Saint Patrick Meets Ostara: The Living of the Green

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It is no accident that Saint Patrick’s Day falls in the same week as the vernal equinox, the holiday called Ostara by the ancient Celts. Ireland is the Emerald Isle with, as Johnny Cash reminded us, its 40 shades of green. Ostara had other names, Oestre, Astarte, and, of course, Easter, yet another celebration of revival, renewal, and resurrection. (I once was asked by a seminary professor why Unitarian Universalists celebrate Easter. I replied with my own question. Why do Christians name their most important holiday after the goddess of the dawn?

Some of the customs of the equinox holiday have migrated to the moveable feast of Easter, celebrated in the Western world on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring Equinox. They are supplemented by ancient Roman and Scandinavian equinox customs involving eggs and rabbits, agents of fertility.

What comes to mind about Saint Patrick, besides green beer and shamrocks? You probably know that he was born around 400 CE in Britain to a Romanized Christian family. Captured by Celtic pirates, he was hauled off to Ireland and worked as a shepherd. He escaped, returned to Britain, studied for priesthood, and was ordained. He chose to return to return to Ireland as a Christian missionary..

Like many such missionaries, Patrick adapted the Christian story to the local environment—a rural, earth-centered culture, He used the shamrock or three -leafed clover to explain the concept of the trinity. He planted churches and monasteries all over Ireland. It is appropriate that his day is celebrated during the season of preparing for spring planting. Like so many other holidays including Yule), the celebration of Ireland’s patron saint was part of the bridge from the old Celtic nature-based religion to what the Irish called the New Faith.

Initially the New Faith was welcomed to Ireland as an addition, rather than a competitor, but eventually it became its own wayward version of Roman Christianity. Today there is a revival of the Celtic version of Christianity not only in the two strongholds of Celtic culture, Ireland and Scotland, but also in North America. That culture and that way of being Christian was earth-centered, non-exclusive, and egalitarian, with a particularly strong affirmation of women as full participants in the larger community. Women in early Ireland had the right to choose their spouses, divorce if they wished, get an education, own property, and enter many of the professions. Many of those rights were not available to women in this country until the late 19th century. (A nod to another annual observance in March, Women’s History Month.)

Even after Roman Christianity forced the Irish to end their practice of co-houses of nuns and monks who were free to marry, have children, and raise them in the faith, there was still always a Celtic underground that survives today in some of the ancient holy places, especially the Scottish island of Iona. There is much wisdom in dedicating this pair of holidays to the re-planting of that vision in our own hearts and mind, As as we begin the season of fertilizing and planting, we can celebrate our oneness with the natural world that nurtures and sustains us.

Note: I am indebted to historian Peter Tremayne’s fascinating set of historicall novels about Sister Fidelma for background on the customs of the Irish in the 5th and 6th centuries CE.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

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In 1967, I was a 26-year-old newly hired part-time assistant professor of economics at a southern state university. I just happened to be in the neighborhood because my husband was a new faculty member in the physics department. Part-time was my choice: I had two daughters, ages three and one, and a dissertation to finish.
I sat down for a chat with my department head. Holley, he said, you know that you are the only woman among six men. I nodded, and he went on. “You are liberal, we are conservative. You are a Yankee, we are Southerners. Your degree is from a Northern University, we ae all products of southern Universities.” He paused, and I waited. Finally, he said, “You know, if you were just black, you’d be perfect.” I wasn’t a “DEI hire,” as far as he was concerned. I was just a blessing that had dropped unexpectedly into his domain, and he was grateful.
In the late 1960s, acceptance of diversity as a desirable situation was widely affirmed, especially in colleges and universities. What went wrong? What made DEI the official abbreviation for highway to hell?
Diversity is a fact, something that can be described and measured. Equity is a value, an affirmation that as a society we believe that everyone should have a fair chance at opportunities. Inclusion is an act, an effort to make everyone welcome in the candidate pool. Later came measurement and with measurement, quotas. What percentage of your faculty/staff/student population is nonwhite? Female? How do you accommodate people with disabilities? DEI became a slogan for governments, firms, and organizations. Look, we have a black CEO! You can trust us.
Then it became a game, and beyond that, a backlash. Many years after that chat with my department head, I had another conversation late in the evening with a younger male friend who felt that DEI had shortchanged him. He said, I wanted to go to Princeton, and I had a1300 on my SAT, but they gave that place to some woman instead. I paused for a moment and said, “I really wanted to go to Yale in 1959, and I had 1500 on my SATs, but Yale was not admitting women until ten years later.” There is no easy way to counteract the effects of past discrimination. Life is short, and changing attitudes, beliefs and misconceptions is slow work, with a temptation for governments to respond with mandates and measurements.
My own education was enriched by learning from professors and colleagues of a different culture (southern), gender (men), age, and political values. It was also enriched by student diversity, especially in the last 15 years of my long career when I was teaching students from all over the world in a Ph.D. program in Policy Studies.
The backlash against DEI has been a long time in coming, but today it is in overdrive. For those of us who believe that equity is a value that addresses the fact of diversity that is best served by efforts to include a more diverse array of employees, customers, investors, colleagues, etc., what can we do?
First, we can share our own positive experiences of diversity, and I do whenever there is an opportunity. What stories do you have to tell?

