The Threshold of Summer

May the Liminal Dieties bless us all.

The Goddess Of Thorns

It's occurred to me to wonder - many times since I've been back here, in fact - f there is a goddess of this place.

If there is, I can only conclude that she must be a goddess of thorns, spines and stones.

Mermaids

As a kid, whenever we went to the zoo, I imagined the aquarium building was a temple dedicated to a mermaid goddess. It looked just the thing, with its seashell facade and cool blue interior.

I was silently pondering this during a recent trip there with my family, how despite Atargatis, Aphrodite or the sirens, and despite the deep sea being more mysterious even than outer space, we tend to see mermaids in terms of mythology but not spirituality. 

The moon jellies were a particular favorite, by the way

I was still thinking about it in the car the next day; I suppose it stuck with me because I've never really gotten over moving inland. I was born amid this limestone karst, but the ocean brings me a certain sort of peace that a river can never match. I miss the salty sea air.

So we were driving, and I looked to up from my reverie to see, rather amusingly, this mermaid waving at passersby.

Many people who've known me have pointed out that I don't seem very American, but here is one instance where I really fit the stereotype - I love this sort of kitschy roadside art. I also love synchronicites, and coming upon a mermaid while you are pondering mermaids would certainly count as one. A good sign, perhaps?

It gets better - just that week, I discovered, the city of San Marcos had installed a number of painted mermaid sculptures and holy cow, there's a map. You know how I feel about maps.

mermaid sculptures waiting in the beautiful bleakness of a storage unit

The relationship between San Marcos and mermaids, I assume, has to do with Aquarena Springs and its Aquamaids and possibly a legend of a Native girl who made a bargain with a magical catfish. However, these are not motifs that traveled even a few miles west to my town

Soon I will pop over to San Marcos and track down the statues. It will be an adventure.True, these are river mermaids and not the ocean, but still I feel the touch of something otherworldly in this string of synchronicities. Perhaps the mermaid goddess lives after all.

Saints

Thank you, Saint Expedite

For nearly two weeks, we'd been in need of car. We'd gone to a used car lot to look around, but immediately I knew this wasn't right. I knew what we must/should/would have instead. It would be a former rental car, not too old, of a certain make, model and color, low mileage, low price. I'm not a car person, I know nothing, basically, but I knew this in my bones.

It was a tall order though, a very good, very specific car for cheap when student loans have decimated your credit. My husband didn't hold out much hope, but I urged him to start calling the rental companies anyway.

It was during this period that I had the mysterious experience with Stella Maris. I'd asked for help with this problem, and was given a sign, which I gratefully received.

Later that day, the rental company approved our loan, and what do you know, they had the car. The exact car, the one I knew we'd have. The manager said "it's so strange you asked for this, it just showed up out of nowhere a couple of days ago. We almost never get cars of this type."

Well, Goddesses work in mysterious ways.

We bought the car and went to Freddy's to celebrate, but it would be a couple of days before the car would be ready for pick-up. In the meantime, we'd have to take back the vehicle we'd been renting. There was only so much strain our budget could take. Still it wouldn't be long. We'd manage.

Alas, there were delays, and the delays were not just frustrating, but a hardship. That's the way it is when you live in the country and it's miles and miles to town. Getting to work and school was a real problem. It might be another day or two at least. What to do?

Well, one saint had already come through for me, perhaps another would, too.

I'd heard about Saint Expedite before; he's the one who resolves a problem with speed. I'd never consulted him, but maybe now was the time. I humbly (but with determination) asked him for help. Bingo bango, the car was ready in an hour.

Now the thing about Saint Expedite, they say, you have to promise him something, and you have to reward him with a flower and a piece of cake. And you had better do it too, or else.

We have our car. It's lovely. My husband said "what should we name it?" The answer was obvious - Stella Maris. It may not  be a ship, but it still needs a guiding star. And Saint Expedite, I promised him I'd write about what he'd done for us, so others might know too.

I'm going out now to give him his flower and cake. It's nice to know you have friends on the other side.

Wicks And Sticks

Cyphre...first name Lou, I presume

Continuing with the theme of 1987, I have occasion to ponder this little oddity named Cyphre, for that is the year I brought him home.

The first time I'd gone with cousin Anna to the mall in Lake Jackson, she'd made straight for a candle shop called Wicks 'n Sticks. She was deep into her Stevie Nicks phase at this point, so she was drawn there like (forgive me) a moth to a flame.

