“F” is for the Goddess Flora, and Flowers.

Spring has come early to Salem, MA. Its only March, and we’ve had many summery days already.

Next week I will be having artist Sharonn Bradbury of Witch City Ink complete my tattoo of flowers along both side of my hips and belly. We chose to do Lilies, a flower of remembrance, grieving, beauty, and also of the Goddess Lilith.

Last fall, my sister died. Not long after that, my friend and fellow bellydance artist Jeniviva Mia passed away. Both were about the same age. It was a devastating time, and my heart still hurts.

My flowers are for the mourning.

Both sister women had memorials, but in different ways. My sister was memorialized in the Black Forest of Germany during a trip where I taught and performed at Tribalfestival Offenberg. I was honored to have the support of a group of people who worked with me on a Samhain ritual. We honored the Dead by the fires in the night in the Black Forest.
Article about the ritual in hagalla Magazine.(in German)
My blog post about Germany and the Black Forest.

My friend was memorialized through a bellydance show and public ritual here in Salem, where she had twice came up from NYC to teach and perform.

My flowers are for the Dead.

Almost 5 months later, It is now Spring. The Goddess Flora is here with us already. Though her time is not “officially” until Beltaine, she is still popping up everywhere in the warm New England weather. Flora is a goddess of sex and pleasure, as well as flowers. She also has a history of honoring the Dead.

Flowers are for Death…and Eros and Rebirth.

My flowers are for the knowing that all are reborn. And all acts of Love and Pleasure are the rituals of the Goddess. That beauty is found everywhere, even–or especially--in grief and broken hearts. The flowers will move on my belly as I bellydance, continuing to explore the Mysteries of sex, love, death, transformation, spirit, beauty, darkness and light, through my art.

I have created this post as a participant in the Pagan Blog Project. 

The Grey and the Shadow

I am a Wolf mother. And I am pissed.

I just heard today about the release of a movie called The Grey. It stars Liam Neeson and is about a group of men who brave the Alaska wilderness and are attacked by a pack of Grey Wolves.

I understand that like all fictional movies, it is supposed to be fantasy. So here is what I have to say about this particular fantasy: it sucks.

Over the last few centuries wolves have been terribly persecuted, tortured, killed, and used for all sorts of reasons, including entertainment. At one point in the continental United States there were only 200 wolves left after many thousands were wiped out. For such a huge area of land that's a pitiful number. While Native Americans lived harmoniously with wolves, learning from them with respect and honor, white Europeans generally did not. In some instances wolves were captured and  their mouths wired shut and re-released into the wild to die a slow, excruciating starvation death. At one point in the Western United States there was a road made of wolf skulls. Right now there are only 2000 wolves left in the United States and they are fighting for their very survival.

In truth wolves are loving and family oriented. They shy away from humans in the wild and you'll rarely even see a wolf even in wolf country. Attacks on humans are very, very rare. At a time when they are in desperate need of our support, the release of this movie is highly irresponsible and mean.

Like women and people of color, wolves have had to bear the projection of Shadow onto them. They are depicted as dangerous, vicious, cruel, wiley, the qualities that I would say actually belong to the Sarah Palins out there who enjoy hunting them. But that's what shadow projection is, it's the pot calling the kettle black, it's a way to deny that one has qualities that they don't like to see themselves. And it's easy to project the shadow onto the voiceless. So it is up to those of us who love wolves to be their voice.

Please make your voice heard and sign the petitions by White Wolf.

And make your voice heard with your wallet, too. Do not pay to see this movie.

And as I am finishing this article, I have heard an even more gruesome thing about the harming of wolves in relation to this movie: Liam Neeson stated in an interview that he ate wolf meat as part of his preparation for filming The Grey. Read more here: Liam Neeson and ‘The Grey’ Cast Ate Wolf Meat. 

Whoa. Anybody still want to say that this is just "fantasy"?

Grandmother

I was blessed with the opportunity to spend time with my Grandmother this past week.

Wednesday was her 92nd birthday.

My Grandmother is very sick. Physically worn-out, her body hurts. Her heart is sick with missing my Grandfather; they married when she was just 16. Now she says she is ready to go to God.

I feel helpless. Death and old age! I feel lost about how to give her more comfort, to help her find peace. And I feel angry--at Nature, for having us ever get old. Why this suffering?

The old and sick don't last like this in the wild. Is this elongated aging and dying the price we pay for domestication?

I had the chance to talk with her about our family. I asked her to tell me stories about herself and my Grandfather. I asked about her parents. I asked about my father--what was he like very young? She doesn't like to talk abut herself, but still I recieved her help for my current project of building our family tree.

In her youth, she was charismatic and magical, lovely. She was intense with piercing blue eyes. She worried a lot and cared for everyone. She was popular and charming and liked to drink and laugh. She is the family member from whom I inherited music; a dancer, she and my Grandfather danced together at contests and shows.

My Grandmother is still beautiful.

Great Goddess, Lady Mary, You to whom my Grandmother has prayed over her rosary so many times...please Lady, give her some comfort and peace.

Skeleton Woman: Solar Eclipse July 1, 2011

 Solar eclipses are wildcards. I happen to love wildcards (maybe because I have Uranus strong in my chart). One never knows exactly when the power of the solar eclipse is going to strike. It can happen days before during or after the eclipse event. To me this is part of its shadowy beauty.

