Goddessing: Goddess Religion, Pagan Blog

Even in Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:02:00 +0000

But I know I shall be homesick for you, even in heaven.
Beth March to Jo in Robin Swicord's screenplay of Little Women

It's been too cold and rainy for the gardening I had planned to do with J, and my beloved has spent the weekend at the computer, struggling with some gnarly problems in a freelance editing job.

Sometimes, often, we don't get what he hope for. Lost spring days outdoors, after such a long, frigid winter, are especially hard to endure, as are lost weekend days with my beloved.

Bird-watching from indoors, the view of the lake, crochet, reading: small pleasures. I'm grateful, but melancholy. Gillian Armstrong's movie version of Little Women brings warmth, comfort, and the peculiar sense of companionship that comes with familiar storytelling.

Premature Capitulation

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Sexism is the story of this election year. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent people are utterly insensible to the problem is an indicator of how deeply rooted it still is.
Dr. Violet Socks

My beloved still makes me nuts when she rants about how Nader voters are responsible for the fact that we haven't had eight years of Al Gore in the White House. When I trot my logic out on her -- responsible: all the people who voted for Bush, election fraud, legislating from the [Florida Supreme Court] bench (and, oh yes, all the Democrats who stayed home and didn't bother to vote or, worse yet, crossed party lines and voted for Bush) -- she concedes my points, but the "Blame Nader" meme recurs.

Generally speaking, her logical abilities are far superior to mine. It's just that her limbic brain, traumatized by the events that unfolded around Election 2000, holds onto this misconception that Nader and his supporters lost the White House to the Republicans in 2000. She's not alone in this.

She's a feminist, so she won't be joining the "Blame Hillary" bandwagon, which has already started warming up [1, 2, 3, 4].

But back to Dr. Sock's (and other's) notions about sexism, let's just set the record straight. We really can Blame Hillary for everything bad that's happening in the world. There's no need to limit Hillary-blaming to any problems that may or may not be occurring in the Democratic Party, or that may or may not crop up in the general election this fall.

The only thing, I think, which we can't blame Hillary for is something that some blamed Kerry for in 2004: premature capitulation.

So why is Hillary persevering? That's what I asked myself on Wednesday morning, when I found myself thinking like so many others that it was, finally, time to give it up.

Knowing that Hillary is the opposite of a fool, that in fact she is brilliant and savvy, I began trying to imagine why she was holding on. Eventually, I came up with these things: (1) she has the huevos to eschew premature capitulation; (2) she's not afraid to break the gender rules and hang in for a fight, like other (male) party hopefuls have done; (3) she's not being obtuse; she can do the math and can also analyse the weighty social and political implications of superdelegate decision-making in this unique situation; (4) she's got political (and personal) agendas which most of us can only guess at (and excuse me y'all, but all people running for elected office are by definition politicians and political beings, Obama included); (5) she just might be hanging on for the good of the party and the good of the country, even though the throngs see her hanging-on as just the opposite.

And it occurs to me that regardless of her intentions, her machinations might deliver us the Dream Ticket that many were clamoring for a few months ago.

Whatever the case, I continue to admire Clinton. She's waded through a river of sexism during this campaign, with grace. And whether or not she's on the ticket in the fall, she'll continue to work for the party and for the people.

Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:12:00 +0000

We'd just remodeled the kitchen, and Sophy insisted we should have a dedication. She said the kitchen was as close as people in our culture ever got to the sacred hearth, so we ought to dedicate it as holy ground.
Carolyn, in Sheri S. Tepper's Gibbons Decline and Fall

Many the paths and no gates, ever. Many paths to allow for meandering, for as the water flows, so will we, but no gates, for every gate has a toll collector. Go through none, and none can close behind you to trap you in a place you don't belong. Track by your star; but keep an eye on your feet, for stones are set in the road to make you stumble.
Laura, quoting the teachings of Sophy, in Sheri S. Tepper's Gibbons Decline and Fall

