Don't Just Do Something, Sit There

New Milk Moon

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It is that darkest of dark time of the year when we review the year that just passed and begin to prepare for the one coming up. For the last three years I have done this in a more formal way and rather than making new years resolutions, I have gwished a theme for the upcoming year. As 2013 comes to a close the need for review of the old and gestation of the new is here again.

Part of a Tribe in the Spring

2013 was one hell of a year. The theme I set last January was Naming My Superpowers, Calling My Allies and it came with a wish and a hope to put my talents to good use and to build my community of allies to help with that work. I was looking for more discernment in my activities and my companions. I think I did a better job in 2013 than in previous years, but my skills of discernment clearly need more honing.

I didn't do as much blogging this year as in the past but going back through my Facebook feed allowed me to review the year in pretty good detail. Last winter and spring were amazing times of growth and exploration. I fell in love with an amazing man and we had some wonderful adventures together. Food, sex, conversations; it was mind and life expanding. My one blog post from this spring dates from this period and sums up a lot of my thinking during this time. And then my life exploded. That relationship fell apart and then I got very ill with a bacterial infection that took all the king's horses and all the king's men to put me back together again. The physical toll was great and the emotional toll was possibly greater. Emotions I didn't know I had overwhelmed me so I did what I am in the habit of doing.... more stuff. The late summer found me in another intense romantic relationship and then in an amazingly intense job. I got the middle school science teaching position I've been angling for for years and it is everything and more. This autumn has felt like a crisis time when everything is falling apart. My summer motto of 'better but not yet betterer' took on whole new levels of emotional and existential meaning. I wrote about my thinking along these lines in this post from late November. Apparently, it is 

Dolled Up Mid-Summer

difficult for my seventh grade students to be 12, but almost just as difficult for me to be thirty three.

Even with the major hiccup in the summer of being, ya know, almost dead for close to a month, I still followed my standard M.O. of going full speed ahead in 2013. I may have still had difficulty knowing what to say no to, but I had allies all along the way. My friends were amazing during my illness and recovery and I learned so much from the men I met and loved this year. Building community, or at least thinking about how to do it, was a major theme of this year. In my 2013 gwish post I used a photo with the african proverb, "if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together." I don't know how far I got, but I know I got there because of my friends this year.

During this time of gestating my intentions for 2014 I have employed many of my traditional gwishing techniques. I drew a tarot spread, listened for resonance with colors, images, animals and phrases. I thought about what I wanted and what I did not want from this upcoming year and finally, after weeks of thinking and listening, found my theme for the year.

2014, Don't Just Do Something, Sit There.

By Sharon Flowers

The phrase is a title of a book by Sylvia Boorstein, a Buddhist teacher I first heard through Krista Tippet's amazing interview with her. It is a joke, a play on words, a phrase that always makes me chuckle and smile wryly. You're right, you're right, I know you're right I mutter as the phrase pops into my head. In the last few years I have cultivated my doing self and have learned so much from that, but as I continued doing and did not feel any better about my life it became more frantic and obsessive. In a particularly dark moment of this last autumn I was on a date with a gentleman caller, drinking beer, talking about politics, looking forward to our adult sleepover, when my internal commentator noted, "Dang, girlfriend, you got this doing-and-not-feeling thing down to a science!" That frantic doing has metastasized into uncontrollable worry and anxiety this winter and I feel miserable much of the time. And it is all so boring. It is the same stupid patterns I've had for years but now that I see them they are achey and dull, not even succeeding at what they were designed to do.

I did draw a tarot spread this winter (and will talk more about it below) but this year my theme came a lot from listening for resonance with words and images. The blue heron, a patient and stealthy hunter, will be my theme animal for this 

By David Jakes

year. Herons sit still as a tree waiting for their prey to forget they're there. They work hard to not spook off the good stuff that will surely come their way. Like herons, chicory flowers have been making themselves known to me for years. They are the weediest of the weedy plants and will grow out of sidwalks, along highways, in gravel drives and on the edges of lawns. It is used for salad greens, livestock forage, a coffee subsitute and a medicine for all sorts of ailments. The gorgeous blue flowers are said to be able to open locked doors. Powerful allies to have in this year of bravely facing the habits of mind and heart that rear their head in physical and mental stillness.

