Where's the Sign for Pagan?

I didn't even remember how to say excuse me in their language, and I wanted to get through the door and into a seat for the show.

It was a local variety show entirely in American Sign Language (ASL), to raise funds for a deaf summer camp. I walked into a room filled with teenagers still primping and painting each other's faces to look like characters from The Wizard of Oz. They were signing to each other. So were most of the adults. For the first time in my life, I couldn't have communicated worth a tinker's damn if I tried.

It's a fascinating experience, being almost the only one in the room who isn't deaf, knowing just enough ASL to be dangerous and to just barely get the idea. Such a strange feeling. I am often alone and am comfortable with that--frequently I prefer it--but this was a new and different kind of alone, so odd I wished I could photograph the feeling.

I didn't even know how to act. When my phone rang, how important was it to turn the thing off? Would it have been all right to check voice mail during a break, the way it is okay for hearing people to check text messages? Was it better to clap during a certain song or let the performers make all the visual noise? Did I do my jazz-hands applause correctly? I could have been from another planet.

Is this just a glimpse of the way Ocean has felt sometimes?

(I'll let her respond, if she likes.)

Ocean is a woman I met zillions of years and hundreds of miles ago. She is Deaf and Pagan. Everybody loved her firewalking workshops. Still, I remember her often being unhappy in the small mountain community where we lived.

To be Deaf or Pagan, just one of them, could be alienating enough, but both? Even today, an online search for 'deaf pagan' leads you mostly to her very own blog.

As she points out, most ASL references don't even mention Pagan concepts. I didn't find anything substantial for words like Goddess when I looked on my own. There's one for witch--the crooked nose of the Wicked Witch of the West--but many people find that sign offensive. (I personally don't mind it, but it's not for me to say, is it?)

As Pagans, we don't always have the numbers or the structure to simply fall back on something that someone else has done, in language, in concepts, in much of anything. We have to tap into the power, however we experience it. We have to be creators, each one of us. We have to make something where there once was nothing.

Good thing that's something we do anyway.

Beltane Safety

I wanted to project a happier message than I did last year, and also not talk about myself very much in a Beltane article. So here it is. (We don't all party as hard as suggested below, but I wanted to be inclusive.)

Before you jump those balefires--or each other--consider these safety tips so you can make it to the next Beltane, too!

Hike up your robes. I'm not even talking about after the ritual. The fire does not care that you are Lady Impressive, 3rd Degree Awesomechilde of the Very Big Deal Coven. Be aware of those loose flowing garments when you are near an open flame.

Be honest with your partner/s. Let them know if you are in a relationship, whether it is open, and under what terms. Your lovers may not know unless you tell them. Do it as much for your own safety as theirs!

Wrap that Maypole. Use protection. Talk about birth control and disease prevention as appropriate. Make sure everyone in the bed really wants to be there and what they want to do, and respect their limits.

Know your own limits. Decide roughly how much you will drink before you take that first sip. If you don't think you can control it, don't start. Know ahead of time whether overnight is an option, or arrange a safe, sober ride. It will end better and everyone will have more fun.

Prepare for a good morning. If you imbibe, remember to drink plenty of water and eat something with protein.

Let the bugs bug off. Remember to use insect repellent if you are spending time outside, especially at night. It doesn't have to contain DEET to work. Some very effective repellents contain essential oils instead and just need to be reapplied occasionally.

Know where your friends are. Nobody's suggesting you babysit adults on what could be the sexiest night of the year. Just keep an eye out for each other. If you think someone is receiving intimate attention they don't want--or if they're in no condition to consent--stand up for them! Just go up and ask her (or him) if everything is all right. You could change the course of your friend's life.

Pick a location you can trust. If you don't feel safe at a certain party, ritual, or camp, you're allowed to vote with your feet. Go celebrate the season in a way that makes you feel good.

Have fun!  Open yourself to the fullness and joy of this sunny season.

Carry On and Carry On

I want to be gentle about this, but I'll still be honest. I'm already tired of looking for the helpers. Sorry, Mister Rogers.

Anytime anymore when catastrophe strikes, someone posts a picture of Mister Rogers, saying that his mother responded to any bad news by telling him to look for the helpers, because there is always someone who is helping.

