Points On The Wheel
Searles

Mon Jul 17 09:06:00 2000
Points On The Wheel*p*The Wheel turns. Life comes and goes and returns yet again. As we approach the spindle of the Wheel, we should rejoice in the coming of yet another year of Life and Death and Life again.*p*Since thinking beings have inhabited this planet, the Wheel of the Year has been observed to turn. Winter follows Summer following Winter from forever into forever. The two sides of this great Wheel are Samhain and Bealtaine, otherwise known popularly as Halloween and May Eve. People have celebrated these two holidays for at least 5000 years (if not more).*p*Bealtaine is the celebration of life after death returned to the world. It is the lust and love of just being alive. It is the anticipation of the coming Summer. It is a time of growth and activity. It is a time of joy! Summer is the time of greatest Light and our thoughts turn naturally to the world of Nature, the great outdoors. It is a time of living and enjoying our blessings. It is the wedding of the Goddess of the green and growing Land to the Lord of the Greenwood. It is the time of greatest Light, when the Shining One is with us.*p*Samhain is the celebration of the Dead and their continued existence in the life after life. It is also the quiet time of realization that we have passed through the Light of the past Year and are now facing the approaching Darkness of Winter. The Life-force of our souls walks into the darkness of the year along with the Dark God of Winter. As the Sun is lessened, we tend to turn inward. This happens in our lives, in our homes, in our work and within our souls. On this sacred night, at the beginning of the Dark half of the year, we should open ourselves to communion with our ancestors. We should share the touch of Life with those that have passed through their Deaths into the realms of a still greater Life. The Dead walk the Earth on this holiest of eves. We are joyful yet reflective. Our lives are yet to be lived. *p*We must prepare to handle, not only the challenges of the approaching Winter, but the constant struggle to be ourselves in the surrounding Life of the World. Let us all be as one with the Dark Lord of Winter, the ruler of the afterlife and the Guardian of this life's rebirth. As the days shorten and the temperatures fall, we are not alone in our struggles. As Darkness approaches, we must reflect upon and remember the lessons of the past. We must honor our loved ones that have gone before us. The echoes of their life in this world can lead us into Wisdom as we face another Winter, as the world changes. *p*All is not Darkness at this time, however. We have not come to the table empty-handed. It is good that we can take the fruits of the harvest with us into the desolation of Winter. The Earth, our Mother and the protector of us all, has provided us, once again, with the bounty of the Land. As endless cycle after endless cycle of Her great love for us is revealed in the turning of the years, we Her children, must realize how truly blessed we are. On the eve of the new year approaching, we can gather and celebrate the bounty of Her blessings! Apples, pumpkins, corn and pies shall waft the air with their aromas! Life continues and we are its essence!*p*The Wheel of Life turns out the years as our lives are spun out upon its spokes. The Earth is our Mother and we are Her children. Creation is Her gift to us. Her Love is the Life of this World. We are nurtured by the Land's bounty. We should rejoice as we experience the God's cycles of Darkness and Light. We should be thankful for the eternal embrace of the Goddess. Let us join with Them in endless Life and Death....as the Wheel turns on.....*p*Gareth Knight makes the point in his book, "The Secret Tradition of the Arthurian Legends", that magic and history have both their mundane and their esoteric forms. I take this to mean that we are what we think. Our histories and memories are not only what has happened to us upon this "timeline" of history. Our histories include the myriad other threads of the Weaver's Web that constantly run throughout Reality. Each point in time, each memory and thought, each instant and each breath are intimately connected to multiple alternate Realities. When we dream, we sail across the barriers between these worlds into other such realities. When we meditate, we drop these barriers consciously. When the Wheel spins out another turn, the veils are dropped for a night of Magic! When the Age transmutes into another sign of Caer Arianrhod, Reality itself shifts!*p*This is an such an exciting concept and an even greater comfort! Perhaps, we humans can change the conscious weave of Reality by interconnecting our millions upon millions of individual threads? As we face the challenges of an ailing, decaying world, perhaps a New World can be created through our joint actions? Perhaps we can all work together to weave a new fabric to Time? Perhaps Reality will "shift" to reflect the current state of the World Mind and Soul? Perhaps the True Will of the World is a living extension of our multiple individual Wills? Perhaps, if we act in Love, Love will return to our hearts as a threefold bounty? It is my "gut feeling" that we all create Reality and Life many times over. This is the great principle that underlies our feeling of union and communion. It explains our many incarnations and countless past lives. It accounts for our ability to do Magic. It shows us the way to do the *Great Work*. It shows us the way to Life through the veil of Death. *br*