returning home
Nov. 1st, 2005 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonSometimes you don't truly know good 'til it's been bad.
Solas sang (in "All That You Ask Me"): "There's no sadness in leaving if you leave for a reason/ The best of all reasons is to come back again."
My home, my partner, my loves, my son, my land, my friends, my art, all sustain me deeply and profoundly, and two weeks seemed a much longer time to be away from home than two weeks have ever been before. But what a two weeks, full of a complete range of human experience, a topsy-turvy roller-coaster ride of ups and downs, lessons and loves, life and wonder, theatre, music, and drama, personal and otherwise. Good work, good play. Not always easy. And very, very little sleep. Returning home last night, just in time to go straight from the airport to three hours of intense rehearsal of a laundry list of new Georgian, Russian and Czeck songs for an upcoming production (http://www.revelsnorth.org/), I finally got home after 11pm. So after a late Samhain night both deep and wicked with housemates and family not seen since mid-October, I slept more deeply and soundly than I have in weeks, and despite sleep few in hours, much of the deep weariness in my bones has finally left me. This land, this life, feeds me.
The morning was gorgeous and Indian Summer-like, mid-60's and a deep cerulean/azure sky floating above like an inverted bowl carved out of an immense priceless sapphire, perched atop a sea of forested hills, now mostly denuded of deciduous leaves, but a few glorious sugar maples still stubbornly holding onto fall's flame-like radiance. Walking my son up to the end of the road for his school bus this morning, looking up at the heavens, he said (with a sniffle, he's got a cold), "daddy, the sky is welcoming you home." My heart broke and melted and reformed, and I gave him a big long hug of gratitude for the gift of the presence of his life alongside mine.
I moved a cord of seasoned wood today out into the chicken coop, now serving as a combination of generator house and woodshed for the winter. Firing up the wood boiler, it started right up, but I made a lot of smoke in the basement, reminder that I need to start the fires small and build up slowly until the flue warms up, unless I want to be blinking through tears. Opening the back door to let in fresh air to flush out the smoke will soon not be a comfortable option ;>
Tonight we have a planning meeting for the Spring Ritual Arts Camp we're having here on the land next April/May, the first big event other than![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yezida's workshops and some bardic circles and weekend workshops we've held here. It's looking like our traditional blow-out New Year's parties may make a reappearance this year -- new wooden dance floor, killer playlist, wicked, wicked fun, and the best bar in town ;> What's not to like? The inward focus is starting to turn outwards again, but I expect this to be a seriously introspective and foundation-building winter, full of house and land projects, personal work, relationship-building and strengthening, setting the stage for what promises to be a really big, wonderful year ahead. I know I'll be renovating the barn, putting in a wood stove and pulling out one of the stalls, turning others into dorm space. In a year or so we'll probably be ready for bigger gatherings, having built a number of cabins, yurts and treehouses, and who knows where things will go from there. The big Spring land project may well be the microhydro turbine on the stream, so I can generate our own electricity as well as providing our own heat (via the wood boiler in the house, which is working absolutely splendidly). My office (with root/wine cellars beneath) will go in later this month (at last, a writer's office with a door, *bliss*), and I have a couple of dead trees to drop, chop and split for next year's wood, a big green glass bathroom basin/bowl to plumb and install, and many loose ends to tie up here and there. And there are regrets and sorrows to be left behind in the old year, endings and disappointments.
But all that is remembered lives, and all that dies makes the old land fertile for new growth. By and large, this looks to be a really huge year, full of promise and the potential for wonderful things to happen. Today's combination of new moon and the start of the new year (by the old calendar) promises big shifts, deep joys and sea changes ahead. The low tides of this past year were very, very low indeed, but as any ocean-journeyer knows, new and full moons bring the lowest of the low tides, but then the highest of the high as well. Everything contains its opposite, and you can only know joy as deeply as you are willing to know pain, experience delight no deeper than sorrow, laugh no stronger than you can cry. Everything that happens to us can strengthen us, or weaken us, and the choice there is at least in part up to us.
