IMBOLG

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

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

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.