Archive for Deborah Lipp

Funny Trivia Story

June 19, 2007 / / 8 comments

So Roberta just phoned me. Those of you who are regulars at this blog know she comments regularly and avidly attempts to solve Tuesday Trivia.

When she checked the blog earlier today I hadn’t yet posted the trivia. So on the phone she asked, and I said yes it was up, and she said “Read it to me. See if I can get any. By the time I get home they might all be solved.”

She got #5 but Evn had just solved it. But the funny part was really her trying to get me to log in as her so I could post answers.

Tuesday Movie Trivia for June 19

June 19, 2007 / / 11 comments

1. A briefcase that glows from within.
Solved by maurinsky (comment #1).

2. A mute black man who fixes pinball machines.
Solved by Melville (comment #5).

3. “Speak now or forever hold your piece.” [spelling is intentional]
HINT: This movie is famous in part for its location filming in Phuket, Thailand.
Solved by Evn (comment #7).

4. A horse and buggy ride in Central Park heals the rift between Broadway co-stars.
Solved by Melville (comment #5).

5. “My son was FAT. He was so FAT!”
Solved by Evn (comment #4) and also by Roberta (on the phone).

6. A boy wants to know why water is leaking from the casket at a wake.
HINT: Based on a graphic novel.
Solved by TehipiteTom (comment #10).

7. “I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how ________ was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to be a word people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells.”
Solved by maurinsky (comment #2).

Leeks

June 19, 2007 / / 7 comments

They’re like, big scallions, right? But the national vegetable of Wales. So…

A pat of butter (because Butter Is Good)
A chopped, washed leek
…allow the leek to saute while preparing
A handful (about ten) baby carrots sliced longwise (slivers)
About 3 tablespoons of chicken broth
…cook covered over medium low heat for about seven minutes while preparing
Minced fresh rosemary, oregano, and dill
Continue to cook about another seven minutes and voila! Yummy sidedish.

Free Spirit

June 18, 2007 / / Comments Off on Free Spirit

Phew.

Back from a week (Tuesday through Sunday afternoon) at Free Spirit Gathering. FSG is a beautiful event. The camp is lovely, and the setup is easy; cabins, a swimming pool, a dining hall. Real luxurious compared to most camping events. The people are great. There’s a lot of vending, but not so much it becomes overwhelming. The program is pretty active, although I don’t usually have time to attend much. The music is a plus; Kiva performed Saturday night and that’s always a pleasure.

Tuesday was mostly catching up with people, seeing old friends, making connections, and relaxing. There was getting settled and all that, but I do love a cabin; makes it so easy.

Wednesday night I led a healing ritual for Orien Rose. I have to say, it was absolutely beautiful. We had about fifty people. I never wear black in ritual, I always have colorful robes, but this time I ended up in black, and my partner Dave, to my left, was also in black, and to my right was Arthur all in white, and to Dave’s left was Abraham, also in white. So the altar and those of us leading the ritual created a hot visual impression.

Roberta held the space for the first part of the healing, and she totally channeled eight year-old girl energy, and danced around the circle gathering energy into her. Then Abe led the second part, creating all of us as parents of an injured child, and then creating hope and strength and peace in each of us as those parents. Finally, I had Arthur, representing the Pagan kids, holding the pictures of Orien Rose to charge and send home with people. Abraham and Gordon also led the fundraising effort, which was wonderfully successful.

The love and energy poured out to Orien Rose was amazing. The Amber Rose School, which does classes for the Free Spirit kids, sent energy to her every day, and sent us home with gifts for her. (This is the first year that Orien Rose hasn’t attended Amber Rose school. I cried like a baby at the graduation ceremony.) Just about all of the eighty photos I brought with me were taken by people who wanted to continue to pray for her at home.

After the ritual Abe did my new tattoo, and also touched up my Kali tattoo from last year. It was weird shifting from the love energy of the first tattoo to the hot spiritual energy of the second, but it was wonderful.

