HAPPY SOLSTICE

There are so many wonderful resources about the solstice. Today I’m sharing one by Caitlin Matthew from her book The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning of the Year.

Sun-stone’s kiss, midsummer pleasure,

Welcome all and some.

At the hele-stone sing and gather,

Every blessed one. 

- Caitlin Matthews, “Midsummer Blessing”

She goes on to say: “On this longest day of the year, an annual miracle occurs. At dawn, the first rays of the sun touch the hele-stone, the solitary sighting stone that stands outside the great circle of Stonehenge. The miracle of the longest day is celebrated by peoples all over the world as the time of greatest light and blessedness [well people in the northern hemisphere anyway -N.] Tonight we will have the shortest night; [And the darkest because tonight is the new moon - N] the least darkness of the year, as the sun climbs to its zenith in the heavens.

At midday, stand in the sunlight, which (unless you are very far north or very far south of the equator) will be directly overhead. Check to see where, if anywhere, you shadow is. Most people will find that there is scant shadow at all. All living creatures cast shadows, it is only spirits who have none. This the nearest we can come to resembling spirits in this reality. Became attuned to the midsummer sun. Absorb the warmth and blessedness, and in return hold in your heart those who lack the blessing of light. Do not make any prayer for things to be changed one way or the other [wow-that is very hard to do in this time isn’t it?-N} just  hold these places and beings in your heart and let the sun shine upon them. Come back to awareness of your own time and place, and give thanks for the longest day.

It is traditional to make a bonfire at twilight and stay up late dancing, singing, and making merry with the community. If you cannot do this, light a candle and make your own blessing for all beings on this happy day.” 

Weeding the Garden

I’ve been restructuring my garden, and where my flowers are in the old line of fence doesn’t make sense with the new line of fence. So I’m moving flowers, which won’t bloom this year, how sad, and mostly pulling this insidious weed called bishop’s weed or gout weed. The thing just grows and grows and takes over the whole garden if you let it. Where did it come from? Well, when I took plants from my mother’s garden like her beautiful peonies and roses, the gout weed came with them. And it’s been in my garden for over 20 years now, each year I pull it but the roots are so deep up and roaming that they come again and again. I believe that if I could eat it and make it into a delectable vegetable it would be beaten, but the darn thing is not edible. While I’m doing all this hard work, I’m thinking about the news and how systemic racism and violence takes hold of our whole society, and insidiously grows and it’s so difficult to even grasp the full extent of it because we who are privileged may be just beginning to understand, but how do we even start to weed it out.

I was talking to a dear friend the other day, and she got a similar question from her brother, (he was asking, as an agnostic..) to interpret all that has been going on in the country and the world in the past 20 years. A tall order, but here’s what she said:

“I don’t believe this is God’s punishment, for one. There are consequences to human actions and inactions. What I’ seeing are the consequences of hubris and greed run amok, the consequences of a sociopath/tyrants’s (and his minions!) tormenting the flames of deep-seated, centuries-old (millennia-old) racism, fear and xenophobia..We’ve reached a profound and precarious tipping point. I have found in my own life that the questions I’ve asked have been more influential than the answer I’ve been given. Certain questions send me down rabbit hole: for example, why do bad things happen to good people? So, after I have pondered some of those questions for a while, I then consider these questions, to keep me from falling into despair: where can I see glimpses of grace in the midst of the horror/crisis? What can I do, using my particular gifts, to contribute to the healing and restoration of the world? In the words of Fred Roger’s mother, ‘I look for the helpers and try to join them in their good work.’ That also lifts my spirits. One of the reasons I enjoyed teaching on the book of Genesis is its narrative truth-telling about what happens when fear, greed, hubris run amok. The first 10 1/2 chapters are primeval history and myth- - not because the stories are false, but because the stories are pointing to the truths about he human condition. In chapter 6 - when the world is a mess and humanity has plummeted to a profound depravity, biblical writers describe God’s reaction: God’s heart grieves - the verse does not til about Gods’ anger, but God’s deep grief over what’s happening. I also believe this: that there is always a mix of pain and healing, shadow and light - all the time. And though it’s not rational, I still believe that Love is the first and last word. If the God I believe in is not constrained by the human construct of time and space, then the healing of and for All is already in process, even though I may not see it in its fullness, I can see glimpses of it. Even now. And just as there is a life-death-life-dealth-life … I dare to believe that an amazing movement will come of all this. Leaders will emerge, prophetic and artistic voices — they are speaking even now.”

This gives me hope because I also believe that we are made in love, of love and for love. We all have the opportunity to be prophetic, artistic or what-ever-our- gift is … voices for healing, reconciliation and love. The weeds are not the end of my garden, but as I pull them and add them to the compost heap, perhaps they are helping to enliven and enrich the soil so that more flowers and vegetables can grow. Something to think about as I’m weeding.

(The picture is actually from Star’s garden, she has gout weed too..)

Garden Imagination Continued

Last week I was talking about gardening imagination - that the vision of a garden can be brought to life through planting, weeding and watering, through sweat and fingers torn on rose thorns, and by dreaming. This reminded me of the Prophetic Imagination, because we are also studying Walter Brueggemann’s new book Materiality as Resistance. WB asks the reader to view the world like the Hebrew and Christian Prophets and to imagine ourselves living or resisting the current culture of consumerism and injustice and asks us to live with the consciousness that what we do affects others. We all have the potential to harm the earth, ourselves and each other, but we also have the potential to heal, to share and to care for ourselves and each other. Sometime it seems as if we live in a society that can’t imagine a peaceful, compassionate community. Our own ideas of what is right or wrong take precedence over our neighbor’s ideas of right and wrong. We often can’t recognize the way we see and judge others. We make decisions that are harmful without meaning to and without realizing that the small choices we make have a negative impact on others. Church leaders are now encouraged to take a course in implicit bias.

