Venus Devotee

The 13^th falling on a Friday happens infrequently enough that I always find it worthy of observation. It’s like a lovely little surprise – a celebration randomly inserted into the calendar and when it appears deserves attention.

I know many people are either indifferent, or actually cautious or superstitiously wary, but I most definitely don’t suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia – fabulous words describing the fear of Friday the 13^th.

Rather than being circumspect, I LOVE this day. It feels like such a joyful tribute to goddess energy. Every Friday is dedicated to Venus, and she’s all about love, beauty, and delight.  Thirteen is the basis of much women’s magic, based on the fact that it takes the moon approximately 28 days to orbit the Earth, and there are 13 such cycles in the calendar year. 

In any case, thirteen has been held sacred by many traditions and cultures, including the ancient Egyptians who described thirteen steps on the ladder leading to eternity – the thirteenth step was where the soul reached the source of itself and attained spiritual completion.  For some reason, I’m entirely fascinated by ladder imagery and metaphors at the moment, and I’m really loving this one. Just this week I discovered there’s a flowering plant called Jacob’s Ladder.

This whole month has been filled with surprises and wonders and I’m happy to give beloved Venus an extra dose of loving appreciation for any part she’s played in keeping my world beautiful and my eyes trained to seeing it all.

Because I think 13 is lucky (and sacred) and because Friday is dedicated to Venus (who encourages all expressions of love and beauty), I’ve decided to forge ahead and offer a list of thirteen things that I’ve found delightful and/or especially interesting. Perhaps you’ll find something captivating here as well..

• I spent last month blogging an abecedarium and simultaneously mining a cartload of treasures to ponder thanks to other bloggers. I’m still sorting through and  considering, but it somehow feels to me like the delivery of that wealth of wonders opened up even more magic. Our very-late-arriving Spring has landed with a flurry of fabulosity that has my heart bursting.

• This week I’m spending as much free time as I can scrape out devoted to reading – as part of the Bout of Books weeklong readathon challenge. And I managed to pick some really wonderful books to work through. I mostly chose shorter things so I could feel especially accomplished at week’s end for making a dent in my ever-growing to-be-read pile. Four books absolutely stick out at this point, and I intend to do some short reviews in another post, but I’m certainly recommending these if you’re interested in checking them out.

• Smokehole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of The Spyglass by Martin Shaw
• Everything Comes Next: Collected & New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
• World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• A Stitch Out of Time by Anais Beaulieu

• My lilac bush is greening up and my peony is sending up green shoots, and I’m squirmy with anticipation of the flowers that will eventually appear. It will be a while, but in the meantime I’ve gifted myself a bouquet of peonies, which seems like a perfect gift to share with Venus today.

• While projects are on hold this week for dedicated reading time, I do have two new ideas I can’t wait to get started on next week. A zine idea and a bookbinding project.

• I literally feel like I’m seeing everything with new eyes. That’s certainly part of Spring’s magic, but also part of some spiritual/philosophical work I’m doing that has me studying the stories we tell ourselves and how once we’ve mined the treasure, it’s time to release them all. And while I know that isn’t a common idea, and in fact some folks actually take offense at it, I’m thrilled at exploring how we choose the lenses with which to perceive our world.

• Relatedly, I’m super fascinated at the moment with eyes. I jokingly mentioned to friends last night that my next 100-day project may be a hundredfold eyeballs. Eyeballs to see out of, and eyeballs as portals into – so much magic to explore.

• Speaking of 100-day projects, today is day 90 of the current project of creating a butterfly every morning in the time it takes to brew the first pot of coffee. It’s such a perfect container for me – the time limit invites quick expression without any calls to perfection and the daily-without-exception exercises devotion to a practice, with bonus points for starting the day on a creative note. Win-win. And now I’m only 10 butterflies away from the kaleidoscope I set out to create back in February.

• A tip of the hat to sister-blogger-word-nerd for introducing me to the crazy-making daily word game Semantle. I’ve only played 3 times now, and only won once, but it took me a kajillion tries. And now, of course, I’m addicted. Maybe I’ll withdraw that tip of the hat.

• Do you know whether Venus was a morning star or evening star when you were born? I’m an evening star Venus, and I’m currently dipping into Ariella Guttman’s book Venus Star Rising and Adam Gainsburg’s work on The Venus Light. Today seems perfect to devote my reading time to these two.

What about you? Are you celebrating today? Like the number 13? A Venus devotee? Finding something to delight in? Do tell – you know I love to hear.