December 24

I love these days
when every cottage is a shrine
bright and holy
in winter darkness
bedecked with symbols of an ancient story
and a living tree.

When the doors of the heart
are flung wide open
to let in the light—
when every heart becomes a hearth
for the sacred flame of hope.
Even if it's only a flicker.
Even if it's only for a moment.
It is enough.

Even if the story of love
is told in a whisper
and heard in a dream
between twilight and darkness,

waking and sleep,
it is enough.

I love these days

in the depth of winter

when a light shines in the cairn

and every cottage becomes a shrine

because we make it so.

December 22

Today I saw a flurry of birds
descend from the sky
and land on a small tree.
The sun stood still
and for a moment the bare winter branches
were decorated with small winged creatures.

In this season
a door opens for a time
and in these holy days
we see the beauty of the setting sun
and a flight of birds,
falling like stars
from the sky.

I remember.

I remember,
one Christmas day
when we went for a walk
and came upon a Holly tree
in red berries.
Little remains of the rest of the day
but the wonder of seeing that tree
on Christmas Day
when everything is beautiful
if we allow it to be.

December 20

The little fir tree in the kitchen looks beautiful today with a showing of old glass ornaments and a string of lights. I wish I had an old fashioned box of tinsel. It doesn't have the aroma of a balsam, but it looks like it's smiling and lifting its branches to the sky.

My eyes had grown accustomed to the brilliance of "pre-lit" trees, with hundreds of lights, perfectly spaced. These trees are like the studio recordings that pass for real music these days. Artificially tweaked and tuned to perfection—no humble human voice, no matter how strong or true, can duplicate the sound. All they do is ruin our ear for real music—the kind human beings make in time of joy, or sorrow, or just for the fun of it.

In the grocery store today a warbling voice rang out "are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening..." It was an "older" lady who, to be honest, sounded a bit like Tiny Tim. I don't understand why so many ladies of a certain age have a tremolo, or why it kicks in when they're in the grocery store, singing in the check out lane. My ear picked up a smaller voice, steady and in tune, joining in on "a beautiful sight, we're happy tonight..." A little girl was singing along. I couldn't resist joining in on "walking in a winter wonderland..." The lady next to me, who a moment earlier was rolling her eyes, said "maybe we should all sing..." We should. With our imperfect voices raise a joyful song of Christmas.


We should never let allow perfection to get in the way of seeing beauty.

December 19

I cut a small tree to put in the kitchen on Friday. As I brought the tree in to the house, I noticed that something significant was missing—the beautiful aroma. No church incense can compare to the scent of balsam. No other scent so swiftly transforms the mundane in to the mystical. Even when we clear the tree and decorations away in January, the scent lingers. It's even a joy to vacuum after taking the tree down, because the scent is stirred up one last time. A Christmas Tree without the aroma is just a tree.

My Winter Solstice festivity felt like it was going to be just like the little tree in the kitchen this year—the form would be there, but the magic strangely absent. As happy as I am for Bran and Susie, moving in to their first home together today—they are too far away. Their departure, so close to the day, meant that two important people would be missing around the Winter Solstice bonfire. And the month of December was more about departure than arrival.

Yesterday I tried to cobble together a celebration of the Winter Solstice, as I do every year, but my heart wasn't in it. I felt stressed. Things weren't coming together and schedules were hard to coordinate. Three major appliances broke within three days of one another. But I didn't want to miss it. I didn't want to miss Bran and Susie and the Winter Solstice celebration on top of that. One thing led to another and I found myself on my cell phone with Mickey, crying. Mickey, being a wise woman, offered the gift of love. "Does he know how much you love him?" she asked as I told her about how sad I felt over Bran leaving to move so far away. And she affirmed her love for me.

Later that afternoon, I found myself on the phone with Patricia. This wise woman understood that I was having a hard time because all of the familiar trappings of the season had suddenly turned topsy turvy. Bearing the gift of Commonsense, she asked astute questions and drew me out about what was important—what would it take for it to "feel" like WInter Solstice? Who needed to be there for it to feel "right"? She told me that if I was working to hard to "make it happen" that, it wasn't going to happen. The form might be there, but like the little tree without the aroma, the feeling would not be. Knowing Patricia, she must have prayed for wisdom and guidance to fall on me—pronto.

When I got home my niece Laura called, my third visitation from a wise woman. Nobody love the Winter Solstice as much as I do, unless it's Laura. Since I don't have brothers or sisters, I can never have nieces or nephews to whom I am related by blood, but in my life I have been given the gift of nieces who are related to me by spirit. Laura "gets it". She was willing to drive down from Providence Rhode Island and back again in one day, just to celebrate the solstice with me. It's the thing our little family "does" for Christmas. It's our tradition. Laura came in, over the phone waves, bearing her gift. Ever so hesitantly, because we are sticklers for doing the solstice on or before the day, she suggested "Could we do it after Christmas maybe—during the 12 days?" Laura is a church musician, so she has to be at her church on Christmas to bear in the spirit for others, but she plans on coming to Connecticut for a few days, driving down on the 26th. Her boyfriend will be back from Florida and her sister will be down from Maine. "It could be fun to do it then" she offered "Instead of celebrating on the downside, we could catch the sun of the upswing..." Suddenly a new vision of a new celebration formed in our minds. It would be fun. Dale and Athene would be up from Carolina, visiting their family in Chinatown. Bran and Susie would be celebrating in their new home, but plenty of other dear friends and surrogate family members would be back in Connecticut. We could have that wonderful feeling of opening the door to let loved ones fly in like snowflakes. There would be time to organize the luminaries and get the bonfire together. I envisioned us gathered around the fire, candles in hand, doing the shepherds dance, and the horn dancers emerging from the woods to do the antler dance. Suddenly everything felt all right again. Laura bore the gift of mirth.

