On May 31st of this year, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in his church. His murderer has told the AP that he knows there are “many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.”

Now, on the heels of this tragedy, Operation Rescue is mobilizing for what they boast will be “the largest, most widespread coordinated pro-life outreach ever.” From September 23rd through November 1st, anti-choice activists will descend upon women’s health clinics nationwide for a campaign of harassment and obstruction.

We need to organize quickly to protect the clinics and the staff who work for women’s health care, as well as the patients who need treatment. To that end, we are compiling a national list of actions planned to counter this anti-choice campaign and need your help. Here’s what you can do:

1. If you are on Facebook, join the 40 Days for CHOICE group and invite your friends.

2. Please review the list of targeted clinics. If your local clinic is on the list, call them. Ask how you can help. Remember that they are busy serving women’s health care needs every day, and be ready to organize something independently if they do not have anything planned. Please post any questions to the group, or e-mail us at la4choice@gmail.com for organization help or ideas.

3. Post or email us with information about clinic defense and counter-demonstrations in your area so we can add it to the national list.

4. Show up! If each of us passes this information along to every pro-choice person we know, spends 15 minutes reaching out to our local clinic, especially if it’s on the targeted list, and participates in clinic defense in whatever way we can, it will have a huge impact on this attack on every woman’s right to safe and legal abortion.

In Los Angeles, a counter-protest is being organized – e-mail la4choice@gmail.com for details. Please pass along this email and keep passing it along until November 1, 2009.

Trust Women!

Looking down at the baby, sleeping with its fists by its head, tufts of fine hair still darkening its earlobes, Melinda felt bewildered. I expected something different. But she couldn’t remember now what exactly that had been.

These are the first lines of a new story I’m working on. I had a couple of babies a year and a half ago, and I’ve been hanging out with them an awful lot since then, so I think I’m pretty qualified to write about motherhood (at least up through the early toddler months). My new story, though, is not at all about me or my children.

It’s a trap I think most writers try hard to avoid, and most readers gladly leap into: the belief that a story must be, on some level, autobiographical, particularly when the situation described is one the author has experienced in a general sense. I am a mother, therefore – goes the fallacy – anything I write about motherhood must be drawn from my own experience. This trap is even more perilous for women writers. We are often perceived as more honest, less capable of deception, and as flattering as that may seem, it is precisely what leads people to think us less capable of true creativity, because what is creativity if not a lie well-told?

Let me be unambiguous now, so you won’t have to wonder someday, as you’re reading my latest collection of short stories, Is it true? Or is she lying? The answer to both questions is yes.

This is a painful story, and it is not a final draft. So I begin:

Once upon a time, I wrote a short story – a fairy tale, in fact – for a college class. My professor liked it very much. She showed it to her editor, who was head of the children’s publishing section at a major publishing house. The editor called me. “I like your voice,” she said. “Would you be interested in turning this into a picture book?” Would I ever! “Great. Get it down to 1200 words, and send it to me again.” Over the next year, I cut, pared, and winnowed, counting words anorexically. I tried to find the slimmest vein of Story in the story. I didn’t do a very good job.

“It’s lost something.” Yes, I thought, About ninety percent of its bulk. “Your voice doesn’t come through, and I think it’s because you need more space. Would you be interested in turning it into a YA novel?” Would I ever! After a year of deprivation, I splashed into the writing like a woman starved. I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote. My main character, a young girl, took off across the countryside, and I reveled in her journey. I smelled her air, felt her muddy path squelching under my feet. After ten chapters, I sent in the partial manuscript, and heard nothing back. I faltered. I wrote less. The young girl was stranded at the edge of a forest, and there she stayed for nearly six months, no doubt bored witless.

Then the phone rang. “We’d like to offer you a contract.” I did a hopping up and down, fist-biting dance at those words, trying for all I was worth not to shriek with excitement. I went in to the office, high above midtown Manhattan. I met with the editor, and with the assistant editor who would be in charge of my book. I signed a contract. I got a check for half of my advance up front. I went home to write.

