Z Budapest Blog

Blessings Sisters in Goddess!

We are pleased to announce our Goddess Festival Special for the the month of August 2010.

In the month of August only!
We are offering women who register for the Goddess Festival a FREE one year membership into the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 … the world’s most famous coven!

Membership into the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 is $50. So you’re getting a savings of $50! Plus, once a member of the SBA, you will find savings on classes worth more than the cost of your membership!

It’s a WIN-WIN!!! You get to come to the Goddess Festival and become a Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 Sister in Goddess … and you help raise funds for the Women’s Spirituality Forum.

The Women’s Spirituality Forum is an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit. Your registration fees and your membership are tax deductible.

* SBA Special pricing ends Sept. 1, 2010

Back in the seventies when I was teaching out of my candle shop bookstore called the Feminist Wicca, we used to have Tarot Socials as a way to teach women how to read the cards. I discovered those leaflets with my typed Bio on the other side. Thirty-five years later I have decided to revive the event.

Now I have done quite a few. Started in my house; we have taken it to the Goddess Temple in Irvine, to Susun Weed’s place in Woodstock,  Karens beautiful Mountain View home with the rose garden and swimming pool, and now just recently to Nevada, JoAnna’s circle of women.

What is it? How are the Tarot Socials different from regular Tarot Readings?

First rule is whatever you hear in the Tarot Social stays confidential.

There is a special kind of relief that comes from being witnessed by your sisters. You belong into the fabric of womanhood. You are not alone with your problems, but you keep your mouth shut about what you heard once the event is over.

Second rule is don’t hold back. When I see that you are very, very upset about something, and I call you on it; feel free to vent. Feel free to cry and sob. We are accustomed to cry in therapy sessions, group or private. Tarot readings are a poor woman’s therapy. It’s faster than normal therapy; it doesn’t take weekly visits to keep you on the healing path. Instead you get folk customs, folk magic homework to do in order to sort through your options, pluck up your self-confidence, and stop the denial of your pleasures.

Third rule is to allow the support and friendships that come from such communal experiences to reach your heart. Life is to short, these sessions with your sisters are rare. As a planetary co-traveler, we need each other, we need the family of women.

So what actually happens?

We begin with holding a circle. We hold each other’s hands. We hum to unify ourselves, to open our psychic eye to the incoming wisdom. The hum opens up our door between the subconscious and conscious minds. We connect our feeling centers with our thinking centers, we become one unit.

A light smudging with white sage elevates our minds and creates a path for our guiding spirits to come through.

I hand you the sacred oil to anoint your hands with before handling the cards, I favor Amber oil. We both inhale this scent, an instant transportation into the temple.

Next I give you the deck to shuffle. The best way to mix the cards is up to you. But a good mix is needed, not just a little changing of the cards positions in the deck. There are 78 images, and ten positions which nuances them, the possibility of variations is infinite.

A good reader is synthesizing the meanings of the cards; filter it through wise woman’s wisdoms. This part is where the person who is the reader plays a major role. How intelligent is she? How well read? Do you know more then the prescribed meanings? How much experience does she have? Is she good at stepping aside and allow the spiritual take center stage? Can she leave her own attitudes aside, and see purely the divine advice? These are the most difficult tasks.

Most people when they meet you, either have a sympathetic vibration form in their brains or not. When I read cards to women, I don’t know them yet, just met them. I ask only three questions.

How old are you? What sign are you? What is your name?

Based on these answers the Tarot is able to pinpoint your planetary being like a GPS guide. This same information is enough for me to satisfy my “attitude” towards the new querrent, and not search for anything personal from me, like do I like this person or not.

Next I take the deck of cards that you have already shuffled, “cooked” and with my left hand towards the left away from me I break it into two piles. While I say, “Wisdom from the Nymph, Wisdom from the Queen, Wisdom from the Crone.” Each time repeating the breaking of the deck, into two piles, with my left hand towards the left away from me then placing the left over pile on top of the new pile. What I have at the end of this is the deck I use to read you.

From the very top of the already created pile is your Significator. I don’t make a Significator by selecting a card based on you being female or male, young or old, as it is often subscribed in Tarot books.

The card I get is far more then that. It already has information about you. The most significant feeling you carry, or situation you are in will show up here right away.