“Also known as implicit social cognition, implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.  These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.  Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness.  Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection.” Read more at http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/

Convergence, a new church think tank, has a free course on implicit bias for leaders. Here is a link to their website: https://convergenceus.org Hopefully being more self aware will improve the way we relate to each other. There are so many wonderful organizations imagining a new future with a loving community and desiring to raise awareness and to create a world of peace, justice, and love that the prophets envisioned. We try to educate each other on the ways our culture is diverse and remind ourselves that diversity can make us strong. We also can examine our own consciousness—what are we doing to fuel the imagination of peace and unity? How does our garden grow? Does it bring about justice and love or does it go along with the dominate culture of entitlement? Is it growing crops that identify with American exceptionalism or does it grow in the ideal of global unity? It’s our garden, it’s our imagination, we can make a difference.

Garden Time

Every spring I look down on my garden spot from a second story window and imagine what it will look like. I will put peas on the left, tomatoes on the right, beans, spinach, beets, swiss chard, wait, will there be enough room?  Don’t forget  the flowers where are the flowers going to go, there are never enough flowers.  Will the roses be abundant this year, now they are just these thick sticks with thorns but what will they become?  A garden is a place of imagination, an opportunity for creativity. My imaginary garden is perfect, rows of succulent leaf lettuce, borders of roses and daisies, like those gardens you visit that are kept by a paid professional staff. Wouldn’t that just be too perfect.!

Star gave me a book called Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered by Michelle Small Wright. She says that :“When you are working directly in partnership with nature you cannot simply announce, “Let’s put in a garden!” and expect that you will get any information back from nature regarding the garden. You must supply the definition, direction and purpose of this garden.” 

So my definition of a garden is a place to sit and gaze at the beauty of nature. My garden is a holy place, a thin place, a place of connection with the earth and with the Ground of All Being. It  does not have to be perfect or even meet my grandiose image of what is should look like. With a little creativity from me, and some time to listen to nature, I can sit and breath and  watch things grow without too much  interference.  Oh it still won’t be big enough for all that I imagine it can be, but it may be big enough for what I need it to be. 

We got to go through it

This children’s book keeps running through my mind:

We’re going on the bear hunt

we’re going to catch a big one

what a beautiful day

we’re not scared.

Oh no a swamp

a swishy wishy swamp

we can’t go over it

we can’t under it

we can’t go around it

we’ve got go through it.

I don’t know if those are the actual words, but they’re close. When the hunters (with cameras of course) finally find the bear, they admit as they run from the cave, that they were afraid all along. Fear is a big thing for us right now, maybe not fear for ourselves, but fear for those we love, fear of no work and no financial support, fear of the future, so many fears it’s hard to count them all.

Maybe the biggest fear of all is that we don’t know what to do because we are not in control of this virus that is infecting the whole world. The world that is a web of interconnectivity, that has tendrils reaching from all countries, all cities to our own supposedly safe back yards. What can we do? 

This kind of time reminds us that there is nothing we can do to change things, and also reminds us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Meditation teaches us that each breath we take is a present breath, a being here now breath, but is also teaches us about death. In the stillness we are doing nothing, being nothing, just still. The ego doesn’t like this state because the ego wants to protect us, to make sure that our physical self is safe in the world. But as meditation also teaches us there is always more, something beyond this physical, biological self. 

This something beyond is where our anchor lies. So to may be helpful to learn to sit in the fear and anxiety and be honest with ourselves as to what we’re feeling. We can find someone to share these feelings with, someone to listen to our hearts. It’s Ok to be afraid, give that fear permission to teach you.

On a Spiritual Director’s International webcast one person said to ask ourselves what are we most afraid of and then to ask ourselves is there another way to look at that?  Richard Rohr was saying in a recent podcast that Julian of Norwich lived through the plague in Europe in the 12th & 13th century and one of her most famous quotes is: “All shall be well…” When we sit with the fear and anxiety without judging it, can we then begin to watch it from a place of detachment and ask what opportunity are these feelings giving me? 

Everyone has different feelings and different opinions right now, and that’s OK, we’re all different, we’ve all had different experiences - may we honor each other. As we go through this bear hunt together, may we slow down and listen to the needs of others and the needs of ourselves. What do I need to do to take care of myself so that I can take care of others? We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we can’t fly away from it…I guess we might as well go through it - together in love.

February Threshold of Spring?

Then only, when our winter world is one

With barren earth and branches bared to bone,

Then only can the heart begin to know

The seeds of hope asleep beneath the snow;

Then only can the chastened spirit tap

The hidden faith still pulsing in the sap.

Only with winter patience can we bring

The deep-desired, the long awaited spring.

 No Harvest Ripening Anne Morrow Lindbergh

This morning I was watering a houseplant, a shamrock that sits on top of the refrigerator, and as the water flowed into the pot I got this strong whiff of earth.  You know how dirt smells, it’s so comforting because it brings us back to the garden, and I haven’t smelled the earth of my garden since October or November. Now it’s February, and in Celtic Spirituality, we celebrate Imbolc, it is the beginning of noticing the signs of spring. The time when the earth begins to have some glimmer of waking. Have you noticed that there is a little more light in the evening? Sometimes it’s hard to be aware of this slight change when it’s snowing, or when we have those steel gray clouds covering our skies for days and days. But there is a change - Goldfinches have been spotted at the feeder, though they are not gold yet. 

Brighid is the Celtic patron or symbol of this time of year.  

Brighid of the mangle, encompass us;

Lady of the Lambs, protect us;

Keeper of the hearth, kindle us;

Beneath your mantle, gather us,

And restore us to memory

-Caitlin Matthew A Blessing for Hearth Keeepers

Brighid is known for many things- a midwife, the matron of poetry, healing and crafting.  When the Christian church took over Ireland they made her into St. Brigit of Kildare. There is the story of her mantle. She wanted land for her group and she asked the bishop quiet innocently if she could only have the land that could be covered by her coat.  He agreed, and as she spread out her mantle and it grew and grew covering a huge tract of land. So reading the blessing above, we can imagine what being encompassed by Brigit’s mantle would mean. 