The Three Kings show up after the fact, bearing gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. The sun is long up, the season of darkness past. Not unlike many men on a holiday, all they have to do is show up. But the tree wise women were there for me in the chaos of the winter solstice when we try to spin an orderly galaxy out of stars flung to the far reaches of the heavens. As always we are the ones who bear much of the responsibility for creating the holiday so it's appropriate that the three wise women arrive before the day. I am grateful for their gifts of Love, Commonsense and Mirth.

December 18

As you all know, I grew up in Brooklyn in the Methodist Church, as austere an institution as you could ever imagine. Just a plain and simple cross on the altar, clear glass windows, and white pews. But on Christmas Eve, it all looked beautiful to me in the electric candlelight. (Methodists were practical. They used battery powered candles.) Hard to believe, but this Protestant girl was so much of a minority in my Brooklynese homeland, that most kids didn't even know what I was.

In Brooklyn you walked, no matter what the weather. Our "tradition" was to walk to church on Christmas Eve and get our loaf of Limpa bread after the service. Marge Sealander trekked out to Bay Ridge, where all the Scandinavians lived, and bought bread for everyone at the Swedish bakery. The Limpa is a sweet Rye bread—very delicious with sweet butter. My Swedish father loved it and the pickled herring (yuck) that is traditional Christmas fare in the land of fiords.

One year it was very, very cold on Christmas Eve and even though we'd eaten dinner, we felt inordinately hungry. The Chinese restaurant was still  open after the candlelight service. Thinking ourselves very rebellious we bought take-out for a midnight feast. I remember very vividly eating chicken chow mein with Swedish rye bread on the side and laughing with my parents about how "unconventional" we were being. This was the one and only time I ever remember laughing with them over being unconventional. We had Chinese the following year, but it didn't taste quite as good, and lacked the spice of rebellion, which I developed a bit of a taste for.

December 17

Where does the old year go?

This has been a chaotic season—not at all the usual Yuletide peace and revelry. As you have no doubt figured out, my child has left the East coast and moved to the West coast. From the dawnland of the East to the west of the setting sun. Now, I understand that this is what children do. They grow up in to men and women and they go off on their own adventures and in to their own lives.

Bran hasn't lived with us for seven years, but he was nearby in our old hometown, so he came home for the Winter Solstice and Christmas.

But how strange it is when the child turns in to a teenager, and the teenager grows up to be a man and sets off on a journey west, packing up his things, leaving even more of his things in your basement, and carrying the child-he-once-was inside him. And how strange it is that this is happening at Yuletide, my favorite season of the year. I feel a bit like the old year passing. Another chapter completed and you shut the book. Remember the old Groucho Marks quip "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read..." Inside a closed book, with pages pressed close together, it's very dark.

Bran and Susie opened up a brand new book together when they moved. Crisp white pages, waiting to be written on. How I envy the excitement of being young and starting out even as I cherish the "hmm, if I knew then what I know now" wisdom of, dare I say it, age. Joe and I look back at being that age and say "If I knew then what I do now...". Somehow this phrase can heal the past. "If I knew then that it would hurt your feelings, I would have done things differently." "If I knew then, what I do now I would have stood up for myself..." "If I knew then what I do now, I would have come home early just to play..." "If I knew then what I knew now I would have told you...." Somehow, it's possible to change the past by traveling back on the phrase, if I knew then....

In the meantime I've closed one book, the candle has flickered out and I'm sitting in the dark for a little while, but I welcome the new light I know is coming on the Winter Solstice. I will begin another book now. I don't know what it will be, but I hope it has a surprise ending, maybe even happily ever after.

Beautiful and Ugly Perchten

Beautiful Perchten

Ugly Perchten with Saint Nicholas

December 15

Ga'an Mountain Spirit

On Sunday, at the Revels, I thought a great deal about the Perchten. My friend Pat said that they are neither good nor evil—just pure elemental nature spirit and energy. I agree with this assessment. They reminded me, in some ways of the Ga'an—Apache Mountain Spirits. Unfortunately the Ga'an have been mischaracterized as "Devil Dancers"—putting a Roman Catholic spin on something which isn't Roman or Catholic. The Ga'an, or crown dancers, come from a mountainous region, like the perchten. The Percheten are characterized as "Beautiful" and "Ugly". The  "uglies" wear masks and antlers, and are beastlike. The beautifuls wear tall headdresses. These mountain spirits now seem to be characterized as "demons" rather than spirits, and I wonder if they too were mischaracterized over the years.

December 14

In the Revels yesterday a beautiful poem by Rilke was recited in rough translation:

Advent

The wind drives a flock of snowflakes 
through the winter forest like a shepherd. 
And many of the fir trees sense that soon 
they will be humble in holy brightness
Listening, they stretch out their branches 
to the path of whiteness—
fending off the wind and growing towards 
that one night of splendor. 

ADVENT 

Es treibt der Wind im Winterwalde 
Die Flockenherde wie ein Hirt, 
Und manche Tanne ahnt, wie balde 
Sie fromm und lichterheilig wird, 
Und lauscht hinaus. Den weißen Wegen 
Streckt sie die Zweige hin - bereit, 
Und wehrt dem Wind und wächst entgegen 
Der einen Nacht der Herrlichkeit. 

I forgot to mention. At the Revels a kind gentleman with long white hair and scraggly white beard offered me a free ticket in the orchestra. He was short and he wore a red shirt. Only when I was telling the story later—a little man with long white hair and beard gave me a ticket..." and a friend said "sure, a man with long white beard and wearing a red shirt GAVE you a ticket......right...."