This is true. It is also just one little thread out of the entire tapestry of experience and observation.

Redirecting ourselves away from negativity is useful and very much necessary, I'll admit. If we didn't do this, we probably wouldn't have made it past the caveman days. If we remained stuck worrying what was going to happen next or didn't consider the possibility, however slim, that things could change for the better, we as a species could not have made it to the present day.

So instead, we ventured out of the cave and tried those berries, ventured closer to that pretty dancing orange stuff where the lightning just struck, whatever. And those of us especially who believed in a higher power--within us, outside of us, or both--believed that life could continue somehow: maybe for us, maybe for someone else, but it would indeed go on.

That's what it's all about, going on. It's not just a feeling. There is more to hope than simply hoping. It's an active thing. It involves doing something as if what you are doing matters, as if the future exists. You plant a tree in hope that someone after you will sit in its shade and look after it. You brush your teeth in hope that you will be munching corn on the cob for many years to come.

It doesn't mean to keep calm and carry on. Calmness is a very temporary state of life, unless you are experiencing a coma or a morphine drip. It is possible to carry on while, well, carrying on. And sometimes you should! Keep loud and carry on. Keep doing whatever it is you do and carry on.

Chop wood, carry water. Take a bath. Replace the batteries in your smoke detector. Life goes on whether you do or not.

Donate blood if you're able. Get your marrow typed. Clean up a highway or a river. These things are also necessary, and they make the world better for others as well. They may seem small and unrelated to the bigger picture, but they get you out of the house at the very least, and at the very best they can save the lives of people and wildlife.

And if making some noise will improve the situation, or at least improve the silence, do it!

These are all very conventional things to say. You may be jaded about these suggestions. I offer one more.

Do something today that feeds you in a non-physical way.

It doesn't have to be an entire Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, although I have seen people perform that to lift a group's mood. For me the other night, my 'ritual' was as simple as smudging myself with white sage and watching the last part of Fantasia 2000, where the spring fairy brings the earth to life after the firebird has scorched it.

At times like these, witches often say 'ground and shield.' I agree with this excellent advice, for every day and for times of trouble. It is a good beginning. Keep going with that.

Get your feet in the dirt or in a body of water. Put your face to the sun. Feel the breeze outside. Dance around a fire.

Live!

The news can wait.

Our Fragile Little Lives

Fragile is not a word I want to associate with this time of year. Yet I'm getting daily reminders of how short and precarious--and how precious--our lives may be.

The egg, the chick, and the rabbit are showing up everywhere now and must be handled, if at all, with gentle hands, to preserve the new and eager life within. But these aren't what I am talking about.

The daily reminders are a bit more personal and human, I am sad to say. At this time of year, at least two of my Pagan friends have been reminded that even their own existence is not a given, that this life could be taken away before its time, whether by illness or by someone else's petty prejudice.

It is tempting to get on the soapbox about these things and say 'Bad things happen to good people because ____' or 'Look, Pagans are still being persecuted.' But when you are in that moment and have just confronted your own mortality--on this plane, at least--reasons don't exist. Everything you have ever known seems far away, and you are left with some sort of wordless thought in your head and nothing else. It cannot be described.

Nor is it always a noble and dignified ordeal. The more I think about it, the more I think it just can't be a storybook experience. It is by nature the opposite of neat and pretty. Like Inanna descending into the underworld, we lose the reasons, the beliefs, all that we know and are and even all that we love. Nothing of ourselves is left but the body.

 I can't speak for my friends, so I'll simply tell you about my own undignified experience.  I wasn't shedding seven garments to venture down to Ereshkigal herself. I was watching X-Files with friends in a dorm room many years ago, sitting on a bottom bunk, when the top bunk collapsed over me. There was a lot of wood-related noise and I heard one of three people screaming somewhere over my head. My head was pinned to my chest and I could not move.

Due to my slouchy posture, it was not the gateway to the underworld it could have been. I experienced a lot of pain afterward, but that was it. So many others have suffered more and ventured further to the other side of the veil.

What is there to say about the very thought of a life cut short? I don't have any good answers. The only thing I know to do is make the most of this life. One thing I manifested at the Ostara chant circle last night was to live a full life.