Brigit also invites us to consider thresholds. They say that when women gave birth they would stand on the threshold because it was the strongest part of the house and push. The birth, a new beginning, a new life began at this space that is not really inside or outside the house.  We have all lived through many  threshold moments in our lives. Think about all those changes you’ve been through in your life. You’ll probably notice that these changes were not always pleasant or easy. As we step from one way of being into another way of being for a moment we hang in liminal space, a space between, waiting, hoping, striving, trying to decide if we should go back or go forward. 

"So please forgive me when I say that everything that happens to us in life is a blessing — whether it comes as a gift wrapped in happy times or as a heartbreak, a loss, or a tragedy. It is true: There is meaning hidden in the small changes of everyday life, and wisdom to be found in the shards of your most broken moments. At the end of a dark night of the soul is the beginning of a new life." — Elizabeth Lesser in Broken Open

January Stillness

I just started reading The Songs of Trees by David George Haskell and was struck by the way he describes the different sounds the rain makes as it hits different shaped leaves in the Amazon rain forest. I have never been to the rain forest, except in south east Alaska, so have no frame of reference to the noises he portraits, but it is fascinating that he would have noticed this subtle difference in sounds that various leaves can produce.

Listening to the sounds of an Adirondack January makes me think of stillness. When it is very cold you can hear the wooden framed buildings pop and crack under the strain. When there is a thaw you can hear the wind through the white pines. That is a comforting sound. And when there is a lot of snow, everything is muffled, there is a buffer between your ears and the world. Although, if you’re in the ‘right’ place, you can hear the snowmobiles roaring though the countryside at break neck speeds. 

Stillness is not necessarily the absence of noise.  After a  crazy commercial Christmas, December’s gift to make us frantic and wild with wanting and giving and getting it is difficult to imagine being still enough to hear the rain or a gentle breeze.  In late November, we put up lights against the darkness, to make sure that we have enough, we don’t want to loose a second of light, so we fight the absence of light with our own weak little lights. Even though  some of the lights around the neighborhood light up the snow like the luster of midday.  All this doing and buying and hurrying in order to get everything done by December 25th. 

So in January we hunger for stillness and maybe make friends with the dark. A friend was telling me about her drive to work one cold January morning. The temperature had not risen above zero for a week before, so at seven a.m. and twenty below it was very, very cold. Nothing moved, everything was still, waiting for some light, even the weak light of January, to bring some warmth into the frigid air.  She describes the morning as driving in a dream, no sound, no movement, except her car traveling on the stone cold highway. Suddenly,  out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement. Was it a bird that dared to fly out this early? Turning her head she saw a tree slowly falling over into the path of her car. She quickly swerved and it missed her car. But the sight of  that silent falling stayed with her so that she could vividly describe the scene years later.

What do we do when there is no movement, when there is only stillness and quiet? What does it teach us, or is there no sound or movement because we aren’t attuned to the infinitesimal motion around us? 

Father Thomas Keating said In the Human Condition: “In everything that exists, God is present…The problem is that we only access that presence to the degree that our interior  life is attuned to it.” He explains that listening to the sacred text with our whole being, in a contemplative way  is  a means of discerning God’s presence. So like Haskell sitting on some scientific contraption on the tops of the trees in the rainforest, listening to the sacred scripture, nature, he was hearing the different sounds of the rain on the leaves. Attuned to all that was going on around him. Attuned, present, alive to the God-ness that surrounded him. 

Keating said: “The external word of God is designed to awaken the presence of the word of God in us. When that happens, we become, in certain senes, the word of God.” (27) 

Here is a wonderful poem about listening that Star collected. 

Waiting in Line

When you listen you reach

into dark corners and

pull out your wonders.

When you listen your 

ideas come in and out

like they were waiting in line.

You ears don't always listen.

It can be your brain, your

fingers, your toes.

You can listen anywhere.

Your mind might not want to go.

If you can listen you can find

answers to questions you didn't know.

If you have listened, truly

listened, you don't find your 

self alone.

Nick Penna, fifth grade

Weaving Home: A Song Beyond Words by Star Livingstone

Sitting in church watching the organist use hands and feet and head, indeed, her whole body to weave the sounds of the organ into the music of the anthem.

Not so different from my friend, the weaver, sitting on the bench at her eight harness loom using her feet to raise and lower the warp threads and shooting the strands of weft through the spaces with a shuttle, then both hands to snug them tight.  Her whole focus absorbed in the pattern she is making, executing the plan that was so many steps in the making.  My husband and I volunteered to remove a fallen maple tree from the library grounds this winter.  Now, in spring, the small branches are woven into a hedge of support in the pea rows, the larger limbs, intertwined to make gates for all the gardens. Patterns suggested by the branches themselves, evolving through selection and finished when finished.  The large limbs are being planned into a bench for a meditation garden and the trunk pieces will warm us as we sit by the home fire next winter.  So many weavings:  of usefulness, beauty, community, harmony.  How many ways to weave home.

March Means More Snow

Even though spring starts this month, there is still a lot of winter left for the Adirondacks. We sometimes get our biggest dumps of snow in March. But the days are getting longer, the sun’s rays are getting stronger, and with the lengthening of the days there is hope for more warmth to come. In our Interspiritual Meditation course we have been covering the 7 steps of meditation and the second step is: May I (we) be grateful. A lot has been written about gratitude. Brother David Stiendl-Rast said: “The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” He is an expert on gratitude, so maybe I can smile and look at the falling, blowing, blindingly white snow outside my window and be joyful. It is beautiful, right? Blanketing the ground, doing what snow does, it is not good or bad, it just is. Gratitude contrasts with all these thoughts of judgment that humans often have about one thing being good and another thing being bad. Judging takes away our joy, because it is difficult to be grateful for something we don’t approve of.

