Nothing Left to Lose

The young woman wailed out the lyrics of the familiar Janis Joplin song, Me and Bobby McGee, with heartfelt passion and no small amount of talent. She looked a bit rough-- in that out of work, been walking around all day in the hot sun way. Women in Black had just ended our silent vigil at Vance Monument. We were circling up sharing names when she approached, breaking into song.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose
Nothing, I mean nothing honey if it ain't free, no no
Yeah feeling good was easy Lord when he sang the blues
You know feeling good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

We invited her into our small circle. "We're about to learn a dance. Would you like to join us?" She was so agitated, yet stepped forward as she told us, "Buncombe County took my baby, he was just three days old and they took him." She reached into the back pocket of her blue jean shorts and pulled out a photo of a newborn infant. "They had no right to take my baby, he was my product," she wailed. Then she burst into song again.

"What is your baby's name, " we asked, "We'll dance for your baby." Then we took her hands and began the simple steps of the Elm dance, a Latvian circle dance in honor of all the lives lost to nuclear radiation after Chernobyl. Buddhist eco-philosopher Joanna Macy uses the dance in her healing rituals and describes it as:

a dance of intention, it helps us strengthen our resolve, not only for the well-being of those around Chernobyl, but for wider healings, as well. And the custom has arisen, in the last half of the dance, to call out spontaneously the names of those whose healing we desire, salmon, redwoods, topsoil, the schools, the prisons, Bosnia, the Amazon. Entering the dance then is like entering a sort of neural web in which we can experience our interconnected-ness with all beings. Or it's like a sonic Indra's Net, letting us feel our mutual belonging and how it can sustain us.

So we danced with this grieving mother to the haunting lament of the Latvian song, and it seemed to calm her down. As she went on her way, a few of us then walked to the condemned Magnolia near city hall to add the power of the Elm Dance to the energy already surrounding the tree from last week's Wiccan ritual.

On my last visit to the Magnolia I noticed the Peace Pole. It was placed there on February 20, 1999, by Troop 116 of the Pisgah Girl Scout Council. "May Peace Prevail on Earth." Surely the County has not also sold out the Girl Scouts? Photo by Jim Genaro from Asheville Daily Planet of recent Wiccan ritual at the Magnolia.