Yesterday I puttered around in the garden. It reached warm temperatures here, so I dug a spot for the rosemary Beth rescued last year, and planted the bulbs from the bulb-bowl we bought for Idunna and Bragi. I’m skeptical of whether or not I planted them deeply enough, but I also was at the end of my digging endurance, as I was using a trowel where I could more usefully have used a shovel — which we don’t have. I discovered that our chives are coming back and have buds already, that the chocolate mint and lemon balm are both exploring, that the perennial pansies I planted are coming back, and that the cinquefoil is spreading around nicely. I knew the nettle was doing just fine because it’s been doing just fine all along. It’s pluckier than even then mints. I half toyed with the idea of digging up the wild greenery that I don’t want there — some clover, some buttercups — but then a few jumping spiders started scattering around in an uproar and I decided to leave well enough alone. It’s not growing where I want to have other plants, at the time being, so it can stay. We need to tend our heather, but I like the leggy look of it.

I’m awash with garden dreams and plans. In the front I will be putting in an artichoke plant. In the back, once we get said shovel, we’ll turn soil over and put in some veggies. In the side yard, over the graves, I want violets and native bleeding hearts. At some point I want a lilac bush, borage, and a yew tree. Want want want.

Getting my fingers into the soil, getting to watch the creepy crawlies, getting to sweat and be outside . . . yeah, I miss the chill of winter, but I so love spring in this place.

I also picked my yoga practice back up, again again. There are no words to do that feeling justice.

~*~*~*~

We’ve got festivals coming up in April. On the 10th we’ll be holding our Sigrblot; Poseidon Hippios falls on the 18th; we’ll honor Jord on the 22nd, which is Earth Day (see what we did there?); Walpurgisnacht on the 30th. Also in there is seidhr. Thanks to Beth’s schedule for 2013, a large portion of the Poseidon festivals fall the day before seidhr, since I place the not-date-specific ones on the 8th of the lunar month, and she’s placing seidhr on the 9th of the lunar month. I look, and I see four festivals and a day of obligation, and I’m all, meh, that’s not that many!

I’m looking forward to the Poseidon Hippios festival. This is my longest running created festival for Him, though it’s place in the calendar has fluctuated wildly. More on that closer to the date.

In our household our tradition for Ostara is to honor Idunna and Bragi. This year Ostara fell upon the same day as Beth’s seidhr session so, while we normally dislike moving dates that are rather fixed, we bumped this one to the following weekend. Last Sunday was a rather big day, and then there was seidhr, wherein Things Happen, and really, as far as “the start of spring” goes, the vernal equinox is a little too late for our area. Rather, call it mid-spring.

(the offerings before the offering of said offerings: soda bread, bacon, honey, cider, an opal apple, a blood orange, and hand-rolled candles)

We realized, this year, that between the gods we honor on this date and the whole not-practically speaking-the-start-of-spring, the Ostara trappings don’t exactly fit, and what we’re celebrating isn’t, then, exactly Ostara. We’ll wind up with a new name for it next year, I’m sure. Or, no name for it. It was an interesting realization.

Also, happy that we’ll no longer feel compelled to include dyed eggs. I hate egg dyeing. It’s messy, it’s wet, it’s stressful, it’s not fun, and the eggs we get are already colorful and beautiful. Greens and blues and ivories and browns. Who needs dye, even if it *is* plant dye?

~*~*~

Speaking of holidays, my tried and true tradition of freaking out randomly and arbitrarily over getting ready for holidays is still rather strong. I was in bed early the night before, skin-crawly, jumpy, uber-sound sensitive. We hates it, we do.

~*~*~

I feel guilty about it a lot, but that doesn’t ever result in my wanting to change it a whole lot. Practically speaking, I’m a bit doom-and-gloom. Put into too big a group, I think humans are unmanageable, but I don’t advocate mass genocide, and so I have no solution to the problem. Bickering over small things (even when small things are important) when there are huge things going on renders me still and silent and hopeless and raw. (And yet, it’s important to know what one is having for a meal even after the house has been washed away in the flood. Life is made up of the small things.)

