Cerridwen's Cauldron/the Cauldron of Hecate

Samhain is fast approaching. For me, it's the Third Harvest (after Lammas and Mabon), the Feast of the Beloved Dead, and the Witches' New Year. It's the time when I recognize and honor those who have gone before, mourn deaths and endings from this last year, welcome new babies born this year, and celebrate other new beginnings of the year.

In my old Coven, at Samhain, we would go around the circle, usually counter-clockwise, and take turns naming our dead and our losses. For each of those, we would put a memento into the cauldron, bowl, paper bag, or origami box that we had in the center of the circle. The year my grandfather died, for example, I saved my boarding passes from the flights to and from Florida, as well as an extra copy of the funeral program, and put them into the bowl. We would always have a supply of paper to write things on as other losses came up, and dried leaves, dried flowers, and pine needles to burn as well.

After we'd finished going around the circle, we would take our mementos to the fireplace, or take them outside, to burn -- to return those mementos to the elements, and symbolically return our losses to the Goddess, to the Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. We would sing while burning -- Breaths; Hecate, Cerridwen; more. Often, we would cry.

Then we would come back, and go around the circle again, usually clock-wise, naming the babies and other new beginnings born that year. We would name each as we put a corresponding birthday candle on the birthday cake made especially for circle; some years, we would also light tea lights (a staple in Roses, Too! Coven) for each birth or new beginning and place them around the room. Then we'd light the birthday candles and sing -- Happy Birthday, of course; We Are; others. There might be more tears, the joyful kind, at this point.

(Yes, we had a serious fondness for Ysaye Barnwell and Sweet Honey in the Rock.)

Then we would feast. (Important aspects of Feast Food in Roses, Too!: chocolate, bread, cheese, fruit, tea or clear water. Variations depended on the season. At Samhain, apples, and birthday cake, always. Challah, often.)

This year, for the first time in many years, I am celebrating Samhain by myself. So after all the trick-or-treaters have gone home (or after we're out of candy), I will take the names I've been writing on pieces of paper and putting into my little cauldron, and the pine needles and dried leaves I've collected, and burn them in our charcoal grill. The names of friends and acquaintances and family who have died this year, or in years past but are still with me; the names of my grandparents and other family members; my beloved and not-so-beloved dead. The endings from this year; the losses that have come through ways other than death, but that cause mourning -- the end of my brother and sister-in-law's marriage; the attrition of volunteer and paid staff colleagues. The losses that cause relief and joy as well, such as the healing of illness or injury. And then I'll welcome the new beginnings and new babies from this year. I haven't entirely decided how yet, but it will involve something sweet, likely chocolate, and a birthday candle.

So, as Samhain approaches, I ask folks who read this:

• Who are you mourning?
• Who are your ancestors, known and unknown?
• What losses are you grieving?
• What babies do you welcome this year?
• What new beginnings are you celebrating?

Who and what would you put into the Cauldron of Cerridwen, into Hecate's Cauldron, the place of death and birth and change and transformation, to recognize this Samhain?

Grief and mourning and loss

Beloved Wife found out Sunday, when delivering a home-cooked meal, that the husband of a faculty member friend is about to start hospice. Not altogether unexpected, but still hard.

I find myself thinking of other friends whose partners have died, remembering being with them before or after. Bearing witness to the grief of losing a partner.

I find myself remembering their spouses, some of whom were also dear friends of mine...

I find those are a number of the names I've put into my cauldron this week, for Samhain.

Stone Circles

This was in my head most of Saturday.

Stone Circles
words & music by Anne Lister
arranged by Connie North for Sound Circle

nobody is an island
there's no way you can cut free
nobody is an island
there's no way you can be cut off by sea

and everything I do
touches you
and everything I am
you hold in your hand

and it seems to me that we are standing stones
there's no way that we can ever be on our own
and even if at times it seems that we are all alone
we're in stone circles marking time
with standing stones

no one is an outsider
there's no way you can cut loose
no one is an outsider
there's always some way to pay your dues

and everything I do
touches you
and everything I am
you hold in your hand

and it seems to me that we are standing stones
there's no way that we can ever be on our own
and even if at times it seems that we are all alone
we're in stone circles marking time
with standing stones

the circle stands forever
there's no angle there to chip or break
the circle stands forever
there's no straight line to show a slight mistake