This week we celebrated Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. We took the palms we’d been saving all year, the ones that we were handed on Palm Sunday when we heard the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and we burnt them (let them cool) and wear them on our foreheads as a reminder of many things. Some people remember how they were not true to their calling, others remember their unworthiness and some remember their mortality. We hear the words you are but dust and to dust you shall return. (Oh did you see the joke on the internet ‘you are butt dust?’ Sorry, couldn’t help myself). Anyway, some people make commitments for Lent, to do something, or to give up something. I used to try to give up chocolate, but that never worked, then I heard about fair trade chocolate, and I try, as much as possible, to make sure that my baking chocolate is fair trade. That is a commitment that I try to make all year. I was at one church recently where they handed out garbage bags and were asking their congregants to put one item a day into the bag to give to charity. I’ve also heard of doing the same thing with putting a food item in the bag each day.

Some people support a charitable organization for Lent. Others make commitments to mediate, spend more time in prayer, etc. I was thinking it would be a good practice to just say no to those styrofoam takeout containers. So many businesses already have gone to biodegradable packages, so when you’re at a restaurant you can ask for what kind of containers they have before you ask for a box, or bring your own. That would help in many ways. There are so many opportunities to do good, to raise consciousness, to bring more light and joy into the world.

At Weaving Home, we are celebrating Lent by participating in movement and meditation, reading the book “The Wisdom Jesus” by Cynthia Bourgeault and practicing Interspiritual Meditation. We are also supporting earth care initiatives. We have post cards from Interfaith Power and Light calling for legislation to make the planet a safe and healthy place for everyone. If you'd like one, let us know. Please check out the many links to each care organizations on the website. I am very grateful to all these organizations for their good works.

The Seeds of New Beginnings

I don't know about you, but we started getting seed catalogues in December, usually they don’t arrive until January along with all the bills. It is such a nice relief to sit and dream about a garden and let the  the gloom and grayness of winter fade for a while.  We look and ask: ‘oh, would that grow here? what would happen if we planted that?’ Even though these thoughts can take us away from the present moment, it is good to dream and to have a vision. While you are dreaming of your garden, Star has some important information to share. A garden can give us wonderful nourishing food. and it’s important to get your seeds from companies that are involved with care of the earth. Many big corporate companies also deal in pesticides and herbicides  and we don’t want to support those practices. An example of a company you might want to support is Turtle Tree Seed in Copake, New York.https://www.turtletreeseed.org

Organic, Biodynamic Seeds | Turtle Tree Seed Initiative

We are a small seed company, an integrated part of Camphill Village, offering a wide selection of certified organic and biodynamic, 100% open-pollinated seeds, for farms and gardens of all sizes, which are grown, selected, cleaned and sent to you with great care.

  Not only is the seed bio-dynamically grown but the seed house employs differently abled people from Camphill Village where it is located. Bio-dynamics is a system of earth health that encompasses, not just the land, but works with cosmic rhythms and social ethics as well. 

 Baker’s Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri, has a mission to preserve heirloom seed varieties globally. They preserve the seeds so they are not lost because of war and displacement of people. They have a very strong anti GMO bias. Nature modifies genes all the time.  However, humans are doing it to allow for an agriculture based on herbicide and pesticide controls that have devastating consequences both for the soil and the eaters of residual poisons. 

Rare Heirloom Seeds | Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

https://www.rareseeds.com

Buy Heirloom Garden Seeds online. Over 1800 varieties of Vegetables, Rare Flowers & Herbs. 100% Non-GMO open pollinated seeds. Free heirloom seed catalog!

Fedco in Maine is the main organic growers cooperative. They grow many local varieties that would do well in the Adirondacks. Their catalogue is a storehouse of information on all aspects of gardening. And their catalogue identifies the size of the seed house their seed comes from and the practices of those houses.  They don’t sell seeds from companies that are involved in pesticide and herbicide production, but they do sell seeds that have been genetically modified, they identify the practices in their catalogue so you can choose. 

Fedco -Co-op Seeds, Gardening Supplies, Trees, Potatoes, Bulbs

https://www.fedcoseeds.com

Fedco is a cooperative seed and garden supply company. Its divisions, Fedco Seeds, Organic Growers Supply, Fedco Trees, Potatoes, Onions and Exotics, and Fedco Bulbs, offer untreated vegetable, herb and flower seed; soil amendments, cover crops, garden tools, organic growing supplies, gardening books, seed potatoes, onion sets, fruit trees, berry bushes, ornamentals, …

Fruition Seed in Canandaigua, NY (www.fruitionseeds.com), High Mowing in Vermont(wwwhighmowingseeds.com) and the Seed Saver Exchange(wwwseedsavers.org) are also good companies that are worth investigating.

It is important for us to research the policies, sources and values of a seed company, so that we can buy seed responsibly.  

Saving seed yourself is a rewarding thing to do even if you are keeping only one or two varieties of plants you particularly love.  If you save your seed the plant variety will adapt more and more strongly to your soil and growing conditions and over time you will see better and better results in your harvests.

If this is a subject you would like to pursue or if seed saving is something you would like to know more about, there are many books about both philosophy and technique. 

One suggestion. Will Bonsall is a seedsman and homesteader and his book, Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening  will be an eye opener. I recommend it, not so much as something any of us will imitate closely but as an education in all the issues surrounding our food and our way of living with the earth.  For example, Will has specialized for years in biennial plant seeds such as lettuce and has initiated something he calls copyleft.  Copyleft means that the seed he sells may never be owned or patented and may forever be freely grown by anyone.  This is his personal response to the corporate patenting of seed currently going on with the goal that there will one day there will be corporate ownership of all seed so that everyone must buy if they wish to grow anything without punishment for copyright infringement. 

The book is wide ranging and is the fruit of decades of mindful living in cooperation with the land.

Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth, 2002, Seed Savers Exchange, is a resource for the details of saving seed from specific varieties.

What better way to spend the long north country winter evenings than preparing to join in the great birthing of spring.

Monarch Summer

For years we’ve only seen one or two monarchs float by in the summer. There were swallow tails and  sulphurs, but very few monarchs. We heard about their habitat being ruined by a big frost in Mexico, and then their  major flight route in the Midwest  was ruined because  the milkweeds were all mowed down or poisoned by the weedkiller Roundup, It’s funny how one species needs another to survive, isn’t it. 

