Spring Fever

This is not the post you were looking for.

There is, at this time of the year, a seeming expectation that a Pagan blogger will post something about the Christian high holy day of Easter.  These obligatory posts usually take one of the following forms:

1.)  A rambling discourse on the various pagan influences (eggs, rabbits, Ēastre of the Dawn) still visible in the modern celebrations of what would otherwise be a VERY Christian holiday.

2.)  A compare/contrast between Christian Easter and the modern (and particularly Wiccan) celebrations of the spring equinox.

3.)  An argument suggesting that the inclusion of Easter into a Pagan practice is all fine and good, this usually followed by an entreaty to stop being mean to all the christopagans.

or

4.)  The “Correcting Misinformation” post, which seeks to fix all the mistakes made by people doing shoddy research and posting information that is either outright false or just generally misleading in one of the three previous types of Obligatory Pagan/Easter posts.

Well, if you look around just a bit, I think you’ll see that we’ve reached market saturation on all of the above categories for the 2013 Easter season.

This is not that post.

 

I had really wanted to do something funny for April Fools Day.  I knocked around lots of different ideas but every time I’d try to put something down it came out feeling flat and forced.

“Dying is easy.  Comedy is hard.”

This is not that post either.

That’s my cat Dream, blowing you a raspberry for April Fools Day! So there!

The truth is, I’ve got Spring Fever.

No, that’s not right.

I’ve got a Spring fever.  As in, I’ve been feeling ill for most of the last couple weeks.  I’ve been forcing myself to go to work, but when I drag myself home, I’ve either been sleeping or experimenting with various levels of Zombieism.   And while I know that Zombies are all the rage right now in popular media, I’ve got to tell you, they write for crap.

So this is THAT post, the long winded place-holder.

I hate that post!

 

I might have just skipped this week entirely, except that this is the fifty-second post since I started this blog and I couldn’t stand the thought of missing a week at the very end of an otherwise perfect year.

So, next week I’ll be celebrating the 1st Anniversary of the Stone of Destiny and you are all invited.

There may even be cake.

Unbroken Bread

The sun was low on the horizon as Diarmuid gazed out across the fields surrounding their newest hiding place.  He listened intently to the rasping caw of a crow from somewhere to the north of the small copse of blooming cherry where they would spend the night.  He knew from his years in their company that the men of the Fianna sometimes used birdcalls to signal their positions prior to an attack.  The cry came again and he relaxed.  It was only a lonely creature of the wild, calling out its fellows at the end of the day.

He had turned his gaze northward as he listened to the distant cawing and now he scanned slowly back toward the south looking for any sign of pursuit.

He almost missed it.  A small trail of smoke, as from a cook-fire, drifting up from the forest several miles to their west.  Nearly hidden in the red glare of the setting sun, it was difficult to gauge its distance, but Fionn and his men were close.  An hour or two of hard riding in the morning would bring them here, Diarmuid thought with a smile.  Let them come!  By the time they arrived and followed the winding trail he’d left them through the trees, he and Gráinne would be long gone.

He dropped now to one knee and pulled a small bundle from the bag which had lain at his feet.  Pulling at the edges of the cloth wrapping, he uncovered a small cake, no larger than a woman’s fist, and placed it on a stone.  He spoke in a low voice now, calling upon the creatures of the wild to leave this morsel whole and unblemished until Fionn himself came and found it waiting for him.

The unbroken bread was a sign.

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne would not touch what did not belong to him.

We are just a few days now from St. Valentine’s Day and so I thought it only fitting to visit one of the most famous love stories of Irish mythology: The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne.

Valentine’s Day is not a holiday that I normally celebrate.  Being one-part Catholic holy day venerating not less than two supposed saints of the same name and two-parts Hallmark holiday disposed toward a marketing frenzy for florists, candy manufactures, and of course, greeting-card companies, I find it somewhat distasteful.

We are told that February 14th is a day to celebrate romantic love, but I have always felt that if you are in a truly romantic relationship, you don’t need any outside stimulus to celebrate, and if not, you don’t really need the reminder.

Turning away from the sunset and back toward their hiding place, he could hear her singing in the distance.  The last light of the setting sun turned the white cherry blossoms at the edge of the wood into glowing pink clouds which swayed in the softening breeze of early evening.  Wafting through these clouds, as if from the otherworld itself, the lilting voice of his companion wound its way through the trees to him from their nearby camp on the bank of a small stream.

She had sung on that fateful night in the court of her father, the High King, her voice captivating all who listened even as her beauty stirred their blood.  No man who looked upon Gráinne, and listened to her voice, could do so without feeling a stab of envy for the man to whom she had been promised, Fionn Mac Cumhail, chieftain of the Fianna and Diarmuid’s own master.