and everything I do
touches you
and everything I am
you hold in your hand

and it seems to me that we are standing stones
there's no way that we can ever be on our own
and even if at times it seems that we are all alone
we're in stone circles marking time
with standing stones

the wind blows from the hillside
but we stand firm, and we do not bend
the wind blows from the hillside
the circle is a pattern with no end

and everything I do
touches you
and everything I am
you hold in your hand

and it seems to me that we are standing stones
there's no way that we can ever be on our own
and even if at times it seems that we are all alone
we're in stone circles marking time
with standing stones

you musn't break the circle
there's no easy way to be released
you musn't break the circle
and if we stand together, we'll find peace

and everything I do
touches you
and everything I am
you hold in your hand

and it seems to me that we are standing stones
there's no way that we can ever be on our own
and even if at times it seems that we are all alone
we're in stone circles marking time
with standing stones.

Workshop evaluations

I received in the mail from FGC this week the summary of the evaluations for the workshop I facilitated at Gathering this summer.

It seems to me that in the interests of my accountability, I ought to post that summary here.

What I am uncertain about is the comments. There were nine questions that asked for answers in words rather than in check-boxes. Readers who were also participants in the workshop might be able to discern the identity of the writers of two or three of the comments. (And, of course, if you wrote a comment, you may well recognize your own comment/s.)

So, here are my questions:

• Post just the statistical summary?
• Post the comments, but remove any identifiable comments?
• Post both the statistical summary and the comments as they are, since there are no names on anything?

I would appreciate feedback on this one.

Thanks!

Meeting for Worship for Healing and Laughter

I spent a lovely day at Michigan Friends Center today. I went for Richard Lee's workshop, Meeting for Worship for Healing and Laughter. The morning was given over to discussion, the afternoon, to Meeting for Worship for Healing and Laughter itself.

I feel so much more relaxed in my spirit -- all sorts of parts of me are back in expansion instead of contraction. This is a Good Thing.

I am deeply grateful to everyone there.

Samhain approaching

Some years, as Samhain approaches, I don't have time to think about it until it's here, and I find myself breathlessly writing down the names of deaths I want to recognize and births I want to welcome.

Some years, I find myself thinking about death, birth, celebration, and mourning in the weeks leading to Samhain.

This is one of the more-aware-of-loss years. Perhaps because some of the personal work I'm doing is around freeing up my mourning, perhaps because this is a year with a number of significant anniversaries this fall. Probably many things.

Last week, I started collecting dried pine needles for burning at Samhain.

I have a small cast-iron cauldron -- maybe 5 inches in diameter -- which I bought many years ago (at, perhaps predictably, an SCA event, Pennsic). My former partner, Teddy, and I were still together. Both Pennsic, and allowing myself outward expression of my Witchcraft, are intertwined with her memory.

This year, I've found myself wanting to start putting names in a container on my altar -- the cauldron, or perhaps an origami box like the ones my former co-Priestess Laura researched and designed for Coven Samhains.

An interesting experience

My wife and I have been house- and car-sitting for some friends who are away for a few months.

Our car is a 1992 Honda Civic hatchback. I was in an accident this spring -- slightly more than a fender-bender -- and fixing the car completely would take more money than the car is worth. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be an issue -- I am of the "drive it til it's really dead" school -- so we don't usually look at how much a car is worth when we repair it; we look at how much it's worth to us to repair it. And, sadly, it does not make sense to fix this car back up, especially since it still runs okay. If we ever move back to a state with annual inspection, though -- which could easily be next summer, when my wife finishes her PhD -- there's also no point in taking the car with us, because then we'd have to spend $1500-$1800 fixing it; it would be time to sell and replace. (One advantage of living in a state without annual inspection: a market for used "junkers." One advantage of living in a state with annual inspection: it forces you to do decent maintenance on your car.)

But, ever since the accident, I've been pining for a new-to-us car. Our car is old. It was already a little battered; now it's visibly a lot battered. It has no pick-up. The seats are ripped. The paint is fading in places. It doesn't have a cd player (we use a portable with a tape adapter). The a/c, which I wouldn't care about except that I have asthma, works intermittently. My boss' patients, who routinely see it in her parking lot, ask me about it anxiously if they don't see it. Etc.

Worst of all... we have friends with hybrids.

Yes, I have car envy.