The Monarch’s life cycle is not easy. The ones who are born here go south in one long trip, but it takes 3 generations for them to travel back up to the Adirondacks. They winter over in the south, lay eggs in the spring and die, two more generations must be born for them to travel to the north.  The generations coming north must have milkweed for the caterpillars to feed on. People planting milkweed in gardens and in vacant lots and elsewhere away from the herbicide tide are a main reason for their rebound.  My neighbor stopped mowing  the milk weeds on the side of his house a couple of years ago. They are big and messy, but he left them up in hopes for the future.  

So year we began to see Monarchs early, I think it was June when we saw the first one. My husband said, that can’t be a monarch it’s too small, it must be a viceroy. But we kept seeing them. Then in August there were bunches of very hungry caterpillars everywhere, Monarch caterpillars. Star said to get a few and put them in a gallon jar so that my grandsons could watch their transformation. 

We found three caterpillars  and put them in a container. If you follow Weaving Home on Facebook you can see the two that survived and were hanging on the cover of our gallon jug. Every day we checked the caterpillars. The caterpillars attached themselves to something with a magic kind of glue,  their bodies contorted into the the shape of the the letter ‘j’  and then the chrysalis formed. It is not an easy process, the caterpillar seems to be struggling  in the throws of death. But the chrysalis is beautiful, light green with golden specks around the top. 

We waited and watched and while we were waiting more chrysalis appeared on our porch. We lost count after twelve. One attached to  Lucas’ bicycle tire, so he couldn’t ride for a couple of weeks. The shining green capsules holding a hidden life then become darker, and almost translucent so that you could see a wing through its skin.  Now I never watched this process so closely. Some schools have butterflies in the classroom so that the kids can watch this amazing transformation up close, but I’m glad I got to watch it with my grandsons, it is such a gift. We worried and hovered, but the butterflies were born in their own time, struggled out of their tomb, practiced and stretched their wings and then took off, first to get some nourishment at the hydrangea bush and then off to places south.  Star says that the Wild Center in Tupper Lake had a lecture on how to tag a butterfly so you can see how far it travels. That must be amazing.

The life process of the monarch is so complex, and you can see why butterflies are  used as religious metaphor. The chrysalis - the tomb, the emerging butterfly - the resurrection. Scientists have studied this process of metamorphosis for centuries, and naturalist Bernd Heinrich asks “can a butterfly be an amalgam of two very different organisms that fused in antiquity, each providing a separate set of genes that resulted from selection of different lines?” That is an interesting  thought too, butterflies never cease to give us something to consider. He goes on to say: “In this case, one organism could arguably be considered a symbiosis between an older organism and the resurrection of another within it.” However you look at this process, it’s awesome. He concludes by saying: “Regardless of the mechanism of transformation, for a caterpillar to transition to a butterfly, different sets of genetic instructions must act consecutively: one set to dissolve its body into constituent parts, the other to reassemble it into something else.” (Natural History, 06-16)

Not even considering the complexity of the genetics that result in a monarch, what strikes me is the difficulty of this life process. at any stage there is danger, and risk. The caterpillar is food for the birds, there are fungi that attack the caterpillar. The chrysalis is vulnerable to the weather and elements, totally unable to protect itself. And even if the butterfly emerges there is no guarantee that it will get to where it needs to go. We saw monarch on the side of the road, hit by cars, captured by a cat, unable to get out of the fence around my garden.  The miracle is that some butterflies do make it, and go to Mexico. Just think, some of the butterflies that hatched on our porch are on their way to places warm and sunny! 

What does the butterfly teach you about life?  Does it give you insight into the resurrection, or new life, or the strength of life itself? Does it inspire you to keep on striving for wholeness  in spite of all that life has thrown at  you?  My time with the monarchs has reminded that I am not in charge of life, some monarchs hatch and some don’t and I couldn’t do anything to change that. They have inspired me to think about the spirit part of me, that may feel encumbered by a body that sometimes does not behave the way I want. And most importantly they have taught me to see beauty in a wonderful miraculous creation that inspires awe. In his book Beauty, John O’Donohue says: “in the Phaedrus, Plato has that remarkable passage where he describes how the soul awakens in the presence of beauty and recovers and grows her eternal wings; gravity and finitude can no longer contain her.” (page 224) 

Maple Syrup and Change

Star told me this story: “Star and Jeff visited their favorite sugar bush on Monday to pick up a gallon of fresh-made maple syrup.  One team of horses drawing a tank wagon was just leaving to go back into the woods for another load of sap as we arrived.  The two wood-fired evaporators were filling the sugar house with a solid cloud of steam that smelled for all the world like a delicious pancake breakfast.  We soon found the syrup master at his station next to the final trough of the new evaporator.  He opened the conversation by declaring that he had just discovered something new about the evaporator they had owned now for a year and a half.  A persisting problem was to get the syrup to thicken properly in the last stage.  For some reason, the fire did not seem to be as hot at that edge and he had puzzled endlessly over the cause.  This day he had figured it out.  The fires were fed through doors at the end of the devices under the maze of troughs.  Open the doors, toss in the four-foot split logs, several at a time and close the doors.  This has always worked perfectly.  Except... the new evaporator doors begin and end a foot in from the edge of the firebox unlike the old model where the hinges are at the edges of the walls.  Throwing the logs straight in the new firebox keeps the hottest fire only in the middle.  Everyone had just continued the habit of feeding the fire seen when the doors were open and up to the present had never realized that the wood must be thrown to the sides in the new model in order to produce even heat in the throughs above.”  

 
    Sometimes having new equipment requires us to change our ways of doing things. Isn’t it interesting how these new things - machines, computers, worship communities -  challenge our old habits?  New things make us stop and think: why are we doing this, is it just because we’ve always done it that way? It was so convenient when we didn’t have to figure things out, and everything ran smoothly. 

    Thinking about the past as running smoothly is usually only an illusion. Think of the church, it has always been changing. Ideas that we think have been around forever are sometimes new and from within our lifetime. For example, there were many ways to follow Jesus’ teaching before Constantine, but after 312 C.E. only one way of being a church was accepted by the state. 
    When we think of God now, our ideas are often very different from when we were young. The great superhero out there who punished the wicked and rewarded the good just doesn’t make sense anymore.  It just doesn’t work to believe in a few tenets and think that that is enough. 

