Of Peacocks, Pride and Park Rangers

Full Fasting Moon
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****
The Peacock and the Mallard Princess
a Jataka Tale adapted from the Nacca-Jataka, retold by Alyss Broderick 
Once upon a time, when the world was young, the animals of the three kingdoms chose kings for themselves. The beasts of the land chose the majestic Lion to rule them while the fish chose the giant Whale as their king. The birds of the air chose the Golden Mallard as their leader. The Mallard King had a beautiful daughter and he offered her any wish she might have. She asked to be able to choose her own husband.

The Mallard King called all the birds from all of India to come show themselves to the Princess. Parrots and finches came from the jungles of Bengal and gulls and doves came from the southern Tamil coast. Larks and hawks came from the western deserts and cranes and eagles came from the Himalayan mountains. All the birds gathered near the Mallard King’s home on the edge of the sacred Ganges river. The Mallard Princess moved slowly through the assembled crowd, her eyes bright and searching for her husband. Finally she caught sight of a handsome bird with emerald green and sapphire blue feathers. Oh, how handsome he was!  
"There he is,” she told her father. “The peacock will be my husband.”

When he heard this the prideful peacock cried out, “Oh, Princess, you have not even seen the best I have to offer yet!” With that he unfurled his tail feathers and began dancing and singing his praises in a high, clear voice. With each note and each step the Princess and her father were more disappointed. Finally the King called him to stop.
“My daughter deserves a husband as modest and selfless as he is handsome. You will not wed my daughter. Instead, she will marry my nephew the Mallard Prince.”

The peacock, enraged, flew off with an indignant squawk and scream. To this day, you will find the Mallard Prince and Princess raising their family on the humble edges of lakes and streams dressed in their modest yet handsome plumage. Peacock still has his extravagant feathers, but his clear, sweet voice has turned into screech of fallen pride.

**** *** **** ***
This month is the Fasting Moon in Annette Hinshaw's calendar. Last month I wrote about the relationship between the Milk Moon and the Fasting moon, how the first asks us to examine how we can be community that supports and individual, while the second asks us to examine how removing support can also help the individual. In addition to asking about how our refusal of resources can help others, the Fasting Moon also asks us to look at what sacrifices we must make for our own future good. Sometimes that sacrifice is physical, as in dieting for weight loss or pinching our pennies for a future expense, but sometimes it is emotional or metaphysical.
When an image or story or refrain keeps popping up in your life it means it is time to examine that lesson. My attention has been called to the idea of sacrificing the paramount position of my own ego multiple times over the last month or so. Peacock, in the story of the Mallard Princess, learns the hard way that being the best and most brilliant is not always the way to win the prize. This rings true in interpersonal relationships and teaching relationships, two ideas I have been exploring lately. It is even true in the kind of relationship I envision having with God.

My first class in my Masters of Arts in Teaching program at George Fox University was called the Professional Educator. We spent 5 weeks looking at historical and philosophical perspectives on public education and capped the class with a paper outlining our definition of a teacher. My definition explicitly states that a teacher does not see themselves as having learned everything there is to know about a subject or being infallible in their knowledge, the world is too complex for that. The time for enthroned professors in marble halls is over. I envision a teacher more as a guide, like a good park ranger. They have walked the path before, maybe many times before, and have background information to help interpret what the group sees along the path. They know, however, that each day brings new things to see and each set of eyes sees different parts of the whole. When I was a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park I painstakingly researched a presentation on the founders of the park and the building of the beautiful lodge. One day I gave my presentation only to find out that one of the men in the audience had been on the Civilian Conservation Corps crew that actually built the lodge. No, a huge ego does neither a park ranger nor a school teacher much good.

Like a park ranger faced with the immensity and complexity of the park they work in, a follower of the divine light is too small to see the whole story. God, in her vastness, knows the plan for your life and everyone else's life better than you can even conceive of. It is not easy to release the importance of your own rightness or knowledge. In the Tao De Ching the sage reminds us that to bend is to stay whole and that the bending takes courage just as the firmness does. Only an empty cup can be filled, but laying low requires sacrificing the ego. In the book of Mark, Jesus says to the disciples that ask to sit at the right hand of the master, "And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all." (Mark 10:44) I don't believe Jesus' death was required for me to be in communion with god, but his ultimate sacrifice to the larger plan is a potent symbol of the sacrifice the Fasting Moon asks us to consider.
A refrain that has been going through my head recently is "Be not afraid." Sacrificing our ego in relationships can be very scary and lowering ourselves, or being lowered against our will can be painful. Many of us, myself most certainly included, have a lot of identity and pride wrapped up in being good and right and knowledgeable. We are not, however, all knowing. The world is much, much too big for that. Laying low, bending and sacrificing to the relationship, to the dao, to god herself is the only way to be lifted high as the wheel turns around again.

