Don't Just Do Something, Sit There

New Milk Moon

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** 

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.

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

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

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** 

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.

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

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 

Realigning

 New Fasting Moon

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Have you seen the moon these last few nights? We're a week into the new moon and it has been a lovely little crescent hanging in the western sky in the early evenings. I had a rough day at school early this week but when  I walked out of the building at 5pm, I saw the fingernail moon peeking out from between some fluffy clouds. I watched it all evening as I drove home and took the dog for a walk and it was like a beacon to remind me of the beauty of the day even in the midst of all the hard. Last night I was treated to an even better show; the crescent moon and two bright planets! Venus and Jupiter were shining out the haze of an

by Pierre J.

approaching storm. Apparently, Venus and Jupiter will be getting closer and closer together as the month goes by and Mercury can be seen right behind the setting sun, and soon Mars will be visible rising in the East in the early evenings. What a great way to start a month!

As I was preparing to write the blog post I went back to review my posts from the winter and read the chapter in Annette Hinshaw's Earth Time Moon Time for the upcoming month. I couldn't figure out why the months in the book weren't lining up with the months in my blog and then I realized - I messed up my calendar! Sometime during the Sorting Moon I skipped a month and have been off all winter. When I thought it was the Birth Moon it was really the Death Moon. Eep!

To fix the mess I reviewed all my posts and decided which I could just put new tags on, and which I needed to just call a mess and leave it at that. All the posts that are tagged incorrectly or talk about a month that is not the actual month it was written in are now labeled with the tag "wrong moon." 

by meglet247

Besides being embarrassing that I messed up, this situation brings to the forefront the question of how real are the moon energies anyway? I just saw a video of Bill Nye discrediting astrology by invoking the fact that the axis of the earth has wobbled in the last 3,000 years. This means that the sun rise on your birthday is in a different constellation than your astrological sign. That is true, but it discounts the non-material truth of the astrological archetypes. Being a Virgo is a way of thinking about the complexity that is my personality and life, not some material truth like the fact that every gold molecule has 79 protons or water freezes at 0 degrees centigrade. The moon energies of Annette Hinshaw's calendar are archetypes too, not astronomical truths.

This winter I had a really rough time with school and student teaching. I had to do a lot of searching in the deep truths of my moral and theological universe to find ways to cope with the challenges I was facing. The archetype of the Birth Moon, a time when the new year is very young and faces all the challenges of a new born baby, helped me find some meaning in my own challenges. Does it matter that the time I was going through these challenges was actually the Death Moon? My answer is no, it does not. 

Archetypes, myths, stories and images are tools for thinking that are not strictly aligned with the physical, material world. Would it have mattered if I looked to tarot or Sabian symbols instead of moon energies? What if I'd been looking at the Parables of Jesus or Koranic suras for my inspiration? Can you only look at the story of the passover during the spring and it holds no meaning at other times of the year? In my way of thinking, the moon energies are well aligned with the 

Earthrise, a NASA photo

seasons they occur in, like the passover story, but they are not rigidly linked. The story of Yaweh choosing his people and letting his plague pass them over is a powerful one, even when you tell it in the deep winter.

So, yes, it's disconcerting to think that I was getting ready to celebrate the spring joy of the Seed Moon when in fact I have a whole Fasting Moon to get through. I have never been fond of the Fasting Moon, but I guess that means I have some more work to do with these archetypical energies. It's leap day this week, a time for readjusting our thinking about time. I'll be readjusting to thinking about the Fasting Moon for another few weeks and letting spring creep slowly on instead of rushing full force into it. 

When have you made a mistake that made you think more deeply about what you were doing? When have you had to readjust your thinking about something? How have you been enjoying the astronomical show in the sky, or the botanical show starting to make itself known in the garden?

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

New Fasting Moon 2009: The Fasting Moon is New and New Fasting Moon Photo

New Fasting Moon 2010: Spring is Springing

New Fasting Moon 2011: The Nian

Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail

Full Birth Moon

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

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!

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****
** 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.

Freedom

New Mother's Moon

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

The new moon this month is the Mother's Moon, the moon full of the unconditional, formless, limitless love of the mother goddess. This year's new Mothers Moon happens to fall right around the Fourth of July, a holiday that last year I called the epitome of the Father's Moon energies. I still think that American Independence Day is, at its core, more aligned with the Father's Moon than the Mother's Moon but it is interesting to think about how it embodies the moon it falls in this year.