I will do this partly by simply living it, and partly by recognizing the great gift it is. And for that, I must say thank you.

Feeding the Phoenix Phyre

My feet were hungry for the feel of fallen oak leaves on a fertile pasture far away. I was craving stars and trees, hugs and honeyed drinks, sky for my skin, and song for the little bird in my soul. I required a lovely fire to match the dancing flames within us all. Most of all, I needed the sacred purpose within all of these things. So I went to Phoenix Phyre, a small and friendly Pagan festival at a ranch in Lakeland, Florida.

Last time, at Autumn Meet, I spent a lot of time around elders, listening to learn whatever I could hold in my mind. This time was more about being nurtured and recharged and feeding my spirit. If that meant indulging in an Access Consciousness mini-treatment, I did it. If that meant participating in a round-robin group massage session, I was there, enjoying every minute. I even got the chance to be on the receiving end at the healing circle, surrounded by kind and gifted people and nestled in the shade of a wonderful old oak tree that fell on its side years ago and still continues to live and thrive.

You might say it was a very hands-on weekend. Yet the hands also worked and played for other reasons than my own enjoyment.

My hands joined other hands when someone else took a turn on the healing table. Later, I carried the libation vessel for a modified blot employing the unique names and deeds of all attending it and their ancestors and deities. Our hands also joined together to create tiny seed bags in preparation for the main ritual, and to raise energy in the ritual itself. I was pleased to feel like just one more member of the family and yet still very much myself.

Even when the rain beat down on the pirate party and the power went out, we just gathered under the big tent in the middle and let the family reunion continue by lantern light. I got to know an older couple from Germany whose idea of family togetherness was wrestling alligators for fun. The younger pirates at the party, mostly members of a fire spinning group, sang vivid songs about shipwrecks while the storms roared around us.

The ritual fire never went completely out. It burned high and bright throughout the frankly frightening weather. When the rain was still pouring down, ten or fifteen people peeled off all their wet garments and danced around the fire. I was feeling dancey myself, so I joined in.

I want everyone who is reading this to understand that it wasn't about the male gaze or any other gaze really. While we all appreciate the beauty of dance or the human form itself, in this setting it was not for the benefit of anyone watching, although they were welcome to do so. The real gift of the dancing was in the dance itself. It is sacred and sensual all at once, even when no carnal meaning is intended. It's a celebration of being alive.

So, too, were the fire spinning, fire eating, and fire breathing. I missed another chance at fire eating because it was too windy the day of class, but I got up close and personal to pods of flaming Kevlar anyway when we practiced spotting the fire spinners with a wet towel. I was scared of the fire and had trouble putting it out, but I did it anyway and learned how to do it better. I also practiced throwing poi, minus the flames, while coached by a 13-year-old fire spinner.

The best thing about this festival is the egalitarian flavor of it all. It doesn't matter who you are or who you aren't. I didn't hear a lot of fancy titles. The staff stays mostly in tents and welcomes everyone at their hearth. The sages cook and serve lunch on Friday for everyone in the place. Someone else serves homemade soup at her camp every night for anyone who wants the comfort and the company.

Even main ritual involved everyone. The planning continued for days, during festival itself, employing anyone who showed up for the class. Although one person was in charge, he seriously considered suggestions on chants, the strengths of each individual for various roles, and even the structure of the ritual itself.

It might have sounded like quite the cluster--I might add that the high priestess needed to be changed out--but everything went smoothly when the time came. I heard many comments on how powerful and beautiful and joyous the ceremony had been. It was certainly one of my favorites, the intention being to heal and nurture and build our faith community.

I think it's working.

Spring Cleaning, Pagan Style

I knew someone in college whose first step to cleaning her room was always to take the pictures down from the wall. She worked her way down from there. I never considered that step to be necessary, but I understand the mentality behind it.

When you are manifesting new things, you can't always build on what you've got. Sometimes you have to set aside everything that is not necessary. Sometimes you even have to specify what that is--as quickly as reasonably possible, of course, so that you can move on to creating rather than destroying.

