Diary

Days of Note: Seakeeping with Manannan

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 7:32am - 7:27pm
Moon: *waxing gibbous, leo (fire/fixed)
Earth: gray, somewhat chilly and rainy all day, though at least we seem to be safely past the snowy season, if not the morning frosts

I'm raging again tonight. Every once in a while I get into moods where everyone just strikes me as stupid and selfish and, despite my pacifism, I want to kick people in the head.

What set me off this evening was reading Rand Paul's rant about low-flow toilets. How a grown man can throw such a self-entitled tantrum that would make our eight-year-old roll his eyes, and do so as a member of an elected government.... ! Jeff insists he's just blinded by his particular ideology, to which I responded, "Well I'd like to kick him in the head so that he would be blinded by my foot in his face!" Low-flow toilets! Of all the things! Like there aren't people who use a bucket or a hole in the ground... like there aren't people in this country who do it by choice as part of their effort to live an environmentally respectful lifestyle, recycling their own byproducts through their compost toilets and giving themselves back to the earth, ensuring there will be enough clean water for the rest of us. And meanwhile, studies are rolling in that those most disproportionately affected by the climate change crisis are those who tend to contribute the least to the world's pollution — those who live impoverished and close to the land — while studies show that we Americans with our air-conditioned SUVs rumbling around the suburbs are growing increasingly less worried about climate change in recent years. It drives me nuts!

And then my cousin, who can sometimes be a bit, well, judgmental, makes a passing remark on Facebook about how as a journalist she used to hate interviewing writers because they always had such big egos. Which, even if it's not an intentional swipe at me personally, still feels like one. Like there's this whole nobility that comes with struggle and failure, like those of us who are passionate about our work shouldn't dare take pride in our accomplishments — or like working to cultivate a thriving community of "niche" readers in love with your subject matter means you're still just a "little fish in a huge sea" and shouldn't imagine that what you do is actually -laugh- important!

Then the irony hits me.

I can't fully articulate it, but there must be a lesson here, about judgement and kindness and rage and passion. And community. What strikes me over and over is how hard it is to save the world each on our own. Every effort Jeff and I make, every step we take towards a healthier lifestyle is one that we take, firstly, as a family, and secondly, as members of our local community. It would be impossible to do this if we didn't live in an urban neighborhood with stores within biking and walking distance, if we didn't have the local co-op with organic, local produce, if we didn't have restaurants nearby specializing in vegetarian and organic cuisine, if we didn't have neighbors and community volunteer programs involved with keeping the city parks clean and available, or protecting the local landscape from developers and corporations. And still, I feel like I'm not doing enough. And when I think of folks in the suburbs, I get angry. I get judgmental.

What I should probably be doing is seeking kindness, and passion. Passion will connect and grow, where rage only isolates and repulses. Kindness opens people up to the possibility that they are good enough, that a good and healthy life doesn't have to be one of desperation and frustration and struggle. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in what we do to help one another and improve the quality of life for ourselves. Harping on how hard and tiring it is to drag American culture along by its teeth into the realities of the twenty first century isn't going to win anyone over. If change and health is something that we can only find in community (with each other, and with the earth), then first we have to nurture and share those things that help to foster community: joy, laughter, kindness, generosity, and gratitude.

I can feel the rage like a physical entity in my body. When I sit for a moment and breathe, I can feel how close that rage is to love and excitement, how easy it is to change my mind about the physical sensations coursing through this meat-space of mine. In a few breaths, that energy is transformed and directed, no longer a destructive force that wants out through clenched fists and tensed muscles, but now something that I can work with, shape and direct to transform the world.

This is what daily practice is for. This is why meditation and prayer are so absolutely vital. The tools to transform rage and anger and frustration and fear — to change them from the center. To reform and redirect, to refine and renew. I can do this. I can learn to do this.

Diary Tarot Card

© Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, The Shadowscape Tarot

The King of Pentacles stands sure and steady in the center, presenting a choice or offering alternatives. A figure of stability and generosity rooted deeply in the earth, he remains grounded and humble (close to humus) even as his aspirations reach ever higher towards the sun and rain above. The choices he presents, with his wise guidance, are two alternatives, two ways of handling the energies of the earth that well up within, drawn from the roots and gathered in from the limbs.

The Nine of Wands is a choice that brings us constant vigilance and resolve, tensed with uncertainty, straining into the future and what it may hold. The lone sentinel astride his mount, poised on the cliff, already worn with previous battles and perhaps overly eager to see strife and conflict in what's to come.

The Four of Wands, on the other hand, is a choice of freedom and joy, celebration and jubilation, finding harmony and balance among our energies so that, through them, we discover our freedom and lightness of being. Lush flowers bloom below as the sun shines above, and we discover ourselves not alone, but part of a community dancing and bounding with gladness through the beauty-charged landscape.

Both these choices lead in the same direction. The center figure, the King, holds his arms out in an equal length cross from his chest, reaching towards each. But to his left, the Nine of Wands, his open hand is lost in shadow, while to his right, his open palm shines in sunlight, holding the glimmering, golden acorn, seed of great and mighty things to come. Prosperity, generosity and stability come not from the battle-weary and bitter, but from the energies of joy and gladness shared in community, which lead back to the center, back to the feet of the King himself.

Diary - Dream

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 6:45am - 6:18pm
Moon: waxing crescent, aries (fire/cardinal)
Earth: sunny and cold, hovering around freezing for most of the morning and then warming into the afternoon, but the sun is golden on the snow and spring is coming


I had meant to type this dream up this morning, but didn't have a chance. I'm not sure exactly when or how it started, other than the usual "wandering around some place with old friends." In this case, I believe Ellen and other high school friends were with me. At some point, we were rushing through an airport, having just landed and disembarked the plane, when we came across Joe in a security officer's uniform (or police, I'm not sure which). I recognized him as we approached him, and he recognized me, confusion and amnesia in his eyes. This is not the first time he has appeared in my dreams as a go-between of the dead, as has Freddy since he died. This time in particular, his skin seemed dark, and he had the look about him of Hispanic-African American that Freddy had, though his height, body and build were his own and I knew him as Joe, calling him by that name in the dream itself. I walked up to him, seeing how bewildered and confused he was, not knowing he was dead and not knowing how he had gotten there. I felt overwhelmed with a kind of sweet grief and compassion for him. He looked at me and asked me where he was, what was going on. I explained that we were in an airport, that my friends and I had just gotten off our plane. He asked, "Is that the way I came to be here, too?" And I held my hand up to his face, touching his temple with my fingertips, and said, "No, baby, I'm sorry. You didn't come the way we came." (Considering that I would never call someone "baby," and in fact it's a pet peeve of mine, the naturalness with which I addressed him that way struck me as strange after I woke up.)

Then we were moving on, out of the airport, and we were in the College Landscape again - not the campus where I actually went to college, but a landscape that's a mash-up of several different campuses I've been to, all kind of heightened to an archetypal level. Huge, cinder-block dorm buildings stretched up around one part of campus, and academic buildings in another. Ellen was dragging me along to a play that some of her friends were in, and just as we were entering the posh-looking theater lobby, I realized I was carrying around the heating pad I use when I'm having bad cramps. I also didn't have any purse or bag with me, and I stopped her and asked if we could run back to the dorms so I could drop it off. When she insisted no, we were going to be late and it was my own fault for carrying it around with me, I replied, "Well, I was in pain, and if you had warned me we were going to a play, I would have at least brought my bag along to put it away." In the end, I think we decided to skip the play after all, because soon both of us ended up back in the dorm building section of campus.

