Everyday Goddess

Thoughts on Totems: Past, Present, Future

I got my first tattoo for my 27th birthday, and it is a dragonfly. Also, my first totem animal. A simple enough totem, my dragonflies took me to film school and all the way across the country to Los Angeles. I wrote a post about discovering my dragonflies here: I've seen a dragon fly.

For me, dragonflies are about growing into your true colors. Transformation. Color and light.

I got my second tattoo for my 39th birthday, and it is a bunny rabbit. I can't actually remember when I discovered my affinity for the rabbit totem, but it's a more complex relationship and clearly has to do with my ever developing relationship with Los Angeles and my life here.

For me, it's about exploring my territory, knowing when to face fear and when to leave a situation. It's about being a curious soul, and learning to trust my intuition.

It's also not the sort of totem that's going to kick your ass.

Ever since I read, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," I've been thinking about my tattoos. My totems.

I can be a rather aggressive person. Loud. Passionate. Determined. I've even gotten "intimidating." And yet, my totems are a dragonfly and a rabbit.

It occurs to me that my totems represent my innermost heart and feelings. My soft insides. My dreams. My fears. My determination to survive and find my way.

But who would I be if my totem was a dragon? A lion? A snake? A bird of prey?

What predator can I call my own and what does that mean?

It's not simply a matter of picking. Dragonflies swarmed around me all at once. Rabbits kinda softly snuck up on me.

It is a give and take, though. I do believe that my next totem, if there is to be one, might involve my more aggressive side. Something about coming into my own. Something about strength and confidence. The fact that I'm thinking about it means I'm open to it.

But I'm not there yet. I've a ways to go with my rabbit totem, I think. And it's a good place to be.

Merry Christmas and Good Solstice to you.

Back next year.

(I'll still be posting on BlogHer on Thursdays.)

New Ink?

Ten years ago, I had just called off a wedding, and I got a tattoo for my 27th birthday. It's a dragonfly, and I love it to this day. That tattoo marked the beginning of a journey. Call this decade: Figuring Out What I Want To Do With My Life.

This month, I turn 37, and though I'm definitely working the so-close-and-yet-so-far dynamic, there's no doubt what I want to do with my life, and I've acquired the training and location to make it happen.

So I'm calling my next ten years: Making Los Angeles My Home. I suspect that over the next decade that sentiment will take many forms, hopefully both in my work and my relationships.

Million dollar question: New Ink?

And if so, what? And where? I've spent ten years thinking about my next tattoo, and I'm still not sure.

I find myself drawn to rabbits lately, enough that I researched the rabbit totem. I'm not too pleased that the rabbit has so much to do with fear - I don't want my next ten years to be centered around that... but maybe I don't get a choice.

Rabbit is often connected with fear because they are timid and constantly on guard. Rabbit wants us to learn how to face our fear and know when to defend our space or walk away.

Rabbit shows us that defending ourselves doesn't always involve fighting back. He teaches us to listen carefully to what is going on in our environment so we can accurately use our intuition when in danger.

Clearly I'm not timid, but I am constantly on guard and perhaps that's its own form of timid? I also like what that link has to say about rabbits and their territory and learning every aspect of the lay of their land. Certainly I am on that journey here; this makes me think of Los Angeles where it's not so much about distance as it is density: "They live on a few acres of land & become familiar with every square inch."

So I'm considering a rabbit tattoo. That said, this is perhaps a little too pop culture:

So I'm taking all suggestions, including ideas other than rabbits, and about location - both where on me to put it and where in L.A. to go for a tattoo.

While you are thinking, enjoy this most awesome rabbit video:  Howard's Big Dig!  Industrious Bunny; I love it!

Happy Holidays: Rejecting the concept of a "War on Christmas."

There is no war on Christmas.

What there is, is America. A country founded on freedom and the opportunity for tolerance.  A country who's citizens are Muslim, and Jewish, and Atheist, and Agnostic, and Hindu, and Pagan, and many things, and yes, Christian.

When I say "Happy Holidays," I'm wishing you the greetings of a big, long season of joy. I'm acknowledging that not everyone believes the same thing, but we're all probably celebrating something this time of year, even if it's simply two days off from work. I'm certainly including my Happy New Year in there and Thanksgiving to boot.

If you celebrate Christmas as honoring the birth of Jesus, I absolutely respect that. And as an American, I would fight to defend your right to your beliefs and your worship. But yours is not the only belief system in America. This is not a Christian nation; it is a nation born of diversity.

I'm pagan, and personally, I believe my Celtic ancestors are the reason for the season. You don't have to agree with me. Isn't America great?

