The Slow Waxing of Light and Life

This is such an awkward time of year. I'm tired of winter, being housebound, being cold, and I'm still immersed in the inner world of contemplation, to the point that I am fairly grumpy with anyone who wants to distract me from it, which is mainly my children, of course.  Rumi said, "My worst habit is I get so tired of winter I become a torture to those I'm with."  I relate to that bear in hibernation.  Just leave me alone and let me dream.  Let me focus on my sap rising, but don't ask me for any of it yet. 

Alas, that is not the way it works in Real Life, is it?  It's hard to slow down when the world doesn't want you to.  And we don't get days off for Tu Bishvat, or for Imbolc and Candlemas, the other two holidays that have occurred recently:

January 29/30 - Tu Bishvat (I discussed this here.)

February 1 - Imbolc.

A day to celebrate the Celtic Brigid, who is goddess or saint, depending on your tradition.  In typical Celtic fashion, the goddess and saint stories blend; she was said to be the foster-mother of Jesus.  I adore her; she is my divine soul-sister, associated with poetry, the hearth-fire, metalsmithing, midwifery, bees, and sacred wells.

February 2 - Candlemas.

A Christian celebration of the return of the light, involving the blessing of beeswax candles, and officially ending the Epiphany season.  Traditionally, people would leave up their Christmas greenery until this day.

All three of these days celebrate the return of life to the earth, the very beginning of spring's return, the waxing of light.  The planting of seeds is a common ritual for all three celebrations.  Imbolc and Candlemas are closely associated and the focus is on purification and renewal of vows, rededication to the Path, refocusing, taking new action.

This ties in nicely for me with Yesod's emphasis on actualizing spiritual concepts.  My sap is rising up the Tree, from Malkuth to Yesod, but I needed a jumpstart.  These holidays provided me with it.  However, the not getting days off really irked me.  I ended up spreading my celebrations and rituals out over an entire week, just to fit it all in around my schedule.

My plans were elaborate; I was going to:

• burn my Christmas tree which has been standing forlornly in my backyard since Epiphany
• take a meditative orange-tinted salt bath for purification (using kosher sea salt and the Elmo fizzy bath colors Eliana got for Christmas - one yellow and one red)
• begin my Svadhisthana exercises
• bless the orange beeswax candles I bought at Cid's
• then fill the whole house with candlelight, while I 
• thoughtfully write out and then recite my spiritual vows for the year
• plant an indoor herb garden with the kit I bought, focusing on the meaning and fruitful fulfillment of my vows (Basil - for love, exorcism, prosperity; Rosemary - for love, purification, and faithfulness; Thyme - for courage, health, and strength)

The first day I tried to do all these things, I had to begin by cleaning the house, which is obviously part of the purification process.  I mopped all the floors, which was a wonderful way to start, but by the time I had wiped down all surfaces, picked up everything off the floors, then swept and mopped, half the day was gone.

I then went through my new exercises for the first time, while listening to The Bee Priestesses, which was remarkably energizing and empowering.  After that, I took my ritual bath, which was also a powerful experience, but by then, the day was winding down to the time when the kids come home, so I had to stop there.

Then the boiler that powers my baseboard heater system went out.  And I became very aware that elaborate rituals and celebrations are a luxury when you're too cold to function.   I was forced to slow down, then.  One day I was so cold all I could do was take a bath and get into bed.  I slept all afternoon, which was a luxury in itself, and one I haven't indulged in since I can't remember when. 

During that period without heat, I thought about homeless people in cold places like New York and Chicago, and I thought about people who don't have any time to themselves because they're too busy surviving, and I felt that strange tension between gratitude and guilt that seems to be a characteristic of citizens of western industrialized cultures.   

Am I being frivolous, self-indulgent by doing these things when I "should" be working?  This was the question I kept pushing away when I started my celebrations.  But after the heater broke, the question was irrelevant, because I was involved in a more basic existence issue.  Even being able to ask questions like the one above is a luxury.  A privilege, a freedom.