December 13

Every year I begin my written journey, thinking nothing new could possibly be learned through the process of "calendaring" the advent season, yet every year I am surprised. This year Santa Lucia joined the merry band of Yuletide presences which travel through the landscape of our imagination from Samhain to Epiphany:


Santa Lucia
rises very early
Like the midsummer sun
on a dark December morn


White is her garment
as a snow fall on the mountains
Her sash of red ribbon
like the first bright ray of dawn


One for each season
She wears a crown of candles
With one at the center
for the winter sun reborn

Perchten (masked figures)

December 12

The Perchten have been telling me that they want IN to our Winter Solstice festivities:

Perchten and Krampusses in many different styles and shapes can be seen throughout the Bavarian and Austrian alpine region during the winter season. They are frightening and not very appealing to the eye.

"Krampus" is the untamed, shaggy spirit that accompanies St. Nicholas. Krampusses usually roam in larger groups. Their traditional costumes and masks are elaborately handcrafted. Krampusses can usually be encountered on and a few days before December 6.

"Perchten" are wild pagan spirits widespread throughout the Austrian and Bavarian region. The appear alone or in groups, especially on three specific winter nights, called the "rough nights," i.e. the night before St. Nicholas (December 6), before the winter solstice (December 22) and before Epiphany (January 6). They carry bells and other loud instruments to dispel the winter.

My shaman friend Patricia explained to me that the mysterious perchten, which did not travel to these American shores with Saint Nicholas, are nature spirits. They are neither good nor bad, like nature itself. The mountain spirits of a land where winter is dark and long and blizzards a frequent occurrence—the perchten are powerful, capable of mischief and destruction but also of great beauty.

It makes sense to me that they did not travel to this country, because they are nature spirits. They belong to a particular place. We are not so familiar with our nature spirits here, because we've never been properly introduced. The Kachinas live in New Mexico. I have been privileged to meet them, but here I do not know the names of the spirits of the land, nor do I know their shrines and holy places.

Wait, that isn't true. Horn Dancers Hill in Tarrywile Park is a holy place and a shrine. The spirit of the deer and of the winter sun dwell there. Bride's bear can be seen there in the shape of a rock and the whisper of the horn dancers still echoes on the hill each year, fresh in the memory of all who saw us there. We were drawn to it and it to us, one day long ago.

Perhaps, in this week of long nights, we should ask, every day to meet the spirits of our land and to be led to the places where people once went to meet them.

I am a follower of Christ and I do believe in Saint Nicholas, but I am also deeply drawn to the spirits of the land. One without the other ring hollow and empty for me. I believe the old earth religions are all beautiful and true. They celebrate the power of the land, and of the heavens and the seasons. But like the perchten, the power of the land is neutral—capable of mischief and beauty. This is the landscape we are born in to in our human bodies. In Old Europe, Saint Nicholas travels with Black Peter—he is the spirit of "something else" which exists beyond the powers of nature, but in our lives on earth these two are intertwined. But in this country he walks alone, and has lost some of his power because he has become detached from the nature spirits. He is a gentle gift bearer, but the mystery is gone—the story we need to hear over and over again each year as we grow, so each time a different layer of meaning is revealed.

My belief as a Celtic Christian—and a Druid—is that Christ was born to carry the message that there is more to our lives than the power of nature. These are magnificent and we should never forget the ancient yearly rites which connect us to the seasons and to the earth, but we needed to know that, unlike nature, which can be unpredictable and unforgiving, there is a presence at the heart of the universe which is deeply forgiving and predictably loving.

This  said, I really like the perchten too! I need  Christ and Saint NIcholas, the kachinas and the perchten, Herne and Saint Francis in my life and in my spirit. They are all a part of me and there is no contradiction.

December 11

When the sun sets
and in the darkness
everything becomes clear....

December 10

My rather large, grown up son left for Portland Oregon today, a move that will separate us by more than three thousand miles. He stayed here for a few days, which renewed our sense of connection and shared origin. Strange to see my expressions on his face and to know that I'm seeing not only my "vernacular" as he calls it, but the body language of ancestors long gone—nameless and faceless except as they live on in us. Half asleep at 4 AM l  listened to my son still packing in the other room. By 10 we were saying tearful farewells. In the hazy period in between I thought about moving in with Joe when I was 20, leaving my family home behind. Looking to my future, which seemed then to stretch endlessly before me, I was heedless of what my mother might be feeling. I believed that I was my own invention.

Now I am the mother waving farewell.

At 4 AM I thought of another kind of ancestry. I thought of ancient practices long forgotten, except in the Yuletide season. Dances with candles, and deerskins. Watching the sun as it moves low on the horizon. This is our heritage. A slender thread woven not of substance but of light which connects us to the distant past. To mother spirits left behind. When we are very young, as I was when I left home, we are heedless. We think we are our own invention. But at Bran's age, we see ourselves in our mothers. We know where we come from and what shaped us.

I see the old religions as grandmother to my own spirituality. WIthout them, the new lacks substance.

December 8

My father-in-law married a second time. Joe was already out of the house, and we in fact were together, even though I was just a few months out of my teens. At the time it seemed like we were mature and worldly—which is funny, really, because basically we didn't know anything.

My father-in-law and his sophisticated Dutch second wife moved to Connecticut and settled in to the kind of country life that people from Manhattan think is country life, but really has very little to do with anything, except perhaps old movies and books.

