Weariness in the World

Aside from the return of my Seasonal Affective Disorder, I have noticed a deep fatigue, no more like weariness, overcoming me. Last year I was struggling under an avalanche of work. And although I may have more items on my to do list than possibly a few small countries, I am not by any measure under the same amount of pressure as last year.

So why am I so tired?

I have plenty of answers. Like most folks, I can rationalize just about anything. But the answers I come up with are raising further questions. If this is simply the Chronic Fatigue portion of my illnesses, why did the pain mask it all this time? If this is the fatigue portion of my Fibromyalgia, how come I did not feel it during the summer and early fall? And if it is SAD, why is it not lifting now that I am taking vitamin D like last year?

See … more questions … and no answers that bring closure.

So in today’s meditation, I decided to approach the issue differently. Was it my weariness that really bothered me? And surprisingly, the answer was no. What actually bothered me the most was my inability to do much work. I was upset more by my leaving items unchecked than being tired.

Whoa!

A part of me is filled with anxiety because … I *should* be working. So I sat with that anxiety and listened with compassion. I still have no answers, but somehow … almost inexplicably … it’s okay.

Namaste!

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The Wild Side

I am finally feeling normal after my almost two weeks away. I have so much to talk about, I just need time to get it all down. This post refused to wait its turn however. Hopefully, more later.

When I first began walking at Sligo Creek Park almost twenty years ago, it was a struggle just to walk a few yards without sitting down to rest. In recent years, my walks extended far into the more picturesque portions of the park. It was while walking on the paved paths that I became aware of an alternative route just over the creek along edge of the woods. Each visit, as I struggled to keep my balance on the artificially even asphalt, I looked across at the wooded side longingly. "One day, one day", became my anthem.

Today, I usually take that elusive path, dodging exposed tree roots, boulders, and low hanging vegetation with a sense of hard won accomplishment. It may have taken years, but I finally made it to the wild side.

But this past weekend, sitting in Angela Raincatcher’s wonderful Magick of Manifestation class, I came face to face with another wildness I have yet to fathom. After settling into our younger selves through deep trance work, we dove with delight into an incredible stack of magazines. We were supposed to be finding images to use with our magickal intention. But since my younger self was running the image search, all kinds of symbols and images wound up in my pile. So yeah a third represented my intent to find more time and space in my life for me, along with another third that illustrated my search for a motherhouse for my tradition. It was the final pile that completely surprised me.

In this third pile were images of colorful roller girls, dancing women, a strong woman surrounded by fire and finally an image of middle age woman walking alongside a cheetah in the African grasslands. It was this last image that seemed to express a familiar calling. It was less a call to walk ON THE wild side, then a call to walk WITH MY wild side.

Ah, yes! The yearning for the wild path was also a call from within. It is my wild self that yearns to be free, to create new paths through the wilderness yes, but also to dance with abandon in the city streets. The roller girl’s hair was a bright red and the dancing woman was dressed in a sexy black dress. I tried to remember the last time I even attempted to look sexy or even dance with abandon. I think it was at Sacred Space Conference. Wow, I really *am* overdue.

And so this week, my plans include creating a collage with my wild images. And sometime soon, expect to see a new hair color and something sexy and black, because I am headed to the wild side. And to get in, sometimes you have to dress the part!

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Fall's Foliage - Part Two, The Wealthy Ones

This is part two of this past Sunday's message to the students of Reflections. For part one, go here.

It is amazing how when we think about the season of fall, we, especially in the Northeast, often think of all the splendor of the trees. It is a little odd since at some level the trees are experiencing a form of death with their leaves changing colors before they fall off ... and become compost. But in their decline they have that last bit of glorious color. I think of it as a reflection of the promise of spring; that the colors of fall are a reminder that spring is still ahead. So yeah, this is where things start their journeys toward repose, but do not lose hope.

And so the splendor of the second harvest is that little reminder that it is still safe to hope … it is not over. Then of course there comes the final harvest, which can be read in many ways. For those of us approaching the later phases of our life, not knowing how much time is left, it says “You know you need to start getting things done.” But it also traditionally means, “You need to start putting things away and restocking -- start preparing for winter.” For as sure as spring, summer and fall comes around, winter is not far behind.

And so the three harvests, not only to allow us to reap, but they also teach us. And I know I have said it many times, that if you want to understand spirituality, look at nature. All the lessons are there.

And we celebrate fall’s foliage by understanding what the harvests are about at all stages. That it is an urging to prepare but it is also a promise of what is to come.

The Wealthy Ones

In many cultures, when they have the harvest – not always at the same times of the year as ours -- there is the usual practice of taking the bounty and piling it up somewhere and just looking at it. Like all the apples from the orchard piled up. Or all the corn piled up or all the wheat gathered together. Just piling it up …because we need to be reminded of how well we have been treated by the earth. We need to remember how much we have received from all the work we put in. And it didn’t matter if your farm did poorly and another farm did well. Often that same table or spot was used to display all the fruits of the collective labor. It was like a statement of “We have reaped!”

Sometimes, it is hard for us to imagine what is on our harvest table. When we only look at that one underperforming patch, or something newly planted that did not grow quite right. Or something that is maybe on a two-year cycle and it is not ready yet. Sometimes we need to be reminded of all we truly have. And this is especially true now in our current economic climate. We need to be reminded of all we have in our western society where we take so many things for granted. We need to remember that all of us, every single person in this room, if we were transported to another country, a second or third world country, we would be the wealthy ones. Not that our difficulties are not real, but that difficulty is not all there is and we need to be reminded of that.