This is probably old news, and people killing people in horrible ways is horrible, and I don’t much care what religion one is, one ought not be raped, tortured, put to death because of it (nor for a number of other things. I do think some people can only be dealt with by putting them to death, and I mostly do not believe that torture is acceptable even then) but old news or not, this needs to get as much signal boosting as possible, and so I am doing my part.

Read this. It shouldn’t make a difference that, as Jason wrote, these are our people — because people being treated this way is awful, is always awful. But, be that as it may, this makes it more relevant to us — and how awful, that something like this is so common place that we need for it to be made relevant to us. Being alive, being sentient, being incarnate isn’t enough to make it relevant, we need more. Because even as I write this and recoil, I find those barriers drifting back into place. These people are not part of my community, my community is my family, my family is mostly not human and/or not incarnate, what happens on the mortal realm doesn’t overly concern me, etc.

Happy lies, to tell myself when instead it just overwhelms me past the point of madness.

The least I can do is carry this knowledge and accept the sorry that it brings with it. And, also, share.

Beth’s got a somewhat new series on her blog, Ask Me About Odin, which is pretty awesome in its own right, but I want to share her installment this week, because . . . well. It hit me in places that I thought I had straightened out already (Thank you, Odin, sir!) and it’s worth passing along. In case you think that, at this point, I’m a cool, calm ritualist simply scribing notes down during her seidh sessions, you need to know that I was sitting there mentally going, “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” during this one. So. Yeah. Not calm, not collected, definitely in awe.

Go see Beth’s newest installment.

Elizabeth posted this nifty post about love as action, and how love as an action is far, far more reliable than love-as-an-emotion. It is a great post, a timely post, and one worthy of your attention. Go, read.

This, oddly, has made my mind return to compassion. Not difficult to do this week. I celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary last weekend, on the 9th, and the proceeded to have hardships at home. One cat or another was ill with the stomach ick (which seems to have finally run its course) every day since my anniversary; Beth has been going through some rough patches, and I was hit with a migraine that knocked me on my ass for a day and left me shaky and jumpy the following day. I was called on to be a caregiver and supporter, to see after the cats and worry over them and watch them, to offer prayers on their behalf (thank you, oh Glorious Bastet — I was prompted to finally get Her shrine in order. It’s not ideal, and we need a step-stool to attend to the shrine, but She presides over the house from Her lofty vantage point over the Beloved Dead (critters) shrine, and this is proper) as well as helping Beth navigate her way through her rough patch and allow Odin whatever He desired of me . . . and then to plant myself in bed with ice upon my head when it was that or take my eyeball out.

That wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time immediately after my anniversary. I wanted the time to be savored, to be special. I wanted to bask in my awareness of Poseidon in my life, wanted to spend time in prayer, in communion, wanted to spread the day into a whole week affair — with no activities planned that to be aware and be open. I wanted a week of stillness, of as much of a retreat from the mundane world as I could manage. And instead, no.

Instead of being compassionate this week, I have felt harried and resentful and hurt. I have felt like a fool, for being excited about this anniversary, when I am rarely moved to be excited about anniversary dates. I am more of an in the moment sort of person. I carry His love all of the time, just as I carry the weight of the death of loved ones, so the anniversaries more or less are just another day of carrying that weight. But, this time, I was excited. Ten years. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal; I am well past ten years of being His. We’re approaching the twenty year mark for that particular milestone. And yet, ten years of being wed to Him, ten years of living a life intentionally devoted primarily to my gods, of this sort-of-not-quite monasticism. It didn’t start right at the wedding, mind you, but the wedding started it. And it’s a big deal to me. And I couldn’t focus on it at all. So, then came the resentment, which is a handy little cover for the hurt. Stupid hurt.

I am not driven toward compassion because it comes easily for me. I am not driven towards it even because I necessarily want it. Compassion is, before ritual, before devotional activities, before prayer, what love in action looks like on my path. Because Poseidon insists on it. And, I’m moved to share, sometimes I utterly fail at compassion, even within my immediate family. Beth might say especially within my immediate family. She, Odin, and Poseidon have borne the brunt of my lack of compassion this week, and Poseidon by His nearness only — everything else has had absolutely nothing to do with Him, and I’ve lashed out anyway.

