Diary - Depression

I am, as they say, in a bad way. I am not happy.

Which is not to say that I don't have moments of happiness - I do. There is still plenty of laughter and enjoyment in my life. There's an Ani DiFranco song (to quote from my personal canon) that goes:

i think i could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene

And that's pretty much it. Not a drippy string quartet of sadness, exactly, but the creeping tense eerie straining hum that transforms a normal shot of life as you'd expect into the quiet-before-the-storm in a horror movie. There is a constant stress underlying every moment, and I am sick to death of all of it.

~~~

Part of it is Emily. She is hellish. I am continually astounded by how awful she is, how heartless and cruel and manipulative, how intent she is on punishing Jeff for moving away. It would be enough if she would just content herself with legal machinations to keep him from seeing the kids, or even from being able to Skype them regularly (both of which she's doing to the best of her ability). But on top of that, she sends emails that are obviously and explicitly meant to suggest that somehow it is Jeff's fault, that he should feel guilty because she is incapable of organizing her life or controlling her schedule, that someone his refusal to capitulate to her every whim is a failure on his part. She says she's "very surprised" that he hasn't called the kids in the past week, but then when he tries to arrange for time to talk to them she says their schedules are just too busy and the most she can do is a regimented hour-long conversation during which she sets a timer to allow each of them only fifteen minutes. That she doesn't even have the competency or control to actually enforce these idiotic plans just makes it worse! We have to deal with her constant self-justifications and cruelty towards Jeff while all along knowing that she has very little control over her own life. She is utterly unreliable even when it comes to her own stupid demands. I almost wish she would enforce such a regiment - since it's much more likely that she will instead fall into a habit of signing onto Skype later and later, finding excuses why she can't stick to the pre-arranged schedule, until we'll end up with a situation like when she first agreed to bring the kids over on Saturday mornings, and soon began to sleep in and not get them to us until lunch time. At that point, Jeff just had to start driving out to pick them up himself. With a Skype call, that's just not an option, there is no way he can compensate for her failure. Her weakness and learned helplessness just makes the times when she lashes out all the more frustrating, because you know that it is from her own weakness and incompetency that she draws on that secret fear that she projects towards everyone else. She does not know how to be a functional human being. The only way she knows how to get her way is to become a dead weight that everyone else must carry, a dead weight spewing insane accusations and guilt like a vile phlegm that covers everything.

I am so tired of carrying that dead weight around. Jeff and I want the best for the kids, but we also want the best for us. I want him to be the good, loving, involved father that he so wants to be and that he always has been - but I can't see any way of staying involved with the kids lives without also being forced to have dealings with their parasitic, selfish, manipulative mother. There is no reason why being a father should be a miserable duty that precludes personal happiness. There is no reason why being a stepmother has to be that way, either. I am not upset that it is hard - I knew it would be difficult, as learning how to adapt to and handle complex family relationships always are. But I'm angry and frustrated that there seems to be absolutely nothing we can do to stay in touch with the kids that Emily won't use as a means to abuse and punish Jeff. She is, in the most literal sense of the metaphor, like a fucking antiChrist. Instead of a loving, merciful bridge to the divine Father, she is the vindictive, hateful gulf that we have to cross as our only way of connecting with the kids. Having to go through her is almost worse than not being able to see the kids at all. The whole relationship gets twisted and warped, bent to her selfishness, dragged down by the gravity of her dead weight.

And I'm angry - at myself, and at Jeff and me together - for not being strong enough to do something about it. I'm angry that we even have to deal with this at all, that we don't have the financial resources to fight it, that the lawyers we hired to be on our side just drained us of all our money but accomplished exactly nothing for us except wasting our time. I'm angry that there seems to be no good solution, that a single dead-weight woman could so effectively ruin Jeff's relationship with his kids, that we can't just scream her into submission and make her see just how terrible a person she is. But she probably knows, in any case. I can't imagine all this guilt-tripping and manipulation is because she actually likes herself.

I don't want to indulge in the part of me that is angry and wants nothing more to be violent towards her, to reduce her to dust and sniveling worms. I'm not going to deny that part of me, but I know that it won't do any good. I suppose part of me wants the power to do such a thing simply because it would give me the opportunity to be merciful. I want so much for us to be the better people - but what is that, what would that mean in this case? I can't see how it's right for us to accept all of her conditions and demands and then allow her incompetence to slowly erode away our time with the kids and our relationship with them. How will that help anyone? But then, fighting the good fight, leaving us miserable, frustrated, exhausted in every sense of the word, staining our relationship with the kids with the constant strain and stress of it all? How is that any good? What is the good thing to do here, the merciful thing? How can you be merciful and kind to a parasite, someone who has made herself a parasite by her own choice because she is too afraid and weak to be anything else? And how do you protect the kids and their dream of family? How do you salvage that ideal and preserve the heart of it, to sustain their hope and optimism in a scenario like this? How can you come out and tell them everything their mother is doing out of her own selfishness and smallness, without destroying the mother archetype for them, or the father archetype for that matter? (On the other hand, how could it be any worse than the way Emily is warping and twisting that archetype into one of supremely powerful helplessness, the manipulative passivity that she models for them on a daily basis?)

~~~

When you are out of options about how to move forward on the mundane plane, that's when you turn to magic. Rereading Dion Fortune's novel Moon Magic recently, that's what I was reminded of. Work things out on what she calls the "Inner Plane" - work things out on the level of imagination, thought, intention, will, inspiration, the place where we connect most directly and most deeply with the gods and with Spirit and with the Song of the World - and they will work themselves out on the physical level. I always believed that love will work its own way out. I want to believe that. But I am at a loss as to what to do magically to help this situation. I'm not sure what kind of work can be done. Calling on Emily's higher self or whathaveyou.... Doing some kind of banishing or binding..... I don't know what work needs to be done. I'm unclear about where the problem lies, and unclear about our intentions and how we can or should shape them.

I don't know what work needs to be done on myself, either, for that matter. To make me stronger, calmer, better able to handle the strain of this work. I want to believe this is like the crucible where I am being melted down to be refined, shaped into a sharper instrument, a better vessel for Spirit. But instead, it just feels like a coffin, a tomb, with the pressure of earth - all the material weight of the world and its fucked up practicality - bearing down on me so that I can hardly breathe. I need to find a creative way to overcome this, to push through this. Or maybe not push, even, but simply to get through it somehow.

I've been doing a lot of crying recently. Weirdly, that seems to help. Just allowing myself to grieve over this situation - the whole situation - and its injustice and cruelty and frustration. I feel blocked creatively, it's been so long since I had that Fire in the Head, that spark of inspiration. I sit down to write, and nothing comes but the same dull old rote, the same superficial rot that everyone writes. I have nothing to say. I am in no position to say anything at all. I'm broken down into silence and sorrow.

Anne Lamott says there are only two prayers really that we say in our heart of hearts: Help me! Help me! Help me! and Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

It feels like so long since I was able to pray with gratitude - all my prayers are just the grunts and groans of the beast of burden trudging along beneath the yoke, asking for some leniency, for a rest, for a burst of energy to get me through, for a better way. I am not happy, I am just surviving, getting by. I worry about myself - that I might be in the midst of a depression. I know I've been here before, when I just can't see the end to the work and the work itself seems pointless and not any good or help to anyone, and all I want is to die. Not literally, but to die to this old, feeble self that isn't any good for the task at hand. To find some release from the blockage, to become some slip of a thing, a ghost that can pass through to a new place.

But then I get angry that I am always having to die, that this is such a never-ending process of being remade, that I should always have to be facing some new obstacle or problem instead of settling down into a stable, steady life of happy productivity and contentment. I resent that there should always be this pressure on me, that I should always be expected to use all my strength. What if I want to put my strength towards some purpose that I choose, pursue something that I love or want. It feels as though I didn't choose this, though I guess there is the argument that actually I did, at least at some level. That I might be the one putting the pressure on myself, and that it might go away if only I would just stop.... just makes me angrier. I don't know how to simply stop, especially when there seems to be no good solution and passivity just seems likely to make things worse. I feel chained down, and yet there's that part of me that wonders - that worries - that the chains are as thin as a spider's silk that I could break in a heart beat if I wanted to.... so why don't I? I know about freedom - and the very moment when you realize you are free is the same moment you see that you have been free all along - so why don't I feel free? What level of consciousness am I pushing towards, here? And why isn't it enough to just stay where I am? I do not believe in this eternal progression or working towards salvation - so what exactly is the point of all this pointless struggling?

~~~

Last night, I was up until at least midnight. Jeff was snoring, so he slept in the den, and I spent a good deal of time crying and praying and blowing my nose and watching the cat adjust and readjust himself in the next of blankets at my feet. I prayed to Brigid and Manannan, asking for their help and guidance, asking them what I should do.

And the thing is, simply crying, allowing myself to sob, I sank deeper even than the constant strain of stress and frustration that has been weaving through my life these days - and there, underneath, was still that inexplicable and strange pulse of fierce joy. Somehow, even that deep, there was fierce joy. How could there be joy there, and if it is there, why can't I bring it through, bring it up to manifest in my everyday life and the lives of those I love? Why should such a fierce joy wallow like a dark puddle at the very bottom of a dank and collapsing well - why shouldn't it rise with all its power and strength to overwhelm the stupidity and stress of the every day and open the way, like a surging wave or wellspring or an all-consuming fire? Why should I have to sink so low to dip my hands into a small and muddy pool? It is not fair! Why shouldn't love and joy rise up to wash everything clean and clear away the debris? Why shouldn't it break up this heavy fog of confusion and pressure with sunlight burning off the mist of morning? I know it's there! What keeps it from rising up to manifest?

