Welcome To the Cedar Grove

The value of a worthy woman is far beyond pearls. She obtains wool and flax and makes cloth with skillful hands. She rises while it is still night, and distributes food to her household. She picks out a field to purchage; out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard. She is girt about with strength and sturdy are her arms. She enjoys the success of her dealings; at night her lamp is undimmed. She puts her hands to the distaff and her finers to ply the spindle. She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy. She fears not the snow for her household; everyone is warmly clothed; She makes her own coverlets; fine linen and purple are her clothing. She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs at the days to come. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and on her tongue is kindly counsel.

--Proverbs31: 10-31

Women's efforts at sustaining hearth and home are less rewarded now. When money is the measure of a task's worth, unpaid labor is devalued and even derided.

So sad, so true.. and the saddest and truest thing is that women ourselves believe this... and society upholds it, in many ways, and mostly in the name of feminism and equality.

Okay - let's start by saying first off that I'm not against feminism, and I'm not against equality... just that to me, equality does not necessarily mean men and women doing exactly the same work, for the same financial reward... and feminism is not all about burning one's bra and being militant for women's rights. Women's rights, like anything else (including the rights of men) must be earned.

So... having established I'm anti-female-establishment... let me explain myself. Men and women are equally valuable in the male/female balance within life = equality. They may do different jobs - they may choose to live their lives in different ways to the traditional/expected, but each has their own worth in their own ways. Equality. Sure if Dan and Danielle have the same job in a firm, perform the same tasks, with the same level of competence and qualification, then of course they should be compensated fairly - equally. It would not be equal if Dan got a greater level of compensation simply because he does not have breasts and does not have to sit down to pee (unless he's really drunk and just can't handle standing). Equally it is not equal if the firm practises 'positive' discrimination and rewards Danielle more simply because she does, and can... and lets face it, since when has any discrimination been positive?

Standing up with a clear voice to speak for all that it means to be female = feminism. It is certainly not about putting men down. Nor is it about bitching and moaning about the inequality shown to women. It happens. It will always happen. Get over it. It happens the other way around too. Did you know that as a male, you cannot be a daycare teacher and be alone with chidren? You cannot sit a child on your lap, or put your arm around a child to comfort them if they are crying in class... accept a hug from a child who is simply happy to see you in the morning - most inappropriate - NOT! So... let's not heap the pot'o'blame on men. Rather, actually, the 'blame' is our own if we really want to blame anyone at all....

But... I somewhat digress...

When did it suddenly become 'uncool' to be a 'housewife' and mother... even a working one? I mean whether it's the woman or the man that does the home-making, and whether they work as well or not, when did there cease to be honour and value in what is an essential part of protecting and nurturing a family.

During the summer, and at other times when I am in NC, I spend my days engaged in those domestic activities. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, sewing sometimes, shopping for groceries... and I find it very empowering. I don't feel devalued or derided by it at all, no matter what society might think. Empowered by the knowledge that I'm keeping the home, looking after my guy... it might sound small, but there's great energy and life in that... at least for me.

I wonder if society realises how much it is stifling itself, it's own creativity in destroying this balance... The balance of male and female energies within each individual, as well as within couples - whether they be heterosexual or not.

Let us begin. Let us sing.
Singing of the small corn.
Singing of the Large corn.
Singing as the evening falls.
Singing as the light dawns.

The light dawns and finds us singing,
singing as the corn waves tassels at us.
The dark falls and finds us singing,
singing while the squash waves leaves at us.

The earth rumbles from the beating
of our basket drums.
The sky rumbles from the beating
of our basket drums.

The rain comes. The rain comes

--Pima rain-making song

When the weather thwarts our plans this summer, when weekends are rainy and evenings damp, let us recognize the rain's necessity and thank the goddess for her bounty. The lush green fields and full larders will be our rewards.

Elsewhere in the entry this talks about a balance of opposites being necessary for a healthy life - rest and activity, waking and sleeping, as well as sun and rain, and all of those things... it's a very overarching concept to me that was summed up in this meditation... that of 'disappointment' and how we behave when things don't quite go our way.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm a screaming haridan. I don't deal well with disappointment at all, on any level. I've admitted it here now, and here on several occasions in the past. I sulk like a child. I get sarcastic, I behave in a miserable way. At such times I'm horrible to be around... even when I try not to behave this way. There's a certain self-centredness embodied in this reaction and to check myself from behaving like the spoiled child that throws the teddy from the pram when things go wrong, there's a necessity to step away - outside of myself. To be self-less. I used to be much better at that than I am now, and I don't know what I've lost or what I feel I've had imposed on my that I obviously feel the need to protect sense of self...? I don't know, at this point I'm just letting my mind ramble down pathways towards answers.

