The winding path

As the subtitle of this blog suggests, I've been a long time coming to my religion, and I've resisted much of the way. Raised a Lutheran in the American Midwest among more fundamentalist Christians, Jewish friends, and one or two Muslim and Buddhist classmates, I knew little of religious diversity. Fortunately, my parents taught me tolerance for, even appreciation of, difference. They sent me to my friends' bar and bat mitzvahs and explained that of course the Jews were going to heaven; they welcomed my young boyfriends, whether African-American or Chinese-Buddhist. It was the 1980s, and what I heard of the New Age movement was that it was all crystals and psuedo-psychics in California (and the White House!).

I didn't hear about Paganism or Witchcraft as spiritual practices until my first year of college, when a friend gave me a copy of Starhawk's Dreaming the Dark. Reading it, I was both fascinated and dismissive. That was 1988. My college years saw me in and out of the Lutheran Church, as I read Mary Daly and texts from the women's spirituality movement and wondered if I could be both feminist and Christian. (If one had to go, it was going to be Christianity. Feminism was my real religion.) As I contemplated graduate school, I seriously considered attending a Lutheran seminary. I was going to be a revolutionary, using feminine pronouns for God and fighting for full inclusion of gay clergy and parishioners. I was going to be a progressive Martin Luther, with all of the sex and none of the sexism (or anti-Semitism). But that fever passed, and I entered a graduate program in philosophy, where I tried my damndest to be an atheist, or at least pass as one - atheism being the favored religion of academia.

Were I to recount the strange dance of attraction and repulsion that's brought me to where I stand now on my spiritual path - well, I would have to write a book to sort through everything. I hardly know myself how I've gotten here. Like many Pagans, I have stories from my childhood about intense experiences in nature (one that stands out took place in a grove at my fundamentalist Bible camp). As an adolescent I would sometimes sit in church and imagine dancing naked through the sanctuary. (Of course, naked dancing is now part of my spiritual practice.) Feminism helped light my way to the Goddess. Somehow I escaped many, if not all, of my parents' and culture's repressive attitudes toward sex. I read a lot. My cast of mind mixes openness with scepticism. And I have found a tradition, ever-changing and re-making itself, that loves what I love: the earth, our bodies, ecstacy, imagination, play, fire, music, sex, open inquiry, and love.

Updating the rolls

I'm enjoying myself updating this site. You'll see that I've divided the blogroll into "Fellow Travelers" (blogs, mostly), "Resources" (organizations and media), and "The Tasteful Witch" (things to buy). Do make suggestions in the comments if there is something I've missed, but be warned: blogs must be updated frequently and include more discussion than a rote diary, resources need to be established (rather than fly-by-night) and useful, and "the tasteful witch" must meet my exacting aesthetic standards - I appreciate kitsch, but I hate tacky. In addition, if a site is poorly designed, difficult to read or use - forget it. I can't stand blinking images, corny music, overlapping text, or obtuse navigation. On the other hand, I adore gorgeously-designed sites (and with I had either the talent or the money to meet my own standards on this site). And I treasure sites that offer for sale something other than the usual, mass-produced cauldron-athame-bumpersticker. So if you know of a site that's erudite, beautiful, and/or unique, do let me know.

The natural order of things

I heard a bizarre radio commentary this afternoon on a Christian radio station. I've looked around the 'net to see if I could find a link to it, to no avail. (I can't remember the name of the speaker nor the name of his new book.) The speaker was talking about how he's learned the importance of following the earth's natural order. Sounds pagan, right? He didn't say, "God's natural order," he said the earth's natural order. His example was as follows (and I'm probably missing some details, so bear with me). A community in Africa was suffering from malaria. The World Health Organization, in order to stem the spread of malaria, sprayed the thatched houses in the village with DDT (I believe this was a number of years ago). Unfortunately, the DDT killed not only the mosquitoes, but also the predator of some insect who eats straw. As a result, the thatched roofs caved in. Geckos ate the straw-eating insect and became sick from DDT; cats at the geckos and became sick. As the cats died, the rats began to take over. So the WHO parachuted cats into the village to eat the rats.

The speaker's point was that by spraying the people's homes with DDT, "the bureaucrats at the World Health Organization" ignored the natural order of things and made a big mess. Now I'm inclined to agree with that assessment stated thus. However, the speaker implied that the WHO shouldn't have interfered in the first place, unfortunately also implying that letting people grow sick and die of malaria is part of "the natural order of things." But let's give the speaker the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't mean that, even though he said nothing about saving people from malaria.

