Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Pagans in the News

It's a relief to know people are starting to take paganism seriously. I hope that this article will be reprinted in Pagan newsletters all across the web. Below I have posted some highlights. This article paints a rather rosy picture of the Bay - I have several covenmates who do not feel comfortable talking about their spirituality at their work place (not that I think that should be a common experience, but I think people should be able to freely talk about what they do on the holidays!). It is critical now to establish this kind of safe haven across the U.S. so that people like us do not feel the need to hide.

May we take council from our ancestors, and may they light our path.

Samhain: Pagan celebration honoring the dead


...Bay Area witches said they don't need to hide their brooms in any closets. Several witches, in fact, stepped up eagerly to lay claim to the "pagan Martha Stewart" apron.

(That apron would surely be black. Said Starhawk: "Witches often do wear black because night is a time of power and mystery, and also because black is slenderizing and doesn't show dirt.")

"Martha and I both find crafty uses for herbs, flowers, home decoration and recipes," said Rabbit, proprietor of the Sacred Well metaphysical shop in Oakland and high priestess of the Come As You Are Coven. She added, rather craftily, "Our definitions of 'craft' might be different."

...The big events on Saturday include a spiral dance at Kezar Pavilion, where there will be altars set up for air, fire, water and earth, as well as for guests to honor their dead. One might call it Bay Area paganism's annual coming-out party - except that here witches feel little need to hide.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Making Rain

Near sunset on Friday, October 3rd, a cluster of witches gathered in a park behind a yoga studio in Berkeley. The witches stored their non-essentials in the yoga studio and headed outside with blankets, rhythmic instruments, and cookies and wine as an offering to the gods and goddesses. They built an altar and laid the blankets in a circle as the evening darkness settled in. When they were all ready to begin, one of the witches cast a circle with an umbrella. It began to sprinkle, without any chants or spells having been done! The witches screeched and hooted in pleasure, as two High Priestesses stepped into the middle to call Hera and Ixchel...

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Magical Theory

A friend of mine recently asked me, “How do you think magic works?”

After thinking a couple of minutes, I replied, “I think it’s something that science just hasn’t explained yet, it’s a relationship between a person’s will and the surrounding universe. Kind of like in quantum physics, they’ve discovered that particles shift when observed. I think that’s how magic works.”

Of course, I think how it works is secondary to the fact that it works, although I think talking about what you can do to make magic more effective is important. How many spells have you experimented with and seen a direct outcome later on? If a spell backfires, is there at least a part of you that still thrills that the spell worked at all?

Some spells won’t work, for a number of reasons. Sometimes you aren’t ready for the outcome of the spell, you don’t believe you deserve what you’re asking for, or perhaps you don’t really need the outcome of the spell.

I think I am going to begin a spell journal. I will write the spells I perform, the day they are cast, and the outcome when it happens. This might be tricky considering that a lot of people believe that a spell will only work if you forget that you did it so that the universe and your subconscious mind can make it happen. I’m inclined to agree. Solution: writing down the spell right after it is done, and not looking at that entry until one moon cycle later (or however long the spell is supposed to take), being sure to make a note on the calendar to look at the book at that time (but not making a note of why).

When we cast a spell, we are reaching out to the divine, to spirits, to our ancestors, gods, goddesses, our higher self, or our unconscious mind- whatever is the holy vehicle to carry out the magic. That aspect of the universe takes the magic and instigates change, like the effects of observation on subatomic particles. The change happens, and our spell returns to us. Or, for whatever reason, it doesn’t, and we either find what we did wrong or end up re-casting the spell over and over until we figure it out.

What if all the pagans in the United States all cast a spell on the same day to say, help impeachment charges be brought against the President? Would we see any effects? Would that be meddling? I mean, I don’t think I’ve met a single pagan who thinks that Bush is doing a great (or even good) job, so I don’t think it’s out of line to request something like this or organize a bunch of us to do this. A friend of mine posted a spell for magical justice to get gay marriage legalized in the state of California, and I think a lot of people were doing magic toward that goal. In any case, gay marriage was made legal in this state, and we all feel like we did something. Maybe it’s something that would have happened anyway, but I can’t help but feel like we had a part in it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Dream in July, of Horses

I was working on land owned by a free farmer with a medium sized stead. I took care of the horses and performed miscellaneous tasks around the place. One particular mare I had cared for and trained since her birth. She was about two years by the time of my dream.
The land was owned by a middle aged couple who had one or two children of their own, but their children were still young, and they were growing old. I was in my early twenties in the dream, and I remembered that I had stayed at the farmstead since I was adolescent, working off some sort of bond. Was it set by my parents, had they given me up as some sort of tribute, or just couldn’t feed me themselves any more? I do not know.

