So what do I do about Christmas?

Note: This post is entirely my venting and working out some issues. If you have a low tolerance for TMI, feel free to not read it.



Chanukah (todays spelling) is over less than a week. I sat with the Fire and the Dark on the Solstice just 2 nights ago. My older daughter took her final final for the semester today. My younger daughter is just getting over some really obnoxious, but not flu, virus. DH seems to have now come down with said obnoxious not-flu and stayed home from work, to drink tea and rest. So what did I do today?



I wrapped and labeled presents (and fretted over the ones that have not yet arrived). I wrote out the menu for the Christmas dinner for Friday, with the steps needed for each dish, so I would know what order and how far from eating time each step should be started. I cleaned. I did some of the cooking. I braved the supermarket and the liqueur store. I figured out the baking schedule. What we will eat the morning of, and what we will eat the night before (the night before will most likely be pizza).



Why? The holiday means nothing to me. I am hereditarily and culturally Jewish. So, how did this come to pass?



Because I wanted to see my husband smile.



When you are young and not really settled, the holidays belong to the parents. Because my family is Jewish and DH's is various flavors of Christian, dividing the holidays between the families was never a problem (well, Thanksgiving was an issue, but we worked it out). Christmas and Easter with his mother, Passover and Chanukah with my father. We just needed to show up (hmm, it was always more complicated than that, this is the approved sepia toned memory...). Then DH, new at a job, had to work both the day of Christmas Eve and Christmas day, leaving no opportunity for us to make the 2 hour drive to his mothers house. He was upset. His mother, trying to console him and make him feel better (I will believe that, I will believe that), didn't exactly choose the best phrases and managed to make DH feel even worse.



I decided that I would make Christmas for him. I ordered a tree. Yes, you read that correctly. Knowing absolutely nothing about any of this, I called the local florist and ordered a Christmas tree to be delivered. With a stand. Up three flights of turning staircases in an old Victorian house. I should have tipped that kid enough to pay for his college education. I ran out to the local drugstore and bought whatever ornaments they had on clearance (by this point, it was late afternoon on Christmas eve). And I threaded and hung the ornaments with sewing thread. I put my present for him under the tree, and I waited for him to come home from work.



When he finally did come home and saw the tree, he was struck speechless (those of you who know DH can understand how surprised he was, for those of you who don't know him, take my word on it, being struck speechless probably happens to him once a century or so). It really made him happy. So the whole project made me happy, too. And while DH was at work on Christmas day, my father and I created an English Victorian feast, by using the book "A Christmas Carol" as our template. When DH got home, we ate and drank and celebrated (he and I, my father and his current girlfriend) for hours. It was truly an amazing meal and an amazing evening.



I didn't realize that a one time event would become tradition.



I am no longer responsible for getting the tree (Thank the Gods!). But somehow, over the years the responsibility for gifts has become mine. The gifts for his mother and brother and brother's family. The gifts from his mother to him, our daughters, and to me. Gifts to our daughters from us. From me, to him. I did manage to draw the line at buying myself a gift from DH. The cooking, the baking, the planning is mine to do.



I am very tempted not to. (except that it is too late to not do it, this year.)



What stops me? Two things; once, when the girls were little around ages 2 and 5, I decided that having a garden was just more than I could handle that year. So for the first time since we bought the house, I didn't buy garden seeds or seedlings and I didn't garden. I didn't notice any free time. I did feel a hole in my life for more than a season, though. I didn't miss doing the work (for those of you without children, having a 2 year old and a 5 year old is more work than 1 person should handle anyway), I missed having the garden. I missed it enough that I welcomed the work the next year, and every year since. Will I miss the "event" of our household holiday, even as I don't miss the work that it entails? (even if, as with gardens all the work in the world can't guarantee success and happiness?)



The second thing that stops me is the memory of my husband, speechless with surprise and pleasure.



The presents are ordered, mostly here (still waiting for one item that I didn't realize needed to come from India) wrapped and labeled. The food and drink purchased and somewhat prepped. Dining room returned to its designated use from sewing/craft room. I am exhausted and cranky.

I can't expect surprise, but pleasure and happiness would be appreciated (and so would appreciation).

