The Road To Nowhere

When we put off joy, when we defer desire, we stunt our growth.  If we consistently live out of duty without joy, it is time to re-examine our attitudes toward our lives.

-Thorn Coyle -

Once upon a time a man found himself on a journey.  He wasn’t quite sure how he found himself on the particular road he was travelling or where he acquired his automobile, but he had a vague memory of arriving where he was by taking a series of wrong turns. 

The road was a wide one with many lanes, but there wasn’t much to see.  There were high walls on each side that prevented him from viewing beyond, and the sky overhead was cloudy or dark most of the time.  There was just the road.

He had a companion on this journey.  He had picked her up at one of the places where he lost his way.  They often argued over which lane they should be in or whether or not they should stop at one of the many service plazas along the way. 

The service plazas were plentiful and glittery, mini theme parks.  There was a service plaza devoted to Catholicism, a park of engineering, and one of intellectual delights among others.  The people he met there seemed friendly enough at first, but he found that one or another wanted something from him, and he became tired.  So he tended to keep to himself.

There was an abundance of diversions at the service plazas to distract him from the weariness of the journey and dreariness of the people he met.  Food, strong drink, and entertainments were all offered to provide comfort or so it was advertised.  These sufficed for a time, but eventually and increasingly satisfaction no longer came and they were consumed out of habit and to avoid facing going onto the road again.

There were tolls to pay on this road.  “Pay High Emotional Toll Ahead” was a sign road that the man came to dread.  These tolls increased with time as did the number of toll stops.  At each passing of a toll, the man paid up a little more of his heart and soul until it seemed he had little left.

Yes, with time the road became more and more weary, even disliked, but the man hid this from himself.  There seemed no alternative.  He stuck to the road even though he seemed to pass the same points again and again travelling in a giant circuit. 

His companion was increasingly of no help.  She often retreated to the back seat and didn’t speak to him for days.  She would find friends along the way and invite them along, and she and her friend would converse and seemingly enjoy each other’ company in the back seat as if the man didn’t exist.

Eventually his companion began to ask to be let out of the car so that she could journey alone.  She was tired of his company, she said, and – while he was nice enough – she couldn’t stand to travel with him anymore.  She might reconsider continuing to accompany him if he rearranged things inside the car, or travelled in a different lane on the road, or stopped at a service plaza that he didn’t particularly like but that which she enjoyed.

One day he noticed a stop along the way that seemed different from all the rest.  Why hadn’t he seen if before?  There was no dazzle of the usual service plazas here.  It was a quiet restful place.  And there was a gap in the ever-present wall that everywhere else bordered the road.  He wanted to go in, but his companion wouldn’t go with him.  She drove off leaving him here alone.    

When he walked into this rest stop he found it to be different from what he had experienced in a long time.  The air was refreshing and less heavy.  The sound of the road behind him seemed far away.  Though he could see through the gap in the wall only a short way, he found it attractive.  There was an openness there that the road didn’t have.  He met bright cheerful people here, some visiting from the road like him, others having come through the notch in the wall to visit.

He liked what he saw.  But the road was all that he knew.  His companion kept driving by looking for him, and eventually he climbed back in the car and he drove off.

He stopped at the rest area more and more often.  His companion became increasingly upset and angry when he did this.  But do it he did nonetheless.  He found after a time that the pleasant men and women at the rest area genuinely liked him.  Some became friends.  The boredom and dreariness of the road passed from him at times like this, and he was happy.

But always the honking of the horn, his companion sitting impatiently at the wheel of the car, opening the passenger door for him to get in.  More and more he seemed to be the passenger and not the driver.

At one of his later visits to the rest area, the folks that he met there suggested that he could leave the road.  Many had found their way to the other side of the wall after all, and he could do it too.  But how?  “Look for the exit” they said.

The exit!  Of course!  He had noticed the sign for the exit again and again.  He ignored it, because the road was safe and the exit led to the unknown.  “Better to stick with what I know and who I know” he said to himself.

And he was aware, when he thought of it, that the exit looked more and more narrow each time he passed, like it was slowly closing.  The exit sign had faded with time, and one of the posts supporting it had been knocked askew.  Grass was growing up through the decaying pavement.  The walls along the side of the road were beginning to encroach on the exit.

