Why do we celebrate the beginning of spring in February? Because spring begins long before we actually get to see it. Later, when "real" spring is here we'll see the flowers and the new plants, but they don't just appear one day from out of nowhere. Now, while we're still freezing our toes off, the seeds are getting ready to grow, the trees are waking up and the days are getting just a bit longer. So now is the time to plan for the spring to come, to think about what's stirring in our hearts and minds and to plan out how we will nurture those seedlings in the coming year. So, while safely peering out at the nearly two feet of snow from inside my nice, warm apartment, I lit candles and meditated on my plans for the coming months and drummed and sang a bit and gave thanks for the many blessings in my life.
I am less than gifted when it comes to actually growing things, so I tend to keep my Imbolg ritual symbolic. But lots of people do take this time to actually plan out their real-world gardens, so here's a poem for those of you wishing for the snow to melt so you can get outside and start digging:
He Knows No Winter
He knows no winter, he who loves the soil,
For, stormy days, when he is free from toil,
He plans his summer crops, selects his seeds
From bright-paged catalogues for garden needs.
When looking out upon frost-silvered fields,
He visualizes autumn's golden yields;
He sees in snow and sleet and icy rain
Precious moisture for his early grain;
He hears spring-heralds in the storm's ' turmoil
He knows no winter, he who loves the soil.
- Sudie Stuart Hager
- Mood:
happy
And here's how it looked around 5:00 tonight:
Someone actually came around and shoveled the sidewalk about 2 hours before this picture was taken but as you can see it's all been covered up again. Judging from the lack of footprints and really full parking lot, all my neighbors are hiding inside like I am. I did venture out to try to build a snowman, but the snow wasn't packing very well.
The snow is still coming down pretty hard and is supposed to continue well into the night, which is putting my plans for tomorrow in jeopardy. I have a party to go to not too far from my house which shouldn't be a problem, but then I was planning to head over to Maggie's house for our second annual Stay Up All Night On The Longest Night Of The Year To Welcome The Solstice Sun party. (I really need to come up with a better name for it.) Hopefully the snow will stop overnight and all the roads will be cleared by tomorrow night.
Most alarmingly of all....I'm out of milk! As anyone who lives in the Philly area knows, as soon as snow is predicted you need to run out and stock up on milk, bread and eggs. I have bread and eggs, but no milk! Somehow I've survived the day, but I don't know if I can manage for the whole weekend, so hopefully I can get out to a store tomorrow. What I really need is soy milk, which I need to make the vegan cupcakes that I promised Maggie I'd bring to the SUANOTLNOTYTWTSS party. If all else fails, I do have the ingredients for vegan chocolate chip cookies....hopefully that will suffice!
- Mood: chipper
- Mood: happy
For several months I was too depressed to even think about doing ritual by myself. I couldn't even consider the idea of joining another coven, and I wasn't doing much spiritual work on my own - not even meditating or working with my Tarot cards. It's not that I wanted to stop practicing Wicca, I was just kind of stumped as to how to continue. I told myself I'd practice as a solitary, no problem. Well, it was a problem for me. I loved my coven, and the idea of doing a ritual without them just felt wrong.
Then in June, a few days before the full moon, I started feeling that pull - I wanted to do a ritual. So I did. It was.....OK. I felt like I was plodding along, it didn't feel natural, and I didn't feel like I accomplished much. But it felt good to dip my toes back in the water. Tonight I did another ritual, and I made a few changes. In June, I was still following the ritual outline that we used as a coven. I think that taking the format we used as a group and just using it by myself was part of the problem - the entire time I felt like people were missing; like I couldn't do the ritual properly by myself. So this time I made a few changes. I made a new ritual outline that's all mine. It's not really all that different from the coven ritual, but there are a few important changes, and I think it worked better. It certainly felt better, anyway.
One thing stumped me though - should I still do Cakes & Ale? Cakes & Ale is kind of a symbolic meal during the ritual - a chance for the group to share food and drink and reflect on the ritual. I did include it in my ritual tonight because I had some yummy cookies and really good beer, so why not? But I felt a little odd sharing a meal with myself. (On the plus side, I got to drink all the beer myself! :-) But if I didn't include it, I wouldn't have libations to offer at the end of the ritual. It's not that I think either way would be right or wrong - I'm just still trying to figure out what I'm most comfortable with. I'll have to experiment and see what feels right. But if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
- Mood:
calm
- Mood:
grumpy
I went to an Imbolg ritual on Friday, hoping that the Goddess would speak to me, maybe tell me what I've been doing wrong. Well, I haven't been doing anything wrong. And the God and Goddess have not abandoned me - they're right where they've always been. I just couldn't see them for a while. And that's a natural part of the cycles of life. As we gathered on Friday to celebrate the return on the light and the coming of spring, I realized that I had been going through my own period of spiritual darkness, and I am now coming back out of it. Just like the darkness of winter is unavoidable, so are these periods of spiritual darkness - there is no way to avoid them. And just like winter will eventually pass, perhaps slower than we'd like, these personal periods of darkness will pass, but they cannot be hurried. All I can do is hang on until they lift, and do my best to learn from them. Secrets are revealed in the darkness. Truths are revealed in the darkness. It's better for me to face them now than to ignore them and only have to face them later.