Blessed Solstice and Return of the Light

What is the Solstice? Astronomically (and in this case, also astrologically), it is the moment when the sun enters the constellation and sign of Capricorn, the furthest south on its journey. (yes, yes, I know, the sun doesn't move, it is a question of appearing to move. Excuse me, while I put the earth and its inhabitants in the center of creation for a moment). The solstice marks the shortest day (in the northern hemisphere), and therefor, the longest night. This year, for the East Coast of the United States, the moment of Solstice was at 12:48 pm. Pretty much right in the middle of the day. As a result, the nights on either side were of the same length; 14 hour and 47 minutes from sunset to sunrise.

Thinking it through, I decided that it made more sense to celebrate the maximum dark and encourage the return of light and warmth on the second of the two long nights; it is only after the second one that the days will begin their increase. But that also means a Monday night, a weeknight, a work night, and since the Solstice is one of several holidays observed, a busy time indeed. I am a firm believer in observing the astronomically based holidays at the right time, not when it is convenient, so Monday night it is.

I came home from a morning appointment with a client and swept out the fireplace and hearth. Laid in the logs for a good fire, and set matches and "help" near at hand. At the center of the grate, I place the charcoal that had been left from last years Solstice fire. I filled the wood box on the porch. Then I spent the next hour or so getting other responsibilities and chores out of the way, so when night falls, I won't be busy and distracted.

At the moment of the Solstice (Verizon time), I lit the fire. It has been blazing merrily for more than three hours, and the sun has begun to set. I will have time to go out to the woodpile once more before it gets dark, but there is plenty of wood stacked on the porch. Sitting by the fire with the long dark outside, I will contemplate, think upon and remember all those who came before me. All those who set fires and lit candles and created beacons in the dark and cold, so that light and warmth could be found.

Love, and blessings to all of you. If you are without light and warmth, may my fire be as a beacon. And for those of you who have found your light, and source of warmth, may my fire help feed yours.

See you all on the light side!

You will just have to take my word for it, but I've been busy.

About a year ago, maybe a little longer, my pizza cutter went missing. We had pizza for dinner, and I went to the drawer where I keep my cutting tools, and the pizza wheel wasn't there. Over the next week, I searched for it everywhere, figuring that it had just gotten put away in the wrong place. Finally, I decided that it must have gotten left in a pizza delivery box and had gotten thrown away by accident. I never got around to buying another pizza cutter.



Three weeks ago was the start of the season for the variety of apples that I like best for making pies (Greenings, for those who are curious). I went to our local apple farm (the one that grows the heirloom varieties) and brought home a 1/2 bushel of fruit to make into pies. Getting ready to bake, I reached into the drawer where I keep my cutting tools for my "approved by the Amish" apple peeler/corer device. Which was not in the drawer. This is a huge and bulky rotary tool, with a handle that gets stuck every time you open and close the drawer. It was there every time I looked for the pizza cutter, or reached for a knife. It wasn't there now. The pizza cutter was.



I came to the conclusion that we have pictses, or faeries, or borrowers. I haven't actually seen them, so I don't know which. But I guessed they were tired of pizza and wanted some fresh fruit. I used a knife to prepare the apples for the pies. Since I have some truly lovely knives, it wasn't that great a hardship.



But now, they've taken my camera! This is simply not acceptable. And this is why I have no pictures of my projects to accompany this post. Any suggestions on how to ransom my camera back would be appreciated.



I've actually gotten a lot done in the last few days. The most recent batch of incense is finished and packed. I love the scent of saffron. It is rich and heady and intoxicating. I don't use the last word lightly. According to Christian Ratsch in the Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants;

in low dosages, it excites, cheers, and produces laughter ... The psychoactive effects of saffron have been occasionally described as "spasms of laughter" and "delirium" (Vonarburg 1995, 76); "in its effects, saffron comes close to opium."

Culpeper extols saffron for use in "hysteric depressions" but warns;

However, the use of it ought to be moderate and reasonable; for when the dose is too large, it produces a heaviness of the head and sleepiness; some have fallen into an immoderate convulsive laughter, which ended in death.

I cannot imagine how much saffron one must ingest or inhale for such an effect!