I realized that I did not actually have a dorm room, yet, but had to choose one (as it was moving-in day for everyone, with the first arriving able to snatch up the nicest rooms). I lost track of Ellen at some point as we each went off to search for our rooms — I think she went off to a hall or suite where a bunch of her friends were already rooming together. I found a house-like section of a dorm building (much like the honors students' house I was in in college), and decided to try to find a room there. I had been explaining to someone earlier (perhaps Ellen), that I had tried for an MFA once before, but just could not find the right fit for me and so I had decided to leave the program. This time, however, I was enthusiastic that my grad school experience would be much better. As I wandered this section of the dorm building, I found a stairwell curving up in one part of the house, and I followed it up. It seemed there was a room in the very peak of one of the gables, and I thought it might afford some privacy and a nice view... but as I climbed the stairwell, it got smaller and smaller, until I could barely squeeze through it. At the top, there was a tiny trap door just barely big enough for me to wriggle my shoulders and hips through, and then a room hardly bigger than a bathroom, half of which was taken up by a huge porcelain claw-footed tub, and another part by a desk, with only half a mattress on the floor to sleep on. I recognized this as the room I'd stayed in before during that semester of MFA work, and understood suddenly why I hadn't brought a purse with me to the play — there was no room for anything but me to fit through the door, not even a purse, let along a backpack or laptop or pile of books. I remembered hating going back to my restrictive room and never feeling like I could get things in or out easily. Then I understood that this was why grad school had never "fit" before — I had literally been too cramped and isolated up in the attic. There was some impression that this was supposed to be "my" room, but I decided, fuck that, and turned and walked back down the spiral staircase from where I'd come. Reaching the second floor, I found that one of the rooms was still free and unclaimed there — it had huge double doors leading into a spacious suite with a half partition, and huge windows overlooking the campus. The central hallway of the floor, where the steps came up from the floor below, was more like a sitting area, wide open with several groups of furniture (couches and comfy chairs) arranged for lounging and socializing. For a second, I felt a rise of panic when I realized that, if I chose that room right in the middle of everything, there was no way I could avoid people, I would definitely be mingling and socializing much more. But I squared my shoulders and decided that this was necessary, if I was going to give myself the space I needed to stay sane and healthy (and be able to accessorize with large purses for books and heating pads, and gaze out those huge windows to the horizon).

It was about then that I woke up.

My impression of this dream, which was quite vivid and visceral, was that it reflects to some extent the change in attitude I've had towards my writing recently, and deciding to embrace the idea of a "writing career" instead of turning my nose up at teaching and such as a distraction from writing. A couple weeks ago, I had two nights of dreams in a row that involved me wandering around huge, mansion-like houses with many rooms and winding hallways — getting lost in them and discovering strangers and folks in unexpected rooms where someone was holding lessons or leading choir rehearsal, things like that. I've come to think of these "house" dreams as being about my own personality (or perhaps, more specifically, my mind). When I was teaching myself how to draw several years back, I had a bunch of intense dreams in a row about being in in my "house" and pulling aside empty boxes or clutter to discover whole empty rooms I'd never known about, and the excitement of realizing that I had more "space" in which to live and enjoy than I'd known about before. This seemed almost too obvious a metaphor for "discovering new talents" by exercising a skill I had never realized I had. These recent dreams, centering on strangers being in the house and how I react to them, seems like it has to do with my ego sorting out its attitudes towards developing a more "public" face for my work... and the fact that these have all centered around or involved teaching or group gatherings in some way makes me think that it's particularly that aspect of my career that I've been trying to incorporate. It's hard to find a better metaphor for my experience of grad school before, and how my attitude has changed since then, than this idea of living up in a tiny, cramped attic with a door almost too small to fit through — so that I feel both as though I don't have a home and as though it's impossible to bring things "out" to share with others (or make my life easier, like having a purse so I could carry necessary items with me without being exposed and awkward). Moving down to the second floor and accepting that I will be interacting with others, but doing it for the spaciousness and accessibility, is a pretty good metaphor for my change in perspective recently. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, hedged in and vulnerable, I feel up to the challenge, knowing I'll also have a real "home" to come home to at night.

I'm not sure what role Joe played in all this, other than to be there for me as a guided into that deeper dream state. Perhaps I am feeling to some extent a "death" of some kind, too, a dying to the old self and a rebirth, though it is different from his literal dying. The fact that, when he was alive, he held a position of authority in my life, which he held lightly and with humor, and was also acting selflessly as a volunteer when he died, means that he's always been a kind of gentle, but forthright guide for me in these kinds of dreams (often seeming to involve life-and-death, like the dream about my unborn son-that-never-was)... even if we never were all that close when he was alive.

Diary

Days of Note: New Wind Tossed Moon

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 6:51am - 6:13pm
Moon: new moon, pisces (water/mutable)
Earth: cold and bright, down into the teens this morning, but climbing into the 30s later in the day

Yesterday was a "Wedding Wednesday" day of planning and preparing for our next "Beer & Budget" meeting with my parents next week. Had a moment of panic in looking at the amount of work still to be done, not so much because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it all, but because there's so much to do I'm afraid I'll miss something, and the sheer amount is hard to organize into an attack plan for the next six months. After talking it over some with Jeff and making some lists over dinner (a belated Valentine's Day dinner out at the Melting Pot), I felt a little more able to approach the task of drawing up a detailed plan for the next three months and a general plan for the final three after that. Like last time, this Beer & Budget meeting is going to be at least half dedicated to going over the details of what we've already gotten done, which is a lot. I'm a little worried that we haven't heard back from the officiant about our desire to meet with him in person when we're actually down in the area in three weeks (after our business trip) — I was hoping to hear back from him this week so we could let my parents know about the intended meeting and also so we could arrange travel plans with Arthur about a return trip, if he's planning on driving down with us.

I'm also a little freaked about the Do It Yourself projects I have lined up, especially the one involving the customized drinking glasses. I have still not found a reliable and classy-looking way to get the glass paint to work, after experimenting on smaller pieces like votive candle holders. Our next experiment is going to be using the sand-blasting to get an "etched glass" look, see if we can get that to work with a handmade stencil using our design. And of course, there's the lawyer consultation, and anxiety in general about the florist, and the cake that my mom is supposedly handling (though she tends to leave this stuff to the last minute), and the music (I'm still not sure Raymond is even planning on coming, so relying on him to play for the ceremony is probably a no-go), and the dress (which is not as big an issue, honestly, I have a dress picked out and some intended alterations to make, and if it falls through I have a back-up choice that's under a hundred bucks that I could order and have ready in only a few weeks). In general, it's all the little stuff that I'm worried about losing track of, especially since it seems some of our vendors have a habit of saying, "Oh, we'll email that to you!" and then needing three or four reminders before they actually do it. Long distance planning.....

On the other hand, I have been thinking more and more recently how my approach to wedding planning (using "GULP") might also work for approaching my book manuscript — since I've now told Graeme I want to have that finished by June, originally thinking I could get it out of the way so that the last few months leading up to the wedding I wouldn't have to worry about it, but getting that finished and the website launched might be a bit over-ambitious. With the Christmas gift card from Steve and Phyllis, I got a couple books on organizing research and manuscripts for nonfiction books, and "growing your author platform," thinking that, like the Big Wedding Book I got, I can read them knowing I probably won't care about even half of what they say, but knowing how other people do it can give me something to go off of and tweak to my own needs. We'll see — the books arrived a few days ago, but I haven't been able to bring myself to read them yet.

