Author: Barbara Ardinger

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is a published author and freelance editor. Her newest book is Secret Lives, a novel about grandmothers who do magic. Her earlier nonfiction books include the daybook Pagan Every Day, Finding New Goddesses (a pun-filled parody of goddess encyclopedias), and Goddess Meditations. When she can get away from the computer, she goes to the theater as often as possible—she loves musical theater and movies in which people sing and dance. She is also an active CERT (Community Emergency Rescue Team) volunteer and a member (and occasional secretary pro-tem) of a neighborhood organization that focuses on code enforcement and safety for citizens. She has been an AIDS emotional support volunteer and a literacy volunteer. She is an active member of the neopagan community and is well known for the rituals she creates and leads.

The Emperor’s New Clothes by Barbara Ardinger

On the day the Big Boss decided he wanted to be the Emperor of Everywhere, the first thing he did was pull on his red cap embroidered with the words Make Me Greater Again. He tied the strings under some of his chins and adjusted the earflaps so he could more plainly hear the Spirit of the Cap. The first thing the Spirit of the Cap told him was that an Emperor needed appropriate clothing. The Big Boss pulled out the mail-order catalogue from which he ordered his custom-tailored suits and paged through until he came to the perfect photograph of the perfect Emperor’s New Clothes, which was a royal robe of pure silk the color of peacocks’ tails. “Yesss,” said the Spirit of the Cap. “Order this one.” The Big Boss picked up one of his phones and placed the order. “I want it right now,” he told the operator. “I am very, very important. I always demand very, very immediate service.”

red cap When the Spirit of the Cap upon which were embroidered the words I Am Always Very, Very Great told the Big Boss he needed consultants, the Boss called his posse together and ordered referrals. “I always get what I want very, very quickly,” he told the posse, which consisted of several of his wives and the goodfellas that ran the real estate where Ladies of the Night and their Good Friends gambled the nights away. “I make very, very good deals,” said the Big Boss. “Find me some very, very good advisors. If you don’t, you’re fired.” Continue reading “The Emperor’s New Clothes by Barbara Ardinger”

Hey, Diddle, Diddle by Barbara Ardinger

Hey, diddle, diddle
The cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon!

From her lips to our ears.

What is this? Maybe it’s an absurdist play. An operetta. An oracle. A carnival. Or all at once. I’m only a Seeing Woman, not a Priestess or a Thealogian, but I’ve permission to be present at great events and small. So I was there. I was watching. It was indeed a carnival, but one of our old-time carnivals where we celebrate all there is celebrate in life. Not one of those new-fangled carnivals of those new religions, where they grab everything good they can for one day before they have to give up all the pleasures in life while their god does…well, whatever he and his disciples and prophets do up there in the sky.

Dish and spoon What on earth, I hear you asking, got into that dish? Why did she run away? Well, let me tell you. It was at one of our last carnivals. It was an enchantment. That dish was our Princess, and she was under the enchantment. Actually, the whole Royal Family was enchanted. The warriors came galloping in from the steppes beyond the river, but first they sent a Prince. He told our Queen that they were coming to “protect” us, that they were bringing new gods to us. Bringing what they called new civilization and new ways, bringing us what they called “good news.” Well, our Queen and Her Consort were rightly skeptical about all these news, and they locked the Princess up in a safe tower. Kept her there for who knows how long while that handsome but rapacious Prince came and went and the warriors surrounded our lands. Back and forth, back and forth. It was them that declared the carnival and threw that enchantment on all our important people. The Prince lured her down out of the tower—he’d stolen the magic words that unlocked the door—and then he told her he was going to eat her up. She thought it was a joke. He dressed himself up as a big spoon and persuaded her to dress herself as a dish. And then, when the invasion got serious, she ran away with him. Maybe she thought she was saving herself. Continue reading “Hey, Diddle, Diddle by Barbara Ardinger”

Blessed Are They by Barbara Ardinger

Barbara Ardinger There has been so much hate on display in the world so far in the 21st century that it’s easy to fall into despair. Not only are there wars in the Middle East, beginning with the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq, passing through the general failure of the Arab Spring, and continuing into the work of sociopathic terrorists of the so-called Islamic State, but we have also seen a multitude of murders in the U.S. I’m almost afraid to turn on the news! We have insane, mostly young, men who buy guns and ammunition and invade movie theaters, churches, hair salons, regional centers, and schools. We have murders of black men by (usually) white police, then the murder of police by an angry black man, and then more murders. As some protesters are now saying, “All lives matter.” Right on!