Tonight, I also started work on the last tincture of my planetary tincture project. Rose, for Venus in Libra. The roses were homegrown and dried. Since I used no fixative while drying them, they lost nearly all of their color. But when I started crushing the petals, the scent was true and strong, sweet and amazing. When I added the Everclear to the jar, there was almost no color transfer to the liquid. Almost. The liquid did take on the barest tinge of gold and seemed to magnify the rose petals beyond what I would have expected from the refraction of glass and liquid. I am thinking that this is going to be a wonderful finish to the project. I will know in a month or two.



What else, what else?



Baked bread (challah) and started some rye bread (that is a two day project all by itself). Read a novel (Terry Pratchetts "Unseen Academicals"), made a skirt. All in the last two days, all in addition to all the other stuff that somehow gets done.



I may borrow a camera to take pictures of the skirt.



(If you are interested in the saffron incense, and you didn't arrive here via Mrs. B.'s blog, click on the 31 Days of Halloween button. On Saturday October 17, a tube of my incense will be among the giveaways you can try to win. If you did arrive via Mrs. B., Welcome!)

So This Is How Sleeping Beauty Felt

This weekend I woke up. I mean, I really woke up. It wasn't until I realized just how awake I was that I realized how "unawake" I had been for the previous 3 months. Everything had felt very airy and diffuse, and in conversation with another blogger we both agreed that it had been a bad summer for concentrating.

Summer has never really been my favorite season, but without a "true" summer this year, here in NW New Jersey, something in my interior didn't get what it needed. Call it basking like a lizard. Or dozing in the sun. There were none of those afternoons of feeling my edges and perimeters melt into the surrounding atmosphere as I lay still in the grass, eyes closed, breathing slowed, while absorbing and being absorbed by the greater existence.

And then, there was the moon tincture. Certainly a sense of sleepwalking and dream state could have come from that project. And that would also explain why those times that I did feel fully awake and participating in my existence happened while at the Renaissance Faire, in garb and in my "rennfaire" persona. Dream world, dream persona, dream existence, a total Luna experience.

As I mentioned in a previous blogpost, I got the day of this Full Moon wrong. I went out the next night, that of the actual Full Moon. Rain or shine, I go out for a moon ritual ever Full and every Dark/New Moon, no excuses. All though 2009, the weather has been variable for the Dark/New Moons. Some months the sky is clear and the stars dizzying in their plenitude. And sometimes the weather has been overcast, or rainy, or snowy. But dark is dark.

Since January, the Full Moon has been dark, too (DH, when telling you about this, I mentioned March, I went back over my notes tonight). The weather has been cloudy or rainy every single month on the night of the Full Moon this year-until this one. Not only did I know She was there, I was able to bathe in her visible light, and I came inside, afterwards, floating, totally conscious and feeling recovered from the cold that I had been suffering from. (10 minutes after I came inside, there was a clap of thunder and the rains came pouring down, but that was afterwards).

This is where the awakening started.

It is autumn, the start of the year. We have had Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We have had the Autumnal Equinox, that moment of balance, before the spiraling inward, before the thinning of the Vail. I have finally danced in the moonlight. We went "college shopping" with our daughter, so that the next period of her life can start. Next week, we have the unveiling of my grandmothers tombstone, marking the official end of the mourning period.

The funny thing about sleepwalking is that the sleepwalker isn't aware that that is what she is doing. And now that I am awake, I look around my house and marvel at how much it resembles a home abandoned, and how much my yard looks like it has been covered with 100 years of protective brambles. There are several overdue projects that I must finish. But now I feel as if I can deal with the house, deal with the gardens, finish my projects. Even more importantly, start new projects. There is a line in "Wee Free Men" about opening your eyes, and then opening them again. You can't live like that all the time, but you can try to remember what it feels like. Awakeness happens, life commences.

Chatty Planets

Last week saw the Solstice, Fathers Day and the New Moon, and while the Solstice might be Mid-Summer in the Celtic lands on the other side of the Atlantic, here in the North East of the United States, it is the start of the summer season. Life is slowing down, even as it is burgeoning. The summer gardens are delayed, because of all the cool weather and rain we've had, but the lavender is busy with bees, and nearly ready for harvest.

The week also saw completion in the making of the Mercury tincture. The salts were intensely fine grained, like sanding sugar and had no apparent pattern in the pan where they were formed. They scraped into a fine powder, without adhering to the glass, and were moved easily (eagerly?) into the menstruum. This Wednesday I will use the tincture for the first time. Four completed, three to go.

