GREEN WOMAN'S SPIRAL DANCE

JUNGIAN INSPIRED ARCHETYPES

2012-01-23T17:42:00.001-08:00

Jungian inspired archetypes

Any of these archetypes can include male/female overtones.

Self/feminine/anima: This corresponds to the female ego, the individual, mothering, birthing, beauty, receptivity, or acceptance. Common symbols in nature would include complete meadows, forests or habitats. Individual trees, plants, a totem plant or animal. Feminine archetypes can include caves, holes in a tree or a tunnel. They may also include blossoming plants, archways, bushes, nests, eggs, pods, ponds or lakes. The night, the moon, water and/or female plants or animals. If you know enough about plants to know the difference between female and male plants.

Self/masculine/animus: This corresponds to male ego, the individual, fathering, initiating, organizing, fertilizing. Common symbols might also include complete landscapes; meadows, forest or other landscapes. Individual trees, or plants, your totem animals or plants. Common symbols in nature might include seeds or pollinations. You man dream or see tall trees, or plants, the sun, stems of plants fire or mountains. Your dream or vision might take place during the day and include male plants or animals. Again, that’s if you know enough about plants to tell the difference.

Fourth is the hero. This can correspond to facing difficulties in a positive way, overcoming them or healing some illness or injury. Common symbols in nature would be healing plants and herbs. Coming across immature plants or animals. Being caught in a storm or coming across half grown or struggling plants or animals.

Fifth is the adversary. This can correspond to being an agent of change, facing the unexpected, tearing things down, or facing an obstacle. You may confront stinging or thorny plants, storms, overgrown areas, swamps, natural disasters, erosion, struggling plants or animals.

Sixth is death and rebirth. This can correspond to endings and beginnings, some kind of sacrifice, a crisis or new life. You may confront marshlands, the cycles of the seasons, perennial plants, bogs, environmental changes, border areas or natural intersections.

Seventh is the journey. This can correspond to movement, development, or aging. You may confront pathways, hills, mountains, rivers, streams, animal trails, the wind, growth, or perennial plants.

WHOSE FACE DO WE SEE?

2011-12-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Each time we look upon the poor, on the farm workers who harvest the coffee, the sugarcane, or the cotton, or the farmer who joins the caravan of workers looking to earn their savings for the year…remember there is the face of Christ.

The face of Christ is among the sacks and baskets of the farm worker; the face of Christ is among those who are tortured and mistreated in the prisons; the face of Christ is dying of hunger in the children who have nothing to eat; the face of Christ is in the poor who ask the church for their voices to be heard. How can the church deny this request when it is Christ who is telling us to speak for Him?

Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador martyred in 1980.

I see that Newt is trying to wrap himself in the mantle of Saint Ronnie. Let's remember some of the costs of our war on communism. In El Salvador alone, more than seventy thousand people were killed from the late seventies until some kind of peace accord was reached in the early nineties. Over seventy thousand in a country with just over five million population. The victims included farmers, women, children, priests, nuns and an archbishop.

I’d love to get the chance to read this in the presence of our God fearing Republican candidates and ask them what they were doing to fulfill Romero’s words.

This is the third Sunday of Advent. As my reading leads me past the Quakers and into Liberation theology I find the Christmas ads painfully jarring.

DANCE OF THE DAMNED?

2011-12-03T21:22:00.000-08:00

Thomas Merton was very vocal, in print, in his opposition to the Viet Nam War in the years before his death. As vocal as a monk under a vow of silence could be, anyway. He believed that ending the draft would reduce the temptation to get involved in more Viet Nams.

I wonder what he'd make of our all "volunteer" military. If we don't have enough personnel in uniform to do the job; we outsource it. Usually at a much higher cost than we'd pay if we had military personnel to do the jobs.

Reminds me of the paintings of the flagellants who crisscrossed Europe after the plague years in the fourteenth century. Back and forth, back and forth led by skeletal figures offering some sort of redemption.

What redemption will we find as our voluntary wars wind down? We can be free or we can be safe. Sometimes both, but never for very long.

ADVENT

2011-12-01T20:10:00.001-08:00

Our Advent wreath.

NOVEMBER FUSCHIA

2011-11-29T11:29:00.000-08:00

It may be almost December, but the beautiful fuschia by the steps is still blooming. We haven't had a frost worth it's name yet. (knock on solid oak.)

WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS?

2011-11-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Whose river was this, you say it ran freely.
Blue was its color.
And I've seen blue in some pictures.
And I'd love to have been there.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose grey sky was this?
Or was it a blue one?
You say there were breezes.
I've heard records of breezes.
And I'd love to have felt one.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.

Words and music by Tom Paxton. Covered by John Denver about 1970

I don’t really know what to make of these lyrics. But listening John Denver sing this song is enough to break your heart.

Is this a nightmare of now or the far future? God/dess knows we have enough nightmares in our own time. The dates suggest the song is pre EPA era. And here we have a concerted effort to gut the EPA. Supposedly this will create jobs. I’ve even run across comments that take the stand that given a choice between jobs and the environment, the environment comes dead last. And you can’t get through to them. If we destroy the environment the jobs aren’t going to matter very much.

So, what is the world in this song? Is it the remains a jungle in Viet Nam after Agent Orange was dropped on it? The remains of an equatorial rainforest? The spreading of the Sahara? The wrecked neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn?

Or is this a nightmare out of the finale of Soylant Green or the novel Stand on Zanzibar? A future when flowers, trees, blue skies, free flowing rivers, unspoiled oceans, and even birds are remembered in pictures and folk tale? Something your doddering great grandparents tell stories about? “I’ve seen pictures of flowers. And I’d loved to have smelled one.”

Goddess, may it never come to that.

IT SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY

2011-05-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

Twenty five years ago...........yesterday. We don't do a really great job of putting birthdays on the calendar every year. Sister number two was nine months gone plus a week or two. She finally started doing her thing. Emmanuel hospital in Portland has really nice brithing suites by the way. Anyhow, it was off and on. She suggested rather forcefully at one point that mom and I didn't have to stick around all the time. Translation: get the hell out of here. I want to yell. We took a walk around the block a few times. We hung out in the waiting room until the new dad burst through the door with "it's a boy; I gotta tell mom!!!!!!!!!!!!). That cute little baby is now 6' 3". He's a great young man. Still plays the drums at his church during the off season for tax prep. He gives great hugs.

THE MYTHOLOGY OF DESTROYING THE VILLAGE TO SAVE IT

2011-04-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

My oldest nephew is getting married this summer. We have to work to build a better world for them to raise their family in.

Just received a copy of Raj Patel’s Stuffed & Starved (more on that later). I’m on page 93 and I’ve only bounced it off the wall twice. Anyway the book led me to his blog which led me the website of a network of groups searching for alternatives to pesticide and herbicide uses.

Myth #1: Pesticides are necessary to the feed the world

Reality: The most comprehensive analysis of world agriculture to date tells us that what can feed the world — what feeds most of the world now, in fact — is smaller-scale agriculture that does not rely on pesticides.

In 2009 one quarter of US grain crops went to ethanol distilleries. That 107 million tons of grain was enough to feed at least three hundred million people for a year. Livestock consumes nearly half the soybeans and almost two thirds of the corn produced in this country. When you factor in the water, fertilizer and transportation costs to get fodder crops to the feedlots the system operates at a significant loss. A loss in that far more calories go into producing a calorie of beef than if we just ate the food ourselves.

Most home gardeners know that it’s a good idea to move your plants around if you can and that certain plants seem to be made to grow next to each other. Tomatoes and basil are excellent companion plants. On the other hand pesticide and herbicide use encourages monocropping and discourages rotating crops. After a few years planting corn or soy season after season you might as well hang a sign that says “Eat at Joe’s” because every pest in the county is going to be heading your way. As of 2008 some experts estimate that crop losses in corn crops have increased from 3.5% to 12% even though uses of pesticides, including organophosphates, have increased nearly 1,000% since the end of WWII. We aren’t quite at the point where the bugs can be found laughing hysterically as the poison is applied to the slowly dying land, but we’re getting closer and closer.

TRUTHERS, BIRTHERS, DENIERS AND WORDERS

2011-04-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this entry over here too. It impacts not only my spirtual search but the ability of our families to survive and prosper.

While some of you were watching John Muir, we were watching a rerun on the National Geographic channel on the conspiracies surrounding 9/11. Actually I think the Muir program came on later in our area. We had the Roadshow at eight and then a program from OPB on Oregon Oystermen. Anyway, back to the conspiracy theories. The program was interesting. I was aware of the various “theories” floating around but was not aware of just how impervious the truthers are to any attempts to prove that they just might be a couple of stubbies short of a six pack. Along with the birthers, deniers (climate change), and worders (Biblical literalists).