Let’s turn off the news for a little while. Let’s set aside our devices and all those pesky social media. Instead, let’s consider one of the best known (and, alas, probably most ignored) teachings of Jesus—the Sermon on the Mount as given in the Gospel of Matthew. I especially like the Beatitudes (verses 3-12): Continue reading “Blessed Are They by Barbara Ardinger”

Who’s In That Clock? by Barbara Ardinger

Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock;
The clock struck one,
And down he run,
Hickory, dickory, dock.

Someone’s been watching that mouse with the suction-cup feet. From her mouth to our ears.

Hickory dickory image2 You all know my story, at least the popular version of it. I was an only daughter, the princess (so to speak) of the house until Mama died. Then Papa, who couldn’t seem to manage anything, much less a busy household, went out and got married again and brought Stepmother and her two ugly daughters into the house…and the princess was promptly reduced to servitude.

One of the things Mama brought to Papa when they married was her longcase clock, which she had inherited from (yes) her grandfather. That clock is ten feet tall, and it stood in our grand parlor until Stepmother moved it into the hall beside the stairs. Now it stands outside my bedroom under the stairs. (It’s my own little corner and I have my own little chair there.) I’ve been looking at that clock all my life. Although it, and our household, ran smooth as the day is long while Mama was alive, it doesn’t always go bong on the regular hours anymore. And when it strikes, something weird often happens. Like, one time when it struck eight, I heard this invisible chorus start singing about going into the woods and being happy ever after. Like, one time when it struck two, three mice came dancing out of it, and when it struck three, they went blind and I had to lead them to their hole in the wall. And one time when it struck twelve, the front door flew open and this beam of light came shooting down from the sky and shone down the hall the lit up the clock’s face. But it was twelve midnight, not twelve noon! The face changes, too. Sometimes it’s smiling, sometimes it has eyes that follow the hands around, and sometimes frowns. And on Sundays, when Stepmother gets her lazy daughters out of bed and I have to help them get dressed (forget about bathing!) and then they all go to the new church, well, that big old clock looks like it’s shaking its head. Continue reading “Who’s In That Clock? by Barbara Ardinger”

Humpty Had A Mother by Barbara Ardinger

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

From her mouth to our ears.

Humpty1 You see that kid sitting over there on the wall? The one wearing the Jester’s hand-me-down suit? The Jester also gave him that funny name. That kid is looking for his father. That kid is my son.

My father the King is a tyrant, and he has more bastards than any other king in our nation’s history except for one other King, a long time ago. (Maybe these Kings try to populate the land all by themselves.) I’m one of his bastards. My mama travels with the Players, and after I was born, she traveled on and left me here. Oh, the Players come back every year, and she always tells me about her adventures, like when they went to visit that Prince up north, the one who was pretending to be crazy and got killed in a duel. My father the King lets his sons take the name Fitzroy, but us girls? What do we get? We’re lucky we get to live in the palace. That’s thanks to the Queen, who is kind and protective of all the King’s children, legitimate or not. I’m part of her court. A minuscule part, but she knows who I am and has answered my prayers several times. I’ll never rise in society. But I’m making plans for my son. Continue reading “Humpty Had A Mother by Barbara Ardinger”

Practical Lessons in Kindness from the Grasshopper and the Ant by Barbara Ardinger

Barbara Ardinger (With apologies to Jean de La Fontaine for significant changes to his fable)

“Curses on that grasshopper!” exclaimed the ever-busy Madame Fourmi. “All he ever does is play. He’ll be sorry when winter comes.”

And so it went. Every day, Mme. Fourmi spent the morning scrubbing her front steps. And Monsieur Cigale?

