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13 Magickal Days of Remembrances
We, as Pagans, practitioners of a misunderstood, minority religion, are often portrayed as outsiders, non-Americans and, even worse, threats to the fabric of this country and the American way. However, this could not be further from the truth. Our country was originally founded on the premise of religious freedom. And, to this day, that remains one of the most powerful foundations of the American Dream.
We, as Pagans, are blessed to live in a land where we can practice our faith, worship our Gods and sing our spirit, free from the violence that once befell others like us. We are acutely aware of this blessing. And will defend our freedom and celebrate the American Dream.
We, as Pagans, serve and nurture this country - our country. We are military families, firefighters and law officers. We own homes, go to school and worry about our 401K. We save lives in hospitals and find cures in research labs. We entertain. We teach. We bake apple pie, drink beer and surf the web. And, on July 4th, Independence Day, we too hold our American flags high and thank our Gods for the birth of this nation.
We, as Pagans, realize that freedom is hard won and desperately fragile. Freedom must be nurtured, honored and protected. All attacks on this freedom must be met with absolute solidarity. We must live as our name proclaims: the United States of America – a pagan nation, a Christian nation, a Jewish Nation, a Muslim nation; a spiritual nation made up of black, white, brown, yellow, and rainbow peoples. A united nation standing together, arm in arm, back to back, side by side, in times of joy and sorrow, prosperity and scarcity, good times and bad. This, alone, is and always will be the cornerstone of the American Dream.
And on this day, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks….
We, as Pagans, will stand tall with every other American. We will come together, even for just a moment, to remember the atrocities that occurred, lament the thousands of lives that were lost, and marvel at the enduring power of the American spirit.
Below on these pages, you will find the stories, prayers, and wishes from one pagan community as it stands tall in wake of tragedy to say: “We are still here. We are still fighting. Long Live the American Dream!”
Hawk from Dogwood Local Council
"I had Witchkin in NYC and New Jersey, and I connected with most of them via the internet almost immediately. Witches across our country began to work healing and protective magick simultaneously...."
Eibhlean, Dogwood Local Council
Mother, To thee I raise my whole being, a vessel emptied of Self
Accept, Lady, this, my emptiness and fill me with thyself
Thy light, thy Love, thy Life, that these thy precious gifts
May radiate through me and overflow the chalice
Of my Heart,
Lady Arsinoe, Dogwood Local Council
"On September 12, 2001, I took my daughter to our front lawn and directed her attention to the skies. There were no planes in the heavens that day. But, there were over 3,000 new stars shining in the firmament..."
Jack/Soec, Touchstone Local Council
"I took pride in our country's resolve, and could not fathom the hatred that had lead to this. I went on that day knowing that everything we had was gone, our freedoms, our innocence... and I feared the backlash..."
Michelle Mueller, Northern California Local Council
"Immediately, students at Bryn Mawr—Muslim and non-Muslim—were speaking up and standing in support of American Muslims who were not responsible for the attacks. We were also supporting each other..,"
Lady Magdalena, Dogwood Local Council
"I called all of my Grove and scheduled a Requiem ritual for the next night at the Covenstead. Subdued and red eyed we gathered to cast the circle in our Temple... We raised power to soothe the shock and confusion of the victims and to ease the anger and grief of the survivors. We raised our voice in spells of protection from further violence and to bring unity to our nation...."
Lady Miraselena, Dogwood Local Council
"Ten years later, our country is a different place. We are different people. Our world view has been altered forever. A bag sitting alone on a sidewalk is no longer a just a bag. Metal detectors are common sightings and Keds are potential bombs. We live in a complacent state of readiness. And we will never go back – for better or for worse..."
Bhakti, GryphonSong Clan, Dogwood Local Council
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, so many beautiful and moving stories are coming to light. The one I wish to share with you is a tribute to the surviving K9 heroes that gave so much of themselves at that terrible time. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did...