But the story I had felt so close to had drifted away over the long months of insecurity and fear. I tried to get back. I did get back, sometimes. There were hours when the scenes played out before me, and I wrote as fast as I could, trying to describe every birdcall, every creaking branch. But turning a twelve page short story into a full length YA novel is hard. Your characters dig their toes into the dirt and look around them, needing more to interact with, more to confront. Your simple plot, once elegant, is now sparse. I struggled. And meanwhile, life happened: bills came, lovers went, and two tall buildings collapsed in a shower of dust and ash that covered the world. I went down to Ground Zero as one acronym – EMT – and came back with another: PTSD.

The young girl’s journey grew darker, her happy ending less certain. One of her companions betrayed her, another was lost. It was no longer the story I had begun in college. It was no longer the story the editors wanted. They tried to work with me, offering me time to rewrite. I rewrote. At last, I thought I was reaching a place of compromise, where the story was something we could all accept. I was nearly there.

Listen closely, because I am about to tell you a secret: the publishing industry is an industry, complete with mergers, buyouts, and shakeups. My publisher was acquired by a large media conglomerate. They pushed out my editor. My assistant editor threw up her hands and left. I got a phone call in early October, and a letter on Halloween. I got a check for the second half of my advance – making me the highest-paid unpublished novelist I know – and all the rights to my story back.

I sent the story out to agents, with a brief explanation of what had happened. An agency offered to take me on, but with the same caveat as my editors: the end needed to be rewritten. I rewrote. I rewrote again. I could not seem to reach a satisfactory conclusion. And then I realized why: it was not the end that needed rewriting. It was the rest of the book.

I am not the girl who began writing this story, and I cannot tack a happy ending on to her work. I have to go back, and once again find the Story in the story. My main character doesn’t mind too much; she’s not the girl she was either. We’re both a little apprehensive, but we’re looking forward to the journey together.

In March of 2008 I had twins. They take up quite a bit of my time.

When a female child is born, her ovaries already contain all of the egg cells she will ever have. A million tiny pieces of potential, waiting in the dark. Of course, not all of these cells will become children; by adolescence, only 300,000 or so remain. Should one of those 300,000 encounter a sperm cell, it might become fertilized. This fertilized egg might implant in the lining of the uterus — or it might not. If it implants, then pregnancy has begun. There is a significant chance — probably somewhere north of 25% – that the embryo might spontaneously miscarry before the woman even knows she’s pregnant. After four weeks gestation (six weeks since the last menstrual period, or LMP), there is an 8% risk of miscarriage, which drops to 2% after 6.5 weeks gestation (8.5 weeks LMP).

I recite these facts because in the maelstrom of controversy over abortion, it is surprisingly easy to forget about pregnancy. Specifically, about how it happens, and, in the miraculously paradoxical way of nature, how simultaneously common and fragile it is. Paganism, as a collection of spiritual traditions that honor the divine feminine — the Goddess who shelters growing life within her womb and brings it forth in the form of creation — cannot ignore the realities of the women who embody that process. Babies are not created in the abstract, but grown from the flesh and blood of their mothers, and that process of growing is exhausting, all-consuming, and sometimes dangerous for the pregnant woman. In ideal circumstances, pregnancy should be a sacred, joyful time, but the reality is that even when a pregnancy is wanted, many women endure rather than enjoy the forty weeks of gestation. To force a woman to carry a pregnancy that she does not want is akin to physical enslavement, and pagan traditions, with their shared belief in freedom, cannot condone slavery.

Even people who believe strongly in freedom, however, may stumble over the question of which takes precedence, women’s bodily sovereignty or the life (or potential for life) of a fetus. Thus the argument over abortion often hinges on the question of when life begins. Pagans have no text or authority that points to a particular moment of cell development and says, “Here is the crucial moment, the beginning of life.” Most, however, believe in some version of reincarnation. The soul may be understood as a constant, which cannot be denied life by the termination of pregnancy but rather might be sent back into karmic circulation, to wait for its right time to be born. This concept is shared by — and perhaps partially derived from — Japanese Buddhism. The Japanese word mizuko is usually translated into English as “water child,” and refers to a miscarried or aborted fetus. In her 2002 article, “Mourning My Miscarriage,” Peggy Orenstein explains the Buddhist concept of the mizuko as “somewhere along the continuum, in that liminal space between life and death but belonging to neither . . . existence flow[s] into a being slowly, like liquid.” She describes a Japanese Buddhist ritual specifically designated for the mourning of aborted or miscarried pregnancies, called the mizuko kuyo, which acknowledges the sadness of sending a soul back to wait its turn without shaming or placing guilt on the woman who felt it necessary to do so. According to Orenstein, abortion in Japanese culture is “a regrettable necessity” – an eloquent phrasing of a hard truth.

