For the Winter Solstice, 2024

 

luminaria on Serpent Mound in Ohio

You, Darkness

 

You, darkness, that I come from

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything –

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them! –

powers and people –

and it is possible 

a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke

December Moon

 

Before going to bed

After a fall of snow

I look out on the field

Shining there in the moonlight

So calm, untouched and white

Snow silence fills my head

After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn

When I look down again

The whole landscape has changed

The perfect surface gone

Criss-crossed and written on

Where the wild creatures ranged

While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?

Why did I hear no sound

There on the snow-locked ground

In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go

When the December moon is bright,

What worlds of play we'll never know

Sleeping away the cold white night

After a fall of snow.

 

May Sarton

Pledge of Allegiance

 

I pledge allegiance to the soil

      of Turtle Island,

and to the beings who thereon dwell

      one ecosystem

      in diversity

      under the sun

With joyful interpenetration for all.

 

Gary Snyder

Wassailing

 

Although I very far from any apple trees in the American Southwest, I still like to make Wassail around this time of year.   And then there is also the Pagan tradition of Wassailing, which I cherish (even though there aren't any apple trees).  

"Wassailing" participates in the notion of living in a  “conversant” world for me,  something I've so often thought about as I read about folk traditions, mythologies, and old customs.   Instead of seeing "nature" as "other", or a "resource",  earlier times and peoples often had a mythic, friendly and "reciprocal"  relationship with the extended community of life they inhabited.  

Although Wassail is a spiced cider drink, often with brandy added and served hot, originally it's presence included the  Yuletide custom of  singing to the trees, in particular, the orchards  of apple trees from which the celebratory drink came.  The spiced cider was offered  to honor the trees,  and  traditional wassail would be prepared – soaking pieces of bread, cake or toast in it – and Wassailers would travel from apple orchard to apple orchard singing carols to the trees, in order to demonstrate appreciation for the harvest being enjoyed.  Wassail-soaked pieces of bread or toast were then left at the trees’ roots or hung in the trees’ branches to appease the tree spirits and feed them well until the next harvest.

When we talk to the trees, the  animals, even stones, and celebrate their generosity………..we might just  notice that we get a response sometimes!  For example, there is the old English custom  of “telling the bees” when someone has died in a farm family, and there are actually documented cases of a swarm of bees turning up at the funeral.  Who is  to say that the apple trees don’t enjoy being part of the Christmas festivities? How would our world be a different place if we saw apple trees as being our generous friends, or inviting bees to the funerals of those they have lived among for so long?  From that perspective, one walks into one's garden or orchard or forest finding friends of all kinds - the world becomes "re-enchanted".

Like the Romans'  offerings on small farm shrines dedicated  to the "Numina", the spirits of place that assisted them with their crops and orchards (the indigenous Roman Goddess Pomona, whose name meant "apple",  originated as a Numen of the orchards), this custom, which is still practiced with a lot of good cheer  in some rural areas of  England, reflects that ancient pagan sense of "reciprocity" with an intelligent, spiritually  inhabited natural world.

From a lovely Blog about Wassailing in Somerset, UK about Wassailing in Somerset, UK, I take the liberty of sharing this:

"Wassailing dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, traditionally taking place on Twelfth Night (originally the 17 January, before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752). The centuries-old ritual has Pagan roots and is intended to awaken the apple trees from their winter slumber. This involves blessing the orchards, reciting incantations, dancing, singing traditional songs and clattering pots and pans to scare away evil spirits and secure a bountiful apple harvest come autumn.  ..........Traditions vary slightly from place to place but usually, the wassail starts at dusk and is sometimes led by a Wassail King or Queen. Branches of the trees may be hit to frighten away evil spirits, cider is often poured on the roots of the oldest tree and pieces of toast, cake or bread are put into the branches to feed the good spirits or entice robins – believed to be the ‘guardians of the orchard’.   Afterwards, the trees of the orchard are serenaded with songs, Morris dancing and tasting the wassail drink."

And here's a description I found about Wassailing in Whimple, Devon, England that takes place annually:  

 Our ritual follows the traditional well-tried and tested ceremony of our predecessors with the Mayor in his robes of office and the Princess carrying lightly toasted bread in her delicately trimmed flasket, whilst the Queen, wearing her crown of Ivy, Lichen and Mistletoe, recites the traditional verse. The original Whimple Incantation has been retained:

Here's to thee, old apple tree, that blooms well, and bears well.  Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full, an' all under one tree!  Hurrah! Hurrah!