Otherwise, today was mostly work after waking up quite early in the morning. I'm dreading "daylight savings time" when it'll go back to being dark until 7:30 each morning. Had a minor freak-out with Jeff over the issue of late checks — he got in touch with the woman in accounting who takes care of that, asking if there was anything I could do to try to keep the checks more regular instead of going a month at a time without an income, and her response was to point out that my contract says turn-around time on the invoices just has to be under two weeks. It bothered me more than it should have, but this has been twice now in only three months that there has there been a lengthy delay, and the first delay was three weeks long, so clearly my ability to enforce the contract is pretty much nil (and I pointed out the injustice of this to Jeff, at length). But what bothers me is that all I was asking was for more information — even just a response back saying the invoice had been received and was in-process — and her response felt like she was chiding me for being an impatient nag. It seems to me that replying with a two-minute email giving an acknowledgement that the invoice has been received and an estimate about when the check might be processed hardly pushes the boundaries of simple courtesy. It bothers me when I am trying to behave like a reasonable person, asking how we can both work to make things easier on both ends, and all I get back is a snippy response citing "contracts" that one party can ignore at will in any case. I do have the option of sending an invoice whenever I want, and could easily make things much harder by sending invoices every week, or even every few days, instead of twice a month as I have been. That would more than double her workload, which is why I've been content to just do biweekly, but if she's not going to meet me halfway on trying to get the check turn-around time lower than ten to twelve days (and erratic, at that), then I'm not sure what other options I really have. So much for me trying to be courteous by submitting regularly timed, reasonably spaced invoices to make everyone's lives easier.

When I'm a face author rolling in dough, these things will seem like such silly worries.

In terms of spiritual practice — other than the diet, which is demanding a lot of discipline and mindfulness from me most days, I find myself wanting to spend time in meditation or, especially, out in the woods, but without the time available between all the projects I'm trying to juggle. I'm eager to explore this relationship with Manannan, which seems to have receded a bit, though when I think about it, I get that thrill of excitement almost as though I'm musing on a new crush. I've been working to bring more mindfulness and presence to my daily activities, but when I'm stuck in front of a computer screen for hours at a time, it's difficult to do — as if there's nothing physical to be present to. The weather takes a dive in temperature whenever it's sunny enough out to be inviting, and only warms up when it's gray and drizzling. The other day (two days ago, or three, I think), we woke up to a gray, misty, rainy mornings in the low fifties. I was downstairs eating breakfast when Jeff decided to run out to the grocery store before settling down to work for the day — he came back in and asked if he could open the window in the dining room to share the morning with me, and his eyes were shining. The smell of spring came pouring through the open window, and the grass in the backyard suddenly seemed to be living again the way it hadn't been all winter, though it was still sparse and patchy. It was as if I could smell the spongey give of the muddy ground, and I actually started to cry a little with relief. Jeff nodded and said that had been his reaction, too, when he first stepped out. I'd wanted to go for a walk that day, but waited thinking it might get a bit warmer later in the day. Instead, the temperature dropped again until it was just too cold to go out into the woods. We did manage to go jogging together the day before yesterday, and that helped a bit with the cabin fever. But today, my body is not feeling comfortable at all, and after breakfast I actually had an intense wave of nausea hit me which resulted in me losing half of what I'd eaten back up into the toilet. I suspect that was just drainage from overnight fighting with the orange juice... but it does worry me a bit. I feel so desperate for spring, I can hardly stand it. Sitting in the study visualizing warmth and water and fire just does not have the same effect. I miss the earth and the woods deeply, and if the cold didn't make my skin so painful that it bleeds, I'd be outside much more. (All the more reason to move to Florida, at least for a little while. That, and the fact that the stars are aligned against me ever making any career progress here in Pittsburgh.)

Tomorrow, I only have a few hours of work left for the week in the morning, and I plan to spend the rest of the day working on revision for the book manuscript and possibly coming up with a GULP game-plan to get the revision done by June. I also want to email everyone who's agreed to sign on to the Green Pagan blog project, and write up a request for a few more writers for Jason to send out on the lists. Getting that off the ground would be fantastic (I'm reading Abram's Becoming Animal now and already it's amazing — though at times even a bit too heady with the poetic language for my taste).

Diary Tarot Card

© Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, The Shadowscape Tarot

The Empress (III) - Queen of the natural world in all its fecundity and lushness, she is a symbol of mother earth and her cycles of ceaseless creativity and regeneration. A card saturated with life and color, the joy of the senses and the sensuous, she represents the pleasure we take in our creative powers and a full-body engagement with this new blossoming, the first buds opening. She is the first unfurling and manifestation and the creative urge into the world, and as such she is wild and full of passion and self-giving, though still somewhat unstructured for the time being.

Six of Swords - A necessary journey through difficulty and strife, leaving these trials and tribulations behind as we move on to a brighter future. He nestles into the warm down of the swan's back as she carries him across a dark-clouded sky, high above the stormcrows where they perch hunched and black on their sharp swords. The journey is one of respite and renewal, providing comfort and perspective - but there may also be a risk of carrying those burdens with us, the unhealthy thought-patterns, expectations and attitudes that weighed us down and drained us of our energy in the past. This journey is a time of rest and recuperation, letting go of the past and looking forward to a welcoming future ahead.

Ace of Swords - A new beginning, the gift of clarity and insight that helps us put what was once chaotic into order and gain the perspective and knowledge we need to see the truth of things, and work towards that truth with justice and reason. Perhaps the start of a new intellectual endeavor or a break-through that will lead to new ideas and insights.

Story - A story that moves from the past into the future: the Empress faces to the right, towards the Six of Swords, her left hand upraised in blessings as the butterflies dance and swirl in brilliant patterns of color before her. She is the creative urge, so closely connected with my sensuous relationship with the earth and the woods, that I have felt in the past: a joy that pulses through me and manifests in spinning words in poetry and story, but has often lacked the structure (and I, the discipline) to sustain any long projects. The Six of Swords continues the journey on the back of a graceful white swan, facing to the right again, moving through a period in the present characterized by difficulty and struggle as I work to leave behind old, unhelpful patterns of thought and allow the forced rest and withdrawal of winter to give me an opportunity to gain perspective and reevaluate. In the final card, the Ace of Swords, the journey comes to an end, the upright sword surrounded by both swans and butterflies in joyful celebration — the integration of the creative self and its denizens, the butterflies, with the fierce commitment and graceful strength of the swans necessary to make the long journey, and at their center, the Sword of Light, both poetry and intellect, creativity and the insight and clarity to order that creativity in a way that will give birth to a new beginning, new projects yet to come.

Gender Identity Issues in Dianic Ritual

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 6:57am - 6:09pm
Moon: waning crescent, capricorn (earth/cardinal)
Earth: warmer today and sunny for the most part, and now a thunderstorm has moved in (complete with lightning) and it's supposed to rain all night


I need to go to bed, and this will not be a proper diary post, but I wanted to record a post I made to Facebook today regarding an issue reported on The Wild Hunt about a Dianic ritual held at PantheaCon that excluded transgender women from participating, and the protest-ritual and open discussion forum held in response.

Today's Wild Hunt post was the first time I heard anything about the transgender-exclusionary Dianic ritual held at PantheaCon and the controversy and conversation it stirred up. I wonder if friends here on FB would care to weigh in with the ideas and opinions?

