Τό γυναικεῖον τῆς Ὑπατίας - An Áit Bhanda na Hypatia - Hypatia's Gynaeceum

Copper Stewart is a remarkable Witch of old West Virginia working-class stock who has been exploring ways for patriotic Americans to reclaim the Pagan heritage of our democracy, through our relation to spirits of the land and the Goddess of Liberty. See his blog: http://www.isiskosmos.org/libertyblog/ Great work, Copper.

I followed his link to the audio of the "Liberty Tree" song by Thomas Paine--which begins by invoking the Goddess of Liberty--and transcribed the 18-century music, ready to revive its performance. Who knew this patriotic Pagan American song from the Revolution existed? We need to revive this spirit in the present day to confront the tyranny of King George that threatens our democracy. Thanks, Copper!

The Open Hearth Foundation sponsors monthly Pagan Band Jams - free live music - usually one band at a time, but this time Shea went all out and put together a veritable Witchapalooza on Saturday at College Perk in College Park, MD. Fourteen hours of music. Bands who tour the Pagan Pride Day circuit up and down the East Coast got like an extra PPD this year, and this time, as the saying goes, it's all about the music. The lineup was: Claire, Mark Sylvester, Lauren Kendall, Kat Devlin, Scott Helland & The Traveling Band of Gypsy Nomads, DragonSong, Cassandra Syndrome, KIVA.

I missed the first two and the last one (being too tired out to stay there until 1 a.m.), and heard everyone in between. I got there in time to hear and belly dance to Lauren Kendall up from Richmond - I first saw her there at a PBJ last year. She plays piano and cello and sings, all 3 at once, accompanied by Blake Methena, her husband and dumbek drummer. She has two CDs out, go see her if you can, she travels up here to play several times a year. After her set she invited me to go shopping with her because there were lots of vendors out there. I got a gorgeous purple/blue/green/gray silk skirt from Vixenvisions, made of puckered silk so that Lauren liked how it clung and flattered my curves, light and airy like wearing nothing. :) It was affordable too. I also got beautiful handmade iridescent purple/black glass earrings made by Tina Van Pelt.

More friends I saw there included emcic, enlightened77, humanpacifier & idragosani, irenejericho & revelrain, ninthraven, odilla, quedishtu, and seer_eridanus. I was glad I finally got to talk with humanpacifier and make friends with her.

It was a pleasant hot afternoon drinking ice tea hanging out with Irene and the gang, occasionally dancing, mostly chilling. First time I'd seen Jay in a while--he has trimmed his hair moderately short and now looks more handsome than ever. The service at College Perk was really awesome, such hard working courteous people. Go give that place your business, they provide a lot to the community, they're good folks, and it's just a cool place to hang out. Irene told me Esoterica will have a new belly dance class soon, which was welcome news, I took a class with her there a couple years ago.

The next performance was Kat Devlin down from Brooklyn, NY, whose music moved me deeply. Just 1 woman+1 acoustic guitar. Her voice really is "pitch perfect" as her web site says. By the time she got to the first chorus in her passionate lesbian song "Touch of a Girl" I knew I was going to buy her CD. She had been added at the last minute, and I felt lucky to have found out about her. Hope she comes back around here soon. During Scott Helland's set, Samantha passed out percussion instruments into the audience for one song, and invited me to play her djembe. As a djembe lover, I was deeply honored. When they played percussion duets, they reminded me strongly of taiko drumming. When Samantha sang in French, I translated for Irene. Dragonsong's music got me dancing to "Mountain Song", couldn't resist.

But I saved my main dancing energy for the mighty music of Cassandra Syndrome. (Wikipedia: "The Cassandra Syndrome is a term applied to those whose predictions of doom are initially dismissed, but later turn out to be correct.") When Irene explained the band's name from the stage, and why they write dark songs of impending catastrophe, she added "We don't like the government." Big applause from everyone. Look what you done started, Dixie Chicks!

The band, with Jay on a state of the art electronic Zendrum, plays their dark melodic heavy metal riffs impeccably tight and crisp--you can tell they've rehearsed the holy living hell out of them. With this band Irene got a chance to unleash her classically trained operatic soprano. MUST BE HEARD LIVE TO BE BELIEVED. The dramatic and heartfelt intensity of the music is well served by their talent. Irene introduced me to her Mom, who was there to hear her perform for the first time. I thanked her for Irene's existence, and for bringing her up singing. I had known for years that Irene and Jay were talented, but the first time this fluff bunny heard Cassandra Syndrome, I was seriously blown away. A large group of kids came in off the street to hear them and sat down to listen. They made lots of new fans that night.