Photos by jans canon and hypergenesb, please click on the links or photos to see more of their work on Flickr. Thanks!

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****
Full Fasting Moon 2009: Full Moon in the Fasting Moon
Full Fasting Moon 2010: The Old Man Who Made the Trees Blossom
I also discuss the Fasting moon energies The Fasting Moon is New post and in the The Positive Feedback Loop of Love post.

Martinmas

I have not written about Martinmas before, though it is associated with the cross quarter day I call Halloween. Here are previous posts about Halloween:

Halloween 2008: When the Veil Between the Worlds is Thin

Halloween 2009: What Do You Really Want to Be?

Halloween 2010: Doggy Heaven

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

It is the day of Martilmasse,

Cuppes of ale should freelie passe;
What though Wynter has begunne
To push downe the Summer sunne,
To our fire we can betake,
And enjoye the crackling brake,
Never heedinge Wynter's face
On the day of Martilmasse.

Martinmas is another one of those fantastic holidays that most Americans either have never heard of, or only heard of through Waldorf schools. In both European countries like the Netherlands and Germany as well as in Waldorf schools around the world Martinmas is celebrated by retelling the story of St. Martin of Tours and by holding evening lantern walks. Last year I felt the deep calling of the Michaelmas celebration and this year I am feeling the same way about Martinmas. The more I read and think about it, the more beautiful and meaningful it is.

The young man who was to become St. Martin was born in about 317 A.D. in what is today Hungary and grew up the son of a Roman cavalry man in the area around Lombardy in Northwestern Italy. He became a Christian as a young man after Constantine made it the state religion but before it became popular in the military society Martin was a part of. Though he became a founder of monasteries and famous for exorcising demons the story most associated with St. Martin is the episode of the beggar and the cloak.

painting by Gustave Moreau, circa 1882

The story is told in many ways by many authors but the main elements are always the same. On a cold winter night St. Martin rode into the walled city of Ameins in northern France, and passed by a beggar huddling in the cold. Martin, having nothing else to give the man, took off his own scarlet cloak, cut it in two with his sword and gave half to the beggar. That night Martin was awoken by a vision of Christ proclaiming, "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me".

Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture on Easter, mentions that the Festivals of Christmas, Easter, St. Johns Day and Michaelmas fall a number of days after the point of the solar calendar they are aligned with. He says this is because the spiritual nature of the season comes to it's peak a few days after the earthly peak. For instance, solstices usually fall on the 21st or 22nd of December and June but Christmas is Dec 25th and St. Johns Day is the 24th of June. Martinmas, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, falls on November 11th just a few days after the solar Festival of Halloween at the very end of October. Martinmas is associated with this ancient festival date and has been celebrated in similar ways throughout European history.

The holidays of All Saints and All Souls Day are the christian calendar equivalent of the part of Samhain or Halloween dealing with our Beloved Dead in the other world while St. Martin's Day is associated with another part of the season - preparing for winter. We prepare for winter by kindling and protecting our inner flame, sharing that flame with others and also protecting others with gifts of food and clothing.

In Britain there are many folk traditions relating to Martinmas, mostly relating to the harvest of animals and preparing for winter. During medieval times Martinmas was when herds were thinned before the winter, rents were paid and hiring fairs would be held for servants and workers who wished to change their employers. In some parts of Europe a goose was the proper meat for a Martinmas feast but in England beef was the centerpiece of the feast. Wilson's Almanac book of days for November 11 has many more interesting stories about ancient traditions in Europe and Britain relating to Martinmas, including many poems and sayings. Besides the old English ballad excerpted above my favorite is this piece of weather augury:

Ice before Martinmas,
Enough to bear a duck.
The rest of winter,
Is sure to be but muck!