Various things yesterday, including the aforementioned post, helped to drive home for me where corrections needed to be made. Do I trust Odin, or just play lip service to trusting Him? Usually, the trust comes easily. Lately, I guess not so much. They decide where my path goes, not me, damn it. And if that means I spend the week after my anniversary in service, as They dictate that service, then that is only fitting and proper.

Utter exhaustion helped, too. Can’t muster up the energy to be angry or anything other than just open when one is utterly exhausted.

This past Friday our household held a small observance for Gamelia, in honor of Hera and Zeus. Preparing for the festival helped me realize that I am in a period of ease when it comes to adding things to the walls. Typically, change in my environment has to come slowly or panic sets in, and I do challenge this, but this week it’s been easy. As in, what else can I get up on the walls while this is still so easy? I’m still searching around for images of Zeus and Hera separately to go on their wall-space, under the one I have of them together. Also, preparing for this festival made me realize just how much I want to do *more* for others that are not Poseidon and are nevertheless important to Him. I know this, and I then forget, and then I’m back to remembering again. One would think that after TWO DECADES it would get easier, but no. I am too often a “only what is right in front of me” sort of woman, alas.

Because this festival snuck up on me, and because I went from dismay at having missed it to elation at having realized that, according to the calendar reckoning I use, I hadn’t actually missed it, it would up being firmly in my mind for the week, and I had enough time, with enough “preholiday panic!” to plot and plan and shoot myself in the foot. Because there should be a wedding cake, right? And symbolic wedding candle? And new incense and new flowers and OODLES of pictures, and I should be making the cake myself, and the candles, and . . .

Breathe, relax, and offer what you have to offer.

Per usual with me, the sacrifice is presenting myself and daring to let attention fall on me. To look and praise and offer gratitude and have Them look back! I am not proud of the panic that clouds my mind and makes my words freeze up, especially before These Two, who aided me a ton back when I first offered Poseidon my vows and then promptly tried to destroy everything. Hera above all graced me with much wisdom and challenges for growth, helped me re-align my way of thinking about some things. Her touch was more impersonal than Aphrodite’s touch in my life — the sense is I came into Her attention because of Poseidon, not because of anything about me personally. And really, I don’t care; She is generous and giving and helped me so much. I can’t bring myself to care about Her motives. I can only continue to strive to be worthy of Her guidance, and I hope that I am.

Words, before the gods, do not come easily. Mostly, I think this okay, because They know.

(the offering was artisan pizza with olives, tomatoes, amazing cheese, basil, and artichoke hearts, bubbly pink Moscato, and a beautiful shortbread-and raspberry linzer cookies)

Yesterday, then, was my 10th wedding anniversary (and still, still that word comes difficult to me. I freeze, I stutter, I try to explain away or qualify. Wedding anniversary. Wedding.) Poseidon has yet to strike me down for my arrogance. He has yet to take His presence from my awareness. I can only conclude that I have not offended Him as yet. Phew.

I am filled with almost-words. Gratitude, devotion, affection, acknowledgement of the semi-solitude lifestyle I’m living, the pain it causes me for missing my loved ones while the gratitude that most of them understand and wan me to live my life true to myself, and my unending gratitude toward them for that understanding and their continued love. Even when they don’t understand my choices, they at least understand that I am happy, and that matters to them. This is good. I am blessed. Last night there was a very pointed dream that amounted to “These choices are the ones you could have made. You chose this instead, and I honor that.” Because one thing that has been constant, and that I’m hyper-aware of especially when I’m returning home from trips back east, is Poseidon’s . . . gratitude? . . . at my choices, the sacrifices of my heart.

Words suck at this. I wish they didn’t.

I’ve gone back and forth about posting this, but ultimately I’m going to, mostly because writing it helps me get these thoughts into my awareness. I have been focusing a lot, a lot-a lot, on humanity, on human community, on human relationships, this year. I hadn’t realized quite how much, until a chance throw-away comment that had little to nothing to do with me personally, was made, and this realization followed quickly on its heels, to slap my eyes open. I face it without value-judgment, because in the light of the past year, it only makes sense. I’ve focused on my blood family, both the then-dying and the remaining kin, because death is hard, because losing parents is hard, because I love my mother, my brother, my niece and nephews, my aunt and uncle, my cousins. Some of the focus has been good — I’ve reconnected with family members of whom I am fond; some of the focus has been hard. It hasn’t even been two months yet since my grandmother died. The thought of it, when it catches me up, floors me, though I can hold it together if I don’t think of my mother. I don’t worry about her dying, I simply have to think of her having lost her mother and I’m completely undone.