Her Majesty is then gently but manfully assisted up the tree in order to place the cider-soaked toast in the branches whilst the assembled throng, accompanied by a group of talented musicians, sing the Wassail Song and dance around the tree. The Mulled Cider or 'Wassail Cup' is produced and everyone takes a sample with their 'Clayen Cup'.

I read recently  that our habit of "toasting" may go back to Wassail revelries.  "Waes hael"  revelers would say,  from the Old English term  meaning "be well".  Eventually  "wassail" referred less to the greeting and more to the drink.  The contents of the Wassail bowl varied, but a popular one was known as 'lambs wool'. It consisted of hot ale, roasted crab apples, sugar, spices, eggs, and cream served with little pieces of toast. It was the toast floating on the top that made it look like lamb's wool.  The toast that was traditionally floated atop the wassail eventually became our "toast" -  when you hold up your glass and announce, “Let’s have a toast,”  or  ”I’ll toast to that,” you’re remembering this very old ritual of floating a bit of toast in spiced ale or mulled wine or wassail in celebration.

Wassailing – visiting neighbors (and much appreciated, friendly trees), singing carols  and sharing warmed drink – is a tradition related to the Winter Solstice with ancient roots indeed.  

I share a Wassail recipe below, which I soon will make to the best of my abilities.  I probably won't be going out to sing to the Saguaros for the Solstice,  but who knows what I might end up doing if I drink enough Wassail with some brandy added.  Bring in the pipes and the Bards!

I'm sure the Saguaros wouldn't mind the attention. 

Photo by Martin Beebee

 

Apple Tree (and why not Saguaros too?)  Wassailing Chants and Rhymes

Compiled in The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton

From the South Hams of Devon, recorded 1871: 

Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud
And whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full! Caps full!
Bushel--bushel--sacks full,
And my pockets full too! Huzza!

From Cornworthy, Devon, recorded 1805:

Huzza, Huzza, in our good town
The bread shall be white, and the liquor be brown
So here my old fellow I drink to thee
And the very health of each other tree.
Well may ye blow, well may ye bear
Blossom and fruit both apple and pear.
So that every bough and every twig
May bend with a burden both fair and big
May ye bear us and yield us fruit such a stores
That the bags and chambers and house run o'er.

Cider apples on the ground in orchard in Somerset, United Kingdom
(image courtesy https://downsomersetway.co.uk/best-places-to-take-part-in-a-somerset-wassail/)

 Yield: 10-12 servings,  Prep Time: 5 minutes, Cook Time: 4 hours

Wassail Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon Apple Cider
• 4 cups orange juice
• 4 hibiscus tea bags
• 10 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp. whole cloves
• 1 Tb. juniper berries
• 1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, cut into slices
• 1 apple, sliced into rounds
• 1 orange, sliced into rounds

Directions:

1. Place all the ingredients in a slow cooker and cover.
2. Turn the slow cooker on high heat and cook for 3-4 hours, until the color has darkened and the fruit is soft. Remove the tea bags and serve hot.

"Ritual of Endarkenment" - A Winter's Meditation (with Masks)

 

Here is a Meditation I wrote (and performed) back in 1998.  The painting I did a few years before that, and it was titled "past desire, ambition or grief, I rest in the Earth a seed."  Another title might be "Incubation".   The sleeping figure is entwined with all other life, and a shaft of water, or perhaps light, nourishes the dreaming figure that waits during Winter's long gestation and rest,  for the season of new beginnings.  

I reflect as always on the Sanctity of the cycles of the Earth, to which we belong, along with all other living beings.   Perhaps that was the true "Original Sin", when the patriarchs began to invent religions and philosophies that somehow made us "apart" from the cyclical, magical animals we are, among so many other kinds of magical sentient beings.  Yes, I think that is what "sin" means to me.

You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees

 For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

 love what it loves

 ......Mary Oliver

  

RITUAL OF ENDARKENMENT

Close your eyes, and see  a cord

a shining umbilical cord at your naval

that goes down,

into the dreaming Earth.

Into the darkness, the silence, follow,

that luminous cord, 

un-becoming, 

un-knowing

As you descend

into the warm darkness

one by one remove your masks.

One by one, take them off

feel the heavy weight of each as 

you let it fall, as you descend. 

Let each mask fall away, but

take a moment to see it before it falls

into the Earth,

into the darkness.

Take off the mask of competence,

the mask of your accomplishments.

what does that mask look like?

Take  off the child's mask,  the little one

laughing with delight,

the child crying helplessly in an empty room.

Take it off  with tenderness.