The Martinmas lantern walk celebrated by Waldorf schools as well as families in the Netherlands, Germany and other parts of Europe is the visible ritual signifying our kind ling and protecting of our inner light. This light was sparked at

Michaelmas time and has grown, hand in hand with our courage, into the light of love and faith Martin showed sharing his cloak with the beggar. We protect our little flame in a beautiful lantern and parade it around, singing songs with our brothers, sisters and neighbors. As the outer light of the sun wanes during these days of late autumn and early winter we take pains to protect our inner light so it can grow.

photo by Rounien & Rjabinnik
How are you nurturing your inner light in these darkening days? How are you sharing your light and helping to kindle and protect the lights of others during this season? What about the story of St. Martin of Tours speaks to you? Is there any part of it, or of other ancient traditions that do not speak to you? Have you ever made a lantern to show off your light? Will the ducks of Martinmas be wading in the muck by Christmas where you are?

Motherlove and Caring for the Environment

The full Mother's Moon took me by suprise. It has been a busy couple weeks of gardening, summery outdoor activities and get togethers with friends so I had completely lost track of what the moon was doing. Then on Friday night I was driving home and the almost full moon jumped out from behind a tree or a building and BAM, it was the Full Mother's Moon. The weather was finally feeling summery so I took a late night stroll in the moonlight. Not dark until 9:30, night time walks in shorts, flowers and growing grass and warm breezes - it is finally summer!


The main energies of the Mother's Moon are those of the unconditional love a person, animal or land deserves just for existing. Annette Hinshaw describes this as Motherlove and contrasts it with Fatherlove, the love one earns through their merit or accomplishments. We know about this dichotomy in the raising of children - kids need to know they are loved for who they are no matter what, but they also need to be praised for striving and doing good work, and reprimanded when they choose harmful actions. We can bring this idea of Motherlove and Fatherlove out into a broader realm of dealing with our planet, the Earth we walk on, as well. When I was a ranger at Crater Lake National Park a man asked me, "What do we do with all this water?" I didn't really understand and am sure I stared at him blankly for a moment. "How do we use this water? Is it used for power generation or do people fish in it?" he asked again. "No," I finally stuttered out, "It's just here to be beautiful." This man wanted to care about Crater Lake because of what it does for us while I (and the forward thinking individuals who created the National Park Service) understood that sometimes we need to care about nature for it's own beauty and presence, not for anything it provides us.

One specific area that this Motherlove for Our Planet has been popping into my thoughts lately is in our culture's use of plastic. Cat over at Quaker Pagan Reflections has recently felt a leading to examine her use of plastic and is documenting it in her newer blog Chestnut Tree. A few days after reading her blog I came across Beth's website Fake Plastic Fish. Beth has spent the last two years reducing her plastic use and helping others understand the threat plastics pose to our environment and how to find more appropriate options. I'm not sure I have sensed the same urgent leading Cat has felt, or the same level of revulsion-leading-to-action Beth has had but I am on my way.

As these two blogs, and all the other articles out there show, there are many, many reasons to avoid plastic (and many, many equally good reasons to use plastic). The arguments against plastic usually fall into two camps - the it's bad for us camp and the it's bad for the planet camp. In the it's bad for us camp are arguments about leaching toxins, off gassing, hormone disruption, and the unsustainability of petroleum production that will leave us in a nasty lurch if we don't wean our habit now. These are good reasons to avoid plastic. But the reasons that really get to me, make my lip sneer up in disgust and give me indigestion and insomnia, are the motherlove type, it's bad for the planet reasons.

Our use of plastic, or more specifically, our improper disposal of single use plastic products, leave an enormous mark on our planet. As a person with a lot of science and specifally geology training I find it hard to believe that we as individuals or humans in general can really make a mark on the geology of our planet. The processes that make rock or create volcanoes are massive processes that cover emense amount of time and space. But we are. Our plastic garbage has collected in the Pacific Ocean to form a a giant patch of plastic garbage that might be as big as the continental United States, or it might just be as big as Texas. No matter how big it is the pieces of plastic are ending up in everything from albatross to diatoms. And, as I learned from my favorite TV Geologist (Iain Stewart... swoon!) in his new series on National Geographic our plastic detritus is actually getting into the ocean sediment that will, over geologic time, create new rock. Someday, millions of years in the future, geologists will look at some future incarnation of the Grand Canyon or the Himalayas and see bits of plastic in among the snail, fish and whale fossils. How gross is that?

