Not for the Magically-Challenged

I like Halloween.  That's not such an unusual statement coming from an earth-worshipping, Goddess-loving, pagan writer and storyteller.  Or so it seems, because being all that could also mean that I don't like Halloween as it is celebrated these days.  But I appreciate the fact it's celebrated increasingly more every year, and by more people.  Of course there are a lot of adults (not so many children, I'm glad to say) who scoff and complain about the rampant consumerism and comidification of Halloween.  Most of the people who complain, however, have never seriously observed it at all and know nothing about its ancient pagan, sacred origins.  So it shouldn't really bother them that Halloween has become a cash cow for candy and costume retailers.  What holiday hasn't?  Christmas, of course, is the best example of that, because its serious religious significance is obvious to anyone of any faith, or lack thereof.

Halloween is a contraction for the words All Hallow's Eve, which is the Christianised name for Samhain Eve, the eve of the new year for the ancient Celts.  Therefore November 1st is Samhain proper, or New Year's Day, which was renamed All Saints Day by the church.
Halloween, for the vast majority of people who observe it, is a secular occasion.  (I hesitate to say holiday, because the word holiday, as in holy day, originally referred to days marking a religious event.  So the expression "secular holiday" is actually an oxymoron.)  Suffice it to say, very few people know or care about the historic, religious and cultural origins of Halloween, and yet more people than ever, of diverse religions and backgrounds, celebrate it every year.
When I was a child growing up in WASPy, newly-formed, open suburbs (it was a long time ago when there was some space between houses) nothing indicated that Halloween was happening until the very night, with a simple jack o' lantern placed on the porch to show that trick-or-treaters were welcome.  Nowadays the decorations are often quite elaborate, and are put up weeks before the special night.  I think that's okay.  After all, what's wrong with erecting a pseudo-graveyard on the front lawn?  Sure, it's silly, but it's fun, and could be construed as creative.  Though it may be tacky, it's still someone expressing themselves.  I don't see that as a problem.  The same goes for all the costumes.  I've observed people I usually consider dull and unimaginative don a mask or disguise of some sort and get into  the spirit of things for just one giddy, raucous night of make-believe.
It doesn't matter that they don't know that the costumes they wear were originally worn to conceal their human form.  It was a way of protecting mortals from the myriad spirits that crossed between the worlds on that most magical of nights.
Samhain Eve, and its spring counterpart, May Eve (April 30), were the two nights of the Celtic calendar when the veil between the worlds was at its finest, allowing for spirits to pass freely between this world and the Otherworld.  Hence the ghosts and goblins of Halloween, when the nights grow longer and colder.  By contrast, May Eve is a time when spirits of a lighter, more benign nature roam around, although they are still capable of great mischief and mayhem.  Spirits, whether light or dark, can trick or treat better than any mortal.  It's this rich and magical folklore I see when I watch the secularized Samhain celebrations on city streets.  Call me weird, but I much prefer large groups of people pretending to be scary and fierce to angry hordes engaged in street fights and riots.  Halloween is a unifying occasion for the many cultures and faiths represented in large, multicultural cities.  If it were seriously considered to be a religious holiday there wouldn't be the great numbers of revellers of diverse backgrounds dressing up and partying down.
Halloween is largely a North American festival, derived from the Samhain celebrations brought over by the early Irish and Scottish settlers.  The carving of pumpkins to make jack o' lanterns is one of the most

 ubiquitous and well-known of North American features of Halloween.  And it's another way that regular folk can be creative and express themselves. So what if Halloween is a diluted, popularized vestige of its former, Old World self?  That's what happens with time and adapting to a new land.  It's called change, and it's a part of life.
Halloween is a festival where people spend creative energy in "pretending" and leaving their ordinary, everyday selves behind.  For at least one night of the year they feel free to live in their imagination, and play like kids again.  So let the nay-sayers scoff all they want; they're missing out on all the fun. 
There are, however, and thanks be to Goddess, those who celebrate Halloween more seriously, by honouring the ancient, earth-based traditions of Samhain Eve.  They are the folk who follow the Old Ways, and conjure Magic all year 'round.  But present day Halloween is for everyone.  It has become a night when even Muggles* can make Magic.  And from what I've seen, they do, and have a blast doing it.   
So mote it be.
-G.P.
* non-witches and wizards, and other magically-challenged folk - from Harry Potter and Co.

