Never Enough

Time, that is.  A staffing issue at work as September marches relentlessly closer and we get busier daily, and days lost to feeling crummy (in part because of the prescribed antibiotics which are almost worse than the illness!) have left me wishing I'd planted at least one bed of seconds this Spring. Why, imagine if I could be out there right now pinching off a few minutes here, digging up an hour there! How awesome would that be???? 

When time gets short, writing is the first thing to fall by the wayside. I come home too tired to do anything but stare into space and hug the critters. But having made a commitment to the Sagewoman blog channel, I snuck a little time away from chores to do a post. And now I'm going to cheat a bit, and rather than write new content today for this blog, I'm going to do a cross post. I know many of you aren't of the Pagan persuasion, but I like to think this post below has something to offer, even if you change Goddess to God, Her to Him.

And I promise to do an original Confessions post later this week! Wishing you a gentle week...

A Different Harvest

We're researchers, Linda and I. We don't just grab a bunch of seeds, stick 'em in the ground and wait. No...we think it to death, researching heirlooms, tracking down companies with organic seeds, amending our soil, measuring rainfall. We were the same way with getting chickens. I knew what breeds I wanted because I spent hours comparing the merit of Australorps versus Orpingtons. We built the coop to ensure the appropriate roosting space, and spent hours discussing placement of the nest boxes versus the roost. I have this idea I need to do things perfectly. A mistake at work costs me lost sleep and spiking blood pressure. A botched dinner prompts numerous apologies to Linda (who honestly couldn't care less), and when my sons run into life's walls, I just assume it was a flaw in my parenting that is causing them anguish. As for my writing skills, well, no one is a more brutal critic than I. Yeah, bring on that cat o' nine tails and hair shirt!

So when all that research is done, when we've planted things just so, in perfect organic soil, with organic fertilizer, watered exactly as we should, provided just the right sunshine, it's kind of a rude slap when the harvest is...well, nada. This year forty heirloom tomato plants yielded a grand total of a dozen cracked and blemished tomatoes. Our peas barely produced. Heck, even my kale tanked!  Seriously-who can't grow kale? The gardening year started with such promise, and is winding down with anything but a fireworks display of produce. 

But we did have a harvest. You know what grew this year? The fruits and flowers we didn't touch. As I write this, I'm snacking on sweet, juicy grapes, that aside from a March pruning, never received a moment of care. We never even got around to covering them to keep away Japanese beetles. In the freezer, there's a tray jam-packed with blueberries from the bushes we haven't fertilized or pruned. The garlic hanging to cure above the living room window was planted last Fall, covered with straw, and untouched (except for harvesting their scapes) until two weeks ago. Coneflowers, black-eyed susans and morning glories fill the yard with color, but we didn't plant them this year or last. We just let them be.

And so it can--and sometimes should--be in our walk with Goddess. Many of us have created or shared in elaborate rituals; even when solitary, we've smudged, cast the circle, invoked the elements, tossed in more than a few thees & thys. We've chosen the right colors and written poetry, researched which aspect of Her to call upon. Perhaps the ensuing ritual was profound and mystical, took us to a deeper place with Her and ourselves. and that's good. But it's so easy to over think, to strive for the perfect prayer, perfect ritual; it's easy to lose sight of what we seek because we're lost in the planning. 

There's a peace that comes with stepping outside with your coffee first thing in the morning and raising it in toast to the One that gave us that morning. There's a simplicity and contentment that comes from taking a walk in the woods and just having a conversation with Her. The whispered thank you breathing from our lips as we fall asleep can be the perfect prayer. The mundane can become the sacred with our intent; as we put our gardens to bed and preserve our harvests for the Winter to come, we can ask Goddess what in ourselves, in our lives, can be preserved or put to rest. We can wash the dishes or organize our desks while singing our favorite Goddess chants. I'm blessed with a short commute to a less than ideal job, and often use that morning drive to say a prayer and ask a blessing for the day (sometimes, it's simply Goddess, give me strength !). 

Don't let your mind shout over your heart and soul. Choose one small act to bring Her into your here and now without perfect words or the right incense blend. Just one. Maybe tonight, when you lock the doors before bed, whisper a hello to the waxing Moon and ask Her to shine on and protect your hearth and home. Take just one moment to see and feel Her with no preparation. I promise, you'll reap far more than you've sown!

Harvesting

Thursday was Lughnasadh for those of us who call ourselves pagan. It's a holy day in honor of Lugh, an ancient Celtic god often represented by light and a powerful sun. My path is Goddess-centric, and so I acknowledge the day as the first of the three harvest festivals (the second is the Fall Equinox, the third, Samhain--Halloween). The very first seasonal ritual I consciously observed as spiritual practice was Lughnasadh, about 17 years ago. I remember rising at dawn so I could go into the park across the street from us before the neighborhood awoke, and there I made offerings of corn muffins, gave thanks, and rejoiced at the turning of the Wheel. This year I honored the day in part by slow-roasting and then freezing tomatoes from a local farm, giving thanks for the bounty that will sweeten Winter evenings. 

