Interview with a Bored Goddess: Holda

It's staying light a little longer. Have you noticed? This morning when I set off for work, the sky was pearly and a few birds were chirping lustfully. All is well with the world.

But make no mistake. Winter is still well under way. Ask anyone in Washington State. They'll tell you. What better time to tender an invitation to Holda, bored (and misunderstood) Goddess of the Germanic peoples? Spread a few flax seeds, brew up some good lager, and She'll be only too glad to stop by. Please give a warm and wonderful "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Holda, the Winter Goddess!

Anne: All hail, great Snowy Goddess, vilified and persecuted by the Christians ... portrayed as a hateful hag, when really you are beautiful, nurturing, and helpful to humankind!

Holda: Yes, yes. That's me. Marginalized and misunderstood, like so many of my Sisters. Your cat has some mats in his fur. Shall I groom him?

Anne: What a kind offer! Please do. Oh, would you look at that! He never holds that still for me! Holda, I invited you here because I'm quite braced. I think you have a new praise and worship team!

Holda: Who, me? Couldn't be.

Anne: Want to see?

Holda: Yes sirree!

Anne: Aren't they beautiful? A gathering of women who are determined to nurture this nation!

Holda: They certainly have good taste in attire.

Anne: I thought of You the moment I saw them. There, I said, are acolytes of Holda, channeling Her snowy gowns and Her generous spirit.

Holda: How did they come to assemble in that place?

Anne: They came to listen to a despot who they plan to oppose. They chose the snowy white garments in honor of women's rights (and also to honor You).

Holda: I'm so touched! It gets tedious, you know, when the only white you see is on a bride.

Anne: I couldn't agree more ... but You have to admit it's a hard color to keep clean. These ladies aren't Goddesses. They have to be mindful of pesky stains. And yet they chose Your luminous shade. You should be proud.

Holda: I am! This is quite encouraging! What can I do to assist them?

Anne: All glory, laud, and honor to You for wanting to be helpful! Go, Holda, and sit among them. Be by their sides as they seek to restore balance to our troubled land.

Holda: You mean it? An assignment with dignity? I'll hop right on it!

Anne: No one is asking me, but what I think this modern nation needs is way more attention paid to ancient Goddesses. Go therefore, Holda. You're no ugly old hag trying to eat children! Show them how a Goddess does it. You're perfect for the job!

Holda: I accept. And in gratitude for the job, I'll send you a nice, bracing snowstorm.

Anne: With no sleet mixed in.

Holda: Hold the sleet, hold the freezing rain.

Anne: And ditch the wintry mix. We get that here all the time.

Holda: Snow it is for you, dear Anne. Deep, white, pure, and powerful.

Divide and Conquer

When the Orange Menace was inaugurated, women of all stripes (except the Republican stripe) took to the streets and marched in solidarity. Like, in the millions.

Here we are three marches later, and everyone is quarreling like ... well, like human beings.

Muslim women may feel that homosexuality and abortion are sins. Some cis women don't consider transsexual women to actually be women. Women who voted for Bernie in the primaries feel like he would have beaten Donald Trump. Women who voted for Hillary feel like Bernie voters caused all this mess and kept a qualified, dignified candidate out of the White House.

Some African American women feel that white women can't see past privilege. Some white women can't get past their privilege enough to understand the minority experience. Some Millennial women resent how Baby Boomer women were able to get good jobs with benefits, and some Baby Boomer women don't understand why Millennial women don't stop whining and go out and get a good job with benefits.

Some women feel that the Democratic party should adopt a sensible, middle-of-the-road platform, and some women want to shake things up and fight for universal health care, free state college, and a basic minimum income. Some women love their guns, and some want to gather the damn things up and incinerate them.

Only a smattering of women are pro-organized labor ... and some of them voted for the Menace.

In Philadelphia on Saturday, there will be two women's marches in two different parts of the city.

HELLLLOOOOOOO.....

