A New Year's Kiss... or any kiss

A kiss to build a year on - if your brain's chemistry agrees
By Sheril Kirshenbaum
Thursday, December 23, 2010

Austerity: 2010's most searched for term

John Morse, president and publisher of the Springfield, Mass.-based dictionary, said "austerity" saw more than 250,000 searches on the dictionary's free online tool
Austerity, the 14th century noun defined as "the quality or state of being austere" and "enforced or extreme economy,"

Let's look at Webster's definition for austere:
aus·tere adj \ȯ-ˈstir also -ˈster\
Definition of AUSTERE
1a : stern and cold in appearance or manner b : somber, grave
2: morally strict : ascetic
3: markedly simple or unadorned
4: giving little or no scope for pleasure
5of a wine : having the flavor of acid or tannin predominant over fruit flavors usually indicating a capacity for aging
— aus·tere·ly adverb
— aus·tere·ness noun

Doesn't sound like much fun but is it such a bad thing?

Morally strict... who's morals? Pagan Morals? Would it be such a bad thing, if we were to have Pagan austerity? Where by we only used cloth shopping bags, paid more attention to shopping local whether that was local produced food or arts and crafts or services. If we worked to plant more trees to help with carbon capture? If we worked for bike paths and quality sidewalks that would encourage people to walk more than drive? If we did our best to live lightly on the earth and in the process we lived a simple life and enjoyed life's pleasures, love and each other and the glow of a fire or the warmth of a cup of tea or the way the moonlight can create a soft blue glow? Would that really be so bad?

Louisiana Christmas Traditions

BATON ROUGE, — Louisiana has three traditional Christmas celebrations, says State Archivist Florent Hardy.

In addition to Dec. 25, the date celebrated in Louisiana since 1718, there's St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 5 and the Trappers Christmas in late February.
In New Orleans, the original Christmas celebrations included attending midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

"At that time, Christmas was a very religious experience," said Hardy. "After Mass was la Reveillon, a big feast that featured a menu of wild game (duck, venison and turkey), daube glace (a jellied meat), eggs, oyster dressing, chuck roast, homemade raisin bread and cakes."

While everyone was at Mass, Papa Noel paid a visit and filled the stockings of the children with a trinket and some fruit and sweets.

"On Christmas day, you visited la creche — the manger scene. Gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day," Hardy told people at the YWCA Connections luncheon in Baton Rouge.

Not everyone gave presents on Christmas. Families of German descent living in
Robert's Cove in Acadia Parish celebrated St. Nicholas Day, gathering at homes to await Kris Kringle and his threatening sidekick, Black Peter, who was said to collect bad children in his sack.

The St. Nicholas Day celebration was suspended around World War II, but has been revived in recent years. These days, a choir accompanies St. Nicholas, Black Peter and Santa Claus to homes in the cove. All the children are given treats, the choir sings German Christmas carols, and sweets and beverages are served.

The Trappers' Christmas in Barataria was late because Christmas was a very busy time of year for the fur trappers, Hardy said.

Santa had a handful of names, depending on what part of Louisiana a person called home. To those of French heritage he was Papa Noel, to those of German heritage he was Kris Kringle or St. Nicholas and to the Cajuns the gift-giving figure was a woman called La Christianne.

"Along the River Road plantations, St. Nicholas arrived on a donkey and left goodies in the shoes of the children left out on the porch," added Hardy.
The familiar Santa who arrives via a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer was created by author Washington Irving in 1819. "He couldn't figure out a way for St. Nicholas to travel around the world in one night, so he came up with this idea of him flying through the trees," said Hardy.

Howard Jacobs created a Louisiana version in "Cajun Night Before Christmas."
"Now in Louisiana, we know Santa, Papa Noel as he's called, comes in a pirogue pulled by eight alligators," Hardy said.

Another tradition in the River Parishes is the Christmas Eve bonfires on the levee, lighting the way for Papa Noel.
"The tradition of the bonfires began with the Marist priests at Jefferson College in Convent," now called Manresa, Hardy said. "It was originally celebrated on New Year's Eve."

What started as simple bonfires in the 1800s grew into such huge creations that their height had to be limited to avoid damage to the levees. Multiple generations join with friends and thousands of complete strangers for a huge celebration.

Further north in Natchitoches, the Festival of Lights has been celebrated since 1927. Begun by the city's superintendent of utilities, today's celebration runs from Nov. 20 through Jan. 6 and draws more than 100,000 visitors. It features more than 300,000 Christmas lights.

Stocking Stuffers

For all those kids who have so much... consider these as stocking stuffers.

Fonkoze (fonkoze.org) is a terrific poverty-fighting organization if Haiti is on your mind, nearly a year after the earthquake. A $20 gift will send a rural Haitian child to elementary school for a year, while $50 will buy a family a pregnant goat. Or $100 supports a family for 13 weeks while it starts a business.

Another terrific Haiti-focused organization is Partners in Health, (pih.org), founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, the Harvard Medical School professor. A $100 donation pays for enough therapeutic food (a bit like peanut butter) to treat a severely malnourished child for one month. Or $50 provides seeds, agricultural implements and training for a family to grow more food for itself.

You can donate on line and print out the confirmation and tuck it in a stocking.

Full Moon in Eclipse Winter Solstice 2010 - New Orleans

Photo Composite by Matthew Hinton / The Times-Picayune
A total eclipse of the moon is seen in this composite of seven photos on the date of the winter solstice by the center spire of the St. Louis Cathedral beginning at just after midnight before becoming totally eclipsed around 2 am in New Orleans, Louisiana Tuesday December 21, 2010. On the first day of northern winter, the full moon passed almost dead-center through Earth's shadow. According to NASA the last total lunar eclipse that happened on the winter solstice was December 21, 1638. The next eclipse on a winter solstice will be December 21, 2094.

Solstice Cauldron

A Solstice Cauldron with Rose Offerings

Turned into Stained Glass

Written into fiction

Just a few days ago I put the finishing touches on a chapter that spoke about Nash Roberts and his amazing ability to explain the weather possibilities to regular folk, calm nerves and warn appropriately during hurricane season.

Times-Picayune Staff Video capture photo courtesy of WWL-TV--Nash Roberts, retired weather forecaster at WWL-TV
""
Meteorologist Nash Roberts with his grease pencil


Nash and his maps

Legendary TV weatherman Nash C. Roberts Jr., revered as much for his calm, level-headed presence as the accuracy of his hurricane path projections, has died at age 92, WWL-TV has reported. See Article in full below from Nola.com

For more than 50 years, Gulf Coast weather-watchers relied on Mr. Roberts to tell them where tropical storms would come ashore.

From before Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to beyond Hurricane Georges in 1998, Mr. Roberts was widely considered the region's most authoritative source for hurricane news.

And in the age of Super Doppler and satellite imagery, there remained for hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians a great sense of relief in seeing Mr. Roberts on screen with his throwback bulletin-board-style weather map and felt-tip pens.

"He was old school, but you know what? I miss that," said Bob Breck, chief meteorologist at Fox affiliate WVUE-Channel 8 and a feisty competitor for many years.

Breck said he admired Mr. Roberts' independent approach to forecasting big storms.

"I think Nash wasn't afraid to fail. He trusted his instincts and he just followed his gut. I think that's what people remember him for.

"He was just a man who was a giant of the industry."

Even after his retirement from WWL-TV's nightly newscasts in 1984, Mr. Roberts would reappear on Channel 4 whenever a serious storm entered the Gulf of Mexico.

Bruce Katz, chief meteorologist at WGNO-Channel 26, grew up in New Orleans watching Mr. Roberts' forecasts and hurricane calls.

"He was kind of the inspiration for me doing what I do," Katz said. "Growing up in New Orleans, Nash was the guy. Before the advent of cable TV and satellites, he was the guy everybody turned to.

"He was the legend."

What viewers saw from Mr. Roberts, Katz added, was information and a presentation style from an era that predated today's sophisticated technology.

"His big marker board, the magnetic highs and lows -- it was well before computer technology," Katz said. "You didn't have the data modeling. The science was evolving back then, and he made that interesting."

Mike Hoss, news anchor and interim news director at WWL, came to town in 1989 as a sports anchor well after Mr. Roberts' reputation and loyal following were established.

"Affinity toward him was so strong; it made you, as an outsider, immediately take notice," Hoss said. "And certainly from a technology standpoint, with the greaseboard and the marker, you immediately (and) ever after took notice.

"He spoke to all ages, genders, races, across the board."

In July 2001, Mr. Roberts announced his full retirement, setting aside his black markers to care for his ailing wife, Lydia.

"I actually prayed that I would outlive her, so that I could take care of her," Nash told WWL news anchor Angela Hill at the time. "That's how it's working out."

Mr. Roberts' career in meteorology began in 1946, when he started a private weathercasting service after teaching meteorology at Loyola University and serving as a navigator and meteorologist for the Navy during World War II.

For Texaco and other clients in the oil and gas industry, Mr. Roberts watched the weather over marshes, on the coast and in the Gulf.

In 1951, he began appearing on WDSU as the region's first regular TV weatherman.

Mr. Roberts told Hill in the 2001 interview that he was enticed into the job when he was told about a Chicago forecaster's $80,000 annual salary.

Commenting on Mr. Roberts' premiere, New Orleans Item columnist Ted Liuzza wrote, "He's so unassuming and un-actorish that when he hails you with a shy 'good evening,' you feel like calling back, 'hello.' "

Mr. Roberts cemented his reputation with local viewers by making bull's-eye landfall predictions for Hurricanes Audrey in 1957, Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969.

After 22 years with WDSU, Mr. Roberts moved to WVUE, where he stayed until joining WWL in 1978.

Breck had the daunting task of following Mr. Roberts at WVUE, and competing against him after that.

"I was brought to this town to replace Nash," Breck said. "I wanted to beat the old man."

But Breck said he was deeply moved by Mr. Roberts' final retirement in 2001 to care for Lydia.

"He left the love of broadcasting to care for the love of his life," Breck said. "If there's any kind of thing that people should remember about Nash was that he had character. People trusted him."

Mr. Roberts' accurate prediction that Hurricane Georges in 1998 would make landfall east of New Orleans, while all the computer models and other television stations were still insisting Georges would drift to the west, earned him national attention.