Thursday night I led (facilitated) a Group Leaders Conclave, which had about 25–30 people. It was a lot of fun to form connections with other group leaders, and I emphasized that people needed to look around, know who other leaders are, because that is your support group.

Was it Wednesday or Thursday that the huge thunderstorm blew through? That was exciting. Also wet. The weather got cool and stayed cool for most of the event, and I discovered that I really hadn’t brought appropriate cool weather wear, so I was annoyed with myself. You wrap yourself up in layers you end up looking like a Pagan bag lady. Pagan because of the purple and velvet, but still.

Friday I taught “The Way of Four,” and I love teaching that one. It is always different, and I am confident of the material.

Saturday was my first time teaching “Pain Management for Pagans.” I was nervous about how well my material would be organized, and I screwed up one of my exercises, but I got a lot of positive feedback. I had envisioned it as primarily addressing brief-term pain, like tattooing, body modificiation, wound healing, and childbirth, but just about everyone who showed up (about a dozen people) had a chronic pain condition they were living with. So I had to shift focus.

Also on Saturday, I attended the “Young Magick” workshop. It was for Pagans in their teens and twenties, but since my new book is written for that audience, I got permission to attend. And I have to say it was grounding to be with real, in-person young Pagans rather than just talking to them online.

Sunday it was pack up and go, and of course that’s when we got the ninety degree weather. Phew, that was tough. The drive, wow. Normally three hours, traffic and construction stretched it to five and a half.

Sunday Meditation: Summer Solstice

June 17, 2007 / / One comment

Found a nice Solstice meditation here:

Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and relax.

At this time of greatest light, we meditate on light as a symbol of spiritual energy. Breathe now gently and deeply and with each breath become aware of the light that surrounds you and the light that is within you — the light that is the energy of Our Great Mother.

The light can be any color. It is often imagined as white — like bright sunlight. But it can be any color, any intensity, that is best for you. Blue, green, yellow, purple, rose; we know that light can also be black. The light may stay the same color for you during this meditation or it may change from color to color, or become a blend of many colors.

See the light now in your mind’s eye. This light is all around us, we are bathed in its brightness, energy, and warmth.

(Pause)

blue lightFocus on the light until you sense that you and the light are one. This will be your signal that you can now bring the light inside you.

(Pause)

When you bring the light inside you, one way is to let it stream in through your crown chakra at the top of your head. (If it’s already entered another way, that’s okay.)

The light — this healing energy — flows through you now, from your crown, down to your third eye (between your eyebrows) to your throat, your shoulders and your arms, and your hands, to your heart, your stomach, shining brightly at your solar plexus just above your navel, to your sex organs, shining too at your tailbone. The healing light travels down through your legs, your knees, your ankles and your feet. Feel the warmth of this healing energy now as it travels all through your body.

(Pause)

Now sense the one part of your body where the light can shine the brightest and imagine the light there. See it shine.

(Pause)

blue lightNow send the light out from that part of your body where it shines the brightest. Send it out a few inches from your body.

(Pause)

Now extend your light out from your body just a little more, then a little more, until your light extends a few feet from your body. Now, if you like, extend your light to reach your sisters. Our lights meet and we are connected by this great light, connected by our renewed knowledge of Our Great Mother. Take a few minutes now to sense this energy and this connectedness.

(Pause)

Now take from this light the energy that you need, and know that there is plenty for all. For the Source of this light is endless and ever abundant. Take a moment to experience Her abundance, and know that as you partake of Her light and Her love, so do you give your light and your love. And as you give energy, so do you receive it. And thus does the circle of life continue.

(Pause)

And as we come back now to this time and place, let us give thanks for the return of Our Great Mother, and for our return unto Her.

From She Lives! The Return of Our Great Mother, 10th Anniversary Edition. Copyright 1999 by Judith Laura.

Having a Choice

June 16, 2007 / / 3 comments

I had a conversation with my son about abortion.

Actually, I’ve had more than one. We talk about politics, about blogging, about feminism, about all these things. And at some point I knew I had to make the personal political, and the political personal. What he didn’t have, what our intellectual conversations weren’t providing, was a face on the issue, a human, real face.

