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A Mood
I have been thinking… No. I have been feeling about this community of people, the nontheist Pagan community. I have been feeling because sometimes such appreciation, such gratitude wells up in me to be with you all. So a wrote a thing. THIS Community We’re having none of the bullshit, thank you. We’ve seen the paths of the lost and confused, and chosen. We aspire: To lofty goals and a kinder world, To sense, sensibility, sensuousness, sexiness, Self-made-Sacred: Sifted Through the fine grate of experience, cultivating it, the joy. And to be better. We’re having all of the work, thank you, Because we are stained. None has escaped The gray…
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Homily
Sisters and brothersAnd genderqueer others, beloveds:Let us not bow our heads. No, let us not bow our heads. Instead,Let us fling them back, arms stretchedWide to the world, mouths gaping in awe For there–THERE–is the sky. The simple,Miraculous sky, blue or gray by dayDark by night, pale scrim of air That is breath that is rainThat keeps the radiation out.The sky’s wide vault, the Temple of Being Upon this good wide Earth.Gaze upward, knowingThis is what I am, where I live, This is the miracle that is me.Do not despair. Be of stout heart, for surelyThose who live entire lives in a Temple Must be blessed. Know your good fortune.Say…
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Shadow and Light
The equinox, which I name High Spring, is upon us. To me, this is a happy time of innocence and play. A time for bright colors and candy and finally—finally—having light in the evenings and a sun warm enough to feel on my skin. But today, I am so sad. So disturbed. The white supremacist murder sprees at two mosques in New Zealand are simply sickening. That we have people so damaged, so filled with hatred in this world just breaks my heart. Half light, half darkness. That’s the equinox. And the world itself, it seems. The extraordinary poet W.S. Merwyn died yesterday as well, after a long and productive life.…
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Requiem and Invocation
Friends and Allies, let us grieve. Let us grieve that an era of progress and forward thinking appears to be drowning in a sea of ignorance, hatred and fear. Let us grieve that reason has been swamped by credulity, and science by superstition and willful ignorance. Let us grieve. Let us tear the words from the walls of our bodies, howling: we have lost so much. The children suffer. The good green Earth bleeds. The water is sullied, the creatures die, the air itself stifles the living of the world. The people are punished for being themselves. Our leaders are dupes and psychopaths. They hate this good world as much…
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Summer
Though weather varies widely across the planet, of course, the traditional meaning of May Day in Europe was “the beginning of Summer”. Thus, the summer solstice was termed “Midsummer”, et cetera. Here in the U.S. the unofficial beginning of summer is a little later, with the passage of Memorial Day at the end of May. Here in the Mediterranean climate of coastal northern California, our hills are now turning from green to gold as the grasses go to seed and turn tawny. It is the signal that summer has truly arrived, and we have days to match: 70s and low 80s, not quite hot enough yet to provoke the fog…
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On the Other Hand…(A Love Letter)
So, I’ve been a little hard on the Pagan community lately. I’ve decried abuses and hierarchies, lack of political engagement, and the leftovers of the sexual culture of the 1960s that still thrive in many corners of it. Those things are true, in my opinion, and I stand by them. So why, one might ask, do I continue to be a part of a community of people who I find so problematic? Well, let me tell you: because it’s wonderful. In all my experience, no cohort of people has ever been so smart, interesting, creative, unique and, by and large, genuinely good-hearted. Weird, yes—but isn’t that just a synonym for creative? Despite blind…
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A Dawn Prayer
Whose warm love flows across the land each day Stirring Life, the world’s magic, arms yearning up, Turning each green leaf to follow. Whose generous balm Upon the skin is love’s touch, ahhhhhh heated fingers soothing, Whose roar boils water from ocean to sky Drawing sweet from salt, becoming rain, snow, river, lake; Whose fervid beat upon us is deadly, and yet Contemplating cold stars how we miss it, the Golden One, quotidian center Of our days, steady companion, sower of treasures great and small: Light-bringer, Life-quickener, dazzling, unbearably bright, Hail, oh hail the magnificent Sun!
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May Morning
With love for all of you, on this the eve of May Day… May Morning Fresh as the day the world was made, This morning: dew-spattered through feather fans Of foxtail and wild rye. Mars is low on the horizon, for once. Still As a caught breath, the day, hushed, Holds for a slow-golding time, the rose hints Of bold and bright to come, of music Yet to be made, dances old as the village, new as tomorrow’s milk. How can it be, four billion, five hundred million years, the old and battered Earth, Veteran of ice and fire, meteor, petroleum, stupidity, avarice, ignorance How can it be, this innocence:…
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The Avalanche–A Poem for January
The avalanche took our home. A wave of ice drove us before it, And everything we thought we had we loaded on our backs And fled, but no luck: the cold fist ground us under. Home. Years. Love. Work. Health. We cried as it passed over us, scraping, Pinned in place, locked in dim blue light: Frozen. The avalanche took our hope. We lay motionless, pockets collapsing about us Stripping away more and more, and we did nothing: Only gazed upward, and mourned, and remembered And night came, and all disappeared But a smear of muted stars. And it wasn’t until the sun returned, and murky light Bathed us in…
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A Winter Spell
O cold, inexorable darkness Draw back now beyond these circling walls. Should fear, and want, and danger walk It shall not be, it is not here. Let this place of warming light Bulwark against freezing night: a promise Holding through the day that we, come nightfall May sleep safely, cozy, soundly in the soft Down drift of love and food and enough. Pass on, cold night. Howl your rages, Pelt your icy javelins. Blot the stars and Dance the barren trees in anger. But come not here. Pour upon the freezing ground Your brutal rain, but step Not one foot within this woolen nest. Have your time, o winter dark. But…
