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

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.

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.

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

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!

Please visit www.MerlinStone.net for more information on the Merlin Stone projects and her memorial coming in Sept. 2011.

Merlin Stone on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002152957167

Woodstock, NY June 3-5, 2011
Wise Woman Center

Once upon a time back before modern times, way, way before television and social media, people had a way to get answers from a loving and caring spirit world. When a war was about to be fought, the kings sent an envoy to the oracular centers of the old world, places like Eleusis or Delphi to inquire of the Fates, via their priestesses, if the war would go their way or not. It was a wiser time, when men knew still that wars no matter how well they were fought could backfire or earn the wrath of the Fates. In a way it was social etiquette to inquire humbly at the shrines of the Goddess, what to do about matters of state, marriages, and children about to marry.

In order to receive this counsel, the people brought gifts to the temple, live stock, salt, spices, and of course gold and silver coins if they had any.

The priestess would then prepare herself through many rituals to center her mind, climb onto her tripod, and listen to the questions from the people… deepen about it. And when she was deeply entranced, she uttered the answers. Most of the time, the people were the only ones who asked the question and understood what the answers were. And that is how oracular messages were received. Oracular means to hear, to understand.

I have spent a considerable amount of time preparing myself to be an oracular priestess. In modern times, it’s mostly about the study of ancient symbols, and their ever nuanced meaning. I spent three years solid studying the Tarot. And, I have practiced other methods of oracular activity, which I gleaned from the great Merlin Stone (goddess kiss her soul).

One thing I know for sure, you cannot just jump into oracular prophesies without a deepening first. The priestess and audience must undergo some centering rituals, some high quality incense must help relax the modern mind.  The modern mind is not in tune with these old ways.

The modern mind wants answers, yes, but it wants it in modern terms, not in symbols and metaphors. This is why we have to make the modern brain step aside.

As a Tarot devotee, this is the single hardest part of getting into the souls wisdom… stepping aside with the modern brain’s opinions, and attitudes, and impatience. You have to steady this part of your mind. Lull it to escape somewhere else, but keep the right brain alert, the magical brain, which is the one who plugs you into your own intuitive self.

There was a lot of literature about how the priestesses who sat on the tripods inhaled some fumes coming from the earth herself. At Delphi, this old knowledge was scientifically explained. It seems the temple sits on top of two fault lines coming together right at the place of the temple. So, methane could have leaked from those schisms.

It does get you woozy, but not high. I prefer the story about the slabs of hash burning gently below the tripods, and inhaling the fumes of that does make you high.

The priestess usually sat with the question awhile, and then when she “heard” the answer she uttered it. The people hung on her every word, and usually got what they wanted… an otherworldly point of view on their very earthy problems.

I also practiced an instant prophesy version. After some centering, one woman I covered with a black or blue scarf, making her the oracle. Then, another woman in the circle would stand up and request an answer to her question. The woman under the scarf had a chance to listen deeply to her spirit, and answer it if she could. Women were amazed how accurate they could be almost right away. Such experiences strengthen the belief that we are not alone. We don’t live in only a visible world, but an invisible world as well. Just like the universe we live in, some objects reflect light, others don’t. What we see is only what reflects light; hence our eyes were made for that. But our souls can see beyond, hear beyond the grave. It’s exciting.

My mother was one of those oracular beings, who didn’t need much to KNOW. When she looked at you she also heard your story. She knew where you came from and what bothers you. She was a medium, an artist, an oracular priestess. She was a Piscean and I am an Aquarian. For this kind of oracular work her sign was better suited, but all signs can and have become oracular.

The best place to practice this kind of reclaiming is in nature. In nature you can engage the entire environment in helping you sort things out. First you make an agreement with yourself, and nature.

When I ask my question, if I see a bird fly off from the east it means yes, if the bird flies from the west it’s a no. All other directions you can assign a meaning as well. Then sit and wait. It won’t be long when the birds begin their answers. After you have received your clear answer leave some foods for the birds, bread crumbs, or buy some seeds from the pet store and leave it out for the wild life.