But no.  It is not frivolous to do these things if they help me to center and be healthy and grow.  It is, however, a luxury, a privilege, a freedom - not to feel guilty about, but to be grateful for.  And so, the heater breaking factored into my vows, which hadn't been properly written yet when it happened.  I made several vows related to different areas of my life, but the most important one, resulting from my heater ordeal, was to offer gratitude and praise for everything, not in some vague general way, but for specific individual things and people and events as they come into my field of vision, and thus to grow in my awareness of them.  Even when they're unpleasant and I don't like them.

So with the burning of the tree*, I let my guilt becomes ashes to feed the earth.
With the blessing and lighting of candles, I awaken my awareness of blessing and light.
With the burying of seeds into earth**, I plant my intentions, and as the seeds die out of their form and grow into something new, I will express my gratitude for the death of my old shell and limits of perspective, and I praise the earth and light and water and struggle that bring forth new life.

Amen.

The unexpected completion to my celebrations:

Jenny Stevning posted this drawing as a page to print and color

in response to my mention of her in this post.

Thank you, Jenny.  Coloring this was most fun!

*The tree burning actually didn't go too well.  I had forgotten how long it takes wood to dry.  I did manage to singe it a bit,  after a half hour involving a lighter, copious amounts of newspaper, very cold hands, and more starter fluid than I care to admit.
**I mixed the body of the dead bee I found at Epiphany into the soil.  It just seemed like the thing to do. 

The Epiphany Chronicles III: The Impossible Union of Spheres of Existence

Day of January 6

The Feast of the Epiphany

For most of us, there is only the unattended

Moment, the moment in and out of time...

Music heard so deeply

That it is not heard at all, but you are the music

While the music lasts.  These are only hints and guesses,

Hints followed by guesses; and the rest

Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood is Incarnation.

Here the impossible union.

Of spheres of existence is actual,

Here the past and future 

Are conquered, and reconciled.

~T.S. Eliot, "The Dry Salvages"

I woke the morning after my nightmare refreshed and calm, with more energy and clarity than I'd had in a few days.  My goal for the day was to get caught up on my grantwriting work and do a house blessing, a traditional ritual for Epiphany.  But when I looked around my house, I realized neither of these things were going to get done unless I cleaned first.

  What was I going to do with all this stuff?

The house was chaos, most of it worse than this table.  But I was apprehensive about starting to clean because I knew once I started, it could go on all day.  If it hadn't been for the house blessing plan, I probably would have ignored it and worked instead, but there was no way I was going to bless a dirty house.  So I took a deep breath and plunged in.  I tidied and mirted (opposite of "trimmed") the Christmas tree and put away all the decorations and washed dishes and rearranged shelves and furniture and vacuumed and swept and blogged in between tasks.

I found a perfectly intact dead bee on top of a pile of stuff in the recycling bin.  What the heck was a bee doing out here in the middle of January?  At first I thought it was alive, it was so perfect.  If you're not acquainted with my connection to bees, read this.  Most people would probably not find much significance in a dead bee, but for me it was a definite message, an alert.  The last time a dead bee came to me so clearly, I was making a three-dimensional medicine shield collage and needed something for the center of it.  I walked outside barefoot and was stung by a bee I stepped on.  But amazingly, it wasn't crushed and it ended up in the center of my shield, just where it belonged.  It was the first and only time I've ever been stung by a bee.

The first time I checked my email that morning, there was a new post announced on The Website of Unknowing, called "Dark Epiphany."  Since I was processing the nightmare, I was very curious about this.  Turns out, it tied in perfectly with my "dark epiphany" of the night before.  Carl McColman, the author of that site, says, "struggling with the absence of God is a way of experiencing God’s presence. Call it a dark epiphany, perhaps. We fool ourselves if we think that God only shows up in the light."

This also ties in nicely with the comments some folks have left on my previous two posts in these chronicles. A dark epiphany is still an epiphany to be welcomed.

Then, a little later, I read Rebecca's Epiphany post on Whatever else my life is....it is also this dazzling darkness.  She says:

Having the aha moment or the great epiphany can be very exciting. Having all of the puzzle pieces fall into place after a long discernment or just receiving the grace of an understanding from seemingly nowhere can be a spiritual and emotional thrill. But, it seems to me that most of my epiphanies have brought with them an invitation to change and to transform. They come for my benefit and for the benefit of the world, and so I am asked to act. That action usually requires courage, integrity and discipline.

