A pathwork of stars

"Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing." (Helen Keller)

What you never learn from that sentimental, sanitized play, "The Miracle Worker," is that Helen Keller was a feminist, a socialist, a poet, and an activist on behalf of African-Americans, workers, and people with disabilities. Also, she had a pit bull as a companion. Ergo, she was righteous.

But I'm thinking of that famous quotation in the context of astrology. As I've said here before, I didn't take astrology seriously - nay, I scorned it, like any good humanist skeptic - until I met my teacher. In the astrology that Linda teaches and practices, each person's life becomes a mythic journey, replete with meaning and purpose. We might say that astrology provides a way of reading the text of a life, a method that reveals the sacred in each life. The natal chart is a mandala showing the patterns of the universe from a individual perspective, and providing a mythic template - a map only in the most impressionistic sense - for the life. As I study my chart, as I immerse myself in its symbols and patterns, I come to know myself better.

Right now, I'm experiencing a transition in my life where the modi operandi I've relied on for years are finally breaking down. I literally don't know how to think of myself anymore. When I'm not madly scrambling to hold onto my old patterns, habits, and ways of being, the sensation is like floating in space. I don't know what's next. I'm trying to discern the voice of my authentic being - a voice I've spend years trying to drown out with a chorus of demands. Studying my chart offers me comfort during this time, because as I see the patterns in the chart emerge in my life - however tentatively, like spring buds in the snow - I take heart. My life journey, like yours, has a mythic quality. It is a hero's journey. Even in the midst of all this muck, life has meaning. And our stories light up the night sky.

Where you are planted

When I was in the 9th grade, my best friend was an aspiring actress who was a smash as Lady Bracknell in our school's production of The Importance of Being Earnest. That spring she attended auditions for our local summer stock theater; I agreed to go along to provide moral support. (That's my official story, anyway; secretly, I wanted to audition but was terrified.) We both auditioned; I was cast, but she wasn't. Many people, according to my memory at least, were surprised by this. Our English and drama teacher attempted to comfort my friend by telling her that, "when I was a blonde, I got all the parts, too." (Or so reported my friend, who was not my friend for much longer.) The thing was, I was cast in the chorus of Wiley and the Hairy Man; in order to play a shapeshifter in a swamp, I was swathed in green burlap and rags, and green makeup, covering my head. I wasn't cast for my yellow hair alone.

I've never forgiven that teacher for saying that, or for writing in my yearbook - rather pointedly, I thought - "bloom where you are planted." (I took "and not on stage where my star pupil belongs" to be implicit in that.)

"Bloom where you are planted and not somewhere else where you don't belong." In understanding her inscription thus, I accused my teacher of wanting to limit me. But might we understand the adage another way? "BLOOM where you are planted, rather than wither on the vine or perish in your seed-shell." For much like a flowering plant, we cannot with our wills control where we are planted.

In the astrological chart, the Sabian symbol at the chart's nadir has significance. It's the pile of shit we land in when we come to earth. It's the family matrix. It's our stuff, our shit - our compost, if you're feeling positive. It's what we have to work with. As an adult I've labored for many years under the impression that I can get rid of my shit by willing it away, ignoring it, trying to bury it, being good enough, doing enough therapy, getting enlightened ... somehow. I thought the point of growing up and becoming a mature human being was to get rid of my shit. To be free from it. To outgrow it.

Turns out I was wrong.

My shit is my shit. It's what I have to work with in this lifetime. There is no uprooting. So, now, what does it mean to bloom here? In this shithole?

(My nadir is at 1 degree Leo: "A fat and normally good-natured little man of affairs is bursting with determination to have his own way." Oy. If you only knew how apt this is.)

Accepting the person I am without judgment is enormously difficult. Now I get to watch my patterns as they arise again and again: denial, depression, feeling overwhelmed. These are the places I go to out of habit. The ruts in my ego. And fear. What is the dark swirl of fear that catches me up? Where is terra firma?

The gift of community

"We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free."

