Seminary Weekend

I'm back from my weekend at seminary, and what a weekend it was. On Friday, about the time I started packing, I began to cough. By the time we left, it was obvious that I had what the kids had, and that it was going to be bad. Through sheer force of will and ample application of DayQuil, I managed to attend the two days worth of information. I'm not sure how I got through it, but I did, and I even managed to scrounge up a few squeaked questions. I'm rather proud of myself, though not so much that I'm not going to listen to the mp3s later to make sure I didn't miss anything through either falling asleep or spacing out (I think I did both but I'm not sure).

It was a very different seminary experience this month. Normally, I'm very sure of myself, upbeat, full of energy, and ready to romp. I sit in a prominent place in the classroom, because I want to be among my fellow students. This time I was not myself at all. The main topic I'd struggled with all month was Islam, and the presenters on Islam were very well-spoken and polite, but did not answer all my questions. I was very ill, and my attention span was much shorter than usual. I sat at the back, away from everyone, in an attempt to keep away from others and not infect them. I didn't go out to lunch or socialzie much, either. It was a much more introspective weekend, and that was okay.

I did a tarot reading for one of the Deans, which went very well. I enjoyed reading her, and it was fun to use my Mythic Tarot. I also had requests from two or three others, so I suspect that more readings are in my near future. That works well for me. It's something I do rather well.

Tonight I facilitate at my study group. Tonight's lesson is on meditation, and I have a relaxation meditation picked out, with music prepared, and an information sheet for those interested. I think it will be well received. I hope so, anyhow!

And the ice shall melt...

Photograph by Beth Sands

Today it was bitter cold outside, and yet the sun was shining and bright, and the sky was blue. It was a lovely day to be out of doors. It was a busy day, too, and I was in and out of church and hopsital doing spiritual things that left me feeling very good inside.

I performed Communion for someone today, for the very first time. Certainly I've shared bread and wine before, even in ceremony, but not in a Christian sense. It was... interesting. It was much needed (a friend is in hopsital and unable to come to church), and it felt good. I recounted the morning's sermon message to her, read a couple of passages from the Bible, and then we shared Communion. It was powerful in its simplicity. She enjoyed it, and seemed at peace after, and I enjoyed it as well.

The ice of winter will eventually thaw. My friend will go home, and the snow will disappear, and all the winter's illnesses will be gone. I haven't suffered as much this winter, for whatever reason. I haven't felt as cold, though it's certainly been cold at times. I haven't felt as barren within, either, and I credit seminary with a lot of that. I have done so much personal work this year, and I'm proud of myself for the strides forward that I have made. It feels good.

By the by, the photo is by my daughter. She's an incredible artist - please take a peek at her account, linked through her name above. I'm definitely the proud mama here. :)

Haiti, Prayer, and Hope

No picture today. What kind of picture would I post? One of Haiti's destruction? I don't think so.

The topic of Haiti has been on my mind a lot. I see so many conflicting opinions out there that it's discouraging. I did a prayer vigil at church on Sunday, after the regular service. I wrote a prayer. I've talked with friends. None of it really means anything when you see the pictures of Port au Prince, though.

Some people don't want to send any aid. They say no one came to aid the States during Katrina and no real offers were made to help after 9/11. Others say that sending aid only makes it worse, makes the Haitians dependent upon us. I might agree with this one if they hadn't just lost their entire city and about 200,000 people overnight. I think it's a bit much to tell them to strap on their Big Girl Panties at this particular moment. Hell, some people think we should just close up shop in the rest of the world and withdraw all our forces and aid stations and tell the world to go to pot. Of course, people would still complain it was our fault; the topic line might change but the blame continues. Comes from being a successful country.

Some people send aid to just about everything they see. I don't think that's an answer, either. Sending willy nilly without knowing about the charities involved can cause real problems. You don't know where your money is going and, sadly enough, scammers are out there, ready to use the Haitians as an excuse to dupe you out of your cold, hard cash. I did donate, to Red Cross, and to Doctors Without Borders, because both of these organizations are DOING something NOW. They don't perpetuate horrors; they just help people out until they can stand on their own.

This morning or last night, another quake hit a bit west of Port au Prince, this one 6.1 on the Richter scale. It's awful, because it may have just ended any further rescue attempts. It's good, in that there really wasn't much else to fall down or be damaged.

Part of me wonders... perhaps they should just fence around Port au Prince, and declare it a national cemetary. The place is in total shambles, and it will be months or maybe years before they can rebuild. Maybe the right thing to do is find somewhere not on a fault line, and build anew.

My heart goes out to those who have been lost and injured in Haiti. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be there, buried in rubble and slowly dying of thirst or hunger... or scrabbling with bare, bleeding hands to try and get your child out of a pocket of air, hearing the screams but knowing that pulling the rubble out too fast could cause it all to crash down and cause the death you're trying to hard to stave off... So much horror and upset.

