Goddess! with Dr. Z Budapest

May 25 – 27, 2012

Learn from Goddess wisdom grandmothers, one in the flesh and one in the spirit, the Secrets to Manifesting the Goddess in YOU… and create your own Goddess Lifestyle.

Focus the intentions in your life towards creating a better world. Make your dreams and aspirations a reality. It is possible!

Think you need more time, more money, more skills to create what you truly desire? Go deeper with Dr. Z! See that your true potential isn’t rooted in those mundane tokens, but within your inner-Goddess.

Dr. Z Budapest will facilitate your journey towards manifesting your most important plans and dreams, clear obstacles from your path and tapping your own Goddess reservoir of limitless spiritual possibilities. Embrace your inner Goddess and experience a more complete life filled with experiences from your own true abundant nature.

Dr. Merlin Stone will reach out to you from the other side of spirit’s existence. Our foremother, Merlin Stone, has not left us. Her memory lives in the Wise Women Center’s land where she used to teach. She will be able to open our deep minds and hearts to the treasures of our glorious past as women. Merlin’s spirit lives in each of us!

If you know where you come from, you know where you’re going. It’s crucial to our divine past. Self-esteem cannot be tended without knowledge of our divine past.

Clear the obstacles from your Goddess path.
And from chaos She led us by the hand….

Weekend Intensive Workshop with Dr. Z Budapest
Noon on May 25th until May 27th 2:30 pm

Find out more & register for Goddess! with Dr. Z Budapest

This three day intensive is taught at the Wise Woman Center in Woodstock NY. Regstration includes lodging, meals, instruction, and rituals. Intensive begins at noon on Friday and ends at 4pm on Sunday.

Weekend: $500.

Register online
or via mail, to:
Wise Woman Center
PO Box 64 Woodstock NY 12498

REGISTRATION POLICY: Once you register we will send you a map and further details.

REFUND POLICY: If you cancel more than two weeks (15 days or more) before the workshop, we are able to offer you a full refund minus a $25 office fee. If you cancel within two weeks (14 days or less) of the workshop, we will be happy to apply your payment (minus a $25 office fee) to any other class at the Wise Woman Center. No show; no refund; non-negotiable. You may transfer your payment to another person at any time, no extra charge.

CONTACT US: Wise Woman Center PO Box 64 Woodstock NY 12498 E-MAIL: susunweed@herbshealing.com

A happy and prosperous springtime to you! This is our annual fundraiser letter for the Women’s Spirituality Forum.Let’s talk about the origins of March 8th our big internationally acknowledged Holyday of Women on Earth; International Women’s Day.

In 1857, the garment and textile workers of the United Sates organized themselves into a political movement. What woke up the Sleeping Giant… the women’s collective consciousness that time?

It was the devastating fire in a sweatshop in New York. The fire broke out, but there were no fire escapes. The doors were locked. The women started jumping out of the windows and died on the streets. Hundreds of women died, adults and children workers alike.

This infuriated the American women and men. From this time on it was law to have fire escapes on all buildings in the City. This was the first step to organize the Labor Movement and to set safety measures in place.

As Dianics, we remember this big fire every year and say a prayer for those who lost their lives in it.

Big fire going on now, but on a religious level. This is the political fire… backlash fire disguised as Christian values. It is also the old gender wars. Men talking smack against women. The Rush Limbaugh mentality is the voice of the Republican Party, which is anti-choice; gross to women yet pro-porn.

I am quoting Bob Cesca from the Huffington Post:

Well before these new laws were introduced, including the personhood laws dictating that life begins at conception and therefore outlawing many forms of birth control, hundreds of women across the country were convicted and sent to prison because they had miscarriages. More than 300 women in South Carolina. 40 women in Alabama. Illinois prosecuted a woman for manslaughter after she gave birth to a stillborn baby. As of June, 38 states had passed “fetal homicide” laws. The consequences? Pregnant women who are suffering from drug addiction or mental illnesses are afraid to seek prenatal medical attention for fear of being arrested. It’s increasingly evident that being pregnant and in distress is almost as bad as being an illegal immigrant in America. 

Not a single male god religion came to the defense of the women. No bishops used their influence to speak up for women. No priests marched against the Establishment who wanted women humiliated and punished for getting pregnant. There is even a fight against birth control.

Only the feminist witches raised their voices in print and prayers. The feminists put up an intelligent young speaker Ms.Fluke to present the women’s health issues involved. The reaction to her calm presentation was a virulent personal attack. This too was an eye opener for millions of women.

We have consistently spoken out in defense of our rights to our own bodies and souls. Women must have a religion on their own. This spirituality is not centralized, but allowed to flourish in its rich variety.  We must survive and we need to be supported. Without knowing who we are as women, what glorious sacrifices have already been made for us, our self-esteem rises or falls.

We teach you these wonderful achievements, we bring the foremothers to your awareness, we continue to hold the flame for the Women’s Mysteries. This is the religion of her own.

