Starwood '08 Re-Entry

Corby and I are back home, after 10 hours in the Cleveland airport due to thunderstorms. We had the same problem on the way to Starwood, but not as long and with Oberon to share our wait.

We arrived during a huge thunderstorm. Lightning flashed all around our little puddle-jumper plane when we were airborne, and continued on the ride to Brushwood with charioteer par excellence, Gnorm. The highways had hydroplaning conditions. We hadn't eaten because the vendors were closed at the airport. Gnorm, as always, had a nutritious soup at his campsite that he only needed to reheat. That may sound good - and the soup was good -- but the conditions under which we had to eat it were less than comfortable. The tarp above the picnic table holding his Coleman stove sagged with water, which you could either poke at and get it to overflow the tarp, or wait for it to start dripping from directly overhead. Getting the water out of the tarp meant flooding the ground beneath, making the already-soaked ground under our feet into deeper mud and water. The benches and chairs were also too wet to sit on without getting a cold tush. We persevered and ended with hot food in our tummies, welcome warmth after the ordeal of traveling and sloshing through the site.

We found a dry place to sleep in the big long guest trailer, the one with blue tarps for walls. The next morning we found the wee trailer our friend, artist Lauren Raine, had prepared for us. She'd put some swoops of light ropes out the front door, and equipped it with a novena candle and some other candles, lighter (something we couldn't carry on the plane), incense (to mitigate the slight moldy odor of the trailer), wine, water, plastic glasses, and crackers.

Our friends Kala and Dress from the Bay Area Reclaiming community shared our camping area in a tent Lauren had prepared for them. I got some photos of all of us together, and some great ones of Dress' spiral-glittered pate that I downloaded to my computer while waiting all day Monday in the airport, but they seem to have vanished. Bummer!

Starwood was not as well-organized this year as it usually is, so there were some glitches. One was that I was scheduled for a workshop entitled "Brewing Spicy Multi-Traditional Ritual" on the day we spent getting there. I was told there were 15 disappointed people waiting. What can I say? They knew when they'd booked our flights. Sue rescheduled it for Thursday, but only Corby, Lauren and Larry Cornett (publisher of Pagan calendar of events long before anyone was out of the broom closet) were able to come at that time. I was disappointed, too.

My talk on Pagans in interfaith work went well. But best of all was another panel called: "When We Call, Who Comes? A Panel on Pagan Thea/ology." Watch this space for more on that, since it deserves an entry of its own.

What Happened?

I don't know what happened to the past two months. Yesterday we took Fernando and Oona to the vet for more shots and to see why Fernando is listless and losing weight (an infection, being treated with antibiotics), when the vet found a flea on Oona. He asked if we treated them, and we said sure, we'd just treated both of them with Advantage only three weeks ago. Well, as it turns out, it was two whole months ago. I swear I just bought the Advantage a few weeks ago. Sheesh, what happened to that time?

Well, for one my mother died. So did the parents of two of my friends. This week I have three Board of Directors meetings and one annual meeting. (Boards of FAWR, CHS and my homeowners association and annual meeting of MIC) Plus we managed to hold the CHS Summer Intensive, courtesy of the folks at AzureGreen and Silver Cauldron Coven in Maine. That was followed by a concentrated meeting of the Executive Director and the department chairs wherein we accomplished an amazing amount of work, news of which will be forthcoming from CHS in due time.

About that talk I gave via Skype in São Paulo, here's a photo and there are more here.



The bottom line is I'm too tired and confused to post anything particularly interesting or relevant to any readers I might have. Instead, I'll direct you to two other blogs.

First is today's Wild Hunt blog, which features news about my friend, Don Frew, and my candidate, Barack Obama.

Second is Threads of the Spiderwoman blog of my friend Lauren Raine, an amazingly talented Pagan artist. I'm looking forward to seeing her at Starwood next month.

Reuniting with Family

I spent five days back in Western Massachusetts for the Cherry Hill Seminary Summer Intensive, followed by a meeting of most of the Administrative Committee. Upon my mother's recent death, I had phoned several relatives who don't have email. One was my cousin Blake S. I knew he lived in Maine and found a phone number for a Blake S. in Maine, so I called it. Blake himself answered. We talked for a long time, and when he learned I'd be coming to New England the weekend following Mother's memorial, he said he wanted to drive down to visit me if I could carve out a few hours.

