Location details given after you’re registered.
Fund raiser for the Women’s Spirituality Forum

Go to www.TarotSocial.com to register.

What is a TAROT SOCIAL?

It is a joyful coming-together of the Women’s Tarot community … a Revival of
the 70’s TRAVELING MAGIC SHOW by a FOREMOTHER of GODDESS SPIRITUALITY, The QUEEN
of TAROT READINGS, and the woman responsible for LEGALIZING TAROT in California
… Z BUDAPEST.

What will it be like?

The Women’s Tarot community comes together… experienced and newbies alike.

Practice and deepen your own tarot skills… witness others’ readings in an
intimate setting helping you to hone your own skills rapidly.
Query the Fates together in Circle of Community… learn from The Queen of Tarot
Readings!

You arrive as beautiful Goddesses and all is in readiness for your amazing Tarot
experience ….

Entering into CIRCLE with (or without) YOUR TAROT DECK, you become ONE with YOUR
SISTERS through breathing, humming and chanting …
Together we invoke BINAH, the Goddess of Wisdom – as the tarot is based on the
kabbalah.

Lighting our candle on the altar to the FATES, we sit in circle with our
personal decks before us as … we receive a WONDERFUL and ENLIGHTENING TEACHING
on the TAROT from Z – the tarot’s origination and evolution through the ages to
now.

Dropping deeper, Z takes us to the CAVE of the FATES, where fortunes are created
and measured … The PSYCHIC SELF OPENS …
Now the READINGS BEGIN … feel one with the group, feel the community as ONE BODY
seeking answers together, often sharing the same fate … witnessing each other
… as loving, caring and supportive sisters in Goddess … QUERY The FATES for
each other ….

We, the QUERENTS, ask our questions as Z allows the ANSWERS to COME THROUGH from
the UNSEEN WORLD … YOU, the witnessing souls of The Tarot Circle, have MANY
INSIGHTS from which we can all benefit and learn … Along the way, Z TEACHES More
about each card as it comes up … keeping us sharp and feeling alive.

And we ENJOY and share lovely refreshments together.

Z GIVES A YEAR’s PROPHECY, with SONGS and SPIRAL DANCES to The FATES and more ….

FOR the EXPERIENCED and the INTERESTED BEGINNER alike!

You need have no experience in the Tarot to attend … even if you do not own a
Tarot deck, … be part of the circle, learn and experience! Welcome the Fates!

Blessings Sisters in Goddess!

We are pleased to announce our Goddess Festival Special for the the month of August 2010.

In the month of August only!
We are offering women who register for the Goddess Festival a FREE one year membership into the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 … the world’s most famous coven!

Membership into the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 is $50. So you’re getting a savings of $50! Plus, once a member of the SBA, you will find savings on classes worth more than the cost of your membership!

It’s a WIN-WIN!!! You get to come to the Goddess Festival and become a Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 Sister in Goddess … and you help raise funds for the Women’s Spirituality Forum.

The Women’s Spirituality Forum is an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit. Your registration fees and your membership are tax deductible.

* SBA Special pricing ends Sept. 1, 2010

Mankiller and her family announced last month that she was suffering from metastatic pancreatic cancer. Friends and family gathered around her. Mankiller had survived lymphoma and breast cancer, but metastatic pancreatic cancer isn’t something even a fierce willed woman like Mankiller could beat.

During Mankiller’s 10 years as principal chief, the tribe grew to become the second largest in the United States. Mankiller was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton in 1998.

“Our personal and national hearts are heavy with sorrow and sadness with the passing this morning of Wilma Mankiller,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith is quoted as saying on the organization’s website. “We are better people and a stronger tribal nation because (of) her example of Cherokee leadership, statesmanship, humility, grace, determination and decisiveness. Her gift to us is the lesson that our lives and future are for us to decide.”

Carolyn McClellan, a Cherokee who is assistant director of community and constituent services at the National Museum of the American Indian, said “She was faced with so much adversity in her life, but you couldn’t keep her down. She had such an effervescent spirit. She would not take no for an answer.”

She was on the board of the Freedom Forum and Women Empowering Women for Indian Nations, which plans to name a scholarship for her. WEWIN founder Susan Masten said “She was a true warrior and an excellent leader in the sense that she worked tirelessly to improve the lives of everyone else, including her own people, and she did it in a humble way. With all the attention she got and the awards she received… that never changed who she was as a person. She had a very big heart.”