Recently my brother has been remodeling parts of the house that were damaged by water. The previous residents had just slapped wood over the particleboard the floor was originally made of (okay, it's a mobile home and an old one at that) and called it a day. This didn't solve the problem of essentially shoddy construction but only covered it up. When we opened up the floor and the wall, they were filled with nests of big red ants. When I think of what I was sleeping right next to, it still makes me shudder. It had to come out, and fast. (For any that didn't get out of my house on their own, I wish them lemon-fresh bliss in the ant afterlife. Go in peace.)

So there's been some rebuilding going on there. In my spiritual life, I'm still in the process of removing the rotten stuff and whatever feeds on it. I need to be clear about what is not welcome in my sacred space in addition to what is.

And in some cases, I just need to take the pictures off the wall and get down to the bare essentials.

I don't need any glamour when I get together with my spiritual community. I declare that stuff busted. Now.

I don't need a Pagan version of Disney World. The real world, inside and out, is breathtaking in and of itself.

I don't need to frak a Pagan to have a good time (not every time we gather, anyway). That's missing the whole point.

I don't need to support anyone who doesn't recognize the Goddess in me. She is there, even when it's inconvenient or disturbing the status quo or just not 'nice'. Goddess is in all of us, to be respected and cherished, and that means there's no place for hierarchy upon hierarchy or ego games. Go in peace, if that's your bag, but just go. (There's no bug spray for humans, as far as I'm concerned. You gotta stay alive wherever you're going.) I'm keeping the friends I love, along with their naturally beautiful souls and generous work ethic, and tossing the rotten situations that surrounded our meeting. (Once uncovered, some of these can be rebuilt better than ever.) And of course, I'm keeping my Divine nature and theirs.

Since there are healthier and safer settings where we can manifest wholeness and truth and community, let's do this. It doesn't have to be fancy, backbreaking, or expensive. It doesn't have to look good in pictures. It just has to be real.

Let's wake up and make it real.

*snaps fingers*

Now.

From Pink Frills to the Red Tent

From the beginning, I have never felt sentimental about 'blossoming into womanhood' as it is delicately put. While I was a bit curious about the strange diagrams on the boxes of even stranger products, that was as far as the mystery went at the time. I could not understand why Anne Frank was so awed by the process. It was presented to me as an overly pink and frilly thing to use and to be, and I wanted no part of it.

Now I am 40 and have had years of experience with this event, this altered state we call moontime. My opinion has not changed so much as it has evolved; it has gone from pink to red. This comes, as you might imagine, along with awareness of Goddess: not all at once, never all at once, but one facet, one cycle, at a time. I believe this point of view deserves to be fleshed out, shared, and explained.

I once had a lover who taught me to understand. Far from being squeamish about those days in the month, she adored them and adored me. She introduced me to blood-red flannel pads and showed me how her plants enjoyed the rich, dark soaking water. This flow was anything but domestic. It was wild and free. We were brimming with vitality, no matter what else was happening. It was our connection to the great Mother, the Source of all life. The power behind this flow, this force, would someday bring her a child against all hope, she knew (and it did happen, years later). It was a treasure, not a mess. I never felt ashamed of it when I was with her. I felt only beauty. The earth fed us, and we fed the earth.

My male companions, overall, didn't get it. One couldn't stop telling me about a Very Scientific Article he'd read. Doctors were saying women didn't need to bleed ever. It wasn't logical. It wasn't sensible. (I could almost read it in Henry Higgins' voice.) I should mention this was a long distance relationship and he had never had to be around me when I was a few days late, when I felt as if something couldn't be contained within me anymore and absolutely had to burst out.

You see, when I call my moontime an altered state, I mean it. I've come to realize it's not just that I'm feeling fuzzy from over-the-counter pain relievers. It's a whole different plane of existence. My perception is something that goes beyond the five senses, beyond even six. It's on the edge of what I imagine psychedelics to be. I don't see or hear things per se, but I notice them in a way I cannot explain in words.

Have you ever heard a song or read an old picture book from your childhood and just barely remembered the innumerable multiple sensations it spun in your tiny head? Taste and color and texture and emotion rolled together, seamlessly and wordlessly.

It's not a high. It's simply a different point of view, a lucid dream that is more real than reality. All senses are heightened to almost painful levels, demanding a retreat from the world at large. It makes me appreciate the Red Tent from the book by that name, as well as the modern ones set up at some Pagan festivals.