Is it me? Am I keeping it down? How could I be responsible for that, when I feel so helpless and impotent so much of the time? When I've been working so hard to clear the way and nothing seems to help? This fierce joy that lies like a vast ocean beneath and in all things - how could I be enough to block it, and why would I? I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do, or how I'm supposed to do it. I don't know what will help, and what will hinder. I don't know how to stop being a blockage and become a better vessel.

That's what I want to know.

DOTR Initiation - Questions & Answers

1. How do you affirm that we are a community of Druids walking personal paths, and your desire to be one of us?

The Druid Order of the Three Realms embraces concepts like integrity, respect, community, service and interdependence - all values that have been deeply embedded in my own spiritual path even before I learned to call it by the name of Druidry. The encouragement and support I've received from DOTR members, and from my mentor B— in particular, during my year as a DOTR Aspirant have been invaluable to me as I've worked to refine and expand my Druid practice beyond what I've learned as a member of OBOD and AODA in the past.

The Druid Order of the Three Realms also embodies a balance of community engagement and personal exploration in a nonhierarchical way that moves beyond the usual organizational models of modern Revival Druidry based on the old social fraternities, and I find myself very much in tune with this new approach that remains open to the changing reality for religious institutions in a (post-)postmodern world. I would be honored and proud to count myself a member of the Order, and I look forward to be an active and contributing member in the future!


2. How do you affirm a vital relationship with the Earth, our mother?

In my daily life I adopt a handful of "green"/eco-friendly practices, including a vegetarian diet of largely organic, locally-grown foods (recently promoted by the UN as the most effective lifestyle change a person can make to help reduce their impact on the planet). I also strive whenever possible to avoid using plastics and to reduce my energy consumption; my husband and I also started a composting program for our old apartment building (and happily, the apartment complex we're moving into in Seattle has a composting program already in place!).

I'm the founder, project manager and a contributing writer for the Pagan Newswire Collective blog project, No Unsacred Place: Earth and Nature in Pagan Traditions, where I coordinate essays, articles and news pieces promoting ecological awareness and environmentalism among Pagans and exploring the many ways that Druids, Witches and Pagans embrace nature spirituality in their diverse traditions. I also contribute to Aontacht Magazine as their new Wild Earth feature editor, and as a writer and blogger I share my experiences and contemplations about our sacred relationship with the Earth on my blog through poems, stories and personal reflections.

In my personal spiritual practice, relationship with the Earth and the natural local landscape holds a place of primary importance. While living in Pittsburgh, I made hillwalking in the nearby wooded nature preserve a regular part of my practice and often held personal rituals and meditations out doors (in all kinds of weather!). My altar and household shrines reflected the changing seasons of the local landscape and honored the plants, animals and other inhabitants sharing the land with me.

Now, moving to Seattle, I hope to continue making time outside connecting with the natural world a central part of my spiritual life. I've applied to volunteer with the local parks service as an amateur naturalist, for which I'll receive seasonal training about the ecology of the local bioregion(s) and then be able to pass on that learning to others through public and student-oriented educational programs and guided explorations of the many urban green spaces in the city. I might also have the chance to adopt a few acres of a nearby park as part of the forest restoration effort.


3. How do you celebrate the Sun and its sacred days both alone and together in the grove?

My husband, Jeff, and I have been celebrating each of the eight holy days (the four solar festivals and four Celtic fire festivals) together for the past few years, and we're often able to include Jeff's kids in the celebrations as well. Our celebrations are usually very simple, and include making offerings to the three realms of land, sea and sky, as well as singing songs and telling stories that resonate with the spiritual significance of the time of year. Usually for the summer and winter solstices, we rise before dawn and make our way to the local park where we climb the highest hill and greet the sun as it rises above the horizon (the kids' favorite song to sing on these occasions is They Might Be Giants' "Why Does the Sun Shine?"). This past year, Jeff and I planned our wedding to coincide with the autumnal equinox, in celebration of our relationship of balance between masculine and feminine, light and dark, day and night, activity and receptivity and the many other sacred dualities that go into forming a sacred marriage. (We were also very lucky to be able to include our families and friends in our Druid ceremony on the beach, on the threshold of the three realms, for which we feel especially blessed.)

On certain occasions, I will also hold personal observances of the holidays in a more formal ritual fashion (Jeff is not as keen on ritual). For these rituals, I usually build off of the DOTR outline and incorporate my own chants, prayers and meditative trance-work. This is the closest I'm able to come to participating in DOTR grove rituals as a long-distance member, but I hope that someday down the road I might be able to find others in the local area who want to work within the DOTR ritual model and hold in-person rituals together, too.


4. How do you hear the call to the inner life, and how are you weaving a wisdom that is both personal and communal?

It is mostly through my writing and my poetry that I engage with my inner life and explore the work of soul and spirit in their many different forms, but I also use meditation, trance-work and dreams to connect to this inner realm. Besides the DOTR Three Realms Working, I've developed a daily meditation of my own (Peace of the Three Realms) based on the Druid Prayer for Peace, that helps me to align with the energies of land, sea and sky as well as with the Druidic elements of nwyfre, gwyar and calas, and I've also begun to explore (although only a little) working with the Three Cauldrons from Celtic tradition. Through trance-work, I explore my inner landscapes with the guidance of Badger, my primary spirit/animal guide; and in dream, I seem practically unable to avoid bumping into Manannan every once in a while!

I also use divination to connect with my gods as well as my intuition/soul/subconscious (whatever you want to call it!). Mostly this is through tarot cards and occasionally other oracle card decks, but I plan to embark on a more serious study of the ogham as soon as I'm settled in Seattle!

I've also been studying astrology, and particularly the psychological approach to astrology best exemplified in the work of astrologers like Liz Greene and Stephen Arroyo, for the past year, complimented by a deeper exploration of Jungian archetypes and mythological patterns found in the works of Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade. This work has afforded me a great deal of insight into my own psyche and the patterns that underlie some of my approaches to life, the world and other people. I'm looking forward to exploring ways that I can utilize this insight and the framework established by astrological study to serve my community by understanding better what unique gifts I have to offer and maybe even by providing astrological counseling for others at some point. (I've started offering to do free natal chart readings online and have already had about two dozen clients!)


5. What special work have you taken on, for yourself, for others, for our community?

As I mentioned above, I've been exploring the possibility of providing astrological counseling as a service to the community in the near future. I've also worked as a writer and editor to help create opportunities for discussion and exploration in the Pagan community through articles, essays and blog posts focusing on our relationship with the Earth. On a few occasions, I've helped draft rituals or liturgies as a part of an online group celebrating together (these have mostly been through my work as a Flamekeeper with a Brighidine Cill, exploring Brighid's role as a solar and stellar goddess).

To be honest, since most of this work has been online in one way or another, I've sometimes struggled over the past year to remember to make any special spiritual/religious work a priority for myself as well as for others. It's been a challenge to take time to devote to my personal spiritual life and seek out work that benefits me even if it doesn't seem to have any greater benefits for the communities I belong to. I want to strive to do better at this in the future, to nurture the wellspring of my own personal spirituality as well as continue to be committed to my community/public work.


6. How do you find balance in the three: the sky, the earth and the sea? How are the Three Realms becoming a way of life for you?

The dynamic balance and relationship of the Three Realms informs my spirituality at the deepest level, and provides a flexible, adaptive context for all of my spiritual work. I begin every ritual or meditation session by attuning to the energies of the Three Realms and honoring the deities, the ancestors and the spirits of the land.

At times, my view of the Three Realms is of them as overlapping spheres: below, above and sacred center (or axis mundi), or the immanent, transcendent and the manifest worlds - which roughly correspond to sea, sky and land. At other times, particularly when I'm outside in natural landscapes performing rituals or sitting in meditation, I connect with the Three Realms much more immediately as the very real spaces that make up the local landscape - the winds, weather, sun and stars of the physical sky, the rolling hills and dense forests of the physical land, and the murmuring waves and rocking tides of the physical sea and the waters that run through the earth in rivers and streams. I try to hold these two understandings of the Three Realms - the literal and the theological - together as a kind of sacred paradox, instead of reducing one to the other. So I see in the sky the transcendent theological realm of the gods, and in the sea the immanent sacred waters of life of which all things are made... but I also see the physical sky and sea, too, in all their complexity and overlapping, interconnected relationship.

The expression of the Three Realms through the three Druidic elements of nwyfre, gwyar and calas has also given me a way of understanding the different processes and energies in the world and how they balance, interact with and give rise to each other. I understand nwyfre as force, energy and source; gwyar as flow, change and relationship; and calas as form, manifestation and natural limitation or boundaries. I see these as different from the traditional/classic four elements of earth, air, fire and water. While these four are more like "building blocks," the stuff that all things are made up of, the three Druidic elements of nwyfre, gwyar and calas are more like aspects or principles describing the basic, essentials ways that the four elements express and interact. The metaphor I've used before (and the best I've been able to come up with so far) is that the four classic elements of earth, air, fire and water are like the notes of a scale, and the elements of nwyfre, gwyar and calas describe the shape, progression and process of joining these individual notes into a melody.


