A Terrible Loss

Dr. Tiller was an abortion world legend. His clinic was the very last chance for women and girls in the most desperate situations. Because he performed abortions further into pregnancy than any other U.S. provider, he was uniquely targeted by anti-choice extremists. His clinic was protested, barricaded, and bombed, he was shot in both arms, he had a bodyguard with him daily for 20 years.

That security apparently didn't follow him to church. It seems sensible to give the bodyguard time off when you are in a place of sanctuary. If this act was committed on behalf of a vengeful God, as is assumed, how could it have possibly been more twisted? There is no consolation in that irony, none at all.

I remember a girl I once referred to Dr. Tiller's clinic in Wichita. She was 13 years old. She was pregnant from one of the times her stepfather raped her. She didn't want to tell her Mom because she thought she would be blamed, she didn't want to let her mind remember that it happened, and she didn't know what pregnancy felt like. When we saw her, she was 23 weeks pregnant. Bless her mother, who was so concerned for her kid's best chance at recovery from the trauma that she made an appointment they couldn't afford with George Tiller. They borrowed money from all the women in their extended family and flew out there for a three-day procedure.

This is very, very bad news. It's life-changing news for Dr. Tiller's wife, four kids and ten grandkids. It's blow-to-the-chest stunning for his clinic staff and colleagues. It's disastrous news for the patients he was going to see this week -- patients that are too high-risk or too far along to be seen ANYWHERE as of now. And do not doubt it is a warning to abortion providers and clinic workers across the country.

What do we do? Brave, loving, dear friends at the clinic where I worked for years have reacted by turning their grief and anger into positive action. Please check out this blog, and help out with cash if you have it. http://www.hopeforchoice.blogspot.com/

Even more important, please talk about this. Say how wrong it is, then say it louder. Do a ritual, say a prayer, go to a vigil, write a letter...let our outrage be fucking deafening. Let us not ever, ever forget. Do not let the patriarchy distract us from demanding both justice and peace.

Courage,
Starla

The light returns

VAGINAL STATUS: creaky

Today's snapshot: an email I just sent to my ladyfriend's priest. He's a mensch.

Hi Jonathan!

I'm not able to come to the Solstice service, and I'm real sad about it. I've been looking forward to it for months, told my mama all about it a month ago...and it's just at the wrong moment. I had to chose between it and the ritual at womyn's bookstore (the next installment of the ritual from Halloween), which is at the same time. I really feel wrapped up in swinging with my own faith legacy and deepening connection with the local witchery, they seem my flavor so far. I hope it's going to help me get some work done.

What a weird spectrum of faith traditions I'm touring this weekend! Tomorrow a.m.we pickup SHARE food from Pennsylvania Ave. AME; we're attending a friend's Yoruban Ileke cermony -- no idea, but I'mpleased to wear a light-colored skirt and wrap my head; the Dianic Wiccan ritual in womyn's only space where the Amazons conceive what they will bring forth this coming year; gentle, heart-centered Anusura Yoga with a former stripper friend/luminous being; rehearsal directing girls to make out for the porn theme show with the fringe queers' theatre collective; finish it with Lessons and Carols, my Protestant clergy family tradition, at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.

That was fun to write, I hope I'm still enthusiastic when it's all over. But it's a charmed life, surely.

Anyway, I would have enjoyed ya'lls vibe very much in this mix. I will miss singing songs and feeling lighter at the end; my ladies are heavy duty, which is a mixed blessing in such a literal way. I like you folks so much in general, and you and I in particular seem to connect about the turning of the wheel. Did you notice that? Easter, Midsummer, Halloween, Yule...we've seen us a year, my friend. I will miss you, I really will.

Kiss the sun for me, I will for you.

Starla

also, p.s., this thing where your email is the congregation's email? That's a problem, dude.

Forgive Us Our Sins

And now we shred him.

Another way in which Barak Obama is the American Jesus: he is our sacrifice. He is going to pay dearly for all of our sins. He is a young man with an old soul; serious, but the champion of hope; brillant but not yet wise. Here is what wisdom looks like -- Lincoln at the beginning of his presidency, and at the end:

Hard times. Impossible choices. Law versus justice. War. Miserable mothers wrote letters, lamenting their dead sons lost in battle. The righteous path, ending slavery, required dismantling the economic foundation of half of our nation. A lawyer who suspended habeas corpus and tried civilians in military court. A father who lost his son. A husband whose wife drifted away from her sanity. And all the while, the sins of our people poisoned him from the inside. Our nation hemmoraged, blood saturated the landscape. We pleaded with him, our best surgeon, just to cut off the mangled limb and let us be free of this terrible pain. He risked our life to save us, and we shot him in the head.

