December 3 - Stars

Astronomers acknowledged today that they have miscounted the stars. There are probably three times as many stars as previously believed. Ah, scientists, always catching up a few thousand years later to the poets. Poets have always known that you cannot count the stars. Twenty years ago I sent out a Christmas card which stated "We are made of the same stuff as the stars. Look to the night sky. Greet your brothers and sisters."

It is true. We were born from the same stuff as the stars, and we carry ancient stars within our bodies. I can't remember which character in a science fiction story always referred to human beings as "carbon units" because our bodies contain so much of this element. Now we know that carbon was created in the heart of a star, long, long ago. The iron that carries oxygen through the rivers of our bloodstream was created when a star died. 

Lao Tsu was said to have been conceived by a shooting star which sparked life in his virgin mother. How closely this mirrors the truth of our origins. Elements from the stars sparked life in a virgin, sleeping earth in to life and more importantly, in to light. 

Before we could look at stars through a telescope, many cultures carved the sacred spirals in to stone and wood. In this photograph of stars, taken by the Hubbell telescope, pay particular attention to the little galaxy, down in the right hand corner. It looks exactly like the spirals on the stone which marks the passage in to Newgrange in Ireland.

December 2 - The Presbyterian Brownies

Over the Thanksgiving dinner table I learned about a quiet uprising in a small Presbyterian community in upstate New York.

The gentleman who told me the story was happy to be married to a woman who baked cookies for him every day. I could tell that he felt particularly blessed in life, enjoying something most men only dream of in a wife. He lives his life with the awareness that at any moment, a home made cookie is there for the taking, should he so desire. He clearly felt that he had hit the jackpot when this cookie-baking woman agreed to be his wife.

When my mother was a child, the church still frowned on dancing, card playing and certain practices which I will not go in to here. There were even certain flavors which the church seemed to frown on, although the law had not been codified. The Methodist Church embraced vanilla, lemon and peppermint, unless of course the recipe was "too rich". The only time chocolate made an appearance was at church suppers, when we were served a brick of van-choc-straw flavored ice cream after we had cleaned our plate. Even then the full effect of the chocolate was diluted by the vanilla and strawberry.

I still remember the Friday evening my mother brought a batch of cupcakes, frosted with mocha icing, to a church event. I had, literally, never experienced mocha before—I didn't even know that it was a possibility. The cupcakes themselves were predictably white, but the hint of coffee in the chocolate frosting tasted decadent, forbidden, possibly even roman catholic. I savored that cupcake, eating it slowly as we watched John Wayne in "The Alamo" projected on to a white sheet hung in the church basement. I can tell you exactly what I was wearing (the navy blue sweater with the angora collar) and where I sat (front row on the floor) when I ate that cupcake. Ignoring the stern admonitions of the adults, I snuck up to the refreshment table under cover of movie-night darkness and took a second cupcake. Despite what I had been told would happen if I ever took a second cupcake, I didn't get a terrible stomach ache, although I am aware that I still may have to "answer to God" for what I did.

But enough already about my childhood in Brooklyn. What's going on with the square-dancing, cookie-eating Presbyterians?

I can't sugar-coat this. I learned last Thursday that brownies—nay all forms of chocolate—have been OUTLAWED in at least one upstate Presbyterian Church. A claim has been made that the crumbs are impossible to get out of the wall-to-wall carpet. The gentleman-whose-wife-bakes-cookies told me this story. He still looked shell-shocked, as if he can't quite comprehend what has happened in his church. He told me that his wife, in an attempt to circumvent church law and appease the powers that be, had even gone so far as to actually invent a "drop-brownie". Instead of baking her  brownies in a pan, which produces a crunchy edge, but dark crumbly middle, she painstakingly drops the brownie batter in measured spoonfuls on a cookie sheet, thus eliminating crumbs. But even this offering was rejected.