As Pagans, we view the work of Wilma Mankiller as invaluable. She was a sister to all of us, as well as a mentor. We learned from her as we read her books. She was a feminist who fought for the rights of women everywhere, for child’s rights, for Native people’s rights, for all people’s rights.

“Early historians referred to our government as a petticoat government because of the strong role of the women in the tribe,” Ms. Mankiller told Ms. Magazine in 1988. “So in 1687 women enjoyed a prominent role, but in 1987 we found people questioning whether women should be in leadership positions anywhere in the tribe.”

She brought health care to the Cherokee Nation. Mankiller was a veteran of the 1960’s Native American rights movement. She led a drive to institute health and social services on tribal lands and marshaled a self-governance agreement with the federal government. During her tenure, membership in the Cherokee Nation budget grew to $150 million a year. Mankiller put much of that money back into health care and educational resources for the tribe.

In 1969, Mankiller became involved with the Native American rights movement when she helped support a group who occupied Alcatraz, the former federal prison in San Francisco Bay.

She is survived by her husband Charlie Soap, a Cherokee who championed tribal language and tradition.

We close our remembrances of Wilma Mankiller with her own words, words that all Pagans embrace:

“I think the Cherokee approach to life is being able to continually move forward with kind of a good mind and not focus on the negative things in your life and the negative things you see around you, but focus on the positive things and try to look at the larger picture and keep moving forward … also taught me to look at the larger things in life rather than focusing on small things, and it’s also awfully, awfully hard to rattle me after having faced my own mortality … so the things I learned from those experiences actually enabled me to lead. Without those experiences, I don’t think I would have been able to lead. I think I would have gotten caught up in a lot of nonsensical things.”

She had told the world that she had accepted her own passing, and now it is the world that must come to terms with it. We loved you Wilma! We will not forget you … what is remembered lives! Deep peace.

“Make Merry in Step and Songs” by Bronwen Forbes (Llewellyn )

Spring is warm enough to take a book out and read it while you inhale the fresh new air with flower scents. Reading about pagan rituals and enhancing your vocabulary in songs and folk dances, for circle leaders what a gift.

This is a great book! I love old England and loved learning about these many dances. The music is written down, and one can actually learn it. The dances are explained with meticulous precision, and the gentle prodding towards more practice makes the book a delight.

The author is a great lover of folk art, it shows in every selection, but those who think this is all about sugar and a little spice don’t know the English. Some of the heritage is gruesome, the character of the players murderous and unpredictable.

Yes there are the well behaved May Dance participants, wooing the fair Elinor, but there is also a story of a mother who hexed the young wife of her son with infertility. She can never have a child, until the son learns what she has done to hex her and undo the spell.

Then there is the humor. In the John Barleycorn Play, Old Woman questions Doctor Brown .

“What diseases canst you cure?” Doctor Brown: “The hips –pipsy, the palsy, the gout, a man having twenty-two senses in his head. I can cast twenty one out. Why I cured a snag tail last week nearly twenty-five feet long! Surely I can cure thy son who is not quite gone.” And then proceeds to raise her dead son from the dead. Not your everyday pabulum culture here.

I find it exciting that so much has remained still in practice, which the rebirth of the pagan traditions I am sure will contribute with more longevity.

This kind of culture requires costumes and props, a bit of pageantry peasant style. I think this is the kind of book you can consult at each turn of the seasons plus to make more merry at pagan parties. The information in here creates community, cohesiveness and entertainments. Well done Bronwen!

“Echoes of the Goddess” by Simon Brighton and Terry Welbourn (Ian Allan Publishing)

This is a book that should be made mandatory for all Women’s Studies students, and of the Craft and Goddess studies. Beautifully laid out with splendid color photographs just the object of the book itself is classy.

The English do not usually come out with this “in your face we got the Goddess all over our country” narrative. I recall when I was in England looking for the pagan heritage, the locals didn’t brag a lot about it. The London National Museum put the goddesses in room 22, a side show. It was all well known near the temples and stone, yet hush, hush at the same time. With this book, England at last owns her pagan heritage.

I have never seen goddess book this thorough, a well produced overview of the Goddess Culture. Starting with the Lost Goddess, prehistory goddesses, subterranean goddesses, holy wells, freshwater sirens, saltwater sirens, the Celtic and dark goddesses, the rude goddess, the Christianized goddess, the goddess in myths, legends, and in the labyrinth.

