Expand and contract. Repeat ad nauseum.
One of the many things I’ve learned from observing and celebrating seasonal changes is that not only is there a season to everything (duh), but the internal cycles of expansion and contraction should be honored as well. I’m noticing this as I go through the metric boatload of RSS feeds that I enjoy, but don’t have time to give proper attention. I need to expand personal time, and so need to contract informative yet distracting information sources. Time to distill it down to the most highly useful feeds.
You’d think that the cycle of Fall/Winter would also bring about a time of physically slowing down, but here in south-central Texas, the “winter” months are fantastic for getting work done around the property. It’s the overheated months of late Summer & early Fall that only the bare minimum should be done. Plants don’t like to grow during that time, and even the grass goes brown and dormant. This difference in traditionally observed seasonal activity provides a lesson: what other people or customs might say is a time of contraction or expansion should weighed by your own observations and needs.
I still have trouble allowing the contraction periods of life to work through their natural course. There’s always more to see and do. If I don’t contract and distill, however, the teacup will overfill.
Expand and contract. Lather, rinse, repeat.
[Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, U.S. readers!]
The interview I did with the budding folklorist was about a calendar I did for Pagans in the DC. It was a middle ground:
- using the societal calendar [because us Pagans are too involved with the world to convert their schedule to lunar/agricultural];
- the need for support in a secular society/culture;
- recognizing that Pagan calendars are local, and DC is not agricultural; and,
- the need to be in sync for where/what we are.
I renamed the months, to remind us of what was that month in our spirituality. I used less agricultural names for the holidays to speak to an urban population (divorced from the farming). I noted peculiar holidays to DC (Cherry Blossom Blooming). Cross quarter holidays were from the traditional observed to the astrological (because it felt they were that long= Samhain/All Souls Passing was 7/8 days long). And I made each quarter holiday 3 days. So, in all holidays, there was time for ritual, for celebration, and for fellowship. The calendar is in one of my earliest entries on my website: treptower.com.
It helps me a lot. and fits where I live.
I’m, also, in a contracting mood. That you for posting
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@Eridanus (seer-eridanus on LJ): What a wonderful idea, making one’s own calendar! I’ll do that, thanks!
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