I've been reading an on-going conversation on one of the Pagan forums I belong to, and the main issue seems to be the lack of communication, that the ritual wasn't marked as "cisgender-women only" beforehand and, when it was specified (by turning people away at the door), the phrase "women born women" was used, which has derogatory connotations. There's been a lot of debate about the nature of religious freedom/discrimination at a public convention, the pros and cons of allowing Mystery traditions to hold rituals that may exclude or offend others, whether or not Dianic traditions are inherently bigoted or discriminatory, etc.

So here's where I'm coming from: I am (if I'm understanding the terms right) a cissexual female with no particular feelings one way or another about my gender. I believe in a kind of non-literalish reincarnation and, for that reason, I have worked during this particular lifetime to appreciate being embodied in a way that is biologically female, approaching it as a sacred thing with lessons to teach me (even when those lessons are sucky "you're going to be too ill and in pain to move for two or three days every month" kinds of lessons). But still, when I indulge in more typically "feminine" behavior and dress, it often feels somewhat like a playful engagement in identity-creation that I (and I alone) can step into and out of if/when I like, but that no one else has a right to impose on me. Since I kind of shrug my shoulders about gender, I've never been remotely drawn to "women's Mysteries" and find myself uncomfortable around groups that have that focus because they don't speak to me (kind of like being the only person who doesn't speak fluent French in a Parisian café) - but I don't begrudge them their right to explore such mysteries in a private ritual space or within a tradition with less fluid gender boundaries than what I'm comfortable with. All of that is my background....

These are the points where I'm finding myself a bit stuck about this PantheaCon situation, though:

(a) Even though I consider myself a feminist, and I feel relaxed about sexual- and gender-identity fluidity, and I try my best to be compassionate and supportive of people's right to self-identity definition and creation.... I haven't spent much time formally studying feminism and feminist philosophy. I did not know until even a few months ago that such a word as "cisgender" even existed, and I find that I'm still uncertain in some contexts what it's being used to mean. There seems to be an almost endless vocabulary for speaking about sexuality and gender-identity, and often it's difficult to know which words are currently acceptable, and which have become taboo, and which are in the process of being reclaimed. I did not know that "woman born woman" was derogatory, and in fact, I'd never even heard it - but I know I've probably used similar phrasings (such as the long-winded, clinical-sounding: "someone born biologically female who identifies as female") when I was unsure if there was an appropriate word for that concept or what that word might be. (Although I understand the desire to create gender-neutral pronouns, when I hear people using "ze" and "zir," I still flinch (on a visceral, auditory level) at how similar it sounds to racist, stereotyped imitations of non-native English speakers' "dialect" (eg. a racist stereotype of an Italian saying, "Ze Pope-a! Ze is so-a nice-a!").) People in the forums have complained about the "dogwhistle" use of the Dianic group's name ("Amazon").... but to someone outside of the world of formal feminist studies, many of these specialized terms feel very similar. Often, the language being cultivated and utilized among those who care most deeply about these issues seems to be evolving and changing so rapidly, that a person like myself who is unfamiliar with all the "lingo" feels excluded from the conversation simply because I am so uncertain what to say or how my words will be interpretted. I have had best friends stop speaking to me for making missteps in terminology that I was unaware of even having made. For me, this brings up the real heart of this issue: wanting to be an accepting, open-minded person (heck, even *actually being* an accepting, open-minded person), doesn't guarantee that someone will be familiar with specialized language. So how do we overcome that gap, especially in large public settings? How can we strive for inclusive language that doesn't, by the very nature of its specialization, grow increasingly exclusive in nature? I'd love to hear people (especially those more familiar with these language issues) weigh in on this.

(b) As a Pagan, I strive to move away from spirit/body dualities and to grapple with the Mystery of embodied spirit or soul, i.e. spirit that arises or emerges from physical existence, rather than merely being a "ghost in the machine" that happens to reside in it. On the other hand, as human beings I also think our experience of physical reality is shaped overwhelmingly by our self-awareness and by our creativity, meaning that physical reality is fluid and responsive and can be shaped by the very awareness/soul that arises from it. I'm wondering how this factors into this conversation on Dianic tradition and those who object to it. A lot of the conversation I've seen on the forums rejecting Dianic tradition as bigoted or discriminatory utilizes language about how a transgendered person can feel "born into the wrong body" - but this language seems to take for granted some kind of idea that the spirit/soul/mind is separate from the body and can get stuck in a "machine" that doesn't feel right. While I totally support people in choosing how to describe their own experiences and wouldn't want to say such a description is "wrong," it doesn't make much sense to me trying to work with a worldview that does not rely on spirit/body dualism. Since Pagans are a small minority of the overall population, I would guess that Pagans are also probably a minority of those who identify as transgender, which means descriptions of the transgender experience might be shaped by Abrahamic/monotheistic assumptions..... Are there Pagans out there who have found ways to talk about the transgender experience that do not rely on this kind of dualism? Or does it seem that the transgender experience itself actually appears to confirm this kind of dualism between spirit/mind and body? Or am I totally misunderstanding these explanations?

Diary

Days of Note: Last Quarter White Waking Moon

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 7:03am - 6:04pm
Moon: last quarter, scorpio (water/fixed)
Earth: quite a bit of sunshine all day, though still cold and very little melting going on - the bird seed I scattered after last week's thaw thinking, foolishly, that we were in the clear is now under three to four inches of snow, except for the seed I scattered on the low partition wall just outside the dining room window, where the birds have brushed aside what little snow snuck in under the awning and made a feast of it where the cat can watch them


There are a lot of things to be angry about these days. Let's start with the good news: today, the scale said I'd lost a pound, despite the gorging on holiday chocolates for the past week. Also, early this morning, the package from Amazon arrived with Jeff's Official Valentine's Day present for me: two new books, including the new David Abram that I've been salivating over for months (and another, about the role of fiction in the evolution of the human mind).

Now the bad: The check from my last invoice was only just mailed out today, delayed almost two weeks because the person who has to sign off on these things was traveling. This is the second time in in the past few months with this new job that a check has been delayed so long that I've had to go nearly a month without income. With bills and student loans to pay, not to mention wedding savings, the unreliability of a regular income even while I'm working the max number of hours I'm allowed to according to my contract... well, it's frustrating. I have to be one of the more fiscally responsible adults I know, and yet even with my "cushion" of savings, it's hard to go so long without money coming in, and especially frustrating as I know that I have been putting in the hours and that the money will arrive eventually. I am, technically, allowed to send an invoice whenever I want. I had been sending them regularly every two weeks, on the dot, assuming that even if there was a wait of a week or so, after a few weeks of working those checks would be arriving regularly, albeit delayed. But as it turns out, I receive payments seemingly at random, sometimes within a day, sometimes more than two weeks late, with no way to predict. It is certainly a change from the immediacy of earning cash as a waitress when I knew, even if over time I didn't earn as much, what I did earn was mine immediately. You never starve when you can earn cash enough to at least buy your next meal. But a person could get into real trouble with all of this imaginary money being promised to them, and the checks never seeming to come.

But that's just on the personal side of things, and even that's not a big deal, just a minor frustration. On the socio-political side of things: I may have to rethink my policy about not voting unless there's a candidate I actually support. As news comes out, week after week, of all of the truly disturbing, woman-hating, worker-hating, minority-hating legislation and policies coming from Republicans since they won back their coveted power-seats in the last election, they are really challenging me to redefine the "worse" of two evils. The idea of paranoid game-theory in the voting booth makes me sick to my stomach, when the "lesser of two evils" seems still so very evil and backwards and destructive and militant. But if you had wanted to argue with me that "things could be a whole lot worse" back around election time, you would probably have made some headway if you suggested that, once voted in, Republicans would take serious and far-reaching steps to roll back women's and workers' rights to pre-1950s standards. Of course, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have thought you were exaggerating.

