Eclipse, Solstice, Yule, Blogaversary, Carols: Thoughts on Creativity and Recurrence

What a special, special Solstice night.  My daughter and I, in rooms at two ends of the house, were both awakened at around 2:40 AM (just as, it turns out, the eclipse was heading into its fullness) by what seems to have been an identical feeling:  a warm rush of happiness entering through the crowns of our heads.  I lay there for a while and felt the world, in every detail and in every commonality, united in a harmony of unity and love. Soon I went downstairs to look for the moon, which had been full and clear when I went to bed.  It was hidden by clouds, but I stayed there, mindful of astrologer Gretchen Lawlor's words in an email to me yesterday evening: " I've just realized it is important, at some time during this eclipse to stand up and feel the alignment, be part of the drama, another channel for the light. When you stand, the Earth and past it the Sun will be in alignment beneath your feet, and the Moon directly overhead, at your crown. Even if it's cloudy and we cannot see it."  I stood and felt the channel, exactly as she had described it.  


How different from last year's solstice celebration, described in the very first post on American Witch, which was also wonderful in a completely different way.  That was rousing, external and solar, this one, so far, peaceful, internal and lunar.  But each, incontrovertible.  I love how being a Wiccan gives me so much flexibility to find the Spirit how and why I need to find it.  This year we will also be partaking in many of the traditions of last year, but there is so much space for creativity every year as well. What will we be doing? Will I finish my own solstice carol? I know I will be posting here, soon, my new versions of Christmas carols, invented during a concert this weekend and suitable for Goddess-believers to sing along!

Solstice Call for Solstice Poems

So, this coming Solstice will be the first time in 456 years (or 307 years, depending on which calculations you are following) that there has been a lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice.  There has been much conjecture about the meaning of the connection; this article (thanks, Chas!) takes a common sense approach ("Wiccans don't think of things as being good or evil—they just are") and provides a pleasing interpretation, regarding the conjunction of female and male energies.  It's certainly looking to be a specially powerful solstice, and I'll be posting again on the season soon.  


Meanwhile, in honor of the occasion, I'm sending out a call to share Solstice poems.   If you have one or know of one, please post them in the Comments section.  Solstice songs would also be great.  


One of my aims with this blog is to up the quantity and quality of the canon of pagan/earth-spirited/goddess-inspired art, literature, and music.  So poems are always welcome at any point in the wheel of the year.


Happy Season!

My Thanksgiving Shadow

I confess:  for many years I have not found it easy, as a comfortably affluent European American, to feel the deep and thorough gratitude I would like to feel at Thanksgiving.  I've tried, but not very far down I keep hitting some kind of obstacle.  This year, I was provided with two powerful and apparently contradictory texts that may point a way out of the impasse.  The first is a wonderful and profoundly true editation that was handed out at a Thanksgiving yoga class I took this morning. It is worth reading slowly, with contemplation:

Yes, Lisa, There is Poetry. . .Or, What Makes a Poem a Poem?

I received this email a few weeks ago.  I reproduce and answer it here with Lisa's permission, because it is representative of a widespread confusion:

Dear Annie Finch:

I discovered your February 2009 Harriet blog entry “Poetry in Notion: What Does That Word Mean Anyway?” while searching for a definition of poetry versus prose. I’ve hit up against that same question in my own “poetry” and am very much hoping you might give me your input. Did you ever arrive at a conclusion regarding where poetry begins and prose ends that you yourself found satisfying?

Some background: I think of myself a poet, yet twice in the past few weeks I’ve been told that what I write is prose with line breaks 

Medieval Wind Power

My husband Glen, an environmental activist who often sends me wonderful links, forwarded this story on wind power in a medieval Italian town.  I find this, and so many massive changes in energy technology that are currently underway, moving metaphorically, spiritually, and practically--embodied transformation, magick at work to bring us closer to living in harmonious respect and stewardship of the natural world.

Wild Weeds Poetry Contest Results

The results of the Wild Weeds Poetry Contest have been posted on the Healing Wise Website.  The winner will receive a set of Susun Weed's Wise Woman Herbal Series, and those with honorable mentions will receive a copy of Healing Wise.  Weedy congatulations to all!

Paolo Nutini's Burns

Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future:  check out this version of "A Man's a Man for A' That" by the Scottish singer Paolo Nutini.