Contemplating the prospect of never eating chocolate in church again, she was moved to speak. "The drop brownies are SO SMALL you can put the entire thing in your mouth. There are NO CRUMBS if you eat them properly!" she said. But even the lovingly conceived drop brownies fall under the heinous ban on chocolate forced on the people by an unthinking church hierarchy. This was just too much. The cookie-baking wife looked at me conspiratorially and said "I don't know what I'm going to do. I feel like a rebel..."  I looked her in the eye and responded "Well, maybe you'll just have to nail one of those drop brownies to the church door..." Much to my surprise, they got it.

December 1

The clock starts ticking today in earnest, counting down the days until both Yuletide and the Nativity. The floor in my bedroom is ripped up and my house is in chaos—the floor was supposed to have been down two weeks ago but one disaster led to another, including water leaks and missing parts. While other people put their decorations up over Thanksgiving weekend, we surveyed the damage.

With paint spattered hands, I took off an hour to go attend the little Lutheran church in town for the lighting of the advent wreath on Sunday morning. The list of "things to do" weighed heavily on my mind, but I "took the time" anyway. As if reading my thoughts, the young vicar (as I think of him) introduced his sermon by speaking about time and clocks. I couldn't tell you what liturgical point this lead him to because I fell in to my own advent reverie.

Many years ago I suggested taking a fast from light during advent on Midwinter's Eve. Shut off the lights! Enter the darkness. What would it feel like, I mused, to not only shut off the electric lights, but to turn the clock to the wall for a day? Two days? Several? How would we experience our life without the clock? What would happen to our body and our spirit during this holy season, if we turned away from the clock and back to the natural rhythm of the earth and sun? What would we notice. Would the daily sinking of the sun be more apparent to us? Would we become more aware of how it seems to walk the horizon instead of rising in to the sky? Would we be aware of the moment when its path changes direction and it begins to ascend back to the center of the sky?

Would the women, who always have "too much to do" in December, turn inward instead and savor the richness of this time of darkness and rebirth?

The moon was shining in the sky at ten in the morning on Sunday, reflecting but nearly hidden by the bright light of the sun. Even on the brightest day, the stars still shine above us, but we don't see them. The mystery of the night is hidden in plain sight, obscured by the bright light of our mundane lives. The clock and the light bulb obscure the message as December beckons us to follow her in to the dream time.

Candle dances elsewhere

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlJCpSzV-_c&feature=related

Brinksmanship

Every once in a while the turkey is done before the drippings have browned properly. I don't know why it happens, but this is one of those times. As I write this I am engaged in a test of wills with my turkey. To make a good, thick brown gravy the drippings must reach the point where they have browned but are not at all burned. To achieve this the pan must be fearlessly left in the oven until just the right moment. A moment too long and you are left with the shame of having burned the gravy and responsible for completely ruining the holiday meal. Yield to fear and remove the pan too soon and the gravy will be pale and insipid, again ruining the meal.

One unforgettable year an aunt of mine (by marriage) decided to opt out of making gravy. Fourteen people at the table, who had opted out of breakfast and lunch in anticipation of that first mouth-watering bite of mashed potatoes and hot turkey gravy, raised the cry of "where's the gravy?" when they collectively realized that something was missing. My aunt directed them to the small dishes of mayonnaise beside each plate and said that she had dispensed with the gravy because "fat is bad for you." She said this with a perfectly straight face while presiding over a table heavy laden with marshmallow swathed yams and butter drenched string beans.

My mother-in-law rose from the table, along with her sister the nun. Without a word the two marched in to the kitchen, retrieved the turkey pan and created a make shift gravy, saving the day and rendering them forever the best cooks of their generation.

A sad Thanksgiving story about an animal

     Some of you will remember how much I loved my big dog Sumo. Sumo was really more of a wolf than a dog, although I can't prove this. Wolves communicate by telepathy as far as we know, and Sumo certainly had this capacity.

     My father-in-law was not a very nice man, but in later years he was humbled by life, and in this humility he tried to open his heart. 

