Lunation

Sunday my folks and I spent the afternoon in Boulder with my flaky New Age aunt Donna and her daughter, Chelsea. A block before we reached her house we stopped and gasped in awe at a young fawn that was walking beside the car, then crossed the side street when we stopped! I've never seen a fawn so young in person--it still had it's spots. When we told Donna, she said it had been in their yard earlier, with it's mother and sibling.

As we're eating and talking, Donna brings up this Abyssinian cat that Chelsea rescued from a meth lab last year and dumped on Donna. Donna is always traveling and never home, so at least she realizes she's doing an injustice to the cat. The cat has a clean bill of health, her shots, and she's fixed. I agreed to take her. Donna's flying the cat out Thursday on that new pet airline.

Now, they named her Bianca Jagger (Mick Jagger's ex-wife). Um, hell no. I had a dream that her name was Athena, so I'm sticking with that. Here's a photo of her:
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I recently e-mailed the author/Artemis expert Thista Minai and dug up some entries from late January to share with her. Upon re-reading these, I'm moved and centered by their truth:
(From Jan. 22nd)
The years transpire with quickening speed. There are no moments surrendered to boredom. There is no more plateau of sameness. Change, sometimes rapid, has become the norm.

I make plans and set goals yet no longer see them to fruition. My dedication, when it comes to anything selfish, lacks stamina. It's not that I am finished by any means. I will never be complete. The source of my soul's constipation? The realization of entering the sunset of life. My parents are in their early 60's, and won't be able to care for more than eight years at the most. I refuse to succumb to a nursing home, and I refuse to depend on the very undependable home health care industry 24/7. I'm not suicidal, nor do I suffer from a failure to thrive. I am realistic because I have to be. It's not something I look forward to. I don't want to hurt anyone, leave anyone, or miss out on things. This will happen, because there is
no choice. Well, unless fully-functional android bodies that can house an individual's mind become available--and affordable--within eight years, maybe less depending on the ability of my caregivers and depending on my own health.

For a few years this has been weighing on my mind. It's simultaneously curious and lonely. Sometimes it's depressing. I get angry at not being physically able, at depending on everyone for my needs. It's an emasculating way to exist. It's both sad and nostalgic to pour through old photos, old journals, old memories of a walking me, then a wheelchair me.
The wheelchair, honestly, never bothered me. I was active regardless, dancing at clubs until my hands blistered, hanging out at places and being social, traveling, and doing anything I put my mind to. It wasn't until the last ten years, and in particular the last six, that it became an issue. My body has failed me. I can't recapture the use of my hands, or the ability to sit up on my own. I was an artist. I set goals and achieved them. I was beautiful and popular without trying to be. However, I can't dwell on what was... I can only move forward.

Somehow I normally stray above the gloom. My core is set to realistic optimism, and my appreciation of others, of absurdism, and of the natural world sees me through. Instead of setting the goals and reaching the inspiring achievements that so many of my dear ones have done and continue doing, I cheer on the sidelines and feel triumph at their triumphs. I cherish this, witnessing my friends blossoming.

They are blossoming as I am closing.

I am not as I was. I no longer go out of my way to be agreeable. I no longer keep my opinions to myself. I've never feared or avoided confrontation, but now that's more apparent. I'm no longer afforded the freedom to be spontaneous--I must plan outings, make sure they're wheelchair accessible, make sure I have help. I rarely wear make-up or look--or more importantly, feel--attractive. I no longer exude the natural charisma I once did. As such, I've come to understand why people are reluctant to be my friend, to get to know this less exciting slowing down me. It is too much of an effort to come to me, to be confronted with mortality. The rejection hurts, but I understand it.

I'm still learning, adjusting, and accepting things. Isolation was horrific to me when I had to return home. Now, years later, I've found a renewed closeness to nature. I've rediscovered my delight in reading. Music, movies, and select TV shows have an impact. My wanderlust has at last been tampered. On-line communication has been a godsend. I am never truly alone as long as I have the internet.