Else had come from Holland in her twenties. When I met her she had just left a job at the Museum of Modern Art to marry and move to Connecticut. Being Dutch, naturally her parents were Dutch as well. Her father spoke presentable English, but her mother could barely speak a word outside of her native language. Mrs. Martinus (yes, Martinus is a Dutch name which honors Saint Martin) nonetheless managed to communicate. She could sew and make things and was very clever in this way. SInce I liked to sew and make things as well, we connected. The fact that my grandfather was also Dutch didn't hurt. Seriously, I remember liking Mrs. Martinus very much, even though we could barely communicate.

One day in early December, when the Martinuses were here for a long visit, Else took us both to a demonstration on handmade Victorian ornaments at the Wilton Garden Club. I was in seventh heaven—this was the kind of thing I had dreamed about people doing when I was growing up in Brooklyn. Something like this was the sort of thing I longed for, but had no idea where to go about looking for. The demonstrator gave out patterns for stuffed cats and birds to make for the tree. I couldn't wait to get home and try them. Mrs. Martinus was also enjoying the demonstration, which she managed to convey to me through little touches of the hand and smiles. She always reminded me of a sweet, purring tabby cat.

There was a luncheon after and we sat together. Mustering up her best English she was determined not only to make conversation, but to make contact with me. Very formally she spoke. This was a woman whose husband ate both sandwiches and even potato chips with a knife and fork, carefully cutting the sandwich in to even pieces. The Dutch then were a very formal people. They weren't too far away from sweeping decorative patterns in the sawdust they put down on their floors. Neither were they very far away from brutal Nazi occupation and being so hungry that they were reduced to eating tulip bulbs. This is, perhaps what made them so practical—think Amsterdam, if you know what I mean. Very formally, I'll say it again, she spoke. I could see her arrange her face and her posture as she balanced a tea cup in one hand. "Do you like fish?" she addressed her question to me. "Yes. I like fish" I responded. "I as well like fish" she informed me. We sat for a moment, very proud of our exchange. Then her face changed. The formality was gone and she addressed me once again. She carefully pronounced every word in this sentence, the only full sentence I ever heard her say in English. "When Else went to America—it was hard." With this one sentence, she somehow managed to convey to me her whole story. Her daughter leaving Holland, moving thousands of miles away, to a new land, a new country. The loss of it. Her sadness. In three carefully pronounced words, she managed to convey to me the most intimate story of her life. "It was hard." I still remember it as one of the most profound conversations of my life.

That Christmas Mrs. Martinus gave me a lovely little gift—two Kunstlerschutz animals. "Esel" and "Kuh" she said. Donkey and Cow, the animals who carried Mary and who were there when she gave birth. I don't remember any other gifts from that time, but I still have Esel and Kuh and they are displayed, without fail, even if I don't put out a creche.

On the night Else died Joe's father told me the story of why she had come to America. Apparently the reason she left Holland, to seek a new life and adventure in this country—in New York City, among the artists and museums. He told the story as if the life she might have led in Holland was a tragedy, narrowly averted. He expected me to understand. When Else was twenty her mother said "Soon you will be married too! I am so looking forward to it. We can meet every Friday and go to the market to shop for dinner together." I could see Mrs. Martinus saying this, happy at the thought of shopping with her daughter, exchanging recipes, teaching her to cook and make a home perhaps. After the abject horror of living through World War II, she was looking forward to the simple joy of having her family intact and shopping for dinner in a peaceful market with her married daughter. According to my father-in-law, the thought of such a life was enough to cause Else to flee both her mother and Holland.

It was hard.

December 6 - Fragmented thoughts

Today is Saint Nicholas Day. The sun will set at 4:20 PM in Connecticut. It will set at 4:20 every day between Saint Nicholas Day and Saints Lucia's Day on December 13. After this sunset comes a little bit later. On the 14th it sets at 4:21. By the Winter Solstice, it doesn't set until 4:23. And on Christmas, after a four day rest in the sky, seemingly standing still, the sun begins its six month journey back north. 

On Saint Lucia's Day, on December 13, the oldest daughter in a Scandinavian family would wake the others, wearing a crown of lit candles. Who knows how this custom came about, but it seems like that crown of candles could represent the rays of the sun, on a significant day when the pattern begins to change. 

Personally, I don't worry about the story of the virgin birth. Lao Tsu was also said to have been born of a virgin mother—conceived by a shooting star, which isn't that far off from the truth, given that carbon and other minerals in our bodies were created when stars died.

It's funny. I know people really worry about things like the virgin
birth and the physics of resurrection but these things never bothered
me. Christ told us to love one another and that there's a loving,
forgiving god at the heart of the universe. That feels like more
than enough truth and good news to last me forever.

I do however firmly believe that Mary had birth pangs just like the
rest of us.

December 4 - Vespers

In monasteries, time is measured not so much from sun to sun as from prayer to prayer. Imagine a medieval winter. The hush of early evening. A cold wind blowing. People hasten to find shelter around a humble fire, the only source of light and warmth when daylight fades so quickly. Behind the monastery walls monks pad quietly in to a stone chapel, breaking their silence only to chant the evening prayers. This evening office is called vespers.

We do not have a monastery in our town, but we do have an abbey. The nuns farm, make cheese, work a forge as smithies and pray six times a day. They wear the traditional black habit and are cloistered behind screens much of the time, although from time to time we run in to them at the market or the hardware store. I once ran in to "the cheese  nun" at the health food store buying black cohosh for her menopausal sisters, and "the blacksmith nun" shows up now and again at life drawing class.

I stopped by the chapel this evening, nestled deep in the Bethlehem woods. Difficult to find, even in daylight, unless you know just where it is. Tonight when the bell rang at 5, as it does every evening, they ceased to be the blacksmith nun, or the cheese making nun as they padded softly in to the chapel to chant vespers. They chanted in one voice. Perhaps they shared one intention—I can't know this without looking in to their hearts, but I believe they must try, otherwise they couldn't be nuns. I sat in the shadows and listened to the Gregorian chant. Doing so I fell almost immediately in to a deep meditative state. I thought that I had been there for ten minutes, then looked at my watch and realized that forty had gone past. 