The rest of the lay out is up to the reader. I use the old Celtic Cross, but often I do a single card and pull more as needed. I watch what you hide from yourself, in the root of the cross, and discuss it. I examine the Soul position, how does your sprit feel? Your house. Your hopes and fears.

I often look at the correspondences, the Aces and the Queens, those count an extra card. I look at the numbers coming up, does anything repeat itself, like 3s, or 7s; numerology has things to say about that too.

Readings last as long as they last. I lose track of time when I stepped between the worlds.

In the Tarot Socials, I explain why I have chosen to say what I did, based on what cards, very informative for somebody who wishes to learn this kind of divination.

October is coming, the years end, when we are all between the worlds. Watch for my schedule where I will be doing this kind of community building teaching/counseling. (TarotSocial.com)

If you think you can call together at least 15 women for a Tarot Social, and you would like to host it for me, please let us know.

The Goddess work needs all of us to do our part.

Blessed be,
Z Budapest
www.ZBudapest.com

I have written many books, ten of them got published, some are still waiting. But at my age, I am very aware of the fact that I have to write my autobiography (AB) as soon as possible.

As I was looking at my 80⁺ diaries, I realized that I used my diaries to work out my emotional problems, record lovers quarrels, shyly describe love making. I also put there my media appearances, topics of my researches, parties and addresses I had to find.

Sometimes very important things get just a single line as it was with my Tarot arrest. I simply wrote “busted.” Behind that of course was a storm of activity, meetings that followed, friends came forward, money was raised, and given to attorneys, plans were hatched.

Along the way my personal life was changing. My short three weeks vacation had turned into a lifelong residence in California. And every so often I went back to Budapest to refuel.

Even back then I was already writing my AB, in little snippets. I wrote about my parents to purge them, to understand them better and me in relationship with them. The distance has helped me a lot. I was not an abused child, but I was an ignored child. Since I was also the only child for the first 13 years of my life, you would have thought that would afford me more attention from my parents. Not so. I felt that I was always a burden.

During the war when I was a toddler, during the bombings, I caught every childhood disease there was. I remember the whooping cough as the worst. I used to say between fits of coughing, “Oh my god, this sickness is going to kill me.”  It didn’t.

After the war, my parents just farmed me out to peasant families in the countryside where there was food. Here my life got better. I had for the first time seen a goat and her kid, drank warm goat milk, and picked chamomile flowers for teas all day. I felt productive.

These are pictures that do come independently, imprinted deep in my soul.

A lot of important things just fall away if not asked about it.

But now as I am sitting at my computer, Lady Mac, I wonder how can I recall all of it?

I have already decided that the first five years included everything already that was important for the rest of my life.

And feminism that gave birth and gave me my wings, was really churning between ‘65 and ‘75.  Afterwards it was all backlash, which lasted 40 years now. My 1975 included most of my sowing the seeds of my victories. Not harvesting, no, but 1972/73/74/75 are my essential story; if I want to track my life on feminism.

But is that all that gave meaning to my life? How about the magical evenings on top of the Big Rock Mountain in Malibu?

I am excited about writing my AB when I flash on another episode.

But I am alone. No body is stimulating my mind to recall.

I need you to become my muse. This writing is very much harder than the normal magic books I have written. This is all personal. This I have lived. This I like to tell.

Think… ask me questions you would like to read about in my autobiography. Please. I will take those questions and contemplate them and write them.

Otherwise I don’t know how I’ll get through this highly personal job.

Help!

Blog response written by Z Budapest in response to the question of being a women-born-women’s Dianic coven or if being Dianic is hostile to males because it’s an all women’s tradition. I included the start of their blog post with a link to read more, and my full response to it. By the way, these women decided to follow the Dianic tradition and we published this article in Goddess Magazine for all to enjoy and learn from. We need more healthy discussions about the Dianic tradition like this one.

What’s in a Name? Sometimes Everything
February 24, 2010 — narajane84

While our coven, Daughters of the Sacred Torch, was still in its planning phase, one of the other coven council members and I were discussing what kind of coven we would be, what—if any—tradition we would follow. I suggested that we just go ahead and call ourselves a Dianic coven. After all, we are following all of the basic tenants of Dianism, and the major works of Dianic tradition founder Z. Budapest figure prominently not only on our reading list but also on our practices. The other coven council member present for this discussion agreed. But her husband—who, by the way, is a nice guy and by no means hostile to Dianism—thought we should reconsider using such a “loaded word” as “Dianic.” read more….

