Spoons

Reading Ann Lamott has helped me to not cringe at the word 'god'. Her writing has made the whole thing somehow more palatable. Maybe it's because she herself doesn't even know how the whole thing happened ~ becoming a Christian. Maybe it's because she's so crass and a Christian that she just seems more likeable. She's not your average Christian. She has a sense of humor about the whole thing, swears alot, is honest about all her ugly feelings and she takes the word of Jesus very literally. So literally, in fact, that she finds herself trying really really really hard to accept and even love George W. Bush. And that is some hard work. I don't know if even Jesus, himself, could manage that task.

There have been many times I pick up a book or land on a Christian radio station and have put it back down or hit the "seek" button because there is some kind of reference to "His love" or "His ways" and maybe it's the patriarchy of the whole thing or maybe it's just those spokespeople of his coming back to haunt me, but if I'm going to try to envision some holy spirit that has a hand in the workings of the cosmos, I want that hand to be free of gender. A genderless hand. A genderless god. Is it Ann Lamott that sees god as a big, robust black woman and Alice Walker that envisions god as a little boy? I envision god and I still just get a little shifty. I envision god and I get pissed that his counter balance got such the short end of the stick. Ani Difranco sings "I had to leave the house of God because the cross replaced the wheel and the goddesses were out in the garden with the plants that nourish and heal."

There have been enough injustices in the name of god that I don't want to put myself on that side. And at the same time, some of the nicest people I know are some of the most devout Christians.

Ok. I only know two. Three if you count Ann Lamott, but I don't know her personally. But I am grateful for those that I know. They keep my bitterness at bay.

It saddens me that there is such divisiveness between the Christian religion and Paganism. Maybe there is a Welsh ancestor raising her fists somewhere in my DNA that is just livid about the fact that her traditions, over centuries, have been swept under the hearthrug ~ and then the broom hung outside as evidence of the witch within the household.

I find myself trying to balance, this time of year, what it means to truly honor the Solstice for what it is and, at the same time, relax enough to allow Ella her Christmas fun. Merging the two has become an artwork.

Look at the different Christian holidays that conveniently merge with Pagan holidays. The Christmas tree, an evergreen, symbol of life in the dormancy of winter. The lights that are strung during the holiday, marking the Sun getting that much closer to the Earth, the days getting just a bit longer with the Winter Solstice.

And Easter, or Eoster, or Equinox. Exactly what does a rabbit have to do with the rising of Christ? And the egg? Both are symbols of fertility, of the Earth warming and things coming back to life. Culturally, these symbols have stayed with us and found their home within the context of Christian traditions and so few people take the time to trace the roots of their meanings, to wonder how they're related to those three angels outside the tomb.

I don't want to feel like I'm on one side or the other just as I don't want to exclusively consider myself a feminist. I'm not a particular fan of any title that ends in an "ist". If I must claim one for myself, I'd have to use the term "humanist", but then, what about the other species and the planet itself, bearing the burden of us humans?

Three winters ago, Starhawk came to Vermont to host a talk, a ceremony and a Spiral Dance. Prior to the dance we started what's called a circle song. It's a song that repeats itself over and over, the group taking on harmonies as we go.

Breath by Breath
Thread by Thread
Conjure Justice
Weave our Web

We are a Circle
Within a Circle
WIth no beginning
And Never Ending

As we continued to sing this chant, there were a few people walking around with baskets in their hands, passing out balls of yarn about the size of one's fist. When everyone had their ball of yarn we danced, ending up in a circle of people, still holding the balls of yarn. We proceeded, while holding onto one end, to hurl the ball across the room where it would be caught and then hurled again elsewhere. There were about fifty to seventy people in the room and by the time the balls of yarn were completely unwound, there was a web in the center of the circle almost twenty five feet in diameter. Small children starting crawling underneath it in wonderment. Adults began to join in. Starhawk spoke of the web we weave each day by the choices we make and connections we make. By our intentions and our perceptions. In all of our hands, between two fingers, we still held the initial peice of our yarn. To understand the impact of our decisions on the webs we weave, we then had to work our way backwards, following the yarn to the other end. In this we came eye to eye with everyone in the room in a strange and holy game of Twister.

Beside my bed I keep a few items that keep me grounded to my convictions. That remind of things too easily forgotten in the hectic day to day. My lapis blue ball of yarn is one of them.
In one hand I hold the masculine, the memories of what it felt like to have Jesus in my heart, and in my other hand I hold the feminine, the familiar face of the old religion, the nurturing rhythm of what it means to live within the seasons and the elements.

In the center, balanced between both extremities is my heart. Neither feminine nor masculine, Jesus or the Goddess, but a soft merging of each, like spoons sidled up, one curved gently into the other.