Stirring

Sap's running. Can you feel it? My pagan heart thrums with the turning of the wheel.

My baby turned 1. I turned 40. Life is very sweet and not at all what I expected. But I'm devoted. To the whole thing, religiously. That is my thealogy.

A poem for Brigid

(Venus at the Forge of Vulcan, Louis Le Nain, 1641)

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door--
Red--is the Fire's common tint--
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame's conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil's even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs--within--
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge--

(Emily Dickinson)

Imbolc: in the Mother's belly

(Lucian, 3 weeks)

Normally for Imbolc I host a poetry party. We light candles, eat dairy-rich foods, and drink wine. Everyone brings a poem to read. I especially encourage children to read; our youngest reader was five. We've had poems read in Russian, Icelandic, and Yiddish, as well as English. Folks have read Shakespeare and Shel Silverstein, Olga Broumas and Mary Oliver. People read their own poems, too. This is a good time of year for a party, and it's a nice way to celebrate the holiday with non-Pagan friends.

This year I've been a bit preoccupied, and I didn't notice Imbolc creeping up on me, despite the days growing longer again. Only yesterday did I realize that February is upon us. I'll make time to participate in the Fourth Annual Brigid in the Blogosphere Poetry Slam. But no party this year.

My life feels like it's been stirred in Brigid's cauldron these last several weeks. I'm still assimilating the enormous initiation and transformation I've undergone. To you, I send all good wishes of inspiration and transformation.

Fair Yule

Belated solstice blessings, ye Pagani, and a merry christmas to those who celebrate today, too. (Earlier I was saying to Adonis, christmas is really the same holiday as solstice, you think Jesus was really born in midwinter?) I celebrate christmas when I'm with my parents and sister; growing up, it was always a special day in our house, and I don't mind continuing that. I like the candlelight service and carols, the special breakfast, the gifts. But I haven't missed them this year, as we've stayed home.

The solstice tree is sparkling, we've had special food, and we had a very sweet ritual in the birthing room on solstice night. For me, the solstice is about honoring the simplicity, darkness, and quiet of the season, so gifts are wintry and warming; this year I gave Adonis long underwear, flannel pajamas, and a new turtleneck the color of his eyes. There is a wreath on the door, soup on the stove, and cookies in the oven. Friends are stopping by to visit. Family are calling on the phone.

Last night Adonis tossed and turned and had unusually vivid dreams about moving through tunnels and greeting unexpected angels at the door. "Prepare, make way, the time is nigh." I thought immediately of all those dreaming men in the bible, men like Jacob, the Pharoah, and Joseph. The women, it seems, never dreamt, but instead were visited while awake by angels (Sarah, Elizabeth, Mary). Why is this?

I always appreciated Sarah's skepticism ("a child at my age? tell me another one") over Mary's obedience ("I am the lord's handmaiden"), but now I see, too, that to experience pregnancy and birth is to give oneself over to forces not of one's own ego and will. I made a conscious decision in the last couple of years to open myself more and more to the magic of what happens, to ride my life rather than try to steer it. I don't know why that works better for me, but it does.

That is my Pagan prayer for the winter solstice: to open to magic and mystery, to earth and the fullness of being human; as much as possible to bear witness to my own life without judgment; to love, to hope, to have faith; and to try to feel all of it.

This is lovely

I would guess that the Winter Solstice is important because it combines a moment of poise and stillness--that only the dark can provide--with a real change of direction. Everything goes on but nothing is quite the same again. This echoes our experience of those Solstice moments of life: birth, menarche, leaving home and cleaving to another, death.... Womb moments.

To listen or be truly touched we have to be brought to the point of stillness. Only then can we be truly open to the other. Then we must enter the creative dark where all seems confused and uncertain and anything can happen. Then the light rises. Then all seems the same but there is that deep awareness that things will never be the same again.

--Paul, She changes everything She touches, "Evoking the Goddess"

The sleepy sun

(Art found here.)

