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Brigid in the Streetsby ErdinaOn the same February weekend that North American Witches were in New York City protesting the World Economic Forum, Reclaiming Earth Activists from Germany planned to join thousands of activists in Munich to protest a meeting of the NATO alliance. However, the City Government of Munich banned all gatherings during the NATO meetings. Undaunted, a dozen Witches joined over a thousand others in defying the ban. This is one REA member's account of those days, as posted on the Reclaiming activist email list. —RQ Thursday, 31 JanuaryDear Reclaiming folks, While many of you take part in or support the actions against the World Economic Forum meeting in New York City, a small number of Reclaiming Witches and other Pagans will join the protests of the meeting of 200 leading military strategists and NATO representatives in the City Center of Munich. U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld will attend. We will defend ourselves with all peaceful means against NATO's preparations for war to back up the greed and power of Western transnational corporations and financial institutions. Our small group of three Witches (Martina, Monika and myself) has planned a public Brigid ritual for Saturday morning in the English Garden, close to the Munich City Center. We will call in the magnificent powers of water to be with us and help us to transform the war in us and around us. Afterwards we will join the demonstration with our big blue double-spiral banner, "turning of the tide," and our flyers invoking the powers of water. We will shape water spells for the sort of transformation we are envisioning. We will be dressed in a waterlike manner, our faces covered with spirals and waves, and offer to draw spirals on people's foreheads. Good luck and blessings for your action! Thursday, 31 JanuaryDear folks, This evening, we heard that the Bavarian Minister of Interior Affairs, Mr. Beckstein, will declare the "state of exception" (Ausnahmezustand) in the city of Munich for those two days. That means that basic civil rights will be suspended as during a war. This is in tune with the new European Union politics equating non-violent demonstrations with acts of terrorism. We will try to be as visible on the streets as we can the next two days, and we ask you to connect energetically during your (NYC) and our actions on Friday and Saturday. Many German Reclaiming Witches will send magical support. REA, the Reclaiming Earth Activists in Germany and Austria, will carry with us during the action a piece of the blue Living River tissue sent from the U.S by Annwyn. It is like a piece of Brigid's blue cloak, symbolizing the atmosphere and the waters of the Blue Earth between Munich and New York that connect us globally while her blue fire feeds and inspires our joyful spirit of resistance. Erdina Friday, 1 FebruaryDear folks, I just got a message that the Bavarian Minister of the Interior has declared the exceptional state in Munich. Demonstrations within the Munich City Center are banned. The generals and politicians have succeeded in bringing the state of war to Munich while pretending they are thinking about "peace stategies"! ATTAC (the protest coalition) has called a rally at 5 p.m. at Rotkreuzplatz, not far from the City Center, which our little Pagan group will join. Greetings via Brigid's cloak, Erdina Friday, 1 FebruaryDear folks, Despite the City Government of Munich's ban on gatherings and demonstrations, about 1500 people, most of them young and many coming from abroad and from other parts of Germany, gathered spontaneously on the Marienplatz in the City Center of Munich today to protest both the NATO conference and the ban. The police broke up the angry crowd rather slowly. There was physical violence on the police's side, and 250 were arrested. I had my drum with me, tried drumming a bit, but had no chance to change the heavy, old-fashioned left-wing energy by myself. I realized that we (ATTAC as well as the German Witches) do not have suitable political street chants in German. We really need them. And even more, we need the emergence of a Pagan activist core group trained together and reclaiming the streets together. We are looking forward to Starhawk's week-long direct action and magical activism training in June in Northern Germany, which hopefully will help us to build the core of this activist community. During the protest I gratefully felt the tender and strong wave of magical support releasing fears and protecting me from any harm. Tomorrow morning some of us will try to celebrate a public Brigid ritual in the English Garden (Munich's Central Park) although all sorts of gatherings are still banned. We will try to defend our right to celebrate our religion and thereby do some magical activism. Blessings to our international web. Many thanks to all your supporting emails and energies and all the best to the NYC activists — excited, determined and happy, Erdina Saturday, 2 FebruaryDear folks, This morning we—12 adults and 3 children—had a beautiful, powerful Brigid ritual nearby the Eisbach (Ice Creek) in a public open space in the English Garden, despite the ban. The police observed but did not disturb us. We had the blue Living River cloth with us, and formed our center with water vessels and candles. After the ritual, with all those water powers at our back and reminding us to stay grounded, half of us went to the forbidden demonstration in the Marienplatz. I was proud of how many people resisted the ban—several thousand, I would guess. Yet it should have been far more, given the seriousness of this attack on our civil rights. It took the police three hours to dissolve the demo, which continued later on the Isartor Platz. We stayed as long as we could without risking arrest and distributed flyers in the afternoon at the entrance of the English Garden near the university. Even among the young, hard-core demonstrators resisting the police most fervently, no one threw stones or used weapons against the police. No one wore a mask, no windows were broken. Nevertheless, several hundred were arrested. The reason authorities gave to ban protests—that thousands of violent protesters were on their way to Munich—was obviously a lie. The purpose was to create an atmosphere of fear and criminalization, which the corporate media in Munich and the state TV news supported. Many thanks for our web, for all your thoughtful, caring emails. Hold the vision! We felt Brigid's blue cloak surrounding us, surrounding the Witches in New York, surrounding all our Pagan friends weaving golden threads of supportive magic in and out of Mother Earth's blue atmosphere and waters of the world. May she stay with us and particularly with the people in jail. Erdina |