Quaker Pagan Reflections

L ast night, I held my husband’s hand as he was falling asleep. Paolo Monti. 1970. One minute, as my fingers moved gently over his, the sense of him, of the essence that makes him who he is was right there under the surface, coded somehow in every callus, every line of his palm.  The next minute, his hand was just a hand: still warm and living, but also empty of the particular qualities that make him who his is, every bit as much as the smile in his voice or the flash of an idea behind his eyes. There is a difference between the hand of your beloved sleeping, and that of your beloved when awake, and it is a palpable one.  Hard to describe, but real. That difference… is it magic? My coven used to do an exercise.  We’d put on a recording of a drumbeat, go into light trance together, and then one by one, seek out the sense of each person’s presence.  One by one, as each member of the circle “found” another, we’d speak the names out loud: “Cat….” “Cat.” “Cat,” the v

O ne of the recurring topics in the Pagan blogosphere is that of a generation gap.  Elders feel shouldered aside, our teachings unwanted; young Pagans feel stifled and held back by elders who trust them too little, and try to control them too much. Recently, I had a dream related to that problem. In the dream, I was wandering through a sprawling, chaotic Pagan gathering.  It was colorful and noisy, but I knew very few people who were there, and the dream had an aimless quality until I came to a place where someone had set out a dance floor. La Boca, Argentina.  Alex Proimos, 2009 . Many couples were already out on the floor, dancing together, ballroom style. I grew up in a family that dances.  On New Year’s Eve, my parents would put on old records and we would dance: my parents together, my brother with my mother, and my father with me. I love to dance. However, as I approached the dance floor, only one partner was available, a young woman I did not know.  I