I've been listening to this Tom Waits song quite a bit; I think it's perfect for Imbolg:
You Can Never Hold Back Spring
You can never hold back spring
You can be sure I will never stop believing
The blushing rose, it will climb
Spring ahead or fall behind
Winter dreams the same dream, every time
Baby you can never hold back spring
Even though you've lost your way
The world is dreaming, dreaming of spring
So close your eyes
Open your heart
To the one who's dreaming of you
And you can never hold back spring
Remember everything that spring can bring
Baby you can never hold back spring
Baby you can never hold back spring
- Mood: hopeful
I was inspired by this post on Jezebel to really sit down and think about all the specific things I've done that I owe my body an apology for - the list is pretty long. I started reading the comments on Jezebel at work, and had to stop when I almost started crying. I, like lots of people I suppose, can be pretty hard on myself. I try to remember that this is the only body I'll have in this lifetime and it's better to spend my time respecting it, treating it well and appreciating it for all it does for me rather than fighting with it, resenting it and disparaging it. I've definitely gotten a lot better at that over the past few years, but I still have my days. On those days I like to re-read Dianne Sylvan's post "A Belly Rub for the Holy Puppy" - it reminds me that my body is a sacred gift from the gods and it's my job to love it, nurture it and take good care of it. And then I look at this picture that I found over on Shapely Prose:
I'm happy to be what I am. I will not hate myself for not being something else. I do love my body. I'm awesome as I am. And so are you.
......and doggone it, people like me!
- Mood: content
Today I was more of a hermit. I really needed to do some cleaning, but I also wanted to watch the Star Wars DVDs that I borrowed from Jedi Mike, so I bribed myself - 1 hour of cleaning, 1 DVD. It worked out well. My apartment is....well, cleaner than it was before, and I cleaned and organized my altar, which had gotten rather cluttered over the past few months.
Tomorrow my Tarot study group starts up again - I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't made it to one of these groups in a long time; we don't meet over the summer and I missed several months earlier this year. I feel like I haven't been practicing with the Tarot as much as I'd like to, so hopefully this will get me back on track.
- Mood: refreshed
- Mood:
pensive
(Just as an FYI - most Wiccans I know prefer to call this sabbat Lughnasadh rather than Lammas, but Lughnasadh is hard to spell, so I'm sticking with Lammas for now. Also, I couldn't pronounce it for a really long time, but I think I've got that worked out now. It's kind of like "luna-sah".)
- Mood:
thoughtful
Last night was our open Midsummer ritual, which was a lot of fun. (I was feeling much better for this one than I was for Beltane, so I enjoyed myself a lot more!)
The only other thing on my list of things to do this weekend (besides cleaning the kitchen) is to finish reading Prisoner of Azkaban. My Harry Potter re-read is way behind schedule, and I need to get caught up! If I really focus, I think I can finish it tomorrow and start of Goblet of Fire next week. I can't believe July is almost here and I'm not even on Book 4!
- Mood: accomplished
Ahhh Beltane. It’s such a happy holiday, with the dancing and the flowers and the happy, happy people. Sadly, for this year’s Beltane ritual I felt like I’d been run over by a truck, so my attitude was pretty much “No I will NOT join you in rejoicing in the beauty of spring. Now will you please take your mirth and merriment and go frolic somewhere else? You’re interfering with my sulking!” But I’m much better now.
I couldn’t decide between using a poem or a quote to close this post, so I’ll just have to include both! First, a lovely poem by Sara Teasdale that reminds us to savor every beautiful moment of spring:
May Day
A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.
Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;
For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?
And now, a quote that I love from Dorothy Parker:
"Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants."
- Mood: happy
I'm going to stop prefacing every other entry with some comment about how I'm behind schedule. Just assume that I'm always behind schedule, and in the rare event that I'm on time, or (dare we dream) early, I'll make a point of mentioning it.
