Spring in the Garage

I live in a deeply urban area; the buildings are several stories tall, parking is hard to find and often underground, and I have to drive to find a green space that I can’t see across. But as I was going to my car in the underground garage, the house sparrows that live there were singing up a storm, and the sound spoke of the onset of spring.

This wasn’t just a reminder that nature is “out there” somewhere in a pristine wildness independent of the urban density. This is my nature; this is my world, my bit of earth, my ecosystem. When I ground and center, tendrils of my roots twine around the rails of the Metro; I notice changes in the seasons in terms of the shops and businesses on my daily walks as well as in the plants and animals. I know the people at nearest stores, and waving a greeting to them gives me a sense of home just as checking in with the nearest trees does.

My home area is a wonderful example of the way that “nature” and “human areas” are not mutually exclusive; they are everywhere interpenetrating, coexisting and adapting, competing, cooperating, and thriving.

One of my friends was writing recently about how some people see anything that they don’t control as “weeds” or “vermin,” that is, things that need to be eliminated. I know some people think that way, but I simply can’t wrap my mind around it; it’s impossible for us to “control” our environments completely, even in the most monitored and managed areas. The house sparrows are a reminder of that, too – they love to live in conjunction with humans.

It’s true that most of the plants around here are cultivated, landscaped or manicured, but that doesn’t mean they’re controlled. They have their own lessons to teach me as spring starts to break out all over.

The plants around here are living within limitations; they grow and bloom, but they’re trimmed, too, shaped and directed in ways that they don’t get to choose. Even within those limits, though, they don’t just survive: they thrive. They live, fully and extravagantly, and even when they come up against those limits, they don’t let it stop them. They adapt, they cope, they manage, they deal. And frequently, they surprise us with the creative ways they do so; spring’s resurgence of vitality simply can’t be contained completely.

This is something I need to be reminded of, because I’ve been coming up against hard limits rather frequently lately. I need to know that it’s possible to be verdant and vital even while constrained.

The sparrows and the plants show me, over and over again, that life can find a way, and life will find a way.

So mote it be.

 

Workshop at Fertile Ground!

I’ve been accepted to present a workshop on Multiple Intelligences and Magic at Fertile Ground Gathering! Details are still being worked out, but here’s the basic information about the event. If you register before February 14th, you get an early bird discount. Hope to see lots of folks there!

Fertile Ground Gathering Returns May 3 – 6, 2012!

Prince William Forest Park

Triangle, VA

 Despite the ice and cold, the team at FertileGround Gathering is thinking spring!

We’re gearing up for our 5^thseason and another fantastic Beltane festival with lots of exciting workshops,rituals, and performances.

In case you haven’t heard, Fertile Ground Gathering is a Beltane festival created to bring together the Pagan community;helping to build and strengthen the bonds among those who walk the Earth Paths in the greater Washington DC area. Fertile Ground is family-inclusive and offers fantastic workshops and services, diverse rituals, spectacular entertainment, drum circles and dancing around nightly bonfires, cabin camping,fantastic meals, some very special guests and of course, dancing around the maypole!

We’re delighted to announce that Kellianna, Christopher LaFond and Soolah Hoops will be returning again this year along with our dear friends John and Bridget from Fairy Woodland!

For the third consecutive year, we’re also hosting a special Warrior Blessing Ritual led by Circle Sanctuary Ministers,David Ewing and RedWolf in honor of all our servicemen and women.

As if that weren’t enough, we’re also working on getting other exciting guests signed for this year’s festival and once we’ve finalized the details, we’ll make sure to let you know!

Planning an event like this takes months, so there’s still much more to come. We’ll be adding new updates to our website often and we encourage you to check back to find out what else we’ve got planned.

While we’re still in the process of putting all the pieces together, we invite you to take advantage of our Early Bird registration, which will continue until February 14^th.  This is a great opportunity to get in at a reduced rate and make sure you get a bed in one of our cabins before they’re gone.

If you’ve celebrated Beltane with us in the past, you can expect more of the wonderful, fun, and friendly atmosphere you’ve enjoyed in the past.  And if you haven’t joined us before, this is an excellent time to do so.  We look forward to celebrating our 5^thyear with all of you!