Are we forgetting something here? The evil afoot is worse than any single female agenda! Who is the enemy? Trump is the enemy! He and his ilk can only benefit if women fracture their solidarity.

Anyone who thinks this past election has put us in the clear should look at the voting results. My boy Andy Kim won by about 700 votes. That's what I call hanging by a thread.

We can't afford to squabble among ourselves. For the love of fruit flies! This is exactly what they want.

Therefore, without a sign and without prejudice, I, Anne Johnson, intend to travel into Philadelphia and march with whatever march I come to first. So what if I'm an old, suburban white woman? I'm a voter. I'm a worker. United we stand, divided we fall.

I want that horror of a human being out of office. That's all that matters.

What a Day!

You've got to understand. I grew up in a different century. We knew how to protest, all right, but the whole taking pictures thing? Not so much.

I went to the Women's March on Washington. I was surrounded by a sea of people, and the pussy hats were a great touch. But my experience of the event was limited by the crowd, by being literally stuck in one spot for two and a half hours and then being lugged by the determined Heir all the way to the White House.

I walked eight miles and stood for 150 minutes. Holding my working wand in one hand and my Heir in the other. I didn't take many photos, and the ones I took didn't turn out.

Words must suffice. Sort of.

Heir and I boarded a rally bus in Martinsburg, West Virginia at 7:00 a.m. We were each given a WV Resist button that I will treasure forever.

EXHIBIT A: On the Bus

As we rolled down the highway toward the capital, the road became chock-a-block with rally buses, from all over the place. The closer we got to DC, the more buses we saw. And then, gosh, the lot at the stadium! Acres and acres of buses, all alike! More than 1200 of them. This would become an issue later.

My eldest daughter is The Heir. I have learned this about The Heir: She wants to dig in and get the most out of any extreme experience.

We walked from behind RFK Stadium to the Capitol building. And that's when it became surreal for me.

I live very near Philadelphia. It is an historic city. I am used to historic buildings either being modest little brick structures like Independence Hall, or Victorian extravaganzas like City Hall and 30th Street Station. I hadn't been to DC in a decade, and I had never walked all around it.

The buildings are huge. They are imposing. They are gigantic. And they're all epic. Half of them are built to look like Ancient Greece. They lie across the landscape like sleeping giants. When your historical compass is set on Independence Hall, the Capitol building seems like an entire planet.

EXHIBIT B: Independence Hall, Philadelphia

EXHIBIT C: U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, DC

Well, I guess you had to be there. It just felt monstrous, this great big building that I'd only seen in pictures before, or maybe once when I was in grade school I went to see my senator.

Heir is big on surreal stuff. She saw the stage, and a crowd that even Godzilla wouldn't attack, and she waded right in. I got out my working wand (I carry it everywhere) and held tight to the sleeve of her coat. And in we went, right to the thick of things.

I work with a co-teacher in one of my classes. She, like me, is politically active. She and her daughter took a bus from New Jersey. Before we went our separate ways at school on Thursday, she teased me about running into her, predicting that I would. In all that crowd. And damn. I can't believe it.

EXHIBIT C: What Are the Odds?

See the pussy hats in the background? They made the march. If you see a crowd of a half million people, and the crowd shot is mostly pink, that is beyond a doubt the Women's March on Washington.

Heir and I bused in with a good friend of mine from West Virginia, and then we ran into my colleague and her daughter, but Heir was not in the socializing spirit. She wanted to DO THIS THING. So we went our way and wound up gridlocked on the far side of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. There, people were climbing the trees to scope out the crowd. Heir found a high spot that wasn't in a tree, and we camped there for a long time. We couldn't move. The people around us couldn't move. We did what we could to ferry the people who were panicking to a less gridlocked area, but there wasn't much we could do.

There were no police in the crowd.

When you're stuck in a mob for hours, a lot of things run through your mind, especially if you're an anxious person. Like, what if someone sets off a bomb? Or, what if everyone has to run from something? Or, how can I get out of here and back to my bus?