The Mars tincture had (and has) an amazing "You need Me" sense to it. The Mercury tincture has been very communicative almost from the moment it was first jarred. It told me when any step was finished and it was time to move on. Monday night, after the New Moon in Cancer, during the Lunar hour, I started work on the Moon tincture. Camphor. And again, I got a very clear message. This one was: Don't Touch Me.

Saps and distillates from Camphor can be poisonous, but I am working with the leaves. It was the leaves that were basically saying "hands off." They did not want to be ground, or mashed or torn or cut up, but once I acquiesced and started placing the whole leaves in the jar, the atmosphere lightened somewhat. I suspect at this point, that this will be a tincture of Artemis (and not She of Ephesus), of Circe, of Medea, rather than any of the more "generous" full Moon deities. Time will tell.

So, strong messages from Moon, Mars and Mercury, but not from Jupiter or Saturn. My first thought with Mars was that I really needed the Mars energy to balance out my sphere. And then, well, what else could you expect from the planet of the Messenger but conversation? I supposed it could be argued that I have been working with the Moon for so long, that Of Course, She would come through loud and clear. But when you add all that to the lack of any specific message from either Jupiter or Saturn, I think something else comes into play. The further out planets, and their specific energies just do not relate as easily to day to day humanity. Bigger, further away and slower (from our point of view) our issues just may not be seen in the same way to their spirits as the spirits of the planets that we are more intimate with.

On the other hand, it is possible that as I go along, I just get better at what I am doing. That with each tincture, I find it easier to attune myself earlier in the project. It that is the case, then the Venus project should prove very interesting indeed.

Mondays Full Moon

(I have made four attempts at writing a post about the Full Moon this past Monday. I've tossed each one in the trash in total disgust. So, here are the bare bones, short hand, notes)

There was a full moon in Pisces this past Monday morning (5:13 am, here on the East Coast). It was the first of the harvest moons and ushered in the start of the season of the new year. This may sound a bit counter-intuitive, harvest and new year, but I come out of several traditions that start the day at sundown, so why not start the year at harvest? Next Monday is the Autumnal Equinox, and the Monday following that is the New Moon. Two weeks after that will be the second Harvest Moon and the culmination (for me, at least) of the start of the year. (Of course, I will also celebrate the start of the calendar year on January 1, and the start of the solar year, when the sun enters Aries-I like to celebrate)

This first harvest moon is one of my favorites. School has started, which means that I can go into the circle before the middle of the night, and know that the neighborhood will be quiet. It is cool enough to discourage the insects, while still allowing me to go barefoot, without courting frostbite. I can feel the somnambulism of the summer ending, and with the cool evenings and mornings, I really do feel as if I am waking up from a long nap. Between this moon and the equinox, I can feel my enthusiasm and energy growing for the projects to come. But I will wait, and let the energy grow.

(Somehow, I've written nothing about this specific full moon ritual. I'm just having a very hard time getting it into words. Perhaps, I will try again, another day.)

An Essay

The following essay was, indirectly, the cause for my starting this blog. The essay was intended to be part of an e-zine, but wasn't long enough. After thinking it over, I decided that I wasn't going to lengthen it; I've read far too many articles, essays and books that seemed to be written for maximum word count, rather than maximum effect. However, I guess I must have written my few words well. The editor of the ezine referred to my essay when announcing her decision to revamp the publication schedule. The problem? In her announcement, she mentioned someone else as the author. Now, I know the editor was far over-scheduled and under slept, and she did apologize for the error, and did so publicly, so I have no quarrel with her at all. But it was, and will be, her first email, with the incorrect author listed that people will remember and refer to, as that was the email that contained the new publication schedule. While it is heartening to know that I can have an effect on people, I would dearly love positive public acknowledgement from the universe, as well. And so, the blog goes public.

THE CALENDAR AND THE CROSS QUARTER DAYS


It is October 31st, Samhain on the Wheel of the Year and Halloween on the calendar and all good NeoPagans, Witches, Wizards and Mages have demanded the day off from work for religious reasons, right? Well, forgive me for not joining this bandwagon, but Samhain is not Halloween and it is certainly not the night of October 31, day of November 1, at least, not this year.

Samhain is a cross quarter day, as are Imbolc, Beltane and Lammas. Which begs the question-what is a cross quarter day?