How strange that time in this cloistered abbey is so strictly portioned out by the offices of the day. Lauds at 6AM, Terce at 8, Sext at noon, None at 4, Vespers at 5 and finally compline at 7:30. I believe they wake in the night as well, for prayer and reflection. They live by the clock, but their chant allows them to transcend linear time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGGo6I5v8i0

December 3 - Stars

Astronomers acknowledged today that they have miscounted the stars. There are probably three times as many stars as previously believed. Ah, scientists, always catching up a few thousand years later to the poets. Poets have always known that you cannot count the stars. Twenty years ago I sent out a Christmas card which stated "We are made of the same stuff as the stars. Look to the night sky. Greet your brothers and sisters."

It is true. We were born from the same stuff as the stars, and we carry ancient stars within our bodies. I can't remember which character in a science fiction story always referred to human beings as "carbon units" because our bodies contain so much of this element. Now we know that carbon was created in the heart of a star, long, long ago. The iron that carries oxygen through the rivers of our bloodstream was created when a star died. 

Lao Tsu was said to have been conceived by a shooting star which sparked life in his virgin mother. How closely this mirrors the truth of our origins. Elements from the stars sparked life in a virgin, sleeping earth in to life and more importantly, in to light. 

Before we could look at stars through a telescope, many cultures carved the sacred spirals in to stone and wood. In this photograph of stars, taken by the Hubbell telescope, pay particular attention to the little galaxy, down in the right hand corner. It looks exactly like the spirals on the stone which marks the passage in to Newgrange in Ireland.

December 2

The Presbyterian Brownies

Over the Thanksgiving dinner table I learned about a quiet uprising in a small Presbyterian community in upstate New York.

The gentleman who told me the story was happy to be married to a woman who baked cookies for him every day. I could tell that he felt particularly blessed in life, enjoying something most men only dream of in a wife. He lives his life with the awareness that at any moment, a home made cookie is there for the taking, should he so desire. He clearly felt that he had hit the jackpot when this cookie-baking woman agreed to be his wife.

When my mother was a child, the church still frowned on dancing, card playing and certain practices which I will not go in to here. There were even certain flavors which the church seemed to frown on, although the law had not been codified. The Methodist Church embraced vanilla, lemon and peppermint, unless of course the recipe was "too rich". The only time chocolate made an appearance was at church suppers, when we were served a brick of van-choc-straw flavored ice cream after we had cleaned our plate. Even then the full effect of the chocolate was diluted by the vanilla and strawberry.

I still remember the Friday evening my mother brought a batch of cupcakes, frosted with mocha icing, to a church event. I had, literally, never experienced mocha before—I didn't even know that it was a possibility. The cupcakes themselves were predictably white, but the hint of coffee in the chocolate frosting tasted decadent, forbidden, possibly even roman catholic. I savored that cupcake, eating it slowly as we watched John Wayne in "The Alamo" projected on to a white sheet hung in the church basement. I can tell you exactly what I was wearing (the navy blue sweater with the angora collar) and where I sat (front row on the floor) when I ate that cupcake. Ignoring the stern admonitions of the adults, I snuck up to the refreshment table under cover of movie-night darkness and took a second cupcake. Despite what I had been told would happen if I ever took a second cupcake, I didn't get a terrible stomach ache, although I am aware that I still may have to "answer to God" for what I did.

But enough already about my childhood in Brooklyn. What's going on with the square-dancing, cookie-eating Presbyterians?

I can't sugar-coat this. I learned last Thursday that brownies—nay all forms of chocolate—have been OUTLAWED in at least one upstate Presbyterian Church. A claim has been made that the crumbs are impossible to get out of the wall-to-wall carpet. The gentleman-whose-wife-bakes-cookies told me this story. He still looked shell-shocked, as if he can't quite comprehend what has happened in his church. He told me that his wife, in an attempt to circumvent church law and appease the powers that be, had even gone so far as to actually INVENT a "drop-brownie". Instead of baking her  brownies in a pan, which produces a crunchy edge, but dark crumbly middle, she painstakingly drops the brownie batter in measured spoonfuls on a cookie sheet, thus eliminating crumbs. But even this offering was rejected.

Contemplating the prospect of never eating chocolate in church again, she was moved to speak. "The drop brownies are SO SMALL you can put the entire thing in your mouth. There are NO CRUMBS if you eat them properly!" she said. But even the lovingly conceived drop brownies fall under the heinous ban on chocolate forced on the people by an unthinking church hierarchy. This was just too much. The cookie-baking wife looked at me conspiratorially and said "I don't know what I'm going to do. I feel like a rebel..."  I looked her in the eye and responded "Well, maybe you'll just have to nail one of those drop brownies to the church door..." Much to my surprise, they got it.

December 1

The clock starts ticking today in earnest, counting down the days until both Yuletide and the Nativity. The floor in my bedroom is ripped up and my house is in chaos—the floor was supposed to have been down two weeks ago but one disaster led to another, including water leaks and missing parts. While other people put their decorations up over Thanksgiving weekend, we surveyed the damage.

With paint spattered hands, I took off an hour to go attend the little Lutheran church in town for the lighting of the advent wreath on Sunday morning. The list of "things to do" weighed heavily on my mind, but I "took the time" anyway. As if reading my thoughts, the young vicar (as I think of him) introduced his sermon by speaking about time and clocks. I couldn't tell you what liturgical point this lead him to because I fell in to my own advent reverie.