Arianwyn, Dogwood Local Council
I’ll never forget standing outside in the following days after the no-fly policy had been lifted and being fearful trying to discern if planes were commercial or military. In the following weeks we were allowed to leave work early to attend local prayer vigils at various local churches and acknoweldge that there may be spiritual answers to providing solace.
Ten years. It’s rather hard to believe that ten years have passed since September 11, 2001. So much has changed; so much has not. I remember, like all Americans, where I was and what I was specifically doing when the first plane hit the first tower. I continued to sit at my desk, wondering how a pilot had gotten so far off course and imagined a small, single engine airplane catastrophe. What seemed like only moments later, I was informed that a second plane had hit the towers.
I stood bolt upright at my desk. Terrorist attack. Everyone in my office clamored into the small break room where our non cable TV was broadcasting with squiggly lines and unclear audio. …we all know how the rest of that day transpired. The news clips from the countries of the world and their reactions. Some were apologetic and horrified; others cheered and burned our American flag.
I had Witchkin in NYC and New Jersey, and I connected with most of them via the internet almost immediately. Witches across our country began to work healing and protective magick simultaneously. I remember calling Lady Pythia from CoG and being asked to participate in a ritual that would be performed by Witch’s across the world. The tragedy and danger brought us together in purpose and in our shared culture as Americans and as American Witches.
I plan to make this ten year anniversary date of 9/11 a reminder of my many blessings. I am grateful that we stood strong as Americans through the awful tragedy of that event, and that we stand strong now in remembering that day.
Hawk, GryphonSong Clan, Dogwood Local Council
[Ynys Môns, Wales]
Mother, To thee I raise my whole being, a vessel emptied of Self
Accept, Lady, this, my emptiness and fill me with thyself
Thy light, thy Love, thy Life, that these thy precious gifts
May radiate through me and overflow the chalice
Of my Heart, into the hearts of all with whom I meet
This day, revealing unto them
The beauty of Thy Joy
And Wholeness
And the serenity of Thy Peace
Which nothing can destroy.
Shared by Eibhlean, GryphonSong Clan, Dogwood Local Council
Lady Arsinoe, The House of Oak Spring, Dogwood Local Council
I woke Stachia to tell her a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I couldn't figure out how it could have happened then the second plane hit. I remember watching in fascinated horror as the planes struck the towers and as the towers collapsed over and over on the television. Like a crazed, demented person, I demanded that it not happen, each time I watched only to see it again. Knowing that it would not change yet not believing my own eyes. I thought of my children so close to draft age with one already in the military and I cried. I had answered the call when my time came and I knew they would too. I prayed to the Gods to protect them. I also prayed that they see fit to ease the journey of those who had just gone to the Summerland and for this country. I took pride in our country's resolve, and could not fathom the hatred that had lead to this. I went on that day knowing that everything we had was gone, our freedoms, our innocence... and I feared the backlash. I have seen many changes since that day but occasionally I still wish we could see that world with the towers again.
Blessings,
Jack/Soec
Touchstone LC
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Remembrance
I started a new job as Director of Religious Education at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton. We are having our first Religious Education Committee meeting on Sept. 11 to discuss issues of children's ministry and children's programming. I couldn’t go without acknowledging 9-11. This is the meditation I wrote to open up our committee meeting at the Unitarian Universalist church:
The 9-11 attacks occurred during my first week of college. Now 10 years later I am embarking on a PhD program. I was fortunate that, despite the horrifficness of the 9-11 attacks, I was able to process grief in a progressive, sensitive, and intellectually challenging environment such as Bryn Mawr. Immediately, students at Bryn Mawr—Muslim and non-Muslim—were speaking up and standing in support of American Muslims who were not responsible for the attacks. We were also supporting each other, in the Philadelphia area, still waiting to hear from families and friends in New York City not far away. Students strove towards understanding and reconciliation and not towards war and continued to respect the families who lost loved ones in the attacks.