Then the speaker made a fabulous leap of illogic: he compared interference in the malaria case with homosexuality and non-monogamy. That is, just as the WHO interefered with the natural order of things by spraying for mosquitos, so do human beings interfere with nature's order by engaging in various "unnatural" (by definition) sexual practices! The moral of the story is that we run into all kinds of trouble when we mess with Mother Nature. And, apparently, having sex outside of heterosexual marriage counts as messing with Mother Nature.

I love it! It's so profoundly stupid! It's one thing to argue that God decrees heterosexual marriage; I mean, how can we argue with that? ("No he doesn't." "Yes he does." "No he doesn't.") But to argue that the only natural expression of sexuality occurs within heterosexual marriages? This despite the fact that human beings have always engaged in same-sex sexual practices, have always sought sex outside of sanctioned relationships, and have always been promiscuous in our search for pleasure and reproductive success? How can the commentator not see that his definition of 'natural', or what counts as natural, is stipulative?

Wow. As the old saying goes: I must refuse a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Starwood

I just returned from my first Starwood, and I'm blissed out. How wonderful to spend time living in the woods, in a community of pagans, and learning from the likes of Isaac Bonewits, Yvonne and Gavin Frost, Phyllis Curott, and LaSara FireFox. The friend who invited me promised me I would see things I'd never seen before, and that's true: I'd never before seen a naked man painted red dancing around a fire, or 300 people raise their arms to the full moon, or a fairy woods, or a penis pierced seven times, or a dark road lit with candles, or my own body painted with tribal markings. Although I partook of smoking herbs only twice, and I drank only small amounts of beer and mead (dear Goddess, I love mead), and I slept a fair bit (at least seven hours a night), my consciousness was nevertheless altered much of the time. It was delicious. It was magical. I'll be there next year.

Let us pray

Dear Goddess, you wealthy anarchist burning heaven to the ground:

Many of the divine chameleons out there don't even know that their souls will live forever. So please use your brash magic to help them see that they are all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own personalities.

Guide them to realize that they are all completely different from what they've been led to believe about themselves, and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.

Make it illegal, immoral, irrelevant, unpatriotic, and totally tasteless for them to be in love with anyone or anything that's no good for them.

So mote it be.

(Rob Brezny at Killing the Buddha; they need more pagans writing for them)

Strength

The sun is in Cancer and the moon is in Leo. When the moon is brand-new, as it is tonight, we tend inward. Gazing within during a Leo moon calls to mind the tarot card called Strength, traditionally pictured as a woman stroking a lion. The idea is one of inner strength. Since the sun is in Cancer, that most maternal of signs, we can ask ourselves about the relationship between mothers, lions, and strength. Here is one story:

At the solstice two weeks ago, when the Sun entered Cancer, a remarkable tale about nurture came out of Africa. It is a reminder, perhaps, of how fierce Cancer must sometimes be. A 12-year-old Ethiopian girl was kidnapped, then beaten, by seven men trying to force her into a marriage she didn’t want. That’s not unusual; a majority of Ethiopian marriages begin this way. Yet surely the Moon Goddess had a hand in what happened next. Three lions appeared. Fierce lions. They chased off the men. They guarded the girl for half a day until she was found by family and police. "Like a miracle," said a local police sergeant. "They just left her like a gift," he continued, "and went back into the forest."

(Dana Gerhardt, from Mooncircles)

Tonight my women's moon circle constructed an altar on a low table decked with an orange silk scarf, stone lions, stuffed-animal lions, Strength chosen from various decks, a crystal, a Goddess-rosary, cedar smudge-stick, a statue of the moon Goddess as maiden, and, at its center, a candle burning in a red glass bowl. Our intention was to call on leonine inner strength as a response to this morning's bombings in London. We want our leaders to pause, to breathe, to use the space created by that breath to imagine a different kind of response, one grounded in Strength rather than brute and brutal power. We sat around the altar holding hands, and we breathed together, holding our breath on the inhalation, creating space in our bodies and energy fields, and exhaling to speak 0ur wishes for a different response to terror. What response promotes peace, wisdom, compassion, foresight, deeper understanding, joy? We chanted to Tara, bodhisattva of compassion, improvising harmonies, singing into silence. Thus we conspired and prayed, honoring and giving voice to the ferocity of the Mother, the Goddess as lioness.

