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A little help over here, please

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:42 / 28.09.04

Hope this is okay to post, its a request for a bit of strengthening/protection/hope. If not, feel free to delete, mods.

Basically, I live about a hundred yards from where the Labour party conference is taking place.

So, right now, my home=self-important power wielding suits and riot police, helicopters, road blocks, car stop-and-searches. I step outside my house and get eyballed by gun-toting coppers. There are sharpshooters on top of the conf.centre a few hundred yards away.

And today we had pro-hunt bastards taking over our town, and draping horse and cow carcasses around the major routes. It was *vile*.

It feels horrible here right now, the energy is awful and really strong . I/we(see below) feel under siege, engaged in a war that is at once about the Labour party/the pro-hunters and about much more than that, about choosing sides in a bigger conflict. Like these forces want to push us back inside, isolate and crush us, deny us our right to our ways of existing.

And this evening, I took part in a ritual which, not to go into huge details, involved reclaiming our town/space from these forces/sending anger>energy outwards to everyone fighting this fight all over the world.

And I feel a whole lot better/like I've done something powerful and positive with my anger. It was fucking *great*

But walking home, past the whole shebang, could feel it hitting me again. Not nearly as strongly, but it's there.

There are things I plan to do, alone and with others, for protection but anything anyone else would like to contribute/throw in our direction in terms of strengthening, protection, empowerment, would be great.

03:32 / 29.09.04

Just out of curiosity, why exactly were these Pro-Hunt people draping carcasses everywhere? I mean, what was their reasoning behind it? I'm from the States, and am unfamiliar with the pro-hunt movement. It seems to me that animal carcasses would be self-defeating.

I'd be certainly willing to help any way I can. At least you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that all this rigamarole is just for the duration of the conference-I hope for your sake.

09:03 / 29.09.04

On the hunting protest carcasses - no one seems entirely sure why they did that, but since it was (I understand) farmers who did it, I expect the reasoning was something along the lines of 'here is an urban government trampling all over rural life, about which they know nothing; dumping carcasses will a)shock people and get publicity, and b) symbolise the destruction of rural jobs and traditions exemplified by the hunting ban, but also seen in the regulations administrated by DEFRA, the foot-and-mouth debacle, etc.' Though it may have been as simple as 'if you stop us killing animals for sport, you'll be KILLING CUTE LITTLE CALVES (by proxy), what about that, eh? eh??'

09:27 / 29.09.04

We've been working on and off at the Mazda Fountain which we've re-named Hekate's Fountain and this is bang in the middle of Brighton so if you want to do anything down there you're welcome to draw on Hekate and I'll drop down there later this week too and add something ;-)

This project was part of a 'reclaiming the town for magic' idea...you can find out more about it if you want by going to Hekate's Fountain . Mind you the diary hasn't been kept up to date at all but that's cause I've been a tad busy but workings usually take place on the 30th and at other times during the month things are dropped by, visits made etc.

09:41 / 29.09.04

How's about getting a bunch of people together who feel threatened/pushed out/ marginalised by the conference and its entourage, and going on a drift round Brighton to all the places that you personally have a connection with. A kind of ceremonial procession / pub crawl vibe around the various power spots in the City that have significance to you. Could even be done in costume and have a carnival aspect. Make a list of all the places where participants feel safe and welcome, spend an afternoon visiting them all, leave offerings of food/drink/cakes/biscuits/wine/lager/coins/whatever for the genus loci of those spots. Ask each one of these Spirits for a totem object. Could be dirt from the soil beneath a park bench, sand from the beach, a beermat or box of matches from a bar, or anything. Whatever comes through. Don't try and force it too much. Commune with the Spirits of a particular safe spot and ask them for a protective totem, give them a chance to provide you with something, you'll know what it is when it suggests itself. When you've travelled the map, walked the streets, and got a good selection of items - combine these items together into a single protective totem. A scarecrow to scare the fuck out of unwelcome people encrouching on your turf. Place this prominently in the window of your flat or some central place you want as your safe house. Take photos of it, and give them to people to put in their windows like alternate election posters. Own the space.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:20 / 29.09.04

The 'reasoning' behind the horse/cow carcasses was, apparently, that if hunting is banned, the rural economy will collapse, leading to the slaughter of many animals. And that the hunt horses will have to be killed, if hunting goes.

Fuckwits...

(razorsmile, small world, was given a flyer for yr journal yesterday! and thankyou, I will pop by as I pass it most days...)

GL: great plans, and something I will pass around... What we did was somewhat in the 'taking our town back' line, and it was goooood.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:29 / 29.09.04

(and woodtiger, you're right. I'm very aware of the effect this is having on me/us, and it's only around for a couple of weeks. We're lucky enough that this isn't our day-to-day)

10:37 / 30.09.04

well you noticed i managed to conjure up bono for you yesterday...has that made you feel better? blair and brown are the 'john and paul' of politics y'know. these days bono's voice is identical to angel from angel when it's a flashback and he's doing an irish accent.

last day now, not long

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:49 / 30.09.04

I'm visualising the Brighton Barbeloids, and indeed the many lovely people I know in Brighton generally, as little impermeable points, which are by their impermeability disrupting the ability of the horrible to sink in and infect the place...

Good luck, darlings - on the bright side, the fuckwits are aiming their artillery at each other for a change, but since they're doing it over your fields, that's probably not much of a comfort...