I’ve toyed with getting involved more in community here in the city. I’ve thought about going to the UU church, about attending one of the Buddhist temples, about getting involved with CUUPs. I’ve focused on reading theological and philosophical books, modern and ancient, and have immersed myself in humanity. I’ve gone back and forth with the idea of joining ADF, mostly for study structure but also for an expanded sense of community. I’ve found myself missing the community that we had back east, both non-religious and religious community.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve thought about such things. Any long time readers will know that I go back and forth with my wanting to be around like-minded people. And, I do think that there’s something to be said for having a physical community that will rally around you in times of need, and around whom you can rally, offering support and aid. I can see the desire to wanting to know your neighbors, and from time to time, it’s a want that I share.

And then, of course, sanity reestablishes itself. I know three of my neighbors on a first name basis (and, it being me, I know almost all of the dogs and some of the cats on first name basis, too, and knew them first). I know more of them (the humans) on sight. I don’t want daily interaction with people I barely know, and I don’t really want to join groups and make new friends, because I have enough friends, dear friends with whom I do not converse enough, thanks to time zones, life, and obligations.

What I realized, and keep having to re-realize, is that I want an immediate family made up of my closest friends. I want them as my neighbors, and my community, and — and here’s where I keep tripping up — I want them here. I want them by me.

I have human contact on a regular basis, because I work a day job full time outside of the home. I acknowledge that the ability to cultivate compassion is important to me, for my own reasons (not the least bit altruistic, but I think altruism is over-rated). I don’t need or even really want it in my spiritual life. And, I knew this, I’ve known this, I adore our semi-secluded lifestyle for this very reason. But in this year of focusing on humans, on human death, on my extended human family, on previously-human spirits, I’ve a little bit lost focus on the not-human, never-been-human creatures that make up my extended family. Worse, the most humbling bit of this whole revelation for me has been that, when approaching Poseidon in worship, I’ve made Him into a human. Oh, obviously not really. Ours is a very casual, very laid-back relationship. There’s playfulness and banter and heaps and heaps of affection and gratitude, on my end. I approach Him with due reverence, but after so long of such an intimate relationship, there is a large degree of comfort/security/safety. I am more me, before Him, than I am at any other time. So I don’t worry about His judging me and finding me lacking, or being offended by anything I say or think or do, or don’t do. I won’t even say that I’ve lost my sense of awe, because I haven’t done that. But there was some sort of shifting change, where I dismissed/stopped being aware of His Otherness. Even that’s not right, because I never forget Who and What He is. But, in all this familial focus, and this compassion focus, and this humility focus, and what-if-community focus, it was easy to lose awareness of the not-human-concerns.

I’m failing to say this accurately, and I’m sharing mostly because, well. Strip me back to the bone, right? Especially when I reach places like this, where I need a jarring slap out of nowhere to realize that what I’m doing isn’t being true to myself, my path, my practice.

Aaaaaaand this has been sitting in draft form for days, waiting for me to neaten it up. It’s not gonna happen. It is what it is.

In other news, check out Beth’s write up of our Ewemeolc festival, complete with pictures.

. . . but then again, maybe not.

Recently for our story-time, we read Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which I discovered thanks to Allyson (Thanks, Allyson!) I’d started reading it alone, but the book was simply too endearing to keep to myself, and I wasn’t sure that it was a book Beth would ever read on her own, if left to her druthers, and so, story-time book it became! (Also, I kept stopping to share bits of it with her anyway, so I may as well just read it to her, I figured.) Corbie can somehow tell fiction from non, even when it’s a nice story, and he seems to have little tolerance for religious books of any type, so he spend most of the time looking forlorn and dejected. (He likes adventure stories!) The cats, however, all came into the bedroom for story-time, which they seem to do specifically for religious books of any type, whereas usually it’s just Lu and Neech in for generic story-time. But I digress.

