I am writing in response to your recent article in Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/garr
I have been a loyal listener of Prairie Home Companion since you first went on the air in the 1970s. I have always loved listening to the News from Lake Wobegon, the gentle and forgiving and open-eyed way that you described the imperfect and well-meaning individuals from a small town in Minnesota that seems to resemble your own. I listen to the Writer's Almanac every day. In many ways, your soothing voice and gentle words have followed me all the days of my life. I have dwelt in the house of public radio my whole life long. Your work has been a source of comfort and inspiration to me since I was a small child.
That is why your recent article was particularly dismaying and disappointing to me. I am not angry about what you wrote, Mr. Keillor, just very, very hurt.
In one of your stories, you describe a young man who is a dancer in New York City. In this story, you describe how much easier his life would be if he were desperately attracted to the woman who shared his apartment. But he is not attracted to women. You go on to say, "his life would also have been easier if he were a lawyer." Like that dancer in New York, that young man of whom you spoke with such affection and compassion, I did not choose to be the woman that I am today. I have, however, come to a level of acceptance about it, and to realize that I deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
As I grew into a young woman, I discovered some things about myself that have been very hard for me -- and many people -- to accept. I am a bisexual woman, and I am a witch. Neither of these things did I choose for myself, anymore than I chose to be born in California and raised on the East Coast. These labels do not define me, but they are a part of my identity, just as much as my blue eyes and my talent for writing and my love for Prairie Home Companion.
After leaving the Catholic Church of my birth, and after many years of practicing my beliefs in private and seeking a spiritual home, I became a member of First Parish Cambridge. I joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation because it was the only church that would take a witch as a member. I discovered for the first time in my life a vibrant, organized, active community of people with deeply held beliefs that I shared. These beliefs and their creed may be different than yours, but they are beliefs nonetheless. They deserve to be treated with the same respect as those of mainstream Christianity, of Judaism, of Islam.
UUs care passionately about things like social justice, the inherent worth and dignity of all people, the interconnected web of existence, and the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Do not mistake our aversion to written dogma for wishy-washiness. Wishy-washy people do not work for the survival of Jews in Nazi-occupied Germany (http://www.uusc.org/history). They do not face criminal charges to keep people from dying of thirst in the desert (http://www.uuctucson.org/index.php/soc
You accuse us of having no creed. Our seven principles and six sources are even easier to understand than the Nicene or Apostle's creed. Here they are for your reading pleasure: http://www.uua.org/visitors/6798.shtml
One of the most hurtful things you said in your article, Mr. Keillor, was that Christmas is a Christian holiday, and that if we don't like it, we should go off and celebrate another one. Christmas is a part of my cultural heritage, and I refuse to abandon it to bigots and dogmatists. If you go back and read your history, you will see that most of modern Christmas traditions date back only to the Victorian era. Good Yankee Congregationalists and Calvinists like the Rev. Lyman Beecher refused to celebrate Christmas because there was no Biblical evidence to suggest that Jesus was born around the time of the Winter Solstice. Church reformers also repudiated the pagan origins of most of the Christmas traditions, including the Christmas tree, Christmas caroling, the exchange of gifts, and the Yule log. Modern Christians have similar protestations about Halloween (see here: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-e
According to many Biblical scholars, it's much more likely that Jesus was born in the spring. But there's already another big Christian festival at that time of year. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's called Easter (from the German Ostara), a holiday that, like its pagan predecessors, celebrates life, death, and rebirth with the coming of the spring. Easter is also full of traditions that date back to its earlier pagan origins. I, for one, am not going to deny my children the pleasure of an Easter egg hunt in the service of theological purity.
Religion, like all of human experience and culture, is constantly evolving. As a Protestant, you should be well aware of how much your version of Christianity differs from that of Rome. And religious tolerance has always been one of the bedrocks upon which American society has rested. Please don't fall into the same trap that Rev. Fred Phelps did (http://www.godhatesfags.com/). As a Christian who celebrates the birth of your Lord Savior Jesus Christ, you are no doubt aware of these words from the Book of Peter:
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing.
1 Peter 3:8-9
I will not repay your insult with more insults, but this blessing and this prayer: that you be treated with the same kindness, tolerance, and forbearance that all beings deserve.