So narrowing down to just the weather aspect of this, which is where it began - this summer, yes, I'm hoping for a balance of sun and rain... of all those things that are needed for a healthy world, but also in a way that does not scupper too many plans. Mir and I bought a tent to go camping and I'm very much looking forward to being able to use it - even if not a million miles away from our home... Campingpod One here we come!

On a different, but related note - I'm kind of a little bit worried about my preparedness for being back in England, even if only for a weekend. I have no raincoat - few things for colder weather at all as a matter of fact, and footwear is either trainers or flipflops, (albeit smart flipflops) - which might not be entirely appropriate for whilst wandering in some places. LOL How bizzare to move from the intellectual/spiritual considerations, to worries that are entirely practical.

Fresh as dew, our Perperia,
goddess of the plants and herbs,
washes all the land with rain:

Vines burst out in heavy blossom,
tree boughs groan with blushing fruit,
fields grow lush with ripening grain.

--Macedonian folksong

Even in winter the dark sky carries the bright stars above our protective atmosphere, and the moon sways the deep ocean's tides.

And Venus moves across the sun and makes soothing, though strange music...

No... I realise this is not at all what this post was supposed to be about, but after yesterday, and all the excitement of the Transit of Venus, it made me think about this - about the sights and sounds of the cosmos... about what Earth sounds like from far distant space. Of course these are questions that I can't really answer, being Earthbound here - but I got a taste of the possibility yesterday while listening to venus. I could have listened all night - it was bizarrely soothing.

It is pleasant, it is finally pleasant,
this world, this great world.

It is pleasant, it is finally pleasant,
this great world when the caribou come.

It is pleasant, it is finally pleasant,
this great world when it is summer at last.

--Eskimo summer song

No matter how difficult matters may seem, we can always find solace in awareness of the cyclical truth of all life.

As pagans this is something that is... almost overly emphasised in various aspects of our faith: the belief in reincarnation; the 'Wheel of the year' that governs the festivals and the march of the seasons; the law of return - the whole notion of kharma... what goes around comes around; the cycle of the moon as she waxes and wanes.

All of these things, an more, manifest themselves in our hearts, even when we do not truly or fully understand them or their full implications. Does it make us better people or better pagans to remember these things so to adjust the way we touch the world as acccording to these cycles? I don't necessarily think that it does.

Thinking about all of these things in the light of some discussions that have been floating around on Facebook recently, about extremists of any religion... I come to the conclusion that, depending on motivation, it is just as easy to become a radical pagan - or an evangelical pagan - just as it is for any other religion.

Okay, I will accept that living by the understandings and the tennets of one faith doesn't necessarily make you into a fundamentalist Christian, or an Islamic extremist, or an evangeical pagan... or whatever faith you call your own, there has to be that extra step, the idea of pushing what you believe onto others, and to me that means not necessarily standing there and trying to 'convert' people, but it also mean being open and vocal about what you believe without invitation.

Many of us jest sometimes, with phrases like "I might have been really bad in a former life..." when something goes wrong or whatever. Me, I try not to make comments like that, partly because I don't think they're funny, partly because it is like abrogating responsibility for something difficult that is happening in your life, but mosty because, to me, it draws attention to (evangalises) that particular pagan tennet. I realise also that it's a fine line.

So... yesterday I found myself getting... defensive and annoyed on behalf of Muslims, who yet again are being tarred and feathered with the same brush because of the loud voices of their extremists - with the voices of their prejudice and bigotted patriarchs - who have probably, and very sadly, irrevocably damaged Islam worldwide.

Who among us outside of Islam have actually read, and interpretted for ourselves, and without prejudice, the words written in the Koran. (Q'ran, however you wish to spell that particular holy book). Similarly though who among us outside of Christianity have read the bible and done the same? I must confess to having read neither from beginning to end... but then again, nor have I read other holy books and writings.

Perhaps we all should before we judge a religion - or a faith - by the loudest, and not always best, voices.

May earth, goddess of all creation,
mother of all that is and will be,
may she give us a great land.

May earth, with her mountains and plains,
her slopes and her peaks, may she open
herself to our needs.

May earth, with her rivers and waters,
may she give us enough to drink.
May she pour herself upon us.

--Hindu hymn to goddess of earth, Atharva Veda

Today, too, clearly articulating needs is the first step toward having them met. yes the expression of such needs is often me with reproach.

My greatest needs are emotional ones - right now at least. The need to feel valued, the need to feel validated and the need to feel needed and loved.

For the most part, those needs are met in that my wonderful guy gives all of these to me, and more... even when I don't express them. But frustrations, both those that I suffer from, and those of others, sometimes even my guy, can from time to time lead me not to feel such things. Lately I've been strugging with feelings of worthlessness.