Rich chapters lead you through the countryside of England showing you what even tourist guides cannot see. And the Goddess is here bold and beautiful. Indeed, this book has a Holy book quality to it in content and presentation.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I am partial to stones. Looking at the breathtaking spiral paths, on a slab from Malta boggles the mind. Four to six thousand years old, these were people who knew about the spirals in the sky, understood the world to be part of the great whole. Another favorite of mine is the image on the Picardy Stone Aberdeen shire, from the 6/7^th century AD; it was a tombstone once on an ancient grave. It has a curvy snake, a symbol of reincarnation; several images which could be maps of the stars said that it had a relationship to the hill of Dunnideer. Mysterious, yet riveting.

When you absorb all this good information take it easy, do a chapter at a time. Its like a rich meal for your mind you want to savor. The book takes you through history and accurately documents where the goddess was worshiped, by whom, for example the Pictish people, who gave women equal rights even back then. Then the great goddess was taken down with misinformation, destruction of her legacy and values. The Synod of Whitby in 664 AD finally crushed the Goddess Culture; all her physical representations were destroyed.

But not the She na gig, the vagina Goddess, she survived decorating the Christian churches, inside and outside. Good luck was her value and sexuality. The same folk also had many Green Man images to keep her company.

Make this book a success. Give them to friends for high occasions. Share it with your book clubs, keep it where you can see it and reach for it.

So, been thinking about how to present this thought. I can’t come to something reasonable so let’s out with it.  This has been rolling around in my mind as something that should be talked about especially if we are truly to act in the role of Priestesses – how we define death and how we deal with it

Death. What if ….

As it is, really, I don’t know that anyone knows if there is life after death. There’s a lot to be argued one way and the other. I died, went down the tunnel, met someone, came back, cried because I had to come back. My mom cried, after I was 6 days in a coma, when she saw me come back. I saw my brother get killed while gazing into a crystal and his spirit saying goodbye as I stood on a beach 1,000 miles away. So, it would appear that I could argue for “life after death”.

But…

What if when we die we die? What if this is the only time and place? What if there’s only today? What if we “made up” the Goddess?

Scary? Yes? Why?

This is a case of “you might as well give in.” There’s absolutely nothing that you or anyone else can do about death. As it is, we’re born to die. So, what about the journey in between?

Do we have fun (become enlightened – “lighten up”) and do we make up stories to make ourselves feel better? Personally, I don’t mind the feeling better part and look forward to it and the stories. Why not?

So, what if you knew you could not fail, what if you really “knew” you had only today – right now? What would you do? Would you suddenly look up and see the stunning beauty of this planet, of the people (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 legged people) and their constructs. Consider the imagination involved. Consider that you and I are less important in the scheme of things than grass (which is third, IMHO, on the list behind air and water – everything else is 4th).  No gold medals there.

Hmmm, do you become crazy and try and do it all in one day? Do you sit in front of the TV (or other device) and become a numbed mind? Or, somewhere in between? Or do you start following your bliss? Your art? Your love? Why wait? There may not be a tomorrow; no way to know either if there will be a tomorrow for you or me.

Where do we fit in? Where/what is it that we are just as happy as can be when involved with/in/among/learning/doing?

And do we make up stories? Call them plays. Call them fables. Call them holy. But, the point is, we do call them. And, as long as it’s fun, I can’t see any reason not to call them. After all, I think I’m an enlightening loving individual.

And, you might as well do it in “beauty and strength”. Be the best, learn as much as you can, pass it on to your kids and their friends. It’s been proven that there is only 6 degrees of separation between any of us. 6 people between you and your goal, between you and me.

Can you imagine a world of enlightened people? Everyone being the best they can be at what it is they’re good at and really love doing? Ok, probably impossible because what you love I may hate, but what if? What if when we live, we live? I think we were born to live and part of the living is dieing. Such is life.

All I can say about it is Become Enlightened!! Have Fun. Don’t wait for tomorrow.

And decide how you wish to council others once you’ve clarified your view of death and what to believe or not believe about it.  And, don’t forget, everything changes.  You don’t have to get stuck in anything, even an idea.  In my eyes, stagnation is a sin – the only sin.

And, Her name is Fun.

