Z Budapest Blog

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.

I have heard that some of the bad old myths are still alive. I have decided to attack them head on this time.

1. Dianic Tradition is for lesbians only.
This is a myth that attempts to divide the women against each other. An old ploy. In the past it worked, but not anymore. Sexual orientation is of NO importance when you are learning a spiritual path. Women are women, you love whom you please. Naturally. Herstorically, when I have revived ancient Women’s Mysteries, there was about half and half, gay women and straight women, worshiping together. But since I have never asked who is sleeping with whom, this may be a few points off either way.

2. An all women’s circle is not balanced.
A very strange myth. As if having a penis in a circle would be balancing. Underlying this remark is hostility toward women because they claim their own space. Claiming anything without men seems to enrage men and make them spin lies. Women were ignored and their traditions buried deep, but since the seventies the tradition is reclaimed and it is very satisfying. Women can exhale psychically when with each other, be themselves. When you put men into the circle, both sexes act differently. Nobody is themselves. An all women circle is balanced excellently because psychic wholeness does not depend on genitalia.

3. Dianics can raise power but they don’t know how to send it.
This must be from a man who obviously had no experience observing this. Dianics are especially good at sending energy, and even partaking in political spells when women need protection. Our spells come true most of the time. We regularly hexed rapists and mass murders; men that were hexed didn’t get away with their crimes.

4. Dianics are man-haters.
This is the most powerful accusation to divide women. We all cringe when we hear it because what it says to us is that we are hating our own children. This is the result of women’s audacity for claiming our own space to worship our Goddess. We are the life givers, we are raisers of sons and daughters; there is nobody on earth who didn’t come from our wombs. How dare you be so insecure that you call your mamas such names! Men have their priesthoods, their popes and ayatollahs, they have their religious fanatics, Osama Bin Laden, and suicide bombers, their men-only clubs and an all pervasive boys networks. Men don’t call other men woman haters, but they should. It’s a strange misguided projection on the women indeed. To belittle women, call us names because we want to worship without men, is absurd.

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.