Barak Obama. What a kind face. His family. Those sweet little girls, that smart pretty wife. These hard times will eat them, I fear. Unfathomable secrets have already been told to him, he's dragging the weight of them. The decisions he will make are ones no one should have to live with. The entire world, every breathing soul, will fail or prosper due to his judgment.

I know he can do it. I chose him to do it. He knows he can and therefore must.

But the price hurts my heart.

The deepest gift of this surrender -- he already knows what it will cost.

Lady Beware

Got an email from a coworker first thing this morning -- it was addressed to women in general to help us protect ourselves from rape. The premise was that someone had interviewed a group of “rapists and date-rapists” in prison about the techniques they’d used to prey on victims – it sounded like selected excerpts from Urban Legend Reader. The call is coming from inside the house, ladies, be more cautious!
Except wait, it’s not our work to stop ourselves from getting raped. Only rapists can stop rape. Sorry girls! Bummer about that!
It was lurid, really. There was a whole section on how serial killers often use a recording of a baby crying to try and get women to open the front door so that the baby won't get out onto the street and be run over. Hmmph. Here is a conversation regarding this fervent warning with Pashmina over email.

The first time I got this email was about 10 years ago, it goes around from time to time. I appreciate the spirit in which Joan offered it, but ultimately I think it’s dangerous to put this stuff out there. Sure, stranger rapes definitely happen, but they are the tiny minority of sexual assaults and this kind of scary advice perpetuates the myth that you are vulnerable in public and safe at home.
I also think that, though of course it’s good to be cautious, warnings that just raise the general fear level are bad for our gun-loving culture. Makes me think of the part of Bowling for Columbine where he shows a montage of evening news clips and they are all about how you should be afraid, be afraid, be afraid. It’s a very sensational email, full of murky tension like a murder mystery. Read it again with an eye for the dramatic pacing and emphasis on painting a vivid picture of brutality.
The damage of this kind of fear-poke is that it acts as a social control mechanism for women. This is all about how you are always in danger when you step outside your door and should expect to be tracked and targeted. So many of us just decide it might be better not to go out at all. And it lends weight to the “rape PREVENTION” model rather than the “rape risk-reduction” model, which really puts the blame on the victim. Like for example: The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed . They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair . Women with short hair are not common targets.
So if, heaven forefend, you are raped in the street by a stranger, it was probably because you were too stupid to cut your hair, you whore.
Do you dig me?

That’s an interesting point of view, I totally didn’t notice any of that, probably because I was getting so distracted by being scared. Except I did notice the stupid hair comment, that was just lame and similar to the whole “she was wearing a short skirt so she deserved it.” But I get what you mean about perpetuating fear in women and sort of “keeping them in the house” etc.

This is a clue that this email is sent to scintillate and scare you, and in turn to keep you safely and timidly at home: Even whole families of females on vacation without a man and very vulnerable to attack by some clever ruse. They just disappear.
Really? Really. Exactly how many whole families of women have disappeared on vacation? This is what really threatens us, what we really need to be focused on when we are trying to protect women from rape? Women in every single war end up in rape camps – American soldiers are not above the rest of the world in using rape as a tool to break down the morale of the nation they are trying to take over -- except those are third world women, they aren’t real people, and they don’t get an email.
What is the actual likelihood that if I travel with other women only we will all be abducted? Will bringing a dude along work like a magic charm to protect us? That kind of statement is itself a part of rape culture. The message is transparent: You need a man. If you don’t spend your life under male supervision you will probably be raped and killed. Your own fault, should have known better.
A lot more women are raped on vacation by their male supervision then by roving gangs of thugs.

Wait a second. I think I stopped reading the email before I got to that line. Now that is just PLAIN RIDICULOUS. Whole families of females LOL LOL LOL LOL.

Seriously! I feel like I’m being too strident, but I’m compelled. I wonder who wrote this and why. It’s always wise to question the source, right? This mythical group of “rapists in prison” has been talked about for years, was it like two guys or was it twenty? What kind of rapes did they commit? This whole serial killer summit set up sounds suspect to me.
Also wise? Look at who benefits from this information being passed around. Did this really ever save a life? I think that this sounds like a very clever dispatch from the Patriarchy to control our movement through fear.