Picture a circle, now quarter it, with a line running up and down through the center of the circle, and an intersecting line perpendicular to the first. The ends of the lines will be at the cardinal points. The top point is the Winter Solstice. This solstice occurs when the sun enters zero degrees Capricorn. Moving clockwise around the circle, the next quarter is marked by the Spring Equinox (the sun at zero degrees Aries), then the Summer Solstice (zero degrees Cancer) and finally the Autumnal Equinox, with the sun at zero degrees Libra. (all cardinal signs, imagine that!)*

To get the remaining holidays (holy days or days of power, if you aren’t particularly religious), we quarter the circle again, drawing our lines so that they precisely halve our previously drawn segments. This gives us lines at the points where the sun would be at (again, moving clockwise) 15 degrees Aquarius (Imbolc), 15 degrees Taurus (Beltane), 15 degrees Leo (Lammas) and Ta Daa! 15 degrees Scorpio for Samhain.

If we don’t expect the equinoxes and solstices to be on the same dates on our human designed calendars every year, how is it that Samhain has gotten “fixed” at October 31/November 1 and Beltane at May 1? In 2007, the sun was at 15 degrees Taurus on May 6th, not May 1st, and 15 degrees Scorpio is November 8th, not November 1. For this, we can thank the Catholic Church, with its propensity for absorbing indigenous holidays and its long role (in Europe, at least) as the keeper of records and calendars.

There wasn’t much the Church could do about the Solstices or the Equinoxes, sunlight waxes and wanes without regard to the number or name assigned to the day. And while much of what was once pre-Christian Yule has been absorbed into the observation and celebration of Christmas, no one is going to argue that the Winter Solstice will occur on December 25th of this year (in 2007, the Winter Solstice will be on December 22 in Europe and the eastern half of the US. West of the central time zone, the solstice will be late on December 21).

The holiday known by its Celtic name as Samhain, morphed into All Saints Day, with the Vigil of All Hallows Eve during the tenure of Gregory III as Pope (731-741 ce). Outside of the cathedrals and basilicas, however, local traditions survived, but with the dependence on the church for calendar keeping, the folkways attached themselves to the church recognized date. And gradually, All Hallows Eve became Halloween.

In a similar manner, Beltane and its Maypole became the Church holy day of the Roodmas and its Roman Cross.

So what will I be doing the night of October 31? With joy I my heart, and a huge amount of refined sugar in my cauldron, I will participate in that great American costume and candy spree known as Halloween. And the night of November 7th, come full dark? That, my friends, is the eve of the Cross Quarter Day, (whether one celebrates it as Samhain or not), and I have a date with my scrying tools.

For the purpose of this article, I have the Tropical Zodiac, rather
than the Sidereal or Vedic. The Tropical Zodiac, historically, has
been in more common use in the West and, as it tracks the stars
from the vantage point of the Earth, seemed more appropriate to
an article on holidays and earthly occurrences. However, there
would still a disconnect between dates on the common calendar
and the positioning of the sun in the signs of the Sidereal Zodiac,
so the point remains valid.

Sabbat Dates courtesy of the website archaeoastronomy.com:
(these dates are the “eve’s” of the holidays)

2007
Imbolc: February 3 central time zone and west. February 4 eastern time zone and east
Vernal Equinox: March 20-US March 21 Europe
Beltane: May 5
Summer Solstice: June 21
Lammas: August 7
Autumnal Equinox: September 23 (except Hawaii-September 22)
Samhain: November 7
Winter Soltice: December 21 western US. December 22 central time zone and east


2008
Imbolc: February 4
Vernal Equinox: March 19, western US. March 20 Central Time zone and east
Beltane: May 4 US. May 5 for Europe and Canada on Atlantic Time
Summer Solstice: June 20 US. June 21 for Europe
Lammas: August 6 US. August 7 for Europe and Canada on Atlantic Time
Autumnal Equinox: September 22
Samhain: November 6 US. November 7 for Europe
Winter Soltice: December 21

References: The Catholic Encyclopedia at www.newadvent.org
archaeoastronomy.com
Dates within the article are courtesy of Lunabar. http://lunabar.org



*We are drawing a Wheel of the Year, not the zodiac. The zodiac would be drawn counter-clockwise.




Lavana