Archive | December 19, 2011

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Dec19

Guardian

Dec19

I’m glad I didn’t go to the COA circle for a lot of reasons. Number 1 is that my home is TOILA first and foremost but number two is that I have a really hard time not getting bored in their circles and number 3 is that if they have that stupid Guardian program going I get furious.

The Guardian program supposedly gave a place to the more butch women that wanted to be priestesses in the Dianic tradition but what it really did was finish off the process of marginalizing the butch women that made all the little fems and straight women uncomfortable instead of growing up and pulling on their big girl panties. The first time I saw that in action was when I was with Becky and watched what COA did to her. It made me mad then and it still makes me mad.

Among other things, we went to a wedding and they “allowed” Becky to cleanse the ritual space but not be part of the wedding of her friend. I know that it hurt her immensely to tell her she wasn’t a real priestess and was only good for clearing the space of negative energy. And then they topped us off by “letting” us butch dykes sit with the groom and the other groom’s men and the bride and her priestesses sat together in femmy splendour.

The whole idea that a dykey woman can’t hold ritual energy as a priestess from the center is homophobic and exceptionally stupid. Now the Guardians aren’t even allowed in the Circle. They have to be outside it. I’m sorry if you aren’t a strong enough priestess to hold the energy of the circle from the center you have no business even being a priestess. And if it was to give the butches something to do out of the way that is even more heinous.

A woman and a priestess is just that a woman and a priestess. Neither butch nor fem nor straight or gay or bi or pink with green spots should matter. You raise the energy of the circle and the people within it to create sacred space and it doesn’t need people on the outside to guard it unless you are trying to conduct a Circle in the midst of a Mongol hoard’s battle and then your are both stupid and you need battle axes and not of the old bat variety either.

Anyway, since it does make me pissed off and the older I get the more likely I am to say how stupid it is, and this battleaxe is glad she chose to turn down the invitation.

Yule Ritual

Dec19

I. Had. The. Best. Time. Last. Night! I’m not what I think of as a ritual priestess. I’m the archivist. The mouse at the back trying to be unobstrusive and recording what we do. I really don’t like being the center of attention. That being said, I had a blast last night being the Priestess of Ceremonies. My job was to make it flow and I think I did. It helped that I wasn’t really Kat. In my head I was Oak and I was their to lead the trees of our grove in imparting the wisdom to our guests.

This ritual was Joanne’s dream and I hope we made it come true for her. Diana came and She took the pictures I’ll put up tomorrow. She did a fantastic job. She has a really good eye. So we do have a record.

The altars were beautiful. The people who attended were really invested in being there. We had big competition last night. Both Starhawk and Z Budapest were in town putting on Yule rituals. I kind of don’t think that was fair of Starhawk since there are lost of people who have only a limited amount of time to do their Yule rituals for their groups like the UU’s that do it and other groups and they rent the space. I hope they had enough attendees to cover their costs. At least this was Z’s 40th anniversary weekend. She has an excuse.

But if our turnout was small it was great. And I know several of us had invitations to go other places but this is our home. And we done good!

Laura read my story and that was really fun not to be the reader. The carols went as the carols do when being led by an alto trying not to pitch things in the basement and who dearly would love to be the one singing harmony. I’ve finally accepted I’m never going to get the Cathedral Choir sound I grew up with out of them. I’ve learned that the joy of making a joyful noise is enough. Gareth Malone is right singing together is the thing not all the other stuff. Live in the music.

It was great to have old friends there. It was great to see the people I don’t see near often enough and it was fun. And fun is rare sometimes when you are the one at the front of the ritual trying to keep things on track. But I did have fun.

It was a blessed night.

And Kahena told me I may get to be on an Authors Panel at the Pagan Studies Conference at Claremont Grad School in February. Squeeeeee! Alfred had mentioned but this was more info. Whoohoo! I’m excited now!