The Ides, the Equinox, and the Irish

The Sacred Circle of Life

Sermon by

Reverend Nancy Bouchard

March 15, 2009

We began the morning by calling the quarters, an invitation to bring the sacred into our midst and to acknowledge the directions of our universe for their significance in our lives. Later I will lead us through a meditation of four quarters.

Some of you have confided in me that there are time when is a spiritual void in your lives. A place that is not only empty but it is dark and lonely and longing. I dare say that there are probably few of us who do not know that chasm, who have not faced and maybe even surrendered feelings of spiritual crisis. Some people come here to UUCLV in search of spiritual wholeness and others leave here seeking beyond the walls of UUCLV to find spirituality. I often think of the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin when experiencing my own periods of spiritual void “We are not humans having a spiritual experience. Instead we are spirits having a human experience. Our very essence is spiritual, IF only we will pause.

In my life Ansel Adams, my spoiled little Bichon is my force of nature. He is insistent that we commune with the out of doors at least 3 and mostly 4 times daily. I have been far more cooperative of late when the temperatures are in the 40’s versus hovering around zero. But the truth is, every walk is like a breath from the spirit.

Barely out the door, Ansel fixates on a scent that, if I allowed, could hold his attention for the entire day. His nostrils widen, his tale wags gleefully and he inhales every atom, every cell of some odor that I don’t even want to know what it could be. But as I indulge him, something happens to me. My thoughts slow down, my heart rate drops and I am overtaken by feelings of being present and warmed by a feeling of being profoundly blessed.

In the last week I have been captured by the unveiling of the changing season. Spring for many is the season of new birth, change, transition and a personal invitation to reconnect with nature.

I’ve noticed the neighbors have flung open their windows, replaced the storms with screens, and they’re raking last falls leaves with a smile. Last week I was brought to my knees at the sight of a tiny bright purple crocus poking out of a last mound of snow. This week I have been soaking in the miracle of little red buds on the ancient trees. I am sharing in their secret that by months end they will explode for the world to see.

The cardinals are scurrying about weaving an invisible tapestry in the hedges and on Friday morning I watched a wild canary sitting on a guide wire, singing as loud as it could. I listened for a long while and I heard its story. He had survived the perils of winter, the sorrows of leaving the familiar but now there is excitement, of returning to the season, of a new mate and the anticipated joy of a nest filed with little chirps that need to be fed. I was reminded of the verse in Matthew, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…”

Some of us will stop to offer prayerful gratitude for the relational bond between spirit and nature. We will welcome the warmer sun, the bluer skies, the longer days and we will consider how the universe is enriched by the rhythms of nature.

Unfortunately many of us will cycle as easily through the season as we cycle through the day. Sufi mystic Vaughn Lee expresses it well: “There was a time when every grove and stream was sacred, meaning and wisdom were found in the cycles of the moon and the germination of plants. The divine was present in everything from the fire of the hearth to the stars in the heavens. The earth was marked by lines called “lay lines” …where temples and circles of standing stones were…placed, the [center] of spiritual energy.

And then the divine was banished to heaven, [and humankind] was left alone on earth. Ancient sacred sights, spiritual energy, esoteric knowledge were stolen from the hillsides, from the mountains, from the earth, from women, and [men] goddesses and [gods].” A very passionate statement about the loss of earth centered spirituality…paganism.

For years even our liberal Unitarian Universals roots neglected to include the messages of nature and the spirit. We recognized the sources of transcending mystery, prophetic words, world religions, Jewish, Christian and humanist teachings a but our sources did not include the earth centered traditions. In 1995, the General Assembly adopted the Sixth Source to our living traditions affirming and I quote “spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.” It was the efforts of the religious women’s community that pushed the change but finally the door opened to our Pagan sisters and brothers. The UU affiliate Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUPPS) has been instrumental in encouraging us to recapture the ancient wisdoms and sacredness of pre-Christian times when Indigenous traditions, Celtic traditions, Wiccans, Neo-Paganism, Druidism, Shamanism, and many other blended earth centered traditions, embodied religious belief and values.

As we move into the period of the changing season and the equinox, nature is at a crossroads and in so many ways, in so many places in our lives we, too, are at a crossroads. Some are moving out of jobs, some are preparing to finish school, some are ready to retire or to move away, and some of our members and friends are at the crossroads of death. The spring equinox is a time when the sun is above the horizon in the same amount of time it is below. The spring equinox is also a time when everywhere on earth, the length of day and the period of darkness are generally the same.

This morning I would like to journey briefly into four meditative quarters: centering, emptying, grounding, connecting: I invite you as you feel comfortable to close your eyes or sit in quiet:

In the East is the place where hangs opportunity or maybe challenge-breathe into us the fresh new air of courage….Let us quiet our breath and invite in courage...

In the South may the energy and heat of fire remove the toxic fear that endangers our dreams…Let us quiet our critic and invite in dreams…

In the West let the flowing water cleanse us of perceived failure and affirm our creativity and intellect…Let us quiet fear and invite in creativity…

In the North may the spirit of the earth open the heart, the mind and the soul,

Let us quiet life and invite in spiritual growth…

At our personal intersecting paths we are faced with choices, faced with decisions, challenged to have answers. The rituals of today give meaning to the spiritual power of our Unitarian Universalism’s Sixth Source. It brings forward to our conscience the rhythms of the earth and how they reality to human cycles. The Sixth Source reminds us that the elements are life giving even when we are detached. Our Sixth Source that t the deep spiritual connection that the sacred circle of life can bring us back to balance.

I offer this prayer from Rainer Maria Rilke:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves.

Don’t search for the answers,

which could not be given to you now,

because you would not be able to live them.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future.

you will gradually, without even noticing it

Live you way into the answers.

I Close the quarters”

To The Four Directions

Spirit of the East,
Be with us
In time of beginning,
Inspire us as we go forth

Spirit of the south,
Be with us through the day
And help us to be ever growing,
Warm us with strength for the work that awaits us
.
Spirit of the West,
Be with us as the sun sets
And help us find healing quietness and peace.

Spirit of the North,
Be with us in the darkness,
Ground us in the wisdom
of the changing seasons
As we celebrate the spiraling
Journey of our lives.

Joan Goodwin

***

May it be, Shalom, Om Namah Shivia, Amen