Faire fun

So, yes you can seee how the haircut came out including the cnew curling that is going on. I managed to find something that wasn’t too girly to wear over the leggings I’m still having to wear. And the sunburn I got on a rainy, drizzly day. My friend Diana took the pics of me with my camera and included my lovely cup of ice tea.

Do you see the woman’s face in the peeper tree? Loved he bunny baby. The bottom is Ruth Barrett, Marie Cartier who has a wonderful book out about lesbian bars in the 40s, 50s and 60s called Baby, you are my religion and my clan Chieftan Michael of the MacFarlanes and his booth with lovely goddess and gods stuff called Celticjackalope

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Saturday’s Faire was magical

Saturday at the Faire was wonderful. At our winter Faire I was sick and I was living with a diagnosis of advance ovarian cancer, supposedly Stage 3 or 4 and I hadn’t told anyone that it was that bad. I went through Faire wondering if it was my last time at Faire. I didn’t take as many pictures then as I usually do. I just wasn’t fully present and I was being pulled away.

Saturday was joyous. I have never been hugged and kissed by so many people. I’m firmly convinced these people saved my life by their loving wonderful energy. I% of the tumours like mine are advanced ovarian cancer but the doctors were wrong and I will take the 1% I was given with love gladly.

I took pictures which I will post some of soon. I even had my traditional photo battle with my friend Tony. We both do a lot of pagan events so we are always getting each other on film , He says I’m sneaky. I like to take candids and he likes to pose people. So we have a bit of fun, I smiled, I even danced a tiny bit. I hugged my friend, Ruth Barrett and was hugged and thanked in return for her support. I’ve known Ruth for 30 years. I started in the Dianic community and I will always have at least one foot there. What the pagan community is doing to her is wrong. And the majority should not rule in their bigotry to women who worship the Goddess and love other women.

For once I was not horribly nervous when I was reading. I did it from my new Kindle which was not cooperating about which stories it allowed me to access. I think the faeries had control. They kept bringing up the Littlest Druid story I posted yesterday. I just couldn’t read that. I was already in tears from thanking everyone for their energy so I could be well.

Faire is always between the worlds but Saturday it felt so obvious that it was a rare safe space to be pagan in public. Womenspirit Faire was magical.

Say my name that I may live – Laura Janesdaughter

For those gone too soon:

I give thanks for those who have gone beyond the veil.

Say my name that I may live!

I give thanks that they have touched my life

Say my name that I may live!

I remember the beauty of a face

Say my name that I may live!

I remember that they laughed

Say my name that I may live!

I remember that they cried

Say my name that I may live!

I remember that they were afraid

Say my name that I may live!

I remember that they were brave

Say my name that I may live!

I remember their smile

Say my name that I may live!

I remember the good about them

Say my name that I may live!

I remember their love

Say my name that I may live!

I remember them!

Say my name that I may live!

©Kat Robb

How “the Dance or BunniHoTep and the real reason for the Flood” was written

A lot of my stories were dreamed but this one wasn’t. It was born on the way home from our twice yearly Solstice Faires. Long Beach Womenspirit and TOILA (Temple of Isis Los Angeles) have been putting on Faires for over 25 years now. It’s goes to once a year on Summer Solstice this year, we are too old and there are fewer and fewer of us to do all the work but anyway we do Faire.

We always have plenty of good pagan entertainment and some years we have had at least 3 groups of belly dancers, as well as storytellers like me and musical acts like Ruth Barrett and Lisa Thiel or Miri Hunter. We used to end every Faire with a group bellydance led by Anniitra after her performance. The year I wrote this it turned into lessons and C and E were two kids there dancing with Anniitra and just glowing with life and joy.

Somehow this touched something in my heart and the story started to take shape. It solidified when I got home and was going through the 400 photos minimum I usually take to document Faire, one year it was closer to 800. And I managed to capture some of it and within an hour I was writing and the Dance was born. It’s still one of my favourites if just because it’s so anti Judeo-Christian interpretation of the event that actually does show in geologic sediment in the Mediterranean as having really happened and since cultures all over the world have Flood stories, why not another one. Anyway, that was how this particular story came to be.

And here are the photos:

A prayer for Laura

 

Oh Hecate, Be with us this week
This was a week, 3 years ago that was so hard
You sat with us as we sat with Laura
We watched her pass from our realm to yours
We sang, We prayed, We read to her
We soothed her fears and tried to sooth our own
We loved her in all the ways we could
And we wept.