"As long as Roberts and his Magic Markers are exclusive to WWL," The Times-Picayune wrote after Georges, "Channel 4 will remain the only place to get an answer to the first hurricane-related question asked by anyone who's lived in New Orleans for any length of time: 'What's Nash say?' "

Mr. Roberts and his wife stayed in town for every hurricane -- he at the station, she at home in Metairie -- until Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Roberts told Times-Picayune TV columnist Dave Walker in 2006 that it was a joke on his block: During a hurricane threat, neighbors would wait for his wife's car to leave before they'd evacuate. Until Katrina, it never happened.

"I left my wife at home, and she rode out every one of them right here," Mr. Roberts said. "I wouldn't have let that happen if I thought it was dangerous. The story in the neighborhood was, 'I'm staying here unless I look out the window and Lydia's car is gone. If Nash tells Lydia to leave, we're all leaving.' "Katrina, which struck when Mr. Roberts was fully retired, was different.

"For the first time in 60 years, I evacuated," Mr. Roberts said in 2006. "I was pretty sure the thing was coming in here. What convinced me that I better get out was the fact that I knew it was going to be a wet system. It was huge in size, driving a lot of water ahead of it. With my wife, with the condition she's in, I said, 'We'd better get out of here.' ''

The couple evacuated from their Metairie home to Baton Rouge for two months. Their home sustained minimal damage.

"As soon as they would let me, I went to the gap in the 17th Street Canal and looked it over, and then I worked my way through Lakeview and lower New Orleans," Mr. Roberts told Walker. "It just was breathtaking, spooky. To go through neighborhoods and never see anybody, just a bunch of old beat-up cars and nobody living in any of the houses."

Despite occasional pangs of professional nostalgia, Mr. Roberts said he was glad he wasn't at WWL's studio tracking Katrina's path to town via squeaky pen and wipe-board.

"The truth of the whole matter is I'm glad I wasn't on for this," he said. "It would've been a very, very trying and tiring ordeal. My method of fooling with these storms is I lock onto 'em and just stay with 'em 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until they're gone, and that is extremely arduous.

"But I could've done very little for anybody with this storm except do what I did. I left (with Lydia) on Saturday."

Lydia Roberts died in 2007, according to WWL. The couple had been married more than 60 years.

Mr. Roberts figured prominently in a 2006 book from Kensington Publishing, "Roar of the Heavens: Surviving Hurricane Camille," by Stefan Bechtel.

"A wonderful man," Bechtel said. "Kind of courtly, gentlemanly. We spent quite a long time talking, and he started making me little maps with what is now a rather shaky hand, like a football coach calling the plays."

To WWL's Hoss, Mr. Roberts' longevity on local airwaves was as remarkable as his forecasting prowess.

"You don't get to do five decades if you aren't respected," Hoss said. "You don't get to do five decades unless you do it right.

"Quite frankly, he did it right."

Survivors include two sons, Kenneth and Nash Roberts III; three brothers; and four grandchildren, WWL said.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

••••••••

TV Columnist Dave Walker contributed to this article, which was prepared by staff writer Stephanie Stokes.

Apocalypse Soon?

Apocalypse Soon?
Volume 62 Number 6, November/December 2009 by Anthony Aveni
What the Maya calendar really tells us about 2012 and the end of time

On December 21, 2012, thousands of pilgrims, many in organized "sacred tour" groups, will flock to Chichén Itzá, Tikal, and a multitude of other celebrated sites of ancient America. There they will wait for a sign from the ancient Maya marking the end of the world as we know it. Will it be a blow-up or a bliss-out? Doom or delight? That depends on which of the New Age prophets--an eclectic collection of self-appointed seers and mystics, with names such as "Valum Votan, closer of the cycle" and the "Cosmic Shaman of Galactic Structure"--one chooses to believe. In 2012, the grand odometer of Maya timekeeping known as the Long Count, an accumulation of various smaller time cycles, will revert to zero and a new cycle of 1,872,000 days (5,125.37 years) will begin. As the long-awaited "Y12" date nears, tales of what will happen are proliferating on the Internet, in print, and in movies: Hollywood's big-budget, effects-laden disaster epic, "2012," opens this November under the tagline "We Were Warned."

Many of the predictions begin in outer space. It's known that there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and that in 2012 the sun will align with the plane of the Galaxy for the first time in 26,000 years. Then, according to the doomsayers, the black hole will throw our solar system out of kilter. Lawrence E. Joseph, author of a book called Apocalypse 2012, says that supergiant flares will erupt on the sun's surface, propelling an extraordinary plume of solar particles earthward at the next peak of solar activity. Earth's magnetic field will reverse, producing dire consequences such as violent hurricanes and the loss of all electronic communication systems. And recent natural disasters, from Hurricane Katrina to the Indian Ocean tsunami? They are all related to this alignment, and the ancient Maya knew all about it. That's the bad news.

But there's also good news coming from Y12 visionaries. Some say that rather than cataclysm, we're due for a sudden, cosmically timed awakening; we will all join an enlightened collective consciousness that will resolve the world's problems. The winter solstice sun is "slowly moving toward the heart of the Galaxy," writes spiritualist and former software engineer John Major Jenkins. On December 21 (or 23, depending on how you align calendars), when the sun passes the "Great Rift," a dark streak in the Milky Way that Jenkins says represents the Maya "Womb of Creation," the world will be transformed. Then we will "reconnect with our cosmic heart," he writes.

Unwittingly, the ancient Maya provided fodder for all this cosmic rigmarole. Monuments, such as Stela 25 at Izapa, a peripheral, pre-Classic (ca. 400 B.C.) site located on Mexico's Pacific Coast, map out the galactic alignment that would mark the end of the Long Count. Stela 25, for example, is thought to depict a creation scene in which a bird deity is perched atop a cosmic tree. Jenkins thinks the tree represents a unique north-south alignment of the Milky Way--a message from the Maya of what the sky will look like when creation begins anew.

These head-turning forecasts are open to serious criticism on both cultural and scientific grounds. There is little evidence that the Maya cared much about the Milky Way. When they do refer to it, they usually imagine it as a road. The association of the Milky Way with a tree, despite the popularity it has acquired since the publication of the 1997 book Maya Cosmos by noted Maya scholars David Freidel and Linda Schele, and writer Joy Parker, emerges strictly from the study of contemporary cultures descended from the Maya.

From an astronomical perspective, the 26,000-year cycle that causes the realignment of the sun with the plane of the Milky Way was first described by Greek astronomer Hipparchus in 128 B.C. He observed a slight difference between the solar year (the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun) and the stellar or sidereal year (the time it takes the sun to realign with the stars). As a result, year to year, the path of the sun and the spots where it rises and sets will change with respect to the backdrop of the stars. This phenomenon, called precession, is caused by the gradual shift of the earth's axis of rotation. In practice, it means that the position of the sun at equinoxes and solstices, which mark the seasons, slowly changes with respect to the constellations of the zodiac. Maya skywatchers possessed a zodiac, so they could have noted the difference between stellar years and solar years, but there is no convincing evidence that they charted the precession, or how they might have done it.

According to the Y12ers, based on their interpretation of monuments such as Stela 25, the Maya not only tracked the precession, but used it to predict what the sky would look like when the Long Count ends and a new cycle of creation begins. However, anyone who takes the trouble to look at the nighttime sky will discover that the Milky Way, a broad, luminous swath across the sky, looks surprisingly little like it is depicted in the desktop planetarium software often used to infer what ancient stargazers saw. For example, the galactic plane is very difficult to define even when the sun isn't in it, so solar-galactic alignment can't be pinned down visually to an accuracy any better than 300 years. Also, the "unique" north-south orientation of the Milky Way thought to be portrayed on Stela 25 actually occurs every year. And more important conceptually, there is no evidence that the Maya used sky maps as representational devices the way we do. Finally, there is no indication the Maya cared a whit about solar flares, sunspots, or magnetic fields. Pulling prophecy from monuments such as Stela 25 amounts to an exercise in cherry-picking data--often incomplete, vague, or inapplicable--to justify a nonsensical, pre-formed idea.

Most people familiar with the ancient Maya--even those who are not prophets of doom--know that they were obsessed with sophisticated timekeeping systems. And it is clear from their painted-bark books, or codices, that their astronomers had the capacity to predict celestial events, such as eclipses, accurately. So it is no surprise that mystically minded people feel free to attribute to the ancient Maya the power to see far into the future. But what does the cultural record actually tell us about the nature of Maya timekeeping and its relationship to their ideas about creation?

By the beginning of the Classic Period (ca. A.D. 200), Maya polities had mastered cultivation of the land, expanded their states, and begun to build great cities with exquisite monumental architecture. They were on the verge of establishing one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. A few hundred years earlier, Maya rulers had made a fundamental revision to their calendar that would connect the rise of Maya states with their own origin myths. They invented a mountain of a time cycle--the Long Count. A brilliant innovation, it transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself. The Long Count was established with their existing base-20 counting system, with the day as the basic unit (see above). It consists of 13 cycles--corresponding to the levels of Maya heaven, each occupied by objects and deities associated with celestial bodies--called baktuns that make up a creation period of 5,125.37 seasonal years. At the end of one creation cycle, the count rolls over to the next Day Zero.

Texts carved on stelae prominently displayed at many Maya sites often open with a Long Count date, a series of five numbers (12.8.0.1.13, for example, corresponds to July 4, 1776) similar to the dateline in a newspaper. These time markers were a form of political and religious propaganda. Maya rulers used them to link culturally important but cosmically mundane events in their personal histories--coronation dates, marriage alliances, military victories, and the turning of smaller time cycles (for instance, 9.15.0.0.0, the inscription on Copán's Stela B, marks the end of a katun, or 20-year cycle)--with the history of their ancestor-gods who created the world. Thus, a stela's Long Count gave the ruler the power to proclaim the extraordinary longevity of his bloodline in concrete terms.

The beginning of the Long Count, which marks the last creation episode, took place in the Maya's mythic past. Day Zero fell on August 11, 3114 B.C. That date was denoted as 13.0.0.0.0, which is the same date we will see 13 baktuns later, when the Long Count rolls over from 12.19.19.17.19 on December 21, 2012, the next Day Zero (give or take a day). August 11 falls close to one of the two dates each year when the sun passes directly overhead in southern Maya latitudes--an event known to have been important in the Maya world. December 21 or 22 is the winter solstice (or solar "standstill"), which marks the day the sun reaches its most southerly position in the sky. So it is conceivable that the past and future zero days or creation events were deliberately linked to important positions in the sun cycle.