Joanna is celebrating Advent-of-the-Sun at her blog; each day this month, as we await the return of the sun, she'll post a small gift: a poem, photo, or recipe. (One year in the spring she posted a really good iTunes playlist for Ostara; might you consider a Yule playlist, Joanna?)

I also love the idea of celebrating the four Sun-days before the solstice. Beth Owl's Daughter uses a wreath with candles, like an advent wreath, but she calls it a Solstice Sun Wheel, and on each of the four Sun-days before solstice she calls and honors one of the directions/elements.

These dark, quiet days between Samhain and the winter solstice hold wonderful magic that I long to celebrate even as I resist anything too fast-paced, consumer-oriented, hard-working or hard-partying about the season. 'Tis a lovely time for a lying-in, isn't it? (Thanks, Hecate, for reminding me of that lovely, old-fashioned, and eminently reasonable idea.)

Samhain blessings

(Art found here.)

It will be a quiet observance at home this year: no altars set up, no decorations unpacked. I might carve a jack o'lantern after work, before trick-or-treaters arrive, if I have the energy.

But this time of year is magical regardless, and I've spent lots of time out of doors with Gryphon, watching the changes in the sky and earth, feeling the shimmering liminality, talking to my dead; imagining Lugh, who died a year ago, and my grandma, who died in the spring, and my baby-to-be, who arrives with one more turn of the wheel, spending time together on just the other side of the veil.

Blessings to you in these holiest of days.

Joy seeping in

Gryphon is next to me on the couch, sleeping underneath a quilt. This is his favorite way to sleep, completely buried in covers, preferably with a warm body next to him. Earlier this evening he was lying alongside me with his head resting on my belly, and the baby was kicking more than I've felt in days. (Either the baby has had a mellow week, or the kicking has become less novel, so I notice it less.)

Earlier still today we took a walk through a beautiful, spirit-filled state park. The leaves are turning. There was no one else around, so I let him spend some time off leash. It's so fulfilling to see him begin to enjoy himself more, bounding in the dead leaves, or even walking on leash beside me, his head alert but relaxed, his tail lifted, a spring in his step. It's like joy is seeping into him. That capacity for joy after all the hardship in his life is a basic spiritual lesson for me. It's a holy thing to witness.

We spent my lunch hour on a quilt in the backyard (how grateful am I that I live in a place where I have a 5 minute commute to work? incredibly grateful). He wandered the yard a bit, and rolled in the grass on his back, and sat next to me to share my apple. I had a magazine with me to read, but I spent most of my time watching him and rubbing his head and belly.

In many ways it's been a hard week. I've felt dissatisfied and unsure of what I need. I've been weepy. I've felt lonely and isolated. My job is mostly boring me. I've had a couple of minor disappointments. I've been anxious about the state of the world. The equinox was particularly intense, energetically. (The penumbra of Mercury moving retrograde, perhaps?) I've felt spiritually disconnected. And yet. I've been blessed by this wonderful new relationship with this sweet dog. My spiritual practice has been to spend time with him.

Today while we were walking and I was watching him and thinking about his blossoming, I thought again of one of the most important lessons for me of the last several years. I credit Lugh, my first dog, largely, as well as the mystery school and my ever-deepening relationship with my beloved life partner. The role of care and loving attention in enabling a being to flourish cannot be underestimated. It is crucial, as essential as clean water. It's such a simple thing, so potentially abundant, something any of us can do. Cruelty, willful ignorance, and neglect sadden me more and more as I grow older; my willingness to tolerate those things diminishes. To care for one another in simple ways; to offer respect, love, attention, and a spirit of nonjudgment to this person, this animal, this tree, this soil...I'm tempted to say that that is all we need.