“Partaaaaayyyyy!” Every day, he sped by on his skateboard. “Hey, Auntie Ant, stop cleaning the concrete and come and play with us. We’re gonna start a band!”

Grasshoppper and ant “Not on your life,” muttered this grandmother, most of whose conversations with her many daughters and granddaughters consisted of instructions on how to properly clean their homes and hills and how to prepare and store food for the winter. “Life is serious business, it is, it is. We need to plan ahead.”

“Oh, Auntie Ant,” Cigale called back, “lighten up!” Then he called his friends. “Yo, dudes! Let’s rock!” Continue reading “Practical Lessons in Kindness from the Grasshopper and the Ant by Barbara Ardinger”

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary by Barbara Ardinger

Barbara Ardinger Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells
And pretty maids all in a row.

From her lips to our ears.

Who wrote that poem? I’ve heard that some so-called scholars think it’s about a queen of England named Mary Tudor (slandered as “Bloody Mary” because she stuck to her religion after her father declared himself head of his own bloody church) or Mary Queen of Scots (slandered for other reasons, and then murdered). Well, much as I feel sorry for those two queens, the poem’s about me, and I don’t grow any little garden. I am a gentlewoman farmer. The fellow who wrote that silly poem probably works for one of those corporations that want to buy my land and plant their engineered crops on it and create monocultures that murder the land. Continue reading “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary by Barbara Ardinger”

How the Outdoors Got on Us by Barbara Ardinger

Barbara Ardinger I read some wonderful posts last spring and summer about the beauties of the outdoors. One that especially inspired me was by Molly Meade. If you missed Molly’s description of how she goes out to the “priestess rocks,” read it now.

But as much as I admire people who like to spend time outdoors in gardens or the wilderness or national parks or anywhere else without kitchens and bathrooms…well, I just don’t like to get the outdoors on me. Most Pagans I know like to camp and hold grand outdoor rituals. Not me. I get lost. I trip over tree roots and get allergic in some large gardens. I don’t like to climb or hike and I stay away from the beach because it’s got all that icky, dirty sand all over it. Although I send money to the Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth, the wilderness does not need my footprints in it.

So here’s another of my weird little stories. This one’s a fable I wrote several years ago for a friend who was holding regular ceremonies at Joshua Tree National Park in the SoCal desert. (I went to some of those ceremonies. My friends were very proud of me.)

Continue reading “How the Outdoors Got on Us by Barbara Ardinger”

Mother Hubbard Speaks Her Mind by Barbara Ardinger

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she came there
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.

hubbard-01

From her lips to our ears.

Ya wanna know why my cupboard’s bare? It’s because we’re poor! Well, not all the time. Mr. Hubbard gets a good job from time to time, and then him ’n’ me an’ the kids an’ the animals have enough to eat. But those jobs never last long enough. And ya wanna know why? It ain’t just the economy (which is, yeah, pretty stupid). It’s on accounta we don’t quite look like everybody else ’round here. On accounta we don’t speak the “normal” language at home. We obviously came from someplace else. An’ the folks ’round here are so worried about themselves they don’t care about us. Some of ’em don’t like us at all. (And, I ask you, where’s the folks who look like me in the schools ’n’ the gov’mint an’ on the police force?)

Now we don’t live way out in the sticks like my friend Mrs. Shoe does with all her children. We live in the outskirts of this big city, and we can grow a lot of our own food. Lotsa times, though, we march into the big city and look around for more food. There’s lotsa food that got thrown away, perfectly good food goin’ to waste every day. That’s how I get bones for the old dog an’ good stuff for the cats, too. An’, of course, for the kids an’ the hubby ’n’ me. An’ for the homeless folks who show up from time to time. Share ’n’ share alike, that’s my motto. We do what we can for who we can.

And we don’t share the “normal” religion of the folks in the big city. Most of them never heard of the Mother Goddess. Or any goddess at all, for that matter. No, they’re all enthralled by that greedy Mammon or by those other old bearded guys who stand up on top o’ that metaphorical mountain and yell down at their favorite men about invadin’ some foreign land ’r other. An’ ya know what? When the folks in the city are havin’ their prayers and we happen to be there, we stand quiet-like and bow our heads (politeness counts, doncha know) and wait till they’re done before we walk away and go lookin’ for more good thrown-away food ’n’ other stuff to take home with us. But would they stand respectful-like if we started prayin’ in the city to our Mother Goddess? (That’s what they call a rhetorical question. Don’t need no answer.)