Ordinary Miracles

The humble sparrow has been in my thoughts a lot lately.  No doubt that's because there has been a host of them in my backyard for a while.  I put up a bird feeder towards the end of last winter, and naturally it's attracted a lot of birds over the last several seasons.  A number of blue jays pay frequent visits, as do a pair of cardinals I've named Prince and Queenie.  I've also seen a couple of rose-breasted grosbeaks, a goldfinch or two, and even a Baltimore oriole drop by.  But the little brown jobs known as sparrows are certainly the most numerous.
The presence of so many sparrows gives me great joy.  I love watching all of them jockeying for one of the four perches on the feeder, or scratching about for seeds that have fallen to the ground.  Their constant chitter-chatter is soft, sweet music to my ears.  Recently they've become quite bold and hop about the patio directly adjacent to the feeder, perching and pooping all over the outdoor furniture.  I've also seen several fatally injured and dead sparrows on the streets in my neighbourhood of late.  On a more mundane, yet weirdly ironic level, a new upscale restaurant called Sparrow opened up in the 'hood early this past summer.  Unfortunately, it's not doing well at all, and looks as if it may be going the way of the aforementioned birds. 
The proliferation of sparrows in my life these days, real and symbolic, has left me wondering what it all means.  I need to know why and how they're connected to me.  Sparrows represent humility and the appreciation of the simple things in life.  Sparrow teaches us to accept ourselves as we are.  And the biggest lesson my new totem has taught me is that we all have our own special purpose, thanks to the joy I get from the ubiquity of sparrows that visit my backyard.  As I watch them through my study window it never occurs to me that they are the most common and ordinary of birds, because they make me smile.  What a gift.  If I feel that way about an unassuming little bird, I can surely feel that way about myself.

Although it saddens me to have seen dead and dying sparrows placed on my path of late, it's a reminder that these supposedly lowly creatures are very special to me now.  It reminds me that these small, seemingly insignificant birds truly matter, because they bring me precious moments of quiet joy.  I shall never underestimate the unique qualities of an ostensibly ordinary animal or person again - at least that's my hope.
Despite its diminutive size and plain colour, Sparrow has taught me an important lesson in humility.  I'm now able to see the abundance of small delights that fill my life, and for that I'm deeply grateful.
That's a lot of power for something so small.    
Blessed be.
- G.P. 

Now is a Good Time

The furnace in the house where I live was turned on today.  Autumn has truly arrived, both inside and out.

When people ask me how are you? I say very well, thank you.  And I am.  I still worry about our Earth, which is my true home, and I still shed tears thinking about the suffering and abuse of innocent animals.  (Not so much people, and don't bug me about it!)  I also feel guilty when I miss yoga practice, or don't give a needy street-person a small handout, or complain about one of the many things there are to complain about.  Sometimes I obsess about my aging, sagging body and skin-tone.  And I don't always keep abreast of the news, because it's usually more bad than good - really depressing in fact - which means I'm deliberately remaining ignorant of things well-informed, involved people are supposed to know.  But for all that, I'm really, truly well.  Better than I've been in a long time.  (I think that Grandma might have something to do with that - see previous blurb.  My yoga practice helps, too.)
The lingering feeling that I should be living an exciting, passionate, productive life doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  My life is pretty ordinary lately, and I'm okay with that, because currently I've got nothing to complain about compared to most of the people on the planet.
Old habits die hard, and replacing them with new ones - habits that benefit me rather than hurt me - is the most interesting thing happening in my life right now.  It takes up all my time, but doesn't interfere with whatever else I'm doing.  In fact, being fully present and aware makes everything I do easier.
I live in the present more than ever these days, and it's taken me almost 23,000 of them to get to this point.  But now that I'm getting the hang of it, whatever I'm going through - good, bad, or "formerly known as boring," doesn't seem so bad or boring at all, because I'm managing it in the moment.  Finally.

I am, by the standards I set for myself when I was young and stupid, living an "ordinary" life, and making an "ordinary" living.  But I'm learning to place the emphasis of that self-observation on living and life, rather than ordinary.  And being fully present endows a person with presence.  There's nothing ordinary about that.
The furnace in the house where I live was turned on today.  Autumn has truly arrived.  Observing that simple fact began this blurb.  A mundane bit of minutiae led me to muse on how rich and full an ordinary morning can be.  And right now, in this very moment, I feel the same way.
Blessed be.
- G. P.