A breach of trust happened, or I perceived a breach of trust as happening. Either way, I decided it was best for me to leave. I gathered some provisions from the store house and readied the horse that I had raised, riding out just as the sun rose in an overcast sky. Though my processing conscious mind was unfamiliar with the culture in my dream, I understood the mare was my due. I had worked off my bond and had been staying there as a free woman, for some time by that point, because the owners of the land were kind to me. At the moment, however, I felt I had been wronged, so I was not thieving by taking the mare; at the same time, I tried to leave without saying goodbye, so in that way I was leaving in shame.

Once I had ridden some distance from the compound, I saw the lord and lady of the land riding hard on my trail, calling after me. Their tones sounded apologetic, and they said things like, “Come back, girl, we need to speak with you – this isn’t what you think it is.”

What was my name? Fiona? Faustina? Freya? I do not remember, and I could be inserting this retroactively into my memory, but they called a name beginning in “f” and ending in “ah” – I slowed, they caught up with me, breathing as hard as their horses. They began to explain their apology, and why they had chased me all that way, when I woke up.

The very first thing I remembered about the dream was galloping through scrub brush (sage?) on low sloping hills under a cloudy sky, with my fibrous (linen?) skirts and my cloak billowing behind me. I saw that my mare was a dusty dapple grey. The woman was astride a pale dun mare, and the man rode a black stallion.

I woke up with the feeling of that dream happening a long, long time ago.

Mindblowing Magickal Experience

It’s difficult to pull thoughts from thin air, to find the right words at exactly the right time. I don’t have much time to write, so I’ll try to freestyle and make as much sense as possible for now.
I attended an amazing gathering of Dianic witches last weekend. I went by chance to a gathering in the redwoods. I say by chance because my High Priestess just happened to have an extra space for Gathering the Goddesses. Having read Z. Budapest intermittently since my awakening to the old ways, wanting for years and years to attend a large gathering of witches such as this, I expressed my interest in going.

I danced with over a hundred other women in the firelight. I shed my clothing and danced naked as I was when came into this world (except for the red cord tied around my waist in initiation, not unlike the cord that ties us all to the Mother). I grew closer to my sisters by leaps and bounds, and two and a half days felt like a week, but I wanted it to be a month.

Time became thin. We raised immense amounts of energy and worked magic on behalf of the well-being of humanity, and we discovered new aspects of ourselves and each other. We celebrated our potential for creation, our flow of life, and our natural intuitions, our distinct talents and traits as women.

I won an Epona necklace in a silent auction, and I will be working with her more now.

In Memoriam (a sestina)

The land basked in peaceful autumn morning light
On the day the city streets were flooded with dust.
In a matter of hours our President spoke of war
while planning to pack up and ship off the mangled steel.
Evidence would be removed from the scene and the country
Leaving us to live with questions, anger, and fear.

Leaders learned long ago they could use our fear
To summon darkness in the midst of light.
For the sake, they said, of defending our country
our enemies would be forced to eat our dust.
Meanwhile, they used the demolished towers of steel
To take away our rights and rally our nation into war.

For seven years we have waged a war,
using vague threats of terrorism to propagate fear,
Now some people are asking, what about the steel?
Traces of Thermate® brought new questions to light
and how the towers collapsed into neat piles of dust…
Who benefitted? We must ask the leaders of this country.

We have been lied to by the leaders of this country
terrorism is not a tribe or nation that can be fought with war.
We ignore the slow deaths of the workers who breathed in the dust
but the immediate victims’ names have been abused to fuel our fear.
Nothing is truly free in the home of the brave, light,
While the media tells us lies about how jet fuel melted steel.

To make any change we must make our wills be like steel,
overturn the Patriot Act, and make this land the people's country.
We must have courage in the darkness and share the truth as light,
Otherwise we will find ourselves the next enemy in their war.
We must not let ourselves be imprisoned by our own fear;
we must realize that we can turn their empire into dust.

What would we have found, sifting through all the dust?
The souls of corpses recovered from concrete and steel,
did they die in vane? Would they wish for us to live in fear?
We must be the ones to redeem our country
From the horrors of this fabricated privatized war.
We must reignite the flame of freedom’s light.

If we fail to face our fear, if we keep mourning the clouds of dust
The terror infusing us will snuff out our light and our hearts will turn into steel.
We must fight to save our country, win back our freedoms, and end the war.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Poem to the Goddess

I am a fierce woman.

I light the sky with my smile.

Stars twinkle across the plain of my hair.

I run naked across the grasses.

I hunt deer with a longbow, and forage for berries.

I take comfort from friends, but can fulfill my own needs.

I am happy to be with my lover, but content to be alone.

I am a fierce woman.

I am free.