The circle, both literal and metaphorical, figures strongly in many pagan traditions. We gather and perform rituals in circles; we honor the seasons as they pass one into another, calling this the Wheel of the Year. Life is understood as a series of cycles: life and death are one, reproduction another, and the two are inextricably bound. In pre-modern times, many women spent much of their adult lives pregnant, their bellies swelling and flattening like the moon. The rate of infant mortality was generally high, the birth of a child no certain promise of a future adult. Women commonly died in childbirth or soon after. Death walked alongside us, an intimate companion. The fact was and remains that pregnancy often results in the birth of a child, but not always. It may result in miscarriage, in stillbirth, or in abortion. These events must be acknowledged and honored, perhaps with some sadness, but never with shame. They, too, are part of the cycle. They are not the end.

The trouble with paganism is this: there’s no one looking over your shoulder. No god watches from his comfortable cloud, ready to send down a thunderbolt if you slip up, or keeps a ledger of your actions for post-mortem judgment. Pagan gods and goddesses are embodied in nature, and to the extent that they concern themselves with human doings, it is in the larger context of their stewardship of the natural world as a whole.

Whence, then, the motivation to lead an ethical life, and what might that life look like? Two precepts keep pagans (mostly) in line: the Wiccan Rede, originally published by Doreen Valiente in 1964, advises “An it harm none, do as ye will,” while a more self-interested principle, known as The Rule of Three, warns that everything you do returns to you three times. The first is law, the second law enforcement; don’t hurt anybody, because if you do, you’ll suffer for it. Who needs an angry god when karma stands at the ready?

The Wiccan Rede, or some variation thereon, is about as close to a commandment as most pagans are willing to get. It seems simple enough at first glance, but that very simplicity makes interpretation a formidable challenge. What constitutes “harm,” after all? Physical assault obviously qualifies, but most actions fall into a grayer area. Gossip about a colleague, neglect to give up your seat on the bus to an elderly person, tell your niece you’re too busy to go to her school play; have you harmed anyone? For that matter, what constitutes “none”? Is a pagan’s responsibility limited to other humans, or is there a spiritual duty to take in stray animals, or to recycle?

Virginia pagan Kelly S., who considers her spirituality integral to her life, says “I believe in light and love and a universal connectedness, and so . . . I make choices in life with that in mind, for instance, choosing to lower my ‘ecological footprint’ or always working to keep my business local.” Such environmental consciousness is often encountered among pagans, whose traditions include herbal lore and outdoor worship. Kelly and her family run an organic farm, and the goal of sustainability drives their growing and harvesting practices. When she recently opened a business, Kelly chose a location close to her home over one a bit farther away, despite its somewhat higher rent, in a conscious effort to limit her driving in keeping with her principles.

Lacking a confessional booth or a bible, pagans must connect to the divinity within to find answers to tough spiritual questions. The Charge of the Star Goddess holds, “if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you shall never find it without.” Chanting, meditation, dance, or reading tarot cards are all methods used to receive wisdom from the divine which infuses all beings. Across the wide array of pagan traditions, instinct, intuition, and a close bond with the natural world are important to the lives of practitioners. “I believe that birth and death are sacred moments that should be experienced within the context of one’s spirituality,” says Kelly S. “To that end, I chose to birth all my children at home with only intimate family and friends to witness, in an environment where I could be completely in touch with my instincts. I was tapping into the universal force that runs through all of us, what some people call God, or the Goddess, or Ganesh, or what ancient Greeks called Zeus and Athena. I also helped my my mother die at home in the most honest and organic way we could, and after she died I washed her body and we kept her in the house until the funeral. I felt the same force running through everyone involved in her death, through our house and our land.”