Moving slowly through the trees now, he could hear her voice again in his memory.  The feasting hall of the High King had grown suddenly silent and all around him men slumped unmoving, where they had been feasting only moments before.

Her voice at his ear, “take me away with you this night.”

He could not.  His honor and duty to his lord would not allow it.

The puff of her sweet smelling breath against his cheek, belying the power of her words, “I would have you as my love and not the old man to whom I have been promised, therefore I place upon you a geis of power which shall see your undoing unless you take me away with you before your lord and his company should awake.”

It is easy to see Gráinne as the villain in this story.  After all, she puts a sleeping potion into a cup of wine and passes it around the room, putting most of her wedding party into a deep slumber.  She then forces Diarmuid to elope with her through the use of a kind of magical spell that would otherwise bring him to an early death.

Diarmuid, it would seem, is a dupe, forced by cruel fate and a willful woman to betray his leader by stealing away with his bride to be.  What I’ve neglected to mention is that Gráinne herself is a victim of forces beyond her control.

Diarmuid, you see, was blessed (cursed?) by a goddess of youth with a single blemish upon the skin of his brow which would make any woman who should gaze upon it swoon with love for him.  The young man was good enough to wear a cap over this “love spot”, hiding it from view, but during the wedding feast, Gráinne accidentally got a look at it and found herself enamored with the young warrior.

Standing among the trees at the edge of their small clearing, he could see her moving about as she prepared their nightly meal.  She had placed their blankets together near the fire, as she did every night, knowing that he would move his to the other side of the small blaze as soon as their meal was done.  It was another of their little rituals, like the unbroken bread, which had been repeated night after night since they had fled the court of the High King.

Diarmuid knew that when he moved his blankets away from hers, she would smile ruefully but offer no protest.  Instead, she would gaze at him as she did each night, with a hunger he could feel long after he had turned away from her, putting his back to the dying embers of the fire, which along with his honor, was all that could keep them apart.

Suddenly, her song faltered and he was startled to find himself looking into her eyes from the deepening shadows of their wooded shelter.

While they gazed upon one another, it seemed that there was not a sound in the entire world.  No breeze stirred the leaves of the surrounding trees.  The waters of the stream, which had been trickling noisily along only moments before, seemed to have been stilled as if by magic.

For a moment in all the world, there was only Diarmuid and Gráinne.

And then he thought of that small loaf of unbroken bread.  He thought of the loyalty he still felt to a man who had once been like a father to him, and was now hunting him across field and mountain.  He took a breath, and stepping into their small camp, he dropped a bundle of wood onto the fire so that it blazed more brightly between them.

Most people think of Mythology as little more than a collection of stories told by primitive peoples to explain the world around them.  My own belief is that the stories of myth represent a cultural connection to certain universal truths which elude “rational” understanding.  In either case, the place of “love” in mythology is a troubling one indeed.

I know thousands of stories from a number of cultures and traditions, but I’d be hard pressed to think of a single one where love brings anything but tragedy to those who pursue it (or have it thrust upon them).  What does that say about our belief in the power of love, that it is more often a foil used to crush cities and drive great heroes to their doom rather than as a reward for those who persevere against life’s difficulties.

Diarmuid makes it through that night with his sense of honor in tact.  With Fionn hot on their heels they may make it a few nights longer before the trail of unbroken bread comes to an end.  The chase goes on for months or years, until the pursuers eventually tire and their prey escapes across the sea.

For a time, the young lovers are allowed to live in that state of bliss which we are all told to hope for.

No doubt, you can guess how the story ends.

“Happily ever after,” is a line we feed the kids.  Adults know better.

Yet maybe love, like a good story, should be less concerned with the bits at the beginning and the end and more about all the crazy stuff that happens in the middle.

So here’s hoping you find your share of the crazy stuff.  And if you are so inclined, have a happy Valentine’s Day.

…and Everything Nice

She asked me to take her out into the snow.

The rest of the family, related by either blood or bond, and gathered for the yule/christmas celebration, is busy inside the house where the fire I have been tending keeps them warm.  Some have been trying to tidy the living room, still strewn with torn paper and bows from packages unwrapped.  The kitchen is a flurry of activity as the holiday meal is being prepared.  Talk and banter suffuse the toasty air inside.

But it’s snowing outside and Taylor wants to go out and play in it.