Sometimes this moontime state helps me write better. Sometimes it makes me win at yelling. No matter what it is, it's more than a physical phenomenon.

And I do understand why the previous generation of Pagan feminists would like to keep the club exclusive, limiting women's mysteries to those who have experienced those very real blood mysteries. I disagree with them, but I understand. I would open the clubhouse to women who know their womanhood inside, really anyone who lives as a woman. That includes my friends who were born without lady parts, or those who were born with lady parts that never woke up for various reasons. They must belong too, as they are still women inside, just as women who had hysterectomies are still women inside.

This came to mind recently when I joked about drop-kicking my uterus over a goalpost. (Yes, I even used a stereotypically male metaphor--sometimes my cycle really brings out the butch side.) I do complain about my body sometimes. Not everything it does is easy to live with. I had to clear up the misunderstanding when one particularly blunt friend asked if I'd gotten myself neutered.

The answer is no. I have not gotten myself neutered. I certainly don't fault those who need to or even want to remove the original parts. There are plenty of good reasons out there to do it, and it doesn't make you any less of a woman. But as for myself and my own body, if I am able to keep my womanly bits wild and free for a few more years, that's just what I intend to do.

The Dancing Crone

Ever remember to be awesome and forget to be happy?

On Imbolc, of all times?

(OK, I don't make too much of a big deal about Imbolc beyond feeling the general idea in my heart and observing the change in the seasons. Granted, there is a limit to how much I can devote myself to a specific deity like Brigid, since I am not a polytheist like most of my Pagan friends. I believe the different names and forms are parts of the same force--yes, even the ones who seem incompatible with each other. It would be much easier for me as a Pagan if I didn't have this view, but I do.)

The day began appropriately enough. Instead of the first robin of spring, which isn't really a milestone in the Southern USA, I heard the unidentified first songbird of Imbolc. The cat heralded this occasion with some excited chattering at the window, basically cat language for 'Yum.'

I made a mental note to myself that this was sort of an Imbolc thing and ought to be mentioned to someone later. Eventually I got out of bed. I was still just kind of there. Meh.

I decided it was finally time to check out the Saturday morning farmer's market I'd been hearing about for years. It didn't just have produce or soap or orchids or farm-raised alligator meat. It was crowded with people and with innumerable local, beautiful items for sale. I probably could have bought something at all 50 or so booths. I smelled and tasted the most wonderful things I never even knew existed.

But I had an agenda, practically a checklist. Forget 'the gay agenda'--the nominally bi agenda for this event was to buy some veggies and talk to someone about the hula hoop classes. Serious business, that. (Oh yeah, and avoid the booth with the very recent ex-in-laws, at least for now.)

On the way to the hula hoop booth, I saw a grinning, snowy-headed woman in a long skirt and sneakers, dancing in front of the live band. I considered stopping there to dance too. It might please the old woman.

Now, my usual approach is to mosey on into a situation, do something cool for a few seconds, then mosey back into the crowd. It involves walking briskly, half lost in my thoughts, and not going too deeply into any experience for long.

I do not recommend that approach.

This time I danced for more than a few seconds. The happy old woman danced with me. She had pink lipstick on her dentures, but she didn't care.

I stayed and danced through the guitar solo, the bass solo. It was long enough to allow this woman's happiness to rub off on me. I forgot myself and realized I was smiling.

She looked at me from under her big hat and asked for my name, listening intently. She said hers was June.

Joy and June. Earlier, that would have been another mental note, another impressively poetic idea to share. At this point, it didn't even compare to the moment itself.

When the song was over we waved goodbye and I headed for the hula hoops, but now I felt different. I was smiling, with a smidgen of a good kind of cry behind my eyes somewhere. Moments are a little overwhelming when you're not used to them.

I intend to have more moments. I intend to make time for them and show up fully for them. I am already alive and do not need to hurry to the end. The Crone knows this, and it makes her happy. I intend to remember the same and let it make me happy every day.

So mote it be!

Honey? I'm Home!