Yet, at the same time it feels very remote. With 9/11, I was frozen for a long time, then cried for days, and spent a long time watching news and worrying. Now... while I have not and will not forget this terrible disaster, it is not personal for me. It's just too big. 9/11 was huge, and at most we thought we'd lost 4000 people. Haiti is dealing with the concept of losing 200,000 people, and not one or two buildings, but all their modern buildings. Their whole city. What little fresh water they'd managed to get. I can't wrap my mind around it.

Then I read the news, and my mind reels with the inappropriateness of it all. Christians and Muslims deck it out in the streets of Nigeria, causing 400+ dead and maybe 4000 injured. Yemen is launching air strikes against someone they "think" is a senior Al Qaida leader. Instead of worrying about the Haitians' ability to survive this month, France is apparently going around telling everyone the US is invading Haiti rather than helping.

How can these petty things go on around us when people are dying under the broken remains of buildings? Christians and Muslims are both supposed to be peace loving; where is their aid now? Yemen could spend its arms cash on doctors or medical supplies. France could... well, just shut up. Argh.

Me, I support doctors. They will do what they can, and will continue to do what they can. I support those who teach, whether it's how to build a fresh water well, or how to sow crops that will feed the hungry, or how to raise animals that will offer not just meat but wool for cloth and milk for those who need. Education is the great equalizer, imo.

My prayers go out. They go out to those in Haiti. They go out to those stuck in the rubble, and those trying to save them. They go out to the injured, the lost, the terrified. They go out to the people with relatives in that awful place. May the gods above grant them some kind of peace.

New Year

It's a new year, and a new decade. How interesting. I have struggled a lot through 2009, and grown immensely. I'm proud of who I am becoming, and am no longer afraid that in growing I will lose who I was before. I am me, and that part will never change.

We're just starting to plan out the 2010 garden, and it's kind of exciting, and kind of scary at the same time. It's only January 6th... I want to relax and do winter stuff for a bit. But... it must be done.

I got a new phone today, much needed as my old one was really starting to fail in a number of ways. I'm quite pleased. It's an Alias, and I really like it. I need to get one cord to allow me to hitch it up to my computer so I can put songs on it, and then it will function as an MP3 player as well as my phone and calendar. Life is good.

On the spiritual front, I spent Sunday afternoon up in the woods with the kids. We took up some wine and some pretzels as offering, and took the tractor as far as we could then walked the rest of the way to the temple. I spent a few minutes saying a long prayer to Dionysos (I try and do special honors for him on the 17th day of the lunar month. That's about 2 days after full moon, which was on New Year's Eve this year. I also try to give honors to Artemis on the full moon, but wasn't home to do so this month. After saying my prayers to Dionysos, and praising him, the children and I made offerings into the snow. The red wine looked very interesting where it poked through. There was a very good feel to the whole thing, and the girltwin's eyes got very wide at one point. I always wonder what she sees.

The Agroterion was in fine condition, except that the massive wind storm we had caused a minor issue. The statues were all blown off their column, and one of the deer statues lost its antlers. Because there was no way to totally close up the interior, and more wind storms are likely, I carefully placed all the statues on the floor, so no further damage could happen. I worried at first that someone had come in and moved them or pushed them, but upon close observation, it is very clear that it was the wind and not a human agent. Whew. We propitiated Artemis once we'd cleaned up the temple itself, and sang her praises. The boytwin made himself conspicuously absent for that part, for some reason.

I spent most of the weekend unpacking from our trip, then took the time to totally revamp and clean my altars. I switched things around a bit, and also put out some new items. My MiL gave me a massive box of brass candle holders, three pewter cups and three pewter bowls. I put some of the candle holders out (two of them look like Roman columns), and put a pewter goblet on each of the main altars, with the bowls there as offering bowls. It gives a feeling of beauty and continuity to the altars, which I like. My room is feeling peaceful again, and that's spilling out into the rest of my life.

Tomorrow, I finish packing away the Christmas and Hanukah ornaments, and take the tree down. Then I'll sit down and start reading the Torah for my seminary class. I don't have to read the whole thing, and I've been trying to decide whether I want to read Genesis or Exodus. I've read the whole Bible before, but I understand the Torah is slightly different in wording even though those first five books are the same stories, in general, as are in the Bible. I admit, I'll be sad to see this month go. I wonder which religion we're studying for January... my birthday month!

* January graphic provided by Magic Art LJ Community. Thanks!

Hanukah continues

Today is the third day of Hanukah, and last night we lit the third candle on our Menorah. We told the third part of the story of the Macabees and the Hanukah miracle. We ate our foil wrapped "Hanukah gelt" and cuddled together as a family to watch Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. After we tucked the children into their beds, I spent some time on my own contemplating the meditations from Rabbi Orenstein's essay.

