Lunaea Weatherstone's Blogue

Hedgehog thinking

I went out to dinner last night with my friend Bryn and afterward we sat on a bench overlooking the ocean and mused about this and that. One of the things we had been discussing over dinner was starting a local tarot salon. I said that I couldn't think about starting anything new just yet, as I want to give good attention to the things I've already committed to. Talking about multitasking, Bryn wondered aloud why women seem able to do so many things at a time better than men do. My rather cynical reply was that it's because women just do it, often with the attitude of "if I don't do it, no one will." I think we take pride in our ability to handle many (MANY) tasks and responsibilities at the same time. It's one of our Goddess-given, ancestrally blessed, highly practiced skills. Unlike the hunter, who focuses intently on his target with full attention, we women move among the myriad plants looking for the edible, the medicinal, the magical, all the while with parts of our attention on the surroundings, the offspring, the weather, the shelter, the future . . . on and on, all the many concerns and tasks that make up a rich life. We do it all so well.

But do we take it too far? As much as I'd like to undertake a tarot salon now, I know that it would shortchange other projects. That's pretty easy to spot. Less easy to identify are daily choices, all the ways I multitask when unitasking might be much better. For example, when I'm at the computer doing editing work, I usually also have my email program open and a browser. My email program checks for new mail every two minutes. I don't have to stop and answer it, of course, or even read it, but the new-mail notification pulls my attention from the task at hand, and once that attention is re-routed, it's all too easy to go off on some other mental tangent. With the Internet laying the whole world of ideas at my feet, mental multitasking is like falling off a virtual log. Even having music playing as I work is another attention-pull. All the undone tasks that await me clamor in the background. Were even our multitasking female brains (and hearts) intended for so many tasks at the same time?

It's like the ancient Greek saying: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." I'm used to feeling smart and capable about all the things I can handle at once, but now I'm thinking that it would be better to put really solid attention and intention on One Big Thing at a time. Rather than fifteen minutes of editing followed by fifteen minutes of email answering followed by fifteen minutes of cleaning the kitchen followed by fifteen minutes of working on a rosary -- and so on through an entire day (week, year, life) -- what if I gave myself completely to each task for an hour? An afternoon? Until it is completed? It's a new way of thinking for me, and probably for a lot of other women too. We are foxy! We know many things. But can we move into hedgehog thinking? Is there One Big Thing that calls to you for your full attention?

Building bridges

You know I'm a big advocate of building bridges between faiths, so I just had to share this delightful discovery. I was browsing around looking at various retreat centers with an eye toward maybe taking a retreat this winter and found this on the website for St. Andrew's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery:

Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins on Betrayal and Redemption: Models of Repentance and Renewal in the Sagas of J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien

In this workshop the Christian doctrine of redemption after failure and betrayal will be studied using characters and vignettes taken from The Return of the King and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Special emphasis will be placed on Tolkien's description of Frodo's failure on Mount Doom and on Rowling's surprising redemption of such characters as Lucius and Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape.

Don't you love it? Next time you hear someone Christian-bashing and trying to lump them all into one group as narrow-minded killjoys, you can mention this and start a new, more positive discussion!

Autumn approaches

As the Wheel of the Year spins, there is nothing that gives me more pleasure than the first signs of autumn. Even with such a mellow and mostly cool summer as we've had so far, there is still something delicious about the first real coolness, the first chilly nights, the first moisture in the air. This morning the glass roof of the solarium is wet with the heavy fog that came in the night. The towering redwood trees swim through the watery veil, and the forest smells refreshed, its thirst perhaps not quenched, but at least a bit relieved. I know this is a Fool's false autumn -- the big heat usually comes in September and early October -- but still. . . My cup of hot tea feels extra cozy, and my thoughts stray happily to fall delights: apple cider, flannel sheets, cinnamon candles, some spooky books I've set aside for rainy nights to come. I'm adding The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to the book pile, as BPAL just announced their new Halloween perfumes, including 12 new scents inspired by that story. Some friends tease me about sticking to certain seasons for certain things -- after all, I could have cider now and read my Edith Wharton ghost stories book any time I want. But anticipation adds its own spice to the brew. I watch the solarium roof start to clear as the summer sun breaks through the mist. Today is perfect, just as it is. AND . . . I'm excited about the approach of autumn.

Lost tribes

I'm in a thoughtful state these days, blogue friends... do you mind if I just ramble a bit? I've been thinking a lot about tribe, set to musing by a blog post from Waverly. The longing for tribe, clan, kin, has always been a hunger in me, and something that has almost always been just out of reach. By my own doing, I'm sure, as I've been something of a tumbleweed most of my adult life. Joanna tells me that establishing tribe means staying put, sinking roots with people, and that feels right to me, unless of course your tribe is a wandering one. The moments in my life where I have really felt that tribal hunger satisfied are like shining pebbles along my life's path. I try to follow them back to some source I can identify and define, so I can find the way again to that connectedness. But they are like faery stones, shimmering between the worlds. There was a night when I drummed with a drumming circle, the good drummers pulling the beginners like me into a trance where we became one with the drum, one with the circle, my hands doing rhythms they didn't know they knew. There was another night around a seder table, voices lifted in song after song, laughter flowing as freely as the wine. Times of ritual, of magic, of sharing food and tales and dreams. My theatre tribe, my folk dance tribe, my community service tribe, my hippie household tribe, my women's circle tribes . . . all dispersed now, absorbed into other tribes, in many cases. I'm blessed to have friends near me now, and also blessed to have friends at a distance, points of light in my extended galaxy of connection. But I still want that deep, sure oneness, that "ahhh" moment of soul-expansion that comes when you just FIT, when you belong . . . when I belong. Maybe I do need to build it for myself, starting now. Maybe it isn't something I will just find, wander into the warmth and light of some tribe's campfire and have them take me in. If it does take time, as Joanna says, maybe it's time I stop yearning for what I once felt and start creating what might take ten years' time. Maybe I need to start gathering up some shining stones and make a circle, not a path, and kindle a beacon fire and see who enters that warmth and light. And then say, "Welcome, kindred."

