Ink Blot

The candle that started at Imbloc built to a zenith on Beltaine. It now recedes. Because, really… who wants a huge bonfire in the heat of summer? As I get older, I apprecate the cycles of time more and more. And how they affect me. I am at my most industrious in the fall. And at my most dream-like now in Spring. Looking back over the years, during those years that I’ve had something to distract me, I have stayed more grounded in the spring. During those that I don’t… I do very rash things, like up and join the Army.

2008: slowly going crazy

2007: April thru June: 2 trips home in 8 weeks, very distracting

2006: March and April: trying to get pregant. If that’s not a cure for spring fever, nothing is.

2005: April and May: Bought a house. Very distracting

2004: April thru June: Pregnant, alone… very bad time

2003: March: up and joined the Army

2002: May: Screw Juniata - dropped out of school.

So now it’s the middle of June and in my attempts to function on a daily basis, I feel like an old washing machine, going round and round the same routines until I rattle apart at the seams. What I WANT to be is a balloon, drifting up in the clouds to parts unknown. How many balloons does it take to lift a washing machine?

Beltane is my second favorite holiday. After Halloween, of course. There is a great Fire that fuels the Earth. I mean this both literally (ahem, SUN!) and figuratively. The heat that had been building since Candlemas is the most within our reach, you can almost touch it with out being burned to smithereens. Leap the fire if you dare. 

So it’s a common scenario: someone is ill, or is hurt or is generally not their usual selves.  And they or someone close to them is asking for prayer and/or enegry and/or thoughts. My question is: Is there a difference? You send intent out into the universe. Is God™ or any other deity acting as a focal point? A magnifing lense? Is sending prayers/energy/thoughts to a deity any better or worse than sending prayer/enegry/thoughts to the person directly?

 It’s a matter of skills. If God acts as a focal point, great! If you send directly to the person, great! It is indeed the thought itself that counts. It doesn’t particularly matter what we call it. You send prayers, I send enegry… the intent is the same. The semantics make us feel better, but at the core, it’s irrelevant.

How a person carries themselves matters. And there are lots of ways to do this. One of my people-watching theories is that you can tell quite a bit from the way a person walks. The idea being is that a person subconsciously leads with their strengths.

The nerd.

If a person is most confident about their scholastic or intellectual abilities, they will lead with their head. And by ‘lead’ I don’t mean that they walk head down like a battering ram or anything. More that their head (brain) is the first body part that one notices when they walk by at a distance.

The athlete.

A person confident of their athletic ability or strength will lead with their shoulders. This is much more common in the men that I have observed, less so in women. In fact, most of the women I have seen walk in this fashion are either college athletes (the ones I’ve seen up close) or Olympians (I’ve seen on TV)

The athlete variation. (Gorilla walk)

Some men (all these are men, in my observation)  who work their upper body in disproportion to their lower body walk in a way that holds their arms out from the body and draws more attention to those as opposed to their shoulders.

Sexy

When a person holds most confidence in their gender or their sexual talents, they walk with their hips. Ok, yes, I know. Everyone walks with their hips. But this is the first thing you see. From what I have observed, this is both men and women, both gay and straight.

Belly walk

This is how pregnant women usually walk. Sometimes because they are physically unable (at that point in pregnancy) to walk any other way. Sometimes because they identify best as ‘pregnant’. I have seen some men (always with beer bellys) walk like this as well. They indemnify most with their belly. I find that a bit odd, but to each their own.

Left foot, right foot

If you watch a young kids walk, say between the ages of 3 and 6, they tend to pay just a bit more attention to their feet, since they are relatively new to the whole walking thing, and they don’t appear all that certain of how their feet really are attached. I’ve seen adults do this too, and I can’t decipher why this is.

Switching.

Not everyone walks the same way all the time. I’ve seen people walk like nerds on one situation (after class) and then walk like athletes later (after playing tennis).

Negating factors.

People who are carrying things, or pushing or pulling things.

Members of the armed services – some always walk like a ‘solider’, which is to say, with very little distinguishing features. Some do this only in uniform.

People who are injured.

I was drawn to the magic place, where the veil thins and over the babble of the creek, you can hear the fairies laugh. I came 15 years after the whole thing started. I was hardly the first. Certianly not the last. I stood in the Royal Meadow with my infant son when the Greenman called the corners and welcomed the Spring. I was enchanted.

I returned to the magic place, where invisible wings and hand carved flutes stir the breeze. I wanted that peace that graced the trees. My expectations were high. I had walked here before. I stood by the house with my infant son and watched the fairies transform to lumbermen and EMTs. I was enthralled.

I crave the magic place, where the bounty of Earth springs forth and bears joy by it’s very existence. I found peace and joy and each of the 7 blessings. You can touch them. They dance in the water and wind. I walked from field to farm, bearing fruits of labor to share and partake. I was euphoric.

And like every perfect thing, this too must end. Brought by the politics of the fairies themselves, the circle is closed. The May Pole stands still, testament to what was. I will harvest the land. The magic in that shall last. The magic that drew me, however, has proved fleeting. I will not play the games of bureaucrats and nobility. They can have their Court and their Ball. My sons and I will find another path.

I have never lived today before. At least not that I remember. And not remembering makes it not count. So if I have never lived today before, that means that the possibilities are endless. It’s so easy to get caught in the daily grind. Keeping our noses down that we never look up and see the sky, the trees. Or feel the rain on our faces. I have never lived today before and the world knows it. The world waits, poised, ready to leap. From the water nymphs in Pierceville Run to the firebirds of Siberia to Herne of Sherwood Forest, they wait. For someone to see and respond. Someone less hesitant than I. Maybe one day, I will give myself to the rain. Not Today.

