Hallowmas and Three Circles in L.A.

Oh, how my heart jumps when I drive by the old neighborhood! Hollywood Blvd, Whitley Hill , up the the hill and there is my old apartment, number 1972, like the year I lived and loved there. Everything was such a miracle. The jasmine tree that had a branch reaching into my first lover’s apartment, and bloomed, we never closed the door. The jasmine caressed us as we made love in her bed on the floor. Nobody slept on real beds back then, mattresses on the floor was the way to go. I had become a woman there in that little apartment, a feminist in the first Women’s Center on Crenshaw, and a practicing witch with a coven. Ten years of solid service, 21 holydays a year, solstices and equinoxes and the high points in between plus the full moons. Every six weeks there was a universal holyday to celebrate, to dance to, to climb the Big Rock mountain in Malibu.

Now it’s 30 years later.

The sweetness remains.

Visiting my legacy in Topanga Community center was bitter sweet too. The sage scented the air, wide open skies greeted me, and the women, strong and dedicated celebrated their “mother”. Me.

I felt honored.

Their current High Priestess has just resigned. Never mind, they shared the leadership harmoniously. Sitting on the floor, about 25 of them, had already prepped the sacred space, installed a labyrinth which they used for meditation, set up four different altars, each for an other purpose, one for the Fates, where they could ask a question and receive an answer. A throne for Hecate, splendidly decorated with owl wings and a fine antique chair, where the she sat solemnly. Many elements I didn’t invent, but they were created after I left them, and the ritual gained in nuances. A communal altar where they have lit candles remembering the Burning Times and the women killed today in the name of Islamic gods. Prayers were offered to the ancestors.

The ritual was more introspective and solemn then joyous, after all this is the holyday of the dead.

Before this ritual we had a gathering in the Magdalene Center (Magdalene was Jesus’ partner suppressed by the sexist Christians and called a prostitute). My spiritual daughter Miri has started with a partner, but now she too stepped aside, and let the partner run it. Here they had a fine Goddess art show, they had musical events, and sold some stuff. The store front was a year old; a good reason to celebrate.

Here I talked for about an hour about the good old days, when the goddess movement just started. There were some old friends in the audience who knew me back when. The young ones celebrated the fact that they didn’t have to start from scratch. We took pictures with the old friends and their daughters. Much praise was heaped on me, and I received them gratefully.

The third circle was my own at the Goddess temple in Irvine O.C.

This was “The healing power of a woman’s hug.” I had been impressed by Amma, the living hugging saint, who comes here to Oakland often and gives Darshan. We should have called it a Women’s Darshan, because many women thought hugging should be free.

Oh, but the hug I was experimenting with is set up quite differently. Not just a plain hug. Not an air hug, not a petting hug, nor a boa constrictor hug.

It’s a non-sexual committed hug, when two women embrace each other with heart-on-heart and entrain with each others breathing. This is easy. But when you breathe together, past a minute, old tapes begin to play. Break it off … enough … the urge to stop is great. But if you stay past 2 minutes in this hug magical things begin to happen.

After about two minutes a great crumbling of the walls begins, the warmth of the human heart transcends the personality, you no longer think of this other person as an individual. You stop thinking. Sinking deeper into the hug, I felt a total peace descended on me. A peace so happy, I wanted to hold it for a long time.

The second partner was an older woman, who was a hung up a bit emotionally, and I couldn’t find her outgoing breath. So my breathing was not quite “entrained” with hers. But suddenly after the 2 minutes, I felt I was hugging my own grandmother, my ancestors were all there in her hug. This too also evoked in me a great sense of peace, and a sense of love. Being loved by my own beloved dead.

My third partner was an experienced darshan receiver. She had many Amma hugs already. But this was not hugging like Ammas. She hugs several people briefly, sometimes two at a time. My darshan execersize takes time and sharing the rhythm of breath.

A very different feeling emerged. Her center was like a hot point, like a heart oven, radiating heat and love to me. I fell into a bliss in her arms, just warming all my loneliness, warming the very center of my heart and all my memories.