So I told him. I had an abortion.

And here’s what I said: “I was twenty years old. I had left my first husband and was living in my mother’s basement.”

And he jumped in and said “…you had no choice.”

In that moment, I saw what the face of abortion was to him: It was compassionate to the point of pathetic. And that’s what we do, isn’t it? If we don’t slut-shame, we patronize. Poor sad girls with no choice, nowhere to go, no money. Tut tut we should support their right to make this sad tut tut choice.

And sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it’s the very end of an unraveling rope. Sometimes a life is at stake. Sometimes there’s just no other way.

But what I said was, “No. I did have a choice. I could have had that baby and scraped by somehow. But it wasn’t the life I wanted. I didn’t want to be a girl in a basement with a baby and a shitty job. So I made a choice.”

And see, that face isn’t much there in the abortion conversation. The face of a smart young woman who sees her life shriveling up and says NO WAY. Not going to happen. Not to me. Because I have a choice.

I think my son learned something from that conversation. I know I did.

The bad spammers ruin it for the good spammers

June 14, 2007 / / Comments Off on The bad spammers ruin it for the good spammers

So if you don’t blog, let me tell you about comment spam. A year ago, most of it was just a paragraph of links. Some of it was smarter. It would be a fake blog post with a neutral phrase like “Hi” or “I agree with you” or “Great blog” and then the spam link would be in the signature. Some of those are actually pretty clever and you have to read closely to determine they’re spam.

I assume, from the point of view of the spammer, that having to read closely is desireable.

But then these other spammers started appearing. They send you thousands of links in a single spam. Seriously. Thousands. When I open my spam filter, one spam comment will fill two or three screens. Or more.

What this does is allow me to scroll through all my spam very, very fast. And the other spam, the stuff I’d have to read closely, gets scrolled past just as fast. Because it’s all too much.

So you’d think that one of the groups that would be interested in stopping the crazy screen-stuffing spam would be the normal spammers. You’d think they’d step in or something.

But you’d be wrong.

I’ve been book-tagged

June 13, 2007 / / 5 comments

Chas tagged me. The idea is to photograph the books you’re reading or (in my case anyway) about to read (or mean to read). On the Bookcrossing forums they call this Mount TBR (To Be Read).

Pile o’ Books

Monday Movie Review: The Desperate Hours

June 11, 2007 / / Comments Off on Monday Movie Review: The Desperate Hours

The Desperate Hours (1955) 7/10
Three escaped cons led by Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart) hold a suburban family prisoner, using their home as a hideout while waiting for the money that Glenn’s girlfriend is bringing.

The Desperate Hours plays on multiple levels. On the surface, it’s a taut crime thriller. There’s the battle of wits between Glenn Griffin and family patriarch Dan Hilliard (Frederic March) as well as the conflicts within the crime team, which consists of Glenn’s moody younger brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and Kobish (Robert Middleton) a loose cannon; big goon with a bad temper. As well, there are the tensions within the family; the little boy that wants his daddy to be brave, the fierce desire to protect one another, the struggle to figure out if cooperation or defiance is the wiser course.

One of the fascinating things about this crime is that it’s not a one-room drama. Using the rest of the family as hostages, the criminals are able to allow family members to leave at various times, and their forays into the “real world,” away from the nightmare of unreality in their home, are among the most frightening and effective scenes. It is fascinating to watch daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy) go on a date with her boyfriend (eternally annoying Gig Young) in order to prevent him from entering the house and discovering their secret.

Another level is apparent as I describe the surface; the Suburban Family with a Secret. The movie speaks to the idea that you don’t know what’s going on behind the recently-painted front door, the neatly-mown lawn, the bicycle left carelessly out front. It’s unfortunate that the movie doesn’t work more with this subtext, because it offers a layer of fascination.

