Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012

April 6, 2012


And if I’ve written in passion,
Live, Julia! what was I writing
but my own pledge to myself
where the love of women is rooted?
And what was I invoking
but the matrices we weave
web upon web, delicate rafters
flung in audacity to the prairie skies
(from “For Julia in Nebraska,” in A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far)

Adrienne Rich, the poet whose work exemplified the journey of twentieth century feminists to find an authentic individual and collective voice, died March 27th at 82. Her groundbreaking collection, The Dream of a Common Language, spoke to the soul of the emerging vision of women’s poetry. Her nonfiction work, Of Women Born took on the sentimentalized and trivialized subject of motherhood and examined it as a central influence on women’s lives and perspective.

I did not know Rich, although I heard her perform many times. I chatted briefly with her once after a reading, and I recognized her occasionally in San Francisco or Santa Cruz – too shy to go up and speak to her, though she seemed open and approachable. Rich did not exude any air of self-importance, despite being recognized and celebrated as a gifted writer from an early age. Rich did, however, convey a sense that we – each of us women – were vitally important.

The salient experience of being female in Western patriarchy is one of unimportance. Our thoughts, our feelings, our needs, our hopes, what we do, what we say, what happens to us – all are uninteresting, unimportant and irrelevant. If we sound shrill at times – to men, to other women, even to ourselves – it’s because we always feel like we’re never being heard.

And Rich wrote as if she heard us. Rich could make the word “we” seem not like a conglomeration of unnamed entities but a symbiotic web of nourishment. She carried the conviction of our central, vital, incontrovertible importance. Not in spite of being women, but because.

Rich was not, however, an unwavering source of upliftment. There was too much pain in her work. She suffered most of her life with arthritis, yet the pain that came through her work was an emotional one, almost an impersonal one, the pain of humanity and especially of women. It was too much to take in heavy doses, and I found myself drifting away from Rich’s poetry – and then being pulled back occasionally to the strength of that conviction: that our deeds, our experiences and our dreams are vital to the continuity of history – and to all that lies ahead.

The Witch’s Broom, part III

March 30, 2012

Witches flying on broom and staff. From manuscript border of Martin Le Franc's 1440 Defender of Ladies.

The stereotypic witch is the deluded worshipper of Satan, working her evil in remote congregations she accesses by flying on her broomstick. She has a huge larger-than-life nose with larger-than-life warts, and one of her greatest sins is the fashion mistake of that ridiculous cone hat. She is a misguided dupe who will, of course, meet with a sorry end as the forces of good prevail.

Curiously enough, there are parts of this stereotype with a basis in reality. The most interesting of these is the flight on the broom.

Broom flight came relatively late in the Christian understanding of witchcraft. Medieval writings such as the 906 Canon Episcopi talk about the idea of pagans shapeshifting into animals in order to go places and do things, though the texts make clear that the error is not in doing these things but in believing that they happen. A clerical reference to witches on broomsticks appears in 1440 in Martin Le Franc’s Defender of the Ladies. In this essay Le Franc takes exception to the belief that women are more likely than men to do the Devil’s bidding, arguing that this belief is based on fanstastic assumptions like broom travel. He discusses the confession of a sixteen year old girl at a trial and concludes that “There are no broomsticks or rods by which anyone could fly. But when the devil can fool the mind, they think they fly….” Again, the error is not in the act of flying, but in believing that flight is possible. Since theology around Satan and witchcraft solidified by the thirteenth century, and witch flight continued to be suspect within this paradigm, it is likely that the idea of witches flying on brooms arose not out of Christian cosmology but pagan belief. Eventually broomstick flying did become stock in the witch hunter’s lore, though witch prosecutors like Matthew Hopkins lamented that the belief cheapened the discipline. The need for prosecutors at actual trials to establish a modus operandi may explain why the scenario of the witch flying on her broomstick was accepted outside of more erudite theological circles. The scenario explained how the witches (many of whom were elderly) were getting to their sabbats in the wilderness undetected, and it allowed the testimony of victims and witnesses, who often insisted on dragging in broom flight, to be admitted in full.
Aphrodite riding a swan or goose, carrying staff or distaff. By Achilles the Painter, 450 bce. University of Haifa Library.


So how did people get the idea that witches were flying on brooms (or staves or animals)? The simple answer, which we’ll get to eventually, is that they really were flying. Another point to consider is the relationship between the priestess and her goddess. While the monotheistic religions (and many pagan religions as well) place a wide distance between the greatest priest/priestess and the deity, in many pagan religions a priestess can become endowed over time with the qualities of her deity. Christian theologians may have furthered this conflation between goddess and priestess by their emphatic portrayal of goddesses (whom they categorically referred to as “demons”) as the mundane part of their divine/worldly dichotomy. Sometimes in Christianized folklore the goddess even becomes a witch.