Tears came into my eyes.

I looked and saw others tearing up as well.

How this unconditional love that was so close, so available, was making us all realize how the divine spark, was in all of us if we could stand it past the 2 minutes. Total strangers could transmit to us the unconditional love of the goddess and create a great peace in our hearts.

When we leaned against each other back-to-back, still breathing together, we asked each other “What is your heart’s desire?” Both of us answered “I want to feel like this all the time. I want to be this blissfully happy.”

I don’t even know the names of these women. They have given me a certainty, not a promise, that we are all One, and any of us can hold us and transmit the unconditional divine love of the Goddess.

Yule Letter to Befana

Dear Befana!

You are the spirit that brings the gifts of life, but you don’t live on the North Pole. You live in the Air, and fly a hefty broom. Salutations to you!

Before Sinta Klaas was adopted from the Dutch and made into Santa Clous, it was you who brought gifts to the children, sweets for the good, and you only knew good kids. Befana! Mother Befana! Granny Befana! The old year opened up her cornocopia, out poured the harvest, the grains, the fruits, the figs and the grapes, the wine, and the breads.

Then you flew off again to fill your apron with more goodies. It was you who bid grandmothers to cook and bake, create huge celebrations around food, which is the basis for all life. You promised continuity, you promised new years, you promised old age and longevity of our species. And you have always delivered. Great old Befana, beloved by all children. Come to us again!

As a good witch I am writing my wishes down to send it to you in a small fire in my backyard. I am writing, “I like to have full good health” Befana, if I may. Last year I suffered a bad injury,which still smarts a bit when I walk . Let that lift from me and be as good as new. Let ten thousand little grandmothers mend my bones together so they can be strong in my old age.

I am writing, You brought out two of my books into the 21st century. Let them find their large audience at last. Let the mouth-to-mouth recommendations bring about plenty of sales, let the Goddess presence be strong this century, through my work and of the other sacred scribes.
“The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries” is stunning in this new incarnation! “Summoning the Fates” has soothed so many suffering hearts, let them find their new audience as well.

Since its ok to wish for three things, that’s your favorite number, dear Befana send me some inspired interns. Interns with the wish to serve the Goddess. Look amongst the Generation Z folks. I am confident that you could find me interns, at least one who would help me with my autobiography and my evolving Femina Nation.

In gratitude I'll put out figs and honey for you in the window, and watch the skies darken for a moment as you decend upon my rooftop.

I shall burn incense in your honor, spill the milk on the good earth, and let my little red squirrels eat the figs. Let the ants eat the honey.

Thank you dear Granny Befana, flying overhead I can hear your fearless cry, the sound of the local silver black crows.

Blessed be and blessed Yule to us all.

Spring Time for Action

Take my eyes off the computer, take back my feelings from watching the elections, put down my research materials, its spring time!

The main event in my front yard was the blooming pink flowers of the decoration plumb tree. She who enchants me every year by throwing pink petals in my path, falling from the tree like snowflakes.

My front yard is self-planted.

Some flowers are very imperialistically inclined. One spring there were just a few firepoker flowers, ill named for sure, they look more like orchids, in brick red. The next year they have colonized the entire front yard, and a year later they moved all the way down to the sidewalk.

I have noticed that my Morning Glories are also into expansion. I have planted one bush in the backyard to have something nice run up, on my aging old bamboo hedges. I watered it a little. I saw how they took off.

Next year Morning Glory sent out the probes. They ran on the ground all over the place.

They checked every possible way to get sunshine, and I am sure reported back to headquarters.

They did run up on the bamboo but they also overran all the backyards they could reach and colonized all the sunny spots. Now I see them all over the neighborhood, the original bush is not where they feed on. They have worked out other arrangements.

So as women, I think we should take heed from my flora. Let’s expand. Let’s step out from our allotted space.

When we gather in the fall it will be the first time in five years. There are no women’s festivals anymore like they were before in the eighties. Nineties.

All the music festivals from the west coast are gone. Women just don’t come out anymore. It might be age related. The young women don’t do festivals, the older ones feel it’s a little inconvenient.