Why does the Long Count begin in 3114 B.C., well before any identifiably Maya culture had been established by the archaic communities that lived there? If we follow the example of how zero dates were set in other calendars around the world, such as the Christian, Roman, and Sanskrit ones, the choice was likely either an arbitrary date linked to some more recent event in Maya history, or itself a culturally and historically significant moment (similar to the way that the putative year of the birth of Christ roughly marks the beginning of the Christian calendar). But there was nothing special about the position of the Milky Way or the zodiac on that date, nor was anything significant happening in the sky. The Maya may simply have selected some date from which to look back to decide where their own creation date would fall. One possible date for this jumping off point is 7.6.0.0.0 (236 B.C.), which falls right around the time of the earliest Long Count inscriptions. That date also marks the end of a katun and bears the same Maya month and day names as the date of creation. It is amusing that the Y12 prophets are certain the world will end for all of us based on a date that may or may not have had historical significance to the Maya a few thousand years ago, who were themselves looking to a date a few thousand years before that. The ancient Maya might tell us: "Hey, get your own zero point!"

Though the Maya believed that successive creations were cyclic, there is no clear evidence of what they thought would happen on our 13.0.0.0.0. The same holds true for what happened last time the odometer of creation turned over. But a menacing scene does appear on the last page of the Dresden Codex, a Maya bark-paper book from the 14th century A.D., depicting destruction by flood. A sky caiman vomits water, which gushes from "sun" and "moon" glyphs attached to the beast's segmented body. Still more water pours out of a vessel held by an old-woman deity, who is suspended in the middle of the frame. And at the bottom, a male deity wields arrows and a spear. Verses from early colonial texts back up the flood story of creation. Curiously, contemporary prophets of doom haven't seized on the flood myth as a mode of destruction, though moviemakers certainly have. Among the vivid special effects in 2012 are tsunamis engulfing the Himalayas and tossing an aircraft carrier into the White House!

Monumental Maya inscriptions are fairly silent regarding events of the previous creation. Stela C at Quiriguá in Guatemala follows its 13.0.0.0.0 inscription with hieroglyphic statements that refer to the descent of deities (related to Cauac Sky, the extant ruler, of course), who create the first hearth by setting up three support stones (represented in the sky by parts of the constellation Orion). Concerning our 13.0.0.0.0, Monument 6 at Tortuguero in the Mexican state of Tabasco tells of the descent of some transcendent entity to earth. But just when the story might get even more interesting, the glyphs have eroded away, leaving the door open for the prophets to continue to speculate.

Must we read real history (and the future) in the Maya narratives? Or can we see them as frameworks for the cultural transmission of traditional rites of renewal, which take place at the turn of all time cycles, such as the appearance and disappearance of Venus, or the 52-year calendar round that combines the seasonal year with the Maya 260-day sacred calendar? Every year we participate in such rituals on New Year's Eve. We take account of ourselves by celebrating the end of our seasonal cycle--often with wretched excess--as the stroke of midnight approaches. Then we perform our acts of penance (New Year's resolutions) to purify ourselves as we contemplate a brighter future. A vast majority of those familiar with the Maya culture view their cycle-ending prophecies as lessons on how to restore balance to the world by promoting reciprocity with the gods, such as offering them debt payments in exchange for fertile crops. No wonder we are inspired by the Maya--they get to participate in their cosmology! But in that sense, the Y12ers are not so different from the ancient Maya in their desire to reconnect with the past and place their own existence in a broader context. Where the Maya tied themselves to their ancestor-gods by carving Long Count dates on their stelae, the Y12 prophets use Maya myth and math to invoke some sort of universal beneficent spirit or transcendent evil overmind.

There is also something about the Y12 hysteria that is particular to the English-speaking world--especially the United States. The idea that the world will end in cataclysm was firmly planted in Puritan New England. Evangelical and apocalyptic forms of worship were prominent in the colonies as early as the 1640s, when confessors openly proclaimed themselves ready for God to descend from the sky and pluck them up for judgment. Two centuries later, hundreds of Millerites (who would become the Seventh-day Adventists) anxiously awaited the "Blessed Hope," based on their leader William Miller's biblical calculations pinpointing the return of Christ on October 22, 1844. People climbed to their roofs to wait--and wait--for the Second Coming.

Today, American anticipation of a celestially signaled end of time has gone mainstream secular. Many of us remember Comet Kohoutek, the iceball sent to destroy the world in 1973, or the millennial cosmic reclamation project that attended Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997--an "alien mothership" that brought the suicides of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult in California. The celebrated cosmic convergence of Aztec calendar cycles in 1987 is another example of the American desire to get beamed with revelations from beyond.

It is no coincidence that the Maya entered the modern mythos of creation and destruction in the early 1970s, around the time scholars began to make significant breakthroughs in deciphering Maya hieroglyphics. Repeating a trend started a century earlier with the mystical writing of Augustus Le Plongeon ('The Lure of Moo,' January/February 2007), pop-fringe literature such as Peter Tompkins's Secrets of the Mexican Pyramids, Frank Waters's Mexico Mystique, and Luis Arochi's The Pyramid of Kukulcan heralded secret knowledge of the future emerging from the Maya code. It was also about this time that promoting the idea of "shared beginnings," acquired by being at the right place at the right time, began to enter the tourism industry. Tourists, many with New Age spiritual leanings, flock to Chichén Itzá on the spring equinox, for example, to see a serpent effigy emerge in the shadows of El Castillo. Sacred tourism is already beginning to cash in on the 2012 myth. Star parties are planned for Copán and Tikal on the eve of the temporal turnover. And industrious entrepreneurs are already beginning to prepare 2012 survival kits, a Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012, and T-shirts bearing slogans such as "Doomsday 2012" and "Shift Happens." Not to mention the movie. This is just the beginning.

We live in a techno-immersed, materially oriented society that seems somewhat bewildered by where rational, empirical science might be taking us. This may be why the mystical, escapist explanations of a galactic endpoint, replete with precise mathematical, historical, and cosmic underpinnings (masquerading as science), have such wide appeal. In an age of anxiety we reach for the wisdom of ancestors--even other peoples' ancestors--that might have been lost in the drifting sands of time. Perhaps the only way we can take back control of our disordered world is to rediscover their lost knowledge and make use of it. And so we romanticize the ancient Maya.

But the glorious achievements of the Maya and other complex cultures of the ancient world are appealing enough on their own. We don't need to dress them up in Western or apocalyptic clothing. And the responsibility for educating the public about what we really know about the Maya and other extraordinary cultures--such as the ability of the Maya to follow the position of Venus to an accuracy of one day in 500 years with the naked eye--should fall squarely on the shoulders of those of us who spend our lives studying them. The Y12 hysteria could leave us asking whether we are doing our jobs, or whether the desire for cosmic connection and continuity is too strong for science and rationality to overcome.

Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University and author of the new book, The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012.

Snow covered StreetCar New Orleans

The photo above is from December 11, 2008. It's not mine. I grabbed off of a local site in 2008. I've enjoyed it as part of my screen saver display and decided that it would be a nice gift to share it with others.

The photo below is from a British site. It shows just how much snow fell. The snow didn't last long but it was fun while it did.


Now for a bit of New Orleans trivia:

The last time it had snowed in New Orleans was 2004, and we had Katrina the summer after. There was snow the winter before Besty in 1965. There are other snows before hurricanes. So many people were convinced that we were in for another big one in 2009. But what happened instead was, given hell had frozen over, the Saints won the Superbowl.

The city has only experienced measurable amounts of snow 17 times since 1850.

And for all those.... people... who think that this is proof that there is no "global warming"... remember global warming means the average tempurature of the whole globe is going up. What it means locally is climate change, not warmer every where.

Meditation - be still and listen

This is a stresful time for many. Instead of slowing down and aligning with the seasons we speed up. I suggest that we all take some time and read the article below.


Meditation isn't just about relaxing

Loose the dark... loose the magic... loose the connection to the wider universe

International Dark-Sky Association works to encourage changes in our lifestyles that allow for dark starry nights. Below are just a few offerings from their latest newsletter.

A Stolen Sky

Avoiding Depression: Sleeping in Dark Room May Help

The fat cat cometh

Light at Night and Breast Cancer Risk Worldwide

New Orleans Fringe Festival

When does the edge move to the center? This looks like the year for the New Orleans Fringe Festival as it unveils more than 150 shows from 60 performing groups during its run from Nov. 17 to 21.

The 2010 New Orleans Fringe Festival runs from Nov. 17 to 21 with performances scheduled throughout the city.
One measure of the festival's growing importance is that international artists are traveling here for the first time, including some from as far away as Chile, Switzerland, Italy, Northern Ireland and Norway. The foreign contingent joins artists from across the United States for five days of drama, comedy, musical theater, cabaret, multimedia, dance, circus, sideshow and puppetry. The Fringe even sponsors a parade on St. Claude Avenue, which mixes festival performers and neighborhood folks. The Good Children Fringe Parade starts at St. Claude and Poland Avenues on Nov. 20 at 2 p.m.

Although most of the festival centers on a half-dozen locations in the downtown neighborhoods of Bywater and Marigny, the venues also include such -- dare we say "establishment" -- theaters as Le Chat Noir cabaret and Southern Rep. Other venues are as alternative as the performers. This year, for example, shows will be staged in the Den of Muses, an industrial building in Marigny that house floats for the Krewe du Vieux.

Another first for the festival will be a weekend of free daytime children's activities, such as improv workshops, double-dutch contests and art-making activities. They will take place in the Free-For-All tent -- in Plessy Park at Royal and Press streets, beside the festival's central box office. It's a good place to put up your feet, sip a beer, grab a snack or shop the Fringe Market for crafts.

For tickets and details about all the shows, visit nofringe.org.

Southern Rep is currently featuring "Afterlife: A Ghost Story" by Steve Yockey. It's the world premiere of a piece that will go on to theaters in Boston and Los Angeles with support from the National New Play Network. Set in a beach house with a storm approaching, this hair-raiser follows a grieving couple through a plot full of sudden twists and surprises. Southern Rep artistic director Aimee Hayes staged "Afterlife, " with an all-star local cast: Lucy Faust, Michael Aaron Santos, John Neisler, Troi Bechet, Lisa Picone and Andrew Farrier. It runs through Nov. 7. Call 504.522.6545 or go to SouthernRep.com.

Cripple Creek Theatre Company does its part to promote new plays by presenting a trilogy of one-acts in November. Written by the troupe's artistic director, Andrew Vaught, "A Crude Trilogy" is directed by Emilie Whelan. She recently staged a sell-out production of "The Madwoman of Chaillot" for this spunky downtown company. "Crude" opens on Nov. 5 and runs on weekends through Nov. 13. Call 504.891.6815 or go to cripplecreekplayers.org.