I did the carving and he the driving. I left New Jersey in June of 1959, when he was only 8 years old. It had been nearly half a century since we'd seen each other. I'm not even sure we saw each other before my family left the area, so it may have been a full half century. In any case, both of us are orphans now. Further, he has no siblings nor paternal cousins. His mother Catherine was my mother Elizabeth's younger sister. He and I are both Van Tines. Here we are together in middle age in Marin and Adair's kitchen at AzureGreen:


Photo by Holli Emore

Talking to São Paulo

On Saturday morning I gave a talk to 50 Pagans sitting in a hotel meeting room in São Paulo, Brazil while I sat is my cluttered studio in California. I was honored to have been invited by my friend Claudiney Prieto, Brazil's best-selling author on Wicca. Claudiney encouraged his publisher to publish a Portuguese edition of my book, Witchcraft and the Web, so that now I can say I'm "internationally published." He's also a primary organizer of Pagan Pride Day in São Paulo, which, with a population of nearly 11 million, is the largest city in South American and one of the largest in the world. And it's wildly multicultural.

This talk was done through the miracle of Skype. They showed me on a big screen in Brazil, but they had no camera for me to see them. I talked through an interpreter, Rose Hirasike.

The topic was "NeoPaganism Rising," about the phenomenal rise of Paganism worldwide, and things we can do to fortify and sustain this movement. Since American and Brazilian culture are so different when it comes to religion -- we American are by far the most obsessed with what others believe in terms of faith traditions, in my opinion -- I wasn't quite sure which developments and expressions of Pagan culture would be most useful to expand upon. I can only hope my talk wasn't boring or discombobulated, or worse, irrelevant.

Talking in smaller chunks to enable an interpreter to tell Portuguese-speaking listeners what you're trying to say is a bit of a challenge. The technology was fabulous, though, so I'm interested in exploring it further. Hopefully my Brazilian colleagues will invite me, and others, in the future.

More on Mom

This is the obituary announcement we put in the local papers:

Elizabeth Van Tine O’Brien
January 19, 1911- May 23, 2008

Second of five children of John Raub Van Tine and Elizabeth Hardy Kynett, born in Lansdowne, PA (Philadelphia), Elizabeth, also called Betty, came to Lodi, CA from New Jersey with her husband, James T. O’Brien and children in 1959.

A strong advocate for women’s rights, in 1958 Betty was the first woman elected to school board of Evesham Township, NJ, on a write-in vote. She and Jim traveled widely in connection with his work with Lions Club Int’l. An accomplished seamstress and knitter, she worked at The Fabric Store in Lodi for years. Longtime member of Lodi’s First United Methodist Church, Daughters of the American Revolution, Pi Beta Phi, Daughters of Founders and Patriots, and Dickinson College Alumni.

Predeceased by siblings Karldon K. Van Tine; John Raub Van Tine, Jr.; and Catherine B. Styles; husband Jim O’Brien and stepson James T. O’Brien, Jr. Survived by sister Eleanor V. Slim, Doylestown, PA; daughter Aline O’Brien and Corby Lawton, San Rafael; daughter Catherine O’Brien and Anthony Montanino, Palo Alto; grandchildren James T. O’Brien, III, Idaho; Rainbow Aline and Vincent Porthé, Chicago; Deirdre Blessing Wolfer, San Rafael; and Alexandra Amelia Foster, San Diego; great-grandchild Brandon O’Brien; and many other friends and relations.

Friends are invited to a memorial at 2:00 pm on Saturday, May 31, 2008, at First United Methodist Church, 200 W. Oak St., Lodi. Donations in her memory may be made to Hospice of San Joaquin County.

My, how the Internet has changed the ways we deal with someone's passing -- or any other life transition, for that matter. This is our mother's online guest book.

I encourage everyone to check out her or his local hospice group, and to support it. The people who do hospice work are saints, as far as I'm concerned. We were so reassured about how an what our mother and we were experiencing by Mother's nurse, Edee Singer, aide Kim Martinsdiaz, and social worker Diane Medina.

Our local hospice, formerly Marin Hospice, and now combined with San Francisco and Sonoma Counties, is now called Hospice by the Bay. Not only do hospice workers help with dying, but they also offer ongoing grief counseling (including some for children and teens) as well as maintaining a comprehensive library of death and dying resources. I might add that many include The Pagan Book of Living and Dying among these resources.

Paula Gunn Allen

Sheesh, what a year for deaths! Paula Gunn Allen died six days after my mother did. Thanks to Jason's Wild Hunt blog that I know about this, since I haven't exactly been tuned in to the world for the last few weeks. Paula was close friends with my late dear friend Mary TallMountain. Although I never met Paula, I heard a lot about her from Mary. I note from some of the writings about Paula that she had similar inner conflicts from having been brought up Roman Catholic. Hearing that Paula passed has reawakened my sense of loss from Mary's death.

I find grief to be a cumulative thing. Fresh grief, or fresh cause for grief, dips into that deep well of grief we all carry and brings it to the surface, sort of like priming a pump. Grief takes as long as it takes.

Guest Blogging

My Mother, Elizabeth (Betty)

My latest blog is over at The Wild Hunt. Jason honored me by asking me to be among his guest bloggers while he took a vacation. Other guest bloggers this week are Cat Chapin-Bishop, Anne Hill, T. Thorn Coyle, Chas S. Clifton, and Deborah Oak Cooper. Such awesome company!