Iain also told me about a mud volcano in Indonesia that has been erupting for years and has covered entire villages with dozens of feet of hot mud and displacing thousands of people. What does this have to do with plastic? The "volcano" is actually a broken well pipe from a drilling rig exploring for gas and oil, the raw materials for plastic. And I don't need to remind anyone about the tragic Gulf of Mexico "oil leak" (as NPR insists on calling it. Yes, I have written letters. That's no "leak", my friends). That disaster is not going to stop getting bigger, let alone start getting smaller, anytime in the forseeable future. I am quite confident that huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast will be uninhabitable wastelands before it is all said and done.

Our actions show a profound lack of basic respect and love for our planet and the other living things that live here with us. We are absolutely failing to show any amount of Motherlove to our planet. And thats no way to treat any one or any thing.

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

I have been thinking a lot about the importance of building the world we want instead of focusing on destroying the world we don't want. My hero and personal astrologer, Rob Breszny, once said in an interview "The new culture is a blend of rage at what exists and love [in creating] something you like," Brezsny explains. "The answer isn't just to say 'no' to what's going on, but to imbue it with your own spirit." How does this apply to massive, planet scale environmental degredation rooted in thoughtless personal habits? We have to work at consciousness raising and use all the tools in our toolbox, including righteous rage, to bring the problem to people's attention.

We also need to work at how we build the new world we do want. How do we live a life without plastic, or without disposable plastic? How do we rearrange our priorities so that bringing reuseable shopping bags, cups, and to-go containers is not an inconvenience but simply the way things are done? How do we plan our lives and the lives of our cities so that we can use less oil for transporting our bodies and the goods we need to live? I certainly don't have answers to these questions, but maybe asking them - in the spirit of motherlove to all of creation - is the first step.

"The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new." - Socrates

Easter

Easter Sunday is the most holy day in the Christian religion. It is the commemoration of the day Jesus rose from the dead three days after his sacrificial crucifixion and is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first Monday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox (Rudolph Steiner spoke about how this festival falls when the calendars of the earth, the moon and the man-made week have all realigned themselves). This year that fell on April 4th. Some Christian groups celebrate a whole slew of holidays leading up to and following Easter including Mardi Gras, Lent, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Ascension and others. It is a busy time in the Christian church.

I wrote some last year about the various spring celebrations from all over the world that cluster around the Spring Equinox. Much of what we see in modern Easter celebrations - Easter bunnies leaving candy, hunting for dyed eggs, wearing new dresses and hats, eating lamb or ham, even the name Easter - come from pre-Christian European spring celebrations. Much like with Christmas, the expanding church in ancient and medieval Europe co-opted the local traditions and reassigned them meaning in the new religious narrative to get the cooperation of the masses. There certainly isn't any mention of Easter eggs or Christmas trees in the Bible.

This doesn't mean, however, that Easter is just a pagan celebration with some details changed. Unlike Christmas, in which I see more similarities between pagan and Christian celebration than I do differences, there is a truly different meaning behind Easter Sunday than behind pagan spring celebrations. Yes, both celebrate the re-birth of life through the divine, but Christ's re-birth means something different than Nature's re-birth does. It means salvation, and this is where things start getting sticky for me.

I chose to really immerse myself in Easter celebrations this year (well, maybe it was less conscious than all that - but I certainly was immersed in Easter). After rejecting the austerity of Lent for 39 days I participated in an interactive stations of the cross devotional on Good Friday, watched part of the Maundy Thursday Mass given by the Pope and both The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Last Temptation of Christ as well as played an angel in my Quaker Meeting's Easter Drama. All of this had the effect of allowing me time to really spend some time working with the meaning of Easter in my own life.

The story of Holy Week has been fascinating to me since I first learned about it in a college art history class. The story goes that Jesus entered Jerusalem on the Sunday before Passover and was welcomed by the citizens. They draped their robes on the ground so his donkey wouldn't walk in the mud and waved palm fronds to honor him. This is commemorated in the church calendar as Palm Sunday. Thursday of that week was Passover and Jesus met with his disciples for a Passover meal commonly called the Last Supper. This is when he told his followers to eat of his body and drink of his blood in remembrance of him and the practice of communion with bread or wafers and wine or juice was born. That night, as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas Iscariot betrayed him and he was arrested. The following day, Good Friday, he was beaten and crucified fulfilling the scripture and paying the price of fallen man's sin. After three days in the tomb he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. Ritual celebrations that replay and symbolically show the meaning of a holy story are so attractive to me that I am almost willing to overlook my theological issues with the Passion story.