7. Can you say that this path of the Druid is your path and that you wish to take it up as your practice for your life in this world?

Yes! Most definitely, whole-heartedly, a thousand times yes!

More on Reconstructionism as a Religious Methodology

Seren,

Thanks for your response! I was hoping someone with more "insider insight" would jump into the conversation. :) A lot of what you say makes sense and helps to put my impression of CR as an outsider to the community into some perspective. I think perhaps it's the lack of books written by CRs about what CRs "actually do," as you point out, that can sometimes leave those of us not immediately part of that community with the impression that a lot of CR is all talk and little actual living practice. (There's no reason why CR has to prove itself or make its practices available to people outside of the community, of course! I'm just saying that I wonder if that's one of the places where the confusion arises.)

I'm also interested in what the general principles for the CR approach are, exactly, and if there's somewhere where these are actually outlined and explored in detail. In the CR FAQ there are references here and there (usually when answering questions about who does or does not count as CR) to a community with a shared set of principles.... but I haven't been able to find a place where those principles are actually explained and clarified. You yourself mention how Rua's book "doesn't represent CR, and at times represents concepts and ideas that are antithetical to it." I haven't read the book, so it might be hard to answer this question: but I wonder if you'd be able to actually say what those concepts or ideas are that are antithetical to CR? Is it the methodology he uses, or the conclusions he comes to, or both?

The Fomorian issue is a good one of what I was talking about when I said that some of the criticisms seem to be theological rather than historical in nature. My own academic background is in comparative religious studies, and I've done field work that involved observation and interviews with people in various religious communities, as well as primary and secondary source research of historical traditions (for instance, I worked as a research assistant for a time with a professor studying the propagandist literature produced in Germany during the Protestant Reformation). In my experience in the field of comparative religious studies (and this may be different from the more historical/archeological approach), it is notoriously difficult to extrapolate theological concepts from cultural artifacts alone. Your review of Rua's book (thanks for the link!) goes into a bit more detail about why you think some of his conclusions are wrong and what evidence he doesn't take into account that you think he should have.... but it still seems to me that the question about whether or not the Fomorians are "evil"/adversarial or not is a theological question, and not something that can be definitively settled purely through academic examination of the remaining historical evidence. It may be that there were different opinions and approaches to that question even among the ancient Celts themselves. There is very often a distinction between the "official" view of a tradition's clergy or educated class, for instance, and that of the lay or working class, and in both cases some or even most of the evidence for these differences may be lost to time, with perhaps only the preserved "official" version or the wide-spread lay version surviving, or enough of both surviving as to leave us with only a vague and seemingly contradictory view. Sometimes the very same cultural artifacts (like sacred texts, ritual objects, designated sacred temples or spaces, etc.) were interpreted in vastly different ways by different members of the same religious community. And this makes drawing conclusions about the specific theologies of religious communities that are no longer accessible or able to speak for themselves often extremely difficult.

I'm inclined to agree with the idea that viewing the Fomorians as "evil" is a simplified and probably inaccurate view.... but that's in part because of my own contemporary liberal tendencies towards inclusivity and tolerance (you could even accuse me of being a bit P.C.) that makes the concept of "evil" in general distasteful and not very creditable to me. I'm completely willing to admit that I have no way of definitively proving if my ancestors held that same view, and they very well may not have. It is possible, after all, that even without taking all of the evidence into account, Rua may have inadvertently come to the correct conclusion. My impression is that the legacy of modern historical research is actually full of that kind of thing happening, while historians with very sound methodology can still end up with the conclusions that were in retrospect wrong or biased in some way.

Which again brings me back to the question of what exactly are the shared principles or approaches that CR uses? I've read through the CR FAQ and nothing there is all that different from the approach that I take - but clearly, I find my own balance of scholarly research, community feedback and personal interpretive and experiential engagement. (I am definitely not just haphazardly throwing together whatever bits and pieces I happen to like, which seems to be CR's biggest beef with non-reconstructionist folks.) To what extent, in your experience, does the CR criticism of non-CR approaches depend more on the conclusions that are reached than on the actual method of reaching them? I'm not so much saying that CR seems restrictive - but that it seems [i]selective[/i] in a very specific way. And I'm interested in what actually guides or informs that specific way of being selective.

(One example, for instance, is the very idea that the starting point is the question, "how did they [our ancestors] do it?" [i]Why[/i] is that the starting point? What assumptions about the the concept of authenticity itself underlie the belief that ancient cultural traditions are more authentic than modern ones, or that academic scholarship is more authentic than UPG? You have to start somewhere, sure, but I'm really curious about the reasons for starting there in particular. My guess is that trying to thoroughly answer that question will give more insight into the more subtle, less conscious ways in which CRs balance methodology, UPG and community-identity.)

Again, sorry this is so long! Thanks for indulging me with all my questions! :)

---

Sunflower,

Thanks for these links! I've now spent a good hour reading through a bunch of these old threads - with the result that I feel like maybe I'm being a bit redundant. ;) A lot of the points that Catja brings up really hit the nail on the head as far as what I'm trying to get at. I'm not at all a professional scholar like she is, but my experience in academia pretty much jives with her experience: that (a) modern scholarship thrives on "the gaps" which open up new possibilities for exploration and study, (b) a working, living religion will inevitably have to make certain leaps in order to overcome such gaps, and so (c) modern research is not the same process as reconstructing a religion, and you're going to run into contradictions and conflicts if you try to make them the same. Since my academic background is actually in the comparative study of religions, I tend to like to poke at "the gap" represented by point (c) in CR and other Recon communities because the scholar in me is like, "Oooh! Unexamined assumptions that guide the evolution of a unique religious community! Fetch me my research poking stick!" Which I guess can make me seem kind of obnoxious. :-/ But really it's just because I'm really fascinated by those questions and, regardless of what my own spiritual tradition is, I really enjoy finding out what other religious communities do and why.

Seren is taking the brunt of my questions right now, unfortunately, because I tend to bombard the people who will tolerate my questioning with demands that they explain all those other people who won't. ;) But like I said, I hope I'm not being too clumsy or hurtful in my enthusiasm.

---

Finn,

That may well be, and I definitely didn't mean to imply that CRs don't ever have authentic relationships with deities. I guess I was just saying that, for me personally anyway, it would be a real stumbling block to have to constantly worry about how my relationship with deity measured up against the expectations of the community and the standards of academic research, especially when both of those tend to be moving targets a lot of the time. Perhaps this is actually why CRs tend to be quieter and more careful about sharing their personal practice? And maybe a few folks (like Erynn Rowan Laurie, f'ex) being a bit bolder and willing to share would help mitigate the misconception and even alleviate some of that anxiety? It's a delicate subject, and very personal, though, so....


I think you're probably right about the role that the clergy (in this case, the Druids) played in establishing and maintaining a structured religious tradition in ancient Celtic societies - though, like I mentioned to Seren above, there is almost always also some discrepancies and differences of opinion between a community's educated class and its lay/working class. My point is more that, even with the Druids acting as a class of informed tradition-keepers who built up a collective body of practice and theology (or at least, theology to the extent that they did) - this is still very different from the way modern academics approach historical/scholarly research today. Very different. Sunflower's links to Catja's stuff above says it way better than I could, though, but that's basically my point.

---

Darkhawk,

I think this is a really good point - and that your footnote is also right on track. I think it's also important to remember, when striving to be "scholarly" in one's approach, that actual academics go through 3 - 7+ years of additional training and education above and beyond undergrad in order to be accepted members of the academic community. Much of that additional study is learning the processes (and limits) of the academic community itself. For that reason alone, academic work is not [i]really[/i] available to absolutely everyone - there is always going to be a lot of reliance by non-academics (even in, or especially in, Recon) on what academics are able to make available to the general public in ways that can be readily and widely understood, let alone practically applied to reconstructing a religion.

But depending too much on the divine inspiration of those who have a god-phone is a big problem, you're absolutely right. It's the other extreme that you can too easily swing towards. One of the original draws for me about Paganism was that it put a good deal of emphasis on making the tools available to anyone and everyone to kind of "build your own god-phone" (to overstretch the metaphor ;)) - in other words, to give you the tools and practices to help you cultivate a direct relationship with the divine for yourself. I'm of the belief that this is something anyone can do, and that there aren't just chosen individuals who have a better connection to the divine than others.... But it is, like academic work, something that requires a certain degree of training, practice and on-going commitment. For that reason, it doesn't [i]really[/i] avoid the same problem as the scholarly approach. There is the same caveat to divine inspiration as there is for academic work - in theory it can be available to anyone, but in practice not everyone will be willing or able to make the necessary commitment.



This is one reason that I really dislike the term "UPG" and how it's used, and tend to avoid using it myself if I can. I like to refer to a person's "interpretive and experiential engagement" instead. Why? Because there is really no such thing as an entirely individualized, private "UPG." All interpretations and experiences are interpretations or experiences [i]of[/i] something - and they are always influenced in one way or another by the socio-cultural contexts of the people having the experience or making the interpretation. That is why it is an interpretive or experiential [i]engagement[/i] - a person is engaging with something else, either a deity, a landscape, a human community, a cultural symbol, or some combination of these things or any number of others. An experience or interpretation might be more or less unique to that individual, but it is never entirely and purely solitary.