    Belief, mental assent, is not the answer for me anymore. I have to agree with Paul R. Smith, who wrote the book Integral Christianity, when he says:  we see “God as powerful - but it is a different kind of God with a different kind of power, [now we see a God with] the power of creative intelligence, evolutionary impulse, all-encompassing love, healing energy, and transforming compassion.”  

We experience God anywhere and everywhere; in the smile of parents lovingly looking at their child, in the wind blowing the tree branches in a great dance, in the hand someone gives to help us up.  It is good that things change and we can pay more attention to the new in our lives. 

March Mud & Wind

March began with a nice snow storm. I’m glad because (selfishly) I didn’t have to go anywhere and because the yard and driveway were getting way too muddy. I can’t stand the dirt between winter and spring, there is muck in the dog’s feet which she tracks all over the floor, slime on boots which dries into a rocky dust on the floor is you don’t mop it up right away. You just can’t get muck out of the carpet unless you pull out that disgusting rug cleaner from the basement.  The mud has a lot of things in it, like deer droppings, and who knows who else’s dropping, beside all the debris that collects over the winter, rocks, crewed up bird seed, branches, just plain disgusting dirt. What can I do with all this mud? 

Kirkridge printed this wonderful poem by Parker Palmer: 

"I will wax romantic about spring and its splendors

in a moment, but first there is a hard truth to be told:

before spring becomes beautiful,

it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck.

 I have walked in the early spring through fields

that will suck your boots off, a world so wet

and woeful it makes you yearn for

the return of ice. But in that muddy mess,

 the conditions for rebirth are being created." 

There are many things hidden in the mud that hold the seeds of rebirth. Think of the spring peepers waiting until their world thaws out a little before they get to sing their beckoning song. Yes, there is hope in the mud, but I can’t wait until it’s gone. The wind is helpful in drying up the mud. When the mud is overwhelming and we have a few days of a nice steady wind, the mud tends to dry faster, and when it dries all those disgusting things that are part of the mud tend to disappear - not the life, but the mess.  What a blessing a little breeze can be. There are so many songs that talk about the wind, but what is more important is to pay attention to the the wind that blows through our lives. What change is it beckoning us toward, what opportunity is knocking at the door? What is is calling us to clean up? Is it bringing healing or helping push us forward when we’d rather stay stuck?  As Cat Stevens reminded us, listen to the wind of your soul.

St. Brigid & Imbolc

This week a group of us celebrated the feast of St. Brigid, which falls on February 1st. We had rich scones with Star’s homemade black currant jam. What a feast. St. Brigid was someone who stood on the threshold between the pagan and Christian worlds, she was also known as a healer. She was said to be a time traveler because there are stories that she was Mary's midwife at the birth of Jesus. She traveled with a white cow that gave milk at anytime to those in need. You can read more about her on Wikipedia or in the book Illuminating the Way by Christine Valters Paintner.

Another reason why February 1st is so special is that it is a threshold day, the half way point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The Celts call it Imbolc. Of course, in the Adirondacks it is not the half way point until real spring, but we have already noticed the longer light. Imbolc means ‘in the belly,’ it is in the belly of the earth that new life is waiting to arise. As winter loses ground to spring, we are invited to look faithfully at the bareness--the frozen earth, the lifeless trees--and see or imagine to see new beginnings. Resurrection energy is trying to rise in the soul.

Star and I learned about Brigid at the School for Celtic Consciousness last summer. It was the first year of a three year program lead by John Philip Newell. This we year we hope to go again and this time John Muir will be one of the Celtic ‘saints’ we learn about. Happy half-way to spring!

Ignite 2018

“Give yourself the opportunity of silence and begin to develop your listening in order to hear, deep within yourself, the music of your own spirit.” -- John O'Donohue in Anam Caŗa

Have you listened to the music of your own spirit lately? Do you have a special word that you want to explore during the coming year? At our “Give Me a Word” workshop, many of us came up with words to inspire, to remind, to comfort. We spent time in silence, listened to chants and did some sacred reading. I was struck by all the words that had ‘light’ in them: illuminate, luminous, so my word for 2018 is ‘ignite.’  I know that rest is needed in winter, but it is also a time for building, for deep growth that will be ready to bloom in spring.

After a time of listening, we created a sign or card to remind us of our word. It is always so fascinating to see the varieties of art that people create. Being in a group is eye opening—it is delightful to rejoice in what others create. Being creative allows us the time to be present, to fully concentrate on what we are making, to let the creation take the shape that it wants.

After the ‘word’ workshop, we joined a solstice celebration at Camp Benjamin. Small lights lit the path to the bonfire burning at the center of the lawn. Creating the bonfire was a lot of work because of all the snow that had fallen, but once Ben got it going it burned for hours. He used small fire starters made out of wax, they are small but very powerful. Something very small can make a difference, it can ignite and catch others on fire. “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” -Mother Teresa

Inner Light

patches of snow

lit up by moonlight

illuminate

the darkest part of the year

There is a Star Trek Next Generation episode called "Inner Light" and in it Captain Picard lives a whole lifetime in a span of 25 minutes. He becomes the husband, father, grandfather to a family on a planet that has been extinct for 1000 years. He holds the memory of the planet,  this inner light, within him so that he can tell the rest of the galaxy that they lived and loved. You'll want to listen to the song “Inner Light” from the STNG episode called Lessons (it's on Youtube), it's really beautiful.

During December we need inner light, oh I know that we light up our houses for Christmas, use all sorts of decorations, but the light has to also come from within. Where do you find your inner light?