Check out our website to find out more!

http://www.fertilegroundgathering.com

 And for the latest updates, check us out on Facebook!

Making great work less boring, part 2: attitudes

The flip side of what I was saying before is that understanding an aphorism like “Great work is never boring” depends on what we think those things mean. The problem is that this statement can lead us to believe that if we find something boring, it is therefore not great work. This misunderstanding is not just an innocent mistake, it’s a harmful one that can make people refuse the kinds of work that make “great work” truly great.

Trigger Warning: hospitals, illness, nursing, poop

Take another example: nursing. Yes, nursing can be the truly great work of healing and helping people. It can even be that one moment when you suddenly realize what’s wrong and intervene to save the life of someone who would have otherwise died, and you becoming the Shining Knight riding the great steed Adrenaline Rush all the way to self-importance.

But most of the time it’s not. I often say in a ha-ha-only-serious way that my mother is the only person I know who got a college degree so she could spend most of her time wiping butts. Even the ER isn’t always as exciting as you might imagine. While there might be a critical case that you save just in the nick of time, you’re just as likely to encounter a dog-tired nurse doing her end-of-shift documenting (now that can be boring) who looks up at you and asks “How many r’s in diarrhea?”

End TW

Misinterpreting “great work is never boring” to mean “boring stuff is not great work” leads to dissatisfaction when people set out to do great work and then are disappointingly confronted with the mundanity that makes up most of what they have to do to get there. I’d like to suggest a rephrasing that makes the aphorism clearer and potentially less harmful: Great work doesn’t have to be boring.

I believe that the trick here is not to find something that is never boring, or to find enough important moments to make the rest of it worthwhile, although that does help. The real magic here is to use the fact that it’s great work to make even the mundane tedium less boring.

I’m currently studying towards ordination, and one of my topics right now is meditating on the meanings of the Charge of the Goddess. I was struck by the line “All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.” This made me wonder – does it really mean all acts?

I had already been thinking about changing my attitude to household chores by trying to think of them as acts of love, as gifts that I give to my spouse and myself, rather than tedious annoyances that are never completed. If I remind myself that taking out recycling is part of making sure that we live in a clean, well-organized home, one in which we can better enjoy our lives, then my feelings about it change. Is it still tedious? Definitely. But it’s not as boring, if by boring I mean something that leaves me feeling annoyed that I had to do it at all.

If I take that interpretation, and I believe what the Charge of the Goddess says, it leads me to think that even humble things like dishes and laundry and scooping litter boxes are not just gifts, but also a form of devotions. They are devotions to Brigid, matron of our home, and to all aspects of the divine that are celebrated here. (After all, I can’t do ritual if the floor is covered in laundry – see previous post about logistics!) They’re still tedious, but realizing that dishes need to be done yet again doesn’t have to be a source of endless irritation; it’s an opportunity for me to engage in an act of love. (Not so much an act of pleasure – but hey, it’s an improvement.)

By redefining chores as part of the greater work of living with my family, they become less boring. So I’ll stick with the rephrasing that “great work doesn’t have to be boring.”

Now, this Witch has some litter boxes to scoop…

Great work is often boring, part 1: logistics

While cleaning, I ran across notes I’d made for a blog post some time ago, in response to someone saying “Great work is never boring.” The ideas for that have finally come together, and it’s relevant that they did so while I was doing mundane household chores.

First of all, if there’s anything grad school has taught me so far, it’s that qualifiers like “never,” “always,” and “everyone” should be used very, very, very sparingly. If the quote above was rephrased as “great work is seldom boring,” I might still disagree, but I wouldn’t have enough disagreement to make up a blog post. If the quote was “great work never has to be boring,” I would tentatively agree. But never boring? Um, no.