I had a feminist weekend and I think it’s bleeding through my workday. But I’m also not wrong.

And the Day After

VAGINAL STATUS: Grateful
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
-- Maya Angelou
North Carolina voters waiting

Oh, ooooh. Oh, America! Oh my people, my home, my shame and conceit and my heartbeat, AMERICA. Blessed be, my Love, blessed be.

I woke up today in a new America.
And I am a new American.

Yes we Can became yes we Will became yes we DID. And incredulous, blessed, cracked out and sanctified, bleary and jubilant, we rise. One people. We rise.

It’s not like it’s over, not even a little. I have much to say and process and analyze, don’t we all, doesn’t History? We have turmoil snapping at our next breath after this exhale, struggle like nothing this nation has seen before.

But PAUSE. Stop drop and marvel. Because, oh my countrymen, we don’t know from this moment. This is moment is NEW, fresh, immaculate. Because the world only spins forward. And life demands our lives.

With ludicrous, profound, unstoppable tears; with the swollen red heart of a patriot; with the earnest, radiant conviction of an apostle who lived among miracles;
I say
to you

(my people!)


Good Morning.

A New Dawn

VAGINAL STATUS: Blessed
The line at Central Library was around the block when I joined it at 7 a.m. and it looked like America. All kinda folks, Baltimore is indeed multi-layered and everyone represented. I felt like I was waiting in line for a ride at Kennywood I was so EXCITED. The girl in front of me was voting for the first time, she was 19. I tried to get her to bounce up and down about it like me, but she chose a dignified restraint.

I wanted to cackle and cry. Looking at those people, America – old folks and people in wheelchairs and gay boys and suits and young moms with kids in tow and lots of people in scrubs and middle aged women in a sensible hat for warmth. And wrinkled brown grandfathers who have seen Presidents come and gone since the Depression, grinning ear to ear at the chance to vote for a Black man for the very first time long overdue. And all of us, the urban heart of blue-state Maryland, had come to the altar from our warm beds, called to petition for this one very special man.

Yep, I think Barack Obama is pretty much an American Jesus.

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I’m sure he has personal flaws we’ll hear about in 30 years, and I know he can’t get his whole agenda accomplished. I think he will inevitably disappoint me. His platform does not measure itself by my radical agenda. He has assumed my vote, and can afford to take me for granted – Duh, I’m a queer feminist with most of my work history inside abortion clinics. If my people are not so far left that they see voting as playing into the government’s evil plan to placate us, we reliably vote Dems.

But every time I see him on TV I well up with the deep, dear promise of my patriotic childhood, old soldiers beaming and firetrucks tossing candy in the Memorial Day parade. He makes me dream and trust, two indulgent confections I swore I’d never fall for again after the terrible day when the Court chose Bush, the bitter anguish when we chose him again all on our own. I wasn’t right for more than a year after 2004, none of us were.

But he’s charmed me, I believe in him. Tears rolling down my cheeks while he tells me the story of America I’ve so longed to hear. The kernel of decency I believe is still aching to swell within us; he is the champion for it. He makes me think this time is History, this time is different, and this is THE MOMENT when we finally rise. I said a little spell to help him out when I pushed the button.

He HAS to win. It’s impossible that he won’t win. I know I said impossible before, and I was kicked in the stomach for it. But please, Please. Please, America, the Universe, the Goddess and all the ancestors, please Xenu and Jehovah and Allah and the first star I see tonight, please Electoral College and youth voters and poor country white folks and the wasted souls we have lost in this war, PLEASE.

Please let him win.

Totally Rad Event Update

VAGINAL STATUS: Achy


This weekend, my friend and comrade MarilynJean threw her baby shower for Bristol Palin that got some attention from BUST magazine (at the same bar in Cleveland where Princess and I had our gaywedding reception). 100 of my friends showed up, they made a giant and delicious art installation of cupcakes laid out like birth control pills in 28-day cycle packs, Lounge Kitty (a social worker and absurdly big-hair wearing jazz-singing sensation who is the toast of Cleveland) performed, people reveled in their good will toward the Palin family.

And they raised $1000 for Planned Parenthood of Alaska. Sarah Palin will get the thank-you cards, because she really started it all.

Ah, my people, how I adore your twisted little minds. Congratulations to MarilynJean and her crew, and many happy returns to Bristol. Bless her heart.

