Thursday, April 30, 2009

It's Beltane! May Pole Dance!


What's Beltane? Beltane marks the half of the year, it's the light half. Samhain (Halloween) is the dark half. Beltane honors life. Samhain honors death.

Growing up, I recall doing the May Pole dance. I never quite understood the purpose except it was something I looked forward to every May. It has been ages since I've done this dance. I will do it with my family sometimes this weekend. We're expecting rain. I think it's ok to do it on a day we can- Goddess will understand!
I borrowed this description from WitchVox's page, "The Maypole is an important element to Beltane festivities, it is a tall pole decorated with long brightly colored ribbons, leaves, flowers and wreaths. Young maidens and lads each hold the end of a ribbon, and dance revolving around the base of the pole, interweaving the ribbons. The circle of dancers should begin, as far out from the pole as the length of ribbon allows, so the ribbons are taut. There should be an even number of boys & girls. Boys should be facing clockwise and girls counterclockwise. They each move in the direction that they are facing, weaving with the next, around to braid the ribbons over-and-under around the pole. Those passing on the inside will have to duck, those passing on the outside raise their ribbons to slide over. As the dances revolve around the pole the ribbons will weave creating a pattern, it is said that the pattern will indicate the abundance of harvest year."
Neat ritual, isn't it? I'm not quite ready to teach the full meaning of Beltane to my kids. May Pole Dance.... long ago, folks celebrate with a romp in the field, if you catch my meaning? It's a fertality dance, celebrating spring. Enjoy the Day!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Struggling to finish my paper, staying Raw and sane.



Gee, when it rains, it really pours for me. Dealing with the throes of an adolescent that has taken much of our attention and energy, working as a school counselor dealing with other children in throes of adolescent and I have family obligations of younger children and husband. Gee, I wonder why my emotional energy is depleted. Am I busy enough? No. I am also taking a graduate level course offered by my place of employment. Oh boy. Trying to do all that and embark on a new life style of eating Raw... things are not quite going the way I want it to go. I am roughly 60 to 75% Raw most days. For my graduate class, I decided to write about the importance of emotional literacy and how it impacts a child's psycho-social development if they're deaf. Trying to find research and read through all the psycho-babble, literacy-babble about any research that proves teaching emotional literacy to deaf children via sign language and literacy. This is hard work. I can't believe just how long and tedious it can be. Such a wide and diversified research area. Banging my head, wondering why did I do this? The last time I had to seriously do any graduate level research was April, 1990, a few weeks prior finishing my Masters Degree. Oy vey. I don't have much grey brain cells left! Guess what, I need to maintain my grey brain cells and this is a good activity for me... keep my grey cells alive, maintain my professional knowledge and possible publish an article! Knock wood, toss salt over my shoulder and hope I really pull it together! Oh my goddess... I have 7 weeks left and I need to do my data collection! YIKES. I think I'm going to ask for a 6-8 week extension so I can get my stuff done! ANYWAY, I read Claude Steiner's revised book that he was kind enough to send via email and it was so awesome. I get goose-bumps just talking about his book here. I would recommend anyone to read this, just to understand how important emotional literacy for all of us. I needed a curriculum that I believe is the final puzzle piece for my research and I did not want to spend money buying it. Being a book snooper that I am, I was snooping a colleague's bookshelf and came across the very item I was in need of! The colleague was so kind enough to let me borrow it (thanks!). Karma is good! What goes around, comes back two-fold. I'm not sure if that quote if for bad stuff or good stuff too? I hope for the good stuff it works. I got two of the items I needed the most free due to kindness of these people. I shall continue to thrive to be kind, generous and harm none.

Well, I'm back to trying to stay on the path to Raw food. Been trying to bounce on my qibounder. Trying to mediate, trying to apply exercises found in the book by Connie. "Allow it be easy"... ha! Trying to visualize exercises by The Green and Burning Tree. "Be aware of inner vision".. where is it? Dammit. Nothing is working. What works is that I'm a blob on the sofa, curled up protectively and under my favorite blanket. :D Feeling warm, safe, and secure? Yep. That is OK, it is what I need now. Peeking here out from under the covers, typing my blog. Chat later.