So the distinction between UPG as private or solitary, and academic/scholarly work as the primary corroborative approach to developing a shared community understanding is, I think, a false one. There are many, many ways in which communities can build a shared spiritual tradition that does not rely on or borrow from the methods and processes of academia. I bristle a bit when Recons/CRs talk about UPG as though it were entirely private and solitary in distinction from the community approach of academic scholarship. To me, this seems to ignore the fact that an individual's interpretive framework of their experiences is always going to be shaped by their membership in one or more communities, and so the way they integrate and understand these moments of personal "gnosis," inspiration or imagination cannot be entirely separated from the cultural or communal contexts they belong to.

Rather, I think it's more likely that those moments designated as "UPG" just tend to be more deeply influenced by modern culture than by the ancient pre-Christian cultures that the Recons/CRs are striving to reconstruct. When a person has a sudden inspiration about how modern physics and Jungian psychology (both modern, scientifically-grounded theories)might work together to explain a dream they had recently, it's called UPG. When a person has a sudden insight into how the connection between two pieces of archeological evidence help to explain the meaning of some ancient text (which may itself have been a poem or dream recorded by some long-dead priest), it's called research. The difference is in the relative value that the Recon/CR community places on the cultural artifacts and perspectives involved.

That said, I don't have much experience with non-CR Recons, and only a little bit of experience of CR at that. But I totally agree that CRs, IMLE, tend to be the most UPG/mysticism-friendly of the Recon communities.

Authority and Relationship in CR

Part of my reply to a conversation on TC about different Celtic traditions:

I guess that's where I start to feel uncomfortable with CR. My understanding is that folks in CR approach Celtic Reconstructionism as first and foremost based upon academic/scholarly work, turning to UPG only to "fill in the gaps" that scholarship can't. This reminds me a lot of the "god of the gaps" approach to monotheism that has caused so much trouble among modern Abrahamic religions when faced with the conflicting authority of "inspired" sacred texts and scientific knowledge - except in this case, CR comes down firmly on the other side of that divide. What's ironic is that in both cases, each religious community comes down in favor of external authority. The CR approach says it is better to trust the external authority of careful and objective scholarship and research than the personal interpretive and experiential engagement that they call "UPG" - and the literalist/fundamentalist monotheists say it is better to trust the external authority of ancient sacred texts as the "word of God" than the attempts of science and scholarship as merely human (and therefore flawed) endeavors to discover truth. But in both cases, the emphasis is on finding a trustworthy external authority (the only difference is how "trustworthy" and "external" are defined).

Maybe it's my own streak of stubbornness - but I'm not keen on religions that emphasize external authority over personal relationship. I much prefer spiritual traditions that emphasize the difficult but necessary work of balancing and, when possible, reconciling the two. One consequence of the CR approach, for instance, is that while it tends to emphasize a "hard polytheism" that views the gods as real, distinct beings - it also undermines the CR practitioner's ability to engage authentically with them in the present, since he or she is expected to ignore or at least distrust any insight about or experience of them that contradicts the external authority of current academic scholarship. To me, that seems a bit like trying to be friends with someone while constantly comparing what they say and do against their high school report cards and SAT scores. Sure, that kind of information can give you insight into who they were and who they've become (and it provides an "objective," standardized measure that I guess would be helpful in catching a perpetrator of identity theft), but it seems an odd way to try to cultivate a relationship in the here and now. And what's especially weird to me is that the ancient Celts did not even have a concept of "objective scholarly research" - so the very attitude that such research should take precedence over "UPG" is pretty much by definition not part of the worldview of ancient Celtic tradition.

I think CR folks would respond (and have responded) that Celtic Reconstructionism is inherently a modern phenomenon and so obviously it will be influenced and shaped by the knowledge and culture of modern Western society. That's great, as far as it goes, but it's basically another way of saying that they feel comfortable picking and choosing the ways in which they strive to emulate ancient Celtic cultures. That's something we all have to do, in the end, if we want to have any kind of Celtic-inspired spiritual practice today. It's the unspoken, unacknowledged assumptions that underlie the process of picking and choosing that make me uncomfortable.

Shared Insights into Brighid's Stellar Aspects

Something I shared just now over on TC's LotS group:

In November 2010, a bunch of us over on the old Cauldron forum had a moment of what might be called "unverified shared gnosis" about the stellar aspects of Brighid - when our individual UPGs seemed to converge on a shared understanding that, though common among us, was not necessarily reflected in the traditional lore and mythology about Brighid.

I've been thinking more about this phenomenon recently, and how it might be part the evolution of the gods in mutual relationship with our own growing scientific and technological understanding of the natural world. I'm no expert on comparative mythology, but I don't really know of any ancient deities that were both solar and stellar in nature, or any ancient cultures that believed that the stars were actually suns like ours that were small because they were so far away (if there were any, I think they were probably pretty rare at least). Now with our scientific understanding of the relationship between our sun and the stars in the night sky, it makes sense to me that a solar/fire goddess like Brighid would have a latent stellar aspect that might be coming to the surface in light (pun intended!) of our expanding knowledge.

So I like to keep my eyes open for other examples of this emerging understanding of Brighid as a stellar goddess. And I thought here might be a good place to for all of us to share any examples that we come across.

One that I found just today, in fact, was in the book The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality by Jason Kirkey. In one section, he's telling a story about a time in his life when he was "apprenticed to winter" and struggling with a certain spiritual aimlessness, when he decided to go out walking among the hills of Ireland. Lost in a thick mist, he felt the spiritual winter melting away and Brighid's warm presence prompting him to joyous laughter. As he began to make for home, he realized he'd been completely turned around and didn't know which direction to head in to get back to the harbor village where he was staying - when suddenly, despite it being three in the afternoon, a single star appeared in the mist as a guiding light. He set off in that direction, making his way down the hill - and the star grew brighter and brighter as he neared. He writes (emphasis mine):

The impossibility of the moment was weighing on me. How could there be a single star shining so bright through the mist in the afternoon? At any moment, I expected to reach the star, now a vaginal opening of light through the mist, and be born back into the world. A wind blew suddenly. The mist thinned. Briefly I glimpsed a world which was foreign to me, inhabited by streets, cars, and fishing boats. In Ireland people tell stories of glimpsing the faery people and their paradisiacal world. I felt like running back to the stones to tell them my tale of glimpsing a human world full of both beauty and confusion. My star was the sun reflecting off the harbor. So disoriented, my perception within the mist had dissolved all heights and depths within each other; externally and internally. Here there was unity between Heaven and Earth.

He describes this event as occurring in early February right around Imbolc, but of having a feel about it that reminded him strongly of a solstice, so much so that he intuitively thought of the star leading the wise men in the Christian story of Jesus' birth.

This passage struck me so strongly for a couple of reasons:

- First, only a few days ago, I led a Druidic solstice ritual for my family (husband, stepkids, parents and brother, nine of us in total) in which we honored both Jesus as a deity of the newborn sun and Brighid as a stellar goddess. In Irish folklore, St. Brigid is known as the "midwife of Christ" and during our meditation and candle-lighting ceremony I used the story of the star guiding the wise men to tie into the idea of Brighid as a stellar goddess and creatrix helping to "give birth" to our most intimate star, the sun. That only a few days later I should read a passage in a book linking Brighid the goddess not just to Imbolc but to the winter solstice through exactly the same story was pretty powerful.

- Second, the very fact that after describing his sense of Brighid's presence, Kirkey goes on to describe a profound experience of being guided by a star.... a star that, in fact, turns out to be the sun! And not just the sun, but the sun reflected in water! Ummm..... Fire In Water anyone? This experience of disorientation where distance blends "up" and "down" until they are indistinguishable and a reflection below can seem like a star from above is something I myself experienced earlier this fall while on my honeymoon - traveling through the flat desert of Utah at sunset, gazing westward it seemed to me that I was not looking up into a rose-gold sky, but looking down from a great height out onto a strange sea whose waters were illuminated by the golden light of the setting sun, with the dark shapes of clouds scattered like islands in that water. So again, there's this blending of fire and water in connection with the sun. In my case, this was just before our first night of camping out beneath the stars in a national park that's considered one of the best star-gazing sites in the country.

What's interesting is that, even though he mentions Brighid only a paragraph earlier and in the context of this same story, Kirkey doesn't himself make any explicit connection between her presence and the sudden appearance of the sun-[i]qua[/i]-star. It's not as though he's intentionally trying to make that connection with his story - but the relationship seems almost inescapably obvious considering some of the Unverified Shared Gnosis of this group.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this, or if anyone else has come across examples of this kind of unexpected shared gnosis in other places!

Calendar of Saturn Transits

For the full version, click below the fold.

Brighid and Otherworld Goddesses

Soliwo left a message in the Meadowsweet Commons asking a bit more about Brighid in her dark aspect, and possible connections with Persephone. Below is what I wrote in response:

Soliwo, It's good to hear from you!

