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This year I realized that I have been lying about my favorite season for years. The blazing glory of Northeast Pennsylvania fall foliage aside, my favorite season is not autumn. It is winter.
Hope is a commitment we make to ourselves. There is something about the darkness this season brings, something about the way it almost overpowers the light, that helps us see just how much that light means. I believe that this is why we light yule logs and Menorahs and Christmas lights.
The contrast between indoor coziness and exterior misery has something to do with this, I'm sure. But the real reason I love winter is because of the absolute clarity that this time of year brings. It is a clarity that doesn't come from books or journaling or other people. It is a clarity that comes straight from the source.
And here is an example. Standing on the edge of my snow covered lawn, I hear a crow call from the woods and a moment later another responds and even before the words come, I know something I didn't know before.
A few years ago I came in from another cold lawn and wrote that it takes determination to make a go of winter in Northeast PA. But the truth is that it takes more than determination - it takes hope. And just now, out in the wet snow, I realized something I should have figured out a long time ago.
Hope is a commitment we make to ourselves. There is something about the darkness this season brings, something about the way it almost overpowers the light, that helps us see just how much that light means. I believe that this is why we light yule logs and Menorahs and Christmas lights.
Because in the midst of darkness, we need to remember that light is hope and that hope is a promise we must keep.
This year, a relationship I used to believe in is in trouble and people I care about are trying to make their way through a very difficult holiday. Words are my gift but in this words have failed me.
So I light a candle and I remind myself that even if no one else can see it right now that's okay because there are times when they did and there will be times when they will again.
And I know that, eventually, we will all get a chance to keep that flame going and that this year it is my turn to hold the light.
Whenever I hear the call of crow it strikes a cord in me. Part memory perhaps but more than that - a resonance I cannot explain.
It has always seemed to me that crows take notice of us in a way other birds don't. When I hear their call, I look up and see them watching. They seem wise and curious and wild. And I am always glad to see them.
My friend feels differently. He is more focused than I on what they eat and sensitive to color. When a crow crosses his path, he thinks of death and bad luck.
Which is not to say that he dislikes crows, only that they make him uneasy. He does in fact love all animals and was understandably upset to kill a crow quite by accident several weeks ago while driving. Sadly, the bird flew into the side mirror of his car and died apparently on impact.
It was an unusual accident. Doubly remarkable because the short of string of events it set in motion caused a delay and that kept my friend just far enough behind a freeway pile up to avoid it being part of it. For this, he is grateful.
In Native culture, per Jamie Sams, the crow or raven is said to bring the bringer of magic. The color black, in this context is not evil instead it can mean the search for answers or a call to walk "another path at the edge of time."
My friend is not spiritual inclined but I can tell this event gave him pause.
It may be arrogant to think of the death of an as warning to humans, but this death did serve in that capacity. It makes me wonder if this particular crow was carrying a message. Did a miscalculation mid-flight result in the sad circumstance of its delivery? Or was that miscalculation the message itself?
I don't know, but I can say that the crow's untimely death has made me wonder about other things too.
There are many carrion eating birds and animals, so why has western culture come to associate crows with bad luck and death? Is this symbolism its own type of miscalculation? And what does all of this say about signs and superstition and the relatively subtle difference between omen and warning?
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The quote above is from the book Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams
I made this dream catcher at the last meeting of the Sacred Circle women's group. One of our members was nice enough to show us how to do the weave. Mine is a little off but I expect the next one to be better.
Our circle is based in NE PA. We meet two times a month. One meeting is an arts and crafts night and the second is a metaphysical study group. The study group is a new addition and we'll be having our first study meeting this Thursday.
I am really enjoying all aspects of our group. Not so long ago it was common for women to work together as a team. In my grandmother's big farmhouse, for example, all the women would clear the table and do the dishes together. One would wash and rinse. Another would dry. A third would put the dishes away.
There was laughter and conversation and the work was never overwhelming because it was shared.
We began our new home search in late 2011 following the last flood evacuation I resolved to ever participate in. We did not have a lot of money - far less than any house meeting our criteria was likely to cost but we found one anyway. The downside was that it needed loads of work! We moved in in 2012 with only the bedrooms and den finished (and the downstairs bathroom in progress) and wrapped up the living room and loads of odds and ends after we had settled in.
Delayed by other (really big) projects, we have just finished our home office and are now starting the kitchen. As is so often the case my attention is focused on what remains to be done (front hall, upstairs bath, kitchen, and assorted bits and pieces) instead of what all we have accomplished. So I wanted to take a moment to remember the work that has been done here. Current pics of our home office follow with a shot of the original room at the end of this post.
