Tag: spring

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thoughts of spring

Happy Beltane, my friends. Traditionally a holiday associated with fertility and sexuality, Beltane is a celebration of life. It marks the start of the growing season, at least here in the northern hemisphere, when we turn our attention to planting gardens and the birthing period for many animals, both of the domestic variety and the wild.

One of the things that drew me to Paganism many moons ago was this attention to natural cycles, the celebrating of the cycle of life. While I’m not a very active Pagan these days, this is still very resonant for me.

Spring really starts for me when I can get my hands into dirt, planting seeds, transplanting plants. It calls to the nurturer in me. This week I got a cherry tomato and a jalapeno pepper planted, plus did some thinning of my carrots and planted some more potatoes. It’s a small little garden, but it suits me.

I’d love to have a huge ornamental flower garden too, but as I am allergic to most flowers, I’ll have to just admire them from afar.

Today is a traditional Saturday however, which means coffee and writing, followed by housework. I hope to have good news about that poetry collection I was talking about last week soon. Until then, Readers, I hope your life is incalescent (today’s word of the day on my Facebook post…it means increasing in ardor or heat).

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash

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cognitive dissonance

As someone who was at one time an Evangelical Christian, my relationship with Easter is, at best, problematic. At one time in my life, I considered this to be the most sacred of holy days. Today, it represents all that I came to despise about Christianity.

Unlike Christmas, which I can sink into as a family holiday, a secular celebration of the ones I love, I can not reconcile a secular Easter. Sure, here in the US, Easter is at least as much about candy and bunnies and such as it is about the resurrection of Christ, and there are a fair number of Pagan roots behind some of it, but somehow I have never been able to divorce the Christian understanding of the death and resurrection of their Savior from the fertility rites of spring.

There’s a lot of bad theology, along with some basic premises of Christianity, at play in my feelings. The brand of Christianity I walked away from was a bit fringe and very devoted to the idea that human beings, at their very core, are dirty, filthy, something to be denied the right to present themselves to the supposedly loving god who created them without painting themselves in the blood of another.

The cognitive dissonance that comes with marrying this idea to the idea of a loving god was what I think eventually broke through the programming and freed me up to really study the theology and religion as well as freeing my heart to actually find love.

I’m not going to go into details here. If you’re really interested you could visit my other blog and dig through old posts where I was processing out what I believe and what I really don’t believe. I haven’t posted over there in a long time though. Happy Spelunking!

Because of the way we pick the date of Easter, I often forget about it until I sign into Facebook and see a bunch of posts about it. Some years this has sent me spiraling through a bunch of not great emotional debris and internal dialog. This year seems to be less a spiral and more like a blip of “oh, hey, yeah…that was a thing” feeling. Maybe it’s the amount of introspection this year has involved.

Or maybe I’m outgrowing the trauma. And yes, I liken that theology to trauma.

Anyway, all of that to say, if you celebrate the return of spring or the return of your god, or just that it’s Sunday, I hope your celebration is fulfilling and filled with life and kindness.

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

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where hope grows

I grew up in Upstate New York, where the very first signs that spring was on the horizon were the daffodils that poked intrepid little heads up through the snows that wouldn’t yet melt for a few weeks (or more). For the longest time, daffodils were my favorite flowers because of that, and they still hold a special place in my heart.

When you’re still in the depths of the cold hard embrace of an Upstate New York winter, after the fun of snow has become the drudgery of slush that has frozen over and cold toes that don’t seem to ever get warm, that first little hope of spring is a most welcome thing

It seems we are facing much the same feeling with this pandemic right now. We are all so done with sitting at our windows, looking out on a world that is filled with hidden dangers, and we just want to be able to go to the movies, and out for coffee with friends.

Vaccines offer us that first hint of hope that our year-long winter of disease is coming to a close, but just like those first daffodils herald a spring that may still be a long ways off, so too does the promise of immunity come with a caveat. Many a blizzard has buried those first daffodils, reprimanding them for sticking their heads up too soon. Returning to our normal lives too soon will bring with it another blizzard of Covid-19 to swat us down and set back our recovery.

Hope grows where vaccines are planted, but immunity takes some time to blossom. So, as we turn the wheel of the year toward Imbolc, let us hope, but remain vigilant.

Happy February, Readers! May it be filled with love and kindness.

Photo by Charles Tyler on Unsplash

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the veil is thin

There are two times of the year when the veil that separates this plane from the next grows thin, making communication with the dead easier, among other things.  At Samhain we often invite our dead to sup with us, preparing their favorite foods and drink and setting them out on our tables.  Our rituals tend toward the somber at Samhain.