And what a wonderful synchronicity that you've shared about Persephone! A couple weeks ago, I received a new DSLR camera as an early solstice present, and one of my first projects with it was experimenting in low light conditions to test the limits of its settings and sensor quality. Inspired by some of photographs I'd seen recently and an impulse purchase of a pomegranate at Whole Foods - I decided to do a series inspired by Persephone's story! I've shared the results here if you want to see them. :)

It's interesting, because I don't really have a relationship with Persephone at all. Maybe it's because of being woefully over-educated in the Greek myths when I was younger, but for me the Greek deities have that same "abstract" feeling as you describe feeling towards the Celtic gods. For a long time, I felt that abstraction about the Celtic gods, too, and it was only after shifting my perspective that I realized maybe there was a different way of approaching Celtic gods than Greek ones.... if that makes any sense. I'm still exploring, so I'm not sure I can go into detail about what that difference might be, but in my experience the Celtic deities are much more like complex, multi-faceted people with overlapping roles and relationships (and all of them very closely tied into the natural world), whereas the Greek deities seem more like personifications of cultural movements, forces or aspects (and more "civilized" or urban than wild or connected to the wilderness).

I think the gods, like ordinary people, are influenced by the cultures they belong to and the landscapes they inhabit. And like people, they can also change and adapt over time. It's good to be wary of cultural (mis)appropriation, but I wouldn't worry too much about eclecticism and syncretism. We have lots of evidence that this kind of cultural blending and exchange was going on all the time in the ancient world. Heck, half of the archeological evidence we have for the Celtic deities comes from the Romano-Celtic period when the Romans began writing things down and carving human-looking statues of gods that had once resided only in abstract designs and natural earth formations. (And the other half comes from the lingering folk traditions and reinterpretations of Celtic Christianity!) In my experience, striving too hard for some kind of purity in adhering to the "original" beliefs and practices of our ancestors can be unhelpful and even stifling for our spiritual relationships.

So I guess part of my advice at this point - if you're looking for advice! - would be to explore widely and pay attention to how you feel when you're trying to connect with the gods. You're bringing your own modern cultural assumptions and patterns to whatever relationship you have with them, and they have their own cultural foundations as well. How those cultural patterns interact will shape your relationship with them. And some of it will be on an intuitive or subconscious level. When I first started studying Celtic mythology and culture, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of unfamiliar, unpronounceable names and nonsensical stories. It felt like I was dialing an old phone number given to me by a friend of a friend, and only getting the dial tone of a disconnected line. But I kept reading and exploring, and letting my subconscious work its way through all the information and start making those connections. I paid close attention to when I felt closest to the gods, and could see how important ritual and physical interactions were for me. (F'ex, physically cutting into and handling a pomegranate down in the dank atmosphere of the basement brought home to me the personality of Persephone more than any story about her I'd ever heard.) After years of that kind of exploration, slowly the Celtic culture began to feel more and more like a natural place to be. Instead of drowning in unfamiliar waters, I was swimming like a fish! :) That's when the gods stopped being abstractions for me - though there are still times when I feel distant or disconnected from them.

So.... you asked about Brighid as a possible Underworld goddess. This is one of those times when the answer is a bit complicated because Greek and Celtic cultures are different. The Celts didn't exactly have an idea of an "Underworld" in the same way the Greeks did. For one thing, the Celts believed firmly in reincarnation - either into this same world, or into a paradisiacal otherworld often referred to as a Land of Summer, Land of Youth or Island of Apples. There were gods associated with this Summerland, but the ones I know of are male (for instance, Manannan mac Lir, god of the sea). Also, the Celts didn't just have one Otherworld, though you can generally refer to all of the other worlds collectively by the singular term. The Otherworld for the Celts wasn't above (like a heaven) or below (like an Underworld) but right here, just on the other side of our reality, separated only by a thin veil or mist. It was the realm of the Sidhe or the Faery folk - but who they are is also a complicated thing: some think of them as gods, some as the beloved dead, some as (fallen) angels (a Celtic Christian concept). My impression is that the Celts weren't very keen on clear-cut hierarchies, so trying to delineate deities from Sidhe from the dead isn't always easy.

Okay, so - could Brighid be associated with the Underworld/Otherworld? Yes and no. She is definitely a goddess of the threshold and the liminal spaces, like you said, and she has that connection (through marriage to Bres) with the "darker" forces of chaos and wilderness. As a member of the Tuatha de Danann, she is also one of those who withdrew into the Sidhe (burial) mounds when the Milesians came and conquered Ireland. On the other hand, she has tended to be associated more with the light, order and structures of culture and civilization (for instance, through her ties to poetry, healing and smithcraft, which all held important cultural significance in Celtic society), rather than with the wilder, darker aspects of death and dying. In my relationship with her, even in her darker aspect she has a deep connection with the stars, points of light in the darkness that give guidance and direction, and that spin through the emptiness of space in a fairly orderly fashion. ;) So I think that Brighid could definitely help you work with Underworld/Otherworld relationships and aspects of your spirituality - but she'll bring a particular perspective and energy to that work that will be different from Persephone or some of the other Celtic deities. Does that make sense?

If you want to explore some Celtic gods and goddesses that might have more obvious ties to the Underworld/Otherworld, there are a couple I can recommend.

- Caer Ibormeith. She is a Sidhe who transforms from a
maiden into a swan every other Samhain and back again on the next. The swan - as a water fowl - has connections to the three realms of land, sea and sky and is thus considered a particularly powerful Otherworld animal who can pass between the worlds. Caer Ibormeith's name means "yew berry." The yew tree has many associations with death and resurrection, and the seed of the yew berry is poisonous to human beings (another connection between death (poison) and new life (the seed)). Samhain, obviously, has connections with death and the beloved dead, and as a Sidhe Caer Ibormeith occupies that ambiguous place between the gods and the dead. I worked with her for a while several years ago, and through my relationship with her eventually came to my relationship with Brighid. (Some of the shared UPG of some folks I've talked with online point to the possibility that the swan is also a sacred animal of Brighid's, and so Caer Ibormeith and Brighid might share a closer relationship or even be two aspects of a single goddess.)

- Rhiannon. In Welsh mythology, Rhiannon is a Sidhe Queen who marries Pwyll (and later, after Pwyll's death, remarries with Manawydan fab Llyr, the Welsh deity who is similar to and/or the same as Manannan mac Lir). Before meeting Rhiannon, Pwyll has his own adventures, including switching places with Arawn, the King of Annwn, in order to defeat Arawn's enemy. Annwn is the closest you'll probably get in Welsh mythology to the concept of an Underworld - it is characterized as a land of the dead, though a paradisiacal one of eternal summer and youth. By switching places with Arawn and defeating his enemy, Pwyll earns the title "King of Annwn" for himself. One of his trials during this adventure is to resist the seduction of Arawn's wife (who mistakenly believes Pwyll is Arawn) - there is some suggestion in the mythology that Rhiannon is actually this same Sidhe Queen who was married to Arawn, though it's not clear. In either case, when she weds Pwyll, Rhiannon is effectively marrying the King of the Dead, as well as having connections to the Otherworld in her own right through her lineage as a Sidhe. Later as a widow, she marries Manawydan who is the only one to return from a war with the Irish - Manawydan, like his Irish counterpart Manannan, also has ties to the Land of Eternal Youth and so can also be thought of as an Otherworld "King of the Dead" type of figure. Rhiannon herself also has connections to death and rebirth/renewal, f'ex in the story of how her son is stolen from her as a baby and she is framed for his death.


I mention both of these because I've worked with both of them (though not as closely as with Brighid), and they both seem to me to have that same kind of quality as Persephone - being maidens or queens who are in relationship with "the dark" and death, but who are also able to cross the thresholds between the worlds. If you want to know more about Caer Ibormeith, I've written a short story inspired by her, and you might also want to explore a bit into the story of Aengus Og and his relationship with her. For Rhiannon, you might really enjoy reading the novel by Evangeline Walton based on the Welsh myth: it's called Prince of Annwn and it's the first book of her quartet based on the Mabinogion.

I hope some of this has been helpful and isn't too overwhelming! Make sure to come back and let me know how you're doing and what you're exploring - I'd love to hear!

Pomegranate Still Life

Inspired by some of the photographs shared to the Pagan Newswire Collective's Flickr page — and the fact that I just got a new DSLR camera and I wanted to test its limits with low lighting and such — I did a series of still life photographs inspired by the story of Persephone. Here are some of them:

Saturn Return: Weekly Meditation (Crossing Ascendent)

Days of Note: Saturn crosses Ascendent

Sun: sagittarius (mutable fire), 7:26 AM - 4:54 PM
Moon: *waxing gibbous, aries (cardinal fire)
Earth: cold, in the mid-to-low 40s most of the day, starting out quite sunny but then fading to gray, cloudy weather; not that I would know, as I spent pretty much all day inside working on various things, but mostly writing


Last night I had a dream that my aunt Tricia, who works from home as a baker of wonderful homemade cakes, cookies and pies, etc., had decided that she wanted to quit baking and go into taxidermy. (Apparently, this dream was probably inspired by a scene from an episode of X-Files that Jeff and I watched together last night, which I was only half paying attention to at the time and must have gotten into my subconscious.) Anyway, in the dream, my aunt decided she really wanted to be a taxidermist, she was fascinated by it. But the only tools she knew how to use were things like blenders and egg beaters. I have some vague visual impression in my mind of some poor animal carcass being tamped down into the thin, tapering container of a blender, the lid fitted on nicely and the switch flipped, resulting in that lovely whirring and the spinning of blood and bone and fur and bits all into a uniform pinkish paste.