I've posted today more about dying and death, inspired by the recent passing of my mother, pictured above. Come back later because I know this won't be the last of it.

More about Our Mother

Elizabeth Van Tine O'Brien
January 19, 1911, Lansdowne, PA - May 23, 2008, Lodi, CA

The announcement that went in the local papers, because it's a published obituary with space limitations, can only tell you very little. No doubt I'll have more to say as the process of losing one's mother, after 65 years of having one, unfolds.

Thanks to all who've expressed condolences.

Love & Death

My mother, Elizabeth V. O'Brien, crossed over at the age of 97 in the early morning of May 23, 2008. Her daughters and granddaughters were with her most of her last weeks.

During the entire process of her dying, I have felt cradled in love and light coming from far and near, from many directions . This love has helped me to undergo this rite of sitting vigil, letting go, and mourning (just begun) as well as possible. For this I am deeply grateful.

Hippy Days Reunion

Peggy & Aline, April 2008
(We asked a waiter to snap this, told him just head
and shoulders. Twice he got shots like this, then
another waiter did a head-and-shoulders shot
that wasn't as nice. Now when I learn to crop
photos, this will probably be fine.)

Like most of us, I have a busy life. I have at lots of draft blog entries going back to last October. I'll spare you the list of activities and reasons and cut to the chase: I had dinner about two weeks ago with a friend from our Haight-Ashbury days.

Peggy and I lived at 516 Ashbury, one door from the corner of Ashbury and Page, with Haight at other end of our block. This was in the late '60s. I remember that when we lived in that house was when I learned of RFK's assassination, after I'd returned from seeing Battle of Algiers. We had lots of parties in that flat. The back room where the parties were was lit with Christmas lights. We also bought a little 12" B&W TV to watch the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on Sunday nights. We thought it was the coolest thing going -- and it was revolutionary. My favorite regular was "Share a Little Tea with Goldie" with Leigh French as Goldie O'Keefe.

Peggy left for graduate school in Illinois in 1970, and that's the last time we saw each other, 38 years ago. We both have grown children and published books. We found each other on the Web, natch.

As we chatted it up at Chow in the Castro, it was as though there had been no intervening 38 years. After dinner, we drove around and reoriented ourselves, especially Peggy, who hadn't been in San Francisco in all that time. Peggy's a retired college professor and writer of mystery novels. I'm eager to read her latest, Sweet Man Is Gone.

Vampyre Mike

Vampyre Mike Kassel

Maybe it's because I read the "Irish sporting green" on Sundays, but it seems to me at least once a month I read of someone I knew or know who passed away. More likely it's because I'm aging and so are my colleagues. In any case, this death is not one I learned of from the obituaries. Prudence told me. My friend Pasha and her daughter Della are grieving a lot for Vampyre Mike. This is what his friend, fellow poet, and coven mate Whitman McGowan wrote about Mike:

Michael Alan “Vampyre Mike” Kassel – writer and musician

Born December 3, 1953 in Boston to Milton ”Quinn” Kassel and Beatrice Kassel, brilliant underground poet and talented musician Vampyre Mike passed away after a long battle with hepatitis March 22, 2008 in his room at San Francisco’s Marina district Bridge Motel (one of the few San Francisco SRO Hotels not located south of Market). He resided at The Bridge for over twenty years. In high school in Boston his first band was Self Winding Onion and in 1973-1974 he was in Automatic Slim with Fred Pineau (who later gained success with The Atlantics). He moved to San Francisco in 1974 and earned his sobriquet when punk fans at the Mabuhay Gardens started calling for “Vampire Mike!” when he appeared there with his band The Hellhounds. In 1980 Mike sharpened his teeth on musical theater in San Francisco, putting on Bat Soup which ran for 86 performances at Hotel Utah and combined Dracula and the Marx Brothers. In 1982 he released the 45 single “Fortune Teller/Guru Massage” under the name Mike Kassel.

Holding down a day job as a market researcher, he was loveable curmudgeon and merciless tease who on occasion could be extremely kind and generous and he always told it like it was, with outlandish humor and an uncompromising stylishness. An adherent of the Norse pagan traditions and widely read and knowledgeable on many topics, he was made thyle, or bard, of the heathen group Freya’s Folk, and he partnered with one of their priestesses Pasha De Saix for many years. Together they were the folk rock duo The Familiars, a fixture at pagan gatherings in the greater Bay Area, recording original and traditional songs as “Pasha and the Pagans,” a collection engineered by Lemon De George of Genghis Blues fame. Other musical groups led by Vampyre Mike included The Fabulous Dumonts, The Bones of Kryptos, blues band The Welfare Cheats and an homage to 60’s garage bands, The Mysterious Ice Wyrms, which at one time featured drummer Donovan Bauer of 20 Mile.