But it didn't matter. We were all in this together. Everyone was polite, everyone was kind. Lots of people were very old! I couldn't believe all the senior citizens, the retirees. (One sign: "I did this in the '60's! I'm Back!" And of course: "Now You've Pissed Off Grandma."

Almost everyone had a sign. My favorites were "Never Underestimate the Power of a Faggot with a Tambourine" and "Resist, hon ... Baltimore." I also saw about a dozen people in various iterations of vagina costumes (head, whole body). Some folks will be creative!

You know what I may mostly remember about the Women's March on Washington? Talking about curriculum and standards with three retired teachers from Connecticut. We had lots of time to bond.

Finally, around 3:30, Heir reported that she saw movement. The pack started to break up a little bit. Some people went one way, some another. Someone told us that the march part of the day had been cancelled because there were too many people. Heir wasn't hearing it.

We surged off toward Pennsylvania Avenue, me clinging to Heir, and in 30 minutes we found ourselves marching and chanting right up the route the Orange Menace and his poor, sad spouse walked the day before. We knew this because the bleachers were still standing, and they were full of pink-hatted, screaming, chanting, sign-waving protesters.

Here is what we chanted:
*This is what democracy looks like.
*My body, my choice.
*Hey ho, hey ho, Donald Trump has got to go!
*Donald Trump, go away! How do you like your first day?
*Black lives matter.


 Heir and I walked the whole way to the White House, and we even saw it off in the distance through about six fences. We left our signs there.

EXHIBIT D: We Left Some Reading Material for the Orange Menace

That's my Heir. Isn't she beautiful?

By this time we had marched four miles. All that remained was to retrace our entire route in time to get back on the bus at 6:00.

Heir seemed to know where to go. We walked and walked. Then Heir said, "Oh, look!"

It was the Environmental Protection Agency.

I had been near tears many times during the day. But this is where I lost it. I took my working wand, and I held it to the building, and I spoke intentions into the bricks. Stay put. Stay put. May all those working inside stay put. (I hope you'll add the EPA to your spell work as well.)


EXHIBIT E: Anne Doing Spell Work at the EPA

You can tell that's me because of the gold sneakers. Those are the shoes I wear to the Mummers Parade. I was sure I could walk miles in them, because I've done it before.

It got dark while Heir and I walked back to RFK Stadium. By the time we got to Lot 7 to find our bus, we had done eight miles or more. We had a tough time finding our particular rally bus, but with the help of my WV friend we finally collapsed into a seat, clutching the peanut butter sandwiches and water bottles the bus captain was handing out. Heir and I were the last ones back to the bus.

We rode back to West Virginia. The traffic was bumper to bumper almost the whole way. Heir and I were totally exhausted. We did it, though. We rallied, and we marched. I even did a little magick.

Sunday, Heir and I took the scenic route home. We passed my great-grandmother's house, which has not hardly changed at all from the old pictures from 100 years ago. We stopped by Baltimore, hon, to see Heir's grandmother. Then it was a long drive home in super heavy traffic, and then it was over.

Heir and I prepared for the worst. We wrote Mr. J's phone number on our arms in sharpie marker. We wore bandannas to protect our faces from tear gas. We didn't know what might happen. When push came to shove, though, I never saw a more benign crowd. Everyone was kind and gentle. Everyone drew energy from everyone else. In a crowd that size, such good will is essential. Any nastiness would have produced unparalleled mayhem.

Where do we go from here? As for me and my house, we will use our talents to oppose the Orange Menace. I imagine I'm preaching to the choir here. Please climb aboard.

My Next March Won't Have Satin Parasols

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I'm Anne Johnson -- white, female, worker.

In 17 days I will be heading to Washington, DC to participate in the Women's March on Washington. The very day I heard there was to be such a thing, I signed up to go. Since then I have read everything on the Internet about the march, both positive and negative.