Some of us set up places of refuge... Some of us went to the brides in India, and the girls being cut, and the mothers told to kill their baby daughters. Some went among women who were alone, teaching them to join together, for there is hope in two women, help in three women, strength in four, joy in five, power in six, and against seven, no gate may stand. Some even went among men, to tell them of the battle coming, to explain that it is not male god against male devil, nor is it female against male; it has nothing to do with gender but with dominion... Some lived, some died, but all kept a place to stand. Once you stop trying to go through the gates, it seems so much simpler. Find your sun-warmed stone, she used to say to us, find it high in the sun, dance there, build your house there, then reach down to pull others up.
Ellen, explaining Sophy's First Dispersal of women in the war against dominion, in Sheri S. Tepper's Gibbons Decline and Fall

We call her Sovanuan, Essence of Knowing... Your people might call this goddess Wisdom, or Sophia, as she was once called, when your women had a right to a female goddess. Wisdom is mysterious and hard-won. We portray her as veiled, for we can never know what she looks like, and every veil lifted shows us others behind it. We veil ourselves when we come to revere her, to remind us that Sovanuan dwells within us also, and even there is veiled from our clear sight.
Tess, one of Sophy's people, in Sheri S. Tepper's Gibbons Decline and Fall

Since you were in the trees, your people have contended, one with the other, making battles and then making peace, and then battles, and then peace again. You have been proliferate and violent, and have demanded dominion over all things. You have fought language against language, culture against culture, convulsion after convulsion. Still, even very early in your history, we saw some of you following the path intelligence must follow as it evolves, the path all thinking races follow: You were gradually learning ways that would lead to wisdom. Ways of respect for nature, ways of peace, ways of quiet cooperation.
Tess, one of Sophy's people, in Sheri S. Tepper's Gibbons Decline and Fall

Gaia Sings to Us

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:18:00 +0000

The earth is humming ... a deep, astonishing music.
How to sing like a planet

...a giant, exceptionally quiet symphony.
Earth's Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever

Durga Reincarnated

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:54:00 +0000

The baby girl Lali, born recently with two faces in a village in north India, is being worshipped as a reincarnation/emanation of Durga, the Hindu multi-eyed, multi-armed warrior goddess, mother of Ganesha, Saraswati, and Lakshmi.

The medical term describing the baby's extremely rare condition is craniofacial duplication. Though the condition often comes with serious health problems, her father says: "My daughter is fine -- like any other child."

Lali has over 100 visitors a day, who come to touch her, offer money, and receive blessings. The chief of Lali's village speaks of building a Temple to Durga, saying the baby has brought fame to his village.

Source: Baby with two faces worshipped as goddess

view from here

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:42:00 +0000

What the webcam sees.

The P Word, Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:43:00 +0000

Yo Maritzia, Terry Valladon, and the rest of you who may have decided that my recent post, The P Word, was where I called you sexist.

Whoa. Back up. What I said was that Sexism is Alive and Mysogyny is Afoot, or more precisely:

"...research and experience alike show -- no one likes women in charge. Have you heard more emphatic derision of an intelligent capable candidate in your life? The anti-Hillary venom is toxic, isn't it? All sorts of reasons are given, but in the end they come down to one thing -- gender bias aka sexism."

And I'll stand by that. The anti-Hillary venom is toxic, and gender bias is at the root of it. And yes, there's a lot of racism going on in this country, too. I don't understand Democrats who say they'll vote for Hillary, but if Barack wins they won't vote for him, or those who say they'll vote for Barack, but not for Hillary if she wins the nomination. I know that while there are individual differences, and while we've all made our decisions for a number of reasons, we're also all working, thinking, deciding, and voting in a country and a system where sexism and racism are very much alive and afoot.

Sorry if you misunderstood. I'm not calling my feminist friends or my unknown readers sexist because they have or will vote for Obama. I'm not calling myself racist because I voted for Hillary in the primary.

I asked: "Have you heard more emphatic derision of an intelligent capable candidate in your life?" I said: "The anti-Hillary venom is toxic, isn't it?" I opined that sexism was at the root of the derision and venom, and that all of us, including feminists and Pagan women alike, have to deal with our internalized sexism. If I'd been writing about racism, I'd have had to say similar things.

Oh, and I referred my readers to a few articles about gender bias working against Hillary.

I thank Goddess we have two contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination who are giving us the opportunity to look at sexism and racism in this country. And I hope to God one of them becomes our next president.

Goodness! Vote. Vote Democrat. Love your families, Live well. Prosper!

