Dead Man’s Party

I am exhausted.

My girlfriend and I have been working on our yearly costumes almost non-stop, for the last several days.  We enjoy attending an annual costume party that takes place on the Saturday before Halloween.  Many, if not most, of the attendees put a great deal of work into their costumes, and in response we have really pushed ourselves to be more creative in our endeavors.

The theme of this years party was “recycling an old costume” and we decided to take that theme to heart by revamping a couple of old store-bought numbers from a few years back.  We had made the perfect Halloween cliché, me in my black crushed-velvet wizards cloak, replete with golden stars and moons and her in a natty witches outfit sporting a black-dyed cheesecloth hat.  Never had more dreadful apparel slid from the confines of a cheap vinyl bag.

Horrors!

So, seeking redemption for costuming sins past, Donna began revamping her witch ensemble, and I began the work of transforming yesterday’s off-brand wizard into a somewhat more compelling Necromancer.

Mostly, I thought, this would prove an excellent opportunity to try my hand at building my own costume props by casting foam in silicone molds.

Yeah, I’ve been watching far too much Face Off.
(I WANT that studio!)

A quick series of photos showing the progress of one of my costume props
from initial clay sculpture, to silicone mold, to final painted foam.

And what have I learned?

Well, for one thing, silicone is damned expensive.

Also, good mold making and being in a rush are two things that DO NOT go well together;  subtle detail in modeling clay will disappear by the time you get to the finished foam piece;  cast the foam in the shape you want, and do not assume you’ll be able to bend it much after the fact;  budget twice as much time as you think you really need;  budget three times as much money as you think you will need – did I mention that silicone is expensive?

The most important thing of all is having everything well planned out in advance.

These lessons were all learned the hard way.

We didn’t make the party.

All that work and expense — for nothing.

Except, of course, for the experience — lessons learned, knowledge gained.
(and we have emergency backup costumes for next year, in case this happens again)

There are those who might wonder why I put so much effort into something so frivolous.

Among my fellow Pagans, there are many who prefer to embrace the serious, spiritual aspects of Samhain while ignoring, or even pooh-poohing, Halloween in all it’s kitschy, secular glory.

What a bunch of freaking spoilsports.

Samhain, my friends, was not meant to be a purely sombre occasion!

It’s a party.  Specifically, it’s a dead man’s party.  It’s something we do for them, to draw them back, to celebrate them and to earn their protection and guidance.

It’s a dead man’s party.
Who could ask for more?
Everybody’s comin’, leave your body at the door,
Leave your body and soul at the door…,

I believe that the dead, having found their way once more among the living, are drawn by boisterous energy and lively activity.  The fire light and cheerful voices draw them in from the cold far better than any dreary, silent ‘dumb-supper’ ever could.

So yeah, we may have missed the costume party, but the main event is still a few days off and there are still decorations to put up and trick-or-treaters to prepare for.

Heck, maybe I’ll wear the costume while handing out candy.  That will give the little ones something to remember.

And then, on the next day, while millions of children are still coming down from their sugar induced high, the real celebration begins.  We will awaken the night with bonfire, and feast, and stories, and offerings to ancestors and gods alike.

Don’t be afraid of what you can’t see
Don’t run away it’s only me…,

—All lyrics by Danny Elfman

By any other name…,

Columbus Day.

It sneaks up on me every year.

October has always been a busy month for me.  My work schedule typically begins to heat up around this time of the year, while at home there are countless preparations to make for the coming Samhain celebration.  At the same time there are Halloween costume details to fuss over, and social obligations, and what seem like a million other distractions, all competing for my time and attention.

And then, amidst all the noise, I hear someone mention ‘Columbus Day’ and for a moment there is confusion, both familiar and unexpected.

“Is THAT in October?!”

Is followed quickly by…,

“Why do people STILL celebrate that?”

Do people celebrate it?  I can’t say that I’ve ever heard people excitedly making plans for the holiday.  Here, in the U.S., the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the new world is something of a second-class holiday.  Sure, the mail doesn’t run and some people get the day off from work, but aside from that not much goes on.

Oh, except for the parades.

And school plays, no doubt, with a chorus of costumed little kids reciting, “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…,”.

But why?

Why parades or plays or speeches or accolades of any kind for a man who was perhaps the worst explorer in history, and a fairly awful human being to boot?

