goddessing

cosmology, consciousness, contrariness
goddess religion: pagan blog
www.goddessmystic.com


liberal bias in the press? (crone truthspeak) 


Interviewer's Question: Do you think there's a liberal bias in the press?
Ms. Thomas' Answer: Hell no. I want to find one fellow liberal. I'm dying to find another liberal, open their mouths. Where are they?

Helen Thomas, Thank You Mr. President (HBO Documentary)

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Liatris 


So many things blooming, but it's the liatris, the gayfeather, that has my attention today. Nothing says midsummer as gateway to fall more to me than the purple blooms atop tall spikes of liatris growing along the rock wall in the front of the house. The roses have been cut back after their first blooming season; we'll have another colorful show from them in early fall. Things are generally in full bloom, but the various lilies have pride of place now.

It's been too cool for early summer, and the floods have spawned gangs of mosquitoes that keep us inside for most of the long hours of the summer day. Lakes everywhere take the place of cornfields, water stands in yards and alongside rural roads: all breeding grounds for these blood-desperate pests.

We all hope for some dry days and an end of the mosquito breeding cycle. I wish the liatris would bloom forever, forestalling fall.



Are there men witches? Or only women?"
"There are men who serve us, like the consul at Trollesund. And there are men we take for lovers or husbands. You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female; human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us."

Serafina Pekkala's answer to Lyra Belacqua's question, p. 275, The Golden Compass

My nephew's brief season ended four years ago. Time passes. Acute grief subsides. Memory and longing remain.


kitty in blue 



little alpha girl


Even in Heaven 


But I know I shall be homesick for you, even in heaven.
Beth March to Jo in Robin Swicord's screenplay of Little Women

It's been too cold and rainy for the gardening I had planned to do with J, and my beloved has spent the weekend at the computer, struggling with some gnarly problems in a freelance editing job.

Sometimes, often, we don't get what he hope for. Lost spring days outdoors, after such a long, frigid winter, are especially hard to endure, as are lost weekend days with my beloved.

Bird-watching from indoors, the view of the lake, crochet, reading: small pleasures. I'm grateful, but melancholy. Gillian Armstrong's movie version of Little Women brings warmth, comfort, and the peculiar sense of companionship that comes with familiar storytelling.

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Premature Capitulation 


Sexism is the story of this election year. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent people are utterly insensible to the problem is an indicator of how deeply rooted it still is.

My beloved still makes me nuts when she rants about how Nader voters are responsible for the fact that we haven't had eight years of Al Gore in the White House. When I trot my logic out on her -- responsible: all the people who voted for Bush, election fraud, legislating from the [Florida Supreme Court] bench (and, oh yes, all the Democrats who stayed home and didn't bother to vote or, worse yet, crossed party lines and voted for Bush) -- she concedes my points, but the "Blame Nader" meme recurs.

Generally speaking, her logical abilities are far superior to mine. It's just that her limbic brain, traumatized by the events that unfolded around Election 2000, holds onto this misconception that Nader and his supporters lost the White House to the Republicans in 2000. She's not alone in this.

She's a feminist, so she won't be joining the "Blame Hillary" bandwagon, which has already started warming up [1, 2, 3, 4].

But back to Dr. Sock's (and other's) notions about sexism, let's just set the record straight. We really can Blame Hillary for everything bad that's happening in the world. There's no need to limit Hillary-blaming to any problems that may or may not be occurring in the Democratic Party, or that may or may not crop up in the general election this fall.

The only thing, I think, which we can't blame Hillary for is something that some blamed Kerry for in 2004: premature capitulation.

So why is Hillary persevering? That's what I asked myself on Wednesday morning, when I found myself thinking like so many others that it was, finally, time to give it up.

Knowing that Hillary is the opposite of a fool, that in fact she is brilliant and savvy, I began trying to imagine why she was holding on. Eventually, I came up with these things: (1) she has the huevos to eschew premature capitulation; (2) she's not afraid to break the gender rules and hang in for a fight, like other (male) party hopefuls have done; (3) she's not being obtuse; she can do the math and can also analyse the weighty social and political implications of superdelegate decision-making in this unique situation; (4) she's got political (and personal) agendas which most of us can only guess at (and excuse me y'all, but all people running for elected office are by definition politicians and political beings, Obama included); (5) she just might be hanging on for the good of the party and the good of the country, even though the throngs see her hanging-on as just the opposite.

And it occurs to me that regardless of her intentions, her machinations might deliver us the Dream Ticket that many were clamoring for a few months ago.

Whatever the case, I continue to admire Clinton. She's waded through a river of sexism during this campaign, with grace. And whether or not she's on the ticket in the fall, she'll continue to work for the party and for the people.