Bees and honey became important very early in my life. My brother and I grew up right next to a citrus grove where someone kept bees. We knew honey because old men sold it next to the grove, in a dark little house that smelled like beeswax. We sweetened our breakfast cereal with honey and poured it on our waffles; syrup and sugar were more for Dad. We homed in close to the beehives at the heart of the grove, as close as we could get. Run and you got stung. Walk away slowly or freeze and you were fine; there would be other occasions where stings were unavoidable.

One year I wrote a school essay about the place. We were reading Thoreau, and I waxed philosophical about the furry bees and the rainbow colored lantana blossoms. As far as I was concerned at the time, going in there was going back to nature. (What an awakening I had much later, backpacking in a national forest.)

When I grew up, I went away to college in another state. I never got used to their sourwood honey; highly prized and highly priced, it was still not enough flavor for me. I stayed in 'Other' for twelve years. While I enjoyed it and needed to be in my own world there, it never felt like home. I bundled up and felt cold. My skin was hungry for sunshine and warm breezes.

A few years ago, I moved back near my childhood home. The grove is a park now and has just a few healthy citrus trees left in the mix around the walking trail, but the honey house remains and so do the beehives.

And let me tell you, I have been fairly lusting over that honey. Week after week, month after month, I tried to locate whoever was keeping the bees and kept missing them entirely. It's not the type of honey or the quality; it's just that it would be home to me.

My dear brother finally tracked down a lady who came to check on her bees. She didn't get much honey out of this particular location, but she happened to have one little jar of it. He told her all about our childhood and the old man we knew who once owned the grove, and she tried to give my brother the jar for free. No way, lady. I would have paid practically anything for it. To me, this was like taking home a bit of Brighid's sacred flame, or some water from Merlin's own spring in Glastonbury.

We tasted it and found more mystery. I immediately thought of tea tree; he thought he detected Brazilian pepper. Pest plants or not, I am savoring the sweetness right down to my soul.

It takes so little, and yet so much, to make a ritual. When I was alone (and yet not alone) I held up the little jar of honey to the morning sun and looked at the light through that honey-colored filter. I thought of the flames burning up there for billions of years. I thought of my own life-flame within me, and all the little sparks and flames from all the generations before me, living on through me and my family now and whoever comes after us, and all of the names of our ancestors and the names of the Divine flame.

I said thank you to the flame within us all.

May I always know I have a home. And may it be worth it all, to all of us, to have come this far.

Then I poured some on my oatmeal, just like I did as a kid, and it became part of me again.

Elderberry Tincture

First I must say I'm a firm believer in the spiritual and mental value of the occasional rare cold or flu. Like a woman's monthly cycle, this state of being changes your focus, brings you back to the essentials, and makes you appreciate small things (like breathing, or not being in pain).

However, maybe you would like to keep your colds and flus rare. I know I would. At the first sign of sickness, I try to get extra sleep--no going out on the town until 3--and I take some of my homemade elderberry tincture.

It's ridiculously easy to make. Finding the ingredients is harder than making it. There are just two ingredients: elderberries and vodka. (There is also a way to make it with glycerin instead of vodka for those who don't drink, but I haven't tried that.)

Fresh berries are best, I'm told, but so far I have only been able to get dried. They work fine. Your local witchy store probably carries these.

The vodka doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can actually go very, very cheap with this ingredient. I suggest doing so, in the interest of making large amounts of tincture.

Take at least one part berries to four parts vodka. Put the berries in a jar and pour the vodka over them. Close the jar and put it somewhere dark. Leave it alone for at least six weeks. You can take it out and shake it once in a while, but you don't really have to.

If you need it before six weeks, you can make do with similar storebought remedies called Sambucol or Sambucus. They do cost a lot.

Once your tincture is ready, you can drink a shot of it (if you can stand the taste) or slip it into food or drinks. You may want to sweeten it when you do this. Try it in oatmeal, smoothies, tea, and sodas. Use at least one measured teaspoon. A large medicine dropper is most convenient.


Leave the berries in the jar if you like so the tincture can get even stronger. Just don't be tempted to use the same berries for two different batches.  Use new berries every time for the best results.

Enjoy being healthy!