She writes, "What are the miracles of joy, surprise, and delight in your life? Was there a time when you were you recovering from loss, and preparing to face the future, when you got a gift – a sudden surge of hope, of Light, a promise for the future?"

I spent yesterday thinking about this. The picture that immediately came to mind was Eric, my dear friend who died just four years ago. When I was a year separated from my "wusband" I met Eric online. I knew him then as Fenrir, and later as ErictheMad from LiveJournal and other online names. At first he was a confidant, then a friend, then a close friend, and eventually a virtual lover. He brought life back to my gray existance, and helped me see that my separation and immanent divorce were unimportant. I was free, pretty, and full of joy, and that's all that mattered.

Then he came to visit me. It changed the course of my life. He came, not knowing if we'd continue our "lover" arrangement in the flesh, and not caring one whit. He came to visit, and that's all he came expecting to do. The first night, he slept downstairs on the air mattress, because my daughter was there and I didn't think it right that she see me sleeping with anyone. The second night she was with her dad, and so Eric came to my room at bedtime.

He held me. Really, that's all he did. Eventually, over the course of his visit, we enjoyed more than that, but that first night he didn't push, didn't make comments, didn't even hit on me. He just sat on the floor of my room and held me, and let me cry and talk and shiver and get it all out. He healed me. I had not thought I'd ever find a male who could do that, put my needs ahead of his own, and here he was holding and embracing me, with nothing more in mind than to comfort me.

His unconditional love for me continued through several years. We broke up as lovers, but remained friends. We fell out of touch, then found each other again a couple of years before he died. I was going on a long drive to school twice a week, and I would put him on my earpiece, and we'd talk the whole journey. We spent countless hours discussing our school ventures, the twins (who weren't quite born at the time), etc.

Then one night he wasn't around when I called. Later that night, I got email from friends trying to find out his parents' phone numbers. Soon after that, I learned that he'd had a major brain aneurism and had died. They say he didn't suffer, and I hope that was true. I was devastated. The twins were born a few days later, and I felt guilty at the joy I felt holding them. I felt such grief as I'd never experienced before. The only thing that I could hold onto was the fact that I'd spent the night previous to his death talking to him, and I'd said repeatedly just how proud I was of him, and how much of a miracle he had been and was in my life. He went knowing he was loved.

So that's what I thought about yesterday. They're bittersweet memories, yes. I miss Eric still, though perhaps not every day anymore. Now it's more like once or twice a week that I think of him. But those memories are happy ones, proud ones, joyous ones.

Thoughts on the first day of Hanukah

The first day of Hanukah finished at sundown this evening. I spent the day, amusingly enough, doing Christmas shopping. I suppose I'm easily amused, but I thought this was quite funny.

Last night, we went to church to celebrate Hanukah together, and light the first candle. It's the first time I've truly celebrated Hanukah, and not just paid it lip service. I should say, this year I am observing Hanukah, as opposed to just enjoying the celebratory aspects. It's interesting, and very different. It's really a very minor holiday in the Jewish calendar, and got pumped up so much only because it's opposite Christmas and Kwanzaa and all those other winter holidays. Like many of the Jewish holy days, the short version of the celebration goes like this: we were persecuted, G-d saved us, let's eat! I have a Jewish friend who always answers with that quote when I ask questions about Jewish holy days.

As a part of my exploration of Judaism this month for seminary, I am engaging in an eight day meditation series entitled "Miracle Meditations for Hanukah" by Rabbi Debra Orenstein. Her suggestion for the first day is to consider, "What are the miracles in the 'facts' and 'entitlements' and 'normal' progress of my daily existence?"

While I went about my day, I did just that. I thought about the daily miracles... the mundane miracles. I thought about how completely amazing it is that my daughter still has this wonderful, amazing, fantastic relationship with me despite being thousands of miles away with a person who hates me and poisons everyone against me. I pondered the fact that I am in a family that is unique and suits me perfectly and loves me for who I am, and who I am becoming. I contemplated the joy I have experienced so far in my seminary journey. I took time to say a prayer of thanks for having a friend and mentor in Pastor Alison, and for having a church that has accepted me in all my oddness. Above all, I thought with great joy on the fact that, though we may not have much money, we have enough and besides, our freezers are full of good food raised by our own hands, the garden still yields kale and cabbage despite the snow, and we have a basement full of wood that will keep us warm and cozy this winter.

These are my daily, mundane miracles.