Many years ago I suggested taking a fast from light during advent on Midwinter's Eve. Shut off the lights! Enter the darkness. What would it feel like, I mused, to not only shut off the electric lights, but to turn the clock to the wall for a day? Two days? Several? How would we experience our life without the clock? What would happen to our body and our spirit during this holy season, if we turned away from the clock and back to the natural rhythm of the earth and sun? What would we notice. Would the daily sinking of the sun be more apparent to us? Would we become more aware of how it seems to walk the horizon instead of rising in to the sky? Would we be aware of the moment when its path changes direction and it begins to ascend back to the center of the sky?

Would the women, who always have "too much to do" in December, turn inward instead and savor the richness of this time of darkness and rebirth?

The moon was shining in the sky at ten in the morning on Sunday, reflecting but nearly hidden by the bright light of the sun. Even on the brightest day, the stars still shine above us, but we don't see them. The mystery of the night is hidden in plain sight, obscured by the bright light of our mundane lives. The clock and the light bulb obscure the message as December beckons us to follow her in to the dream time.

Thanksgiving Brinkswomanship

Every once in a while the turkey is done before the drippings have browned properly. I don't know why it happens, but this is one of those times. As I write this I am engaged in a test of wills with my turkey. To make a good, thick brown gravy the drippings must reach the point where they have browned but are not at all burned. To achieve this the pan must be fearlessly left in the oven until just the right moment. A moment too long and you are left with the shame of having burned the gravy and responsible for completely ruining the holiday meal. Yield to fear and remove the pan too soon and the gravy will be pale and insipid, again ruining the meal.

One unforgettable year an aunt of mine (by marriage) decided to opt out of making gravy. Fourteen people at the table, who had opted out of breakfast and lunch in anticipation of that first mouth-watering bite of mashed potatoes and hot turkey gravy, raised the cry of "where's the gravy?" when they collectively realized that something was missing. My aunt directed them to the small dishes of mayonnaise beside each plate and said that she had dispensed with the gravy because "fat is bad for you." She said this with a perfectly straight face while presiding over a table heavy laden with marshmallow swathed yams and butter drenched string beans.

My mother-in-law rose from the table, along with her sister the nun. Without a word the two marched in to the kitchen, retrieved the turkey pan and created a make shift gravy, saving the day and rendering them forever the best cooks of their generation.

A sad Thanksgiving story about an animal

     Some of you will remember how much I loved my big dog Sumo. Sumo was really more of a wolf than a dog, although I can't prove this. Wolves communicate by telepathy as far as we know, and Sumo certainly had this capacity.
     My father-in-law was not a very nice man, but in later years he was humbled by life, and in this humility he tried to open his heart. 
     In 2002 Thanksgiving rolled around, as it seems to every year, when you're least expecting it and far from prepared. A few days before, on the Tuesday in fact, my dog took ill. He had been ill before, but this time it was serious and the vet told me that his liver was clearly damaged. I was heart broken. To say I was heart broken is not an exaggeration, I felt this loss very keenly. I myself was ill, without knowing it at the time and the whole thing just made me tired.
     Thanksgiving morning rolled around and we were due on Long Island to spend Thanksgiving with my father-in-law, who was visiting his sister. It was the first time he had come back east for a holiday in a long time, and the first he would spend without his wife.
     I couldn't do it. The thought of fighting traffic while I felt so tired was just too much. My husband, neither of us knowing that I was sick with Lyme myself, got angry at me for wanting to bail, but I did anyway. I don't think I've ever backed down from a family obligation, but I just couldn't see myself in traffic and I couldn't see leaving the big dog alone. Finally I just told him "look, go alone. By the time you get home you'll be over being mad at me." I had to insist several times that I actually wanted him to go, but he finally did.
     I had a turkey and I put it in the oven. I made potatoes and gravy, squash and cranberry sauce. I cooked all day and found it strangely healing, even though I was alone and would be eating alone. But I wasn't alone. My faithful dog was at my side, resting on his couch.
     Finally at evening I took out two of my mother's Wedgewood plates. She was very proud of them. They'd been purchased from a minister's wife, which made them even better in her eyes. I wasn't sure if she was rolling over in her grave, knowing that I was about to serve Thanksgiving dinner to a dog on her precious Wedgewood. Honestly, I don't think she was. I think she was proud of me.
     The dog and I dined in the living room. He ate his dinner with dignity and restraint. I swear, he didn't wolf it down, but took the time to savor. 
     After dinner I sat next to him—he on his couch and me in a large armchair, which he was specifically not allowed to sit on. I went in to deep meditation, and in this altered space I reached out to his spirit. Without speaking I formed the words in my mind—or rather, in the  energetic field:
     I love you. If it is your time to go, I will stand by you and I will not shirk my responsibility. 
I will help you and be with you to the very end. But, if it is not your time, and you want to stay and fight I will fight with you. I will do everything in my power to make you well and I will take care of you. 
     I was filled with a strong sense that this was not the only time he and I had been together. I saw him as a wild animal who had crept up to my campfire. I knew he would lay down his life to protect me. And suddenly I realized that my dog had silently gotten down off his couch while I was meditating and he was now in the chair with me. I could feel him telling me that he wanted to fight. Although he knew he wasn't allowed in the arm chair, he rested his head on my with complete confidence that he was welcome. I gave thanks for him.
     It was, in a very strange way, one of the most satisfying Thanksgivings I'd ever had.
     My father-in-law called me from Long Island that night . He told me that he had missed me, but he understood that I was overwhelmed and tired. He spoke kindly, in a way that was new for him, at least with me.
     We moved in 2003. Sumo got to go with us to a house in the country. He was old and he was frail, but he was proud of his new home and loved living in the country. He finally died on Valentine's Day in 2005, one week before my father-in-law had a stroke and we were called away to New Mexico. The ground was soft, in an unprecedented winter thaw, so we were able to bury him outside the back door of the new home he loved so well. I held him in my arms as he died and my mind was filled with an image of him running in a green field as he took his last breath.