(Starhawk)

Joanna has done it again, releasing the Gaian Tarot threes into the world. One commenter, Cate, wrote that the three of earth reminds her of the above quotation from Starhawk. I'm just in awe that I get to share the earth and my faith and the blogosphere with such amazing women.

I haven't been here in a couple of weeks, but I've been immersed in community. Starhawk's words capture it perfectly. On February 24, I experienced an initiation at the mystery school, a twelve-hour "presentation" of my healee and friend, in which we were held by people who love us and have watched us grow over the past two and a half years - twelve hours of the two of us working in relationship, plumbing our depths and shadows, opening, showing ourselves, being witnessed. It was both the hardest thing I've ever done and one of the most profound experiences of my life. It took two full days to recover physically.

And then I had a birthday on March 1. I'm 37 now. Adonis and I spent five days celebrating with each other and friends. I had so much fun! (And I ate so much delicious food.) I received lots of love and appreciation from people near and far. I'm magnificently blessed.

I'm happy to be back in my cyberhome, too. I've missed you.

Ducking in

It's been far too long since the last post and will be a few more days, I fear, before something substantive appears here again. Life has been hard lately. My spirits are flagging. I've entered an intense season at the mystery school, and this weekend may well be the most challenging so far.

Spring is coming.

The spiritual path isn't all ecstacy

What a week, and where has it gone? Much of this week has been devoted to staying warm in this bitter weather. Even my office, in a drafty old house, is cold! Lugh, my dog, has been less than enthusiastic to go for his daily hikes; twice he's even worn the dreaded coat - that's how cold it is. Bless Adonis for continuing to take him out each morning, even if Lugh won't go for more than 20 minutes. They drop me off at work and head to a trail. On Monday it snowed, and I took Lugh out for a walk after work; we ended up in an old cemetery on the hill where he ran with sheer glee in the fresh snow. I went traipsing after him and was considerably less agile.

This afternoon I left work with a migraine and spent the afternoon sleeping in the sun shining in on my bed. I rarely get migraines any more, thanks to the Chinese herbs I take, but this week my period is late and every possible symptom is expressing itself. I had an IUD removed in January, and I believe my body is trying to regulate itself. This could lead to a rant about how much I hate the birth control options available to women and general social attitudes about women's fertility more generally...but I think I'll leave it at that. Obviously, the migraine has receded, since I'm at the computer.

This weekend the first- and second-year classes are meeting at the mystery school, and I'm assisting. Adonis is in the first-year class. Assisting has been a real challenge for me, and I'm apprehensive. Mostly, it's exhausting. This year, my third year, has been the most difficult emotionally, and I can't yet see the fruits of this hard work, but I have to have faith. This is my path. I want to run away! I want things to be easy. Ha, how's that for spiritual maturity?

Thealogy: A set of beliefs you can take home to Mom

Over the past couple of years I've slowly revealed some of my spiritual beliefs to my Mom. My parents aren't Christian fundamentalists by any stretch, but they care about their nice, mainstream Protestant beliefs and would, I suspect, like it best if I shared those beliefs. Not being one to want to disappoint my folks, and having something of a "good girl" complex, I've been less than forthcoming where my religious beliefs deviate sharply from theirs. (I'm more outspoken about politics.) Over Christmas, after declining to go to the altar for communion after the minister invited "all Christian believers," I finally copped to my Mom that I'm not a Christian. Being my Mom and clairvoyant in the way many mothers are, she wasn't surprised.

Now, like most Pagans, I'm faced with the challenge of describing my beliefs to someone with no frame of reference whatsoever. (During the Christmas conversation, my Mom asked me who I pray to. "Do you just make up a goddess or something?") I've turned to Isaac Bonewits, in his handy Essential Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft, for a pithy summary of Pagan belief, one I can more or less take home to Mom.

Here are the first five ideas:

1. Neopagans believe that divinity is both immanent and transcendent. Isaac glosses "immanent" as internal and "transcendent" as external. I would define those terms somewhat differently. The Goddess is immanent; she is around and among us. She is concrete. She is the earth, trees, soil, animals, water, stars. And, yes, she is in all things and all beings. But the Goddess is at the same time transcendent; she is the Mystery at the heart of life. She is more than what we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. She is more than we can rationally understand.