We know from myth and art that goddesses are always flying around, often with staves, distaffs or brooms, or on the backs of animals. The germanic giantess Hyrrokkin rides on the back of a wolf, and witnesses in a witch trial from Switzerland testified that the accused was seen flying on a wolf. More often the goddess is shown carrying a staff or a distaff as she flies, with or without animal support. While today the broom is the stock image, medieval and Renaissance witches were often portrayed flying on staves or distaffs. The Russian Baba Yaga, who has counterparts throughout Eastern Europe, definitely has a flying broom association. Baba Yaga is described as a witch, but her awesome powers are goddess-like. She rides through the sky at night in a mortar, using the pestle as an oar to steer. With her broom she sweeps the tracks away as she rides. Baba Yaga is an ancient crone with a huge nose almost touching her chin. She or harvest crone goddesses like her probably influenced the broomstick witch stereotype.

Flying witch with distaff on indeterminate animal doing weather magic. From Albrecht Durer's early 16th century engraving Witch Riding. Thought to be inspired by a cameo of Aphrodite Pandemos.

Sources

Guerber, H.A. The Norsemen. London: Senate, 1994.

Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.

Kors, Alan Charles and Edward Peters, eds. Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.


Still to come: What if they really were flying?

Happy Birthday, Aries

March 23, 2012


In honor of the arrival of Spring I thought I’d dust off my epic poem about an Aries perspective on an important mystery.

ARIES WOMEN


i.

Put away your vampire books. Forget about picking scabs or peeking at booboos under band-aids. These things are for children who have yet to discover better things.

ii.

Indulge in all the paraphernalia. Tampons, sponges, belts, sticky pads, reusable pads, simple rags–each has new information to shed on the subject. Wear junior tampons so you can change them often. Examine the mottled colors–the red, the browns, the tiny globs and veins. Notice how the smell of used tampons differs from used sanitary napkins. Hold your sponge under the faucet til the water runs clear. Fill the tub and let the water turn scarlet. Allow a few spots to annoint your underwear.

iii.

They tell you to keep a record of when you start, but why stop there? Record how it started–fast and red or a brown trickle and then the red part? Where were you when it happened: in a store…at the office…in bed with a lover? What times of day do you bleed the heaviest? How many days do you spot? Do you have cramps and where are they? Do you flow evenly or do you have liver clots and how big? How many pads per cycle do you change in a public restroom?

iv.

Do not call it a period. Others may say moon-time, dot, that time or on the rag, but the word that says it best is “bloods.”

v.

Build a bloodhut or a blood tent or a bleeding corner of your room. Bleed on flannel or silk. Take the first day of bloods off work or school to celebrate. Take a walk. Buy yourself flowers. Make cup after cup of hot tea and stare into space. Revel in that warm sticky feeling between your legs.

vi.

Brag about it to your friends. When you excuse yourself to change a tampon make sure everyone knows that’s what you’re doing. Mention it often so that people around you are almost as continually aware of it as you are.

vii.

Slip your finger in the opening of pleasure and slide in the thick red juices. Note the sound your fingers make as they slosh. Hold your bright red fingers to the light. Notice the aroma different from regular blood and different from regular cunt. Lick the very tips of your fingers.

viii.

Collect your wise blood by squeezing a tampon or sponge into a teacup. Use it to paint runes or rattles or the ever popular walls. Annoint the sides and wick of you vulva shaped candle for an exceptionally potent spell. Blood can be frozen in ice cube trays for craft projects during those in-between times.

ix.

Squat naked outdoors as you face the East. Let your blood sanctify this place marking the end and beginning of cycles. Pray for a good cycle, a healthy cycle, marked with love and accomplishment.

Squat again in the South, the direction of fire. Thank the Mother of All for your fiery nature which gives and replenishes itself perpetually.

Squat a third time in the West, the direction of fluids. Feel the mysteries unfolding within the darkness of your body. Feel the cosmos bleeding with and within you.

Squat one more time in the North, the direction of wisdom. Touch the body of your Mother Earth and rub your fingers in her living soil. Thank the earth and moon and stars and sun that you can have blood, all the blood you need and want, without hurting yourself–or someone else. Bless the juices of creativity flowing downward and outward and onward in a river of endless possibilities.

Happy Eostre!

March 20, 2012

Snowdrops are not the showiest flowers but they’re so welcome here, because they’re the first to bloom. Spring generally comes late in the Adirondacks, sometimes not until May, but this year it’s very early and we have a warm day for our celebration.

Spring Rites

March 16, 2012


Spring Equinox comes on March 20th this year. I count the holiday as the day when the sun first rises in the sign of Aries. I saw an advertisement on an occult website recently urging people to buy now and be ready for the solstice. That would be quite a head start indeed: Summer Solstice is June 21st. Remember, equinoxes are equal; solstices are solar extremes.