Tonight, just after dinner, we lit the second candle on our Hanukia, our Hanukah menorah. I told the children the second part of the story about the Greeks defiling the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and how the Macabees won it back through sheer tenacity and guerilla warfare. I did take the time to explain that Antiochus wasn't exactly a prime example of the happy Hellene, and that other Greeks didn't think much of him for persecuting the Jews the way he did. I managed to get the girltwin to participate in the Hebrew prayers over the candles, too, and she did a great job.

Christmas is Coming

Our tree is up, our driveway is plowed out, and I'm cuddled up in my bed watching snow fall outside the window. It's a wonderful day, and I'm very happy. Friday is the first day of Hanukah, which we're going to celebrate this year. We already set up our Hanukia (the Hanuka menorah) and readied it for Friday's celebration. We'll be going to the church for the first night, as our pastor is holding a celebration with latkes and other delicious yumminess. The other seven days I'll be doing at home with the kids. I've been practicing saying the Hebrew prayers, and I'm rather proud of how well I'm doing. The kids have been learning alongside me, which is a lot of fun, and exciting, too!

This month my seminary class is studying Judaism, and so I'm enjoying the celebrations. I had planned on observing them anyhow, but it's nice to know it gets me credit on top of everything else. On the last day of Hanukah, I'm going to a Jewish synagogue to watch a Rabbi do it properly. I'm really looking forward to it!

I'm also looking forward to Yule, and to Christmas. Yule we're celebrating at home, with everyone here. I'm cooking up goose, and we'll sing some carols, open some gifts, and eat bad things. I've started making everyone's gifts, just little things but made with love. For Christmas we're going to Gray's parents' home, in St. Louis, MO. That'll be fun, too, because they're just incredible people, very tolerant of our odd ways. They cook up a storm, too, which is bad for my waistline but GREAT for my tastebuds. I admit, it's nice to go there and know that my major resposibility for the day is making sure I make my bed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Though I am sick, I am still able to smell the faint hint of pies baking in the oven. Today we cook up the green bean cassarole, and the mashed potatoes. They'll heat up just fine tomorrow, which frees up the oven for more pressing items like roasting turkey. Midnight tonight will see the store-bought turkey go in the oven, overstuffed with my Hungarian grandmother's bread stuffing. Hopefully by morning, the turkey will be disjoined due to the overstuffing, thereby making my carving duties much easier. The wild turkey with wild rice and sausage stuffing will go in around 11:30am, to be ready for display and serving at about 5pm. The morning will see us making yam balls and squash soup. Afternoon will include heating up the carrots, peas and corn, and early evening is when the salad will be made, with lettuce fresh from the basement garden.

I have no idea who is coming tomorrow. It doesn't really matter. I'm happy to be here doing things. I'm happy to be with family. I'm thankful for so many things in my world, and even while sick, I'm finding little reasons to be joyful.

Tomorrow, instead of a prayer we will be singing a hymn entitled Sent Forth by God's Blessing by Omer Westendorf. It is sung to the tune of "Ash Grove" which is a Welsh folk melody from the 1800s. The lyrics we will be singing are posted below the YouTube video:



Sent Forth by God's Blessing

Omer Westendorf, 1964

With praise and thanksgiving, to God ever-living
The tasks of our everday life we will face.
Our faith ever sharing, in love every carying
Embracing god's children of each tribe and race.
With your grace you feed us
With your light now lead us
Unite us as one in this life that we share.
Then may all the living, with praise and thanksgiving,
Give honor to Christ and that name which we bear.

The only difference is we're switching "Christ" to "God" for the purposes of interfaith harmony in the home. Not everyone believes/worships Christ, but we all believe in God of some color or shape. :)

I hope that you and yours, wherever you may be and whatever you may believe, have a wonderful and holy time today (or on your chosen day). It doesn't matter if you believe in God, Goddess, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or a Universal Consciousness... or even nothing at all. There are reasons in your life to give thanks today. They might be hard to find, they might take some real digging, and you might even have to say them with gritted teeth... but persevere. It does matter.

House Rules

I watched a television show tonight, for the first time since starting seminary. It's Friday night, I'm home alone with the kids, and they're in bed after having a wonderful night watching 101 Dalmations (the original, I might add) and eating fish sticks in front of the tv. I found myself upstairs and in bed long before my normal bedtime, quite awake. Frankly, I didn't really want to be alone with my thoughts, so I flipped open my "free tv online" site and found the first episode of the 6th season of House.

Whew. Let me post this now: SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't seen it, please don't yell at me when I talk about plot points. I've given fair warning. There.

First, I didn't realize it was a long episode, so that took me by surprise. Second, I wasn't sure where they were going to go with it. The last season ended with House walking mostly voluntarily into a mental hospital, looking for help. This season started there, but I was afraid it was just going to be, "Oh, he stayed, and got off drugs, and now he's fine." It wasn't.