At least until I ran across this. It might have been The Parish blog or researching something I read on Greg’s blog. There are at least two ways people organize information. There’s the “give me a chance to study the facts and I’ll adjust my world view to fit them.” This world view gave us scientists like Galileo, experimental science and the Enlightenment.

“Everybody” just knew that if you dropped a one pound ball and a two pound ball from the same height the two pound ball would fall twice as fast. So Galileo took two balls up to the top of that tower in Pisa, probably yelled the Italian version of “look out below” and dropped them. Which was followed by “?????????” when both balls hit the ground at the same time. Which was probably followed by sending an increasingly tired assistant down to retrieve the balls so he could do it again. Which led to the knowledge that falling objects accelerate at the same speed no matter how heavy they are as long as wind resistance is the same. A one pound feather might not drop as fast as a one pound ball of lead because the shape is different.

Then we have the other group. They are the poster children for “my mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.” Except that they aren’t confused; confronted with what the rest of us call facts, they simply refuse delivery. The 9/11 program took up each objection. Scientists or engineers used computer models or designed experiments to test their objections as best they could, presented the information and were hit with “it couldn’t have happened that way.” They don’t really know how the towers came down, except that it was a huge government conspiracy and they aren’t changing their minds any time soon. In spite of the fact that any of their scenarios would have required so much time to set up and so many people to pull it off that somebody, somewhere would have set up shop in a country without extradition treaties with the US, written a book, made a fortune, bought a house with a state of art security system and hired a very competant crew of body guards.

We see the same attitude the birthers. It doesn’t matter how many people examine the information the state of Hawaii has released and swear on a stack of Bibles that the president was born in Hawaii, they won’t believe it. Ok. They’re several degrees off plumb. It’s distracting and/or infuriating but they aren’t really hurting anyone else….at the moment.

But, those other two groups. Hey, I’m somewhat open minded. Maybe all of the climate change we’re seeing isn’t caused by human intervention. Sure is funny how the CO2 levels started spiking around the time the Industrial Revolution started though. And how industrial level livestock operations give off more green house gasses than our cars. Think that just might be hint that you can't treat steers like widgets? Yes, CO2 levels were much higher in the past. Say about 250 million years ago when Siberia literally erupted and kept erupting for millennia. Before it was over most life on the planet was extinct. The atmosphere was full of CO2 and sulfur dioxide. The seas warmed, currents that brought cold, oxygen rich water to the surface collapsed and the oceans nearly suffocated. The earth survived, cleansed itself and life recovered. Uh, guys, the earth will survive. We, most or all of us cantankerous humans, might not.

Then there are the Worders, the folks that believe that the Bible must be taken literally. And that those who don’t agree with this and their interpretation are wrong. Not just wrong but heretics and apostates. I wouldn’t mind that so much except that some of these folks put environmentalists, even Bible believing environmentalists, and their attempts to clean up our messes on their lists of heresies and apostasies. As best as I can understand their beliefs, the Second Coming is just around the corner. The earth will be renewed. Jesus will take care of it. At this point words fail me. Frankly I didn’t stick around, I got the heck out of Dodge as quickly as possible. This mindset may also underlie the whole "Jesus died for my sins, I'm saved, that's all I need to focus on." The hell with everything He taught.

Yes, the Deniers have freedom of speech, and the Worders can claim freedom of religion. But, in the famous words of Mark Twain “your freedom to take a swing at me ends where my nose begins.” Your right to your opinions and beliefs ends when it endangers the lives and safety of others. Don’t expect us to sit by in silence.

P.S. Just realized I left out the whole Intelligent Design crew. Heck, lump them in with the Worders. They pretty much overlap. Ran across a copy of a page of coloring book put out by these (fill in with description of your choice, nuts springs to mind) with Jesus riding a velociraptor complete with saddle and bridle. Again, words fail me. Unfortunately I may have some relatives that fall into this camp.

THE EDIBLE SCHOOLYARD

2011-04-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

School gardens’ aren’t a new idea. Upscale programs, Montessori and Waldorf for example, have been using gardens for hands on learning experience for years. But, until the last decade or two, gardens at public schools were less common especially in the big city schools or schools in lower income districts.

The path to the garden at Martin Luther King Middle School starts in Berkley’s Chez Panisse restaurant. Co-founder Alice Waters helped pioneer the use of fresh, local, in season ingredients nearly forty years ago. Chez Paniise models its menu on the small French eateries whose offerings reflect what is available at the local markets where the chefs shop every day.

Then add in the principal of a local middle school. He was less than happy about a story in the local paper that quoted Ms. Winter’s remarks about the appearance of the grounds around the school. In 1993 Martin Luther King Middle School had nearly one thousand students from widely divergent economic and ethnic backgrounds. The school’s cafeteria had been closed because it was too small to handle the increased enrollment. The student’s could buy microwaved or package items at a location in the parking lot. And the school was nearly surrounded by blacktop.

The principal wrote Ms. Waters a note. She asked him to lunch. She brought up the idea of a school garden. She explained that working with the garden in math, science and English classes. Alice was approaching step ten in the plans while the principal was still trying to figure out how to get rid of the blacktop on top of the acre or so plot of land proposed for the garden.

Within five years of breaking ground the students had worked nearly two hundred tons of organic fertilizer into the garden plot. When Frances Lappe visited the garden in the late nineties she found rows of artichokes, potatoes, tomatillos and kale. As much as possible all the work is scaled to middle schoolers skills. Adults may supervise basic construction, planting and sign painting but the kids do as much as is safe for them to do. The garden recently added a 6,000 gallon tank for rainfall harvesting. One inch of rain yields about 200 gallons of water. At approximately 25 inches of rain annually in the Bay area they can collect just about enough water to fill that tank every year.

The school originally used the renovated cafeteria as a cross between kitchen and class room. In 2001 the class room was moved to a renovated bungalow next to the garden. The students still prepare what they’ve grown and share the results. Approximately on third of the students prepare and share what they’ve grown each week. They sit down at tables with tablecloths, flowers from and garden and share the food they’ve grown and prepared.

Each ninety minute garden class is followed the next day with work on their journals and lessons on ecology, pesticides, composting or growing earthworms. The student’s learn something that too many of us have forgotten or prefer to ignore, where their food comes from. In that little oasis they become aware of the cycle of worm to soil to harvest and back again.

Link to the Edible Schoolyard website.

Information from Hope’s Edge by Francis Lappe and from the school’s website.

SOUL OF A RIVER

2011-04-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

I'm double posting this one. Degradation of an ecosystem not only damages our spiritual health but the health and safety of our families. All our families, whether they live on that river or not.

A few years ago I invested in the 1990’s Cousteau River Journeys DVD’s. Four of the episodes followed the Danube from headwaters to the Black Sea, with emphasis on the environmental degradation along the river in the former Soviet states. Chemical plants that dumped untreated waste into the river. The dangers of aging nuclear plants that weren’t that well built in the first place. Run off from contaminated ground water along with gas leakage into the atmosphere. Local economies based on fishing and farming were stressed out by the pollution.

The diversion of the river into man made channels to improve navigation, while destroying local economies based on the wetlands and marshes.

So, where is the soul of a river? Is it just the river? Or does the river and its soul stretch beyond the channel and the meandering blue line on a map. The river is the ocean that gives up its moisture to the rains and snows. The river is winter ice and summer sun. The river is snow, rain and hail. The river is the animals that depend on it for water and forage, the trees that shade the banks and shelter the birds.

The river is the disappearing marshes and the migratory birds that nest in the reeds. The canals are the river and so are the drying wetlands that used to hold back the floods. The dams we build are the river and so are the fish blocked from their native spawning grounds. The river is the disappearing fish and the villagers and fishermen who depend on them for their livelihood. The river is the untreated chemical waste that leaches into ground water. It’s the sewage from overburdened, aging city systems. The river is the rain falling through air contaminated with radiation from nuclear plants that couldn’t be built to withstand every possible risk.

The last episode ends with a group of children including one of Cousteau’s grandchildren flying kites along the river bank to remind us that they will have to live in the world we are we creating.

(Words fail me sometimes. I have the vision in my mind but can’t find the words to express what I see)

A CELTIC PRAYER

2011-04-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is an adaptation of a Celtic prayer I found in the book KNITTING INTO THE MYSTERY.

May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within and light inside the darkness within.