Oracular conciseness is a fine skill. But you must not allow it to take over every decision you have to make. If you abuse the spiritual powers, or insult it with over repetitions, not getting it, forcing it over and over again, the entire hot line to the oracular forces will be cut off. So be careful and respect the lines that can be plugged in to the infinite wisdom of nature.

Blessed be.

JOIN ME: Woodstock, NY June 3-5, 2011, Wise Woman Center

—————————-
Zsuzsanna “Z” Budapest, D.Min (h.c.), is the founding mother of the Women’s Spirituality Movement. Z founded the Goddess College, an online school for the Dianic tradition and Goddess studies for women. She authored nine books embracing spirituality; including The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries, Grandmother Moon, Celestial Wisdom and Summoning the Fates. She has appeared on several TV shows and documentaries, as well as hosting her own show, 13^th Heaven. Through her non-profit organization, Women’s Spirituality Forum, Z’s vision for the future is that of peace and abundance, expressed in female values, to dominate the world’s consciousness.

Thank you my Mother, long gone from this earth, made it only till 63. Her sister, Titi, she lived till 88. These two women raised me. Blessings on their memory.

Mother taught me magic, Titi taught me common sense. The two Piscean sisters raised this Aquarian.

I was born on the Feast Day of Pax, once in antiquity a very popular holyday, peace marches, everybody on the streets carrying symbols of peace, herbs, palms. I feel this energy, I hate war. Who doesn’t you ask, but many see war as a great business. Many make money from weapons, bullets, guns and fear mongering.

Politics has touched my life directly even as I was born. WWII broke out the next year, and from then on I didn’t live with my parents but with strangers in the countryside because only they had food to eat. The city, Budapest, was starving. Grandmother died of starvation.

Our apartment was bombed down by American carpet bombers.

We had one three-legged green chair left from the entire past.

Now I am an American. I see how this country can be fooled into wars, bamboozled into believing in false enemies.

I have devoted my life to build up women. Women are the peaceniks of history. There is no mother who asks her kids to kill or be killed.

I believed if the spirit is alive and well in women they will think of ways to create peace on earth. It’s not just a postcard at Christmas; it’s a way of life.

Bringing back a women’s spiritual culture was my strategy. When women have their own culture back, they can continue this bending of human minds out of the past and into a peaceful future.

This has worked!

Women love their culture, and straight and gay women together have been circling on the Goddess’s lap, spreading their influence like they should, carried by the winds of change.

If I live long enough I may see more and more the positive impact on the larger collective consciousness. Let it be!

I have a bucket list.

Before my life runs out, I would like to have a volunteer writer’s assistant who can look after my writing projects so they get on the computer and e-books and etc. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I have comedy scripts in me, movies, TV cartoons, with somebody with me I could create an entire new 21^st century women’s culture.

And I want a devoted agent for my works, a successful advocate for women’s culture who sells the works to TV. I’d like to make money as well before I die. Real money. Hollywood money.

Bucket list item: I’d like to develop my voice again, I like to be able to take singing lessons. I miss singing.

Item: I would like to get grants for my non-profit, Women’s Spirituality Forum. I financed it myself for many years. We did have some wealthy sisters give us money, (thank you Marli, M.V Divine and Karen) but that’s just sheer luck. I would like to have enough money in the WSF funds, that I can keep my own; and wealthy donors can tax deduct what they give. I like to see the Goddess Gatherings supported by donor’s money, so we can have lower prices for women to come and attend.

Grant writers who actually have contacts, are part of my bucket list.

All the Grant write ups in the Foundations books have the word women in them, but when we applied, we didn’t even get a response.

Before I die, I want this to change. Foundations should stop spreading their money around amongst their friends. Open up that purse and give to women, not just the totally damaged, but the gifted as well. Not just for bread, but for roses too.

One distant dream is a women’s creative spiritual community, like a Dianic nunnery. I need for that, a group of women to manifest a peaceful creative place for me and others to retire to. But not isolated.

I lived in Oakland 40 years, longer then anywhere else in the world.