For the execution of the journey to the to the Indies I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps. It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied.

—Christopher Columbus

Yeah, I can see where he might have needed help from “on-high”, because it’s pretty clear that neither intelligence nor mathematics were used in planning his first voyage.  Columbus grossly underestimated the circumference of the Earth; so much so that if the Americas’ hadn’t been “in the way”, he and his crew would almost certainly have perished in the middle of the Atlantic.

What’s more, even after accidentally “discovering” the new world, he was always convinced that he had found a route to the East Indies.

There have been plenty of explorers and researchers who made critical mistakes in judgement and went on to learn from them, but not so the “Great Admiral of the Ocean.”

Columbus is here not only to claim this land for Spain, but to prove that men have been looking heroic while wearing tights since long before Superman and Batman made the scene.

Now, his navigational and geographical follies aside, it might still be worth giving a historical nod to the man who opened up the “New World” for trade with the European powers.  Maybe, that is, if history did not also reveal him to be a tyrant and a murderer of the worst order.  His offenses against the natives were so extreme, that he was eventually arrested and sent home to Spain, in chains, stripped finally of his titles and ill-gotten wealth.

Oh what the hell, let’s throw him a parade anyway!

He discovered America after all.
(Nope – it was already populated, and anyway, the Vikings had stopped by in the 11th century.)

He proved that the Earth wasn’t flat.
(Nope – that had been fairly common knowledge since at least the 1st century.)

He set the tone for oppression and slave trade in the New World.
(Bingo – we have a winner – and what a fantastic legacy he left for us.)

So let’s fast forward about 500 years and see how things stand.

After more wars and massacres and broken treaties than anyone can safely count, it seems we have finally come to the point where we can show some genuine regret for the crimes of our ancestors.  We have grown up enough, as a culture, to take responsibility for the actions of our predecessors and to show the indigenous peoples of this continent the respect and compassion that they deserve.

Or…., not.

It seems that institutionalized racism, as long as it’s all in good fun, is just too dearly held for some sports fans to part with.

“The ‘Washington Redskins’ sports franchise has been a ‘tradition’ for 80 years,” we are told.  “The name and image are,” I am assured, “a matter of pride, intended to honor to the warrior spirit of Native Americans.”

Really?***

I have to ask, why so much sound and fury at the prospect of another name?

They’ve changed their name before (they were formerly the Braves) and other teams have changed names more recently without such hue and cry.

Would the team be changed somehow?

Would they play the game differently?

Would they be diminished in some way?

Or would they be the same team with the same loyal fans, only without the mocking disregard of the cruel history behind their name.

And while we’re thinking about offensive names we might want to change…,

And what if we gave up Columbus Day?

Oh we could keep the date, and the parades, and the school plays, but change the name (as some have already done) to Indigenous People’s Day, or Native American Day.

We could turn a second-rate holiday on it’s ear, and make it a day worth celebrating.

Words have power, and the names we give things are the most powerful words of all.

We need not carry the crimes of the past forward with us into the present day.

The choice is sometimes as simple, as to call a thing, by any other name.

 

***ADDENDUM (November, 14th 2013): If you had read this post a day ago you would have seen that it included two photos (gleaned from HERE and HERE) of Redskin’s Fans dressed in a mockery of Native American costume.  Today I received a message from one of the ‘gents’ pictured who had this to say…,

“and calling me a portly guy is respectful too? how hypocritical of you. ban parodies! censorship is the way to go! rofl, your logic is beyond hilarious.”

Okay, so I’ll admit that using the word “portly” may have been uncalled for, but then again, I wasn’t really going for ‘respectful’ here.  And, try as I might, I still find that I am unable to muster ANY respect for someone who so clearly misses the point.

Where, exactly, is the parity between one white guy calling another “portly” and institutionalized bigotry?  One is disrespectful, yes, but the other is just obscene.

In any case, as ‘I’ am sensitive to the feelings of others when it comes to posting their images online without their consent, I have removed the “offending” photos from this post.

Ghost Stories

We are haunted, all of us.

In a few weeks time, we who honor the old ways will celebrate the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.  As the sun sets on October 31st, the dead will walk among us.  We will light fires and make sacrifice in their honor.  We will ask for their protection, their guidance, and the benefit of their wisdom.  We will invite them into our homes, set a place for them at dinner, and share with them the tales of years gone by as well as our hopes for the future.

