Buzz Coil: November

Alive Mind & Spirit: In her Nov. 21 post, Carol P. Christ asks, "Do We Still Need the Goddess?" She bases the answer not on religious or spiritual theory but on our secular life.

House of Inanna: Congratulations to Brian Charles on becoming a Priest of Inanna in a ritual in Hungary, which he discusses in in Nov. 18 post, "Back in the labyrinth," and his Nov. 24 post, "Priest of Inanna."

The Village Witch: In her Nov. 18 Asheville NC Citizen-Times blogpost,"Mother Grove Tea Party–No Hatters Mad or Otherwise," Byron Ballard tells about a tea party at a local café where community people exchanged ideas about what they want in a Goddess temple, now in the planning stages.

The Wild Hunt: Jason Pitzl-Waters discusses "the smear job" on Margot Adler, National Public Radio (NPR) reporter, in his Nov. 25 post "Where Fox News Gets Its News," and the first item in his Nov. 24 post, "(Pagan) News of Note." Adler is probably best known among Pagans for her book, Drawing Down the Moon.

Evoking the Goddess: The questionable economic approach of which Blogger Paul in Britain writes on Nov. 25 in "Your country wants you to spend" will likely also be familiar to those in the U.S.

Broomstick Chronicles: Macha NightMare's Nov. 14 post, "AAR in Chicago," gives summaries of some of the first day’s presentations of the Pagan Studies Group meeting of the American Academy of Religion. In her Nov. 12 post, "Freedom to Marry," Macha posts the Covenant of the Goddess’s policy statement about its clergy performing ceremonies that join two people in a love relationship

A number of this month’s posts include spiritual views of the U.S. Presidential Election:

At Brigid’s Forge: On Nov. 2, Lunaea Weatherstone wrote "What a Woman Can Do," telling how, after taking town her Samhain ancestors’ shine, she left up the photo of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and made a foremother’s shrine for the election. Lunaea writes:

Elizabeth and Susan are at the forefront of an army of ancestral spirits who fought with all their heart and soul for women's rights, and in particular, for the right to vote. Alongside their photo, I placed two antique books from my collection, "What Can a Woman Do?" (1893) and "Woman: Her Position, Influence, and Achievement throughout the Civilized World" (1901). When those books were printed, the women who read them were still struggling for that right, and would continue to do so for years to come. How overjoyed they would be to see how far women have come today -- and I suspect, they would be equally disgusted and outraged by some other changes in the political landscape. But one thing I know for sure: they would not be daunted.

At the end of desire: Blogger Inanna’s Nov. 5 post, "Hope" is about friends whose children felt their own potential increase because of Obama’s victory.

Flashes of Insight: Flash Silvermoon, in an evocative Nov. 5 post, "The Dream is Awakened," writes of her reaction to the election as one who remembers first-hand Woodstock, the Civil Rights era, and the "police riot" against antiwar protestors outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in same area in Chicago where Obama gave his speech after winning the 2008 election.

Branches Up, Roots Down: Deborah Oak has written several posts from Nov. 5 through Nov. 15 about both the election of Barack Obama and about California’s Prop 8. I think you’ll want to read them all. For example, in her Nov. 7 post, "We the People", Deborah writes:

The American Dream just expanded into something completely different than the selfishness of the past decades. It no longer is a nightmare.
We, the People. All of Us.
Obama, you can count on me to be serving. I am for this dream.

And in her Nov. 6 post, "the truth is self-evident" , she writes:

There have been long years of fear of women and people of color having rights and a claim to power. Imagining all people sharing power and sharing equal rights has always been a revolutionary act. And it's a revolution we've steadily been winning. Tuesday night we won a crucial battle and I am choosing to believe that victory is in sight. The slave owners who started the American revolution cast a spell with their words;
"We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."
That spell led to Obama being our president...it will lead to equal rights for the LGBT community. Obama cast his own spell by saying "gay and straight" in his speech. Our words hold power. What we spell out is certainly a spell. We shall overcome. Yes, we can.

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