Tabula Rasa

Grandma and I met for tea last month.  It was my seventh visit with her, and the fifth time I drank her potent tea.  Drinking Grandma's tea  is one of the bravest things I've ever done, because she's not my paternal or maternal grandmother - both long gone - but the spirit plant known as  ayahuasca.
 Ayahuasca is indigenous to the Amazon rainforests, and is considered to be the grandmother spirit of the hundreds of thousands of plants that grow there.  Brewed along with her companion plant, chacruna, it makes an elixir used for healing and spiritual growth.  It has been drunk in ceremony by Amazonian healers and participants for thousands of years.  I've written previously about my earlier experiences with ayahuasca (ref. 9/11/12), and believe me, none of them was a walk in the park, but my most recent visit with Grandma was the hardest and deepest of them all.  And the most healing.
Grandma is sometimes called la purga, because of the intense vomiting she induces.  When I first went to Peru three years ago to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies, I naively thought that I'd have beautiful visions of Grandma's spirit world, and commune with Nature, the Cosmos, and All That Is.  Grandma does indeed bring such visions and knowledge to the seeker, but she's first and foremost about healing, which is the purpose of the vomiting.  It's meant to cleanse and purge the body and soul.
I've always been a magical thinker - tempered with an understanding of the basic physical laws of nature - so I initially thought that Grandma would bring me straight into the heart of all Creation, visions and all.  Boy oh boy was I wrong.  Instead, every time I drank her brew, Grandma took me on a ride that had me reeling from the worst motion sickness I've ever felt.  The ups and downs of a gigantic roller coaster are nothing compared to drinking Grandma's tea.  Each time I drank her elixir I ended up heaving and whirling, and silently vowing that I'd never do it again.  Obviously, I changed my mind.

Ayahuasca changes the body on a cellular level, and I must have unconsciously felt it, otherwise I can't explain why I kept coming back for more - more healing, that is.  Because I sure wasn't coming back for the nausea.  The day after the ceremony participants experience an afterglow that's akin to feeling reborn. At least that's the way it feels to me.  Once the afterglow wears off, there are insights and revelations that come to light for weeks afterwards.  It's magical.
Grandma's magic sought me out this last time.  I was riding the subway in the large city where I live, when lo and behold, I saw Jessica, the ayahuascera, a.k.a. shaman, who works specifically with Grandma A., sitting and riding on the same train.  I had first met Jessica in Peru a few years ago when I participated in some ceremonies, and then a year later at a retreat in the boreal forest of my home and native land.  But bumping into her on a subway train many miles from her haunts was truly uncanny.  Jessica informed me she was back in my neck of the woods for another retreat, and had arrived in town just that morning.  The chances of my running into her were slim, but as Jessica pointed out, Grandma had most surely arranged our meeting.*  Thus began my recent magical, devastating, nauseating, enlightening journey with Grandma.
*(One of the more notable indications of Grandma's presence is synchronicity, which is the lay person's term for magic.  Credit for that apt and clever description of magic goes to the author O.R Melling, as described in her fantastic book People of the Great Journey.) 
I couldn't go on the retreat in the northern woods, but fortunately I was able to attend a ceremony for one night in the city the following week.  Not surprisingly, I vomited numerous times throughout my visit with Grandma, but it was the penultimate purge that was the most memorable.  The others that preceded it were hard, of course, but the second to last one was truly scary.  Hellish, in fact.
Just as I was beginning to think the nausea was finally coming to an end, I felt my stomach turn over again, warning me to pick up the bucket I was keeping at my side.  Before heaving, I emitted a sound deep from within my solar plexus. It sounded utterly chthonic and fiendish.  It came from me, but it wasn't me.  I couldn't recreate that sinister voice if I tried.  Nor would I.