Our myths and memories and ambitions, they are ghost stories, every one.

The ancient traditions tell us that the way is opened on November 1st, for the ancestors to enter into the land of the living.  The celebration of the final harvest marked the beginning of the darkest season of the year.  The air was cold, the trees barren, and the fields empty.  The world of the living and that of the dead overlapped and intermingled, not for a single night, but until the warmth of Spring returned.

In our modern culture we have whittled these powerful old beliefs down into a single night of costumed ghouls and gremlins.  For one night a year we pass out candy, bob for apples, and decorate our yards with carved pumpkins and fake tombstones.  And then all the orange and black gets shoved into boxes hidden somewhere in the garage or attic.  We stash it all away for another year.  We forget.

We forget the dead.

We forget them, though they walk among us, sharing our world, our lives, our memories.

The stories that we tell are ghost stories.

How could they be otherwise, when we are the ghosts?

We are haunted, all of us.

I was the boy in the tiger-striped pajamas.

He is gone now, of course, but he lives on as a ghost inside of me.  I hear stories of him at family gatherings but he no longer exists in any tangible form.  You can’t really see him, or touch him, and he will not hear your voice, but still, he is there nonetheless.

He is a collection of stories.  He is the ghost of a boy, faded and fleeting, who haunts the body and mind a man who is now more than twice the age his father was, when this photo was taken.

And speaking of my father…, how strange to see him so young.

And my mother…, what WAS she wearing?!

Looking at this photo I see a young family in the early chapters of their own story.

Those people are long gone.  Mother, father, son, they have been replaced by other people living very different lives from those three in the holiday photo.

They are ghosts now, knocking around in the bodies of their older selves.  Look close enough and you may catch a glimpse of them.  Perhaps you’ll hear them rattling their chains, or moaning warnings into the wind.

And what else are ghosts good for?

Now here’s the sudden twist that every well told ghost story requires.

If we are haunted by the spirits of our younger selves, are they not haunted by us?

The little boy in the tiger stripes, his father and mother, facing both the camera and a future which they cannot know, but which is etched already upon their youthful faces.  I look at these phantoms and I can already see so much there, written in their eyes.  I cry out to them.  I want to warn them, but they just sit there, staring at me, haunted.

So, maybe it’s useless.

It may be that the chains that link us to our destines run both ways, and just as we are bound, we bind others to our fate.  The dead walk among us.  We light fires and make sacrifice in their honor.  We ask for their protection, their guidance, and the benefit of their wisdom.  We invite them into our homes, set a place for them at dinner, and share with them the tales of years gone by as well as our hopes for the future.

And perhaps, they do the same for us in turn, neither hearing the other.  Each haunted, us by the past and them, by the future, and the wheel just grinding on forever.

Or…,

Maybe the people in the picture have some small wisdom for us still.  Maybe we can learn from them, from their victories and heartaches, and change our own fates for the better.  If we could just take the time to listen for the voices in the wind.  If we could still ourselves enough to feel the tugging of the chains.  We must learn from the past, we must listen to the future.

We must remember that all the stories we tell, our myths and memories and ambitions…,

…they are ghost stories, every one.

Walking with the Green Man

The world is dying.

It’s okay.  It needs to.

Everything dies, and eventually, is born again.

In my particular patch of the world the earliest signs have been visible for the last several weeks.  The Summer blossoms are failing, few more leaves crunch underfoot, and there is a certain crispness to the air in the early mornings.

Looking at the calendar (does anyone look at calendars anymore), we will see that the Autumn Equinox is set for the end of this week.  By the calculations of the modern calendar, the Sun’s passage through the celestial equator marks the beginning of the Autumn season.

Yeah well, I’ve always thought that the modern calendar was a bit of an idiot.

Our ancestors would have told us that the Equinox is the very height of Autumn – the apex of the harvest season, which began back in August with the Celtic celebration of Lughnasadh.  Of course the ancients didn’t bother with rows of numbered squares printed on glossy paper to order their days.  They took their clues from the world around them: the movements of the heavens, the turning of the leaf, the movements of birds and animals in the wild.

