Month 1, Week 2, Sun Path: Celebrating Awen

There is no written assignment for this week.  However, there are three self-probing questions that I choose to answer.

Question:  Are there certain seasons that give you more inspiration than others?

**For many years I said that I equally loved both the mountains and ocean.  Then, I lived in Florida.  Now I know I love the mountains more.  Asking me to look within to find if there is a favorite time of year has been a walk through the Wheel.  I love the autumn for its crisp cool air, and winter for its frozen silence.  I love spring for its viriditas, and summer for its rolling heat.

I love Graintuiri and Samhain* for their Love and Legacy, for The Hunt, and the realization and discovery of clan’s potential.  I love Graineiri and Bel Tintean* for their Life and Liberation, for hare hunts, and breaking the bonds of illusion.  Each has its measure of deep richness and healing, so it is difficult for me to identify one above another when all of them are ecstatic.  Each is far more than present but presence.

So to answer the question: No, there is not one season for me that offers more inspiration than another; there is but the current that touches them all.

Question:  Is there a particular High Day that is your favorite?

**Scal Cu, the Tide of Loyalty, that exists during the intercalary days.  The Between tides are held as above ordinary awareness; as liminal periods.  And if this is so, then Scal Cu – the Spirit Dog – is the via negativa of the Wheel itself.  This is Center, Storm’s Calm, the Heart of the Oaks of Avalon – the reason for silence.

Contemplative practices aim for ‘clarity of mind’ or ‘purity of heart’, and both are a touchstones of consciousness.  Scal Cu has one leave this behind, to release the last vestige of conscious presence, to release clinging, to be as The Fool who, looking upwards, steps into nothingness.  Scal Cu is that nothingness of all that is not.  Standing at Zero has its own dialogue – its own phrases, words and alphabet even  - and these must be planted, like the seeds they are, within a circle of rocks and at water’s fall, within the nesting cup of a bird’s nest and beneath fallen trees.  In this way, Spirit Dog takes root in land, sea and sky, and remains ever present; and those who look for it, may find it along their way.

Question:  How does this seasonal inspiration help you to celebrate nature?

**Scal Cu has a unique form of perceptivity, its own communion.  Rather than yielding to its form, one yields to it; and this nothingness is brimming with light and intelligence.  Scal Cu is beyond closer to the heart of all things, but the mysterious place of interpenetration at the heart of all things.  It is here that I celebrate the fullness beyond self-reflection, for there is only self; and, at the least, the reality that intention is what energizes all things when it flows unfettered.

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(*Alban Elved and Samhain, then Alban Eiler and Beltane.  I grew up with different names for the Tides, names I am comfortable with, so will gradual begin to incorporate the ‘Druid High Days’ of the Black Mountain Druid Order.)