Ceremonies are done in complete darkness, and the bucket I happened to grab that time wasn't mine, because I could feel that it was empty and unused.  I wondered at the time how that could be, but didn't dwell on it because I was too nauseated to care.  It's a good thing it was empty, too, because it collected the largest volume of yucky stuff I had brought up all night.  I was surprised at how much I threw up because there was nothing left inside me, nor had there ever been, since I'd eaten next to nothing for twenty-four hours before the ceremony.  But the contents of one's stomach aren't the only things that Grandma's brew eliminates.  She also cleanses the soul.  Although I couldn't see the crap I was vomiting, I knew instinctively it was blacker-than-black.  When I finished my business I returned the full bucket to where I'd originally found it.
A while later, although I have no idea how much later - time has no meaning during ceremony - I had my final purge.  Within moments of spinning and heaving up almost nothing, I felt a cool, refreshing breeze waft across my face.  Afterwards I sat in pure physical bliss for several minutes, somehow grateful to know that the purging was over.
In the morning I found only my own bucket.  The bucket I'd "borrowed" for my subterranean purge was nowhere to be seen.  For weeks afterwards I obsessed over not finding any evidence of  the deepest experience I'd ever had during ceremony.  I even wondered why no one had been alarmed by the guttural voice that came out of me before purging.  It sounded like something out of The Exorcist.  But none of the brave women who were in ceremony with me said a word about it later.  It seems that the most vivid, substantial purge I'd had all night happened in my imagination, and yet it felt even more physical, and just as real as all the others.  Despite visions and altered consciousness, ayahuasca renders one hyper-aware.  I always knew exactly what was going on.
So what was going on?  The purge that finally rid me my inner demons may have happened in my imagination, but as Jessica reminded me, everything that happens in ceremony is real, imagined or not.  I was beset with knowing for sure that what I experienced was real because I'd forgotten something Harry Potter taught me - Just because something isn't real, doesn't mean it isn't True.
The Truth of all that transpired is still with me, and shall be for the rest of my life.  I expelled the last of the bitterness and anger from old wounds and trauma from the long past, mostly manifested as a history of depression.  And although I haven't been clinically depressed for a number of years now - wobbly maybe, but not in deep despair - I still harboured bitterness about my life not turning out the way I'd always dreamed. (A recurring theme on my little web.)  That bitterness, which I sometimes refer to as bile in my soul, has gone.  I spewed it into the "phantom" bucket during ceremony.  It's more than six weeks after I met with Grandma, and I'm still learning and growing, and free of the loathsome comparisons and envy that heretofore had been holding me back from complete healing.

Forgiving any persons who may have inflicted pain or trauma is one of the most powerful ways to begin the healing process.  Although I'd done my forgiving and made peace with my past a number of years ago, there was still a vestige of resentment that hung around like a pesky mosquito.  Despite years of therapy, self-reflection, and antidepressants - which alleviated the symptoms but did nothing to get rid of the cause - I wasn't able to completely let go.  It was Grandma who made me realise that the one person I hadn't forgiven was me.  I wasn't able to forgive myself for not being a better person.  I figured I was old enough, smart enough, and wise enough to peel off the worn-out "victim" label I'd been wearing all my life.  I could talk the talk, but I couldn't walk the walk.  I was my own worst enemy, and it was that lingering, embittered part of my self that finally spewed out of me during ceremony.  
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Grandma didn't heal me overnight, and I know I have more learning and growing to do, but she cleared the slate for me to begin anew.  And she taught me how to heal myself.  I know I'm not to blame for my faulty wiring, but I've still got a perfectly good brain that can be reprogrammed.  So I'm rewiring this and wiping out that - laying down new neural pathways with new habits and routines.  It's a discipline that requires constant attention and awareness.  Sometimes I slip up, but I immediately forgive myself for being human, do some quick re-framing, and then move on.  It's what yogis call practising yoga off the mat.

Earlier in this blurb I mentioned how my life hasn't turned out to be what I'd hoped or planned since childhood, and within a few minutes of writing those words, I received an email from a website that sends me daily quotes.  The message was so timely and magical it sent delicious shivers up my spine.  I knew Grandma had a hand in that, and was showing me her approval.  It also fits the theme of this particular blurb perfectly, so I shall use it... 
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
- Joseph Campbell.
Thanks to two changes of residence in the last nine years, I regularly purge physical "stuff" I don't use or need.  (Another favourite topic of mine.)  I always feel lighter and freer after I've cleared stuff out of the house, and out of my sight.  Grandma's brew does the same thing, but on a deeper, more intimate level.  She's opened me up to a new life, and it sure as hell wasn't easy.  But real, true change never is.  During the last ceremony, as I reeled and rolled, I kept chanting to myself, ad nauseum - I get it. I get it. I get it.  I'd forgotten about that until this very moment, when I was trying to find a way to end this not-so-magnum blurb.  It seems so obvious now, and it's really quite simple... 
I get it, Grandma.  I get it.
- G.P.

The Bottom of the Garden

Lately I'm seeing sweet, little things I haven't taken much notice of before.  They've always been around, some of them right in my own backyard, but I wasn't looking very closely.  Although my glasses are a stronger prescription, my vision has improved.  That's a fair trade.  And here's a fair sight of some of the daily delights that grace my wondering, wandering eyes...

There's more to her than meets the eye.
- G.P.

