The following is a piece I wrote in response to this Magpie Tales #21 visual prompt. More responses can be found here.

fabric, paper, twigs, and twine
in fullest moon this spell will bind
shape your fullest heart’s desire
free its truth in earth and fire

The following is a piece I wrote in response to this Magpie Tales #17 visual prompt of a female head. Go here to find other writers’ responses.

She was my sister before she was Lot’s wife – Irit, my older sister, who was special to the goddess, although that was a fact only known to the women of Soddom. For it was the men who ruled our town, our lives, our destiny, burrowing into the soils along the edges of the town, along the shores of the salty Dead Sea, bringing up the dark thick substance that held together our walls and our dead. “Mumiya” it was called. You call it “asphalt.” Sometimes a man would fall into a firey pit and drown in it. He would become mummified – forever preserved in a column of stone.

Irit was a good wife, and Lot was one of the better husbands, although that is not saying much, given the place that the new god of men designated for women. That is why many of us kept to the old ways in secret, gathering over our shared cauldrons of stew, rich with the yieldings of the fertile lands we also shared beyond the smokey shoreline. We would give our thanks to the Mother of All, ask for her blessings and prophecies, look to her priestess for guidance.

And that is how Irit came to be caught in the fires finally sparked by the greed of some of our men. She had a vision, Irit did – a vision of the earth quaking and burning, a vision of a darkness billowing out from the underworld. And she told her husband, who was one of the better husbands, who respected the wisdom of women and their ways, and often took his wife’s counsel. But when Lot tried to warn his fellow townsmen to watch for signs, they would not listen, for it was not their god who spoke, and they coveted their riches.

And so when the earth began to tremble and red fires erupted along the shoreline, when the land began to melt and fold in on itself and stony shards shot up into the air, Lot and and his wife, Irit, gathered their family and began to flee north to the olive groves — until Irit heard the screams of a townswoman whose husband held her down on the ground so that she could not run. And so Lot’s wife turned to help her friend.

“No!” I cried to my sister. “No!” cried Lot to his wife.

“No!” cried Lot’s wife as a great dark wave erupted from the earth, engulfing her and leaving her hardened form to withstand the next rain of sulphur-spewn stones.

And that’s when her head broke off and rolled toward me down the slope, landing with her face looking into mine and still calling “No!”

I carried her hardened image with me through all of our long journeys north to the land of Hatti, where I finally settled with a band of women who called themselves “ha-mazan.”

We kept the mummified head of Lot’s wife, Irit, on the altar where we sought the guidance of the Great Mother, whom we all knew by different names – Ishtar, Astarte, Innana, Lilitu — to remind us of Irit’s last word.

I don’t know what happened to Lot and his children. But I do know that what everyone thinks happened in Soddom is not the story I know about Lot’s wife.

[writer's note: details about Bronze Age towns along the Dead Sea gotten from here.]

TGB led me to the Cheerful Monk, where I also found these statements and the inspiration to try to finish the beautiful Spring sweater I’m working on.

The people of the tribe believed that when they died they would be called before their god Isis and be asked two questions: “Have you found joy in life? Have you brought joy to others?” If they could answer yes to both questions, they would be rewarded with eternal bliss. If they had to answer no to either question, they would be eaten by a crocodile.

and

Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens keep learning and growing. Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.

So, today, a nice early Spring day, I will take a walk in the sunshine, play with my grandson, and finish my sweater. All with joy. After all, I don’t want to be eaten by a crocodile.

He goes off to the dentist today to have a baby tooth pulled, armed with his light saber, one back leather-gloved hand, and his face marked with a “scar” like Star Wars Anakin in Clone Wars.

“May the Force be with you,” I call to him as he marches out the door with his mother. We give each other a “thumbs-up.”

It’s interesting that of all the Star Wars characters, he identifies with this permutation of Jedi Knight Anakin, who is caught up in the fight between good and evil within himself.

My grandson, Lex, is an unusual seven-year old, with an understanding of human and historical complexities and an adult sense of humor. Cliche though it is, he lights up my life.

For example, as my daughter reports on Facebook:

Quick science review — Me: “Lex, what do mammals have that no other animals have?” Lex: “Um…a good sense of dancing?”