May the rising tide raise you to new possibilities in your life, lifting you up and away from any bitter shoals and doldrums which ensnare you, and may the coming year be one of clear skies and smooth sailing. I think we all deserve that much.
Solas sang (in "All That You Ask Me"): "There's no sadness in leaving if you leave for a reason/ The best of all reasons is to come back again."
My home, my partner, my loves, my son, my land, my friends, my art, all sustain me deeply and profoundly, and two weeks seemed a much longer time to be away from home than two weeks have ever been before. But what a two weeks, full of a complete range of human experience, a topsy-turvy roller-coaster ride of ups and downs, lessons and loves, life and wonder, theatre, music, and drama, personal and otherwise. Good work, good play. Not always easy. And very, very little sleep. Returning home last night, just in time to go straight from the airport to three hours of intense rehearsal of a laundry list of new Georgian, Russian and Czeck songs for an upcoming production (http://www.revelsnorth.org/), I finally got home after 11pm. So after a late Samhain night both deep and wicked with housemates and family not seen since mid-October, I slept more deeply and soundly than I have in weeks, and despite sleep few in hours, much of the deep weariness in my bones has finally left me. This land, this life, feeds me.
The morning was gorgeous and Indian Summer-like, mid-60's and a deep cerulean/azure sky floating above like an inverted bowl carved out of an immense priceless sapphire, perched atop a sea of forested hills, now mostly denuded of deciduous leaves, but a few glorious sugar maples still stubbornly holding onto fall's flame-like radiance. Walking my son up to the end of the road for his school bus this morning, looking up at the heavens, he said (with a sniffle, he's got a cold), "daddy, the sky is welcoming you home." My heart broke and melted and reformed, and I gave him a big long hug of gratitude for the gift of the presence of his life alongside mine.
I moved a cord of seasoned wood today out into the chicken coop, now serving as a combination of generator house and woodshed for the winter. Firing up the wood boiler, it started right up, but I made a lot of smoke in the basement, reminder that I need to start the fires small and build up slowly until the flue warms up, unless I want to be blinking through tears. Opening the back door to let in fresh air to flush out the smoke will soon not be a comfortable option ;>
Tonight we have a planning meeting for the Spring Ritual Arts Camp we're having here on the land next April/May, the first big event other than
yezida's workshops and some bardic circles and weekend workshops we've held here. It's looking like our traditional blow-out New Year's parties may make a reappearance this year -- new wooden dance floor, killer playlist, wicked, wicked fun, and the best bar in town ;> What's not to like? The inward focus is starting to turn outwards again, but I expect this to be a seriously introspective and foundation-building winter, full of house and land projects, personal work, relationship-building and strengthening, setting the stage for what promises to be a really big, wonderful year ahead. I know I'll be renovating the barn, putting in a wood stove and pulling out one of the stalls, turning others into dorm space. In a year or so we'll probably be ready for bigger gatherings, having built a number of cabins, yurts and treehouses, and who knows where things will go from there. The big Spring land project may well be the microhydro turbine on the stream, so I can generate our own electricity as well as providing our own heat (via the wood boiler in the house, which is working absolutely splendidly). My office (with root/wine cellars beneath) will go in later this month (at last, a writer's office with a door, *bliss*), and I have a couple of dead trees to drop, chop and split for next year's wood, a big green glass bathroom basin/bowl to plumb and install, and many loose ends to tie up here and there. And there are regrets and sorrows to be left behind in the old year, endings and disappointments.But all that is remembered lives, and all that dies makes the old land fertile for new growth. By and large, this looks to be a really huge year, full of promise and the potential for wonderful things to happen. Today's combination of new moon and the start of the new year (by the old calendar) promises big shifts, deep joys and sea changes ahead. The low tides of this past year were very, very low indeed, but as any ocean-journeyer knows, new and full moons bring the lowest of the low tides, but then the highest of the high as well. Everything contains its opposite, and you can only know joy as deeply as you are willing to know pain, experience delight no deeper than sorrow, laugh no stronger than you can cry. Everything that happens to us can strengthen us, or weaken us, and the choice there is at least in part up to us.