Other symbols of stillness and introspection have come to work with me. The first was an unlikely and ancient copper Buddha found in Helgo, a Viking town dating to about 800 C.E. The small, beautifully worked statue appears to have been made about two to three hundred years earlier in northern India and then worked its way through trade and capture this important center of Viking trade. 1500 years after it was made and thousands of miles away, the Buddha continues to be a visual representation of the ability of humans to achieve some kind of peace. This Buddha is a conundrum,

The Helgo Buddha

 though, because this statue has traveled so far away from where it started. Like the heron who can spread its 7 foot wing span to find a better pond or stream and the weedy chicory that has hitched rides with humans to all ends of the earth, the Helgo Buddha has traveled but not lost it's stillness. My tarot card for the year is the Hermit, another character travels with stillness. This Hermit card came at the end of a spread full of winged hearts, this is the cups suit in my Fairy Tale Tarot deck. This suit is correlated with emotions, dreams and the moon and the winged heart itself is a Sufi symbol for unconditional love and devotion. My spread indicated that work must be done finding or giving support and unity in this realm before connection and healing can happen. Then those powers of love can be used to help others, fight for what is right and increase the true wealth of love in this world.

• 2014 will be green like old copper and healthy trees, grey like heron feathers, carved stones and a hermit-wizard's cloak, blue like summer skies and weedy chicory flowers. 
• 2014 will be a year of answering the phone with "What fresh hell is this?" and hoping it really is a new problem rather than the reheated boring problems I have seen before.
• 2014 will be a year of knowing what to keep and what to let go. It will be a year of cultivating Right Memory (seeing the patterns but facing the world fresh), of Right Heart (Finding new ways of love while releasing obsessive and painful habits) and Right Attention (now that I don't have to be perfect, I can be good). 
• 2014 will be a year of attending to my people, building patterns of connection and of swirling round and round with others who want to dance. It will be a time of building the world I want; don't just sit there, do something.

This last gwish is based on my Sabian symbol for 2014, Gemini 22: Dancing Couples Crowd the Barn in a Harvest Festival. The first part of my theme for this year is all about finding peace and joy in stillness, introspection and changing my own patterns of thought and feeling about the world. This symbol and gwish provide the other side of this coin, that of cultivating peace and joy through healthy connection with other people. My best friends and I are working out plans for a game night of sorts, an attempt to build our friend community back up into fruitful health, a project streaming directly out of my work at calling my allies last year. The allies have been called, now they need to connect with each other into a true caring community. This symbol brings to mind ceremonial times out of the daily grind of work to connect, enjoy and celebrate the turning of the seasons. In addition to our game night, I think this image is calling me to 

New Years Day 2014

find ways to connect in my church and school communities as well as rekindle my connection to the wheel of the year through blogging and celebrations. 

Many of my friends found 2013 to be an exceptionally challenging year. Some have much more painful horror stories from this year than I do but my year was hard. I was sick, I was heartbroken and I struggled a lot with uncovering truths about who I am and how I operate. I did have moments of pure bliss, wild adventures and times of deep connection. 2014 will be a year of more discernment, more stillness, more interesting problems and more dancing joyfully in the stream of the cosmos. I for one am looking forward to it. 

* Full text of Gemini 22: DANCING COUPLES CROWD THE BARN IN A HARVEST FESTIVAL

When achievements have been made and there is a sense of security and 'Harvest' in the air, it is time to celebrate with one another. There is a need to get back to a simple, conservative level of enjoyment. There's a sense of being in tune with seasonal rhythms. The feeling of a healthy heart and a healthy mind, while taking a break from the struggles of providing, can bring joy to everyone involved. See if you can take time out to celebrate and to enjoy your environment.

Celebrating the warmth and providence of the Earth. The joy of nature's harvest. Joining with others to celebrate. The reality of rhythmical or seasonal adjustments. Dancing. Barns and dance halls.

The Caution: Being the wallflower, not participating. Waiting for a special invitation rather than responding to the openness of the situation.

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New Milk Moon 2009: New Milk Moon

New Milk Moon 2010: Forty Two with a Seventy Percent Chance of Rain

New Milk Moon 2011: The Quaker Year

New Milk Moon 2012: Year of the Dragon

This post is a New Year's Gwishing post. Be sure to check out previous year's posts: 2011 Building a Better Teacher, 2012 Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail and 2013 Engaging My Superpowers, Calling My Allies. There are older and other New Years day posts under the label New Year.

Engaging My Superpowers, Calling my Allies

Full Birth Moon

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Welcome to 2013! I hope your 2012 wrapped up with joy, fun and enough time in the dark to be ready for the growing light. I was happy to get a couple days of work at the Nature Park over winter break, which is always fun and fulfilling as well as an adventure. Two of the days over break were snowshoe adventures on Mt. Hood that were sublime and painful in all the ways taking kids into the woods can be.

Like last year, I spent much of the time between Christmas and New Year's Day reflecting on last year and looking forward to this upcoming one. My theme for 2012 was Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail and one of the biggest lesson I learned is to be careful what I wish for, I just might get it. As I reread my New Year's post from last year I chuckled. Yep, pulled all of that into my life, didn't I? The 2012 Tiger roared into my life and chased me round and round all year. I think I came out on top and have some awesome stories to tell from the year,  like this one, and this one... and OMG this one. It was a crazy year, one of outward focus, of splendiferous adventures and of saying yes, just like I said I wanted. By the time this autumn was coming to a close I felt ragged and overused, but also like I had learned many lessons along with those great stories. 

