Tag Archives: Spirituality

Moon rhythms

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On my walk this morning I saw this lovely waning half moon, and remembered a conversation after our Candlemas ritual.  Most people have no idea how the cycles of the moon work.  We don’t learn about it in school.  Years ago, when I was in my twenties, I was curious about why I saw the moon sometimes in the evening and sometimes in the morning with different degrees of light and shade.  So I investigated. (This was before Google–how did I do that?)  I learned that the moon follows a consistent and lovely rhythm. I talk about it in my book Finding Our Way Home.

The moon is always half in light and half in darkness from the light of the sun. When the moon is full, we are seeing the whole of its light side, because the sun and moon are on opposite sides of our sky. The full moon rises at sunset and stays in the sky all night, setting at sunrise. Then, as the days go by, we see less of the light of the moon and more of its shadow, and it rises about fifty minutes later each day, until there is only a waning crescent in the morning just before and after dawn. About two weeks after the full moon, the moon rises unseen with the sun and sets invisibly with the sun. The night is dark. This is called the dark moon or the new moon. Then a day or two later, a thin waxing crescent appears in the western sky just after sunset and sets soon after. Each day it is seen in the evening for a little longer time until we come round to full moon again.

What is sad and funny to me is when fiction writers misplace the moon–for example most recently, I read a line something like this one: “I saw the waxing gibbous moon in the morning light.”  The thing is, no one will ever see a waxing moon in the morning light.  Waxing moons are only seen in the evening.  Am I a nature snob if I want the moon to be accurately represented in fiction?  The actual realities of the moon’s cycles are beautiful and magical–like a cosmic dance, which it accurately is.  Here is a rather fuzzy photo of a waxing moon, taken about 8 p.m. in April several years ago.

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Winter Trees

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I got off to a slow start today, and waited until afternoon to take a walk, after the sun came out.  The bright light and shadows were playing over the cherry trees we planted last spring.  (Further back are the stakes around the raspberries.) I feel such protective tenderness toward these trees.  They are so little still.  There is no way to tell how they are surviving the ups and downs of winter.  We’ve had long bitter freezes, thaws, ice, snow storms… but so far, no deer nibbling.  Sleep well little ones! Another storm is on the way for tomorrow.

Sky Portal

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Doesn’t it look like if I were to step across that threshold I might fall into the sky? The thaw of last night has opened up all sorts of cracks in the fabric of space/time.  Meanwhile, I am walking in the morning, paying attention to beauty.  Our congregation is doing a February activity called Fun-a-Day, in which participants choose an activity to do each day that gives them joy. I think mine is this walking with a camera, noticing the beauty that I otherwise might miss. What would yours be?  Feel free to join in!

Groundhog Day

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We’ve made it half-way to the Spring Equinox–Groundhog Day, Candlemas, Imbolc according to the Celts… Whatever we call it, I have always liked this festival. Even the birds seem to know that something is up.  On my walks the last couple days, they have been singing so that I notice it.  The height of the sun? The change in the light?  Even though it’s been cold, and today snow was covering everything, they sing.

Today, in my neighborhood, the groundhog would not have seen his shadow–so that means that spring will come early.  But in fact, groundhogs are still in hibernation here, and since technically, it will still be six weeks until spring no matter what, I don’t actually count on the groundhog to confirm the weather.  But this day still awakens the hope that winter won’t last forever.

I was happy to learn that the Groundhog Day tradition comes from Americans with German ancestry–since that is part of my own heritage.  Back in German-speaking lands, it was instead a badger, and originally a bear, whose emergence would predict the weather on Candlemas Day.  Candlemas was a Catholic feast, but was retained even after Protestant Reforms, likely because it was an even earlier pagan feast that had been Christianized. There are sayings in English, French, and Latin as well that correspond to the myth: “If Candlemas is fair and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.” This attests to its antiquity as a European tradition.

Imbolc is the feast of Brigid, the goddess of smithcraft, poetry, and healing.  When Margy and I visited Ireland, we visited more than one Brigid’s well where the waters are known for their healing properties.  But I also think of this festival as a celebration of fire–fire is the key component of welding and smithcraft, and it is also a symbol of creativity–the inner fire that inspires poetry and art and music.  It is the fire which inspires social change, transformation, and healing.

