I arrived in Washington but unfortunately not in time for the “Animating the Spirit of Democracy With a Ritual of Unity and Blessing” by the D.C. community of magical and spiritual progressives. They were on hand at 2 pm at the Jefferson Memorial Plaza “to sweep the town clean” with a Witches’ Broom Dance “intended to cleanse Washington of the malfeasance, deceit and partisanship of the last eight years.” A quartz crystal resembling the Washington Monument was charged with blessing and “sacrificed into the Tidal Basin”–thereby “broadcasting energies of ritual into the Potomac.”
Not since Fanne Fox (aka the Argentine Firecracker) jumped into the Tidal Basin to avoid being picked up with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills in 1974 has as much energy been so discharged. And in truth, wandering around Dupont Circle in the evening, with hundreds of cheery young people, some wearing Obama ski hats, happily milling about, the place did seem kind of cleansed.