A regular at many poetry open mics over the years, he was also known as Thor Bernstein and Elston Gunn, but it was as Vampyre Mike at Café Babar and Above Paradise in the late 80s and early 90’s that he really established himself as a poetic voice and a force to be reckoned with. His take on current events was eagerly awaited by the poets and his other fans. It seemed he always had something incisive to say about a big news item and it was usually a lot of fun to hear, as his poetry owed more to W.C. Fields than to W.H. Auden. Though he performed mostly in Northern California his career also included one wild European tour with David Lerner, Dominique Lowell and other San Francisco poets. “Vamps,” as he was affectionately known to some, was also a frequent collaborator, playing piano, percussion and guitar on other people’s projects and joining Joie Cook, Kathleen Wood and myself to perform the one-off show Naked Language Revue one unforgettable night in 1990 at the old Kafe Komotion in San Francisco. He also helped me cast the dancers for a video, putting me in touch with a bunch of pagans he said would like to get naked if I ever made a video of my piece “White Folks Was Wild Once, Too.”

Local publishers put out his books Going for the Low Blow (poems, Zeitgeist Press, 1989), I Want to Kill Everything (poems, Zeitgeist Press,1990), Just Say No to Despair (poems, Cyborg Productions, 1991), Graveyard Golf (stories, Manic D Press, 1991), Wild Kingdom (poetry and prose, Zeitgeist Press, 1992), the latter two featuring covers by renowned comic artist S. Clay Wilson, and The Worlds According to Loki (mythological novel, Valknot Publishing, 2001). His work was translated into German, Czech and Russian. He wrote numerous prose pieces for the Western Edition newspaper, the quarterly Yggdrasil and the Sunday magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner, and was published in many poetry magazines and anthologies.

Vampyre’s satire was a finely tuned attack delivered in broad strokes. Witness well loved poem “Your Love Is Like a Red, Red Nose,” his Woody Guthrie parody; “This land is my land, that land is my land / That land over there, that’s my land too / This land belongs to me, not you...” or his poem “SHIT”: I was walking home from the bars the other night/And realized/I had to piss Now!/Before my bladder blew up/Across the street/At a construction site/I spotted a Port-O-San/I hobbled over/And yanked on the door/It was locked/I was dumbfounded/What did they think I was going to steal?/Welcome to America/Where they lock up the shit (from Just Say No To Despair! (A Cyborg Minibook, San Francisco 1991)

Here’s one of his typical “rants.”

I WANTED TO WRITE SOMETHING SERIOUS

I wanted to write something serious,
a page that would ignite when exposed to air.
I wanted to dive deep into my soul
and swim back to the surface
with some big bloody truth clenched between my teeth.
I wanted something that would burn in the mind
like a malarial fever
you could never quite put out.
Something that would inspire
lust and revulsion simultaneously.
Something so dangerous
that Bush would have to send an invasion force
deep into my head.
Something that would replace the Gideon Bible
in the hotel drawers of the world.
Something so big, so beautiful and so true
that the sun would immediately eclipse himself
because he knew we were onto him.
I wanted to write something more addictive than crack,
more debilitating that love,
and more destructive than religion.
I wanted to make the moon weep.
I wanted to build a mirror so cruelly true
that it would send all the yuppie lawyers
and investment bankers
howling into the bush to make honest livings
as highwaymen, headhunters and horse thieves.
I wanted to write something that Ringo would understand,
something God would not forgive,
something the Weekly World News would refuse to print
because it was in bad taste.
I wanted to write something that would make
Rimbaud and Baudelaire
grind their teeth in envy
and throw their pens at the moon.
I wanted to give Poe the willies.
I wanted to make nuns wet their pants.
I wanted to make dogs howl, highways tremble,
and hair grow on grandma’s bald head.
I wanted to write something
that would make everyone illiterate.
I wanted to write something so beautiful
that it would make every woman in the world
fall in love with me
so I could break their hearts simultaneously.
I wanted to write something that would make money chuckle.
I wanted to write something that would cure cancer
and then kill you anyways.
I wanted a poem
A real poem.
A Robert Graves spit in the eye
this is the way the Iliad goes
so early in the morning dance round the campfire
roses are red barnburner of a walloping good God
did he really say that
motherfucking mouthful of meat
bad ass bitch of a poem
poem.
Know what I mean?
But
just as I got the paper in the machine
Della switched on “The Flintstones”
And all that came out of the typewriter
Was
Yabba dabba doo.
from Wild Kingdom

Vampyre Mike is survived by his sister Dr. Jane Kassel and his twin nephews (born on Halloween, his favorite holiday!) Bryce and Alexander Haver of Media, Pennsylvania. Interment was in Pennsylvania and memorial services were held there and April 13th in Sutro Park, San Francisco.