May the children of UU Stockton benefit from the liberal education I received at Bryn Mawr College, at progressive seminary Pacific School of Religion, and now Graduate Theological Union. And of course from life experience and from the many positive educational experiences of those among us in this group and in this congregation.
May the children and youth develop interfaith sensitivity, a passion for social justice, and an awareness of the world in our Religious Education program. There is no way to peace, peace is the way.
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Remembrance
We were watching the weather channel early that morning since Myrddin was still flying for USAirways and was getting ready for a flight up to Boston. Suddenly the news broke through with a video of the smoking Twin Tower. Every station was speculating on why and how a plane had gotten so off course as to hit that tower. Then we watched in disbelief as the second plane curved into the other tower and we knew it was no accident. Glued to the TV and telephone for the next 24 hours we participated in our nation’s horror and grief.
I called all of my Grove and scheduled a Requiem ritual for the next night at the Covenstead. Subdued and red eyed we gathered to cast the circle in our Temple. We called upon the Goddess of Death and Sorrow and the God of the Fallen Grain, of the Buried Seed. We raised power to soothe the shock and confusion of the victims and to ease the anger and grief of the survivors. We raised our voice in spells of protection from further violence and to bring unity to our nation.
We said:
Mother of healing, help us to believe in the place where wounds can heal. Mother of weaving, show us that what has been torn can there be mended.
You, who have been torn from this Earthly life have made your life an offering,
You have laid down your sweet flesh so others may taste life and freedom,
You have become like the sun whose radiance sustains us.
You have become like the grain cut down to feed us.
May you rise as the buried seed rises.
May He who falls and rises guide your way.
May the Mother of All gather you in.
Lady Magdalena, High Priestess, and Lord Myrddin, High Priest
The Grove of Phoenix Rising, Dogwood Local Council
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Remembrance
We didn’t hear from my brother for almost 24 hours. We had no idea if he was alive or dead. We didn’t know if he was on the island or had managed to return to Jersey. He worked only a few short blocks from the Trade Center and, as we found out later, witnessed the event live. My brother escaped unharmed but I am sure, as I write this, there is someone somewhere penning an entirely different story - a story more much more painful.
Tragedies happen every day all over the world. We call 9/11 “a big tragedy” or even a “catastrophic tragedy.” Others we call small. But how can we quantify or qualify a tragedy? Death is death. Murder is murder. Loss is loss and hate is hate. The rest is all detail. Was 9/11 catastrophic due to number of lives lost lives or because it killed an essential piece of our ideology – an American sense of absolute security?
On September 11th, I watched the events unfold before me from my new home in Atlanta. In restless silence, I witnessed the siege on my beloved Manhattan and its effects on my hometown. From Jersey, my family reported that the billowing smoke had reached them up-river and that they could barely see the southern tip of Manhattan.
Then, just like that, the Pentagon was hit. I was stunned - absolutely stunned. What was going on? Why was this happening? How could this be happening? It was like we were caught in a surreal Bruce Willis movie. Then, the fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And suddenly, all at once, the skies went silent. All at once the safety of the American homeland was gone!
Ten years later, our country is a different place. We are different people. Our world view has been altered forever. A bag sitting alone on a sidewalk is no longer a just a bag. Metal detectors are common sightings and Keds are potential bombs. We live in a complacent state of readiness. And we will never go back – for better or for worse.
I’ve been to Ground Zero several times. The first time was in December of 2001, just four short months after the attack. As I stood there, staring at a sculpture of mass destruction, I could hear screams twisting around the contorted rubble. I could feel a vortex that sunk deep into the ground; well past the exposed subway below. And, there was a pressure – a field of intense sorrow.
My subsequent visits since haven’t been quite as dramatic. The screams are gone. The rubble is gone. The horror has been swept away into the pages of history. But the energy is still there. “Something happened here,” it moans, “something catastrophic.” Standing there, even today, you can feel this energy pulling at your spirit as those words pass through your mind, forcing you to ask, “Why?”