You have the Women’s Spirituality Movement; Goddess centered Women’s Mysteries. For the past 40 years, we have organized Women’s Spirituality events, conferences, festivals, workshops and conducted Women’s Sacred Circles. I was our principal philanthropist. I worked for free for many years, leading the circles, using my own money for down payments to rent our camps for worship. I am now a Crone. Its your turn to foot the bill for this audacious historical enterprise. Step up and be a Hera!

Those who attended paid their way, so we could continue. We need donors, generous angels and a couple of mighty Queens with money to give.

The Goddess is you!

In order to run a non-profit there is a lot of expense involved. We don’t have superpacs. We need more supporters. Education of women and girls through our work is a unique cultural thread. Nobody else is doing this Internationally as we have done. All women benefit when their self-esteem is high. We have changed thousands of live’s for the better.

Through the decades, Women’s Mysteries has been under attack by those who like to trash women. But we stood united, in solidarity and kept the flame of the Women’s Mysteries burning bright. Women must have their own religion. We have to have our own well tended values. Otherwise a male centered religion will take away your constitutional rights from owning your body, your reproductive freedom, and your soul.

Not every woman is dirt poor, I say bless you in whatever help you can lend the Women’s Spirituality Movement. But if you are one of those lucky women who owns or controls wealth, this is your time to rise to the occasion. These are the times we set our future in place in this new century. How bad must things get for our wealthier sisters to open their check book? Only when a personal bad happens, and you suddenly wake up and realize that you are no longer safe either?  Please don’t wait that long. Do it now. On this International Women’s Day. Make a herstorical gift to the Women’s Spirituality Forum.

May abundance come to you and may you fare well in all your affairs. Blessed be.

Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest
High priestess, writer, psychic and revolutionery Crone.

I couldn’t explain the deep seated resentment in our cultural landscape against women. No matter what we looked at, good women, bad women, men resented women in all forms and sizes; behaviors. No woman was sexy enough, good enough, trustworthy enough. This puts the female gender on notice, improve yourself or you will find no love. The only good woman is a dead woman.

This is what women are most afraid of. Loosing the love. The slim chance of male protection. This is the H-bomb of our psyche.

Take the male collage students at Yale, they started last year by chanting all over campus “No means yes, yes means anal.”

While this was establishing their entitlement to sex with unwilling women, the fact that they chanted it together with each other, young men, their brains were actually having sex with each other. Chanting this walking together, in their male power, the young men substituted chanting for actually having sex with each other. But the brain is having sex just by thinking about sex, together thinking about sex. It is sex. Many many young men at collage age are latent homosexuals, which is dangerous to women.

Women would prefer that men came out and had sex with each other, and not parade around chanting offensive stuff. The reason for my conclusion is the word “anal”. Anal is not what young women are dreaming about when they think of intimacy. Women think of sex as the culmination of an emotional surge, and coming together with love and aroused body.  But “anal” is most important in homosexual contact, in man on man love.

So if you want to have sex with men, why scare the ladies?

It’s a deflecting technique, scaring women is “manly” hence they are not homosexuals. But you cannot block the unconscious brain. So here the anger against women comes from the fact that having sex with girls is seen as normal, but anal is not. They need to loudly claim it. Because they are closet gays. And pissed off about it too. This is just one example.

I remember when I was still in elementary school in Budapest, the boys would wait at the exit door of the school with their snowballs with a stone wrapped into it. And when the girls were streaming out after school, the boys would pelt us with stones and snow in our faces, at our heads. It hurt. It drew blood sometimes. One time a friend of mine was hit in the temple and she fell down unconscious. And this happened a long time ago in the fifties. Hating women is still fashionable. It’s manly. It’s a proof of masculinity to each other. It’s a male affirmation.

There seems to be an uninterrupted sentiment against girls and women from the male gender. Feminism’s emergence only frustrated this. Men accused feminists of male bashing. But pimp culture is female bashing, on a grand scale. Complaining about it, bringing it up, exposing it is “male bashing.” The gender wars must be fought off camera, off printed matter. Never discussed in public. Its humanities dirty laundry, hating our women, the creators and nurturers of everybody walking one Earth.

The male gender is gender conscious, “us boys together” against the other gender. Women are human identified, not so much gender identified. They should be.

Why are we universally hated by the male gender? What have we as a female gender done to merit such lack of respect? Nothing.

Who ever solves this puzzle should get a Peace Price.

Here are some of my ideas.

When I asked Starhawk what she thought about this, she said, “Oh, they don’t hate women, they hate what we stand for. Peace.”

The fear is, if they take on mother’s values, they will be beaten and rejected by their fellow males. So they feel that their very gender identity depends on rejecting females as deeply as the law allows. Often even beyond. No males are allowed to love female values. If you assume female values of peace, cooperation, communication, men will loose their fury little balls. They will loose rape culture. War culture.