I employed many of my traditional gwishing techniques these last few weeks to help cast my magic spell for 2013. I have heard many people compliment me recently on things both mundane and sublime and that started my thought process in the direction of looking at my gifts. I'm good at many things, and have much to offer the world but a year of chasing a tiger around didn't get me very far in using many of them. A peek into the Sabian Symbols brought me the images of crowds coming down the mountain to listen to one inspired man and of a group of people entering a large canoe for a journey. Taking what I have learned and sharing it with others, bringing it into the physical, daily realm. Joining with others on a journey of discovery and action. A tarot spread with my Fairy Tale Tarot deck brought me the Seeker/Knight of Wands as the symbol for the whole year. Traditionally the Knight of Wands is a fair haired youth full of inspiration and action, kind of an act first, think later kind of guy. Ambition and desire to do good in the world are his driving motivations. In my fairy tale deck this card is 

Peacock by Today is a good day

Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, a character who moves forward towards her destiny and her adventure despite challenges that plague her. Sounds like a theme for the year is shaping up!

2013 will be:

• Peacock blue, vibrant green and shimmering purple. Or a super suit and cape in bright, primary colors.
• It will sound like footsteps on gravel, like a pen scratching on paper and the chatter and clinks of a happy dinner party. 
• It will smell like sweat and leather and dusty horse after a hard day's riding, freshly tilled still cold earth in the spring and a roast beast dinner that took hours to prepare for my friends and family.
• It will include Bruce reminding me that I deserve to work for and have it all or nothing at all, the Lone Ranger reminding me that "God put the firewood there, but every man must gather it and light it himself", and The Doctor reminding me that I'm bigger on the inside.

I will remember that a goal without a plan is just a wish. That I am too good for half assed. That other people can be my allies on this trip, but they have their own stories and are not just my "sidekick". 

Last year, 2012, was all about gathering experience. I said yes to everything and I think it changed me. It made me less scared of some things and certainly gained me lots of experience doing lots of other things. The theme for 2013 is shaping up to be about discernment, about engagement and about connection. It is 

not enough to do stuff, it has to be the right stuff. When taking a journey in a canoe or to Oz you need to have the right companions and the right supplies, not just any companions and supplies. The people I gather for my companions are the heroes in their own stories and their time spent with me should be as helpful to them as it is to helpful to me to have them. I think the theme of companions, allies and community will come to be an important one for me. I've been thinking about this a lot over the last year or more and it is time to put some concerted effort into building my community into the community I really want. I know a lot, I'm good at a lot, it's time to step up to the plate and do the work requires to reap that harvest, rather than just letting the fruit fall as it may. 

I don't know what this year will bring, but it will be hard work and good work if I play my cards right. If I Engage My Super Powers and Call My Allies.

How have you gwished, set intentions or discovered themes for your upcoming year? What do you need to work on as 2013 rolls through the door and sets up shop? What are your superpowers and who are your allies?  

Happy New Year!

SCORPIO 24
CROWDS COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO LISTEN TO ONE INSPIRED MAN

You may feel that you have had some wonderful realisations after hearing an inspired message and now you need to bring these understandings down and integrate them into everyday life. People will have many different responses to the messages being given. Not all will be responsive, but the message will resonate with some. What will be done with this new information?

Power to sway the feelings and thoughts of many. Having a large audience. Holding the floor.

The Caution: Naivete, gullibility Feeling like someone else holds all the answers. Wanting everyone to listen regardless of their needs.

CAPRICORN 4
A GROUP OF PEOPLE ENTERING A LARGE CANOE FOR A JOURNEY BY WATER

To embark on a journey with a number of people is to embark on an emotional discovery. With cooperation, there can be great success. You may also find this to be a time when different and separate aspects of your personality come together to explore an emotional situation.

Cooperation. People coming together with a shared goal in sight. Feeling like you're on a journey of destiny. Travelling or living together.

The Caution: Uncoordinated energies. Not wanting to go along with anybody.

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Full Birth Moon 2008: Outer Darkness and Inner Hope

Full Birth Moon 2009: New Year! and A Story for the Birth Moon 

Full Birth Moon 2010: The Dark of the Dark.

Full Birth Moon 2011: The Columber and Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail 

Year of the Dragon

New Milk Moon

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I am the unquenchable Fire,
  The center of all energy,
  The stout heroic heart.
  I am truth and light,
  I hold power and glory in my sway.
  My presence
  Disperses dark clouds
  To tame the Fates.

  I am the Dragon.

