Flashes of Insight

The Politics of Spirituality

Some people think that these two concepts at best are unrelated and at worst are like Siamese twins in an unholy embrace that had best be separated before their collusion can do some serious damage.
I suggest that there is a very deep relationship between one’s spirituality which ideally upholds the Golden Rule, and how these rules manifest in the secular world.
I hear the term, “Good Christians” and I do know that they exist and make some fine efforts towards peace and helping the needy. That being said, when I saw Christian missionaries using the devastation in Haiti as an excuse to demand conversion for food and most recently in Uganda calling for the death and demise of gays, I think that Jesus himself would be inclined to come down and give these purveyors of hatred a solid thrashing. (read on…)

For Heaven’s Sake, Don’t Drink the Kozmic Kool Aid !
by Flash Silvermoon The Remix! please share

Interesting synchronicity today as I contemplate the needless tragic deaths in the “Sweatlodge” of last week. I have been furious ever since I heard the News commentator release the sad report about James Arthur Ray’s “Spiritual Warrior Retreat in Sedona, Ariz.
At $9,000 + a pop to sit at the feet of this Guru wannabe, we are seeing the Corporatization of Spirituality, Enlightenment to those who can afford it, God /Goddess sold to the highest bidder!
I had initially been pleased that “The Secret” had opened some people to positive thinking but as I saw it take on a Cultish twist where people started essentially blaming the downtrodden for not having a fat bank account and casting condescending glances as if they alone had the ANSWER.
Then I actually saw the film which begins with of all things, a man in a loin cloth, running away from persecutors because HE HAS THE SECRET! Talk about re-writing History and giving it a radical mastectomy to boot! Everyone should know that it was the Wise Women of old who had the secret and that it was no secret, no big deal just simply understanding that what one believes can indeed create and give shape to one’s reality. (read on…)

WOODSTOCK 40 YEARS LATER:
SEEDS FOR A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS

by Flash Silvermoon

It’s really hard to wrap my head around the fact that Woodstock happened 40 years ago on Aug 15 1969! They say that if you can remember the 60’s, which were really the late 60’s, then you weren’t there but I beg to differ.

It amazes me that my memories of those days and particularly Woodstock are as vivid as if they were yesterday. Considering the substances that flowed through my system that weekend, it is even more amazing.

There were two festivals occurring in my hood that month and I knew that I could only manage getting to one of them and thank the Goddess and all the Muses, that I decided that Woodstock was a better concert than the Atlantic City Fest which also looked pretty good.

During the summer of ‘69, I had gone cross-country to California and actually saw and met Grace Slick singing with the Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. She and Janis were my idols and I was still flying high from the experience by the time I returned to New Jersey and prepared for Woodstock. I mention this adventure in Kali-fornia because while waiting on line to get into that Airplane concert, a funny little man saw me at the front of the line and asked me to save him a seat near me and he would “give me some good dope.” I said yes and would have helped him without the offer. I figured that he would give me a joint but instead he gave me a little purple pill that I immediately tucked into my amethyst poison ring for just the right occasion. I was actually traveling with my parents so this was clearly NOT the right time. As I write this part of me is saying, “Are you crazy taking a pill from a stranger?” But you must understand, those were different days and amongst the circles of folks that I traveled, people still had honor and trust with such things. (read on…)

The Dream is Awakened

It is Nov 5, and we have an inspiring new president.
I FEEL SO WONDERFUL and I just keep tearing up. When I saw that park in Chicago so filled with love and light I remembered the last time I had viewed that space and it was during the Days of Rage from the Democratic Convention, so many years ago. That was a police riot where so many of us were maimed or killed. I wept for all the years that some of us have held this vision of freedom and justice. Images of being tear gassed and followed by the police flooded my thoughts..How many years we have worked to fulfill Martin’s Dream, how many years to honor the dead in Rosewood, the freedom riders Emmett Till Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman,SojournerTruth and Martin and Malcolm and Marley and Medgar and those that drowned during the Middle Passage and on and on. (read on…)

YES WE CAN
BY FLASH SILVERMOON C/GODDESS TUNES 2008
I
There’s a promise in the air you can feel it everywhere
You can feel it everywhere Yes We Can