God Shopping

VAGINAL STATUS: Holy

This is my theory about how religion works: You go to the showroom and you pick one out.

Since no one knows the whole truth about the Bigness, we all conjure a version that suits our needs. It seems that trust in a larger Plan/ner is a basic human drive, and faith meets emotional and social needs as well as spiritual ones. I do believe faith generally helps people, that it’s good for us. But whether inspired or delusional every culture through all of history has come up with divine explanations to make meaning. Though some individuals always opt out of these explanations, building a cosmology is among the first tasks any emerging civilization completes; forming communal belief systems is what we DO.

So find the one that fits you. You want something reliable, not too flashy and not too expensive? Most American Protestant sects will help you out, I had a shine for Methodists. Need something to accommodate a big family? Mormons offer the mini-van of religions. Looking for an infinite number of chances to wreck and try again? Hinduism. Something fast and flashy for the social climber? Scientology. You want a classic, populist vehicle with a very strict instruction manual in 6,793 languages? You are a Catholic, my friend.

Most folks seek a religion that has a standard Home Culture feature and a built-in Family Tradition attachment. We almost always choose to be whatever our parents were, or upgrade into something that is at least a recognizable cousin. This is sensible and has a noble purity to it. We learn about the Bigness as children through the filter our People offer us, and that lens will always have the same magic to you that your threadbare Blankie does. We seek guidance and comfort from our Creator with a child’s heart. In hard times, in grief, in tenderness, in pain, we connect to the Spirit most sincerely through the first prayers we knew.

My Mama agreed (walking me to work the other morning) that we’re making it all up, though her Christian tradition is centrally important to her and she’s never driven anything else. She says it‘s important to feel connected to her roots and her family, and the hymns are special to her. Plus she likes the focal picture she has of God and Jesus, they seem like kind and protective caretakers.

But it is a choice, of course. And – just to stretch a metaphor a little bit more -- plenty of us do find that the vehicle our family used doesn’t go where we need to travel. Some folks really do start from scratch, lay out all the contenders, try the rites and read the scriptures of several faiths. For lots of us, though, we get called toward a faith by some need that our family’s tradition did not meet.

I needed a religion that was about women, because that’s the primary way I filter the world. I chose the path most attached to the untold history of women, a celebration of female power dark and graceful and holy, practiced by women for millennia in service to their communities, a faith that values transformation, justice, balance, healing, and compassion. Something earthy, sexy, shameless, pulsing and POWERful.

So that’s how I became a Witch.

But I’m in a mixed marriage, doncha know. Princess has chosen herself a path over this past year or two, and it’s a lovely group of people who I think are very good for her. She’d never have believed it her old self, but she’s in total NRE* about a RELIGION.
And the winner iiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssss:

Independent Catholic!

It’s gay Catholic, in practice, how hot is that? They are dead fucking serious about reclaiming the traditions and she is soaking up the holy revolution of it, it lights her up. She feels finally at home. It’s lovely.

She’s decided to get baptized.
And that’s another post.

*NRE = New Relationship Energy...common term among poly folks that acknowledges the time when you first get together with someone/thing new and you are kinda psycho because of how into them you are. You are sweet and annoying, no way around it. Just FYI.

Three Wise Men

VAGINAL STATUS: Smartypants


I heard Salman Rushdie speak last year – megawatt smartie, he. He spoke to the conflicts going on around our world these days. There is a misconception, he said, that we are engaged in a holy war; Christians versus Muslims. East versus West. Actually, says he, these are not separable factions, let alone polar opposites, these “sides” are an illusion.

East and West are inextricably intertwined, and have been since the Crusades. Christians and Muslims are both the children on Abraham; they dance, taking turns leading and following, their diaspora link together somewhere in every family, the tracks of these ancestors cross and cross back through millennia.

The conflict, says very smart Salman Rushdie, is between reason and fundamentalism.

And he is right. Two other smart men have also come to this conclusion. Mouse is a student of History, actually, literally, and a teacher to his core. He tells me this is all about the Age of the Enlightenment. There was a time when God was the only Mover, and human lives were short and brutal, and a Better World was the thin comfort that kept the peasants from revolt. Then the Enlightenment dawned, the Revolutions rolled over tyranny and superstition, and the world r/evolved forward.