Year of the Dragon

Gung Hay Fat Choy! January 23 is the new Fasting Moon in Annette Hinshaw's calendar and the first day of the lunar new year, a huge celebration all over Asia. The festival is called Tet Nguyen Dan in Vietnam, Chaul Chnam Thmey in Cambodia and Chun Jie, or the Spring Festival, in Chinese speaking communities. When I was a little kid in San Francisco Chinese New Year was almost as big of a holiday at my elementary school as Thanksgiving or Spring Break. We made red envelopes to fill with chocolate coins and watched lion dancers at school and parades in Chinatown. 

Every year in the Chinese calendar is ruled by an animal, creating the Chinese zodiac. The year 4710, or 2012 in the Gregorian calendar, is a Year of the Dragon, a headstrong, charismatic, and enthusiastic animal who's luck just never stops. Dragon is known for being a free spirited doer who always wins people's admiration and never accepts defeat. Though my theme for 2012 is Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail, the Chinese Dragon is a perfect poster child for the kind of year I want to have. Bright, buoyant, active and adventurous. There is a caution, though, with Dragon because they can tend towards being a bit brash, abrasive or prone to power-over dynamics. I am liable to fall into these patterns myself so I will be calling on the Water Dragon, this year's elemental dragon, to help me remain more open minded, to see other people's points of view and weigh all the options before rushing into action. Martin Luther King, Jr., Woodrow Wilson and John Lennon were all born in the Year of the Dragon. I wonder what will be born this year?

Dragon and Mandarins

Food plays a central role in the celebration of the Chinese New Year and there is much symbolism on the banquet table. Oranges and tangerines are given as gifts and eaten at meals both because they are so deliciously in season this time of year, but also because their names sound like the words for luck and gold in Chinese. Whole fish are often served to represent the beginning and end of a lucky year and sweets of various kinds bring a sweetness to the year. The local Asian newspaper here in Portland printed the following recipe and I hope to try it sometime this season. Long beans or long noodles represent long life and lobster represents the dragon of the zodiac. Shrimp or chicken can be substituted for the lobster, or combined with the dragon of the sea. Combining lobster and chicken is another traditional food, symbolizing the lucky union of the dragon and the phoenix.

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Dragon Beans

1 tbs oil (vegetable, peanut, or lard)

1/4 tsp Sichuan peppercorns, crushed

1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 pounds Chinese long beans (also called yard long beans, string beans can be used)

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup oyster sauce

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

splash of Sriracha sauce

7 oz cooked lobster meat, chopped (substitute/combine shrimp or chicken)

1 tbs toasted sesame seeds

In a wok or deep skillet over medium-high, heat the vegetable oil. Add the peppercorns, five spice powder, and garlic. Heat, stirring constantly for 30 seconds.

Add the beans and toss to coat. Add the water, oyster sauce, and soy sauce and cover. Allow the beans to stem for five minutes, or until just tender. Add the sesame oil, Sriracha, lobster meat, and sesame seeds. Toss together and cook until just heated through. Serve immediately. 

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Lion Dance

How are you celebrating this ancient and global festival? Do you have family or community traditions around the Chinese New Year or is all of this new to you? What foods bring good luck and wealth in your home? How is the dragon going manifest its optimistic, exuberant and charming energies into your life this year?

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New Milk Moon 2009: New Milk Moon

New Milk Moon 2010: Forty Two with a Seventy Percent Chance of Rain

New Milk Moon 2011: The Quaker Year

This post is about Chinese New Year, which I mention in the Full Fasting Moon 2009 post and The Nian.

** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Fasting Moon but it was really the Milk Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the Chinese New Year I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail

Full Birth Moon

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Welcome to the first full moon of 2012, the Birth Moon. Happy New Year! Did you have a wonderful holiday weekend, full of friends, parties and maybe a few more thoughtful moments? Have you been savoring the darkness of this time of year, incubating plans for the coming season of light? Or have you been trying to drown out the dark with lights and liquor, food, parties and go go go, fun fun fun? Yeah, I've been doing some of both, too.

Last year at about this time, I looked over the year before, did some gwishing and came up with a theme for 2011: Building a Better Teacher. As I look back on this last year I see how that theme really filled out the year. I really enjoyed my coursework, did a lot of processing with the deeper themes of equity, child development and how our public schools work, and actually spent some time in a public school classroom. I

Winter Sky

feel like so much of the rest of what I did this year helped me build a better teacher, too. The play and poetry I engaged in during the spring and summer, my trip to visit my family in Southern California, working through all the hard stuff and then more hard stuff and every bit of reading and writing I did this year all helped me become a stronger, clearer person and more ready to be a friend, mentor and leader to teenagers. 

The days between Christmas and Epiphany are considered the 12 Days of Christmas and there are many esoteric beliefs and traditions associated with these dark nights. Some people believe that the weather of the twelve days associates with the weather of the corresponding months in the upcoming year, and others use that correspondence to do meditation or planning for those months. Other people use the 12 nights to focus on the upcoming year in a more general way, on their own spirituality or on inner work they might want to work on in the coming year. No matter what, it is a time of sinking into the deep dark, bringing the magic of the Christmas rebirth into the new year and getting ready for the Epiphany, the lighting up and insight, that can come if you are ready for it. I spent some of the 12 days, and some before and after, pondering about this upcoming year, 2012.