The masks of relationship, the masks you wear with others,

the mask of the lover, the mate, the parent,

the mask of conflict, the mask of the warrior,

the mask of affiliation, of responsibility, of duty:

take each one off, hold it in your hand, let it go,

into the darkness, see them fall, 

the question "who am I?"

falling soft, like a feather

And take off the mask of  age

the accumulated years that whisper 

I'm just a kid, I'm middle aged, I'm old,

I must, I can't, I will I should

it's too late, I can't.........

take them all off, let go, feel the weight leave you.

The masks of your parents that you also learned to wear,

their fears and dreams

embedded in the shape of your face,

remove them with respect

and with pity,

and descend

to the last masks, the shadow masks

the masks you do not look at, but always cling to,

see them in your hands

faces of despair, of rage, of helpless pain.....

 

and let them go,

into the darkness, into the dreaming Earth.

Rest, and  wait.

Ask  for the dreams

 

the unborn ones

that wait to be born in you

empty, and held in the womb of the Earth

invite them to come 

the guidance and inspiration

that will infuse your new year.

Make that prayer of incubation

into the darkness,

feel it like a pulse among the roots,

that deep umbilical holding you safe. 

 

Rest and  know you are held,

a seed, a child, a hope, a potential. 

Begin to ascend at last.

As you rise, see the masks you've discarded -

one by one, take them in your hands.

Perhaps some you no longer need;

some you will examine more closely in the future.

Perhaps some you discard, 

release them and watch them fall away.

And some you wear more lightly.  Feel their weight.

And as you emerge 

into the sunlit world, feel that unbroken cord,

 

shining, unseen,

holding  you to your origin. 

And always, always generous.

(1998)

"La Voz Mitológica" - Reflections on the Butterfly

 

"The butterfly dancer must be old because she represents the soul that is old. She is wide of thigh and broad of rump because she carries so much. Her grey hair certifies that she need no longer observe taboos about touching others. She is allowed to touch everyone: boys, babies, men, women, girl children, the old, the ill, and the dead. The Butterfly Woman can touch everyone. It is her privilege to touch all, at last. This is her power. Hers is the body of La Mariposa, the butterfly."

 "La Mariposa" …excerpt from Women Who Run with The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Years ago (about 15, to be exact) I was living in a trailer court, but spending most of my time caring for my mother, who had a house not too far away.  It was no easy time,  as my mother was in her 90's,  my brother Glenn had had a brain stem stroke and was on life support in a facility, and my other brother, David (who thankfully lived part of the time in his house in California) was, and still is, aggressively hostile and paranoid toward me.  That's why my trailer was my personal sanctuary.

I didn't know any of the (mostly elderly) people in the  trailer court, so I was very surprised to see that someone had left a bag hanging from the door to my old motorhome one afternoon.  It contained two greenish rolls of what the label called "Butterfly Carpet" - you spread them out on soil, water, and up comes a garden of flowers guaranteed to attract butterflies. I never found out who thought to leave this "butterfly food"  for me, but considering my fascination with butterfly stories, it was a synchronicity I took note of.  A "butterfly carpet" to help me remember that things will change, transformation and new possibility will come eventually.  

Years later, I still remember the symbolic "nourishment" that provided for "this butterfly". Just plant and water. I remember looking at those rolls of "butterfly food" some unknown person had left, and found a living metaphor that gave me heart, then and now. 

Butterflies are not only lovely creatures that embody the perfect metaphor for transformation. They are also the final life stage of the caterpillar, responsible for laying the eggs that will ensure future generations. They are generators of the future. And, they also have another job to do. A very important job. They are Pollinators. They must  see to it that not only caterpillars, but many other kinds of life are able to have a future. Just as diminishing populations of honey bees threaten the food crops, so too are these creatures potent, and vitally important to the Web of life on our planet.  

"And here too come visitors, some of whom are very starved of their geno-myths, detached from the spiritual placenta. They have forgotten their ancient Gods. They come to watch the ones who have not forgotten."  

In Clarissa Pinkola Estes famous book Women Who Run With the Wolves she tells the wonderful story of waiting to see the "Butterfly Dancer" at a Native American Pueblo ceremony (I believe at one of the Hopi pueblos). Perhaps tourists, waiting a long, hot, dusty day to see her, expected a slender, ephemeral Indian maiden; no doubt they were shocked out of their paradigm to see, finally, the grey haired Butterfly Dancer emerge, slow, sure, heavy, with her traditional tokens of empowerment.  An old woman.

"Her heavy body and her very skinny legs made her look like a hopping spider wrapped in a tamale. She hops on one foot and then on the other. She waves her feather fan to and fro. She is The Butterfly arrived to strengthen the weak. She is that which most think of as not strong: age, the butterfly, the feminine."