Anthony Bean Community Theater continues its run of "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" by Lonnie Elder III. Set in a rundown Harlem barbershop, this 1969 stage classic centers on the struggles of an aging patriarch and his fractured family. For the New Orleans production, which closes on Oct. 31, Anthony Bean directs a cast of seven, including such notable actors as Harold X. Evans and Damany S. Cormier. Call, 504.862.7529 or go to anthonybeantheater.com.

Saints fans have a chance to celebrate at the theater this month with two notable local shows. "Ain't Dat Super" debuted at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts over the Labor Day weekend. It will return to the big hall in Armstrong Park on Nov. 13. Set in a New Orleans bar, the show features beloved local actors -- Becky Allen and John "Spud" McConnell -- in a comedy loaded with Saints trivia. There is even a chance to "tailgate" before the curtain rises. Call 888.946.4839 or go to aintdatsuper.com.

There's also time to catch the final show of "Bless Ya Boys: Who Dat Nation" at Le Chat Noir cabaret on Thursday. It's the fourth year for this popular seasonal review which looks back, with a smile, at 40 years of Saints history. Other shows at the Le Chat include a pair of comedies "Good Night and the Island of Dr. Fitzmorris!" Friday and Saturday and "Love Child" (opens with a benefit show on Nov. 4 and continues on weekends through Nov. 21). Call 504.581.5812 or go to cabaretlechatnoir.com.

Le Petit Theatre also focuses on laughs with "Forbidden Broadway, " which runs at the French Quarter venue Nov. 5 through 19. The comedy spoofs familiar stage actors and Broadway shows. It has evolved in the decades since winning a 1981 Tony Award in New York. It now includes send ups of "Hairspray" and other more recent work. Call 504.522.2081 or go to lepetittheatre.org.

Shadowfest Cemetary Visit

Today I took my daughter to the cemetary with me...
She was late for school...
Excuse? Religious Holiday.
All Saints Day and visiting the cemetaries is (well was) a big deal here.
I told her stories of the ancestors.

Now that's Scary!!!!!

Take a close look... especially all you folks who live where it is cool....
There is mold... black mold in the eyes and white fuzzy mold in the mouth.
The pumpkin was carved only 2 days ago and was inside the whole time...
I took its picture and then tossed over the side into the trash can.

Charge of Aradia

Whenever you have need of anything, once in the month when the Moon is full, then shall you come together at some deserted place, or where there are woods, and give worship to She who is Queen of all Witches. Come all together inside a circle, and secrets that are yet unknown shall be revealed. 

And your mind must be free and also your spirit, and as a sign that you are truly free, you shall be naked in your rites. And you shall rejoice, and sing; making music and love. For this is the essence of spirit, and the knowledge of joy. 

Be true to your own beliefs, and keep to the Ways, beyond all obstacles. For ours is the key to the mysteries and the cycle of rebirth, which opens the way to the Womb of Enlightenment. 

I am the spirit of witches all, and this is joy and peace and harmony. In life does the Queen of all witches reveal the knowledge of Spirit. And from death does the Queen deliver you to peace and renewal. 

When I shall have departed from this world, in memory of me make cakes of grain, wine and honey. These shall you shape like the Moon, and then partake of wine and cakes, all in my memory. For I have been sent to you by the Spirits of Old, and I have come that you might be delivered from all slavery. I am the daughter of the Sun and Moon, and even though I have been born into this world, my Race is of the Stars. 

Give offerings all to She who is our Mother. For She is the beauty of the Greenwood, and the light of the Moon among the Stars, and the mystery which gives life, and always calls us to come together in Her name. Let Her worship be the ways within your heart, for all acts of love and pleasure gain favour with the Goddess.

But to all who seek Her, know that your seeking and desire will reward you not, until you realize the secret. Because if that which you seek is not found within your inner self, you will never find it from without. For she has been with you since you entered into the ways, and she is that which awaits at your journey's end.

Festivals

New Orleans is a strange and wonderful place.

There are 2 "modern" (less than 100 years old) festivals unique to New Orleans that mark our seasons:

Jazzfest - which takes place the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. This festival is full of music and dancing and food and arts. It's guaranteed to fall over the May Day period. This festival typically takes place right after our "cold" season ends and before our HOT season begins. It brings people of all ages and interests together.

Voodoo Fest - which is ending today. Is a newer offering, only 10 years old this year. But it survived the apocalypse surrounding Hurricane Katrina and is now firmly embedded in New Orleans existence.
How do I know. Voodoo Fest now has a Kid's Stage. Once a festival appeals to all ages it somehow manages to lock itself into the essence of the city.

It is strange and wonderful and some how natural that both these festivals are aligned with the 2 pagan festivals that mark the time when the veil is supposed to be thin: May 1st & Holloween.

Elemental Solstice Prayer Alignment

“O spirits of the Elemental forces, hear me. And receive our blessings. O spirits of the earth. O powers that be, hear me and receive our blessings. Assist us on this sacred night to maintain the natural balance which keeps vital the essence of the earth. Let there always be clear flowing water, freshness in the air, fertility within the soil and abundant life within the world.”

These words are taken from Italian Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi. They are part of the Summer Solstice Ritual. But I think that they can and should be used more regularly to align our lives and our workings with Nature.

The Moon moves the current and the current moves the shrimp

The quote below is Excerpted from Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell.

A fascinating and prescient title. But don't take my word for it. Here is a 2005 interview with Mother Jones.
Or this review by PeaceCorps writer William Siegel.

"In mid-autumn in the Gulf of Mexico, when the first serious cold fronts drift down from the nation's midsection and push haltingly across Louisiana's subtropical cost, the temperature of the ocean water begins to drop considerably. Miles offshore inside the minuscule brain of Louisiana's female brown shrimp - aka Farfane penaeus aztecus - this sudden Gulf cooling acts as an ancient trigger.

The female shrimp has already mated. She did so months earlier, back in the marsh, just after molting, when she was still sexually immature. She had carried the male sperm in a sac in her head all this time, and now, in the cooling weather of the open ocean, at a depth of at least thirty feet, she begins to spawn. From ovaries barely the size of peas, inside a body maybe six inches long, a half a million eggs somehow emerge. The eggs enter the cool water and the drift, subsumed in the vast ocean environment, sprayed only with a protective coat of jelly as a parting maternal act, then left totally on their own.

By November the water off Louisiana's coast is a veritable soup of trillions and trillions of microscopic shrimp larvae squirming with new life. So many are there that is all the larvae of just three successive generations of Farfante penaeus aztecus were to survive to adulthood and reproduce, the resulting shrimp would be equal to the volume of the sun in less than two years. A few more and every inch of the universe would be filled with shrimp, the mass of crustaceans expanding outward at the speed of light.

But of course most larvae don't grow to be adults. They'll be devoured by a fantastic array of predators, or they'll lose their way during the long migration as epic and perilous as that of the Pacific salmon and the common eel.

Afloat in the Gulf current, the spherical shrimp eggs hatch into first-phase larvae less than a millimeter in size, having not the look of shrimp but of grotesque monsters worthy of battle with Odysseus. They have only one eye, their bodies opaque and pear shaped, with triangular spines and whiplike appendages for swimming. A series of successive molts give the larvae the even stranger look of multi-limbed space aliens, with dozens of barbed digits protruding from bifurcating arms, a video-game villain from a galaxy far, far away.

But after two or three weeks, these odd changes stop and the final product emerges at last: tiny shrimp just half and inch long, but with the familiar stalked eyes and armoured tail and protruding antennae longer than the body itself. Now in order to survive, these newly morphed creatures must somehow get themselves out of the big ocean and into the estuarine coastal marshes, a long way to the north.

For help, the infant crustaceans, roughly the length and width of grains of rice, turn to a spherical body 92 million miles away in outer space, a G2 dwarf star otherwise known as our sun. Twice a month this fiery body of hydrogen gas nearly a million miles in diameter joins forces with the earth's moon, a mere 238,000 miles away, to create a combined gravitational and centrifugal force of enormous power. This force generates ocean tides on earth -- so-called spring tides -- which are much greater than the tides occurring daily throughout the rest of the month. Every two weeks, when the moon shows itself to the earth either as a barely visible new moon or as a blazing full moon, the phenomenon is at work: the moon and the sun have fallen into a straight line relative to the earth, reinforcing each other's gravitational tug, pulling the earth's oceans into two bulging masses of liquid on opposite sides of the globe. These fantastic waves, these great heaping ridges of water, are brought into collision with the earth's landmasses twice a day as the planet rotates. This, in the simplest terms, is how tides happen, and spring tides are the bimonthly champions. So strong is the combined pull of the sun and moon during this period that even the earth's atmosphere bends outward and parts of the continents bulge slightly.

For the trillions of minute shrimp struggling down there in the earth's Gulf of Mexico, this celestial force is plenty strong enough to bear them landward in a high incoming tide that squeezes between Louisiana's barrier islands and sweeps the shrimp up into the food-rich interior marshes. By March thanks to the spring tides, all the autumn-spawned brown shrimp lucky enough to have survived the marathon journey -- perhaps one in a hundred - are now inside the estuary nursery grounds where they begin to feed ravenously.

Brown shrimp, as they grow up, a famously indiscriminate eaters. They are what biologists call "encounter feeders" and "opportunistic omnivores", meaning they'll eat pretty much whatever organic decaying matter they stumble into: decaying plants, animals, algae, fecal pellets, amphipods. Sometimes each other.

This ability to ingest a wide range of food accounts for their rapid growth rate, especially beginning in April with the temperature starts to rise toward 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the coastal marshes and the shrimp grow as much as an inch per week. If both temperature and water salinity remain favorable, the fast growth rate continues and combines with the initial fecundity of the spawning females to produce skyrocketing results. In collective size and numbers, the shrimp, in the spring, reach massive proportions.. It's a shrimp explosion."

Italian Definitions

From Myth on Italian Streghria

Fiabia
A story of a fabulous nature, such as wondertales, fables, or fairytales. These stories often contain supernatual or magical beings, such as dragons, fatas, stregas, giants, griffins, talking animals, etc, as well as mortal heros and heroines. See storia folcloristica.

Famiglia
Famiglia Iiterally means "family" in Italian. It carries the concept of a tight bond among those who are related, not only by blood or marriage, but also by commitments of friendship.

Fantasma
A fantasma is the Italian word for "ghost" or "apparition." It orginated from the Latin word, phantasma, meaning "vision" or "image."

