I always advise people to find the pieces of the world that fire their passion, that grab them in their hearts and seize their souls. Even if the circumstance require you to work a job because of the pay or the insurance (or whatever driver forces you to be there), use those moments you can carve from your schedule to write the poem or do the art or sing the song that feeds your soul and energizes the soul of the universe.
I have been talking about, teaching about and writing about the circumstances we are living in right now. I called it “Tower Time” because that Tarot card seemed so apt for all that I was feeling and seeing. Tower Time. Others use the phrase now and I am grateful that it resonates with them, even if their interpretation may be slightly different than my own.
Tonight I was a guest speaker for the West Virginia Pagan Day of Prayer. I spoke a few of the prayers that I’ve written over the years, ending with the popular Prayer for the Dead. (All are available in my book on Tower Time which is called “Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time.”) After much consternation with my inability to log onto the platform, I spoke the prayers and talked a little about the hesitancy amongst some Pagans to use the word prayer or to do it. Then our conversation turned to community building and I felt myself growing excited about the possibilities of groups of Pagans coming together to build strong circles on the ground and to look into a future that they shape themselves, that we shape ourselves.
I do a lot of advocacy on behalf of southern Appalachia. My most recent book “Roots, Branches, and Spirits” has been described by several people as a love-song for this land with which I live. True. Guilty as charged. I also have other work–community strengthening and adapting, modeling ways we can grow food and feed those who can’t, finding ways for argumentative and vulnerable communities to recognize their strengths and common bonds and find some ways to work on behalf of the land and the future. It felt right, energizing…but I can’t imagine how to proceed from here. There are images in my head, bits of song, shards of poetry.
Creation. Passion. Redemption.