May the blessed sunlight shine upon you and warm your heart ‘til it glows, like a great peat fire, so that strangers may come and warm themselves and that friends may come.

And may the light shine out of the eyes of you, like a candle set in the windows of a house, bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you – the soft, sweet rain.

May it fall upon your spirit so that the seedlings of light in you shadow may spring up, and shed their sweetness on the air.

And may the blessing of the great rains be on you, that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there many a shining pool, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing for the earth be on you – the great round earth who carries all; the great round earth whose suffering has already become radiant.

May you ever have a kindly greeting for people you pass as you are going along the roads.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly, your kin and all creatures.

Blessed be

CLIMBING THE FAMILY TREE

2011-02-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

I think the Green Woman is going to keep spiraling but this is where she’s going to explore family history. I started this blog as a place to work out my spiritual spiral. In many ways that hasn’t changed. We run heavily to dissenters and Quakers in my family. I’m not sure how comfortable my Puritan ancestors would feel about my semi pagan explorations. I suspect at least a few of the Quakers would at least sympathize with my search for the Inner Light.

So, what have I discovered so far? First a big thanks to all the other curious folks who have done so much heavy lifting. We live on the west coast, and almost no one in the family tree has, as far as I can discover, also made the trip. I’ve also discovered that success is as much luck as persistence. Mom was going through old pictures from my grandma Heaton’s collection. She was pretty good at labeling pictures; her handwriting really sucked though. And one shot was labeled as pa’s mother with the lady’s name. That’s where the fun began. It turns out that grandma didn’t spell great great grandma Tabitha’s last name correctly. Or a lot of people on the Ancestry website didn’t spell her name right. Take your pick.

Here’s where the luck starts to come in. In 1900 Tabitha Jane (Riley) Smith was living in the household of her son William and my grandmother Audrey was already born. So I had three generations to work from and her entry tells me what state she was born in; Ohio. Then I could play with other census records. You go back a little further and find a record for Louis (Lewis) C Smith, his wife Tabitha Jane and their children including William.

Both Lewis and Tabitha appear in the 1860 federal census entry for a William Riley. Lewis is listed as a farm worker aged 19 born in Indiana. Tabitha was all of 14. And that’s it for Great great grandpa Smith; I hit the brick wall. He wasn’t born for the 1840 census. And his family probably wasn’t the only one missed for the 1850 count.

Federal census records have some significant gaps. One of the largest is that the wife’s maiden name is not listed. Yippee, great grandma is named Hortense. Hortense who? They didn’t put her maiden name on the tombstone she shares with great grandpa John. Census records did list their birth state as Ohio. Family records show that John was born in Meigs county. When another tree uploaded information about a Hortense Robinson who married a John Heaton, both from Meigs County, I crossed my fingers and went for it.

John may be a common name but Hortense isn’t. She’s the only one I’ve come across so far. And the family had a habit of using a wife’s surname as a middle name for a child or grandchild. Susannah Fenn married Phineas Robinson, Their son Fenn married Lidia Crane. Eli Crane Robinson had a daughter named Hortense who had, among other children, Walter Crane Heaton. And Walter, known in the family as Uncle Joe (can’t imagine why) was grandpa Ernie’s big brother. Might not stand up in a court of law, but it looks pretty good to these eyes.

And we do go back. The lines I can trace got here early; mid seventeenth century if not sooner. I want to explore where and why? Why uproot your family, pack them aboard a hundred feet or so of wooden ship, spend nine weeks or so crossing the North Atlantic risking shipwreck, disease and bad food to fetch up in a wilderness?

I’m going to double post this entry on Walking With Hope. After that I’ll probably just note who I’m writing about. I’m being a little selfish here. I see that there are folks checking out that blog from many different places. Who knows I might get lucky and some will recognize a family name. I could use some company on the roller coaster.

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

NIGHT PRAYER

2011-01-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

God who made the world, protect you this night. Christ who redeemed the world, give you peace this night. The spirit who sustains the world, be with you this night.

Amen

From Celtic Daily Prayer

THBBBBBP! AS BILL THE CAT WOULD SAY

2010-10-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

As I try to make sense of my confusion, I keep running across the same thing. The old "My spiritual tribe is right, and everyone else is wrong." Frankly, I find a piece here, a piece there, another piece on the other side of the river. LOL

I do still enjoy Thomas Merton. He wasn't afraid to confess his confusion in public.

FISHING IN A MEADOW

2010-09-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

Tom Cowan echoes the tale of the meeting of King Bran of Ireland with Mannan Mac Lir in his retelling of the tale of two Irish hermits.

The first hermit left his lakeside hut early one morning and rowed out into the water in search of fish for breakfast. Perhaps he was reciting a Psalm or two or just rejoicing in the day when he looked up and spotted his neighbor. He had also left his hermitage and was coming towards him. This would not be a problem except for one small thing. The second hermit was not rowing a boat towards his neighbor; he was walking straight across the lake. They met and each regarded the other. The first hermit managed to get his synapses to start firing again and asked “what are you doing out here? The second replied “I need some flowers for my altar. What are you doing trying to row a boat across the meadow?”

The first held up his hook and line and told his neighbor he was fishing for his breakfast. The second pointed to some shrubby flowers along the shore and suggested that the fish might be biting over there. The hungry fisherman caught his breakfast and his neighbor returned dry shod to his chapel with an armful of flowers.

Creation is full of magic. Perhaps sometimes my fish filled lake turns out to be your flower filled meadow. Take the blessing for what it is.

From Yearning for the Wind by Tom Cowan.

OUR MOTHER THE EARTH

2010-09-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

I AM YOUR MOTHER

I am your mother, do not neglect me!
Children protect me-I need your trust;
My breath is your breath, my death is your death,
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I am your nurture; do not destroy me!
Love and enjoy me, savor my fruit;
My good is your good, my food is your food,
Water and flower, branches and root.

I am your lodging, do not abuse me!
Tenderly use me, soothing my scars;
My health is your health, my wealth is your wealth,
Shining with promise, set among stars.

The Creator is our maker, do not deny,
Challenge, defy or threaten this place.
Life is to cherish, care, or we perish!
I am your mother tears on my face.

Adapted from a prayer by Shrley Erena Murray in a UMW study guide for mom's church women's group.

AUTUMN PRAYER

2010-09-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

The days are getting shorter; the nights longer and cooler. Morning mists and clouds soften the trees and streets. The season of reflection and preparation for the turning of the year is upon us. Some find places to reflect in the desert or mountains; others withdraw into the silence of their hearts. May they find refreshment and peace.

There are times when the spirit deserts me and my heart is empty. May the Holy Ones help rekindle the fire. May they remind me that those around me can help me keep the fires of hope burning.

I ask blessing on all who are seeking for justice, for all who suffer the laws delay: may the Holy Ones bring the gift of merciful justice to those who are innocent yet stand accused.

Inspired by Caitlin Matthews

AN AUTUMN EVENING PRAYER

2010-09-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Granted it takes about an hour and a half to get to the coast and another half hour or so to actually get to beach unless you want to perch on the jetty in Florence but a girl can dream, can’t she?

I mantle my soul in the mercy of creation,
Light of heaven above me,
Life of earth about me,
Love of ocean beneath me,
May the mercy of creation
Surround and encompass all beings
From fall of night
To crack of light,
In the perfection of peace.

Sovereign of the Stars,
Compassionate Queen of the Night,
I enter the refuge of sleep.

Caitlin Matthews in The Celtic Devotional

EVERY PART OF THE EARTH IS SACRED

2010-09-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the children of the earth.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

The air is precious, for all of us share the same breath.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

This we know, the earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

This we know, all things are connected; like the blood that unites one family.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

Our God is the same God whose compassion is equal for all.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it.
Every part of the earth is sacred.

Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.
Every part of the earth is sacred for all belongs to our Creator.

David Adam in the Rhythm of Life

YOU WILL REALIZE

2010-09-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

You will realize that doctrines are inventions of the human mind, as it tries to penetrate the mystery of God. You will realize that Scripture itself is the work of human minds, recording the example and teaching of Jesus. Thus it is not what you believe that matters; it is how you respond with your heart and your actions. It is not believing in Christ that matters; it is becoming like him.

Attributed to Pelagius

Imagine how much time, argument and bad feeling we'd have saved over the centuries if the advice of this "heretic" had become the foundation of the church.

GOD'S SPIRIT DWELLS WITHIN

2010-09-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them.
Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them.
Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them.
Look at the fish in the river and sea: God’s sprit dwells within them.