The book is, quite simply, what the title suggests. As part of a year long project of trying to live “biblically”. Rachel is an Evangelical Christian who hit a moment of a crisis of faith, and hit it back with serious study, soul-searching, and challenging her ideas, beliefs, and approach to her faith and its scripture. And then, best yet — the bravest part, in my mind — she shared her year’s journey with us. She looked at such widely accepted and less widely understood (and taken out of context) ideas about “biblical” living, and delved deeper. (Must women really submit to their husbands? Do “proper” Christian women really need to complete a daily (impossible) check-list to be considered living up to their ideals? Are Christians really fulfilling the ministry of their God if they are regularly turning blind eyes to the troubles of the world, coming from a place of hate or fear, ignoring those in need? and so on).

As obviously not a Christian, a lot of what I read was food for thought, interesting to read and, ultimately, not applicable. I don’t have scripture I have to worry about, I don’t have centuries of in-fighting resulting in a myriad of splinter groups all trying to tell me why I’m not pagan enough, or devoted to my Gods in quite the right way, etc. Some of it was incredibly moving. At one point, the author and a friend of hers held a memorial ritual for the female victims of biblical tales, swept aside and forgotten, and both Beth and I were quite touched. We both look a fair amount toward our ancestors, be they familial or spiritual ancestors, so that bit resonated with us. We may have teared up. Reading about her journey to greater consumer-awareness allowed me to be thankful for how far I’ve come, and to remind myself that there’s still a ways to go. Beth and I laughed over the exchanges between the author and her husband, especially her leaps of not-logic in the midst of crises (usually self-induced) and his resultant bafflement. Most especially the leaps of not-logic, because that could so be us. “I over planned and have never done X before but I’ve read about it now so what could possibly go wrong? Oh, I didn’t leave enough time, everyone is going to be here to witness my disaster, the obvious solution is to cry on the floor for an hour or so, since I’m obviously a failure at life!” Oh, how well does my mind know *that* train of thought . . . .

Rachel writes honestly, with frankness, humor, a touch of sarcasm, and, refreshingly enough, humility — something I’m coming to see as a combination of compassion, loving-kindness, and awe of (for her) God and (for me) the Gods. This is one of the things that draws me to the Abrahamic monotheists again and again, a thing I see somewhat less present in modern paganism. I won’t say lacking, because it’s there. I will say, it’s younger, less defined, over-looked, ignored, devalued, likely as a knee-jerk reaction against the Evil Christian influence. Pendulum swinging, I get it, I see the need, but I don’t have to like it. Yes, our Gods may or may not value compassion or loving-kindness (I’m Odin’s as much as I’m Poseidon’s, remember) but in an increasingly smaller world, living in societies where we need to get along, compassion (not to be confused with door mat) is a tool we could do well to use more of. But, I’ve digressed.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood is a funny, moving, touching, often hilarious journey of Rachel’s questioning, searching, and delving deeper into herself, to bring her religion more fully into her life, and to figure out what it means for her to follow her God. This is a theme I can greatly respect and admire. Following our Gods in this world isn’t easy, not even for those in the dominant religions. This is a book well worth checking out!

and if you can’t afford to just yet, go ahead and check out her blog. She has a number of great posts to read through.

2013 is upon us. I’ve gone back and forth with whether or not to participate in the Pagan Blog Project this year, and ultimately, I still haven’t decided. On the one hand, I’ve enjoyed the thematically inspired posts that I did write last year, until I completely stopped. On the other hand, I’ve got a writing project underway, and I don’t necessarily want to take steam away from that. I got a ton of writing done in the first few weeks of January, and I’ve slowed down since then, and I’m not happy with that, and so I’m hesitant to switch to something else. At the same time, the desire is there. Really, I want to be writing most of the time. I don’t have a lot of other things that I do, besides the things that I thoroughly enjoy: reading, writing, knitting, devotional stuff, snuggle cats and dog, so it’s difficult to find the time to take away from these other things to focus more on writing. And the job doesn’t pay me if I don’t go in, so there’s forty hours taken away, alas.