Whew, that was fun--let's do it again sometime!

Hi all,

I just wanted to share an incredible experience I got to have yesterday which is a direct result of some of our religious freedom work. Yesterday I facilitated a first Maypole Dance for sixty-something Pagan female inmates in a state prison here in California. This is the second Maypole I've done in a correctional facility, and I'm pretty sure that this is history in the making. The approval of the ritual was a direct result of religious freedom work I've been doing in prisons, and the fact that the VA approved our Pentacle, which has in a significant way increased the legitimacy of Wicca in the eyes of government officials.

To facilitate the ritual, I brought in a 20 foot, 4 inch diameter Maypole and around 3,000 feet of various colored ribbons, and 12 dozen flowers of every color and type. The women spent several hours making Beltane decorations and adorning themselves with ribbons and flowers in their hair in the prison's chapel and then we moved outside to raise the Maypole. A number of women cried as others helped them put flowers in their hair and a large number of them shared that they had not seen a flower, let alone been able to have one in their hair, for many years. In fact, a number of the women in the ritual had not seen or touched a flower in close to 20 years. I just can't imagine being so removed from any type of beauty. Overall, it was a very moving and emotional experience to be a part of the process to say the least, and I feel blessed to have been there.

The women raised the pole on the main yard in the prison, surrounded by a sea of curious onlookers, made up of both inmates and staff. What made our event even more compelling, was that the prison scheduled our ritual to follow a Mega Revival by Bill Glass Ministries, a Christian organization, who had actually brought in a large group of Evangelicals on Harley's to convert inmates in an unbelievable chrome and candy-apple lacquer extravaganza. Prior to our ritual and dance, there were some snide remarks from correctional officers and jeers from a number of the Christian inmates as we created sacred space and raised our Maypole, but when the dance was finally over an incredible and exhausting two hours later, all of the spectators watching from the sidelines were in total awe and silence.

After the dance, comments from staff and inmates changed from jeers and negative comments to things like, "Wow, that was one of the most sacred things I've ever seen," and "This is nothing like what everyone said it would be, it's beautiful and very spiritual." One guard even shared that he used to dance the Maypole when he was a kid 50 years before, but had totally forgotten about it.

Many inmates later came over to ask about our beliefs and practices and a number of them asked to be included in our regular services in the future, but the most significant thing for me was the two correctional officers who carried our ribbon laced Maypole back out of the prison. When they asked if it was okay to touch it, Malendia Mccree from Davis, California, who was helping me facilitate the ritual, told them that in our traditions, it was an honor to carry the pole for the community. The officers picked up the pole with great reverence, and later told other staff who asked as they negotiated the pole through various electronic doors and security check points what they were doing, that they were privileged to have the honor of helping our community. They even went so far as to offer to drive our Maypole to another prison where we were supposed to have a second ritual the next day.

When the dance was over, Malendia and I met with the inmates back inside the chapel where we had a discussion about what their experience of the Maypole was. Numerous women expressed that when they first started the dance, they tried to keep in their own little cliques and gangs, but when they did that, the pole would get pulled too much to the side where one group or another congregated. So in the course of the dance, they learned that each participant had to work together equally to make it work. And they also expressed that as the ribbons became shorter and the participants became more tight knit, they found that they had to make eye contact and often change their plans in order to allow someone else to pass. In the end, they expressed that they thought it was a lesson about what they as inmates needed to do to be able to reintegrate into society, be able to learn to share equally with others and work together with their community rather than against it. They also saw the weaving of the many colored ribbons in many different patterns as a message that "Diversity is Sacred," and "That it was the many different and unique dances of everyone involved that brought beauty into the world." Just so you can get a sense of how significant these statements are in a prison, our dance was made up of every ethnic group and women of every sexual orientation, and the norm in prison is for each of these groups to be in gangs that oppose and battle with one another. In the end, several women walked to the center of our circle, and offered to make peace with others who they had differences with, and everyone joined in a pledge to work together toward a sustainable community that honored all of their differences.

Doing this ritual really brought home to me how much of a difference all of us who work so hard to bring about positive changes and fight discrimination are really making. Because of us, our veterans are being acknowledged for their service, people are beginning to stop losing their children just because they are Pagan, and most importantly, our ideals and principals are being starting to be seriously considered as we are gradually being invited to the table to contribute to the society we live in.