100

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:43:00 +0000

Robins have been sighted, though not by me. I saw a Yellow Finch (the "wild canary") at the feeder yesterday, and last week I heard geese overhead. Friends have seen the high-flying sandhill cranes recently, and we've all seen tips of new growth breaking through soil. There are patches still of snow here and there on the down-slope to the lake, remnants of the 100 inches of snowfall that have visited us since the first weekend of December.

It's still chilly outside, but I opened the window for a few minutes this morning to feel the air and hear the beautiful and varied songs of migrating birds I can't identify by song alone, the mystery birds who pass through on their way to locations unknown.

Life returns to the landscape. Any day now the leaves of the bloodroot will unfurl, and soon I'll be out in the yard, burning the last of the fall leaves, working with J to transplant things as we continue to sculpt the non-wild parts of the yard.

There will be a bit of sculpting of the wild, too. A large stack of branches from tree-work done in the fall didn't make it to the burn pile, and they quickly became the daytime home of the house wrens, who darted between them and the feeder all winter long. So, those branches won't be burned. They'll be untangled and moved to a spot by the wood pile just inside the little thicket between the yard and the lake. A blessing of winter's sudden and continuous downfall of snow: a new home for the house wrens.

Lest we forget...

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:10:00 +0000

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
Morgan Robin quoting Hillary Clinton's speech defying the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, and so much more, in her rousing article, "Goodbye to All That (#2)"

Charter

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:33:00 +0000

I called my local cable company yesterday, made my way to the "remove service" department, told the young woman that I needed to cut some of my services to meet my budget, and after some this-and-that'ing ("you could drop the sports channels and save $5.00"), she found me a whole new price structure for my bundle (telephone, broadband, cable TV). Poof! My monthly fees are now $30.00 less, with all services intact. I probably would have dropped sports channels, and movie channels, and whatever it took to lower my bill by $25, but I love living in an era when I can watch women's collegiate basketball on television.

Now it seems criminal to me that they didn't automatically switch me to the new bundle price when it became available, but that's neither here nor there. That they found a way to make me happy by lowering my monthly bill without making me give up anything is, well, a good thing.

Score 1 for the little ~~guy~~ gal.

The P Word

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:30:00 +0000

I understand my hopeful friends who think an Obama button will change America. But I'm sticking with Hillary. I trust her because all her life, her pro bono work has been for mothers and children. And mothers and children -- of all colors -- are the most oppressed group in our country. I trust her to speak for our children and grandchildren -- and for us. She always has.
Erica Jong, Hillary vs. the Patriarchy

My feminist friends are not likely to be part of a voting bloc. I'm the only one of us who is a firm vote for Clinton. Oh, they'd like to vote for her. Of course they would. And of course they think she'd make a great president.

So what's the problem? Practical concerns mainly. Which Democrat is most electable? Did I say concerns? No, something stronger. Fear? PTSD? Understandable really, given the hijinks that put a little bush in the White House two terms in a row. But it's an interesting question nonetheless. A few months ago, I'd have said Hillary was most electable, because she's proven herself to be a brilliant campaign strategist in several electoral contests, including those of her husband. Obama's ability to outfundraise her recently is a concern, but it points to an interesting difference between the two: her strongest support is from families that make less than 50K per year, his from families that make substantially more. He's charismatic. I like him. But I'd guess he's as conservative as Hillary, and as Erica Jong says, "I have nothing against him except his inexperience."

Republicans are praying, literally, for Hillary to win the Democratic nomination. I guess they don't think she's electable. Or maybe, they know what research and experience alike show -- no one likes women in charge. Have you heard more emphatic derision of an intelligent capable candidate in your life? The anti-Hillary venom is toxic, isn't it? All sorts of reasons are given, but in the end they come down to one thing -- gender bias aka sexism.

And we all know that's not a one-way street. We pagan women do our own fair share of struggling against female authority. I won't try to convince you, I'll leave that to others who've looked at the research and put it out there for us all to examine:

Clinton Battles Unconscious Bias Against Strong Women (Daisy Grewal and Elena Grewal, The San Jose Mercury News

When Women Rule (Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times)

25 Ways

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:02:00 +0000

2008. What a nice, solid number. Numerically, it's a product of 4 (4 x 502), which signifies stability, orderliness, practicality. Through digit summing it reduces to 1, which signifies new beginnings, quests.