We built our nation on reason, on logical fairness compelled via laws written and interpreted by Reasonable people. Certainly the system runs good people over from time to time, is full of the flaws that come with humans – our cradle-mates, fear and stupidity – but the basic tenant is that we will try to uncover truth and live by what it says. During the Enlightenment science was at the pinnacle of regard, a web of discovery and excavation expanding our self-knowledge through deciphering the codes manifested in the natural world. Truth IS discernable, our earnest nation thought; we have to make ourselves wise enough to REAL-ize it.

And now this third smart man, Barak Obama, he is telling us that our reasonable selves are needed by our country. He talks to us as though we are capable of critical thinking. He does not refuse to acknowledge complexity, nor does he see complexity as an impossible barrier. He tells us the solutions to our headaches of Now are still possible, but that they will require much work and these hard times are realistically likely to last a long while yet.

Sarah Palin and John McCain are the poster kids for fundamentalism, for because-I-said-so logic, for the theory of fake science that the world was Intelligently Designed for us to consume, for the comforting binary of Us vs. Them. They are rumor-sowers, conjuring up the dragons we ignorant serfs both dread and worship. The bogeymen of that dark side have cultivated our savagery until we’ve almost eaten ourselves right up.

Obama is about nuance and negotiation, wisdom and justice and restraint and the daily work of citizenship, asking us to vote our better selves in a cool, low-pitched lullaby tone. He’s literally the Voice of Reason. Blessed be his name, may he deliver us from evil.

Baby Shower for Bristol

VAGINAL STATUS: Expectant

This is such an awesome idea, my friend MarilynJean is a superwoman. She's been working for choice in innovative ways for many years, and this party is a grand example thereof, it's inspired! It reminds me of the Pledge-A-Picketer program they are running at Preterm, where I used to work -- for every hour that Protestor X spends screaming at women going into the abortion clinic, a pro-choice supporter gives a donation. If the screamer shows up, s/he is just giving the clinic cash to pay the baby killers. Sweet!

Anyway, CleveLanders, try to make it if you can. There will also be clothes to purchase from my favorite fat fashionista, Rachel Catherine!

Baby Shower for Bristol - Celebrating Comprehensive Sex Education

Host: MarilynJean
Location: Prosperity Social Club
1109 Starkweather, Cleveland, OH 44113
When: Sunday, October 19, 3:30PM
Phone: 216-926-8819

While Bristol Palin's pregnancy is a personal family matter, it has re-energized a national discussion about abstinence-only education and its failure to be effective. Along with movies like Juno, the baby craze sweeping Hollywood, the hyper-sexualization of teen starlets, Jamie Lynn Spears and the rise in sexually transmitted infection cases in NE Ohio, comprehensive sex education is needed now more than ever.

Join me and other snarky change agents on Sunday, October 19 at 3:30pm at Prosperity Social Club in Tremont to celebrate the benefits of comprehensive sex education and take action on the Ohio Prevention First Act.

The Ohio Prevention First Act focuses on the prevention of unintended pregnancies through comprehensive sex education for teens, including abstinence, and affordable, accessible birth control. The Ohio Prevention First Act will reduce unintended pregnancies through: Realistic sexuality education and teen pregnancy prevention programs, Funding for family planning programs, Guaranteed access to birth control prescriptions, contraceptive equity, and emergency contraception access and education.

In lieu of gifts for Bristol and Levi, I ask that donations be made to Planned Parenthood of Alaska in honor of Sarah Palin. Donors will be invited to sign a letter that will be sent to the Governor's office in Alaska, as well as the McCain-Palin HQ thanking Gov. Palin for her generous support of sex education programming. There's no minimum or maximum on donations and donations are not required to attend.

Can't make it? You can send donations to:
(address deleted for confidentiality -- email Starla and I will pass your contact info on to MarilynJean)

Bonnie, owner of Prosperity Social Club, is being generous and opening early just for us AND offering a special on her house Sangria. Prosperity has a full menu and seasonal drafts on tap. There will also be homemade Cupcakes for Choice and baby shower games and prizes!

NOTE ON ATTIRE: I know its autumn, but pastel-colored attire is strongly encouraged!
Can't make it or send a donation, the please share invite with your (cool) friends.

Love Sarah times infinity plus one?
Check out: The Palin Effect

REAL BABIES WELCOME!

Disclaimer: This fake baby shower is supported by many cool women and men, but not endorsed by any candidate, political party or organization. So if you gotta problem, come see me.