It was a neat little store, and the neatest thing was a collection of glass-eyed candle holders. Some were faces, like Cyphre here, or animals, or spooky anthropomorphic trees of different shapes and sizes. The eyes would change depending on the color of votive glass, so the display models flickered eerily in otherworldy hues.

Back then I was going through my Steely Dan-Voodoo-Breakfast At Tiffany's phase, but even so I found these enchanting. Eventually Anna talked her mother into buying one of the medium-sized trees. Myself, I'd have to wait. I never did have any spending money.

The trip to Anna's came to an end, but my interest in creepy candle holders did not. The next time I was in San Antonio, I discovered a branch of Wicks 'n Sticks at North Star Mall. Alas, my mother's generosity did not extend to a $30 anthropomorphic tree, but I could swing $15, and Cyphre was on sale.

I was a bit worried, though. My mother thought he looked like Michael Jackson, but being the sort of kid I was, I knew Mephistopheles when I saw him. Even if I hadn't been obsessed with the movie Angel Heart (watched surreptitiously on a friend's cable) I would have got the hint in his name.

Did I really want a representation of a demon in my bedroom? Was it not just asking for trouble? I was going to a Fundamentalist school at the time and was being warned of such things daily. No doubt this helped make my decision. I gleefully bought him and carried him home. As a hedge against bad luck, I declared he was a genie instead.

It's something I learned early on. We all fight demons in our own way.

Conversations With Strangers

In town one day, an elderly man came up and said, "If you fall, I cannot catch you, but if you fall, the OM can catch you."

It took a little while, but I finally understand what he meant.

Spooky Scary Skeletons

It's late October, the year is turning, the weather is cooling and leaves are beginning to fall. Along the streets, signs of Halloween appear. In the shops, ghostly figures gather.

There are a lot of things to do, like planning hayrides and carving pumpkins. The little one wants to be a crow this year, so there's a complicated costume to make. But for me, personally, the most important thing about Halloween isn't dressing up or trick or treat, though naturally this is great fun. It's a spiritual night, the time I feel closest to my ancestors and loved ones who have passed on. They have been known to drop by at any old time of the year, but Halloween is special. The air fairly crackles with it.

My favorite Halloween memories are not of anything dramatic, but small moments infused with an ineffable...something.

The school Fall festivals and playing games under the full moon. Baking pumpkin pie.Crossing the bridge above the creek and hearing the leaves rustle ominously. And then there is my very favorite memory, the time I saw the last trick-or-treater of the night - a young girl dressed as a witch - jump the wrought iron fence on the corner. She could have walked around it, but she jumped instead, and I was so glad. She was about 11, and I knew, with a certain melancholy, that her fence-jumping days would soon be over. For that moment though, she was truly a little witch.
 
And as always, there is the sense that spirits are close at hand.

After midnight, when everyone has gone home, it's time to leave offerings for the dead. There is candy, fruit, and (when I can manage) bread baked in the shape of little men. Scoff all you want, but when you have guests, you should always show them hospitality. Most times the weather is warm, but sometimes cold wind whips around my ankles as I make my rounds. Regardless, it must be done, because this is the essence of it all, the point of connection between the living and the dead.

In our family, we often joke that Halloween is a more important holiday than Thanksgiving or Christmas, our equivalent, and we'll be like the family in the Ray Bradbury story, Homecoming. Perhaps this will be the day everyone will come for the holidays every year, fluttering home like bats through the moonlight.

It's not a bad idea. They know we'll always leave a light on for them.

Light-Eyed Witches By The Sea

Every Easter, the nuns at school would pointedly remind us that our egg hunting and Easter bunnies had nothing to do with Jesus' resurrection and were just a bunch of Pagan Nonsense. While we understood their concern, this had exactly as much effect as their admonitions about Halloween; that is to say, none.

Anyway, it seemed a wee bit disingenuous, considering that right after class we'd run down to Girl Scouts in the church hall, where we'd weave Easter baskets and make bunnies out of pom poms. We loved ourselves some Pagan Nonsense in Girl Scouts. Even our Brownies ceremony smacked of something otherworldly.