The following article is excerpted with the author’s permission from Chapter One of Summoning the Fates, A Woman’s Guide to Destiny, © copyright 1998 by Zsuzsanna E. Budapest. All rights reserved.

“What rules our lives? Is it chance, or choice, or something else? Is it the stars, or that strange force people call Lady Lucky, or Fortuna? Since the beginning of time, people have tried to figure out what determines their destiny. In Hungary, we have a saying, ‘Ember tervez, Isten vegez‘ — ‘humans plan, god finishes.’

But the Fates are beyond even goddesses and gods. They are raw forces of nature. They are rhythms of the ebb and flow of energy, matter, and meaning – the three basic components of the universe. They were here first; they will stay to the last. Everyone’s story is in the Fates’ web. They are one; they are three; they are nine, three times three. Their mystery cannot be totally understood, or can it? All the other goddesses and gods became their emanations through time. It was the fate of Zeus to destroy his own father. The Norse gods cannot avoid Ragnarok. When the gods must obey the Fates, you know who is in charge.

This archetype of destiny is embedded deep in the Indo-European psyche. From India across the European continent all the way to the North Sea and the British Isles, cultures big and small have stories, symbols, and ceremonies for the forces who make destiny. Some of these overlap, some diverge, but they agree on the fundamental concept. There are three sisters who rule our lives.

The three Weird sisters are working women. They are spinners, weavers, cutters of the thread; they are writers of the Book of Life. They are blessers, birthers, deathers, dressed in white and red and black. They are fortune-tellers. They are casters of the lots. They are gamblers and luck-givers. They are living springs of water. They are mornings, noons, and nights. What they rule must be.

Since the dawn of consciousness, people have found it psychologically useful to give names and faces to the Fates. The Greeks called them the Parcae; the Romans, Fata; in Northern Europe they were the Norns, who governed men’s ‘wyrd,’ or fate, and for Anglo-Saxons, the ‘Weird’ were those who could foretell the future.

I am especially fond of the word wyrd, because we use it today when something happens that we don’t understand, cannot control, or fear. The word comes from a form of the old Germanic verb ‘to become.’ When we feel something is weird, we activate our fate receptors, the soul that knows the Fates already. Only the soul can understand something weird – the action itself, the presence of the Fates, and their effect on our lives. Often we resist their promptings only to appreciate them later on.

I had to grow up and discover the Fates for myself. The discovery, however, did not come from a book, rather it was a living process. I had to become aware. You don’t really understand what the Fates can do to you unless you have had a visceral experience of them.

During the Hungarian revolution in October of 1956, I was on my way to a demonstration. When you are 16, being part of a collective uprising is very exciting. I lived on the Buda side of the Duna River, and to reach the site of the demonstration, I had to cross the bridge over to the Pest side. I was running toward the bridge when suddenly something weird happened. My feet slowed as if they were weighted down with lead. Frustrated, I redoubled my efforts, but try as I might, I could only shuffle along, furious that I was going to be late.

When I finally crossed the bridge, I heard shots. That wasn’t too unusual. It was a revolution, and people had been shooting off guns in celebration for days. But when I turned the corner to the plaza, everything was silent. Too silent. Instead of a crowd of cheering, shouting people, the plaza was covered with bodies. All those who had made it to the plaza on time had been shot down. The blood was still dripping onto the stones. I stood stop-still, realizing that I had indeed arrived too late – too late for the massacre.

In Hungarian the Fates are Sors Istennok, the destiny goddesses. But their Latin name, the Parcae, means ‘those who spare,’ and indeed my life was spared by them that day. We all have stories about incidents during which that weird feeling, usually accompanied by fear or frustration, has come over us, and it turned out to save us in some way.

The English name for the Fates comes from the Latin word fata. In the singular, the word was fatum, meaning ‘a divine utterance,’ the will of a god. When a child was a week old, the fata scribundus were invoked to ‘write’ a good destiny for the newborn babe. The fata, with the birth goddess Eileithyia, both established and predicted the child’s destiny. The word fate, fatum, comes from the same root as the words fairy and fay. So we learn the Fates are of fairy origin.

In Greek they were called the Moirae, those who allot us our fate; there was Clotho (the Spinner), who spins the thread of life, Lachesis (Disposer of Lots), who measures it out, and Atropos (the Inevitable), who cuts it off. Clotho is usually portrayed with a spindle, Lachesis with a scroll or a globe, and Atropos with scissors, a pair of scales, or a bowl for drawing lots.

