century gave rise to our current immigration policy, among the first of which was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I know we can do better.

Memorial Day in Fandom

A colleague of mine in the Northern California Local Council (Mother of All LCs) of CoG, Kitty Crowe, was honored this past weekend at BayCon, an annual science fiction/fantasy gathering. Monday being Memorial Day, this is what they did to commemorate it:

This past Memorial Day weekend at BayCon (a local San Francisco Bay Area Science fiction convention held annually over Memorial Day weekend - this was #25) at which I was Fan Guest of Honour, Diana Paxson* (the con's Fantasy Writer Guest of Honour) conducted a Memorial Day ritual on Sunday as part of convention programming (which also included Christian and Jewish services).

Ours was held outdoors in a gazebo on the hotel grounds rather than inside in a function room. The altar cloth was printed with a stars and stripes flag design, and a replica of Lady Liberty graced the center. Diana wrote a very moving ritual in which we invoked various founding fathers and specific significant presidents for the quarters, requesting their aid and guidance as we deal with the current military deployments in the Middle East, as well as asking their blessings upon all those involved in protecting and defending our rights and freedoms both at home and abroad. As we passed the horn we remembered those who have fought and died defending our freedoms, and also praised those who had fought the VA so long and hard and finally won the right for Pagans in the armed forces and their spouses to have the pentacle on their headstones in the national cemeteries.

It was a very moving experience.

We plan to hold something similar at the upcoming Westercon in San Mateo over the weekend preceeding the 4th of July (before Diana heads off to Washington, D.C. to participate in similar events there on July 4th).

When I wrote to Kitty for permission to quote her here, she added:

Oh, and we sang the Star-Spangled banner - all four verses (thoughtfully provided by Diana).

If others are inspired to recreate this ritual, I believe copies of the script may be available from Diana. The other option is the time-honored Pagan one of creating your own ritual in honor of Lady Liberty and in support of our Constitution and our military.


* Diana is also a member of NCLC-CoG.

Neighboring Muslims

An article appeared in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle called "Muslims in Marin." Marin is where I live and readers may recall other posts about Marin Interfaith Council activities. I think MIC is one of the oldest interfaith groups, and I know it's one of the most diverse, tolerant and progressive.

I first encountered Imam Mehdi Khorasani about 10 years ago when he served on an interfaith panel discussing a right-to-die measure than in the California legislature. I was unhappy with the composition of the panel -- all male, all Abrahamic. In addition to Iman Khorasani, there were a rabbi, a Presbyterian minister, a Roman Catholic priest, and a Jewish medical doctor. They all came down solidly on the side of forbidding physician-assisted suicide.

I am also a proud member of Compassion & Choices, an organization "working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life." I won't try to get into a long discussion about that topic here and now; suffice it to say I found the panel unbalanced. Assembly Bill 654, the California Compassionate Choices Act, is still alive. Fortunately, there is a large group of California religious leaders who have taken a public stand in favor of AB 654.

A year ago April Imam Khorisani was the host of the invitational interfaith gathering with the Dalai Lama in SF to which Don Frew, Patrick McCollum and I were invited. Here he is speaking as His Holiness listens:


Another Marin Muslim mentioned in the article is Ebrahim Nana; he spoke at the Marin Interfaith Prayer Breakfast earlier this month.

With the exception of the above-mentioned disappointing panel on the Compassionate Choices Act, which I attended before I ever even considered joining MIC, I've felt welcome, respect, friendliness, openness, a quest for commonalities.

Food for Thought

I wish I had more time to blog because I have lots on my mind that blogging might help me figure out, but this will have to do.

Our little group had another salon yesterday. Since there were few there, mainly due to several conflicting engagements, I got to talk more than I would have been able to if there were more people there. One of the topics that frequently comes up is hierarchy, to which I've been saying for years, "Reclaiming has always been hierarchical. I am not averse to hierarchy; it occurs throughout all of Nature. But I think that unacknowledged hierarchy is dysfunctional, even toxic." From hierarchy we progressed to structure. Oak referred us to this wonderful article called "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," by Jo Freeman, written way back in 1970 when I was another one of those sisters in a CR group. Ours didn't die entirely, though, because several of us went on to form the SF Women's Studies Collective. Sandy Butler, Carolyn Shaffer and I assembled the first, that we knew of, bibliography of feminist literature. We sold it for the cost of photocopying it at Modern Times Bookstore. One of us, Jean Pauline (Jean Nute), was a founding member of the MT collective. My introduction to collective work came from Jean, and I took to it like the proverbial duck to water.

Reading it tonight sent me to thoughts of my own involvement in Second Wave Feminism in my younger days. I've published some talk of those years here.

After the salon, while I was shooting the breeze with Oak, I happened to mention an article that Yvonne Aburrow referred to in a post to the Pagan studies list that I had forwarded around to some friends. The article, about polarity in Paganism, by Lynna Landstreet, contains this brilliance, which I plan to use from now on:

That, to me, is the true Great Rite, of which all other enactments, sexual or not, are merely symbolic. That moment of lightning striking the primeval sea to create the first living organism is what I see when the athamé touches the wine.

I mentioned this article to Oak and a younger friend, Denise, who said she was grateful that there had been a Second Wave Feminism because, first among other changes, it made it okay for her to be a lesbian. I was so touched by this remark, because so many younger women either have no idea that feminism ever happened, or simply assume that so many of the rights and privileges they enjoy were not available to their mothers and grandmothers. I had been feeling that we were invisible and our work was discounted, and here this young woman tells me she's grateful.