Z Budapest’s response…
Blessed be the women with brave hearts! The brave hearts with skills of language, insights and leadership!.

The Dianic Tradition had been maligned because its for and by WOMEN. Who loves women? Why is that a bad baggage? Don’t you love your mothers and sisters? Shame on you if you hate us.

Women in the Dianic Tradition are hetero, bi and lesbians. We don’t ask if they are or not, in spirituality its besides the point. When women gather to worship the Goddess they worship their own ancestors, their own mothers and sisters. Why can’t males do the same?

And as to why males insist to be in the circle with females and malign the female only circles, is because males don’t really bother to develop Men’s Mysteries. And why not Men’s Mysteries? Because its WORK. It’s study, it’s reading, digging deep, and spending the time like I have. The it’s creativity, it’s taking a lot of flack, it’s being called names.

We have pointed the way in the Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries, under Sacred Sons, but in 35 years NONE have gone there to develop a male specific non-sexist spiritual tradition based on ancient heritage. All the old fraternities still lay dormant, the Salii, the Bacchos, Dionysus, Iacchos ,Bassareus, Euios, Zagreus, Theyoneus, Braites, Lenaios, Eleutherus, Bromios, Pan, The Horned One. Where is the studious male mind who wants to reclaim the true magic of males?

Stop harping on your fear induced “baggage” (all yours). The women are WAY ahead of you. Care enough to have your own. You will not know the true meaning of being a fully male human until you get together with your brothers and fathers, and practice.

Mixed groups twice a year (Midsummer and Halloween) is also part of the Traditions. But, the men have NOTHING to bring to the table. Men … women are no longer doing your jobs! Do your own research and develop the male mysteries. Wake up and create yourselves.

To the women, wear your womanhood proudly, we paid for it in blood during the Burning Times. Be well and bless your loved ones as you bless each other.

The Goddess IS alive, and magic IS afoot!
Blessed be,
Z Budapest

Books reviewed by Z Budapest

“Make Merry in Step and Songs” by Bronwen Forbes (Llewellyn )

Spring is warm enough to take a book out and read it while you inhale the fresh new air with flower scents. Reading about pagan rituals and enhancing your vocabulary in songs and folk dances, for circle leaders what a gift.

This is a great book! I love old England and loved learning about these many dances. The music is written down, and one can actually learn it. The dances are explained with meticulous precision, and the gentle prodding towards more practice makes the book a delight.

The author is a great lover of folk art, it shows in every selection, but those who think this is all about sugar and a little spice don’t know the English. Some of the heritage is gruesome, the character of the players murderous and unpredictable.

Yes there are the well behaved May Dance participants, wooing the fair Elinor, but there is also a story of a mother who hexed the young wife of her son with infertility. She can never have a child, until the son learns what she has done to hex her and undo the spell.

Then there is the humor.  In the John Barleycorn Play, Old Woman questions Doctor Brown .

“What diseases canst you cure?”  Doctor Brown: “The hips –pipsy, the palsy, the gout, a man having twenty-two senses in his head. I can cast twenty one out. Why I cured a snag tail last week nearly twenty-five feet long! Surely I can cure thy son who is not quite gone.”  And then proceeds to raise her dead son from the dead. Not your everyday pabulum culture here.

I find it exciting that so much has remained still in practice, which the rebirth of the pagan traditions I am sure will contribute with more longevity.

This kind of culture requires costumes and props, a bit of pageantry peasant style. I think this is the kind of book you can consult at each turn of the seasons plus to make more merry at pagan parties. The information in here creates community, cohesiveness and entertainments. Well done Bronwen!

“Echoes of the Goddess” by Simon Brighton and Terry Welbourn (Ian Allan Publishing)

This is a book that should be made mandatory for all Women’s Studies students, and of the Craft and Goddess studies. Beautifully laid out with splendid color photographs just the object of the book itself is classy.

The English do not usually come out with this “in your face we got the Goddess all over our country” narrative. I recall when I was in England looking for the pagan heritage, the locals didn’t brag a lot about it. The London National Museum put the goddesses in room 22, a side show. It was all well known near the temples and stone, yet hush, hush at the same time. With this book, England at last owns her pagan heritage.