Full Moon Dark Night

What was it like

to rest in darkness

inside our mother

waiting to be born?

What was it like 

to emerge in to

the light of the world

for the first time

seeing?

What was it like

to see our mother's face

that first time

having known her

all along?

What was it like

to hear our name

spoken for the first time?

Was there a name we bore

before this

long forgotten now?

And what will it be like

to be borne finally

out of this world

and in to

perhaps another?

What will we see

that we cannot yet imagine?

What could be as beautiful

as the surprise of light

that greeted us

when all we had known was darkness?

Glitter and construction paper

On Zuni Pueblo a kachina appears in the village roughly 40 days prior to the winter solstice bearing the news that the sun will return. Saint Martins Day, which marks the beginning of winter darkness is 40 days before the Yuletide rebirth of the sun. Interesting how the 40 day period of preparation occurs in two cultures which did not have any contact with one another. It leads me to believe that it is a truth—something which arises from some deep primal memory. Everyone whoever was lies interred in the earth—every single person who ever lived returns to the earth. All of their memories reside within the earth and they are accessible when we open ourselves to them through ritual preparation.

Last night I went to a felting class at Flanders Nature Center in Woodbury. We sat together for three hours and made deer out of wool roving. Earlier in the day I painted an angel. Making things restores my soul. As children we all made "christmas decorations". A treasured item in my house is a Christmas tree my son made when he was 5 years old. (Actually, it was on display in the window of Max's Art Supply Store in Westport. Back in the day, when Max was still alive, he asked several local artists to bring art works by their children for a Christmas display in the window. Basically this was Bran's first "commission". Even though it involved glitter and construction paper—it counted! I realize that most of you don't know Max's, but trust me when I say that I would have been greatly honored to have had my work shown in the window.)

Making the trees was a wonderful process. The weeks leading up to Christmas was always filled with the making of ornaments when he was small. I believe that the stages of development which children go through are a microcosm of the stages of development the human race has gone through. This morning as I was looking at my deer and it came to me in a blinding flash—the ornaments we make connect us to the spirit of the animal. The Zuni make Kachina dolls for the children to teach them about the various spirits which make up their cosmology. Some of these spirits are animals, others are guardians of some sort. (I do not have the privilege of more knowledge of their customs than this.) The making of the dolls created to teach is a sacred process. When our hummingbirds left in September I made a small hummingbird to honor the spirit of the birds and to pray for their safe journey. We love our hummingbirds. Not a day passes in the summer when we do not delight at their antics. They bring joy in to my heart. As I was making the little hummingbird, I thought of the hummingbird kachina. I understood the impulse to honor the spirit of the bird which goes in to the making of a hummingbird kachina. The making of the kachina embodies something about the relationship the pueblo people have with the hummingbird. The making of the hummingbird embodied the love I have for the bird in some essential way. It was prayer, it was love—it was magic and communion. It was a farewell and a hope for their safe return.

Creating images of the many beings which are a part of Yuletide and Christmas can be a way of communing with those spirits. When we buy an angel or a reindeer it is not the same as making one. The process of making a deer or an angel opens the imagination to the spirit of the that being. Making it is a process of meditation—your mind is focused, a channel is opened. You relax, your thoughts wander, and in their wandering they connect to the memories within the earth—the memories of those people who lived long ago and still were in intimate relation with the earth in a way it is hard for us to understand today. 

As I gessoed an angel this morning, my mind drifted to the nativity story. As you know I never concerned myself with the idea of the virgin birth—it never mattered to me. I know far too much folklore to know that there are numerous other enlightened ones who were said to have been born of a virgin—the joining of the energy of sky and earth. I remembered my father telling me that virgin meant "young girl" and nothing more. The image of a young girl, still untouched by the world came in to my thoughts as I brushed on the gesso. Untouched. I remember when I was young and filled with hope and an undiminished capacity for love. There is a time in each of our lives when we are still untouched by the world—our capacity for joy and love undiminished by experience and hurt. The nativity story took on a different shade of meaning as I envisioned a child born of a young woman who was, as yet untouched—whose capacity for love was unbounded. This image is powerful.

Imagine that time, not all so long ago, when all of the decorations for the Yuletide season were brought in from outdoors, or made in the home. Each house had ritual items displayed which were gathered or crafted by the people who live there. Envision a tree decorated only with brown cookies baked in the shape of woodland animals. Imagine a rustic nativity scene shaped from clay and painted—or a Swedish horse, simply carved from wood.

I've read that certain Asian shamans create animals from birch bark and hang them on trees. Each animal acts as a messenger, carrying the prayer up the tree from earth to the heavens. In ancient Rome, gifts of small clay animals were given as gifts in this season—probably as an amulet of protection for the animals people depended on for their livelihood. In Mexico and the Southwest people hang up "milagros" as a form of prayer. The milagro, or miracle, is shaped as a person or a domestic animal. They are hung near images of saints and holy people as a tangible representation of prayer—an offering made with the intention of helping, healing or protecting the person or animal represented by the tiny tin or silver figure. These little figures look not unlike the "charms" we used to get out of vending machines. As a child I wondered why these little toys were called "charms"—like a magic spell. I realized that they were related to milagros, which they resemble. Undoubtedly the first tiny "charms" were worn as magical protection for home and domestic animals. This evolved in to the small pieces of jewelry that pom pom girls in the 50s wore on charm bracelets.