We spent New Year's Day cleaning the house. Not glamorous, or exciting, or even festive, but practical. Magically, I'd say we set our domestic intentions for the year. Perhaps we sealed them ... we worked hard before the holidays on another round of decluttering, de-accessioning, and re-organizing. A major bathroom reconstruction project started here on Monday, so we've been preparing the house for the kinds of temporary chaos such a thing brings with it.

Last year brought some important transitions: a new start on recovering health and mobility and a new lifestyle based around cooking and eating gluten-free; recovery from the three-year depression following from my nephew's suicide and from the biological and logistical complications of symptomatic Celiac Disease; analysis of our financial patterns and an action plan for the upcoming 10 years and the retirement years that come after that; and spiritually, a new personal mythology and practice based on past studies/experiences and current realities.

I'm also in the earth year of my four-year series: health, hearth, heart, earth, so naturally my focus is rather practical. This morning, I found my way to Frugal for Life's 25 Ways I Save Money and have been reading it and the 43 other 25 Ways posts spawned from it. Many items are common to most lists, and to my own frugal ways, but here are a few I'd like to add this year:

1. Migrate to a new online-banker with fee-free and high-interest savings accounts. I started on this in late 2007, and I've finally settled on WaMu's Free Checking and Online Savings accounts.
2. Cut dryer sheets into halves, or thirds, or quarters. My beloved is a dryer-sheet devotee whereas I could live without. In relationships you choose your battles, and dryer-sheets were never on my list, but experimenting with using less seems reasonable.
3. Explore new sources for deals on necessary expenses: Fatwallet, Slickdeals,
4. Put all appliances on a power strip. Now I've known about this for some time and just haven't got around to doing it. Now's the time....
5. Use an Amazon.com Rewards Credit Card and rack up rewards which can be used for gifts. Hmmm.
6. Someone mentioned popping her own corn versus using Microwave. Well, I've never liked Microwave popcorn, but I have ruined a stock pot or two with burned popcorn. So, it's time to buy a popcorn maker of some kind and consider spending money to save. I'll add this to my research list. Speaking of research, none of the 25 Ways bloggers mentioned using Consumer Reports. We subscribe yearly. It's a tremendous tool for shopping research.
7. Mail gifts in USPS Priority Mail flat rate boxes and envelopes. Meredith says: "Weight is no object as long as my gift fits in the free, flat rate boxes."
8. Pay half your mortgage every 2 weeks instead of once per month. Hmmm. I'll have to check that one out.
9. Make a price list (or price book) of the things you regularly shop for, so you can compare prices when shopping to know whether you're about to overpay on an item and when the prices are good for stocking up. I've been doing something that's on its way to a price book since I started cooking and eating gluten-free, which can be a very expensive enterprise (both pocketbook- and glycemic-wise), especially at first.
10. Make your own dryer sheets and your own laundry detergent, like Jenn.
11. Eat from smaller plates and bowls to reduce portions. Hmmm. That would give a double-benefit.
12. Buy coffee beans and grind. (I use my grinder for flax seeds; why can't it do double duty?)
13. Search for virtual coupons for online shopping.

And, because I like things that make me laugh, or even smile, here are a few favorite lines from various of the 25 Ways bloggers:

"The lights are turned off when no-one is in the room. I don't live in a lighthouse." ~Hammy
"Try to drive in a way that won't get me pulled over." ~livingdeb
"Beans. They're cheap. They're healthy. They're a lot more filling if you combine them with a little meat." ~The Duchy of Burgundy Carrots

Food Shortages

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:02:00 +0000

Thinking about holiday gift-giving? I must admit I don't think about that much. As a kid I hated the commercialization of Christmas, even while loving Christmas presents. Mainly I hated how Christmas crowded out Thanksgiving. Then there was the wee problem of having a birthday 9 days before Christmas and the inevitable one present for both occasions, and the juvenile sense of injustice about that. Bah, Humbug! Not fair!

I've long since outgrown those feelings and concerns, but the lasting effect remains: I don't get jazzed over birthday giving or Christmas giving. I fight to keep those from being chores; I never know how to respond when asked what I want; in a world of choices, it seems hard to go for fun and whimsy with my dollar in view of the long list of needed things.