There is a beautiful song by Starhawk called Demeter’s Song. Demeter is the Greek Goddess of Agriculture. Especially for those of us living in this time, we do not get how phenomenal it was for humans to discover agriculture. Just imagine if you had to keep moving in order to find food. That you could never settle anywhere because once you ate up the food available, it was gone. And then you would have to just keep wandering in the pursuit of food, never being able to put down roots.

So can you imagine the faith, the leap of faith, it was for someone to actually put something in the ground and then wait for it to root, sprout, blossom and later produce what could be eaten. The gift of agriculture was a fundamental gift of life, and the gods of agriculture was looked upon as not only the givers of food but also the givers of laws and civilization. The entire human species changed when they were “given” agriculture. So Demeter was a pretty big deal to the ancient Greeks. And every culture that had an agricultural deity, that god was pretty central.

[I sing Demeter’s Song]

We are the wealthy ones. We have been given so much. The promise of Demeter has not ended. The promise has not been taken back. We can learn to live in a more sustainable manner. We can learn to live in harmony with others on this planet. But we need to remember always what we have already been given because we are the wealthy ones -- maybe not in coin, but in community, in education, in comfort and in safety. In spirit and in flesh, we are the wealthy ones.

There was a way I was taught, and it is also in the The Intuitive Body: Aikido as a Clairsentient Practice by Wendy Palmer, if you ask for something as if do not already have it, you cannot receive it. You can only receive more of what you already have. So whenever you ask for something, you always ask, “May I have more” of whatever it is. Because that means that you acknowledge what you have already been given.

For example, I often joke about my lack of patience. Apparently I had to admit that I have a great deal of patience, because now I always ask for more patience, …. and more balance … and more rest/recovery. We need to acknowledge what we have received. We need to be able see ourselves, even in our stories about our loss, sacrifice, and devastation, that we are still the wealthy ones.

[We paused to sing the chorus together.]

And that is Demeter’s message to us. That her ability to give to us depends on our ability to receive and acknowledge what has already been given. And that is the message from the rich foliage of fall. “I have already given you the spring and the summer, and now I give you the harvest”.

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Fall's Foliage & The First Harvest

This is the first part of a mini-sermon I delivered on Sunday to the students of Reflections. I will post it in two parts, mostly because it was a lot longer than I realized. I had started our session discussing the mystery of unknowing. Maybe I will post that mini-sermon at some point. I hope you enjoy part one. I will post part two later this week.

I spoke earlier about the mystery of un-knowing, but now I want to talk about Fall’s Foliage. The previous rituals this year were Spring’s Sprouts and Summer’s Blossoms. And now we are at Fall’s Foliage.

I will admit that fall is my favorite season, spring is a close second, but fall …I just love it. It may seem too early to talk about fall now that we are entering what is normally the hottest month of the year.

But of course we are discussing the mythic realm, the realm of spirit. And so we have discussed the importance of patience that leads us to care for and nurture the sprouts of spring. And later we meditated on how the blossoms of summer were just the beginning of what was coming later – that the blossoms were not the final stage.

And here we are at our Fall’s Foliage ritual and it is being held on the Sabbath of the first harvest, which makes it all the more potent. It is about how, finally, we can begin to harvest. Not all of the harvest is ready however, not all of bounty you have planted is available to be consumed or ingested. But, we can recognize that the first harvest is the promise of more to come.

And that is the hard part, because just as people have no patience to allow the sprouts to continue growing. And often folks jumped the gun with the first blossoms. So it is often hard to figure out what is in fact a part of the first harvest.

In the physical realm, at least around these parts, the first harvest is traditionally grains and berries. But in the realm of spirit, the first harvest is all about those little signs that signal to you to let you know that all is not forlorn, that there is hope even in the midst of despair.

Everyone’s first harvest is different. Sometimes it is the little things that count. I use to read a twelve-step book of prayers and quotes, one for each day of the year. And one of the entries was about noticing the variety of shades of green in nature. Through all those years prior to that lesson, I never noticed that the green of nature came in different shades. It was just Crayola eight-pack green to me, because my world was very stark. And that little book said, “Notice the shades of the green, the variations of green.” And I am reading this book at the bus stop because that was when I read it each morning, and I look up and suddenly saw for the first time, all the different shades of green around me – I stood there frozen with my mouth open, in shock. And that new awareness revealed to me that there was more than I imagined in the world. That was the beginning of my first harvest.

Later I stood in the pavilion at my first witch camp being led through some exercises to aspect Aphrodite. And at the very moment when I felt her presence, suddenly I could once again see the variations of green, and it was a shock to me … just like the first time. And I realized that here again was another glimpse of my first harvest. And so over the years, I have used the shades of green and whether I can see them as a measure of how healthy I am, emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally. It was such a gift for me that after a time I never lost the ability to see the variations of green, not once over all these years.

The first harvest can be the smallest thing. It can be something that everyone else around you takes for granted. Your first harvest will have a meaning just for you. It will be sustaining like the grain and it will be sweet like the berries. But it will be your first harvest.

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