Join Charlie, a non-binary sci-fi fantasy writer and practicing druid, along with their husband Brian, as they celebrate the third quarter moon and discuss the importance of savoring life's first fruits in this season of Lúnasa. Explore themes of hospitality, humility, and connectedness through meditative exercises and personal anecdotes. Learn how savoring can foster deep, meaningful relationships and bring more joy and mindfulness into your daily life. Don't miss the tips on savoring rituals that can transform your interactions with food, nature, and loved ones.
Tips or Donations here:
https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett
patreon.com/cedorsett
Substack: https://www.creationspaths.com/
For Educational Resource: https://wisdomscry.com
For all of the things we are doing at The Seraphic Grove go to Creation's Paths https://www.creationspaths.com/
Social Connections:
BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com
Threads https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Charlie- New: Today as we celebrate the third quarter moon and remember the via positiva in this season of Lúnasa. Let us take a look at. Savoring the first fruits of life.
On today's. Creations Paths.
Intro.
Hello everyone. My name is Charlie. I am a non-binary scifi fantasy writer also a practicing druid. I'm joined by my wonderful husband.
[00:00:35] Brian - New: Hello. Savoring. Ah,
[00:00:39] Charlie- New: his name is Brian and he didn't say it. I thought he might actually say it, but he didn't.
[00:00:44] Brian - New: This one has no name .
[00:00:45] Charlie- New: So today as we are celebrating the third quarter moon. Which we like to associate each of the quarters of the moon with one of the paths of creation spirituality and the third quarter movie. Is. The via positive, the first path.
when I was looking at the themes and everything associated with the four pass. The first path is the season of harvest. You're gathering. sharing. Learning hospitality and. Humility and earthiness and all of those things that to me are more associated with fall. And with the third. Quarter.
We've talked a lot about bringing in the first fruits. We've talked about where to find the first fruits. How to go about actually bringing them in.
I love that we get to end our lunar cycle on this. Of the series of meditations on savoring, because one of the great themes. Of the via positive it is. Recovering the lost art of saver. To learn to actually just truly savor what we have in front of us, not just eating because we're eating, not just drinking so that we can drink getting past this? Utilitarianism that has infected the world with the advent of capitalism. And industrialism.
Learning once again to just have those moments of pure saver.
Just to take it in to experience it. I almost feel like people don't understand what it means to savor anymore.
[00:02:16] Brian - New: When we first got together. I disturbed you greatly because I didn't exactly know how to savor. I knew how to celebrate in and how to. Recognize the enjoy things. But savoring.
No. I grew up in a somewhat military household. At least in the sense that when it came to eating.. you. Put the food in your mouth, you chew it later. That's the old army joke. Chew your food later when you're marching it was very much part of the culture of the household.
So when we sat down and ate. We shoveled all the food in our mouth. We chewed as we were leaving the room. There was no savoring. And I remember. That you to help you teach me this. You had me sit down and have me get a pomegranate. And sit down and eat this pomegranate and I remembered it. At first being really, really frustrated because I spent like two hours eating one stupid pomegranate. But the lesson I learned of how to saver. Not only recognize the good qualities in the pomegranate. It was juicy. It was flavorful. I could understand all that, but to actually sit there. In the moment mindfully. Just. Appreciating the awe and wonder. Of this fruit .
And it was very profound. It helped me to gain that appreciation. Being in moments of joy, being, celebrating moments, that kind of stuff. It's not quite the same because savoring is. Actually allowing yourself to just exist in that moment of.
[00:03:50] Charlie- New: Savoring is relational. See joy is something that you can just find in something. Like I can have joy in a sunset. And the sun doesn't need to know. The sun's only tangentially a part of it naturally. If we want to be technical. The sun's already gone away. It took the light of the sun eight minutes to reach me. So where am I where I'm seeing it? It's actually not where the sun is.
The sun's already gone. I'm still having this moment here and I can have that joy and I can, you can save her the sunset.
But you have to actually be in relationship . Part of savoring is that understanding of once it's gone, it's gone. It's seeing that via negativa moment. That's coming. Eventually you're going to have to swallow. And the flavor is going to wash away. Eventually the sun's going to go down. And that beautifully painted sky and horizon. It's going to fade to there's this delicate understanding. That this moment is special.
For that moment to truly be special, you have to walk. Into relationship with it. And that's something you can't do just by going. Hmm. Tastes good.
[00:04:57] Brian - New: Yeah, you have to be present. You can't be thinking about. Laundry and tissues and kids and work and everything else in that same moment, because then you're not there.
Your, with the dishes you're with. the , kids, you're not in that moment. Savoring, whatever it is in the moment you're savoring.