One of my two favorite childhood Christmas experiences happened the year we didn't give family gifts at all. Instead, we spent our money buying Christmas gifts for a single-parent family living on the very edge of poverty. I have no idea where my mother got her information, but we bought presents for a mother who was going to get nothing, her son who was only going to get a belt, and her daughter who was going to get a pair of shoes wrapped as a gift from Santa. I've rarely had so much fun shopping. It was easy to imagine a stranger's thrill at finding unexpected fun and whimsy wrapped in boxes on Christmas morning.

Last year, my sister and I bought each other items from our necessaries list. Not glamorous, not fun, but needed. And in each case, we bought the other something she needed but hadn't made herself willing to spend for.

This year, I've decided where my few holiday spending dollars are going. Food banks all over this country are experiencing extreme shortages. Demand is up. Supply is down. Emergency reserves are being tapped. Some food banks are folding because they no longer have anything to give. According to a New York Times article:

Experts attributed the shortages to an unusual combination of factors, including rising demand, a sharp drop in federal supplies of excess farm products, and tighter inventory controls that are leaving supermarkets and other retailers with less food to donate.

A sharp drop in federal supplies of excess farm products ... this from the bread basket of the world? Lovelock predicts great food shortages over the coming decades. Perhaps the U.S. foodbank crisis is a sign of things to come. I'm counting my blessings. For now, my small family is able to meet our food needs. Feeding friends, in fact, is my favorite form of gift-giving. This year, I'm adding strangers to that list. Second Harvest helps feed the 103,000 people (including nearly 39,000 children) in southwestern Wisconsin who aren't able to meet their own hunger needs. Second Harvest takes food and financial donations, and partners with 370 food pantries, meal sites/soup kitchens, shelters, senior centers, daycare programs and Kids Cafes in 16 counties in this part of the country.

My sister and brother-out-law are coming here for the holidays, a rare event. We'll feed them well. My writers' group meets here tonight. I'll feed them well. This year, I'll also be feeding the hungry, not by making food, or serving at soup kitchens, or even by buying canned and boxed goods to deliver to a food pantry. Those things are out of my range of possibility, given the mobility limitations that come with my disabilities. Making a donation online? That I can do, and will.

The Face of Gaia

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:27:00 +0000

Gaia is a tough bitch.
(James Lovelock, quoting a colleague)
The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock

I recommend this very readable article on James Lovelock, who postulated the Gaia Theory (Earth is a living, self-regulating, superorganism), and on his ideas about climate change, civilization, and what choices we humans have in terms of life as we know it and life as it will be in the next 10 to 100 years.

Lovelock is writing his fourth book about Gaia, the first three being Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, The Ages of Gaia, and The Revenge of Gaia.

Many scientists disagree with the warnings and predictions Lovelock writes about in his third book, but many of them who today agree with his Gaia Theory disagreed with it when it was published.

In Lovelock's view, it's too late to reverse the damage we've inflicted on this lovely, formerly blue, planet. He's convinced that radical changes are just ahead of us and that while "the planet itself will eventually recover its equilibrium, even if it takes millions of years," the survival of human civilization is not so certain. He suspects that by the end of this century, the earth's human population, currently 6.6 billion, will be reduced to about 500 million. How we'll be living then is anybody's guess: perhaps in a Dark Age of feudalism or, if we're smart and start thinking now about what's apparent all around us, in some kind of enlightened relationship with each other, the planet, and our role as "the brains and nervous system of Gaia."

Last year, when I read about Lovelock's third book and contemplated his conviction (despite personal optimism) that it's too late to save the planet from the logical consequences of what we've done to it, I was oddly calmed. That question, "what more can I do to save this planet," the one that had driven me like so many of us for 25 years or more, finally had some definitive answers.

Fifty-something and disabled, there's truthfully very little more I can do. Oh of course I'll continue to reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink. My partner will up telecommuting from one day a week to two as soon as possible. Our next vehicle will be a hybrid. We'll finally do what's taken some time for the squeamish one of us to get behind: worm composting. We keep the thermostat low in the winter and high in the summer, and dress accordingly (our friends know to dress for the indoor temperatures when they visit). Already most of what we eat is produced and purchased locally, is organic, and, in the case of animal protein, is free range.

