A New Beginning

It's been a year since I forced myself to summon all my courage and create this blog.

2013 by way of my own oath before Kindreds and Grove was a year of my own creation.

It was apparent early on that though both my husband and I wanted another child it was unattainable in a responsible manner.  The loss of this potential baby was one of the most painful choices I have made in a long time. But our family stability, newly found, would be in supportable with increasing our family from three to four. I would be lying if I didn't say how devastating it was making that decision on both of us.

But my oath had to be kept. And 2013 was indeed a fevered time of my own creation. Photography, blogging, puppetry, props, poetry, essays, art, fiber crafts, jewelry, costuming all flowed from mind to my hands and out into the world.

Seeds sprouted in February were harvested all the way until Halloween.

Mother and child collaborated to bring childhood dreaming to reality.

Yarn and thread sung through my hooks blessing those I love with warmth and care.

Gemstones and glass twisted and knotted to become offerings of friendship and fellowship.

My cameras captured each moment that light and fancy and family dictated I must not lose.

But of all this wonderment in artistic abundance I created something very unexpected. A network of community for myself. Social media connections became as dear as those whose hands I've held. Friends were met and family was added.

Religious peers and mentors became  unexpectedly bountiful and of which I am stunned and  eternally grateful.

And though I suffered greatly this year I created another unintentionally wonderful cycle within myself; one of deepest and profound gratitude for all I experienced in 2013.

I declared 2012 the year of Sorrows. 2013 was the year of Creations. And it is my gentle petition to the universe that 2014  be the year of Balance.

It's my deepest prayer that mental, emotional, financial, spiritual, communal, familial, creative, and relationship balance can be found and maintained.

So thank you all. You journeyed with me from a year so full of heartbreak and loss that I am still not fully recovered to travel with me here through a year of growth, abundance and discovery.  I am so beyond grateful.

My new year is of Balance. 
What do you see as 2014's goal for yourselves?

Kindest regards,
Arden

To Whom Does The Torch Pass?

This is a discussion I've had about a kagillion times with my agnostic husband in the last ten years: who will be the next wave of elders/leaders in the pagan world?

Let's face it the Neopagan world (in the United States) was carved out by the generation who came into their own during the nineteen sixties and seventies. The experience of civil rights, free love, gender and sexual equity battles deeply influenced the leaders of paganism today.

Can you imagine Selena Fox and The Lady Liberty League without the formation crucible of the fight for civil rights?

How about Issac Bonewits' degree in Magic could that happen now or even twenty years ago?

What would police action or anti-defamation be  like without Kerr Cuhulain?

Our leaders are aging and in some cases gone. Who shall step into the void?

Where in the generations since the baby boom: the Me generation: "Greed is good" or the alphabet soup of X Y and Z, and let's not forget the Millenials will our: Selena Foxes, Starhawks, Ian Corrigans, Scott Cunninghams, Issac Bonewits', Kerr Cuhulains, Z Budapests, Raymond Bucklands, Laurie Cabots (and the list can go on) come from?

Who from my generation on will stand for our freedoms and will solidify our traditions and protect and nurture our futures?

Who will be the hand to reaches out in interfaith trust? Not only with other world religions and to those of no faith but who will create trust and dialog and unity within our own multitude of Pagan ways to live?

I am not talking of lock stepping all Neopaganism into one modality but simply who will be there to provide a bridge for Heathen and Witches and Wiccans and Druids and Family trads and Initiate trads and Solitaries to speak in common?

Who will train those called to service? Who will be our priests/priestesses and our brothers and monks and nuns?

Who shall step up and brave being a public face of an infinite varietal religious belief system? Who is ready?

I see a great swelling lately. I can think of ten such folk being the pillars and the gateways thanks to blog portals and access to electronic media. But can't we be more in number? Can't we be together in purpose?

So think on your community. Who are your leaders? What programs and services do you have in place? Which needs can you identity? Who and how will these services be provided by and for?

What can you do? How do you serve? How can you support the efforts of those who provide for the pagans in your community?