I am looking for a new place, with no steep stairs, near a swimming pool, trees, and good air.

On this note I send the Goddess my gratitude, thank you for the privilege to be alive on this freakishly beautiful planet.

I thank you to those who sent me over two thousand well wishes, I feel your love and I know I live in your hearts even when I am no longer amongst you.

Let’s lift our chalice! Drink the cup to the bottom.

To life!

She had a good life with me for ten years. Every day around 3pm we got our gear on, her little turquoise collar on the dependable leash, and we set out for our constitutional walks.

She sniffed everything in sight. She filed them into her information files. She had mapped out all of Oakland and Berkeley as well. She was the sniffer of every scent. She knew a lot from the sniffs, she was a genius, she knew the paths.

She smelled raccoons in the backyard, and where they have been. She sniffed the path of squirrels; she tracked people’s foot steps, and reported it to me.

She was a good girl. She was my beloved. I felt her warm body next to my leg every night. She knew my moves, I knew her needs. It all worked out.

Now we have nothing.

I sent her to my dead father who was a huge dog lover. He had to give away his dogs when I was born. Not healthy for babies, mama said. He didn’t have dogs ever since. He died in ‘79.

So, I have sent him this one, my beloved Hungarian Puli Zyna. She was from father’s neighborhood, the old neighborhood, before they moved to the city.

Find my father I said to her. He will be happy to have you. This I am sure of.

She laid on the little blue blanket the hospital lent us, she lay on it breathing real hard. It was the lungs that took her finally, fighting for air. An insidious infection didn’t show on x-rays, fighting for her every breath… its over.

No more force feeding her mashed down sweet potatoes and dog food for puppies. The only desire she had was for a little sweets, and when I ate my Danish, she got interested in a crumb that had sugar on it. She took that and held it in her mouth as the last taste of life.

After the relaxant shot the doc gave her, she stuck her little pink tongue out, let it hang. I kissed her nose.

Thank you dearest friend. Thank you for the ten years of walks, and wagging that tail; and happy noises, and welcomes. Thank you my heart’s puppy.

Where do puppies go after death? Innocent animals, they go to their own heaven I am convinced. The Goddess Diana loves dogs, Zyna can join Diana if she wants to.

Then came the death shot.

Dr. Lin shaved off her little leg and administered the shot that shuts down life, stops the heart.

I felt for her spirit.

Little friend, don’t be scared. You have to leave your sick body behind. Just GO HOME ZYNA! I whispered to her, a call used often while alive.

Go home meant run from my car to the door. There she barked her joyous return to the homestead; she barked until I opened our door.

Then, she liked to tell everybody where she had been, Pulik are big communicators.

All through her quick illness and demise, she fought for life but not really. The moment she refused to eat was actually her time to die. We didn’t accept that as the end. We force fed her food, we force fed her water. She hated it. She was done. The humans were not.

Today, a couple days later, however we all got on the same page.

Good-bye my little friend. Please look for my dad, Sandor. He will take care of you.

Zyna was calm this morning. She did her business, more then we thought possible. She was still the very clean dog, who would not mess in the house no matter how sick. Not even on her deathbed. Now that’s integrity!

I just stroked her, and my wife stroked her, and we piled a lot of love on her last day. This Puppy was well loved by both of us.

After the second shot not much had changed. She was still warm, but she was gone. Her heart had stopped. But she was still warm. She didn’t look grotesque. She looked like a sleeping dog with her eyes open. I couldn’t shut her eyes. But inside her eyes there was nobody in. She went out like an invisible wisp of a thought. Her little pink tongue hanging out, that’s all that betrayed her.

Thank you for the ten great years!

I have jagged cries now. I tried to not bother her with my pain. I don’t think I go back to work today, I am too sad.

I had a tequila sunrise, and am not a drinker, so I got drunk fast. I wrote this requiem very drunk.

This my official wake for a Hungarian Puli.

May you roam free, and never in pain my darling!

May you find old friends and new.

I will always love you.

You were my beloved, and now I gave you sleep.

