Flashes of Insight

Around the early seventies it became apparent to me that my lesbian feminsim also needed a spiritual path that was congruent. I had been reading and studying about Witchcraft and for everything that I read this seeemd to fit my more anarchistic ways. Not a lot of rules there and they honor a Goddess hmmm sounded good to me and yet I was yet to have a real circle of women who believed as i did and I longed for that.
I remember that I first heard of Z when she was arrested in LA for reading Tarot Cards, or so they said. At the time I was also making my living on the East Coast reading Tarot Cards and starting women’s Kozmic Consciousness groups beacuse I didn’t think they would buy Coven’s just yet.

Sept 1975 NYC in the loft of artist Carol Clemments, I actually met Z and we shared Tarot readings on the floor over boxes.By this time,Z had become my Hera for standing up against the establishment to try to actually have Church status like the other religions and not have to pay taxes, she was very savvy and that was of course why they came down so hard and what led to her First US Tour to market The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows..hence my meeting her in NYC.

The last time Z told the story of our first meeting it was much more colorful and we could go with that version for pure flavor. This event occurred a few days later in Kay Gardner’s Upper West side Apt where a group of 30 or so very powerful NYC women had gathered for Fall Equinox to circle with Z and to have their Goddess Groove turned on,initiated,or enhanced. As Z said to us,”Once they smell a woman’s circle they never go back to the other way!” I was very hopeful that she was right.

Kay and my then lover Pandora and I used to jam til dawn on many a steamy NYC summer night and this was no exception. Z claims that the first time we met I was pounding the hell out of Kays piano,buck naked, hair flying everywhere.[see it was more colorful]
This was such an exciting moment for me, being in that circle,my first real witches circle and the women were all so ripe for this experience too.The group included the famous,the infamous, and the near famous as we sat skyclad on the floor waiting with baited breadth to hear the next incantation in Z’s charming Hungarian accent or the supporting words from Maiden and lover Helen Beardwoman who told us to enter the circle with perfect love and perfect trust. The magic was palpable as we took turns making thanks and wishes tossing sprinkles of wine on the floor as a libation.To this day, I still have the red cord that she wrapped around my waist in the name of Habondia. Kay Gardner became the Priestess of the newly formed Amelia Earhardt Coven #1 and Pandora and I were handfasted the next day by Kay at a huge going away party/wedding and moved to Florida to start the Elizabeth Gould Davis[the author of The First Sex] Coven #1 which I still Priestess to this day.
Shockingly to me, as I can be quite naive at times, the women of North Central Florida were not elated to hear of our wild and witchy ways and skyclad circles for Halloween on the lake. At that point, feminists and lesbians had rejected the damning father God, but were yet to pick up on Mama so we had quite a job on our hands.

I am nothing if not persistent and I knew that I had come South to teach and was told as much by a very wise old crone..Gainesville had heretofore been the pit-stop for every Guru under the sun and had a very spiritual vibe, they just had not met the Goddess yet and I was determined to bring Mama down south to meet the kind folks. Our circles were about 20 or so depending on time and purpose.

A milestone for me and for the Women’s Spirituality Movement was a gathering in Boston, April 23-25 1976 called Through The Looking Glass:a gynergenetic experience. My band Medusa Muzic was invited to perform by the Pomegranate Grove who produced this outrageous event.

I was absolutely elated. These were the women of my tribe, or at least the ones that I wanted in my tribe. Most of the women who were creating and writing about Women’s Spirituality were here speaking, priestessing,performing and teaching and I was one of them, creating Herstory.Never before had such a group been assembled. It was like the Woodstock of the Women’s Spirituality Movement. I was blessed to be at both of these events and both had a life altering effect on me.

Friday Night began in of all places, a huge church and one that I daresay will never be the same. As women of every size, color, and age began gathering, Kay Gardner,Pandora,Jerritree,Laurel Wise and myself began weaving wondrous webs of sound that transformed the church into a pagan wonderland. Kay and Pandora elevated the room with their flutes, Jerritree with her Marimba, and I alternated from drum to piano while Laurel kept a heartbeat on her hand made drum. The fact that we as a group had never so much as played a note together was immaterial.

The room was fast filling up and the air was becoming thick with pungent incense and marijuana. Speakers such as Z Budapest, Sallie Gearhart,Mary Daly,Mello Rye, Elsa Gidlow and several others inspired the group and you could feel a fever pitch growing as Morgan McFarland began Prietessing the group assisted by the Pomegranate Grove. I must say even now what took place then was a blur of women ripping off their shirts and clothes and more and more smoke and incense and I was drumming harder than I had ever in my life and women were making love to each other on the altar, dancing singing, chanting in wild abandon. Yep we were the witches your mama warned you about.

I didn’t believe that we could possibly get any higher than that…..until Saturday night. Kay Gardner began the evening with an enchantingly beautiful set of her songs from Mooncircles in a room only lit with candles. Her notes cradled and swept everyone into some mystical place of healing and magic. My band Medusa followed with our own brand of magical mystery tour but this was music to really move your body and your spirit. Our sound was more rock n blues,funk,world,jazz with lyrics that dove deep into the wild and witchy world of Goddesses and Amazons. I had just written a pre punk Goddess anthem for Z called “Hands Off Our Religion Motherfucker” to show support for her fight with the LAPD.

I was hoping to kick off our first set with that one but didn’t want Z to miss it. Sometimes witch time is perfect time and in she strolled with her lover Helen and they led a triple circle dance as we rocked the house chanting “Hands Off Our Religion Motherfucker, ya know you can’t keep a good witch down” and so it went, women dancing everywhere in circles,couples,triads as we performed Flaming Phoenix and Lunar Lullaby, at witch point Kay started jamming with us as we led into our final song Season of the Witch. These were such precious times and fertile times and times that I will remember for the rest of my days.
In 1980, Z visited, and we got a circle together to hex the “Gold toothed rapist” who had been attacking women outside a local Women’s Health Clinic. 13 days later, he was dragged off to jail!

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