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Twelve Healing Stars is a yearlong project in cooperation with the Temple of Witchcraft that explores social justice through the lessons of the 12 Zodiac Signs. This is part nine.

Back in grad school, we studied the book Failing at Fairness by Myra and David Sadker. The book distills 20 years of research into how America’s schools consistently implant a sense of inferiority in young girls, and then it goes on to show how that unfair socialization plagues women as even as successful, professional adults. It demonstrates that there is always a specter of insecurity which follows women through their careers and documents the damage done to the lives of women¹ by the educational system.

I saw the first Jurassic Park movie the day it came out. We spent hours waiting in line to get into the special midnight showing at a theater that billed itself as the “largest screen west of the Mississippi.” The anticipation was palpable as we played cards, read books, and talked to our fellow moviegoers about what we were about to see. Some had read the book and knew what to expect. I hadn’t, but their excitement served only to pump up my own even more.

Watching that film on that screen with a house full of excited fans, all of whom were viewing it for the first time ever, was one of the greatest movie-watching experiences of my life. We were all shocked together; we all screamed together; we all felt the constant rise and fall of tension together. The climactic sequence in which the two velociraptors hunt Lex and Tim through the park’s kitchen, nearly killing the children over and over, was the tensest few minutes of film I’ve ever felt. There is no doubt we were all in a group mind by that time, entranced after two hours of thrills and kills.

Twelve Healing Stars is a yearlong project in cooperation with the Temple of Witchcraft that explores social justice through the lessons of the 12 Zodiac Signs. This is part nine.

Twelve Healing Stars is a yearlong project in cooperation with the Temple of Witchcraft that explores social justice through the lessons of the 12 Zodiac Signs. This is part eight.

In 1926, the final wolf in Yellowstone National Park was killed. As predators, they did not enjoy the protections that kept other animals in the national parks safe. By 1929, it was already becoming clear that the eradication of wolves was a big mistake.

I am dangerously close to thanking Indiana.

Someone had to test the waters. While there are at least 20 states plus the federal government who have passed so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration Acts,” Indiana’s was singled out because, as Pagan lawyer and blogger John Halstead explains, it expands the definition of “persons” who can be protected and it allows the use of the law as a defense in civil suits. In other words, it gives people and private business owners with religious objections a potential shield to discriminate against the gay community.

When we met in nineteen thirty-eight, it was November
When I said that I would be his mate, it was December
I reasoned he would be the greatest husband that a girl had ever found
That’s what I reasoned
That’s what I reasoned
Then April rolled around…

April has rolled around once again, and with it comes a tradition that has been part of the background of American life that stretches even farther back than 1938- it began almost the very day in 1845 when the Knickerbocker Club of New York City took on the New York Nine in the first organized game of “base ball” ever played.  Since that day, as Meg laments in Damn Yankees, baseball has been a part of American life for “six months out of every year.”

Twelve Healing Stars is a yearlong project in cooperation with the Temple of Witchcraft that explores social justice through the lessons of the 12 Zodiac Signs. This is part seven. “So it is with skillful warriors – their force is swift, their precision is close. Their force is like drawing a catapult, their precision is like releasing the trigger.”

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I’ve always struggled with activism. I know it’s the right thing to do in many cases, but there are so many justified causes that it can feel overwhelming. If you put your finger on one problem, another head of the hydra pops up in its place. You want to be a warrior, but there are enemies everywhere. It’s easy to lose track of where to aim and how much force to use. It can be depressing and paralyzing.