His new book just published by Ajax Press is being celebrated with a posthumous book party on Saturday, May 3 at Café International, 508 Haight Street (near Haight & Fillmore) in SF, from 7-10 p.m. (415) 552-7390. Many poets will be there to commemorate his life and work and Copies of Toxic Vaudeville will be available at the event. For more info about the book see Ajax Press website www.ajaxpresssf.com .

---Whitman McGowan

What I most enjoyed about Mike was his irreverent songs. In love may he return again.

puff, puff

Yes, I'm still here. It seems that the turning of the Wheel this Spring was an especially earth-shaking one. Things are calmer now.

It helps me understand life when I view it through a lens of encounters with deity. This season I experienced two goddesses. One was Sekhmet, a healer. My friend Marilee, Her priestess, claims that Sekhmet is not the gentle, soothing kind of healer, but rather one of extreme measures. She is goddess of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, amputation. The healing I see Her having a hand in this season was one of amputation -- unfortunately, not without some collateral damage.

The other goddess who's been swirling around is Oya. She swept in like a whirlwind, blew things all around, and left them in disarray.

At this point, I'm trying to restore some semblance of order and repair the collateral damage as much as I can.

I knew when I was standing with Sekhmet that this amputation might not be a clean one, done with one mighty swing of a strong, sharpened blade. That was what I feared most about it. But I had to take the position I did, even while I remained acutely aware of, and dreading, that risk. I had not expected Oya to come swooping in Sekhmet's wake. I suppose if I'd been more prescient, I'd have anticipated it, but I didn't.

Now I appeal to bright Brigid, Whose flame tempers and Whose waters sooth.

I'm off to Dandelion, the third biennial all-Reclaiming gathering, in my home territory. Tonight we'll circle in Valley of the Moon, California, where I'll declare our intent and seal it. I love the theme: "All the Infinite Possibilities."

I'll leave early so I can participate in a day-long event organized by Don Frew. Called People of the Earth in America: Preserving Our Cultures, Building Our Community, it will take place at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio

Puffin' on down the road.....

New Poetry

My friend Ellen Cooney writes poems I like. Today I received in the mail a copy of her latest book, Mother of the Silkless: Invocations to Goddesses and Gods.

From the post office where I picked up the book, I went to my local Peet's for a cappuccino and a gander at the "Irish sporting green" in the SF Chronicle. Lo, I learned of the deaths of two whom I'd known in life. One was the very first architect I ever worked for -- in a previous life, I worked for architects -- Corwin Booth, 93. The other was an acquaintance from the local Irish and literary scene, Bob Callahan, former publisher of Callahan's Irish Quarterly and one of the founders of the Before Columbus Foundation. If I weren't going out of town this weekend on a long-planned trip, I'd go to his memorial this coming Sunday.

Later, at home, I opened Ellen's new book first to this poem:

HEL

You walk through the hospitals
gathering gathering
or You find us helter skelter
at the crossroads under cars
in icy parks
off bridges after a cruel word
You are the last clean white sheets
tireless at our bedsides
You hold us and heal us
carrying us through
from age to youth again
half Your face human
the other half blank
You are the Death Eater
ceaselessly devouring
human pain

There is no evidence of this book on the Internet. Ellen, although she's wheelchair-bound, does not use a computer. I'm so enamored of electronic communication that I'm puzzled when someone whose social opportunities are more limited than mine chooses not to enter cyberspace. Social or not, Ellen has her Muse. Mother of the Silkless, like Ellen's other books, is beautifully designed by her brother Robert Cooney, and printed on fine paper. Mother of the Silkless, ISBN 978-0-9602912-4-3, $15 from Duir Press, 795 Eighth Avenue, #201, San Francisco, CA 94118.

Follow the Leader

Three days ago Chas started this:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Lucky me was tagged by Anne. My response is:

“…We turned off the highway on to the slip road, and then off it, past a jhopadpatti, into darkness. Our beams conjured up a dusty road, trees sliding into existence and out again, it was like falling into a tunnel. I went eagerly into it. Then we took a sharp left, and the road changed, we crunched over dirt. There was a car parked at the end of the lane, and the hard black of a building through the overhanging branches, and we got out and walked towards it, around a corner, and now there was a single bulb above the door….”
~ from Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra (of a total of a whopping 900 pp.)

To spread things around, I tag Kevin in Honolulu, Cosette in Miami, Julie in State of Jefferson, California, Brendan in Elora, Ontario, Canada, and Christopher in Ann Arbor.

The trouble with coming in late on this is that some friends you’d be likely to tag have already been tagged.