There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent….When God pronounced that His creation was good it was not only that his hand had fashioned every creature; it was that His breath had brought every creature to life. Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wildflowers and the grass in the fields; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes nothing on the earth is ugly.

From a letter by the British religious teacher (and accused heretic) Pelagius to an unnamed friend found in Listening for the Heartbeat of God by John Philip Newell. It is said that he also taught that since God is present in all Creation if we were to follow Jesus’ instruction to love our neighbors and ourselves we would have to love all of Creation as well.

I’m trying to imagine what such a world would be like. I can see the glimmer on the other side of the hill. But, when I get there, it turns out that the glimmer is behind another hill.

THE ELEMENTS PART 2 OR SCARED SPITLESS

2010-09-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

Elements was a revision and reposting of a journal entry I did back in January ’06. There is a method to my madness. I needed it to explain this next entry because the earth shifted the next day.

I was thinking about the journal entry; reflecting on it. The phrase “ the whole planet is alive” came to mind. That fitted; it was the theme of the entry after all. That’s when my personal axis tilted and headed for the border, because the sentence completed itself…..with no help from me. “The whole planet is alive; and screaming.”

And just for an instant there was a mind bending sense of “wrongness.” Sorry, that’s the best I can come up with. There was a jumble of sounds and images; a slide show on the fast track. A jumble of sounds and images. Continental plates grinding, forests falling, winds howling and bottomless, endless grief. I was near tears and shaking. A very early morning break was taken as I tried to pull myself together. While I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, I’m thankful it’s only happened once. I’m not sure how many repeat episodes I could stand.

I suspect that some of the individuals we judge as “insane” may be tapping more deeply into this sense of what we’re doing to our planet and ourselves and they just can’t take the pain. Is this attempt to communicate always there and were drowning it out with drugs and/or the pursuit of whatever’s currently having its three minutes of fame? Or do we choose to believe it’s the devil tempting us and we run in fear seeking the nearest guru/pastor/talking head for reassurance that all we have to do is believe in what they’re selling and everything will be all right? Oh, there’s a devil all right. He’s called fear and we’re choking on it.

This happened four years ago and I still get the shakes when I remember it. It scared the hell out of me then and it’s scaring the hell out of me now. I had an overwhelming sense that the scales are tipping and it’s not in our favor.

I’m also convinced that the answers we need won’t all be found in the organizations that run the churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams or political parties. Too many groups are too invested in defining who belongs and who doesn’t. Too worried about what might be happening in the bedrooms and not enough about what’s happening in the boardrooms. Too tied up in the power games. Too busy screaming that they have all the answers that they can’t even hear the questions.

So damned scared that if someone else gets a little “more” of something they’ll end up with “less.” Somehow we have to tap into the individuals that realize that the balance needs to be righted. That if we concentrate on what really matters, there is enough to go around.

We matter simply because we are here. Each of is unique. Each of the over six billion people on this planet is unique and none of those six billion is expendable. The refugees from civil wars and environmental degradation are just as unique and special to Creation as the mighty among us.

What some of us can’t seem to admit it that the universe matters simply because it exists. Too many are chasing the next big thing; believing that by possessing whatever it is they’ll somehow be judged more worthy in the eyes of Creation. And too many have so little that just surviving takes every resource they have. Too many can’t find or make the time to look up or look around and too many others can’t find the strength or the hope. And when hope runs out, what’s left?

THE ELEMENTS

2010-09-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Several years ago the company I used to work for became involved with one of those motivational gurus. A big bucks guru. Last time I checked his website the DVD version went for a cool 10K. Ouch. The guru shall remain nameless. I was low enough on the totem pole that I managed avoid being shipped clear across the country. I guess this routine works for some folks but, the more I heard the less I liked what I was hearing. From the descriptions I heard it seemed to be a cross between a mini boot camp, revival meeting and a rock concert. We got a little taste of the program at an office meeting and when I asked one “graduate” what the loud music was supposed to accomplish I was told it was “part of the program.” To be honest, after several years, I still haven’t figured out how keeping me up most of three nights running, or trying to fracture my eardrums was supposed to improve my team building skills. I guess this why they paid him the big bucks.

Having figured out where I didn’t want to go, I found myself trying to put where I was coming from into words. I believe what still troubles me the most is the effort to keep us all running so fast we don’t have time to think. To keep the man made noise so loud that we can’t hear what the world around us is saying.

Anyway, this is what I came up with. If you were to bet that I never shared any of this with my former co workers, you’d win. I believe what still disturbs me the most is the idea that you can do it all by yourself. The old visualize success; you’ll succeed and it’s your fault if your vision doesn’t come true. That may be true to a point and motivational speakers pushing the idea do keep the money circulating. But, nobody and I mean nobody makes it alone. So here I am. God/dess help us all.

For the old Celts the elements were Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Each element has a voice; but it can’t sing without the others. Without Earth in the form of the moon there would be no tides; no waves save those from the great storms. Without those waves caused by the tides there would be no hiss of wavelets meeting sandy beaches. The great booming roar when tons of salt water meets two hundred feet of black basalt cliffs would be lost or muted forever. Without the mountains to form cliffs and steep falls the roar of the waterfall would not exist. Without the rocks and stones in their beds, rivers and streams would lose their voices.

Fire has a quicker, harsher song. Without water to make steam and sizzle, without wood to burn, Fire would have almost no voice. As lava flows cool the rocks grind together and the escaping gasses hiss and twist. Take away the fire from the earth’s mantle and these voices fall silent.

Air has a voice when it meets Earth and what grows from the Earth. The sighing of the trees, the lonely whistle around the cliffs, the cry of the gulls carried inland from a windy beach, the rustle of the grasses. These come together to make a chorus when the Air sings its songs.

Earth sings some of her songs alone; the sounds of rocks falling and sand or gravel rustling when you walk across them are earthly solos. But many of Earth’s songs are sung by what grows from rocks and soil or swims in the rivers or seas. But, without Air to carry birdsong or Water to carry whale songs the world would be a quieter, lonelier place. Let us join our songs to the songs of Earth, Air, fire and Water. Together these are the songs of Creation.

SUNWINGS

2010-08-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Small flock of geese flew over this morning just at the sun was clearing the horizon. The bodies were still in the dark while the wings were moving in and out of the sunlight. A true blessing.

COMPANY

2010-08-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

I've had "company" the last couple of mornings while I've been working in back. There's a deer track along the upper part of the hill. Yesterday it was a young black tail buck watching me watching him. This morning it was a couple of older fawns, their spots fading as summer wanes. At least I think there were two: or there was one youngster who like going in circles through the underbrush. They make far less noise than the squirrels as they move through the underbrush.

SQUIRRELS

2010-08-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that loud chittering I've heard from the hill and trees is actually the sound of a ticked off squirrel. A human that loud would break the sound barrier. LOL

GOOSE NEWS

2010-08-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

In the early mornings the geese fly over the weed seeking me. They chatter and honk; exchanging goose news on their way to whatever stretch of the river is calling in the early morning mists.

CONCENTRATION?

2010-06-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

There’s a wonderful little scene in Rumer Godden’s novel, In This House of Brede. An irrepressible novice assigned to kitchen duty is overheard letting her fellows in the novitiate know what’s on the evening menu. “Sister Hillary, we don’t discuss the refectory until it is time” or words to that effect from the novice mistress.

How many of us can keep our minds focused for more than a few minutes at a time? Brede Abbey is a fictional community of Benedictine sisters fulfilling the call to pray unceasingly. When it’s time to have dinner, you concentrate on dinner. When it’s time to pray you concentrate on prayer. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have trouble getting through the Lord’s Prayer without part of my brain attempting to veer off on a tangent. Pick any of the following as you try to concentrate.

Our Father Who art in heaven
Hallowed by Thy name. (do I need to water the tomatoes)
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven. (rats I forgot to pick the blueberries)
Give us this day our daily bread (hmmm, it’s time to bake rolls again)
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us (does that include_____?)
And lead us not into temptation
But, deliver us from evil. (fill in the blank on this one)

Amen

Thomas Cowan illustrates this beautifully in the intro to his first meditation in Yearning for the Wind. A teacher who combines Celtic traditions with Shamanism he spends a great deal of time outdoors. How many of us find ourselves in Cowans’ shoes. We’re in a lovely woodland grove. We’ve finally made it to the beach. And where is our brain? It’s balancing the check book, wondering if the roof will make it through another rainy season, or Cowan’s favorite; is it time to wax the car before winter.

He jokes that Mother Nature has her ways of regaining his wandering attention: it usually involves a well placed root or a tree branch up side the head to remind him that it’s time to get out of his own head, wake up and smell the pine trees.