I learned a lot by leading some open rituals for Sacred Circle bookstore over the last year. In particular, I came face-to-face with the huge logistical implications of trying to conduct rituals in a space not set aside for them, let alone trying to conduct them outdoors. The day of ritual usually went something like this:

Revise pre-constructed checklist. Get together everything on the checklist. (This usually includes liquids and fragile items.) Double check. Find someone to help you get stuff to the car. Drive. Find someone to help you unload. Wait for space to become available (usually no more than 1/2 hour before scheduled start time). Set up space, sometimes with people helping, sometimes not. Find volunteers to take volunteer roles. Coach volunteers. Don’t lose anything. Field questions while doing this. Keep track of roughly how many people there are, so that you know if you have to make changes to your ritual plan if you didn’t bring enough materials (or too many) for the number of attendees. Light candles, possibly charcoal, pour liquids, and get ready to start ritual because everyone’s already waiting for you.

Now, I had previous been intimately involved in leading Christian rituals in a variety of contexts, but nothing I had ever done had been half as hard as this. The biggest difference is the logistics. In nearly all Christian settings, there are other people there to help the ritual leader, sometimes lots of them. They all have a rough idea of what is required for set up. A lot of rituals are done in dedicated spaces with nearby storage for relevant ritual items, and with plenty of time to set up beforehand. Nobody is running around worrying that they forgot the apple juice or that they don’t have a plate.

The person this impacts most is the ritual leader. A Christian cleric with lots of logistical support has time to compose herself before ritual; maybe spend a moment in prayer, go over her notes, take a deep breath, usually somewhere away from the view of her participants. The difference this makes to one’s mindset cannot be understated.

Now, is leading ritual great work? Absolutely. But if you don’t pay attention to the simple, mundane, boring details, you can’t have great ritual. That’s why I don’t like this statement: it sets up an expectation that undermines itself.

It’s easier to get volunteers for something that they expect to be “great work.” Lots of people will volunteer to Call a Quarter at a ritual, or play a role in ritual drama, or whatever. But ask for volunteers to bring the apple juice and help you carry things, and fewer hands go up. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’ve had no problem getting people to help me unload my car for rituals when I ask them on the spot. But my whole point is that pre-planning matters. I don’t know whether there will be people around to ask for that kind of help. Pre-arranging things like that would make a huge difference, but it’s hard, because it’s simple, mundane, and, let’s face it, boring.

I mean, a lot more people would want to say “I helped with the Ostara ritual by playing the part of the Spring Maiden!” than would brag about “I helped with the Ostara ritual by unloading somebody’s car.” But the car has got to get unloaded before anybody can be Spring Maiden.

Now, part of the problem here is also the relative lack of institutions and facilities among Pagans. This is also why I am highly irritated by people who are opposed to all forms of organization in Paganism. But when we spread memes like “Great work is never boring,” without defining what we mean, we don’t do ourselves any favors.

Calendula and chamomile

With all the stress lately, I’ve developed some irritated skin. Here are two pieces of kitchen witchery I’ve done in the last few days to take care of it.

Calendula and chamomile facial mask

I mixed 1 part calendula powder, 1 part chamomile powder, and 6 parts cosmetic clay. I added enough water to make a texture slightly thicker than yogurt and applied to clean skin fairly thickly. I didn’t let it dry all the way – the goal was to use the mask as a sort of poultice for irritated skin, and I didn’t want to undo the good of the herbs by dehydrating the skin afterwards.

This felt good on my skin; I dried gently and put on a light lotion, and the irritation was decreased.

Calendula and chamomile salve

In the top of a double boiler, I simmered 1 Tbsp each calendula and chamomile powders in 100 g light olive oil for about 20 minutes. Then I added 30 g beeswax and stirred until it was all melted. Poured out into a clean container and let cool with occasional additional stirring – if you don’t stir while cooling, it separates into layers – can anyone advise me about easier ways to prevent this?

This produced a nice consistency, firm enough that it doesn’t feel oily but still very spreadable. It’s grainy from the powders being left in; next time I’ll simmer the whole herb in a cloth bag so I can remove it. This does smell strongly of calendula and chamomile, though, and it has a potentially less than appealing brown color, but neither of those bother me.

Obviously, I’m just beginning to dip my toes into the wider expanses of herbalism and kitchen witchery. I’d be happy to hear advice or suggestions from my readers!