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| Lots of sun! Everything is in place -except for my stained glass heron suncatcher. I'll post that when I get it hung! |
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| Ice on the window sill and a bit of the woods behind the house. |
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| My grandfather's old glass fronted book shelf and my grandmother's rocker. Broken auction lamp awaited repair. The door here was salvaged. This room like many in the house, had no door when we moved in. |
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| More ice and if you look very closely you can see the eastern sky above the next mountain. My view of sunrise. |
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| Still more ice. High ground and the patch of woods at the top of our little mountain. Elevation: 776 feet. |
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| My seat and the laptop on which I write these posts. Two Ollie's Bargain Mart desk chairs. |
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| My grandmother's rocker and the rug from my partner's family home. This is where my meditation corner will be! |
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| My collection of oracle cards and tarot. Old Underwood typewriter to remind me of what I'm here to do! |
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| Old wardrobe - picked up at the Salvation Army for $17 and refinished for office supplies. Auction house carpet in need of vacuuming :) |
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| Side yard and hedges and the view such as it is. When I'm sitting down I mostly see sky. |
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| Close up of my cards and my portable altar. |
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| Another view of our desk. A thirty-five .dollar steal at the local Salvation Army! |
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| The original space - a one time 2nd floor apartment kitchen. Chopped up for plumbing, this was the only wood floor we couldn't restore. I installed the new floor myself. Not easy but not impossible either! |
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| Full Haul (minus one voucher gift :) |
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| Angel Detail. Can't wait to find her a home in my new place! |
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| Close Up of Cards. Enlarge to see gorgeous Van Gogh sky backgrounds! |
As David Bohm says, there is no safety in things. But be this as it may, our lives are largely even primarily based on creating relative safety by way of the material. To this end we consume vitamins, safety test cars and maintain the integrity of our homes. And it is within this last instance, our homes, that our primary source of safety lies.
Shelter is an indisputable necessity in this sometimes inhospitable world and the loss of shelter whether through natural disaster, temporary evacuation or other circumstance is always a traumatic event. Most of us here in the US have never faced this catastrophe and for most of my life I have been part of this fortunate demographic. I live in the Wyoming Valley however, the site of what Richard Nixon called the worst natural disaster in American history - the flood of 1972.
Across Pennsylvania, more than 68,000 homes and 3,000 businesses
were destroyed, leaving over 220,000 people homeless and a path of destruction that would be estimated at $14 billion dollars today. In our county alone more than 25,000 homes and businesses were either
damaged or destroyed, and the devastation was estimated to be $1
billion in the economy of the day. The valley as we knew it was gone and rebuilding was a long heartbreaking process.
Thankfully I did not live in the flood zone in 1972 but I have lived in it through the series of evacuation which have occurred since. Our dyke has held but many unprotected communities were inundated. And while we were fortunate enough not to sustain damage, the last 3 day evacuation of our family and 120,000 residents of Wyoming Valley in September of 2011 was enough for me.
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| West Pittston PA September 2011 |
Hence my six month search for a new home out of the flood plain which ended this April with the purchase of a great old fixer upper on the near top of a mountain in a small town overlooking our valley.
The house was everything we were looking for - eight rooms, hardwood floors, original woodwork, big kitchen, great staircase, nice yard - but it was also in a sorry state. The floors were stained and the woodwork was coated in paint. The wiring was antiquated, the plumbing blocked. The garage was (and still is) semi-collapsing but the house itself is solid.
Divided into two rental units for many years, things were done to this once beautiful home that defy explanation. Setting it right is an undertaking that is consuming most of time, putting me 'behind' here in this blog for the first time since its inception. This update is my way of explaining.
Extensive remodeling is harder, at 55, than is was just a few years ago. And the immersion in a world of physicality is challenging as well.
Prior to this undertaking, a fair amount of my free time was centered on the metaphysical. Life was light and airy and relatively happy. Now it is tied to planning and building. And there is nothing more 3D than hanging sheetrock or knocking out old plaster or framing a wall.
I will be happy when the work is finished. When we are moved and settled. When I can once again meditate at night or read instead of dozing off, exhausted. Still I believe in what I'm creating now. I believe in creating a safe place for my family. I believe in restoration and the balancing act of making things right.
There is, of course, no real safety in it, no point where it cannot be torn apart. But physical survival is part and parcel of what we have been charged with here. It is the platform from which we operate and the base that we retreat to when the outside world is too much to take.