Back inside, an entire rainbow of new plastic toys litter the floor, forgotten.  Somewhere, an entire team of toy developers and marketing gurus are pulling their hair out in clumps as a little girl (and I hope, thousands, even millions like her) ignores the results of countless of hours of careful design and focus-group play-testing, in favor of the simple magic of crunching her way through fresh snowfall.

I watch her stretching out her arms to catch the falling crystals, and I am glad.

I have never wanted children of my own.

It’s not that I don’t like them.  I actually think kids are pretty fantastic, in small doses and under controlled conditions (as if anything is every really under control where children are concerned).

I also happen to be quite good with them.  This is a fact that often leaves those who think they know me well, but have never seen me around children, astonished.  I really don’t seem the type, but at gatherings where children are present, I often end up entertaining them.  Don’t tell anyone, but you can easily avoid dull conversation and engage in a fair bit of play when the other adults think you are just trying to keep the little ones occupied.

And they are so very hungry for attention from adults.  It makes them so happy to be noticed at all.

Most of the time, when I see children at my workplace, the poor things have been dragged along like baggage by their parents, busy running errands.  I see them gazing wide-eyed at all the people and things around them, trying to soak it all in.  Sometimes they are fussy, or bored, or angry, and usually because their parents are ignoring them.

They act out, and their parents scold them, and then go right back to ignoring them again.  I’m not a parent and I believe that I would make a very poor one, but I do know that if you only give your child attention when they misbehave (even if that attention is negative) they are going to act out all the more.

The children are watching us.  They study our every move, learning what they need to know to survive and to interact with others.  When you break your toys and then shout at me because you want them fixed, what lesson do you think you are teaching your children?  To whom will you complain when they treat you in the same manner?  What legacy will they then pass on to their own children?

Back outside, little Taylor is still wandering her way through a snow-covered fairyland.

She has new mittens but we forgot them inside and her hands are chilled in the winter air.  Her fingers hurt a little, she says, but she does not want to come in from the cold just yet and I don’t push the issue.  She’ll be okay for a few minutes more.

For the moment, she needs me to look out for her safety – yes, but not to ruin for her the magic of snow.  Kids are resilient, far more so then we typically give them credit for.  When her discomfort is enough she will want to come in on her own without me making the decision for her.  We will warm her hands by the fire and she will feel the prickling numbness which slowly gives way to warmth that I remember being fascinated with as a child.

Let her be a child while she still can.

We must teach her to make her own decisions about the world around her, because soon enough folks will be lining up to make them for her.

Already, the Madison Avenue people are doing all they can to shape her likes and wants.  They spew movies and cartoons which are little more than glorified advertisements, designed to sell their brightly colored bits of future landfill.

It will not be long now before the Texas State Board of Education, with it’s distorted views of history and science, gets its hooks into her.  How much longer before Political Parties and Fundamentalist Religions begin to vie for her attentions, desperate to fill their diminishing ranks.  These people don’t see a little girl, they see a resource waiting to be ground up and purified and made to power the engines of Rapacious Consumerism,  Religious Orthodoxy and Conformist Ideology.

I can’t protect her from that and neither can her parents.  No one can.

All I can do is to join her in play on those rare occasions we are gathered together.  I can show her that she is worthy of the attention she naturally craves.  I can show her that she does not have to be a slave to the wants of those who do not truly care for her well being, by not being a slave to them myself.

I can’t do it alone.

She is going to need many examples to follow if she is going to find her way out of the trap that our society has built for itself.  If the fates are kind, she will find others who will not let her forget that snow IS magical, and that the best part of herself will always be that happy little girl who was made of sugar and spice…,

A Question of Resolution

What does a promise mean?

When we make a pledge to undertake some action, whether that pledge is made to ourselves or to another, do we not feel bound by the words we speak?  Or has our increasingly casual relationship with language diminished the hold which our own words have over us?  Words are, as they have always been, little puzzles of meaning, intent and context, which we seem ever more inclined to ignore as we make our merry way through life.

Traditionally, we have invested certain words with greater power or importance.  Some few take on special meaning under certain circumstances or at a particular time of the year.

Resolution: as we tick away the final hours of December, this word seems to take on a special prominence.  The expectation, as we all know, is that we will ‘resolve’ to make some change in our habits in the coming year.  The dawning of a new year would seem a natural time in the turning of the great wheel to introduce some change into our lives and when we make these year-end promises, we are taking part in a tradition that stretches back into the very beginnings of human history.  What we today think of as the New Year’s Resolution, was already ages old when the Norse clansmen swore great oaths to their gods and ancestors in the deepening hours of Yule.  The tradition may have begun, as written accounts would suggest, in ancient Babylon, but I rather suspect it predates the written word.

