The predictable options are: (a) bitter cold (b) freezing
rain (c) rain and mud underfoot (d) temperatures above freezing with a chill
wind off the Hudson (e) blizzard conditions (f) some conbination of the above
or (g) a minimally comfortable afternoon that allows for forty-five minutes of
standing and slow movement, before everyone starts edging toward hypothermia.
So if you attend, you witness the men with you in the circle
starting to shiver as you progress through the ritual together. Fingers get numb as you tie threads around each other's wrists. The camphor flame in a small brass burner keeps blowing out in the wind, until you all huddle in closer to protect it, while you remember those absent and name them into the circle.
It's not exactly surprising that men who've expressed an
initial interest in joining the practice might decide to take a pass till more
temperate months.
But the weather is also a teacher. You learn that we don't
stand apart from Nature but abide within her. You learn that we're not in
control. You learn that not being in control is a gift, because you can't
experience wonder when all you're getting is the outcome you planned. You learn
to practice humility, in its original sense, of staying low to the ground,
close to the humus.
When the focus of the ritual is a meditation on sacred
sexuality, we're reminded that what we've gathered to honor is part and parcel
of a Cosmos that includes sun and moon, heat and cold, stars and sky, wind and
rain, thunder and lightning, birds overhead, squirrels scrabbling among last
year's leaves, now fallen and sere, seedpods dropping from the branches of a
sycamore, soil underfoot, and the slow, dark life of sleeping roots.
