It has to begin with Footnote to Howl, read by Patti Smith. Ginsberg wrote it the year I was born and it continues to be the essence of my spirituality and my organizing principle. Several years back I had the strange fortune to spend an afternoon with Patti Smith (yes, this really happened) in Ferlinghetti’s office above City Lights Bookstore.
My goddess daughter Lyra had programmed my ringtone to this poem. On discovering that, Patti exclaimed, “Yes, that’s what needs to be read at New Year’s!”. She loves the poem too and loves to read it (as you will see in this video). A copy of Howl was brought to her and, indeed, at midnight at the Fillmore on her 69th birthday a few nights later, Patti read this poem. Patti inspires me as an artist and activist. Her very life Waves Goodbye to the Patriarchy and is an invocation of a culture based on kindness and the elevation and expression of the human spirit.
Tonight is the night before Beltane, May 1st. A time that the life-force is running strong in this part of the world, when the veil is thin between the living and the green-bloods, the forces of nature. This is a time of year that you can feel the holiness of everything, the beauty and the strength. It’s always been a good time for me. So this year, I offer this site and hope to offer up on it more art and share with you all the many ways we can all wave goodbye to the patriarchy! Listen to Patti read this mighty spell written in 1955 and let us all invoke the sacred and the holy back into the world.