Pushing Off and Other Metaphors

Pick a New Year's, any New Year's. It could be Samhain in October or the secular holiday on January 1. I don't know how much you believe the all-knowing Google, but some Pagans apparently consider Imbolc, Yule, and Beltane to be the beginning of new years as well.

I don't get it. I don't have to. The important thing is that we take time to be still and be thoughtful and think over what is to be. And hey, if it takes a hangover to get into that frame of mind, that works. At least you got there, and it is a reminder to sit calmly and live gently, ever so gently, if only for a day.

It was time to break through the agony and fury of the latest full moon. I don't usually feel them that much, but this one just knocked the wind out of me, psychically speaking. There was nothing I could do to feel it less. There was nothing I could do but feel. And feel I did.

There is only so much you can attribute to everyday stress from work, the holidays, the minor necessary busy-ness of life. This was a greater force. This was the difference between standing outside on a cold night and actually jumping into an icy lake.

It may or may not change your life, but it certainly makes you take notice, whether you think about it or not. All you can do is gasp and know that you are alive.

Then you take another breath and another and another. And you realize that even though it's not always comfortable and you're not always as focused or motivated or perfect or anything else as you could be, you are here and you have the now.

And it does make a difference when a full moon shakes you up and a new year hits your reset button. My everyday travel blessing feels less ostentatious these days but somehow stronger for all its repetitions. My smiles are more real now than they were in my ancient yearbook pictures. I have pushed my boat off from the shore and I am coasting freely through the wide open water.

I am free.

And what's more, I'm learning to steer.

Warmth in the Phoenix Flames

I was really tempted to make this blog entry all ZOMG NEKKID FIRESPINNING!!!1! Technically, it's true--that spectacular display was just one beautiful surprise I encountered at Phoenix Phamily's Autumn Meet--but there's more to this festival than entertainment. You can go anywhere to party. For me, this weekend was more about finding community: sharing our gifts with friends, learning from Pagan elders, and above all, listening. I did a lot of listening.

While the rum and dirty limericks flowed freely, so too did the original songs, the art, the music. Everyone had something to share. People learned to make mead, play Native American flute, do Reiki, and breathe fire. We danced, drummed, exchanged homemade crafts. I discovered a whole family of precious people of all ages and walks of life.

You see, although the hands-on activities certainly held my attention and made my world a little sweeter, I spent much more time just sitting and talking. All ages mingled throughout the day, children included, but mostly I spent time with elders. I got to know Omi, a sort of Pagan pioneer of our time who doesn't seem to realize what a big deal she is or at least hasn't let it go to her head. I also got to meet Ardy, a kind old woman with a sharp wit and a sharp tongue; she welcomed me on the very first day and I only later found out that she hosted the very first Phoenix festival in her backyard.

The conversations went deep, both in and out of the workshops. What is the historical basis for our spiritual practices today? How do we interpret the words 'harm none' or other moral codes held by Pagans? When is force justified, in physical and magical context?

And yet--it wasn't all scholarly. A big highlight of the weekend was a daytime ritual involving children and adults, weaving the web of community. The young and not-so-young each told one another a portion of a happy story. Everyone tossed different colored balls of yarn over a structure that would become a gigantic rainbow web around a lovely old oak tree. The little ones were completely absorbed in the moment and surrounded by loving family of all kinds. Together, we did weave community.

That was also the intention of main ritual. While there were some glitches and unintended humor, the goal was achieved. I pointed out afterward that we already had what we were looking for, before the circle was even cast. What we were looking for was there all the time.

That brings me to what some would call the tiniest footnote ever, but I find it strangely symbolic. I'd bought a solar lantern months ago, looking forward to a lovely flickering candle 'flame' to light my way back to my tent. It never worked before this weekend. This is because--and I swear I looked there before--this is because I just had to pull out a tab inside to let the lantern draw power from the sun and illuminate my path in the darkness. It had this ability a long time ago; I just had to take a very small but important step to let it do what it was able to do anyway.

Despite the waning of the sun this time of year, my flame is burning as brightly as it ever has. My heart is full of old and new kindred. I feel safe and welcome at this hearth. Nothing comes between us: not our egos, not our differences. We are family.

This, I tell you, is community. This is what I was hungering for, what so many of us are hungering for.

It's worth braving the porta-potties.