Mr. Keillor, I am writing you this letter because I wanted to let you know about the long-standing relationship I have had with your work and your show. I realize that this is a one-sided relationship. You have never met me. We have never been friends. And yet we still have a relationship. I would hate to see that relationship damaged because of a few careless words. I find it difficult to listen to the Writer's Almanac these days. I'm not sure that I will be able to continue my support of Prairie Home Companion. I have done what I can to repair this relationship. I can only hope that you care enough about your fans that you will do what you can to repair it as well.
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
In love and compassion,
Frances Donovan
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood:
hurt - Music:Prairie Home Companion
From Wikipedia, the story of Tyr's sacrifice, which saved the world from Fenrir's depredations:
According to the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, at one stage the gods decided to shackle the wolf Fenrisulfr (Fenrir), but the beast broke every chain they put upon him. Eventually they had the dwarves make them a magical ribbon called Gleipnir. It appeared to be only a silken ribbon but was made of six wondrous ingredients: the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, bear's sinews (meaning nerves, sensibility), fish's breath and bird's spittle. The creation of Gleipnir is said to be the reason why none of the above exist.[5] Fenrir sensed the gods' deceit and refused to be bound with it unless one of them put his hand in the wolf's mouth.
Tyr, known for his great honesty and courage, agreed, and the other gods bound the wolf. After Fenrir had been bound by the gods, he struggled to try and break the rope. When the gods saw that Fenrir was bound they all laughed, except Tyr, who had his right hand bitten off by the wolf. Fenrir will remain bound until the day of Ragnarök. As a result of this deed, Tyr is called the "Leavings of the Wolf".
- Had a good, productive day at the (home) office. Killer cramps meant I didn't feel like a human being until around 10am, but thanks to the miracle of technology (if we don't understand how it works, does that mean it's magic?) I still started working before 8am. Of course, now I feel like I need to get just one more thing done before I can go, er, home.
- I've lined up an editor for my
newfirstchapbook. This is good because it'll never get published unless I have deadlines. I can has deadlines? - From our email exchange about the book:
ME: I'd like to get it out before December and the holidays -- it might make a nice gift to some folks, unless it's super-tacky to send off your own poetry as a gift.
HIM: I don't think it's at all tacky - either that, or I'm the tackiest mofo around. - I'm leading the annual open circle of the Women's Sacred Circle at First Parish Cambridge (UU). This is, I believe, my second or third year on the leadership council for the group. Our official church liason/fearless leader has been in the job for about three years. No one wants to take it over from her (especially me) because it involves sitting through interminable Program Council meetings where they debate things like where the table for the group raising money for the thing should go next Sunday. She's very happy, however, that I've taken over most of the planning of the actual open circle. We only open to new members once a year. Usually we get a pretty sizable number of newcomers in October, but not everyone stays. It's always a challenge making sure everyone feels welcome. By the end of the year, we all know each other really well. But it's only this year that I really feel like I'm deeply rooted in the group. It's like all kinds of family: sometimes they annoy the crap out of you, but you still love them.
- Army Guy,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
mellowtron, and I went to see Neal Stephenson read from his new book Anathem last Saturday. The Harvard Bookstore put it on -- in my church, because my church is just that cool. I was the first one up in line and asked him a question about Snow Crash. In the back the book, he mentions that the book was originally conceived as a graphic novel and I wanted to know whether he'd ever done any other collaborations. In short, no.
The crowd was super-nerd-a-licious, which made the premise of the book (a monastic "mathic" order that studiously avoids exposure to ephemeral technology in pursuit of more eternal truths) that much more apropos. Behind me, kids were talking about Facebook and Netflix. Ten years ago it would have been about iVillage and About.com.
Two great questions: one about some kind of nerd religious movement called "The Singularity." Apparently, some dude is predicting there will be a Rapture of the Nerds, where we all transcend our bodies and upload ourselves into entirely digital spaces. Sounds about as likely as Gabriel blowin' his horn and the dead rising up from their graves. What I want to know is, who's going to maintain the servers? The rest of us, I guess, who'll be stuck behind reading old books and playing with ham radios.
