The Furious Spinner

In times of old, The Furies protected Mother Right. If a mother (or any woman) was harmed, The Furies swooped down and took their vengeance. They were one of the last vestiges of a world that existed before the patriarchy. When we feel righteous anger, it is The Furies who are calling out to us to make what is wrong right again.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Gathering

We had the Gathering here tonight. I always do the Halloween Gathering. (I've got to get to bed, so this will be quick and matter of fact.) It was so much fun. I missed Linda, but it wasn't a terrible feeling like I thought it would be. Serena was supposed to come, but she didn't. We did the drumming and said the names outloud of those who have died in the last year. That's always sad. Dave, Sheila, Linda. And too many other names.

Then we did this visualization I learned at Medicine for the Earth. We rattled and drummed and imagined ourselves as we would like to be, using all our senses. Then we toned together.

I had printed out all the Old Mermaid suggestions and folded them up and put them in a cauldron. (Thanks for idea, Joanna.) After we finished omming, ahhhing, humming, etc., I walked around with the cauldron and each woman picked one out. Some of the women read them outloud and said what they meant—or didn't mean—to them. Two women mentioned that what they had been visualizing and imagining was on their "suggestion." I'd then tell them a story from the book about their particular Old Mermaid. They really seemed to like it. I've never had a book where I can talk about it and people get excited about it and want to read it. Everyone asked me when it was coming out and when they could get a copy of it. My friend Becky has read it, so she told everyone how much she enjoyed it. That was fun having someone here who had read it.

The women dressed up as who they'd like to be in the coming year. We had people dressed for peace, comfort, journeying, art. One woman dressed up as Coyote Cowgirl. I got such a kick out of that! I was dressed as an Old Mermaid, no surprise there. (I went to a clothing exchange store in Portland and found a gown that I thought looked sort of like a mermaid tail. I kept my shoes on the entire time, by the way, since it was that same store where a woman got bitten by a rat. Anyway, I came home and cut the dress in half, kept the "tail" part and threw out the rest, pulled on a tank top and another shirt for the top.)

It was a great time! I wish I had pictures of someone besides me, but as usual, I didn't take pics, but Mario did when he got home.

More later, gators. I gotta get to sleep. I'm driving around to libraries all day tomorrow.

Evine was our fairy godmother. All of ours! It was so great. She granted all of our wishes. I now have a fairy godmother. How cool is that. Of course, I think of her at my fairy goddessmother, but that's just a technicality...

Mario took a whole series of photos when I was dancing in the kitchen afterwards. I took one of him dancing, but he had on his apron and it looked like a butcher's apron and it was just creepy. So we decided not to include that.