But later in dating age, males choose their own females whom they exempt from the universal fear/hatred . “My girl,” they say, “is different. I am allowed to love her.” Many also love their mothers, female relatives. Bless them.

But never the females as gender.

Here is a new reason for resentment. Mother nature makes a lot of  males want sex with the women. In spite of the general attitude of “don’t trust women” men are made to conform, have to make concessions with women. This is culturally resented. Now they “need” women, that’s another bother. When there is a family, and there is a divorce, men are made to pay child support.

More reason to resent women. Men don’t see why they have to pay for a child they fathered. They imagine the mother would abuse this and spend the money on herself. Since she is no longer “his” wife, back into the hated gender with her. Hence withholding the money from families is justified.

The reasons to hate/not trust women is multiplying.

I have given a short speech at an Interfaith conference to women who were from many different spiritual traditions. After we heard all the wrongs that women found with their male god religions, I suggested to change their inner-life and switch to the omnipresent Goddess, a Great Mother.

Some heterosexual women were aghast. “I am not ready to throw the men under the bus!” One woman exclaimed.

She was defending the entire male gender, which in her mind was the same as the male god.

As I said it would have taken a lot more time, which I was not given, to explain the difference between men as a gender and the male god. But its very telling, how they have now been intertwined in the minds of such good women.

God is male, and men are gods.

This is the at crux of it all.

Religion long ingrained into our impressionable psyches, since childhood, declared that anything male is sacred, anything female is suspicious and subordinate. Weak. Hence dangerous to men who would loose their edge; their “balls.”

So the genders represent the opposing views of how to live on earth.

Women feel they need peace to raise children and civilization which includes commerce, the arts.

Men are lied to, and told that peace and civilization building are all utopian fantasies of women. Getting young men killed and maimed and then ignored, kicked to the curb, jobless and homeless,… yes  that’s the male ticket. Glorious male self created doom. Why still cling to it? Because what if other men attack us? Then what? Who would defend us?

The women fall quiet, because the answer is that globally women would demand an end to violence, ending wars altogether. Globally. This would require a very sophisticated Sisterhood. We are very far from that dream. But feminism is now global, the media allowed the women to see each others plight, and our own compassion is finally released to ourselves.

There won’t be anybody else’s sons rising in wars against us. Could that ever happen? Sisterhood could make it come alive.

In Texas this year, no less then 50 bills were introduced against women; all aimed to make it more difficult to get medical help. Fifty bills, not about jobs, but taking away women’s rights . Think about it, legislators obsessed with hating women, day and night creating newer and newer bills to promote the lessening of rights of more than half of Americans; female Americans.

These male lawmakers need to be recalled.

Women need to elect each other with careful consideration to replace them. Let common sense and civility be brought back. And if it never was, women must invent it.

Just an other thing on our laundry list.

Reading the Tarot’s Wisdom:
My window on society, women and peace.

The new year always brings up thoughts about the future. What’s going to happen this year? Is this the much feared end of the world? Or is it just an other year where we need to get realistic, not fearful.

I enjoy the deep mystery of the tarot cards. I celebrate the fact that somehow from the other side, the cards are used as a language of wisdom to communicate with us mere mortals. It makes me feel that we are not alone.

The 78 cards are like an alphabet. If you recall their meaning, their position in the lay out, synthesize all that with the rest, and a story emerges. There is a clear story every time.

It feels like somebody else is creating the lay outs, I am just a conductor of this magical happening. I lend my hands, then I lend my words.

The main point is still communicating wisdom. Wisdom is always meaningful work. Its always self examination, self blessings, rituals to open the deep mind and allow the new to flow in.

In my woes of financial insecurity, I had applied and gotten hired by an English firm to read cards on the phone. This was a very new way to read for people, mostly women. English women. And this psychic hot line was busy.

Sometimes women and men just want me to soothe their hurts, they want me to promise them a better future. This is not what I do unless this is what’s indicated in the cards.

As a friend of mine now long passed, Janet Mc Cloud, a native American leader said: ”If you just want to feel better, take a couple of Valiums and masturbate.”

Spiritual consciousness is keeping the deep mind awake and at task. The deep mind doesn’t need sleep. It can be trusted with sorting things out, making things clearer.

Its not always a happy joy moment. Growing into your wisdom is hard work, requires a commitment as all meaningful change in our life’s. But have you gotten anything better to do then advance your own wisdom??

I actually pay attention to the wisdom communicated to us. And the wisdom of the TAROT is as its name suggest, “rota”… rotation. The Wheel of Life always turns. The good and the bad are both temporary. But the life we live can be also “stuck” when it reaches one of the fateful points in life, like the pivoting points of 21, 28, 31, 45, 51, 52,59, 62, 69,etc. It’s up to us to help the changes occur smoothly by embracing them.

These are times when life is coming at us, we don’t have to do anything except to CHANGE within. The outside world changes along with the inner changes. We only have power over our inner life.

