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