I have never seen goddess book this thorough, a well produced overview of the Goddess Culture. Starting with the Lost Goddess, prehistory goddesses, subterranean goddesses, holy wells, freshwater sirens, saltwater sirens, the Celtic and dark goddesses, the rude goddess, the Christianized goddess, the goddess in myths, legends, and in the labyrinth.

Rich chapters lead you through the countryside of England showing you what even tourist guides cannot see. And the Goddess is here bold and beautiful. Indeed, this book has a Holy book quality to it in content and presentation.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I am partial to stones. Looking at the breathtaking spiral paths, on a slab from Malta boggles the mind. Four to six thousand years old, these were people who knew about the spirals in the sky, understood the world to be part of the great whole. Another favorite of mine is the image on the Picardy Stone Aberdeen shire, from the 6/7^th century AD; it was a tombstone once on an ancient grave.  It has a curvy snake, a symbol of reincarnation; several images which could be maps of the stars said that it had a relationship to the hill of Dunnideer. Mysterious, yet riveting.

When you absorb all this good information take it easy, do a chapter at a time. Its like a rich meal for your mind you want to savor.  The book takes you through history and accurately documents where the goddess was worshiped, by whom, for example the Pictish people, who gave women equal rights even back then. Then the great goddess was taken down with misinformation, destruction of her legacy and values.  The Synod of Whitby in 664 AD finally crushed the Goddess Culture; all her physical representations were destroyed.

But not the She na gig, the vagina Goddess, she survived decorating the Christian churches, inside and outside. Good luck was her value and sexuality. The same folk also had many Green Man images to keep her company.

Make this book a success. Give them to friends for high occasions. Share it with your book clubs, keep it where you can see it and reach for it.

Where are you sisterhood?
Was it so hard to hold on to each other?
Was it so hard to forgive each other our human flaws?
We disappointed each other because we didn’t turn out to be divine as planned?
Are you once again alone with the struggle?
Making a living while being a woman too difficult?

I know it can be. A woman body is a full time job. Just to be healthy, we need to mind our natural cycles, bleeding every month is not fun. Two weeks tied down with the menstruation, one week pre-tension, then the bloods, and then the waning of the bloods.

Whoever says otherwise is lying. While we balance on high heels, secretly we hope our bloody pad wont move up to our back, or aspire to become shoulder pads. Bleeding is hard work. And it’s expensive. The cost of tampons, pads, the teas, the pills, the loss of joy in life, comes out of our own pockets. We finance a nation’s fertility. Not fair.

The government doesn’t pay women for being fertile, but it pays men to have erections. Viagra is covered in health plans. Birth control for women is not.  Where is the outrage?

The other day I managed to get my hands on a precious old book called, “Handbook of Women’s Liberation” written by Joan Robins. This was the very first book I read when I arrived in Los Angeles written by a contemporary feminist sister. Back then it costs $2.95, today I got it for twenty dollars. But I was so happy it was avaible at all.

In order to hold on to your Goddess consciousness you have to build in your mind a place for her with feminism. This is how she sticks with you through thick and thin.

What’s in the book?

Ms. Robins gives us a quick background on the early feminists, the suffragists from the last century. It’s good to know whose shoulders we are standing on. It’s good to know what they have done right. They organized themselves, set reasonable goals, and were relentless in pursuit of their goals. Unfortunately the narrow goal of the vote was all they could get us in order to change the female social status from chattel to citizen with a vote. This took them 75 years. Only the youngest daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot Stanton Blatch, lived to see the vote won. Young Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment, the very night the women celebrated their right to vote. That law has still not passed.

The short history of where the Second Wave comes from the Civil Rights Movement, and the Peace Movement where women have participated, only to be ordered back to make coffee for the male peaceniks and the black male revolutionaries.

There was a point when the women came to consciousness about how inconsistent that was with the goals they have supported. This is when the women left the movements of the males and created their own. There are wonderful pictures in the back of the book showing us these young faces, just like yours today, marching down on Fifth.

This is the Second Wave that invented the ingenious and effective C.R. Groups, consciousness raising groups, which I think we should reframe and reinvent for this huge wave of generation Z.

How is C.R. Groups different from study groups or discussion groups?

In the C.R. Group, the emphasis is on the personal experiences of each woman. We use what we learn first-hand from each other to politically analyze the status of women. “We wanted to build our own analysis of the conditions of women and from that derive a theory of action,” Robins writes.