     In 2002 Thanksgiving rolled around, as it seems to every year, when you're least expecting it and far from prepared. A few days before, on the Tuesday in fact, my dog took ill. He had been ill before, but this time it was serious and the vet told me that his liver was clearly damaged. I was heart broken. To say I was heart broken is not an exaggeration, I felt this loss very keenly. I myself was ill, without knowing it at the time and the whole thing just made me tired.

     Thanksgiving morning rolled around and we were due on Long Island to spend Thanksgiving with my father-in-law, who was visiting his sister. It was the first time he had come back east for a holiday in a long time, and the first he would spend without his wife.

     I couldn't do it. The thought of fighting traffic while I felt so tired was just too much. My husband, neither of us knowing that I was sick with Lyme myself, got angry at me for wanting to bail, but I did anyway. I don't think I've ever backed down from a family obligation, but I just couldn't see myself in traffic and I couldn't see leaving the big dog alone. Finally I just told him "look, go alone. By the time you get home you'll be over being mad at me." I had to insist several times that I actually wanted him to go, before he finally believed me and went.

     I had a turkey and I put it in the oven. I made potatoes and gravy, squash and cranberry sauce. I cooked all day and found it strangely healing, even though I was alone and would be eating alone. But I wasn't alone. My faithful dog was at my side, resting on his couch.

     Finally at evening I took out two of my mother's Wedgewood plates. She was very proud of them. They'd been purchased from a minister's wife, which made them even better in her eyes. I wasn't sure if she was rolling over in her grave, knowing that I was about to serve Thanksgiving dinner to a dog on her precious Wedgewood. Honestly, I don't think she was. I think she was proud of me.

     The dog and I dined in the living room. He ate his dinner with dignity and restraint. I swear, he didn't wolf it down, but took the time to savor. 

     After dinner I sat next to him—he on his couch and me in a large armchair, which he was specifically not allowed to sit on. I went in to deep meditation, and in this altered space I reached out to his spirit. Without speaking I formed the words in my mind—or rather, in the  energetic field:

     I love you. If it is your time to go, I will stand by you and I will not shirk my responsibility. 

I will help you and be with you to the very end. But, if it is not your time, and you want to stay and fight I will fight with you. I will do everything in my power to make you well and I will take care of you. 

     I was filled with a strong sense that this was not the only time he and I had been together. I saw him as a wild animal who had crept up to my campfire. I knew he would lay down his life to protect me. And suddenly I realized that my dog had silently gotten down off his couch while I was meditating and he was now in the chair with me. I could feel him telling me that he wanted to fight. Although he knew he wasn't allowed in the arm chair, he rested his head on my with complete confidence that he was welcome. I gave thanks for him.

     It was, in a very strange way, one of the most satisfying Thanksgivings I'd ever had.

     My father-in-law called me from Long Island that night . He told me that he had missed me, but he understood that I was overwhelmed and tired. He spoke kindly, in a way that was new for him, at least with me.

     We moved in 2003. Sumo got to go with us to a house in the country. He was old and he was frail, but he was proud of his new home and loved living in the country. He finally died on Valentine's Day in 2005, one week before my father-in-law had a stroke and we were called away to New Mexico. The ground was soft, in an unprecedented winter thaw, so we were able to bury him outside the back door of the new home he loved so well. I held him in my arms as he died and my mind was filled with an image of him running in a green field as he took his last breath.

Full Moon Dark Night

What was it like

to rest in darkness

inside our mother

waiting to be born?

What was it like 

to emerge in to

the light of the world

for the first time

seeing?

What was it like

to see our mother's face

that first time

having known her

all along?

What was it like

to hear our name

spoken for the first time?

Was there a name we bore

before this

long forgotten now?

And what will it be like

to be borne finally

out of this world

and in to

perhaps another?

What will we see

that we cannot yet imagine?

What could be as beautiful

as the surprise of light

that greeted us

when all we had known was darkness?