Of Groundhogs and Critters

Seventeen years ago, I was asked to cover the February second service for the local Universalist Unitarian Church. The bulletins had been printed, the hymns are chosen, I had to work within the confines of Rev. Baros-Johnson's choices. It forced me to look beyond the usual associations for Imbolc. I was to preside over Groundhog Communion and then give a short homily to the congregation. Here is an excerpt from my presentation.

Groundhog Communion

I requested that What a Wonderful World play while the Communion took place. I encourage you to listen to it now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzrABouyeE

Often the consumption of food is incorporated within Neo Pagan ritual. It is sometimes referred to in Wicca as Cakes and Ale. Like the Christian communion, one of its purposes is to help connect us with the divine. After invoking the blessing of deity, the platter and chalice are passed from participant to participant, often accompanied by the blessing: May you never hunger. May you never thirst.

Homily: Critters

May you never hunger. May you never thirst. Nice sentiments, but what do they really mean to us, here in this place and time? We, who have been hungry on occasion but never known the disfiguring pain of rickets or scurvy. We, who have been thirsty but never been far from unlimited sources of fresh, clean and safe drinking water.

Mathematical cosmologist, Brian Swimme speaks of how all creativity has a cost. For something to be created, something else has to dissolve. We arrive here and everything is given to us. These gifts, he suggests, are a result of sacrifices on the part of the Universe – the fireball, stars, extinct species, sun, earth, animals, plants and other humans. All the gifts from these were needed and are needed for our lives. They are the cost of our existence. The Universe, he claims, is an ongoing sacrificial event. We find ourselves in this place of exchange, this great feasting where everything is nourishing everything else. Things arrive and give themselves over for the adventure of the Universe. If so, then what is our place, here and now as a part of the interdependent web of all life?

The Wheel of the Year that was constructed by Gardner and others was based on a Celtic year. Its festival dates set not just around Celtic holy days but those of other northern and western European cultures as well. These celebrations were chosen to connect us with our ancestors and their ways of life and also with the earth itself. This Sabbat has several names: Bride's Day and Candlemas being popular for their themes of purification, purity and light. But it is Imbolc and Oimlec also. Imbolc means “in the belly” and Oimlec referring to the beginning of the ewes' lactation.

This was a true time to celebrate for people whose lives were so closely tied to the cycles of the earth, to the web of all existence. Food stores set aside in the harvest months of the previous year were at the very least growing stale and mouldy. Often these stores were running out depending on the growing conditions of the previous year. A wet spring, and early fall, a drought are just a few of the many circumstances that could adversely affect the food supply. Do you remember last summer's weather? The year before? At a time when the years could be marked by the death of a child to starvation, the weather of each growing season would be remembered.

The pregnancy of the ewes would provide life-saving nutrition in the form of milk. And if a ewe delivered early, there would be a lamb to eat. I have recently read that it is still the practice of shepherds in the UK to kill the early deliveries. For if the lamb were allowed to live, it would stop nursing before there was tender grass available for it to eat and would then die of starvation. It was not only mercy to kill these lambs, it would have been a blessing to have fresh meat. The inspiration of this ancient holy day was about survival and the miracle of having food without killing herds and jeopardizing future harvests.

Archeological anthropologists propose that many tribal cultures have understood and revered the interdependent web of all existence in ways that we have lost. From thanking the spirit of the deer for giving up its life so they could eat to honouring the tree for the branch that was fashioned into a musical instrument, deity permeated their world and was to be honoured.

Modern-day Wicca and many whose faith evolved from the groundbreaking work of Gardner, Valiente and others, debate often the value and the extent of the Rede. The Rede states in part: An you harm none, do what you will. For people who celebrate an immanent manifestation of deity, it can be a confusing and troubling piece of counsel. It is impossible to go through the day without harm.

Cultural relativists speak of intention as a talisman that separates us from our actions. But the intention is not enough. What must accompany intention is awareness. Awareness of immanent deity. Awareness of the interconnection of all life. Awareness that by the very act of getting up in the morning we are disturbing whole ecosystems of microbial life. (Horton Hears a Who, anyone?) Awareness that not just the animals we eat, but the fruits, vegetables and water are all alive. Awareness must lead to mindfulness, gratitude and to joy. Life is sacrificed in a myriad of ways each day in order for us to be here. Mindfulness and gratitude are not enough, it is our sacred obligation to seek joy.

Neo-Pagan teachings most often come in the form of storytelling. Like the Christian parables, the stories can mean different things to different people. For me, Loren Eisley's essay “The Judgment of the Birds”, speaks of our place and our relationship with other species within creation. Eisley writes in the essay of awakening from a nap in the woods to the noise of some commotion. Looking amongst the trees, Eisley spies the cause. A large raven is sitting on a branch with a nestling in its beak. The parents cry and scold, the chorus is taken up by other birds of many species.

Eisley writes, “No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive and common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of the protest, they forgot the violence. There in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were slowly being forgotten. 'Til suddenly, they took heart and sang from many throats, joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth, they had forgotten the raven, for they were singers of life, not death.”

What can the Neo-Pagan Sabbats, these days that mark our ancestors' dance within the circle of life, these ancient holy days, teach us as 21st century UUs? We, who have “covenanted to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part”? They can bring us to mindfulness, to respect, to gratitude and then to joy “as we think to ourselves: What a Wonderful World.”

Links to Brian Swimme:

https://storyoftheuniverse.org/

and

https://www.ciis.edu/faculty-and-staff-directory/brian-thomas-swimme

Loren Eisley and The Judgment of the Birds:

https://www.eiseley.org/

and

http://www.ombredor.com/dbksskbd/quotes/birds.html