Yes, 9/11 was catastrophic tragedy - the phenomenal loss of life; the annihilation of our sense of security and the subsequent paranoia that has grown in its place. Since that day, many more tragedies have happened in its wake. No one more tragic than the other. But 9/11, that particular event, was far more than a tragedy. It was also a “wake up” call to a country and a testament to the human spirit.
Today, when we mourn the loss of those that died, we must also revel in the strength of those that fought. We need to celebrate the firefighters and police who ran into the falling buildings; the citizens on the ground in both D.C. and N.Y. who rescued the injured; the military who rushed to secure our skies; and the unspeakably brave passengers of flight 93 who, knowingly held the hands of death and downed their plane in order to protect our country. Out of catastrophe came pure heroism.
And, today, if you visit Ground Zero, pay very close attention to the spirits in the air. There, dancing amongst the sorrow, the anger and the pain, lives yet another energy that grows stronger everyday and has for ten whole years. This energy encircles Ground Zero just as it encircles each and every one of us. It is the will to live and the fight to endure independent of politics, nationality, religion … which, in the end, after all is just detail.
My brother is alive today and I am humbly thankful for that, for those heroes and for so much more!
Lady Miraselena, Priestess of Grove of Phoenix Rising,
Public Information Officer, Dogwood Local Council
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Initially I planned not to respond, because I was simply traumatized on that day. I was driving to work in a suburb of Minneapolis, MN not exactly on time and the radio stated the first plane hit one of the Twin Towers. I changed my shoes walked into work, sharing what I heard and within minutes a co-worker and I walked downstairs to the VA office within the court house to watch the second tower fall on what was perhaps the only TV in the building. I went back upstairs and called my neighbor across the street because she was a bus driver in my district, and asked if she was going to pick up the children for an early release. I worked over an hour away from home. She said why, and then she turned on the TV. Shortly thereafter, my unit at Human Services was informed that we were on lock down and not to leave the building.
This was not just a matter of creating panic in the community at large, or making it harder on first responders by being on the road, but as a social service agency we were now in a state of emergency and essentially drafted to be available to anyone who needed help. We were now essential and mandatory personnel, even though we wanted to go home and be with our families. The next thing I did was e-mail and call family and friends in Orlando, Atlanta, and Philadelphia to find that almost everyone at work was in the same situation being told that all International Airports were “targets”. My family members in the military did not serve at the Pentagon, but that did mean that someone they knew could be dead or dying on American soil.
I’ll never forget standing outside in the following days after the no-fly policy had been lifted and being fearful trying to discern if planes were commercial or military. In the following weeks we were allowed to leave work early to attend local prayer vigils at various local churches and acknoweldge that there may be spiritual answers to providing solace. We marked my birthday near Mabon, and both of my sons as well. I had to attend a mandatory yearly Child Support Conference Training in October out of town. My roommate, who I had no affinity for asked me why I was married to my husband after she had met him at a recent housewarming party. Apparently it was clear to a complete stranger who I did not like, that my spouse maybe didn’t really care for me, or at the very least could see that we were nothing alike.
By Samhain after 6 years of marriage, I informed my husband that not only did I want a divorce, but that I had retained counsel and would be moving out. At 32, I decided that life was simply too short and precious to be miserable, and feel a knot in my stomach everyday driving home from work. I began reading and practicing as a solitary as soon as I moved out, with a little encouragement from my lifelong friend MaryAnn. We had both been reading Marion Zimmer Bradley since we were 13/14. She practiced with a co-worker who relayed the message to me that I should just come out of the closet. At one point I told my husband to go ahead and call me a “witch”, since there is a scriptural reference to a woman leaving her husband as being out of order and in rebellion, and “…rebellion is as witchcraft.”
After 9/11 I had to be true to myself, what I believe, what I was sent into this world to do. The extreme violence of the attack rocked the foundation of many lives, and I will always mark it as a personal turning point toward giving me courage to not settle for less.
Arianwyn,House of Oak Spring, Dogwood Local Council
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