Oh Hecate, let her know she was loved
Let her know her name is still spoken
Let her know that her life was written on our hearts
Let her know she helped us grow
She taught us to be priestesses by her being one
She taught us to stay on the path

She showed us the Goddess and we followed
She showed us courage
She showed us love
She showed us the path
Oh Hecate, I miss her
I miss her ideas
I miss her encouragement
I miss her wild red hair and ever changing streaks
I miss the matching nail polish
But most of all I miss her wisdom and love

A day at the Faire

Remembering Laura Janesdaughter

Two years ago yesterday our Heiromum died. Laura Janesdaughter was an amazing woman and she led the Temple of Isis Los Angeles with strong heart and mind and I miss her so much. She was the one who ordained me. She was the one that got ordained as an Arch Druidess with the Druid Clan of Dana/FOI just so Mary, Denise and I could have a grove and now the Hazelwood Grove exists and before her memorial that year the three of us were created Arch Druidesses ourselves by Linda Iles and DeTraci Regula. It could not have been a more fitting time and thing to do to honour Laura and all her hard work for us. Laura was the face we showed at the Faire and at workshops and rituals. She was our heart when we needed a center.

Laura had a way of knowing when it was time to push you to the next step. When you had gotten stalled in your growth and needed to see the next place to leap and she showed you how to cushion the fall, when you did.

Laura, Callista, Denise and Inanna were the other cohorts at the first appearance of the goddess, BunniHoTep and she never doubted BunniHoTep was real or that she was a goddess. When others in the Temple didn’t understand about BunniHoTep she defended her and she defended me for writing her stories and scolded me more than once for saying she was a madeup goddess and not a rediscovered goddess.

I’m not generally one of the ritual priestesses or leading events. I’d rather be in the background and observe and record unless I get shoved into the light. Laura let me be our archivist and record ritual and when people complained about being filmed she pointed out we were in public and without documentation pagans don’t have a record of existing.

When I was laid off and unemployed for 5 ½ years, Laura more than once stepped in and kept us from being homeless or hungry and was offended when I told her I would pay her back. I never got the chance. She died in the small space of time between the temp job that lead to this job and the start of my permanent job. I’m so grateful I was off work because it allowed me to spend that week being part of the women that were holding space that week for her. It allowed me to sing to her, to say the Grove prayers with her that we had created. It allowed us to simply be, with her. It was a great gift to be able to do those things.

So Laura, where ever you are in journeying, may blessings be showered down upon you and may you were loved deeply and always will be. What is remembered lives.

“My heart, my mother, my heart, my mother, my way of understanding” Women with Cakes chant

Our Solstice ritual

Out Yule Ritual Saturday – Prayers by me

Set up large altar in center 2 long tables?

Hand out glow in the dark goodies Kris and Kat

Carols before Ritual

Lights out

We hear a voice or two:

Tune is O come O come, Emmanuel (plain chant) reworked by ElfKat

O come, O come, O Solstice Light

And shine upon our hearts so bright

The light of love that echoes here

And shines out to all who love us here

Rejoice, Rejoice, and listen to your heart

A single light that brightens the dark

Rejoice, Rejoice and listen to your heart

And share the spark of love in every heart.

 

A Light enters the darkened room and moves to the center

A voice in the darkness says

ElfKat “Love is the beacon we are all drawn to.”

A voice from a different place around the room

Kris  “We are love and we are drawn to each other.”

Two people from different places repeat.

Anniitra & Pat “Love is the beacon we are all drawn to.”

Priestess light candles around the room

All Priestesses Present “Love is life, love is light, love is the beacon we are all drawn to.”

 

People should bring their elemental offerings up after each elemental invitation and place on altar

Pat  Call in Earth and our love for Mother Gaia and her creatures

Bring things to an empty table that symbolize our love of Earth. Priestess speaks about how we can care for the Earth

Kris  Call in Air and our love for the stars and the moon and all that fly over head

Bring things to the table that symbolize our love for Air. A priestess speaks about love and its relationship to Air, How it carries words and music?

Anniitra – Call in Fire and the desires we have and the fires of earth that warm us and our hearts

Bring things to the altar symbolizing Fire in our lives. A priestess speaks about Fire and our desires?

Callista! Call in Water and the waters within us and the ones without and all that swell therein

Bring things to the table of Water. A priestess speaks about the Water within us and outside us?

Joanne – Call in our spirits and all spirits of friends and family, past and present to celebrate our love

Bring things to the table of our spirit. A priestess speaks about the Spirit within us and how we share it and ourselves with others?

Joanne speaks about love and light

Sing “It’s in every one of us”

Everyone holds a candle and passes the love, ie: the light, from one to another around the circle.

Priestesses

ElfKat We share love in this season dedicated to the light and love’s return to our lives and seek to remember that is always there even when we forget. All we have to do is open our eyes and ask that it be shown to us.

Kris Love is the look in a friend’s eyes

Callista Love is a cat’s purr

Diana Love is helping another without being asked

Pat  Love is in the sunlight on our faces

Anniitra Love is the warmth in the darkness

 Joanne Love is the colour in a bird’s wing

ElfKat Love is the flash of a disappearing squirrel’s tail

Priestesses Love is all around us

Help us to see it.

Callista talks about St Lucy/Lucina and other gift giving traditions

Turn the lights on in the room and share the token gifts

Pass plates of cookies our food so that all may be without hunger

Beloved dead

Laura Janesdaughter- Arch Druidess, Arch Priestess and Heiromum

Throwback Thursday

Laura Janesdaughter’s birthday party circa 1999