After a very brief mention of Palm Sunday at Meeting on Sunday the 28th I kicked off my Holy Week "celebration" by watching part of the Holy Thursday mass on EWTN, a Catholic television channel. I can see why the reformists of the 16th century "protested" against this kind of church - so much pomp, circumstance, gold, incense and robes. Catholic ritual is such a physical expression of faith that is so different than the expression of faith I am getting comfortable with in my Quaker Meeting. It is fascinating, though, and oh so delightful to my pagan sensibilities.

There are many fascinating traditions and symbols in the Easter Triduum, or three day period between Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday. The Holy Thursday mass includes the blessing of the host and then the host is kept in an "alter of repose" during Good Friday and Holy Saturday when no mass is spoken. Neither this mass nor the Good Friday service, which is not a mass end with the typical concluding words. It is not until the Easter Mass that the conclusion is spoken. In essence it is all one service that starts with the Mass of the Last Supper and doesn't conclude until Saturday night or Sunday morning with the Easter Mass. Hows that for symbolism?

On Friday I accepted the invitation in our Meeting bulletin to attend an interactive Stations of the Cross devotional at a local mega-church. I had been thinking about going to the Catholic cathedral to see their devotional but it didn't work out. Possibly, the Spirit was working to give me the best experience possible. The whole experience was rather intense - as it was intended to be. The church it took place at was so, so different than West Hills and that was at first disconcerting. The place has a coffee shop inside it! But the devotional itself took place in a small side chapel that seemed much more intimate. Like a traditional Stations of the Cross we physically moved through a set path marked with symbols of Christ's Passion from the Last Supper to his burial but this one was multi-sensory and quite physical.

The host church used the Scriptural Way of the Cross as the format and a wide variety of props to bring the process to life. They re-created the garden at Gethsemane with potted plants and a fountain, had a recording of a rooster crowing signifying Peter's denial and had real thorns and whips for us to touch. Some of the most moving pieces to me were the railroad spikes we could pound into a large stump to feel what it was like to crucify a man, mirrors to see ourselves and our family as Jesus saw us and a bowl of myrrh and aloe like that used to embalm his body. Any teacher wanting to use multiple learning styles could have taken a page out of their book - we were asked to read, write, empathize, draw, look, listen, smell and feel throughout the entire process. The devotional ended with a plate of bread and goblets of wine so that we could partake in holy communion with the sacrficed Christ (which I chose not to do.. more on that in a minute).

Easter Sunday at West Hills Friends was much, much more light hearted - as is appropriate for Easter Sunday. I played an angel in the original production of The Kingdom of God Comes At You At One Million Miles Per Second in which a number of preachers teach people the proper stance or pose to brace for impact. Finally Jesus shows up to remind folks bracing isn't the point, moving is. Any Easter service that includes very bad renditions of People Get Ready, 25 balloons and 8 bags of candy is my kind of Easter service. It was definitely a morning of joyous celebration and community.

So what did I learn from all of this Easter Stuff? Well, one thing I learned is that I have a deep appreciation for the solemnity of a real celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. It really is no laughing matter and not something to be celebrated in pastels and bunnies. Jesus of Nazareth died a terrible death. Crucifixion is a nasty thing - like many other nasty things we humans do to each other. If you believe in original sin and the need for a savior then the Resurrection of Christ is a big, big deal. It is, in fact, the deal.

Rudolph Steiner speaks of how the Christian festivals fall a few days after the Earth festivals because we need to feel the "lower" energies of the earth before we can feel the "purer" energies embodied in the human realm and the angelic realm of Christian religion. When push comes to shove I am not a Christian. I don't believe in original sin, I don't believe in a fallen creation or a fallen man. I don't believe in the need for an external savior or any sort of intermediary between myself and the divine. I am too much of a pagan universalist for that. But I see the utility in working with these ideas. Over the last few days I have wrestled with such big ideas as the need for physical props in worship of a non-physical divine presence, my own fears and hesitations in life, why people perpetrate terrible crimes against each other and how I relate with other humans. I haven't come to good answers on any of those things, but I've had some thoughts, and that's the first step.