The current writing project was supposed to be the sequel collection of stories to The Fairy Queen of Spencer’s Butte and Other Tales but, at this point, it may be its very own novella/novel. I don’t know. I’m not doing word counts, I’m not deciding it has to be anything other than progressing forward. I tried, last year, to organize my writing in such a way that it, instead, made my writing dry up entirely. I can blame some of that on family deaths, of course, and I do. But, introducing discipline into my writing life did not work. At all. I wrote a LOT for the first four months, and the mostly nothing. So . . . not doing that again this year. If it doesn’t stay fun, I’m less likely to want to do it, and since I’m not making a huge goal of getting published and making it into my career (why not? Honestly, I’m not sure other than I don’t want that sort of pressure on it. Does this mean that I’m simply unwilling to take the risk? Possibly, but that’s okay. Do I think it’s good enough? Yes! So what’s my problem? Pressure. Pressure is bad) doing it the way it works is good enough.

Been reading a decent amount of non-fiction, too, so I want to mention those here and not at the writing blog. Most recently I read through Seeking the Mystery: An Introduction to Pagan Theologies, which was quite good. Honestly, a book of this type has been needed for a long time, and I’m glad it’s out there. It seems as though there is, finally, an influx of pagans writing about philosophy and theology from standpoints that are 1) more complex than an “we are not X”, moving beyond defining ourselves by what we are not and more by what we are, which is awesome; and 2)treating ourselves seriously. We have as much to give the world as other more established traditions do, and we seem to be notorious for not taking ourselves seriously. I think the author did a great job with this book.

For story time, we’re reading through A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans, whose writing is delightful, humorous, honest, and touching. I am struck, while reading this, all over again how much I feel like not-an-adult, and I’m not sure if that’s going to ever change, which is silly. Rachel is a few years younger than I am, and she reads like an adult, an actual person who has reasons for how she thinks and feels and all that. This is part of how I don’t take myself seriously as a person, and I mostly ignore it/pretend that I do, and that works, but I want that layer of self-image to change so that I simply *do* take myself seriously as an adult person, not as someone playing dress-up. And I’ve digressed.

Rachel’s book — and her blog — has been an awesome discovery, especially as more and more of the ancestors Beth and I are involved in come in with Christian and Jewish backgrounds. Yes, we’re polytheists, and we’re not especially exclusionists, and as long as everyone is respectful and civil, we’ve got no problem. Becoming exposed to living Christians who can be respectful and civil and who ultimately come from a place of compassion and love has helped immensely, both in my ancestor veneration and also in fostering continuing compassion for the living humans. Compassion is *hard*. I keep waiting for it to get easy, and it just doesn’t.

I am embracing writing as a spiritual path, and the main path of my devotional life. I keep coming back to that, so this is mostly a reminder for me.

Also, knitting is awesome.

That is all.

Once again the dark moon crept upon us, almost unobserved. This moon I observed from a careful perch in bed, heaped up with pillows, a hot pillow thingie, and book. My back is mightily sore with me (hee!) and it’s a very sad thing. Heat helps, not sitting helps. It’s slowly healing, and it’s not as bad as the last time, but it *is* a reminder that I need to do those exercises, you know, regularly. Not a few times a month regularly. Daily regularly.

I am sad to see Yule/the Hunt season go. In practice, the Hunt season continues for a bit more in our family tradition, but Yule itself is certainly over — the two are tied up so closely, I can’t really name the difference, except the light is changing, and for me that makes a difference in Yule/Not Yule. In my head, leaving Poseidon’s month behind equals the end of Yule for Real, and so, here we are.

I’ve been thinking a lot of think-y thoughts, without actually getting them written out, mostly because I’m working on fiction currently, and I don’t want to break away from that. And yet, deep think-y thoughts want to be explored, in word form. It may happen, it may not — it won’t, until the back is better.

I am happily in love with my family, grateful for our little bubble away from the world, grateful for our slow, unhurried lives once we get home and close the door after work. I love the quiet time, to touch in with my gods, love the ability to light offerings on the shrines, to feel Their presence in my life, to see and count Their blessings. I long for, will likely always long for, community nearby built of the people I love and miss, who are far-flung geographically, but so close in heart.

Today is a good day.