Interfaith Action for Worker Justice

Yesterday morning I joined others at the Marin County Civic Center to confront the Board of Supervisors about their neglect to fix Marin's Living Wage Ordinance, guaranteeing minimum wage and health care benefits for homecare workers. The ordinance was passed a year ago, yet through administrative sleight-of-hand excludes from its protection 1,000 homecare workers. Homecare workers allow elders to stay in their homes. Shamefully, Marin, one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country, has one of the lowest pay rates for unskilled laborers* in the nine Bay Area counties.

My colleague in Marin Interfaith Council, the Rev. Pamela Griffith Pond, a Lutheran minister who heads Marin Interfaith Worker Justice, solicited help with this effort from members of MIC, and on Monday asked me if I would do a reading as part of the program. I was rushing out the door when she phoned, and I really wanted to help and was honored that she had asked, so I said yes. Then when I got home after my birthday dinner with Patrick & Barbara, Corby, my daughter Deirdre and her boyfriend Matt, I started looking for a suitable reading. Well, ya know, we Pagans don't have readings. We have no holy scripture. We have the seasons and the tides, the Wheel of the Year, the counsel of the cowry.

It was late and I was tired and I wanted to be prepared. So I surfed around the Net for inspirational material of any kind on the subject of worker justice. I found lots of practical resources for people engaged in that effort. I found lectionaries. I'd never heard the word lectionary; it's "a list or book of portions of the Bible appointed to be read at a church service." No, lectionaries wouldn't do. I combed through books on my shelves, felt too weary for inspiration. Then I decided that the best of reading from a Pagan perspective is poetry. Yet finding something both relevant and beautiful left meager pickings.

Once again, I found myself turning to my friend Patricia Monaghan's poetry, from the same collection as the poem I selected for Brigit, Seasons of the Witch.

Standing in a group near the South entrance of the Civic Center, holding signs, with people coming in and out, riding up the escalator, with blasts and other truck and traffic noise just outside the open doors, I read:

Housemagic

You descend the stairs at midnight.
You walk through the sleeping hours.
Light surrounds you in the silent dark.

Was it a nightmare woke you?

You pour a glass of water.
You sit by the window, beside that
cobalt vase filled with blue flowers.
Into the dark blue center of sleep
you slip again, into the blue
blackness of true forms, into
the fragmented pool of meaning.

There, on the boundary of
boundlessness, you dream
and, dreaming, remember what
you have not utterly forgotten:
how your kitchen always has at least one
witch's broomstick, how clove and garlic
are domesticated on your spicerack,
how everything has power.

But you remember only how, not
why. And so your power finds
its limits: You can raise
the bread but you cannot
tame the nightmares that
pasture in the silent house.
You have forgotten the way
to the wildness within you,
to the instinct for order.

Now as you sleep you dream
of a half-remembered house: bedraggled
as old lace, its stairs rot into wooden
filigrees, its attic suffocates in private
dust. And in its flooded basement
the rivers, the sewers of the world
breed terrifying marvels. Because
the house grows wild, disorderly, all
the gardens in the world turn treacherous
and forests strangle on themselves.

But in this house all change is possible.
Some corners--left or right, dining room
or pantry--grow shiny with significance.
A ladder leans against a wall.
Sheer white curtains billow.
A floor creaks. A door closes.

When you wake in the blue hour
before dawn, you remember
am old house with stairways that
lead to attics that connect to trees.
You remember all the paths.

And remembering, you know how
to make the necessary changes
to pull the day towards night, to
let all things revel in meaning,
dreaming the world's secrets like
the favored habitat of blueberries,
like the seasoning of rosehips,
like the uses of lichen and moss.

On a bureau you collect
a chipped mirror with a
woman's face, a stem of bed-
straw that died aslant, your
sister's candlesticks,
an old pot with a mother's
belly, a box covered with
dusty embroideries.

Then, in another room:
rocks in a spiral pattern,
a branch that sang in a
mysterious and certain way,
a whitened bone.
A gray owl feather,
a small pile of seeds.
All in a certain order.

Now, when you sleep
you build a round tower,
you cut new windows,
you carve a pool in shade.
A candle burns beside you
as you dream. It flickers
sometimes in the cool breeze.
Outside your window, a single
leaf breaks against stone
as it falls from the gnarled oak.

And you dream of being in the power
of grasses, frail patched lace,
filigree seedheads, mist of renewal,
reckless with shedding. You dream
your hair full of seeds, your hair
a cushion for seeds to rest on,
you dream you were born to move
seed to new lands, you dream
purposes and reasons, you are
full of thoughtless utility.

And sleeping there, you feel
your dream and the world's
dream join. A path stretches
out before you, the path from
childhood: at its end, a new
trees is taking root, its taproot
drinking your heart's blood.

And, when you wake and move
through the dim silent room,
you know that the wind of your
daily dance brings a storm to
an old forest on another continent,
and that the fall of its giants
leaves room for new growth.