I cleaned some more, pondering all of this. During my next break, through investigating the blog of one of other commenters on "Dark Epiphany," I clicked a link called The Bee Goddess, where I read that in ancient Crete, " the bee signified the life that comes from death." Discussing a golden seal found buried with the dead in that culture, the author describes the image on it: "The bee goddess, the figure in the center descending to earth among snakes and lilies, is being worshipped by her priestesses, who, characteristically, take the same form as she does, all raising their ‘hands’ in the typical gesture of epiphany." Snakes and lilies; this spoke to me. Would it be over the top to mention that my name, Susan, means "lily?" And that lilies symbolize forgiveness and purity?

And then I remembered a small piece of what I had read in my daily prayer book, Celtic Benedictions, the night before the dream.  I went back and looked at it.  Just before going to sleep, I had prayed this with the words of the book:

Let me learn of you in the soil of my soul, O Christ,
and your journey through death to birth.
Let me learn of you in my soul this night
and the journey of letting go...

...Set free my dreams of the unknown.
Safeguard this time of resting, O God,
enfold me in the darkness of the night.

Astonishing.  My dreams of the unknown were certainly set free, just not in the way I would have chosen.  I was definitely enfolded in the darkness of the night.  I was also “safeguarded”, but again, not in a way I would expect, or normally associate with that word.  And after I went back to sleep that night, my rest was deep and whole.

This is when I got the overwhelming sense that my epiphany experiences thus far were asking to be written and shared.  It was an uncomfortable thought, and was definitely an action requiring "courage, integrity and discipline." It was becoming more and more apparent to me that there was real significance to my experiences over the past couple of days.  But what was I going to do with all this stuff? How to create the impossible union of spheres of existence?

I began to process all of it in earnest.  As outwardly I cleaned and organized my house, I inwardly ordered my mind and heart.  I mused about the meaning of Epiphany.

I've mentioned before that one of the big appeals of religion for me is entering into the narratives of my tradition, Christianity. The Epiphany narrative is of the Three Wise Men following the star and coming to see the Christ-child. I've heard that they didn't actually get there until Jesus was two and the family was living in a house, which I kind of like. I am amused by the image of Jesus as a toddler, fondling a chunk of gold and then trying to smash it on the floor, or flinging frankincense around the room with gleeful abandon.

At any rate, the rationale of the house blessing follows from this story. This ritual, which I'd been planning for days, now seemed even more important and meaningful after my experience of the previous night.

It was mid-afternoon before I got to a satisfactory stopping point with the cleaning (no, it is never "finished"), and prepared for the house blessing.  I used a ritual from the book To Dance With God, by Gertrud Mueller.  There's a little bit of liturgy to recite, and then you're supposed to go around the house with incense, or sprinkling holy water in every room while consciously blessing that space.  Then you're supposed to take a piece of chalk that you've blessed and write above the main entrances of the house, the year and the initials of the three wise men (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar) like this:

20 + C + M + B + 10

It seemed a little weird to me, this last part, but what the heck.  I didn't have a piece of chalk so I used an orange colored pencil. Very lightly.

I visited each room with a sage smudge stick a soul-friend of mine made for me and which I'd never used, and wafted the smoke with the large wild turkey feather I found last fall in the grove by the St. Francis church.  Then I carried a silver bowl of water that I keep by my bed to enhance my dreams, and sprinkled some in every room.  I finished by ringing a little bell in each room.  Maybe all of this sounds goofy to you, but it felt great.  My house felt so clean and calm and clear and fresh at the end of it all.  I was really really glad I'd spent the day this way.  And I began more and more to see that dream as a gift.

I also anointed myself with frankincense essential oil, a fitting gesture, I thought, for an Epiphany celebration.  But what struck me was that I REALLY like the way it smells.  And it's the same smell that it was 2000-odd years ago when it was offered as a gift by the wise men. Through a little research I discovered that "the mythical Phoenix bird was thought to build its funeral pyre out of frankincense and myrrh". Also, that  it was used in pagan purification ceremonies in many cultures. Purification. Yes.