Years ago, this came together for me in the poem by Cherrie Moraga, “The Welder,” in the book, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color.  It concludes with these lines:

I am now
coming up for air.
Yes, I am
picking up the torch.

I am the welder.
I understand the capacity of heat
to change the shape of things.
I am suited to work
within the realm of sparks
out of control.

I am the welder.
I am taking the power
into my own hands.

Thank you Cherrie Moraga!  And thank you to the singing birds!  Thank you dear neighborhood groundhog for not eating my kale last summer!  And to all of you reading this, may your day be filled with creativity and healing.

What We Give to Each Other

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Yesterday I met a Passamaquoddy woman, S—, who talked about how she is trying to remove herself as much as possible from the money economy, to live with the values of a gift economy.  One way she does it is to volunteer a lot in her community.  I was moved by the conversation, and it stirred up questions in me about its application in my own life.  We were part of a gathering hosted by Maine-Wabanaki REACH for Wabanaki and Maine residents to explore together the topic of decolonization.  (If that term is unfamiliar, take a look at my earlier post called Living into History.)

Dish with One Spoon Wampum

Photo from IndianTime.net

Colonization brought the capitalist economy to this continent.  Another Wabanaki participant told us about the One Dish with One Spoon Wampum belt, which was a covenant acknowledging mutual care, first between the Haudenosaunee and then with other Indigenous communities prior to settlement.

The Great Law of Peace speaks of it:

We will have one dish, which means that we will all have equal shares of the game roaming about in the hunting grounds and fields, and then everything will become peaceful among all of the people;

We also heard about how in the Passamaquoddy nation, they are creating a community garden with an orchard of fruit trees, and teaching people how to cultivate them.  As people learn to provide for their community’s own food, true sovereignty becomes possible.

I was thinking about how back at my own home, we are also creating an orchard, but it is a difficult process to undo the individualistic capitalist systems.  To be connected to this land we have to “own” it in the capitalist manner.  We can share it with our friend who has a garden here with us, and we’ve also been blessed by the permaculture community’s support through our Permablitz work party last June.  And we received many of our companion plants in the plant swap last spring.  So we are trying to imagine community as a part of our relationship to this land.  But there is so much further to go.

I had brought flyers with me to the gathering about my book, not sure if it felt like the right place to share.  (Our invitation had mentioned we could bring materials about our related work if we wanted.) The content of the book is so much about how we journey into earth community–how we restore that spiritual relationship with the land and with our neighbors on this land.  How we acknowledge and heal the harm caused by the history of this place. But the book is also a product that I sell. So I was torn.

After our conversation about gift economy, I was moved to give a copy of the book as a gift to S—. I had so appreciated her sharing, and it felt to me like this would be a way to plant a seed–to shift something within me that might grow the possibility of a gift economy in this world, and in my life.  I was surprised when she responded by giving me a gift of her beadwork–beautiful turtles. There is magic in this. May it be blessed.

Robins Flocking

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Almost every morning, I take a walk around my neighborhood.  Even on cold days, or icy days, I never regret going outside.  I never know what I might see.  One day, a whole flock of robins had gathered in these ice-coated branches. I heard them before I saw them.

Today it was very icy.  I walked a few blocks down the street, and then ventured over a slick snow mound to get to the path by the brook.  Someone had cut a few steps into the huge pile, but once I reached the top, I just sat and slid the rest of the way down the other side.  After I stood up again I realized that I was committed now–there would be no way to get back up from that side.

So I walked over to where the trail began, and looked at the shininess of the frozen rain-covered snow.  In order to keep from slipping, even with yak-trax on my boots, I ended up stomping through the crust at the edges of the path.  Still, this has been my favorite part of my morning walk, to be next to the flowing water, surrounded by trees, breathing in the freshened air.

Even in the city there are these pockets of wild nature.  Even with construction going on just beyond the view of my lens.  Even when I think I want to stay inside, there so many wordless reasons to put on heavy coat, hat, scarf, and boots and greet my earthly neighbors.