I think our oppression certainly changed since 1970 when this book was written, but not so much in essence.

For example in the seventies, two-thirds of women were not employed. Instead we all labored privately; the unpaid labor of housewives’ and genital work (marriages).

Today the workforce is majority female workers, but the country is still run by old white males, who live in the fifties mentally.

Back then, women were not admitted to universities, or just not as many as men, today since admittance finally changed into merit based decisions, 75 percent of women comprise the student body in all collages and universities. Wahoo!

So we can pat ourselves on the shoulders, good work! Education is the key to liberation. Education is the key to independence. The key to human-hood for women. And we got it!

But here is a list what we have not dealt with yet, and these are huge problems.

Male supremacy:
This is the active behavior of men to hurt women. It starts in elementary school, and lasts a lifetime of anti-female propaganda. In our times, it’s very sophisticated, but hidden or not, its worse then ever before.

First we thought that only a few men, not capitalism was the culprit, who benefit from women’s unpaid labor. But male chauvinism is a cultural belief that males are superior to women. Most male god religions endorse this. Southern Baptists for example, President Carter just has written a letter of why he quit the church over their ingrained sexims.The Taliban teach the same thing, different male god … same oppression for us. Taliban kills us if we talk to a boy who’s not our relative; not long ago in Europe the church killed for six hundred years long women for witchcraft. Once accused, the women never came home again.

It’s a self-entitlement to feel superior to women, to make women serve and benefit males. Financially, in sex trades, children are the next target; born to poor mothers, men sell children to each other for sex and free labor. All men derive benefits from this enslavement of women, not just the pimps and johns, but the good men who do nothing culturally to control their brothers.

Back when Robins wrote her book, women could not foresee how to get out from under. But as herstory shows us, the collective female energies converged quite naturally and choose to go through the cracks of the doors that the Second Wave has opened for us.

What has become the norm are the personal solutions. We used to scuff at personal solutions versus the collective solutions, but in retrospect I think the female principle was right to fix our status with education first.

We are just not ready to attack the rest of the problems.

We tasted little of the return of the collective solution when we have voted for Hillary Clinton. She did get 180 million votes. That’s a good chunk of approval from women with jobs. Now if we just contemplate the Pro-Woman line, the bearers of the new society.

Blame. If we just stopped blaming each other and victims of violence, and see all women … the talented and the slow, the beautiful and the homely, the fat and the skinny, the PhD and the high school drop outs, the pregnant and the barren. We are all connected in the web of life. When you walk down the street, men don’t look at you and say, there goes a PhD. educated women. They still just see a female, any female, vulnerable.

Wake up and stay awake! Speak up wherever you are. Form the new C.R. Groups. So much work still needs to be done.

Linking up, networking, speaking back to power.

Here we are in 010, entering the second decade of the 21^st century. It is still the sub-age of Aquarius. It is still the favorable times for humans to wake up to a new self understanding. This is happening in big quantum leaps, fueled by technology and science. Congratulations to all fellow planetary travelers! We have arrived in the future.

But now what?

We have more and more women come to us searching for a LOCAL group, contact where they can join, study and grow. This used to be rather easy in the last century. You went to your local bookstore; you hung out around the bulletin board, read the stuff on it, then added your own request, “Goddess study group forming” and the phone number. Pretty soon the first woman would call, who knew another, and in a couple of weeks you had a good little eager group; armed with Goddess books, healthy tea collections, and time set aside to be just a student of your own culture.

Women’s studies at Universities is not what it used to be, its still great we have them at all, alas under the name of Gender Studies, but who cares let’s just be grateful. These are still places where women can gather and plan actions.

Once you have created yourself an account with us, the Dianic University, we will let you use our Global Goddess Dianic Groups virtual bulletin board, look it through for women in your neighborhoods, add you name to the particular state and region you are at. Then we will have a central board  to post on for just this. Local connections.

Because we only let people we checked out on the board, you are safer to post and call whoever you find. I recommend exchanging email addresses first and get to know each other. Once you decide to meet up, do it in a public place first … maybe for coffee or tea. Check each other out and then exchange contact information.