2. Neopagans believe that children are born holy. We don't believe in original sin - that children come into this world needing to be cleansed. Nor do we believe that we need to be saved from sin. We don't need a Messiah. All children are sacred.

3. Neopagans believe that divinity is just as likely to manifest in a female form as it is in a male form and that the word "Goddess" makes just as much sense as the word "God." A lot of Christians would have a problem with this, but I chalk that up to sexism in the culture. More progressive Christians have sought feminine god-language in the bible. My Mom thinks that God is ultimately beyond male or female, so she has no problem with describing God as "She."

4. Neopagans believe in a multiplicity of gods and goddesses, as well as "lesser" beings, many of Whom are worthy of respect, love, and worship. OK, Mom is not going to buy this. She'll think it's weird. Isaac says that "Neopagans have a wide variety of nonexclusive concepts as to the nature of these entities. Among Wiccans, female deities are usually seen as aspect or faces of a single 'Triune' Goddess, most often described as a Maiden, a Mother, and a Crone. Male deities are likewise usually seen as aspects or faces of a single 'Biune' God, most often described as a vegetation/hunting and solar deity.... Thus, Wicca is predominately 'duotheistic'."

5. Neopagans believe that no one religion, philosophy, scripture, or other approach to understanding can explain the infinite complexities of the multiverse. There are many paths up the mountain. Again, I find that progressive Christians are hip to this and have no problem with different people having different faiths.

Next week, more Pagan thealogy for Mom.

A poem for Brigid

On the mountain we'd sleep in the heavy shade - green figs like
testicles and the leaf palms cracking with pungent milk - delib-
erately, having been told of the vaporous harm to the dreamer.
Donkeys shifting their fly-beseiged, sundazed gaze met and held
ours; the goats would stop because of the short hobble they bore,
their slitted eyes in suggestive seduction fixing us blackly every
few feet of film, those stills of them every few feet of hill an-
nointed now as if memory were a kind of solution. We pile rocks
on our bodies partly unearthed and sweat the weight wet. The air
is still and imagining it through the labyrinth of rock and
moisture against the skin in a breeze stiffens the nipple. Starfish,
colossal under mounds seen from above, the bleached soft-colored
rocks look too much like breasts, and the trouble you took for the
angle and height makes it obvious. We get up heavy with stone
shadow, each muscle rising like a sea-cow, and fall into the green
cove, afloat like the three tomatoes we cool and swim around,
lazily pushing one back if it should stray, too intimate now you
said to eat for lunch, so you sucked on the salty skin, you did,
even though you were posing. Then there are mermaids, and
other riffraff and dross.

(Olga Broumas and Jane Miller)

My poem for Brigid is inspired by an Old Mermaid Sanctuary. To see a list of those blogs offering poems for Brigid today, go here.

Home sick

(Painting by Kate Merriman)

I've been home from work the last two days with a stomach virus. Yesterday I mostly slept; today I've done some web and book reading and am starting to feel restless, though without the energy to do much. Lugh stayed on the bed with me yesterday - guarding the weakest member of the pack, no doubt - but today he's snoozing on the couch in the living room. It's good to be home with him, even if we're both just lying about. He's snoring emphatically!

The Pagan web is preparing for Imbolc this Friday. If you'd like to participate in the Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace silent poetry reading, you can sign up at Oak's blog. All you have to do is post a poem on Friday.

Hecate's gotten a head start with this gorgeous meditation on Imbolc as deep midwinter and a time to take a leap of faith. Read what she has to say and you might feel up to the challenge.

Chavala's sharing time home sick with me, but I'm inspired to read this description of her last week's activities. Her life sounds so full. She training for a half-marathon! She also describes a fine baby shower with none of that sentimental bullshit.

Joanna has posted a sketch of the three of earth (pentacles), and it's devastating! I adore it!