( What is Ostara? )
In honor of Ostara, here is one of my favorite spring poems:
- in Just-
- spring when the world is mud-
- luscious the little
- lame balloonman
- whistles far and wee
- and eddieandbill come
- running from marbles and
- piracies and it's
- spring
- when the world is puddle-wonderful
- the queer
- old balloonman whistles
- far and wee
- and bettyandisbel come dancing
- from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
- it's
- spring
- and
- the
- goat-footed
- balloonMan whistles
- far
- and
- wee
e.e. cummings
My mother showed me this poem when I was a kid, and "mudluscious" has been one of my favorite words ever since. Thanks Mom!
- Mood: mellow
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wicca201had an excellent post a few days ago about Putting the Earth Back into Your Earth Religion. It got me thinking about how I interact with nature...or rather, how I don't. I like to joke that I'm the least nature-loving pagan I know. On a gorgeous, warm summer day, when everyone else is saying things like "Oh, I wish I could be out in the sun!" and "Hey - let's go to the shore this weekend!", I'm hiding inside, away from windows, cranking the AC. I often remark casually that I'm not "the outdoorsy type", which can get some odd looks in a roomful of Wiccans! But the more I've been thinking about it, the more I've realized that I really do enjoy many aspects of nature, I just seem to like the aspects that most other people don't. My favorite season is winter, followed by autumn. My favorite time of day is....night! I'm very much a night owl, and I much prefer to be outside in the snow, rather than the sun. My whole perspective changes with the sun going down. A giant spider that scares the heck out of me in broad daylight somehow fascinates me at night. When a large spider moved onto my patio last year, I'd have to avert my eyes while walking past her in the day, but at night I'd stand and watch in fascination as she repaired her web. Under the moonlight, she was transformed into a beautiful, mystical, amazing creature to be admired. In the morning, I was always back to "Ewwwwww! Spider!" Last fall I was walking through my apartment building's parking lot just after sunset on a cool autumn evening when the air was suddenly full of bats! Bats tend to scare me (since I too often run into them when they're trapped inside and flying right at my head!). I always worry that they're going to get caught in my hair. But this time, I stood enthralled as a whole flock (?) of bats circled silently through the air, coming close to me but never touching. It was amazing.
So I think I do need to re-examine my relationship with nature, accepting the fact that while sunshine (the heat! the sunburn!), summer (the bugs! the humidity!) and gardening (the allergies! the dirt! THE BUGS!!!!) might not be my thing, I can still appreciate the beauty and power of nature in other ways. With that in mind, I've decided to take on a project that Kwan Yin suggested - the Touch The Earth quiz from Proteus Coven's website. I've seen it before and thought to myself "hey - I should do that sometime". But anything I plan to do "sometime" tends to end up not getting done - I work much better with deadlines, even if they're self-imposed. So my goal will be to answer two questions a week, and I'll post my answers here so that you, my faithful readers (all two of you!), can learn along with me. My questions for this week are:
Trace the water that you drink from precipitation to tap.
- What sort of soil is predominant in this place? What are its geological and hydrological associations?
Obviously I don't have these answers off the top of the head - I'll need to do a bit of research. I'll get back to you!
- Mood: relaxed
wicca201 posted an entry in her journal that got me thinking - she posed the question "Are most contemporary Wiccans also agnostic?" Her post made me realize that I don't really know what exactly agnostics believe. I think that in my mind, when someone tells me they're agnostic, I tend to assume that they don't care much about religion or spirituality - it's just not a priority for them. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! :-) And while I'm sure that is true for some people who identify as agnostics, it's obviously not an accurate view of all of them. I guess what it really shows is that I didn't care enough about their beliefs to do a bit of research before now! So I started with looking up the definition of "agnostic" on the Merriam Webster website:
"1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2 : a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something <political agnostics> "
Then I checked Wikipedia,which defines "agnosticism" as:
"...the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding metaphysics, afterlife or the existence of God, god(s), or deities—is unknown or (possibly) inherently unknowable.
Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge or, alternatively, that while certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism.
Demographic research services normally list agnostics alongside categories such as atheist and non-religious, although this is misleading, since religious people can be agnostic (indicating a lack of absolute certainty, therefore treating their religion as a faith)." (emphasis mine)
So any feedback that anyone can provide would be most welcome. All you agnostics - how do you define the term? Are the definitions I'm working with here accurate? What do you believe? And all you believers - whether you believe in god or believe in many gods or believe that there is no god or believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster - is there room for doubt in your belief system? I'm really curious to hear anything anyone has to say on this subject.....
- Mood: contemplative
- Mood: pensive