In Northern Europe we also find three maidens in a deep cavern. These are the Norns from the Germanic traditions, best known today from their appearance in Wagner’s opera Gotterdammerung. They are named in Old Norse: Urdh, Verdandi, and Skuld. Their names come from the words for being itself, and so I will use these names for the Fates in this book.

Urdh (the same word as wyrd and weird) is all that went before. She is the past. She owns the Well of Life and the Tree of Life, which is fed by the well. Everything that has ever been belongs to the past. From this fertile background life emerges anew.

Verdandi, whose name means ‘that which is becoming,’ rules what is going on right now. She is flux. She is the flower of our energies. She is the mother time, the ripe time, the sexual time. She is harvest time. Her symbol is the full loom.

Skuld (whose name is related to ’shall’) is the one who governs that which must be. She is the necessary outcome of the past and that which is becoming. Skuld is the inflexible one, but in some later legends she likes to ride with humans and mingle with men. She is the one who may request a kiss from a handsome man and change into a beautiful young woman if he has enough gumption to kiss her old face. Strangely, the most personable of the Fates turns out to be the death goddess. Her symbol is the crescent knife, the ghostly scythe of the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper is a girl.

This original model of the three sisters is the source for all the other triple goddesses, such as Hecate, who stands at the triple crossroads, her faces looking in three directions – the past, present, and future – and Triple Brigid, who appears as a healer, a goldsmith, and a lady of inspiration. It is the pattern for the trinities of maiden, mother, and crone and all the other goddesses who have three aspects. Each of the many components of our human existence required the Goddess to show a separate face and attributes. Eventually the original trinity became ten thousand aspects, each with her own name, each still harking back to the beginning, the middle, or the end of the life cycle, which the three Fates ruled.

When we summon the Fates we call them out from their deep hiding place in the unconscious. We draw them slowly into the conscious mind, illuminated by goodwill and understanding. This eternal magic can transform the powers that rule us from the misunderstood three Hags into the wonderful three Graces. Or at least we hope so. There are no guaranties with this force. But there are certain practices, a kind of etiquette of interaction with the Fates, that have worked for people before. We call it the technology of the sacred.

Here we are in 010, entering the second decade of the 21st century. It is still the sub-age of Aquarius. It is still the favorable times for humans to wake up to a new self understanding. This is happening in big quantum leaps, fueled by technology and science. Congratulations to all fellow planetary travelers! We have arrived in the future.

But now what?

We have more and more women come to us searching for a LOCAL group, contact where they can join, study and grow. This used to be rather easy in the last century. You went to your local bookstore; you hung out around the bulletin board, read the stuff on it, then added your own request, “Goddess study group forming” and the phone number. Pretty soon the first woman would call, who knew another, and in a couple of weeks you had a good little eager group; armed with Goddess books, healthy tea collections, and time set aside to be just a student of your own culture.

Women’s studies at Universities is not what it used to be, its still great we have them at all, alas under the name of Gender Studies, but who cares let’s just be grateful. These are still places where women can gather and plan actions.

Once you have created yourself an account with us, the Dianic University, we will let you use our Global Goddess Dianic Groups virtual bulletin board, look it through for women in your neighborhoods, add you name to the particular state and region you are at. Then we will have a central board to post on for just this. Local connections.

Because we only let people we checked out on the board, you are safer to post and call whoever you find. I recommend exchanging email addresses first and get to know each other. Once you decide to meet up, do it in a public place first … maybe for coffee or tea. Check each other out and then exchange contact information.

But more than beginners, first timers, seekers of all kinds, we also need volunteers who help us battle the cultural anti-woman forces. You don’t think that the battle field is any less than before computers. Each time I go on the radio, or write something very pro-woman, anti-establishment, anti-male god material, I get attacked on the internet from men who hate that we have advanced as much as we have. They would like to see the Goddess Movement fade with my lifetime; me destroyed on the visibility field, my ideas and philosophies relegated to the trash bin.

Bobbie, my mighty Amazon, is the only one on the field battling this, so far successfully. But we could not have been defending ourselves without the help of women working in those technology citadels of power, the Goggles, wikis, who knew about the Goddess Movement. Imagine that! We are everywhere.