This yearly ritual links us to the traditions and beliefs of our most distant ancestors, and yet, when I hear people speak of their New Year’s Resolutions, they often seem to be such trivial things, hardly worth attaching to such a nobel sounding word.  In the coming year, we will strive to eat better or exercise more.  Maybe we will try to be more consistent about recycling or make an effort to call our distant relations more often.

More often than not, there is the clear expectation that we will break our resolutions at some point in the coming year.  We assume that we will fail in our promise, anticipating the moment when we can abandon these self imposed constraints for yet another year and return to business as normal.

Is it possible that people simply don’t understand the word?  Resolution is a big word after all, and in a culture that trivializes language, its many meanings may have become lost or confused.

While in the context of the New Year, we may resolve to move forward with some course of action, the best way to do that may be to take a good look at the year now past.  Let us, for a moment then, consider not the promises to be made but rather the culmination of the year’s events.

Consider the last three hundred and sixty five days to have been a puzzle or a test.  How did you resolve it?

A resolution is more than a vow to be made and broken, it is the answer to a question asked.  In this case, that question is 2012.  What was the result of this year?  How did it affect you, your family and friends, or even the world as a whole?

How can we hope to know what change we should introduce into our lives if we are not considering the year now past?

Is there a single quantifiable answer to that question?  I think, not.

The outcome of the past year is an aggregate of a million smaller questions and answers which bring us to yet another of the interrelated meanings for the word Resolution.

As you read this blog you are looking at a screen on which millions of tiny dots of varying color and brightness come together to resolve the words and pictures you see.  When we speak of Resolution from this frame of reference we are discussing the number of dots (or pixels to be more precise) which come together to form the images you see.  The higher the resolution, the sharper the image and the more clearly you can see and understand what it is you are looking at.

In the same way, looking back at the last year is not simply a matter of examining a singular conclusion to the events of that year because that result is derived from the amalgam of every decision we made during that span.  The more aware of ourselves we are, the more awake to the choices we have made and the consequences following therefrom, the higher the resolution of our perception and the better equipped we are to make necessary changes going forward.

Dictum meum pactum

My word is my bond.

Once upon a time, the words we spoke were held as a reflection of the person speaking them.  To knowingly break a promise would reveal you as faithless and untrustworthy.

To whom do we make New Year’s Resolutions in this day and age?  We do not typically make them to one another.  So to whom then?  Our gods?  Our selves?

And if we cannot keep a promise we made to our own selves how can we ever feel we are deserving of the trust of another?  Or is that not something we concern ourselves with any longer?

If you choose to make a New Year’s Resolution this year, make it with awareness of the full meaning and importance of the word.  Look not just forward but back and with an eye to the little decisions that brought us to where we are.

Embracing that kind of self-awareness may be resolution enough.

Thunder and Lightning — a Poem for Yule

I am the wind that rattles the door in its frame.
A white beard lay upon my green cloak like frost on mistletoe.
A bell tolls when I pass and ravens follow in my wake.

Donder and Blitzen,
Thunder and Lightning.

The grey horse below me flies like a comet through the night.
His many hooves dash and dance like a herd of winter deer.
In twelve days time the whole of the world will pass beneath him.

Donder and Blitzen,
Thunder and Lightning.

Safe in their homes the feasting folk cheer us by firelight.
Wee children leave treats on the stoop for our long journey.
A handful of hay and a little bread will warm our chilled bones.

Donder and Blitzen,
Thunder and Lightning.

We roll like storm clouds across the snow whitened fields.
And upon our return what gifts we shall bring!
A season of dark and cold swept away by the newborn Sun.

Donder and Blitzen,
Thunder and Lightning.

A Dream of Horses

There are moments, for each of us I think, when we come to feel utterly alone in the world.  It seems an absurd notion when the vast majority of us are so packed in together that we could scarcely throw a rock without doing damage to another human being.  And maybe that particular reality is the source of our loneliness.  It is not the masses of humanity that surround us, which gives us pause, but rather the sheer numbers of them that seem determined to do damage to their neighbors.

In a season when many feel an unspoken obligation to feel “merry” the harsh realities of the world around us can be hard to bear.  Some of us react to these feelings of isolation by withdrawing further into ourselves.  When the world seems different and alien, it may feel only natural to pull back from it, to sink further into the safety of the shells which we construct around our inner selves.

We compound feelings of isolation with the real thing, creating a monster that feeds upon itself until there is nothing left and it moves on to feed upon others.

Better to reach for a lifeline, an idea or memory which connects us back to something familiar and safe, an island of security in a world turned suddenly hostile.

