Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon<\/p>\n
As August slides away and the sky shifts its colors toward deeper hues, an inner barometer detects higher emotional pressures.\u00a0 The atmosphere weighs more, cuing those momentary pauses, breaks in attention.\u00a0 It may signal a storm ahead, but more likely the prediction carries gray skies and mist, perhaps early morning fog.<\/p>\n
Melancholy comes calling this time of year, an acquaintance, maybe a friend, of long standing.\u00a0 Mom died in October, 1964, 47 years ago, a year longer than she lived.<\/p>\n
Her death came at different moments in life for all of us.\u00a0 Mark, 5 at her death, has few memories of her; she lingers in his past as a faint spirit, an enigma.\u00a0 Mary, 12, has more, a young girl heading into adolescence, becoming a woman, missed the guidance a mature woman could give as she made that critical transition.\u00a0 At 17 my life had already begun to pull away from the family, in my senior year of high school, the last, college plans in the making, I had her longest of all, only a brief time less than Dad.<\/p>\n
When that dark angel comes, and he comes for us all, finality is the hardest lesson to absorb.\u00a0 No more mom.\u00a0 No more.\u00a0 Memories, yes, but memories fade and change as life goes on and here all three of us are, 47 years later.\u00a0 47 years.\u00a0 A lifetime.<\/p>\n
Why a friend?\u00a0 How could melancholy be a friend?\u00a0 Well, in this way.\u00a0 As life patters on, this event following the other, we can become accustomed to its rhythms, lost in its small decisions and its casual absorption of our energy.\u00a0 So lost, in fact, that we forget the Self that carries us forward, the Self into which we live and which lives itself into us.<\/p>\n
Melancholy can turn us away from the day to day and cause us again to walk down the stairs leading to what Ira Progoff calls the Inner Cathedral.\u00a0 We often forget this quiet place within, our own sanctuary, and melancholy can call us to visit it again.<\/p>\n
So, yes, melancholy can be a friend of the Self, a guide back into the depths and resources of your Self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon As August slides away and the sky shifts its colors toward deeper hues, an inner barometer detects higher emotional pressures.\u00a0 The atmosphere weighs more, cuing those momentary pauses, breaks in attention.\u00a0 It may signal a storm ahead, but more likely the prediction carries gray skies and mist, perhaps early morning fog. … Continue reading Fall-ing<\/span>