But at Beltane, opposite Samhain on the Wheel of the Year, our rituals are filled with rejoicing, celebrating the awakening of the earth, the growth all around us, and yes, the fertility that will see us through another long winter.

It is a good time to remind us that life will find a way.  Even as the society we built cracks under the strain of this pandemic and all that accompanies it, the earth puts forth sprouts and leaves and flowers.  In the animal kingdom, babies are born, ensuring that their species will continue.  All around us are the signs that if we just hold on through this “winter” life will begin anew.

And maybe, just maybe, we can learn from Mother Earth’s example, and create something new.

We don’t usually stress communicating with the dead at Beltane, but with so many of us channeling life skills that helped our ancestors survive, maybe it’s time we did.  Reach out to great-grandma to get her secrets to a successful sourdough starter (I can not get mine to do what it’s supposed to).  Call out to your great-great grandpa for advice on planting corn or tomatoes or what have you. Invite them to supper or pour out a cup.

Then go stick your hands in some dirt, grow something. You might be surprised at the joy it can give you.

Happy Beltane, Readers, may it bring you blessings and joy.

Cover Photo by Arno Smit on Unsplash

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Beltane blessings

Today is the first day of May.  May Day.  Beltane.  It is a holy day of promise for the future, a day of planting seeds for the harvest to come.

This is a day that celebrates spring, when the youngest flowers bloom and the air is filled with the light fragrance that whispers of the summer that is just around the corner.

And yes, it is a day closely associated with fertility.  In some Pagan traditions it is celebrated with bawdy tales of trysts in the woods between willing partners, or with drinking and feasting and ritualized representation of the sex act.

All of that is to remind us that this is the time when Mother Earth is her most fertile, when she is waiting for us to run our plow into her and deposit our seed into her soil, so that she may nurture and grow it to provide for our sustenance in the long months of winter.

So, blessings you, Readers, if you celebrate…and if you don’t.  Happy Wednesday either way!  May your planting find fertile ground so that the harvest is plentiful!

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spring is springing…I think

We have had one of the wettest winters I can remember since I moved to California in 2001.  I love the rain, and I often miss the big booming thunderstorms of my childhood.  Along with the rain, we’ve had a colder winter than I remember having in all that time…and for longer than I can remember.

Here we are, 3 days into April and it is finally, finally starting to warm up.  The wind is still cold in the mornings waiting for the train, but soon I should be able to shed my jacket and I really long for that.

Flowers are starting to bloom all around me, and my succulents are going bonkers.  I really need some new containers so that I can spread them out a bit.  The only thing I dislike about spring is the allergies.  I anticipate a miserable allergy season because of how wet our winter was.

I’m itching (no pun intended) to get out there with a camera, but I have a number of deadlines looming over my head preventing me from a long drive in the country to photograph flowers, so I’ll have to make do with the pictures taken by others.

Those first blooms of spring; the daffodils and tulips and such, have always given me hope.  Back when I was a kid, those first flowers would come up when there was still snow on the ground.  It was like nature letting us know that spring was on it’s way, the winter wouldn’t last forever.

I guess I still feel that when I see them.  It almost makes me wish I had a garden….almost.

Well, the coffee is done and the day job is calling.  I should get to that.  Happy Wednesday, Readers.

Remember, I’m running a special for new patrons over on Patreon.  Come join me!

PS:  Today through April 7th, my book Forever is available for Kindle for FREE!  Grab your copy!

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happy spring?

It’s another rainy, rainy day here in San Francisco.  Just walking from BART to the office has my legs soaked from the knees down.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain, and gods know we needed it, but after a solid month of the stuff, I find myself craving the sun.  My cats are also completely over the rain.  This morning, instead of getting up with me, they sat on the bed staring at the pet door.

The streets are turning into rivers and the ground everywhere is just saturated.  I am sure all of the plants are thrilled that we have escaped drought status, but I think I am quite over the rain at this point.

Enough of that, however.  Today is Ostara on the Pagan calendar, the spring equinox.  Today is the tipping point that dumps us out of winter and onward toward summer.  From here out the days start to get longer, at least until midsummer.

It is a time to plant intentions, to begin new things.  Get those seeds in some dirt and let’s grow something profound!

Of course, it’s also Wednesday, so here I am in the office like a good worker drone.  Lots to do, coffee to consume, etc, etc…

How about you, Readers?  What are you looking to grow this season?