This might not have anything to do with anything, but I thought I would jot it down.

I started writing this journal entry at 11:11 PM, though I doubt I'll be finished with it until what is technically Sunday morning. I'm wide awake and not feeling the least bit tired - which is indicative of my sleep schedule these days, where sometimes I feel so lethargic I can't pull myself out of bed before 10 AM, and other days I'm awake before dawn (which, as dark as the days are, isn't really that hard anyway) with plenty of energy to spare. This morning, I woke up at around 5 AM and tossed and turned a bit before finally giving up and getting up entirely at about 6:30 AM. Jeff had to leave to get the kids, and I fell back asleep for another few hours, so I suppose it all evened out. We'll see how I am tomorrow morning. (Jeff, who slept downstairs on the futon because he'd been snoring a lot lately, hardly slept at all last night because of various worries about this weekend, so now he's excused and sound asleep despite me still being awake.)

I hadn't planned to do much work today - or rather, I'd planned to at least try to clean and organize the basement some in preparation for our up-coming move. But two of the four kids were sick with some kind of stomach bug (which had them on a bland diet of food, though neither of them really acted all that sick - it was a nice excuse for everyone to stay quiet and relaxed in bed reading or drawing for much of the day), so thoughts of trying to organize some kind of cleaning extravaganza were out. At one point I sat down to check out John's recent post on No Unsacred Place, which was excellent as usual, and that was the kick in the ass I needed to sit down and work on the piece I'd wanted to do for this coming week about the recent news coming out of the science journals about LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, being a single, planet-sized mega-organism very similar to a "living ocean" of genetic soup. A pretty cool concept. So I spent all day researching various creation myths from different cultures and drawing comparisons between these and the scientific evidence they have for LUCA, pointing out some of the common themes of primordial chaotic waters, a moment when separation and individuation begins to occur, and the idea of a god being dismembered and the parts of his (or her) corpse being used to actually make the world.

So even though I didn't have any time really to do some formal Saturn Return meditation as I'd planned, I ended up doing quite a bit of contemplation on some of those primordial ancient themes about dissolution, death, separation, limitation and the power of form. Some of the Greek myths actually involve Kronos/Saturn himself, so... there's that.

I find myself really connecting to this idea of a common genetic ancestor in the ancient primordial oceans as a living being that is both an ancestor and a god(dess). This just really jives for me. It works well with my more animistic sensibilities which can sometimes shy away from being overly metaphorical or psychological about the gods and would rather rejoice in and celebrate the Actual Sun Right There See There It Is than in some idea of a sun deity in the abstract. On the other hand, though, it also gives some context to Manannan as a "son of the sea" without having to bear the burden of being the literal sea itself. Manannan mac LUCA, perhaps. Manannan has continued to be an important god to me, and I think I've reconciled myself to just him and Brighid for the time being as a working pair who play nicely together. Manannan is a god of the threshold, the liminal space of the mists, the psychopomp who leads the dead into the other realm, the trickster who will turn things upside-down just for the sake of teasing and challenging. I think there are definitely some parallels here between Manannan (and Manawydan from Welsh mythology) and the figure of Saturn. And strangely enough, while I think of Saturn primarily as a planet and, after that, as some kind of psychological archetype and energetic influence, I find it a lot easier to think of Manannan as an actual god, personified, and able to help me with the Saturn Return. I have no sense that he is Kronos/Saturn, any more than Jeff is, say, Commander Samuel Vimes. But the "real" god Manannan has some understanding of the character/nature/influence of the psychological archetype of Saturn and can give me some insight - like we can have a discussion about it and share our perspectives, in the same way Jeff and I can talk about the characters in Pratchett's books and he can give me insight into what it's like to be a father, something I wouldn't know as much about.

One thing that I was reflecting on just now while I was reading and trying to fall asleep was the nature of Saturn's recent transit through my twelfth house in Libra, the sign and house of my natal moon. I think it was Arroyo who said that Saturn can have a lasting influence when passing through the sign and house of the moon, even when it's not in exact or close aspect to the moon itself. I don't remember precisely when transiting Saturn was exactly conjunct my natal moon, but I do know that the moon is associated with a lot of "mommy issues" - coming to terms with the mother's influence in the family and the inner archetype of the mother in the psyche, as well as grappling with ancestral influences of all kinds that have been "inherited" on the psychic or psychological level. With my moon in Libra, I wonder if I have a particular sensitivity to concepts of fairness, justice, balance and beauty being manifested in the role of the mother - whether by myself or by other "mothers" in my life.

Saturn has been transiting my twelfth house for about two years now, I think. It's soon to cross my ascendent and enter my first house. In fact, looking up my chart just now (at 11:48 PM on Saturday, December 3) I see that transiting Saturn is within 13 minutes of my ascendent and the cusp of my first house. So... maybe that's why I'm suddenly feeling a certain amount of energy and clarity around these issues.

Anyway, as I was lying in bed I suddenly saw all the various ways in which the energy and influence of the mother had been manifesting in my life in ways that provoked my anger or frustration over a sense of violated fairness or justice - in particular in my relationship with Jeff's ex-wife and biological mother to my stepchildren, who has consistently attempted to act in the role of controlling "Mama Bear" figure to both me and Jeff as well as the kids. It hit me that I had been grappling with two issues that were often put at odds with one another.

On the one hand, I wanted things to be Fair - both in the sense of being just and balanced, and also beautiful and harmonious. This led me to a lot of conflict on Jeff's behalf when I felt that his rights as a father were being trampled on or ignored, when he didn't get "his fair share" of time with the kids (even when him having more time with them, and the struggle to get and keep that time that was often involved, left both of us feeling worn out, exhausted and stressed). I also made a lot of judgements - emotionally and ethically - about Emily choosing to stay home and be a "mom," even going on to have another child with her new husband, instead of stepping up to be an "equal partner" in both the divorce (by pulling her weight with joint debt from the previous marriage) and in her own new marriage (which, I will be the first to admit, is none of my business, though I sure do have opinions about it). This judgement - and I won't say it was judgmental necessarily, but it was a judgement, certainly - often had me worrying about the kind of example she was setting for the kids, and my own response was to push back - to balance out her example by becoming even more ambitious (Saturn!) in my own role not as a stepmom but as a "career woman" and female adult role model to the kids. This was me pushing back against the figure of the mother - both in external form and my own potential role - and seeking instead another kind of authority. That has Saturn's influence written all over it.

On the other hand, I also had already learned the lesson - which Saturn had helped teach me before - that to find a harmonious balance it is often important to let go, to release certain emotional blockages or stubborn opinions and to give up being the kind of person who has to control every little thing to make sure it all comes out alright. This was a lesson that I actually learned from my own mother, by bad example. Seeking too much control in a world that is by its very nature so much bigger and more complex than you could ever possibly understand is the very recipe for out of control stress and paranoia. This is what happened to my mother to some extent (though I have to admit that in recent years, perhaps because of the change in her career and my brother and I no longer living at home, she does seem to be improving on this in small ways). The whole thing was, in fact, a lesson all about boundaries and limits (hello again, Saturn old friend!), learning to understand the extent of your own control and when not to push beyond them but instead accept them and trust in the greater harmonies of the universe (there's Saturn, straddling that liminal space between the concrete manifestations of the inner planets and the influences of fate and cosmic force of the outer planets). This was a lesson I knew very well, and something that I continued to affirm to myself consciously. But I was completely piss-poor at actually following through and listening to my own better judgement.

So here were two urges that were definitely working at odds to one another. The urge on the one hand to make sure things were fair and just and balanced - and the desire on the other hand not to become like my own mother and like Jeff's ex-wife, both of whom were excellent examples of the immaturity and stress that characterizes a "control freak" who uses their good intentions to justify their paranoid manipulations and micro-management of everyone around them (essentially being a "mother" to everyone and not being able to trust others to do what's fair or harmonious on their own). Confronted with the glaring evidence that Jeff's ex-wife had no interest in being fair - I think mainly simply because she was incapable of stepping outside of her own perspective in order to see how what she wanted was unfair - it was an incredible challenge for me not to respond by trying to control her.

My response, and something I had to work on with Jeff a lot, was a process of affirming our personal boundaries. It took a lot of push-back and a great deal of stress and hard work every time we were confronted with Emily's tendency to act entitled to private information about our lives that were none of her business or to bombard Jeff with unsolicited emails full of advice about issues of which she had little to no actual knowledge. We worked hard, as a couple and equal partners in the matter, to help each cope with that stress and reaffirm our right to establish clear, healthy boundaries. But mostly, it sucked. I've been getting down on myself a lot over the past couple years about my feelings of having failed at this work, or at least of having responded in ways that were not helpful or healthy. And definitely there were times when our attempts to establish strong boundaries crossed the line into an attempt to control or compensate for Emily's disrespectful or manipulative behavior. But looking back now, I actually feel like we did an okay job. One recent change came about when I broke down and asked some folks on an internet forum if they had any resources that might help. One person responded and pointed me to the "Ten Commandments for Low-Contact Parallel Parenting with High-Drama Ex's." (The idea of having a short, authoritative list of simple rules to follow.... yeah, Saturn, you bet.) Jeff and I read this over, saw a lot of ways that we were already following the techniques suggested and a lot of other places where we could improve. So we started following the rules, and we sent a copy of them to Emily asking her to abide by them as well. (This was after we caught her in a bald-faced lie about one of the kids' health issues, which for us was the final straw and, in some ways, a relief that her manipulation could no longer be denied or explained away.... though of course, that didn't stop her from trying.)

