Sunday, July 31, 2016

On Lughnasadh

Today I found the feather of a wild turkey.



Broken-stemmed—as if after falling to the ground, it had been chewed. Maybe by the orange-eyed black cat that prowls our yard after darkness falls, sending Stazi and Juni intently scurrying from window to window to exchange stares with the interloper.

What does a broken feather mean today, on the eve of the festival of Lugh, sun god?

I'm not one for signs and portents. But we curate our own lives, don't we? Especially for blog posts. We choose what is meaningful and why.

On the one hand, there is a quite sensible reason for a wild turkey feather to be in my back yard...which is that a whole flock of them paid us a visit on Thursday. Two hens and fifteen young wild turklings.

They perched atop the fence, the garage and up in the tree outside our window like an invading force. First: scoping out the yard for food and/or threats. Then: they judged it safe and one by one, fluttered down to peck at the fallen seed under the bird feeder.

After they'd eaten what was there, they wandered off to another yard, on a progressive dinner party.

Lughnasadh is a first fruits harvest festival, a time to partake of the bounty.

A banquet of milkweed and blazingstar for the monarchs.



A feast of nectar for bees and hummingbirds.










A feast of wild and winsome beauty for our eyes.





Seasons and holy days should be felt in their time, don't you think? The exact time is important. Their beats fall regularly throughout the year, marking a particular angle in the sun's journey across the sky, a quality of light falling upon the beloved earth; marking the cycle of growth and decline of mortal creatures of every kind. Anchoring us to this place, this time, singing nownownow every moment.

Centuries, millennia of humans marked the journey of sun and moon, marked them with fire and festival, ritual and thanks.

Sometimes I wish I lived among those peoples, in those times, if only for that. For a celebration with a center to it, one that makes sense to people who love the earth and the sky, sun moon stars.

No leaping over fires on hilltops, I'll shape my own kind of broken-feathered observance, based on what speaks to me.



As I write, I wonder, as I usually do: does this all sound self-indulgent? I understand if you think it does, because on some level I do, too. Compared with many people in this world, I am privileged, and have no real reason to complain of anything.

Is it a luxury to be able to feel emptiness, sadness or loneliness rather than hunger? Is it a luxury to long for a sense of belonging to this earth, when so many have no place to sleep, no safety, no kindness, no justice?

Yes. But maybe it's not an either/or, maybe we are less separate than we think. Maybe that's why many of us feel so lost. Maybe that is why we search and search for something with even a chance of healing what is being broken—and when we find it, we need to recognize and take hold of it.

There is so much in this society and the world that is destructive and cruel and callous, and it is nearly all human. We are the ugliest thing on earth, I think. So much of that is on display right now. It is so stark, so frightening, it demands our attention...and maybe we feel it is shallow or indulgent or selfish to care so much about what is beautiful.

But what if beauty is necessary, too? In spite of everything, we need to love what we love, or what is the point? This world's beauty is breathtaking still, the things that pass unnoticed under our eyes, the gifts of even one single day: the silent rising of the sun. The dawn chorus. The blue hours of a summer afternoon. The cool scent of a lake at dusk, magicked by the small singing of frogs and crickets. The bright stars we can barely see anymore, always above us, and a thousand thousand other wonders right here, every day.

If we could only see them. Honor them. With a holy day.










Monday, July 25, 2016

Surrender




Be crumbled.

So wild flowers will come up where you are. 







You have been stony for too many years. Try something different. 







Surrender. 

                                                                                          ~ Rumi




Sunday, July 10, 2016

The closed sign



AND WHEN I thought about it (you probably saw it right off), a knitting circle of mythic bawdy wise women is no less romantic an idea than the young knight in the meadow, is it?

Though a friend of mine asked to join the circle, so I am glad I wrote about it, even if it exposes me as still starry-eyed after all these years. 

Today I read a line about a fictional character who was drifting through life, "lacking ambition but full of expectation." 

It caught my attention. Is that me? I wondered. Or feared. Because I sometimes I have a sinking realization that I have spent too much time drifting, waiting for things to happen, instead of deciding what I want and exerting myself.  

Avoiding setting challenges for myself, in the mistaken belief that I am being kind to myself. Like, no challenges, no stress. 

I dislike stress. People say there is good stress and bad stress, but honestly? I've never learned to like any type. 

Some people thrive on it, like another of my friends. She is diligent, highly goal-oriented. Sets herself daily, monthly and yearly challenges, and is very accountable to herself. She cultivates the habits she needs in order to meet the challenges, and she DOES meet them. It's admirable and probably quite satisfying for her. 

Alas, her way is not my way. 

Screw it. What I said about stress? I don't like it... but so what? I do want to risk something. I want to throw myself in the middle of something uncomfortable. I want to grow bigger. I want to take down the "closed" sign. 

What? How? Where? 

The only question I don't have is why. 










Tuesday, July 5, 2016

A knitting circle



I was thinking of my mythical community.

"When I'm old, I want to be part of a knitting circle," I announced to my husband. (I don't really knit, but not the point.)

I imagined them, the wise and earthy women in this knitting circle.

Quirky, kind. Strong, sharp. Full of thoughts.

Playful and fond of the absurd, because laughing together is good medicine.

I said, "They'll like reading. And growing herbs...or wildlife habitat. But they're a little dangerous, somehow...like, they're witches."



I looked over at him. He nodded.

(He's heard me dreaming aloud about other hypothetical communities that we could somehow be part of. Maybe a permaculture-green-sustainable community in the Pacific Northwest? A pagan-artist-village community in Devonshire? The oddball, charming fictional communities of Bluebell, Alabama, or Stars Hollow, Connecticut...surely they must be based on real places. Etcetera.)



The next day, musing on the ways of my mind, it struck me—I had been describing the person who I want to be when I grow old.

The ongoing sense of community with other women that I sometimes long for, especially now that my mother and grandmother are gone, my aunties dispersed.

Be a good parent to yourself, a wise woman told me. Be both the daughter and mother.




To that, I'll add...also be the grandmother-crone to yourself.



I'm reminded that as a girl, I had a habit of buying highly impractical clothing for imaginary scenarios.

Floaty, gauzy gown with a long sash and ruffles? Of course. Because I was hopeful that one day very soon, I would be walking in a sunny meadow and come across a princely young man who would promptly fall in love with me and my lovely dress.

"Wear it and he will come."

It didn't seem unlikely, then.

(The meadow never actually happened. Eventually there was indeed a princely young man, but he's never cared for meadows. Or walks.)



I'm poking fun at my younger self, but that imagining came from the same mind that today muses on knitting circles and community. Still trying on possibilities of the person I want to be and the life I want for myself.

When I was a young woman with a head stuffed full of romantic novels, my longings were different than they are now. The knitting circle suits me better these days.

So it appears I have a sketchy map, and a place to get to...but which paths will take me there?

I have to get on with it. I'm already oldish, with no community in sight. Or else I'm overlooking something right under my nose, which is a possibility.



But it all began with the girl that I once was, let's not forget her. I love her once-upon-a-time longing for the mythic that played out in dresses.

And I am glad she lives on as again I try to envision a life that fits who I'm longing to be now.