Continue reading “Mother Hubbard Speaks Her Mind by Barbara Ardinger”

No Man Can Spin Gold (Part 2) by Barbara Ardinger

Rumpelstiltzskin Perdita was in a panic. She looked this way and that, but all she saw was a towering pile of straw. She sat down to breathe deeply and think deeply. While she was breathing and thinking, the little man held is peaked green hat in his hands and marched anticlockwise around the room, whistling a jolly marching song she’d never heard before. He marched around the room three times.

Finally Perdita said to herself, Who knows what can happen in a year? That’s a long time. I can promise anything now. And then, well, I know I’ll be able to think of something to do. I’ll study all year! Aloud she said, “Kind Sir, you are miraculous, for no man can spin gold, and yet—here you are, spinning gold! You can have what you ask for.”

And so the little man smiled a smile that showed all his teeth and sat down at the wheel and—whirr, whirr, whirr—the whole roomful of straw was soon spun into the finest gold thread imaginable, twice as fine as the finest silk thread the merchants sold at the harvest festival.

As soon as the Queen arrived back at her palace the next day, her Nephew introduced his betrothed to her. The Queen was much older than Perdita thought she would be, and she was as wise as she was old. She took Perdita into her private chamber and asked her several questions. She learned more about Perdita than the girl realized, also about her mother and stepfather and young traveling scholars. Nevertheless, the Queen gave her royal blessing to the marriage, for she wanted her Nephew to be married to someone with a quick mind, good manners, and some ambition so the land would be well cared for after her death.

The wedding took place on the day following the summer solstice, and guests were invited from lands all around. Perdita’s mother and stepfather were invited, too, and they were both given new clothes to wear. The stepfather tried to have a private conversation with the Queen, but the major-domo led him into the map room and showed him some extremely dependable treasure maps.

After the wedding banquet of roast peacock and candied goldfish and artichoke hearts and rosewater dumplings, the Queen and Perdita’s mother walked together in the gardens and talked of many things. Pretty soon, after the stepfather had memorized several of the treasure maps and borrowed enough money to rent a ship and set off to claim his treasure, the mother was invited to move into the palace, where her healing and domestic arts would be appreciated.

A year and a day later, Perdita gave birth to a daughter who was the most beautiful baby in the whole land. The royal birth was celebrated with fireworks and parades and festivals and rituals in the temples that lasted three whole days without pause. Perdita’s mother was appointed chief nursemaid and immediately hired a wet nurse who had the creamiest milk in the whole land.

On the third night after the baby’s blessing and naming day, Perdita was alone in her chamber, brushing her long, curly hair, when she heard a noise behind her.

“Well then. I have come for the baby.”

“What?” Perdita pretended not to recognize the little man. “And just who are you? And what are you doing in my private chamber? Get out immediately or I shall call the guards.”

“You know who I am. You know why I’m here.”

“Yes, yes, I confess it. I do.” She allowed a tear to roll down her cheek. “Oh, but please don’t take my baby. I have never loved anyone before, and I love this baby more than anything I have ever possessed. Here—take my jewelry. All of it. Take my jeweled toys. Take the tapestries from the walls. Take my richly embroidered clothes. Take my royal robes. Take my golden coronet. Take these books I’ve read. Take anything you want, but please, Kind Sir, oh, please don’t take my daughter.”

“We made a bargain. I have spun the gold for you. No man can spin gold, but I can, and I spun for three nights. Because of my spinning, you are now the heiress of the throne of this land. You must keep your part of the bargain.”

“No, no!” Perdita cried, glad that the baby was in her mother’s watchful care. “I cannot give up my daughter! She is more precious to me than gold.” And Perdita began to cry, to really cry, and her crying was so heart-rending that the little man finally began to take pity on her.

Continue reading “No Man Can Spin Gold (Part 2) by Barbara Ardinger”