Decorating for Samhain, Target edition

I was at Target this morning checking out their Samhain decorations, and I heard a college kid say, far more loudly and self-importantly than was warranted, "can you believe they have the Halloween stuff out? it's hardly the middle of September." My second thought was, well, yeah, kid, where've you been, marketing has been getting out of hand at least since you were born. But my first thought was, it's almost Mabon, of course we have to start decorating for Samhain next week. (Hey, I'm not the only Witch who gets itchy to decorate and celebrate this time of year.)

Target is usually a great resource for fun, inexpensive, elegant or kitschy Samhain decorations. I love picking out a few things every year. This year, alas, the choices seemed thinner and tackier than usual, and the prices a bit higher. (I appreciate kitsch, but I hate tackiness.) I bought only this kitschy-but-cool altar to the Horned God and a (faux) snakeskin lined tray in black (couldn't find it on-line), the latter more for year-round glamour than Samhain per se.

(These pumpkins--also in green--were handsome, but I didn't know where I'd put them. I might've been tempted by these if I'd seen them. I love these, but $25 for 10 lights? Ooo, but I didn't see these.)

Where do you go for fun, tasteful Samhain decor?

Update: I got two big, full, beautiful hardy mums in different shades of rusty orange at the grocery store this (Sunday morning). Those are for the front porch.

Midsummer

I've lived most of my life in the northern United States, so I'm accustomed to the long summer evenings around solstice. (When I was a kid, I lived far, far west in the eastern time zone, so it didn't get dark till around 10 p.m.) Now that I'm pregnant, I'm in bed every night by nine, and the sky is still light. Strange. It feels like being a kid again.

Twice in my life I've spent the summer solstice far north of this, once crossing the Baltic Sea by ferry from Sweden to Russia, and once on the shores of Lithuania. In both places, the sun doesn't fall below the horizon the whole night. I remember waking in the middle of the night to peer from my porthole, to watch the strange northern sun hover high above the horizon. And I remember drinking beer in large groups around bonfires in Lithuania, skinny dipping in the cold water before huddling back into our rough Polish sweaters, and stumbling to bed early in the morning.

This weekend's celebrations include a city-wide festival that begins tonight with a fantastic parade, and my ordination on Saturday. It's cool, damp, and gray here, not much like midsummer, but that means the strawberry season will last longer (unless it's too wet), and I won't sweat through the ceremony this weekend. Maybe it will even be cool enough to have a solstice bonfire in the fireplace.

The liminality of the Beltane season gives way to the fullness of Litha. Gather your herbs, leave out cream for the fairies, build your fires high, and dance the sun to sleep. Merry midsummer!

Merry Beltane!

(Photo from the Lawrence University Pagan Organization)

Blessings of fertility and love to all my friends in the northern hemisphere. (And in case Terri in Johannesburg stops by, Samhain blessings for you!)

This holy day and liminal time honors the quickening of desire, the impulse toward life. We honor all forms of sexual love, as well as the love among friends and family and love for the earth and all her inhabitants. May all beings be happy.

Today find a way to honor your deepest longings, and to rejoice in your abundant blessings. May all beings be loved.

Rising up out of the ocean*

I had a wonderful, amazing, powerful weekend at the mystery school. I'm only three months away from my ordination! (Or, a quarter turn of the wheel away--this week is Ostara, and I get ordained at the summer solstice.) My class meets officially as a group only one more weekend between now and then. I can't believe how close we are.

There are still several weekends to assist, plus a weekend-long astrology class (optional, so not all my classmates will be there), and a weekend-long integral anatomy class (also optional for my class, since we had anatomy in our second year, but the format for the anatomy class changes a lot each year, so it's always worth going). I'm also traveling in April to work with a "healee" who lives far from here.

My friend John brought me a beautiful orange silk scarf back from India (and a cd of the Gayatri mantra); I intend to wear the scarf for my ordination. John has been a true friend on my journey; a "tree guy" and a radical faerie, he encouraged my interest in Paganism back when I thought I was nuts, gave me my first deck of tarot cards, and has taught me a lot about dog-love.