London

Prayers and blessings to those directly affected by this morning's bombings in London. May peace prevail on earth.

For Hestia -

In honor of the sacred art of tending a home (the sun is in Cancer, after all, and this morning the new moon was, too), a woman after my own heart:

Tending to my physical space, filling it up with little things which inspire in the moment, which care for my emotional space, and which keep me dreaming of what's to come is just as necessary and vital as any of the other work that I do.... My living space has to fit many bills: it has to be a space fit for working, and one fit for the day-to-day of living, but as a working artist and activist, it also has to be fit for dreaming, musing, idea-making, visualizing, and creating in my head, as well as with my hands. And even on my slim budget, with limited space, and my substandard housekeeping skills, to work for me, it has to be full of beauty. As a sensualist, and that being a big driver for me in living and work, I need lushness; whether that's the bed I make, knowing the delights it can cradle, a rich wash of color or light where I have my morning cup, or something soft to feel under my feet. I forget that time spent as I have the last few days is necessary. It always seems so frivolous; there are so many other things that need doing that seem as if they should take precedence. I mean, try to save the world or polish an endtable: seems a pretty simple matter when it comes to priorities. Yet, at the end of a day of tending to my space with care, I feel a calm and a clarity that I then remember benefits me tremendously. When all of my little sitting spaces are looked after and tidied up, my brain has room to explore more openly and to feel more at home.

Heather Corinna

Are female orgasms evidence for the Goddess?

The always delicious Mark Moford thinks so.

Maybe, in other words, the female orgasm doesn't need a purely biological purpose. Maybe it's about something more. Maybe it has -- dare we say it? -- a spiritual purpose. Vibrational. Transcendental....Have you seen a wild female orgasm lately? Have you borne witness? Because you really, really should. One good look and the fact comes clear: The thing is at once directly hardwired to the deep chthonic Earth while at the same time has the bright shimmering cosmos on speed dial. It's true. It's obvious. Any good and deeply felt female climax is clearly a subatomic vibrational pulse of such unusual and kaleidoscopic frequency that the only ones who can truly hear its messages are purple orchids and bright red snakes and the aliens who built the Great Pyramids. All hail.

And merry meet again

My, it's been a long hiatus, and an unannounced one at that. It's death for a new blog not to post frequently, but perhaps the blog is so new, and my readership as yet undeveloped, that I can regain my footing here with few being the wiser. I've been on vacation: an extended roadtrip with my lover before he begins an intense one-year graduate program that will take him away from home during the week. We drove over 4500 miles, as far south as Amarillo, as far west as Santa Fe, and as far north again as Milwaukee. Along the way we visited Adonis's mom in Oklahoma City, dear friends in Denver, and more dear friends, including our goddess-child, who is 18 months, in Milwaukee (I call myself his fairy godmother). Adonis and I both had our first experience of New Mexico, which we loved. And we saw a lot of the U.S. appearing profoundly Christianized, or evangelicalized. It's frightening. When we got to Boulder, we were able to pick up a bumpersticker: Abortion: A woman's right to choose. We don't feel the need to advertise our fanatically pro-choice views where we live; everyone knows us, anyway, and most agree. But driving through the Middle West and West, we were desperate to voice dissent. And that was before Justice O'Conner announced her retirement - a blow we didn't anticipate.

In New Mexico I collected Mexican folk art. I've always loved the skeletons for El Dia de los Muertos. (I love the holiday, too; it's good to acknowledge death as an integral part of life and to keep our beloved dead among us.) I'm drawn to Frida Kahlo iconography. And, of course, I dig the more pagany aspects of Catholicism (not having been raised Catholic myself). So I bought milagros and icons - Mary as the Queen of Heaven, a shrine for Frida, a woman's torso pressed in tin to bring good health. Adonis bought an icon of the black Madonna for himself, not knowing the content of the book I was reading at the time, The Secret Life of Bees, which tells the story of a black Madonna and a family of women in the South circa 1964. (Nearly all the women I met along my trip had read the book already, but if you haven't, allow me to highly recommend it - the first novel by Sue Monk Kidd, who wrote The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, a memoir of her journey from conservative Christianity to the divine feminine.)