Spring Equinox is the celebration of the youth in all of us. In one way of looking at things, we are born, we mature, we grow steadily older until we become decrepit (but wise), and then we die. In another view, we are born, we mature, we grow old, we become young again, we grow old, and then we are young again.

Featured spring goddess this year is the lovely Norse Idunn, who keeps the gods of Asgard forever young with the magic red berries she keeps in a special box. There is debate over what kind of berries these are. Some call them “Idunn’s apples.” Others say they come from the Rowan tree. Still others believe they are the same berries women pluck from the tree on the Hill of Healing to aid childbirth. Myself, I think they are cherry cordials.

To regain a sense of newness, wonder and enthusiasm, include some red sweets in your spring ritual. They could be red jelly beans or strawberries or raspberries–just about anything red besides pomegranates, which are a death fruit. Ask Idunn to bless your berries with the spirit of youth. Idunn is a generous goddess, so share your magic berries with others as well as partaking of them yourself.

Wise Silence

March 12, 2012








To know
To dare
To will
To keep silent
Sisters thank you for your silence
It is elegant
It is graceful
It is vast
It is loud
It is profound
It is very hard
I revel in the wisdom of your unspoken words
Words that are heard
Into the centuries

Defining Ourselves

March 8, 2012

Abigail Adams, 1766 (Benjamin Blythe)
I am taking a break from the broom this week. In honor of Women’s History Month, I wanted to post something about American women’s political history as it relates to worship.

Women have not always been women. We’ve been (among other things) wenches, maidens, girls, damsels and, of course, ladies. These words have usually referred to status as well as gender, but whatever her status, the definition of the word and the word itself was one in which the poor wench had no voice.

Abigail Adams, first lady to the second president of the United States, addressed the topic of women’s voices in 1776, as the principles of the new nation were being formed. In a letter to her husband she admonished, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.” The use of “ladies” in such a strongly worded feminist statement sounds jarring, but “lady” was the word in vogue at the time. “Woman” was impolite or dehumanizing, implying low status, referring to bodies and therefore vaguely acknowledging sex. “Lady” was the genteel, civilized, respectable, well-mannered ideal.

Seventy-five years later, the first wave of American feminists rejected the word “lady” as a construct imposed by men, affirming instead the word “woman.” This took the definition of the female sex away from the realm of behavior, putting it back on the body and enabling women to do unladylike things. Even labor organizer Mary “Mother” Jones, who had her own disagreements with feminists, got the importance of this when she admonished young women, “No matter what the fight, don’t be ladylike. God almighty made women, and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.”
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, 1902 (Bertha Howell)


In the second wave of feminism, beginning in the late 1960’s, women reaffirmed themselves as women, pushing back against the “lady” and “girl” monikers and celebrating the being and the body that God almighty made, only this time we called her “Goddess.” “Lady” was increasingly being limited to a polite means of addressing a female stranger (although “gentleman” was rarely used in this context). “Hey lady! Zip up your purse–you’re in New York!” a man yelled at me once. The upper class connotations of “lady” had long been a point of discomfort in a society that rejected the idea of class in principle, if not in practice. The word “lady” continued to be embraced by conservative women as an affirmation of the old male-imposed ideals or even as a code word for anti-feminist. The eighties street theatre group “Ladies Against Women” parodied these anti-feminist ladies.

For all its baggage of snobbery and oppression, the word “lady” remains ensconced in certain pagan traditions, particularly those that are an offshoot of British traditional witchcraft. The most conservative traditions worship a “Lord and Lady,” not a “God and Goddess,” and the high priestess may be addressed in circle as “lady.” A woman who has completed the highest level of training may also be addressed as lady. Once in awhile, a high priestess will publish a book under a pen name of Lady SomethingOrOther, but the title is not used outside of Craft business.

Hungarian-born Dianic leader Z Budapest tried unsuccessfully to persuade Dianic priestesses to accept the word “lady” in sacred context, arguing that the word originally meant “maker of the loaf” and has not always been a label of oppression. In feminist circles, resistance was too high to continue this traditional form of reference. For Dianics the word “woman” continues to be preferred, a way of affirming that we are not to be defined by outside forces.

The Witch’s Broom, part II

March 2, 2012

Birch bundles for making "besoms"--traditional witch brooms. Photo by Colin Grice.

Last week I talked about the handle of the broom, which is usually made of ash. Ash wood represents Yggdrasil, the World-Tree of Germanic lore, and symbolizes nourishment, health and all-around good luck.

The brush part of the broom is traditionally made with birch twigs. Birch is a tree of purification, also associated with death and ancestors. Gentle flagellation with birch twigs is used in some purification rituals to drive pollution out of the body. In old-style Swedish saunas, people emerge from the heat, roll in the snow, then are lightly beaten with birch twigs. The sauna is still used for physical purification, but it was once used for spiritual and emotional cleansing as well.