Now it was time for the kids to come home, and to get ready for the Epiphany service that my church was holding that evening.

When I entered the quiet, candlelit church, the atmosphere of peace resonated with the clean quiet of my heart. My mind was not quite as clear. I was holding the big question at bay, Should I, can I, continue with Justin? The Applebees fiasco was still with me, asking me to see the reality – that despite our best intentions, we harm each other in a way that shuts us both down. And no matter how much progress we seem to make, these instances set us back to square one. I wasn't exactly fighting this recognition, but laying it aside for the moment, letting these unfolding experiences work on me and bring me the answers deeper than intellect or willful resolve.

The pastor, Wayne, was dressed in a simple white robe with a cord of rope around his waist, not what he usually wears. The service was simple and prayerful. Wayne played a song on his guitar and sang – things I had never witnessed him do. 

 

The scripture was from Isaiah 60:

 Arise, shine! For your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

and his glory will appear over you...

I felt tears welling up and looked down at my lap, lest someone notice. And then Wayne read:

Lift up your eyes and look around;

they all gather together, they come to you...

Then you shall see and be radiant;

your heart shall thrill and rejoice.

I was moved to my toes. I lifted my eyes and saw quiet love. Wayne began speaking, what he spoke of was not the gifts of the wise men, or the brilliance of the star, but of Herod. For those of you not familiar with the story, when the wise men come at last into Jerusalem, they go to King Herod to inquire of the whereabouts of the “new king” that has been born. Herod, afraid of this potential threat to his authority, tells them that once they find this child, they should report back to him. Once he knows where the child is, his plan is to kill him. The Wise Men, being wise, realize the malicious intent in Herod, and return to their homeland “by a different way,” to avoid Herod.

Something that has struck me since that night is that the Wise Men were strangers to the land, aliens, and must have seemed especially so when they showed up at Mary and Joseph's doorstep. But they were welcomed, just as I must welcome the strangers in my own soul.

What Wayne preached about was Herod's fear, how everything he is reported in the Bible to have done was out of fear. How even in the joy of the nativity story, there is the backdrop of shadows and death. How we all live against this backdrop. Darkness creates fear in the human heart, he said, using the example of a child wanting to leave the lights on at night because the monsters grow larger in the dark. But, he said, fear also creates darkness, it works the other way too. And yet, there is this glorious light beyond all light, that is real, and all we have to do is find the courage to lift our eyes to behold it. All we have to do is trust it, and then there it is. 

And there it was. 

And here it is.

No simple answers, only “hints followed by guesses,” but in the weeping, in the lifting of eyes, the impossible union beheld.

 

Swan Song for The Moment

I can't believe it took me so long to discover the joys of blogging. In the few weeks since I started, I've already found and followed some fascinating connections, and met some truly wonderful people. The best thing about blogging is the conversations that happen, the sparks of inspiration that people start and pick up on and spread.

In the past couple of days, the word "interlacing" has appeared on two separate blogs that I follow.  In Song Lines, the most recent post on a hazy moon, a commenter used this word, and then on The Bobwhites, which I discovered via the "Next Blog" button, "Interlacing" was a blog title.

Dictionary.com defines "interlace" as:  "to cross one another, typically passing alternately over and under, as if woven together."  How beautiful is it that I'm exploring this word because of interlacing blogs? 

One of the themes that has emerged for me recently out of this interlacing is the relationship between freedom and safety. It started with Jennifer's post, What is a Safe Person?  (I'll come back to this in a moment).  Then, in the remedial college Reading class that I teach, we're reading Steinbeck's The Pearl.  When Kino finds The Pearl of the World and tries to sell it in town, the pearl buyers try to cheat him, offering a much lower price than the pearl is worth.  In class we discussed Kino's decision not to accept their offer.  By refusing it, he is standing up against a system that has oppressed his people for a long time, and therefore is putting himself in danger.  Freedom and safety are opposites.