So, I’m waiting for some manner of convergence. It’s Ostara (Equinox), the Full Moon, and Good Friday all at once and I think I am waiting for some manner of energy to es’plode or something. I’ve been totally, 100% unable to do anything about it myself, except maybe watch it pass by. But I was looking forward to the watching.

Wee Bear was up all night, first time he’s done that in MONTHS, and I’m a little bit convinced that he knew something was afoot. Being 14 ½ months old, he wasn’t not super-good at expressing this, but he tried.

So, barring, WB’s fits last night, I’ve been rather disappointed on the whole power surge I was expecting. I guess there’s still time, but I coulda sworn it was going to be last night or nothing. I really was not expecting nothing. Maybe if I manage to pull my head above water on this whole ‘going crazy’ thing, then I will go and check things out for myself. As much fun at it is to watch things explode, its best to find out ahead of time if the cloud is mushroom-shaped.  

I’ve had a rather warped perception of time these last several months.  I’m fairly certain Thanksgiving was last week. And somehow, Christmas got condensed to about 17 seconds.  I JUST managed to get a check to the bank this morning before the 90 days were up on cashing it. Much to my Uncle’s annoyance. Time has been flying by alarmingly fast.  However, my new job starts in 2 weeks and I feel like I’m 10 years old staring out the window, waiting for the bell to ring so I can get on with my life.

Do I miss the moments in life because I am searching for the ’start’ of something? I’m not so good at realizing on a sub conscious level that Life Is A Journey.  How do you slow down from this break-neck pace on the track around the Sun to enjoy what’s there in front of you?  My tulips are peaking up now. I’m afraid I’ll come home tonight and they’ll be past blooming already. I told myself in October I’d clear the garden. Still hasn’t happened. Where did the time go. My baby is talking now. I’m itching to hear him say ‘I love you’ Afraid I’ll miss that entirely and he’ll go to ‘Fuck off, mom’.  I have a labyrinth rug in my house, as a reminder that the end is not the goal. It’s the path.

Everyone has it. Some people won’t admit it, but it’s there. Whether you are a redneck hick from Appalachia or a black dyke from San Francisco. Ugh, I could barely type that. What can we do to combat our own internalized bias? If Knowing Is Half the Battle, is it enough? Interestingly, redneck hick is much easier to type than black dyke. I COULD NOT type a worse euphemism than that. I tried. That says a lot about my bias, I think. I can more easily slur white, poorly educated folk than I can black gay people. A bit of reverse discrimination.

My two biggest ‘groups’ that I tend to discriminate against are Bigots and Christians. It is fairly PC these days to discriminate against Bigots, first since being biggoted is more of a choice than being a minority, disabled or gay is. Also, the conception is that the Bigots held the power for the longest time and now us liberated folk are seeking our revenge. However, in the interest of tolerance for all…aren’t bigots entitled to their opinion like the rest?

Christians too. Yeah, I’m sorry if there are any Christians among the 7 people who know about this blog, but that’s how it is. And obviously I can’t discriminate agaisnt ALL Christians, or else I would not talk to 75% of the people in this country, my family among them. But in the whole ‘getting to know you’ stages of any personal relationship, if it comes out that you are Christian, it’s a mark against you. This is one of the things I have the hardest time with. It’s not that I don’t like Christianity in general. The Bible has a lot of wisdom, more so than any other book I have read. So then it boils down to interpretation and execution. I have my opinions on the Bible, but since Christianity is not a religion I practice, they aren’t really relevant. Kinda like my opinions on the Koran. I have had some downright awful experiences with those who did what they did either in the name of Christianity or simply doing evil things while identifying as Christian. I guess that first group is more of an issue. If you spew hatred and fear and ignorance, you are NOT Christian. Hear that, Pastor Grove? The second just boils down to the fact that any group has people who identify as members, but in reality are anything but. Also known as Fluffy Bunnies.

I should add that I have known a few (ok, several) Christians who live the tenets they preach. They have an open-mindedness that is comforting. Gives me hope.

So…how can I overcome these biases? That IS the goal, is it not? Maybe I should learn to turn the other cheek? *is run over by the irony*

Forgive me for the bit of geek-speak…or maybe it’s common knowledge that ‘!=’ means ‘does not equal’. I’m not sure.

Either way, this is one of the ideas that I’ve been playing with recently in my head. We have seasons that come and go and come back. We have a 28.5 day lunar cycle that ever-so-cleverly matches a woman’s menstrual cycle. We have this planet that we live on that goes careening around the Sun every year or so. We even have Haley’s comet, which will come back eventually and I really hope I get to see. We have these HUGE cyclical events. So, given the cyclical nature of, well, Nature… it stands to reason that the little things are cyclical too. Yeah, I mean us. We live, we die, we live again. Whether always as human or as anything else, who cares? I personally think that it would be cool to be a Sequoia tree for a few thousand years. So it’s true for all life, not just the people kind of life.

If death != end; and this is fairly accepted in much of the world, I find the Western fear of death rather…morbid. Death is sad. Sad for the survivors. The dead person isn’t gone, just on the next leg of the trip. Case in point: Mr. Ink’s Uncle died 4 years ago this month. The night we buried said Uncle, we conceived my son, Bear. Despite all precautions, and significant odds. In the course of playing with this idea, I see two possibilities. 1. My son is my uncle (in-law). Or 2. Said Uncle had a hell of a say in an event that happened 4 days after he died.

And the seasons, they go ’round and ’round…