[00:05:16] Charlie- New: You can appreciate the center. And appreciate the look of the rose. To save for the rose is to sit. With the rose. And you really have to sit with it. For a moment. You can stand too, but you have to be with it.
Look at the delicacy of each peddle.
The scent, the aroma. The appearance. How it's moving in the breeze. If you're outside. It's taking into effect. All of the little bits and pieces. Take that hon. Has a ritual that he asks people to do. Related to this, that. Either involves a tea ceremony. Or the eating of an orange.
It takes you half an hour to an hour to eat an orange. Because you were sitting there mindfully. With each moment. With the smell. Just the sense, the beauty. Of the orange itself. And then as it's breaking open and those oils are being released. And that scent is coming out. And then slowly. Peeling it apart and take separating the segments. One from another. And then one by one slowly, putting them into your mouth and. Squeezing the juice. Into your mouth and just letting it sit there and just experiencing that juiciness.
And all of the flavor. And a Roma. And texture. And feel that. Just being there with the full experience of it. And if you've never actually done a ritual like that, I highly highly recommend it. And if oranges, aren't your favorite thing? Pick your favorite fruit. I think you can do this also with candy. But yeah, I think that whatever you pick needs to be a full experience, so it should have a scent. A texture and a flavor.
[00:07:04] Brian - New: It helps especially to pick something that. is personal to you. Because then you already have. The start of that relationship. Or if you're extra, extra stubborn, like me a pomegranate and have it be guided. And have somebody sit over there. Early with a stick. I'm just kidding. There was no stick involved. I I, I was extra. Yeah, I needed that level. Um, Yeah.
[00:07:26] Charlie- New: I originally learned this with a, with the pomegranate. The teacher who is teaching me. I was only allowed to eat one of those jewels at a time.
We are taught to have this utilitarian relationship. With everything, including pleasure, including joy, including happiness, including the relationships that we have in our life. And to sit back and like with a pomegranate or like with tech, not Han and the. And the orange segment by segment and just really, truly experiencing all of that, that segment of the orange has to offer. I like to do this every fall and winter when the tangerines come in, because that's one of my favorite fruits of all time.
It can take me. 30 minutes to an hour to eat a team one. The little Tangerine.
[00:08:08] Brian - New: Yeah. It's also how, how you appeal it. As you peel it, it's savoring the act pealing it. Recognizing how much pithy that you would like to have in that bite. Because just because appeals in the way appeals, you may want appeal it more.
You may wanna peel it less, that savoring just, yeah, it's a relationship. It's a relationship with it. Its relationship with yourself. With that moment.
[00:08:34] Charlie- New: This to me is why a lot of. Friendships. Feel hollow to me nowadays. ' I know. Aye. Have a good friendship. When we can sit silently in a room together. And we're both perfectly alright with that.
It's not that I don't enjoy the talking or the games or whatever else. You might be dealing with your friends. But there's something special about having a friend that. Just being together.
Just sharing space with each other. Is enough and that you can save her that. Just being there. With each other. There's a certain. Closeness that you realize that you have with people. That you don't have to always be talking. You don't always have to be telling a joke or. Doing an activity together,
all of our relationships. Benefit. From taking this time. To savour our time together.
It's one of the things that when I've talked to younger people that are looking for a relationship and they're not sure what am I doing wrong? Duh. And the question that I almost always ask is, do you hug. Do you cuddle?
Yeah, it's possible to have a relationship without hugs and cuddles. But it's difficult to have a close. Relationship. If your time together is just utilitarian. Like I remember the first. Really really close friendship group that I had. We spent most of our time in puppy pilots.
We would be reading for example. And we would all get on the floor. And we would each be the back of the other person's chair. And there'd be, you know, five, 10. 15 of us. On the floor. And this one friend's living room. Just clustered up together. Propping up. Using each other's legs as pillows and just reading. Books. That closeness.
Having the trust. To allow people to be that close with you. . Knowing that there are no ulterior motives in this closeness. That it's just, we're here. We're together. It really cemented those relationships and that they've lasted so long. And my life that all of that group of people, there's still one person from that group that. All these decades later. I still talk to occasionally. Even though we've moved to different states and had very different lives. And everything. I'm not friends with a lot of people that I knew in high school. But every person that I am still talking to. That I knew in high school. That's the kind of relationship I had with them. That closeness where we just savored being together. We weren't always together just to go out and do things or to. Set up, get together and talk or to share or to, we would just. be together.
Just savoring those relationships. And those are the ones that lasted.
You know, all of the other ones were. I have many friends from that period of time that I can think of that I had crazy fun with. We ran around, we got into adventures. We did all manner of things, but. If we weren't in the middle of an adventure. I didn't really spend time together. Like as soon as the adventure was over. There was no question that we were going home. Right because we didn't have that kind of relationship. We didn't have that closeness.