--'--;-<@

Been reflecting on beliefs and spirituality and now.
So long I felt a dire desire to be chosen by, to belong to, a deity.
A Patron. Solid. True. A lightening bolt. Impossible to deny.
One of a specific pantheon. Chunked and formed, a Reconstructionist's wet dream.
Why was I so rigid? Why did I care with such anxiety what others thought, or what I misconstrued the deities themselves as thinking?

The last three years have brought a return to freedom.
A freedom from those self-imposed shackles weighing me down for thirteen years.
Interesting numerically, 3 and 13...

Something broke. No, something broke through. Three years ago there was a breakthrough. I opted to be and not suffer with neurotic concern over who my Patron was, or which Reconstructionist religion demanded my fellowship.

It came so clear to me then I felt like a fool--a grinning fool.
Nature was my Pantheon, my Religion, my Patron, my Teacher.
Nature always had been. I must have known this in my heart. Yet the hedge blocking this truth was stuck fast until three years ago, when it silently and unceremoniously moved aside.
Nature, complex and simple and all between. Life and Death. The eternal dance of Predator and Prey. The Season's Cycle and it's rich symbolism. Ancient, silent, observing trees. Humble stone, earth, and plant. Water like blood flowing, mirrored by the air above. So obvious given the core of my philosophy, worldview, and interests, even when I was a wee thing. Funny how the obvious eludes us when we want it too much. So what box do I fit in? There's nothing wrong with boxes. Boxes can be made in any shape and size, inside or out, warm and cozy, sleek, utilitarian, or formless. Why not? A box can be whatever you make it, however you define it.

My box?
Is finally my own.
The walls, once confining, have flattened outward. A hedge moved aside to allow passage.
Magic is everywhere. The sacred is in everything. No narrowness, no worry. No limitations.

My Simples:
Be real.
Remain down-to-earth.
Don't take more than you need.
Don't be an ass-hat twat-waffle. If you can't stop yourself, learn from your mistakes.
Life sucks sometimes. That's life. Deal with it.
Appreciate what you've got.
Change is constant.
Nature is to struggle, suffer, die, live, experience joy, find humor, learn from fear, and attain wisdom.


@>-;--'--


And, in another a-ha! moment, one I should have accepted for so long, yet denied because I felt so undeserving, so pathetic physically and intellectually...

Artemis.

In grade school I fell in love with the Greek pantheon and myths. My love and devotion to Artemis, though I was but a child, was pure and intense. I was never a graceful or athletic child, which made me shy respecting Artemis. I thought how she must be disgusted by me. Despite my fear of rejection, I kept my interest in her.

The following I've kept between me and very few select others since the incident occurred. I'm only sharing it now because it feels right (and so you can grin at what a dork I am was):

At 13, when I lived in the remote mountain town of Clark, Colorado, I spent every spare moment roaming the forests behind our cabin. I loved it, and was simultaneously excited and saddened by the knowledge that at summer's end my parents and I were relocating to the city far away from the mountains. Such a culture shock was unthinkable. I knew my life was about to change in amazing and terrible ways.

At that time the theater in Steamboat Springs was showing the Disney film Fantasia, which I hadn't seen since I was five. I was swept up in it again, appreciating it more (or perhaps just differently?). When the segment, set in mythical Greece, featuring Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F major (Op. 68), known as the Pastoral Symphony, I was transfixed. The brief glimpse of Artemis on the cloud releasing an arrow struck something inside me. After I returned home, I located my vinyl Fantasia double-album with booklet. There in the booklet where the notes for the Pastoral Symphony were was the scene of Artemis from the film! A strange thrill overtook me and I carried the booklet to my attic bedroom. I lay the open booklet on my bed, which was directly beneath a big open window. The window faced behind our cabin, specifically a birch-covered hill and the mountains behind it. I played a tape with Limahl's Neverending Story over and over, concentrating on what Artemis meant to me. I wanted desperately for her to know I believed in her, that I loved her, even if I was unworthy. I willed my wish so hard that I felt weightless. I sobbed with effort. The rumble of thunder broke my reverie and I looked up. On the crest of the birch-laden hill, despite the sudden rain, stood a stag flanked by two does.