This got me thinking.  Wasn't it Ben Franklin who said, "Those who would choose safety over freedom deserve neither"?  Why?  Is freedom inherently more valuable than safety, and if so why?  Is it just more "real"?   I think it's the  pursuit of safety over freedom that Ben was criticizing.  That this pursuit is fear-based.  But seeking freedom often is too.  I've encountered a lot of people who seem to equate freedom with mobility of some kind.  The ability to get out.  Is this not fear-based?  The need for open spaces is no "better" than the need for fences.


Another twisted expression of "freedom" is really recklessness in a very thin disguise.  I used to fall into this category.  Freedom to me meant being able to do whatever I wanted without restriction.  The result?  Harm to myself and others, of course.  Some of which I'm still dealing with today.


In my reading class we talked about how one people's freedom can be taken away so another people can feel safer.  I mentioned the internment camps of Japanese-Americans that were set up during World War II, and we discussed the racial profiling of Middle Eastern people (and others) that's been happening since 9/11.  Where do you draw the line when it comes to creating safety?  is the question we tackled, but could not arrive at a consensus.  And apparently, no one ever has, except maybe certain Gandhi-esque organizations.  Whole nations though?  Forget it.

The question is too abstract, too philosophical.  Too unsafe.  Define freedom.  Define safety.  Can you do it off the top of your head?  Now go ask your neighbor the same question.  Leave your gun at home.


The principle of oppression for the sake of safety can even be seen in nature.  A minor example that I came across recently has to do with the way flowers secure pollination. Many flowers have evolved methods of depositing pollen on bees in a way that the bee can't get the pollen off. Only by entering another flower of the same kind, that's equipped to scrape the pollen, will the bee become free of it. A bee may fly around for days with a big clump of pollen stuck to one of these “safe sites” - say on the top of the head, or the abdomen. It's like an itch in the middle of your back you can't quite reach.

Some people seem to equate freedom with NOT feeling safe - atheist fundamentalists,  deconstructionist zealots - who say either directly or indirectly:  Only stupid (i.e.,unfree) people feel safe.  Like most extremist statements, there is a grain of truth to it.  Many people do coddle themselves into a stupor by any number of sad little means.  But I think, life being what it is, we all do it sometimes.

I think it's just all about balance.  An excess of freedom (in the sense, let's say, of expanding boundaries) makes us swing back to safety-seeking, because we get afraid.  In fact, my life has been like that lately.  Because of blogging, teaching again, and joining a non-profit board, I've really been putting myself "out there," after a long cocooning period.  Sometimes I need to step back, regroup.  The point, I think, is to do this with awareness, as a means to keep growing - not as an escape or shutting down.

With this awareness, comes the realization that there is a place where freedom and safety coexist.  Jennifer's post deals with the idea that for freedom to exist in an intimate relationship, there must be a sense of safety, real trust.  And they grow in proportion to each other.

And yet, this kind of trust opens you to that strange recognition of the Other, suddenly seeing how big you both are, on opposite sides of a universe that you're meeting across. And embracing there is the least safe thing you can do, ego-wise.

Which just goes to show how differently the ego and the spirit can define both freedom and safety. This is why, to me, true freedom is a paradox. There is a freedom in decisiveness, commitment to a path. The fish isn't free if he escapes the bowl.  Bees enjoy the freedom to be sky-wanderers, to fly to many flowers, but this comes through participating in a highly structured and disciplined society.  As a poet, it took me a long time to embrace anything but free verse. When I finally learned to write formal poetry, I realized the potential in submitting to a discipline. By mastering a form, you gain a new kind of freedom. The same is true of dance, or painting, or raising children.  Boundaries, parameters must be recognized and accepted before they can be expanded.


All of this is so complex. I hope I haven't lost anybody here. Really, I think it's very simple - If you feel free, you are. Because freedom is a state of being, not a set of circumstances. The best analogy I can come up with is singing in prison. One of my very favorite bible stories is in Acts 16, when Paul and Silas sing in a jail cell, until an earthquake breaks the bars. I also think of the line from Tori Amos' song, "Crucify": You're just an empty cage if you kill the bird.