And even these signs would likely only confirm what they already felt.

The living Earth, it’s pulse and patterns, these are things you may touch for yourself, if you reach deep enough, and if you remember how.

Sadly, most of us seem determined to ignore the natural world.  As a society, we have made it our common goal to do away with the seasons, to break away from the natural cycle of the Earth’s living and dying.  We gouge and syphon away at the deep places, processing and burning what we find there to artificially heat our world in the winter and cool it in the summer.  We light the night with glaring incandescence and then close our curtains on the light of day, only to bask our faces in the spectral glow of television and computer displays.

We see these things as achievements, as the victory of man over nature.

Never mind that we are part of nature, born of the natural world and subject to those same defeats.  As the old saying goes. “We cut off our nose to spite our face”.

I feel the same influences of course, the same culturally induced desire to disconnect from the natural.  The heat is my biggest weakness.  I absolutely loath the heat that comes with Texas summers, preferring to shelter the long days away in air-conditioned isolation.  Just lately, my refrigerator has become unwilling to refrigerate and my clothes dryer shuts itself down after only a few moments of operation.  Suddenly, I am appliance challenged, and I would be lying if I said that I did not miss the creature comforts which technology provides.

And yet…,

I drive to work with all the other lemmings.  I park my car in a sea of metal and asphalt and begin the slow plod toward the metal cube where I will spend my day fixing the technological marvels that drag our attention so efficiently away from the world around us.  Just another cog in the machine, turning – turning – turning…,

As I make my way across the parking lot, I take a detour.  There are islands of lush green grass there, marking the ends of the long rows of cars.  A tree grows in each of these islands and the air is sweet and fragrant within the reach of their twisting branches.

I have noticed that most people avoid these spots, aiming for a more direct approach to their destination.  Get in.  Get out.  On to the next stop, turning – turning – turning…,

I am in no hurry.  I divert my course toward the soft grass.  Ducking my head under the low branches I breathe as deeply as I may.  And if you watch me, if you see me there one day, you may notice how I hold my hands, first palms down toward the ground, and then grasping the air and pulling gently upward.

I am reaching down through the living earth.  Finding the life-force that pulses there and drawing as much of it into myself as possible, to sustain me in the hours ahead.  It is a tenuous connection at best.  It is harder and harder to find ‘the green’ within the city, but it’s still there, if you take the time to reach down far enough.

The world is dying.

It’s okay.  It needs to.

Everything dies, and eventually, is born again.

I sit at my desk, typing.  In the kitchen I hear the motor of the refrigerator wheeze into life, working to keep the little food still in there from spoiling.  I listen to it running with a certain foreboding.  When it clicks off again, it may be for the last time.  Or maybe it will be the time after that.  I’ll need to call for someone to come out and look at it soon, but my work schedule is unforgiving and money is tight.

Behind me, sits my altar.  On it’s surface rest the various objects of my spiritual practice.  Above it, I have stretched a wallhanging which I acquired on the tiny island of Inis Mór off the west coast of Ireland, depicting a Draoí (the Irish word for Druid – a representation of my spiritual ancestors).  Above even that, suspended at the highest point of the room and looking down upon it all, rests a carving of the Green Man.

There are many conflicting beliefs and legends concerning the Green Man.  Many think of him as a modern representation of some woodland god, such as Cernunnos or Pan.  For others, he is the archetypal “wild man” of the woods, existing as a manifestation of the masculine ideal in nature.

For me, he is simply a convenient mask, a single “leafy” face to personify my spirituality.  He does not represent any particular god, but rather my relationship with the gods.  In his eyes I see the watchful gaze of the ancestors, and the spirits of the land, whom we (as a culture and a species) try so very hard to ignore and at our own peril.

When I perform my morning and evening devotionals, the Green Man is there, watching from both within and without.  When I step off of the baked pavement and onto the tender grass, when I reach down into the soil beneath or the branches above, it is his hand that I am seeking.  A touch that reassures me that I belong…, that WE belong to something bigger and older and truer than the metal and plastic world we have tinkered together for ourselves.

The world is dying.

It’s okay.  It needs to.

Everything dies, and eventually, is born again.

I can feel him looking at me from between leaves who’s edges are just beginning to tinge with brown and orange.  He is waiting for me to move from this spot, to get up from my typing and venture outside into the sun, where I can reach down and up and out.