Above and beyond these and other responsible acts? I have my answer: Be conscious, each moment possible, of the beauty of life around and within me. Be conscious, be grateful, be awed. Marvel at the sound of sandhill cranes flying high above me as they migrate south. Feel the power and life-force of the broad-shouldered hawk that perches in the oaks between me and the lake. Speak the 10,000 names of the colors of water and sky in their daily variety. Love more, and be open to being loved more. Dream in winter of bloodroot in spring. Heal myself. Help others. Love the earth. Be here now.

Reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:24:00 +0000

A bright mid-afternoon sun floods white houses on the far side of the pale blue lake, its beauty and light reflected back this way. Earlier, when the sun was higher in the sky, it was the season's first snow that reflected back all that light.

In the light of the bright cold day, birds feed vigorously.

The woman of the house anticipates her first solitary thanksgiving meal, turkey, wild rice, cranberries, roots.

Solitude spotlights soul in this early-winter retreat; five days of solitude, days out of time. A friend's tale sets the ritual, daily rice offerings to Inari, Shinto kami, goddess, nature spirit, white fox.

Glass Ceiling

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:10:00 +0000

This week's best laugh came when I read the following, from a 50-something blogger's experience of hitting menopause and the glass ceiling at the same time:

It was clear to everyone but me that I could go no further in my career without a penis of my very own. I confess I had considered buying one and just putting it on the table in front of me when attending meetings in conference rooms or possibly displaying my purchased penis prominently in my office, but good judgment got the better of me.
"How it Began" at My Menopausal Musings

Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:12:00 +0000

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.
Joanna Macy

Falling Off the Red Wagon

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:35:00 +0000

An indication that you might be getting "a little too woohoo… who?" (aka uncentered):

If you are able to love the world deeply in your meditations, but spaz out when someone cuts you off in traffic.
(from WooHoo ... Who? by Sera Beak, author of
The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach
To Igniting Your Divine Spark)

Pagan Hierarchy

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:18:00 +0000

...who looks down on whom...
(Ashley Yakeley's tree chart: The Pagan Hierarchy)

Hilarious, exhaustive, and a fun poke at all of us.

According to Yakeley's chart, I'm looked down on by

Published Pagan Scholars, All Other Published Pagan Authors, and Published Authors (LLewelyn).
Mystical Visionaries, Feri and other Ecstatic Amoral Witches, Reclaiming and Other Activist Witches, and Dianic Witches.

Apparently, I look down on politically-motivated Goddess Worshippers and probably: Channelers, Mediums, and Spiritualists; People Who Think They Were Historical Figures in a Past Life; People Who Think They're Dragons, Faeries, or Otherkin, and possibly: Schizophrenics / Mystical Visionaries.

So it's fun, and an interesting mirror for looking up, down, side-ways, and within. And it also captures how the "someones" we're sometimes looking down on are (gosh) ourselves, and how we sometimes have a really hard time defining for ourselves just what kind of "Pagan" we are.

Power

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:56:00 +0000

In the thicket and up the hill, the morning's mist is giving way to the rising sun. But over the lake, water calls to water and the mist resists even the power of the sun.

Community as a Path

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:23:00 +0000

IM: Most Westerners don't seem to be very attracted to community as a path. Perhaps one reason is because that path clashes with our cultural belief in the primacy of the individual, the importance of going it alone.

AA: I would agree. Community life is about setting aside my own desires for the sake of the group. It's self-sacrifice. To the individualist, that sounds like death. But the training in communality is, for many Westerners, a blessed shift in perspective. Because what makes us suffer most of all in life is having "me" at the center of it all. Our society supports and validates that attitude, which has led to deep feelings of alienation and insecurity.
Inquiring Mind interview (12:1) of Buddhist Monk Ajahn Amaro, as reprinted at The Path to Nirvana

Spiritual Practice intersection Life

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:01:00 +0000

In the West people tend to separate their meditation practice from their lives. Ajahn Chah emphasized that "if you have time to breathe you have time to meditate." You breathe when you walk. You breathe when you stand. You breathe when you lie down.
Buddhist Monk Ajahn Amaro, Inquiring Mind interview (12:1), as quoted at The Path to Nirvana

Do we, as Pagans, separate our practice from our lives? We could easily say no. Our spiritual practices are intimately bound up with our lives. And yet it's an interesting question.