Kim Ayres recently posted here about starting a day off grumpy, but eventually being drawn out of it by a scene of beauty. Responding to beauty, to the moment, allowing oneself to be drawn out of misery – that's freedom. It comes with awareness. It's the ability to sing in a cage, to love your enemy.  And this is also the only safety there is.

One of Kim's commenters gave some interesting info about swan folklore, since a swan was featured in the photos on that post. What really got me thinking was the concept of the “swan song.” According to Wikipedia, “The phrase "swan song" is a reference to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely mute during its lifetime until the moment just before it dies, when it sings one beautiful song.” And so, says Wikipedia:

By extension, "swan song" has become an idiom referring to a final theatrical or dramatic appearance, or any final work or accomplishment. It generally carries the connotation that the performer is aware that this is the last performance of his or her lifetime, and is expending everything in one magnificent final effort.

 There is a Zen story about a man being chased by a tiger until he comes to the edge of a cliff. He clambers over the side and grabs hold of a vine. As he's hanging there, he sees that there's another tiger below him, waiting for him to fall. And then two mice come along and start gnawing at the vine. He notices some strawberries growing on the cliff face next to him, and sees the most luscious red strawberry he's ever seen. He reaches over, picks it and eats it. And he thinks to himself, “Ah, how sweet it is!”

Freedom is the swan song in every moment.

How I Became the Pollinatrix

It all started with drowning bees.  When I was a kid, there was a surprising number of times that I would come across a bee trapped in a puddle, say, or a soda bottle, and find a way to save it.  Since then, I've had a strong connection with and interest in bees, and I've learned a lot about myself from studying them.  I've also realized that many noteworthy events in my life have involved flowers in one way or another.

My interest has now broadened to include pollinators in general.  A couple of summers ago, I found this book in the gift shop at Fort Ross State Historic Park in Jenner, California:

The authors, Stephen L. Buchman and Gary Paul Nabhan, discuss the world's ecological crisis from the angle of declining pollinator populations.  I've been reading this book a little at a time for quite awhile now.  Alas, I was saddened to read that honeybees introduced into a region by beekeepers often contribute to the decline of native pollinators.  But it's been stimulating to learn about other kinds of pollinators and how they operate.

I've recently come into a relationship with hummingbirds.  An old Native man that I met one day at Wal Mart, of all places, asked me to give him my open palm, and he held his hand over mine and told me he was giving me hummingbird energy.  I didn't think much of it at the time, except that an immediate feeling of peace and joy came over me.  A couple of weeks later, though, I went on a private camping retreat at Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort in the Carson Forest.  There were more hummingbirds there than I have ever seen in my life.  I was sitting on the second floor of the lodge having lunch in the snack bar, and I looked out the window at the tall pines.  There were many tiny birds in the branches, which I didn't immediately recognize as hummingbirds because they were sitting still.  When I walked out onto the balcony, one flew right up to me at eye level and hovered there for a few moments, long enough for me to say Hi.  Thanks for coming.

That same week, there was a bat nestled above my front door for a couple of days.  (I didn't even know bats were pollinators until I started reading that book.)  And that was also the week I started walking to San Francisco de Asis (see previous post).  There are beds of fragrant purple flowers lining the walkway of the church, and this is where I like to sit when I'm there, in front of the statue of St. Clare.  While I was there that first evening, an abundance of tiny winged creatures started flitting through the flowers.  At first I thought they were hummingbirds, but they were smaller and more insect-like.  They were also less concerned about my presence than hummingbirds would have been.  Several flew around me and sucked nectar from flowers right next to me.  Sometimes one would be so close I could watch the long proboscis straighten out into a blossom like a fishing line into a river, then quickly curl up into the creature's mouth.   I can only describe the feeling they evoked in me as goofy euphoria.  When I went home I looked them up and found out that they're called hummingbird hawk moths.  This is what they look like:

Unfortunately, I had to snag this pic from Photobucket, because by the time I got around to trying to take my own photos of them, they had stopped coming around.  But that's a story for another day.