This is a skill which I teach my clients. I share with them simple spells, Self esteem rituals, anything to have them accept the Fates decree, all must change, not just the number of our years. Not all women want to change within.

Many women run old tapes, over and over again, stuck on one unreachable goal or an other. Years can be wasted with these useless goals.

Heterosexual women have a old promise made to them, since childhood fairy tales, and they still believe in this promise. Patriarchy promised good girls that a Prince will come and deliver them into society. Only a prince can make them part of the happiness all humans deserve. Until then they have to behave, stay home,serve,work, go to church, and don’t be selfish whatever they do. Because if you are selfish God won’t send that prince, besides the princes are in short supply anyway. Most of them have pot bellies, and love their beer buddies more than women.

This plays out tragically. Often women simply push their years after each other, not living their lives, because there is no man in it. When I ask them what did they do before they were told that a man is needed for their happiness, they cannot even remember. When I mention that what they mean probably is that they crave love, as all humans do, they repeat their question over and over again.

“Won’t you look again, will I meet a somebody soon?”

I talked to a woman 57 years old, who had never had a date with a man, never fell in love, never even left town. She was always a very very good girl.

I suggested she leave town for the weekend, and expose herself more to life in England. Sent her to submerge in the healing waters of Bath.
But deep down what I should have suggested to her was, have you thought about the possibilities that you may be gay?

How far can I go with my intuition? The English had many rules, this I wasn’t sure of, but to shake up a lady somewhere far away with the news that she is gay. Well, I didn’t do it.

On the day I was to be fired, I fired myself. This was no longer what I loved about the Tarot; total freedom, telling like it is, giving advise, stand in my integrity.

This kind of online reading, one after an other, many many of them, started to sound very much alike.

Will I meet somebody? Will I meet somebody? Will I meet somebody? Will I… etc.

The men on the other hand wanted to know about co-workers, can they be trusted? About investments, will it tank or make them more money? Jobs, do I have a chance ? Will I be fired? Will I find a new job?

To the men the answers were variable, normal answers yes or no, satisfied them. One actually asked about a girl, if she was interested in him at all, the answer was however also no. I told him approach her with flowers and tender talk, and see where it leads.

What broke my heart that these women were simply not interested in themselves. How about a karmic change? How about a new interest? How about a new passion? How about caring about the Earth? Bird watching? Ocean? Anything?? No.

These ladies had professions and working credit cards. They demanded the psychic service of soothing words, and a string of little white lies.

They welcomed my narrative about the spirit world, and how they are protected by them. I do believe that our ancestors are looking out for us, but who? Are they into matchmaking, or just save you from a car crash?

This was not TAROT. I started thinking about a new deck. Just for this service, the “psychic” readings. Very few cards. Or just hunches.

At my age, I am at the peak of my game. This is not the time to water me down, make me into a people-pleaser and not a priestess advisor. Wisdom is sometimes tough love. Truth is my duty.

Our lives are not just to be endured, but lived fully.

The Tarot calls our attention to the myriad of miraculous ways to be. This is the treasure from the ancient wisdom, our lives don’t revolve about men, or even sex.

Our lives evolve and revolve around the journey of our souls. The exciting coming to consciousness and perceiving the miracle of life and our role in it, makes a woman proud.

After our pride in being women, we need to rise to the idea that the world deserves humanity to be in concert with it, not against it.

Women have these values, peace, don’t hurt your brother or sister, eat your dinner, be grateful for your good health.

So far so good.

But women also want peace. Many women find love and meaning in working for peace.

Patriarchy can loose power over us in peace. Peace is only good for babies and civilizations and women and love.

Peace is the ground we can build our futures on.

The trouble with Peace is that it doesn’t make huge profits for only a few men. Peace is making good dividends for life’s quality and spiritual evolvement for all.
Peace is commerce, but fair. Peace is work. Peace is women’s value. Peace is good for children. Peace is great to build civilizations, invent new things, flourish the arts. Peace is entertainment with meaning.

Peace does not glorify violence. In peace manhood must be reinvented. Womanhood must be to the forefront of leadership.
Everything else has been done.

CLICK FOR A PERSONAL TAROT READING WITH Z BUDAPEST

The 40th Anniversary of the birth of the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One and the Dianic Tradition.

They had a throne for me to sit on. I didn’t want to. I am not a feudal lord, but I understood that this ritual was about the honoring me and themselves. About honoring the four decades of worshipping the Goddess; teaching new women and girls the Dianic Tradition. It is quite an achievement.

When we started the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One in Hollywood there were only six of us present. It was Winter Solstice. We were all staffers from the LA Women’s Center. A very diverse group; Dixie a taxi driver union organizer, Joan my feminist mentor (we were in her apartment upstairs), Janet my first beloved, Susan and Joni, the married ladies who were lovers, Susan brought the Transylvanian goulash for our feast ALL the way from Marine. There was Barbara who was getting her Phd at UCLA in Shamanism and Possessions.

