Katrina Messenger tagged me for the Passion Quilt meme.
The rules of the meme are thus:
We are All Connected; Care for One Another
I hadn’t planned on doing anything for Beltane this year. I’m a thousand miles away from the people I celebrate with, and we don’t usually celebrate Beltane. Instead, I went to the beach to walk in the water, feel the breeze and sun on my skin, and listen to the surf and shore birds.
Several years ago, I struggled with why Samhain resonated with my being, while Beltane basically left me cold. At that time, I reframed Beltane from “sex in the woods” (not that there’s anything wrong with that) to a mirrored relationship with Samhain that sung to my soul.
At Samhain, we look to the past (our Ancestors) and bring their wisdom into the present. We look into the face of the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the beyond. At Beltane, we look to the certainty of life and the uncertainty of the future. We take the risks to move consciously forward into our future.
Last year, I hosted a maypole working that focused on embodying the elements of creation and weaving the magic of manifestation. What I learned at the Center, holding the pole so it would not topple as it was pulled in different direction, was that we hold in our hands the power of awareness, within our heart the yearning for balance, and within our Will the ability to set and keep to a course of action.
The beach was almost empty; the tide was rising; and the sand was soft beneath my feet. The Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields” was looping in my internal radio. I found unbroken shell in the sand. At some point, all the sensations from sea, sand, and sun welled up around me, and I just had to do ritual.
Just beyond the upper reach of the waves, I inscribed a three-circuit labyrinth in the damp sand. I breathed to ground and center myself before stepping in. As I walked the labyrinth, I asked myself, “What do you weave into your life?” When I reached the center, I began to turn to face each direction “Earth Air Fire Water Spirit” became “Yod Heh Shin Vau Heh” as I called in the elements of creation into the center of my soul. I spoke words of creation out to each of the directions and then I settled down in the center to enter a light trance as I sang to and watched the waves.
“What do you weave into your life?” At Beltane, I am always reminded that I am an agent can act effectively in this world. It is my birthright and my duty to be who and what I am — a co-creator with the Great Divine, God Herself, the Heart of the Universe. Rather than lie back and let myself be thrown this way and that by life, I can pick myself up and weave together the threads of existence to create opportunities and take advantage of them. I can help myself and others. I am not helpless and passive. While sometimes we need to just “be,” there are other times when we need to “do.” And at Beltane, I remember that I have the right to be and the power to do — all to take the risk of stepping fully, consciously, and intentionally into my future.
To mark this remembering, I inscribed a pentacle in the sand at the center of the labyrinth and sealed the experience into my body. Then I walk out and away back into ordinary time and space.
The body of my maternal grandmother, Jane Ellen Overall, died this last week on Wednesday, April 16, 10:03pm, at the age of 82.
I was taught to believe that her spirit lives on and is now reunited with her husband, my grandfather, who passed away over twenty years ago. On some level, I want to believe that. It would have made her happy.
On another level, I have to admit that I don’t know, and may never know, if our spirits continue, shaped by our physical lives and personality, after our bodies die.
I know what I don’t believe — in a heaven of eternal reward and a hell of eternal punishment. They don’t fit with my concept of the Ultimate nor with my experience of life. If life is a combination of a myriad of experiences, then I would expect the afterlife, or future lives, or whatever if there is anything, to be a similar combination. I suspect that anything eternally without change would be numbing after a while. And the universe is too varied for that.
Perhaps when we die, we get what we expect — a kind of mentally constructed reality that lasts as long as we need it to. That might be nice, or not, depending on what one expects consciously and unconsciously.
Perhaps when we die, the part of us that is not physical regains its full non-physical awareness. Perhaps there are things that can only be experienced and perceived within our human form, and things that can only be experienced and perceived in non-physical existence. One is not better than the other — just different.
All of this assumes that there is a non-physical, or spiritual, or energetic, part of us that survives after the physical body dies. For the most part, I do believe that. But there is a niggling uncertainty that I have struggled to live with. Perhaps we all do.
Because really, truthfully, we do not know.
But because it was her truth, and her dream, I wish my grandparents happiness together again in each other’s arms.
I am showing my art for the first time publicly. I will be exhibiting my Qabalah series. I am excited and nervous by turns. Wish me luck!
What is Artomatic, you ask?
Held regularly since 1999, Artomatic is the Washington, D.C., area’s one-of-a-kind multimedia event, involving hundreds of regional artists, performers and volunteers. The free event is an arts extravaganza, featuring paintings, sculpture, photography, music, theater, poetry, dance and workshops. The 2008 event is being held May 9-June 15 in the Washington, D.C., NoMa neighborhood.
It is free to get in and the hours are: Wednesdays and Thursdays, 5:00pm - 10:00pm; Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, Noon to 2:00am; Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The address is Capitol Plaza I 1200 First Street, NE (1st and M Streets NE), Washington, DC 20002. Metro: Red Line, New York Ave., M St exit.
More information at www.artomatic.org.
My dear friend Art Drauglis is an accomplished woodworker who builds fun, funky furniture, such as the “Monster Cabinet” shown here. Today he was featured in DC’s Daily Candy. Go check him out! Please consider him if you are in the market for custom hand-worked furniture, and recommend him to your friends.