I've been thinking a lot about "next steps," since this is my fourth and final year as a student at the mystery school. (I will continue to assist for at least another year.) I've almost made the decision to enroll in a six-month apprenticeship program in herbalism, pending financial discussion with my sweet and generous partner. That would begin in May. And I'm seriously considering applying to Cherry Hill for the fall.

I'm so excited by new plans and opportunities. Aries must be right around the corner!

(*The title for this post comes from the Sabian symbol for 1 degree Aries.)

Winding my way toward a pledge

I'm still thinking about Imbolc. I like what Arachne has to say about celebrating the creative spark at this time of year, about making art out of "just more winter." We celebrated poetry on February 2, but I haven't yet made my commitments for the year. Maybe it's because I spent Saturday cleaning and shopping for the party and Sunday sleeping, but I wasn't able to gather energy to make promises for the week, let alone a year and a day.

I decided that it would make more sense to do ritual and make pledges tomorrow, on the new moon in Aquarius. The energy will be powerful, with Chiron aligning the sun during a solar eclipse at 18 degrees Aquarius. The Sabian symbol for 18 Aquarius is: "The masquerade has long been in progress and laughing young ladies at last have forced the final male to unmask."

In my own natal chart, Aquarius fits neatly in the 10th house, the house of career and public reputation; the only planet nearby is Mercury, the communicator, at 24 Aquarius. ("A man obviously of the world has turned his back on passion and is giving people a deep and undying wisdom.") Tomorrow's new moon is thus "a cosmically ordered moment to shake lose the restrictions that limit me from fulfilling my potential" in the realms of the tenth house: career, role modeling, teaching, public reputation.

The symbol is one of final unmasking in a masquerade that has long been in progress; the realm is that of my public face, my public role. My transformation from devotedly rational academic to mystically minded...what? what is my work, my path, my identity now? - has been vertiginous. What commitment do I make when the energy is that of the trickster god teasing away masks?

And then there's Chiron, the wounded healer. Astrologer Simone Butler says of tomorrow that

"We will all have an opportunity to heal old wounds as Chiron...aligns with the Sun in a solar eclipse in Aquarius.... During this extra-powerful New Moon eclipse, a time when electromagnetic patterns get short-circuited and rerouted in the heavens, a giant leap in awareness is possible. Whichever house and/or planets in our charts fall at or near 18 degrees of Aquarius are about to be triggered for the purpose of healing and growth. Old wounds reflected by our natal Chiron placement may also be activated."

My natal Chiron is in Aries in the 12th house, the house of spirit and the unconscious. I don't yet understand what my wound is, but here is a question posed by Elizabeth Rose Campbell for those with Chiron in the 12th house: "How can I trust my own unique bridge to the sacred, not getting caught in anyone else's definition of it?"

I think I need to sleep on all of this, perchance to dream, and revisit the idea of pledges tomorrow.

Brigid in Cyberspace

Deborah Oak put out the call; Reya Mellicker started the trad: poetry 'round the Pagan 'net for Imbolc.

Two from Mawlana, Rumi:

I.

Come, come, whoever you are!
This caravan is not of despair.

Even though you have broken your vows
perhaps ten thousand times.

Come again, come!
This caravan has no despair.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
Come.

II.

Keep walking, though there is no place to get to.
Don't try to see through
the distances.
That's not for
human beings.

Move within.
But don't move the way fear
makes you move.

Today, like every other day,
we wake up empty
and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Merry Imbolc

This is the invitation I sent out by email today:

Dear friends - You are warmly invited to join Adonis and me for our somewhat-annual Imbolc gathering, Saturday evening at 7:30 at our house. Imbolc (also called Brigid, St. Brigit's Day, or Candlemas) is the Pagan midwinter holiday celebrating fire, poetry, inspiration, creativity, smithcraft, lambing, the hearth, the sacred well, etc. We'll have food and drink and a fire in the fireplace. Please bring a poem to read aloud. (For those who haven't attended before, we won't force you to read aloud, but I promise that it's more fun than it may sound.)