(As a homeschooler, Lex knows the right answer to that question; he has explained it to me many times, pedantically showing me pictures of whales giving birth.)

Before he left for the dentist, I gave him a Lego minifig of Luke Skywalker. When he comes back, he will find Lego minifigs of young Anakin and Obi Wan Kenobi added to his collection. (The minifig of Clone Wars Anakin in is the mail.)

The challenge for us all, and Lex already recognizes this, is to not let the dark side in each of us win.

May the Force be with you.

ADDENDUM: Lex is back from the dentist, where he wound up losing two baby teeth. But the Force was with him, and he’s dealing with it all like the hero he wants to be.

I gave up raging over the mess that the GOP so-called “leaders” have been making of my country. It seems like too many of the people on this planet are hell-bent on helping with the demise of sense and sanity.

All of the following are excerpts from this week’s Harper’s Weekly Review, where you can find documentation and a citation for each of these discomfitting reports.

A Walmart in New Jersey asked all black people to leave.

An Ohio man told police that since January he’s been sucker-punching little children at his local Walmart for thrills.

A Kentucky man was charged with wanton endangerment after he got drunk and put his five-week-old son to bed in an oven.

Wachovia Bank was fined $50 million, and required to remit a further $110 million, for laundering funds for Mexican cocaine cartels.

A Swedish report found that the United Arab Emirates is now the fourth-largest importer of weapons in the world.

Dutch officials repudiated a claim by U.S. general and former NATO commander John Sheehan that the gayness of the Dutch army had rendered it unable to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Ireland to apologize for the sexual abuse of children by Church leaders.

A lawyer in Oregon was planning to release the Boy Scouts’ “perversion files,” a secret archive of 1,000 documents identifying Scout molesters.

A cable network in North Carolina played two hours of porn on the Kids On Demand channel.

Then there’s the “a little nuts but not immoral” category:

Members of the Winnemem Wintu Indian tribe traveled from California to New Zealand to beg forgiveness of the salmon.

Mexican police were praying to spirits and sacrificing chickens to protect themselves from drug lords.

The Vatican was investigating the daily appearances in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, of the Virgin Mary, who is crowned with stars and floats upon a cloud.

Indian politicians wanted to ban both black magic and Lindsay Lohan.

Finally, neither nuts nor immoral, and maybe a good idea — especially since I haven’t been able to wear my removable bridge because my gums are swollen:

A Bavarian baby-food company said it was planning to market its product to adults who dislike chewing.

Makes you just want to break out in song, doesn’t it?

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

and

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

and

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

Yes, I know that’s the name of a book by the Ya-Ya writer, Rebecca Wells.

But in this case, I’m referring to this slide show of “altars” that people submitted to a request for “What’s on Your Shelf” from the blog on Killing the Buddha.

I’m not sure how I found that site — probably just surfing around, looking for something to think about, care about. Not that there isn’t plenty out there: homeless, bankruptcy, greed, war, fraud, despair. Oh, yes, plenty to think about and care about. Too much, as a matter of fact. Too much for my tired brain, tired heart.

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him is one of my favorite non-fiction books. Maybe by only favorite non-fiction book. So, it’s not surprising that when I ran across the Killing the Buddha website, I was intrigued.

I used to have an altar of sorts — that’s when I had room for a surface to put it on. Now I have a wall

that includes a witch’s broom, my old power stick, a quilted shield especially designed and constructed for me by my good quilter friend, my new walking stick, Acuaba, and a photoshopped picture of “witches at tea” using the faces of my women friends. As powerful and meaningful as any shelved altar, I would think.

My shelves themselves are stacked with books, craft patterns, and assorted other things of significance. For example:

You might notice the Tarot deck, the icons, the empty box from my 3G iphone, a mini cast iron cauldron. What you don’t see in the shelves below are my collections of beads and jewelry findings that I’m trying to find time to play with/work on.

As I hurry along to get ready for Christmas (yes, I do still call it Christmas; why not?), I think about the cocoon in which I have wrapped myself during this time of world wide insanity to escape from the fundamentalists, the radical atheists, the war mongers and warring sufferers, indeed, the sufferers of all kinds.