Thinking about Deism

Some months ago I read a book I found intriguing. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher who happens to be an atheist.  He spoke from a mainstream position in the sense that the religions he considered, the ones he's most familiar with, are the Yahwist ones.  I viewed his comments in that light and was able to find much food for thought.

There are now a few other books addressing the topic of excessive piety (primarily of the Abrahamic persuasion). Among them are:

The most recent is Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  I've read Hitchens' work in Vanity Fair for some years.  He's as irreverent a fellow as you'll find anywhere.   However, he does have an ethical sense of goodwill towards humankind.

Last night when he was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on AC/360º about the death of evangelist Jerry Falwell, his responses were utterly scathing.  He made no allowance for any possibility that Falwell might actually be sincere in his beliefs.

A few days before I read a review of God Is Not Great in the SF Chronicle, wherein this quote from the book appeared:

Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racialism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children, organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.

Besides my claim that no one can accuse Pagan religions of being organized, this quote got me to thinking of which of these claims was accurate in my perception and which might not be, as well as which characteristics I regard as being not beneficial.

In my experience of the best of our Pagan religions, we do not propagate violence, irrationalism, intolerance, hostility to free inquiry, contemptuousness of women and coerciveness toward children.   On the contrary, my particular brand of Paganism espouses just the opposite: "We foster the questioning attitude." (Reclaiming Principles of Unity)  In those ways, I think we're more evolved, if you will, than some of the more conventional religious paths.   I think those attitudes come from many influences, not the least that we've been an outré religion, out of the mainstream, occult, if you will (shadowed, hidden).  We arose from the counter-culture in the '60s and '70s.  My stating this is not to discount our roots and earlier walkers along the paths we consider Pagan, merely to put things in some kind of useful perspective.  We have been misunderstood and demonized, so we learned early on to keep to the shadows, to maintain discretion, if not complete secrecy.

All that has changed in the past 20 years. The change accelerated about 15 years ago, went into warp speed with the advent of the World Wide Web about 10 years running, and in the last five years has exploded, shedding glitter and glamour and cultural influence throughout the common culture.   I attribute much of this acceptance to the work done by various public information officers in the Covenant of the Goddess (CoG).  Although CoG is the oldest and largest organization of interdenominational Witches, this PR work has benefitted all Pagans, as well as others who choose unconventional religious pursuits.

The legacy of this hiddenness, however, has been our rather highly developed sense of tolerance for those who do not reflect the overculture, those who march to a different drummer.  I think tolerance is one our Pagan gifts to the area of interfaith colloquy.

Within the wider Pagan population, some confirmation of Hitchens' accusation of alliance with racialism and bigotry can be found, unfortunately.  They are the minority.  I believe their attitudes stem from feelings of marginalization and disrespect and what I call a "yearning for authenticity."

We live in a pluralistic world.  Everywhere humans have ventured upon this planet there has been cross-fertilization and blends of genes.   There ain't no "pure" anything.  The race is the human race, homo sapiens, hominid erectus, the naked ape.  (My opinions leading to this statement come from readings of, among others:

• Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade;
• The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, by Jared Diamond;
• The Seven Daughters of Eve ; The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry, by Brian Sykes;
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann;
• EarthMind: Communicating with the Living World of Gaia, by Paul Devereux, John Steele, and my Reclaiming friend, David Kubrin;
• The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, by David Abram.)

Alas, I digress.

The term that really stopped me in this Hitchens quote is "tribalism."  He asserts that religions/theologies promote tribalism.  Well, what exactly is tribalism and what is a tribe?  I know that the feeling we (using the term loosely for Pagans like me) get when dancing ecstatically round the bonfire is one of belonging to a tribe.  The feeling I get when I gather with other Pagans is one I could only describe as tribal.  Tribe being "a distinctive, close-knit social or political group."  Tribal being "a tendency to form groups or strong group loyalty."  Tribalism: "the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or social group."  These last three definitions are listed in the unnamed dictionary on my iBook dashboard as being "derogatory." ???

I like them, and I don't feel derogated by having them used to describe me and mine.

In the complex and fragmented society in which we live, I think we all seek a feeling of belonging.   Better yet that sense of belonging resonates in our skin, our bones, our heretic hearts.   When I talk with other Pagans, when we discuss things at rituals, gatherings, festivals, social functions, online, I feel we are a tribe defining ourself.  And that feels very comforting.

It's not that I feel especially alienated. I  have a family who love me. I have kin of both blood and choice.  So it's not that, exactly.  Although I must admit that the majority of my chosen kin happen to be of one or another Pagan persuasion.   But also of many sexual, political, professional, and intellectual persuasions.

Our tribal identity is fostered by many symbols, songs, books, rituals, words and terminology, and other cultural manifestations we hold in common.  Most obvious is the witchen (for those who do not, strictly speaking, identify with the Pagan path of Traditional British Wicca) symbol of the encircled five-pointed star, the pentacle.   Today pentacles are inscribed on the tombstones of Pagan military casualties.  This is a huge step in recognizing our tribalism in a public way.

Again, I digress. I had thought to consider tribalism in light of monotheism or polytheism.  As a polytheist, I feel I can name, worship, honor, praise, and identify with any deity or deities at any time I'm called to do so.  Every 19 days I light a candle to tend the flame of Brigit in Kildare.  (See my "Bridey in Cyberspace" in Irish Spirit: Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global, Patricia Monaghan, editor.)


I attend Kali pujas on the New Moon near my home.  Kali Ma has been my matron all my life. She has come upon me, acted through me, and loved me for all of my magical life.

To me, these deities are as real as anything.  They stir my soul, they can make the hairs on my arms stand up, send a shudder up my spine, fill me with love and joy.  And sometimes they don't.