In the streets of Nigeria, Angola, and the Republic of Congo, helpless children are accused of witchcraft by their families and neighbors. These boys and girls are then beaten and tortured, only to be abandoned, if not killed. Once stigmatized by the label of witch or wizard, these children are even more vulnerable to child traffickers.
Becoming: a sacred gathering and the Chesapeake Pagan Community are working together on a six-month campaign to raise funds and knit toys of love, healing, and protection for these children. Funds will be donated to Stepping Stones Nigeria, a UK-based organization that sponsors a shelter and school run by Nigerian organization Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN). The toys will be sent directly to the children.
We need your help to make a difference in these children’s lives.
If you are a knitter or crocheter in the NoVa, DC, Suburban MD, or Baltimore area, you can help by knitting bears and gathering pledged donations. Our initial kick-off meeting for this campaign is March 30, 2008, 1:30pm, in Beltsville, Maryland. If you cannot attend this meeting, you can still participate in the campaign.
If you are not a knitter, you can donate directly to this campaign via PayPal or check, and volunteer at some of our outreach events.
You can register as a knitter or donate to the campaign at http://charity.becomingdc.org.
For more information about this campaign or to keep up with our progress, check out the web site or contact Angela Roberts Reeder at angela@becomingdc.org.
To donate to my campaign:
More information about this issue:
Children are the targets of Nigerian witch-hunt
Video: Child “witches” in Africa
Photographs: The child “witches” of the Niger Delta
Please spread the word. Together the pagan community can make a huge difference in these children’s lives.
I have been hearing bird song around my house over the last week. Strange in winter, although our winters have been rather warm the last few years.
Last week, I noticed this bird’s nest in the crape myrtle just outside my front door. Surely, it’s been there a while. I am hoping that it will be inhabited this spring.
An email I received from this blog has sparked my thinking. A young person asks about the significance of signs found in the natural world.
I was looking out from a bedroom window and saw some ravens. For some reason, I counted them, and there were nine. Again for some reason, I felt that this was
significant. I have just googled nine Ravens and found myself here. Is it
significant?
From my perspective, the significance of anything in our lives lies in what it inspires or motivates us to do, be, or think. If seeing nine ravens inspired someone to google and that person found inspiration in reading my web site, then it was significant for that person in that moment, and sparked me to think about this topic more and now write about it. So, now it has some impact on my life as well.
Many of us are constantly asking for a “sign.” How many times have I stood at the metaphysical crossroads and begged for a sign from the gods! Just give me a sign that which way to go. Give me a sign that the world is a beautiful and good place. Give me a sign that there is hope in the darkness.
These signs or messages are all around us, if you are in the right frame of mind and spirit, if we are open, if we really need a sign. Synchronicities do happen. For example, lately orange cats have been on my mind, or I should say I’ve been obsessed with them. The other night I was driving down a dark road and thought that I should turn my high beams on. Seconds later, an orange cat streaked across the road. I was able to see it in time to brake and avoid hitting it because I had my high beam lights on. Does this mean anything beyond I was able to save a kitty’s life? I don’t know, but I do know that I would have felt devastated to hit an orange kitty (or for that matter, any cat).
As the saying goes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But at other times, it can be a symbol for a penis, a token of respect, an offering to the orishas, a reminder of some long forgotten experience, or all of the above. Paying attention to the world around us allows messages from the Deeper Self (the divine part of our self) and Younger Self (the unconscious) to get through to our Talking Self (our conscious, waking self). Deeper self and Younger self take advantage of the synchronicities in the world around us and the mental and emotional connections that we already have built up to make themselves heard by Talking Self. A chance encounter with a stranger. Seeing different books about the same topic repeatedly in very different contexts. Noticing something odd in nature and googling it because it piqued your interest.
Sounds like a sign to me. But I have no idea what it means…
For my husband’s birthday, I made him a “universal manifestation box.”
The outside is painted in six colors representing the four classical elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, and the energies of the starry Heavens and deep Chaos. Each side has a sigil painted in gold. The interior of the box is painted black with the symbols for the Sun, Earth, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in silver.
The “universal manifestation box” is a representational model of the universe in microcosm. The exterior elements and internal planets are paired as polarizing opposites:
The box is magically charged in circle with all the energies of the universe brought to bear and set into the box. When not “active,” the box contains a piece of hematite to ground it. To use the box, one merely needs to place a symbol, picture, or written intention in the box, and activate it.
Woo-woo? Sure. But these kinds of things seem to work for me. So what could I do but offer the universe to the one I love?
The other night I had a lot on my mind as I tried to figure out how to react to a stressful situation in my life. I was trying to figure out what I should do, what was my responsibility, what was the right way for me to act in the world, how to best respond, what my goals were in the situation, etc. After several restless hours, I finally drifted to sleep.
In the morning, I awoke with a dream image — a handheld chalk slate that had been written and erased before the word TRUTH was scribed. I had to act as the truth of my core prompted, which for me is one of listening, witnessing, asking questions in such a way to make people reflect, connecting, and expressing what is of value of the heart of a situation.
Mine is not always the most active role, and it is often not a role of telling, but of listening and reflecting back to others, and of finding the places where extremes can find their balance, hopefully harmoniously. Sometimes I am successful; sometimes not.
On a side note: I’ve been very “Hod”ish in my studies recently. “Truth” on a chalk board seemed a fitting message.