On this first Sabbath we had no culture yet. Who knew what witches do on a winter’s solstice?  But we had me. Somehow in my genes there was a very strong strain of witchcraft passed down from my mother, who made a living by creating popular altars for the Magyar people; Madonna triple goddess altars, simple and long revered images with her special modern sensibilities. She was a temple raiser. So am I, but in the living temple way. My temple is built with the mothers and sisters, and now their girls.

On our 25th anniversary we had almost all the original members flown in to celebrate with us. This time it was only me from the original group present; at nearly 72 years old.

The Circle of Aradia put out a lot of effort to make this large gathering a success. There was a white altar in the middle with Diana of Ephesus statue with the many breasts, and the Fates, crystals and flowers.

White sage hung in the air.

All the women dressed in their finest celebratory fashions, we ranged from Greek classical shitans to silk shirts and pants, necklaces of every gem and pearls; and the crowns! I love seeing women crown themselves. Rabbit wore money necklaces and money earrings. (for prosperity).

Seven conga drums sounded the rhythms, and the ritual took off with energetic chaotic invocations to the four corners of the universe, and I invoked the center.

Oh Goddess of the ten thousand names come in to this circle of your sisters and bless us for 40 more years!

You know I had double hip replacements, and sometimes I limp from overexertion, but never when I am serving at the altars. I felt my body become the light youthful energetic body of the Goddess, no pain disrupted me.

At the candle lighting, as women took their light from my candle and the lights flickered all over the huge big hall. It seemed like stars were moving into our space, each woman a star, each woman a fate, each woman a light that will light many others.

Then I went around again, touching flames to flames. “Be strong!” I whispered to them, “Be strong!”

The women continued this theme, encountering each others flame to flame. “To Sisterhood!” We whispered.

Time usually gets suspended in a good ritual. Two ordinations followed performed by my first daughter Ruth Barrett H.P.

Lady Cerridwen was ordained to lead the Circle of Aradia in L.A. I had known this priestess since the mid-seventies, she is devoted and certainly will not miss the celebrations of the women’s community.

She will serve with a full heart and total devotion.

Lady Medea was ordained from Michigan, many of her coven members flown in to support her. This is the first time a priestess have taken my witch name Medea, it means medicine woman. I told her, “Wear that name well.”

After these important ordinations we have chanted the Isis, Astarte, Diana, Demeter chant, until we blended into a new chant. “Woman energy, Goddess energy, Good woman energy, Goddess energy!” This tune is easy to dance to and soon the women took off in an impromptu swirling. I started a little folk dance motive with everybody going around arms linked together dancing. Watching me my wife said, there was “not even a hint of a limp! Who are you and what have you done with my Z?”

NEW OLD RULE:

Tithing which was an ancient way to support the Goddess Clergy must come back. We are the only tradition who doesn’t support our Clergy with funds.

Here I was, documenting this herstorical Dianic event, participating in it at my age, and the Women’s Spirituality Forum Non-profit that I established for this purpose has never received any funds from this group. The Women’s Spirituality Forum Non-profit is ground zero for all Women’s Mysteries, ground zero for the return of the Goddess. Now we are everywhere. This has to be discussed right here and now.

So the NEW OLD RULE is:

If you have received any soul benefits from the goddess, read my books that opened your eyes, if your life has been changed by her, if you have gained happiness, hope, good luck, fertility, or any gifts, life changing dreams from the goddess when you called on her, please pledge continued funds to support this work into the future.

Four times a year, gift the Women’s Spirituality Forum a donation minimum ten percent of what you made. More if you can. I don’t believe that all women are dirt poor. We control trillions of dollars, wealthy women must make sure that their wealth is not isolating them from the unfolding herstory. Don’t let your handlers be in the power of your money.

Tithing money is to honor yourself and energize the Goddess work around the world. The planet needs women to spread the Goddess consciousness to all humanity. Survival alone is NOT enough. Occupy your own religion! We are worthy of your help, the work has been brilliant and selflessly donated already.

Bringing back the Goddess to women is to make us strong and our planet healthy again. The values of the Goddess is peace, culture and devotion. The planet needs these values. The planet needs women get serious about bringing back the Goddess with our hard earned funds to make our Clergy and especially Clergy Elders well supported and strong enough to teach.

Send your tithing through Paypal to: wsf@zbudapest.com or use our easy to click link at the Women’s Spirituality Forum Non-profit website:  http://womensspiritualityforum.zbudapest.com.

And join the Dianic Tradition and the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1, established for exploration of women’s mysteries and the Goddess through our website: www.susanbanthonycoven.com.

I leave you now with this video on why you should support women!

Brief History of the Women's Donor Activist Movement

Hello Dearest Goddess, it’s Z.

