Beltane weekend was terribly busy and fun and…well, busy.  And before that was my trip to Mississippi. But I’m going to start where I am and may try to work backwards for the last 10 days.  We’ll see if I can stay the course on that one, shall we?

Yesterday, I was part of Wordfest, which was held this year at the Chamber of Commerce bldg which is actually owned by Lenoir-Rhyne University, I think. I was presenting with Queen Mother Universe who is this poetic and visionary African-American Elder whose path I cross with delight a few times a year.  Neither of us was sure exactly what we were “supposed” to do as part of the festival, so we took turns reading from our works and talking about re-weaving community. We began by honoring our collective Ancestors and Laurey Masterton, the matron of this year’s fest, who died a couple of months ago.

More and more, I find myself talking earnestly about how we do this reweaving, how we peel away the layers of superfluity in order to reveal the community that exists underneath the surface of all that dreck that the larger culture pads onto most experiences. The Women’s Garden is an experiment in this re-building work–working good soil, planting organic plants and tending and harvesting the lot of them. We are working hard now to clear the designated gathering area so we can, in fact, begin gathering.

Sitting in that newish and fancy-ish room on the third floor of the chamber of commerce, we talked real talk, for once. Real talk. Black women and white women, young women and old women, women of different classes and temperaments. We honored our Ancestors and sat together as true family, as tribe. Perhaps that is one small beginning step in the turning over of this sad and energetic epoch.

Perhaps.