See previous post for the before pics. Check back for the afters!
According to Rabbi and scholar Ayreh Kaplan, in his intro to the English translation of The Sefer Yetzirah, Kabbalah may divided into three categories: theoretical, meditative and magical. Theoretical Kabbalah, which is based largely on the Zohar, is concerned with the dynamics of the spiritual domain (worlds, souls and angels). Meditative Kabbalah, as found in the Sefer (sefer means book) Yetzirah and several other unpublished texts, employs the use of divine names and other methods to reach higher states of consciousness. Magical Kabbalah can be found to a certain extent (per Rabbi Kaplan) in the Sefer Yetzirah as well as The Book of Raziel and other as of yet untranslated texts.
Wonderful translations of many of these primary texts are available through Amazon and elsewhere, including The Bahir and Sefer Yetzirah as translated by Aryeh Kaplan, and The Zohar in the beautiful multi-volume Pritzker edition translated by Daniel Matt. Are these good places to start however? That depends. An understanding any of these texts, is best approached, in my opinion, in conjuncture with a certain amount of left brain understanding of Judaism and the Bible and a good deal of right brain reflection and meditation. It is my personal preference to treat all Kabbalah as essentially meditative, to select a short passage to read and reflect upon and not necessarily struggle for a structured assimilation of information.
If you are looking for a more comprehensive understanding of Kabbalistic concepts than this approach provides, the best place to start may be with modern commentary. The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism by Daniel Matt as well as another of Matt's books, God and the Big Bang, are fantastic first reads on Kabbalah. The Thirteen Petalled Rose by Adin Steinsaltz (reviewed in this publication here) is a great choice as well especially for those interested in increasing their metaphysical understanding of alternate dimensions.
The Essential Kabbalah is a wonderful reflective and mystical text which addresses many of the important concepts of Kabbalah in short, understandable and extremely well-written essays. God and the Big Bang which I hope to reread and review soon, is one of my favorite books. In it, Matt does a truly amazing and sometimes poetic job of discussing the cosmos, the Zohar and many of the fundamentals of Judaism.
The following passage from The Essential Kabbalah describes the ten sefirot in Matt's mystical yet very accessible style:
"Better yet, imagine a ray of sunlight shining through a stained-glass window of ten different colors. The sunlight possesses no color at all but appears to change hue as it passes through the different colors of glass. Colored light radiates through the window. The light has not essentially changed, though so it seems to the viewer. Just so with the sefirot. The light that clothes itself in the vessels of the sefirot is the essence, like the ray of sunlight. That essence does not change color at all, neither judgment nor compassion, neither right nor left, yet by emanating through the sefirot - the variegated stained glass - judgement or compassion prevails."
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| Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash |
The American Heritage Science Dictionary defines a crystal in two ways and I have summarized each as follows:
1. A homogenous solid formed by a repeating, three-dimensional pattern of atoms, irons or molecules characterized by a smooth external surface and angular planes.
2. A natural or synthetic material, such as quartz or crystalline ceramics, capable of generating an electric charge or mechanical vibration under certain circumstances. Such crystals, American Heritage goes on to say, may be used in electrical devices such as oscillators for the purpose of detecting radio signals.
I found this last part particularly interesting. It does not prove or even necessarily support New Age or holistic practices in regard to crystals, of course. It does point out however that crystals are capable of receiving, as well as generating vibration. To me, this suggests a correlation, however tenuous, between the intuitive and scientific understanding of these very special stones.
Dozens, possibly hundreds, of New Age books address the topic of crystals. Some such as Judy Hall's Crystal Bible
list a dizzying array of properties for every crystal imaginable. Others such as Liz Simpson's lovely Book of Chakra Healing
give very specific suggestions for a relatively small number of stones. Those of us who consider ourselves intuitive may come up with our own applications, possibly even our own definitions.
For me crystals possess a palpable energetic frequency. Some, such as Selenite and Amethyst, affect me quite strongly while others, such as Celestite, have a calming effect. They may be clarifying and amplifying (Quartz) or inward focused and reflective (Lapis). I respond to their vibration, as well as to their color. I dream about them, work with them, meditate with them and sleep with an entire collection on my nightstand.