II
There’s a time for a change a time to turn the page
A time to come of age Yes We Can
CHORUS
Yes we can yes we can you can feel it in the air yes we can
Bridge
Our Ancestors they watch us with such pride
You know they’re marching with us
You can feel them by your side.
III
We’re Dancin in the streets huggin everyone we meet
Huggin everyone we meet Yes We Can
IV
There’s a smile on my face it’s a brand new day
A brand new day Yes We Can
Chorus
Yes we can yes we can yes we can ohhhhhhh oh we can
a brand new day YES WE CAN

Raise the Vibe for the Tribe/We Won’t Be Fooled Again
Flash SilvermoonI moved from NYC in ‘75 to be here in Florida in the country near a larger community to prepare for these “Interesting times”, not that I am as prepared as I want to be.
It is so importnat not to fear and panic though the economy is certainly a scarey wild ride and folks are scrambling to find something solid to hold onto as a bunker against diminishing financial security.
I think the gathering of food is a really good investment
within reason and gathering  supplements and the kind of things that we need that will keep is good planning as well. Basically the more self, and community sufficient that we can be will surely help us throough uncertain times. (read on…)

WEATHERWORK
I am most grateful for all of the folks who jumped in and helped the people, animals and land that are in the path of this hurricane with their prayers, spells and good intentions..Sometimes Mama needs to clean house and there is nothing to do but get out of the way and sometimes there can be a gentling or shifting that can have an amazing impact. I do not have the audacity to think that I or we could command Mama but I will always try to ask for Divine intervention and as we all know positive thoughts working in the same direction and intention can be very powerful . This is something that Witches and Shamans of every nation and path have done since time immemorial (read on…)

PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS PASSING IT ON TO CAPRICORN
In trying to explore the last 12 years of Pluto in Sagittarius one cannot miss the fact that our government as well as others have become a theocracy, where one’s God or lack thereof becomes a major point of political power. Beliefs have become paramount with each side claiming to have the last word on what God wants.
Jupiter ruled Sagittarius is all about expanding beliefs and I believe that in spite of the bombastic over blown missives of the No-Fundamentalists of every stripe, we have also enjoyed more awareness and sharing of Cultural Diversity. (read on…)

Modeling New Ways of Being-The Annual Wise Woman’s Festival Preparing for the 5thYear April 4-6!
by Flash Silvermoon

These are very exciting times and it has never been more important for us to start living into a higher consciousness.
The Annual Wise Woman’s Festival is one of those experiences of living into a such a consciousness and space that grows year after year in empowerment,safety,and deep sharing by all.
Its hard to find words to describe the intensity and subtlety of the uplifting feelings we enjoy at the WWFest.It is always a heartwarming empowering experience of soul connection for many with their sisters, lovers and friends. (read on…)

Binding Rituals

One of the best and most effective spells that I know is a binding. When the Gainesville murders held this area in a state of panic and fear in 1990, and 5 of the most grisly murders all took place in a series of a week. I organized women into the streets with our drums and chants for the national media because I did not want the whole world watching, which they were, and for my town to be a place where women hide and do not call out their abusers.
I turned the rest of the Rally over to more above ground NOW type groups that like to deal with the media .and then gathered the witches I knew who were strong and fearless. We did a very simple ritual binding. on the banks of the lake nearest the University of Florida Campus (read on…)

ALTERNATIVE HEALING FOR ANIMALS IN THE SHADOW OF EARTH CHANGES
For years we have been talking about,fearing,waiting for, gathering info and doing ritual, and otherwise praying to avoid or at least be in the best position to weather Earth Changes. The truth is they are upon us, here and now.

Spiritually, I believe that we still do have some choices as to how physically this planet needs to experience these traumas.

Scientists say that this is indeed a time of cataclysmic changes for the earth and its weather patterns that are cyclical over thousands of years. That does not even take into consideration the governmental manipulation of weather using H.A.R.P. The Elders of the Hopi, Mayans and other Ancient Ones tell of such changes. However, they also say that by raising the vibration of love and oneness we can avoid some of the more horrifying symptoms of such changes.