He resolved that he would stop and look down the exit ramp next time he passed.  He slowed down to look once or twice, but each time his companion put her foot on the gas and off they went.  When she was driving, she refused to slow down at all.

Then he finally did stop.  His companion tried to talk him out of this and threatened to jump out of the car forever as she often did, but for once he didn’t listen. 

He opened the car door and stepped out.  The same refreshing air and attractive aura of the rest area was present here as well, streaming up the ramp.  He saw that the gap between the walls on the ramp were barely large enough now for him to pass through.

He turned and faced the car and his companion.  She now pleaded that he get back in and continue the journey.  She so looked forward to being on the road with him, she said, and she never really meant to leave the many times that she said she desired to.

He hesitated, took a few steps toward the exit, then turned and hesitated again.  Finally, he turned his back on the road for good.  His old companion drove off back onto the road as he walked then trotted to the gap in the wall.  As he passed through he noticed that what was on the other side wasn’t perfect.  But the landscape was completely open to him. 

And there was one waiting for him, one he had seen and spoken with through the mist at the rest stop.  She was there among many others and offered to walk with him.  A new journey had begun.

Calen Fair Llawen to all!

Today is February 2^nd, Midwinter Day or Imbolc.  In this country, we know it as Groundhog Day.  (He saw his shadow, by the way.) 

If this day be sunny and bright, Winter again will show its might.
If this day be cloudy and grey, Winter soon will pass away.

In Wales, land of my heritage, this day is celebrated as Calen Fair.  Calen Fair has ancient roots. In is traditionally the time when lambs are born and ewe’s come into their milk.  “Imbolc” comes from two words that refer to the lactation of the she-sheep.  This flow of milk foreshadows the turn of the seasons to spring when life-giving forces return.

Here in New England the harshness and bitterness of winter is at its height this time of year, a subject of concern for our ancestors.  The fodder for the farm stock ran low and the larder began to look a bit bare.  But although this season was cold and drear, small indications of new life began to appear.  Lambs and calves were born; the days slowly warmed as the snow receded under the light of the ever higher sun; crows and squirrels begin to build their nests; the territorial “phee-bee” of the chickadees sounded in the forests.   

Calen Fair has a Pagan pedigree as do many celebrations and holidays since co-opted by Christianity.  In practical terms seed was made ready as were the ploughs.  Sacred springs and wells were cleaned.  Shrines to the departed, the fae, and the goddesses and gods were rejuvenated and lit with candles.  This is in part why the church replaced this festival with Candlemas dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  “Calen Fair”, the Welsh name for the day, in fact means the commencement of the season of Mary ending on May 1^st.   

In Ireland this day commemorates St. Brigit.  By tradition she is the daughter of a druid and later became abbess of Kildare.  Having been born while her mother crossed a threshold, she was said to be “neither within nor without”, between the worlds. 

Whether is is true or not, there is considerable truth to St. Brigit being derived from the Irish goddess Brigid.  “When she raised her white wand on this day, it is said to have breathed life into the mouth of the dead Winter and to bring him to open his eyes to the tears and the smiles, the sighs and the laughter of Spring.”  The harshness of winter trembles on Brigid’s day, and flees on Ostara, the equinox of spring.

There are ways to celebrate this day, if you like.  This is traditionally a time to ritually clean your house, especially if the Moon is waxing as today it is. If you have any Christmas greenery lingering, burn it now.   Leave a silk ribbon on your doorstep for Brigid to bless, and later use it for healing.  Plant a seed such as starting tomatoes.  Finally, meditate upon what you would like to see grow in health and strength this year.

This is a winter unlike those of recent years past with little snow and less than the usual dose of cold.  There are bare spots in the yard, and it is easy to walk about since what little snow is left is packed hard.

Yesterday, we had a dusting of soft powdery snow, just enough to reveal the routes taken by our woodland neighbors.  Walking about last night under the Moon I saw the track of a rabbit.  An endangered New England Cottontail perhaps?  Shamans’ Rest lies within a critical habitat for these rare beasts. 

Paralleling and overlapping the rabbit track in places was that of a canid, probably a coyote.  Hot on the trail of the bunny no doubt.  No.  When I followed the track, I noticed that the coyote had veered off at the fae circle while the rabbit continued into the labyrinth meadow.