After my very long weekend of Easter Related Thinking I am spent. I have thought deeply and felt deeply. I am tired and feel overworked. My Easter Sunday ended with a fantastic steak house dinner with my dad that left me grateful for the richness, nutrition and elegance. It also left me feeling stuffed and in need of a few days of fasting to get back on track. That's the way I feel about thinking too. I some time for assimilation and digestion, I need a fast.


*Photos are all by Walwyn on flickr.com. They are pieces of art from French churches. Thank you for your contribution.

Spring is Springing

I have a hard time with the Fasting Moon. I know, I talk a good game, and I know all the reasons why the energies of deprivation and sacrifice match up with this time of the year. I re-read Waverly Fitzgerald’s Pagan Lent article every year, my copy of Earth Time, Moon Time is tattered through the Fasting Moon chapter and I even started reading Catholic family blogs this spring, but in my heart I just can’t seem to get into the spirit of Lent. I took to celebrating Advent like a duck to water, and most of the other seasonal celebrations also come naturally, but despite trying to celebrate Lent for over 5 years it has just never stuck. One blogger I read says she explains it to her family that they are saving up their alleluia’s for Easter. I don’t want to save anything up during this time of year… I want to celebrate the spring that is already here!

I think a big part of it is how mild our winters are in Portland and how early spring comes. It always seems like real signs of spring come right on the heels of February First. There’s hardly time to get over the trauma of January before spring is here for good. This year, in the weeks after February First I noticed the trees move from little buds right into leaves. I think spring is early this year but we already have daffodils. Lots of them! I almost think I missed crocuses all together. And the cherry blossoms. Oh, the cherry blossoms!

Portland is well known for its cherry blossoms. A main waterfront park is planted with cherry trees and most neighborhoods in town have tons of them. We don’t get much snow in the winter but in the spring the streets look like they’ve been snowed on with all the fallen petals. My parents have a cherry tree in their front yard that is pruned into a gorgeous umbrella shape and is the first thing you see when you pull up in their driveway.


I’ve decided to stop worrying about Lent. I’ll make an effort at Holy Week to honor the season of sacrifice. Until then, though, I’m putting flowers on my desk every day and singing hosannas to the heavens for the blossoms.

The Aftermark of Almost Too Much Love

To Earthward
by Robert Frost

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of--was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

******

In Earth Time, Moon Time Annette Hinshaw quotes this poem, specifically the lines "Now no joy but lacks salt that is not dashed with pain... ; I crave the stain of tears, the aftermark of almost too much love." At first read, and in most literary analyses of the poem I saw, it is a story of longing for youthful love and discontent with the bitterness of age. Most comments about the poem focused on the sexuality of the first half of the poem and interpreted the last stanza as a longing for death. One blogger, Kelly Fineman, sees the whole poem as a bit more ambiguous than all of that. "I don't think he's a masochist; he's a realist who accepts the complexities of the world, including the negatives along with the positives," she says. I don't even see negatives in this poem, I just see the next step.

Like any good love story the story of this poem can be not only about an individual Lover and Beloved, but also about eternal, universal or cosmic Lovers and Beloveds. It could be about any of us, it could be about all of us, it could be about the God and Goddess or about the Creator and the Created.

In the Wiccan Great Story there comes a time of the year (this time of the year, in fact) when the Father God realizes that he must sacrifice his individual life so that the universal life may continue. He understand that after the spring and early summer of loving his Goddess and their Creation he must shoulder the weight of his responsibility. May and June were the time of those "strong sweets" that caused the "swirl and ache" of the creating-love. Now, August and into September comes the "sweet of bitter bark and burning clove" of sustaining-sacrificing-love. We still get the "aftermark of almost too much love" in the form of the harvest and the hot late summer days, but we know, as he knows, that winter is on it's way.

August is a difficult time of year for me. My birthday is in the first week of September and I feel like August is the end of my cycle. It's that frustrating time before the next start when you aren't quite sure what to do next. I also think the discord between the hot temperatures and shortening days sends me into an existential funk. I seem to weather it well these days, but it's a frustrating few weeks.