On Saturday, Mary and I attended a mediation retreat at Lotus Heart Zen Abbey. It was difficult to sit for 25 minutes at a time, we alternated sitting and walking mediation, and practiced for about two hours took a break and then practiced some more.  Group meditation is good and gives us insight into how we can make our personal practice more meaningful.  The Ven. Do'an Prajna Sabunim gave us many helpful tips to enhance our personal mediation. The best illustration was about the river, thoughts are like a river, they can take us places we don’t need to go, they, like the chaos of Christmas time,  tell us we need to do this or that, feel this way about that person, but when we can take a step back and watch those thoughts from a place of indifference, we are able to make space for that inner light to shine in. May you have space this December to experience the inner light.

Ahimsa

    Star and I traveled to Lotus Heart Zen Center in Oneida recently to learn about Ahimsa - it literally means ‘no harm.’ There is this big initiative on non-violence going on called Campaign Nonviolence and many organizations are involved. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “our goal is to create a beloved community. This will require a qualitative charge in our souls, as well as a quantitative change in our lives.” 
    This sounds impossible at first, but as we become more and more aware of our own thoughts and actions, we are able to make small changes in our lives that will eventually lead to   (hopefully) the qualitative and quantitative changes King is talking about to create a beloved community. 
    Ven. Do'an Prajna, our teacher, was saying the that in Buddhist tradition ahimsa is the highest goal, even before love, because, as we all know, love can be harmful. Even if we have the best  intentions, but are not grounded in this ideal of doing no harm to anyone, even love can hurt. We all know that from experience. 
    Violence can be emotional, verbal, physical, institutional, cultural and exists  in the very structure of society. We have all experienced violence and we have all been perpetrators of violence. Sometimes we are not aware of what we are doing, an innocent action on our part can cause harm to others, to ourselves, and to the earth.  If we think of the clothing industry for example we know that much of the clothing we wear comes from countries where there are no labor laws, where people are mistreated and underpaid, yet we keep buying clothing. I guess it would be embarrassing if we stopped wearing clothes and cold too in our climate, but as we practice ahimsa we are invited to be more aware of what our choices mean.
    Do’an was saying that some very devout Jainists don’t even wear clothing. They sweep the path in front of them so they don’t inadvertently walk on something living and hardly eat at all. That is of course the extreme. We realize that we all cause harm in some way or another, we can’t live on earth without causing harm. Even vegans who eat plants are killing the vegetables. 
    Susan Simard from a British Columbian University, has been studying forests for many years. In a TED talk Simard talks about the relationship of trees in a forest, and there is communication of a sort going on through the micro-rhizzi in the root system. (You can read one of her recent interviews on NPR:http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=509350471)
    All living things are interconnected, so the harm we cause to another we are causing to ourselves as well. Do’an told a great story of being at a meeting where someone noticed that a bee was stuck between the window panes, one person rose and began working to free the bee. In a few minutes the whole gathering was working on freeing the bee. That might be construed by some as a waste of time.  But in reality the small things we do make a difference in changing the quality of our souls, as Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out. Doing harm to another starts with a thought. Most of our actions start with a thought.  When we realize that violence starts with a thought, then we can catch that thought and change it or remind ourselves that this thought can cause harm, and move on to other things. Paul said it so well in Philippians 4:8-9 “From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise.  Practice these things: whatever you learned, received, heard, or saw in us. The God of peace will be with you.”         
    As we become more aware of our thoughts and actions, here is a list of what we can do from the Campaign for Nonviolence:

• Educate yourself on the explicit and implicit forms of violence in society. Learn to recognize how violent solutions, while they may obtain desired objectives in the short term, inevitably do more harm than good over the long run.
• Focus on forms of entertainment that promote a culture of peace rather than a culture of violence.
• Get training in active nonviolence 
• Attend rallies and events in support of a culture of peace.
• Support organizations working to create a culture of peace.
• Seek employment in jobs that support a culture of peace rather than a culture of violence.
• Don’t be afraid to challenge those who promote a culture of violence.
• Strive to foster a culture of peace in your own life. Honor, courage, commitment, nonviolence, generosity.

    We can only do our best, try to do the least amount of harm to each other, ourselves, our neighbors, our planet, and to walk gently through the land to know that what we do to another we do to ourselves. 
    At the end of our lecture on Ahimsa, Do’an gave us each a thread, a blue string to tie around each other’s wrists to remind us to do no harm. He said wear it until it falls off by itself, then you will have learned to practice ahimsa, or I would say to be more aware of when our actions are causing harm and to consider changing. It is hard work to build a culture of peace but it starts in our minds and in our hearts.  

Sacred Walk

The Sacred Walk on Sunday, August 20th was a climb up Maple Ridge from the school parking lot to the picnic table overlooking McCauley.  Walking in the woods is always a sacred experience, but becomes more so when it is an intentional walk. The reading for reflection was from Daily Nourishment from Abbey of the Arts

"You can start to really feel the shortening of the days in August in Ireland {or in the Adirondacks}. There is a subtle shift in the light and the air that leans towards autumn’s crispness and cooler days.  The energy in the world is changing.” Questions to ponder: Can you feel the shift of energy moving through you? Are you a little relieved now that the year is beginning its slow turning towards the comfort of darkness? What does the deepening light and shortening days invite you to embrace?—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD A Community Online Retreat ~ Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year

The air has been cooler lately, and I could smell the beginning of autumn. I don’t know how todescribe it, maybe it’s the beginning of decaying vegetation, or maybe the earth has soaked in all the summer it can take so it is exuding a fullness or ripeness that invites change.  The path was wet from last night’s rain, and the leaves from last fall are still decomposing into the soil, fragments littering the trail here and there. Ahead of me, where the sun filtered through the leaves, were groups of dancing gnats. Everywhere there were sunbeams and the gnats would be in groups dancing, celebrating the light. Perhaps there is so much to celebrate because the light is diminishing and the gnats, aware of that fact, are embracing the shortening of day as they dance.  People have been saying how fast summer has gone, and how they are now cramming in boat rides or sitting outside on a warm evening.  If we don’t savor the small things, life just passes by in a blur.  So we, like the gnats, can still dance in the light. 