For many, that lifeline is a belief in deity and for those of us who are polytheistic in our outlook, there are many deities to choose from.  There are, scattered around the various pantheons of the worlds religions, gods of war and peace, vengeance and forgiveness, chaos and justice, and yet, when I feel particularly alone, I will close my eyes and call upon one goddess in particular.

The Goddess Epona.

I have not spoken her name in prayer for many years, but just lately I have found her often in my thoughts.

Considering that my spiritual focus has always been primarily with the gods of ancient Ireland, she may seem a strange choice for me.  She is a protector of horses and those who care for them.  Worshipped by the continental Celts as well as the Romans and a number of other tribes scattered across Europe, she was the only foreign deity ever added to the the official pantheon of Rome.  Some believe that she functioned as a psychopomp, guiding newly departed souls into the afterlife.  For others she became a symbol of royalty and wealth.

While it is true that I am no eclectic and I try to restrict myself to honoring the Tuatha Dé Danann, there are a few notable exceptions.

Cernunnos, the Horned God is one of those exceptions, which I have discussed in a previous post.

Epona, the “Divine Horse”, is another.

I met her like this…,

Several years ago I was working as a graphic designer at a magazine which was itself part of the marketing arm of a horse breed association.  Among other duties I was responsible for the design of editorial layouts in which the magazine writers extolled the virtues of the horse.  Friend, companion, healer and workmate, the breed was praised for its versatility, intelligence and its special place in the history of the American West.

That was what we put on the pages for people to see.  Under the surface however, it was all about money.  The great American working horse, praised by light of day, was seen as nothing but a commodity to be used, bred and then disposed of as determined by that greatest of masters: greed.

As difficult as it was for me to deal with that daily hypocrisy, there was also the fact that the environment of our offices was very unfriendly for anyone who wasn’t some variety of Christian.  Had I been as honest about my beliefs then as I am today, I have no doubt that they would have found some excuse to let me go.  One of my best friends also worked there but he kept his beliefs as closeted as I did.  We had to leave the building to have open discussions of any kind.

Surrounded as I was with offices and cubicles that were festooned with crosses and engravings of “praying cowboys”, I found myself feeling very alone and in need of some visual connection to who I really was outside those doors.

And then one weekend, I took up my paints and brushes in a frenzy and the horse goddess of the ancient Celts began to appear on stretched canvas.

When the painting was done and dried and framed it found its way onto my office wall.  It seemed the right place for her.  From there, I thought, perhaps she could exert some influence over the place.  At the very least, I could look up at her there, hanging above my computer, and feel a connection to my true self in those moments when the isolation and hypocrisy seemed too much to tolerate.

Many of my co-workers seemed to enjoy the painting as well.  A few, who would have been utterly horrified to discover that there was a Pagan working among them, said they were particularly moved by the painting.  Some enquired after the subject matter and to those who asked, I simply repeated the name of the painting, “A Dream of Horses,” and left it at that.

Several years have passed since those days and my current work environment is much more accepting of those who are “different”.  Yet there are moments still, when I must close my eyes and fix the memory of that painting in my mind.

When I feel attacked by those in a position of authority or isolated from those who I call friends or family, I can hear the beat of distant hooves.  When the news is filled with reports of innocent children murdered by some mad fool and the squabbling of politicians over the merits of more guns or less, I can close my eyes and see a great white horse running across endless fields of green.  Look closer and see the rider upon her back, a woman of unearthly beauty and grace, riding sidesaddle, auburn hair whipping in the wind.  Draw closer still and behold, there is every horse that ever was or will be, thundering through her long mane.  I wonder if they carry the souls of the unfairly departed into the welcoming arms of their ancestors in the next world?

I do not know, but it feels right, none the less.

December 18th is the Feast Day of the Goddess Epona, according to the old Roman calendar.  It is a day easily lost and forgotten among the other more popular holy days which we celebrate these days.  Most of these modern traditions have their origins in the more ancient celebrations of our various ancestors.  Scratch through the thin veneer of Christmas Present and you will easily locate the spirits of Saturnalia and Yule just beneath the surface, tying us together when the world around us suddenly seems so strange and uncaring.

Sadly, not all traditions have the same staying power.  Scholars believe that Epona was likely the most widely worshipped of all the Celtic gods.  Yet there is nary a trace of her surviving into the melting-pot of our seasonal celebrations.

It has been long since I marked her holy day, but this year I will give sacrifice in her honor.  I will pray for those for whom the standard holiday cheer rings hollow, those who have not found a place of safety within their own hearts.

I will close my eyes and wish them a dream of horses.