We need new allies with some time and skills. Not just hey I want to try to help, but rather … hey, I can battle on the techie field with the best of them and I don’t mind a little work out against the invisible forces.

This is what l’d like to put out to you. Please techie women with writing skills, step forward and make contact with me and Bobbie. The cultural war consists often in creating material, but also tracking down where the trouble comes from, correction information when it’s wrong.

Our visibility on the cultural field is crucial in the elevation of our sex.

When women don’t know how to link up, network, and publish … we can easily be marginalized again.

Don’t forget women are the majority of all humans. We create everybody from our own bodies. We raise citizens, consumers, and all the tax payers.

Women deserve their own culture. This is the part of the battle field that needs boosting. Individuals can do a lot, but we need the help, the link-up with the successful women, the higher end income women, the university program directors, and the leadership who organizes workshops, conferences, and gathering of all kinds.

For example, link us up with organizations where the women already formed groups, where we can cast a wider net when we disseminate information.

When we tighten our skills around the new technology and form a cultural staff around our own interests, then we can serve women on all level much better.

What I don’t want to end up is alone, battling the evil forces of cultural marginalization, and witness the new century pushing women’s issues, women’s needs and women’s spirituality aside.

What we have is a lucky opportunity to flood with our skillful energy into the collective consciousness, making room there for the love and respect for women; create a world where women don’t have to go to collage to learn about their past, our own dianics, and whose shoulders we are standing on.

Information about our spiritual heritage will create a proud generation of women, talented, blooming, and confident.

Let us all go into the depth of the sub-age of Aquarius in this certainty, when women lead the planet thrives.

Blessed be,
Z Budapest

There was such a sincereness and sadness in the lady’s voice that made me ask her “Why do you ask?”.   The story began to unfold.    “I have cancer and I don’t have long maybe another month but no more and I just wanted to know so I can leave this world in peace” was the way her story began.   A little more conversation with questions and answers and she knew I was sincerely trying to help her and an emotional flood gate opened.   It was a long time ago, the early 1950’s, the caller was in her mid teens.    She said it was so long ago but it was still fresh in her memory like everything occurred yesterday and she had always wondered.     The caller was pregnant and scared, she kept her condition from her family and friends until her expanding tummy made it impossible to conceal any further.   A nightmare began.

“I didn’t mean to get pregnant, I didn’t really know what I was doing, I sure didn’t know how to prevent it” came the words spoken so softly by the voice that trembled.   “My Dad was so mad” said the caller as the soft tears began to flow my heart broke with a lady who very much just needed somebody to listen.   She began to tell of how times were different and how to avoid the disgrace and shame of having a child born out of wedlock her Dad had taken her to some woman’s house that lived a few towns over near one of the major highways.   She told of the physical pain and horror and fear of having an unwanted abortion performed by someone she didn’t even know.   She told of the physical complications that followed.   There was no follow up medical care, ever.   The result was an inability to carry a child to term  later in life.

Life continued for the lady she married and adopted a child.   She lived in a respectable house and had a comfortable life in the material sense but she said she always wondered.   She knew she had to be far enough along that it was possible her child could have survived.   The older she got and the wanted pregnancies that eventually occurred and failed she learned about fetal development and birth control was introduced to her since she had continued to have miscarriages.   She just wanted to know if anybody had ever found the aborted fetus, was it given a proper burial, did it survive and if so was it alright.     She was looking for information knowing that what had happened could not have been undone but she needed to know.

We spoke for a little more than twenty minutes which is an extraordinary amount of time to keep a caller on the lines.    When the lady had finished telling her life story she asked if she would ever know if a body was found.   I spoke the truth, I told her I felt that since records were not kept like they are now and that anyone who was performing unlawful abortions would not have left evidence to be found in the area which is still rural and undeveloped she would probably not be able to get an “official” report of what had transpired that day so many years ago.     She softly sighed and said she knew it but that she had just needed somebody to talk to and she asked for my name which I gave her.   She thanked me and said that she would pray for me because just being able to talk to me helped her so much and she felt so much better.

