Work in the Time of Harvest

(The flowing Water Tide, from Lammas to Mabon)

This, like the planting time from Eostara to Beltane, is a period of intense hard work. It is a time when work comes to fruition, and the rewards of past work can be reaped. There will, however, be a lot to do to accomplish this, and it may feel as though the time is too short. It is a time of intense activity, both work and play.

The Mother at this time is at the height of Her power, her breasts flowing with milk at the very sound of a child’s cry. Honor Her with works of healing and compassion, with a portion of each thing you earn or reap.

The Mother of All Living tells us that she demands no sacrifice because she needs make no such demand; a portion of every labor and every love returns to Her by the law of Nature. When that return is brought to her consciously and with gratitude, she rewards Her children by opening to them the storehouse of Her wisdom; the truth that lies there is our own, which she has saved for us from our gifts of past seasons. Thus at this season we eat new fruit and old meat, new achievements and old wisdom.

Love and labor are one in the Mother at this season. Seek to perform all your work with love, and work to sustain your love for others.

Like the Planting Time, this is a season which, in the old days, required the give-and-take of community effort, as large work teams harvested one farm after another. Look carefully and the patterns of reciprocity in your relationships, ask yourself whether they are balanced and fair, and what you can do to improve their equilibrium.

Try to “float to the surface” of the Tide, to take along and broad view of things, so as to maintain your perspective. Take time from your full and busy days to study and contemplate the huge expanses of space and time—the physical universe, karma, your past lives. This is the most productive Tide for trance divination, for traveling in trance and dream the roads that lead to the future and the past.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has sort of been on my s**t list for a long time, ever since as a new and unwary credit customer, I realized that my debt to them was creeping up because the minimum payment was set at less than the amount required to prevent that from happening.

It's not much surprise now to learn that they also illegally pushed borrowers into subprime mortgages and falsified loan documents.

The penalty for these procedures, which surely must involve multiple felonies, is to pay a fine that amounts to a tiny fraction of the bank's recent yearly profits.

In a free market, business ethics are fostered because a reputation for integrity is good for business, and being caught ripping off your customers is very bad for business. Government bail-outs have removed that natural and internal control mechanism, and token penalties for blatantly criminal behavior now reinforce the message to financial institutions that they are so important that they are allowed to do whatever they like (kind of like the later and most decadent Roman emperors).

Mrs. D. now belongs to a credit union, and no longer deals with banks at all if she can help it.

Pagan Preacher: The Time of Ripening

(from Dyffd ap Tower)

Here we are in the middle of the year, between the Planting and the Harvest, between the conception and the realization. Here are in the midst of Life. Let us take one day to celebrate and then get back to work.

These are the golden days. Golden because of the presence of the Sun and golden because we have a goal to work toward. This is the best of times.

Now one might ask, What’s so good about it? Here are right in the middle of things, there’s lots to do and so far there has been no payoff.

The “payoff” is not just in the rewards that come with accomplishment, it is also in the experience and the effort.

In our conversation is more worthwhile to talk about what we are doing or what we have been doing rather than what we have. How we got something sounds so much better than what we have got.

The truly creative person loses all interest in what has been done and turns their mind to what is being done or will be done.

The value comes from seeing what needs to be done and liking what we do to reach that goal. If you see a need to drain the swamp, it is worthwhile to not only get in with the alligators, but to like it as well.

So here we are in the middle of Life, and all the things to do that we must to maintain Life and we must appreciate the need to do them.

As mundane as some of these things are, they are important and they are what makes the quality of our lives. Let us enjoy the experience.

IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!

Turkey a la King

Bobby, here. We got a lot of turkey a la king for the full moon the other night. Mrs. D. writes up all this moon stuff it's some big deal, but what they really do when it's full is go to this kind of Irish hofbrau place down by the railroad station and have a drink, and then have another drink, and then get a lot of food, and I'm in storage in her bag under the table and don't get any. Then they pack up the leftover food and drive down to the marina and look at the moon. I still don't get anything to eat, but she lets me out of the bag so I can pee on a few trees.

They look at the moon, and they sing the same old song about it, and blather on the way they do. Then we all get in the car and go home.

I finally got leftover turkey a la king for dinner yesterday. This morning, I had to make a bit of a scene, but scored some more for breakfast. Tonight she mixed the last of it up with the dumb old kibble, so I had to pick through to get the good stuff, and leave the slimy bits of kibble in a heap on the floor beside my dish.

I realize that you can more or less survive on that kibble if you have to, but it's pretty weird how she thinks I can't tell the difference.

Full Moon

Worship and celebration

Dancing and music

Lovemaking

Conception and birth are both likely and auspicious.

MEDITATION:

If possible, sit where you can see the moon. Otherwise, visualize the full moon hanging in the sky. Close your eyes and see the moon grow smaller and smaller, until it is just an intense point of light in the sky.

Then it will begin to grow larger again. As it begins to grow larger, you may say that it has taken a new form---the figure of a Deity, or an animal, or some other image; or it may be just the moon itself.

The image will grow larger and larger, will surpass the normal size of the moon, and will fill the night sky.

Then it will continue to grow larger, encompassing the earth, and surrounding you and filling you with its gravity and light.

Feel yourself in the moon and part of the moon, as it permeates your body.

Then the image will begin to grow smaller and recede, leaving some of its power behind, in your bones and blood.

The image will recede back to the small point of light in the sky. Then the point will begin to grow again, until you can open your eyes and see the full moon again as everyone sees it, hanging round in the sky.

Acceleration

I've spent the last three days at a conference on "acceleration," our new community college buzz-word. There is some research indicating that under-prepared community college students can do as well or better with less remediation rather than more. There is a push to apply this principle to ESL, my field, which I find counter-intuitive.

Achieving academic proficiency in a second language is not really remediation, for one thing. Thinking of it as such might even be regarded as a subtle form of imperialism, since it is most often required of people from less powerful countries or communities who must establish squatters' rights in a dominant culture in order to improve their prospects. Certainly I couldn't do college-level work in any language but English, and neither could most other Americans. And plenty of long-established research suggests that it takes a number of years to get there.

My French, for instance, is probably more or less equivalent to my intermediate students' English. Suppose that I were a bit younger, found myself in a French-speaking country and wanted to get a university education there. I would have at least a few years of hard work to get ready for that, and would not be in any way served by an attempt to "accelerate" the process from a few years to one.

Anyway, after three days of sometimes inspirational and sometimes annoying pep talks, my conclusion is that, probably unbeknownst to the people actually running this conference, "acceleration" is a characteristically Californian spin on all the devastating budget cuts.

You see, it's actually good for the students to spend less time in school and reach their goals faster, and we can make this happen for them by working really, really hard and teaching really, really well, and oh, yes, spending less of the taxpayers' money, so it's a win-win all around.

People there were boasting about how teaching is their whole life, they need no other.

I tried this "teaching is my life" thing for a few years in the early '80's, during which time I drank a lot (something that was also in evidence after-hours at this conference). Then, throwing up on the compost heap in the back yard one night, I was blessed with a moment of realization that I stood poised in a window of opportunity between heavy drinking and truly addicted alcoholism, a good time to quit.

Without that hazy cloud of alcohol at the end of the day, "teaching is my life" no longer seemed quite so fulfilling, and I was forced to diversify my portfolio.