Love is Blue

My cousin Laura, daughter of my late, great, goddess-mother, Gita Tante, recently sent the extended family a remarkable photograph.  It was a picture of Gita Tante, who had come back from the great beyond to say hello to her daughter, and by extension, the many people she loved and called family and friends.  But only Laura would have recognized her mother at the time she miraculously captured the picture, because Gita Tante did not look the way she did when she lived on this earthly plane.  Gita Tante had taken the form of a vivid, blue bird, an Indigo Bunting to be exact, that was perched on a branch overlooking her own shrine.  Laura had erected the shrine in the expansive garden Gita had lovingly created on the property of their country home.  When Laura emailed the pictures of this extraordinary sight, it was accompanied with a note that told of a time when she had asked her mother, "If you were a bird, what bird would you be?"  Gita Tante's reply was, "The bluebird of happiness."
I'm pretty sure Gita Tante didn't just mean that she'd like to come back as a happy bird, because she most certainly knew how to get joy out of life, but that she wanted to be a harbinger of happiness for anyone who encountered her.  I also suspect that Gita Tante was thinking specifically of Laura at the time.  Of course the love between mothers and their children is profound, perhaps the deepest connection a person can have, and Laura and Gita Tante had it in spades.  But my belief that Gita Tante meant she wanted to make sure her daughter was happy is derived from another story in their lives, which happened several years earlier.
A number of years ago Laura suffered a debilitating depression.  Although Gita was no stranger to dealing with depression in close family members, Laura's illness struck her harder than most, and Gita's concern for her daughter's despair was felt by the entire family.  Like many members of the family, I sent out my best thoughts and prayers to both my aunt and cousin, which included a silly note to help lighten a grave situation.  It was was a hilarious cartoon from the twisted, creative genius of Gary Larson of Far Side fame.  I first came upon it many years before when I, too, was in a very dark place.
At the time I was completely bereft of any sense of humour, not unusual for a depressed state of mind, but I clearly remember that this particular cartoon made me laugh out loud for the first time in many weeks.  Indeed, I still chuckle whenever I think of it.  Hoping that it would evoke the same reaction in both Laura and Gita Tante, I sent it to them.  Gita later told me how much the cartoon had amused her, and deeply appreciated that I had sent it along to Laura.  So, copyright laws notwithstanding, I'm including it here.  (I'm assuming my loyal legion of followers won't rat me out.)

Time passed, Laura recovered, and I didn't give that small exchange another thought until recently, when Laura emailed the photograph of a rare and stunning bird, sitting serenely above the shrine dedicated to my dear aunt, who was a rare and beautiful soul. 
There is communal headstone in a lovely, secluded, hilltop   graveyard marking the lives of six members of our family, including Gita Tante and her sister, my mother.  The epitaph reads Love Is Greater Than Death.  Gita Tante had chosen that epitaph herself, and the arrival of that bluer-than-blue bird reaffirmed the profound truth of those words.  Laura got the message loud and clear; her mother loves her still, and always will.  Like all messages from beyond, it had a ripple effect, reaching outward to touch numerous other people, including Gita's two sons, Edmund and Andris.  Thanks to Laura's timely photograph, one of the other people Gita's message reached was me, her goddess-daughter.
It was Gita Tante, and not me, who coined the terms goddess-mother and goddess-daughter.  She knew just how much those monikers would mean to me.  Gita Tante was also well aware of my obsession with signs, messages, and messengers from other worlds, which is why I can't help thinking that her bluebird of happiness stint, rich with meaning for Laura, was partly a wink in my direction, too.

I'm always searching for stories that fit the mandate of my little web, and this happy tale is a tailor-made fit.  In fact, Gita Tante was my most devoted follower on this web of mine when she lived in this realm.  By manifesting as a blue bird (not to be confused with a bluebird), she has not only validated my beliefs, but given me the gift of a magical story to remember, and write.  My wise and wonderful aunt has proved to me, from beyond the grave, that magic and miracles surround us everyday, if only we have eyes to see.
Thank you, Gita Tante, for the gift of joy you continue to share with your dear ones.  And thanks for showing me once again that the Goddess is alive and magic is afoot.
- G.P.

*    photographs and floral arrangements by cousin Laura
**  flowers grown by Gita Tante

Consider the Lilies

This morning I went for a walk in the park with my friend Margaret.  It lifted my spirits.  I felt brown when I met her.  I didn't feel that way when we parted.  Then I took pictures of happy flowers in the garden that fairly shouted at me to lighten up.  As you can see, they weren't brown.  So, in remembrance of this slow, moody, wistful, summer's day, I'm sharing some of the cheer and light that greet me in my own backyard.

Namaste.
- G.P.