No doubt in the middle of activism or yard-work we're at an intersection of Pagan practice and life. When we work at our altars, our focus is usually about our lives, here and now (or a soon-to-be present). But what about when walking, talking on the phone, buying groceries, doing laundry, taking the kids to soccer, doing our money-work, arguing with our spouses? Do we separate those things out from what we consider to be spiritual practice?

We're a diverse lot, so one Pagan's spiritual practice is not necessarily another's. Some of us meditate for quieting the mind, some for being fully present with the mind, others for giving deep mind the time to communicate with conscious mind. Some of us don't meditate at all, considering meditation a non-Pagan spiritual practice.

These days, my mind is full of what I see — beauty, order, leaves turning yellow; of what I hear — the chit of the chipmonk, the chatter of birds at the feeder, the deep tones of the alto chimes hanging high in the oak by the porch; of what I feel — awe and pride and gratitude at my healing and recovery, a deeper, more complex love for my spouse, fear, uncertainty, urgency, hope; of what I do — cook, clean, craft, create wealth. The Goddess most in my mind and heart is Hestia — domestic flame, She Who has no human form. In Hestia, in the hearth, the mystic is deeply rooted in the mundane.

Harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:52:00 +0000

She told him about Blooming, about its emphasis on the importance of the patient attention necessary to bring a dormant possibility into being, and of the danger posed by the constant distraction of more immediate demands that are more easily and less effortfully fulfilled.
Zanja, in Laurie Mark's Water Logic

Spindly phlox, a sprinkling of mums, diminutive obedience plants, small-leaf hostas, magnificent sedums, and the steadfast knock-out roses -- these are the last of the blooming perennials in the yard. Here in south-central Wisconsin a cold fall is upon us, though warmer days ahead are predicted, and as my ninth growing season at this home comes to an end, I can look back to April's earliest bloomers, the bloodroot and Dutchman's breeches, and see that I've realized what I knew was possible -- perennials in continuous bloom, providing color in the yard for the entire growing season.

The lake was calm this morning, despite a steady breeze, a single fishing boat on it. The out-of-towners are nearing the end of their weekend visits, and soon our little neighborhood of houses tucked under oaks and maples will resume its seasonal stillness and quiet.

An early Equinox gathering on Saturday night brought good friends to the house for a gluten-free harvest feast -- black-bean and white-bean soups to represent the time of equal darkness and light, salad greens, my first gluten-free cornbread, and a crisp made from a gift of Wolf River apples. A platter of fruit and flowers were laid before Tara, harvest tales were told, words of gratitude spoken, and hopes and dreams for the coming year spiraled out into the universe on waves of sound from womens' drums.

Beautiful Water

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:50:00 +0000

... just a glint of water was visible in the distance through trees and bushes. The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.
Lauren Olamina in Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower

In Loving Memory of Shekhinah Mountainwater

noreply@blogger.com (Sage) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:54:00 +0000

From Ruth Rhiannon Barrett
(shared here with Ruth's permission)

Muse-possessed poet, priestess, witch, musician, lover of the Goddess, chant writer extraordinaire, teacher, seeker, mother, artist, author of Ariadne’s Thread and creator of Womanrunes. How many other ways will she be remembered?

A general email letter arrived just a few days before my partner and I traveled to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival where we were teaching and involved in a variety of events. The email informed me that it appeared Shekhinah’s illness had brought her closer to the end of her life. I wrote her a letter to let her know that I loved her and appreciated her. The week long festival was filled with powerful experiences, elders discussions and ceremonies for healing Gaia. There was no way to be reached there with news from the outside. I don’t know if my letter arrived before Shekhinah passed in the afternoon of Saturday, August 11th. I heard the news of her passing by way of a cell phone message, sitting stunned in the parking lot at a local market on August 13th where we stopped after festival to pick up some drinks on our way home.

We arrived home in Wisconsin late on Tuesday, August 14th, to read that Shekhinah’s funeral had already happened that very day. My numbness at the finality of the news finally broke through my heart. I was not going to be flying to California to pay my last respects with community around her. It was already done.

This is my letter to honor my old friend, early teacher, mentor, and sister. I hope to provide a few small windows into earlier times that show Shekhinah’s genius. If you wish, you may share my letter with anyone who wishes to read what I am sharing here on August 15th in the early dawn hours.

