Its taken me until now to get to the telling of my stories with my mother. I can hear her voice in my head right now. “Its all about your father I see…wtf …it’s like I wasn’t even there!! Did you have a mother??” Her outrage rings in my ears. I certainly did have a mother and an incredibly powerful and capable mother at that. Mother I have many stories […]
I was watching this fabulous docu-series on Amazon Prime called “Sex Around the World” the other day. Many women in the series talk about the connection between their feminism and porn. They talk about their work as a feminist act celebrating the nature of female sexuality. These women come from a variety of countries across the world and a number of very different cultures. They are writers, artists, dancers, sex […]
I lit a candle for Angela today. I lit it in a huge Russian Orthodox Church. Not exactly the spiritual home of our Greek Orthodox ancestors but close. I bathed in the light of the gleaming garnet stained glass cross painting the floor. I knelt on the eastern side of the smooth golden wood beside the strip of carpet which bisected the expansive room and led up the steps to […]
John-Wayne-Mother has finally finished examining stacks of giant wallpaper books. “This is the pattern I want.” Her voice is fast and firm. She glows with her passion for this project. “If I continue the wallpaper above the picture molding all the way to the ceiling it will make the ceiling look higher than it is already.” Her gesture encompasses the nine foot ceilings in our house. She continues to describe […]
I read an article recently. “Why I am Not a Shaman and Neither are You”. (find link) In it I found an excellent description of why I use ‘shamanic priestess’ as a label to give people context for my lifepath and spiritual practice. The article starts by pointing out that a shaman is a very specific thing. First it is a noun…it is the name of a particular role in […]
<Continued from “You Remember I am an Apostate, Right?”> I hold her sudden quiet for a long heartbeat and then say, “If this is the Truth with a capital ‘T’ then it can stand up to any examination from any direction, at any time. Truth has nothing to fear from any sort of scrutiny of its evidence. That is the very definition of the word truth. Yet the Society’s rules […]
<Continued from “Throwing Down the Gauntlet“> “You know what Nana?” I say after I washed up our few dishes and made us an after-dinner cup of coffee. Hers decaf and black, mine regular with a good slug of cream. Wrapping my hands around the warmth of my cup I start talking about why I am here on this day. “I want to stay with you for a bit. I have […]
<Continued from “Nana is Dying and You Are Not Invited” post.> I walk through the familiar wide golden oak front door and set two bags just inside the door, stashing them behind her chair. “Hi darlin’, how are you feeling today?” Coming around her chair, hands free, I bend down to kiss her pale sunken cheek. She has been shrinking for years. Now she looks like a strong wind might […]
<This is a portion of a chapter set when I was in my 30’s.> I have been officially out of the Organization for 3 years. I am being shunned by my Faithful Witness family. When I first heard, really heard, how bad things are for Nana, she said, “Don’t you think the scariest thing would be to die in the bathtub?” The first time I heard her say it I […]
As the Ashes of California Ablaze float and settle around me …thoughts of Armageddon sift and flare in my mind like the last remnants of a forest fire’s dying gasps. Images of Fire raining from God on High to consume the running screaming mothers carrying babies in their arms filled my childhood. ARMAGEDDON IS COMING or They Have to Die…Really? “Armageddon is coming any minute and we need to be […]