So, here’s a picture of the new tattoo.
» Read more..
More on Sacred Marks
The more things change, the more they become Brazilian
The Wiccan community in Brazil is about 9–10 years old. Interestingly, it seems about exactly like the Wiccan community was in the U.S. when it was ten. Okay, not identical. It’s 2006. They have more Internet and less hippies. But more or less.
Traveling the country as I used to do a lot, and still do some, you see that the cliches are true; California is five years ahead of New York, which is ten years ahead of the rest of the U.S.. And it turns out that the rest of the U.S. is ten years ahead of Canada. And now I see that in Brazil, which is another twenty years behind, the pattern holds true.
“Behind” sounds insulting, and I don’t mean it to be. Trends are trends, neither good nor bad. The Brazilian Wiccans have remarkable unity. Everyone knows everyone else. They have a small repetoire of chants and songs, and they all seem to know them and really sing out. They have more Wiccans and fewer Pagans of other paths, as well as fewer solitary eclectics. They’re in the midst of some ugly Witch Wars, and are figuring out how to respond to and recover from those.
All of this is extremely reminiscent of the U.S. coasts (East and West) in the early 1970s. (Maybe throw Minneapolis, a.k.a. Paganistan, in there.) As their community grows, I anticipate Brazil will be more diverse and less divisive. They’ll also be less connected to one another.
Days like today I wish I was an anthropologist. I don’t think this is about any one specific community. It’s about the ways communities in general grow and change. Some parts of Paganism “growing up” haven’t felt very “up” to me. Being in Brazil I realize how much I miss the optimism and intensity of our own community when it was younger.
Visit to Maryland
The events page has been updated.
I’ll be at The Crystal Fox (two locations) on August 12 & 13. See you there!
The most fun you’ll have with a mouse today
Tell me that didn’t just thrill you.
Sacred Marks
I gots me a new tattoo.
Shortly after arriving at Free Spirit, I noticed a big pair of white geese hanging around just outside my cabin. Since the goose is my totem, this seemed like a good sign. (Ya think?)
Sacred Marks Sanctuary had set aside Friday for my clan. By which I mean, these two amazing guys tattooed a total of thirteen members of my extended family between 1 p.m. and 3 a.m. (With a dinner break.) All in ritual space. I went last.
Eighteen months ago, the clan had a ritual tattooing day planned for Imbolc (a day for sacred art, among other things). I had selected the eyes of Kali for the back of my neck. To prepare myself, I’d fasted and chanted and made ghee to offer to the fire. Seriously, lotta work there. And at the last minute, the tattoo artist got violently ill and couldn’t make it. Which made my brain hurt.
So the thing I’d written for part of the offering has been sitting on my altar all this time, and now, at last, I was getting my tattoo. » Read more..
Magical Perfume
My article on Magical Perfume appears in the current issue of newWitch Magazine.
So buy three copies and write to the editors and tell them why.
Or not.
Monday Movie Review: The Station Agent
The Station Agent (2003) 10/10
Fin (Peter Dinklage) is a train enthusiast and a dwarf. When his friend and employer (at a model train store) dies, he leaves Fin a piece of land in a small town that has a train depot on it. There, Fin’s solitude is disturbed by other lonely locals and he begins, initially against his will, to form relationships.
See, I’ve given it ten points, and I’ve described it, and now I just don’t know what to say. The Station Agent is such a lovely, gentle movie, that talking about it seems, to quote Patricia Clarkson’s character Olivia, “loud.”
I’ve written about The Station Agent before. Months after seeing it, it remains present for me, something that doesn’t always happen; I’m not always a good judge of how I will feel about a movie months or years in the future, but The Station Agent has established itself as a favorite. Having been away from television and theaters for a week, I thought I’d pull up an older review. While I was away, I spent time with two dear friends, sisters, who are dwarfs, so I was reminded of this movie.
Peter Dinklage is one of my favorite character actors. His expressiveness, his voice, his beautiful eyes, allow you to move past looking at his dwarfism, to looking at him. That his dwarfism is part of the story is unavoidable, but as Fin learns, dwarfism is just one of many things that can leave you lonely and a little lost. Grief is another, and Olivia is grieving. Just not fitting in is another, and Joe (Bobby Cannavale), the coffee-and-snack truck guy who parks opposite Fin’s station, is a Hispanic New Yorker with no ability to connect to his rural New Jersey customers. In Fin (who is from Hoboken), he senses an urban kindred, and pushes friendship on his reluctant neighbor.
As Fin, Joe, and Olivia form a trio full of silences and hesitations, they also begin to look out for one another in unexpected ways. As well, Fin’s train enthusiasm becomes the most interesting oddity about him, and people begin (in baby steps) to view him more as the ‘train guy’ than the ‘little guy.’
Early in the movie, we meet Fin’s “train chaser” friends, and I was struck by what big geeks they were. I was reminded of Ghost World, and its LP-collector geeks. One could go off on a tangent about geeks and geekiness. Trekkies and Trekkers take a lot of heat, but the truth is, any interest looks bizarre to the people who don’t have it, and oddity isn’t the worst thing. Maybe boredom is a much worse thing—the boredom experienced by people who don’t have intense interests. The Station Agent is very much about oddity; experienced from the inside and stared at from the outside. But mostly it’s about the necessity of friendship and connection.
I’m home
Back from Free Spirit without having properly blogged Brazil, I’m waaaaay behind. Plus I betcha anything politics happened when I was away. I promise I’ll start catching up. Tomorrow.
Sunday Sierrablogging
Tarn above West Kennedy Lake, Monarch Divide, Kings Canyon National Park.
[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]
Spring Fever
Yesterday was one of those rare perfect warm cloudless days, no fog anywhere, so I took the long way home: along the Embarcadero to Folsom to catch the N Judah, then a stroll through Golden Gate Park. This is from the rose garden, which is in full bloom right now. More pictures below the fold… » Read more..