 The chart for this Solar Eclipse shows a grand cross involving some very serious characters: Saturn, Lord of Time, Pluto, Lord of Death, Uranus, Lord of Change in the Sun and the Moon themselves. This is serious karmic business, almost apocalyptic in nature. Something will be born; something will have to die.

 The Sabian symbol for Friday's solar eclipse at 9° Cancer is: "A Small Naked Girl Bends Over A Pond Trying To Catch A Fish". Cancer rules the emotions; ruled by the Moon, she is a nighttime spirit. Perhaps the small girl is trying to catch a fish by moonlight? What kind of fish is she trying to catch and how deep is the pond?

 One of my favorite books in the world is one by Clarissa Pinkola Estes entitled Women Who Run with the Wolves. In her chapter "When the Heart is a Lonely Hunter", she tells us the story of Skeleton Woman, the girl who was thrown into the sea by her father. Rejected and discarded she rots at the bottom of the pond, becoming a fearsome thing of bone and hair. One day, a Fisherman comes along hoping to catch the biggest fish ever. He instead catches Skeleton Woman, and, seeing her bald head rise above the water as he pulls on his fishing pole, attempts to throw her back and run away as fast as he can. But, having been pulled from the water, Skeleton Woman seems to chase him wherever he goes. She's actually still attached to his fishing line which he still has attached himself. Eventually, the frightened Fisherman has an intuitive flash and heart opening and realizes that maybe the best thing to do would be to sing to Skeleton Woman instead of running away. As he does so her heart begins to beat again and she becomes the beautiful flesh and blood woman of his dreams.

Estes interprets the story to be about the Life/Death/Life nature of love; that though we may be out to catch the biggest fish ever, to find the pond that yields fish after fish forever, in order to find real sustenance and Love one has to sing to Skeleton Woman. In order to have Life, one has to also accept Death. And She is beautiful.

The naked young girl is the Fisherman but she is also the fish. She is a yet to be developed part of our own souls that wishes to retrieve herself. So, who is the naked young girl inside of us? What have we rejected about ourselves and/or what vulnerable part of ourselves do we put aside in order to catch the biggest fish?

Somewhere in our lives a new era is waiting to Dawn. But these are the rules: Experience things as deeply as you can. Recognize what your real needs are and own them. Love yourself madly, ESPECIALLY your "ugly" parts. Dance in the Moonlight. Know that "beautiful" doesn't necessarily mean “pretty” (and vice versa). And be willing to sing gently and lovingly to Skeleton Woman if her bald head emerges from the waves.

The redemptive power of making art...

I love all my songs from The Furies' Prayer. I own them fully and lovingly...

My childhood was one that was filled with confusion, pain, and hardship. Though I also had a lot of joy, I had to struggle to survive.

My album The Furies' Prayer is partly a testament to that time, and to my life as a volatile and confused young adult. I love this album with all my heart, as well as loving that person that I once was (and still am), again, with all my heart. And, in fact, many of the songs aren't autobiographical at all, but come from putting myself into the shoes of others who have endured hardship and torment--the disempowered, the scapegoated, the sacrificed, etc. I have also explored the darker nature of sex and love through this album, as well as the sacred erotic. I have spoken as the Dark Feminine.

I am truly, madly, fiercely in love with the power of art. I believe it has saved my life.

After releasing The Furies' Prayer in Dec 2006, I stopped making music. This was due in part to the fact that my bellydance life began to take over in strange and wonderful ways. But there's also something else: I said what I wanted--what I NEEDED--to say in that album. I named the demons; I screamed and screeched at them, I fought them and lived through them and dreamed them and accused them and wept over them and fucked them and let them do their best and worst to me until...
Change.

Yeah. Wow. I guess so.

It's a funny thing how healing can sometimes sneak up on you, how you can suddenly realize that the person you thought you were is now altered, changed. Isn't that what I always wanted?...

So I sit at my keyboard now, knowing that it's time to make music again. What currently haunts me? It's not so much the betrayals and the rage and the feelings of powerlessness.... No, it's different now.... Oh, not that I can say that I am no longer tormented and angry-- like many an artist, I will always have a membership in that club. There are many elements and themes in my previous work that I still need to work with and explore and express...
It's just that, well, the emphasis is different...shifted.

Love is stronger than death...

Coda died one year and six months ago. My Soul Mate, my Dream Boat, my Cerberus. Thus far, I have been unable to write about him to music. I have danced my grief as The Washer at the Ford, but I haven't sung it...it seems that the grief is too big to say, to sing, it has had to be expressed with my body first.

But there's more. Coda's death put me face to face with Death. As in the mythical stories of mere humans beholding deity without a guise, it nearly extinguished my soul. Death laughed in the face of my selfishness and narcissism, of my needs and expectations and wish to control the outcome. But, as it released Coda from an old and tired body, it also released me from some of the things that bound me to my pain. I was left with grief, yes, but oh, how I loved that boy...My heart could burst with it...Love, pure love, terrible, liberating, joyous, immortal LOVE.

Love.
Love IS stronger than Death.
Love is what matters. Nothing else really does. Love is what heals. Love is not always fluffy, happy, easy, pastel. But it does bring joy, fulfillment, life. There is no point living without it. And there is not a soul that can't have it. (There is always someone to love.)

Death has been my teacher. Art has been my savior. Love is my reason.

My heart is open. I create. I heal. I change. I live.

My music as Aepril Schaile and the Judgement:
www.myspace.com/aeprilschaile


Coda as a young man