STILL SPIRALING

2010-06-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Lost track of this blog for awhile.

So here I am with a laundry list of spiritual explorations. To be worked through in no particular order.

When I started this blog I really thought I was ready to spiral off the reservation. Trouble is that as I searched for a place to spiral into I realized that I knew very little about the faith I was raised in. I still don’t, although I now understand why religion, especially Christianity is not taught in a non religious context in school. With all those lovely heresies from the last two thousand years floating around the student’s parents would have a real field day. As in “you aren’t teaching that to MY kid.”

And as I explored possible places to land I realized that many of the non traditional groups have almost as much trouble with possible “heretics” as the rest of us. Decisions, decisions. So, I guess this is as good a place as any to work out all that wonderful confusion.

One thing I am sure of, between the reading list I’ve been working through and the family tree explorations, is that the Christianity we have now is as much a result of politics, good PR, and good generalship as actual spirituality. Which is a bummer actually, and I’m still spiraling.

IMBOLG

2010-01-31T22:02:00.000-08:00

If you follow the calendar of the Celts Spring begins tonight. Bit hard to believe that the world is turning green when you live back east and digging out from the latest assault from the snow gods. We had a break in the rain today and suddenly the first light purple crocuses are actually open. You have to catch them quickly before the sun goes away and they close up.

The birds have actually been singing and the squirrels are busy as ever. Someone in the neighborhood has at least one specimen of poultry; we’re treated to regular, hearty doses of cockadoodledoos during the day.

Welcome to Imbolg and thanks for the reminder that it’s time to start cleaning things up and plan for new growth, inside and out.

I make the encircling
Of the many colored winds:
Black wind of the cold north,
Pale green of southwest,
Red wind of southeast,
Grey wind of northwest,
Purple wind of sharp east,
Clear wind of the dear west,
Speckled wind of northeast,
White wind of warm south,
Yellow of the veering wind.
The encompassment of the winds
Protect and surround me
This spring day.

Caitlin Matthews

Careful of those winds, you’ll find a rainbow where you least expect it.

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

AMEN, SISTER AMEN

2010-01-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

Thomas Merton was a Cistercian monk and a priest. He was a writer before he entered the monastary and it didn't slow him down. He went from fervant conventional convert to semi curmudgeonly commentator. He wrote about civil rights, civil wrongs, the insanity of trying ensure national survival by using weapons that would destroy the planet and non violence. And was the first to admit that he had more questions than answers. He received permission to attend an ecumenical conference in, I think Thailand, in 1968. Apparently he stepped out of the shower onto a wet floor that had an ungrounded fan sitting in the water. The real irony is that a man who preached non violence came home on a plane full of Viet Nam casualties. I suspect he would have appreciated the irony.

And that's the scariest part of the whole scenario-the people with the swords and the bombs believe that they have the "answer" and God help the rest of us. Personally, all I can speak to is what seems to make sense to me, right now. I can't presume to tell anyone else that it will work for them. Except to say that hurting another person doesn't solve anything for anybody.

Blessed be.

HEARING THE MUSIC

2010-01-06T22:35:00.000-08:00

I’ve never seemed to hear the music that most other people here. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually felt the presence of God (whoever or however you define “God”) inside the walls of a human built sanctuary. My spiritual search still feels like I’m hiking towards that glow on the horizon with a herkin’ great pebble in my shoe and no matter how many times I take the shoe off and shake it out it won’t stay put. The darn thing moves around. Its size and shape seems to change with every step. So I keep marching along; stopping every now and then to shake out the pebble that magically finds its way back into the shoe before I have time to take the next step.

I have a shelf full of books on various flavors of Christianity, neo-paganism, pagan Reconstructionism, Wicca, shamanism, Celtic traditionalism, druids……you name it; I’ve at least looked it up on the internet. And discovered that, guess what, the various flavors of pagans don’t really get along any better than the rest of us. And why am I really not surprised? The “I’m right, and you’re (whoever you are) wrong” attitude is depressingly universal. One or two pieces will really speak to me and the rest leaves me cold.

And then I find this:

My lord God
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really understand myself.
And the fact that I think I am following
Your will does not mean I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
Does in fact please you.
And I hope I have the desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the
Right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may
Seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear for you are ever with me and
You will never leave me to face my troubles alone.

By Thomas Merton

And then I think that maybe I’m not the only one who hears the music.

CLOCKS

2009-12-15T20:21:00.000-08:00

Urban man is the only creature on earth that cares what “time” it is. The Bushmen who still follow the old hunting traditions know that a hunt, which may last more than a day, will take as long as it takes.

A farmer following a more traditional planting and harvesting cycle knows that work that needs to be done will take as long as it needs to take and happen when it needs to happen. When the time is right to plow and plant that’s what you do and you do it until you’re done. When it’s time to harvest and process the crop you harvest and process the crop until you’re done. If you work from first light to last light that’s what you do. They know that the only control they have over the process is pushing the started on the machine. Nature is still in the driver’s seat, at least part of the time.

American clock watchers on the other hand go so far as to try and trick themselves in the summer. Instead of just getting up at seven during the summer we reprogram our clocks so that we can pretend we’re still getting up at eight instead.

Birds don’t watch clocks. Their songs follow the sunlight no matter when it appears. There is a magic moment when the sky goes from black to an edge of gray. Then the first tentative shadows of song begin. Chickadees, song sparrows, wrens, jays and crows each one sings their song as the sky gets brighter. The birds and their songs are so intertwined that it’s as if one moment they aren’t birds and then next moment as the song begins they become birds on this new day. By the time the sun appears over the horizon the dawn chorus is ending and it’s time for breakfast.

The chorus isn’t as loud on these darker days, it’s been too darn cold. The cast changes but there are still birds flitting from dogwood to rhodie to feeders and back as the day lightens. On days when we’re really lucky there’s a bit of sunshine to brighten the day.

I really like the old Irish calendar this time of year. By the old calendar winter began November first. That means next week when we have the solstice it’ll be midwinter and spring starts in med February with Imbolc. I’m ready now, thank you very much.

SHE SAID YES

2009-11-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

It may be my iconoclastic, eternally questioning little soul but it’s been years since I bought into the “gentle Mary, the meek and mild” interpretation of Jesus’ mother. I guess this is my not very traditional take on the advent season.

A few years ago I found myself asking “what if Mary had said no?” In theory she could have. We do have free will within our relationship with God. I assume she was a well brought up, faithful Jewish girl. She’d probably been to the synagogue; was familiar with the Law and the commandments. She was betrothed; she was as good a married. Customarily it was all over except for the blessing as soon as the marriage contract was signed and here was an angel announcing that if she said yes Someone Else was going to be the Father of her first born. Even if all this was God’s idea, if Mary said yes she was technically committing adultery. If you look at it one way God was breaking His own commandment.

Her first thoughts just may have been “Joseph is not going to believe this” followed by “and neither will anyone else.” Then I can see her straighten up, lift her head and step right off the path of the known of the Law and into the unknown of the Promise.

This was no empty vessel. When God said “walk with me” she reached out and took His hand. Then they both reached out to Joseph and said “trust, it will work out.” Then to add a little extra adventure to the story and get mom to Bethlehem where the prophecy was to be fulfilled the Romans decided that this year would be a really good time for a census. And to accomplish this exercise in imperial bookkeeping for tax purposes everybody had to be counted SOMEPLACE ELSE. Imagine nearing your due date and traveling from Galilee to Bethlehem either one….step….at…..a……time, or perched on the back of a donkey. Makes me sea sick just imagining it and I’m not nine months pregnant.

Then because everyone else in Judea had to be someplace else at the same time as everybody else in Judea, she found herself giving birth in less than shall we say desirable conditions. In a stable for crying out loud. At least it wasn’t by the side of the road. I guess you have to count your blessings. Many Mediterranean buildings do have the living quarters over the barn; even if the stable was in the ground floor of the inn, it was still a stable. Most western mothers to be would probably faint at the idea. The heck with the Father, I’d want my mother, now.

So Mary’s managed to give birth to her promised first born. The family has been counted, the baby has probably had his bris and they learn that life just keeps getting better and better. Somehow the new parents discover that Herod the Great AKA Herod the Paranoid and Extremely Ruthless believes that while prophecies of promised Messiahs are all very well in theory, he prefers theory to fulfillment. It would be better to return home, eventually, by another road. Via Egypt. Joseph’s house and workshop probably weren’t all that much, but it was home. I mean, here we are stuck in a stable and now we’re homeless and on the run. Just keep repeating “we did say yes, we did say yes…..”

