The Art of Friendship
Victoria Bearden and I were twin star witchy women sisters. There could be a fashionable title, but I have no idea what you call it when you share your sun (Capricorn), moon (Virgo) and rising sign (Capricorn) with a sister friend. Victoria, a powerfully insightful psychic astrologer, isn’t around for me to ask her anymore. Vic passed through the veil last year. I miss her wit and courage. I miss her astrological guidance. She was one who truly saw all and told all - whether you wanted to here or not.
A fellow massage therapist introduced to me to Victoria, before my sons were born, in 1996, because I asked her if she knew of any public sabbats. I was in my Saturn’s Return, about to turn thirty and Victoria was turning forty when we struck up a fast friendship. She brought me to Jeanette Reynolds’ home for a Beltane celebration around a large, cracked iron cauldron that we sprinkled with cornmeal and rose petals to welcome the God and Goddess. These sabbat rituals and the magickal crafts that always followed would inspire much of the ceremonies in The Wicca Cookbook. As I walked up the path through the front lawn I saw a large wooden sign with the words “REMEMBER” painted in white letters. Recently, Jeannette told me that there was never such a sign. I saw what I wanted to see: Remember Who You Are. One badass, wild witchy woman.
Victoria produced my first natal chart on dot matrix. It was then I discovered that I was a Capricorn, not a Sagittarius as my Leo mom had insisted for nearly three decades, because as she says, “Sags are more fun, besides, you’re on the cusp.” Victoria told me not to leave my husband when the boys were toddlers because I would just be perpetuating lineage story and then I would have to raise my sons with a man who was not their father, or alone. When I complained about my man not being magickal, she reminded me that I like being the teacher and wouldn’t want anyone using my sage stick. She suggested I tell mocking radio DJs that “No, we don’t fly one brooms anymore, that’s so passe. We use vacuum cleaners for long trips and dust busters for short trips.” She helped me laugh when I was in pain, even when commenting about the interesting square that Pluto, god of death, was making to my sun, resulting in all three male father figures, divorce, debt and my mother surviving breast cancer.
Thankfully she recorded her readings because they always included detailed information about conjuncts, houses, and signs that left me with a buzzing brain. Victoria began her moon circles by asking everyone to write a favorite saying which was then put into a bowl and passed around. Each woman would take out a piece of paper, with the recognition this proverb was for them. Next we were given a reading based on the combination of our sun, moon and rising signs. Vic’s readings were always like a cosmic two by four to the third eye.
Brimming with new thoughts to mingle with our full moon intentions we went outside to raise a magickal circle around the bonfire. Victoria led her moon circles with a polished wooden staff that she had embedded with rainbow-colored crystals in a line to represent the chakras. She named her talking stick Cecil. I am sad that I will never again hold the smooth bark that had become shiny after a decade of so many hands wringing out prayers under the lunar light.
I missed her ceremony of life and so arrived at her mother’s doorstep to meet her for the first time and purchase some of Victoria’s paintings. Carol, Vic’s mom, pulled out a large artist’s portfolio with more than thirty personal watercolors that were two by four feet. The diversity of style was almost jarring. So many faces, so many facets of Victoria’s facet on display. I saw the beauty and the chaos of the artist who has so many expressions. Or maybe that’s because I know how her story ends. I asked Victoria for a painting of a woman, and the beautiful original art waiting for me to claim it was an oil painting of Kali, the Mother Goddess of Birth, Death and Rebirth. Even through the veil, we are keeping alive the art of our friendship.
“Fear not my love, for I will be your tree.
And I whispered in the deep calm woods.
Knowst there the land where the lemon trees bloom.
Where the gold orange burns in the deep thicket gloom,
Where the wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows
And the groves are of laurel and myrtyle and rose?
Your shining face appeaed t me through the leaves…”