There is no war on Christmas.

When I say "Happy Holidays" to you, I'm extending to you a festive greeting. To snap or sneer back, "It's Merry Christmas!" doesn't make any sense, and it certainly doesn't spread any cheer. Clearly, I chose to say "Happy Holidays" because that's what I wished to say. You get to extend your greetings the precise way you'd like to, too.

The last time someone wished me "Happy Easter," I said, "Thank you." I don't celebrate Easter, but I accepted the greeting graciously because that's how it was meant. When someone says, "Happy Holidays," just say "Thank you."

There is no war on Christmas.

I celebrate Christmas as a secular American holiday. My roommate and I are having a party tonight, on the winter solstice, and we called it a Christmas party. The fact that that might now be read as some sort of exclusive statement because of all this "War on Christmas" nonsense makes me really, really sad and kinda angry. Suddenly, I feel like I should avoid using the word "Christmas" all together, even though Christmas holds a lot of meaning for me, and I absolutely do celebrate it.

Growing up in South Florida, I had friends who celebrated Christmas, and friends who celebrated Hanukkah, and we all said "Happy Holidays" and we all enjoyed that everyone was celebrating. It's difficult for me to understand why that's not OK with some people - wonderful, even. Certainly, it seems the most Christian way to be - love your neighbor; leave the judgment to God, right? That's what I learned in Sunday School long, long ago.

There's only a war on Christmas if you create one, which is exactly what many Christians in our country have been doing for the past few years. For some reason, it seems, some Christians have a problem with respecting the diversity of religious beliefs in America, which to me boils down to disrespecting America itself.

If that's you, I'm asking you as a fellow American, to please stop it.

Happy Holidays.

Boo and Good Samhain

Happy pagan new year, or Samhain.

To most modern Pagans, while death is still the central theme of the festival this does not mean it is a morbid event. For Pagans, death is not a thing to be feared. Old age is valued for its wisdom and dying is accepted as a part of life as necessary and welcome as birth. While Pagans, like people of other faiths, always honour and show respect for their dead, this is particularly marked at Samhain. Loved ones who have recently died are remembered and their spirits often invited to join the living in the celebratory feast. It is also a time at which those born during the past year are formally welcomed into the community. As well as feasting, Pagans often celebrate Samahin with traditional games such as apple-dooking.

Death also symbolises endings and Samhain is therefore not only a time for reflecting on mortality, but also on the passing of relationships, jobs and other significant changes in life. A time for taking stock of the past and coming to terms with it, in order to move on and look forward to the future.

I've realized this week the parallels between myself at 26 and myself at 36.  When I was 26, I was plagued with a sense of not knowing what I wanted to do with my life or where I was going.  It was the year I began the big decisions and the big changes.  Called off my wedding.  Started on a path that lead me to directing and to film school and to Los Angeles.

Ten years later, here I am.  I know what I want to do (direct), but I'm buried in debt and I don't know how to move from this place of negative net worth and no meaningful career.  I feel frustrated and unsure and wander-y, and, well look at that - that feels just like me at 26, but with a whole hell of a lot more debt.

And I wonder if this is the year I begin the big decisions and the big changes.

I'm applying to the DGA Assistant Directors Training Program.  I need to wake up totally psyched about where I'm going.  I need to be on set.  I need to spend my days doing work I'm good at and that I find rewarding.  I need to help create film and television, one way or another.

The bottom line is, if I'm an assistant director of any level, I will be a happier, more satisfied person, so I'm going to go for it.  I need to start working my ass off at work that makes me happy every single day, not just nights and weekends.

The application is long, the competition fierce, and the timing (with the potential strikes) is horrible.

Ah, just the way I like it.

Happy Halloween.

Christmas is a time for new beginnings.

The dark of winter wraps around us tight.
The lamps are fired, and flickering light
beats time to the fiddle as notes float softly down, like the years' first snow.
While outside the window a blast of late December wind
whistles harmony to the drone of the pipes.
We push the old year back against the wall
so we can dance a jig for Christmas and welcome in the new.

Reflections on a Scottish Christmas, by Johnny Cunningham

My Winter Solstice post is definitely squeaking in under the wire!  I would have preferred to have posted yesterday, ahead of the shortest day of the year, but I was a bit distracted by my being laid off from work and being pushed straight into my new beginning.

I guess my favorite way to spend the winter solstice is with close friends, good wine, candles, and a Christmas tree.  December is such a wonderful time to celebrate.