Born in Darkness

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before…,

—from The Raven by Edger Allen Poe

We have a strange, and if I may say, somewhat backward, relationship with darkness.  We are raised, almost from birth, to be terrified of the night and frightened by shadows which lurk beyond our sight.  We populate the dark with our fears and anxieties, making of it a home for every predator, villain and devilry that our overwrought imaginations may contrive.  We strive to light our homes, our yards and streets, and when we think there may not be enough light to reach every dark corner, we bolt high powered halogen security lights onto every pole and surface we can find.  We flood the night with so much glare that the stars themselves are hidden from our sight.

We excuse this behavior by telling ourselves that we act out of self preservation.  We imagine that our ancestors gathered close around some meager blaze as they sheltered in their caves by night.  Perhaps, we tell ourselves, that those distant ancients could hear wolves sniffing about in the darkness, just outside the reach of the light, and knew that they were safe and secure within its protective glow.

In our apprehension, we have sought to extend that glow further and further, to cast light into every shadow and in so doing, to rob the night of its mystery.

Are we any safer?

And even if the answer to that question is yes, was it worth turning the night into a pallid likeness of daytime to achieve that supposed security.

I step out of my home and into the night only to find myself illuminated from almost every direction.  Looking into the drab sky which hangs above me, punctuated by a scarce smattering of pinprick lights, I find that I don’t buy into the original argument.

Men…, caves…, fire…, safety.   It all sounds very plausible until you remember that in those ancient sites where early peoples left cave art behind, those paintings NEVER appear near the entrances to the caves where the people sheltered and light was plentiful.  Instead, those sacred images were produced in the deepest, darkest most inaccessible parts of the cave.  Although we cannot know precisely what spirits may have motivated our earliest ancestors, it seems clear enough that they understood something about the darkness that we, as a culture, appear to have forgotten.

While darkness may sometimes hide danger, it is home to the most sacred of mysteries: the birth of light and life and power.

We have become so fixated upon our own journey toward some imagined darkness that we forget that we were birthed, each of us, from darkness itself.  Literally speaking, the safest, most comforting and secure time of our lives was spent in the womb.  The mystery of life begins in darkness, and though we may live out our lives in the light of the sun, it is to the comforting darkness of our beds that we return when the day is done.

In these days leading up to the Winter Solstice, the days grow shorter and shorter while the darkness of night extends to the fullest reach it shall know in the year ahead.  Our ancestors understood that the living year is born, as are we all, from a place of darkness.  They welcomed the darkness of creation, and the eventual rebirth of the sun, with feasts and gifts and sacrifice that have been passed down to us from a time beyond recorded history.

However you choose to celebrate in the coming days, I welcome you to join me in the deepest part of the longest night of the year.  Step out of the “safe” light of the fire for a few moments and into the darkness beyond.  Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of the night around you.  Feel the breath of mystery upon your cheek.

And when you are ready…,

Open your eyes and peer deep into that darkness,

Not fearing, but wondering;

Not doubting, but dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before!

Creepy Plastic Santa

He appears suddenly and without warning, a towering harbinger of kitschy despair.  As the final weeks of November slip away, he rises, looming over the puny humans that rush past him, and bearing the full onslaught of holiday marketing in his mighty wake.

Behold, Creepy Plastic Santa!

Actually, I suspect that he’s composed of fiberglass, but Creepy Fiberglass Santa just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Plastic is, for some reason, more menacing than fiberglass. And as you can see, Creepy Plastic Santa is nothing, if not menacing.

He appears yearly on a street corner several blocks from my home.  Day after day I drive past the spot and there is nothing there, just an empty patch of ground and a streetlamp.  For just shy of eleven months out of the year, I catch myself casting a glance at that spot as I drive past.  Almost always there follows a sigh of relief, but in the days leading up to and immediately following Thanksgiving, a certain tension begins to fill the air.  Still that corner is empty.

And again the next day.

And the next.

However watchful I am, somehow he always catches me unawares.  As I’m driving along, some fellow driver will suddenly change lanes in front of me, or abruptly slow down for no obvious reason.  Cursing, I navigate past potential collision only to see him there before me, his black gloved hand upraised as if ready to crash down on some unsuspecting motorist.

“Errrgh!” (car weaves momentarily)

Come to think of it, maybe that explains the erratic behavior of my fellow drivers.

We all know that he is going to show up, but it is still quite unsettling when he does.

He is not alone.

As the calendar page turns to December and the red-clad golem takes his place on the corner, these horrid things seem to appear everywhere.

What is it about these gnashing goblins that makes people want to display them in their homes?