Second, as an economist, I believe in the power of money. We can shop with and invest in firms that are intentionally inclusive. The president administration has done us a great favor by making clear who is and who is not on board with DEI so that we can direct our dollars accordingly. We know that Target, Walmart, amazon, the Washington Post and Lowe’s do not share DEI value and have in fact deleted the ones that were once part of their corporate credo.

On the investing side, there are three kinds of positive signals from companies, mutual funds and other investment instruments> DEI, ESG, and B-corporations. ESG stands for environment, social, and governance—a commitment by the form to minimize environmental damage in their work, to be attuned to the needs of communities, minorities, workers, and suppliers, and to practice transparency and accountability in their governance. A B-corporation actually has environmental and social goals written into its corporate charter and is required to account for them annually to their shareholders. If you are interested in the investment side, google socially responsible investing and see what you can find. A number of mutual funds offer socially responsible investing in both their own management activities and in choosing what firms to invest in.

Third, there is money that we give away. Some of it can go to organizations who do good work among the “outcasts”—immigrants, former convicts, impoverished families, victims of domestic abuse, global giving to help people in other countries. Charity Navigator can help you evaluate which nonprofits to support. Other nonprofits like ACLU will direct your funds toward resisting the backlash, as will your campaign contributions to candidates who represent or support e inclusion as an action that acknowledges diversity and values equity.

Sexism, racism, xenophobia, ageism, and other forms of targeting marginalized groups is not new. It has been around at least since the Greeks referred to all non-Greeks as barbarians. But the facts of life can be changed by the determined efforts of good people who care about the world we are handing off to future generations. DEI backlash is only a symptom of a much deeper malaise, but for me, it is a good place to strengthen and deepen my work for The Resistance. I hope the same is true for you.

Weaponizing Your Wallet

~ purplesage41 ~ 2 Comments


A dozen or so years ago, my sociologist friend Catherine and I wrote a book called Our Money, Our Values. We started with a presumed set of shared values—strong, healthy communities, social and economic justice, and environmental sustainability. We invited our readers to reflect on how their use of money promoted or worked against those shared values. Today those of us who believe in community, equity, and sustainability are mor challenged than ever by a contrary se of values under the misleading label of ”conservatism.”


Money is powerful. Money motivates, rewards, punishes, empowers, threatens. We need to harness, individually and collectively, as much of this tool to restore the good society we once thought we had.
How you spend or refrain from spending, how you save and invest, how you contribute to worthy causes and organizations all can be your voice in the larger world. Here are some thoughts on how to tweak your habits in ways that will help bend that arc of the universe so that it bends a little deeper toward justice.