On reflection I think a lot of it is tiredness. The end of a long school year with so much still to do that I'm falling behind on everything else that I want to be doing. But the argument goes that: should it really be something that I want to be doing I'd just go and do it. I would make time... put aside other things in order to have that time for things I want to do. After all I have so many hours after school in which to read, to write, to type up the notes from my daily meditations which I have at least managed to continue with - and notes for which I have many days worth of writing. The fact of the matter is that I'm bringing so much work home, assessments to mark, class work to mark, lessons to plan. Allowing the fact that I don't go out anywhere after school - or rarely anyway - to completely scew my work/life balance. There is no balance. I'm not alone in this.

So... no, the workload from work has not eased at all, but I have decided that enough is enough. Where did this come from? Two people, both very dear to my heart. First, (though someone Indirectly), from my wonderful guy... and secondly from my still tenuous, but growing connection with My Lady. My own needs, combined with those of my guys led me to partition the Lady for help in getting off my overworked hands and putting those hands to work in catching up with the things I want to do.

The answer came in somewhat of a surprising form... in a dream... (that's not the surprising bit - quite common actually)... it was a dream in which I was in an office in school, arguing with the head teacher, and the owner of the school. They were arguing with me about loyalty, and I was standing up to them and telling them that no matter how hard I work for them my first loyalty is to my family - to my husband, and the life we have together, the things we do and share, and then second to the families of the school. That nothing that they could say would change that, because that was the way it was, and should be. It was a very unsettling dream, but also in a way very empowering.

The upshot of it all is that yes - if these things are important to me, which they are, then I will adjust the balance of work, and my own things to so that I don't keep constantly flailing, and failing to do the things I want to do, and have said I am going to do.

Perhaps then I will learn to validate and love myself again (I don't like myself very much right now), and feeling it from myself might help me to feel it period.

Mother of divinity,
face of infinity,
shine forth upon me.

Shine forth upon my prayer,
you who makes all things fair.
shine forth upon me.

Make me a fertile field.
Let all my projects yield.
Shine forth upon me.

Give me this dawn's rewards
Knnow you are well adored.
Shine forth upon me.

--Invocation from the Indian Rig Veda

Even as we acknowledge the incomprehensibility of life, the goddess provokes us to attempt to understand.

There are some things that defy explanation. Like is rich and varied, sure, and each new experience we have teaches us something; makes us a stronger person; gives us a perspective that we didn't have before. I know there must be dark to appreciate light, and I know that the act of making light casts a shadow... there must be balance in all things, but what do we do when everything seems completely out of balance?

Violence, poverty, disease, protest, corruption... and that's just here. Each one I'm sure is a syptom of the others, and until balance is restored somewhere, somehow, how can anything get better?

I'm keeping this deliberately short today... trying not to say anything any more negative than I already have.

Little May Rose,
turn around, turn around!
Little May Rose,
We watch you turn round!

Rose of the May,
come away, come away,
Rose of the May,
to the woods, come away.

How merry we are,
as the season closes,
how marry we go
from May to the roses.

--Alsacian folksong of spring

We can either mourn constantly for our losses, or praise the goddess for the brief beauties that flower in our lives.

Before I start - may I express my absolute annoyance at this whole "Star Wars Day" thing that everyone has going on today. I mean, I suppose I should be happy that something as Pop-culture in a sci-fi sort of way has caught on the way the whole May the fourth be with you thing has... but, p-lease... it was funny once upon a time... Not so funny now.

Then again... isn't this, in a bizzare sort of way exactly what today's meditation is about? The choice between mourning something (viewing something negatively) and celebrating the positive in it? Given the choice between two outlooks, is your cup half full, or half empty?

For the longest time.. far too long, I was looking at everything from the bottom of a half empty cup. It coloured everything I said and did, and I ended up dragging everything and everyone down into the depths with me. It was pointed out to me, none too gently, and yet with love, that this was what I was doing. I thought about it. I cried about it. and then I did something about it.

I try to be more positive now... and I recognise that I don't always manage that. Sometimes the stresses are very much and I succumb. But I have found, on the whole that keeping the cup half full works for me most of the time. It keeps the energy higher, the spirits up, and gives me a different perspective on many thing. It also makes me a kinder person... more compassionate, more patient...

Except, I have found an interesting thing, that is true in many other situations (like with ex-smokers), and that is that I find myself less tollerant with people who are 'negative' or 'moaning' or such. Sure I try to be supportive of their woes, but when they rejects my attempt at giving them an out - a positive spin - a way to see past what worries them etc, they reject the attempt and continue to batter all and sundry with their negativity - and it makes me ashamed that I also used to be that way.

Summer! Summer! The cow's mild milk
and the goddess with summer within her,
and the yellow summer, and the white daisies,
and the goddess with summer within her.