Yes, I know.  I’ve seen several performances of the Nutcracker Suite over the years and while the dancing and the music are always wonderful, the story is absolute rubbish!  Any little girl who falls in love with this garish toothy monster needs some serious psychiatric counseling.

Welcome to the Holiday Season!

This is the time of year when everyone is expected to celebrate, but certain folks are less than satisfied with how their neighbors choose to do so.

“Please don’t call my holiday a holiday,” they fervently proclaim, “it’s Christmas!”

These are the folks who have declared that there is a “War on Christmas” and that the goal of all right thinking individuals should be to put Jesus back into a holiday that was largely borrowed from ancient pagans in the first place.

Oh how they bemoan the commercial aspects of the holiday, pointing out that the fervent materialism displayed by people who literally trample each other in their quest for Holiday Door Busters, is totally contrary to the spirit of their holiday.

Many are those who will claim that Christmas is a spiritual time to be shared with family and friends, even as they do their utmost to burn out the local electrical grid with animated light displays which are undoubtedly visible to the naked eye from low Earth orbit.

Well, my friends, I am truly sorry but I think the time has come for a major change.

A certain group of people have had almost undisputed control over how the Winter Solstice holiday is celebrated for the better part of 1,500 years.  And what, I ask you, do we have to show for it?

This?  Really?!

No!  You do not get to bitch about commercialism and excess and secularization when you have been the ones with your hands on the steering wheel for as long as anyone can remember.  It’s time to hand over the keys and let someone else drive for a bit.

I beg you, my more devout Christian friends, to gaze into the agonized eyes of Creepy Plastic Santa and tell me if you truly think you have been worthy guardians of this sacred time in the turning of the year.  Pagans were not in charge when that monstrosity was cast, nor atheists, nor any of the other groups you so often like to blame for the worlds failings.  Christmas is what you have made of it.

Creepy Plastic Santa is your legacy.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

This time of year is so thick with Holidays that it can be hard to catch your breath.  When I was a child, the weeks between Halloween and Christmas seemed to stretch out forever.  Now it feels as though I am assaulted by them all at once.  Like Sally, I find that while I still have candy left over from Halloween, a simple trip to the grocery store finds me besieged by ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer’.

Still, as busy and cluttered as this time of year seems to be, I still look forward to Thanksgiving.

Despite the parades, the gluttony and ignoring, to the best of my ability, the football obsessed and their need to scream at the television between servings of pumpkin pie, there is a strange Zen like quality to the holiday.  With none of the pressures of buying the right gift or getting the costume “just so”, it exists as a moment of relative calm within the chaotic vortex of the American holiday season.

Gather your family and friends.
Eat an excess of turkey and pie.
Sleep a few hours and then repeat.

As festivals go, it is beautiful in it’s simplicity.

The other thing I enjoy about Thanksgiving is that it doesn’t really belong to any one group.  Certainly, there are certain groups who have have tried to claim it for themselves.  President Lincoln’s proclamation, making Thanksgiving a national holiday, is so full of references to the “Most High” and “Father in Heaven” that, reading it, I am forced to wonder if someone misplaced the 1st Amendment to the Constitution during the Fall of 1863.

Given the circumstances of what we in the United States like to think of as the First Thanksgiving, it is easy to see where such a claim could be made.

 

The problem with this argument is that it can so easily be turned on it’s head just by looking at the actual context in which these events transpired.

The Plymouth colony would have collapsed, and it’s people starved to death, had it not been for the assistance given by the Wampanoag, under the leadership of Massasoit.  The “Indians” were not simply invited to the feast, they were responsible for it.  The first Thanksgiving can just as easily be seen as that humbling moment when a people who believed themselves to be technologically and spiritually more advanced than the native “savages”, were saved by a people who lived in a spiritual relationship with the land.

Sounds like a very “Pagan friendly” holiday to me.

Then, of course, there are those who choose to see Thanksgiving as a cautionary tale.

Massasoit allied himself with the Plymouth colony for his own reasons, most of which were political and tactically advantageous for the Wampanoag people.  Unfortunately, he lacked a true understanding of the European concept of “Land Ownership”.  The plight of his people and eventually all Native Americans against the relentless onslaught of Euro-American expansion and depredations have caused many to mark the 4th Thursday in November as a day of mourning.

How then should we celebrate Thanksgiving Day?

The day and it’s history just sit there taunting us, daring us to try and define them, to claim them for our particular causes and viewpoints.  Thanksgiving smirks at us like Lucy, holding that damned football tipped upright in our path by a single wicked finger.  We have only to make a run for it.  She wouldn’t pull it away from us this time.  It is Thanksgiving after all and there are traditions to be observed and honored.