I think about this a lot, especially in this day and age where we're talking about this. Epidemic of loneliness. And that people have. And I'm one of the worst people to talk to about that because I am. Introverted as they come. I like being alone in my cave. away. The world and, I need that alone time. But I do feel. Lonely. When I don't have any. human interactions. Any reactions with other people.
It's about that quality of those relationships though.
Yeah, the answer to this is not just be around other people. That helps. That's step one. If we're not being around other people, we're not going to develop deep, meaningful relationships.
But you have to find things that you can either save for the relationship between you and the other person. Or that you can get together and relish in the savoring of something else.
I'm not one who typically joins groups and. Runs around with other people.
And. The way that I had so many friends when I was growing up. Were, these were my star Trek fans. These were my vampire, the masquerade friends. These were my goth friends and those friendship groups. Initially gathered around. Our shared love for an interest in.
Uh, thing. My star Trek friends, if you will. So while my mom always called them, my star Trek friends. Because every time we were together, we were talking about star Trek. That was the natural thing for her to group us together as, and it's what we were.
But we loved star Trek. We would get together and we would talk about the latest episode and what happened in the series and what we thought was going to happen next. Did. Oh, did you see the comic? Did you read the book? Did. whatever.
We spent that time. And I think this is important, especially with the internet and the way the internet works now. Not necessarily theory crafting. But we did. Some of that. Not necessarily digging down and doing deep dives into, did you notice all the little things in the episode? Though we did do some of that. But just celebrating what we loved about it.
I had a friend who we were very into the Klingons. And we decided together. To buy Marc Okrand's book and learn to speak cling on. The two of us were studying this book and learning this. I made up language. It was originally out of love for this franchise. These characters that we loved in that show. But I still talk to her today. She's still one of my dearest friends, because we. Savored this thing together.
It got to the point where we were writing poetry in, klingon and sharing it with each other because who else could read it? We were. It was that savory. That brought us together that cemented us together.
This is what. Our society is missing right now. It's the one thing that's been drowned out.
I remember when I was a kid. And we'd go to a 4th of July. Celebration and bacon park and Frederick, Maryland. And everybody was there. I just. In anticipation. Of the fireworks. Often we get a spot down by the band shell. To hear whatever random. Certain meant of. Sure fine. We'll call most of the musicians. That we're performing on the stage.
We were all there for not just for a nationalistic reason. We were there. In a community way. We had people that were from our neighborhood that would come out. Eventually we stopped going downtown and went to a friend of ours house who lived up on a mountain. And from that mountain, we could not only see the local fireworks in Frederick, but we could see the fireworks in neighboring towns. From his house. It wasn't just our families that got together.
It was this. He has nice large property up on the side of them. Mountain. And every. All these people from our church and community and friends. So we'd all gather up at his house.
And yes, we'd have these one, this wonderful food that would be cooked in the. Just innumerable amount of grills. Like every dad that was there had a grill and was grilling something.
And sitting there talking and doing their thing and all the kids from all these families. We were together and we were just enjoying the moment because this was a beautiful farm. To be on. It was beautiful hill looking out over the valley. Beautiful place to be. And then the night would come. And then we'd watch the fireworks start here.
Cause the fireworks times were always scattered. I don't know if the town's actually worked that out amongst themselves, or it just happened to be that way. But. Somebody would shout off there's one over there and such and such town. And we'd all turn to that part of the yard and look out off the mountain and watch the fireworks over there. And people would be hooting and hollering and clapping their hands and celebrating savoring. He's beautiful. Dancing flames in the sky. And then somebody else would shout. Oh, look, they're starting over there. Everybody turned. And just move our attention one by one, through all the fireworks displays.
In that unity. In that savoring together. We all became really close. My parents are still friends with them. All these many, many, many years later. And that's because we had something to savor together.
Because you're savoring, Can and should happen alone. Savor your morning coffee or beverage or whatever. Get off work and make that tea that just gives you life. Take that one favorite candy and just hold it in your mouth and just enjoy. This sheer joy. The of it.
But when you find people that you can savor things together with. That's how real communities form.
That's where real joy. Comes into our lives. And we're like, we've been talking about unity and competition and all of these things throughout this month where we're focused on the gatherings of Lúnasa that's where you really find those deep connections.
And build these relationships that will be with you forever.
And some people. Do you find that in their religious communities?
Yeah. And when I find another person who is a devotee. Of Brigid.