Finally, and least effectively, is the idea of Good versus Evil. The Hilliard family is more than a decent family, they are A Decent Family representing All That Is Good and Wholesome. They are the Donna Reed Show. They are vaguely nauseating. There are touches of character development, and indeed, I like the marriage of Dan and Ellie (Martha Scott), as they discover each other in the process of being challenged by their experience. But their wholesomeness is painted as having a level of meaning that defies real character development, as though the simple act of living in the suburbs and wearing a tie to work is inherently a moral value. Glenn Griffin addresses this, resents it, despises it, but Hal Griffin longs for it, and we are meant to see middle class suburbia not as a class or as a lifestyle, but as a truly American aspiration. In all of the criminal’s rage towards this family and their life, that is the message.

And it’s not much of a message, not because it’s dated, but because it was never really true; it was always preachy, even in 1955.

Other than the head-to-head brilliance of Bogey and Frederic March, the cast doesn’t have much to offer. A side of bland with that bland describes the family, the police and FBI searching for the convicts (including B-movie stalwarts Arthur Kennedy and Whit Bissell), and Hal Griffin. Kobish is creepy but a better actor could have done more with the role. No, this is a two-man show.

The Desperate Hours is worth seeing for the tension created by its stars, and for its tense and well-designed crime, despite its flaws.

Sunday Meditation: Why Meditate

June 10, 2007 / / Comments Off on Sunday Meditation: Why Meditate

Since I neglected to provide a meditation this week, here’s a nice article from Rose Ariadne’s blog on why you should meditate:

Mediation is a vital part to any spiritual practice. It has been part of my practice of Wicca for over 20 years. Meditation teaches the mind to focus, and can also allow you to tune into your body and spirit. Let’s face it, in today’s society we are constantly bombarded by images, opinions and stress. Meditation allows you to take a step back and spend some time just with yourself.

With regular practice, meditation introduces you to the initial stages of trance. Don’t start out meditating with the intention of practicing for hours on end. Five minutes is a great start that you can build on as you progress.
There are many different types of meditation. For each of them, you’ll want to pick a time and place where it is quiet and you won’t be disturbed, just like with your magickal practice. Start out by grounding yourself. It is recommended that you take a seated position, instead of trying to stand or lie down. If need be, support your back by resting against a wall or a piece of furniture.

The first type of meditation that I use regularly is the silent mantra for stress release. I’m sure you need more of this is your life, right? Stress release is so important to work into your life immediately. We are overstressed and overworked these days. The mind, body and spirit cannot work properly when overly stressed.

To start the silent mantra, choose a single word. This word will be your mantra. I’ve used “calm,” “love,” “peace,” and “power” in my practice. Once you’re seated, clear your mind and relax as best you can. Allow yourself at least two minutes of relaxing before you start trying to use the mantra. When you start, allow your word to repeat itself in your mind. Allow your breathing to start slowing down as your mind repeats the word over and over again. It will fall into a natural repetitive pattern. Continue as long as you can.

Alpha meditation is the method I use when I want to talk to my spirit guides. Before you start meditating, light a white candle that will be placed out of your view. Dim the lights and use some soft music. Make sure the music is at a low volume, you won’t actually be listening to the music. Instead, it provides white noise to block out any other sounds. Prepare your body and mind, and then envision in your mind’s eye a blank white wall. Envision the wall turning to red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and then indigo. Keep your vision at indigo for as long as possible. Reverse the order of the colors before ending your session.
I also use a relaxation exercise quite frequently that helps relax all of my muscles. I use this often before my regular rituals to prepare my body in addition to a ritual bath. Dim the lights and use relaxing music at a low volume. Settle yourself in a position where you are stretched out completely. For this exercise, you can lie on the floor. Starting with your feet, contract the muscles and hold for three seconds. Then release the muscles in your feet, and continue up the length of legs contracting your shins and releasing. Proceed with the rest of your muscles all the way up to your face. Repeat at least three times.

Remember, meditation doesn’t have to be scary or done in a specific way. Within the context of the practice of Wicca, its purpose is to relax your mind, body and soul for your magickal work. Meditation in the three forms I’ve described doesn’t take much time at all and the benefits are really wonderful.

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