Last night my dreams were filled with moon calendars, metaphors for light and darkness, and swirls of things I’ve learned since this time last year.
Much is in transition, including weather and time. I woke this morning, reaching for my favorite bright purple sweatshirt and my ancient, dependable Ugg-like boots, wondering what the 9:35 on my phone meant this day.
Bill loves the fall time change! For him, it means an extra hour of sleep. (This is a concept that may have been a bit more relevant in the days when Sunday morning meant preaching at 8:30 & 11:00 for us!)
Then, there’s Dave, who spent much of his middle school journey discovering Stephen Hawking and trying to convince us that late, like the concept of time, was an imaginary means of control. (Which may be a bit like declining to believe in behind!)
The more I learn about mindfulness and theoretical physics, the more convinced I am that he had a point!
Much of my contemplation about this season of change has been around nature and the patterns of seasonal transformations.
Then there was something I read yesterday about the on-going, and apparently increasingly political, debate about doing away with Daylight Savings Time.
I suspect that there may be just a hint of mis-direction in such a debate at this particular moment in history!
Although, while I would tend to be for a back to nature perspective on this issue, Bill makes the good point that, if the debate is going to include costs, the least expensive thing would be to leave things as they are, avoiding reprogramming huge chunks of the world to adapt.
You, on the other hand, may be wondering why my head is filled with such notions at all, and there are many answers to that.
The most immediate one is my teacher, Shiloh Sophia, and the transition from last year’s 13 moon painting project to this year’s which is happening more or less now, with some variation created by the California wildfires.
You see, Shiloh asked a new question.
What, she asked us to wonder, were the creation stories we learned as children and what were the ones we claim now?
That’s quite the question! And it’s undoubtedly related to the name of our new journey which is Anthropas.
Nope. Not a typo!
Anthropos, as you may know, is the Greek word for man, or, depending on your perspective, humanity.
Anthropas, borrowing a bit from Latin, is a feminized version of the Greek. (If you google it, what you’ll find is Shiloh and this course!)
And, yes, I realize I’m cracking the door open to a huge debate. What I hear in my head, though, is the voice of a Professor of Religious Studies named Judith Plaskow who, in her book Standing Again At Sinai, advocated putting the women back into the old stories, saying, “This world of women’s experience is part of the Jewish world, part of the fuller Torah we need to recover.”
Just between us, I freaked out when I first read that book. Now I depend on it!
And so my head – and heart – are indeed swirling with the songs from Stephen Schwartz’ Children of Eden and words from God’s Trombones, by James Weldon Johnson, and Paul Tillich’s notion of the ground of all being. Oh, and storyteller that I am, “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God,” from the gospel according to John. And all this swirling and remembering and choosing is happening, for me, beside a campfire where the oldest stories were passed on… Words and songs floating around in my head, trying to figure out how to become images!
It turns out that a conversation like this can, in fact, be dangerous!
You see, all that believing tends to lead to action!
If, like me, you believe in an intention for good, and the value of the created universe and each of us in it, please VOTE Tuesday! It matters on every level… especially to our kids and grandkids, and may help keep you from being purged from the rolls prior to the 2020 elections, if you happen to live in a state where that’s being actively planned, like Georgia!
For today, prints are ordered for the next market, the sun is shining, it’s blessedly cool out, and I have a hot date for lunch!
Oh, and if you happen to be near Atlanta, email me for info on my next Intentional Creativity workshop, Seasons of Light and Darkness, which is Sunday, Nov. 10! suesvoice@gmail.com