Blessings to all,

Patrick McCollum

I found Patrick's account of this year's Beltane so awe-inspiring, I get all tingly reading it. I think this is one of the best Pagan essays I've ever read. I appreciate it that a brother facilitated this to happen for women--*namaste*. Patrick gave me permission to post his story here. He deserves recognition for the truly wonderful work he's been doing. The women in his story deserve recognition for taking a chance to open to their beautiful selves.

I've given yezida's recent arguments a lot of thought. One of our Witches in Central Virginia has been wondering about debating a Christian preacher who is showing them some antagonism. This is the community that recently held a public Yule celebration at a Unitarian church in Charlottesville. Some Christians seemed outraged that Pagans would have the chutzpah to announce themselves in public and everything, employ the same public means as Christians to get their word out, and in general behave like a, you know, regular religion.

I agree with yezida that Pagans have to be able to engage in interfaith dialogue if we want to be taken seriously by the more established religions. If Pagans want a place at the table in the dialogue of world religions... do we? There are already Pagan scholars in the American Academy of Religion... and colloquy there must seem a far cry from debating your local preacher man's crusade... but we've got to start somewhere.

I took the easy way and joined the Arlington chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives as a founding member. All different religions and sexual orientations are supposed to be accepted in theory, I'm there to see how true that is in practice. Why, because I think interfaith dialogue is healthy for our world, and because this is time for queers to be out and proud. Meetings are at a church where I'm the only Pagan in a room full of Christians, but I can talk their lingo too, quote Bible exegesis, etc. They looked at me & my pentagram funny at first, but they've come to understand how serious is my intent in sticking with this interfaith dialogue.

yezida's point is that to be able to dialogue with other faiths as equals, we have to be clear about what we believe and able to articulate it. We've been concentrating on experience to the detriment of logos. (Logos meaning the talky side of faith, not commercial emblems)

Ironically, I read yezida's ideas the day after I'd put in my LJ profile a quote from a radical Sufi named ‘Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani--

"Close the shop of argument and mystery, open the teahouse of experience."

yezida is saying when the tea break is over, the argument shop is reopening, any Pagans going to work there? What would shop talk be like?

"Look, I came in here for an argument."
"Oh, I'm sorry, but this is Abuse. You want room 12A, next door."

I just spent the weekend in the company of some cool Pagan folks, a few like seer_eridanus I was already friends with, many more I just met for the first time, and I made some new friends. It was by invitation only, and since they extended me an invitation, I considered it an honor to accept. Not that I've ever considered myself as a leader of anything Pagan, but since I'm on the board of SpiralHeart, I am contributing to the collective managerial duties, so I qualify. I was honestly pleased that they thought of including me, since I'm a relative newbie to the scene. Since the location rotated to my Nova this year, all the more reason to go.

I found it a very fulfilling experience, personally, professionally, and most of all emotionally. I feel a special energy in the room whenever Pagans are gathered in Her name. It makes it easier for my heart to open to others in perfect love and perfect trust (as my favorite Witch saying goes).

From another angle, just the anthropology of 47 white people gathered together and grooving in a suburban hotel meeting room with flip charts, cooperative learning workshops, and styro coffee cups is worthy of note. First of all, many of us were vocal about how much it sucked that our groups don't get enough people of color, and our attendance itself was all white. (With the exception of Johanna-Hypatia, a Sicilian edgewalker who doesn't identify with any race, because my people came from a liminal space in between Africa and Europe, blending both worlds but not really belonging to either. But I acknowledge that everyone else classifies me as "white" due to current socio/geopolitical circumstances.) The other exception being my buddy Rook who brought up the issue is Latino; his brilliant mind and mine synch together so well, we make a good team. But he once told me he doesn't dig blogs, so he won't see this until somebody e-mails it to him. Hey Rook! Let me know if you got my shout out to you, baby.

The facilitation team did their homework sometime between the Saturday morning session and the Sunday morning town hall. They classified the hot-pink slip community concerns into a few broad categories and posted those on the wall. Then each group's representative got to talk about their green slip success story and how it went to solve one or more of the problems listed on the wall. Pretty neat, huh? It worked so neat because they put in a little preparation.

I got to talk up our success story, SpiralHeart's fabulous annual Witchcamp, the promotion of which is a duty I signed on for as Media Witch. All of the SpiralHeart brochures I set out on the table were taken up by the attendees. I'm also on the regional committee for planning Northern Virginia Pagan Pride Day--mark your calendars, it's September 8 at Lake Accotink Park. We want the whole Washington-Baltimore metro area to attend.