As I worked through what I want 2012 to look like and listened intently to what the Universe was hinting at, I used some old techniques and some new. I read my Fairy Tale Tarot deck and looked at Sabian Symbols. I prayed in Meeting and in my car. I listened to the conversations I had with my friends and examined what stories were really speaking to me during this time. I brainstormed qualities and imagined scenes from the year. It took a lot of pondering and meditating and thinking, but finally… I am ready to unveil 2012.

Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail

• 2012 will be a year of saying yes to adventure, of facing the fearsome, of just doing it, no matter what "it" is.
• 2012 will look ballsy and awesome, effortless and amazing! Sometimes it will look as challenging as it feels, but it will always look real. 
• 2012 will feel exciting and terrifying, hard but do-able, good like a hard work out or a tricky puzzle. 
• 2012 will be bright orange and zebra striped. It will smell like cinnamon and snow. It will sound like big bells, the crack of a bat and the roar of a crowd, it will sound like the Rocky Theme song (being played by a Hawaiian marching band... which will follow me everywhere this year. Get ready).

2012 is going to be full of adventures. I am student teaching at a middle school, looking for a job in the spring and summer and good Lord willin’ start as a classroom teacher in the fall. I might have to move and will definitely be meeting new people all along the way. I have no idea what adventures this 

The Tiger's Stripes

summer holds for me, in fact, I don’t even know where June rent is coming from. I am going to need to step up to the plate this year and grab each tiger by the tail as it comes my way or I might miss an opportunity, either material or otherwise as they zoom by.

There are other kinds of tigers lurking in 2012, though, too. The story that I shared with you earlier in the month is a story about a man who runs from a tiger that is more about emotions than about the material world. Stefano is terrified of the columber and spends his whole life running, ending up a sad and lonely man. Almost immediately after my motto for the year came to me I had a situation where I realized that I was running from a columber. Something was scary to admit, hard to feel and I ran away from it through blame and anger. As hard as Grabbing the Tiger of jobs and teaching By the Tail might be, turning to Face the Columber is even harder.

Over the last year I’ve been thinking a lot about courage. Courage is not necessarily not feeling afraid of what you are facing, but it is working through that fear and doing something anyway. The last time I really examined courage, I realized that it is the root of all other virtues. To be generous, or loving, or loyal, kind or grateful all require facing fear of being laughed at, or rejected or judged and acting anyway. This year, I will need to draw on all of my courage to Grab the Tiger and Face the 

By Don Kenn

Columber. The Mission Statement I wrote a couple years ago declares that I am an ambassador of the Universal Divine and ambassadors are always under the protection of those who send them. I have the full backing of god in my work, and I have nothing to fear. 

“My life, glowing with integrity, shines a bright light out into the world. I am filled with the light of god and others around me see it and respond.”

What does 2012 have in store for you? Did you do some gwishing or dream decreeing during the 12 days of Christmas or at some other time this winter? What is your motto for the upcoming year, what is your year going to look like or smell like? Do you have a story about gathering your courage and Grabbing a Tiger by the Tail or Facing a Columber? Happy New Year!

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** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Milk Moon but it was really the Birth Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the new year of 2012, I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Full Birth Moon 2008: Outer Darkness and Inner Hope

Full Birth Moon 2009: New Year! and A Story for the Birth Moon 

Full Birth Moon 2010: The Dark of the Dark.

Full Birth Moon 2011: The Columber

Some Birth Moon posts are dated for a Gregorian year but are a part of a lunar year that mostly takes place in the Gregorian year before. Confusing.

This post is about new years, a topic I discussed in the posts The Quaker Year, New Year and New Milk Moon.

The Columber

Full Birth Moon

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The Colomber

Dino Buzzati, translated by Lawrence Venuti

     When Stefano Roi was twelve years old, he asked his father, a sea captain and the owner of a fine sailing ship, to take him on board as his birthday gift. 

     “When I grow up,” the boy said, “I want to go to sea with you. And I shall command ships even more beautiful and bigger than yours.”
     “God bless you, my son,” the father answered. And since his vessel had to leave that very day, he took the boy with him.
     It was a splendid sunny day, and the sea was calm. Stefano, who had never been on a ship, happily wandered around on deck, admiring the complicated maneuvers of the sails. He asked the sailors about this and that, and they gladly explained everything to him. 