How are the shortening days and growing harvest effecting you? How do you feel about the responsiblities you have towards the things you have created? What do you think about Frost's poem?

Thank you to DW and Stubborndev for their beautiful photos.

August Eve, In the Woods!

In the heat of the summer comes the festival of Lammas, Lughnassad or Teltane - the festival of the first harvest. In the Great Story this is the time when the Father God accepts his duty to sacrifices himself so that all life may continue to be reborn. One story of this time of year is that of John Barleycorn, who as he dies turns into the seed which will be planted so he can grow again the next year. The grain's sacrifice allows nourishing bread to be made.

Another god associated with this time of year is that of Lugh, a celtic diety who's many names refer to his "long arm" or "skilled ways". There is a story that his foster mother, a royal by the name of Tailtiu, was set to the task of clearing a forest so grain could be planted but died of exhaustion in her attempt. Lugh declared a feast in her honor and organized games to be played during the feast. This feast and games are in some way the predecessor of our modern county fairs with rodeos and family picnics with potato sack races.

In exploring how I celebrate this festival I been drawn time and again to this idea of gathering together to play games or be outdoors. One year I organized a picnic at the beach for my Americorps team that included crazy bat races, rain gear relays and water balloon tosses. Like most of my Wheel of the Year celebrations it was not explicitely a Lammas celebration, but the meaning was just the same. This year I organized a camping trip to Central Oregon. It was glorious!

I took two whole days off work and spent three night camping along side beautiful lakes outside of Bend, Oregon. A group of friends came out to meet me and we spent our days swimming, lounging, napping and preparing food together and our evenings eating and drinking around a campfire (and moaning over our sunburned shoulders and thighs!). And of course we cooked things over the campfire. You would never believe how good a can of Dinty Moore stew is when cooked in a wood fire and eaten in the woods. We also made a giant batch of veggie packs, a perennial favorite campfire fare.

Camp Fire Veggie Packs

To bring with you camping:

*A big roll of heavy duty aluminum foil

*Cooking oil of your choice (or strips of bacon, if you do that sort of thing)

*A cutting board and knife sharp enough to cut your veggies

*Vegetables - onions, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, eggplant, brussels sprouts, green beans. Whatever is in season and tasty.

*Salt, pepper, garlic powder and/or other seasonings of your choice

To assemble and cook:

*Cut your veggies into relatively uniform size pieces, about 1 inch square. Keep harder veggies a little smaller than softer ones so they cook in about the same time.

*Tear off relatively large square sheets of aluminum foil and lay two on top of each other. Add a little cooking oil to the top square and add a selection of veggies. Mix and match your favorites as you would like - try carrots and mushrooms, or brussels sprouts and onions - or just add a little of everything. You don't want to overload the foil pack with veggies or they will steam and not cook evenly. Imagine the square of foil divided into a 3x3 grid and you don't want your veggies to take up too much more than the center square. Stir the veggies gently to oil them all up and sprinkle with salt, pepper or other seasoning. Alternatively, lay slices of bacon on the foil, add veggies on top and then maybe another slice of bacon. Try this with potatoes or eggplant. Wow.

*Fold the foil over the sides of the pile of veggies and then bring the top and bottom up and crimp it down over itself to seal the packet. It should be pretty securely crimped up.

*Place the sealed up packet of veggies either in the coals surrounding the fire or on a grate over top of a hot coal bed. You don't really want to place the foil over licking flames but instead over hot coals that you rake away from the flames. Leave the packets for 20 minutes or longer, depending on how hot the coals are and how big your veggies are. You can use tongs to pull one pack out, open it up (carefully so the steam doesn't get you) and taste. Crimp it back up and throw it back in if they aren't done to your liking. It's best when they get a little charred around the edges. That's how you know you're camping!

I realized as I was getting ready to leave on Sunday that I hadn't looked at a clock, except incidentally as I drove to and from the swimming beach, in close to 48 hours. I was living according to the natural rhythm of summer camping - wake up when the tent gets too hot, go to the lake when the campsite gets too hot, nap in your tent when the thundestorms hit, cook over the fire as it gets dark and fall asleep when you are tired.