Tea and Temperance

Today, I found myself in a Tarot card.

In her excellent book 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card, Mary K. Greer spends a whole chapter on embodiment. (p183 ff) At its most basic, this means mimicking the posture or body position of the figure(s) on the card in questions in order to get a better understanding of the card. I believe, and more and more science is demonstrating, that we are inherently embodied creatures. Our metaphors like “cold shoulder” and “wash my hands of it” aren’t merely figures of speech – or more precisely, they are figures of speech because they reflect our embodied experiences, which run deeper than we might expect. Studies have shown unconscious physical associations with both of those phrases that directly affect how we perceive and interact with the world around us.

Greer’s example card for this exercise is the Four of Pentacles. While this is usually described as a “miser,” when I sat in the position of the person holding the pentacle in front of her chest and belly, I felt immediately as if I was shielding myself or warding something off. I wasn’t guarding the pentacle – I was using it to guard myself.

Today I had an insightful experience where I realized I was enacting another card: Temperance.

I love tea. I love it so much that I mention it on my “about me” page. But I’m not all that great at being extremely precise and exacting in my tea brewing, especially not first thing in the morning, or when there’s dishes in the sink and it’s easier to use the microwave than the kettle, etc. So most of the time, my tea tastes okay but not great. The universe has evolved a solution to this dilemma, though, in the form of the automatic teapot. I got myself one, and the heavens parted, the light shone down, the household spirits sang in harmony. Now I can drink great tea all the time. It’s fantabulous. (Those who think that labor-saving devices will lead irrevocably to decadence and the decline of civilization, sure, whatever, but at least we’ll be drinking good tea while doing so!)

But it’s also pretty dang heavy. The carafe has the heating element built into the bottom, so when you lift that plus a liter of tea, you’re suddenly handling something that’s not just steaming hot but also heavy for holding in one hand. As I was pouring from the carafe into my mug, I literally felt the transfer of weight between my hands, and noticed how much more comfortable it was to hold them both when they were more balanced.

Suddenly, there I was in the Temperance card, pouring between two vessels. But while most interpretations of this card talk about “mixing” two things, this interpretation was about weight.

A heavy weight is easier to bear when it’s more balanced. And all of you who have reached out to me, even in what you might think are “little” ways, are helping me keep my balance as I’m dealing with some heavy stuff. Thank you.

Pagan/Witch/Heathen Community Needs Assessment Survey 2012 Now Open

My friend Dr. Gwendolyn Reece is currently conducting the Pagan/Witch/Heathen Community Needs Assessment Survey . It’s a great way to contribute to the community by anonymously describing your current situation and what would help you most. It’s easy to take, and will provide important data for understanding our community better, so please take 15 minutes and fill it out. Spread the word, too, especially to Pagans, Witches, Heathens, and others who don’t use the Internet very much.

The official press release reads:

Pagan/Witch/Heathen Community Needs Assessment Survey 2012 Now Open

Washington, D.C.—January 23, 2012—In an effort to assess the needs, challenges, barriers, and perceptions of risk faced by Pagans/Witches/Heathens that influence their ability to practice and to determine variations within different segments of the community, Dr. Gwendolyn Reece of American University is conducting the Pagan/Witch/Heathen Community Needs Assessment Survey for 2012.

Dr. Reece is a Witch who has been practicing since the mid-1980s and a faculty member at American University. Says Dr. Reece, “The primary intention of this study is to get information back out to the community so that we can figure out how best to build structures that support our practices and help us overcome barriers that we face as Pagans/Witches/Heathens.”

The goal is to have at least 2,000 Pagans/Witches/Heathens age 18 and older who reside in the United States take this survey to provide quality data for assessment. Dr. Reece notes, “The more respondents I receive from across the country, the better the information will be and the more useful the analysis that I will share.”

The survey is anonymous and takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. It can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/pagancommunitysurvey. The survey will be available until May 1^st, 2012.

Contact:

Dr. Gwendolyn Reece

greece@american.edu

American University

4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009

202-885-3281