Twillight

Some people talk or write about magic as if.... As if it was a fantasy world. As if the twilight weren't the Realm of All
Things Possible.

Or maybe they know it's real... I'm not sure.. I proudly display my "Blending in With You Muggles" bumper sticker and wonder who knows that I'm serious. I live in the world of magic for 24 hours (whether awake or asleep) and it's freaky on most days, beautiful on some and downright scary on others.

You try on taking a school board, possibly all the way to the ACLU, to defend your right to present a fiction book you've written, that has been denied just because you've written books on being a witch. The crazy thing is that I've written that book for those very kids whose world is so restricted they've been forced to forget they have the power. And I pledged I would fight for them.

To introduce empowerment to the mainstream world, I must first present myself. And it's odd for me to be the mundane world. Honestly. It's really wierd. I've been an artist for 12 years. I've not hard to deal with the fear that seems to consume most of America. I'm not exposed to incessant gossip of People Magazine, etc. when I shop, because I'm getting my goods at Trader Joe's or the local farmer's market or the local health food store. I was raised Christian Science and so never acquired the taste for Western medicine. I make my own healing remedies or see an auryvedic doctor when necessary. I feel confident in my ability to heal myself and I'm not distracted by reading the latest distastrous report on childhood illnesses by Newsweek when I'm waiting for my sons to see the pediatrician. And yet I have compassion for others who are sensitive to this fear - or at least I'm working on it. Om.

As of late, I took on my first job in 12 years and now I have to attend a preventative discrimination/harassment workshop (that's on Dec. 4 and I swear I'm wearing a Pent and seeing what "they" really have to say about it). That seems so odd to me that I have to attend a 3 hour workshop on how to deal with discrimination: I've been smelling the scent of my burning hair and flesh since I first wrote The Wicca Cookbook, and particularly since I printed it, and harrassment - at the core of most of my writings I've trying to understand what it means to be sexually damaged. What are they going to teach me? I hope something amazing. I wonder.
I have had years of experiential experience. Very soon after The Wicca Cookbook was published I moved with my friend and kids to a neighborhood that turned out to be KKK infested. It was like trying to rid a playground of rats. Oh wait, that's exactly what it was like.

So I did crazy stuff. I had a crescent moon carved into my side gate. I told every teen in sight that I was the local witch (Mexican to boot) and if those punks wanted to violate my children's playground, that they were going to have to deal with me. Then I made batch after batch of chocolate chip cookies, plum jam, and lavender lemonade. Yum. I painted my walls with giant goddesses and a far-reaching sun. I held siances and tamale rolling parties. I carved out a sprial in my backyard and planted California wildflowers in the spiraling ditch then I set an Goddess of Compassion altar at the center. I held my most fave ritual explaining to teen boys what their magic animal totem was. I poured my menses blood on herbs that I used to cook pasta dishes, I brought home a crow carcass that disapeared into the corner where I had buried the coyote medicine. I cared for hawks, rabbits, opposom, cats, orange trees, lemon trees, peach trees, plum trees. I saved the trunk of the Yule tree to be the Beltane May Pole.

True story. Life is intense when you are a witch. Life is one pertual twillight - when all things are possible.

But when it comes right down to it... I can't deny, I love being a witch and I'm tired of being scared about what you think of it.