The seasons are turning and it is time once again, to go walking with the Green Man.

Out of Season

Okay, lets see…,

Bananas, Grapes, Celery, Carrots, (radishes? mmmm, yeah) Radishes, Cantelope, (next aisle) Grated and (oooh, munster’s on sale) Block Cheese, Pepperoni, (next aisle) Crackers, Tortillas, Rice,  (next aisle, am I out of honey? peanut butter? what about pasta sauce?  ummm…,) Pasta Sauce, (next aisle….,

What — is — THIS!?

This photo was taken on August 12th, fully 12-weeks before Halloween.

There is halloween candy as far as the eye can see in my local grocery and it’s only AUGUST!

— taking a deep breath….       ….and release —

What I am not going to do is rant about how retailers always put out holiday merchandise far too early.  Although such diatribes are a time-honored tradition, I have come to feel that they miss the point.  Appearances to the contrary, the problem here is not just one of crass consumerism.

The problem is us.

We have become a people of the moment.  We want ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ happens to be, and we want it now.  We don’t like to be kept waiting.  We don’t want to make sacrifices or to go without.  We are owed.  We are entitled.

I see it daily: grown men and women throwing tantrums like the most petulant of children because they had to wait for someone to help them, or because they couldn’t get exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it.

The collective will of the people demands an immediacy of experience, and the universe, through technology, industry and consumerism, has bowed to that desire.

Bowed, I think, almost to the point of breaking.

In shaping the universe to our whim, we have built a society that sees no value in delayed gratification.

I have begun to wonder, if the exploration of the distance between wanting a thing and the having of it, does not have a central role in our ethical underpinnings.  Does the steady decrease in the space between ‘want’ and ‘have’ equate to some species of moral decay?

I have several friends and acquaintances who are (and it pains me to say this) thieves.  They do not break into peoples homes or pick their pockets on the street.  Instead they spend their evenings downloading bootleg copies of movies and TV shows.  The rational I hear from them is that they don’t want to wait until the movie is released on video to watch it, or, they don’t want to wait until they can afford to buy it.

They want it and the space between wanting the thing and saving the money to buy it was too great for them.  If possession is just a few keystrokes away, why should they have to wait?

Never mind that they dishonor themselves in the process.  Never mind that by doing what they do, they encourage the industry to raise the prices of its content for everyone else.  “If you were smart,” my friends tell me, “you’d steal it too.”

Take another look at my grocery list above.

Our grandparents could likely remember a time when they might go shopping and only find a few of the fruits and vegetables listed, because those were the only ones that were currently ‘in-season’.  These days we find it hard to fathom such a world.  We have become so used to having every sort of produce we might want, available to us any time we want, day or night, Summer or Winter, that we forget that fruits and vegetables can only be harvested at certain times of the year.  Most of what we are buying is shipped and flown in from all over the world.  The cost, in global pollution generated, to keep tomatoes and oranges on the grocery shelves 24/7/365 is frightening to comprehend.

Is it worth it?

I won’t deny that it’s nice to be able to pick up some apples whenever I want them.  How much better would they taste, how much more sweet would they be, if I had to wait until the fall when they are actually in-season?

I would argue that there is often a great value in waiting.

That value may be personal, as in that first burst of taste you experience as your teeth pierce the viridescent skin of a Granny Smith for the first time in months.  Or the value could extend far beyond one’s self, to a reduction of your carbon footprint, or even the promotion of a more selfless means of interacting with the world.

Our ancestors, I think, knew the value in waiting.

The coming celebration, which the Celts called Samhain and modern society has transformed into Halloween, was a celebration of the final harvest of the year.  In a manner of speaking, every day that passed after Lughnasadh, every day spent toiling in the fields, or herding the flocks from the high to the lowlands, every moment of building and storing and preserving that went on in preparation of the coming winter, was working toward Samhain.  The celebration itself was as much about the wait as it was the final culmination of community efforts towards a common goal.

What possible significance can a celebration based of waiting and preparation have in a society so focused on Instant Gratification?  More than once I have heard from those of my fellow Pagans, born and raised in urban environments, that the traditional holy days, based as they are on an agricultural cycle, have little meaning to them.