That was about two months ago now, I think. Today, Jeremy confronted Jeff when he went to pick up the kids to let him know that two of them weren't feeling well - and for good measure threw in his own two cents about how "this silent treatment isn't having the effect we [Jeff and I] were hoping it would have." The comment had Jeff fuming when he got home, but he and I talked about it and were able to laugh off the continued arrogance and immaturity. I pointed out to him that our stress has definitely gone down and we don't waste nearly as much time in pointless conflict with Emily; meanwhile, we have more energy when we do have the kids and less anxiety over every little issue that might somehow make its way back to us, so our time with them is more enjoyable than it was before. Whatever Jeremy and Emily think, the technique is most definitely doing what we'd hoped it would do on our end. Jeremy simply declaring that it wasn't working - without asking Jeff's feelings on the matter - was just one more example of why the Low-Contact Parenting techniques were a good idea after all.

One of the things that I think was most helpful about the Low-Contact Parenting was that it helped us to recognize when we were crossing the line from "affirming healthy boundaries" to "pushing back and trying to control others." With rules that restrict our email use to only short messages pertaining specifically to the kids themselves and that avoid intentionally provocative language, for instance, we're forced to catch ourselves before we shoot off that obnoxious letter that we secretly hope will smack Emily back into her place and divest her of any delusions she has about our opinion. The rules work because they ask us to turn a critical eye back onto our own behavior and to recognize when we're demanding something that we should probably just not expect given what is and is not within our reasonable ability to control. These rules give us a structure whereby we can learn how to find a balance between our sense of fairness and our need to appreciate our limits. (And I'm using "we" a lot here because it's something Jeff and I have mostly worked on together, but in many ways this is a lot about my own issues.) But all of this only came after we had done the difficult work of establishing boundaries that could safely secure at least a minimum amount of real fairness and equality between Jeff and his ex when it came to the kids - including giving us the legal ground to stand on in order to negotiate for a fair and workable schedule for child custody after our move. If we hadn't done that necessary work of pushing back and establishing boundaries first - especially in Jeff's case, I think - we would have been in a position where an attitude of "it's out of our control" would have left us open to manipulation, exploitation and a certain amount of guilt.

So here I was being hard on myself about how we handled it when, looking back, maybe we did pretty much the best we could given the circumstances. We weren't perfect, but I think we've found some long-term sustainable ways to find that necessary balance and we were able to bring our more unseemly responses into check before they got out of hand and went too far. At least, right now I'm feeling hopeful and optimistic and so that's my present understanding of the situation. I'd love to hear what Jeff thinks of all of this. (He's asleep now - maybe I'll have a chance to talk to him tomorrow about it at some point.) I'm sure his perspective will be a bit different, considering the influences going on in his own chart right now. And maybe I'm completely wrong about this - I'm kind of making it up as I go, really, and he knows more about astrology than I do.

In any case, what began as a day spent contemplating the "primordial mother ocean" has ended up with some pretty startling thoughts about the energies of the moon-as-mother in relation to my Saturn Return. Perhaps leaving the twelfth house and crossing the ascendent means that these issues are be resolved, maybe "coming to light" in a more conscious way now that I'm moving out of the house of mystery and mysticism. I don't know. I hope so. I think it must be a good sign that I just happen to be awake and thinking about this during the time when transiting Saturn is coming into exact aspect with my ascendent. That has to mean something, right? Like my willingness to be awake to this and open to it, to face it instead of just wanting to "go back to sleep" and ignore the lessons. I hope Manannan can help me stay open to the lessons I need to learn, and in the meantime help me to maybe not be quite so hard on myself if things seem like a struggle or I have to work hard. I think it's a really important insight, that coming to terms with our boundaries and limitations (Saturn) is also about learning how to trust in the greater universe. I just read an old tale about Manannan that someone randomly posted online the other day, about a shepherd who is on his way home with his sheep one evening when he runs into Manannan, who teases him about his certainty of the way and pulls down a confusing mist that shrouds his eyes and makes him lose his sheep. After bumbling about in the dark mists all night, Manannan finally relents and lifts the mist, for the shepherd to find that he was only a few yards from home with all his sheep safe and accounted for by his side - and Manannan joking that sometimes he just likes to play a prank for the joy of it. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in a similar position - stumbling around in the mist all night only to finally realize once the veil lifts away that I've been close to home all along and in no real danger. But I also have to wonder if maybe, if I didn't bumbled around quite so much and fret quite so loudly (and maybe sometimes comically), if Manannan wouldn't consider me quite so worth his attention. ;)

So with that thought, I'll call it a night.

Rejected Writing

I submitted a piece on "The Tao of #Occupy" to the Huffington Post a week and a half ago. Never heard back from them. Two days ago, this article came out: Occupy Buddha, by a Buddhist writer and teacher, Lewis Richmond.

A very cute piece, though kind of platitudinal and obvious for my taste. Personally - and I don't mean this arrogantly at all - I thought mine was better.

What sucks about the writing business is that so often they look at your bio before your work. If you don't have a number of impressive publications under your belt already, you can get left in the dust. I have spent my entire life writing and publishing. I had a book of poetry published before I even graduated college. I earn almost no money from my work, even though I spend more than 40 hours a week at it. Sometimes I get frustrated when I get passed over again and again because my personality is not exotic or charismatic enough. I get frustrated when I read interviews with editors and publishers who freely admit that they look for authors with personalities that will sell before they even bother to look at the quality of their work. My writing is good. It's complex, thorough, sometimes meandering, sometimes (I hope) challenging. I strive to avoid platitudes. We have enough of those. I try to write things that really challenge and push my own limits of knowledge, instead of only writing about simple, easy topics that I've already mastered. I figure that if I challenge myself, others will find my work challenging and valuable; if I write only what I already know, then I won't grow and neither will my readers.

Sometimes, I wish my work could be judged on its own merits, instead of dismissed because I'm not somebody the world thinks is important. Sometimes I get so frustrated at gatekeepers who handle their role irresponsibly, chasing profits or popularity instead of quality writing. I get especially frustrated at gatekeepers who pretend that they aren't gatekeepers, who show favoritism for individuals they find attractive or charismatic but get huffy and offended at the suggestion that their own bias might preclude better, more intelligent writing.

Most of all, I get frustrated at how no one seems to be saying anything new. Maybe that's what happens in the Information Age. When everything's been said, than the only people who get attention for saying it are the ones who can say it flashy, with jazz hands and a halo of pop culture enlightenment.

Maybe this is just Saturn Return stuff. I sometimes think that my confrontation with authority will take the form of a confrontation with the Rule of Immaturity. Stepkids, manipulative ex's, and a society that looks more and more like Brave New World even with the best of intensions.

Maybe I should just publish a book, no matter how shitty, if all anyone looks at is the cover.

Notes from "Disturbing Gentleness" by Timothy Morton

A fantastic talk about ontological nonviolence and its ties to Buddhism. The .mp3 plus PowerPoint slides are available here.

- no primordial substance or ultimate being, no world or environment as middle object

- existence is anarchy, reality is "deeply pointless"

- "It's not simply that nonviolence is a good idea. Nonviolence is existence. Existence is nonviolence."

- irreducible rift between essence and appearance - radical and fundamental - a thing IS self-contradiction

- past is appearance, essence is future, past and future coincide (?) without touching one another, like two beams of light interpenetrating - present is an illusion

- "being in the now" is a kind of materialism - what's meant by this meditative now-ness is a deep awareness of the rift - no such thing as "empty space"

- "What is the difference between a duck? One of its legs are both the same."

- thinking can become brittle with too rigorous metalanguage, rigid consistency - should be like a willow, accept that some contradictions are true

- much of philosophy is an intellectual defense against the threatening intimacy of things

- alien (nonhuman) phenomenology - "Things can dream one another because they are always already not themselves. Not even the thing itself can objectify itself."

- "Causality happens because of a dance of nonidentity taking place on the ontological inside of a thing."

- I v. me

- movement -> P and not-P

- movement is not something a thing does occasionally, motion is a deep ontological x (10:30ish) of a thing; motion arises from a rift between I and me

- Kant's discovery about human beings - that part of their nature is sealed from imperical access - is also true of objects

- hidden property of any entity - something in the beautiful experience is hidden, this unique thing is the beauty

- experience of beauty is essential part of democracy

- Kantian theory of beauty presupposes a being that can be wounded by colors, sounds, smells, textures, tastes, affected by them - attuning process of beauty can commence - (not mere appetite)

- "aesthetic distance" is misnomer for a non-conceptual aesthetic intimacy - aesthetic distance is not between a thing and another object, but lies within the thing itself

- why trauma is traumatic - it strips the world bare of the illusion that it isn't an illusion (15:45ish)

- things are co-existence in their being, interlinked, enmeshed

- "There very attempt to tear myself away enmeshes me further. Conscious co-existence with the mesh involves a form of nonviolence."