Fata Buona
Literally, in Italian, a fata buona is a "good faery," who may randomly decide to assist someone. Fata buonas are common in Italian fiabias or folktales. The fata buona often appears as an older woman. Such a figure of folklore is sometimes called a fata buona della fiabe. See fiabia.

Gnocca or Bella Gnocca
beatifull girl, sexy girl (Gnocchi is a food.)

Gnomi
The gnomi are little people.

Lampadine
Lampadine are supposidly surernatual lights seen dancing or fittling over the fields at night. The lampadine may be related to the idea of the lampedes, who were Greek cthonic nymphs. The lampades serve in the entorage of the Goddess Hecate. These infernal nymphs are her lamp-bearers.

In English, these lights are known as "faery lights," "friar's lantern," "spook lights," "will o' the wisp," or a dozen other names indicating their otherworldly nature.

Mago Alchemist
A mago alchemist is a magician who practices alchemy (alchimia), the mysterious occult art or science that was the forerunner of modern chemistry. Alchemy focuses on the concept of the transmutation of matter.

Paese
Literally paese means "village" in Italian. In particular, it has been used by Italian-Americans to refer to the concept of the "home village" to which an indivdual has ties.

Paese Incantato
A paese incantato is an enchanted place, supernatual landscape, or faeryland, which is often an enchantingly beautiful place.

Paese della Fate
A paese della fate is a realm inhabited by faeries.

Spettro
Spettro is Italian for "specter," a visible, but incorporial spirit that is often the soul of a dead person.

Spiritetello
A spiritetello is literally a "little male spirit." He is a mischevious spirit with a faery-perverse nature.

Spiritetello Malevolo
An evil male spirit of faerie is a spiritetello malevolo, like the English "Red Cap" that dips his cap in the blood of murdered victims to keep it red.

Storia Folcloristica
The storia folcloristica is an Italian term for a tradtional story orginally spread orally in numerious versions among a people, generally the common folk, i.e. a folktale. The term literally means in Italian "folkloristic stories."

Stregone Divinatorio
A stregone divinatorio is a socerer who specializes in practicing the art of divination.

Brad Pitt - Katrina 5th Anniversary

Brad Pitt Talks about New Orleans on the 5th Anniversary since Hurricane Katrina

Your environment influences you subtly (and sometimes not so subtly).

The Land matters. Where you live, How you live, The culture with which you surround yourself, Matters.

Your environment influences you subtly. This is one of the reasons I love living in New Orleans. It is a wonderful mix of Old World and New World. We have strong European influences. These influences tend to be from the French, Spanish, German, Italian primarily Sicilian cultures. We have strong African influences a result of the period of slavery. We have, in American, unique mixtures of European and African influences in the legacy of the French Code Noir. We have American Indian influences mingling with African influences. We have the Cajuns who came to Louisiana in the 1700s.

This place and its unique melange of history makes for an open and interesting life. It has an interesting way of existing "between the worlds", slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. This protects us. So some would say it isolates us and insulates us and makes us backwards. But in many ways we are so far behind we are head. We still have a walkable city with unique neighborhoods. We support local businesses and miss them when they are gone. We don't mind being silly. Or being perceived as unusual. We dance in the face of death. Our jazz funerals are a unique combination of a Irish funeral dirge and African dance. Where else could this have happened?

Can you imagine another city on the planet that, in 2005, could have been completely emptied of every citizen by hurricane followed by an engineering disaster that would have had so many people WANT to return? It's amazing. Some would say foolhardy, others magical.

Where ever you live take the time to know your landscape. Sure this means climate, geography, etc. But it should also include history of the place. Nature (climate, location, geography) influences "Place" but so do the imprints left by history. Get to know these as well. Knowing yourself is part of what it takes to make a witch. So is knowing the place where you live.

Requiem

By Mark Folse

Please watch the video and remember.
If you think it can't happen where you are... think again.

Women's Work & Post Katrina New Orleans

The Post-Katrina, Semiseparate World of Gender Politics
Pamela Tyler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the New York Times reported "a wave of citizen activism" in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, it failed to mention that much of the wave was wearing lipstick and carrying a purse. Mopping up is, and always has been, women's work, so it comes as no surprise that large numbers of local women were active in post-Katrina recovery efforts in New Orleans. While some worked singly, volunteering their help in countless ways, others chose the timeworn path of women's associations. This essay focuses on the activities of three organizations formed by women after the hurricane: Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, the Katrina Krewe, and Women of the Storm.

In the weeks after Katrina, educated, economically comfortable women in New Orleans passed through historically familiar stages that led from a growing awareness of unmet needs, to frustration over official ineptitude, to the formation of women's organizations, which flowered into full-blown women's activism. Indignation over the failure of government galvanized New Orleans women as it had women reformers of the Progressive Era, with whom they have much in common. As women have done for decades, they responded by joining with like-minded women and pursuing a course of activism to bring change.

The experiences of these New Orleans women activists reprise themes of Progressive Era women who battled along a broad front of issues, including the prevention of cruelty to animals, the care of the mentally disabled, consent laws for marriage, and better teacher salaries. These activist women in post-Katrina New Orleans exemplify the silk-stocking tradition of reformism, which has a long history in the Crescent City. In the 1890s, the Women's League for Sewerage and Drainage, led by the sisters Jean and Kate Gordon, of later woman suffrage fame, advocated a modern sewerage and drainage system to curb the periodic epidemics and flooding caused by primitive waste disposal methods and entirely inadequate drainage, which the city had done nothing to improve. Their energetic work resulted in the passage of a property tax increase; the New Orleans press claimed that their small women's pressure group "probably did as much work for the special tax as all the men in this city put together." After 1920, enfranchised New Orleans women frequently participated in electoral campaigns under the banner of "good government" to oust individuals they labeled "corrupt." Their unpaid work of lobbying, canvassing, monitoring, and publicizing often bore fruit. Women pressed state and local governments to adopt measures to protect women and children in factories, to close saloons on election day, and to pay male and female school teachers equally. Elite women reformers became darlings of the local media, as press coverage typically lauded their efforts and praised their motives.

New Orleans women reformers of those earlier eras made use of the southern lady mystique and the magic cloak of privilege as they worked toward their goals. Woven of manner, speech, and social connections, enhanced by the wardrobe and confidence that money can buy, that cloak guaranteed them entrée and helped shield them from criticism. In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans women of the economic elite, equipped with similar advantages, again donned that cloak and stepped forward to work for reforms that they found compelling. * * *

All true, but also so did many less well connected and less well off women join in the fray. One was my friend Karen Gadbois who created Squandered Heritage and who's capacity to see the Web of Life lead to a Peabody, who now writes for The Lens and who still inspires me.

* * * There are about 4475 more words in this article. But there is a fee to read them.

A 911 Investigation .... an 829 investigation

Levees.Org has been recommending that there be an investigation into the largest engineering failure ever to occur in America.

Click here for more detail...

What is is about New Orleans

Levees.org supporters know that a letter from Levees.org nearly always contains an action item or some pressing to do right away.

But as we approach the 5th Anniversary of the Worst Civil Engineering Disaster in U.S. History, we will make a couple of exceptions and reach out perhaps only to share....

This past June, I met Dr. Steve Gorelick at a 3-day conference in New Orleans hosted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. On his own, he wrote me recently about his reaction (and his family's) to the City and its people. I found his letter fascinating, and with his permission, I have reprinted it here.

My wife Amy, 12 year-old daughter Molly and I have not been able to stop talking about NOLA. I mean, I know NOLA is hip and mysterious and legendary and what-not. But setting aside all those popular, oft-repeated perceptions, I think it's safe to say that -- completely unexpectedly -- we hooked into a much deeper narrative, one I don't think we even fully understand two months later.

Maybe it was the unexpected lack of repression or puritanical nonsense. Maybe the lack of shame. Or maybe it was the disarming, fearless expression of emotion as people described their homes, their parents, their lost photos, their recipes. I just know that it seemed like a level of personal investment by people in their own, special place that I have never seen anywhere in the world.

And I don't think that many Americans - especially policy makers and politicians -- get what looked pretty obvious to me: All the anger people still feel, all the activism like Levees.org fueled by that anger, and all the mournfulness about the shameful way Katrina refugees and other residents were and are still treated, looked to a first-time outsider as so raw, so intimate, that I started to see it as a marriage. Strange, huh? A marriage?

What I mean is that so many people talked about their connection to their place almost as if they were in long-term, committed, passionate, occasionally rageful, yet lovingly turbulent relationships. I just don't remember ever seeing or hearing that anywhere else. Ever.

At one point, a week after I got back, I actually found myself laughing as I thought: "God help anyone in public life who imagines that the people in NOLA fighting to rebuild and fighting to investigate the history of negligence might actually settle for half a solution or half an investigation! Settle? Please! The people I met seemed as likely to settle for a cold beignet as for a half-baked investigation that reveals anything less than the whole truth of what happened.

It's funny: I have been to conflict zones and countries where people would, in a split second -- kill if they felt their place threatened. Yet I had the feeling New Orleans people have an even stronger tie. And it's not that they would kill. It was even stronger than that. It was an almost mystical refusal to die.

And I need to feel it again. There. Soon.

Protective Charm for your Vehicle

Place the following in a white cloth:
- salt,
- a sprig of rue,
- a tiny gold horn (or cornu)
- if you can't afford or find a cornu consider using a dried chili pepper
- and a small pair of scissors or a small knife.
Tie the ends shut with red ribbon.

Place the charm on the Chariot Tarot Card and charge on a Full Moon.
You must infuse the charm with your will. You should spend sometime thinking about what it means to be in control of your vehicle. Is it well maintained and fully functional? Is it insured? Do you know how to handle in different circumstances. Think about being a successful and safe driver. Envision yourself capable of handling your car safely as you drive.

After the charm is charged under the moonlight and with your intent place it in the glove compartment.

To enhance your own safety and that of your passengers in the vehicle, dab some protective rue oil (charged under the moon for at least 3 days) on the seat belts locks, and then wear them.

If you are concerned about your vehicle being stolen, use rue oil to mark pentcles or the symbol of power inside the door frames and trunk of your vehicle.

Magical Yeast

A few weeks ago I got this really great book by Judika Illes titled Encyclopeadia of 5000 spells. It is a great reference book and a fun read. This made me think about the reference books I typically use when ever spell crafting. One of my all time favorites is Tarot Spells by Janina Renee. This book literally changed the way I do spell work. I find that tarot cards are a great way to draw in universal energies and archtypes and help focus the mind for visualization. Also I don't think I've worked a spell in the past 10 years when I didn't reference Scott Cunningham's Encyclopeadia of Magical Herbs..

