Samhain: Happy New Year

The past couple days I have been reading about Druidry.

According to certain histories, today (November 1st) is the first day of the Celtic New Year. The day is called Samhain; it begins at sunset on October 31st and ends at sunset on November 1st. (Click here for a link to the Celtic calendar.)

In what way do I resonate with Druidry?
My love of nature and Earth and life.

As far back as I can recall, I have always felt a kinship with nature.
In recent years, I have recognized the place I feel most at home is on the trail or in the woods.

The earth is filled with stories passed along to each generation.
In its soil and waters, the earth holds the blood of our ancestors, blood that continues to course through our veins giving life to cells that recall those ancestors.

In those aspects, I am a Druid at heart; not to mention the love for poetry and art and music.
There are other earth-based religions and philosophies that value the same.
I think of the American Indian.
I know I have Celt in my blood; perhaps that is part of the draw toward earth-based religions.
I'm not sure if I have American Indian in my blood.

Nature, the wild, life...these are my so-called gods.
By the word "god," I mean something that obeys no one, something of which there is no greater power.
Ultimately, nothing is more powerful, less merciful, more graceful than Mother Nature - the nature of our planet and the nature that is the cosmos.

She is chaos and order all at the same time.
She alone is a creative and destructive force.
She has my utmost respect and awe.

Is there a creative entity whom She obeys? I don't think so.
Is there an entity that created Her? I don't know.
Whether or not I believe or know, does not change whether there is or is not such an entity.

If not for the dis-ease currently inhabiting my body, I would be on the trail often, or at least as often as I could.
I may never physically heal from this dis-ease which has been visiting for the past three-plus years.
If I do, I will rejoice and celebrate.
If I don't, I will rejoice and celebrate.

In preparation of the event that my body does not physically heal, I continue to explore ways that will connect me with the trail, with my love for the earth and for the woods and its inhabitants.

To name a few...
Bicycle.
Recycle.
Mandalas.
The number nine.
AT-thru hike game.
Bamboo knitting needles.
Flush less.
Minimize.
Sing.
Gratitude.
Pause.
Listen.
Recall.

Hmmm...I don't do much physically to connect.
More often, I connect within.

An awareness of life in times past, in the present, and in the future.
An awareness of our place and function in that time upon this earth.
An awareness that time is and isn't, and that time may be an illusion.
An awareness that our actions and words, our intentions and dreams, our blood and breath, matter.

Always, I am in awe
of Nature's majestic seasons and cycles;
of Her indifference toward favoritism;
of Her continual striving to regain and maintain balance;
of the tiniest cell to the vast swirling spirals of the universe.

Compared to the universe, I am a tiny cell.

Happy New Year!

'three autumn trees' by lise winne 

Absent Reserves

The fatigue gets overwhelming.

My attention span for detail is crippled. My threshold for assimilating detail is lowered; the effort required can leave me exhausted.

My creativity wanes as fatigue waxes. It's difficult for me to communicate fully and richly.

My capacity for relationships shrinks as fatigue swells, taking up the space within that capacity.

I told Hubby sometime in the past couple days, "It's like I have no reserve."

But then I realize that isn't totally true. The truth is, I have little, not no, reserve.

Sometimes I think that others may think that I'm just not trying hard enough to push through for the next task. Or that I'm selfish, only thinking of Carol and her needs. That if only I had more will power, somehow that would give me motivation and then my fatigue would abate.

But the reality is that others mostly think about their own lives, not my fatigue or selfishness.

More likely, it is myself thinking to my self that maybe if I had more will power and push and motivation, that my fatigue would lift.

I'm still learning my new limits. If I overdo on any given day, I pay a price for the next three to five days.

Like the wedding I attended Saturday night. The ceremony, the festivity, the dancing, the music, seeing old friends. What a joyful and rich few hours were had by all. But then, I couldn't ride my bike for three days; my mind and body were dragging.

I find myself talking to my self out loud, helping me through my next task.

I find myself saying, "I am so fucking tired."

And then I remind myself, "Carol, all you need to care for are the four things, and the maybe-plus-one."

• 1) Move, just keep my body moving. Ride my bicycle on the Greenway. When the weather gets cold, visit the warm water pool at the Y. Move. Gentle movement, easy movement, simple movement. Just keep moving. 
• 2) Rest. Color a mandala. Work Sudoku. Watch TV. Sleep. Sit; listen; look. Be aware. Laugh. Rest. 
• 3) Keep the bills paid. Once a month, pay the bills. 
• 4) Take care of my pet sitting business. I love my animal friends. They are my healers on many a day. They listen to me and I them. They have cried with me and laughed with me. They have walked with me. The have loved me. Ironically, I get paid for their service to me. 
• Maybe-plus-1) If I have energy left, do some laundry. 

I seldom ever cook or prepare food anymore. If I do, I have to trade out exercise or pet sitting for the energy involved in cooking. Most of the time I cannot cook because of the weakness in my hands and arms.

With any endeavor, I have to measure my energy account and figure the costs.

I miss hiking. I still grieve that loss. But I keep a golden thread of hope.

Oh my, all that sounds so dreadfully dreary...and I didn't even get written what I had thought to write, which was about how fatigue feels, about how my head wants to drop into the dinner plate.

And even though days are filled with fatigue, my life isn't dreary.  It still unfolds with serendipity every week, almost daily.

Maybe I'll have energy later to write the story of the male, nude sunbather I saw last week along that small footpath off of the Greenway. That incident kept me grinning for three days.

A New Place

prompt or not: a new place
aww ~ october 8, 2014
****

Every day,
I'm in a new place.

I awake to the sunshine,
for that day.

The bright beams
dispersed from over 92,000,000 miles away,
make landfall to each blade of grass
upon this rock of earth and water
crawling, streaming, galloping

 with life.

Everywhere,
there is life.
Some still undiscovered by us human creatures
who roam this rock.

The giant star 

warms our skins.
It lights our paths.
Our bodies and the earth
respond to its life-giving pulses.

As I move through the day,
I am in a new place
each second.
That space is new
only
for that momentary ruffle
in time.
All the ruffles
then cascade and ripple
making a river of time,
gorging renewed
places in history.

If I had a door
through which I could pass back and forth through time,
would I change the past
and thus the present and the future?

Or would I be like the sun?
Simply rise and set,
observe,
indifferent;
yet sustaining the life that is present
in that moment.

I know the sun can be deadly too.
Its indifference is austere,
like the rest of nature.
Stark.
Naked.
Raw.

Science estimates that Sun will burn out
in another five billion years.

Unless our indifference
kills Sun sooner.

I think though,
we would be the first to go.

~*~

~giant star,  roan highlands, december's end, 2013~

~roan highlands, december's end, 2013, photo by elijah & friends~