    When the boy had gone astern, he stopped, his curiosity aroused, to observe something that intermittently rose to the surface at a distance of two to three hundred meters, in line with the ship’s wake.
     Although the ship was indeed moving fast, carried by a great quarter wind, that thing always maintained the same distance. And though the boy did not make out what it was, there was some indefinable air about it, which attracted him intensely.
     No longer seeing Stefano on deck, the father came down from the bridge, after having shouted his name in vain, and went to look for him.
     “Stefano, what are you doing there, standing so still?” the captain asked his son, finally perceiving him on the stern as he stared at the waves.
     “Papa, come here and see.”
     The father came, and he too looked in the direction indicated by the boy, but he could not see anything.
     “There’s a dark thing that rises in the wake every so often,” Stefano said, “and it follows behind us.”
     “Despite my forty years,” said the father, “I believe I still have good eyesight. But I see absolutely nothing.”
     And the boy insisted, the father went to get a telescope, and he scrutinized the surface of the sea, in line with the wake. Stefano saw him turn pale.

     “What is it? Why do you make that face?”
     “Oh, I wish I had never listened to you,” the captain exclaimed. “Now I’m worried about
you. What you see rising from the water and following us is not some object. That is a colomber. It’s the fish that sailors fear above all others, in every sea in the world. It is a
tremendous mysterious shark, more clever than man. For reasons that perhaps no one will ever know, it chooses its victim, and when it has chosen, it pursues him for years and years, for his entire life, until it has succeeded in devouring him. And the strange this is this: No one can see the colomber except the victim himself and his blood relations.”
     “It’s not a story?”
     “No. I have never seen it. But from descriptions I have heard many times, I immediately
recognized it. That bison like muzzle, that mouth continually opening an closing, those terrible teeth. Stefano, there’s no doubt, the colomber has ominously chosen you, and as long as you go to sea, it will give you no peace. Listen to me: We are going back to land now, immediately; you will go ashore and never leave it again, not for any reason whatsoever. You must promise me you won’t. Seafaring is not for you, my son. You must resign yourself. After all, you will be able to make your fortune on land too.”
     Having said this, he immediate reversed his course, reentered the port, and on the pretext of a sudden illness, he put his son ashore. Then he left again without him.
     Deeply troubled, the boy remained on the shore until the last tip of the masts sank behind the horizon. Beyond the pier that bounded the port, the seas was completely deserted. But looking carefully, Stefano could perceive a small black point which intermittently surfaced on the water: it was “his” colomber, slowly moving back and forth, obstinately waiting for him.

     From then on, with every expedient the boy was dissuaded from his desire to go to sea. His father sent him to study at an inland city, hundreds of kilometers away. And for some time, distracted by his new surroundings, Stefano no longer thought about the sea monster. Still, he returned home for summer vacations, and the first thing he did, as soon as he had some free time, was hurry to the end of the pier for a kind of verification, although he fundamentally considered it unnecessary. After so many years, even supposing that all the stories his father told him were true, the colomber had certainly given up its siege.
     But Stefano stood there, astonished, his heart pounding. At a distance of two to three hundred meters from the pier, in the open sea, the sinister fish was moving back and forth, slowly, raising its muzzle from the water every now and then and turning toward land, as it anxiously watched for whether Stefano was coming at last.
     So the idea of that hostile creature waiting for him day and night became a secret obsession for Stefano. And even in the distant city it cropped up to wake him with worry in the middle of the night. He was safe, of course; hundreds of kilometers separated him from the colomber. And yet he knew that beyond the mountains, beyond the forests and the plains, the shark was waiting for him. He might have moved even to the most remote continent, and still the would have appeared in the mirror of the nearest sea, with the inexorable obstinacy of a fatal instrument.
     Stefano, who was a serious and eager boy, profitably continued his studies, and as soon as he was a man, he found a dignified and well-paying position at a store in the inland city. Meanwhile, his father died through illness, his magnificent ship was sold by his widow, and his son found himself the heir to a modest fortune. Work, friends, diversions, first love affairs- Stefano’s life was not well under way, but the thought of the colomber nonetheless tormented him like a mirage that was fatal and fascinating at the same time; and as the days passed, rather than disappear, it seemed to become more insistent.
     

