It is new moon, it is respite, yearning.  It is the earth, her shadow upon the face of the moon. Her shadow calling breathless, calling in, calling home.  Sing song call, to rest.  Rest, nurture and reset yourself in the stillness of her peace.

Quarantine Clarity.  Shows me myself.

In all things the constant, how my paganism steers me, how much faith I have in keeping the beat.  One day at a time, walking this year.  Learning, watching as I go.  Aware I know nothing.

It shows me how deeply I crave open discourse. I think of the reaction of even some people closest in my sphere, if I told them right now I have faith in being pagan.  How many ideas people have of the word.  How incredibly misinformed many of those stories are at best, and ignorant, often. How very few people self-reflect or self-correct, and how even fewer read, or have learned the undertaking of being in order to think well, to think for them self.  I am biased as hell when it comes to this undertaking and recognize it’s an elitist position.

I also recognize education in far broader terms then being able to read.  And the value of undertaking the path of student, of learning, understanding, growing.  In any case.  To  live life by Mama Nature’s cycles.  To live, open.  To keep myself awake to this.  The power, the wonder. Mystery of Life’s cycles.  The fact of existence, the existential rub what I am naming.  Existence which means not knowing why, or what?  It is stunning, this truth.  To be as awake to that as I am able is my only accord.  To run while I’m here in its network of light.

There’s a feasty way that religion, which this topic brings up, can enchant then disenchant the mind.  Allowing some people to think without the goodness of reason, as the moral ambiguity thinking people must face presents us with the modern dilemma of mankind.  It can’t not be informed by the strata of power we live in during these modern ages.  Where on the continuum of power and representation your experience finds you. The values of our power system are the very values that keep the system locked in place, they ask we cast a blind eye on culture’s morality to avoid looking at how we ourselves cosign in creating it.

If nothing else, I think often in these times of poet bhikshuni diPrima, her only war that matters.  The only one. The war against the imagination.

What does this even mean.  I ponder this, I did.  I pondered it as a way to live for a decade, then a decade and a half, and lately I again feel compelled, Called back to it, so pondering here, now, more. The war against the imagination is a war…to keep your mind free?

Free to do what? To think for your self.  In a true way unbiased of narrative thinking.  To keep knowing yourself and unpacking stories that get in your way because they were written for you, not by you.   And we strive to do this to keep the individual heart free, in freedom.  Free to the quest, the sanctity of being able to use the human heart to feel the full range of its power, which is to feel love and safety.  To feel this power is to feel for yourself, and the need for it for all people everywhere.  A fundamental human right.

That last part there, to feel the power of the heart, this is where religion can be life-giving, holy in this sense, pure.  For some people there is true devout power in taking up their hopelessness, their fear and own humanity, seeking guidance among the complexity of human right and wrong.  Religion gives in pain, it gives when we break and what it gives and where it gives is what is important to consider, how do we manage our pain. Our human suffering. Religion is humbling in this regard, teaches us surrender.  This is a good and humanly lesson that religion helps us walk with, to be mindful of not just what you make, but how you make use of the idea of God.

It is a premise in the psyche, the origin of where soul and matter meet.  The meaningfulness of life, creation, and potential.  Jung, in studying an ancient alchemist, reminds us that VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT,  or bidden or unbidden the gods are here.

Imagination.

Who?  What is our master?

This is a pretense I find appealing in paganism.  A willingness to discourse about godheads, myths and mythic principles, and what that means.  There is a code of responsibility, an understanding of the network of life in which my actions have consequence, that is fundamentally both naturalist and humanist in my paganism.    Inherent in this, recognizing the extent to which our cultural and our personal narratives bind us to actions that are, or were at one time, out of our control.

The power differentials.  The willingness to stay awake to this.

There are cultural disembodiments, large isolated pockets of violence, physically and socio-economically, that we deem not ours and justify our not feeling responsible to looking at.  Disembodiment here means lac of roots.  To not be rooted is to not be in control of your safety, your body, your home, your own story, your culture, your destiny.  This is a fact for us, for us humans to feel the truth of with the freedom of our own essential hearts, that there are many many people that are disembodied in a civil rights perspective.

There too are the basics of safety and equivocal access to, and maintaining available natural resources in healthy, sustainable ways as a fundamental human right.

I don’t know if that’s my paganism or my humanism translating right there as socialism, but it doesn’t matter to me because saying it makes me feel good and right in my soul.

Somewhere myths of Gods and Goddesses alike form a living, breathing world.   I use a singular is in that sentence because it’s a relevant dimension of thought and consciousness. The archetypal realm/s. Dreamtime.  Journey space. Our mundane human mind is capable of reaching this realm and having momentary experiences of religious, mystical , or spiritual transcendence. A paradigm shift as some say. It begins singular and personal, and when accessed for a moment or regularly, becomes Universal.   Figuring out one person on her own journey at a time how s/he experiences the mystery of life, what they believe, have they thought about this, what have they reckoned with for her self, this is the calling.  Walking in accordance of respect for one another and each person’s unique path or working this out.

Seeing to it that the starting point for these kind of transformations aren’t rooted in spacey spiritual bypass.  Is more equal, is focused on the accessibility of safety and resources in healthy, sustainable ways for all people everywhere.

Fundamental human rights.

Imagination.

It is Spring again, the almost intolerable mounting of life and then let down of dampness and cold, chilly grey days.  I am home early from my love’s house the second morning in a row, my seeds in their beds are all sprouted, under a shag of pine pollen my early greens make me eager already even though it’s not near at all time for harvest.   It is day of dark phase, dark shadow void phase, the potent both and potentiality.  This dark-moon-tending births Lunar Beltane, the full moon in sun sign of Taurus, first week of May.

It is a quickening time of flowering fertility, but first, now. Depth.  Stillness, reflection. Intention setting… and ahhh so, so so much more.

If you can tend what it is to be here, what will you come up with this planting year?

How will you sow?  What will you grow?

How will you tend?