rules

Rules

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

This one is inspired by Martín Espada’s “Rules for Captain Ahab’s Provincetown Poetry Workshop”

Rules for Aunt Elizabeth’s School for Young Witches
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

  1. No dogmas allowed in the house. 
  2. Keep your karma tuned up at all times.
  3. No reading of others’ auras without consent.
  4. For that matter, do no magic on anyone without consent. This particularly applies to love potions. Go ahead and make yourself lovely and loveable, but refrain from compelling others to love you.
  5. Remember to empty your pockets of crystals and twigs and butterfly wings and feathers and toads and marbles and nails and broken glass before you put your robes in the wash.
  6. Your wands are extensions of your fingers, and it isn’t polite to point fingers, so do not point your wands at others.
  7. Keep your cauldrons clean. Residual spellwork in an unclean cauldron may cause unintended reactions in future potion-making.
  8. Tend to your ongoing spells. Expired spells may increase in potency, resulting in dangerous side effects.
  9. Keep that nose out of the air. No task is too humble for a witch. Sometimes the strongest spells are created in the completion of the humblest of tasks.
  10. Listen when the trees are talking to you. Do not ignore the questions that the rocks put forth. Do not interrupt the speeches of the rivers.
  11. Greet all beings politely, whether human, animal, mineral, plant, or magical.

We are doing 30 Days of Gratitude at school right now, so some of my gratitudes are responding to those specific prompts.

Gratitude List:
1. That pink sky this morning, and the pastel greens of the fields below
2. Three small things: gemstones, kittens, little succulent plants
3. Something in the room: my students
4. A person: Leymah Gbowee ( and her continuing work for justice and human rights)
5. First Trimester Grades are done and submitted
May we walk in Beauty!

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love.” —Audre Lorde

“We need another… perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.” —Henry Beston

“One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found – and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” —James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 1963

“Walk fearlessly into the house of mourning, for grief is just love squaring up to its oldest enemy.” —Kate Braestrup

“Honesty matters. Vulnerability matters. Being open about who you were at a moment in time when you were in a difficult or an impossible place matters more than anything.” —Neil Gaiman

“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors, but today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.” —Kahlil Gibran

“To write is to ask questions. It doesn’t matter if the answers are true or puro cuento. After all and everything only the story is remembered, and the truth fades away like the pale blue ink on a cheap embroidery pattern.” —Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo

“With guns, you can kill terrorists.
With education, you can kill terrorism.” —Malala Yousufsai

“The wo/man who moves a mountain
begins by carrying away small stones.”
—Confucius, The Analects

“We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?” —Wendell Berry

“She’s a lean vixen: I can see
the ribs, the sly
trickster’s eyes, filled with longing
and desperation, the skinny
feet, adept at lies.

Why encourage the notion
of virtuous poverty?
It’s only an excuse
for zero charity.
Hunger corrupts, and absolute hunger
corrupts absolutely,”
― Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House

Some Personal Rules for Posting

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment
Same photo as yesterday. Different filters and tweaking.

It’s getting difficult to wade through the re-posted tweets and memes on social media regarding the presidential race. While I might not get too anxious or flustered in what I used to think of as “normal” times, these days, I am becoming more and more wary of bots and trolls. The thing is, they’re funny. They’re clever. They make acid points. And the thing behind the thing is: Russia is no longer even trying to hide the fact that it is trying to affect our election process through social media.

In light of this, here are some posting rules to consider.
1. No quizzes. I am taking absolutely NO quizzes online. Even if I am pretty sure that this one will tell me that deep down in my soul, I am a mermaid and my personal animal is a unicorn. No quizzes. No take ’em. No post ’em.
2. No re-posting tweets and memes that disparage political candidates. Except Bloomberg. Okay, none. News stories from major outlets, and insightful (as opposed to inciteful) essays from vetted publications are still fair game, in my book.
3. No name calling. No name calling. No name calling. If the candidate is misogynistic and known to insult women, or racist and known to insult people outside his own racial group, it’s still simply never okay to call him names. It might feel delightfully cathartic to insult him back, but I’m still trying to follow Michelle Obama’s encouragement: “When they go low, we go high.” Besides, there’s so much truth that needs to be spoken that mean names dilute the issues.
4. I am struggling with the newcomer to the Democratic field. I have a favorite candidate, and you might be able to guess who she is, and if you ask, I will tell you, but I am trying to stay out of the bloody fight. I dream of a day when a nominee rises to the top in an election moment like this, but without the bruising and bloodying from members of her own party. In that spirit, I will do my best to not disparage any of the others, especially since word came out that Russia is trying to influence this part of the process, too. (Caveat: This newcomer, though. He has a pretty shady past when it comes to treatment of black people and women. I won’t insult him, but I don’t know that anything is gained by ignoring his history of racism and misogyny.)

What else would you put on the list? I need to get ready for school. . .

Gratitude List:
1. Big batch of grading done. I’ve begun using my gratitude lists as my accountability space for keeping up with the grading. Sigh. Right now, it’s got to be a whatever-it-takes proposal. And I am incredibly grateful to have that batch finished.
2. Last night’s dream: I had found an adult-sized pogo stick, and I made enormous leaps around a stage. I was planning to use the pogo stick as a transportation method because it was such a thrill to jump high and far. But I woke up before I could try that.
3. The sun seemed to rise SO early yesterday!
4. Yellow crocus.
5. All the wingfolk in the sky these days.

May we walk in Beauty!

Exile

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Exile is the theme of today’s Poetic Asides Prompt:

There are bubbles of belonging inside these spaces of separation,
places where true soul contact lies, and understanding lives.
It gives the exile a chance to feel connected, even in the crowd
of loud and angry judges who seek to cut away the sinners
from the inner group of those who belong, the righteous ones.

I’m done with trying to seek favor with the hoarders of grace
who place the ancient blood rules and regulations above
the call of love. I’ve chosen my exile and it only remains
to name the spaces where the outcasts can gather together,
our Cafes of Emigres, where grace and mercy are served with the tea.