Worship
The authorities have declared a significant weather event and closed the highways all around us. It has been snowing for days. I barely recall such a large amount of snow. Reminds us of the olden times. From childhood. Sleds, and snowsuits, and bread bags over our socks stuffed into our snow boots. Rosy cheeks, sparking eyes, and hot chocolate. With marshmallows. Such that memories are made of. My 98 year old mother-in-law, from the south of the province, in a phone call this morning, said she would like to see this kind of snow again. I hope we can make that happen. Today it is tractor plow and wood stove fires and soup pot simmering. Weather is a powerful teacher. Today the lesson is slow down, hunker down, stay put. After two weeks of holiday entertaining, the lesson is easy to accept.
What a wonderful holiday season. We hosted friends and family and FoxHaven has been filled to the brim with stories, laughter, good food, love, and life. So good for the soul. And now, a significant weather event descends. and we are hunkering down and resting and restoring. The stack of fiction I received as gifts beckons. A few lectures need to be written, and of course, the taxes buzz for attention. But, for today it is enough to put another log on the fire, another load of laundry in the washer, and steep another pot of tea.
Rhythms. Patterns. Cycles. The flow of the river. The movement of the tides. The transit of the stars. The drift of the snow. I am in awe at how life can be a cosmic dance. There is surely an unseen orchestra and we need only attune ourselves and our agency to its symphony. I know I am getting better at this. It has only taken me 65 years to adjust. Better said, to surrender. I no longer push the river. I attune. And in so doing, I accomplish so much more than I could imagine. Spices get refreshed, copper pots gets polished, medicine cabinets gets replenished, lectures get written, books get read, and life gets lived. To the fullest.
I have not made resolutions for the new year, but I have set goals for 2025. Setting these goals has involved the practice of deep listening. It seems there is a book in me that wants to be written. There is a degree of health and fitness that wants to be realized. There is a manner of softness in speech and engagement that wants to manifest. I think destiny is about this deep engagement. A willingness to listen to what our life is about and could still accomplish. Orientation. This is such a wonderful word and concept. What is true North?
I used to think true North was individuation. And in some ways it still is. But, over the course of the last few years I have come to appreciate that psychology is a path, not a destination. True North is beginning to whisper to me from the depth of the forest. From the summit of the ridge. From the silence of a sanctuary. From the peal of the Church bells. I think we lose the plot when we worship nature. I was there for a time. Surely we can appreciate, protect, and steward nature. But she is the creation, not the creator. So much has been accomplished since the ancestral times of nature worship. We have evolved. Like nature. We are nature. But, we did not create ourselves nor are we totally responsible for the shifts in weather, be it climate change or global warming. When we worship nature, the dark shadow is hubris. We either inflate our significance and consume or we deflate our significance and contract. Consciousness is a human evolutionary marvel. We must own this. Claim this. Steward this.
I go to my little stone church these days, not to receive so much as to give. To give my attention, my tithe, my time, my willingness to belong to something beyond my understanding. Dare I say it, I go to worship. In the past I have walked away from religion because it did not give me what I needed. How surprising it is to find that I had it backward. Religion, I am discovering, is not about receiving, it is about giving. It is about sacrifice. A willing sacrifice. A surrender.
Our Father…
Hail Mary…
While I write this, the dogs napping at my feet, the fire crackling, the kettle whistling, my husband is out in the weather. He is plowing out our driveway and doing the same for the neighbours on each side of us. He is such a sensate creature. His religion is surely service. There are so many ways to worship. To give. To sacrifice. To surrender. Sometimes and for some, it is on your knees in the embrace of incense. For others, it is in a tractor seat in a snow squall. For others, in a soup kitchen. On a trail. Beholding a sunrise or sunset. Holding the frail hand of the elderly. Making music. Writing poems. Nursing a child. Tending a garden. Doing your taxes. Capturing a moment in a photo. There are so many ways to worship. To give. to sacrifice. To surrender.
Our Father…
Hail Mary…