Living in the Now

Today is June 4th and I am putting on socks because my feet are cold.  It's summer in Berkeley and while the sun is shining and the birds are singing, there have been strong winds today and the temp has dropped to the high 50's this evening.

This might not seem like a big deal to you, but after living in New York for the first time last year, the idea of being cold enough to put on extra clothes in June is almost ludicrous.  Not twelve months ago I remember being hotter than I have ever been, surviving the humidity of a New York summer living pressed up against my air conditioning unit. This fat girl from California was simply not built for humidity and New York City let me know it.

Potential Energy and The Spark of Life

Fire is an important element of this holiday.

Happy Beltane!!

I had the opportunity this Beltane to be part of a class centering moment.  This week's focus in our Christian Worship class is on the liturgical year and, as the calendar would have it, it landed exactly on May 1st.  So as I gathered with my fellow students (all of whom are Christian), we talked about how to center the class and bring in this discussion about my pagan holiday.


We eventually settled on a very simple lay out.  We started with a Christian song we sang in a round, followed by a scripture reading, and lastly I spoke and then guided the class in a pagan song.  One of my fellow group members liked the idea of creating a trajectory from God to Goddess, but I struggled with that, both because of the dualism and the fact that I didn't really want to talk about the Goddess.  We talk enough about the Goddess at PSR.  I wanted to talk about the Spark of Life.

A Life that I Love

For a long time now I have believed that the things we are attracted to - the attributes in the people we admire, the traits they have which make us envious, and little physical characteristics or personality quirks that we think are smart or sexy or charming - give us insight into who we truly want to be.  I believe that the attraction, that emotional reaction that says, "Wow, why don't I have that?" is really, "Oh, so that's what I am supposed to look like."  It's not always clean and simple.  Sometimes we get confused about what it is exactly that attracts us.  Sometimes it's not the culture or the traditions but the experience of being connected to your history or the experience of feeling rooted and a sense of belonging.  It may not be her thinness that you envy but her sense of style and the comfort she has in her own skin.  Regardless, I find that this rule I have about attraction is true for me in all sorts of ways.