Musing...

I picked Leo Martello's book off the shelf yesterday and started reading it again. He signed it when we met back in 1994. I can't believe it's been 15 years. He has passed over since then and I can't help feeling a bit remorseful. We did not get along. I was arrogant in my belief that my assertion that I was a descendent should be proof enough that I deserved to be taught. He would hear nothing of it and dismissed me as some brat. About a year after that I entered massage school and was visited by my great grandmother and was taught to channel and receive tutoring thru her, so in the end I got what I wanted and he didn't have to deal with me. But it would have been nice to walk this path with a living breathing mentor by my side. Also since then I have received treatment for bi-polar disorder so I'm not as abrasive and difficult to be around anymore. Since Grimassi and I also had a run in, I would really hope that I figure out just how the hell to behave around other Streghe or, maybe it's not me, maybe I just haven't met any who are as amiable as say, Andras Corban Arthen was. That man is a gem.
At any rate, this is something I need to figure out before I make it to Florence in the next few years. (via Kent's Honors program)

I wanted to say something about how Stregheria manifests today. It's not the collection of superstitions and love poems that it once was. My family is archetypal in it's current make up as a Strega family. My mother is an Anthropologist, specializing in Italian culture. My father was an Astro-physics major, and is now a computer mogel. If I want to know exactly where Venus is at any given moment, all I have to do is pick up the phone and ask him. My sister worked with horses for a time and is now a Yoga instructor and I was a massage therapist and am now concentrating on my writing. Our little brothers are left brained little wizards; one's in computer r/d and the other is in real estate.

Principally, our parents are where I see the new face of Stregheria unfolding. We were raised, going to a different religious celebration every weekend. Mass on one weekend, Temple the next, Japanese tea ceremony the weekend after that, Shiva festival the weekend following, Nativa Ammerican circle next saturday and so on. Mom orchestrated all of these family outings and Dad would consult with each Priest, Rabbi, and Shaman as to the astronomical events that corrolated to each religious holiday. This didn't happen in tandem all the time, and it didn't happen as often once my brothers and sister were born. (I'm 12 years older than the second litter) But when I visit with other Italian families and I see how very different mine is from all those with two kitchens and Communion and Comfirmation photos everywhere. I don't see my family as different because of what my parents majored in in college. I see us as different because the prana/lifeforce that ties us all to one another is different. Our family's magick is a deft cocktail of love and instilled confidence; an unequivocal belief in one another's esteem. That is something lacking in other Italian housholds where fear and doubt seem to walk hand in hand with the church. We're a different color, a differnet shade of love and understanding of how the world works. So even though my mother, my sister and I are the only ones who write poetry and study the old ways and keep them alive, all of us have been taught to see the magic of the spiral in everything that we do.
Poems are supposed to be a reflection of the magic you aspire to make come true. A hundred years ago, or even just looking at the poetry of adolescense, poems are about doe eyed boys who take your breath away or politicians you'd like to see hanged.
Today they are about the psychological principles that are more easily understood with age. Maybe religion/faith is simply a means of working toward psychological health. I think that is a concept more easily understood today than it was when my great grandmother was alive.
Maybe that's why we've done away with the superstitious spells and out dated dogmas. But I desperately want to view my faith as being more than that. After all, I talk to dead people: a practice that has been sanctioned by my shrinks because of the way I do it. If it's not me talking to my higher self and is in fact a supernatural experience ... than magick is real, and I need to believe that.