This year, I didn't throw a party as I thought I might at the beginning of the year, but I did manage to have The Boyfriend and another friend over for some board gaming and Baileys.

Is there a moment quite as keen
or memory as bright
as light and fire and music sweet
To Warm the Winter's Night

To Warm The Winter's Night, by Adam Victor Christianson

Some years, you really have to think about new beginnings; some years, your new beginning is simply all around you, not to be denied.

Months ago, I said that I would address the question, "What religion are you?"  And surely solstice is a perfect time for that.

When pressed, usually I will answer that I am no religion.  Given an official form, that is most likely what I would check.  I don't consider myself Wiccan, although I enjoying reading about Wiccan practices from time to time, and I do use Wiccan resources when I feel like creating and performing a meditation or ritual.

But wait, if I'm practicing a ritual, how does that reconcile with not practicing a religion?  I guess I consider paganism as a general practice to be more about spirituality than organized religion - because surely it is frequently not organized in the same way that Christianity or Judaism or Islam, etc. are.  And I do not practice it in an organized way at all.  Actually, I feel I study it more than I practice it.

Marking the pagan holidays this year - to the extent that I actually did that - was part of that study.  To some extent, that practice.

The seasons and the changes they bring are with us.  Part of our world no matter how far we move from the field.  The pagan turnings find us in the city, and they are there whether we mark them or not.  To look towards them for what they can illuminate in our lives, is to gain wisdom that has always been there.

Am I a pagan?  Well, yes, I believe I am in many senses of the word.  Then again, the Internets have left me to "spiritual, but not religious."

And that's about right.

If you'd like to read more about Winter Solstice visit Candlegrove.

Solstice poems are from this site for Aine Minogue's CD, To Warm the Winter's Night.

Boo!

Happy Halloween!

The pagans call it Samhain, and as usual, it feels like perfect timing (text from bbc.co.uk.).

Samhain (pronounced 'sow'inn') is a very important date in the Pagan calendar for it marks the Feast of the Dead. Many Pagans also celebrate it as the old Celtic New Year (although some mark this at Imbolc). It is also celebrated by non-Pagans who call this festival Halloween.

Samhain has been celebrated in Britain for centuries and has its origin in Pagan Celtic traditions. It was the time of year when the veils between this world and the Otherworld were believed to be at their thinnest: when the spirits of the dead could most readily mingle with the living once again. Later, when the festival was adopted by Christians, they celebrated it as All Hallows' Eve, followed by All Saints Day, though it still retained elements of remembering and honouring the dead.

To most modern Pagans, while death is still the central theme of the festival this does not mean it is a morbid event. For Pagans, death is not a thing to be feared. Old age is valued for its wisdom and dying is accepted as a part of life as necessary and welcome as birth. While Pagans, like people of other faiths, always honour and show respect for their dead, this is particularly marked at Samhain. Loved ones who have recently died are remembered and their spirits often invited to join the living in the celebratory feast. It is also a time at which those born during the past year are formally welcomed into the community. As well as feasting, Pagans often celebrate Samahin with traditional games such as apple-dooking.

Death also symbolises endings and Samhain is therefore not only a time for reflecting on mortality, but also on the passing of relationships, jobs and other significant changes in life. A time for taking stock of the past and coming to terms with it, in order to move on and look forward to the future.

It's Autumn, and the living is crispy.

Well, I flat out missed it.  The Autumn Equinox was Sept. 20th, and there was no mention of it here.

It was on my mind in fleeting moments, and in fact, fall is my favorite season, but my life is at capacity, and I'm struggling to balance it all.  I'm hardly managing with panache, but I think I'm hanging in there.  I spent the 20th and 21st with friends, sharing games, good food and conversation, so perhaps that was its own celebration.

This post is up, however, because The Boyfriend - who just patiently listened to me download (read: vent... read: rant) about some of the things I'm dealing with right now - sent me an Autumn Equinox card from Blue Mountain Arts to support my new Blogher Ads.  So here's what Blue Mountain Arts has to say about the Autumn Equinox:

Autumn Equinox - Mabon - September 22  Today is the official beginning of autumn.  The air is crisp, the foliage is spectacular, there is a nip in the air.  Summer is over, and Winter is quickly approaching.  Autumn is the second time of balance in the year, when day and night are of equal length.  It is a time to celebrate the harvest and to store our abundance for the coming cold but cozy months of winter. Animals are busy preparing for winter hibernation.  Everywhere, there is great energy in the air.  From this point on, we celebrate the oncoming season of shorter days and longer nights.

May it find your seasons turning to delightfully crispy fall delights.