Is it sad that I can find so much of myself in what House is going through? I recognized so many of my own stages in his time in the mental ward. He went in to deal with the physical symptoms: hallucinations and drug addiction. He met up with a good doctor who refused to let him go until he dealt with the real problem.

House threatens to mess up the ward, "turn it upside down" as he says. The docs don't really seem to be impressed - they just point out that he isn't the first unruly patient they've dealt with, and invite him to spend some time thinking quietly in a padded room. I've been there, in the "mess it up" stage. I don't want your help, and I want to make everyone suffer because I am suffering. I hated it, inside, but it had its momentary satisfaction. After all, as the saying goes, misery loves company. If I'm going to feel crappy, I may as well take along as many others as I can.

His second ploy is to go around to each of the other patients and use his powers of observation and inventive insults to deeply hurt each of them. He freaks out the claustrophobic guy by crowding him. He tells the suicide chick that she's worthless. He tells the anorexic guy that yes indeed, his pants DO make him look fat. That kind of thing. I've done that, too. Watching it on television was almost too painful, even knowing that was what was coming. I've purposefully hurt people like that, like a knife wound through their soul. I've also realized that I spent so many years doing it purposefully that now, without meaning, I still do it sometimes. I watched House come to that realization, too.

Then he decides to play it straight, starts talking in group, is nice to everyone, and apparently is compliant with his meds. Of course, he's just doing it to get out, and isn't actually taking his meds at all. Turns out his doctors know it, and mess with him in a lot of ways to make sure they have it right. They let him travel along his path of lies for a long time before they finally call him on it, and then prove that they knew it all along. Here, too, I realized I've done it. "Look at me, even off meds I'm fine!"

Then the big talk with himself (though he actually talks to another character, the "talk" is really to himself) wondering if there's any difference between pretending to comply, and complying. Wilson helps him by not helping him, and he accidentally causes some major harm to one of the patients at the mental ward. It's a wake-up call for him. Been there, too. Coming to be with my poly family was that wake-up for me. Having to put the family first, instead of myself, was one of the most difficult lessons for me.

So much of the episode resonated. I was listening to my own words and inner monologue come out of House's mouth. He talks with his shrink, asking how you become happy. What does he have to do to get out? How can me make it happen? He pushes people away, thinking that's the right thing to do, not realizing that he should be learning from them instead of shoving at them.

Eventually, he opens himself up. He opens himself to a woman, and while there is a sexual encounter, it's really not the important part. She hurts him, and badly. Instead of running off, or doing something self-destructive, or lashing out to hurt someone else and drag them into his own miasma, he turns to his psyche, and talks. I remember several moments like that with my therapists over the past five years... moments when the feelings and emotions came pouring out of me, floods of self-recrimination, fear, loathing, anger, frustration, egomaniacal self-delusion... I remember how good it felt to admit I didn't understand any of those things, and that I knew I really needed help.

So I sat down to watch the show House, and ended up spending almost as much time thinking afterward as if I'd just started with the thinking. Maybe I needed that thinking time, and that pointed message. I have no idea what called to me to watch House tonight. I have a novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo that is far behind in word count which I had intended to make my priority, but House won. Why? Does it matter? Not really.

He Epistole - Winter Issue

I'd like to remind people that the Winter issue of He Epistole is due to come out in December 2009. Please consider submitting an article, image, or poem to our wonderful newsletter.

The submissions deadline for the next issue is November 25th, 2009, and the next issue will be available in December 2009. Any submissions for the next edition can be sent to the Editing Team at He_Epistole@yahoo.com

You can find He Epistole online at http://www.neokoroi.org/newsletter.html !

Thanks!

The Thanksgiving Day Blues

The holidays are approaching, and that means blood pressure is often rising, too. I have many memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas meals that were awful, horrifying, disappointing and downright rude. I think everyone has at least one. The holidays seem to bring out the worst in people.

Is it the stress of trying to find the right gift? Perhaps it's the pressure of attempting to make a turkey that comes out as perfect as Aunt Joan's did 25 years ago. We're trying to visit every relative in 5 states in a 2 day period, and none of them will meet in a central location. Throw in the allergy factor and you get a lot of wheezy, nasty people who are fed up with one another before they even walk in the door.

There is an article in the NY Times today, and I want to share it. It really is a good one, and it covers a lot of fun and serious stories about holiday stress.

It's The Holidays - Prepare For Rudeness,
by Joyce Walder

THE weather grows cold, the holidays are bearing down upon us and soon we will find ourselves in that seething caldron of unmannerly behavior: the family holiday gathering.

It gets rude in there. Just how rude is exemplified by the story of a teacher from the Midwest who was pregnant with her first child when she attended a large Thanksgiving celebration at the home of her husband’s parents.