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Changes

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This coming summer, I plan to retire from my ministry at the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church.  I have loved being a minister and have loved serving this congregation for 12 1/2 years.  I think the congregation would also say that it has been a good match.  But last summer, I began to think I might need a change.  I have been dealing with auto-immune health issues for some time, and just don’t have the energy I used to have. I will be turning 65 this coming summer, and that means I will be eligible for Medicare–which in turn makes it possible to consider this change.

Unlike when Margy and I were searching for greener housing, and had such a clear sense of intention guiding our efforts, this change is more mysterious.  It comes from a deep place of weariness in my body, and a deep hunger for spaciousness in my spirit.  I am not sure exactly what the future will hold.  One thing I do know is that I need to tend the garden in our yard.

We’ve already ordered a bunch of trees and other perennials that will arrive in the spring:  one “Honeycrisp” apple tree, one “Contender” peach tree, an “Illinois Everbearing” mulberry tree (that one is mostly for the birds), three hazelnut bushes, two blueberry bushes–Blue Ray & Jersey varieties, a licorice plant, twenty-five Asparagus plants, and three goldenseal plants.

My spirit feels like the ground hidden under the snow, or the berries encased in ice.  I am trying to find quiet and solitude to listen to what it wants to tell me, to find out, as David Whyte says,

“What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?”

 

 

Into the Beauty

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We never know when there might be magic and beauty right around the corner–if we only make a choice to look.  My day started a bit upside down and backwards–I woke before 4 a.m. with sinus pain, and never got back to sleep after I started up a vaporizer.  Finally I turned on the light, and slowly started my day in a rather bedraggled and sluggish way.  After a while, it occurred to me to just let go of the upside down feeling, and enter the day afresh.  I offered a prayer to the Mama to help me step into the flow of the River, let the magic guide me.

So in that spirit, I put on my coat and boots and went out for a walk about 7 a.m.  I went out the back door and walked around the west side of the house along the driveway to the front.  When I turned to go into the street, toward the east, there was suddenly this beauty of a pink and golden sky before me.  It felt like an affirmation of my prayer.   May you also find magic and beauty right around the corner today!
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Celebrating Grains (as someone who doesn’t eat grains)

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Today is the celebration of Lammas, the Grain Festival–or how I often have thought of it here in North America–the Corn Festival.  This is the time when local corn on the cob is finally ready!  In its European origins, “corn” meant wheat, and it was a celebration of the wheat harvest, complete with Lammas breads eaten during the rituals.  But lately, I have been following a mostly grain-free eating plan–no wheat, no gluten, and no corn.  So how might I celebrate Lammas?

I am planning to go outside for a fire this evening.  We had our first fire in our fire circle on the new moon on July 23rd.  (the photo is from that fire)  A fire always feels like an invocation of the sacred.  Perhaps it would work also to celebrate with nuts and fruits, which are like grain in that they are the seeds of the plant.  They are freely gifted by the plants to human beings.  All cultivated plants co-evolved with human communities.  So perhaps tonight I will celebrate that partnership between human beings and plants!

First Fire

Oh!!!!

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Digger ProblemI had a revelation!  I have been thinking I was having a tug of war with a groundhog, because despite the fact that I had been using a very potent deterrent liquid, each morning I would discover this mess around my cherry tree beds.  But no more plants were being eaten.  So what to do?  I did more research and discovered that the mess in my garden was likely not caused by a groundhog at all.  Because the digger is nocturnal, and groundhogs are not.

Rather, it is likely a skunk (who is a nocturnal digger) is rooting in the mulch for the grubs of Japanese beetles.  And then I realized that the rooting appeared about the same time as the Japanese beetles on the cherry tree leaves (which I have been picking off and dumping in soapy water).  So I don’t really have a digger problem, I have a grub problem.  In fact, the skunk is helping get rid of the Japanese beetles.  But I’ve ordered some Milky Spore disease to inoculate the soil to create a more permanent and organic solution to the Japanese beetle problem and that will eventually deal with the digger problem.

I learn so much every week about gardening, usually through problems.  But I haven’t seen the groundhog lately!  (Knock on wood chips.)  Thank you, skunk!