     Great are the satisfactions of an industrious, well-to-do, and quiet life, but greater still is the attraction of the abyss. Stefano was hardly twenty-two years old when, having said goodbye to his inland friends and resigned from his job, he returned to his native city and told his mother of his firm intention to follow his father’s trade. The woman, to whom Stefano had never mentioned the mysterious shark, joyfully welcomed his decision. To have her son abandon the sea for the city had always seemed to her, in her heart, a betrayal of the family’s tradition.
     Stefano began to sail, giving proof of his sea-worthiness, his resistance to fatigue, and his
intrepid spirit. He sailed and sailed, and in the wake of his ship, day and night, in good weather and in storms, the colomber trudged along. He knew that this was his curse and his penalty, and precisely for this reason, perhaps, he did not find the strength to sever himself from it. And no one on board, except him, perceived the monster.
     “Don’t you see anything over there?” he asked his companions from time to time, pointing at the wake.
     “No, we don’t see anything at all. Why?”
     “I don’t know. It seemed to me…”
     “You didn’t see a colomber, by any chance, did you?” the sailors asked, laughing and
touching wood.
     “Why are you laughing? Why are you touching wood?”
     “Because the colomber is an animal that spares no one. And if it has begun to follow this
ship, it means that one of us is doomed.”
     But Stefano did not slacken. The uninterrupted threat that followed on his heels seemed in fact to strengthen his will, his passion for the sea, his courage in times of strife and danger.
When he felt that he was master of his trade, he used his modest patrimony to acquire a small steam freighter with a partner; then he became the sole proprietor of it, and thanks to a series of successful shipments, he could subsequently buy a true merchantman, setting out with always more-ambitious aims. But the successes, and the millions, were unable to remove that continual torment from his soul; nor did he ever try, on the other hand, to sell the ship and retire to undertake different enterprises on land.
     To sail and sail was his only thought. Just as soon as he set foot on land in some port after a long journey, the impatience to depart again immediately pricked him. He knew that outside the colomber was waiting for him and that the colomber was synonymous with ruin. With nothingness. An indomitable impulse dragged him without rest, from one ocean to another. 

     Until one day, Stefano suddenly realized that he had grown old, very old; and no one around him could explain why, rich as he was, he did not finally leave the cursed life of the sea. He was old, and bitterly unhappy, because his entire existence had been spent in that mad flight across the seas, to escape his enemy. But the temptation of the abyss had always been greater for him than the joys of a prosperous and quiet life.

     One evening, while his magnificent ship was anchored offshore at the port where he was born, he felt close to death. He then called his second officer, in whom he had great trust, and ordered him not to oppose what he was about to do. The other man promised, on his honor.
     Having gotten this assurance, Stefano revealed to the second officer the story of the colomber that had continued to pursue him uselessly for nearly fifty years. The officer listened to him, frightened.
     “It has escorted me from one end of the world to the other,” Stefano said, “with a faithfulness that not even the noblest friend could have shown. Now I am about to die. The colomber too will be terribly old and weary by now. I cannot betray it.”
     Having said this, he took his leave of the crew, ordered a small boat to be lowered into the sea, and boarded it, after he made them give him a harpoon.
     “Now I am going to meet it,” he announced. “It isn’t right to disappoint it. But I shall
struggle, with all my might.”
     With a few weary strokes of the oars, he drew away from the side of the ship. Officers and
sailors saw him disappear down below, on the placid sea, shrouded in the nocturnal shadows. In the sky was a crescent moon.
     He did not have to work very hard. Suddenly the colomber’s horrible snout emerged at the side of the boat.
     “Here I am with you, finally,” Stefano said. “Now it’s just the two of us.” And gathering his
remaining strength, he raised the harpoon to strike.
     “Uh,” the colomber groaned, imploringly, “what a long journey it’s taken to find you. I too
am wasted with fatigue. How much you made me swim. And you kept on fleeing. You never
understood at all.”
     “What?” asked Stefano, with the point of his harpoon over the colomber’s heart.
     “I have not pursued you around the world to devour you, as you thought. I was charged by the King of the Sea only to deliver this to you.”
     And the shark stuck out its tongue, offering the old captain a small phosphorescent
sphere. Stefano picked it up and examined it. It was a pearl of unusual size. And he recognized it as the famous Perla del Mare, which brought luck, power, love, and peace of mind to whoever possessed it. But now it was too late.
     “Alas!” said the captain, shaking his head sadly. “How wrong it all is. I managed to
condemn myself, and I have ruined your life.”
     “Goodbye, poor man,” answered the colomber. And it sank into the black waters forever.
 

     Two month later, pushed by an undertow, a small boat came alongside an abrupt reef. It was sighted by several fisherman, who drew near, curious. In the boat, still seated, was a sunbleached skeleton: between the little bones of its fingers it grasped a small round stone.
     The colomber is a huge fish, frightening to behold and extremely rare. Depending on the sea and the people who live by its shores, the fish is also called the kolombrey, kahloubrha, kalonga, kalu-balu, chalunggra. Naturalists strangely ignore it. Some even maintain that is does not exist.

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I first read this story in the journal Parabola: Myth and the Quest for Meaning. I found their May 1983 edition in a library and the story sang when  I read it. I found it a number of places online (like here, here and here). The images are Gustav Dore prints done in 1876 to illustrate Coleridge's epic The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I found them at this site, where you can purchase them, if you are into that sort of thing. I clearly don't own any of these pieces of art, and am clearly not making any money off reposting them here.

I will post more about my thoughts on this story soon. I promise. 