All that said, I never do spells straight out of someone elses book even when the book is fun and well researched. It is my experience that magical use items (things like oils, candles, color symbolism, incense, tarot cards, herbs, flowers, etc.) are like magical yeast. You use yeast to make bread rise and to create a transformation. Each recipe is unique and your bread won't be *exactly* like anyone else's. How you use the magical yeast depends on what you are trying to make and the conditions surrounding the issue. As any baker can tell you, the environmental conditions might mean that you have to alter the recipe. This is why all magic should be carefully evaluated in context and carefully "crafted", before acting.
They don't call it witchCRAFT for nothin'. This is also why the saying "Be careful what you ask for" is something even "muggles" understand.

Works by Sabina Magliocco

"Aradia in Sardinia: the Archeology of a Folk Character," in D. Green and D. Evans, ed., Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon: Essays in Honor of Ronald Hutton, 40-60. Bristol, UK: Hidden Publishing, 2009.

"In Search of the Roots of Stregheria: Observations on the History of a Reclaimed Tradition," in Speaking Memory: Oral History, Oral Culture and Italians in America, ed. Luisa Del Giudice; 165-182. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

"Italian Cunning Craft: Some Preliminary Observations," Journal for the Academic Study of Magic 5 (2008), 103-133.

"Reclamation, Appropriation and the Ecstatic Imagination," in James R. Lewis, ed. Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, 223-240. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

"Italian American Stregheria and Wicca: Ethnic Ambivalence in American Neopaganism," in Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Michael Strmiska (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006), 55-86.

"La reclamación del folclor y la costrucción de la brujería Ítalo-estadounidense," in Modernidades Locales: etnografía del presente múltiple, ed. Steffan Igor Ayora Dias and Gabriela Vargas Cetina; 179-219. Istituto de Cultura de Yucatán, Universidád Autonoma de Yucatán, 2005.

"Altars and Shrines" and "Ritualizing and Anthropology," in Encyclopedia of Nature Religions, ed. by Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan; 36-37 and 1388-1390. London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

"Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian American Witchcraft," in Performing Ecstasies: Music, Dance, and Ritual in the Mediterranean ed. Luisa Del Giudice and Nancy van Deusen (Ottawa, Canada: The Institute of Mediaeval Music, 2005), 277-301.

"Witchcraft, Healing and Vernacular Magic in 19th and 20th Century Italy," in Popular Magic in Modern Europe, ed. by Owen Davies (Manchester University Press, 2004), 151-173.

"Magic" (Vol. 2, 669-70) and "Sardinia" (Vol. 2, 1013-15) Medieval Italy: an Encyclopedia, ed. by Christopher Kleinhenz (Routledge, 2004).

"Wicca" (441-44) and "Neopaganism" (307-310), Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals and Festivals, ed. Frank Salamone (Routledge, 2004)

"The Opposite of Right Society: Witchcraft, Terrorism and the Discourse of Evil." Etnologia Europaea 32/2 (2003), 13-22.

"Aradia" and "Strega," Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neopaganism, ed. by S. T. Rabinowitch. Citadel Press, 2002; 12-13 and 262-63.

"Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend," The Pomegranate 18 (2002), 5-22.

"Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian-American Witchcraft" Italian American Review 8/2 (2001), 57-81.

"Coordinates of Power and Performance: Festivals as Sites of (Re)Presentation and Reclamation in Sardinia," Ethnologies 23/1 (2001) 167-188.

"Spells, Saints and Streghe: Witchcraft, Folk Magic and Healing in Italy," The Pomegranate 13 (2000), 2-22.

"Witchcraft" (Vol. 20:208-9), The New Book of Knowledge (Grolier, 2000).

"The Real Old-Time Religion: Towards an Aesthetic of Neo-Pagan Song," in Ethnologies 20/1 (1998), 175-201 (with Holly Tannen).

"Introduction," Ethnologies Special Issue: Wicca 20/1 (1998), 7-17.

"Ritual is My Chosen Art Form: The Creation of Ritual as Folk Art Among Contemporary Pagans," Magical Religions and Modern Witchcraft, ed. by James Lewis (SUNY Press; 1996), 93-119.

"Playing With Food: the Negotiation of Identity in the Ethnic Display Event by Italian-Americans in Clinton, Indiana," Studies in Italian American Folklore, ed. by Luisa Del Giudice (Utah State University Press, 1993), 107-126 [Reprinted in Barbara G. Shortridge and James R. Shortridge, ed., A Taste of American Place (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 145-162].

"Eels, Bananas and Cucumbers: A Sexual Legend and Changing Women's Values in Rural Sardinia," Fabula 34 (1993), 66-77.

"Folklore and Language Teaching: Preliminary Remarks and Practical Suggestions," Italica 69/4 (1992), 451-465.

"Single Women in Sardinian Pastoral Society: Contemporary Roles and Historical Models," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Mediterranean Pastoralism (Nuoro: Istituto Regionale Etnografico Superiore, 1992).

"1846 and All That: a New History of Folkloristics," Folklore Forum 21/1 (1988), 128-137 (Reprinted in Metafolkloristica, ed. F. Kinder, 1989).

"The Bloomington Jaycees' Haunted House," Indiana Journal of Folklore and Oral History 14/1 (1984), 19-28.

"Italian Immigrant Narratives," Folklore Forum 17/1 (1984), 61-67.

Festival of Torches

Taken from: http://users.erols.com/jesterbear/notes/torches.html

by Helen Park
The Ides of August is one of the most magical times of the year, in my opinion. It's the time of a most ancient Feria (festival) of the Nemoralia (aka Festival of Torches), later adopted by Catholics to be The Feast of the Assumption. (1) In Italy, this Feria is celebrated either on the 13-15th of August or during the August Full Moon. If it just so happens that the Full Moon comes on the 13-l5th, hold tight!
This poem by Ovid, from his Fasti, describes the ancient celebration:

In the Arrician valley,
there is a lake surrounded by shady forests,
Held sacred by a religion from the olden times...
On a long fence hang many pieces of woven thread,
and many tablets are placed there
as grateful gifts to the Goddess.
Often does a woman whose prayers Diana answered,
With a wreath of flowers crowning her head,
Walk from Rome carrying a burning torch...
There a stream flows down gurgling from its rocky bed...

Picture this. It is the August Full Moon. A long procession of twinkling lights wind down what is now called Via Diana, or, Diana's Road. The pilgrims forming this procession of torches and candles line up alongside the dark waters of Diana's Mirror, or Lake Nemi. (2) One of the Earth's most sacred sites, the lake is just a few miles south of Rome, Italy, and is dedicated to Diana, the Great Goddess of the Moon. The lake, in a volcanic crater, is almost perfectly oval, and from the vantage point where the Temple of Diana once graced its banks, you can see the Moon reflected clearly in the smooth as glass, dark mirror of water.
Picture again the August Full Moon night. Hundreds have come to Diana's lake, wearing flowers wreathed around their necks and foreheads. According to Plutarch, everyone there had made a special ritual of washing their hair before dressing it with flowers. Garlanded hounds also marched by the side of hunters. Little boats, lit by oil lamps strung on prow and stern, ferried festive crowds back and forth across the lake, traveling from the south jetty to Diana's temple on the north bank. La Luna, rising high overhead, gazed down on the pilgrims and on Her reflection in the lake.

Those gathered there would write small messages on ribbons and tie them to a fence at the sanctuary, in supplication to She Who Provides. Likewise, numerous small statuettes of body parts would have been found there. It was common practice in Italy (and Greece) to bake a small model of an afflicted part of the body and offer it to a God or Goddess as a votive. Also offered were small clay images of mother and child, and tiny sculptures of stags, one of the favored animals of Artemis/Diana (and perhaps a symbol of Actaeon, who spied on the Goddess while She was bathing and was turned into a deer). Apples were likewise given to Diana as the Soul of Nature who protects all species, including humans.

Offerings of garlic are made to the Goddess of the Dark Moon, Hecate, during the festival. In Wicca, Diana is often considered the Maiden aspect of the Moon Goddess, Who manifests as Maid, Mother, and Crone. But at the festival of the Nemoralia, Diana is the Mother, and Hecate is the Crone.

So who is the Maiden? Diana has a legendary daughter, Aradia, whose birthday is given as August 13, 1313. Aradia, so the story goes, was sent to Earth by Her divine Mother to empower the weak and oppressed, particularly the Pagans and gypsies who were chained in slavery to church and state. She was a sort of female "Robin Hood" of the Alban Hills of Italy. (3) Aradia's Mother, the Goddess Diana, like Robin Hood's Father, Herne (Cernunnos), blessed the oppressed and down- trodden, the peasant, the heathen, all those noble souls and noble "savages" who society despises. Diana's most notable temple in Rome was situated on the most apparently humble of Rome's Seven Hills, the Aventine. The ritual hairwashing that precedes the trek to Nemi also proceeded a procession that ended up at the Aventine.

It seems Diana had fewer artificial temples built to Her than any other of the main Deities in the Classical pantheon, which no doubt suits Her, since certainly a Goddess of Nature prefers to be worshipped in Her natural groves. Therefore, it's a good idea to visit a wild and natural area during this festival. Choose a tree to decorate. It may, but does not necessarily have to be, an evergreen. Hang from its branches symbols such as silver moons, bows and arrows, tiny animals, as well as ribbons, bells, and whatever else you think Diana might like. If you are suffering from any kind of illness, you might want to make a symbol of that too, and hang it on the branches in supplication for healing. Imagine Her arrows piercing your pain, discomfort, or disability with a powerful potion of wellness.