How do we handle: substance abuse, bereavement, birth, death, hospice, incarceration, environmental issues, poverty, educational, milestone, ecumenical, elderly and childhood issues within the context of our belief systems and traditions?

Lets work together now. RIGHT NOW let's talk about this issues and tackle them.

Please let's work now while we still have the resource of the First Wave Elders wisdom to draw upon. Let's stop reinventing the wheel when we can create the automobile. Let's redefine the car so that we can fly!

Let's jump head first in so there's no voids to fill just a continuum to grow and mold and foster for ourselves and the next  seven generations.

We the first born of the pagan boomers need this, our traditions need this and our children need this.

Now whose with me?

Ruminations on Leaving the Fourth

Today is the last day of my fourth decade. Tomorrow I embrace a new set of ten. But before the clock turns and the ball drops here on the eve of my 40th anniversary of birth I want to take stock.

I'd ask your forgiveness for such a self centered rumination but this is my blog. And after all you my dear friends come here to glimpse pieces of me through the lenses I manufacture. So onward I must go!

My life seems to decade centric. My first mental breakdown was age ten. It was not unlike a midlife crisis. A time fraught with "is this all life can be?" If that seems silly and indulgent in a child allow me to assure you it was not the fancy of an overly sensitive.

My life has been classified by decade thusly:

1st decade: focus on survival
2nd decade: focuses on denial and disguise
3rd decade: focuses of illusions of normality and coping
4th decade: reclamation

My early years were about daily survival in duly an emotional land mine and in a real world of poverty and abuse where neither condition ever was allowed to show.

My second decade was another war zone. One where familial ties frayed and though the battle for freedom was won and living conditions were 100% improved the lies got bigger and the secrets were kept AT ALL COSTS. I learned to blend and shift and be whomever was required of me.

My third decade was at first about maintain and creating illusions. But the double toll of holding up my mirror while being trained to be an actor, a professional masque, broke my looking glass and I tumbled down a rabbit hole miles and miles deep.

My fourth decade brought completeness to my soul by breaking the boxes all my childhood traumas were locked in. That happened not as a gentle pass wall of knowledge but as a torrent that carried me into madness and horror to the event horizon of death itself. My mind and body were scoured clean to the bones and only after all the marrow was licked clean was I dumped into the cauldron and reformed.

But this new creature I became took a few years to gather her legs under herself.
I finally entered full adulthood. For the previous two decades though body and mind aged and ripened my emotions stayed frozen as those of a frightened and abused child. All interactions, friendships, partnerships, actions during those years were powered by the love and fears of a very, very small child.

But in this last ten I have gained all that was missing. I am wholly myself. Driven not by kid fears or childhood daydream any longer I have bloomed into full adulthood; swelled into motherhood and found my self through small acts of creation.

No longer trapped girl-child in grown body, but fully rounded in late adulthood plus motherhood I step into a near future of bodily croning.

Three of my closest kin all died in their early forties. Cancer took all three. And though it's a thought to ponder it doesn't loom or cause me fear.

My fifth decade which begins in the early morrow hours as I shuffle of 39 and dress in 40 I am choosing to be about balance and joy.

The balance of past lessons informing but not dictating the present. The living of the present being more important than the possible worries in the future. Balancing of motherhood, wifedom, daughterhood, friendship, piety and service are my goals.

That equilibrium makes room for emotions here to now I have stiffled for fear of exposure to harm: joy, expressive love, happiness, inquisitiveness, giddiness, passion, gratitude.

So Bon Anniversary to me! And raise a glass to another year of creation and change and love and service to man and Kindreds.

I shall raise a cup to all of you tomorrow so that you too shall share in this wonderful bounty.

Hallowe'en Dreams

Sitting in the now dark. As the rain fails dismally downward.

The squeals of delighted and mischievous children are gone.

I sit still in vigil on the porch for the last straggler who braves the elements to claim chocolate boon.

The wind is tossing the treetops. Terrier like lashing back and forth denuding the crowns of their gold and crimson glories.

Heavy hearted I wait. Holding tight the losses of loves and life of family and friends who are family.