In the context of the cyclical ritual these dances symbolize and invoke for the Hopi,  the vital work of pollination is no job for for an inexperienced girl, no trivial job for a pretty child. It's a job for one who has lived, and lived, and can thus seed and generate the future from that solid base of experience and understanding.  As Estes goes on to say, 

"Butterfly Woman mends the erroneous idea that transformation is only for the tortured, the saintly, or only for the fabulously strong. The Self need not carry mountains to transform. A little is enough. A little goes a long way. A little changes much. The fertilizing force replaces the moving of mountains. Butterfly Maiden pollinates the souls of the earth: It is easier that you think, she says. She is shaking her feather fan, and she’s hopping, for she is spilling spiritual pollen all over the people who are there, Native Americans, little children, visitors, everyone. This is the translator of the instinctual, the fertilizing force, the mender, the rememberer of old ideas. She is La voz mitológica."

"La voz mitológica". The mythic voice. 

A very important concept that touches the Archetypes, the Ancestors, and the lively, evolving, yet ancient country of Mythos.  As Estes points out, among the audience who come to watch, rather than participate with, the rituals of the Hopi, are many who, unknowingly, are "visitors, very starved of their geno-myths, detached from the spiritual placenta.".  The Mythic Voice has great power to animate, enliven,sanctify, and en-chant, our world, which Modernism and Capitalism has turned into a lifeless commodity, a thing.  The "Mythic Voice" has the authority to re-call (or should I say re-sing)  our longing for  the re-enchantment of the World back from the places it has been buried, dismissed, left to dry up like a discarded leaf.  And yet the longing and the seeds of that longing remain, ever ready, like the "butterfly food blanket" (gifted by a stranger to me) to rise up as sprouts, then leafy plants, then flowers that provide food for the beautiful winged Pollinators of the imagination.   I find that I wrote numerous times in this Blog:

"We're Incubating the Future with the Stories we tell. So What Are They?"

I think on this a lot.   Because we need, especially now, "wise pollinators", women and men who can help to imagine and thus generate what Ursula Leguin called "Realists of a larger Reality".  We need them now, very much.

For Thanks Giving: The Pilgrimage of the Starfish

a poem  I think of at Thanks Giving.  

  Starfish
  by Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, "Last night,
the channel was full of starfish."  And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,

while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

 

Christine Clawley and NDE's

Christine Clawley is a good friend of mine, a fellow Board Member of the Southern Arizona Friends of Jung, a Counselor and Psychologist with a broad Practice, a frequent speaker at Conferences on Near Death Experiencers, and also a neighbor.  Christine has a Master's of Arts in Depth Counseling Psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, and a  Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy & Psychology, Summa Cum Laude University of Colorado Boulder, and a thriving Practice here in Tucson.  

Christine is currently working on a Documentary about the phenomenon of Synchronicity (a subject near and dear to my own heart) with her husband and partner Tony Woellner (Circling Hawk Productions), called  The Tapestry of Time - A film exploring the meaning and nature of time through the lens of synchronicity.  The Documentary is still in production, but the Trailer, which features interviews with Robert Moss and Trish and Robb MacGregor, among others, may be viewed at Circling Hawk Productions website.  I look forward greatly to seeing the film completed, as I feel it's subject is important, the interviews are very insightful, and Christine and Tony have edited it beautifully.  

Here Christine has given me permission to share here an Interview she did with Jeff Mara about her own NDE experience when she was in an extended coma. Since this is the time of endings as the Wheel turns to winter, this interview seems appropriate.

 https://youtu.be/xuS2K8mg3UU?si=-bCOjO7_bU2CHrIB

Telling the World in a Dangerous Time: The Importance of Myth

"Goddess Speaks" by Earth Traditions Community at the Parliament of World Religions 2023

 

Recently I found myself joining conversations about possible futures in our very uncertain world, as we face both Climate Change and the possible end of the American experiment in democracy, which Trump and his very wealthy supporters, seem determined to do.  These are uncertain times indeed to be alive in.  I pulled up the following article, which I wrote in 2017, because it seemed to offer a reminder I needed, once again, unfortunately.

"Weaving" from "Restoring the Balance" (2004)

             TELLING THE WORLD IN A TIME OF DROUGHT: 

                                     Artists as Myth Makers

                                                           by Lauren Raine MFA (2017) 

“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw with a webbed vision? The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk, yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”

 Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web

Recently I travelled cross country, joining conversations that always seemed to end with a question.  Since many of my friends are artists (I include writers, performers, ritualists, dancers, storytellers, and a number of shamans in the category as well) the question seems to come down to "what do we do now?"  