Shopping. This one has had a lot of press lately as firms kowtowed the Trump administration over DEI. Amazon.com, Target, and Walmart were among the many firms who meekly withdrew their commitment to being intentionally inclusive of all varieties of people—age, gender, gender identity, disability, color. Pocketbook language is something that the owners will understand. (When the Washington Post started backing away from its traditional progressive stance, it lost some of its best writers and also 250,000 subscribers overnight. I was one of them.) Shop local. (That helps with building strong communities). Find firms that support positive social values and shift your spending there. And forgive yourself if you can’t find (as I did) Blue light 275 readers anywhere except amazon. Cancel your amazon prime, your streaming services that do not support your values, and seek out others that do. Sorry, X (not really), Facebook (don’t miss it), and lots of others which spout anti-environmental and anti-justice. See if you can find a B-corps firm, one that has a commitment in its corporate charter to pursue specific environmental and justice goals and be respectful of the needs of the communities where’re they are located. B-corp is one label. ESG (Environment, social and governance) is another. DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is a third indicator. And waste our time, a resource worth much more than money.

    It matters not only where you shop, but what you buy. Look for products whose production or consumption doesn’t overload the solid waste stream, involve harmful chemicals, require practices like fracking and strip mining, or are produced under unhealthful conditions by cheap labor (often children).

    1. Investing—this is a key place to express values. Avoid the big banks who rip of low income customers with monthly charges and fees (especially on credit cards), minimum balance requirements, justice rhetoric. Read the prospectus for any possible investment. Look for mutual funds that endorse and actively promote your values. Green Century, for example, s one of my favorite mutual funds because it invests in clean and renewable energy. Here the acronym is SRI—socially responsible investing. Some economists would have you believe that the sole purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth. It isn’t. Profits should be the reward for providing useful goods and services to households and other business firms. If your retirement savings are under your control (mine were not), explore your options for investing in assets and management philosophies that affirm your values,

    3. Giving—use your money to support political candidates who share your values and to support local, national, and international organizations who are working to affirm and promote a just, peaceful, and sustainable human community that respects our fellow beings and the earth. Check Charity navigator to see what they support and how much of their revenue goes to marketing, promotion and top-level staff rather than direct assistance to those in need or support for actions that make people in need safer and healthier..


    Make this the year of the moral consumer—citizen-worker-investor. It takes effort. It takes a village, so encourage your family, friends and neighbors, to do the same. The world will be a better place for it.

      A Gratitude Alphabet

      ~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments


      A while back, there was a fad for keeping a gratitude journal. It didn’t last long. People’s grateful imagination was not well-developed. One dropout wrote that he was tired of being thankful for his cat. Even my own energy for gratitude, I have been doing for years, was flagging. In these challenging times

      I took some training in teaching journalling a fw years ago. The training offered a variety of prompts to ensure that your journal isn’t just “yesterday I saw, I thought I heard, I watched…today I plan to ….). I adapted one of the prompts, the alphabet poem, to gratitude with surprisingly good results.

      The alphabet poem starts with writing in the margin the 26 letters of the alphabet down the side of the page.When you come to X, you can cheat with a word staring with ex,, because the e is more or less silent. The letter in the margin starts the first word of each line of a poem. Free verse is fine; it ,doesn’t have to rhyme. You can have one word per line lone, which is hard, or you can write several words on some and one on others. You can use other poem starters,like your name,, or just a nice longish word, like beautiful or happiness or democracy. Try it, It’s fun.

      So how does it adapt to gratitude? Start by writing down your gratitude with A on the first day and think of three things you are grateful for that begin with A. Apples, ancestors, America, asparagus, adults, animals. I am now on the letter T and so far have been thankful for such oddities as radio, Celts (my ancestors), poetry, rainbows, and Stoicism.

      Gratitude is always a good way to start and/or end your day. Acknowledging gratitude is a good antidote to all seven of the deadly sins (pride, greed, sloth, anger, gluttony, envy and lust, in case you don’t keep a list handy) and replacing them with humility, generosity, patience, joy, trust, moderation, and compassion. (And also constructive action, the antithesis of sloth, but that’s for the next blog). Keep that latter list handy to use when you come to the letters c, g, h, j, m, p and t.

      It’s Groundhog Day Again!