The main topic of planning was the campaign for First Amendment equality of Pagan military servicemembers, like getting the VA to approve the pentacle symbol on headstones. One activist remarked how even Jews and Muslims think Pagans are being unfairly discriminated against. (Well, naturally, Jews and Muslims both know what unfair discrimination is like in this country.) We collectively worked on the planning for the rally to be held in Lafayette Park on the 4th of July--mark your calendars! I feel we're blessed to have the energy of Aradia B, a dynamic young organizer with First Freedom First (Americans United for Separation of Church and State), focused on this issue. Please sign their petition.

We almost got snagged for a moment on the issue of the whole incongruity... Earth-based nature-loving tree-hugging skyclad Pagans meeting in a setting of such terminal mundanity? Frankly, most of us didn't see a big issue with that, since we were there explicitly to develop managerial skills, networking, and area-wide intercommunity planning--exactly the same as any other bourgeois nonprofit organization in this wonderful land. As for sacred space, we circled at the beginning, circled at the end, and all through ran a thread of sacredness, I felt. In other words: Our hearts, opened to one another with a sacred intention, had enough warm human power to overcome the plastic sterility of the location. Way I look at it, when you're a Witch, it's all good--you know? We make changes in our consciousness at will.

And for that matter, I lead such a bizarre everyday existence that it felt good to behave for once as an ordinary American professional woman in an ordinary middle management motivational setting. So this is what normal people live like. :)

Not bad for a weekend, especially since we put on a talent show directed by Baltimore's incomparable Isis Nefer, who treated us to her management skills in the morning and her showbiz talent in the evening. She included some of my music on the program too. We finished the show with a singalong of the Pagan classic "Give Me That Real Old-Time Religion," drawing upon hundreds of satirical verses that Isis had compiled, applied to dozens of religions, including Discordian and Cthulhu. That was fun.

I want to thank the beautiful, fascinating folks I bonded with over the weekend, whose hearts opened to mine, and hope to get with you again next year.

And Isis--you rock, lady. :)

لقد صار قلبي قابلاً كل صورة * فمرعى لغزلان ودير لرهبانِ
وبيت لأوثان وكعبة طايف * وألواح تورات ومصحف قرآنِ
أدين بدين الحب أنّا توجهت * ركايبه فالدين ديني وإيماني


My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka‘bah
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Qur’an.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.

la-qad sara qalbi qabilan kulla surah
fa-mar‘an li-ghizlanin wa-dayrun li-ruhbani
wa-baytun li-awthanin wa-ka‘batu tayif
wa-alwahu tawratin wa-mus-hafu qur’ani
adinu bi-din al-hubbi anna tawajjahat
rakayibuhu fa-al-dinu dini wa-imani

--lines 13-15 from Ghazal 11 in Tarjuman al-ashwaq by Muhyi al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi (1164-1240), a Spanish Arab Sufi whose three spiritual guides were all women.

The first spiritual focus he mentions, before all the religions, is the "gazelles." In Arabic poetry that refers to women. Comparing his heart to a "pasture" for them means it's a place of safety and nurturance for women. Sisters, don't you wish there were more men like this?! The third spiritual focus he invokes, even before he gets to Islam, is Paganism. Please take note of this opening, I hope to see Islam-Pagan dialogue happening in my lifetime, and this poem would be a great place to start.

Ironically, the shadow that was cast over my life for 20 years happened in part through my interest in the Arabic language. But that's too long a story to go into here. Anyway, this is part of my process of maturing as a spiritual woman, reflecting back on what I found of lasting value in those years. Reflecting that as I emerged from the shadow into my present blessed life, my use of the Arabic language has continued, and it feels good to have some continuity extending through my years. In particular, I revisited this poem two years ago, when I had just re-emerged from the shadow and was beginning to face a new life. That's when I wrote the following commentary on those lines--

The white light shining through colored glass takes on its color. Anyone receiving this light transmitted through glass of a given color would receive the light along with the added coloration. But sometimes, when a light shines especially bright, it overpowers the local glass coloration and is seen on the other side as still white, therefore containing all colors, by virtue of its great brightness.

And people everywhere can see the clear white light, no matter what their local coloration. These lines of poetry in particular express how I experience the diversity of world religions in my own heart. I hear an echo of these famous lines in the modern Tajik poem by Zulfiya Atoi when she invokes "Love--humanity's religion."

Apart from the fundamentalism of today tearing everything up, Islam (in the form of Sufism) has been contributing these ideas of universal love, accepting all religions, for many centuries. As far as I've been able to find out, Sufism was the first to introduce these ideas to the world's religious discourse. Nowadays the popular image of Islam being the worst enemy of this spirit strikes me as an unutterably profound tragedy.

يُوَنّا-هيپاتيا كيبيليا