Midnight: You open the door.
A horse comes galloping.
There are no horses where
you live. But she is there,
wearing no saddle, no reins.

With blueblack eye she invites
you. She kneels as you mount.

This is where the dream would
end, if this were a dream.
But it is not, and so
the next thing
you feel is
the rush of wind
in your hair.

* * *

Following the program, we carried our signs up the escalator and around the escalator wells while singing "Oh, when we win a living wage...When every worker has a job...When healthcare's free for you and me..." to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In." Pamela carried a stack of letters written to the Board in support of their putting the health care for homecare workers back on their agenda and passing the resolution they'd promised. The letters were from individuals and groups. I had mailed one a earlier. It turned out that, in spite of the fact that a Board meeting had been scheduled for Tuesday morning and that was why were were there when we were, there were no Supervisors on the premises. Pamela gave the letters and her card to the receptionist with instructions to give the letters to Supervisor Hal Brown on the labor committee.

We left the Supes' offices and filed down though the building singing another filk, then dispersed. Some of us went to the cafeteria for coffee and feedback. The discussion yielded some interesting and useful information. I found I had a lot to offer from my Pagan and activist background, tame though it may be. I found that my sense of ritual informed my observations.

At one point, I said that 'we' (meaning Pagans in general) had a few more interesting chants than the usual filk, and that one that had come to me in this situation was a chant known as "Summer Solstice Power Chant," by Starhawk. Surely many readers know it. Grace, one of the other demonstrators did. It begins, "We are the power in everyone..." and ends, "...We are the turning of the tide." I said that I was reluctant to suggest it because to me is sounded maybe a bit more je ne c'est quois than they'd want. To my surprise, they liked it. Carol, one of the home care workers, said that she was a born-again Christian and she would be happy to sing that song.

A Supervisors' meeting is now set for the same time next Tuesday, and we will repeat our protest. Pamela has more letters of support to deliver and wishes to make a public statement to all the Supervisors. In the meantime, however, our message has resulted in a meeting next Monday between Pamela and Supervisor Brown.


* Coincidentally, Marin has the lowest salaries for legal secretaries in the Bay Area as well. Legal secretaries have special skills and knowledge, far more than just typing letters. I'm sensitive to this because I was a single mother trying to make ends meet as a legal secretary in the '80s and '90s. In order to reduce the constant stress of paying bills by triage method, to earn a decent salary, I ended up commuting back to San Francisco and leaving my latchkey child on her own more than I would have liked.

Birthday Brag

Today's my birthday, a significant on this year -- I got my Medicare card. Of all the people I share this birthday with, my favorite is the late George Harrison; we were born the same day and year.

What I'm going to brag about is the panel I put together for PantheaCon. Titled "When We Call, Who Comes?" we were scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Friday, the first sessions, when most Con-goers hadn't arrived yet. Nevertheless, our room was full to overcrowding.

Nothing by way of set-up that I'd asked for on my application way back in October was in place. No two tables and five chairs for panelists, no two mikes, no pitchers of water and glasses. Just a room with rows of chairs facing one wall. Early arrivals helped set us up as best we could. It's just amazing to me that you are asked to list all requirements for your presentation (no one under 18; chairs or not; closed after session begins; projectors; screens; mikes; etc.) in October, when you get on site four whole months later in February, nothing has been done by of making those accommodations.

I had wanted the panel to be comprised of Pagans I knew to be bright and accomplished, to have depth and vision, and to have thought on matters thea/ological. Not necessarily to have resolved them to their own or anyone else's satisfaction; just to have a broad knowledge of theology, and Pagan approaches to theology.

My dear friend Michael York, having authored Pagan Theology, was an obvious choice for me. Plus it was his first time at PantheaCon, and he happens to teach at Cherry Hill Seminary. When Michael spoke at CoG's annual Leadership Institute (which was also CHS' Summer Intensive) last August, there were those who took issue with some of what Michael says in that book, so I chose someone I thought might offer a stimulating contrast, Gus diZerega, a prolific writer whose Pagans and Christians has proven a useful book for those engaged in interfaith dialogue. Dr. York is a sociologist retired from university teaching. Dr. diZerega's field of study is political science.

Since many Pagans, including myself, are goddess-oriented, I had planned on having two women. Anne Hill, D.Min. from University of Creation Spirituality (now Wisdom University), author, musician, poet and writer, agreed. I was unable to contact Brandy Williams, my other choice, and a pioneer in feminist Thelema,. (I knew she planned to be at the Con, but as it turned out she was only there for her own presentation on Sunday evening and not for any of the rest of the time.) So at the last minute my friend Tony Mierzwicki*, author of Graeco-Egyptian Magick: Everyday Empowerment, a Graeco-Egyptian reconstructionist whose academic background is in mathematics, gamely stepped in. I knew his perspective would be a welcome one among us mostly witchen-centric speakers.