It is fitting this dampness and dreary dark. The moaning of branches that are bending but haven't broken.

The sad cauldron of goodies for small ghouls is still mostly full. Our revelers numbered more than last year yet only totaled eleven souls.

What to do with the riches? A full pot of spiced cider, heated and blessed to warm the numb fingers of the adults who braved our mountain.

They come each year for their treat as much for the spectacle that our home is every year.

I love this night.

As children we had to go far from home to haunt the suburbs. The farms on our road were too far apart to walk.

So through hostile and unknown plans we trudged pillow cases in hand. Hoping for treats and clever tricks.

Daring each other when we got home to scale the pastures in the dark to play blind man's bluff.

But always the wind played a melancholy air.

So trudge on and gather treats. Brave young lads & lasses Souling in the darkness.

Stop on over. I sit like a crone, rocking on the porch. A cauldron of full sized chocolates. A vat of spiced brew awaits.

We can sit and enjoy the symphony of death. The chorus of the wind and rain to soothe and numb any loss and heartache.

Dance with me this Hallows Eve.

Fearing the Reaping

Like a ghoul I sit
Perched upon a pile of other's pain
Picking at bits of grief
Attempting to swallow
Small chunks of their loss
Trying to help them heal

All the while I stare blinded
At my own all too soon reaping
Yet I push my losses away
Unfit refuse to forage

Like a ghoul I sit
Bent necked trailing my own sorrow
Like sputum behind me
A slime trail to lead me back to my own Rotting heart
Lost in the woods
Buried in a box
Tied with yew and rue and tears

How like a monster
Does it seem
That I care a thousand times
More about a stranger and his son
My friend
As they dance goodbye in solitudes
Or to grieve more deeply
Over an unknown to me life cast off
And those left behind
Reeling in aftershock

Than the I care
About the impending death of
My own mother

How can I remain calm
Why cannot I summon
Any more than basest
Pity

To be fair she's been
Dying in slow motion
My whole life
Soul and heart
Then mind and body
Long terrible fate

How will I face the guilt
My relief will cause
When her journey ends
I see it more as a passing
No tossing off chains of
Her suffering
And freedom for her 

At last to heal

Finally whole but incorporeal

But none for me
Not reconciliation
No soft words
No room for missteps

Because you see

My archenemy
A fat evil slug is
Waiting for the moment
We face each other

My monster under the bed
My soul breaker
My reason to know the
Bitter taste of hate
And fear
And loathing so deep
Death was a kinder
Family
Than he

That is what I fear and
I am ashamed
Not the reaping of
The womb that spat me out
But the moment I must face her
First born spawn

Like a ghoul I sit
Crouched low
Not sure if I should spring
Or flee

I hold so much rage
I feel so much blood lust
I am numb with the
Anticipation of my
Actions in that moment
When my monster and
I meet again

I don't fear the reaping
I fear that the monster inside
Will want revenge
So I lock it up too
In the box In the woods
Tied with yew and rue and tears

And try to ignore the breadcrumbs

Instead like a ghoul I sit

The Cool Down

I have had an extraordinary summer. It's been filled with art, creation, National Parks, day trips, family & joy.

This summer has also been filled with anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, emotional ping-ponging & guilt. Bucket loads of guilt.

So I find myself reflecting on all the abundance of goodness and how along with the enriching experiences the shadows of doubt and guilt clung to my happiness like Wendy had sewn them together.

The Fall has always been my favorite time of the year. The cooler days are balm to my soul. The horrendous heat plus humidity that is late July through August depletes my energy. I hate being hot. Hate it like wasp stings and eating avocado ( two things that can kill me.) And pumpkin soup can drag me back from the event horizon like nothing else.

I have spent a ton of energy this year encouraging life. Creating art and nurturing plants filled endless hours.
Tending to my family's needs while trying to work through my exhaustion and depression has left me depleted.

So how do we march refreshed into the darker parts of the year when everything around us is curling up to die or going into stasis?

