Love and Compassion

I’ve spent this winter rearranging how I think and speak in the world.  Most likely in the next few months, I will be blogging some reframed ideas. 

 At Lammas, I had an intimate experience with the Goddess Brigid.  She is the most compassionate, patient goddess who really does truly care, not just for the community but for the individual.  Her heart is huge.  While aspecting her for Lammas, I found that my heart was bursting open, overflowing with compassion as well as feeling the pain and struggles of the human condition.  She seemed very invested in making sure people did their work, progressed in their growth, and took up both the banner and yoke of caring for each other and the planet.  She made me feel that my heart was breaking.  I like to think that this is what a crustacean, bug, or snake feels when they crack open their shell or skin in order to grow bigger.  I burst into tears and felt pretty open and emotionally exhausted that night.  It took days to feel “normal”. 

At Between the Worlds conference in December, this same overflowing compassion returned, and added to it was a purity of purpose.  Amazing work was done, ritual was incredible, and new and deeper connections were made.  I felt alive and fully in my purpose.   The world seems more positive since then.  I would say that it was just my perspective of the world, but some of my dreaded visions of the future have been washed away.  The world seems relieved that the Mayan “end of the world” did not come to pass.  Or did it?  I hope for a new world in the years and generations to come. 

So, my word of the year is compassion.  I am attempting to deepen love and compassion, connection and empathy.  I find this gentle, flowing shift very uncomfortable and difficult.  Isn’t this lovey stuff supposed to be easy?  My normal mode is too cardinal and Saturnian for this to be an easy process.  I am deepening my personal practice, my spell craft, and the work with my current and future Gods. 

 Today, I found it easier to be positive.  Things are moving and shaping is some really good ways.  This article, http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/theres-no-such-thing-as-everlasting-love-according-to-science/267199/?miaou, hit me really hard too.  It gave me yet another missing piece of how to interact and treat people in my life.  Friendly is not just a social moray and polite, but a way to actually add in every moment to the re-enchantment of the world.  Maybe this is obvious to most, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Please note that I live in Northern New Jersey as well, a very cutthroat harsh environment. 

Yesterday, I constructed an internal ally to use as a tool for interaction as well.  The image that came to me was not Jupiter, that I was aiming for, but Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, one of his lovers.  All of this came to me from pure imagination rather than conscious guidance of the process.  The image I am working with is the sapphire queen.  Fittingly enough, I have paintings on my desk at work of personifications of the Moons of Jupiter.  Now, before I get sappy, blessed be!