Best question EVAR, though: "If you had to choose just one, would you teach your children to type or to write cursive?" The poor man was stumped. For a minute. Then he chose cursive, "on the theory that handwriting recognition will improve enough to recognize cursive."
My cursive is completely illegible. Of course, so is most of my printed handwriting.
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood:
content - Music:Nighttime traffic
Still, some good career advice for folks who are still in college and want to enter the highly lucrative, sometimes amusing, and wicked rockstar cool profession of... professional IT'ing. Among other perks, it usually means free access to software that costs like a BAZILLION dollars otherwise.
http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Program
On a related but completely tangential note, I wrote this little article for WikiHow a while back, and always forget where it is because I named it something kind of obscure:
http://www.wikihow.com/Perform-a-Cleani
- Mood: chipper
There's an excellent explanation of the effect of the Norman Invasion on the English language at The Writer's Almanac.
The Order of the Garter and the term honi soit qui mal y pense also comes from the time of the Norman Conquest. In A Witch's Bible Compleat, Janet and Stewart Farrar make a pretty convincing argument that William the Conqueror, his wife, and their descendants were practitioners of "the Old Religion" (for want of a better title) -- one in which a High Priestess wore a garter indicating how many covens she was the queen of, and one in which the king must die.
I don't make any guarantees about the scholarship of the Farrars. It is interesting, however, that the dropping of a garter should cause such a fuss in a medieval court. And bear in mind that history is written by the victors -- in this case, the followers of a religion that vilified and persecuted those who practiced the indigenous traditions that predated it.
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood:
rushed - Music:WGBH Classics in the Morning
I met up with some of my circle sisters last Thursday night at the Forest Hills Lantern Festival. There are actually about three different events of this type in Jamaica Plain every year. It's inspired by a Japanese Buddhist tradition that honors the spirits of the ancestors and is very well-attended. The image of hundreds of hand-decorated lanterns floating across the waters of the pond as the light leaves the sky is really magical. Lots of people bring cameras on tripods to capture the event. My friend Butterfly took a photo on her camera phone and emailed it to me (I've posted it here), but I refrained from photographing, partly because I knew I wouldn't be able to get a good shot with my camera phone, and partly because I wanted to experience the event myself without the intervention of technology. There are tons of photos of the lantern festival on the web. I found Innusa's and ReallyStrangeGirl's flickr sets to be particularly beautiful. Still, nothing captures the experience like being in the middle of it.I took the Orange Line from Green Street to Forest Hills and followed the stream of people heading toward the festival. It was one of those hot, heavy, dreamlike evenings we get in July, and the grounds around the pond were filled with people on blankets. My circle sisters had camped out right in front of the performance space, and it was such a wonderful feeling to arrive to see a group of women holding a space for me. By the time I arrived, the festival had been going on for about an hour and a half. I attempted to get a lantern for myself, but by the time I got to the tent where you could purchase a lantern and have a calligrapher paint a word on the rice paper, there was a huge crowd. I didn't feel like waiting in line, so I returned to the blanket to watch the tail end of the Taiko Drummers' performance. I wish I'd gotten there earlier so I could have watched the entire thing; Japanese culture fascinates me, especially the traditional forms.
My circle sisters made beautiful drawings on their lanterns. Although this tradition is meant to honor the ancestors, people at this festival seem to use it as a way of sending out all kinds of energy and prayers. Each of my sisters has something fairly major to release right now: one of them is going through a divorce, the other just split up with her long-term fiance, one is embarking on a new romance, and the last has been recovering from cancer surgery. But for the first time in a couple of years, I have really nothing to release. I have good news. I am in love, my job is going well, and I am overall very happy. I was nice to have some good news to share with the circle and to be able to listen and give my support about my sisters' own tragedies. The Wheel keeps turning.
When everyone walked down to the water's edge to place their lanterns in the water, I stayed on the blanket. I watched the many kinds of people milling around and soaked in the atmosphere of Jamaica Plain. Each neighborhood and community in the Boston Metro Area has its own unique flavor. The prevailing wisdom among people who do not live in Jamaica Plain is that it's geographically isolated and difficult to get to. There is definitely a truth to that, but in the past few months I've found that getting there is not nearly as difficult as people make it out to be. And the neighborhood itself is quite wonderful. I've been considering moving there at some point. Of course, I'd hate to give up my lovely and affordable apartment in Cambervilleton (Cambridge/Somerville/Arlington), but I find the atmosphere of the neighborhood much more appealing.