The Festival of Torches evolved to become one of those sacred times when the hunting or killing of any beast was forbidden all over Italy. It was a Time of Blessing that extended a truce between humankind and the natural world. Likewise, slaves and women were free from their duties during this feria. Men and masters did participate in the festival, but they were required to be on equal terms with women and slaves. One Roman poet, Propertius, apparently did not attend the festival in the 1st century CE, as indicated in these words to his beloved:

Ah, if you would only walk here in your leisure hours.
But we cannot meet today,
When I see you hurrying in excitement with a burning torch
To the grove of Nemi where you
Bear light in honour of the Goddess Diana.
At night the lights of hundreds of torches reflected upon Diana's lake and sparkled magically upon the surface. Lamps not unlike these torches were used by Vestal virgins and have been found with images of the Goddess at Nemi, hence Diana and Vesta are sometimes considered one and the same Goddess.
The nymph Egeria, who resides in a waterfall spilling into Lake Nemi, is also an aspect of Diana. She is intimately connected with Numa, who was the king of Rome after Romulus, and whose kingship's well being was dependent on his relationship with Her, Diana Egeria, Lady of the Lake. Louis Spence, in the 13th century tale, Sir Lance/ot of the Lake, tells us that the Lady of the Lake dwells in the Lake of Diana. There are also similarities between the Rex Nemorensis (King of Nemi) and King Arthur, according to Raven Grimassi, who points out that one draws a branch (which may be the legendary Golden Bough) from an oak tree, the other draws Excalibur from the stone. Just as the oak branch rises from the Sacred Tree near the stream of Egeria, so does Excalibur rise from the Lake. (4) Egeria is Diana, is the Lady of the Lake, is Nimue (a name similar to, and which may be derived from, "Nemi").

There are also parallels to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania, Regina elle Fate (Queen of the Fairies), is equated with Diana, Regina delle Streghe (Queen of the Witches). Hippolytus, who died and was resurrected and spirited to Nemi by Diana (as Virbius, the first Rex Nemorensis), was the son of Theseus (some say Oberon) and Hippolyta. And Puck, the goat like prankster, has his own festival in Britain at this same time of the year, the Puck's Fair. Thus the Midsummer Night's Dream continues on through August.

Notes


1. All of Italy seems to agree that this is the best time of year to take a holiday. Travel agents warn against going to Italy in mid-August. Almost the whole country shuts down business for the hallowed Feast of the Assumption. This feast day of Mary, Mother of God, seems to the Italian Catholics to be an even more important holy day than Christmas.
2. Nemi is from the Latin nemus, meaning sacred wood, sacred grove. The Sacred Site of Nemi is featured in the Spring 2003 issue of CIRCLE Magazine.
3. Her full story can be found in Raven Grimassi's Ways of the Strega, published by Llewellyn in 1997. The current edition of the book is called Italian Witchcraft.
4. Raven Grimassi, ibid, and Hereditary Witchcraft: Secrets of the Old Religion, published in 1999 by Llewellyn Publications of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Helen Park
Kansas City, Kansas; elenafelene@yahoo.com
CIRCLE Magazine, Summer 2003 (pp. 33-34)
Reproduced with permission from Helen Park

Stregheria and Vernacular Magic in Italy: A Comparison

Raven Grimassi wrote:
.... first, some background. Last year (2006) Sabina met with my mother and they chatted for several hours. From reading the following, I think two things happened. One is that Sabina now believes that my mother is a native Italian, and the other is that my mother comes from a magical background in Italian Folk Magic. Sabina has also modified her view of me, and now rather than being a charlatan, I am apparenlty a true believer who is just misguided by my interpretation regarding the family lineage. In any case, we're making progress. Perhas after the next meeting, I will go from misguided true believer to an actual witch. What's most promising is Sabina's admonishment that Stregheria "should not be interpreted as inauthentic, fake or contrived"

So here is the article, which appears to be a reworking of some of her earlier articles:

Stregheria and Vernacular Magic in Italy: A Comparison*
Sabina Magliocco
January 10, 2007

The distinction between contemporary Stregheria and traditional Italian magic, healing and spiritual practice has lately been the subject of lively debate on a number of listserves and websites. In this brief essay, I will attempt to summarize some of my academic publications on this theme for a non-scholarly audience, and to encourage further research, questions and discussion on this topic. I should state at the outset that my approach is academic: as an anthropologist and folklorist, I consider both Stregheria and Italian vernacular magic as important facets of culture in their own right. My intention is not to support or deny the authenticity of either, but to help readers understand both in the contexts in which they developed,
and how the former grew from the latter in the context of the Italian American diaspora.

*Stregheria* is an Italian American variety of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft. It owes its origins to Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1889), a collection of spells, rhymes and legends which amateur folklorist Charles G. Leland claimed came from a Florentine fortune-teller named Maddalena. According to Leland, Maddalena belonged to a family of witches who practiced a form of pagan religion centered on the worship of the moon goddess Diana. Leland interpreted the materials he collected according to popular folklore theories of the late 19th century: as survivals of ancient pagan religions, specifically those of the Romans and Etruscans, whose civilizations had once dominated central Italy. He dubbed witchcraft la vecchia religione (the old religion). Right from the start, Leland’s work was controversial. Some of the materials in it – the conjuration of lemons and pins, for instance – have analogues in Italian folklore. Other snippets appear to be versions of popular Italian children’s rhymes, rewritten to suit Leland’s ideology. And the character of Aradia does seem to be based on a figure from medieval Italian folklore: the biblical Herodias (Erodiade in Italian), popularly believed to fly through the air at
night at the head of a ghostly procession. But these bits of folklore do not appear anywhere else in Italian tradition as part of a single text. If The Gospel of the Witches had been an authentic document from a folk tradition, some other version of it would have been collected at some point by Italian folklorists or historians. Yet no other similar text has ever been found by Italian ethnologists. For that reason, Leland’s Aradia has always been suspected to be a fake. More recently, historian Robert Mathiesen has proposed a new explanation: that Aradia be interpreted as a dialogic and intersubjective text – a product of the close interaction between Leland and Maddalena, during which Maddalena selected and re-interpreted bits of folklore in ways that would interest her wealthy patron. The result was a document that incorporated many elements of folklore, but strung them together in unusual ways, giving them a unique and atypical interpretation.

Despite the controversies surrounding it, Leland’s text became quite influential: it equated folk magic to an ancient religion involving the veneration of a goddess, and located this all in Italy. Leland clearly influenced Gerald B. Gardner, who is widely credited with the development of Wicca in its present form, and through Gardner, an entire generation of Witches. Among the first to openly identify as a practitioner of Italian witchcraft was Leo Louis Martello (1933-2001). Martello claimed to have been initiated by a family member as a young man. He described a secret hereditary tradition based on a Sicilian version of the myth of Proserpina (Persephone). Along with priestess Lori Bruno, also a hereditary practitioner, he founded the Trinacrian Rose of New York City, one of the first Italian American covens in North America.

But the real heir of Leland is Raven Grimassi, the architect of Stregheria. Like Martello and Bruno, Grimassi claims to have been initiated into a family tradition of magical practice which he describes as hereditary, domestic, and secret. Grimassi’s mother comes from the region of Campania, outside Naples. She belongs to a family whose members practiced a number of magical traditions, including the removal of the evil eye, the making of medicinal liqueurs and oils, and divination. Like the traditions described by Martello, Bruno and a number of Italian ethnologists, it consisted of a set of secret teachings limited to family members, passed on only to those who were felt to have some innate magical ability and interest. But it is not this tradition that Grimassi writes about in his works The Ways of the Strega (1995), Hereditary Witchcraft (1999), and Italian Witchcraft (2000). Instead, he presents an elaboration of what Leland described: "a religion similar to Wicca in structure and practice, with Italian flavor added through the names of deities, spirits, and sabbats." According to him, Italian Witches divide themselves into three clans: the Fanarra of northern Italy, and the Janarra and Tanarra of central Italy. No mention is made of southern Italy, despite the fact that the majority of Italian immigrants to North America, including Grimassi’s mother, originated there. Each tradition is directed by a leader known as a Grimas. Like the names of the three Strega clans, the word “Grimas” does not occur in Italian or in any of its dialects. Italian American Streghe worship in circles called boschetti (“groves”) led by a High Priestess and Priest. The meet on full and new moons and observe eight sabbats. They venerate a lunar goddess and a horned god based on the Etruscan deities Uni and Tagni, also known as Tana and Tanus, Jana and Janus, Fana and Faunus. Ancestor spirits known as Lasa watch over each family, and various nature spirits such as Fauni, Silvani, Folletti and Linchetti play key roles in Stregheria. The guardians of the four directions are known as Grigori. While Grimassi’s books have been very influential in the United States, individual Stregheria covens that are not descended from his may not necessarily follow his teachings. As in all Neo-Pagan Craft, there is a wide range of variation and adaptation among groups and individuals. The common thread that links all Stregheria covens seems to be their efforts to give their practice an Italian flavor, whether through the types of deities venerated, the food served at rituals, or the adaptation of Italian and Italian American cultural practices to a Pagan context.

Grimassi’s genius is creative, rather than scholarly. He never claims to be reproducing exactly what was practiced in Italy, admitting that Streghe have “adapted a few Wiccan elements into their ways” (1995:xviii). He openly acknowledges that he is expanding on his family tradition, adding elements to it to restore it to what he imagines was its original state. But from his attempts to restore a tradition, a brand new tradition has emerged: one that bears little
resemblance to anything that was practiced in Italy or in Italian American ethnic communities.

While based on Italian folk magic, historical accounts and folklore collections, Stregheria is, like most revival Witchcraft, a modern tradition. Folklorist Robert Klymasz, writing about what happens to folklore as a result of immigration to a new culture, identified three layers of folklore that are present in any ethnic community. These include the traditional, with clear links to Old World forms; the transitional, in which some elements from the Old World crystallize, while others adapt to the new context; and innovational, in which new folklore is developed to make up for older forms that have been lost (Klymasz, 1973). Stregheria belongs to the last category. It has some points in common with Italian vernacular magic, which I will outline below; but there are more differences than similarities. Its true value lies in its ability to provide contemporary Italian Americans with a new context in which to interpret folk magical practices that have remained in their families for many generations, giving these traditions a new life. In the process, it plays a vital role in helping to create and maintain identity for its practitioners.

*Italian vernacular magic*, by contrast, is neither a religion nor a formalized system of practice. It is both a worldview and a set of customs tied to the agro-pastoral cycle which is strongly embedded in the lives of its practitioners, almost never on a self-conscious level. For most of its carriers, it is simply an ordinary way of doing things and behaving. While it may have historical roots in
pre-Christian practices, it is emphatically not a pagan tradition, but firmly embedded within a Roman Catholic cultural matrix. In my more recent work, I have called it “the enchanted worldview,” playing on Max Weber’s trope of the disenchantment of the world.