I feel sometimes like the ones who walked away from Omelas. Except that I can't walk away, not with Jeff's kids. It's not even like our jobs prevent us — anywhere-with-internet work-from-home stuff would be so very liberating.... but in the end, they just prove frustratingly unreliable, an excuse for Emily and others to assume that our schedules are infinitely flexible. (And thank the gods we don't have the kids this weekend, since my check being so long delayed means we barely have enough money between the two of us to feed ourselves. Like we live extravagantly or something, with our oatmeal breakfasts and our puny salads twice a day.)

I am so very bitter and frustrated sometimes. I feel helpless and overwhelmed, when I get emails from MoveOn.org and other places about protests and petitions. There will be protests on Saturday in solidarity with the union workers in Wisconsin, and my first reaction was: I wish we could go, but we have the kids. When I mentioned it to Jeff and he reminded me that this is our first weekend off without the kids in more than three months, my next thought was: so we could go.... until he asked, "Is that really how you want to spend our only weekend off?" Just the thought of it made me tired. We still haven't been able to officially celebrate Valentine's Day because of these check delays and our schedule being jammed so full it hurts. But not to go... feels so selfish, like I am weak and small and, just like everyone else, so busy running the rat race that I have no energy left to resist. I didn't want to be that kind of person. When did I become that kind of person? The other day, a woman came door-to-door asking for donations to a Clean Water initiative to help raise funds to prevent hydrofracking in the area. We tried to explain that we barely had two pennies to rub together between us, but I think she must hear that all the time, or at least enough to be only very politely disappointed. I got her information and went to their website after she'd gone to send them an email offering my time as a volunteer if they needed anything, since I have (just barely) more time than money available to donate these days. I haven't heard back from them. Part of me feels relieved.

This is not fun, or freeing. There are days when I just want to slip back into my lonely life, where at least there was quiet, and stillness, and in that kind of solitude even loneliness and grief could be beautiful. Now, half the time I feel like I'm just running around trying to keep up with the millions of demands — and sometimes, Jeff feels like a leaky bucket, so willing to always give and give to even the most unreasonable expectations, that I'm in a kind of quicksand watching the energy I invest in him slip away into half-finished projects and a million ideas that never get off the ground. And I read something today by Thalia Took, in her blog about her OCD father and the junk he made their home in, and how she had learned the "demand resistance" response to always say NO! first whenever anyone asked because she learned it from him, and from the unreasonable, unhealthy, unfair expectations he always put on her and her sister. I learned that from my mother. I had to learn to scream NO! at the top of my lungs in the face of insanity and cruelty, or I wouldn't have made it whole into adulthood. And I've spent a lot of time learning the art of yes! and the deep roots of generosity... but sometimes, I wonder if Jeff, whose mother is so supportive and accepting and Zen that she's barely there sometimes, never learned that no can be necessary. Intellectually, maybe, but not really. Sometimes I still don't know if his agreements with me are real or if he's just so good at being agreeable. And I can spar with him in debate and talk about different topics, because he'll play devil's advocate even for the devils, even for people he doesn't agree with. Which is why he's interesting, and why he challenges me. It's like being in love with everyone who ever disagreed with me. But.. sometimes, I think I need him to agree with me on important stuff, and say no! when it really matters.

This is something I'm going to have to talk to him about. And also probably having to do with my Saturn Return work, now that I think about it. It's no surprise that I have authority issues, but I think I've been successfully grappling with those issues for years now. So maybe this is the curve ball of a Saturn Return: when I ask myself the journaling questions Jeff wrote up for me, when I ask myself what restrictions and limitations I resent and that keep me from feeling free: my answer is not others' authority, it's others' childishness and neediness (and that's true for the kids themselves, too). Since I've chosen not to have kids of my own, I hadn't anticipated facing that particular yoga. If I'd had a choice in the matter, I would have stopped at a healthy, sustainable number (but that feels like wishing Josh and Fiona out of existence...). And now I'm almost laughing at myself and remembering the mini-crisis I had the other day when reading about Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and realizing I couldn't just dismiss it as complete gibberish. There are some very harmful, sad little ideas in it (like how intelligent people are so very rare and special and they're never wrong about their wonderful little inventions and they never make mistakes) — but there are things like integrity, creativity, self-reliance, things that I really go for. And more than that, the feeling of fatigue and resentment that made Rand first muse, "What if all of us 'creative minds' went on strike?" I know that feeling! I get it, I really do. I think Rand was selfish and childish to write a fantasy world in which an elite class of "thinkers" could hold the world hostage... but I know the feeling, of being so tired and frustrated and wondering why anyone else isn't stepping up to the plate to take care of all this shit, why I feel like I always have to do everything. Except I'm not stupid. I know everyone feels that way much of the time these days. People talk about apathy and nihilism, but I really don't think that's what's wrong with this country. What's wrong is that everyone is so fucking tired. And we're tired because of the way we live in this country. And we can't seem to change the way we live because we're all too fucking tired.

Or maybe I'm just cranky and dealing with post-moon headaches and my "day off" today I spent mostly drafting an essay on "Pagan pacifism" which is going to end up far too long and unwieldy to be much good anywhere, and is probably going to take a huge amount of research and, damn it, writing is hard and I've gotten lazy. I like being able to just spout off ideology, I like "talking points." They're quick, ready-made. Writing takes so much out of me. On my "day off" I spent all morning working and got only three or four decent paragraphs out, with the rest of the article looming in front of me like a monster ready to guilt trip me and gobble up every spare minute of my free time. So instead, I write rambling, whiney diary posts. And do tarot card readings. (And rethink all those stupid reasons that I stopped writing poetry.)


Break.

So just as I was about to move on to my tarot reading, Jeff finished what he was working on and we sat down to have what turned out to be quite a long talk, mostly about all of this. I tried to talk to him about the drained feeling and the "demand resistance" story and how it related to my mother, and comparing it to his experiences. This led into a conversation about Saturn Return, and me expanding a bit on what I wrote above, on grappling with childishness and immaturity as kind of nontraditional conceptions of authority and restriction.

As we talked, several things began to fall into place that I want to just note here quickly. First: the idea of confronting childishness seems, the more I talk about it, like a very obvious aspect of my Saturn Return work. Reflecting on my meditation the other night in my ritual for Manannan, I mentioned to him about the many images that seemed to stem directly from kids' movies like "The Little Mermaid" and "Finding Nemo." I'd assumed at the time that this was just a kind of "bad connection" that was dredging up all my mental stereotypes of underwater scenes, but this issue of childishness puts that in a new light. It also relates back to my last "conversation" with Brigid during my personal Imbolc meditation, when she appeared to me as a playful young girl running in bare feet through the grass and counseling me to "lighten up" a bit. I was more receptive to that message, at that time, as being so obviously good and sage advice — but I'm not sure I've been all that good in following it. Instead, I've continued to fight against childishness (or perceived childishness) in others by increasing the pressure on myself to be responsible and adult about things, to buckle down to the discipline of being mature and reliable. If Saturn Return is going to be about confronting and integrating figures of authority in my life, and the "figures of authority" that I am struggling with are (or seem to me to be) characterized by childishness, neediness and immaturity... then it makes sense that I may have to do some work on nurturing and encouraging my own "inner child."

These are just thoughts. But having talked things over with Jeff, I'm already feeling more relaxed and optimistic about it. (Also, he made me a little teacup of chocolate sweet almond milk! Mmm, nutty!)