I have always attended a conference in October. This two day event filled with lectures and guest speakers used to fill my needs. But as it has grown more about vendors and less about reason I find I go more to mock and buy rocks than to top off my tank. And though I will go again this year I anticipate that it will become less fulfilling as the years pass.

My Grove work has me thinking towards the darkness. How will the liturgical structure sustain me in the short days ahead when my internal shadows become manifest? I don't have answers. Though the solitary nature of the program leaves me flat.

This is my last full year of intense motherhood and I find it bittersweet. As this time next year the kidlet will begin formal education. In what form that education takes my husband and I still are not certain. But my baby isn't a baby anymore. And each step forward towards independence for the kidlet comes with new struggle and surprise.

So as I try to dump the guilt and wrestle my shadow into submission I am looking forward to the creative boost the fall usually brings. Crafting for the holidays, costumes and tricks for Halloween, new foods for the miriad of feast days and the shutting down of the garden will fill me with joy and equal parts stress.

So this autumn I am going to try turning under my fear and pain. I am going to weed through my beds of guilt and anxiety and prune those noxious growths back with a vengeance. Will it be enough to heal my emptiness?

I am oath taking and experimenting with relationship. I am saying yes where before in the harvests of the past seasons I had always, unthinkingly, said no. This is the lesson my summer bounty has taught me.

I asked earlier this year "How does your garden grow?" But now I ask: "Have you any wool?"

What harvests will nurture your dark days ahead?

How will you preserve your abundance so that you do not face starvation in the coming frigid days?

Will my preparations be enough to hold back the seasonal and situational depressions? I sincerely hope so. And I have more than three bags full.

Terrible Harvests

The cross quarter is almost upon us. Whilst most modern pagans celebrate the first of the harvests on August the first, I have always been moved to offer my first fruits on the actual cross quarter. Which this year is August 6th.

To be frank Lammas, Loafmas, PR Lughnassa has always been a nearly imperceptible blip on the calendar of life to me.

I always leave offerings but not much more than that. The core of the holiday has always been lost to me.

But in the last year my new practices and life's terribleness has brought the concepts at the heart of this day to crystal clarity.

I am currently living in an almost giddy place of reaping.

My oath of creation given in front of Kindred and Grove in Yule is in it's fullness.

Since December of last year I have created puppets and props for theatre, jewelry and dolls, this blog, a portfolio fat with photography, a lush garden grown for the first time from seed to fruits by my own hand, poetry, endless hours of imaginary play with the kidlet and I had the honor of working with a good friend in an art installation that paired the ideas of our children and the artistic skills of both kidlet and parent into summer joy.

That's a lot of creating.

By the way if you are in Pittsburgh and want to see the collaborative art piece my child and I added to it's called: What if airplanes were lawnmowers? And it opens tonight at 5031 Penn Avenue.
And the windows are going to be up until the end of August.

So thus far I have kept my oath and kept it well.

I didn't make the child we wanted though. We couldn't bring that bit of magic forth. Not because our bodies were fallow but because life couldn't be arranged to let my womb expand without shrinking our current state of prosperity into poverty once more. That sacrifice hurts beyond measure at times.

But that is part of the darker side of the cross quarter. The part we try to bury in the high energy of bringing in the first bumper crops of the year. Be those crops grain or tomato or umbrella fairies in mason jars.

There's a cost. The ferry man must be paid. This High Day requires sacrifice.

And this essay is about what I had to give away to gain this prosperity. And my thoughts on what I should offer up to Sovereignty this year to hold the place for next year's bounty.

Last August my Gram died. She was almost 85. She died as she wanted at home in her sleep.

My Gram was for most of my life my Mother. She was the once who watched me as a child. She shopped with me for prom. She helped me dress for my wedding.

But my relationship with her, the woman I loved best in this world, was strained. She was passive aggressive and manipulative. She gave me almost as many phobias as my mother.

She was harmful and hurtful and soul crushing in her guilt.

But I was denied all access to her in her last days by her children. Her selfish and cruel children. Who denied everyone's pain or claim to her as mother but their own.

