It
has been cold in New England this week. More than once, I’ve awakened
to find the temperature in my bedroom had dropped to a brisk 54 degrees
or so (about 12 degrees Celsius), and the windchill outside something in
the single digits. It is hard to force myself out of bed in the
darkness, and my fingers hurt as I turn the key in the lock to my front
door when I leave for work. Photo by Peter Bishop, 2012.But
as I commute, the sun comes up, and the sky becomes so large overhead.
My classroom is flooded with winter light during the school week, and
at home, I bask like a lizard in the strong, sloped sunshine.
Counter-intuitive as it might seem, I love this time of year.
Sometimes
I say that to friends online, only to have them answer as though I must
be being sarcastic. This is the time of year I begin to receive
reports from friends in warmer climes about the warm weather they are
having, or even the new starts in their gardens. (My New England
friends haven’t yet bothered to order our seeds.) I don’t envy them,
however, even though the only sign of spring here is the faintest
conceivable blush or swelling on some–not all–of the buds tight-furled
on the winter boughs of the trees.
The air is clear! With the
ground finally white with snow, the light is reflected into
gloriousness, and it is still low enough to the horizon to be tinted
with gold. Days are growing longer–indeed, we’re almost halfway to the
Equinox–and yet, it is still bitterly, bitterly cold: perfect wood-stove
weather. We’re lucky enough to have a hearth, a real hearth, and both
because it saves us money on heat and because it is so delicious, my
husband and I have a fire almost every night. He sits at one side of
the fireplace and I sit at the other, grading papers or reading a good
book, our stocking feet stretched out toward the warmth. Why would I
want to be in Florida or Southern California right now?
One tradition my Quaker meeting observes, every year at this time, is writing what is termed a “State of Society Report.”
The idea is that, once a year, the entire meeting community from kids
to elders, gather together to reflect on questions designed to get us to
think about the life of the Spirit among us (“queries”
in Quakerese). Some meetings skip this practice, but mine has always
embraced it, looking back, every year in late January, at our lives
together as a spiritual community.
Somehow, this always seems to
be a good time for that. Looking over my blog posts over the last six
months, I can follow a distinct curve in my mood, darkening with the
fading light from Samhain to Yule and the weeks immediately after. As
the light faded, my gaze turned inward and downward, and my thoughts
dwelled on aging, loss, sadness… death.
But at Yule, the year
began to catch its breath, and now we’re climbing upward again. I can
see the future rising with the sun above the horizon, and it makes me
glance backwards, over the terrain I’ve been traveling, and then ahead
to what’s to come.This year, the turn toward withdrawal and
inwardness that comes with the waning light was exaggerated for me by a
bad flu strain I contracted in December, that drained me of energy for
weeks; I’m only now beginning to recover. With that loss of energy, I
wasn’t able to attend meeting for worship among Friends for over a
month–a longer break in my habits than I’ve had in years, or maybe ever.
I’m back into the rhythm of attending meeting now, but stepping out of it had the effect of turning my gaze to my Pagan life.
Over
the past few weeks, I have been sensing in my body that something
important is drawing to a close, some cycle I had been unconscious
of. What’s more, I can feel something new on its way.
Coincidentally (or not) the Tarot study Peter has been engaged in
for a year now is drawing to a close, and both he and I are
contemplating taking on a new course of Pagan study and practice…
together. We’ve both found ourselves attracted to a new Tarot deck, and
we hear the book that accompanies it is quite good. Using the habits
of study Peter developed studying with B.O.T.A. this year, we may begin
working in a similar way with the Druidcraft Tarot. Or perhaps we’ll undertake together the Bardic course
offered by the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. “It will seem
pretty basic to you, ” friends who have just completed it warn us. But
that’s not the point, anyway: it’s not about urgently needing new
knowledge or training… it’s about the pleasure of sharing a practice, a
sort of “renewing our vows,” not so much as a couple, but as working
partners, a spiritual support team for one another. Photo by ForestWander, 2011.Maybe
that’s not what we’ll eventually do; life is complicated, and there are
many demands on our time, and many ways the gods find to get our
attention and draw us to what they want us to undertake next.
Yesterday, for instance, they sent a pair of black bears to explore our
yard, one up in our altar tree, the other pacing slowly and contentedly
back and forth, between the altar and the apple trees. I have no idea
what that might mean, but it was unusual, and striking, and beautiful.
Imbolc is coming. I am ready for another turning of the year.
Well, that was unexpected. For the last year, ever since my mom's health took a sharp downturn, I've been my dad's ride to Florence Congregational Church on Sundays. That community has been important for my dad and the weekly outing with me was something he always looked forward to and enjoyed, so I didn't mind taking him there. It meant giving up attending my own Quaker meeting for the duration, but I had already been questioning whether silent waiting worship was working for me. I was ready for a sabbatical. A month ago, my dad was Section-Twelved into a geriatric psych hospital when his dementia started to make him emotionally volatile. I had been visiting him every day at his assisted living facility which was right on my way home from work, but the hospital was almost an hour away. I didn't see him at all for three weeks, and when I did visit him there, it actually took me a couple of seconds to recognize him. He was slumped forward in a wheel chair, lo...
Pagans often argue about how to define who we are. What are the boundaries--between Wicca and Witchcraft, between Heathens and Pagans, between polytheists, pantheists, and non-theists... While I could do without the acrimony, we're a new as well as an old religious movement, so it makes sense that like any adolescent, we are fascinated by questions of identity. I will admit to preferring the Quaker approach to identity, though: rather than trying to create the definitive checklist of belief that make someone a "real Quaker," Friends typically share a body of testimonies and questions for reflection with those who are drawn to the Religious Society of Friends. "Do you feel this same sort of spiritual leading?" Friends ask one another. "Does this speak to the condition of your soul, as it does to ours?" Queries, not checklists of doctrine, hold the ways Quakers approach discernment, including around membership. And though no individual can declar...
(Note: there were so many thought provoking comments in response to this post that it generated a second-round of ideas. You can read the follow-up post here .) I have a confession to make. I want to be famous. Well, sort of. I don't want to be famous, famous, and ride around in a limousine and have to hire security and that sort of thing. I just want to write a book, have it published by somebody other than my mother, and bought and read by somebody other than my mother, and maybe even sign a couple of autographs along the way. Mom can have one autographed, too, if she wants. It has to be a spiritual book. A really moving and truthful book, that makes people want to look deep inside themselves, and then they come up to me and say something like, "It was all because of that book you wrote! It changed my life!" And I would say, no, no, really, you did all that, you and God/the gods --I'm a little fuzzy on whether the life-changing book is for Pagans or for Quake...
Comments