Midsummer Retreating: St. John the Baptist and Interior Hospitality

I'm taking some time this month to reflect this month. Just a week or so to reconnect with God. I'm not going anywhere..I retreat best at home with my elf-child and my inspiring husband (though Luba is sometimes less than retreat worthy). 

It's the season of St. John. The days are long and bright, the moon is our friend and the nights - though brief, are refreshing. The Season of St. John is a woody season, and earth-season, a wild time of transition for many of us..'He must increase, I must decrease'.

The Baptist is the saint of transitions and roles - defined so completely by his place between the Prophets and the Messiah, Old and New - the Forerunner to Christ.

In this retreat time I'm crafting a rule of life: slowly, gently, building Christ more intimately into my days. The first stage belongs especially to St. John - the stage of roles and relationships. 

I am reflecting on my roles, my relationships with others, and the ways in which I can nourish them while nurturing my own interior life as well.

St. John spent his life in the wilderness. The 'Angel of the Desert,' he is nourish on fasting and on the earth and the Sun, only from a life a part can he touch deeply the people he loves and live out his purpose in life.

For me the wilderness - though less vast and less wild - is also a healing place. Mine is fuller, with more companionship, more noise, but still a place that becomes for me a haven of reflection..a place to put down roots and drink in the whispers of God.

St. Joseph

 

"You are the woods of paradox. 

Though I may rock you like a child, 

Your curses ever come to pass

as dread on people's backs."*

Dear, beloved St. Joseph. I wonder at his fatherhood. What must it be to hold fresh scented eternity in arms? I pray hard to Joseph - in whose hands the dead staff blooms. He belongs to Springtime, the spring that comes after a long winter.

I think of the the tale from the desert fathers: The master gives to his novice a stick of dry wood. "Plant it." he tells the youth, "Water it daily until it bears fruit." All the branches outside my window are dead and dry, but above the altar Saint Joseph holds his lily-staff and waits, contented; the King of paradox in his arms.

"I am the father but the son is more, 

is everything the father was; and what 

he couldn't be, the son becomes as well;

the son is both the future and the past

source of rivulets and sea to which they turn."*

Blessed Feast!

 

*Rainer Maria Rilke's Book of Hours   

All Saint's

 

How Halloween-y are my potions!!! And my 'Apothic' wines!

All Hallow's Eve is passed; and with it the easy, crisp days of October. We had a delightfully Halloween-y month: a spooky, local, harvest meal at my favorite cafe (just my husband and I); a Halloween short-story reading at the library; and last night, an amazing little bit of trick-or-treating with Petka as a Matryoshka that ended at my in-law's tiny library, where my father-in-law (a local historian) told haunted tales.

Petka and Da made delightful Matryoshkas

 

It's a dreary All Saint's Day this morning. We woke late and warm, and lazed through a morning of creamy coffee, Stromboli, and all the anticipatory joys the new month brings. 

I should have waited to frost them today, it got just a bit dry looking overnight

..but Saints and photographs are so forgiving.

I've baked Saint's cakes for the altar today (and later for our mouths!): Orange, Cardamom, and Pistachio with an orange-y cream cheese frosting. The just feel autumnal. Tomorrow I'll bake Soul Cake's for our beloved dead, and for the Sad People only Yarrow can see. I like to pray a Rosary while mixing the batter, trying to remember all those who ought to be remembered..but today the celebration is just rest and celebration. I can greet my saints with gifts of cake and cream.

Seth made me spooky..but only in the photo. I looked pretty lame last night

 Blessed Hallowmas all!

Easter Tuesday and St. George

 Easter week is delightful! We have sunlight and warm fires and meats and cheeses and wine. I am twining a red ribbon around my wrist to distract evil and anticipating the feast of St. George, when he welcomes the warm spring and invites that grass to grow again. For now, we have only mud and snow.

St. George is not one of my particular saints, but then, neither was the Infant of Prague until I was overwhelmed with him. In the spring, I start to think of George again, with Joseph and Isidor and Anthony - all the springtime saints. It’s funny, I don’t have any women saints in my spring, but the Marys are so summery, Therese is fall, Paraskeva so autumnal or Lenten, and Agnes is winter.

I have bulbs to plant when the ground is thawed, an edited manuscript to send back to it’s mother, and the mess of my own written ones to collect on the desk yet again. I’ve been rejoicing with thick cream in my coffee and dreaming more and more of dairy goats - unlimited cream being my primary goal in life. Petka has begun picking out letters, but only when they don’t distract her by resembling too much the moon she loves. C is a particular problem.

 

Andrzejki

Tomorrow is the beginning of the new liturgical year; yesterday was the feast of St. Andrew, the end of the old season. I love St. Andrew’s eve, but tend to forget him on his day; the eve is full of mystery and hints of the future, the day is a reminder that all things pass away. On the eve of St. Andrew (Andrzejki) tradition calls for dripping wax into a bowl of water by moonlight and reading the shapes to find out what will be. Dreams are important on St. Andrew’s as well, and I’m grateful to have had good ones this year, it gives me a good feeling for the coming year. My dreams have been rambling and uncertain in November, they leave me unrested and unprepared for dawn; but Saint Andrew’s eve brought hope and peace.