Diary Tarot Card:
<- Nine of Wands, Strength (VIII) -> Three of Cups

The Nine of Wands poises ever-vigilant, straining against the uncertainties of the coming future, toughened and hardened by past conflict. Perhaps too suspicious, too ready to perceive a threat, too on edge to relax and find respite — yet in the past, such vigilance has served well, cautioning against indulgence and lassitude and allowing the instinct to self-preservation enough reign to do its necessary work. The figure sits astride his lion, a hand resting retraining and reassuring on its curled horns and armored head. Still, when does vigilance turn to paranoia and pugnaciousness? When does strength become blinded by the urge to armor and arm ourselves against uncertainty and adversity?

Strength rests her hand lightly on the brow and jaw of the lion where she stands, a lion unencumbered by armor and yet seemingly more powerful, mightier and freer than his subdued counterpart in the Nine of Wands. She is the gentle guardian of strength, draped in white, vulnerable in her half-nakedness, who can open and close the lion's great muzzle with the lightest touch — the lion of the subconscious and animal soul, whose power is sleek and fierce. He is not subdued and reigned in, yet neither is he destructive and dangerous in his wildness; she listens to the dark rumblings in the lion's heavy throat, a purr or a warning, as she listens to the promptings of her own animal soul, knowing when to heed the sound and when not quiet its noise. With courage and gentleness, Strength does not need to fear her animal, and so does not need to subdue it either.

The Three of Cups dances in joyful celebration of community and togetherness, a moment of happiness and playful camaraderie. Though full of energy and enthusiasm, there is in this card none of the tension or fire of the previous two, but instead the active flow of exchange and communion, sharing the pleasure of laughter and good company. While each of the other cards face outwards, looking either into the past with wariness and hard-earned memory, or into the future with quiet will and receptive strength, the Three of Cups circles merrily around itself, caught up in the moment.

The overall message of these cards seems to be that through excessive vigilance and worry about the uncertainties and potential threats of the future (perhaps arising from past hurts), we turn our backs on our truer, more powerful inner strength — the Great Secret at the heart of this spread. By accepting that inner strength and appreciating its proper role, as gentle but courageous guardian of our animal souls, we open ourselves to opportunities for true connection and community — a cause for celebration and joy — for we can trust ourselves to playfulness and exchange without worry that such engagement will spin out of control and cause damage or harm.

Diary

Days of Note: Moon Conjunct Saturn

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 7:06am - 6:02pm
Moon: waning gibbous, libra (air/cardinal)
Earth: cold again, the temperature falling all day, so that steady, pleasant rain in the afternoon gave way to thick, fluffy snow, and then eventually to crystalline glitter in the air that lays on thick over night



Spent most of today working and fighting cravings for soda and chocolate, a bit of a set back after this past week full of chocolate Valentine's Day candy, but by this evening I felt more energetic and light, not so bogged down by heavy foods my body has to work too hard to digest and integrate.

Last night, I posted a request on the TC forum for some advice and insight regarding the strange dream of the sea god that I had the night before. Even sharing as little as I did, I found myself nervous about what kind of response I might get. Luckily, many folks have responded with very helpful and insightful suggestions — and of course, most insightful of all is to ask Him (and ask Her, ask Brigid as well) to explore and deepen the relationship, if that's how I want to pursue this.

So that's what I plan to do, and to begin this process tonight, in fact. Jeff and I, the day before this dream, had worked out a plan for ways to work with my upcoming Saturn Return, and I think that, at least for now, I'm going to explore this relationship with this sea god in conjunction with that. My first meditation rite will be tonight. I wanted to make a quick note here, to note the usual diary-appropriate information, before moving on to that work.

Diary - Dream

Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 7:07am - 6:01pm
Moon: waning gibbous, libra (air/cardinal)
Earth: early in the morning, still, but the weather forecast is calling for a chill, gray day with chances of a rain-snow mix later this evening


Last night, I had several intense dreams about the ocean, one after another as I woke and then fell back into sleep again. The first were more mundane — images of being at the beach, waves rolling, strolling along the sands, sun shining down — I suspect because high winds recently have sounded very much like waves during the night, and we're also reading a book at the moment that takes place by the ocean, though it's a rocky coast in Cornwall. A bit later, the dreams became more erotic in nature, with Jeff and I racing along the sands, chasing one another, catching one another up in passionate embraces and rolling, tumbling along in our lovemaking. (You can tell these were dreams, because the sand wasn't a bit irritating!) During this dream, there was at least one scene that took place in a kind of hotel room or small apartment furnished with lush décor and rich colors. Out one window, a scene stretched away far below (as though I was looking from the tenth story of a building) of rolling dunes and hills tumbling up over themselves into mountains — yet, facing the other direction, the room opened up onto the beach itself, right at sea level, the walls and floor slowly fading, giving way to sand and horizon, the ceiling stretching out and out like an awning that eventually became a drape of cloth that could be pulled away. The apartment had a sense of being cozy and enclosed within, and yet there was no discernible break between inside and outside where it met the waters running up the shore.

After waking up from this dream in very early morning, about two hours before sunrise, I fell back asleep to have another dream about the ocean, even more intense than the last. In this, the ocean's size seemed magnified, the waves huge and deep, harboring enormous sea creatures like whales incredibly close to shore, their slick, dark backs arching up out of the blue waters as they leapt and splashed. Above the ocean on the horizon, it seemed there was a god — the god of the sea himself — who would pull away and withdraw like an outgoing tide, and when he did, there seemed to be this great, overwhelming noise of... gathering, gathering in, not a sucking exactly, but a rumbling, gathering cacophony among the clouds, and in the sky there appeared a kind of expanding sphere of inward-collapsing cloud and light that pinched in, almost the way an hour glass might, or a funnel, as sand slowly drains from the top — the faster it falls away, the larger the sinking hole around it becomes. This sphere of pinched, withdrawing sky seemed to undergo a color shift, along with the terrible, tremendous noise, that shaded it the colors of sunset — reds and oranges and rose into deeper blushed-purples.

I witnessed this happening twice, standing within the lushly-furnished room from the dream before, and after the second time, once the sphere collapsed and the great noise was replaced by sudden silence, it seemed the sky turned into paper confetti, bits of cloud shredded up and falling, drifting down in bits of white curls of thin paper, and other pieces of sky in huge, flat papery circles that were on one side the colors of sunset and on the other side the bright blues of a sunny day, these circles that drifted and fluttered down past the windows, some of them five or six feet across. Of course, the sky itself was still there, it wasn't as though the paper confetti was the sky itself — only, bits of the sky that fluttered down after the noise and change in the sky had ended.

After this second time, the sea god returned to the room, which seemed to be his room or temple in some way, and he was in human form, or at least, that was the impression I had, or that he left. I had been with someone else, an older woman, in the room, but she was gone now and there was only me. I remember the vague sense of intrigue and accident, as though I were not supposed to be there and it seemed the sea god mistook me for someone else in how he greeted me with familiarity and intimacy (though at another level, it seemed to me that he must know who I really was and that there was no mistake, for he was a god, after all, and had to know these things). I was wearing garments of shimmering, sheer, sparkling blue and green in the flowing robes of a priestess, and he came to me as his priestess and drew me down beneath him and we began with an embrace, touching and caressing each other, our mouths searching each others' out. His body felt as heavy and wide as the ocean.