I lay back and looked up at the sky as people milled around me. It was a blue-green, tinged at the edges with the burnt orange of approaching sunset. Trees ringed the edges of my vision.
Once the sun was down completely, the crowds dissipated. The five of us made a circuit of the pond, watching the slowly changing spectacle of the lanterns on the water. They followed the invisible lines of current and wind, and as the daylight faded away they looked like a line of souls marching into the other world.
It would have been nice to paint "forgiveness" on a lantern and send that message off to my father's spirit beyond the veil. But there will be other opportunities to do so. That night was meant for other people's releases.
Sadness comes apart in the water. Over the course of the last two years, though, my sadness has come apart on dry land. I have no grieving left to do, and nothing to share but joy.
- Mood:
contemplative
Paganism on Speaking of Faith
You can read about and listen to the show here:
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.o
I'm also glad that this interview underscores the deep respect for the earth, a desire to preserve the earth's beauty, that is central to pagan spirituality. Not all pagans are environmentalists, and not all environmentalists are pagans, but in terms of my own deeply held, spiritual values, one flows naturally from the other.
- Mood: pleased
Fire, having become speech, entered into the mouth.
Wind, having become the breath, entered into the nostrils.
The sun, having become vision, entered into the eyes.
The four quarters, having become hearing, entered into the ears...
The moon, having become the mind, entered into the heart.
-The Upanishads
From a newsletter from Lap of the Goddess, a new group performing public ritual in Cambridge. No website, so I can't link, but here's the email address: lapofthegoddess@hotmail.com
Next ritual is Monday, May 19, on the full moon.
Location: Cambridge Masonic Building - 1950 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square Cambridge. The Building is convenient to the Red Line and commuter rail at Porter Square station, and there is ample street parking
in surrounding areas.
Date: Monday May 19, 2008
Time: 7pm - 9pm // Please arrive by 6:45pm to register.
Fee: $10-20 sliding scale. Cash or check.
Pre-registration is recommended and appreciated, e-mail lapofthegoddess@hotmail.com to sign up.
NOTE: I practice with the groups based at First Parish Cambridge UU, not with Lap of the Goddess. Contact them with questions, not me. I can tell you one of the organizers was active with the groups that practiced at the now-defunct Unicorn Books.
- Mood: busy
Great Mother Goddess, keep my eyes on the task before me
Great Mother Goddess, let me release the nonessential
Great Mother Goddess, teach me love and compassion
Great Mother Goddess, open my heart to your abundance
Great Mother Goddess, I am your child and your companion
Great Mother Goddess, remind me I am being taken care of
Great Mother Goddess, I am a lily in your eyes
Great Mother Goddess, I am a rose before you
Great Mother Goddess, I am an oak, I am ironwood
Great Mother Goddess, I am all the creatures of the forest
Great Mother Goddess, I am the bugs crunching within the soil
Great Mother Goddess, I am the slime mold that dismantles the dead
Great Mother Goddess, I am the silence of the frozen winter
Great Mother Goddess, I am the secret germ in the seed
Great Mother Goddess, I am the silence of a swan gliding over still water
Great Mother Goddess, I am a cherry tree in blossom
Great Mother Goddess, I am an apple tree bearing fruit
Great Mother Goddess, I am a hive of bees making honey
Great Mother Goddess, I am a bear moving deliberate through the trees
Great Mother Goddess, I am a wild mustang in the desert
Great Mother Goddess, I am a cow grazing in a green paddock,
Great Mother Goddess, I am a hen laying eggs in the barn
Great Mother Goddess, I am a tadpole wriggling in a pool
Great Mother Goddess, I am a serpent flying through the endless sea
Great Mother Goddess, I am your child, I am your child, rocked to sleep in your lap
I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed
Frances Donovan
May 7, 2008
Rev. May 23, 2008
Note: Cf. shamanic invocations of the Celts before battle and the work of the bard Taliesin.
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Music:Laura Viers - To the Country
"If I could meditate, I'd be a better person."