But I don't like alot of things about Summer; it's a season that leaves me squirming in discomfort, languishing in heat and humidity. I'm deeply grateful for the bounty of this time of year; I know this morning the farm market will yield apricots and plums, tomatoes and zucchini, herbs and corn. And I love that the place I work is closed on Fridays most of the Summer. Friday mornings on the porch, drinking coffee while soaking in the glory of the morning glories and the songs of the birds are a blessing I don't take for granted. I'm kind of backwards; this is my hibernation time, the time when I have little choice but to dream and plan. I come awake as the days grow shorter and the nights cooler, when pumpkins and apples replace tomatoes as farm market staples. But still, there is a harvest here in our corner of the world....

We gathered our first garlic today!  We've never grown it before, and got 28 heads for 72 cloves planted, but there it is, hung in a never-gets-direct-sun north-facing living room window, with a window fan below, our very first homegrown garlic! We have several notes of things to do better in the future (remove the Winter straw mulch and fertilize come Spring among them), but for a few months, we'll savor this very first garlic. 

Garlic is a fascinating thing; for those who haven't grown it, you plant individual cloves. About nine months later (!), after it has lived in the dark, put out tall green shoots into the world, and those shoots have danced in Summer breezes and then died back, you get big heads of the stuff, and you plant individual cloves from the best of those heads....if you get it right, you sow what you reap and then sow the best of that harvest. Isn't that a great metaphor for spiritual growth?  

What are you harvesting this month as Summer begins her final songs?

Furry Friday

Linda's been bringing home kittens (and a cat) this Summer for fostering. The last batch was a mom and five babies, left abandoned in an apartment after the owners moved out. Mom stayed with us about a week, the babies another two weeks, and I'm sorry to say we never took photos. They were a wonderful bunch, too cute and playful. 

They left us a week and a half ago or so....and today she's brought home a batch of 3 week olds, surrendered with no mom. They should be brief visitors, just a couple of weeks, but it's a beautiful litter of four. 

There's a very very fuzzy black one as well, but so far no good photos. We've named the orange one Bellini (even though neither of us drinks), but it may be a few days before the others get their own call signs.

Gorgeous weather, dry and more...appropriately warm. Wishing you an abundantly beautiful weekend...go hug something furry!

The Odd World of Blogging

Blogging is kind of weird. For me--and many like me--it's both writing exercise and semi-journal. I began this one just before the end of 2009, I think in large part to make me write, somewhere, something. Two years later, I bid you all a fond farewell, having decided it was keeping me from Serious Writing, giving me a false sense of written accomplishment, and announced the end of Confessions of a Would-Be Mountain Womon. That lasted a whole whopping month. I wasn't writing any more elsewhere, and I missed the act of electronic journaling, of sharing my thoughts, fears, joys with others. And I especially missed the comments, the interactions with you.

I also love reading your blogs. We share some assorted similiarities, and some big differences. Not one of us has the same life as the other, although one or the other travels the same spiritual path, or is a would-be homesteader as well (or provides an example to emulate), or knows what it is to feel less one's self without wool in some form nearby, or feels more complete when writing. We may not know each other, but perhaps we've both watched our children grow up and leave. Maybe we've both begun new lives unrecognizeable from what they were before. I like to think we bond with certain bloggers on some level, perhaps not all, but certain ones whose journeys resonate with something in us, whose written postcards awaken memories or inspiration.

But even as we bridge the distance between us with words and thought, the realities of physical distance and relative anonymity are a gulf we sometimes never manage to leap. Awhile back, the blog My Farmhouse Kitchen abruptly fell silent. One day there were posts, and then....not. It was months later that another blogger posted the heartbreaking news that the My Farmhouse Kitchen's writer had fought valiantly but lost a battle with cancer. Her blog, and more so the glimpses of her spirit in that blog, are missed.

The blogosphere seems a delicate web to me, made with silken threads that can withstand the darkest night's rain and glisten in the rising sun, but can be torn to shreds with a wave of the hand.

And so, perhaps we make friends with some fellow bloggers as our souls recognize kindred spirits, reaching out past the pages of cyberspace. And for the rest, well...we celebrate their presence, honor their hearts spilled out on our computer screens, and mourn when they disappear, grateful for the time together.

To Write or Not to Write...