Through this intimacy, I could feel a sense of mystery flooding me, overwhelming me, the mysteries of the ocean that were only known and kept by his true priestesses. And because I was not a true priestess of his, I felt that rush of power and revelation and eager excitement, but also a kind of growing, intense fear as though I might drown. He could sense it, too, and seemed suddenly to realize that I was not his priestess (though, again, it seemed he had known this in some way all along) — and he pulled away, and we parted. He disappeared, went off again somewhere I did not know, and I was alone for a while in the room, thinking on the experience and the mysteries I had barely glimpsed. Watching out over the sea from the room where I sat, I could see the deep waters roiling, the winds above them pacing back and forth and churning up whitecaps — the sea seemed restless and an expression of his restlessness and reckless energy stirred up by our embrace. There was about the whole scene a kind of uncertainty about how to proceed, and a sense that I had "gone too deep" already to turn back now, and that once having glimpsed the mysteries I had to commit myself to pushing forward, moving on to become a priestess myself. As though a seed of mystery had been planted in me that I would have to honor and nurture, or it would one day rise up suddenly to drown me nonetheless.

I forget exactly how the dream ended, but I think he came to me one last time. I had walked out of the room and onto the open beach beneath the sun, bare feet teasing along the edges of the waves lapping up the shore. There he returned, found me again, and walked with me for a while. I don't remember what we spoke of, or if we spoke. The dream just faded away, with no real ending or conclusion, only a strong sense of his presence there by the ocean, and an intense longing almost more powerful than I could bare to touch him again, to be with him — a longing I felt echoed and returned from him.



Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of this dream. I have always had intense dreams about the sea, and maybe that's all this is: a combination of memories of the ocean stirred up by the book we're reading, and some sexual desire, and some other emotional tides. On the other hand, I have also felt drawn to the Celtic sea god Manannan (or, in Welsh, Manawyddan) for quite a time, now, and that draw has always held a sense of the erotic in it in some way, as he has seemed to me in meditations not as an old man, but as younger, wilder, both more playful and more dangerous. I wonder if this dream is a call from him to take seriously the invitation to become his priestess.

Yet at the same time, I find myself resisting that call, if that's what it is. I am so far away from the ocean here, it seems impossible to be a priestess of a sea god landlocked surrounded by hills and mountains! Not to mention, I'm not sure how I would handle that relationship and my relationship with Brigid Star Fire — after years of practice being monotheistic, I feel at most comfortable with the idea of henotheism: belief in many gods, but devotion to just one. I'm not sure how I could possible be a priestess of two gods, when both could make such a claim on me. I feel as though, to go deeply into the mysteries, I would have to be devoted primarily, if not exclusively, to one alone. How would I handle my daily devotional work to balance a relationship with more than one god? How would I work with each in ritual — would they work together in a single ritual, is there any basis in the lore for such a thing, would they be compatible, would they expect rituals devoted solely to them for each of the holy days, or more?

In my astrology, Neptune is opposite my sun, and forms a great triangle along with Saturn and Pluto conjunct. The watery connection of the moon, too, plays a part, and I had already been talking to Jeff about setting up a schedule of regular meditation and journaling in preparation for my upcoming Saturn Return. I was even planning on doing another journal entry today or tomorrow to explain the details of this work, since my first meditation is scheduled for tomorrow (and then approximately once a month when the moon is conjunct Saturn both in the sky and in my natal chart). Perhaps I am meant to work with Manannan as a guide to my Saturn Return in some way. He is considered by some to be a kind of psychopomp figure, a guider of souls back and forth between the mists of the world, across the sea into the west and the Otherworld.

As my first Saturn meditation is scheduled for tomorrow, I'll look into it then, I think. For now, I wanted to record this dream, since it was so very strange and intense.

Diary

Days of Note: Full White Waking Moon

Sun: entering into pieces (water/mutable), 7:10am - 5:59pm
Moon: full moon, virgo (earth/mutable)
Earth: a second unusually warm day in the middle of February, bright, warm sunlight, white fluffy clouds in a crystal blue sky, winds shifting the bare tree branches and playing with the wind chimes all up and down the block, the woods was restless with spring's first robins and last winter's dried, dead leaves stirring in miniature cyclones in the breeze; everything is mud and melting ice


The last few days were rough, with some discomfort and pain and general fatigue, but today has been lovely. We've opened up the windows all over the house to allow the rooms to air out with the breeze, and the place feels full of shifting life and wafting curtains again. A warm day like today does not feel very much like spring, exactly, as it's too early and it seems even the land knows tomorrow will be cold and near freezing again. The air is too dry and restless to be full spring air, though everywhere there is mud and muck and melting. Jeff and I had lunch outside in the backyard, watching the clouds pass in front of the sun one by one. He kept insisting it was a day from May, but May is more lush and green than this. Everything is still very dry and stiff, not awake like true spring but restless in its sleep. It will be waking soon.

The last few days of work have been interesting, as a new project had me hopping and worrying a bit about my "boss's boss" approving of what I was doing. Things seemed to have gone well, but to go from so little supervision to that kind of extra oversight makes me worry. I want to be thought of as a competent and hard worker — a tough task to accomplish when you work from home sometimes, I guess.

So my creativity of earlier in the week was on the wane, for a few reasons. Today was a "day off" (with only a few hours of work in the morning), as was yesterday which I spent mostly arguing with trolls online. I should know better, but it's hard to resist sometimes. This time at least I did not let it bother me so much... or, I shouldn't put it that way. "Letting" seems to have very little to do with it — but at least, the trolls remained laughable, and their insults ridiculous, enough for me to easily shrug them off. I spent some time yesterday afternoon working on some creative awen work with the Kowit poetry workbook.... but found none of the prompts for the exercise I was working on to be very helpful. Prompts like "remember a time when you were sad" or "remember a time when you felt humiliated" came up empty-handed — I could remember occasions that seemed a mix of frustrated and restlessness, but nothing much else came to mind. Jeff said I must have just been in a particular mood, and I know that sometimes I do get "blocked" or stuck in a particular emotional state when it becomes difficult for me to remember feeling any other way. That got us on to astrology again, and conversations about my moon being in my twelfth house, so that the source of my emotions were often a mystery to me but also, if I follow them willingly and trustingly, serve as my connection to Mystery and grace.

This, of course, led back to a conversation about how to work with my Saturn return, which is fast approaching. Yesterday, in my restlessness, I asked Jeff just to come up with a simple practice I could do regularly, since trying to be "creative" to come up with some practical exercises seemed too much to deal with at the time and I was coming up dry. He said he'd give it some thought, and in the meantime I will be contemplating it, too. I want to ask Brigid for her aid in this endeavor, but I'm feeling like a neglectful devotee — this past week, I completely got the day wrong for my Flamekeeping shift. Remembering that I would be Keeping during Valentine's Day, I had it in my brain that my shift began at sundown on Valentine's Day itself, but this turned out to be one sundown too late. When I realized the mistake (no thanks to my Google calendar, which has been acting wonky with my holy days sub-calendar for some reason recently), I kept my shift one day off.... but still feel as though I should have done more to make up for the lapse. If my first year of Flamekeeping was characterized by plenty of strange and happy coincidences, with my Keeping shifts falling on important dates almost every month it seemed, this year's Flamekeeping seems more like to be characterized by distraction, forgetfulness and a need on my part to be more careful and disciplined in my devotions.

After dinner yesterday, though, I did return to my computer to work on a poem inspired by the trollish bickering that I'd experienced online that day. Reimagining these accusations of being "idealistic" and naive and living in "white flower power land" (like I said — so absurd as to be laughable, almost endearing in their mischaracterizations of my view), the poem arose as a kind of affirmation that to be open to wonder is also a kind of power, and sometimes one more difficult and more risky than the power of brute force and violence. I shared the poem below, as well as on P+P (where a reader promptly tried to rebut with song lyrics — gods, I love a good old fashion bardic match!). So yesterday, after priming the pump for hours and coming up dry, it turned out I had a poem in me after all.