For months, the teacher’s mother-in-law had been saying that she wanted to be in the waiting room when the teacher went into labor, and the teacher, who recounted her story on the Mothers-in-Law Anonymous section of Grandparents.com, had been politely rebuffing her.

So at Thanksgiving dinner, with the family gathered around the table, the mother-in-law (referred to on this site as “MIL”) took the matter into her own hands.

“MIL announced to me and the entire family the following,” the teacher wrote. “ ‘I WILL be in the waiting room while DIL is in labor, and all of you are welcome to come too. MY SON will come and give me updates every hour on the hour.’ ”

The teacher told this reporter, “I wanted to scream: ‘Are you serious? I’ve told you that I don’t want anyone there and you invite the entire family! Who do you think you are, taking over my first birthing experience?’ But what could I say and remain tactful?”

Read the rest of this WONDERFUL article here.

In light of all this holiday stress, I regret to inform people that it looks like Sis's dad is going to die this week. She and Gray left last night at about 7pm to drive to Chicago, hopefully in time to say goodbye. It's a sad moment, although not entirely unexpected. The saddest part is that he's only 67, I believe. We have him in our prayers and have asked family and friends to also keep him in their thoughts.

It is unlikely he will survive. What we are hoping most for right now is that Sis makes it there in time to hold his hand and say goodbye. Our wish is for a safe and gentle passing.

Blessings...

Work and Worship

A Sonnet for Hestia

Holy Hestia, Mother of Hearth and Fire,
Thou of softest smile and dimpled cheek,
Thine home is not in temple's burning pyre
But in the cherry flame of homefire meek.

At every kitchen stove and fireplace
The pious heart Thine presence permeates.
Thy flame doth warm the home with love and grace.
Yet ne'er forget the burns Thy flame creates.

Thou art our center, focus, and our love;
Thine prayers are said as every fire is lit.
O Hestia, Virgin One we now sing of,
To Thine gentle form this piece is writ.

Belov'd Daughter of Zeus, let all proclaim
The central place each has for Thine great flame!

I wrote this Sonnet in October of last year, and I felt like sharing it today. Since we're switching stoves out, our Hestia flame is gone for a short while. But my altar stays, as you can see, and it contains the items that remind me of her always. It is always a bit crowded on her altar, perhaps because I seem to want to squish all my tiny kitchen tools on there. It's nice, though, and cheery. I see it every time I am in the kitchen.

My pretty chicks have grown into handsome hens! Today we cleaned out the hen-house, and put down fresh straw and food and such. We're all set for the winter. I even managed to get a timer onto their coop light, so they'll have a good day/night cycle. We started getting eggs, about three a day so far, and I want to encourage them to continue that! I'm pleased with how nice the chickens look. They're plump, strong, well feathered, and have bright wattles. These ones are going to get names once we're through the winter, and I'll be banding their legs as well. They've become terribly tame, and will come when you call out, "Chick chick chick!" which is what I call when I have special treats or food for them. They even got to run around outside of the coop for an hour (in the rain, mind you) today, as we were cleaning it out. I think they had a good time. I suspect I'll do that more, now that everything is all neatened up in the coop!

Now that is a picture of preservation. Look at all the jars of tomatoes, pickles, dilly beans, jam, corn, etc. It's a great thing to have all that food stored away. If you peek over the edge of the top rack, you can just see the buckets of lettuce we have growing in the basement, as well. We plan on having fresh salad as part of our Thanksgiving meal. I'm especially pleased with those jars of little round things you can see (try clicking on the photo to make it larger): those are our pears. A close friend was over for a few days and spent almost all of her available time canning our pears for us. Bartlett pears are a favorite of mine, and the idea that I can pull a jar off the shelf anytime over the winter, and have that late autumn crispness, is a major thought of happiness for me.

As Hestia is usually given "first and last" in modern Hellenic traditions (and might have received that honor in ancient times as well), I leave you with an image of one of our many basement wood piles. All over the basement, in neat rows, there are cords and cords of cut wood ready for burning. It's a lovely, warming feeling to know that your house is heated by the fuel that fills your basement! We still have two large piles to bring into the house or stack nearby, but more than half of it is already in the basement, ready for use. We've had the stove on a few times in the past few weeks, but not every day. Soon, it will be every day and all night, kept burning to keep us warm and cozy as the snow falls and the silence of winter surrounds us. Hail Hestia!

The New Seminary - November's Class

This is the altar that our ritual group put together for Saturday's class. On it are many candles, small items of great spiritual meaning to the participants, and images of one of the ladies who had the great honor of going to see the Bodhi Tree. The small leaves you see, on paper, are leaves from the Bodhi Tree, and we were each allowed to hold one during the ritual. It was a very moving ceremony, to say the least. Very enlightening, so to speak.