I thought I’d drop in on this Thanksgiving and personally give you a huge thank you for this year. Of course I loved other years as well, but this year has brought so many changes in consciousness and health, and learning curves… that I have to take the time and tell you how grateful I am to the Fates.

Not all was fun, nevertheless I think you have outdone yourself if that is possible.

The year started with a big loss, Merlin Stone passed away in January. This was  a shock because most of us didn’t even know where she lived, she has dropped off our radar many years ago. In a way it was good to find out that she was with us all this time, but also that she was very ill and in pain. Her passing however painful was a blessing. I don’t wish long life on anybody who is in horrific pain as she was.

Bobbie, my wife, and I have decided that we take the Goddess flag from this strong and important spirit, and carry on her memory and  Goddess message.

Right after this loss, my little black Puli girl one day just refused to eat. For a Puli dog, this means the end. She was 12 years old, a respectable age for dogs her size. I put her down when it seemed like that’s what she wanted. They tell you in so many ways. My heart is broken ever since, I am huge animal/dog lover, and the walks we have taken together in the cemetery park became very lonely without her. I felt her spirit for a while when we started up the car to the park, I felt her behind me. I even talked to her, sometimes I could have sworn she rubbed against my feet .But now her presence had faded, and I think she has moved on. That hurts double .

We made plans to collect as many interviews from other Goddess  feminists about Merlin Stone as we humanly could. We started in the spring, with Susan Weed, on her farm where I am teaching now almost annually.

On the other side of the Catskill Mountains we found my other long time friend Carol Clement, artist, now full time organic farmer.  She was looking good, living her beliefs, earth-centered work, growing food and animals, selling humanly treated food, running her restaurant. She also has a nice husband, but he wasn’t around that trip. Farming requires a lot of errands. I miss Carol, or as we called her in L.A.  “CC”.

We recalled some of our adventures, how we hooked up back in 1974. She just arrived in the city, she told me, and she was looking to something to do. There was a witch trial going on in L.A. She thought she could get a job as a court artist. She attended my trial, where I lost big time, but won nine years after many appeals. Later we met and had a book project together, SELENE the World most Famous Bull Leaper, which is now back in print via Amazon. There was nothing out back then for young girls to relate to, to be strong, and victorious.

As we pulled away in the car, I saw her face a little sad, she gave up her art for becoming a farmer. Love that CC. She is true blue! (thump on the heart with my hand.) She walks the walk. Her place is called Heatheridge Farm, she is getting very good write ups and you need a reservation to be there and eat.

I was grateful to feel her presence at this later time in our lives. I often go to her website just to see how the livestock is doing. There she is delivering little lambs, talking to her guard llamas who drive away intruders. Next time I make more time to hang with her.

My other long time friend Joan Nixon scooped up us and drove us around in NYC for the rest of the interviews. Then there was the  relentless summer heat of the city. And each day had become hotter than the one before. We gasped for air, yearned for air conditioned spaces.

A highlight in our journey, we met and interviewed the legendary Gloria Steinem. I adore this woman, and I felt like a schoolgirl in her cool apartment. She lives in the upper east side, as she should, in a two story attended by soft spoken sari clad ladies from India .Gloria  was not a religionist. I think she still isn’t, but after forty years she did see the importance of the Goddess Movement in feminism. Our paths have crossed  several times in the past. She came though L.A. when she launched Ms Magazine. The fledgling Women’s Center called her up and complained that while she gets a hefty honorarium from the University to give a talk about feminism, the local women’s center, the practice of feminism is struggling to make the rent each month. Our sister Gloria generously said to send somebody to talk about the center. We can have the podium after she has finished, and she will donate to the Women’s Center $5oo dollars. That was a sum enough for two months rent!

I was dispatched to give my first public speech at the University (I have forgotten which one), and then fork over the money to the Center as promised.

Gloria and Ms. Sloan finished their magnificent speech, big applause followed and the audience started to leave. I wasn’t introduced. I took a deep breath and took the stage. All I remember is the back of the people as they started filing out.

I have introduced myself, and must have said something funny because there was a smidgen of laughing, then the audience turned around back, and slowly took their seats again.

I don’t know what I said, probably discussed the immediate issues at the center, personal stuff, like Inez a homeless woman who made phone calls to the Vatican, demanded to speak to the Pope, and we need the money to pay our phone bill. True story. In short, I found my voice as a speaker and found my inborn humor; and talent to be intimate with an audience without fear. It was an awesome gift this opportunity and it has launched me as a feminist speaker. I still have the zeroxed copy of the check Gloria handed me after it. I meant to show it to her to celebrate her awesome blessing on my life, but I didn’t bring it along. I’ll show it to her some other day.

Anyway dearest Goddess, I thank you for letting me finally be part of the greater Feminist Movement, not just a fringe element without the blessing of the legendary Gloria. Now we are official.

And I thank Merlin Stone. Because it was her who unearthed from the libraries of the world the remnants of our Goddess past. We all met “over her” as it were. She gave us back our past, she gave us a global heritage, not owned by any one group, but all women from around the world.

