Our spiral dance ritual Saturday was beautiful and powerful. Even though I violated one of my personal Rules of Life: (Starhawk, you are far too old and arthritic to bring a lot of physical objects to the Spiral Dance that you then have to collect afterwards), and some technical glitches, I was able to do some deep, personal work with my own Beloved Dead, and I danced the entire spiral without my trekking poles! (I’m due for a knee replacement this month, and probably another later this year—but that gave me hope that I might at some point return to being more abled than dis as far as walking goes.)
I wish I had better pictures of it all, but we don’t take pictures during ritual and in any case, I was far too busy to do more than snap a few during setup.
With the help of two friends, Lilith Eve and artist Carter Brooks, we created a Melt Ice Altar that was a spell, with a beautifully lit block of ice, a bowl of warm water that people could pour over it to melt the ice, and plants below to water with the melt. All through the ritual, I noticed people stopping for a moment to contribute to the melt, and the ice took on beautiful, sculptural shapes.
(The portraits are by the late artist Kevyn Lutton, who helped create the very first Spiral Dance! She passed this year, and I miss her!)
Our ritual intention was: “With hearts broken open, we channel our love and rage into action to defend justice and the sacred.”
Art activist David Solnit made us a powerful banner, with figures of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice that said, “Liberty and Justice for All”. I spent a lot of last week tearing cloth into panels and notching them so they could be torn into strips, and led the participants in meditating on the ways our hearts were broken open, whether that was from personal grief for someone close to us who has died, or the collective grief and loss of the wars and genocides, the assaults on friends and neighbors by ICE, the loss of our rights and our confidence in democracy—I could go on, but you know all that. Rending garments is an ancient symbol of mourning, and tearing cloth is a very satisfying action, the feeling and the sound of it ripping!
Then we had people tie the strips together, as a symbol of our community support and solidarity. We collected up the strings, and in the center of the space, Waldorf teacher Jessica led a group including a lot of the children in finger-weaving them into chains and attaching them to the banner. We raised it up when the spiral was complete and it became the center of a massive cone of power. Now we’ll be able to take it out to the streets for marches and protests.
The Spiral Dance was November 1. On November 2, Dia de los Muertos, I was able to view the altars and join the procession in San Francisco’s celebration.
I am tempted to introduce this with a bit more drama and clickbait….
The Real Truth About The Day of the Dead!
What They Won’t Tell You About Day of the Dead…
Read This Quickly Before They Take It Down…
Yes, this is what it really looks like when thousands of people flood the streets—many of them Not White!
It was entirely peaceful, beautiful and moving, as it has been for decades!
A true community celebration, where we can come together around that most common experience that unites us all—that those we love, die. And so will we all, in time. But when we embrace that truth, we can more fully embrace life, knowing it is fleeting and temporary and we’d better appreciate it while we can.
As I looked around at the sea of faces, the crowds of children playing in the park, the care that so many had put into altars and costumes, the reverence with which the walkers held their candles, I couldn’t help thinking, “This is the reality! This is, indeed the truth they don’t want you to see—that the diversity of cultures and traditions, the influx of people from every corner of the world, do not threaten our lives, but enrich them.
I felt a whole new surge of love and rage—love for the diverse and vibrant community I am so fortunate to be part of, rage at the lies, the fear-mongering and the targeting of people who gift us with their presence, their hard work, their great creativity and imagination.
The AIDS Quilt was there…
And our San Francisco Firefighters!
We were fortunate this year—perhaps because of some behind-the-scenes deal done by our mayor and some of the tech-bros, Trump went back on sending in troops to San Francisco and ICE left the Dia de los Muertos gatherings alone. But the potential for raids and assaults still casts a note of fear that underlay the celebrations. Will they happen next year?
Time to turn that love and rage into action. My first one will be voting Yes on Proposition 50 tomorrow, to counter the MAGAts attempts to consolidate power by partisan redistricting. My next will be writing and sedentary actions for a while, but eventually, I hope to be back on the streets, marching with our magical banner, doing all I can to defend justice and the sacred!
Special thanks to the Marigold Project, El Collectivo del Rescate Cultural de La Mission — or Collective to Rescue the Mission’s Culture, The Spiral Dance Organizing Cell, and all who volunteer their time and work to create and defend community.
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This post has been syndicated from Starhawk’s Substack, where it was published under this address.