Freedom is an elusive concept. The dictionary defines it as being exempt from confinement, external control or regulation or the power to determine action without constraint. Many people don't really understand what freedom means because we middle class, 21st century Americans enjoy a level of economic, political, religious and personal freedom that is virtually unprecedented in human history. I just finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy, a young adult science fiction set in a world where people have very little freedom of choice or even thought. The books are so well written that I really had an emotional experience living into that constrictive, harsh world. I actually had moments, walking in the woods or driving down the road, wondering if I was in my world or Katniss' world and fearing that the gamemakers or people from The Capitol were controlling my experience or watching me. Realizing that I was not, in fact, in that world allowed me to literally breathe free. My experience is nothing compared to those of people who have been incarcerated, held captive or otherwise stripped of their freedom but it was enough to make me think about how blessed I really am.

Freedom's conjoined twin is responsibility. Some kinds of freedom - school boys in June, a factory worker at the end of day whistle, a dog in the woods - are the result of a lack of responsibility. Other freedoms, like those of citizens in a democracy, members of a Quaker meeting or adults who pay their own rent, come with a very hefty dose of responsibility. I find it interesting to think that the freedoms from responsibility can only be fleeting. Eventually those school boys need to eat and someone needs to have worked to get the food on the table. Freedoms with responsibility, though, can be very long lasting because the person enjoying the freedom is the person doing the work to maintain it.

I spent some time this week with my friend and her 4 month old twin sons. The babies enjoy existence in a blissful state of freedom from responsibility. Sure, they are working hard to grow and make sense of this crazy world they just got born into, but they don't have to do any work to provide for their own needs. Their mama does all of that. And though my friend loves her new life, she is also acutely feeling the lack of her previous freedoms. Hopefully, the work she is doing now and the freedoms she has given up in this season of her life will lay a foundation of love and trust in her sons so they can move out into the world in a healthy way as they grow. With care and luck, they will have the emotional home base to return to so they can explore the freedoms that come with responsibilities in the coming decades.

Sometimes I wonder about the mothers of America's Founding Fathers. They must have been amazing women. Not only did they raise sons to adulthood in a time when that was a feat accomplished against all odds, and not only did they do it with none of the modern conveniences we think are necessary, they did it so well as to raise men who were willing to make giant leaps into the unknown. Men who were so confident that they were loved that they were willing to take the enormous risk of breaking with all the cultural, political and philosophical traditions they knew. And even if the Founding Fathers' actual mothers didn't succeed in providing that foundation for their sons, someone did. Motherlove, the unconditional love that values you just for being you, is something we have turned to god for all over the world and in many traditions.

This is a big topic, and I can't quite find a way to wrap it all up with a bow. I'd rather end with some more quotes and questions....

Janis Joplin says freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose....

Stan Lee says with great power comes great responsibility....

The second Sabian Symbol I drew for this year, Building a Better Teacher 2011, was A Deserter from the Navy Stands Suddenly Aware of a Dawning Truth: Freedom is Never the Result of Compromise.

What does it all mean? How does one secure freedoms and enjoy responsibilities? How do we nurture the secure foundations of freedom in ourselves and others? What compromises do I need to be careful about? When do you feel most free, most secure, most loved? What does Fourth of July mean to you?


The photos all came up when I searched "freedom" on Flickr. Thanks izarbeltza, _ambrown, The U.S. Army and Nicolo Paternosters. Click on the photos or their names to see more of their work.


**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Mother's Moon 2009: Gifts From the Mother

New Mother's Moon 2010: You Are the Mother's Beloved Child

The Quaker Year

New Milk Moon

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Happy New Year! It’s 2011! I hope everyone had a lovely New Years Eve and has been enjoying what this new year is bringing your way. I went out with some friends to a dance party and had a lovely time. I don’t make new years resolutions, but I do make goals and one for 2011 is to be very aware of my alcohol consumption. I enjoy letting loose and being a part of the party I am ready to stop getting “accidentally intoxicated” and also sick of wasting my time being hung over. I only had one glass of champagne on New Years and it has been so encouraging to know that I can go out, have fun with my friends, be silly and goofy and still get home safely and at a reasonable time, and be fully functional the next day. Happy 2011 indeed!

Last year at New Year’s I pondered the idea of naming years like we name months in this calendar. One group that gave a “name” to their years are the American Indian people of the northern Great Plains. The Sioux and other Northern Plains tribes used a system called Winter Counts where a pictograph was chosen for each year recorded on a hide or piece of fabric. The pictographs, which spurred the memory of the storyteller who kept the count, often represented diseases, successful or tragic raids or wars, or natural events. The earliest Winter Count in the Smithsonian museum is called the Battiste Good winter count after the Lakota man who kept it in the late 1800s. On that Winter Count the year 1708 is called Many Kettle Winter after the tribe’s first interaction with the English that resulted in them aquiring both guns and iron cooking kettles. The year 1751 was called Killed Two White Buffalo Cows year, after the very rare and auspicious event of getting two albino bison in the same winter.