Today, after working several hours in the morning and lunching with Jeff outside in the sunlight, I decided to go into the woods for some meditation. During my walk, I scouted the next stone I would need to bless and consecrate for my DOTR work. I sang songs to the earth as I walked, which always helps to anchor me and center me in the work, reminding me that this is not just some casual stroll but a journey for a sacred purpose. I made my way to the stone outcropping where I usually sit, looking down over the ravine, and spent some time in meditation there, breathing and chanting the awen and grounding in the stirring bones of the earth. It's obvious that I need to return to regular meditative practice, as my mind wandered quite a bit during this time. But then, I am not a machine, not clockwork, and I do sometimes wonder if a wandering mind just isn't more natural during some times of the month. Chanting the awen, I felt centered and grounded, and when I fell back into silence, it seemed to me that my voice continued to be carried and echoed in the wind and among the trees in the woods surrounding me — just as it had that time in Ohiopyle, near the waterfall last May. I consecrated a small jar of water and, after a sip to honor the Spirit within, poured it out upon the rock as an offering to the local land. I then did the same with a jar of birdseed, as an offering to the spirits and beings of the land. Though my meditative work was perhaps not as fruitful as I might have liked, the rite itself seemed rooted and powerful enough. Anyway, we do not do these rites for ourselves alone or the way they make us feel — we do the work as real work, true action in the world, that shapes and changes the world. A gift is a gift because of intention, even if that intention is worn and frazzled at the edges because of moontides and stress. I hope the land can meet me half-way, as it has so often done before.


Diary Tarot Card:

(b) Song of the World
(d) Song of the Land ............ (c) Song of my Gods
(a) Song Within

(a) Song Within - The Ten of Pentacles is a card of fulfillment and enjoyment in life, rooted and steeped in the beauty of the material world but married to the spiritual meanings and movements, often found most poignantly in art and aesthetics. As Annie Dillard writes, an artist "jammed in the pool of materials," lives also in the mind, home of forms, and in the spirit. This is a card of auspiciousness, prosperity and generosity alike as they are connected and mutually supportive in the physical world of nature and its laws of exchange and engagement. Hard work and diligence comes to fruition in poise, comfort and simple pleasures enjoyed freely, without covetousness or hedonism. A willingness to work within the forms and limits of tradition and deep, ancient wisdom also expresses itself in this card — while this may sometimes bog us down in overly stiff structure, in this card the limits and boundaries of form, tradition and discipline serve a vital purpose in shaping and cultivating liveliness and joy.

(b) Song of the World - Temperance (XIV) brings together in balance, harmony and exchange the swirling, dancing, jousting energies of masculine and feminine, earth and sky, light and dark, phoenix and dragon, yin and yang. Life comes not from the strict purity of extremes, but from this dance of tension and difference, each tempering the other — the fire in the water. This card signifies a time of respite, rest and relief — albeit only a temporary one, perhaps — after a struggle, when we have a chance to refresh ourselves, catch our breath, and ready for the next step in the journey. There is poise and a sense of stillness and quiet in this card, despite the roaring, twining energies that surround the angel of temperance where she perches. Her mind is clear and open, the connections between thought and soul and manifestation in the material world laid bare and beautiful before her soft-gazing eyes.

(c) Song of my Gods - The Seven of Cups is a card of paradox, offering many choices — almost too many to count or consider — but only some of them may lead to deeper connection with both soul and spirit, and the Song of the World. Egotism and fantasy threaten to lead us off our path and we may make wrong choices if we stay too long with our "heads in the clouds," day dreaming of wealth or fame or other such rewards. But with our gaze firmly held to those ways of true value, following wise advice of those who have come before us, we can find the path to deeper, more authentic engagement and wholeness. The siren song of this card is not all deception, but we must be careful in our choices, and allow humility — grounding in the earth — to help us choose which path we take.

(d) Song of the Land - The Chariot (VII) wrestles with the chaotic, restless forces of conflicting desires and intentions, the conscious and the unconscious aspects of ourselves. To master these tensions and ride victorious requires strength of will and receptivity to changing circumstances alike. Psychologically, this card represents the healthy development of our ego selves, that sense of self that governs our actions and navigates a smooth, sure course through sometimes murky waters or conflicting interests. This is a card of composure and confidence amidst confusion and disorder, the first assertion of the ego as a reliable center for the individual self.


Further Interpretation - The cards drawn for the Song of the World (Temperance) and the Song of the Land (The Chariot), both major arcana, also both involve the balance of energies and the dancing, push-pull of conflict and tension between opposites. Appropriate for the time of year, and for the weather and energies of this day in particular, these cards seem to reflect the moods, energies and currents of the greater world — the coming of spring, the restlessness of the wind over the bare, muddy land, the play of water over soil and warm sunlight slicing through sometimes chilly air. Both cards incorporate a kind of paradox of both stillness and chaotic movement, poise and grace as well as mess and conflict.

The Ten of Pentacles in the position of Song Within seems to indicate my recent focus on a more disciplined approach to creative writing, and my willingness to "prime the pump" even on days when I am not feeling particularly creative or inspired. It may also indicate the process of revision and craft involved in pulling together a book manuscript, a project that I have also started recently and hope to finish over the next several months. Since this card came up earlier in a reading in a position that seemed to suggest this was my best approach to the writing life and the work of my soul, I am pleased to see it showing up again here — perhaps this means that I am orienting myself in a helpful and receptive way and utilizing my self-discipline as the necessary tool that it is to help me accomplish my goals.

The card that appears in the position of Song of my Gods (Seven of Cups) is the most confusing of this reading, which is not exactly surprising given the paradoxical nature of the number seven. In previous readings, this card has seemed to warn about making wrong choices, being distracted by temptations to popularity or influence instead of remaining anchored in the work of my writing. The two figures in the card face in different directions, though both to the left (in fact, all the figures in all four cards face to the left, with the exception of a few of the animals in Temperance and The Chariot) — the woman looks up, gesturing, towards the position of the Song of the World (Temperance) card, while the man gazes down at the map he holds, in the direction of the Song Within (Ten of Pentacles) card. In the artist's interpretation, it is the male who is "grounded" and sensible enough to accomplish the couple's goals, while the female is too much distracted by temptation and fantasy. That the woman gestures towards the external "world" position while the man gazes down with steady discipline towards the "internal" position is interesting. Yet at the same time, the card that the woman points to is Temperance, a card with encouraging meaning of its own. The angle of temperance herself seems to be turned inward, deep in contemplation of the forces around her. Meanwhile, the Ten of Pentacles holds not only the prosperous queen, but the old dragon steady, perhaps even stuck, in his ways. So an orientation towards both the external and internal worlds may be necessary — the greater world may hold not only temptations and distractions, but inspiring examples and helpful guides to the navigation of these tensions and vital energies, while the inner world may run the risk of becoming too entrenched in navel-gazing and self-reference and in this way become stuck. A map may be a helpful guide, as in self-discipline, but it must be supplemented. A floating castle may be mere fantasy, but if we see such dreams realized in the world through the lives of others, perhaps we do well to ask ourselves how this is possible, and learn from the questions we ask. It seems to message of this card, then, is both discernment and balance, seeking out what is helpful to guide my choices without discounting either one or the other out of hand. Seems like the kind of advice I often get from my gods, Brigid in particular.