Coincidence? Maybe. But to me, at that moment, it was an otherworldly experience. A real and moving experience. I sat there stunned and staring, my heart racing. Then I grabbed what I considered my sacred objects (a bronze medallion engraved with an eagle on one side and a few other endangered species on the other, and some bones, a ring, and stones in a leather pouch) and left the cabin quietly. As stealthily as I could on loose gravel at an incline I approached the hill's crest. The stag eyed me the entire time as the does grazed. I reached up, within a mere foot of touching the stag. Just then I lost my footing and the sound of skidding sneakers broke the shared magical moment. The three deer looked at me and ran back among the trees so effortlessly it was as if they had never been there at all. Shaken, sobbing, elated, I retreated to where I could hop onto the hill and ran among the birches in the rain and lightning and thunder.

Years later, after experiencing the hell of hospitals, misdiagnoses, the cruelty of peers and misunderstanding adults, I was too overwhelmed to think on that experience and feel the magic of it. Then I moved to Michigan and I was too busy in a good way to think on anything save the now. It wasn't until the last few years that I've been drawn back to Artemis, keen to explore her mysteries with new eyes.

Maybe she doesn't loathe me. Maybe she never did. Maybe she's always been with me, shining through in my lunar preoccupation and my bond with nature. In a scholarly text on the Herne mythos (In Search of Herne the Hunter by Eric L. Fitch), covering Herne and the Wild Hunt, Cernunnos, the Green Man, and the Wild Man, Artemis is viewed as their female Archetypal equivalent in most ways. I identify with them all, and learning this was another a-ha! moment. This also represents coming full circle; I began with Artemis, it's fitting I feel her again now.

At Yule I ordered the recent and heavily footnoted (yay, references!) Dancing In Moonlight: Understanding Artemis Through Celebration by Thista Minai which I hope will give me some modern insight into her personality and put an end to my insecurities.

And life goes on.
And love goes on.
And a genuine smile plays upon my lips.
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(Excerpt from an LJ entry from January 28th):

So, I approach Artemis again.

And I wonder, did I ever leave her?

My involvement in and curiosity about the natural world has been integral. Between the years of fourteen and twenty-three, though, there was a disconnect. Though my love of the wild remained, I was displaced. My mind was taxed with everything but. I was consumed my the trappings, temptations, and business of Man. I was overwhelmed by frustration at losing my ability to walk, fear of routinely being harassed and assaulted at school, misdirected anger at my mom, uncertainty at being misdiagnosed and then at finally being diagnosed, elation at leaving home in spite of it all, and sheer joy and pain upon pursuing my dreams out of state.

During those times I was too consumed to appreciate nature, to observe it, to feel it, as I did prior to and at thirteen.

Actually, it wasn't until I discovered AHWw (alt.horror.werewolves) on-line in 1994 that I felt a return to my youthful passion for the wild. Not that the newsgroup was devoted to naturalism, but something in it's exploration of people's connection to non-human animals reopened my naturelust. At the end of 1999, when I had to surrender my apartment in Boulder and, simultaneously, my independence, due to the progression of my neuromuscular disease, I succumbed to a mourning that stretched into years.

Only after coming to accept my situation, having to live at home again and being grateful for that option, did my naturelust of childhood burst forth. Since 2005 my appreciation of and need for the wild, sensual, outside world has grown--possibly surpassing that of my youth in the mountains.

I see more. I watch the birds, feel them, appreciate their presence. I thrill at spotting a small flower beside a sidewalk in the midst of a city. I notice the wild in an urban environment, no matter how small, and it reassures me that no matter what, nature will not be denied. I feel like a steward and a student of the nature areas I frequent and often photograph.

I did not leave Artemis. I changed focus, studying Herne the Hunter, The Wylde Hunt, Cernunnos, The Green Man, Jack o' the Green. I had no conscious idea that they were two sides the same coin.

Now I understand my somewhat childish obsession with the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess--well, aside from the hot babes and humor--I saw Artemis in Xena. I knew this at the time, but never admitted it. Interesting.

I know what I'm not. I'm not a Christian or any other organized religion. I'm not a Reconstructionist Pagan of any sort. I'm not a practitioner or follower of any belief system with requirements or rules. I'm not a follower, period. I understand the lure of group-think. There is a comfort for many to have a mass of people who worship the same thing, believe in the same tenets, obey the same rules, and support one another. Those who need that or like that are fine by me. Live and let live. Pinning myself down to One Thing is impossible. It's pointless.