Lughnasadh musings

Lughnasadh (or Lammas) has always been one of those vague holidays for me. It's about... um... bread, and gratitude, and abundance, and the harvest... I could go on, but all the things I know about the day didn't really gel into something I felt. Maybe because I try to stay focused on gratitude all the time, or maybe because I don't garden, so I am not literally harvesting anything. Today, when I was posting the Divination du Jour card, from the Hidden Path deck (you can see the card here), I got a flash of clarity about Lughnasadh. At this time of the year, crops are abundant and there are high hopes that all will go well with the harvest of grain and grapes, so that the darker months to come will be blessed by that abundance. But harvest is all about timing. There is a perfect moment, when ripeness is at its peak and the storms of autumn have not yet arrived. Try to reap too early, and the crop is not as rich or nourishing. Wait too long, and all may be lost. This was the meaning I wanted to portray in my tarot card Seven of Earth -- working toward that perfect moment, with trust that it will arrive. This Lughnasadh, I'm working on creating a third-year women's spirituality program to follow Ninth Wave and Farther Shore, which I am hoping to begin this Samhain. The message of this holy day today is that the attention and care I give to that "crop" now will determine its richness and readiness when the time is right to harvest it. Like my spirit animal the Badger, I must dig deep and not be distracted from my work. The bread that I eat today in ceremony represents my trust in a proper harvest if I apply myself diligently.

On this cross-quarter day, what are you hoping to bring to the harvest table in the months ahead? And how will you attend to that crop in the coming weeks?

Time and time again

As you may know, in addition to my work as a teacher and priestess, I do a lot of editing, mostly of textbooks. In one of them, I found this lovely bit of legal-speak that set my mind to musing: Motions to extend or enlarge time. I want some of those motions! They are graceful, slow, sweeping motions, I would imagine. Symbolic gestures of expansion and cosmic timelessness, motions that slow things down so that it doesn't seem like the rushing world is pulling me along in its frantic wake. Motions that give me more time, extended time, enlarged time. Maybe that motion is as simple as... turning off the TV! Or rocking for a few moments in the rocking chair. Or picking up a pen instead of reaching for the keyboard. What motions can you make that will extend and enlarge your time?

And so to bed...

I found a battered little book from the 1940s recently, entitled And So to Bed, by Edward Sackville-West. It's a compilation of poems and short prose pieces drawn from a BBC radio program that was broadcast in England during World War II. The program was on three nights a week between 11 p.m. and midnight, and its purpose was simple: to provide a peaceful, comforting end to the listeners' day. The book is divided by the seasons of the year, and its purpose is the same: a bedside book to "compose the mind," and "to provide a few minutes' quiet reading for those who are neither too tired to submit themselves to the enchantment of poetry, nor too disturbed in mind to hope that sleep will quickly follow the laying aside of the book."

I love the old-fashioned idea of choosing books specifically to live on the bedside table, books to quiet the mind, to offer soothing imagery, bits of beauty or wit or fantasy, but nothing too enthralling or engrossing. Books that can be picked up with pleasure and laid back down with a happy, sleepy sigh. With that in mind, I culled a few for my own bedtime collection: Sense and Sensibility; Wild Honey, by Alison Uttley (anything by Alison Uttley would do, as she is sublime, and I really must blogue about her soon!); and an odd little book dated 1890 called Little Flower Folks: Stories from Flower Land. It's a botany book for children that also contains myths and poetry and folk lore about the plants, which is of course how everyone should learn about them. I feel more peaceful and contented already.

What books do you have at YOUR bedside?

Carnaval Diabolique

Summer is such a sensual time, the senses alive to the luxurious tastes and scents and feelings of the ripening season. One of my favorite sensual delights, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume oils, is wrapping up their long-running Carnaval Diabolique collection next month. Yes, the Carnaval is leaving town, alas! But you still have time to explore its dark mysteries (and there are one or two more Acts that haven't been revealed yet, too). I warn you, when I say "dark" I mean it -- this is a diabolical carnival indeed, so if you are disturbed by the goth and the creepy, you may not want to click on the thumbnails of the art! Personally, I like a bit of creepy now and then, in small doses, but what I mostly love are the perfumes themselves. Some of my favorites in this collection include Madame Moriarty: Misfortune Teller (red musk, vanilla bean, pomegranate, patchouli leaf and wild plum); King Cobra (the Lab's own signature Snake Oil perfume with added orris, frankincense and copal); Priala, the Human Phoenix (three deep, dark myrrhs, smoke, and cinnamon); L'Heure Verte (spilled absinthe, scorched sugar cubes, opium smoke, lilac blossoms, and rose water); and Eisheth Zenunim (honey, ambergris, neroli, white peach, patchouli, and cocoa absolute). Just reading the descriptions of the hundreds of BPAL perfumes is a sensual feast, but trust me, smelling and wearing them is even better. Treat yourself to a little something that feeds your senses!