Farther up the trail, there was a large broken branch. That the branch—though dead with no hope of life—was being cradled by the nearby trees caught my attention. Perhaps the trees were its children? Or maybe just a community of trees holding that dead weight. The branch was suspended in the liminal space between the earth and the sky.  Reminds me of a lecture I heard by John Philip Newell in January. He was talking about the Irish Saint Brigid. She was said to have been born in the threshold of the house, the liminal space between inside and outside. The legends of her life are a melding of the pre-Christian and Ireland of the church. They celebrate her on Iona at the well of eternal youth at midsummer in the twilight - the pace between the day and the night, the space of imagination, in the twilight there are glimpses of those who have gone before, twilight where lovers meet, twilight that invites us to open ourselves to the imagination. Don’t you just love those stories that invite us out of our common every day world and ask more of us? That ask us to dare and dream? To put the old behind us and move into unknown realms. Behind the branch is an old rusted logging vehicle. Its parts are also decomposing, the metal turning to flakes of rust. Another symbol that life and death go together. “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven…a time to be born and a time to die.” What am I being invited to let go of? What is no longer serving me or us? What is no longer serving the community of faith? And how do we let it go gently with dignity and honor the past while we embrace the future? There are many, many books written on this, but it seems that in our lives and in the life of the church, each person and community must decide what life is giving and what is not. 

At the top of a clearing, the destination, a table and chair await. Sit, relax, and let the woods speak. But then the wind stopped and the mosquitos came in, and with them another reminder of our minds when we sit down to meditate, how those pesky thoughts return like mosquitos buzzing around our ears, taking us down paths where we don’t need to go.  Keeping us from the silence. Sometimes the destination is not the objective, it’s fine to get somewhere, but the pathhas really been the teacher. The path, leading up or leading down, tripping us up on roots, or surprising us with unexpected delights. A tiny Indian Pipe sitting quietly by an downed log. My foot almost crushed  a tiny  mushroom, but its red caught my eye before my foot fell.  It was so bright, sittingthere in the mud, a new thing, birthed in the rainy night. Not something expected, but something delightful. 

A thing hidden becomes clear, a thought that was amorphous takes form and invites us to a new way. Or not, it may just be an experiment. A new way or a return of something that is inevitable. Turn, turn, turn until we come round right. Richard Rohr said: “union with God is really about awareness and realignment.” May we continue towalk and make it so.  

A Visit to New Hampshire

One Sunday in May, Star and I traveled to New Hampshire to visit the Church of the Woods. It is 100 acres of land near Canterbury Center in the middle of the state, perhaps best described as in the foothills of the White Mountains. There we met the founding priest Steve Blackmer and enjoyed an outdoor worship experience. First it was a little uncomfortable because there were swarms of black flies, but after a liberal dose of bug spray I felt that I could give my attention to the worship time. Being Episcopalian, Steve did have an order of worship that followed the lectionary yet each passage was brought to life in this sanctuary of the earth. The Acts passage said: “In God we live and move and have our being.” After the readings and a song or two, we headed out into the woods opening ourselves to what the gifts of the earth would bring us. We walked, and sat, and looked an listened. 

Here is Star’s reflection: “As I lay on the great maple log and looked up into the new green of the trees above tied together with gossamer rainbows made of spider silk and light, I felt conscious of the shade and swarms of insects around me.  The longer I gazed into the leaves, some of which were white with sunlight, the less I was aware of the level where my body was and the more I felt lifted into the brightness above me.  

I loved that the songs of birds were just as loud as our voices raised in song.  And for me, one of the most meaningful moments was when Rev. Steve offered the first piece of bread to the earth and then poured out the remaining wine beside it.  That act reminded me that all of God's creation is precious, all, sacred, all, good and I am a part of that.  As Rev. Steve pointed out, we give blood to the biting insects; the birds eat them; we become bird.  Of course, for the ones that succeed in reproducing, we also become black fly and mosquito.  That should teach us humility if nothing else.  To share in the worship of the Creator with the trees, birds, insects, water and the very earth itself was an incredibly moving experience for me.  I saw that the earth never ceases to give praise to the Lord.  May I learn to do likewise.” 

The sound of a noisy gong, or was it a cow bell brought us back together and we talked about our experiences. Each person brought back a token of their 20 minute alone time in the woods and explained how it spoke to them.  After sharing our offering experiences to each other, we shared a simple Eucharist and visited for hours. The black flies that completely had my attention at the beginning were still there, but unnoticed. That reminds me of our times of meditation, sometimes I try and sit and the thoughts just keep buzzing around like a bunch of mad black flies, but when the focus of peace is clear, those thoughts just disappear. 

Adirondack April

 April

showers

bird song 

chirps, honks, ….

snow

morning ice turns to afternoon mud

melting dirty snow

muddy snow

torrential rain

more new snow

ponds on the rod

deep driveway ruts

 

buds pushing off crackling oak leaves

fallen branches litter lawns 

half under snow 

half on wet, brown earth

mud

 

transitions take time

can there be spring without mud?

the crocus doesn’t care

she pushes up through the mire and muck.

She, the beacon of spring hope

Is she also a healer? 

 

Star and I heard a great lecture at the Unitarian Universalist Church about caring for creation.  They have made a resolution to actionafter learning about the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s projected effects of climate change. It is a sad document, but the fact the people care and want to help care for creation is hopeful. . We can make changes in our lives, small changes can mean a lot in the long run.  It seems that when we live out of our values, out of what we love and want to preserve, then the earth and all creation has a chance to be healed. Here is a blessing we heard at the meeting:

Climate Blessing 

We hold the Earth. We hold brothers and sisters who suffer from storms and droughts intensified by climate change. We hold all species who suffer. We hold world leaders delegated to make decisions for life. We pray that the web of life may be mended throughcourageous actions to limit carbon emissions. We pray for right actions for adaptation and mitigation to help our already suffering earth community. We pray that love and wisdom might inspire my actions and our actions as communities so that we may, with integrity, look into the eyes of brothers and sisters and all Beings and truthfully say we are doing our part to care for them and the future of our children. May love transform us and our world with new steps toward life.” (From Interfaith Power and Light) 

There is a lot of information on the New York Interfaith Power and Light website. (http://www.newyorkipl.org)