Enough for now

I hit a wall last night. We’re just a bit past the ten-month mark in the pandemic, and I have been weathering the storm reasonably well — sure, there have been up-moments and down-moments, but overall I’ve been riding the wave, keeping my chin up, whatever metaphor you like.

Over the past week or so, though, it’s all started to weigh on me much more than usual. A couple days ago, in a meeting that was about my professional future, I told the friend and colleague I was meeting with that at the moment all I wanted to do was crawl into the woods and be a hermit, leave every last thing behind. I’ve been keeping busy since March with work, with making music, with organizing the work of Three Cranes Grove, with trying to be a strong pillar for everyone I come into contact with. It’s what I do. But eventually the steam runs out; the wave crests; the pillar fractures from repeated blows.

Rehearsals with my beloved chorus start again on Sunday, and I dread them.

Some workdays I write three emails and otherwise I scroll Facebook and play games on my phone, and I call it good enough.

My altar goes untended, except when scheduled ritual comes around and duty calls.

The festival of Imbolc — one of my favorites, a warm, glowing jewel in the heart of winter — is in a week, and I don’t really care.

I’ve known more people in the past month who’ve been sick with COVID, who have died of COVID, than in the nine months before.

And yet also, I’m so exhausted from worrying about the virus, so tired of taking precautions and weighing risk, that I neither feel like I have any good instincts anymore, nor care to.

I finally broke down last night and just sobbed, barely able to get a word out. I wish I could say that I immediately felt better, that there was a release and a lightness. I did feel better, but it wasn’t the lightness of healing; it was the lancing of a boil, the quick gush of pain spilling out. The only lightness I felt was emptiness.

But I went to bed, and I slept well for once. I woke in the pre-dawn, hours and hours before I’ve been tardily dragging myself out of bed for the past few weeks, made coffee, read. And at a chapter break, I glanced up and realized the first light was breaking over the land. I stood outside in the freezing chill and words of praise poured out of me — not fine poetry, just a rush of emotion.

Bright star of morning, arise in my heart
Bright star of dawning, fill me with light
Bright sun of earth’s light, warm me, inspire me
Bright star of morning, arise in my heart

This isn’t an easy “it gets better” post; you don’t have to simply open your soul to the beauty of the world and you’ll be healed of pain and doubt. That’s utter tripe. I’m still tired, and sad, and apathetic, and overwhelmed, and I still want to crawl into the woods and leave all of this behind. But the sun came up, and I saw it, and it gave me a feeling that wasn’t despair for a bit, and that was enough for right now.

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The Autumn Equinox: beginning, and beginning, and beginning

Three Cranes Grove celebrates the Autumn Equinox in about 5 hours. I should be doing ritual prep right now — gathering music stands, printing programs, preparing offerings, doing some final cooking for the potluck — but I find myself sitting here, instead, thinking about the Equinox and the Wheel of the Year. Blogger problems, I suppose. But it’s exciting to get think about the feastday, because it kicks off a whole series of rebirths and beginnings.

When in doubt, make offerings: orthopraxy as guiding force

Three Cranes Grove celebrated the festival of Imbolc this past Sunday, and it was a hard one for me: essentially, I wasn’t in the ‘right’ headspace. I’d had a nonstop week leading up to it, I’d agreed last-minute to take on more parts in the ritual than I’d anticipated, I had nine hours of choral rehearsal scheduled around the rite, Jarod and I had spent the night with our godson after his mom gave birth — which to be utterly clear, was a joyous duty we were happy to take on, but was just one more thing in a very busy timeframe — and overlaying it all was a pervasive sense of fear and despair surrounding the Trump administration’s activities. I was pretty frazzled. I went to Imbolc out of a sense of obligation, rather than desire. And so, as I posted on Facebook that evening, I was amazed to discover after the fact that even the memory of the rite was deeply moving and grounding. I ended up exploring the issue of why and how my meta-experience shifted throughout the course of ritual with a friend, a graduate student in Old Testament archeology, and in the process of explaining religiocultural differences while also trying to draw parallels to his Evangelical Christianity, I came to a better understanding of the ways orthopraxy functions for me as a member of ADF and as a ritual practitioner. 

Imbolc: life against all odds

Yesterday, Three Cranes Grove gathered to celebrate the feast of Imbolc, the time of the first signs of spring. We sang the praises of Brigid, goddess of the fires of healing, hearth, and creativity; we lit nineteen candles surrounding the Well, each representing a line from a praise-poem that accompanied the lighting; we reblessed a healing blanket that passes around the Grove. My friend Meg was there, with her son C, who also happens to be my godson. C is just shy of a year old, excited and curious about everything he sees. I was filled with joy to be able to introduce him to my way of honoring the Divine, and he went with me to give offerings to the Kindred and to sing a hymn of praise to Brigid. (Pro-tip: barley in a small plastic container turns out to be an excellent rattle, and I’m certain the Kindred didn’t mind exchanging some of their physical offering for the happiness of a child.) He is so full of innocent life, and I look forward to watching the springtime of his life as he grows and learns. This is Imbolc.