Having read Celia Viggo Wexler‘s essay in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning at breakfast (yes, I still have the newspaper delivered), these lines jumped out at me:

“I wanted answers as a Catholic woman. But what I learned applies to any person encountering a religious crisis. . . . Faith is not loyalty to a church. It demands a relationship with the divine, something that takes time, thought and prayer.”

And that’s where many of us stumble—not just Catholics, or Christians, or any follower of a popular religion, but, yes, even those of us who follow more lightly trod paths. We name ourselves a particular type of worshipper—Pagan, Northern Traditionalist, Heathen, Wiccan, etc.—and settle into a comfortable and accepted identity of that tradition. What’s required, however, is not just a name and an identity, but a life that fits our chosen path.

Our Gods require service, our path requires faith, and both require action. It’s easy to say, “I am a devotee of [your deity here]”, but it’s much more work to live that devotion. It’s easy to go to rituals, attend study groups, and opine endlessly in online chat rooms. Yes, these are ways of honoring our Gods through learning and sharing knowledge, but knowledge is not enough. We need to do something with our knowledge to transmute it into wisdom.

A life of active and honorable service requires us to ask questions, to think deeply and clearly, and to take actions based on our acquired wisdom. If you have memorized the words of Havamal, but not imbibed the lessons, your behaviors will not change. One of the reasons we take up a faith is to gain wisdom which directly informs our actions, and thus we live more useful lives as better humans than we would be otherwise.

We speak to our Gods in prayer, and They answer us in myriad ways. Sometimes we’re lucky, and it’s a direct reply to us as we are in conversation with Them at the altar. Far more often, They speak to us through the words of others in conversation, music, books, or even newspaper articles.

We question ourselves—”Am I strong enough to do what is asked of me? am I wise enough? am I ready?” (The answers are usually “yes”; “you’ll learn what you don’t yet know”; and “you’re as ready as you need to be”.)

We question our Gods—”Why did You choose me to do this work? what makes you think I can do this? isn’t there someone else who could do it?” (The answers are usually  “because”; “We know you can”; and “no”.)

We read other’s thoughts, ideas, and experiences to learn about how to process our own. We write about our own thoughts, ideas, and experiences, whether or not we share those writings with anyone else, in order to gain clarity on what happened, what it might mean, what we do with it or about it.

All of this takes time, however, and most of us feel starved for time. We have so many demands to juggle—work and its commute, family (especially if you are responsible for the care of dependent children and/or elders), community (those circles and study groups, or simply enjoying a movie night with friends), quotidian details (you must eat—which requires grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up; you can go only so long without doing laundry; you must put fuel in the car and make sure the engine is maintained; and on and on). With all of that, time for yourself quickly falls to the bottom of the list, and what time you do have for that is often spent unwinding from the other stresses and demands.

The idea that you can take regular time for prayer and contemplation seems far-fetched, at best. I’m not perfect at it—far from it. Most days I have 45 minutes of meditation and divination time. Some days, things go awry, and finding even 5 minutes seems impossible. I’ve offered silent devotions on airplanes, and done brief meditations in my car in a parking lot. I keep devotionals on my iPad to read, and carry prayer cards in my iPhone case to occupy my mind on transit. Some days, it feels like there is no time, and taking 10 minutes on the bus is the best that’s going to happen.

If you are going to walk your path in service to your Gods, you must take time for thought and prayer. You need time to yourself, with yourself, to check in with who you are and how you are doing. A strong sense of self makes working with the Divine much less complicated. When you know who and what you are, and are grounded in a strong sense of your true self, you can open yourself more fully to your Gods and Their lessons. Being closer to your Gods make it easier to take right action, and to live a life of honorable and loving service to your Gods, your community, and your family.

Today’s poem times in perfectly with the rune in the daily draw: Os, The God Voice, and Loki, who more than once took the form of a falcon.

Peregrine Falcon New York City
~ Robert Cording

On the 65th floor where he wrote
Advertising copy, joking about
The erotic thrall of words that had
No purpose other than to make
Far too many buy far too much,
He stood one afternoon face to face
With a falcon that veered on the blade
Of its wings and plummeted, then
Swerved to a halt, wings hovering.

An office of computers clicked
Behind him. Below, the silence
Of the miniature lunch time crowds
And toy-like taxis drifting without
Resolve to the will of others.
This bird’s been brought in, he thought,
To clean up the city’s dirty problems
Of too many pigeons. It’s a hired beak.

Still he remained at the tinted glass
Windows, watching as the falcon
Gave with such purpose its self
To the air that carried it, its sheer falls
Breaking the mirrored self-reflections
Of glass office towers. He chided
Himself: this is how the gods come
To deliver a message or a taunt,
And, for a moment, the falcon
Seemed to wait for his response,
The air articulate with a kind of
Wonder and terror. Then it was gone.

He waited at the glass until he felt
The diminishment of whatever
Had unsettled him. And though
The thin edge of the falcon’s wings
Had opened the slightest fissure in him
And he’d wandered far in thought,
He already felt himself turning back
To words for an ad, the falcon’s power
Surely a fit emblem for something.