I strongly suggest that you all prepare for the great winter festivals which lie ahead as people did in an earlier time. Make something. Create a deer, or a figure of Father frost. Make a nativity scene or an image of the sun reborn. Craft an angel from simple materials. Even if it is only a stick figure—make sacred images with your hands and with your heart and see what is revealed to you in the process.

Sun Horses

There are a great many white horses which appear in wintertide, Saint Martin's horse being the first. The German expression is "Saint Martin rides a white horse" meaning that the winter snow is coming. He is followed by Saint Nicholas on December 6th, also traveling with a white horse. The hobby horse appears with the mummers and, in Wales, the mysterious Mari Lwyd appears on the Solstice itself—the shortest day. The Feast of Epona, the horse goddess, falls on December 18. Following right on the hooves of Epona, "in comes" Saint George and his beleaguered horse in the mummers play.

In England there are numerous earthworks in the shape of white horses carved in to the hillsides. Filled in with white chalk they can be seen from a distance—from the sky. As with so many British folk figures "nobody really knows what they mean..."

The horse is a sun symbol in several cultures. In this winter season the pale white sun rides low in the sky, across the horizon. I never put the team of winter horses together before, but there you have it. The horse is a symbol of the sun and the white horse seems to be a symbol both of winter snow and of the winter sun. The Mari Lwyd seems to bear this out. This Welsh custom—which could be described as peculiar even in relation to other Anglo-Celtic traditions—involves mounting a horses skull on a pole and bringing it round from house to house. The horses jaws are wired so it "snaps" at people.  Imagine encountering a ghostly horse skull puppet in a shadowy lane on the darkest night of the year and having it run at you and snap. The Mari Lwyd is also called the grey mare. If we think of the horse as a solar symbol—or a magical object—it makes sense that the horses skull, as opposed to the lovely living white horses ridden by Sinter Klaas and Saint Martin, appears on the dark night of the solstice when the sun dies. 

The meaning of the white chalk horses carved in to the countryside is also unverified, but I suspect that they too may be sun symbols. The lively hobby horse of the mummers represents the sun in strength and splendor and the Mari Lwyd reminds us of the death and rebirth of the Yuletide sun.

This is not a particularly well written little essay, but the kitchen sink is a calling me. I just wanted you to pause and think of Saint Martin tomorrow, bringing in the winter on his snow white horse, the first of several horses who appear throughout the Yuletide season.

Lumen Solis

There is a particular form of carol which uses a phrase in Latin with the majority of the lyrics in English. In my group we've been improvising chants.

Lumen Solis
Cat in the sun
In perfect peace
To which I aspire

Of course, inevitably, it turns in to purrfect peace.

Wynter Falleth Indeed!

Winter falleth indeed. We woke today to the sound of ice and hail and the ground covered in ice. 
There's an old weather prognostication that I am fond of:

If there's ice in November

That will bear a duck

Nothing will follow

But slush and muck

The Germans say that "Saint Martin comes riding the white horse" meaning that snow is coming.

It is the day of Martinmasse 
Cuppes of ale should freelie pass; 
What though Wynter  has begunne 
To push downe the Summer sonne, 
To our fire we can betake, 
And enjoye the crackling brake, 
Never heeding Wynter’s face 
On the day of Martilmasse.

—from an old English ballad 

Saint Martin

     It has come to my attention that I should say something about Saint Martins Day.

Martinmas falls on November 11. Long ago, when the year was divided in to two halves—summer and winter—Martinmas marked the first day of Winter.

     Martin was the son of an officer in the Roman army. Sons of veterans were compelled to serve in the military, so Martin became a cavalry soldier—in other words he rode a horse. He was a mystic who tried to maintain a monastic inner life in the secular world of the Roman army. In fairness, this wasn't as hard as it might have been since he was assigned to ceremonial duty "protecting" the emperor with a non-combat unit.

     One bitter cold winter's day, dressed in full military regalia, he rode through the city gates at Amiens in Gaul with the rest of his unit. Their uniform was topped off by an elegant and very ample white lambs wool cloak. Just outside the gates, they encountered a beggar, barely clothed and shivering with cold. The other soldiers rode past the poor man, but Martin slashed his cloak in two and gave half to the beggar. That night Martin had a vision of Christ, wearing the white cloak Martin had given to the beggar.

     The first day of Winter, November 11, is still celebrated in some parts of Europe with a procession of lanterns, led by a man dressed as Saint Martin, mounted on a white horse.

Winterfylleth

On Saint Martins
The Oak leaves fall
And Winter falleth upon us all
Into the darkness
Into the night
We carry our lanterns
We bear the light
Light, light, light, light
We carry our lanterns
We bear the light


© 2010 all rights reserved

Interesting times

We are all being hit hard by the cosmos right now, each in our own way. It's easier when we don't take it personally and see that it's the whole world. 
The world is trying to evolve and we're a part of it. The discomfort, the craziness, the cramped, constricted feeling is all part of it. Like a bird inside the egg—the constraint we feel forces us to break through the shell.
Basically we can break through the egg and fly, or wait for the egg to be broken by someone else and end up in a western omelette.
I wonder what the bird dreams of inside the egg? Does she dream of flying and think—impossible—it's only a dream? I fly in my dreams all the time.

Lammas

Lammas

Bright blessings fall,

like rain on dark fertile earth,

like stars on an August night,

like apples, ripe and ready, from the orchard.

Good luck,

good fortune,

good karma,

bright and particular,

gather it in

as it comes to you.

Seed to wheat,

wheat to mill,

mill to bread,

bread to hearth,

hearth to belly,

belly to heart,

heart to god.

 

I wish for us all, 

that we are in the right place,

at the right time,

on the right path,

and that our bread lands ever butter side up.