So much went on over the weekend that it would be impossible to share it all. Highlights included Rev. Allan's talk on Buddhism, 2 hours of sheer educational and spiritual joy as he shared his personal experiences with Buddhism and his encounters with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After the last chant was done, we moved on to lunch, then spent the afternoon in ritual and personal sharing. Sunday we listened to one of the best lecturers on paganism that I have ever encountered. Rev. Ken was charming, attractive, and better yet, well educated. He was clear about the difference between personal views and facts, covered many thousands of years of disparate faiths succinctly and with reverence, and kept us chuckling in our seats the whole time. I am honored to have been able to sit and listen to him.

I also had my own chance to speak, something I am very grateful for. I was asked to speak briefly about the Goddesses of Hellenismos. I did a very short introduction to Hellenic worship, and then spoke about the goddesses in my life: Hecate, Nyx, Hera, Persephone and Demeter, and then the Nymphs and my ancestors. Considering I had a fairly short time to talk about it, I think I did fairly well. I enjoyed presenting, and was quite humbled by the response from my fellow classmates.

I got to ride the Staten Island Ferry and the NYC subway on my own, which was a real treat, and I ate Pho with true gratitude. I shared two lunches with classmates, one Thai and one Indian, and both were so delicious. I have to admit, the food makes it worth going to NYC even if you aren't a city person.

I just don't have words to express how the weekend went. On one level it was "just" lectures and sharing, and yet it was much, much more. It was wonderful learning about the Hindu goddesses from someone who worships them and is so intimately a part of the class (thanks Suren!), and I was graced with watching the joy on people's faces as they learned that they had feminine energy or divine within their lives where they never realized it before. It was emotional, exciting, overwhelming and fantastic.

Religion and Medicine

Religion and medicine: Sometimes a healing prescription

New study reports that pediatric physicians are more likely to accept the salve of religion when medicine has failed the patient.

Do pediatric oncologists feel that religion is a bridge or a barrier to their work? Or do they feel it can be either, depending on whether their patients are recovering or deteriorating? A novel Brandeis University study examines these questions in the current issue of Social Problems.

Through in-depth interviews with 30 pediatricians and pediatric oncologists at elite medical centers, the authors discovered that physicians tend to view religion and spirituality pragmatically, considering them resources in family decision-making and in end of life situations, and barriers when they conflict with medical decisions, said lead author Brandeis sociologist Wendy Cadge.

Read the rest here.

For Hestia

Within the small confines of our wood cook stove, you can see the blazing glory of Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth. I feel very lucky to be a person who is able to have a true hearth fire. My small Hestia altar hangs on the wall beside this stove, and contains an ear of corn, a small sheaf of wheat, a miniature wooden spoon, an offering bowl and a candle. I don't spend a lot of time worshipping Hestia, but she is always present, and I can always feel her. It's as if the house itself is her temple, and we're pieces within it.

Today is a special day, being the first day I lit the fire in the wood cook stove this year. We've had the big heat stove in the living room going already, but I decided to make scalloped potatoes for dinner, and wanted to do it in the slow-cooking interior of the cook stove's oven. So I lit the fire and got it good and hot, and then made a small burnt offering to Hestia, who I thanked for the warmth for people and food. Now, the heady scent of toasted barley is wafting around my kitchen, and making me hungry!

Return, return, return...

This was the view outside the retreat house we stayed in this past weekend. It was so beautiful up at Sebago Lake in Maine. The weather was perfect, with temperatures around the 60s in the day, and 40s at night. There was light rain a couple of times, but it wasn't troublesome at all. The only time I felt it, rather than seeing its results, was when I walked the labyrinth, and it was a mere sprinkle that fell as I slowly trod the path. The company of the women who attended was just lovely, and I felt not the least bit uncomfortable. The whole weekend was just a perfect time to refresh, recharge, and be ready to move on.

We arrived almost (but not quite) late for dinner on Friday evening, and hurried in to gnosh on incomprehensibly delicious lasagna, fresh and crispy salad with all the fixings, and still-warm home made apple crisp. I ate reasonably the entire weekend, even though I was much more active than at home and didn't have to cook or clean. I had thought I would gorge myself, but everything was so yummy that I felt I should just savor it in moderate doses. I didn't feel a need to snack, either, which I am amazed at.

The view off the back porch of the retreat house was stunning. Early on Saturday morning (after breakfast but before the main meetings and such), I decided to go for a solitary walk along the lake. The clouds were low in the sky, and the water choppy, but it was warm enough, and dry, and light through the overcast conditions. I sat on a bench for a half hour or so, and worked on some poetry that's been stuck in my head for a while. It was peaceful there, and quiet, with no sound from the main house, no voices, no roads...

