Small Circles

The fever

Since returning from New York, I have been somewhat obsessively looking for signs of spring here in Buenos Aires.  It's nice to live in a place where the arrival of spring more or less coincides with the spring equinox  The spring equinox in the temperate north was always more about the light for me, because let's face it, spring doesn't reach it's fevered pitch until may or so...  Yes, it's good to be here, seeing signs of spring, in late August.

Snowflakes and solstices...

I haven't really been able to sink into the season as deeply as I would like.  Snowflakes on the window, all our winter books out, candles, darkness, magic, little lights, making ornaments -- it's just not happening right now.  It's actually one of the things I am having a hard time letting go of -- that magic making I do with/for Albie right around now...  The magic making I do with my women's circle right around now...  I am on the verge of buying some books at Amazon to read to Albie over the next few weeks -- and they're all about winter.  But we are headed to summer.  And summer solstice.  Wands, not snowflakes.  This energy, rather than this energy.  Oooo, I've got a particular kind of attachment to all this.  As I write, I feel my insides going, "Noooooo.  Must stay, can't change, must celebrate winter not summer!"  But, good fortune is upon me, as I recently bumped into the old classic, "Zen Mind, Beginners Mind."  And I can read about calmness, duality, attachment and be reminded.

The day after thanksgiving I was in Amish country in PA when I heard my first xmas carrol.  My immediate reaction was to be disdainful and cynical.  I mean fuck, how boring.  How routine.  How lame.  Can't we wait a bit before we jump into the madness of this consumption based holiday?!  It wasn't until a conversation that I had with a Jewish merchant who loved xmas carrols and put on the 24 hour xmas station as soon as she could that I realized: I don't really want to be one of those people who gets all cynical and disdainful about christmas ditties.  So, I'm not gonna be.   Nor am I going to be cynical and disdainful about those huge blow up christmas decorations springing up all over the land.  I will love those blow up dolls as if they were my own!  I will sing along to Frosty the Snowman in the post office!   I will let my tears flow when the Little Drummer Boy Ba Rum Puh Pum Pums!  I will join in! Perhaps not so much with my credit card, but with everything else.  I will even embrace the wackiness of celebrating christmas, the birth of the sun and of the son, only a few short days after the summer solstice.  I might even cut out snowflakes and hang them up in Argentina.  You watch.

It really can be a challenging time of year, what with the dark and cold but remember...  On solstice, little by little, the sun gets stronger every day.  The pendulum has swung as far as it will to one side, we have just about descended as far as we will -- soon, we'll swing back the other way.  It's a good time to make magic, delight yourself.  That being said, how is your magic making going?   It doesn't take much, just a little bit of effort, and that hope will find a spot in your heart.  I've got some suggestions: 

First, get some snowflakes in your windows!  I don't care how old you are, your sex, or whether or not you have kids.  Get cutting!  You feel the magic!

While you're at it, you may as well cut those snowflakes in the candle light.  Lot's of candles.  How about one day you don't even turn on the lights -- just start lighting candles as the sun sets...  Be with the darkness and the little flickering ever-so-tiny hope of the strengthening sun.

Start singing those carrols with me.  Belt them out.  Look foolish.  Dance like an elf who won't let the madness of the latest *ONLY TEN DAYS BEFORE XMAS SALE SALE SALE* weigh his loafers down.

And go for it -- make this pumpkin pie!  Wow.  Really people, one of the best pies I ever had.  I skipped the whole leaves thing -- and it was quite easy.  Yum yum yum.  You can host a little winter solstice tea, as the sun goes down, cutting snowflakes in the candle light, eating this outrageous pumpkin pie.  And you will have magic.  And I will think of you from Argentina, and I will whisper to the sun, "Go back to my peeps up north.  They need you."

Lastly, remember the reason for the season. This comes from Yoga Journal which I bought for the bus ride home form the city in the hopes that my 4 year old would sit peacefully and quietly gaze out the window but instead he pretended to flush himself down the toilet and made people laugh.   Anyhow, yeah, Yoga Journal, armchair philosophy, quoting someone:

"Christmas reminds us of the birth of the Christ-consciousness love in all beings.  The winter solstice is the rebirth of the sun into the spring cycle, when sleeping consciousness blooms from dormancy.  Hanukkah is the kindling light of hope and blessing, a renewal of wisdom in the world. Kwanzaa celebrates diversity and reviving the dominant culture from the sleep of monotony."

Wishing you all a magical journey down down down to the winter solstice. 