I felt bad for her but told her that was what we were there for and she said she was tired and wanted to get some sleep.  I told her if we could help further to be sure to call back.   I didn’t really do anything to help, I was not able to give her information which she was looking for in fact I told her she probably was not going to get the information she was looking for but still I know she found peace I could hear it in her soft voice that was no longer trembling.   I wish I could tell you more of the story of the lady who inspired this article from a conversation now eight or nine years old but I Don’t Know Her Name. I present this story to you for consideration to help young girls today, the Maidens.   We have become somewhat comfortable and apathy has set in concerning Women’s Rights and Women’s Bodies.   Education is fundamental, girls must be taught early on how their bodies work, what they can do to take care of themselves and help that is available to them, they are precious and must know that their Mothers, Aunts, Grandmothers love them and can be trusted enough to be asked about contraception and the older generations must be strong enough to have frank discussions and give clear information.   It is a slippery slope and a very dangerous one at that, if our right to CHOOSE is lost our daughters will once again know the unspeakable horrors of procedures performed without medical care.   They will know the complications of their own bodies maimed because medical care is not available.   They will know of friends who die because they did not get proper medical care.

We have to remember if we don’t have the freedom to choose we are forced to accept what is decided for us be it a forced unwanted abortion or a forced unwanted pregnancy.    Either has horrible ramifications that are inhumane and we must prevent a return to the dark days.   Z Budapest encourages women to organize, agitate, and educate and we must take active measures to preserve the freedoms gained only in the last thirty to forty years.   The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries by Zsuzsanna Budapest gives an excellent Herstorical perspective of how things slipped and the importance of women reclaiming their worth and ways to do it.   I encourage you to gift a young girl, a Maiden, with a copy of this and be open to discussion after all it is her future that is at stake.   A sister who has probably crossed the veil by now is speaking to you with the retelling of  Herstory.  Take heed sisters do not let her story once again become our story.   I wish I could tell you more of story of the lady who inspired this article but I Don’t Know Her Name….

I am going to my altar now to light a candle for this unknown lady a Goddess whose name we can’t call may she know peace and may she continue to inspire others to preserve rights she did not have herself.

Blessed Be

Another work day and you are on your lunch break when you learn that your beloved elderly Grandmother is at her home but only for a moment.   You know that you need to get back to work they have called already unable to locate important documents.   You take your lunch and sit at the table of you Grandmother.   She enjoys your company and you cherish her every breath and word.    After eating you hurry back to the duties that call yet you took time for the Sacred Crone.   You are a Priestess of the Goddess!

You hostess a lovely gathering at your Sacred Temple and many cherished ones are there with you.   Your sister in law arrives with the Goddess Discord upon her.   You consider pulling your sword but you chose not to let the Sacred Gathering be ruined by Discord.   You smile sweetly offer her cake.   Your Warrior Goddess will fight another day on a battle worthy of fighting.   You preserve the Harmony.   You are a Priestess of the Goddess!

The young girls have gathered at your Temple.   They giggle and share stories of their day.   They discuss plans for the coming week.  Hair is braided and finger nails are painted by the Maidens in their late teens and early twenties.   Clothes are compared and boys pondered and music is danced to all of which inspires hunger.   You feed the Maidens.   They ask for a reading and you provide the reading.   You are a Priestess of the Goddess.

The Temple kitties that are Sacred to Bast need grooming.   You feed them, you brush them, you hug them.   You clean the litter boxes.   You play with them by tossing their small stuffed mice across the rug.   You Love them.  You vacuum the rugs to keep them tidy for places for the little ones to play.   You are a Priestess of the Goddess.

The evening altars need tending.   There is the Family altar where you honor your Ancestresses and Ancestors.   There is the working altar where most of your healing work requests are made.   There is the Full Moon altar that still flickers from the evening past.   The Warrior altar needs replenishing.   It stands for those in the military and law enforcement.   It will soon be time to add another candle for another Warrior soon to join the battle.   You tend the altars because you are dedicated to others.   You Love and care for them .   Those you light candles for always hold a very special place in your heart.  You are a Priestess of the Goddess!

You are a Priestess of the Goddess!   You tend to the needs of others.   You smile when others smile.   You take comfort by providing comfort to others.   By feeding others a meal you feed your own soul.   The Maiden new to the craft gives you pride as she begins her journey.   The Body of the Priestess is your Sacred Temple like that of the Temple you dwell in.   You go to the spa to replenish your Temple.   You give hugs to show your affection and appreciation.   You sit by the water while it dances on your toes.   You are a very busy Woman! You are a Priestess of the Goddess!!!!   Long May You Serve!!!!