Traveling overland through country that’s just this side of being a desert on donkey back toting a newborn? If that isn’t trusting in the promise I don’t know what is. I can only imagine what was running through their minds every step of the way; “we did say yes, we did say yes, we did say yes…………”

Cross posted in Women On.

FINALLY

2009-11-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

It's finally sinking in. I have to stop seeking and start listening. What I've been endlessly running to find has always been there if I'd just had the good sense to stop and listen.

ON MY ASS IN THE GRASS

2009-11-27T22:57:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happend on my way out the church door. I found that hallway wasn't a straight line and I seem to have spiraled right back into the sanctuary. And , like William Wilberforce sitting on the wet grass in Amazing Grace contemplating spider webs, I'm trying to figure out if I found God or if God found me. And, like Mr. Wilberforce, I find the whole situation.......inconvenient for the lack of a better word. I keep telling God to go away and like the relative who knows that home is the one place where they have to let you in.......God keeps saying "let me in" and the knocking on the door is getting louder.

So, here I am..... again. With Thomas Merton at my elbow, Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica teetering on top of the book pile, a volume of advent readings that pairs Bonhoffer and Dorothy Day among others, a reading list that keeps getting longer, taller........and there do seem to be some appalling gaps in my education. One philosophy book in my library goes straight from Plato to Francis Bacon. That's over a thousand year gap. Roman writers get barely a nod and the church fathers early and late get no mention at all.

We're talking a thousand years of cutural amnesia here. Thanks to the Viking raids there are more Irish manuscripts in Europe than there are in Ireland. The Irish planted monastaries from Iona, Lindesfarne and Skellig Michael to Bobbio in Italy. Bobbio just happens to be north of Assissi and Saint Francis wasn't the first holy man to have and audience with fur and feathers in place of wool and linen. And he wasn't the last. So maybe I can have my cake of Celtic Spiritualy with the icing after all.

Excuse me, I guess I'd better go answer the door. Maybe my visitor can explain how three sister goddesses all named Brigid ended up as an Irish saint with a talent for giving away darn near anything to anyone who asked.

CREATION

2009-11-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

It might be a good thing to open our eyes and see.

It is essential to experience all the times and moods of one good place. It is God’s love that warms me in the sun and God’s love that sends the cold rain. It is God’s love that feeds me in the bread I eat and God’s love that feeds me in hunger and fasting…It is God who breathes on me with light winds off the river and in the breezes out of the woods.

As we go about the world everything we meet and everything we see and hear and touch…plants in us…something of heaven.

It is good and praiseworthy to look at some real created thing and feel and appreciate its reality. Just let the reality of what is real sink into you…for through real things we can reach Him who is infinitely real.

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him…The more a tree is like itself the more it is like Him. This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before it or after it ever did or will do.

There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility.

If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself in God’s work. In this way I become his instrument. He works through me.

The sun on the grass was beautiful. Even the ground seemed alive.

By Thomas Merton.

Of course if a tree can give glory to the uniqueness of its creation by simply being a tree it follows that when we use that tree for our use we will use the wood carefully and with some respect. That’s what we should do. Whether our respect for the uniqueness of creation will survive our desire to possess that uniqueness is another story. As if having flooring or a piece of furniture made of wood from a rare and hard to find tree will make us rare and unique as well. That is another story, isn’t it.

WHAT MAKES A MOTHER.....AND A FATHER

2009-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Advent it coming on in a couple of weeks; I discovered this lying around. I printed off a shorter version a few years ago.

While John Paul II was enduring his last illness, there were a great many posts about his beliefs (or perceived beliefs). John Paul did have a special devotion to Mary; something he shared with his fellow Poles. There were a great many posts in J land or the message boards arguing back and forth whether Mary was actually Jesus's mother-in the physical sense.

The sense of a lot of the posts made Mary at best a surrogate mother and at worst, an incubator. This has been percolating since then, so here goes.
Many of my fellow J landers are parents. I don't have kids, but I have five nephews, I've changed a lot of diapers over the years. Actually getting the child into the world is just the beginning.

I suspect that many of the posters didn't really think through what they were saying. Think of all the foster parents, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, step-parents, and adoptive parents. They become parents for reasons that transcend physical birth. Other family members die leaving small children behind. They adopt a child someone else can’t raise. The man I called grandpa promised his best friend that he’d look after his family. And he did it very well, thank you very much.

When a child comes into the world it’s just the beginning. Imagine God as a totally helpless baby. It has to be fed, changed, and bathed. Parents walk miles when that little one has the colic or starts cutting teeth. I suspect that little ones came down with colds and needed their noses wiped as often two thousand years ago as they do now.

When a toddler discovers what those little hands and feet are for, it has to be watched over to make sure that curiosity doesn’t lead those little hands and feet into danger. It had to be almost impossible to baby proof a house with an open hearth, bake oven, looms and carpentry tools. Someone's hands have to be there for those little hands to hang onto when the baby learns to walk. Someone’s voice helps the baby to learn to talk. The parents have to be there to teach the baby to love and be loved. That little boy, all little boys need loving parents to teach them how to love and how to be a man.

God couldn't be there to do these things for that baby. So he sent Mary and Joseph. They were His mother and father in every way that counts.
Imagine things from the Creators' point of view. Think about God watching someone else cuddle that baby. Watch someone else hold out their hands for those first faltering steps. Watch someone else encourage those first lisping sounds. Someone else offer comfort in the dark hours of the night when the child was sick. Watch someone else offer comfort when knees get skinned. Listen while that child calls someone else mother or father.
It's hard to imagine God as sacrificing, but I can't imagine a greater sacrifice than allowing someone else to raise your child.

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

JUST FOR TODAY

2009-11-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I was sifting through the religion section of the local used book store and came across a couple of "offices" (prayer manuals) from a small religious community in Northumbria in England. They are a loosely affiliated group that emphasizes the Celtic strain of Christian practice. Perhaps we need to be reminded to slow down sometimes.

This is the profession of faith from the set of prayers for the evening.

Lord, You have always given
Bread for the coming day,
And though I am poor,
Today I believe.

Lord, You have always given
Strength for the coming day,
And though I am weak,
Today I believe.

Lord, You have always given
Peace for the coming day.
And though of anxious heart,
Today I believe.

Lord, You have always kept
Me safe in trials,
And now, tried as I am,
Today I believe.

Lord, You have always marked
The road for the coming day,
And though it may be hidden,
Today I believe.

Lord, You have always lightened
This darkness of mine,
And though the night is here,
Today I believe.

Lord, You have always spoken
When time was ripe,
And though You be silent now,
Today I believe.

Yes, it's only wise to plan for tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. But, we should remember that the past is behind us. There is no promise of the future. All we can really count on is today.

So, good luck for the morrow. May you get through the day in peace and be blessed with a little joy.

THE WHEEL TURNS

2009-10-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight the Winter season for many in the Celtic traditions begins. This is the dark half of the year. The last of the harvest is in. The cold times are at hand. In lands with few cities candle or lamplight glimmering through the cottage windows would have been a welcome sight indeed.

In the past when our ancestors had to rely on the bounty their lands provided it could be a time of mixed blessings. Yes, it was a time to give thanks for the harvest. But, it was also an anxious time. Would this years’ harvest last until the first crops of spring came in? Could enough breeding stock be carried through the dark times to replenish the herds in the spring? Women in the coastal villages would have to wonder how many of their men folk would go out for the fishing, never to return. The spring bonfires of Beltane must have looked very far away.

But, the wheel turns and it is right to give thanks for the year that is passing. It is also time to think about what went right with the year, what we learned and how we might do things differently in the new year that is beginning. It’s also a time to remember those friends and family that are far away, even if they are just around the corner.

Song of Samhain

I am the hallow-tide of all souls passing.
I am the bright releaser of all pain.
I am the quickener of fallen seed case.
I am the glance of snow, the strike of rain.
I am the hollow of the winter twilight.
I am the hearth fire and the welcome bread.
I am the curtained awning of the pillow.
I am unending wisdom’s golden thread.

Caitlin Matthews.

WE WRITE BECAUSE......

2009-10-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

if we didn’t we wouldn’t true to ourselves. We hate the dry spells. Life gets in the way and we can’t write as often as we’d like to. The brain goes totally blank and we can’t come up with the words we need to save our souls or at least our sanity. And then I start to feel so empty because if I don’t write I’m not me.