The journey was fast and we have collected more than 30 interviews from different women, some who knew Merlin, some who just felt her influence.

And in the middle of it all we put up our house for sale.

This blog is to be continued. Enough said for now, gratitude for the rest as well.

This year I have devoted myself to honor the memory of one of our greatest foremothers, Merlin Stone. We have collected interviews from about 30 contemporaries; she has brought us all together for the first time. East coast and west coast and the middle, all has given us rich material to celebrate and be proud of Merlin. The fragile sister who could. All of this work will be coming out in DVD when Bobbie gets to create it early next year.

In the meantime we are moving. I sold my home. Too many stairs, too steep. I could not even carry my own groceries in. We bought a smaller, but still cute home two hours south from Oakland.

My advice to many of my clients “learn to tolerate ambiguity” is now my own lesson. Ambiguity is hard to tolerate. Waiting for a loan to come through, nerve breaking. Dealing with paperwork, serious boredom and fear.

Diana Paxson and I have been working on Goddess in the Office rewrite and enhancement. Some say do not use the word “office” anymore, say “own” work; the future will have less workers in the office and more online elsewhere. What do you think?

My autobiography was held up too. Diana Paxson and I got a strong beginning, but I have not really dealt with the reflections and examination of my mission in life; when and how did I fall into this Goddess mission. I have however written up a lot of Forest Gump moments, all the funnies. But the meat of a good Ab is the reflections, the curve, the hindsight of how this life evolved. What were the forces that drove it. For some reason I couldn’t quite face it. But now I can.

When I visited in Budapest this summer, I looked at the house where I was born, the bunkers  dark musty entrance to a life underneath the ground during the mass carpet bombings. I sobbed my eyes out for the little girl who was so brave and had her childhood ruined by the WWII.

It’s like my eyes have been opened, and I can look back and not be afraid.

In Glastonbury, I gave a speech about politics and spirituality. Yes, and the British gave me a standing ovation! I don’t remember getting a standing ovation for a long time.

My life was driven by politics, the Hungarian Revolution that opened up the boarders and I could escape. The help the Goddess Boldogasszony gave me, how her touch was all over my story. Now can be told.

But most of all I think the collective story of everlasting wars, the patriarchs depend on for their power is the main driving force of many lives. Wars waged over my house, the total loss of everything we had, the deaths of all grandparents, the starvation which all wars bring. And then the commies with their lies.

Many of these features are back again. This time here in the USA.

The political enviromement is very bad now for women everywhere, especially the young. Young women cannot stay stupid and let nature take its course because Nature is impersonal, she cares about making babies even when you don’t. She gave you brains. It’s up to your smarts to know your body, have some wisdom determining when you could or want to bear a child. No matter what the GOP is doing to abortion rights, girls, you always have herbs. You can have a quickening with many of the herbs free, but you cannot wait until it’s to late. Pennyroyal, Rue, just to name a few. A cup of tea at the time when you’re due and your period will return. No abortion clinics needed. No doctors if you are smart. If you ever look at a Mexican community, right in font of a home, a woman would plant a Ruta (Rue) plant, for good luck. Yeah right.

But the war now, this economic war, is directed against USA kids. The police are back serving the powerful. So is the Media. They are as mean and as lawless they were in the sixties. And no matter how dreadful they behave, they will never go to jail because they are trained to be mean. You are lucky if they don’t water-board you.

The media? We lost the media in the middle of the Information Age. You can only get what’s going on via the Internet on the uTube.

Regular media didn’t even cover the Wall Street confrontations, but you did mercifully dear MSNBC and Current TV.

Back in the sixties at least the battle made the cover of Time Magazine, when the hard hats attacked the long haired hippies. This too happened on Wall Street way back. Brilliant choice of targeting…  Wall Street.

Not a word was on CNN, instead it was all about poor Michael Jackson and how he died poor lonely soul. Goddess bless and rest him, but this trial is not Situation Room news! The situation was the Wall Street police brutality once more against the young and their supporters. The young deserves a future. They are demonstrating because they are smart, figured it out, money is the only god in the USA. All the biblical blah blah is meaningless; the same Xian politicians send the police to beat up our kids for practicing their rights as citizens.

Wall Street where millionaires are still “working” shuffling other peoples money around, themselves do not produce anything at all. These are our “middle class” that’s not working, and doesn’t want to. They invest.

And they don’t care about the working people. Nobody ever got rich for working for wages for others.

American workers, goddess bless them, are a diminishing breed.

Their jobs have been outsourced by greedy corporations. We are sinking into the third world status fast. Our infrastructure is crumbling, and there is nowhere to run anymore. I cannot become a refugee again.

There are folk who worship share holders and CEOs. None of them are in the Bible; politicians however worship them for they need money to get those government jobs, with the lifelong benefits. Senators, Congress people, all need the millionaires largess to create their commercials, and sell their story to the voters who don’t have time to research their records.

