CURRENT MOON

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Urban Pagan Place Of Worship


Deborah Oak discusses, inter alia, farmers' markets:

I am so blessed! My partner and I started the day with a trip to the farmer's market. If there ever was an urban pagan place of worship, it's got to be the farmer's market. The Goddess appeared in the the baby lettuce and the chantrelle mushrooms on Saturday.

I couldn't agree more. Living in the city, it's easy to miss signs of the turning wheel, unless you go to the farmers' market. You can only buy strawberries in May, not January, and you can only buy corn in August, not February, and . . . that's the point.

I'm blessed with two wonderful farmers' markets: the Dupont Circle market near my office (where, yeah, I'm often found on the weekend) and the Falls Church farmers' market near my home, where I collected signatures this Summer to get Hillary on the ballot here in Virginia, and where I bought squash and apples and organic cheese and swiss chard with a rainbow of stems this weekend.

Farmers' markets give you a chance to buy locally-grown, in-season food, often from small farms that use organic, sustainable practices. And, Sweet Goddess, the sensual pleasure of walking through, seeing the colors and shapes, tasting the samples of cheese and bread and jam, smelling the cider, and buying the v., v. first forsythias, lilacs, peonies, . . . .

There's bound to be one near you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is Eastern Market still around? Those blueberry pancakes were the food of the goddess!

Anonymous said...

Hello, how lucky you must feel! I am living not only rural but even more than that - without any neighbours and 2 miles from the next paved road. But we have to drive for more than an hour before seeing anything like a farmer's market. (So we never do)

I found your blog coincidentally, I was looking for a pagan blog to fill my head with other thoughts than those I had for the last week. (German politics)

I am not American but German, I came to the US 4 years ago. My american in-laws always insist they can have anything they want anytime whenever they want. For a German (pagan or atheist) this attitude is utterly outrageous and digusting. Just one more reason why we don't like Americans.

My in-laws present strawberries in March or November and act insulted when I explain to them you cannot have them before End of May or after Mid-July. The season for asparagus is even restricted between certain days where I come from. Unthinkable here. They might think I am nuts, but I am just german, and a pagan german.

So I get a sense of hope reading that you share the same attitude.

And you're a lawyer? That implies an education. For the first 2 years here in my new home country I was looking for fellow pagans so badly, since I was surrounded by only christian in-laws. What I found where either illiterate idiots, fluffy bunnies or weirdos. I eventually gave up in 2006, thinking it is no use.

In Germany it is the other way around: the higher your education, the less likely you will be a christian. Only idiots worship the carpenter there.
Here it seems only christians get an education.
Very frustrating for me, but in the end I settled with my computer and the internet, forsaking human contacts outside my immediate family.

I am pleased to find this promising blog, I will save the link and come back again to read more of what you think.

albgardis,f,44