I Don't Know About You, But I Can Sure Hear Herne Waking Up

It's that time of year.

Gardening with the Goddesses

Discussing how an experienced gardener isn't afraid to admit a mistake, pull out a plant, pitch it, move it, and start all over again, Michael Pollan compares the gardener's method to evolution.

[However, e]volution has a double rhythm: only after nature, in her promiscuous creativity, throws up countless new possibilities and combinations does natural selection (her critical impulse, if you will) step in to determine which work best under the circumstances. . . . Nature creates without an end in view; fitness is but an afterthought. The gardener in his own little world, like the artist in his, performs both functions, hatching the trials and then culling the errors. [Hint to Pollan, women exist.]

But as much as he seems like a god in his garden, practicing his own local brand of natural selection, the green thumb entertains no illusions of omniscience or omnipotence. If he's any kind of god it's a Greek god, one whose power is sharply circumscribed by the willfulness of men and other gods. Unlike Yahweh, Athena bargains, cajoles, even loses one now and then; mortals can keep secrets from her. [The experienced gardener] suspects that the garden over which he exerted absolute mastery would be a pallid, thin, uninteresting place.

~Michael Pollan in Second Nature: A Gardener's Education.

I think that's right, both about gardening and about the Goddesses/Gods. I'm lucky to work w/ the v patient Landscape Guy who never scowls when I say, "Well, I think we should dig up all those day lilies and all those ostrich ferns and switch them into each others' spot, now that I've had a year to watch them where they are." I'm still learning and still listening to the plants. When the day lilies don't bloom well and the ostrich ferns look a bit parched, they're telling me: "We need more sun," and "We need more shade."

In A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism, John Michael Greer says that, for polytheists:

The distinction between divine and human is real, but both exist in a common world defined by mutual relationships.

From this difference-in-relatedness unfolds the central concept of polytheist religious practice, which is reciprocity. Religion in the Pagan sense is a matter of exchange. While the gods are greater than human beings, they are not infinitely so, and humanity thus has the potential to bring something of its own to a relationship with divinity. Each participates in the relationship in a manner proportioned to their relative place in the cosmos, but the relationship is never merely one-sided. . . . If Pagan gods are verbs, as the Christian god is sometimes said to be, the verbs in question are some conjugation of "to give." Yet human beings and, indeed, all other entities have the capacity to give as well, and in giving, to imitate the gods. Once again, hard and fast lines become difficult to draw.

I think that Greer's point is similar to one that Pollan tries to make throughout his writing: Humans are part of nature. A garden is nature in interaction with a human. Sometimes, the plants control us and get us to do their bidding; sometimes we cajole the plants into doing what we want. When it works right, there's an exchange of gifts. The interaction, I think even Pollan would admit, can sometimes be that of his interactive, Greek god gardener and can sometimes be that of a destroying, I-Know-Best-Pesticide-Wielding Yahweh, but it's an interaction.

All of which argues, in my mind, and heart, and sore-from-weeding fingers, for the notion that you can come to know the Goddesses/Gods through gardening and that, through the Goddesses/Gods, you can become a gardener. How does your relationship with divinity influence your gardening? How does your experience as a gardener influence your relationship with the Goddesses and Gods?

Picture found here.

Such A Geek

I'll probably go.

More here.

Picture found here.

Hail Kupala

Here's a charming article about Ivana Kupala, a Ukrainian holiday celebrated with bonfires and flower wreaths, after the summer solstice, usually on the night of July 6.

The name Kupala refers to the god of fruits of the earth. His holiday is considered to be one of the most magical ones in the Ukrainian calendar. Fortune-telling, jumping over cleansing fires and other mystical rituals have traditionally been part of it. . . . Olena Didiuk, who had done a bachelor degree paper on pagan holidays assimilated by the Christian tradition, explained how the name Ivan merged with the holiday. “Christianity was brought on the Ukrainian land against the will of pagan people, and the church needed to set new holidays on top of the old ones. So today people have a choice whether to celebrate Ivan the Baptist’s day, or the day of Kupala,” she said.

Picture from the article; there are several really lovely ones.

Any Movie With The Line: "The Gods Are Real," Is On My List

Looks like a must-see.

More about how Hera is portrayed here.

Maybe It's The Waxing Moon In Aquarius

Suddenly, it's Talk About Goddesses and Gods Week in the Pagan Blogosphere.

My wonderful circle of amazing women is working this year with Columbia, especially in her incarnation as the Goddess of Washington, D.C. I'm really enjoying getting to know her, not least of all because she's a rather young Goddess, as Goddesses go. I recently did some dark Moon magic and she showed up, huge and solemn and strong, and said, "Here, I can make this work for you." And, then, she did. She doesn't talk a lot. But when she does, she means what she says.

Who's the youngest Goddess or God you've ever called?

Picture found here.

Could Be Terrible, Could Be Fun

Horned Lord