I'm a writer...really--look at my profile! So then, one would assume I write, right? Yeah, not so much. Oh, I write this blog which I love, although this nasty hot and humid Summer has found me sprawled in front of a fan with a book rather than in the office with the computer. I'm part of a new collective group of bloggers writing from a Goddess-centric perspective (my blog there is called Day by Day). I write the occasional essay for Sagewoman magazine, and once in a  great while, a poem will spring from my pen. And that's it. Doesn't make me much of a writer, huh?

Funny thing is, I've always wanted to be a writer, since my earliest days of shamelessly plagiarizing The Bobbsey Twins at the age of 7, and discovering haiku when I was 8 years old. From even that young age, I wanted to be able to write in a way that would make people say "that's exactly how I feel, but I didn't know how to put it into words!". Something has always stopped my attempts at it, a monster as insidious as mildew in a Summer like this one, with dozens of small razor sharp teeth, judgemental blood-shot green eyes, an evil, grating whisper of a voice whose every word is like barbed wire shredding flesh and spirit, a shape-changer who can assume the guise of stranger, critical friend, trusted parent, even--especially--the face in the mirror. Fear of Failure is the demon's name, and he's held me captive for decades.  Once in a while, I'd muster the strength and will to slip from his grasp, to run barefoot through the forest exalting in my escape, tossing glances over my shoulder and ducking ominous shadows, searching for pen and paper. But always he would hunt me down and drag me back into the dark, wordless dungeon. Sometimes the monster was truly seductive, reminding me oh so silkily, if one never tries, one can never fail; isn't that right? Why put yourself through that? In a world simply bursting with real writers, why expose what a poor imitation you truly are? You're safe here with me....

This past weekend, when I was at a very low point, stressed about work to the point of breaking, Linda asked me a question. Ashling, if you could do something, anything else, what would it be? And what would you need to do to make that happen? And once more the answer I've been giving for 45 years echoed in my head. I want to write. Coincidentally (or not so much coincidence?), the day before she asked me this I had picked up my copy of The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron off the altar where it has lain untouched for over a year, and begun reading it, and had actually done two days of Cameron's foundational exercise--morning pages. This week Linda's question and my rote answer have run through my brain in an endless cycle. The monster's words chase the answer, but in a voice oddly like my own. It's the same old story: be safe, don't try. Dabble if you must, but stop calling yourself a writer, stop saying "I want to be a writer" like some tutu-wearing four year old declaring she wants to be a princess when she grows up.

But a strange thing happened this morning as I was rather petulantly doing my morning pages on the porch, wondering why I'm bothering, what it will accomplish. Another voice, shaking a little but sweet and clear, piped up. So what? What would 'failure' look like and what would it change?

"What would it change?" the demon roared. "She would finally know she's a failure, that her dream has been a waste of time, an impossibility, a bad joke!"

"You haven't answered the question. What would failure be? She doesn't publish the great American novel? She isn't declared the next Mary Oliver? She doesn't win the National Book Award? Those particular fantasies might not come to pass, but how necessary are they? If she wants to write, to touch others' souls, "to write in a way that would make people say 'that's exactly how I feel, but I didn't know how to put it into words'", it's time. The days, the years spin by faster and faster....the real truth is it's now or never.

The demon's sly smirk grows triumphant. "Then never it is!"

Ummm...hang on just a minute. NEVER? Never to write? Never to break free of  the monster? To spend every moment of the rest of my life in its embrace? Seductively safe, maybe....but with some pretty awful morning breath, ya know. I'm not so sure about never....I'm not willing to commit to never. Never is forever, and I just don't think I'm okay with that. It's about damned time I kick the monster to the curb, don't you think? What do I have to lose? So what if I 'fail', whatever that looks like.

At least I'll go down fighting.

Summer Blossoming

Summer is in full, sodden, muggy, hot swing, the air soupy and the sun blazing. While that's a tad rough on those of us who don't love the season, the flowers are brazenly blooming, luring hummingbirds, butterflies and bees.

Some, like the mandevilla, are downright wanton,

while the oxalis tucked into the Japanese maple pot 

and the toronia gracing the shade garden are more quietly alluring.

Like these more subtle blossoms, I too have been quietly venturing out into the world. I'm honored to be part of a brand-new Goddess-focused blogosphere that just launched this week. My blog will focus on the day-to-day relationship we can have with Goddess, a relationship that takes time, effort..and showing up. I hope you'll stop by and read my first offering: She Never Promised Us a Rose Garden. My deep thanks go out to the amazing Anne Niven, and my fellow bloggers; I feel blessed to be part of this gifted group of Goddess-centric writers. I'm definitely not abandoning this blog, just taking on something new as well. 

What's blossoming in your life today?

It's a Good Day

The Supreme Court didn't take us as far as we needed to go, but we're a whole lot farther along the road than we were! 

These were victories not just for those seeking same sex marriage rights, but for generations to come. Every step we take towards all people being considered truly equal is a step toward the country we can be.