I have read more than a few books on crystals and written about them myself in a limited way here in this blog. No one in my opinion however speaks on these beautiful stones more eloquently then Eckhart Tolle:
list a dizzying array of properties for every crystal imaginable. Others such as Liz Simpson's lovely Book of Chakra Healing give very specific suggestions for a relatively small number of stones. Those of us who consider ourselves intuitive may come up with our own applications, possibly even our own definitions.For me crystals possess a palpable energetic frequency. Some, such as Selenite and Amethyst, affect me quite strongly while others, such as Celestite, have a calming effect. They may be clarifying and amplifying (Quartz) or inward focused and reflective (Lapis). I respond to their vibration, as well as to their color. I dream about them, work with them, meditate with them and sleep with an entire collection on my nightstand.
I have read more than a few books on crystals and written about them myself in a limited way here in this blog. No one in my opinion however speaks on these beautiful stones more eloquently then Eckhart Tolle:
"Any life-form in any realm- mineral, vegetable, animal, or human - can be said to undergo "enlightenment." It is however, an extremely rare occurrence since it is more than an evolutionary progression. It also implies a discontinuity in its development, a leap to an entirely different level of being and, most important a lessening of materiality."
"What could be heavier and more impenetrable than a rock, the densest of all forms? And yet some rocks undergo a change in their molecular structure, turn into crystals, and so become transparent to the light. Some carbons, under inconceivable heat and pressure, turn into diamonds, and some heavy minerals into other precious stones."
"Most crawling reptilians, the most earthbound of all creatures, have remained unchanged for millions of years. Some, however, grew feathers and wings and turned into birds, thus defying the force of gravity that had held them for so long. They didn’t become better at crawling or walking, but transcended crawling and walking entirely. Since time immemorial, flowers, crystals, precious stones, and birds have held special significance for the human spirit."
On the June 30th episode of the new Mystic Review BlogTalkRadio show I will discuss the intuitive and therapeutic use of crystals and gemstones and related topics with my guest Jennifer Sieck host of BlogTalkRadio's Inner Voice Intuitive Hour and owner of
*Eckhart Tolle quote excerpted from "A New Earth
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*Eckhart Tolle quote excerpted from "A New Earth
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| Photo by Konstantinos Papadopoulos on Unsplash |
The people hired to write the Idiot books seem to know their stuff too. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Kabbalah was written by Rav Michael Laitman, for example, and the three The Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui authors, Elizabeth Moran Master Joseph Yu and Master Val Biktashev, are well educated and well known Feng Shui practitioners. They are also quick to point out that you will be getting traditional Asian Feng Shui instruction in their book, not the dumbed down Western self-help version of the topic. This appeals to me.
The book covers a lot of ground and at 68 pages into it, I have to say (in a completely noncritical way) that aside from the introductory material I have not learned an enormous amount about Feng Shui. I have learned about Chinese history, religion and philosophy, however, including great explanations of Yin and Yang, Taoism and Qi. The authors talk about the human brain, the difference between the Asian and Western psyche, energy and physics as well, and quote some very interesting Western scientists (Bohm,Sheldrake, and Newberg), whom I hope to be blogging on at some future point, in the process.
The book also quotes Fritjof Capra (author of The Tao of Physics which I absolutely must read). In it, he says: "Like the quantum field, qi is conceived as a tenuous and imperceptible form of matter which is present throughout space and can condense into solid material objects. The field, or qi, is not only the underlying essence of all material objects, but also carries their mutual interactions in the form of waves."
In their own words, the authors say: "Qi is the stuff of and behind it all. It's the stuff that breathes life into plants, animals, the mountains, oceans and us. It's the stuff of dreams, intuition, fate and luck. It's the stuff at the core of non-living matter such as airplanes, building and the chair on which you sit. It's the stuff acupuncturists stimulate with their needles. It's the stuff martial artists conjure up to split solid objects. And it's the stuff Feng Shui practitioners harness to improve the health, wealth and relationships of their clients."
The book goes on to liken Qi to Ki (Japan), Prana (India), Pneuma (Greece), Ankh (Egypt), Ruach (Hebrews), Tane (Hawaii), Arunquiiltha (Aborigines) and Orenda (Iroquois).
Interesting stuff and as I am not an especially linear thinker, I'm enjoying the ride. A linear person could certainly skip ahead and would probably find that the format lends itself to skipping ahead. Feng Shui was suggested to me in a channeling session, so I'm curious to see what effect it will have on my living space also where the pursuit of some of the other concepts introduced by the book will lead me. I will write more as the journey progresses!
This song is commonly sung as a round in school music classes and choirs. It is a very old folk song however and to me it has always seemed both hopeful and sad. I sang it last night and today to a dear friend as he was failing. I share it here so that others might have something to sing as well.
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