When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual
discipline, they often think that somehow they're going to improve,
which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are. It's
a bit like saying, "If I jog, I'll be a much better person." "If I
could only get a nicer house, I'd be a better person." "If I could
meditate and calm down, I'd be a better person"... But loving-kindness
- maitri - toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything.
Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can
still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous
or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change
ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves
away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are
already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right
now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we study, that's
what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
- Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness from
Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith
This reminded me of an exchange I had last night with the official leader of the Women's Sacred Circle last night as I was driving her home from the church potluck where the pagans sniffed out the new ministerial candidate for the church. I've always really appreciated the very quiet way she has of making things happen. One might describe it as mellow, or laissez faire, or t'ai-ch'i-master-like. "I'm just more comfortable doing things that way," she said. "It just feels more natural to me."
Anyone who has ever known me knows that I am the polar opposite of my Circle Sister in this respect.
"I've come to a level of acceptance about who I am," I said as we walked through the chaos of Harvard Square. "But I've tried to moderate my own style in that respect."
"Why?" she asked.
- Location:Cubicle 2016J
- Mood: ok
- Music:HVAC pumping dry, hot air overhead
Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder--
If you hate me so much
don't bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything--
as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
one enemy--
I'm not the enemy.
Only to ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day
and you can't rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion--
It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.
I don't need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I'll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.
-- Louise Glück
From The Wild Iris, The Ecco Press (an imprint of HarperCollins publishers). New York: 1992.
- Mood:
still stretching
It's as though the inward freedom described below is a warm room with a fire and hot cocoa, and the wheel of desire is a crazy, joyful snowball fight on a cold, sunny day. Each gives the other its sweetness.
True Freedom Is an Inward State of Being
Morality as taught by way of rules is extremely powerful and valuable
in the development of practice. It must be remembered that it, like
all the techniques in meditation, is merely a tool to enable one to
eventually get to that place of unselfishness where morality and
wisdom flow naturally. In the West, there's a myth that freedom means
free expression--that to follow all desires wherever they take one is
true freedom. In fact, as one serves the mind, one sees that following
desires, attractions, repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind
of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails
great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to
perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of
being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or
limit one's freedom. It is in this context that we must understand
moral precepts and moral rules. - Jack Kornfield, Living Dharma from
Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
http://www.tricycle.com/issues/2_536/dailydharma/4135-1.html
- Mood: contemplative
It is possible to take our existence as a "sacred world," to take this
place as open space rather than claustrophobic dark void. It is
possible to take a friendly relationship to our ego natures, it is
possible to appreciate the aesthetic play of forms in emptiness, and
to exist in this place like majestic kings of our own consciousness.
But to do that, we would have to give up grasping to make everything
come out the way we daydream it should. So, suffering is caused by
ignorance or ignorant grasping, or suffering exaggerated by ignorance
or ignorant grasping and clinging to our notion of what we thing
should be, is what causes the "suffering of suffering." The suffering
itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against suffering that is
the real pain.
--Allen Ginsberg, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol.
II, #1
Via Daily Dharma
Dammit. There goes my argument about why I'm not a full-on Buddhist. Because the world is a gift of the Goddess and Nirvana is not necessarily the final goal.
They're gonna take away my priestess card.
- Mood:
mindful
Solstice 1993
Naked beneath my red dress,
under the midnight sky,
under the moon's insolent eye,
I brave the biting cold to crunch
over new-laid snow,
alone on the luminous plain.
To the cathedral of trees I journey,
counting my steps to the place
the faithful have congregated,
the dwindling faithful.
I have no words
for the ritual I yearn to perform.
All the words were burnt long ago.
Mute, alone,
under the broken sky
at the edge of the trees,
I see an angel's form,
unsubstantiated, glowing white
within the dimness.
With no words and no offering,
I squat, and pee,
and return the way I came.
--Frances Donovan
October 2003
January 2007
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood: awake
- Music:WERS Boston
Tiny jewels,
mother's blood.
Burst on the tongue first bitter,
then sweet as the setting sun.
Inevitable this moment
Inevitable the bowl that holds the fruit
Inevitable the knife that cuts its flesh,
the spatter of red against your blouse.