It’s hard to believe, but this wonderful little poem was written in the eighth or ninth century by a Benedictine monk who also happened to be Irish. We don’t know his name but he lived in St. Paul’s Monastery on Reichenau Island in Lake Constance. The Irish church had more than a few religious who founded religious houses from Ireland to Italy. To be true to himself, the monk has to follow the bread crumb trail in search of spiritual truths that are food and drink to him. If he didn’t he wouldn’t be a writer. To be true to himself the monk’s furry room mate has to chase mice. If Pangur Ban didn’t chase mice he wouldn’t be a cat. PANGUR BAN

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his simple skill.

Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Often times a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

A wonderful little poem that has managed to survive for nearly twelve hundred years. I first came across this poem in May the Wind be at Your Back by Andrew Greeley. Granted if Pangur Ban doesn’t catch mice he’s not only not true to himself, he’s also going to get awfully hungry. Not quite true for his person.

Cross posted in Women On.

THE THREE WHO PROTECT

2009-10-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

This is another example of what is often called an encompassing prayer. The Three may be the traditional Trinity, I’ve read some wonderful prayers using the traditional images but on a more personal level. Some of the old islanders and highland crofters used Mary, St Michael, and St Brigid. (usually pronounced Brede and can also be spelled Bride; she was also the Irish goddess associated with poetry and healing) Somehow she made the transition from pagan goddess to Christian saint. But, still with the image of healing and protection. Or the Three can be the trinity of the last entry; the Shape, Shaper, and Shaping of Life itself.

The Three Who are over me,
The Three Who are below me,
The Three Who are above me here,
The Three Who are above me yonder,
The Three Who are in the earth,
The Three Who are in the air,
The Three Who are in the heavens,
The Three Who are in the great pouring sea.

There is that wonderful promise of protection and guardianship from all that surrounds us. These prayers happen to come out of the lands facing the North Sea or the North Atlantic. Expecting protection from elements known for rain, snow and great storms as well as gentle rains and sunshine is a real leap of faith.

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

CREATOR

2009-10-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Some of these entries may seem a little disconnected. I’m trying to work my way more deeply into concepts I can just barely wrap my brain around at times. The old Celtic pagan and even Christian concepts of the natural world and the society that lived in it are so different, almost alien to what we wake up to every morning that frankly I feel as though I’m looking through someone else’s eyes. And the focus is just a little bit “off.”

The veils between the physical and spiritual worlds seemed thinner in the past. There was a time when it was easier to believe that there were spirits in the rocks, the trees, the streams. A vision of the world that’s still often dismissed as “Nature Worship” by mainstream society. To be honest I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this road I’m traveling to some of my family. My nephews are wonderful young men, but a more uncurious crew I’ve never met. Heck, they’ve got their drummer, I’ve got mine.

I don’t believe that the old Celts worshipped Nature as I understand word, but they were much more in touch with the world, seen and unseen, around them. This immersion in the spirit world seems to have persisted longest on the fringes of Europe. In Ireland, where Rome’s writ never ran. Or in the highlands and islands of Scotland beyond Hadrian’s Wall. Even the people of Wales held onto most of their independence until the thirteenth century and the invasions of England’s Edward I.

I’m not even sure that the Celtic concept of creation or creator is the same as the world view I grew up with. They certainly have enough different words to work with. And heck, maybe it doesn’t really matter unless you’re trying to learn how to speak one of these jaw breakers of a language.

The word often used in Irish for creator, Duileamh (always capitalized and pronounced dool-yev) doesn’t have the root word for create. It doesn’t have the root word for God, or the Almighty, or Supreme Being; all those words our world view equates with a supernatural Creator.

This difficult, for us, to pin down word can mean “being in the elements,” or “one who is in the elements” or “one who is the elements.” To make it even more interesting the root duil can also mean desire, hope, fondness or expectation. They’re all related, I guess, maybe…….oh heck I’ll take their word for it. Try asking Who is fond of What? Who desires What? Careful, the next thing you know you just might decide that Creator and Creation are caught in a web of desire, hope, and fondness that we aren’t used to facing in our world view of the sacred confined to a few hours on a certain day and tucked in the closet the rest of the time.

The highlanders of Scotland used to bless each other in a way that turns the way we treat each other and the world around us on its head.

“The love and affection of the moon be yours.
The love and affection of the sun be yours.
The love and affection of the stars be yours.”

And work their way through all the things of nature around them until they end with

“The love and affection of all living things be yours.”

Adapted from Yearning for the wind.

Perhaps it isn’t so strange to feel a kinship with the sun. The sun feeds the plants, the plants feed the cows and the cows feed us. I guess you could say we carry a bit of sunshine with us through the day; and the night.

If we really believed that the local river had love and affection for us we might treat it like the irreplaceable creation that it is instead of as a sewer. If we could stretch our minds around the idea that the mountains and valleys might love us perhaps we’d think twice about carving off the top of a mountain to get at the coal and dumping the tailings in the valley below. If we truly felt the living web instead of seeing board feet when we look at an old growth forest maybe we’d be more careful as we harvest the trees we need. As it stands we don’t believe we have the love and affection of our fellow human beings much less the rest of the world and the creatures in it.

The elements of creation. “The Love and Affection of the Elements. The Pure Love of the Elements. The Being of the Elements. The One Who is the Elements.” Tom Cowan notes that the participants were trying to discuss these concepts at a workshop for Celtic Shamanism. One woman in the group wished our language had words like these. Another broke in with “Wouldn’t it be great if our culture had ideas like this.” Taken from Yearning for the Wind.

Just wouldn’t it though?

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

THE SHAPING OF CREATION

2009-10-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

A non-traditional Celtic take on the traditional Trinity.

Cruthaitheoir (noun): creator Cruth (noun):shape. Cruthigh (verb): to create, to shape.

Honestly, I have no idea how to pronounce the Irish and the net wasn’t much help. In any case when most of us use the word create we mean to bring something into existence. However, the less common definition of create is ‘to bring into a new form.” And, the root word cruth in those Irish words means to shape. Shaping implies that you are working with something that already exists.

In the Celtic mythology stories that have survived, there appears to be no creation myths as we understand them. One of those in the beginning there was a Void, a cosmic Egg, something that wasn’t there and then it was there, somehow. Something created from nothing.

Since those eternally curious scribes in the ancient Irish monasteries translated, copied, and recopied every written scrap they could find it seems unlikely to many scholars that any creation myths they found wouldn’t have been recorded even if they were cleaned up to give them a less pagan cast.

Or, perhaps, the Celts never had an “in the beginning” story to start with. The universe didn’t have to come “into” existence because it has always existed. This does answer one problem. If the universe is created, who created the Creator? If somehow the universe has always existed then the Creator has always existed, does exist and will always exist. Creation then becomes a reshaping of what already exists, not the creation of something out of nothing. In this universe even the big bang becomes a reshaping of a “something” that already existed. What that “something” was or is we don’t know. Perhaps as humans with human limitations this is something we can’t know or comprehend.

And where does the raw material for reshaping come from? For some, like the writer Tom Cowan, the raw material the Creator works with is the Creator itself. (arrrrgh! Pronouns describing the indescribable are such fun to try to use.) This ever changing, ever shifting, and always becoming universe is made not only by the Creator but from the very essence of that Creator.

One of the best examples I can think of is this. A giant star is mostly hydrogen with some helium and an almost undetectable scattering of heavier elements. It lives its life, burns through its hydrogen fuel in a few million years, explodes as a supernova and seeds the universe with star stuff. The carbon that builds our cells, the oxygen we breathe, the iron in the steel that holds up our skyscrapers: these elements were forged in the heart of an exploding star. This star stuff reshaped, renewed, becomes new stars, new planets and wonder of wonders; us.

Cowan, who works with Celtic and shamanic traditions took the more traditional trinity and reworked it using the image of shaping. So the trinity becomes The Shaper of life, the Shape of life, and the Shaping of life. These three are truly indivisible, no one of the three can exist without the other two. It sounds really odd to say it but this trinity does work. And in a strange way we become not only the Created but the Creator. We are the Shaper, the Shape and the Shaping itself. (I know, my brain is feeling a little “sprained” right now.)

And he rewrote an old Irish prayer using the trinity of shaping.

Shaper of life, above me and below.
Shaper of life before me as I go.
Shaper of life, at my sides and
I know that You circle me around
And around and around.

Shape of life, above and below.
Shape of life before me as I go.
Shape of life, at my sides and
I know that You circle me around
And around and around.

Shaping of life, above and below.
Shaping of life before me as I go.
Shaping of life, at my sides and
I know the You circle me around
And around and around.