The broom is used at the very beginning of ritual to cleanse the energies in the area of worship. The broom does not sweep or touch the floor but is held above the head with two hands as the priestess walks the perimeter of the ceremonial space. Since it drives away impure energies, the broom can be used as a guardian for the doorway to a ritual space. The broom may also be used in more aggressive banishing rituals to drive out negativity. Routine purification for ritual preparation is done with feathers or fans, but the broom may be passed over the body in situations requiring more extreme cleansing, such as disease or trauma. The broom was used in purification ceremonies following childbirth back when infant and maternal mortality was higher due to bacterial infections.

The birch twigs are bound to the traditional witch broom with strips of willow bark. White willow bark is a widely used anodyne, from which aspirin was originally synthesized. Willow is sacred to Hecate, a patron goddess of witches, and is associated with water and the moon.

In folklore there are many taboos about brooms. I view these taboos as a reminder of the power of the broom, a power that must be wielded with caution.

Still to come: Marriage and the Broom plus Astral Travel.


Sources:

Campanelli, Pauline. Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1990.

Cooper, D. Jason. Using the Runes. Welllingborough, England: Aquarian Press, 1986.

Grimassi, Raven. Old World Witchcraft: Ancient Ways for Modern Days. San Francisco: Weiser Books, 2011.

Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.

The Witch’s Broom, part I

February 24, 2012

Helen Hwang and others at the Mago Circle have been sharing ideas about the sacred broom, and I felt inspired to do a bit of research regarding the use of this magical tool in Western witchcraft. Quickly pulling books off my shelf, I soon had a pile of information that was far too extensive for a blog post. I think I’ll stay with this topic for a few weeks, however, and approach a piece of the subject each week from a different perspective.

The first thing that we have to grapple with when we talk about the broom as a magical tool is that the sacred broom is not really a broom, not in the way it is commonly understood as a utensil for sweeping debris off the floor. So what is it? Is it the act of sweeping that makes the broom magical? Is it a cleaning application in the realm of etheric energies? Is it some quality in the materials sewn into the part that sweeps? Is it some quality in the handle? Does it relate to the broom’s relationship to the house? As we will see, all of these things play into the magical power of the broom.

When we talk about witches riding their brooms, the cliched expression is “riding on their broomsticks.” Yet we don’t ordinarily refer to the handle of the broom in other contexts. For example, if I wanted someone to pass a broom to me, I would say, “hand me the broom,” not “hand me the broomstick.” Magically speaking, the stick in broomstick warrants examination.

Witches in animal form on a riding pole. From a 15th century French witch-hunting manual.
In Witchcraft for Tomorrow Gardnerian priestess Doreen Valiente says,

The wand is the magical weapon of invocation; but among witches it sometimes took the form of the riding pole, upon which they performed the traditional jumping dance to make the crops grow tall. This dance was probably the origin of the idea that witches used broomsticks or staffs to fly through the air upon….

To dance over the ground with a pole or staff between the legs is an obvious phallic gesture of the old fertility rites. Hence the end of the riding pole was often carved in the shape of a phallus. This, however, marked the staff as an obvious magical object, an adjunct of the Old Religion that was dangerous to have leaning against one’s cottage wall in the times of persecution. So the phallic riding pole had its carved end disguised with a bunch of twigs and became the witch’s broomstick.



Despite (or because of) its phallic symbolism, the broom is traditionally a woman’s magical tool, although Radmir Ristic in Balkan Traditional Witchcraft says there was at one time a type of broom associated with threshing that men used. The type of wood used in the handle influences the magic. Ash, the World Tree in Germanic lore, is the most common traditional wood, but there are no hard and fast rules here.

The broom in the photograph is my own broom. It is a handmade broom given to me as a gift. Instead of a phallic tip, there is the face of a bearded man carved into the handle. The wood is mesquite, which is the tree witches in the Sonora Desert commonly use for magical implements. It is a medium sized, thorny tree with hard wood and very tiny leaves. The flowers, like the wood, are highly aromatic and attract legions of bees. The honey has a strong distinctive flavor. Mesquite produces pods that can be ground into flour or boiled to make a sweet thick beverage. Since the mesquite tree produces sweet abundance in a tough environment, it brings a life-giving, sustaining quality to the broom magic, similar to the wood from the World Tree.

My next installment of this series will discuss the “sweepy” part of the broom.


Sources

Ristic, Radomir. Balkan Traditional Witchcraft. Translated by Michael C. Carter, Jr. Los Angeles: Pendraig Publishers, 2009.
Valiente, Doreen. Witchcraft for Tomorrow. Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing, 1987.