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Showing posts from October, 2013

Honoring my inner Druid

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Happy Samhain! Happy Halloween! The New York Times has a great article today about the Druid celebration of Samhain, from which our observances of Halloween derive. There are about 29,000 Druids in the U.S., according to this article. Check it out here . Samhain is a festival occurring approximately halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It's one of the 8 great feast days in the Pagan calendar. Samhain and the two solstices are some of my favorite days of the year. No, I'm not a practicing Druid, but I do have strong "leanings" in the direction of some of the earth-based observances. I think it's important to honor the earth, and to mark the passing of time: the cycle of the seasons, the "dying" and "rebirth" of the sun, and the other rhythms of death and rebirth we see all around us. I think it's also important to remember those we love who have gone before us into the Great Silence -- in church, we remember

Things I can't change

Sometimes I fret. I fret over all the things I can't fix, but would like to. You too? Life is full of these unfixable things, and they increase in number as we age. At the moment, for example, both my adult kids are having difficult adjustments to independence. I could give advice, but I'd be interfering. My husband is also going through a prolonged and exhausting job search, which has resulted only in anger and frustration. I could advise him to step back from the process, to take a good, long look at the way he has invested so much of his self-esteem in this zero-sum game of finding a job at 58. But he's not ready to hear that.  Oh, did I mention that I now seem to have osteoporosis? Yippee-ki-yay! Now I have to get that shot that rots your jawbone. Can't wait.  I hoped lots of dairy products and calcium pills would prevent this. But no.  So, in the face of things you can't change, what do you do? Back in the day, I'd have drowned my troubles i