Peregrine Falcon image from Audobon.com

The Giants’ Tarot, Raven Kaldera

Draw for November 25, 2016:
Active Influence: Mimir/The Hanged Man
Rune: Os/The God Voice
Hidden Influence: Bestla/Ten of Coins

With a Major Arcana card as the Active Influence today, you really need to heed Mimir’s message. There may not be much you can do to change the big things, so do what you can with the small things, and with your internal work. Bestla says you have what you  need to make it through in good shape, so release those worries and focus that energy on putting your physical house in order. Is there something in your environment that needs cleaning, repair, or some kind of attention? This is a good day for that.

The rune is the key element here. The Gods are speaking, giving advice and suggestions and perhaps warnings. Heed Them, and do the personal work you need to do to be ready for the shift that will come when Mimir’s influence passes.

Lastly, Bestla is the mother of Odin. Loki is present in Os, and Odin is present in Bestla’s card. If you have stuck energies around parent issues (either your own parents, or your role as a parent), this is a good day to work on those emotions. It may not be pleasant, but it will be worthwhile.

As today is Thanksgiving day in the United States, today’s poem is actually a short essay on gratitude written by Jon Carroll, writer and former columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle. You can find the original essay on the Chronicle site.

Carroll’s note: A few years ago I wrote a Thanksgiving column that people seemed to like, so I’ve reprinted it annually. This year, I decided to write something else on the same subject. Many readers have been kind enough to say that my column is part of their Thanksgiving tradition; that column can still be found on SFGate.com, at tinyurl.com/2mmwl2.

Gratitude is the antidote. It is useful in combatting a variety of diseases, from something as vague as the discontents of civilization to something as specific as personal grief. Thanksgiving is the holiday of gratitude, and I am always willing to celebrate it.

We are told frequently that “it is what it is.” That’s a tautology, of course, and an increasingly grating cliche, but it gained prominence because it’s a real reminder of a real thing: What happened happened. You can’t change the past. All we have is today. See you in the future!

But regret is real. Sorrow and pain and loss – all real.

I sometimes think of civilization or society as a kind of floor, a patchy, rickety floor in constant need of repair. Below the floor is the chasm. Some people know that chasm well – those who have scrabbled to exist in war zones, those who have tried to cope after hurricanes or earthquakes, those who have lost multiple family members simultaneously. For them, the daily comforts of society are of little use. The network of routine, the solace of art, the hope for the future – none of it seems real.

Only the chasm seems real.

The chasm is only metaphorical, of course, but sometimes we live our lives entirely within metaphors. Our choice of metaphors is just a matter of taste. There’s no right answer in this quiz, kids.

But still we have to get through the day. And, I am convinced, the route through the day is gratitude. Because there is always something to be grateful for, and that something is not in the chasm, it floats above the chasm, denies the importance of the chasm.

You choose: sunsets, apples, bedrooms in the morning, Bruce Springsteen, a child’s second birthday, the smile on the face of a passing stranger, rivers, mountaintops, cathedrals, Shakespeare, Tina Fey, the curve of a thigh, the curve of a road, the nation of Switzerland, Carl Hiaasen, grass, orange, Bola Sete, jumbo shrimp, Pascal’s theorem, Occam’s razor, clean restrooms, potable water, penguins, French kissing or peanuts.

Can you feel the floor beneath your feet get sturdier? Can you see the holes being patched? For a moment, the bounty of the world overwhelmed you, and you were grateful to be alive at this moment. See? Antidote.

So today, if we are at all lucky, we will gather with family and/or friends and eat food and talk of shared alliances and shared memories. Many Thanksgivings are family gatherings, and family gatherings are often fraught. My suggestion is: Embrace the fraught. You’d miss the fraught if it weren’t there.

Besides, there’s always the moment of escaping the fraught, going outside for a smoke or down to the store for more whipped cream or out for a walk with someone you love. You can’t have the escape without the prison. Be grateful for both.

What I’m going to try to do this year is slow down. What I’m going to try to do this year is pay attention. Usually I run around. Lots of people make me frantic – we always have lots of people at our Thanksgivings – and there are always a thousand tasks. The point of the holiday is not the tasks, even though it seems that way sometimes.

I’m going to think about how each of the people at the table came into my life, and what I remember about that moment, and how we decided to become friends instead of just people who met each other once a long time ago. And I’m going to remember the kindness that each person has shown me, and I’m also going to remember my kindnesses, because I’m grateful for the times I behaved well.

And because not all the people I’m grateful for are in the room today, I’m going to think about them and send them good thoughts across the miles. I don’t believe in the transmission of thoughts, but I believe in trying. It’s like a flashy vehicle for mindfulness, and mindfulness is hard when the talk is loud and the carbohydrates are disappearing at alarming rates.

And as I walk across the floor from one room to another, I’m going to notice how solid the floor feels beneath my feet today. I know how fragile it is, but it doesn’t matter. Today, right now, this Thanksgiving, it feels like the oldest rock in the world, and I stand on it and rejoice.

The Giants’ Tarot, Raven Kaldera

Draw for November 24, 2016:
Active Influence: Hyndla/The Hermit
Rune: Gebo/Gift
Hidden Influence: Nine Maidens of the Mill/Nine of Coins

Gifts—both giving and receiving—are a dance of balance and reciprocity. You work for pay to keep your life together on the material level, which gives you the space and time you need for personal pursuits. The creativity and well-being which result from personal pursuits strengthen you to do your worldly work. Give yourself time to be quiet today (yes, even if you are at large family gathering, you need some alone time—perhaps even more than usual), and listen to your soul. Taking time for the internal work is a gift to yourself.