I found the words coming more easily than they have in ages. I had all my seminary homework completed, and knew I had a full week before the next class and the homework was due. As you can see in the picture, I came ready with notebook, coffee cup, and jacket. The coffee was well-enjoyed, but the coat just got sat on because the wood bench was a bit damp from early morning rain.

I will admit, I was a bit surprised at just how "pagan" the retreat was. I expected more of a mix, I suppose, but it seems that Unitarian Universalist has become almost synonymous with pagan, of late. I'm not sure if I'm happy, sad, or disturbed by that thought. Don't get me wrong - the rituals and singing and workshops were wonderful. I even had a chance to do a bit of a tarot lesson with a crowd of ladies who wanted to learn some basics. It's just that I am so much seeking balance now, moreso than ever before in my life. "Nothing but Goddess" just isn't enough anymore; there needs to be a masculine counterpart to balance her.

All of this was just flitting through my very busy mind, of course. We had a costume party, which was fun, and a bit of a talent show. I swallowed my nerves and read four of my favorite poems for the group. I was pleasantly surprised by the reception - several women came over to me later and discussed how much they liked my poetry, and how they would like to hear more. One of the poems I read was Winter Symphony, which is one that I spent a lot of time writing, but often doesn't receive very good reviews. It really piqued interest of many of the women, which made me feel quite happy inside. I was proud of myself just for getting through the reading - preaching at a pulpit is WAY easier than reading poetry at an informal gathering of peers. LOL!

He Epistole - Winter Issue

Hi all!

I'd like to remind people that the Winter issue of He Epistole is due to come out in December 2009. Please consider submitting an article, image, or poem to our wonderful newsletter.

The submissions deadline for the next issue is November 25th, 2009, and the next issue will be available in December 2009. Any submissions for the next edition can be sent to the Editing Team.

You can find He Epistole online at http://www.neokoroi.org/newsletter.html !

Thinking and Meditating

No, there's no particular reason for my having that picture at the side of my journal entry. It's just that a house next to us (yeah, next to us, about a mile down the road) was broken into and had a bit of damage done. Apparently the thieves were after something specific and trashed the place while looking. Sad. So now the air rifle sits by the front of the house, where I can grab it in a rush. It doesn't do a whole lot of damage, but it looks rather like a full size rifle and I'd imagine coming face to face with it up close would be rather disconcerting. When it comes to protecting myself, the kids, and our home, I don't play games.

I've been working on my homework, and one of the exercises I need to do is actually making me cringe. I don't want to do it. Hence I'm blogging about it rather than actually doing it. I thought perhaps if I explained it, and why it makes me uncomfortable, I'd feel better about going upstairs after I hit "post."

Basically, my psychology textbook is exploring our "characters," what I call the masks we wear. I'm priestess, auntie, Mei Mei, lover, slut, etc. They're all ME, but each face is different from the others, and some are appropriate in some places, and some aren't. That part I have no problem with. I can identify (let's be fair: most of) my dark sides, and I don't generally shy away from them. I've been extricating them from the morass of my personality, labelling them, codifying them... No problem.

Then the exercise arrived. Meditate/fantasize myself as an object for five minutes. Oh. See, now that isn't a big deal for most people. Oh, I'm a table; oh, I'm a fridge, whatever. But wow, this one hit me from left field. I do NOT want to do it. I spent so many years as an object... the object-daughter of my bio family, the object-wife of my ex-husband, the object-girlfriend of my ex-boyfriend... I wasn't actually a person for those roles, I was a thing, and I fulfilled no more and no less of a role than a towel holder or a stove.

I don't want to spend even five minutes as an object.

Now, the other side of the exercise is spending a further five minutes fantasizing myself as a creator, possibly even god-like in abilities. It doesn't feel right to me though. It feels like a pay-off for spending time as an object. For me, that objectification is a slippery slope back to the Stepford Wife I used to be, and I don't want even one toe on the path.

I know this is just an exercise. The very fact that it bothers me so much tells me that I do need to do it, and then examine my own feelings and emotions surrounding the results. I think I will take the time to set up an emotional safety net for myself before I do it, though, so that if I need a hug or reassurance, it will be there for me.

Sharing joy

That small, pink clad form to the left of our pastor is the girltwin, who was an acolyte for the first time this past Sunday. She got to go up the long aisle with Pastor Alison behind her, and her friend (who is a bit older and more experienced) beside her. Her face was just BEAMING with joy at being given this opportunity to do something she knows darn well is important and something the "big kids" usually do.

This was a great start to our Partnership Sunday service, and a good time was had by all. The sermon was uplifting, the company fine, and people joshed with me (gently) about last week's little spill. But nothing beat the smile on the girl child's face as she walked up there, candle lighter held tightly (and precisely) in two hands.

Too fun!

A friend posted this on her FaceBook and I just had to share it!