But more than beginners, first timers, seekers of all kinds, we also need volunteers who help us battle the cultural anti-woman forces. You don’t think that the battle field is any less than before computers. Each time I go on the radio, or write something very pro-woman, anti-establishment, anti-male god material, I get attacked on the internet from men who hate that we have advanced as much as we have. They would like to see the Goddess Movement fade with my lifetime; me destroyed on the visibility field, my ideas and philosophies relegated to the trash bin.

Bobbie, my mighty Amazon, is the only one on the field battling this, so far successfully. But we could not have been defending ourselves without the help of women working in those technology citadels of power, the Goggles, wikis, who knew about the Goddess Movement. Imagine that! We are everywhere.

We need new allies with some time and skills. Not just hey I want to try to help, but rather … hey, I can battle on the techie field with the best of them and I don’t mind a little work out against the invisible forces.

This is what l’d like to put out to you. Please techie women with writing skills, step forward and make contact with me and Bobbie. The cultural war consists often in creating material, but also tracking down where the trouble comes from, correction information when it’s wrong.

Our visibility on the cultural field is crucial in the elevation of our sex.

When women don’t know how to link up, network, and publish … we can easily be marginalized again.

Don’t forget women are the majority of all humans. We create everybody from our own bodies. We raise citizens, consumers, and all the tax payers.

Women deserve their own culture. This is the part of the battle field that needs boosting. Individuals can do a lot, but we need the help, the link-up with the successful women, the higher end income women, the university program directors, and the leadership who organizes workshops, conferences, and gathering of all kinds.

For example, link us up with organizations where the women already formed groups, where we can cast a wider net when we disseminate information.

When we tighten our skills around the new technology and form a cultural staff around our own interests, then we can serve women on all level much better.

What I don’t want to end up is alone, battling the evil forces of cultural marginalization, and witness the new century pushing women’s issues, women’s needs and women’s spirituality aside.

What we have is a lucky opportunity to flood with our skillful energy into the collective consciousness, making room there for the love and respect for women; create a world where women don’t have to go to collage to learn about their past, our own  dianics, and whose shoulders we are standing on.

Information about our spiritual heritage will create a proud generation of women, talented, blooming, and confident.

Let us all go into the depth of the sub-age of Aquarius in this certainty, when women lead the planet thrives.

Blessed be,
Z Budapest

I’m on the radio this Sunday with the good folks from Salem’s Hex Education. Should be a good chat as the witches of the east meet up with the witch of the west. Who knows where this conversation will go?!!

Christian and Lori are honored and excited to welcome Z. Budapest to Hex Education! Dianic Feminist Wicca Founder and Women’s Spirituality Movement Foremother, Z. Budapest is at the top of any Who’s Who list in the Craft. Her first book was The Feminist Book Of Light and Shadows, later retitled The Holy Book Of Women’s Mysteries. This was followed by The Grandmother of Time, Godmother Moon, and Goddess In The Office; at least one of these books is probably in your library! In 1974, she was arrested for fortune telling as a result of reading tarot cards, and that lead to her being the last person to be tried for witchcraft in the United States. This is a rare opportunity to hear from one of the true pioneers of the Craft!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/HexEducation/2009/08/17/Special-Guest-Z-Budapest

What an addictive tool the Internet! I can’t wait in the morning to run to my online school and see what my students have written! They have homework, they have destiny work, they have Tree work, and they chitchat with each other forming/nurturing an international women’s community.

I am very impressed. I started teaching in the days of the mimeograph machine (early seventies). Yes, Virginia, we cranked the pages out one by one by hand, and got a lot of ink on ourselves in turn. The ink didn’t come off for weeks.

Then we advanced to Xerox machines, expensive but faster. Printing the first women’s liberation newsletter SISTER was a later development, after we mastered the art of asking for money and taking on regular subscribers. History just went fast forward from then on.

In the early eighties we still didn’t have computers; the machine we had was big and not much more than a glorified typing machine. But the times went into warp space, and suddenly we had computers, and email, and the works. Internet came as the topping on the cake. It has leveled the field all around the globe. Suddenly we are one not just in theory but as a tangible global community. I know what my friend in Budapest is cooking in her pot, and what my other friend in Brazil is reading. They know if I have some troubles with my IMAC, or the email is acting up. I bought me a pair of boots online and they fit! This must be the ultimate victory, saving time for fine things like nature walks. Smelling the roses.

I am an Aquarian with Libra Moon, Sagittarius rising. As a teacher I am best when I get to talk to my students in person, but I had to learn new tricks.