Seasons don't fear the reaper.

The pagan harvest festival of Lughnasadh is August 2nd - 4th.  As you can imagine, I have not begun reaping my harvest.  I have however, been working my ass off.  And I'm having corn on the cob tonight.  From my steamer.  Ah, modern life!

Also, I was mesmerized by what I believe were corn fields off the 5 on the way back and forth to Blogher.  There's something about cornfields that seems so much more agricultural then orange groves or anything that grows on trees.  Who knew we grew corn in California?  Well, probably everyone but me.  Unless I'm wrong and it was something else entirely.  Which would be quite embarrassing.

I like the poem below because when I was younger, I always felt like August dragged, but now the summer, like most of my life, seems to rush by, chock full of scheduling and running and fitting it all in. 

May you be harvesting something good this month.

August rushes by like desert rainfall,
A flood of frenzied upheaval,
Expected,
But still catching me unprepared.
Like a matchflame
Bursting on the scene,
Heat and haze of crimson sunsets.
Like a dream
Of moon and dark barely recalled,
A moment,
Shadows caught in a blink.
Like a quick kiss;
One wishes for more
But it suddenly turns to leave,
Dragging summer away.
-  Elizabeth Maua Taylor

Everytime I turn around I'm lookin' up, you're looking down.

Today is Litha, the summer solstice.  It is the longest day of the year and the time when the sun is at its maximum elevation. 

Halfway through this year of marking pagan holidays, I'm realizing that it would be a truly difficult thing to actually "celebrate" each one within my modern, urban life.  By the very nature of paganism, one feels drawn outside to sun and moon and earth and air.  One wants fire and companionship, particularly for the summer holidays.  The Wicca Bible presents a wonderful way to welcome Litha.  (I don't consider myself Wiccan, but this book is a beautiful and concisely informative pagan resource.)

Litha is usually celebrated outdoors, weather permitting, and usually witches gather at the old sacred stires - the standing stones, circles and hillsides - in order to observe the solstice sunrise with others.  Many of us set off no the evening of June 20th (December 20 in the southern hemisphere) to keep vigil together until sunrise on the next day.  This means staying awake during the shortest night, and keeping each other entertained with stories and songs after drumming the sun down below the horizon at sunset.  At dawn, we begin drumming again, this time to encourage old Sol's exertions to rise early, ride high and shine long and bright upon the longest day.  The rest of the day is usually spent outside, sharing rituals and food, catching up on lost sleeping - and getting home.

Oh, that sounds just so wonderful and life-affirming!  I just want to soak in the community of it. 

I, however, woke up alone, after sunrise, to massive June gloom and a chill in the air.  And I'm off to work, and I have work to do this evening as well.  It will indeed be a long day!

Perhaps the more realistic goal is to celebrate what pagan holidays I can, when I can.  Perhaps it is enough at times to simply mark them here.  Think on them.  I've been thinking recently on the spirituality of paganism.  I've been realizing I don't think on it as a religion, as a worship.  Someone once asked me if I "worship" the earth.  I'm not really a fan of the word "worship," truth be told.  Rather, I see paganism as a recognition, or perhaps an acknowledgement.  A topic for the end of this year, perhaps.

The main symbols of Litha are the sun and the wheel.  This moment of the shortest night and the longest day, followed by the shortening of days that move us into the coming fall and winter.  We stop here to note the height of summer, even as this day marks the eventual change of seasons.  From bbc.co.uk:

This is a time to celebrate growth and life but for Pagans, who see balance in the world and are deeply aware of the ongoing shifting of the seasons it is also time to acknowledge that the sun will now begin to decline once more towards winter.

I find myself thinking today about the wheel more than the sun.  (Perhaps because at the moment, I can't even see the sun!)  The turning of the year, the turning of our lives.  How "life's about changing, nothing ever stays the same."  It's a powerful thing to meditate on, the wheel.  Perhaps I'll give that some time tonight.

I also found this somewhat scientific piece on the summer solstice, which I enjoyed.

Finally, a poem by C.B. Palmer, which I found at this site.  I love the anthropomorphism of the sun and the moon.

The Stag

Sun, rises on the land
And silently, he stalks the dew clad field;
Noon, whispers in the forest
And he comes to rest In the mid day heat;
Sunset, finds his breath a stream of mist,
As he calls to his Otherworld;
But midnight, finds his silhouette
Splayed across a frosty moon;
Darkest eyes, take in Her cold white light;
And she calls him to Her,
All too soon.

C. B. Palmer

Good solstice to you!

tags: litha, summer solstice