Day before yesterday, I read a negative. It is called "The Women's March on Washington Has Already Failed."

Long story short, the article suggests that the march lacks focus. What is the main aim of this protest? There are so many factions! For some people, it's about women's health. For others it's about health care in general. Some people are worried about the environment. Some people are opposed to tax cuts for the rich. There are LGBTQ folks and Black Lives Matter folks and gun control advocates and opponents of charter schools. So, who's in charge here?

Who's in charge? Who cares! Look at all these concerns! Which one is more important than the next? Do we need to prioritize them?  Okay, then. I offer my own humble prioritization:

1. climate change
2. social safety net
3. human rights

This is just my opinion. I mean, really. This is just me.

It would be really nice if the only purpose for the Women's March on Washington was the preservation of women's individual rights to choose what happens to their bodies. One issue! Great! Except that, all at once, all of these huge issues are crashing down simultaneously. To choose one, and focus just on that one, would marginalize the others. And that goes for any one of the concerns listed above.

Plenty of people will line up to tell you that protest marches have no lasting effect on public policy. The marchers gather, shout, disperse, and that's it. No one needs to pay attention to silly marches. They don't matter.

Bamp! Wrong.

Let's run the highlight film of the twentieth century, shall we?

Oh my goodness! This march on Washington had no lasting impact on public policy! Heck, the guy in the photo wound up getting shot! (*Anne being sarcastic*)

Marches can, and do, change things. The changes don't happen overnight, the moment the tired protesters go home and take off their shoes. But the changes do happen. Marches can become defining moments in history. Not all of them do, of course, but enough of them do.

I suppose when some cheeky reporter tells me that a women's march has already failed, I just have a hard time believing it. Yes! Maybe on January 22, 2017 the march will look like a failure. But maybe, over the long haul, gathering 200,000 (or more, I'm hoping more) citizens in the nation's capital, for a dizzying array of serious issues, will influence public policy in the decades to come.

Does this march need a unifying theme? A focus? I don't think so. In fact, the more voices we get, and the wider diversity they represent, the better. Not one issue, not one person, should be left along the margins.

Over the next two weeks, I'll be giving you all of my many reasons for marching. When I'm all through, maybe you can help me decide what to write on my sign.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Will I see you there?

Then and Now

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" If you are one of my three readers still looking in to see if I'm here, let it be known ... Anne is back! The stakes are high, and the steaks are dry. Or some such.

Wow. A lot has happened since almost a year ago, when the passing of Decibel the parrot was my last entry. So, what did I do between then and now?

One thing I did, happily and with an abundance of enthusiasm, was attend a Bernie Sanders rally at Temple University on April 6.

Look at Spare and me in this photo! It was freezing cold that day, not a speck of sun and a whipping wind. We got to the Liacouris Center at noon and stood outside until 5:30. Then we went inside. Spare went onto the floor to get as close to Bernie as she could, and I grabbed a seat. The arena slowly filled to capacity, which is 10,000 plus the standing room only on the floor. Bernie began his speech at about 8:30 or 9:00, and when it was over, he shook Spare's hand as he left the stage. When we caught up to each other, we wept tears of joy.

Senator Sanders' message resonated with both of us. We desperately wanted him to be the Democratic nominee for president.

We were deeply disappointed when he lost.

 I personally went to a Bernie rally during the Democratic National Convention (it was 105 in the shade that day), but after marching down Broad Street I had an impromptu conversation with a Jamaican immigrant lady who was furious with the Bernie-or-Bust crowd. When she confronted me, the conversation went kind of like this:

Lady: How can you do this? Don't you see you make it possible for that man, Donald Trump, to win?

Anne: Oh, let me promise you! I will vote for Hillary. I know the stakes are high.

Lady: Because, seriously, I'm afraid I will be sent back to Jamaica if that man Donald Trump gets elected. And I am a citizen of the USA.

