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It seems my blood runs in poetry each year during May. It is a pattern I’ve just now begun to realize. Perhaps it is my Moon in Taurus that drives me outside where nature’s beauty in my little piece-of-earth sets my soul to pondering when the sun moves into this Astrological Sign.

One of the benefits of a long life, (I’m just 63, but that is nearly ten years more than my mother lived) you begin to notice the connections in your life as it moves through the Wheel of the Year. The Wheel of the Year is a celebration of the cyclical changing of the seasons and rotation of the sun. The holy days are defined as Sabbats. The Sabbats are known to Witches and many Pagans as the following:

Sabbat Name

Common Name Astronomical Event

Calendar Date

Yule

Christmas Winter Solstice

December 21

Imbolc

Groundhog Day Cross Quarter Day

February 2

Ostara

Easter Vernal Equinox

March 21

Beltane

May Day Cross Quarter Day

May 1

Litha

Midsummer Summer Solstice

June 21

Lughnasadh

Lammas Cross Quarter Day

August 1

Mabon

Harvest Home Autumnal Equinox

September 21

Samhain

Halloween Cross Quarter Day

October 31

But, thinking about the patterns of my own life, perhaps I need to make my own Wheel of the Year.

My Wheel begins at Imbolc when I begin to ponder the ‘calling’ of the year. It is my birthday month so perhaps, as many of us do, we take stock during our annual solar return and begin to think what we need to begin work on so that we grow into the people we want to be. Imbolc could be my calling for the year time.

Ostara is when I finally get to plant my garden in seeds or little baby seedlings. I’ve dreamed and planned for it during the cold months but I finally get my fingers in the dirt. It is my planting time.

Beltane begins my poetry time perhaps because of the moon’s annual lunar return into Taurus, my moon sign.

Midsummer is a time I am battling to keep my growing things alive. The never-ending sun and heat of Texas withers much of my best-laid plans and my garden struggles to live. I will call this my battle time.

Lughnasadh is often when I travel to see family. It helps to escape the relentless heat of Dallas and gets me away from the frustration of being nearly house-bound to the air-conditioning. It could be my vacation time.

At the Autumn Equinox, I might take stock of the projects I’ve worked on during the summer. What have I harvested/completed? What still needs to be done? What might need to change? This could be my evaluation time.

By Samhain, I grow poetic again.  There is something about the golden sun low in the sky and the turning leaves that moves me deeply.  I look forward to the coming cold and the family time that the late harvest/early winter season brings. I could call this family and gratitude time.

At Yule, I get to go into myself. Before I retired, it was the one time of year I had a lot of time off so I could go ‘into-the-deep’ of myself without stress. I hope to continue this, just because it is the cold and dark time which invites introspection. I will call it my ‘going into the deep’ time.

My personal Wheel of the Year looks like this:

Faelind Event

Faelind Description

 Sabbat Name

Going-into-the-Deep Time

Facing shadows & learning from the dark

Yule

My ‘Calling-for-the-Year’ Time

I ‘receive’ my ‘calling’ for the year ahead

Imbolc

Planting Time

Getting my fingers in the dirt

Ostara

Poetry Time

Nature beckons and fills my soul to overflowing

Beltane

Battle Time

Struggling to keep my garden alive

Litha

Vacation Time

Visit family, ancestral homeland, & escape Texas heat

Lughnasadh

Evaluation Time

What have I accomplished? Should I change course?

Mabon

Family and Gratitude Time

Gratitude for bounty and gratitude for family

Samhain

What does your Wheel of the Year look like?

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I wrote this long ago before my cat passed away and back when I still went into the office on a regular basis. I work mostly from home now and my cat has been gone many years. When my boyfriend traveled for work, she and I would hear a noise, look up from what we were doing to see that no one was there. Then we would look at each other and go back to what we were doing.

But one day, something ‘felt’ different… 

I had the gut-check sensation that someone had been in my house without my knowledge or permission today.  The water button was pushed on the refrigerator instead of the ice cube button.  A very small thing, but I know without a doubt that I left the ice cube button pushed last night when I went to bed.  I didn’t check it or use it when I left for work this morning but there it was tonight; the water button light was on.  The power had been shut off at some point during the day and I was greeted with clocks blinking the wrong time when I got home.

I later thought it odd that I was more concerned about the fact that a real person might have been in my house today than I am about the spirits that I believe live and move around the house all the time.  It is an old house, built in 1939, back when permits were not required and people did whatever they could to live.  I love this house but I know that there are more people living here than me, my boyfriend, and my cat.  Doors open by themselves and cracks and creaks go through the house at all times of the day and night.  The cat and I look up and nod to the others who live here too.

 

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Random thoughts from long ago that still hold true for me…

It seems so impersonal; writing on a computer. Not feeling the pen moving across the page. Not fretting over the poor penmanship, or worrying whether you will be able to read your own handwriting at some future point in time. No angst over misspelled words or misplaced paragraphs. Typing on a keyboard allows the thoughts to flow without emotional attachment. Perhaps that is the reason that so much of society is no longer personally engaged, but skims through life in sound bites and what passes for relationships in facebook posts.

I’ve often thought it was a positive movement that Bill Gates and Microsoft revolutionized human intercourse by putting a personal computer within most everyone’s reach. One must almost actively avoid using a computer; much like those who have eschewed Television for loftier pastimes or to make a political statement.

But now I am not so sure the revolution was good for humanity. We have more and faster access to information of all sorts, whether we want it or not, but what has happened to our relationships? What price did we pay for instant encyclopedic definitions and superficial interactions with our friends and neighbors? We can keep in contact with distant kith and kin, but isn’t email and texting more often being used to communicate with those who are within arm’s reach when we don’t want to reach out our arms?

Have we lost our ability to negotiate the intricacies of deep intimacy? Have I?

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