      ~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment


      This is my annual updated version a holiday variously known as the feast of Saitn Bridget, Imbolc, Oimelc (both Celtic words related to lambing), and Groundhog Day. I mentioned that the first of February was the only holiday devoted to housecleaning in an email to my daughter. Aha, she said that explains the backstory for the movie Groundhog Day. It’s like house cleaning. You clean, it gets dirty, you clean it again, it gets dirty again… A good story line for a movie! At least my repetition, unlike the movie, is only once a year.
      Imbolc, Oimelc, or Groundhog Day, they all anticipate spring. It is one of the lesser-known cross-quarter holidays on the Wheel of the Year. In addition to Groundhog Day it survived as the feast of the purification of the virgin (Mary) after the birth of her son 40 days earlier. It is also the day devoted to Saint Bridget or Brigid. Bridget is the Triune Goddess in her maiden phase, converted to a Christian saint. The corn maiden from the previous harvest is brought out in her honor as a virgin once again, ready to encounter the Sun King reborn at Yul in a mating ritual of spring.
      The purification part of this holiday was known in pre-feminist times as spring house cleaning. In ancient time among the Celts, Imbolc cleaning consisted of removing the Yule greenery from the home and burning it, cleaning up fields and home, and in Ireland, burning old Bridget wheels and making new ones. By Imbolc, most of us have taken down the tree and put away the decorations from Christmas, but if you haven’t, you can use Imbolc as the excuse for delaying it till now. After Imbolc, you are at risk of being labeled a lazy pagan if you don’t deal of the winter holiday residue.
      Imbolc is approaching the end of an indoor time. It’s cold and still pretty dark, but it is the waxing period of light and warmth following the winter solstice. It represents a final stage of wintry inwardness before the crocuses and daffodils invite us to look outward again. Housebound, we must find our spiritual practice within that space. It is the late stage of the hibernating season as we prepare for the cycle of life to begin again.
      Spiritual practice has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent decades. A spiritual practice is anything that is centering, mindful, focusing, and connects you to the sacred in a very inclusive sense. Practicing patience with difficult people is a spiritual practice. Listening attentively is a spiritual practice. Eating mindfully is a spiritual practice. Meditation and prayer are traditional spiritual practices in many religions. But there is also a form of spiritual practice that invests the ordinary activities of daily life with significance in the way carry them out.
      The essence of spring housecleaning as spiritual practice blends several Christian and Buddhist ideas. One is humility; no task is too menial that we are above it, as in Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. The second is mindfulness, to be engaged in the moment, to calm the monkey mind, to focus all our attention on the window being washed or the floor being swept. The third is letting go of attachment to possessions as an encumbrance on our spiritual life, passing them on to another use or another user. The spiritual practice of spring housecleaning can incorporate all three.
      Housecleaning means two different things. One is the emphasis on clean, as in wash windows, polish furniture, remove cobwebs, paint, scrub floors, clean woodwork, dust the books. That’s both the humble and the mindful part. In the words of one contemporary Buddhist writer, “after enlightenment, the laundry.” The other kind of housecleaning is to declutter, simplify, recycle, let go of possessions no longer needed, like the greens from Yul in the Celtic tradition. That’s the letting go part.
      For many years my Lenten practice, for the forty days that begin sometime after Imbolc and stretch to the floating holiday of Easter, was to wash a window every day. Then I moved to a smaller house, which taxed my ingenuity to find forty windows. I included car windows, TV and computer screens, mirrors. Friends helpfully offered their windows, but I did not wish to discourage their own spiritual practice. There is something very satisfying, very symbolic in letting the light of the returning spring shine through a clean window, but it means more when it’s my window.
      A friend described a similar cleaning ritual, only she does it all on New Year’s Day. She takes each of her many books down one at a time off the shelf, dusts it (and the shelf), and decides whether it stays or goes. If books are a rich and meaningful part of your life, revisiting these old friends and deciding what role they still may play in your life and which ones should be shared with others is definitely a spiritual practice. This particular ritual embodies both humility (dusting). mindfulness (concentrated attention on the books and the memories and teachings they hold) and letting go (books to be passed on). This year I used my cocooning season, December 26th to February 1st, to declutter bookshelves, which led to one empty bookcase and about 80 book donations, plus a major cleansing of my Kindle.
      So, as the daffodils and crocuses pop their leaves through the ground, as the groundhog in Punxatawny ponders his forecast, we can prepare to emerge from the hibernating season by renewing the spaces we inhabit. Like the bluebirds, whose house I have to clean very soon because they refuse to return to a used nest, let us be about the humble tasks of maintaining our habitats. Spring housecleaning only comes once a year!