How do we, in a time that seems bent on eliminating education, free speech, environmental preservation, social ethics, and possibly even any kind of consensual truth…..as practitioners of the arts, increasingly marginalized by society, how do we find meaningful identity? 

"A Mask for Shattering Old Paradigms" (2024)

My own response is that I believe it's vital for artists to remember that we are myth makers.  Throughout history artists of all kinds have possessed the imaginal tools to invent and re-invent the myths that were the cultural underpinnings for their time.  

Phil Cousineau, author of  Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Our Lives (2001) cautioned that if we don't become aware of both our personal and our cultural myths which "act like gravitational forces on us" we risk becoming overpowered, overshadowed, and controlled by them.  Myths are in many ways the templates of how we compose our societal and personal values, as well as how people organize their religions.  As Cousineau commented further, "the stories we tell of ourselves determine who we become, who we are, and what we believe."  

The human mind has a unique ability to abstract.  A stone is not always a stone - sometimes it becomes a symbol of something, a manifestation of a deity, or it can also become intentionally invisible, even when it stubs our toes.  An interpretation of "God" is something that whole nations have lived or died for.  And depending on the aesthetics of a particular culture, foot binding, skull extension, or bouffant hairdos can be experienced as erotic beauty.  If the worlds we know are, indeed, experienced through the lens of the stories we tell about them, then how are those stories serving or not serving the crucial time we live in?

A renunciate myth of the Earth as "not real" or a "place of sin and suffering" does not serve the environmental crisis facing a global humanity.   Stories that make women lesser beings do not release the creative brain power of half the human race.  A cultural mythos that celebrates violence and competition do not contribute to nurturance and sustainability.   Stories of "rugged individualism" may not be as useful in a time when science, sociology, ecology, theology, and even physics are demonstrating that all things are interdependent. 

I remember years ago participating in a week long intensive with the Earth Spirit Community of New England.  The event took place in October, in celebration of the closing of the year, the "going into the dark" time.  The closing ritual occurred at twilight.  Bearing candles, different groups wove through the woods toward a distant lodge from which the sound of heartbeat drums issued.  Slowly the lodge filled, illuminated with candles.  As we sat on the floor, lights gradually went out, we were blindfolded and the drums abruptly stopped. 

We felt bodies rush by us as hands turned us.  The sounds of wind, and half understood voices, someone calling, someone crying, or a bit of music came from all directions.  As we lost any sense of direction or time we became uncomfortable, frightened and disoriented.  I felt as if I was in a vast chamber, the very halls of Hades, listening to echoing voices of the lost.  And when it felt like the formless dark would never stop:  silence.  And the quiet sound of the heartbeat drum returned, re-connecting us to the heart of the Earth.

As blindfolds were removed I found myself in a room warmly illuminated with candles.  On a central platform sat a woman enthroned in brilliant white, illuminated with candles and flowers.  At her feet were baskets of bread.  Slowly we rose, took bread and fruit, and left the "Temple".  And as we left, on each side of the entrance, stood a figure in a black cape.  Each had a mirror over his or her face – mirror masks, reflecting our own faces.  

Now that was a ritual telling of the myth!  We had entered mythic space, we had participated together in the Great Round of death and return to the light - and none of us would ever forget it.

"Invocation of Bridgit" 

I am suggesting that artists, troubled as my friends and I have been, step away for a while from the complex questions of identity so beloved by the art world, cast aside as well the dismissal, even hostility of the current anti-intellectual environment.  Instead, let us view ourselves  as engaged in a sacred profession.   We are pollinators of the imagination,  holding  threads in  a great weaving of myth, threads that extend into a time  yet to come, and far back into a barely glimpsed past.  If "the Universe is made of stories, not atoms" as the poet  Muriel Rukeyser famously said, the only real question for us now is "what kinds of stories are we weaving"?     

"The new myth coming into being through the triple influence of quantum physics, depth psychology and ecology suggests that we are participants in a great cosmic web of life, each one of us indissolubly connected with all others through that invisible field. It is the most insidious of illusions to think that we can achieve a position of dominance in relation to nature, life or each other. In our essence, we are one."

Anne Baring 

References:

Keller, Catherine;  From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self,

       Beacon Press  (1988)

Baring, Anne;  "A New Vision of Reality" from her website

       http://www.annebaring.com/

Cousineau, Phil; Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in

        Modern Times,  Conori Press (2001)

The Earthspirit Community, Twilight Covening (1993),   

         http://www.earthspirit.com/ 

Rukeyser, Muriel;  The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser,  McGraw (1978)