If you had the power,
you would have stayed her hand
from the fateful stem
and hung forever in that sun-kissed meadow.
But she plucked the bloom:
Earth yawned its jagged teeth:
He rode out from his grey domain
and pulled you both below.
She will fall from that field of flowers
as surely as you fell from the womb
to walk with her under darkening skies,
bright jewel on your tongue,
fear rising beneath the juice,
sorrow to mix with salt tears,
all sadness, all wasted, all come before,
all turning with the seeds' bitter blessing.
Frances Donovan
October 30, 2006
NOTE: A familiarity with the Myth of Persephone will make this poem more comprehensible.
- Mood:
artistic
Their latest campaign supports Celeste Zappala, the mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq. She is camped out at the entrace to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. He refuses to see her. He's on vacation now -- but apparently he's also refused to see her in Washington. She probably hasn't greased the right palms.
You can stand by her as well here:
Standing with the Faithful in Crawford, TX
I signed the petition and also submitted the prayer below. It's doubtful whether they'll read mine aloud, since God/dess knows how it'd play in Peoria. But you never know.
Great Mother, giver of all life,
Kali-Ma has danced her dance of death upon the earth again
She has clothed herself with a necklace
Of the skulls of the dead.
Great Mother, bring your daughter to heel.
Call forth your son Shiva to sing to her, and calm her.
Great Mother, damp the flames of anger.
Unearth the roots of greed.
Inspire in your children
The imagination, the inspiration
That gives rise to compassion.
From You comes all power.
Your power is as mighty as the wind,
As subtle as the waves that wear away the stone,
As swift as lightning.
Break through the layers of indifference and ignorant advisors
That protect the powerful,
The men and women who send our sons and daughters off to war.
Let them see the death of the innocents, and the young, and the not-so-innocent.
Let them see the consequences of their decisions.
And open their hearts to change the steps of the dance,
The dance they have unleashed upon the world.
- Mood:
determined - Music:Coffeehouse on WERS
But this movie was not made for children. It's the same group of artists who did the animated Hobbit movie, and I KNOW that I've seen stills of some of the characters before: Mommy Fortuna and the Pirate Kitty were both awfully familiar.
The theme of the movie is similar to that of The Neverending Story, the other movie that arrived from Netflix at the same time (I've coordinated the next few batches in my queue so that the DVDs will work well together). In The Neverending Story (which I'll freshen up on at some point in the next week or two), it's the land of imagination at stake. In The Last Unicorn, it's the magic and the innocence and the mystery of the unicorns -- driven from the world by the greed of one man. His name, appropriately enough, is King Haggard.
I find it interesting that each decade or era of history looks back on another era in history for its inspiration. In the 1980s, there was a lot of nostalgia for the 1950s in pop culture. And there was also a fascination with the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the production of movies like The Last Unicorn and The Hobbit, and also with the rise in popularity of past-times like Dungeons & Dragons, the SCA, and Renaissance Faires. Maybe in another ten years I'll be able to pinpoint the fascination of the 90s and the decades following. I think it might be the Victorian era, but that could just be the personal fascination of
technogoddesss and myself.It's also not lost on me that the greed of King Haggard -- a demon that is ambiguously described as both kept and the keeper of the King -- manifests itself as the Red Bull. Aside from the fairly obvious and archetypal implications of the color red (aggression, Ares, Mars, war) and the Bull (as in the playground bully), it's also the name of a rather popular "energy drink." And just as the energy drink promises to "give you wings," with long-term consequences to your body chemistry and metabolism (from what I hear, taurine is longer-lasting than caffeine and doesn't produce quite such an extreme up-and-down energy cycle), the Red Bull in this story concentrates all the joy of all the unicorns into the seashore of one Haggard kingdom, leaching it away from the rest of the world.
The movie is rife with other archetypes and symbols. I've only touched on a few. Mommy Fortuna (and why IS it that the female magician in this story presents such a sinister front, whereas the elemental Unicorn must be saved by her good friend Schmendrick?) and the story of the Harpy is fertile ground for analysis, as is the Unicorn's claim that she and the Harpy are "two sides of the same magical coin."