In the early 1970’s there wasn’t yet a goddess movement, where words like “witch” and “priestess” were not in our vocabulary. The stirring and converging ingredients of anti-Vietnam war activists, ecology back-to-the land folk, women’s liberation feminists, and mind expanding Jungian and eastern meditators and hippies (many who became the founders of the early pagan revival in the U.S.) were all bubbling together in the cauldron of change. Shekhinah was a woman who embodied these times, influenced these times, and the times that followed.

There have been few mentors in my life that truly helped shape the direction of my goddess and musical path. Shekhinah was the first, I met Shekhinah 35 years ago, in 1972 when we were both performing at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in southern California. She had a different name then, and I would be asked to call her several other names in the years that followed before she settled on Shekhinah
Mountainwater. It was the young man who would later become my daughter’s father with tears on his eyes insisted that I come to watch and listen as a young woman with her guitar and wild black hair together with her two children enacted myths and fairy tales in music and dance on the dusty faire paths. Shekhinah and her two children, Freya and Frey, called themselves “The Sybil” and they were magical in the truest sense. I was mesmerized at the beauty and spirituality they all embodied, working as one to bring their audience into a state of enchantment. They were what today we would call ”performance artists” and what we called then, “sacred theatre.”

It was through a shared love of the old traditional ballads and myths that she and I made our first (and lasting) connection. The White Goddess by Robert Graves was her bible, and her love of tarot divination inspired her many original songs.

In 1975 I moved to Santa Cruz, California to do independent folklore study at the University. It was here where The Sybil and I often shared our music together at a small club in the Santa Cruz mountains, and leaned on one another for support and inspiration. I was blessed to participate in Shekhinah’s first teaching circle at her home in Ben Lomand. In a circular yurt in the red wood forest that she called “the moon hut” she held our weekly classes for several hours every “Moonday”. As I am writing this I open my tattered but intact journal from this magical year-and-a-day journey to read its title, “Women’s Mysteries and Sacred Theatre”. Names of my circle sisters – Meg, Leslie, Lynn, Lefka, Sherry, are written under the list of books Shekhinah recommended. As I leaf through the journal, I read my notes of our discussions that resulted in agreements for our Pact of Sisterhood that completed our learning together, what we were taking responsibility to create in our lives, with other women, and in the world. I read my notes about the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and rituals of our mysteries and rites of life. Shekhinah also originated the MA chant that I would later bring into the rituals of the Dianic tradition. Our classes were not neck up. Shekhinah was teaching us how to become ecstatic, and how through ecstatic states the Goddess guides us, shows us, tells, us, what She wants us to know and do. Our class culminated in a sacred theatre presentation open to invited guests, of the Demeter and Persephone myth. Shekhinah gave roles to our circle based on what would challenge us to stretch into, and not based on any physical type casting. The ritual role itself would reveal its mystery to the woman who took it on.

I moved back to Los Angeles, California in the fall of 1976. I missed Shekhinah and her children, and our contact lessened. After my ordination in 1980, and the eventual formation of Circle of Aradia, I was able to bring Shekhinah to teach my students on a semi-regular basis. It was very important to me that my own community knew her and had opportunities to learn directly from the woman that had been such a primary influence in their own teacher’s life. My other favorite way to share Shekhinah was to sing and teach Shekhinah’s songs and chants through workshops, ritual’s and my own recordings. I made certain that it was known who wrote the chant “We Are The Flow”, and her numerous other chants that had been long a part of the fabric of the goddess and neo-pagan movements. When her book Ariadne’s Thread was published, many more women were able to learn from her.

Over the decades I repeatedly heard from her that she felt unseen, unappreciated, and unrecognized as one of the foremothers of the goddess spirituality movement. Although I would constantly tell her that this was not at all my own experience, this belief caused her continuous resentment and pain. I hope and pray that toward the end of her life she was able to fully receive the recognition she earned and that was there for her all along.

So as it is with all of us, we will pass on and leave behind our legacy. I will continue my commitment to carry Shekhinah’s teachings, love of the Goddess, magic, and mysteries as they live in me. She will be lovingly remembered by all of her daughters, sisters, and friends in our ritual and singing circles, and daily lives.

May her spirit be sheltered in the arms of the Mother she loved so deeply, and may she know deep peace. I will miss you and remember you, my sister.

Ruth Barrett
www.templeofdiana.org