In my own family, this Easter dichotomy between Christianity and Pagan symbolism wasn't a problem. While my parents claimed to be Lutheran, I never saw them attend church - though whether this was because they were irreligious or just too cheap to tithe, I don't know. Whatever the case, there was nothing to prevent the hedonistic thrill of Whopper eggs and marshmallow Peeps on Sunday morning.

Back in those days, Spring break almost always came at Easter week, and we'd travel down to the seaside to spend it with relations. If we were lucky, the wild flowers would be out, and the hills and fields would be sheets of  bright color. The Indian paintbrushes were always my favorite.

Arriving at my aunt and uncle's though, it's the smell of roses that I remember, the velvety scent of the flowers that lined the walkway. My cousins and I would use the petals for money when we played store, and the smell had even seemed to permeate the wood of the house. This smell, beyond anything else, told me that Easter was coming.

Their house had a most magical feeling to it. There were two boxer dogs, polished wood floors, a piano and a clock with Westminster chimes. There was a rug made in concentric circles we could use for our space hoppers. There was even a ghost and a haunted mirror, because in our family, what else would you expect? It was all an adventure and great fun.

 If perchance the weather was dark and stormy, we'd run about the yard with our pinwheels, in defiance of tornadoes or lighting strikes. The sky would be grey, the way the Gulf water is grey, and the wind would taste like salt. I liked to imagine (still do, sometimes) that there were fish up there, silvery or mackerel colored, a whole other ocean in the sky.

Come Saturday evening it would be time to make our nests. This was a tradition from the old country and one of our favorite things to do. We'd gather up grass and flowers to make a pretty place for the rabbit to lay his eggs, and scatter the rose petals all around. Then, instead of going to bed like we were supposed to, we'd stay up talking in the dark, while the Westminster chimes rang off the hours.

The next day would come the culmination of the Pagan Nonsense, the egg hunt. Of course I'm joking, but egg hunting (I've come to believe) is an inborn human instinct, or close to it. Didn't Helen Keller write that, as a small child with no hearing, sight or language, finding eggs was her greatest joy? It's a uniquely satisfying endeavor, especially for children. Whatever it was my cousin and I were really celebrating on Easter, whenever we'd pull a colorful egg from its hiding places, it certainly felt like magic.

And as always, late that afternoon, it would be time to leave, heading back inland away from the sea. We would usually cry a little as we waved goodby, because we didn't want the fun to end. I would stare out the back window of the station wagon, watching the fish jump in the Colorado and the bay,  knowing that after we crossed Lake Texana there was no turning back. Soon enough we would pass through the fields of flowers, then the hills, and then back to boring old life at home. Dull as dishwater and dry as toast.

But there would always be next year, and when our childhoods were over, our own children to carry on.

Sometimes I wonder if Sister Angelita is looking down on us from Heaven with that pinched look on her face, as we indulge in our Pagan Nonsense and revel in the arrival of Spring. Maybe so. But I guess I'll have to leave that to the gods to sort out.

I hope they'll understand.

Why I Have Spiritual Beliefs

Last night I was reading an essay called What Consciousness Is Not by Raymond Tallis. (because this is what I do in the middle of the might when I'm not wandering loose with a camera :p) It's a well thought out criticism of The Character Of Consciousness by David Chalmers. A particular bit from the essay caught my attention:

"what is the difference between the proto-phenomenal properties of a non-sentient pebble and the phenomenal experiences of a frog, or the experiences of a fully sentient and thought-filled human being? What is it that enables the merely proto-phenomenal properties that supposedly pervade the air around us to become fully phenomenal properties when we breathe that air in and it becomes part of our brains?"

It caught my attention, because recently, there was an incident where I was called upon to justify my spiritual beliefs. I didn't bother, as I feel belief or non-belief are personal matters. The confrontation did give me pause for thought, though. I believe the way I do because of how I feel. Even though it may fly in the face of science, it meets a need for me that other things can't. That much is obvious, and I daresay this is the case for many, whether that faith is in the spiritual realm or logic.

It's not something that worries me overmuch. I'm content to accept that I don't really know anything about anything, Still, my spiritual beliefs must satisfy a need all the same, otherwise I wouldn't have them. But what is the need? There is a question my beliefs must be answering for me on a deeper level.

That's why I was so happy to run across the quote above last night. That's the question my beliefs answer for me. As much as I enjoy pondering hard questions, thanks to my illogical, emotional spirituality I don't have to lie awake at night fretting over that puzzle.