The enchanted worldview in Italy is rooted in specific pre-market economic and social systems. Because of subsistence activities associated with the land, time is organized according to seasonal cycles; these are reflected in the ritual year, which is dominated by Catholic liturgical forms. These almost always are locally interpreted in ways that connect them to the economic cycle: for example, in
Campania, where wheat and hemp crops have been replaced by tobacco, which has a similar growing season, the ritual year begins at planting time near St. Martin in mid-November, and extends until the end of the harvest season at St. Cosimo and Damiano in October. In pastoral areas such as Sardinia and the Apennine, May and September, the months that frame transhumance, are emphasized in local ritual practices. The exact shape of the ritual year thus differs markedly from one area to
another. The symbols – the Madonnas and saints – are the same, but each township differs in the way it situates these characters within its symbolic and economic system. The enchanted worldview is not only rooted in the ritual year cycle; it is all-pervading in the individual’s life cycle. It begins at birth and penetrates every phase of life and every rite of passage, from the moment of birth, when most
Italian babies who are not born with a caul (la camicia, or “shirt,” in Italian) are given a fine lawn shirt by a relative, often a godparent, to protect them against evil influences, to funerals, where a variety of beliefs about the otherworld are made manifest through practice.

The core of Italian vernacular religion and magic is thus the correlation of its symbolic systems with local economic and social structures. The primary connection is never with the dominant structures of church and state. Hegemonic structures may or may not coincide with indigenous ones, but where there is no match, they are
simply ignored. If a particular element does not make sense in terms of local understandings of time, space, and the nature of the world, people will treat it as though it does not exist, as if it were of no consequence. As a result, the landscape of the enchanted worldview in Italy is everywhere local.

Despite its exquisitely local character, the enchanted worldview exists throughout Italy, in both northern and southern regions, with significantly more commonalities than one might think, given the differences in language, culture and economy that characterize Italy’s twenty regions. Certain concepts are ubiquitous: for example, the evil eye and its diagnosis and cures are found in all regions, and are very
similar throughout. Yet the enchanted worldview defies systematization. Beliefs and practices are nowhere standardized, or even organized into an easily articulated set of principles; they are part of everyday life, part of praxis. German ethnologist Thomas Hauschild, who spent nearly twenty years studying magic in Basilicata,
a region in the south of Italy, wrote: “There is no system, only practice” (Hauschild, 2003:19). The practice is the system. Practices and beliefs exist within a particular cosmology, but its details seldom preoccupy its technologists. Thus, a structure like that described by Grimassi, with orderly branches in various parts of
Italy, each with its own leader and systematic body of lore, is inherently foreign to the enchanted worldview in Italy.

The main characteristic of the enchanted worldview is a belief in the omnipresence of spiritual beings that can influence human lives. These beings include the dead, saints, and the Virgin Mary and Jesus (who are, after all, nothing more than particularly powerful dead). Spirits such as folletti, linchetti and monachelli also appear, echoing some of the spiritual flora and fauna in Grimassi’s works, but they are often troublesome, rather than helpful: they tangle the manes of horses, frighten donkeys and confuse travelers who cross their paths. Some spirits are associated with certain kinds of illnesses, although exact relationships are generally determined by local lore. For instance, in Basilicata, the unquiet dead are said to cause skin diseases such as erysipelas and St. Anthony’s Fire (herpes zoster); in Campania, children who fail to thrive are said to be taken by witches
on their night flights, and worn out with flying and dancing; in Emilia Romagna, Puglia and Sardinia, spiders and/or insects are responsible for a range of illnesses from tarantismo to argismo to arlìa. Some scholars suggest these insects once embodied ancestor spirits who then possessed their victims through the bite or sting (De Martino, 2005 [1961]). Even spirits such as saints and the Madonna, who belong to a greater Catholic pantheon, are everywhere localized: the Madonna is usually worshipped in one or more of her local manifestations, and the devout have their personal favorites based on each Madonna’s attributes and the qualities she “stands over,” or rules, and their own individual needs or interests.

Everywhere in Italy, there are experts who specialize in interfacing with the spirit world. These are the Italian equivalents of British and European cunning folk, and much of their work consists in the diagnosis and cure of spiritual illness. Their names vary according to region; they may be known as guaritori (healers), donne che aiutano (women who help), praticos (knowledgeable or wise people), fattucchiere (fixers), maghi (sorcerers), and by numerous other dialectical terms; but they seldom call themselves streghe (witches). This term is overwhelmingly negative in Italian folklore, and almost always refers to a person who brings harm to others. Italian folklore is rich in legends about witches who fly through the air to their
legendary gatherings around the walnut tree of Benevento, shrink themselves so small they can fit through keyholes, suck breath or blood from victims, and cause all manner of illness and mischief to their neighbors. Clearly, these activities refer to folkloric witches; they have never been practiced by actual human beings. Occasionally, however, healers may be accused of being streghe by those who believe
themselves to be victims of black magic, or by clients who have failed to be healed by the cunning person’s cures.

There are two principal strains of healing in Italian vernacular culture: healing through the use of herbs, and spiritual healing. In some cases, both may be practiced by the same individual. Of the two, healing with herbs is considered less a matter of spiritual ability than of practical knowledge. Spiritual healing, in contrast, is believed to be more connected with personal power. This is variously
called la forza (power), la virtù (virtue; also attribute); or il segno (the sign), and is generally believed to be inborn. But power alone is useless without the prayers, magical formulae and techniques that make up the cunning person’s craft. Knowledge and power are passed on through an initiation, most commonly at midnight on
Christmas Eve mass, during the elevation of the host -- that magical moment of transformation in the Catholic liturgical year at which the world is transformed by the birth of the Savior, and the host is transformed into his body -- and thus, by association, any transformation can take place. The knowledge takes the form of prayers that call upon a saint or the Madonna, and in some cases an accompanying technique, which varies according to the nature of the spiritual cure. These formulas and techniques are secret; they cannot be passed on to others without the healer losing her or his power, and they can only be passed on at the appointed time in the ritual cycle. Often, this is the only initiation and training necessary for the transmission of simple charms. Healing knowledge and power are typically passed down within the family; in some cases, family members – typically a group of siblings or cousins – must work together in order to bring about the cure.

As scholars have documented for other parts of Europe, spirits figure prominently as the helpers of Italian cunning folk. While many ordinary Italians living in traditional communities admit to belief in spirits, and occasionally even to contact with them, cunning folk seem to possess an intensified ability to commune with them above and beyond that of ordinary people. In many areas, healing is essentially
conceptualized as a battle against malevolent spirits – whether those of the unquiet dead, witches, or others. Healers need spiritual allies in these battles, and many healers claim to have them in the form of spirits who guide and help them in their craft. The nature of these spirits, once again, is highly localized as well as idiosyncratic: they may be saints, personal ancestors, or helpful dead. They may
appear to the healer in dreams and visions: trance and ecstatic states are a fundamental part of communicating with the spirits; they are doorways into the spiritual world for healers and magic workers. When cunning folk rely on saints or the Virgin Mary as helpers, they may maintain shrines to them, participate actively in the organization of festivals in their honor, and play active roles in religious
sororities and fraternities that raise money for the feasts. Cures for certain illnesses may take place only on specific feast days or in the context of saints’ festivals. Thus, healing is closely connected to the seasonal and economic cycle of the community, and to the Catholic liturgical calendar.

Italian cunning folk may use a variety of tools in their work which suggest a connection to Stregheria and Neo-Pagan Witchcraft. They commonly keep notebooks in which charms and prayers are recorded – the forerunners of modern-day books of shadows. Some use weapons of various types (daggers, swords, bayonets and even guns) to frighten evil spirits or symbolically cut away certain illnesses, such as
worms. Ropes or cords may be used in binding spells and charms, while other tools may be entirely idiosyncratic.

The Italian cunning tradition has a number of traits that suggest that some aspects of modern Stregheria may derive from it in part, and that many Italian Americans who see themselves as carriers of Stregheria grew up in families that preserved aspects of the rural Italian enchanted worldview. Like modern Neo-Paganism and revival witchcraft, this way of life was organized around a ritual year that followed the
cycle of the seasons; the moon and sun influenced rhythms of work and production. Women were recognized as life-givers and nourishers, and were closely involved in the maintenance of shrines to a feminine divine figure, the Virgin Mary. Their immigrant ancestors may have been carriers of a tradition of healing that involved herbal and magical practices. They may have kept notebooks of charms and prayers
that were precursors of today’s Neo-Pagan books of shadows. Their tools may have included knives, swords and other weapons designed to frighten away malevolent spirits, and their craft involved communication with helpers who took the form of ancestor spirits. Since these traditions could often be conflated with witchcraft in
popular narratives, it is possible that this link persisted into the second, third and fourth generation after immigration, giving contemporary Streghe the impression that their ancestors belonged to an organized, hierarchical but secret society of witches. But Italian cunning craft also differs from modern Neo-Pagan Stregheria in
important ways. It is emphatically not a pagan religion; there is no mention of a goddess and god, nor are deities ever drawn down into the bodies of practitioners. It exists within a largely Catholic worldview, albeit one permeated with ancestor spirits, magical practice and other elements that mark it as vernacular, rather than ecclesiastical, in nature. Absent, too, is the Wiccan ritual framework, and while there may be certain similarities between the Wiccan year cycle and that of rural Italy, that is because the former is based largely on the Irish agro-pastoral cycle, which shares a common heritage with that of other parts of Europe, including Italy.

But could an ancient pre-Christian religion involving the veneration of Diana have survived in Italian peasant tradition, only to be brought to North America by Italian immigrants? The lack of written evidence makes any answer to this question hypothetical at best, but from the historical record, such a scenario would be very unlikely. Three factors make the survival of a pagan religion in Italy into the 20th century, and its transmission through written documents such as Leland’s Aradia, improbable: the strong presence of Christianity throughout the peninsula from fairly early after the fall of the Roman Empire; the lack of a unified Italian culture and language until the late 19th century; and the relative isolation and lack of resources of the peasant classes – the very ones who are said to have preserved the religion, according to the Neo-Pagan mythos.

Stregheria and Italian vernacular magic and healing are, then, quite different but interconnected traditions. Many Italian Americans who today see themselves as carriers of Stregheria grew up in families that preserved aspects of the enchanted worldview in an immigrant context. While Stregheria may be helping contemporary Italian Americans rediscover aspects of their roots and feel pride in their ethnic identity, its form, structure and cultural context are markedly different from those of the enchanted worldview and its associated practices in Italy. Yet Stregheria should not be interpreted as inauthentic, fake or contrived, for innovation and reclamation are part of the process of tradition. The enchanted worldview cannot exist in the context of contemporary urban North America; Italian Americans need new ways to construct and preserve ethnic identity, and for some, Stregheria satisfies those needs.