Pagan Mom

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Whew, went offline for a while there. Apparently I didn’t pay attention to when I expired. LOL

Yesterday and today is when a lot of people are celebrating the First Harvest, or Lughnasad/Lammas. We’re more lunar in celebrations so we celebrate on the 17th, the full moon in Leo. Which also happens to be a lunar eclipse, so we’re pretty excited. Interestingly enough on the first, when most Pagans celebrate there was a solar eclipse. I can’t help but think there’s something more to that than just astronomy.

We’re planning to celebrate by weaving tall grasses into Goddess figures for the altar and making bread. And, of course, lots of time enjoying nature and talking about the harvest and what it means. I wish our garden had done well so that we would be able to harvest some fresh foods to eat, but that’s not the way it’s going to happen this year. Still I’ve got a recipe for Ratatoulle, which I’ve never made before, that we’re going to try to make.

“Look mom! A Unicorn!”

A cute little deer born inside a nature preserve in Tuscany apparently has a single horn growing from the center of it’s head.  Needless to say a lot of people are flocking to see the sweet babe. I have heard everything from this being a sign that the world is about to change to a sign of evil. Though the scientists say it’s just a genetic fluke and a really neat coincidence that the single horn is coming out of the center. Maybe this is where the story of the Unicorn came from.

It reminds me of the white buffalo that was born a few years ago. That was supposed to be a sign of great change, and then I never heard more about it.

I have heard some of my more radical sisters saying this is a sign that the world is changing, that things are really going forward, and that what was stolen will be returned. All I know is that this little baby brought a sparkle to my kids’s eyes.

I’m sitting on my front porch, the night is warm with a gentle breeze blowing. The moon, nearly full is over head. At my feet two black kittens are curled up, watching for movement in the darkness.

How stereotypical. Black cats and witches. Too bad my broom is still inside.

I was reading this post over at Goddess in a Teapot on  a woman named Helen Nearing and voluntary simplicity. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of her or this book before. As many friends as I have living on their own little plots of land, growing their own food, and striving towards self-sufficiency it would seem that Helen Nearing would have come up more often.

I wish I could brag about being more in touch with meeting my own needs from the earth. I tried gardening, several times. But heat, then rain, and finally animals destroyed all of my chances. I’m just too tired to keep trying this year. Though I do make an effort to live as simply as possible I do have my vices that pop up far too often. I wouldn’t make it long on a hippie commune.

And yet I follow a nature based path, one that holds no special place for wealth or power, and  I look to the earth to provide what I need. Maybe it’s more voluntary hypocrisy for me. Or maybe my expectations are just too high.

Carol P Christ shared her Ethics of a Goddess Religion and they really spoke to me. Sure I’m not out getting dirt under my fingers and spinning my own wool. But I can still try.

Today is the last day of the Womongathering. I’m pretty sad that I wasn’t able to attend. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to afford the costs. In both attending and leaving my kids behind.

I hate how hard it is for mothers to be anything other than mothers. I see fathers hop on planes and fly off to business meetings, weekends with their buddies in Vegas, and all kinds of sporting events. Yet the moms are supposed to stay behind with the kids. Yes I chose this life, to be a mom, but I would prefer a little more equality. Why does my uterus demand that I’m the only one able to wipe noses and make pancakes?

On that note I am hoping to be able to save up money to attend Gathering the Goddess in September.  The cost is $300, but then I also need to save for travel there and back, any goodies i may want to buy there, and find care for my kids while gone.

I know, not exactly the right topic for Father’s day, but too often it seems that every day is Father’s day in this culture.

I can’t believe it’s nearly midsummer. Where has the time gone? I’ve been pretty busy, but a good busy. I’m reading, thinking, feeling, and getting more connected to my own spirituality. It’s a good thing.

I ordered a new book recently that I hope will put me in more of a blogging groove. I found a cheap used copy of Celebrating the Great Mother: A Handbook of Earth-Honoring Activities for Parents and Children at Amazon.com and snatched it up. Next I hope to order Switching to Goddess: Humanity’s Ticket to the Future for myself to enjoy. Though my reading docket is actually pretty full right now, but by next spring I should be ready to take it on. Of course my reading time is all taken by my group studies. I keep meaning to update the page more, then wander off and forget. That’s just me.

Next week is the full moon, which I’m looking forward to. I’m hoping the weather will be warm, and no rain pouring down. I’m planning to use that energy to help my oldest step out into the unexplored world a little more.

I found this image on a couple people’s sites and loved it. It’s just the kind of photo I would love to have printed and framed to hang above my altar.

I’ve been neglecting this again, and I’m sorry. I’ve found myself very busy recently and though the ideas to write keep popping up in my head I haven’t been able to actually sit down and write. I haven’t even touched my feed reader, which is pretty scary looking right now at 228 blog posts to read.

Tonight I’ll be celebrating the dark moon by looking at who I want to be and what I want to do, and part of that will include writing here.

A friend sent me a small passage from a book she was reading and thought I would love it. She was right. The very act of parenting can be a spiritual journey, even if it does not seem so at times.

When we become parents, we embark upon a path that is arduous, and which pushes us to our limits and even beyond. It is a path particularly suited to those who wish to integrate lofty ideals  with practical necessities, for its trials and opportunities are not found in the recesses of remote mountain caves or monasteries, but in the mundane affairs of life. For those who are prepared to devote themselves wholeheartedly to an understanding of it’s unique mysteries, the path of parenting offers abundant joy, wisdom, and boundless opportunities for the release of the potential latent within us all.

I have to repeat this part again with emphasis.

for its trials and opportunities are not found in the recesses of remote mountain caves or monasteries, but in the mundane affairs of life

That goes beyond jsut parenting to anything else that you do.  Goddess isn’t hiding in secret, sacred spots that you can only reach through dangerous journeys and decades of study. She is looking at you from the mundane details.

Whenever I start to feel a drop in my spirit She sends me a thunderstorm.

I stood outside, feeling the rain rip down and the breeze blow across me, watching the lightening light up the sky, and listening to the boom of the thunder mix with the music of the windchimes. And I felt alive.

Full moons and thunderstorms always drive me upwards and out. There is just so much raw power that I feel in those two things, something that I feel I can tap into and recharge my own spiritual battery.

In my study group we were discussing keeping ourselves secret verses putting ourselves out there. I joked that we’re the last pagan group to crawl out of the Stone Age, we don’t have a website or email group. At least not anything that we would open to the public as we have so many personal discussions. In the conversation we talked about sharing our studies with others and a pair of women made a really good point. We’re not using secret hidden books, the ideas we are discussing are not secret, the only thing we want to keep quiet are our personal parts.

So it was decided that if we wanted to we could share our book list and what work we are doing. But names and private conversations are off limits for sharing. The conversation was mainly influenced by one woman who wanted to share with her sister but did not want to share her space with her.

I don’t really have anyone that I want to share our studies with but I still like the idea of opening them up a bit more. Other people won’t be there in our discussions of them, but you can still read what we are reading and form your own thoughts and ideas about it. For that reason I’m putting up a page here with the book list and the monthly work listed. That way if anyone stumbles along here they might find what they need.

The page for year 1 is here.