May the rising tide raise you to new possibilities in your life, lifting you up and away from any bitter shoals and doldrums which ensnare you, and may the coming year be one of clear skies and smooth sailing. I think we all deserve that much.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 10:54 pm (UTC)Yes, please.
Hugs to you.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 11:21 pm (UTC)And May the rising tide raise you to new possibilities in your life, lifting you up and away from any bitter shoals and doldrums which ensnare you, and may the coming year be one of clear skies and smooth sailing. I think we all deserve that much. YES!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 02:54 am (UTC)indeed!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 02:05 pm (UTC)Spring Ritual Arts Camp? Tell me more.
I have a question or two swirling around in my head for you, but have intended to give you a few more days to reground before prodding you for thoughts. *grin*
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 04:44 pm (UTC)I've given thought recently to how our past hurts and traumas close us to new possibilities, get in there and muck up things that could be wonderful, lead us to repeat tired old stories instead of writing new, better ones. The best answer I have so far is that cultivating foolish courage is one real key -- allowing oneself, despite fear, despite scars, to be open to more deep hurt, knowing that's the only way to be open to love, to actually live life instead of just waltzing on through untouched and untouchable -- as Rilke wrote, "So many are alive who don't seem to care / Casual, easy, they move in the world / as though untouched." I still plan to make a bumper sticker that says, "My Goddess scorns all mediocre longing." (nod to Rob Brezsny) Only to the bold, courageous, and perhaps foolhardy go the true prizes of life, the deepest, sweetest depths of joy there which lie waiting to be drunk.
But...there also have to be limits, of self-health, of knowing how much is too much. We can all handle more than we believe we can, I have faith in that, I know that. And there are situations where imbalance, unhealthy patterns, cycles of damage, prevail. Or where energy thrown down a sinkhole over time just leads you astray from your true life's purposes, from your deep desires. Wisdom comes in knowing the difference, perhaps making the hard choices, knowing that you will make mistakes, even there. And life goes on, love goes on, and the best you can do will be the best you can do. With right heart, with right intention, with an attitude of concern for the feelings and welfare of those around us, the web of relationships we all walk will get healthier and stronger over time. We are all stars, no more or less than any other, and I figure as stars we all deserve some respect, perhaps more than we often give or receive. Here is my respect for you and your choices, you courageous Star, you.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 02:59 pm (UTC)Anytime -- can't guarantee I'll have any good answers, but I'll give it a shot ;>
Spring Ritual Arts Camp? Tell me more.
We'll have a website and materials out in early December, but the dates are April 20-23, and it's a Restorative -- a body-friendly pace, plenty of time to integrate the work, arranged so that all attendees (and teachers) can take all of the path sessions if they wish, option of sleeping in late if desired (there are optional offerings earlier, but paths start at 10am), gourmet food as a feast for the senses, relaxed late-night bardic circles/jams, etc). In other words, something that you come out of refreshed and recharged, not exhausted and needing to recover from ;>
This first one's going to focus on skills of rhythm, voice, instrument and movement. The general theme so far (paraphrased) is "calling in the Spring with our art." Hopefully, all of our juicy creative sap will be rising warm and sweet by that time :> We're bringing in Willow Kelly and Crow (she's one of the best drummers in Reclaiming, he's an incredible instrumentalist) to help with the instruction. We're still discussing paths, but so far, some of the path/session possibilities we've discussed include:
energy raising, movement and focusing through drum, voice, instruments and movement (including cone drumming)
chant writing and trance drumming
multi-voice sacred choral work as spellworking
Dances of Universal Peace & meditations (with instrumental accompaniment)
development and use of improvisational skills (music, voice, movement, rhythm)
We're going to keep the cost low, sliding-scale, with the low end of the scale probably somewhere around $100. We're planning for 20-25 people maximum, including teachers and organizers, and nine of those slots are already full.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-04 09:53 pm (UTC)