I surround myself with resident family and Bully Hill Seasons wine and Chocolate Mint kisses, with quilting dreams and knitting crafts, with escapist suspense novels on ipod and paper, with the snores of my old and much loved cat.

I wish there were, indeed, little altars everywhere like mine — eclectic and inclusive and affirming.

I wish there were an altar somewhere on which if could feel prayers for my suffering mother would be answered.

In the United States, more people believe that houses can be haunted by the dead than believe that the living can cause climate change.

The above from here.

The piece cites some polls that only reinforce the general lack of critical thinking among many Americans, particularly those who also believe in evolution, and adds:

Since republicans attend church much more regularly, perhaps a more active stance by churches on climate change would increase the urgency and conviction? Well at the highest levels, this has already happened. In 2001, the Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement saying, in part, “At its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both ‘the human environment’ and the ‘natural environment’ …Passing along the problem of global climate change to future generations as a result of our delay, indecision, or self-interest would be easy. But we simply cannot leave this problem for the children of tomorrow.”

A summary of the science of climate change is available at ClimatePath.

A black cat almost crossed my path yesterday as I walked along almost spring streets.

It saw me coming, took a left, trotting a path ahead and parallel to mine, looking back to see if I were still there, moving forward.

With a last look back, it skittered under a car and watched me pass.

I wrote the following a decade ago while on a weekend writing retreat.

“What’s that broom for?” my six year old grandson asks, referring to the “witch’s broom” that hangs on my wall to the left of my computer table, alongside some quilted wall-hangings created by a close friend, an icon of Akuaba (a gift long ago from b!X), and a old photo of 19th century “Witches at Tea” upon which I superimposed the faces of my five close friends and myself.

“It’s a witches broom,” I tell him.

“There are no such things as witches,” he asserts.

“Well,” I say, “it’s a magic broom.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” he again asserts.

I take the broom down from the wall and wave it around, singing Salagadoola, mitchakaboola, bibideebobbedee boo.

“Well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t,” I say. “How about if I try to do some magic with you.”

He hesitates. “I don’t know. What will you do?”

I stop and think a minute. What would Granny Weatherwax do?

“OK,” I say. “How’s this: I think it would be really nice if you weren’t so fidgety at the dinner table, if you could sit and relax and join in the dinner conversation instead of getting up and and walking around and then sitting down again. How about if I do some broom magic so that you could relax and we all could enjoy a quiet dinner.”

As he looks at me from his perch on the carpet-covered expensive cat-litter enclosure that sits behind my chair in the corner, I look him in the eye, wave the broom around in circles, and tell him that today he will be more relaxed at the dinner table. And I tell him that he will also have a peaceful night’s sleep.

I twirl the broom like a baton and respond to his skeptical look with a “Let’s wait and see.”

At dinner that evening, except for getting up once to go to the bathroom, he sits and converses and eats all of his dinner.

“See, I say, “my magic worked.”

“I was hungry,” he replies.

The next morning I ask him how he slept.

“I only woke up once,” he tells me.

“See,” I say. “My magic works.”

Granny Weatherwax calls it “Headology.”

Despite her power, Granny Weatherwax rarely uses magic in any immediately recognizable form. Instead, she prefers to use headology, a sort of folk-psychology which can be summed up as “if people think you’re a witch, you might as well be one”. For instance, Granny could, if she wished, curse people. However it is simpler for her to say she has cursed them, and let them assume that she is responsible for the next bit of bad luck that happens to befall them; given her reputation this tends to cause such people to flee the country entirely.

Headology bears some similarities to psychology in that it requires the user to hold a deep seated understanding of the workings of the human mind in order to be used successfully. However, headology tends to differ from psychology in that it usually involves approaching a problem from an entirely different angle.

It has been said that the difference between headology and psychiatry is that, were you to approach either with a belief that you were being chased by a monster, a psychiatrist will convince you that there are no monsters coming after you, whereas a headologist will hand you a bat and a chair to stand on.

Hey, I figure. Whatever works.

Thanks to Jim Culleny for his daily poetry emails.