Partners and children most welcome.

In the past we've had poems read by adults and children, by published poets and rank amateurs like me, in Yiddish, Russian, and Icelandic. The first year, I asked people also to come dressed as poets, however they might interpret that request. There were black turtlenecks and berets, flowing peasant shirts and beads, and I can't remember what else; one guest came dressed as Percy Shelley, complete with a copy of Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Human Justice tucked under her arm and seaweed wrapped around her torso (Shelly drowned before he could turn 30).

Since this is also a day for making pledges, I've been thinking and writing about intentions for the next year and a day. Events of the last week have shown me clearly how much I want a house of my own and to adopt more pit bulls. I've also been meditating on this passage from Barbara Brennan's Hands of Light.

What is your thirst? What is your longing? Whatever it is, it will carry you to what you need to do next to accomplish your work, even if you don't know what that work is yet. When a thing is easily presented to you, and it sounds wonderful to you and a great deal of fun, by all means do it. That is guidance. Let yourself flow free with the dance of your life.

Or, as a wise person once said, The things that make us happy make us wise.

Blessings of heat and inspiration on this sacred day.

In the presence of Santa Muerte

(The painting is "La Ofrenda" by Patrick Murillo, found at Adorn)













I remember that when all is said and done...there remains the moss-covered, secret shining truth...of Samhain in the core of my heart, and within that truth is the fact that this season has always held something precious, gorgeous and mysterious for me, since before I had a name for it. And I have always felt that the veneration of my ancestors is crucial to the practice of my spiritual being. And I am ever in awe of the power of Death. And I am ever grateful for the outstanding and overwhelming explosion of Life that comes through and between and in spite of and because of Death....

My people [have] a theology, books of rituals/practices/meditations, beautiful stories, a veneration and a deep abiding love, all centered around this gorgeous, delicious time of year.

~ Sara Sutterfield Winn

I've been feeling deep appreciation for my Wiccan faith in the weeks since Lugh died. It has provided me with sustenance and comfort. I know that death is but one phase in an ever-revolving cycle, that Lugh's soul is on a journey, that he chose to incarnate in that sweet body and to live as he did because he had his soul's work to do, and because incarnation provides its own teachings, as well as the delicious joys and pleasures of living in a body. When it was time for him to leave, he did. Adonis says that Lugh always knew exactly what he wanted and what he had to do. He lived wholeheartedly, always in the present, without fear or hesitation. He lived in joy.

My faith teaches that death is normal and not to be feared, though of course we grieve and mourn and remember our dead. These things, too, are part of the cycles. My faith teaches that every winter is followed by spring, every death by rebirth. I don't feign to understand that in any rational way, but I know it. My faith teaches that there is great beauty in death, that there are blessings and gifts, even here. The dark is a place of comfort, of gestation and regeneration. The earth and her creatures turn inward in this season, but we will emerge anew in the spring. We take heart in the turning of the wheel ever onward.

Happy Halloween!

Perhaps not every Witch was once a child who loved Halloween the best among all holidays, but I bet I'm not the only one.

ETA: Indeed, I'm not.

Late Lughnasadh

Late Lughnasadh greetings, dear readers. (As if it’s possible to be late among the Pagani.) It’s been an intense couple of weeks – not even two weeks – since touching down in New York. In addition to jewelry, tapestries, goddess statues, and coffee, I brought home a sea urchin spine from Turkey. Embedded in my right foot. I didn’t know it until I fell ill the Friday after my return and discovered that my foot was red, hot, and swollen, the infection trailing its way up my ankle. A doctor excised the spine and prescribed antibiotics. I hobbled around for a week, keeping my foot elevated as much as possible, soaking it every few hours in hot water and Epsom salts. Now I’m much better, nearly mended.