In our quest for ever greater convenience we have stripped away our sense of time and place, and in doing so, we have endangered even our spiritual connection to the natural world.

It is up to us to win that connection back, to say ‘NO’ to a culture that claims that we can have whatever we want, whenever we want it, at someone else’s expense.

We can choose to live our lives ‘In Season’, knowing our limits and accepting that those things which are out of our reach will come to us in their own proper time and place.  Or we can take the easier road and continue to live like locusts, consuming whatever is put in front of us with never a thought as to where it came from or who was harmed in getting it here.

The supermarket suppliers are counting on us to take the easy road.  Rest assured they have cases of orange and black wrapped candy sitting in their stockrooms, waiting to replace what’s already sitting on the shelves.  They’re counting on you to eat the first few bags yourself, long before Halloween comes round.  They know you’ll be back to buy more…, and more.

And why shouldn’t you indulge yourself now.

What is the value in waiting?

Lugh: A Prelude

Lughnasadh, the Celtic celebration of the first harvest, arrives this week, and I could not be more busy.  It’s my own fault, after a fashion.  I requested a couple days off from work this week, to celebrate the holiday, but I didn’t want to sacrifice any of my vacation time in the process, and as a result my work schedule has been unforgiving.

I had intended to post a retelling of one of my favorite stories from Irish mythology, “Lugh at the Gate” in which the god is kept waiting outside the gates of Tara while the Tuatha dé Danann consider the finer point of his résumé.  Time, however, has not been on my side, and the story, told from the perspective of a curious bird who watches the proceedings, is still happily rewriting itself in my brain.

And so, all I have to share with you this week, is this:

This (not quite finished) illustration, in ink on paper, is of the god Lugh.  It’s a little rough, but it’s been a while since I worked in this medium, and I’ve never done so using a quill-pen, which I insist on doing when working in my codex.

What goes on the rest of the page, and the pages around it?  Perhaps the same story I had hoped to post here.  Or maybe something else.

In the back of my mind I hear a ritual chant growing, a celebration of the talents of the “Many Skilled God.”

The spirit is there and the inkwell is full.  I need only the time.

A blessed Lughnasadh to you all!

 

Seeking my inner patriot.

Perhaps you have heard of “Christmas Depression”.

It’s a fairly well known condition that seems to be caused by a combination of lowering winter daylight levels and increased social pressures associated with the holiday season.  In other words: you already feel miserable and everyone’s expectation that you should feel “jolly” only manages to make things worse.

I’ve seen polls that show almost half of the population has experienced these “holiday doldrums” to some degree.

Typically, as the holiday season recedes, and the days grow longer through the seasonal shift from winter to spring to summer, the depression also dulls, replaced by a happier attitude.

In rare cases, this cycle seems to be reversed and longer days bring darker moods.

So here it is…,

I have a hard time with Independence Day.

There, I admitted it, and it’s not an easy admission to make.

There are so many pressures to get out there and furiously wave our little flags and declare for all to hear our unabashed love of country.

Are you not grateful for the many freedoms you possess?

Have you no honor for the thousands who have died to defend your liberty?

Have you no national pride?

And I do feel some measure of pride to be sure, but it is a pride more focused on the individual than on the institution.  I am proud of those who have, over the years, stood up and fought against a system that seems hell-bent on denying liberty and equal-rights to all.  Yet, for every measure of pride I feel, there is a much greater quantity of sorrow and shame that these battles must be fought at all.

And then fought again, and again, and again.

As I sit up through the late hours of the evening to watch a woman filibuster the Texas legislature, whatever pride I feel in her efforts is overwhelmed by disgust as I watch lawmakers breaking their own rules and then falsifying their own records in an attempt to ram through a law that their constituents never asked for and which is itself, a lie of the worst order.

When, on the following morning, I hear the happy news that DOMA has been struck down by the Supreme Court, my pleasure is tempered as scores of religious demagogues begin to shout and bluster that the end-times must truly be upon us.

Sorry folks, the combination of dirty, religion soaked politics and blistering Texas heat, do not put me in the mood for a heaping slice of apple pie.

And yet, I know that my spirits should be lifted in these days.

The forces arrayed against us may curse and cheat and wave their flags in our faces until the fabric begins to shred, but the smell coming off of them in these hot Summer days is not one of conviction.

