Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon
Saturday gratefuls: Bonnie. Sefer Yetzirah. Rebecca. The Guardian. The New York Times. The Washington Post. The Denver Post. The Alexandria Times-Tribune of blessed memory. Kate, always Kate. Alan. Judy. Joan Nathan. Rigel, the sweet girl. Kep, the independent thinker. Ruby. (even though she is an internal combustion anachronism.)
Sparks of Joy and Awe: These Rocky Mountains
Tarot: Four of Arrows, Rest. Wildwood
The rhythms of our lives. A fascinating question posed by Ancient Brother Mario Odegard:
“The topic comes from one of the opening lines that Robert Bly said at one of his retreats that has stayed with me for many years. He talked about the absence of an inner rhythm in many men. He referred to this as not paying attention or listening to your inner flow. He asked what kind of “music” are you making with your life:
What is the inner rhythm deep inside you, that guides you, that swings you, that keeps you dancing with life? Do you need to create a new rhythm?”
Thinking about this sent me over an edge into the many rhythms that form the backbeat to our daily lives. Day and night. Heartbeat. Blood pressure’s rise and fall. Breathing in and out. Hunger and satiety. Thirst and refreshment. Weeks. Months. Years. Millennia. Birthdays. The Great Wheel’s seasonal changes. As it leaves, so it comes back.
There’s another rhythm in and down, out and about. That curious dance between introspection and agency.
Sleeping and waking. Punctuations. Semi-colons.
Music, too. Of course. Paradiddles. When I took to the inner rhythm that guides you, swings you, I went somewhere else. To the percussive driving beat of a snare, a fast and steady kick to the big bass drum. Justice. Always. A pushing rhythm, one to thrust me out of my inner fuzziness, my inner doubt and fear. Get out there. Boom. Boom. Boom. Crash. Whish. Go. Go. Go.
So here’s this archetype, the lady and the scales. The sword. Pillars of authority. A veil between her and the world. Let’s say she’s the one playing the drum set in my soul.
At the barest hint of unfairness I hear a faint brush of wire on cymbal. Attenhut! Is there more to this? Example. Got my haircut on Tuesday. Jackie. I’ve mentioned her before. A very sweet lady. Kate’s friend first, now mine, too. Jefferson County instituted a mask mandate last week for inside businesses. Jackie had her mask on. I did, too.
But. “Some of my clients just won’t wear a mask.” Puts her in the position of possibly alienating otherwise regular paying customers. And, does an omicron layoff lie just over the horizon? The combination of alienated customers and the financial cataclysm of a shutdown could ruin her financially.
Not. Fair. Jackie’s in her sixties I imagine. She’s worked hard, on her own, for forty years. Yet she now has to enforce a sensible, but to some, very unwelcome government rule; or, go ahead and cut their hair. Which is what she chooses to do for business and personal reasons. Some of these folks, outside the anti-vax madness are her friends.
Then my mind goes to other hair stylists, nail salons, barbers, mom and pop shops, shoe repair stores, anywhere one or two folks are both work force and proprietor. Lots of people. Especially in lower income communities, yes, but not only there.
I play out in my head the steps it would take to organize enough of these folks to demand some simple JUSTICE. Why? Because this rhythm has ruled my life since I was young. I let most of the situations I discover like this, and they are legion, go. Can’t be all things. Too tired and old. Don’t want to anymore. But there’s always the chance, in the operetta that is my inner life, that one will snag me, draw me in past the oh, I wonder what would happen stage.
It’s time for a new rhythm. One more to the tune of the Hermit. See what I did there? I’m thinking lutes and harps. Renaissance notes. Quiet. Seeking silence and contemplation like the drummer seeks justice. Justice has had at least 65 years to develop a presence, so I don’t imagine she’ll leave. But the Hermit has been around a long time, too. The guy on retreat. The guy who sought Christian mysticism, who studies Kabbalah and tarot. Astrology. The guy wanting to go in and down, not up and out.
Herme may be the balance to Justice, which pushes me up and out. Into the world. Maybe a battle of the bands?