I’ve also witnessed much heartache in the past couple of weeks, from a friend who spent several days in cardiac intensive care, to several friends whose marriages are in crisis, to a guarded, hurting lover at home. I wonder if everyone’s heart is hurting. I wonder, too, at the ways I’ve guarded my own heart, and how much that guarding hurts and isolates me. It’s a normal response to contract in fear, yet that response so rarely serves us. I’m learning how guarding my heart blocks my generosity, both toward myself and toward others. I came home from Turkey with a heart more open and full, and the energy in my body has been tremendous. I can be more generous with myself and others, but it’s not about making anything happen; it’s about allowing the life force to flow and take its course. It’s an Oprahesque cliché to say that we can’t give to others without filling ourselves first. But I think I’m beginning to understand what it means to attend to my own needs and how, when I do so, I don’t have to make anything else happen. The rest just flows.

Lughnasadh is one of my favorite holidays, second perhaps only to Samhain. My sweet puppy was born around the sabbat (we adopted him in November two years ago), and so we named him for the solar god, Lugh. (He likes to hear me sing, and a favorite is "You Are My Sunshine," the appropriateness of which just struck me.) The abundance this time of year is staggering: the lush green, the still-long days, the gorgeous colors of the farmers' market. Indeed, going to market is one of my favorite ways to celebrate, along with eating as many tomatoes, peaches, and blueberries as I possibly can. I feel the blessings of the earth and the hint of fall in the air.

Perhaps the best things I've ever read about Lughnasadh can be found here.

Abundant blessings at the turning of the year.

Midsummer Blessings

Liberation is not an achievement. Liberation is the degree to which you are able to savor the ecstasy you already are.

Find the world enchanted. Magic is everywhere. Blessings on this longest day.


(Art by Mara Friedman; poster by Syracuse Cultural Workers)

Beltane blessings

Beltane blessings to you all this week, whether you celebrate on the traditional May 1 or the more solarly accurate (this year) May 5. Me, I've declared this week the week of Beltane. The May full moon (sun in Taurus, Moon in Scorpio) is also the Buddhist lunar holiday Wesak, the serendipitous date on which the Buddha was born, attained enlightenment, and died.

This year, I feel strongly that Beltane is a holiday about the body. Of course it's a sex holiday. And it's the time of year, where I live, when we can finally remove a few layers of clothing and stretch our limbs to the sun. I find that I want to be outside more and move more. All of a sudden there are more dogs and people walking through the neighborhood. I'm seeing folks again on the streets whom I literally haven't seen since last fall.

But while we Wiccans pride ourselves in honoring our bodies, for me that's often a nice abstract principle rather than a real practice. Being present in the body means both being present in the now and accepting what we find here without judgment. I've been experiencing a lot of emotional turbulence lately, and while my mind can whip me into a frenzy of fear and loathing, it's my body that I can rely on to tell me the truth about how I'm feeling. Yet I strongly resist taking time to be still and listen.

I recently read Dancing in the Dharma, Sandy Boucher's lovely book about her teacher, Ruth Denison. Ruth teaches an innovative form of Buddhist practice that emphasizes awareness of and reverence for the body. (I picture her as the Martha Graham of Buddhism.) Ruth also has a gift for working with people who are seriously mentally ill. She brings them to her home and meditation center in the California desert and gives them manual work - literally, work to do with their hands. She has observed that coming back to the body is the first step in regaining mental health and a measure of equilibrium. When I'm struggling with depression, as I have been recently, the first things to attend to are getting enough sleep, eating enough nutritious food, and exercising every day. Also, getting outside, into nature, and being with my dog. In other words, getting out of my head and into my body.

The pleasures of embodiment are many. Of course, there is also suffering, but that is only part of life. Wicca, more than most other contemporary religions, teaches pleasure in our bodies for its own sake. This is what is holy: our animal bodies and their mother, the earth. Happy Beltane.