It is the stink of fear.

As they begin to see more clearly that the tides turned are against them, that fear will only grow, and like our friends in Austin, they will do all they can to turn back the clock.

And so I say to all those who love the Summer sun, and who are roused by parades and picnics and the red, the white, and the blue, to you I wish a happy and peaceful Independence Day.

I will keep to myself in a nice shady spot, away from the crowds and the bluster.  Perhaps I will watch the fireworks from a distance, (it’s the one tradition associated with this time of year that I have always enjoyed) and I will do my best not to rain on anyone’s parade.

Oh, but gods, what I wouldn’t give for a nice refreshing rain, just about now!

…and the rent is due.

I would bring him bundles of rushes from the waters edge.
Carry them by hand to the high place, stony Barrule, overlooking the sea.
For Midsummer Eve has come and Manannán awaits his payment.

Only, I am far from those shores.
Arid winds bend prairie grass like waves on an earthen sea,
I am stranded here, landlocked — and the rent is due.

Standing on the very brink of thundering wave and stone,
I have opened my arms, buoyed by winds sweeping from far Emain Ablach.
Lifted a moment, from the rocky cliff, like the Heron King taking flight.

I cling to memories of a rugged coast,
As I choke on the fumes of engines going nowhere.
I am stranded here, landlocked — and the rent is due.

As the rising tide sends plumes of white foam into the air,
The sea god’s wife approaches, her soothing kiss, lingering upon my cheek.
They call her Fand, which means “teardrop”, and she tastes like the sea.

We carry the ocean, like a memory, flowing within us.
Weeping, we give it back again, carried home on the Summer breeze.
I am stranded here, landlocked — and the rent is due.

Nothing makes me yearn for the coasts and mountains of Ireland, quite so much as Summer in Texas.  Although this weeks solstice marks the longest day of the year, we know all too well that the hottest days are yet to come.

There has been a tradition on the Isle of Man (that small Celtic nation nestled almost exactly between Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales) that each year, on Midsummer Eve, the Manx would pay their rent (a token sacrifice of rushes or sweet grass) to Manannán mac Lir, the ancient Celtic god of the seas, to whom the island belongs.  I am told that this tradition survived well into the 19th century, if it is not still practiced by a few today.

I hope, one day soon, to make that pilgrimage myself.  I have languished for too long, allowing material limitations and self-imposed obligations to strand me, landlocked, in this spiritually parched domain.  I need only a strong current, a sturdy sail, and the blessings of the ocean god.

Let the tides take me where they will.

Will you visit their graves?

In the years following the American Civil War, a tradition began to grow among those left behind by a family member or loved one, lost to war. During the fading days of May, the graves of fallen soldiers would be decorated during gatherings at graveside, in remembrance of their ultimate sacrifice.

There is some quibbling among historians as to precisely when and where the first “Decoration Day” was held. I rather suspect that there was no first occasion which spawned the others. It seems more likely to me that the tradition sprang up naturally among people in many places, a natural yearning, in the springtime of the year, for a little hands-on ritual and ceremony, among a people still struggling with loss and confusion in the wake of our most dreadful conflict.

And so, the people of the past century would gather their families to share a meal, sometimes spread picnic style among graves newly tended and festooned with flowers and ribbons. They would dine among the dead, sharing tales of their valor and heroism with children who would otherwise remember them only as names etched in stone or a yellowed photo, framed upon the mantle.

Soldier’s Home National Cemetery – 1864

The parades and political speeches, the concerts and retail sales — that stuff came later, along with the name change to ‘Memorial Day’.

I’ve read a lot of articles, in these last few days leading up to the holiday, from people deeply concerned that you should know, “Memorial Day is not just about firing-up the barbecue!”

Well no, it’s not, but let us not downplay the power of a neighborhood cookout.

We, as a culture, sometimes seem so eager to distance ourselves from the more visceral aspects of our lives (and deaths). We don’t like to get our hands dirty and so we civilize and formalize and memorialize our societal rituals, often beyond recognition. We lose touch with the emotional need, the spiritual impetus which instills within us the call to celebrate and to mourn.