Two days before she died my child asked to call her Grammy and sing to her. So we called and my three year old sweetly sang her ABC's to make her Grammy happy. As with all my calls it was unanswered and the song was sung to the voicemail. Which plays as it is recorded.

In a normal family such a thing is a treasure. A gift of sweet joy given in love for another's happiness. In my family I get a viciously aggressive call about how dare I upset my grandmother with such selfishness.

My gram and I had stopped having a relationship actually my whole family was cut off by me for a while at the behest of my therapist.

A perfect storm example of why: in 2006 I began the darkest part of my healing from childhood abuse. I almost lost my life to the PTSD and the reclaimed memories. As I desperately reached out to get support from those who failed me as a child I was met with "get over it " "why can't you move on" and "how dare you bother me with this? " so my therapist said cut your loses.

What I did do was face the honesty about who my family were. I had to strip the candy coating off of my memories and relationships. I had to face my anger and resentment over their participation in my incest and other abuses by myself with no reconciliation. And still I tried to be a good daughter/granddaughter.

But that ended the day my favorite Aunt died. But that's the issue. No one told me. For ten days! Not a single soul thought the death of my forty something aunt was important enough to share. But when I somehow by osmosis didn't know she had died and hadn't properly shown my respects to them in their grief I was the worst monster ever born. I flipping lost it. I closed that door forever.

But forever lasted about eight months as I had conceived our child. My DH and I decided it was cruel and wrong to deny our child a relationship with my family. So I sucked up my valid resentment and packed away my heartbreak and opened up the door for my child. All while standing vigilant to make sure my daughter isn't harmed by the narcissism and casual cruelty that is my family.

Fast forward to last August. My grandmother is dying from breast cancer. My brother is in jail. My family is making me keep quiet about him to Gram because the shock would hurt her. I am lumped into actions my brother did in regards to my Gram that I had no knowledge of and thusly I am denied the right to say goodbye. Or I love you. Or sing my ABC's. I knew this was going to be the case but forewarning didn't soften the blow one bit.

I was given her ashes. A gift of compassion I have no words to express my gratitude for. I try not to allow the reality that death scares my family silly and that the gesture is as I hope it to be a gracious gift and a vote of confidence that I will care for my grandparents cremains in tenderness instead of a matter of convenience.

My Gram's death has been a sacrifice of terrible proportion.  I've had to give up my pain to soothe the hurt of those who ripped my heart from my chest. I've had to swallow my rage at being denied the right to say goodbye. I've had to offer up my pain and I rage to no one but my Kindred for sympathy and concern so that my pain did not create more in her legitimate children. I've had to break my brother's heart by being the only one to tell him his beloved Grandmother was gone as he sat behind bars alone and too far for me to comfort him.

I've been blessed to be able to harvest that loss and pain into life and art and new relationships.

But I'd give anything to hug my Gram and say I love her and I forgive her.

So as I gather the fruits of this year's labor and acknowledge the anniversary of my mother's passing I cannot help but wonder what sacrifices will be paid in the coming year.

As I make offerings to the Kindred, this up coming Tuesday, in thanksgiving and supplication for the bounty of this year and the hopes for the future I pray that the cost of passage isn't as dear.

I have the greatest respect for the wheel we are all tied to. I know that it is in death we all are given the gifts of life.

But as we all begin to prepare for the fallows of the up coming winter please don't smother the decay under bushels of sunflowers and loaves of wheat shaped bread. See the offered up lives as sacred but acknowledge that they are deaths.

The reincarnation of gathered seed in August does not grow the identical shaft next May. But life still continues the same but undeniably different than before.

Life continues through death. But that's the joy. The promise of life because ofthe sacrifice of death.

I have a deeper relationship with my father because of my Gram's passing. I have been more prolific in artistic endeavors because my grief needed an outlet.

I see a thousand little things that let me glimpse what I've gained and lost everyday in my child. She has my Gram's crooked smile just as I do.

My fellow Neo Pagans take stock, honor the sacrifices that have brought you abundance, give your best in hopes that you may have greater to give away in the future.

And most importantly rejoice in your abundance. It was hard earned by terrible sacrifices each and every day.