Anne: Oh, don't worry about a thing! The American people would never elect such an unprepared and temperamental man to such a serious and demanding position of power!

Lady: We'll see.


That was Then.


This is Now.

On Thursday, November 10, 2016 Spare and I (and our friend Nettle) took part in a hastily-organized protest against Donald Trump. It was a Women's March. Spare made her sign. Again we wept together, this time in the dark and the cold, this time in despair.

Presidential primaries exist for a reason. They serve as platforms for the exchange of ideas. They serve to put as many issues and positions on the table as possible. Bernie Sanders was quite clear and articulate about the issues he saw as important. Hillary Clinton skirted these issues mostly, setting herself up as (a) someone about to make history, and (b) not Donald Trump.

I voted for her. Spare voted for her. So did lots and lots of other people. But the cold, dark times are upon us. The worst possible set of faux Christians has grabbed power-- the very people I used to poke such fun at on this blog.

The bored Gods are appalled. For the love of fruit flies, even Jesus is appalled.

I'm not a terrorist, I'm not being paid by George Soros or anyone else. But I'm going to speak. I'm going to protest. I'm going to cover this apocalypse with my Swiftian blog. I feel that, as a Pagan, I am being called upon to support religious liberty ... not to mention trying to keep Social Security checks rolling in to my ailing mother-in-law. And so much else. I'll cover it all.

I wonder what happened to that Jamaican lady I met in Philly last summer. I guess she's blaming me for this. Well, there's blame aplenty to be assigned. If my support of Bernie Sanders brought Donald Trump to office, then burn me at the stake. You've got to stand for something in this world.

Party of Woodstock

Seriously. Rick Santorum has called the Democratic Party the "Party of Woodstock." I'm trying to picture President Obama jamming in the mud to "Purple Haze." Ooops! Fail.

I'm old enough to remember Woodstock, and truth be told, much more has been made of it in the ensuing years than was made of it at the time. I do know that the televised images of young people cavorting in the rain, in various states of undress and in various states of altered consciousness, scared the crap out of Middle America. But it took a while for that to happen.

Actually, the fact that we aren't a Woodstock generation should say it all. A true Party of Woodstock would be way left of center, we would have legalized weed, and corporations would be required to smile on their brothers, everybody get together, gotta love one another right now. Does that sound like America to you?

Let me tell Moron Rick and all you young whippersnappers what life was like in the years immediately after Woodstock.

In public school health class, segregated by gender, we girls were told exactly how to prevent pregnancy. We were shown all the different ways it could be done. The teacher passed around an unopened package of birth control pills and told us where to go to get them for free. We passed around a diaphragm and saw a film on how an IUD worked. Many of my friends promptly went to the state-funded free clinic and got their pills. They didn't need to tell a parent about the appointment or the pills.

I had plenty of high school classmates who were sexually active. No one got pregnant.

When I went into college, still in the 1970s, I got free pills from the state-funded dispensary too. I used them. I never got pregnant until I wanted to. One of my friends was not so lucky. Friend's mom found Friend's pills in the medicine cabinet (while snooping) and demanded Friend stop taking them immediately. Within three months, Friend had to get an abortion, which she had to hide from her family. She got it without question (and without ultrasound) at a state-funded clinic.

Why are we going backwards on this? Who are these people, and why do they care what women do with their lives? I don't understand it at all.

You know what I think? I think we need a Party of Woodstock. If I could get family planning classes in 1975, and now I can go to my 35th anniversary class reunion and see photos of plump, smiling grandchildren, I don't think anyone got harmed by learning how to prevent pregnancy.

If there are any young gals reading this here Pagan diary, let me just say that I feel sorry for you. What was easy for my generation has become a struggle for you ... and it looks to get worse before it gets better.

I'll do my part to put things back on track. But girls: It's really up to you. Vote for your autonomy. And above all else, act responsibly ... no matter how hard it is to find those pills these days.