Sacred Three, above and below.
Sacred Three before me as I go.
Sacred Three at my sides and
I know that You circle me around
And around and around.

From Yearning for the Wind

So, all of us should rejoice for we are truly a part of the Creator of creation.

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

WHERE I'M FROM

2009-09-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

I’m a native Oregonian; a state that has the lowest per capita church attendance in the country. It doesn’t mean we aren’t religious or followers of the spirit. It does mean that we’re hard to pin down when it comes wearing a label. And to be honest all of us, including the remaining Native Americans came here from somewhere else. Some of us just happen to have more family members resting in pioneer cemeteries around the state than others. Me? I’ve got three generations and various cousins planted in a lovely cemetery on the north side of Chehalem mountain above the other side of Newburg.

My genes are solidly northern European. Supposedly there’s a Cherokee in my dad’s family tree but I don’t have any proof so that’s a thread in my family tapestry that would be fun to claim but I can’t prove it. (shrug) There’s one German great grandfather; with a name like Kaiser I think I’m safe to assume he was German, not Dutch. The rest is Scots, Irish, English and Welsh. And heck, for all I know there could be a Roman or two in the family tapestry if I went back far enough. Hell, for all I know there was a British trader or two over the years who made it to Goddess knows where and left a calling card or two behind.

My dad’s family name comes out of Yorkshire in England and some of the Vikings settled there as well as Ireland so there just might be a Scandinavian sea farer adding a thread to the tapestry. Have you ever wished you could invite your DNA over for tea, muffins and a good long sit down?

Anyway I originally did this back in my early J Land career. I got it from another writer who has since dropped off the radar. The original template was designed as a stream of consciousness exercise. And Russ was right. You do end up where you didn’t expect to. For the non-Nothwesterners out there; the Hanford reach includes a free flowing section of the Columbia river and the Hanford reactor complex. One of these days the leftover radioactive contamination will probably reach the river and we’ll all start glowing in the dark.

As for the arms depot? They used to store nerve gas there. That wasn’t so bad. The stuff doesn’t go anywhere unless you blow it up. So, some geniuses in the Reagan administration decided to make the stuff “war ready’ and installed the rockets. The government built a very nice, state of the art incinerator to deal with the little darlings. And they finally did. So, guess whose little sister lives smack, dab in the middle that little piece of God’s little acre? So far they aren’t glowing in the dark.

WHERE I'M FROM

I am from Douglas fir, hemlock, spruce and cedar.

I am from the Cascades, the Blues, the Siskiyous, and the Wallowas.

I am from clear cuts, choker cables, riggers and log trucks with one log loads.

I am from sandy beaches, basalt cliffs and mudflats.

I am from wild geese calling at sunrise, wrens in the thickets, and great blue herons on the other side of the river.

I am from the little creeks, the mighty Columbia and the Pacific breakers.

I am from tricycles, tetherballs, little sisters with skinned knees and a love for bugs.

I am from the ivy by the patio, the hydrangeas with dinner plate size clumps of blossoms and the garden in the back yard.

I am from a wringer washer, a concrete laundry sink and clothes full of the smell of sunshine.

I am from missionaries, Methodist hymnals and fairy rings.

I am from winter gales, spring showers, sunny summer days and autumn fogs and frosts.

I am from the Hanford Reach, the Umatilla Arms depot, and the Columbia Gorge where condors may soar again.

I am from logging towns with no mills, harbors with no fish, and farms being swallowed by urban sprawl.

I am from shelves full of books, an old flute and feeling out of step on the march to wherever.

I am from feeling like I’m on the outside looking in.

I am from seeing what no one else sees to see.

I am from hearing what no one else seems to hear.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And if you’ve reached the final lines of the exercise this may be why you’ll find me out hugging the local oak trees these days.

THNKING IN PUBLIC

2009-09-20T15:42:00.000-07:00

Beware, curious person thinking in public.

I think the tipping point this time around on the spiritual spiral was the intro to the first chapter of Joe Campbell’s Myths to Live By. Goddess, I love old Joe. He believed that if the ground your standing on isn’t sacred to you, you probably won’t find sacred ground by traveling half way around the world.

He describes a conversation overheard in a New York eatery between a boy about twelve or so and his mother that ran something like this with Joe’s comments in parentheses. (mine not his)

“Jimmy wrote a paper today on the evolution of man and Teacher said he was wrong, that Adam and Ever were our first parents.”

(My Lord, I thought, what a teacher.)

From the adult, presumably the mom: “Well, teacher was right. Adam and Eve were our first parents.

(What a mother for a twentieth century child)

From the kid “Yes, but this was a scientific paper.”

(And for that I was ready to recommend him for a distinguished service medal from the Smithsonian)

And this is so familiar: mom’s retort? “Oh, those scientists! Those are only theories.”

And the kids’ retort? “…….they found the bones.” I wonder if the adults around this kid ever managed to convince him that what he thought was proof was actually a demon trying to trip him up.

When Antiochus, the Greek influenced ruler of Palestine, tried to outlaw the Jewish faith in the second century BCE he ignited a firestorm of rebellion. Problem is that when the rebels threw out the Greek bathwater they threw out the baby of Greek science and research. The scripture and mythology that was codified and became the basis of Christian scripture were the old Babylonian and Persian stories with their seven days of creation, conflicting creation myths, great floods, centuries long life spans and tales of bloody invasions and burning cities.

By the second century BCE a Greek named Aristarchus had already deduced that the earth was a sphere revolving around the sun. Another Greek, Eritosthnes, working in Alexandria had calculated the circumference of the earth to within a few hundred miles. Not bad for a scholar who paid someone to pace off the distance from Alexandria to a village on the equator called Syene and worked out the numbers with basic Egyptian geometry; sticks, strings and a brain. And still another Greek, Hipparchus had calculated both the size of the moon and its approximate distance from the earth. Hipparchus also created the first star charts with fairly accurate calculations of stellar magnitude.

Frankly I don’t think there was ever a chance to meld Greek experimental philosophy with early Christian philosophy. Part of the problem lay with the Greeks themselves. What started with hands on experimentation and Socrates infuriating questions morphed into the “don’t get your hands dirty; we can understand the world by thinking about it” philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Unite that with some early Christian bishops who advised their priests to discourage their flocks from asking questions about the faith for fear of weakening their faith and frankly I believe you finally end up with……well what we’re stuck with now.

Any chance that thoughtful, inquiring Christians might get together with thoughtful, inquiring Pagans ended when Justinian closed their academies and outlawed the rites and festivals of the old religion.

YOU WHO WOULD BE WISE

2009-09-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

LOOK TO THE EARTH

Look to the Earth
And to the Skies
The Sun, the moon and to the stars
You who would be wise.
For they contain the full measure of man
The height, the breadth, the depth, the span
Of his entirety.

Look to the Earth
And to the Skies
And watch them turn
Like pages of a Holy book
But one untouched by human hand.
You who would be wise.

Look to the Earth
And to the Skies
For in that which can be seen Without
Can true knowledge come
Of unseen mysteries that lie Within
To you who would be wise.

Look to the Earth
And to the Skies
Spring and Summer,
Winter and in the Fall.
Watch life begin, unfold, then fade and die
To rise anew
Time and again for Time Untold
You who would be wise.

Look to the Earth
And to the Skies
And in your looking, learn this mystery
That you who look to the Earth
And to the Skies
Shall be given eyes to see
Shall be given eyes
To make you wise
Eternally.

By Kenneth Meadows in Earth Medicine.
To Native Americans medicine means wisdom.
So, wisdom from the earth; if we could just shut up long enough to listen.

THE SPIRAL DANCE

2009-09-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

If there were a line in the universe with the Patriarchal spirit traditions that include the Judeo/Christian/Islamic beliefs on one side and the older Matriarchal/Goddess spirit traditions on the other: my path would resemble, well I’m not sure what it would look like.

I guess the closest description would be a crazy, wobbly spiral. I find myself on one side of the line, time passes I try to find my way on the other side, more time passes and there I am again. A few years ago I began exploring the more goddess centered traditions including the wildwood mystical path explored Rae Beth and others. Then I wobbled back to the other side of the line in what has turned out to be a last ditch effort to walk the Christian path I believed I was born to. And all the inner voices went silent. It felt like I was trying to move upstream in the rapids. And I can’t go on this way.

There are Christian writers I deeply respect including Thomas Merton and Matthew Fox but when I try to walk their road, I run into a brick wall and I can’t get past it. If there is a call to that path I’m not hearing it. My road leads another way. And, this place, I hope is where I can explore are those other wonderful strands that sing to me.