I have an idea. I am sure you heard it before.

Let’s give each viable candidate an hour free airtime (it’s the people’s air), do with it what they want. Commercials. Debates. The works.

After that time no more exposure. You can make your case just before elections, not for years preceding it.

The GOP candidates looked to me like lined up like fancy beggars, with no helpful ideas, all having the same script to mouth from. Even their buzzwords are the same. It’s one campaign with many boring pale faces. Mr. Green even appears white to me.

The winners are the freeloading  billionaires. They pay no taxes, what’s that all about???

GOP are faithful servants of the Koch brothers. They swear oaths to them, sign their names to pledges. Lick their boots and their fat asses.

It’s treason.

After all didn’t they take a more sacred oath to the people as they have taken their seats?

Love to you. And thank you Oakland for giving me a good life and happy memories.

GET YOURSELF REGISTERED for my FRINGE EVENT!!!

Let’s walk the Freak Road! Let’s dance the Fringe together!

Z BUDAPEST: WE ALL COME FROM THE GODDESS (Women-born-women Only)

Register at: http://www.goddessconference.com

Women from all walks of life come together with High Priestess Zsuzsanna Budapest, in a flowing woman-only Dianic circle celebrating our expanding global sisterhood. Beginning with the sacred Dianic purification we enter the circle, commune with our ancestors and our divine selves, lift up a joyous dedication to the Goddess Sedna of the Deep, as we bless all waters inside and outside. Chanting, dancing and strengthening our bonds of sisterhood. We are the flow, we are the ebb. When the women are healed the whole world is healed. Drummers, musical instruments, voices welcome.  Dress comfortably. Come garlanded with something in season, greens or flowers.

Z Budapest is the founder of the Dianic (Feminist) Tradition of Wicca in the USA, initiating the world’s most famous coven, the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One, which continues to thrive and brings women’s spirituality into mainstream consciousness (SusanBAnthonyCoven.com).

Z has led rituals, lectured, taught classes, given workshops, written articles tirelessly, and published in hundreds of women’s newspapers across the country. She has powerfully influenced many of the future teachers and writers about the Goddess. She is the director of the Women’s Spirituality Forum, a nonprofit organization and Z founded and sponsors the Dianic University’s Goddess College (GoddessCollege.com). Her books include the Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries, Grandmother of Time, Grandmother Moon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1460911407). See www.ZBudapest.com.

Venue: The Goddess Hall
Time:  10.00am-4.00pm
Fee: £50/$85/€65

Last May I stood in the home of Susan B. Anthony, in her attic that had been converted into workspace. Where she and her apprentices worked tirelessly in preservation of Women’s history. Clearly Susan B. knew to ask the question… Will you be there? Will you remember? Be remembered?

Will you be there sister, when we gather as sacred sisters to mourn and celebrate the life and works of our sister Merlin Stone? Of the others who have also passed. Those women who deserve our remembrance.

Will you have your picture taken? Standing shoulder to shoulder with your sisters? Your words witnessed and recorded for posterity.

Will you be the one who helps maintain the sacred scrolls, the published and unpublished thoughts of the others?

Will you be there?

Will you be the one sitting in the circle, uttering your blessings and tearful memories; not just of one, but through the one… All? http://merlinstone.net/merlin-stone-memorial-florida/

Will you be there?

No one will remember us sisters unless we hold ourselves more dearly.

Our numbers were once in the millions. The Second Wave they called us; after the Suffragists, the First Wave.

We embraced the heritage of our foremothers. We were all there, creating even more for the next generations. Yes, we sent our daughters to universities. They are now endowed with diplomas and confidence, if not quite the equal opportunities.

We were all there.

You were there when you saw the shadows of the long fight, still ongoing. You knew we might not witness all the changes we brought forth; doesn’t fit into one lifetime.

Many of our sisters have left this life; passed on.

Many sisters aged and ill. We don’t even know how many. Who were all alone at death’s door? Who died unexpectedly?

There is no honoring for us from some lofty entity. There’s only you… and me.

There are no Academy Awards for moving history ahead. There are no Oscars for naming the ills we had to overcome.

The monetary awards for Feminists are like a thin vein in the back of the patriarchal vigilance. Some gets through.

There is not even a centralized email list where we can reach all of us at once. The right wingers, enemy of our gender have computerized themselves already in the seventies. We didn’t bother to coalesce. We fought our fights alone, a familiar situation.

Sisterhood escapes for lack of true flow of information. Lack of honoring. Lack of visibility. Dispersed, like seeds in the wind.

Who is left?

Honoring each other is honoring ourselves.

We are worthy. Can we rise as a female gender to this noble cause?

Like we once did? Will you be there?

Stand alongside me. Stand alongside your sisters. This time… be there.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbiegrennier/in-search-of-merlin-stone

Blessings on you all!