But this year I was encouraged to produce one more festival, my tenth, that is wheel chair accessible, comfortable, bathroom in the cabins, everything is easy to walk to. We have changed the place to a new camp, Camp Harmon in the redwood forests near Santa Cruz.

There must be a time when we as women gather in nature to nurture our own nature. Women work to hard. We don’t play enough with each other. We don’t circle anymore. Witchy circles have become these mythical special little happenings, hard to find.

Not this time.

Let’s buy our very reasonably priced tickets, move the happiness of our souls. Let’s listen to birdsongs and inhale the free air from the redwoods. No bugs, nor mosquitoes. Simple comfortable beds at night. Good food.

For our minds we have all the Holy Book presenters, and the glorious past from the heroic age, when everything was born for the first time. Women’s spirituality, sisterhood, freedom of choice.

Its nurturing our souls to inform our minds about the women’s whose shoulders we are all standing on. In this case we are still here, in body, you don’t have to read obituaries just yet. Just have to show up.

Woodstock at Weedie’s Place

Don’t call Susun Weed that name, it’s reserved only to friends of long, long standing. Like thirty years. I’ve called her Weedie for a long time out of sheer affection for this wild woman who walks the green walk. Her place is near Woodstock, it’s set outside in the green rocky fields, trees and millions of singing frogs.

When she picks me up at the airport, after 12 hours of grueling transit, I am tired. Its usually late, she takes me for an hour drive and installs me in that little house in the Nettle Patch. It has turned into Tulip Patch of hot red and yellow flowers.

My room is decorated with just some flowers, a good bed, and there I can exhale at last.

As the night grows deeper I can hear the Leopard frogs begin their rehearsal. They just bring out the first singing section from their extensive choir for a trial run. While the peepers keep up a strong rhythm section. All day and all night long, the leopards come in with just one streak of their song. They hit a perfect note, and hold it more then a minute or two. It sounds like one single note, but it’s comprised from millions of small voices. Then they drop a half a note below perfectly harmonizing. Then one more, higher note. Then they take a break.

I am lying in bed and listening to this beloved concert. I have discovered them one spring, just like this one, but later into May. A little warmer, and their choir already jelled together. I heard them, and tears came down on my cheeks. It was the music of the spheres. It was the harmony of the Universe. It was a moving rich animal culture from which I have never recovered nor do I want to.

After a good long break the Leopards are back. This time they had worked out the kinks from their first run, and now they try even better. Out flows that long singular clear note, very unfloglike, and held much longer then a human being could hold the breath.

I am listening in awe. They worked and reviewed their act in the break they have taken. This time the note is sharper, and the half note drop is held longer, and the higher note afterwards is clearer.
These frogs are artists with high taste in music. After they have sung for a few minutes, once again they go silent. I guess now they are reviewing their performance, there must be some criticism, and corrections. Who conducts them? The Goddess herself?

I fall asleep. I dream of green fields, blooming tulips.

Next day my students are waiting for me. It’s a good section from all over, some drove in from neighboring states. I greet some old friends, meet the new ones. We are a cross section of middle-aged to in-their-twenties women, from practicing witches to first-timers. I teach from the Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries, first we discuss the Manifesto of the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One. There are 15 different points in it, and we take them one by one. Politics for this generation is not as immediate then it was for us who lived in the Heroic Age (seventies) of our youth. But the issues are still burning, many points have not lost their importance at all.

We take a break. I had them in the studio for almost four hours, I am tired too. I give them some homework, they have to memorize the Invocation to the Star Goddess. Interesting how Americans don’t like to memorize poems. I grew up with poetry recitals and poetry by-heart homework’s. We made some progress.

Weedie is asking me, what nothing tonight? No circle tonight?
--They are not circle ready yet. Let what I thought them marinate.

Friday night . The Leopards started at nine pm precisely. The rain is not bothering them at all. They sing this time with two section of their large choir. It’s building slowly. They each hold one note which all are harmonious. They both vary half a note, one up and one down. I get goose bumps. Their harmony is all encompassing.