Clearly when the smallness and genocidal proclivities of the current regime raised their ugly heads during the series of Katrina disasters in the Gulf Coast, the deep goodness of the common people of this country shone brightly like a beacon for the poor and displaced.
During those difficult days,I rode through my little town of Melrose,in north Central Florida and saw any number of groups raising $$ collecting food and clothing for the survivors of this Diaspora. Left and Right, Pagan and Christian, regular people were hearing the call from within and responding in inspiring and profound ways.

This is a time of great polarities. What is good, is better and more elevating and inspiring than any outpouring I have seen in my life?

(read on…)

How Far Out of the Broom Closet and into the Streets

Part of my “outness” is just me being me and if that helps another to be themselves more then part of my job is done whether as a witch,a lesbian,a feminist,,whatever closet you inhabit, I suggest that you feel around for ways to be more comfortable,more you whatever that is, , to test those boundaries and expand them and bust out as much as is comfortable and then in time push a little further.

My job is being a Priestess and that for me is my full time job which includes Divination, Astrology, Sacred Stones, Vibrational Healing,Animal Communication, teaching playing music and on and on so I am fortunate to love all that I do and not need to occupy a closet for any of these things.

Of course at times I have paid a price for my freedom and this was my choice to make.

(read on…)

A piece that was excerpted for a book published on Feminist activists of the early 70’s it is written and editted by Barbara Love who wrote Sappho Was a Right On Woman. Might Have been called Women Who Changed the World 1970-75

Their editted version of this article is infinitely more tame.

I entered the Women’s Movement in 1970 from the left, I was very involved with the Anti-war Movement for several years before as well as Civil Rights. I went to Woodstock in ‘69 and I was very much a child of the ’60’s. a child of Woodstock Nation.

However, my politics of peace and love got very radicalized after being teargassed in DC during some Moratorium marches and did major organizing for May Day ‘70. I also participated earlier in the Poor Peoples March when it came through my College.

In 1970, I ran for Miss Trenton State College in NJ as a feminist and blew the doors off the competition. All the papers interviewed me for weeks and the show actually brought together most of the radicals of the day from a tri state area. It was a riot and the Dean tried to arrest me for inciting one but I helped contain the experience to a political event and also made sure that interviewers and other protesters only put down the beauty pageant, not the women in them!

(read on…)

I would rather not reinvent the wheel by trying to prove whether or not the Matriarchy ever in fact existed. I feel that authors such as Marija Gimbutas with her groundbreaking archaeological finds, Jane Ellen Harrison, JJ Baccofen, Merlin Stone, Patricia Monaghan and a host of others have more than adequately proven that point.

In my own research for The Wise Woman’s Tarot, which is a serious work on the Tarot exploring the global nature of the Divine Feminine as well as the magic of Divination, I uncovered a multitude of resources showing that Matriarchy, like Patriarchy is and was a global phenomena.

(read on…)

N’AWLINS ON MY MINDBlues/ 
Date: 9/13/2005 8:49:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time

N’AWLINS ON MY MIND
    Flash Silvermoon c Goddesstunes 2005
[organ driven mournful blues sound]
I
The dead are walkin down the streets of N’Awlins
And I feel their footsteps break night’s silent scream     [2x]
No honkey tonk piano rings out on old Bourbon Street
And the wind howls ghostly through the trees
II
Seems like someone just forgot ’bout the people of N’awlins
When the water comes up there’s no place to go[2x]
I feel the Spirits gatherin out on old Congo Square
And Mamselle Marie Laveau she’s a standin there
[organ solo to afro rhythm drum break]
   Blood mix with mud through the Bayou flood 2x      
  Children in the streets  with not enough to eat
    Gris gris gumboyaya Gris gris gumboyaya [3x]
   Sacred Jambalaya
[these words continue in background under rap]
Children starving in the streets not enough to eat
Not enough to drink  Livin in dirt and stink
No roof over their heads  too many needlessly dead
What could be in their heads to bring the aid so slow
People got no where to go how could they not know
What millions of us knew, but these monied few
just had too much to do ——–oh wade in the water
wade in the water children  wade in the water someone’s in trouble in the waters 2x
           Don’t leave them all alone ]
           Damballah take them home] 2x
  Dancin’ with the Snake,,,Until the levee breaks
Damballah Damballah Damballah Damballah Aweido
                   [3x]
Don’t leave them all alone
Damballah take them  home (read on…)