      Martin Luther King Jr. and the Day of Service

      ~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment


      This year, ironically, the start of the second reign of Donald Trump coincides with both the national college football championship and Martin Luther King Day. I’m betting that more people will watch the football game than the inauguration. But the real contrast is between how we observe the other two events, Inauguration Day and the Day of Service, that many of us observe in honor of MLK. Many communities will have organized service projects that will, alas, overlap the noon inauguration. For me, that’s an easy choice..

      But I like to honor the day of service my way. So I chose this week, the week of his actual birthday (January 15th), because I don’t believe in forcing actual dates of a holiday into the nearest Monday. And instead of a day, I will do something each day from Monday through Friday.


      Today I am speaking to the county legislative delegation about making the state’s local governments more accountable and transparent rather than evading or ignoring the legal procedures they are required to follow. Advocacy is one form of service.On Tuesday I plan to take my blind friend and neighbor to the grocery store and the recycling center. Care giving is another form of service. I will also try to recruit a college student to help her with transportation. Care giving is another form of service.

      On Wednesday, I am making my share of dinner for about 25 residents of a local homeless shelter, It is a monthly service organized by my congregation. Helping the less fortunate is also a form of service.


      On Thursday I get paid, so it is a good time to go to my favorite charity website and give some money for Gaza and California. Money can be a vehicle for service. I am also attending a Zoom meting with updates on what is happening in the state legislature that we might want to discuss with our legislators. Advocacy again.


      On Friday I will tend to my duties for the two organizations through which I channel much of my service, The League of Women Voters and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Service is more effective and more satisfying when done within organized caring communities. I serve the fellowship as Social Action chair and the League as program chair. Both communities are dedicated to making the world a better place in many ways. Serving in leadership roles sustains the organizations through which we can engage in service more effectively.a


      The point of this recitation is not to tell you what a good person I am, but to be mindful of what I do and why I do it. It is also meant to illustrate the variety of things that I choose to do, while others among you may have totally different but equally valuable ways or serving the larger community. I hope that this day will make me more intentional about carrying through this commitment the other eleven months of the year.


      Celebrate your day of service in ways that reflect your unique challenges, opportunities, skills and interests.

      Happy New Year

      ~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

      This is, of course, not everyone’s New Year. The Chinese New Year is in February, the Jewish and Celtic new years are in the fall. On the old calendar, April First was New Year’s Day, at least in what is present day France. There is a new school year every fall for those who are students or teachers. The nine month academic year at Clemson University, where I taught for 50 years, began on August 15th, so one August 14th I had a New Year’s Eve party.. For each of us we can observe a personal new year on the day after our birthday. Since I was born on June 30th, every July 1st is truly the first day of the rest of my life but also of my life-year.
      Western culture’s choice of a New Year falls at the start of the month named for the Roman God of doorways (Janus). He has two faces, one facing in, one facing out, of forward and backward if you prefer. It is a time of starting over. An odd assortment of events and celebrations marks this late point in the solstice season—football, New York ball drop, parties, resolutions, fireworks, and in the south, eating fatback, collard greens and black-eyed peas. I did that once. Not my favorite menu, but supposedly they will bring abundance and wealth in the year to come.
      Here is a poem for this holiday
      The morning light comes sooner now
      We wake in hope to a new year.
      Janus the two-faced God
      Invites us to look back
      But also forward, a fresh start.
      We try, succeed, or fail
      And try again.

      These turning points in the heavens
      Remind us to be mindful,
      To pay attention to our lives
      To savor joy, to grieve enough,
      To let the dead past bury I dead.
      And rise this New Year’s morning
      To embrace life again.