- the beauty experience in me shows that I am not my ego, the beauty experience proves to me that there are others

- experience of beauty - suddenly losing a sense of boundary, resonance with the other (opera singer and wine glass)

- "The knife of beauty is able to insert itself into the slit between an objects essence and appearance."

- death - shatters like a vase and the space inside the vase merges with the space outside it

- "Beauty is a nonviolent experience of near-death, a warning that one is fragile like everything else in the universe."

- thinking needs to risk its sanity a bit, put itself in some danger

- "The inner fragility of a thing is why a thing can exist at all."

- "Things are the rubble of other things. Nonviolence means to co-exist nonviolently with this rubble, to let the rubble be rubble rather than trying to build a nice smooth golf-course over it." - "A reduction of an object to its appearance is a reduction of an object to consistency. An object is internally riven, it is fundamentally inconsistent. Thus the imposition of consistency is simply violence on the most profound level at which violence can manifest. Nonviolence, at this level of being, is allowing an object to remain inconsistent."

- "What the #Occupy movements get right is that sheer coexistence of people, not an agenda - the media are hungry for a topic, but the #Occupy movements have simply transcended this demand - this sheer coexistence is a very powerful thing. Why? Because it is a living symbol of coexisting with coexistence as such, in all its inconsistency and fragility."

- meditation - a commitment to non-adjustment, allowing things to remain as they are, inconsistent

- "Humans must get used to the depth of nonviolence in their being." -> meditation, contemplation

Saturn Return: Weekly Meditation

Saturn is a planet of limitations and boundaries, placed at the threshold between the inner planets that reflect the energies and influences of everyday reality and the outer planets that reflect the energies and influences of cosmic cycles and forces. Saturn is a planet of authority, the sphere that circumscribes our life and sometimes leave us feeling trapped or hedged in by our limitations - but it is also a planet that helps us discover and understand our limits and, in so doing, become our own truest authority, the author of our own lives.

In my natal chart, Saturn is in Libra, a sign of balance and relationship. When we try to go to extremes in one direction or another, we run up against the flaws and limitations of those extremes, sometimes finding ourselves even worse off than before. But in bringing extremes into balance and harmonious relationship with each other - even if they seem to be opposites - we can find a new resonance that opens us up to whole new possibilities. The lesson of Saturn is not transcendence, but integration, and this is what it is exalted in the sign of Libra, where integrity can take the form of balance and a "middle way" between extremes.

What extremes do I recognize in my life right now?

• Productivity and Passivity - In my career, I feel challenged to "accomplish" something and make something of myself, to do something extraordinary with my life that will change the world. Emphasizing productivity in this way, I often end up focusing on the negative - what's wrong with the world that needs changing, and everything I should be doing to "fix" things. (Or, simpler than that, just neat ideas that "someone ought to do" that I then feel like I should pursue just for the sake of it being done.) But this focus leaves me feeling overwhelmed and even helpless. I get tired out quickly just thinking about everything I want to do or think I should do (or even just wondering what I possibly might do), and so much of the time I swing back towards the opposite extreme of passivity, procrastination and lethargy. I waste time on frivolous things for entertainment and distraction. Because I imagine that any work great enough to change the world must be complicated and difficult, I avoid doing things that seem too simple or clear-cut. (It's difficult for me to even do this exercise, because part of me thinks that it's all very obvious and so must be a waste of time.) But again, avoiding simple tasks gives me an excuse to procrastinate on the bigger tasks, abstracting them into monumental deeds that I never feel up to tackling - and the result of inactivity and complete lack of productivity.
• Socializing and Isolation - In my personal life, I spend a huge amount of time alone, even more than when I was living by myself but still working a waitressing job four days a week. Most of the day I sit at home on the computer while Jeff works downstairs, and we only have a chance to socialize once a week (sometimes less). On the other hand, this alone time isn't the kind of solitude that really nourishes me - it only leaves me feeling isolated and constrained, cut off from everyone else. Sitting at home all day (in a house that never quite felt "homey"), I don't connect to the space in relationship; I also rarely go out on my own to go hillwalking or just walking the neighborhood like I used to. Because Jeff is in the house all day, I look to him for a sense of connection and company instead of trying to cultivate it for myself (but of course, he's working and so can't really provide it). I also turn to the online community to find connection - but again, this is a shallow and false kind of connection that focuses a lot on negativity (people complaining about everything that's wrong) when it's not overtly competitive (the popularity contest of the internet world). So even when I spend most of my time alone, I end up feeling worn out by the "noise" that prevents me from finding real solitude.
• Bingeing and Neglect - Another place where there's been a new "extreme" cropping up is in my relationship with food. I'm not sure exactly what the causes of this might be (other than stress and bad habits), but these days I feel like I'm often fighting off cravings for unhealthy/junk foods but rarely experiencing actual hunger for healthy foods around mealtimes. I'll sleep in too late and more often than not will skip breakfast completely; then later, crave sweets or fatty foods as snacks in between meals or afterwards for dessert. Eating too late (or for the sake of something to do or as a reward from stressful "productivity") means staying up rather later than is good and not feeling very hungry in the morning. And so the cycle begins again. One cause of this might be to self-medicate stress from the pressure I put on myself. Another might be my feeling of disconnection and isolation that leads to frustration, leaving me swinging between neglecting to eat altogether and then stuffing my face to get that calorie rush.

How can I transform these into relationships of balance, in which I recognize my limitations and work in harmony with them instead of fighting against them?

• Creativity and Receptivity - I wrote about this a little bit before: changing the way I think about my work by focusing on creativity rather than productivity. The cards I pulled tonight showed the Ten of Wands and the Eight of Wands. In one, the woman bends over, burdened with the huge weight of a full-grown tree that supports an entire village. In the other, a woman (perhaps the same woman) stands upright and eager on an outcropping of rock, blowing dandelion seeds away from her open palm to be caught in the wind. I think these cards illustrate an important difference between creativity and productivity. Creativity might be represented by the seeds - light as air and holding great potential within them, creativity lets those seeds loose to be carried by the currents of the wind and take root where they may. The person letting the seeds loose doesn't necessarily have any control over or responsibility for where those seeds finally land; she is involved in something much bigger than herself. The woman in the Ten of Wands is involved in something much bigger than herself, too, but in her case she's taken the world upon herself and has made herself essential to it, for better or worse. She has a lot of control, but that control has become a heavy burden for her - she's taken on too much, too concerned for the end product, the full grown tree, rather than the seeds. Moving to a healthier, more harmonious relationship in this case might mean I need to focus on creativity as a way of planting seeds (process, not product), while also being receptive to what the winds will bring and the relationship I have with a larger world that's beyond my control.
• Company and Solitude - I think it would be helpful to reframe this issue as one about company and solitude, rather than "socializing" and isolation. These are no longer mutually exclusive - in true solitude, I have the freedom and space I need to be my own true self and, in that way, connect to the world around me in all its being and particulars. In company, I carry that solitude with me so that I am not overwhelmed or swept up by other people's feelings or opinions, and connecting with society becomes less noisy and frustrating. Accomplishing this might not be easy, as a lot of it depends on bad habits. Maybe some ideas to help: When seeking solitude, I can ask myself if I have a sense of freedom and spaciousness, or if something is constraining me or my actions. I can challenge myself to do things that will nourish me or engage me physically or emotionally even if no one else is around (including Jeff). I can spend some time contemplating the kind of company I would like to keep if I could hang out with anyone in the world, and spend time imagining how I might seek out that company or be that kind of company for others. I can make more attempts to go out and meet other people (no excuses! stop saying, "well, but we have such busy schedules, and we're going to be moving soon anyway so what's the point?"!!). And I can definitely spend less time on "social networking" sites online (already doing this and it's already helping).
• Sacramental Eating and Fasting - This one I'm the least sure about, but I know that I really appreciated the insights in John's latest NUP piece on sacramental eating. One step I can take is to restore mealtimes to sacred rituals - in particular, breakfast (as a time to nourish myself and begin my day), and dinner. Trying to avoid being on the computer or watching television during mealtimes would be helpful. Paying better attention to what I'm eating and making sure there are healthy snacks in the house so that I'm not falling back on junk when I get mid-day cravings. Perhaps every once in a while, spending some time on a deliberate, mindful fast might also help restore my relationship with food. I think in general, I need to give up this notion that Jeff and I can share a diet plan - that kind of controlling attitude towards food sends me back into the cycle of "productivity" and passivity where trying to exercise control becomes too much of a burden and so I start to make excuses to slip up. Instead, treating mealtimes as special family rituals might go some ways in restoring balance without turning eating into one more project that I can potentially fail at. This is perhaps what the final card in my reading, the Ace of Cups, might indicate: going back to the very beginning, where nourishment and replenishment is a gift and a source of life and connection.

These are all my thoughts for now. Hopefully I can work on some of these during the week. Ideally, I'd like to be able to do a simple ritual to represent some of these intentions and help me integrate them into my life. The next full moon is on Thursday, November 10, so it would be nice to have a simple ritual to do by then - I can spend the next two weeks thinking a bit about what I'd like to do.