Diary - Flamekeeping

Days of Note: Flamekeeping, Fourth of July/"Independence Day"

Sun: cancer (cardinal water), 5:55 AM - 8:54 PM
Moon: waxing crescent, virgo (mutable earth)
Earth: hot and muggy most of the day, occasional shower, then about an hour before sunset, a huge storm with thunder, lightning and hail - now, after dark, fireworks


My flamekeeping shift is soon coming to an end. I've spent most of today working on my response post (first of three parts) to my experiences and observations at the Wild Goose Festival back at the end of June - and trying very hard to ignore what day it is. But how could I think She would let me ignore it.

A storm blew through about an hour ago, with thunder and massive rain that gave way to the pounding of hail (and for the first time, I had the strange experience of fearing for my garden, as though I could imagine myself responsible for the plump little lives that sprung from hard-shelled seeds I did barely more than drop into the soil and encourage with hopeful glances and some occasional weeding). Now the sky to the west is suffused with rose and gold as the storm blows east to lap against the mountains. Jeff had been wishing for a storm all day, in hopes the rain would wash out and ruin the planned Fourth of July fireworks displays. It seems we often have thunder storms during my flamekeeping shifts.

I don't celebrate days like today. I am not a member of the civil religion of this country (though I happened to be born an American citizen, I do not subscribe to Americanism or, as most would call it, patriotism). And because I believe that rituals have power - even when we don't mean them to or believe them to - I do not participate in community rituals that glorify war and violence, that celebrate death and destruction, that serve only to reinforce the boundaries between a righteous Us and an untrustworthy Them.

But because the civil religion is a religion (whether its followers believe it to be or not), I also try as much as I can not to spend my time actively berating those who do participate. It's hard. Very, very hard.

What's harder is seeing Pagans promoting concepts like "Pagan-American" and hailing the invented piece of propaganda known as "Columbia" (named for a man who committed atrocities gleefully against the indigenous peoples of this land and who was denounced even by people in his own time for doing so) as though she were a goddess. Columbia is no more a goddess than Coca-Cola is a god - and I mean that in all its is/isn't tension and complexity.

I can't feel that it's anything but reprehensible and cruel to celebrate a "goddess of the land of America" under the name of a man who tortured and killed so many of those who once lived here. On a day when we supposedly celebrate and honor those brave men (mostly men) who fought for our independence from Britain, do we give any thought to who else they fought - do we remember how Washington earned his promotions through his campaigns against the natives? do we remember that it was not only freedom from colonial rule, but the freedom to rule over an occupied, colonized land that was won? And to turn around and hail the name Columbia! I would retch if I weren't so close to tears.

And Brigid is a goddess of justice, a goddess of peace... but she is also Mother to Sorrow, who saw her son cut down in battle and keened her grief unchecked by shame, a sorrow so all-encompassing it could only be a testament to love. Of course, she would bring me back to thoughts of the Fourth of July when I would rather have ignored it, let it go unmarked and unremarked. Do I have her courage, to wail in public grief, to allow my sorrow and anger to be a testament and song to the greatness of love and hope?

I don't want to. I don't think I have the courage, not this year. I'm tired of being the punching-bag token pacifist. I have no friends or family who made it home from war, I have no claim to respect that would keep the ridicule in check. I can protest until I'm blue in the face - say that though I hate war, I do not hate soldiers, say that though I work for peace, I am not an ideologue or even an idealist - but no one listens.

Except Brigid. Maybe she listens. And this was what brought me to her service, I remember now. I'd read so many descriptions of her, none of which had really rung true. Then I read Lady Gregory writing about her face, how half of it was beautiful and full of light, and half of it was dark and deformed and terrible. And I thought, yes, this I recognize, this is my goddess. Brigid of the Ruined Eye. Brigid, Mother to Sorrow, Lover to Darkness - and yet, Lady of Light, Guardian of Peace. Praise to you.

As polytheists, do we not have the freedom to choose, to worship what gods we will? I will worship the Lady of Star Fire, the holy triple flame who burns ashless, who works in the darkness. I will worship her in her fullness, not only what is beautiful and poetic, but what is wretched and awful and ugly with grief and sadness. I will honor her for her courage, her willingness to be vulnerable before the world. How could I have forgotten this about you, Brigid? Help me to remember. Help me to work in that same service - not only poetry and beauty, but the hard work of justice, the dirty old work of weakness and transformation.

Meditations on Brigid: Goddess of Healing

Brigid, Goddess of Healing, I trust you completely in hoping you will forgive me for my fatigue tonight and my wish to retire to bed early. For now — what aspect of yourself do you wish to reveal to me for further contemplation and exploration during my dreams and in my waking hours this weekend?

Justice (XI): A symbol of balance, equilibrium and harmony, the scales balanced, the connections interweaving the inner and outer worlds, the conscious with the unconscious, are laid open to be weighed and reckoned. The sword of discernment and honest, objective analysis allows us to see ourselves in the light of truth, revealing our failures and flaws and enabling us to compensate for them, balance them (or perhaps seek forgiveness for them). The patterns of interconnection and choice lead us to this point, this moment of truth, when we see in the full light of day how our past actions have led to our current situation, and how these actions ripple outward to affect others.

Justice rests not in guilt and punishment, but in the true of relationship and balance. In this way, it becomes an expression of healing and harmony, the redress of wrongs to restore right relationship. Truth reveals the patterns of things, and critical analysis and a willingness to see ourselves from others' perspectives open to us the potential to heal old wounds and soften the scars of misunderstanding or poor judgement. Physical health, too, demands a kind of dispassionate justice towards our bodies, treating them with respect and care, seeking a harmonious and balanced relationship with the physical world not solely ruled by our cravings and desires.

Praise to you, Brigid, Goddess of Healing and Harmony, wise sword-bearer, blade sharpened with the breath of your truth and insight, cutting away the bonds of disease and imbalance that restrict and unbalance us. My gratitude for your beautiful, loving presence in my life.

Awen.