I had a very interesting Yule this year.
First, I had to go and pick up my glasses after getting them repaired. (Z decided they looked better without one arm.) The shop was closed for a few minutes when I got out there, so I decided to go into the local library branch nearby to wait.
I wandered around looking for something to read for a few minutes. My hand fell upon a book by a witch named Starhawk. (You might be getting a bit of sense of deja-vu here. I certainly did. I had another spiritual experience that I blogged about with a different book by the same author at the same library, waiting for the same glasses lady to open her shop.) I have always liked her books. I sat down with it to flip through it.
I came across a simple sentence that outlined by name the 4 elements -- earth, air, fire and water. All of a sudden I was blindsided by the memory of a dream from a few days previous. It was an intensely profound dream and after I awoke from it I told myself to remember it so I could think about its meaning. But dreams are capricious things, and it didn't come back to me until that moment.
In my dream I was in an outdoor place that contained the entrances to four underground places. These weren't caverns -- they were finished like houses but one accessed them by descending a staircase. As I travelled around, I came to realize several things. First, that these four places corresponded to the four elements. I also understood that I was to make a choice between them. I have no idea what the choice would mean. There was some possibility that I could come back later and make my choice, but there was some reason that my choice would be better made today.
It seemed very important that I make the right choice. I visited each of Fire, Air and Earth places several times. For some reason, I never went to Water. In each there were several women of varying ages going about various tasks. I don't remember what the tasks were in Fire or Air. In Earth, there were basically two things going on. The first was weaving. There were women of all ages working on looms -- card looms, heddle looms that filled a room, lap rooms that made narrow but beautiful fabric. There were rooms full floor to ceiling of skeins of beautifully coloured yarn and thread. Women were teaching each other, or chatting while they worked, or working in rooms contemplatively alone.
The second thing that was going on was a tonne of female sexuality. Women everywhere were kissing and caressing one another. It was all done sensually and with great caring, but also with great passion. Sometimes, the women at the looms would cease chatting and fall to kissing one another instead, their looms left with abandon.
After much thinking and soul-searching, I chose Earth. As soon as I did, I was filled with a sense of peace and serenity about my choice. That was the end of my dream.
I feel like this is layered with so many meanings it is difficult to know where to begin. I have never felt a great affinity with any of the elements in particular. I have a close affinity with my Sun sign, Scorpio, which is a Water sign. I have also felt some affinity with Air, for its connection to power through knowledge. In some ways, Earth might have been my last choice. In the system I know and feel in my heart, each of the elements is connected to a vast but different source of power. As I mentioned, Air is the power through knowledge. Fire is power through passion, and Water is the power through time, like a river carving a canyon over eons. But Earth is just the power from overt strength -- from vastness and deep muscle, like the strength of a bear. Of all of the kinds of power, this is the one I feel least akin to.
Then again, the Earth is the patron of herb lore, which I have always felt an affinity for. And I have always felt at home in the forest and amongst growing things. I have never felt an ability or feeling for crystal magick, but have always felt awe at the life inherent in the rocks and stones of the Earth. (I spent my summers growing up in the woods of the Canadian Shield.) The Earth governs the Will, which I like. As well, it is the element that governs motherhood.
And then there is the weaving. I have always loved Guy Gavriel Kay's metaphorical use of weaving in his Fionavar Tapestry. In his world, there are many gods and goddesses, but over them all is the Weaver at the Loom, the supreme being that holds the threads of all lives and weaves them into the Tapestry that is the world. Also, weaving is one of those human trades that has an alchemical quality to it -- like brewing or vintning, it is the near magickal transformation of one thing -- spun yarn -- into something completely different -- a textile that is exteremly useful and fundamentally different from its starting materials. I have the rudimentary beginnings of a tablet weaver and have been enthralled by the grace and beauty of the craft and the complexity possible with such simple tools. That weaving may be a metaphor for my life makes perfect sense -- now I just have to puzzle out all the layers -- or threads, I suppose -- of what that means.
I feel like this is the most profound dream I have ever had and that it might be a watershed moment in my life -- something I have been building toward for some time. I don't know precisely what I should do with it yet, but I feel it might have deep and evolving meanings for me as time goes on.
For now, I begin small. If weaving is to be a grand spiritual metaphor for my life, I had better understand the ins and outs of it. I have begun tablet weaving with a new vigour. My technical skill and understanding of the way it works have vastly improved, and I am finding the making both relaxing and intellectually stimulating. I have lots of plans to make lots of things and love figuring out the process I will need to do for each.
But, to get back to my Yule: After my revelation in the library, and still in somewhat of a daze, I walked to the store and picked up my glasses. (No charge for the repair, she told me -- it's Christmas.) She had some customers waiting, so I told her I would go shopping and come back in a few minutes. I went to the dollar store across the road and as I walked I planned my ritual for the evening -- where I would light a candle and let it burn through the night, asking for insight into my dream. At the entrance to the store, there was a display of red, green and white votive candles exactly the right size and shape to be burned to extinguishing. I chose the only green one that had it's wick dyed green as well as the candle. Green for my Earth-choice, of course. I paid my 57 cents and tucked in my purse, then picked up my repaired glasses.
That evening, we were invited to H's house in the market for a lovely goose dinner. L and Z terrorized her cat while we ate, then we headed out to the market Solstice celebration in the park. We went last year as well -- there is drumming and stilt-walkers and fire-eaters and fire-jugglers, and it all culminates in the burning of a huge wooden sculpture built for the occasion. Last year, it was a stylized fire. This year, it was a bear, raising its head to spit flames into the sky. It was a wonderful event. The same as last year, L watched the whole thing is quiet and thoughtful awe. (A few days later, on Christmas Eve, I took him with A to a Christmas Eve service. He wanted to go home and seemed a bit frightened to be there. He calmed down eventually, but still wiggled and continually asked 'All done?' after each hymn. The contrast with his mood in at the Yule celebration was striking.)
On the way from work to H's for dinner I walked with my love P and told him about my dream. He found it as profound as I did. I planned my ceremony for later with the expectation I was going to be sleeping alone (it was my turn). But near bedtime, my lover P came to visit me in the shower with a bow in his hair. Apparently P had made me a gift -- she sent my love P to sleep with me that night as a Yule present. It was very sweet of her. I cast a formal circle with my lover P present, celebrated Yule, honoured P for her gift to me and asked for help with understanding my dream. We sealed the celebration and the request by making love in the circle -- I joy which I had never experienced. It was beautiful. The next morning, my candle had burned its wick through -- a good omen.
A few days later was the December Full Moon. I was out of sorts -- I only realized it was the Esbat late in the evening and didn't feel up to planning or doing any sort of ritual. I was restless and wanted to begin weaving, but I had lost my two reference books, and working without them is still somewhat difficult. (I am still a beginner.) I have been looking for them since Pennsic -- the last place I had woven -- and had scoured our bookshelves and the totes we take the Pennsic. I had also asked every member of my household to keep their eyes open for them. I was looking for them again, feeling restless and annoyed. I mentioned what I was looking for to A and she said that she was sure she had seen them recently. She popped downstairs and brough them up to me. I began weaving the next night.
Could it be possible that my books had been staying away from me until I had my dream, so that the understanding I am getting of the techniques and styles of weaving will have more meaning to the metaphors of my life?
-Thriceraven