Three of the four panelists teach or have taught -- and will again -- at Cherry Hill Seminary. In fact, I later heard people speaking of the panel as "the Cherry Hill Seminary panel." Nice, but it was mine. I did it for my own pleasure and enlightenment, and to get us thinking together about thea/ology. Not with the goal of reaching a mutually agreeable definition, not to make any kind of pronouncement, not to declare dogma. Instead, to explore, to process our thoughts, feelings and experiences as NeoPagans, of whatever stripe.

All my likely videographers fell through. I was lucky at the last minute to find Steve from the WitchSchool to record it. I'm eager to see what he got.

We were a bit slow catching fire, but catch fire we did. Not as in conflagration, rather more as warm enthusiasm. Once we got rolling, hands arose throughout the audience. I wasn't able to call on everyone whose hand was raised, but we did manage to hear from several people. Another friend, Sam Webster,** in particular challenged and encouraged us. I thank him here for some insights I gained from what he had to say.

I can't say much more and do justice to all the gems that were proffered. We'll have to wait for the video and/or a transcript. Time flew by and the room buzzed with excitement. We all had so much more to say, so much more to explore. I'm hoping to convene more panels when opportunities to do so present themselves. Perhaps at Starwood? Perhaps at Dandelion 3. Perhaps at PantheaCon '09.

All this success reinforces my desire to build the best Public Ministry programs for Pagans that I can at CHS. I do plan to include courses dealing with thea/ology. We already have a course called "World Religions from a Pagan Perspective" taught by Michael York.

My brag? I can put together a kick-ass panel, and I proved it again this time. I love hanging out with smart Pagans!

* Tony and his sweetie Jo were married on Valentine's Day. They exchanged rings made by Priest of Brigit, goldsmith Patrick McCollum, who also officiated. Their marriage was witnessed by Holli Emore and myself. It was a great way to start the long weekend.

** Sam and his wife Tara used to put on formal symposia called Pagani Soteria, where prepared speakers had a limited time to respond to the same question. They, too, were great fun. I was honored to speak at two of them.

More Photos

Here's another to which I was alerted by a Witch in South Carolina. We're doing our opening routine, "We represent the Besom Brigade...." to the tune of the Munchkin song from The Wizard of Oz. I expect more photos and will continue to post them as I learn of or receive them.*


Photo by Gary Mattingly. More here.

* I'm available to teach these routines in person.

Another One

Here's another short YouTube of our pentacle being formed and lifted. I don't know why they're two separate clips.

Here It Is!

WOW Besom Brigade performing at PantheaCon on Sunday, February 17, 2008, DoubleTree Hotel, San Jose, CA. This is only fewer than 30 seconds of a longer performance, but I feel lucky we got anything at all. I think the woman heard the commotion in the lobby and dashed towards it with her camera.

Here are two photos sent to me by Minnha, taken by her friend, Cynthia Larsen.


Here we are displaying our broom pentacle, except that
you can't see the star in this photo. Minnha flying towards
the viewer, followed by me in gray vest, then Toad.

Toad and Minnha marching in formation.

I'm hoping other photographers will post or send photos. I know there were lots. (Gary M?)

An odd thing about the besom brigade: I would think doing this would appeal to any able-bodied Witch with a sense of humor, one who doesn't take herself too seriously. Even so, we attract few, if any, younger folks, and seem to be comprised of grey-haired women and gay men. Minnha is an exception. Malendia, who practiced with us but couldn't be there for our performance, is also an exception. Michele Mueller and a few other younger women have marched with us occasionally. But overall, we tend to be hags and fags. And, boy, do we have fun!

Two Days Post-Con

I emailed the woman who said she was going to post her video of the Besom Brigade on YouTube, still no response. I'm so eager to see it! In a weekend full of highlights, performing in the WOW Besom Brigade with Victoria, Prudence Priest, Julie Epona, Minnha, Gary Suto, and Toad was one of the biggest. Malendia rehearsed with us, but couldn't stay until our Monday performance. Prudence, Victoria and I had all done it before and knew just how much fun it can be. Minha was new and loved it. I've know Gary and Toad for a long time, but this was the first time we were all in the same place at the same time and could do this together. Both have plenty of theatrical experience. Toad contributed some great new steps and gestures that really added to the polish or our routines.

When we marched through the hotel hallways and arrived at the big lobby area, this huge cheer erupted from the crowd. No one could have made her way through the lobby while we were performing because the social area in front of the fireplace, the various clusters of chairs for conversation, the open hotel bar area, and all the space around the central lobby was lined with people, sitting, standing, filling every square inch, and cheering riotously.

Cameras flashing everywhere, we made nary a mistake. Now if I could only get some photos to show you -- and to see myself.