      Boxing Day and Economic Justice

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      Boxing Day is a largely but not exclusively British tradition of gift-giving to the poor after Christmas Day. Some sources trace it to the medieval obligation of the lord of the manor to provide certain necessities each year to his peasants and serfs. It was not charity but duty, including cloth, flour, and other necessities of life. Another tradition is to empty the tip jar at commercial establishments and divide the money among the firm’s workers. In both cases, it was not charity but earned cash or goods, much like the Christmas bonuses that many firms share today.
      Both traditions exist side-by-side. In fact, it is now observed more as a shopping day than a giving day, although both can be combined. The notion that the profits of the firm should be shared with the workers who made it possible is less and less popular in our winner-take-all free market society, but the Christmas bonus is a remnant. In the 19th century, the practice of emptying the church alms box on Boxing Day (also known as the Feast of Saint Steven) and Victorian influences shifted the emphasis to post Christmas charity as the coldest days of winter were just beginning.
      Both of these kinds of giving and receiving are issue of economic justice, the only holiday for which that is the primary focus. What do we owe to those who earn low wages doing essential work, or to those unable to support themselves? A poem for Boxing Day

      A Holiday for Justice

      One day a year we follow feudal Lords
      In earned and festal sharing of the wealth
      Created by many, but possessed by few.
      It is not a time of charity
      But limited admission that
      Abundance is the work of many hands.
      In modern times, earned sharing seems to be
      A voluntary act of charity
      Begrudged when it is often fairly earned.
      What do I woe? To whom is payment due?
      Our what do others deserve but not receive?
      Justice is not charity. May we
      All receive more than we deserve,
      And in gratitude, pass it forward.

      First Day of Christmas

      ~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments


      For many of us it may be the last day of Christmas. But in Colonial times and beyond, Christmas Day itself was a solemn religious holiday, followed by eleven days of parties and celebrations of various kinds. It passes through New Year’s Day and ends at Epiphany, traditionally the date of the visit of the three kings or three magi, depending on your preference. For me, the first day of Christmas is fairly quiet. My family, or most of it, has come and left after much food, gifts, conversation, board games, home repairs by my son-in-law, and general being together.I spend the rest of the aftermath days until the new year reading some of the many books and doing one of the many jigsaw puzzles I always get for Christmas, un-decorating, and walking in the winter wonderland.

      Two poems for the after days,, the first from Howard Thurman and second from me.
      The Work of Christmas
      When the song of angels is stilled,
      When the star in the sky is gone,
      When the kings and princes are home
      When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
      The work of Christmas beings:
      To find the lost
      To heal the broken,
      To feed the hungry,
      To release the prisoner,
      To rebuild the nations,
      To bring peace among the brothers,
      To make music in the heart.

      Christmas 2024
      The Christmas myth is rich and warm
      Amidst the bleak of winter.
      A baby, humbly born
      Yest destined to become
      A guide unto the nations.
      Shepherds, angels, kings
      A star in the East
      All come to welcome him.

      And so we celebrate—
      Family, like Mary, Joseph and Jesus
      Community, like shepherds, angels and kings
      Gifts given, gifts received
      Like modern day Pandoras,
      A year ago we opened
      A box labeled 2024
      It was a hard and fear-filled year.
      As we approach its end
      We celebrate the gift of hope
      That casts out fear and welcomes joy.

      Welcome Yule

      ~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

      A popular expression among some Christians is “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Yes, there is a connection, but The season is the reason why the choice was made to celebrate the unknown date of his birth at this particular time of year. Before Jesus, there was Saturnalia, and Diwali, and Hanukkah. The common thread is the holiday that falls this Saturday, December 21st, the winter solstice, known since ancient times as the festival of Yul or Yule. It celebrates the shortest day and the longest night of the year as the northern hemisphere turns away from the sun..
      In Celtic and other traditions, the story goes something like this. The Sun God is born at Yul and grows to manhood. His companion through this travel in the Triune Goddess, maiden Bridgid, Mother Danu, and the crone, who has various names. He courts the maiden in spring, and she becomes pregnant with the sun god. At summer solstice the sun is a the peak of his powers and the goddess she is radiant with a child in her womb. The Sun God begins to decline and dies at the winter solstice even as a new sun god is born. The crone is renewed as the maiden, and the cycle begins again. Or at least, that’s ‘the mythical story that underlies the holidays that enable us to reconnect with he rhythms of the turning year.


      Here is a solstice poem:
      This ancient holiday
      Marks ending and beginning


      The seed is still beneath the earth
      Preparing to emerge from its cocoon
      At Imbolc or beyond.
      Yule calls us to take rest in darkness
      To hibernate, reflect, and be prepared
      To bloom once more.
      Let us not hasten through
      These cold short days
      Spring will come soon enough.
      There is no spring without winter
      To prepare us or rebirth.