Everything you do returns to you three times. The Rule of Three is not a threat from any supernatural being or deity, but a statement of natural law. Every action, from a smile to a brick thrown through a window, has consequences for the actor. Thus the Rule is not a warning to beware, but an encouragement to be aware. This awareness, this constant checking-in with the divine, this connection with each other as humans and with nature is at the center of pagan spirituality and pagan lives.

The Order of the Golden Dawn, The Reformed Druids of North America, The Church of All Worlds – pagans come in many stripes, and often in plaid. Although the origins of modern paganism are usually traced to Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated by the remnants of an ancient British “witch-cult” in the late 1930s, today pagans claim their spiritual lineage from all over the globe. They vary widely in ritual practice and doctrine, but, as might be expected from members of a movement that came of age in the 1960s and 70s, tend to share a tradition of social liberalism.

Queer people have often been attracted to Paganism for just this reason; its eclectic membership and traditions, as well as its usually egalitarian structure, make it a safe spiritual harbor. As civil rights have expanded in some places to include same sex marriage, it seems likely that many of these ceremonies will be performed by pagan officiants. “Even in the most liberal church, [same sex marriage] is still controversial,” says Elizabeth Cunningham, author of The Maeve Chronicles and Managing Director of The Center at High Valley, a pagan ritual space. “I don’t think they would have that battle in most pagan communities, it just wouldn’t exist.” At High Valley’s recent Beltane ritual, she notes, quite a few same sex couples jumped the bonfire, signifying their romantic commitment to each other.

Sexuality holds a special place in most Neo-Pagan traditions. Some groups, such as Gardnerian Wiccans, believe that there is a male-female polarity in nature which should be reflected in ritual work, but most take a broader, less formalized view. “The Charge of the Star Goddess,” a sacred text for many Pagans, decrees that “Love is the law.” “For behold,” it states, “all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.” This tenet is often cited in discussions of homosexuality and Paganism as evidence for the essential openness of Pagan spiritual paths to those of all sexual orientations.

In the turbulent social milieu of the 1970s, several Pagan traditions were created by and for gays and lesbians. The Minoan Brotherhood, founded in 1977, derives much of its structure and beliefs from the Gardnerian tradition, but its membership is exclusively male, and, according to its website, its rituals are “decidedly homoerotic.” Dianic Wicca, also founded in the late 70s, has historically been an exclusively female tradition (though there are a few mixed-gender groups), and while it is not explicitly lesbian, its emphasis on female divinity has attracted a substantial lesbian membership. And of course there are the Radical Faeries, a gay male spiritual and social justice movement which, though not explicitly Pagan, has strong Pagan overtones.

Pagans, not unlike gays and lesbians, have fought for civil and legal acceptance while remaining wary of authority. While Pagan diversity and resistance to hierarchy has been one of its great strengths, it has also meant that there are no formal seminaries through which one can be ordained, as there are for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders. Pagan officiants who wish to perform civil marriage must resort to an online ordination or become a Justice of the Peace. Traditional handfastings – the Pagan equivalent of a wedding – have long been performed for same sex couples in many traditions, however, and such ceremonies can only become more frequent as same sex marriage becomes legalized more and more widely.

Over the last seventy years, Neo-Pagans have progressed from disconnected, hidden groups, practicing nervously in countries where their activities were illegal, to a proud and active movement with rights recognized and protected by law. At the same time, queer people have forged a similar path from invisibility to pride, and from oppression to something approximating equality. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people enjoy more legal protections and rights now than at any time in modern history. Some Judeo-Christian religious institutions are gradually opening their arms to same sex unions, but the powerful effort of the Mormon Church to pass Proposition 8 in California (which created a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman) exemplifies the intransigence of many churches in this arena. Paganism, in its rainbow of incarnations, remains a welcoming spiritual home for those in same sex relationships. As Cunningham points out, Pagan ritual work is almost always done in circles, and “the definition of the circle is to include.”