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** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Milk Moon but it was really the Birth Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the new year of 2012, I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Full Birth Moon 2008: Outer Darkness and Inner Hope

Full Birth Moon 2009: New Year! and A Story for the Birth Moon (these posts are dated 2010, but are for the year that took place mostly in 2009)

 Full Birth Moon 2010: The Dark of the Dark.

The End of the Year

New Death Moon

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I just started my student teaching this week, or my "pre service teaching" as my University likes to call it (student teaching sounds too wimpy, they argue), and have been placed at a very small school in a rural community about an hour from my house. The early morning wake up is hellish, and the predawn drive a bit harrowing, but the school is very good and my cooperating teachers are going to work out really well. The real upside, besides finally getting into a classroom and beginning to actually teach, is my afternoon drives back through the farming country of the Willamette Valley. This is the land people crossed the mountains and deserts to get to, and still are, in fact (the town of Woodburn, about 40 minutes south of Portland, is the largest community in Oregon with over 50% of the population claiming Hispanic heritage). It is a beautiful country full of farms, fields and forests.

As I have been driving back and forth this week I have been noticing just how "done" the agricultural year is in the Willamette Valley. At the hop farms north of Woodburn the vines are all down and the tall support structures empty for the winter. There are many small farm stands along the way with signs up that say "Closed for the Winter", their vegetable patches empty and muddy. Alfalfa fields are mown and the rows of berry bushes are turning crimson and gold in the chilly nights. Higher up, closer to my school, most of the fields are either Christmas tree farms or horse, sheep or cattle pastures which are changing their character for the winter, too. The tall weeds are blackening and the grass is low and wet, just hanging on until spring. Horses have blankets on to ward off the chill and the sheep are woolly with their thick winter coats. One field of sheep has a guard llama in it and it took me two days to figure out exactly what that giant, woolly beast was. Everything is done growing and either dying back or just settling in for the winter. The people who work the land are settled in, too, or have moved on to other places where harvests are still happening. The land is just holding it's breath until the storms of winter come and, later, the renewal of spring.

It's the end of the cycle here at The Wheel and the Disk, too. This post marks the beginning of my fourth year of blogging. Again, this year, I posted for the new and full moon of every single month of the year plus at least one post for each eight solar holidays. In fact, I posted quite a few more posts than that, including two posts that were published in my Quaker Meeting's journal (here, and here) and two posts for Pagan Values Blogging Month (here, and here). Again, I celebrated Ramadan by finding meaningful information about Muslims, Islam and Ramadan and sharing it with my Facebook friends and then with you here at The Wheel and the Disk. My writings this year did an excellent job of highlighting the eclectic mix of inspiration I gather my own thinking from, including Quakers (and here, too), Catholics (and here, too), Buddhist stories, Greek mythology, Waldorf thought and practice and more modern stories, to name just a few. Some of my favorite posts from this year are the stories I wrote about Johnny Appleseed and Krishna and the Gopis. Neither of these stories are truly original - the plot and characters are as old as old can be - but I took them into my own self and brought them back out as original retellings.

This next year will be hard for me. One week into student teaching and I am already exhausted and overwhelmed. I wonder how this blog will fare when my time is so much more dedicated to teaching. I hope to keep writing both for myself and for you. I have seen my own thinking about the topics I explore deepen and broaden over the course of these three years and I want to keep exploring as long as I can. Next year, I would love to incorporate thoughts from another excellent book I have that is organized around the lunar months, Jessica Prentice's Full Moon Feast. She talks about seasonal food, community and connection through the lens of the seasonal round of moons. I think bringing this focus to my thinking, practicing and writing would be a wonderful challenge to align my life with my ideals about safe, sustainable and healthful food. I will take the year of blogging one step at a time, but promise to post something for each full and new moon, even if it is just a note or a photo.

As the land readies itself for the deep of winter, so do we. It is time to light our lanterns off the spark Michael took off the dying sun just those few weeks ago. It is time to bundle up, cuddle up and turn inward. Our season in the sun, expanded out towards the cosmos, has brought us a treasure trove of knowledge, now is the time to spend time working that into wisdom, as the gnomes work the sun's sparkling light into crystals during the winter.

How are you noticing the end of the year? What did you do in the last 12 months that you are most proud of, or from the last cycle you completed whether it took shorter or longer than 12 months? What wisdom did you bring back from your journeying and how are you lighting your lantern for the winter ahead? How has this blog touched you and your thinking? What would you like to see me think about, change or add next year? What was your favorite post from this last year?

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** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. This post was written at the right time for the right moon, but there are other posts dated the same time about a differen moon. What tha? Where was I?? For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **
New Death Moon 2008: Time is a Circle

New Death Moon 2009: The Soldier and Death (another one of my all time favorite posts. I absolutely love this story, and am quite fond of my own retelling of it :)

New Death Moon 2010: Night and Day

I reviewed my first year of blogging at The Full Sorting Moon and my second year a Year Two Complete!