But enough of that. This was just an artist's date for me. It's good to be thinking about all this stuff. It's also past 10:30. I'm going to go smoke myself a little of the stinking weed (that's tobacco for all you hooligans out there) and head to bed so I can get to my client by a reasonable hour tomorrow.
- Mood: contemplative
Because my life could be like this and it's not!
Went home for lunch today and the power of Lughnasadh -- did you know that this lazy dog-day summer bees-buzzing the earth is standing still time of year is actually a Sabbat? -- held me down and made me take a nice long nap after eating. I couldn't help it. I was in its thrall. I did get up and return to the office because:
(a) my cool stuff, like this laptop is here
(b) it's air-conditioned, yay!
(c) I actually do like to bill. And I even like to cross things off my punch list
(d) I told myself, 'you're going to go in there and you're going to give them one hell of a focused billable hour'
On my way back through the chapel of maple trees, there was a young black man sitting on the steps at the end of the pathway, singing along with this headphones. Rhythmic African Poetry in a mix of English and Haitian Creole. All you will be is what your grandchildren will be. I smiled at him. He seemed to belong right there.
- Mood: thirsty
- Music:computer hum, absolute silence of a private office
dalbino83 was wicked awesome. I made a new recipe that technogoddesss shared with me recently after a particularly athletic bout of thematic scrabble. The dinner was my half of a barter for one of dalbino's lovely handmade paper bowls, and it came complete with calendula flowers! She says she got the better half of the bargain, but I remain skeptical. After all, not only did I have the pleasure of her company, but I finally had the excuse I needed to run the vaccuum cleaner and make a home-cooked meal. Plus we had a bonus walk to Herrell's and back for sugar-free ice cream and got to have discussions about all kinds of interesting things, including being dykes who occasionally sleep with (and even *gasp* have relationships with) men, programming, polyamory, paganism, craftiness, cookiness, Boston-area neighborhood crime rates, model mugging defense strategies, and other fun things.I also led a Solstice ritual on Sunday. Unbeknownst to me, the Sunday service at church was led by the Prison Education Project. I felt kind of like an idiot having my ritual "competing" with the PEP workshop upstairs in the barn room. But we raised energy and had a really nice, small circle in the summer heat up at Sheepfold Meadow in Melrose. I was all nervous about (a) leading the circle and (b) people showing up. But it was really nice. Also because Technogoddess came with me to support me.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love her? Sappy sappy sappy sappy, I know. I've totally gone soft in the head. Mush mush mush.
I'll tell you about the Jesus Freaks we ran into on Friday some other time.
- Mood:furtive
- Music:Concrete Blonde, Roxy
There's a really fascinating book by a woman named Sharon Caulder called Mark of Voodoo that describes a woman's journey to Benin (same country as the homeland of this North London Voodoo Priest) to discovevr her spiritual roots. Years after reading it, I still remember details.
I have to admit I only skimmed the article, but I just love the headline. And I love Wren's Nest. The folks who run the Witches' Voice rock the mike with some phat beats -- beats so phat you might gain weight. I was in contact with them when I ran the PaganWiccan site at About.com, and they totally sympathized with my Chat/Forum troubles. In fact, their solution was just to turn off the damn things. At least I allowed free speech to reign supreme, even if half the time the damn pagans were kvetching about one of two things:
1) Okelle's never here! Waaa waa waah!
2) Okelle blocked me from posting! Waaa waa waaah!
Apparently, my successor Terri Pajeanejeainagaingawhatever has also inherited the joys of pain-in-the-ass cyberpagans engaging in their little flame wars in the forum.
Of course, the chat room also gave birth to the Coven of the Mystic Light, run by my lovely friend Hebridea (now Aisla). I still have some of the gifts they sent me in the mail. And for years, I conducted virtual ritual in that selfsame chat room. Yes, it sounds silly and ridonculous, but for many of us who were geographically dispersed and unable to find covens or circles in our area we wanted to practice with, it was a real spiritual solace.
Now I practice with CUUPs-Cambridge. And I've actually found a church of real-live meatspace people whom I love. Unitarian Universalists rock the house almost as much as Wren Walker and Fritz Jung. Or maybe even more!
- Mood:don't wanna get out of bed
- Music:morning silence
