Looking forward to the longest day


My fence is almost ready

I am very carefully trying to braid the vines on my fence without damaging them too much.

My goal is enough privacy so I can welcome the sun from my garden at sunrise on the solstice.

It's going to be close. I may just have to risk it.

I want my private place back.

You know, I can't work in the garden without remembering my grandfather. Although he would never have approved of a "nekkid pagan dance" among the plants. He was too much the Baptist for that.

My stepdad married my mother when I was two. His dad was a gardener too, but not because it was fun. Back during the Depression and when my stepdad was very young, gardening was a necessity if you had the space. A little cultivation, a few chickens, these things put food on the table. My mom's parents moved three times in Arizona, but my stepdad's dad lived most of his life in the same house.

I never saw "the farm" that my maternal grandfather grew up on. Let's just say that my maternal great grandmother was a difficult person to get along with and didn't always appreciate company. Still, seeing the difference between the South and Arizona taught me a lot about the land. In parts of Arkansas and most of Louisianna, mold will grow on just about anything that stops moving for a bit. In Arizona, you have to work for it.

Then there are the Hopi and the Diné. To this day, I can't stand piñon nuts, although I have a deep respect for what it takes to find and gather them. And please don't get me started on mutton stew or I might start to whimper.

Still the attitude about food and hospitality shaped me. I've talked before about some ladies of my line being "priestesses of Hestia, though they knew it not." Guest rights were guest rights, and went along with serving the land so it would provide for you and yours. So yes, sharing food is a part of my sabbat rites, even if I am fairly private about most of the rest.

That connection to the land around me is what sustains me during my darkest times. I dream in Kodachrome and I can't leave this land for too long without feeling isolated. So I give a little back to the land, to the animals and birds, even to the humans who go through their lives asleep. I don't do it because I am a totally amazing guy. I do it because that is the price of living and the price that maintains that sacred link. It's the thrum at the base of my spine and the light at the back of my eyes and the whisper at the edge of my hearing. It's the taste in the back of my throat and the tingle in my toenails when I walk barefoot.

Even now I smile when I write about it. I can't help it.

It's life. It's THERE. It's a part of Earth and Sky, Sea and Fire. It's spirit drawn through you and spread like bursting seed. I could no more stop than I could stop breathing. It's who I am, and generations of ancestors honoring the binding between the Earth and people.

Well, this isn't exactly what I set out to write today. But I think it needed to be said. I think I am going to go make some mud and wiggle my toes in it.

Posted: Tue - June 8, 2010 at 01:13 PM
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