How to establish a school, online, where the students won’t get bored, won’t feel abandoned, and how do I urge them on to actually invest the time and finish the homework I have assigned to them?

How do I reward them? Do I need to give out grades? How often do I need to comment on their work? What about the peer review?
Isn’t that more exciting?

Life has stepped in and I had to go away to Europe to get some surgery done. I had double hip replacements and in that time I had a crappy computer to work on with not the American keyboard available, but a European one, with the letters and Y all mixed up. It was a nightmare.

But never mind. The Information Age has not let me down. My students have endured valiantly my misspelled words. They were kind about the long pauses when I was post-op and unable to sit without pain at the computer. I managed to hold on to my website. New students have come, and in fact my business doubled while I was laid off getting better.

Now we are nearing the 3rd year anniversary for the Dianic University. We have amassed a lot of homework in our resources; students and I started seeing that some reward IS in order, like a certificate that they had completed my curriculum. I am working on that now.

What are we learning?

My idea was to create a place where women can come and study as they have time. These women are new moms, some are students at Universities, some are professional women, some are kids. The Goddess is a family-friendly study. The Wisdom Track is a journey around the sun, taken together and taken consciously.

Each month has a Goddess monolog, and seasonal information about the sacred trees, birds, stones, and inner life. We share these with each other. Yes, its based on my book Grandmother of Time, but my books are to be lived, not just read. Reading about nature helps, but living it makes the journey visceral, makes it personal, something to share with each other.

What I found most exciting all my life is getting to know the trees. Sacred trees, every one of them. Some of them are more famous than others, but I think all trees are the very lungs of the beloved blue planet. Lungs and breath, spirit.

To make acquaintance with a local tree is to spend time with her: Hang out around her; Make some contact; Touch her; Kiss her bark. Tree-huggers dream assignments! The tree is not fast in responding, but when we take them seriously, the trees are direct phone lines to LIFE. A couple of heartfelt visits, maybe asking for a wand. These visits can become prayers.
I am very close to two trees in the cemetery park where I walk my dogs in Oakland. Here the trees are allowed to grow big and stay alive.
My beloved FRIEND, a yellow poplar, greets me as I start my walk. She sees me from afar, waits until I too can see her. Then, like a person, she begins to dance with her leaves. First just a few on the outside. Closer I come, more and more. This is independent from the wind conditions. When the wind is blowing of course she is more active. She can express excitement, she can express love, she can say yes and no depending on how she moves. I have learned her leafy language, I know what she is saying most of the time.

I tell her about my life. I ask her to send me more friends. (I have actually met two women later in the park after I asked her to help my social life). I asked her to send me more students. Most of the time I bless her and she in turn blesses me.

I have introduced her to friends of mine who do not walk this park, she approved on one, she wasn’t quite as enthused about another. Just like a person.

I urge my students to find this kind of deep personal relationship with a good tree. Many have managed to find their Tree Sisters, but some are more in tune with flowers. Some love stones better, have personal relationships with rose quartz, opals, amethysts, moonstones, and even diamonds. These human-to-planet experiences are prayers. We realign our souls with the natural world. No longer orphans, us women. We belong here. This is our time and our space. This is our planet.

Spell casting is expected from us witches, so there is a good amount of suggestions towards successful practice. But we don’t consider spell casting a daily chore. We use prayers, and abundant blessings on everything, mostly the water from which all things emerged. Than you water! Thanks and blessings change the molecular picture of water; it changes when receiving gratitude. It’s magic on a daily basis.

I have another Tree Friend. I call her Cork Mama Oak. She is magnificent. Her strong limbs reach out in a effortless stretch, her arms are thicker than my trunk. She has the sexiest groove between her main branches, and I bury my face in there and whisper sweet nothings to LIFE. She is also my Altar. Here I cast my most urgent spells just with words into her cork skin. I can hear my voice echoed back. (How does she do that?) When I finish, I leave with a much lightened heart. I kiss her several times before I leave. The feel of her cork skin feels dry but wonderful. I know I am the only one who has ever kissed her with deep love; maybe the only one to kiss her at all.

As part of our learning, we come together and talk about what has happened. How our prayers were answered by the trees. How our connection to nature created for us a family. How our love for the planet is growing. This love often gets translated into action for the environment. For peace. For each other.