Pax et lux.

What goes on in your mind?

It's ok, you can laugh with me, or at me -- I don't mind at all.  Since I made my intention to listen and write daily, I have not written one word -- here, there, or in my journal.  I made a list or two, but I quickly ignored them as well.  It is as if that teen rebel kicked in, the one who says, "Fuck you.  You can't tell me what to do."  It doesn't seem to make a difference that it is me telling me what to do -- the reaction is the same.  Well then.  Big full moon insight:  I won't write a damn word without some structures in place to do so.  As in: I'll write every Tuesday when Albie is in school.  But, but!  Albie isn't in school anymore!  Perhaps I need some new structures?  You think?  Summertime doesn't feel conducive to structure -- at least not in my book...  So we'll see.  If it's really important to me, I'll find a way to write.   It's kind of amazing to me to see how many of my new moon intentions end up being about trying to fix something that I perceive as being wrong.  Although, I do welcome the insight that I am once again, trying to fix, living in shoulds...  Good thing it's the releasing part of of the cycle and I've got a massage scheduled.

The summer season has begun here.  I know that memorial day weekend is the "start of summer" across the country -- big party weekend.  But here, our population must at least quadrupal, and I wouldn't be surprised if it rupaled a lot more than that.  All of a sudden, the roads are full, the towns are full, the stores are full...  Lots and lots and lots of people.  Year-round, we have a population of about 20,000 -- and that's the whole North Fork -- that's 6,7, perhaps 8 towns.  Not so many people.  But then.  They all show up.  And they're not bringing the greatest energy.  Oh -- it's terrible to generalize...  but it does really seem that the summer here means lots of entitled second-home folks around.  It means my good old 93 Subaru will be surrounded by SUVs and Infinitis and all manner of luxuries when I pull into my favorite farm.  It's odd -- living in such a summer resort kind of town.  Not sure I dig it entirely.  Kind of funky.

On the other hand, this is the time of year when it all becomes worth it.   The water, the sun, the farms, the vineyards...   Play, play, play.  It is absolutely stunning right now, perfect moment after perfect moment.  I feel like I am living in the Emerald City -- the green is almost blinding.  And the flowers!  And flowering bushes!  And trees!  One after another, the farm stands begin to open...  selling asparagus and rhubarb at first, then some greens, perhaps some seedings.  Magic.  And we are on the precipice right now -- about to go over the edge into an abundance that seems miraculous year after year.  Really, so close.  Any day now, Mother Earth will have her first of many summertime orgasms -- and it is like that you know, multiple summer long orgasmic births for the earth -- and we'll get strawberries.  And then it doesn't stop until the last pumpkin is picked.  [And then they all go home.  But they come back to buy their christmas trees.  Which is just super.]

Ahhh...  tis' a good life, this life.  I've done this spring/summer thing for 35 years and yet it still amazes me every time we make it back around.  I just can't grasp it -- I look out, surrounded by a sea of green, and I don't know how we made it.  And yet, we did make it, once again around the wheel, to this enchanting season of growth.

Pop!

Now this is what I've been waiting for...

Forsythia!  And magnolias are showing their light too!  The springtime vibration is finally producing some fantastic results.  Lilacs and azaleas and rhododendrons and hydrangeas to follow.  It is remarkable, the energetic shift...  I love how hopeful the spring is -- especially when you get into t-shirt and flower weather.  I mean, we do this again and again, circle around the year, and yet every year it is so magical and new -- as if I were seeing it for the first time.  We have been having lots of fun in the sun, hiking and gardening and digging and playgrounding.    Peas finally went in the ground yesterday, carrots and spinach and kale and mesclun mix go in today.  It's just the best thing -- putting seeds into the earth...  out of the darkness comes new life...  a metaphor that inspires me all throughout the year.   Still going to yoga, still meditating.  Good news:  I think I passed through the psychopath phase (at least this one), and am moving into the there's a bit more space and energy around me phase.  So happy I brought this practice back into my life.  It is so sacred, and so funny at the same time.  I mean, my mind is a hoot!  All those thoughts....  My favorite one is when there is a momentary split second moment of stillness, or nothing, and then I comment to myself upon it, "Wow, I'm doing so great.  Really present.  Just watching all my thoughts flow.  Except this one.  But I'm just doing so great.  No clinging to any thoughts here.  Really doing great."  Ha!  Ha ha!  The running commentary just cracks me up...  What a freaky thing it is to be a human.