Be well little one, roam the summer lands,

sniff out the good luck once again.

Farewell my girl!

My only one.

I am happy. Over a hundred women came out to share the spectacular Circles.

First night: Thursday, women were still arriving, settling in, by evening we were ready to  pray and bless WATER.

The altar was created to honor WATER, heal the Gulf, heal all the oceans. SEDNA the goddess of the deep was the main image, hanging over the fireplace. We lit candles to her and her powers to replenish the oceans.

The women stood in the circle passing a candle with the image of the Lady of Guadalupe on it; she is the Queen of all Americas. We placed a blessing on it from the heart. It burned for the success of all wishes on the altar from then on.

In return we captured sea water from the Pacific Ocean, in two jars. You have never seen such clean water, see through like glass. I have dipped flowers into it and sprinkled with the sea all the participants.

This was the purification for the weekend.

All women felt included and sanctified.

Friday

The workshops all started with me, preparing us all to handle well the evening ritual.

Already Thursday afternoon I have taught the basics, divided the women into two major groups, the star sisterhood, and the generational sisterhood. Star sisterhood is the Zodiac sign you belong to, generational sisterhood is the age you are in. These groups then assumed their duties. Star sisters invoked the corners of the Universe according to their star quality, air, fire, water earth.

They opened and closed the circle.

Our drummers Larissa and friend, Ace, displayed their artistry, taking the beat and carrying us along.

First we had sacred play. I have prepared a bowl of magical herbs, good for all positive wishes. We each took a handful and made out of died Juniper leaves and berries (good health), fresh Patchouli (good sex), Verbena (good female health and love) … we made special wishes and we cast the magical herbs into the fire. The fire sparkled happily.

Having danced around the fire and was ready to slow down a little, I had all the women who desired an Initiation into Women’s Mysteries come forward. I then blessed a ball of red yarn, and entwined them with it, myself included. This is for embarking on the PATH. This is just a first step. I never know what comes of it, many times I get activists from this first step, others just take it home with them and practice at home. This year we had 37 new Initiates.

I have started a new tradition within the Dianic Tradition, that of the SUMMONERS. These are our organizers. We need to raise a cadre of organizers so we can have circles in every state. My own Bobbie (and Kate MacDowell who couldn’t be there in person) went first, I took her staff and had all women bless it. They all promised to come when the SUMMONER calls. Summoners are sacred to Themis, the Goddess of Social Consciousness. They are serving Themis. She is the first of all the Goddesses; she summons together humanity.

We elevated CLERGY women, those who keep the sacred spaces for worship. Laura and Duffy, from Simi Valley, Rosmarinus and Ghislaine from Canada, Jesa from Hayward … received their snow white Clergy katas; silk scarf.

We have Ordained two women into QUEENDOMS, as they are the community builders. JoAnna from Carson City, who worked with women in rehab for thirty years and, Sage from Mendocino, who has led Dianic circles there now for four years.

After this the dancing resumed. Star studded skies, roaring sacred flames, and happy women.

I was so tired that night I just fallen into my sleeping bag, dressed as I was. Good dreams followed.

Saturday was easy. This time the women knew what to do, the fire women fed the fires. Miri kept the cauldron going with Frankincense, feeding the good spirits who attended the circle.

We invoked the grandmothers from all directions. We called in our own ancestors by name. We chanted various sweet chants.

A huge feeling of party times rapture our hearts, and the circle became a big dancing hall, drums went wild. I had to keep Jane from jumping the fire, fearing women would attempt it, the fright from last time was still with me when one of us landed on the hot coals. But not worried, this year all went just fine.

When the dancing and drumming calmed down a little, we sat down and watched the procession of the ages, women taking the sacred well for their demonstrations and impressions of what it was like being the age they were in. As usual the thirties were most numerous, but the forties had the most organization, the fifties were very musical this year, and the sixties, well we had a song thanks to Duffy, and I danced an impromptu interpretation of it.

Now I am moving away from the experience; takes a year to produce. Thank you women who came and allowed us to have another righteous witchy event.