I'm gradually learning that I can commune with and embrace Artemis, appreciate her, without having to exclusively worship anyone or anything. I humbly respect Nature, and in nature I know Artemis, Cernunnos, Herne, et al. >:-)

---

( Read more... )

I studied the impressive and complicated array of thunderheads in the sky. Not menacing, they were bulbous and white. Staring at them as we drove, my thoughts went to the Greek pantheon. I had read an article the previous night in the U.K. magazine Pentacle about a modern Greek pagan (a Helleniste?). He mentioned that he had relationships with five deities, and dealt with others when he needed to.

This is so different from my, albeit limited, realm of experience. As a pre- and adolescent, in the height of my Greek mythology and pantheon studies, I felt no connection to any deity or figure other then Artemis and dryads. The others frankly scared me. In actuality, so did Artemis; I felt unworthy of her because of my physical ineptitude.

Only now do I understand the Greek pantheon and mythological beings in a less (or more) than literal context. Funny, as I grew up reading Joseph Campbell--one would think I'd have known better.

Then I pictured the various deities and beings in the clouds. It was thrilling; frightening in neat and inhuman way. There were Maenads, the imagining of which terrified me most and lingered at the edges of my brain-pan.
Maenads have been on my mind lately due to my current favorite HBO program, True Blood.
After some research on-line I gleaned what a character was.

After an early dinner, we returned home. As we drove, I looked beside the highway at the marshes and lakes where birds love to congregate. And I thought to myself, damn, this area is awesome. Even beside a highway birds-of-prey and various waterbirds live. Undoubtedly foxes, coyotes, and owls too. Even the parking lots at nearby grocery stores are frequented by seagulls or crows, and of course by sparrows.

This area, this land, is amazing. It's not mine. I started to think of it that way, after ten years of being here and tending to the 104th Trail and the Adams County Fairgrounds Nature Preserve. But to consider land as mine is wrong. It's egotistical. I have no right to claim ownership of something because it affords me pleasure, or because I love it.

I am a steward and a guardian of this area. Given such time and frequency spent here, I feel a deep-rooted and symbiotic connection.

A Net of Stars spread in sympathy...

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This book has changed my core trails of viewing the world and those in it. It's also opened myself to my own power and goodness, things I had struggled with accepting for a majority of my life.

More mind- and soul-expanding excerpts from Algernon Blackwood's A Prisoner In Fairyland to follow.

Reread this chapter four times before sleep last night. It's striking how similar the outlooks expressed in the book are akin to my own, yet worded more beautifully and to the point. Then again, that's a recurring message in the novel: all thoughts have come before, and sympathetic minds tap into that universal flow of harmony. Like Jung’s universal consciousness.

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*Eyes grow large and shiny at this next bit:*
(from page 267):
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As M-dahling wisely states in the song "Vervain", "We are divinity."

It is not willful ignorance to be discerning of who we consider friends. It is not willful ignorance to remove oneself from drama. It is not willful ignorance to refrain from reading journals, forums, and sites that are mean-spirited and leave one with a bad feeling.

The primary outside influence for concentrating on meaningful relationships is the book A Prisoner In Fairyland by Algernon Blackwood. Actually, to refer to it as an "outside" influence is demeaning; it's very much an inside influence.

I've read many books from various genres in my days. More than a few have changed my thinking, opened my mind in new ways, and felt magical in an honest sense.

This particular book is unlike anything I've read before. It weaves a spell of hope, positivety, and the nature of giving back to the universe.

I'm reading it slowly, carefully, digesting each intricate line like a fine meal. This is honest magic.

Choice lines spurring me:
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I read this last night prior to sleep in a short story collection. I was dumbstruck. No author describes nature in such a way as Algernon Blackwood. He saw, felt, and percieved the wild as I do. That's an amazing thing and even invasive, but not uneasy.

I felt the need to copy down the story from the book to share with everyone, but luckily it's already available on-line. This is nature to me:

The Golden Fly
by Algernon Blackwood