Free Speech

I walked by an abandoned building next to the mall last night. Written on it with smooth bold black letters were the words, “Ban Gay Marriage”. They were written with a wide brush as they were smooth, unlike regular graffiti. Even though I fully support everyone’s right to free speech, I wished I had a can of paint to write over it. Painting over it would have been an expression of my rights. I wanted to cover up the “Gay” part so that it read, “Ban Marriage” :>) It would have confused people and maybe they would have thought twice.

Well anyway, the shuttle bus drove passed it this evening and the whole thing had been painted over with off-white paint and a large peace sign painted next to it. That was a better expression of free-speech than I had in mind. It made me smile.

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Fringe people

Here I am in Burlington Massachusetts for software training for the company I work for. I traveled by train from Maine, leaving my yurt in the woods for a hotel next to a huge mall. I must say, I feel a bit out-of-place. I asked the front desk person on the way out of the hotel directions to walk to a restaurant. She admonished me by saying, “It isn’t a very good walk”. I responded, “Well I don’t have a car and I must get some food”. She shook her head and gave me a look like, “good luck with that walking stuff weirdo.”

Well anyway, I managed a dinner and walking back I walked under a tree that people probable never walk under and we had a talk. I asked to enter into its intimate space and was very welcomed. I don’t think any human had ever acknowledged it as a living soul. I sensed it was unsettled from all the cars rushing by. I told it I thought it beautiful and to grow tall and express all its beauty right in this place as I have no way of bringing her home to Maine. Then I thought, “I really am different”. Anyone seeing me talking to a tree, in a place where no one walks and everyone is in a car, would think I was completely crazy. And they would be right in the context of “normal” people doing their lives in Burlington Mass. Bobcat once told me we were the fringe people. Even though I am wearing my corporate uniform, traveling on trains, staying on hotels, using computers, and even though I never thought of myself as “fringe”, she would be right.

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Hail the gods of Samhain

In my mind, Samhain has arrived. We had our first hard frost this past weekend. This year’s cycle of growth has ended. Now we dance in the long slow slide to Yule when the sun begins to return and a new cycle of growth begins. Now however, is the moment to say farewell to the year that has ended, to celebrate it, and to release ourselves from past.

So here we are with the year ended but with a new cycle of growth yet to begin. In Druidry, this time between Samhain and Yule is viewed as a time of chaos. It is a time where we can just be, where we can just dream in the dark. Without the image of a new year shaping up, where we are in the midst of planning and getting ready for winter clean-up, spring planting and the inevitable new projects that come each spring and summer, we are free to just dream, not worrying or constrained by thoughts of whether or not our dreams are possible. We free fall into life’s potentialities.

Referring to the myth of Cerridwen and Taliesin, I call this “swimming in the cauldron of inspiration”. We are free from the work of this year’s planting and harvest, yet we are still a long way from next year’s planting. As the nights grow longer, we naturally begin to spend more time inside, more time in the dark. We begin to move inward, contemplating our life, our desires and goals; we take stock in ourselves and reaffirm our place in our families as we begin to withdraw from our outer communities and the greater world. It is natural to do so at this time. Druidry is nothing if not, natural.

So soon I will celebrate Samhain with my grove. Seeing all the children trick-or-treating on Halloween, I will celebrate it again with my tribe (my local community). Outside of those moments of celebration though, I am diving into head-long into the cauldron; journeying inward; dreaming of the life I want to live; dreaming of the man I want to be; dreaming of the world I want to live in; dreaming of life’s possibilities as I lay in the womb of the goddess awaiting rebirth; floating in the essence of divine inspiration we call, Awen.

Where are you at? What is going on in your soul right now? If possible, please share it.

Blessings of first frost,
Snowhawke

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