--Irish May Day song

No longer the maiden, she is now the blooming young mother, giving birth to her innumerable children.

No longer the maiden...

Maiden, Mother, crone... White, Red, Black.. Green, Gold, White...

I remember, a time ago now, when there was great debate among the pagan communities and circles in which I moved, about which were the appropriate colours to represent the goddess in her various aspects. Those that argued against white for the maiden claimed that it supported the Christian view of a maiden as a pure (as in virginal) state of being, rather than an independent young woman, who is nubile and fertile, as seen in the green of the GGW crowd. It was a debate that raged at many meetings, sometimes literally... and looking back was really quite funny and worrying, both at the same time.

Funny, because, well... what a thing to worry about - you as a practitioner, use whatever colours work for you no matter what the reason. You use whatever speaks to your heart. And worrying because, well, if we get bogged down arguing about such things and trying to impose our will (of colours) on others, does that not paint us with the same brush as other religions whose 'one way' is the 'only/right way'?

For me, I have used (and sometimes still do use) both. I was taugt to use White, Red, Black, because... well that's what I was taught and I was young enough in the Craefte not to know anything to use as an alternative. Then I was introduced to the idea or Green, Gold, White... and I liked it... it worked for me. It spoke to my heart, because of my association with the goddess' fouth face. I figured if I was going to have a colour for the three main aspects of the goddess, then I wanted one for the Fourth Face of the Lady also... for which I chose Midnight Blue.

I can almost hear people asking, why not black... black would seem appropriate - the dark of the moon, when we cannot see her face but feel her influence in our blood, and bodies... Mistress of Magic. For me, black is absence... absence of light... it is empty (in spite of being what you get if you mix all pigments together), and the Lady is never that. But there is a certain darkness - a mystery - like the sky at Midnight that draws us to the Lady in her Fourth Aspect... and that is why I chose the Midnight Blue.

As I always have, I took what spoke, and speaks to the wisom inside my heart, and used what feels right as my signs and symbols. It is, I believe, called eclecticism... and I'm nothing if not eclectic.

There is a small black bee, which is my mind.
There is a blue lotus flower, which is the goddess.
Watch the bee fly straight into the flower!

The goddess' feet are black, just like the bee.
Black is joined to black! Mind to greater mind!
The bee finds tasteless any other flower.

This much I can apprehend. But here my senses
fail. I can see nothing more. She is such mystery!
Thinking of her, I dive into the sea of bliss!

--Indian poet Ramakrishna, to the goddess Kali

Seeking to think one's way to the goddess is like trying to walk to the moon. It cannot be done. But we can reach her nonetheless, transported by our inner wisdom.

For a moment, I must confess, I worried when I read this entry in preparation for today's meditations. My thinking began something like this: Isn't that exactly what I'm doing? Trying to think my way to the goddess?

After a long time of soul searching - of meditation on my meditations, I think I reached a sense of peace that no, this isn't what I'm trying to do. What I am trying to do is to find myself and to find a way to express my thoughts and feelings on the various aspects of the goddess, thoughts and feelings that I already carry inside of my heart and my head, and need to express to better understand.

They do say that by explaining something to someone else, you come to understand things better. This then is what I am trying to do - to express and understand my inner wisdom.

He laid his hands upon me, my shepherd.
He stroked my curly hair.
He poured himself like milk on me.
He filled me with his cream.

Now I caress him back, my shepherd.
Now I caress his curly hair.
Now I caress my faithful one.
Now I grant him a happy future.

--Hymn to Inanna, 2000 BCE

The literature of the goddess can do much to restore the sense of sexuality's true sacredness.

You see, this is something that I have always believed... in the sacred nature of sex and sexuality. For me that kind of interaction, that kind of relationship with another human being has always held a spiritual dimension that makes it holy or special, that makes it more than just the lust enacted between two physical bodies.

For me it is a connection between me and the divine self within me... and within that of my beloved also. I don't think anyone has ever managed to convince me otherwise than this.

That's not to say it needs must always be something with great solemnity and ritual... far from it... for all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. So says the Goddess in the Charge, but that, at the heart of it - at the core, two people sharing together the kinds of connections that such a thing brings - that's something special.

Casual sex is, to me, an oxymoron.

It therefore troubles me somewhat the number of people who throw themselves into that kind of relationship without thought to their kharma, their spiritual connections, their ongoing journey. There is little that can link two souls like the joining of two bodies: give birth to someone, take someone's life, give yourself to another physically.

Of course this makes sexual violence against women and men into a much more serious violation in my eyes... because it becomes not a physical crime, but also a spiritual one, and that's a pretty big jump in many people's opinions... since so many people live just making a division between the two. I cannot.