We transform a local tradition of ribbons and flowers into a national procession of perfect little flags in perfect little rows set before perfect little stones. Oh, by all means, let us have our color guards and marching bands all draped in a jingoistic wash of red, white and blue; give us our twenty-one rounds fired into a blue sky while a bugler plays Taps in somber tones. Let us dull our senses with scripted testimonials and stale protocols…,

Or…,

We could have a cookout.

We could put the “Decoration” back into Memorial Day and adorn the graves of our honored dead with flowers and tokens of love and appreciation. Maybe we could just wander among the graves, reading the names and dates, listening to the sound of children playing hide and seek among the stones.

I can think of no better way to praise the dead, than to bring to their resting places the sounds of life and love and laughter. These are the very same gifts which they have rendered unto us through their service and their sacrifice.

When you have spent some time among the graves, when you have awakened their spirits with the breath of life, go home and (weather permitting) fire up that grill under an open sky.

Will it be grilled burgers on toasted buns, or maybe some juicy brats with spicy mustard and onion on a hard roll? Open a beer, pass the chips, and share your memories of the fallen. Do not memorialize them by making them larger than life. Simply remember them as they were, without the platitudes and the flag-waving. We honor them best through the simple act of living our lives, dearly won, in peace and fellowship.

On Bealtaine

The world turns, and we turn with it.

We sway and dance together through this short life of ours.  The seasons pirouette eternally around us, for though our performance is but a brief spectacle, the dance of the gods is eternal.  They move around us every moment, great beings, though we are mostly blind to their passing.  We live and love and die within them, their bone and muscle and flesh, a world not created but awakened and aware!  They know us from our movements and our prayer, to their senses indistinguishable.  They are drawn to our halting dance, illuminated by moonlight and flame.  Recognizing it for what it is, an imitation of their own movements, they hear our invitation and the dance is joined.

The world hungers, and we hunger with it.

The sacred night calls to us.  First we add our offerings to the great fire while whispering blessings into the night air.  Then, like planets around their sun, we begin to revolve about the flames.  One side briefly warmed and the other cooling, goosebumps raised against the chill.  We touch and are touched, by each other and the night and a deeper attention which surrounds us in anticipation.  Waiting.  Wanting but not taking.  I hear a familiar voice, not with my ear but with my heart, and I move aside, not with body but spirit.  I feel my flesh filled and falling.  What more do I have to offer than a share of my own life?  He will see and touch you, through me, with my eyes and hands.  There is no greater trust I can bestow.  This body is ours now.  I feel what the god feels, a fraction of infinite need and hunger.  It is almost more than I can stand.  Who am I now, if not myself?  I am the god and the sacrifice and we are yours if you will have us.

The world burns, and we burn with it.

Who do you see when you look into my eyes?  I would call your name but we are without language now.  There is only the puff and blow of my breath and your hair whips in the breeze of it.  My lungs expand until I think my chest might burst.  Are you in there, or does your flesh also ache with the presence of another?  The roaring fire casts it’s light on the earth around us and our shadows seem to shudder and twist, our shapes changing as we come together.  You glow with your own light, brighter than the needfire which roars beside us, while above you, twin arches of bone climb into the moonlight.  Antlers rising.  And falling and rising again, like tree branches swaying in a wind.  Do you feel the coming storm?  The sky above is clear, yet I can feel the energy gathering in the air around us.  The small hairs on my arms stand on end as the charge builds.  Lightning about to strike.  It rolls and twists, seeking ground, needing release.

The world dies, and we die with it.

Thunder rolls.  Lightning flashes in the violent ecstasy of sky against earth.  We are the storm and perspiration falls like rain.  Fevered flesh on a bed of leaves, mortals and gods, atoms and galaxies, we dance and turn and twist in perfect rapture as the energy of creation passes between them.  Euphoria and triumph, mixed suddenly with loss.  The fire is burning down now, it’s heat diminished against the raw night air.  My heart is racing but my flesh is my own again and the shadows around us have grown calm and still.  What did you feel?  What did you see?  I want to ask the questions but I feel suddenly alone, bereft of the certainty that seemed so close only moments before.  Was it all imagined?  Are we but singular beings dancing our little dance within an indifferent universe?  I feel your hand in mine and the questions drift away on the breeze.  Gazing up with you, at the vast expanse of stars arcing above us as we lie cradled in the soft earth, I see it all very clearly.  Close your eyes and you will feel it moving under you.

The world is dances…,