So, does it stand as another moment of triumphalism for the dominant cultural faith?  Perhaps it exists as a moment to embrace a gentle humility of the spirit and cooperation between those with disparate beliefs?  Perchance we shall greet it as an opportunity to initiate a deeper relationship with our environment?  Or will we cast about for ways to punish ourselves for the sins of our grandfathers?

Maybe it is my particular polytheistic perspective that allows me to see it as all these things.  The day simply IS what we choose to see it as, and the question of why we gather together is, in the end, far less important than the fact that we do.

Good old Charlie Brown will keep tilting at windmills while Linus preaches from the sidelines.  I think I’ll just enjoy another helping of cornbread dressing.

Three Octobers

Oíche Shamhna is upon us once again.

Samhain, All Hallows, Halloween – they are three separate celebrations really.  Each branching out from the same root but different, yet occupying the same space and time.

Samhain is the Celtic celebration of the last harvest, the honoring of the dead, and the birth of the new year as the sun sets on the year now past.  The Christianized version of this Pagan feast day, All Hallows, is focused on prayers for the dead who reside in purgatory awaiting their final judgement.  Lastly, there is secular Halloween, a joy ride through the more macabre regions of western pop-culture and marketing.

We Pagans will often say that the veils between this world and the next are at their thinnest at this time of year.  The words we use here can be somewhat deceptive.  We should not be thinking of this as anything as simple as opening a door between two similar spaces.  Rather, this should be understood as an overlapping of the everyday world of the living and the timeless spaces which we believe to be the abode of the honored dead, the immortal gods, or both.

In either case, Celtic folklore is full of stories which suggest that when our orderly clockwork universe comes into contact with the eternal otherworld, the resulting amalgam may play havoc with our comprehension of the passage of time.

This seasonal change in perception would go a long way toward explaining why this time of year seems almost unbearably crowded with activity for me.  Each year, as the last days of the season slip by, I find myself deeply weary and thankful that the calmer winter season is at hand.

As Samhain approaches, I feel the weight of not one October, but three.

The first is just a month like any other.  It is filled with all the socializing, shopping, bill paying and 40-hour work weeks that are the general business of the other eleven calendar months.

The second October is, for me, the buildup toward Samhain.  It is at this time of year that I try to put my spiritual house in order.  This may take the very practical form of deciding exactly how I plan to celebrate this year: bonfire (weather permitting), altar dressings, devotions, sacrifices and menu planning for the traditional feast.  I must also put myself into the right frame of mind to dig past the niggling details and into the ebb and flow of spiritual energy colors this season.  It is a time of meditation and reflecting upon the year past and using those experiences to prepare myself for the year to come.

The third October has to do with Halloween, which is, to me, a separate holiday entirely from the Celtic holy day of Samhain.  There are decorations to plan and put up, pumpkins to carve, costumes to complete and parties to attend.  It’s a lot of fun and a great break from the everyday, but also involves a tremendous amount of work and a considerable drain on time and resources.

And so here I am, with just a handful of days left in October, absolutely exhausted.

Most of the actual Halloween planning is done although I’ve still got pumpkins to carve and decorations to put up.  Mounds of Halloween candy sit, awaiting an army of Trick-or-Treaters (the bags thus far unopened, but very tempting).

The costumes were completed just in time for the holiday party my girlfriend and I annually attend.  This year she dressed as a sort of Cyberpunk Medusa while I played the part of her victim, a Greek soldier long ago turned to stone, mossy and crumbling under the slow violence of age and erosion.  It’s fun to slip out of your own skin for a while and into another persona, even if it’s that of a decaying statue.  It also helps if you can stand perfectly still for long periods of time!

Some good old fashioned Halloween cosplay fun!

As much as it is possible to do so, I have put the work-a-day world on hold for the remainder of the month.  I’ve scheduled most of my remaining vacation hours for some well deserved time away from the grind and one last chance to get my head on straight before the blitzkrieg of the holiday shopping season begins in ernest.

So, by my count, that’s two Octobers down and one to go.

On the 31st day, we shall greet the sunset with a worthy feast and by sharing the stories that have been handed down to us from our ancestors long departed.  And then, once we are sure that the last of the trick-or-treaters have had their way, we shall retire to the backyard where a sacred fire will be waiting.  We shall ask the gods to bless and protect us in these times of change and uncertainty.  We will give our love to those who have passed before us, and ask that they in turn illuminate our path through the dark part of the year and onward to the seasonal renewal that will surely follow.

The next morning I’ll be sleeping in.
I think I’ve earned it.
After all, I just made it through three whole Octobers.

A blessed Samhain and a Happy Halloween to you all.