Both Jason and Sara have some good fun with, as well as show serious reservations about, witches on a daytime talk show. Oy! I just think of my relatives watching these shows and taking that crap seriously.

Healing: paying attention

Last week I wrote about my worry that a focus on wholeness in healing tacitly presumes that we’re broken. And brokenness – the idea that we fall short of some ideal, that we’re imperfect, that we’re separate from the godhead – is intrinsic to a Christian worldview. If we focus on wholeness in healing, are we challenging the idea that we’re broken, or are we reinstating the duality of brokenness and wholeness? Should healing and wholeness be part of an ethics of Wicca?

Other religions treat the body as sinful, dirty, animal (and hence farther from god), or an impediment to enlightenment. As feminists have taught us, degradation of the body goes hand in hand with degradation of women. Wiccans honor what has traditionally been associated with women and hence degraded: nature, the earth, goddesses, children, our bodies, animals, dirt, blood, birth, change, death. These things are sacred to us. They aren’t a sign of illness or failure or sin. They aren’t to be fixed. Rather, we tend, honor, watch, and participate. What we could strive for as Wiccans, I think, is to see things for what they are and to promote greater flourishing. Not to fix, but to tend. I like that word, tending, as if the earth is a great garden from which we’ve never been expelled. It also makes me think of paying attention. I’ve learned from my few years in the mystery school that great healing occurs when people are given loving attention without judgment. Perhaps a Wiccan ethics of healing could be based on tending, attending, and paying attention.

How different would the world be if we paid attention to the needs of people who are sick or have disabilities, rather than trying to fix them or blame them? If we attended to death rather than ignoring or hiding it. If we tended a pregnant woman or a woman in labor rather than asserted our own agenda for her. If we paid attention to our elders. If we attended to the messages of animals and trees. If we regarded our own bodies with loving attention. If we each tended our sweet corner of the earth.

Polythealogy 2

I like calling Paganism the "Old Religion," though I know that's a piece of romantic revisionism. And Diana Paxson nicely states some central tenets, if you will, of our religions: that "Divinity may be worshipped in many forms and by many names; that the physical world is as holy as the spiritual realm; that humankind should live in harmony with nature; and that magical or sacramental practices are effective." I don't know about you, but that sums up my beliefs quite well.

When I start to think about the differences between monotheism and polytheism, the distinction starts to break down. I mean, contemporary fundamentalist Christians believe there is only one God, though they also posit the existence of Satan, who seems like a demi-god to me - a god ultimately less powerful than the Big Guy, but still pretty damn powerful. And what about the Holy Trinity - three gods in one? three aspects of the same god? It's the stuff of theological debates. To Catholics, Mary is the mother of God; does that make her a god, or no? (Of course, we all know who Mary really is.) The ten commandments, important to both Christians and Jews, state that the people shall have no other gods before the God of Israel, which isn't the same as saying there are no other gods. As for traditional polytheists, do the Hindus believe their gods are many or ultimately one? Or both?

Among Pagans, we debate the value of sticking to one pantheon or choosing from among many. We call ourselves polytheists but are less clear about what that means. My own belief tends toward the Divine as both one and many, the great Mystery, known in many guises and by many names. Is that just a holdover from my Christian, monotheistic days, or from growing up in a culture where monotheism is the dominant model? Do I fail to make the necessary imaginative leap to true polytheism? When I think of polytheism, I picture first the squabbling Greeks I learned about in high school, and as much as I groove on the archetypes of Artemis, Demeter, and Hecate, I can't take Zeus and his ilk seriously. Like a lot of Goddess women, I mix my pantheons freely, being partial to the aformentioned Greek goddesses (but not Hera, please, never Hera, and I have some problems with Athena) plus Kwan Yin and Brigid. Since I like my gods to challenge dominant masculine norms, and it took me a long time to divest myself of the idea of big-white-bearded-male-God, I prefer to think of the god in even more abstract and less human terms, as the Green Man and the stag. But ultimately I believe these characterizations of the Divine are limited if useful tools for grasping parts of what cannot be fully understood.