In her book Slow Time, Waverly Fitzgerald writes about how our artificial time of seconds and days and months came into existence and offers activities to help us jump off the hamster wheel and into the river of natural time. It's hard to do in a 40 hour work week when I have to be somewhere at a specific time and get to leave at another specific time but it feels wonderful when I can break away from it.

Like the natural time of waking when the sun comes up and resting when it goes down the festival of August Eve reminds us that a time will come, quite soon, for the year to rest in the darkness of winter. August Eve reminds us that the fields must rest in the darkness of the fallow season and eventually our bodies must rest in the darkness of death. But not quite yet. We still have a glorious harvest season ahead of us including the hot, lazy Dog Days of summer.

How did you celebrate August Eve? When was the last time you broke away from artificial time and swam in the river of natural time? What is reminding you of the upcoming harvest and subsequent winter? What's your favorite thing to cook over a campfire?

New Father's Moon

This week marks the new Father’s Moon in Annette Hinshaw’s calendar. As the Mother’s Moon celebrates the energy of the unconditional love of the Mother Goddess the Father’s Moon celebrates the conditional, limited, merit based love of the Father God. Many of us who grew up in the patriarchal dominant society but have studied feminist movements, theories and feminine divinity have very mixed emotions about Father Gods and father figures. Sometimes I wonder if some of the big issues our society faces are rooted in our cultures imbalance in Fatherlove and whether the solutions are to be found in a balancing of this potent force.

Fatherlove is the love of limits and training. It is the love your parents show when they say no, or insist that you do your homework. It is the same caring that guides governments to inspect food, cities to require permits and governments to enforce laws. The limits require us to be better at what we do and to consider the needs of others while doing it. It is, in an extreme permutation, the energy that guides authoritarian rule, “big brother” surveillance and many forms of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Our culture has been patriarchal, male dominated and extreme in it’s Fatherlove for many centuries and it shows. War, environmental destruction and social inequity are all quite likely rooted in the risk taking, self serving and aggressive aspects of unbalanced Fatherlove.

Not that Fatherlove or the men and women who embody it are all bad. Without risk taking we would not progress as individuals or cultures. Without aggression we would be too passive to get much done or make necessary changes. Being selfless can be as inappropriate as being self serving. In her fantastic article Plastic Swords and Pentacles: Chivalry and the Rearing of Pagan Boys Sarah Reeder speaks to the basic urges of young boys-becoming-men. She decries both patriarchal machismo as denying male emotion and the sensitive new agey stereotype which denies male power. In raising her son she strives to find truly heroic role models for him – men who use their strength for the good of those around him who need his strength. This is Fatherlove in its most balanced and useful form.

In the beginning there was nothing. From that nothing came something, and that something was the Goddess. But she was lonely, so from the one came two. The Goddess and the God. He was so beautiful she fell in love and he loved her back. From their love came the entire universe - the Earth, the Sun, the Stars, the plants, animals, rivers and stones. And they were happy. But the God realized that for all live to continue life must be sacrificed. For all life on Earth to continue the God sacrificed himself. The Goddess was sad and mourned her loss but Hope remained for from their love she was pregnant. Pregnant with he God himself. He was born again and the Goddess rejoiced by creating humans to help her celebrate. And so the cycle was started and the cycle continues. Celebrate!

A major theme of the Father Moon, and of all those who embody Fatherlove as an ideal, is that of sacrifice. I wrote the above prayer when I was in college and first developing my spiritual beliefs and practices. It is a retelling of the Wiccan great story and a key moment in the story is when the God realizes he must sacrifice himself in order for all life to continue. In the year as the Great Story that moment is now, the Father’s Moon. Soon the Father will complete the act of sacrifice and we see that as the glorious blaze of harvest and autumn leaves but now is a more subtle turning. Shorter days, cooler nights, golden leaves on the edges of the big street trees. All who love as a father loves, through setting limits and enforcing boundaries, must sacrifice in order to bring out the best in their beloved. The new father sacrifices his dream of becoming a rock star for a steady job that supports his family. The sunflower sacrifices it’s glorious flowerhead so the seeds can fully mature. The God sacrifices his very body for us, his beloved creation.

What thoughts do you have about Fatherlove? How have you expressed it, how has it been expressed to you? Which men do you know who embody well balanced Fatherlove? How do you think they came to be so balanced? What sacrifices are you making these days? How is your garden coming along?