I love the idea of naminga year so put some thought into the important events of these last 12 months in my life. I traveled to Pennsylvania in the summer and in the autumn my sister moved back home. I did a lot of creative writing over the course of the year, enjoyed the second year of my garden and Lucky died in October. But none of these things match my involvement at West Hills Friends church for being pivotal and influential on my life. I started attending this Quaker church in December of 2009 and went almost every weekend over the whole year. I started a practice of daily praying during Lent and have done a fair amount of bible reading as well as some serious study of Quaker testimonies and history. I made real and meaningful connections with other people in the community and even have the start of a few good friendships. In December I had the thought that I might be willing to say “I am a Quaker” rather than just that I attend a Quaker church. 2010 has clearly been The Quaker Year.

Both the Lakota people and myself in thinking about 2010 name the year as it is closing out but I would like to think about naming the year as it begins. Rather than just review and reflection that requires some divination. Ketzirah over at Peeling a Pomegranate did some wish dreaming (gwishing as Havi at The Fluent Self might call it) for her 2010 and came up with a theme and some affirmations she calls her Dream Decree. I looked for inspiration for my own wish dreaming for this upcoming year in the mysterious Sabian Symbols, a set of images and descriptions for each of the 360 degrees in the astrological zodiac. The symbols were clairvoyantly “discovered” by an astrologer and a spiritualist medium in 1925 but like other complex oracles tap into a very deep understanding of the world. Using Lynda Hill’s online oracle I randomly picked two symbols for my year 2011.

The first symbol I chose is Cancer 23: This Symbol shows the gathering together of those of like mind in order to exchange or share ideas and information. My secondary symbol is Aquarius 3, “A deserter from the navy stands suddenly aware of a dawning truth: Freedom is never the result of compromise.”

The first seems a perfect, almost too easy fit for what I see of 2011 so far. I just started a Masters of Arts in Teaching program with the goal of becoming a public school teacher. The program uses a cohort model of a strong small group that studies together throughout the 16 month program and has the overall program objectives of getting teachers to “Think critically, transform practice and promote justice.” Uh, yeah. That fits.

The second symbol at first glance seems a warning about the constriction of rules and how they may come into conflict with strongly held beliefs and necessary freedoms. It seems to speak to the path I am taking towards a very regulated profession that requires personal passion and creativity, and the reservations and conflicts I feel about that. I also see a warning to be careful what I do, or fail to, engage in. It is asking me to practice my will force, not just the heart and mind forces alluded to in the first symbol, in whatever I choose to be a part of this year.

With these rich images, as well of those of Rob Breszny and his Free Will Astrology horoscope to guide me I have come up with my dream decree for 2011:

The only thing standing between this moment and the life I dream of is my own work in rooting out and collecting that which has been provided for me. My participation is required and what I create in collaboration with other seekers moves the world forward.

• I will be the Deputy Director of Green Lights and Purple Hearts. I will be courageous and diligent the exercise of my will.
• I will be the Puzzle Master Supreme and Minister of Marvelous Mysteries. I will be restless and selfless in the pursuit of meaning.
• I will be the Field Commander of Free Lunches and Poetic License. I will be loving in the cultivation and expression of my feeling life.

2010 was the year of Beautiful Quaker Mysteries. 2011 will be the year of Building The Future Teacher. What are you gwishing for 2011?

*** **** ***

Full text of the sabian symbols I pulled for 2011:

CANCER 23: THE MEETING OF A STUDY GROUP OR LITERARY SOCIETY: This Symbol shows the gathering together of those of like mind in order to exchange or share ideas and information. The search for meaning should always be made in order to enrich not only yourself but those around you. Finding the best way to describe something creates the opportunity for greater access by the collective. Shared higher knowledge. Print media, newspapers, libraries, written word. Critics. Diaries, records and minutes of meetings. Talk back radio.The Caution: Falsifying of ideas. Propaganda spread by media. Intellectual smugness which excludes non-establishment thought. Chatting instead of doing. Being critical.

AQUARIUS 3: A DESERTER FROM THE NAVY STANDS SUDDENLY AWARE OF A DAWNING TRUTH: FREEDOM IS NEVER THE RESULT OF COMPROMISE You may find that the rigorous restraints and rules of the situation are no longer bearable. A decision to opt out may be moral or to maintain free spirit. There are always consequences for not playing the game. Are you prepared for them? Someone could feel they are being taken away from home and family for a reason they don't really understand. Rebellion. Leaving situations although allegiance had been pledged. Wrestling with one's conscience. The Caution: Not being prepared to play by the rules of any socially structured game. Withdrawing support when one should be involved in a physical, mental or emotional way.

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****  

Milk Moon 2009: New Milk Moon

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

This post is about New Years day which I also wrote about in the New Milk Moon post linked to above as well as the January 2010 post New Year!