So, car-sitting seemed like a good opportunity to both spare our car some wear-and-tear before we sell it this winter or spring and to drive something with more... zing.

The car we're sitting is a Subaru Legacy. Hmmmm.

At first, I thought this car was much more fun to drive. It has pickup. It has a moonroof and a sunroof. It's shinier and newer. The a/c worked great on those rare occasions when I've needed to use it so I could breathe. We could take our own car in for an oil change without transportation gymnastics.

We decided we'd drive the Subaru for a tank of gas, check the mileage, and decide how often to drive it vs the Honda.

I routinely get 40 mpg in my little, old, battered Honda Civic.

We got 20 mpg in the nice, shiny, big, all-wheel drive Subaru Legacy.

The Subaru uses twice as much gas!!

Not only was that way too much money to pay for gas, there was just no way we could justify it environmentally.

So, I went back to driving my little old Honda every day.

Here's the interesting bit.

I thought going back to the Honda would feel like a sacrifice. You know what? It didn't. The Honda's not actually any less fun to drive than the Subaru. So it doesn't accelerate as fast from a dead stop. That is really about it. And swift acceleration burns more fuel. The stereo is nearly as good, and my portable cd player has lots more flexibility. (It plays cd-rw's. It has a shuffle option. Etc.) The Honda is more manouvreable, even though the Subaru has power steering. There's no difference in how much fun shifting is in one vs. the other. And so forth.

And while the Subaru has a bunch of conveniences on the interior, because I can easily reach the back seat floor in the Honda, that also doesn't make that much of a difference.

I thought I'd be cranky about going back to my old car. And I'm not. And that's what I find interesting, and rather nice.

Plus, since I can't get to my job on the bus, it makes me much happier to get 40 mpg.

Fall

Fall has started with, well... fall.

It seemed as if, pretty much literally, the leaves in our neighborhood started turning on Fall Equinox; and some of them started falling shortly thereafter.

looking up our street on our way home from the Farmers' Market last Saturday

The maple across the street from us has some leaves turning that bright, bright red, and has shed a number of them already. In the cemetery across the street, we can see bright tops of trees. One of the trees down the street has already shed most of its leaves, and in the parking lot of my boss' home and office, the oak has started shedding both brown leaves and acorns.


All the pines in our front yard seemed to drop their old needles in the same three days. I swept our porch yesterday, garnering my supply of pine needles to burn at Samhain with my mementos for my beloved dead. I now have an entire paper sack full.


And, of course, everywhere in Ann Arbor, there are that other tree-related marker of fall: black walnuts.

Up through July, our summer was very dry. Then a front stalled out over Michigan, and for two solid weeks we had multiple thunderstorms every day. It's interesting to see what effects the early dryness and then abundance of rain have had on our fall foliage -- colors, and leaf-shedding, especially.

One of the ways my wife and I mark the changing of the seasons is by watching the changing colors on a particular lovely, long, tree-covered hill near where we live. When we're walking/biking/driving home from "downtown," and we come over the Broadway Bridge, this hill stretches out in front of us. In earliest spring, we see the first bits of green appearing on the trees. In deep summer, that hill has every hue of summer tree-green. And it's one of the first places, besides our street, where we start to see the fall colors of the leaves.

I read banned books!

I'm a little late starting, but I definitely wanted to point out that it's Banned Books Week! Click here to read about the American Library Association's "celebration of the freedom to read."

According to the ALA, these were the top ten banned or challenged books of 2006:

• "And Tango Makes Three" by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group;
  
  
• "Gossip Girls" series by Cecily Von Ziegesar for homosexuality, sexual content, drugs, unsuited to age group, and offensive language;
  
  
• "Alice" series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for sexual content and offensive language;
  
  
• "The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things" by Carolyn Mackler for sexual content, anti-family, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;
  
  
• "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;
  
  
• "Scary Stories" series by Alvin Schwartz for occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, violence, and insensitivity;
  
  
• "Athletic Shorts" by Chris Crutcher for homosexuality and offensive language.
  
  
• "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky for homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group
  
  
• "Beloved" by Toni Morrison for offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group;
  
  
• "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier for sexual content, offensive language, and violence.
  

Off the list this year, but on for several years past, are the "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

I invite you to celebrate the First Amendment, and your intellectual and political freedom, by reading a banned book this week. :)