It's like being a kid again. Did you like Bridget too? Yes. We're friends now. You know, and it's not that simple, but we have something to talk about. And we're going to talk about. This and that. And, oh, have you read this story? Did you see this poem? Have you ever had this happen to in your prayers and your devotions and your meditation?
have you ever felt the call to work on things like this? Those conversations just happen. And. We're savoring our relationship with Bridget together.
[00:18:27] Brian - New: That's the thing. Savoring is connectedness. Yes. It's celebrating and connecting. Connecting yourself into that moment in time when time becomes timeless. Because you're just in the moment, there was no past, there is no future. It is just you in that moment, savoring it. It connects you in with whatever you're savoring, like you said, there could be others that could be a shared activity. You could savor. Your creative acts. I often will savor when cooking time falls away. Appreciating. The sacrifice of the plants and animals that went into making the food. And respecting the ingredients I'm appreciating and connecting in with each ingredient. And. Observing. All the senses, smell, taste, sound. Oftentimes, they get teased for listening to and speaking with the food.
And I mean, there's moments of savoring, but there is a communication that's going on there. It does talk. It talks to me, at least I listen.
It tells me when it's done, when it's ready, how much longer it needs to go. That's how you do your chef. Yeah. Yeah.
But it's in everything. That connectedness and connection. That comes back in.
[00:19:37] Charlie- New: As somebody who grew up on a farm. I remember we'd go out and it's time to bring the tomatoes because we're going to make tomato sauce.
That's that time. For our frost is getting near or the heat. Brain's Rover. Everything's going to start drying out in the heat. As you know, Mid-west and August. September times and half, then it gets very hot and dry.
So we'd be pulling in all these tomatoes. I mean, bushels and bushels and bushels of tomatoes.
And big ones got cut up to go into the pot. And the little ones just kept disappearing.
Who knows where they were going. I kid. Everybody knew where they were going. You'd be going through your pot and, oh, there's just a little one there. Yup. And that pop. That fresh tomato right off the vine, just popping. And your mouth and just the joy of it.
And just with everything that we were harvesting, harvesting the green beans.
A couple of, for the canning one for me. A couple for the canteen one from.
Right.
There was a. Savoring that came in when we were bringing that in. It was a celebration because once one we knew we were going to have all this food for the winter.
For the fall in the winter. But also just this joy of here, it was. I remember we'd bring in the corn. It was a race to get the first. It depend on how many people were there to help us shuck the corn. So you get the corn process. If there are four of us there, the first four years. We've got to hurry up and get them shucked and cleaned and get all the silk silk out.
Cause they needed to go right into the pot.
As we were going to, we were going to eat those first four. Write that in there.
Has that beautiful golden corn had been out there growing and growing and growing and out with it was ready. It was time.
Hurry up and weed. Peel back the outer layers. You get the brushes out and start getting the silk out from between the kernels. You get them into that salted pot water.
Just when that smell. That's how you knew they were done. Never set a timer. You're suddenly smell this wonderful corn smell coming out of that water. And then the tongues would go. And out they came and on the butter went. And suddenly they were all gone.
Because that was the joy in it. We had worked so hard. Keep the bugs off the plants to keep. Rabbits out of the field. If the animals out to get those plants to grow. And we had the harvest.
And my happiest memories as a kid, I actually heard some of those harvest that we had. Sitting in with my great-grandmother and my grandmother and my mom.
Sometimes some other folk that would come to join us.
It's all the conversations around the tech table. As everything was getting processed so that it could get into the jar. So you get canned. So we'd have it for the rest of the year.
Magical times. I wonder if your. Looking for more of that magic in your life. I think you can save her. Either alone or with others. Yeah. Were you able to find them?
I hope this episode has helped you out. I hope you found something to savor, remembered something used to love to savor that maybe you. Stop letting yourself have access to. We'll find something. To just bring into your life to just enjoy it. I really love mint and I keep minutes by my desk. And anytime I'm feeling a little low or depressed or sad I'll just pop a mint in. And just close my eyes for a minute and just. Or smell it. Taste it and just bring it in.
Maybe a little thing.
[00:23:00] Brian - New: Could be meta and savor the episode on savoring.
[00:23:03] Charlie- New: Hopefully this has helped you out. If you know, somebody that needs to help rediscover the lost art of savoring. Send this to them. Hopefully it'll help them out. That's what we're here for. Try to bring more light and life into people's lives. And if you haven't already, depending on where you're listening to us. Hit the like button. Subscribe follow. Any of those things that you can do if you're on a place like apple podcasts and you can leave a review. Please leave a review that really helps us out a lot. More than, you know, If you have someone in your life that you know is bad at savoring, it needs to savor share it. Send it to him.
And if you haven't already head over to wisdoms cry. Oh, yeah. You can head over to https://wisdomscry.com . That's where I put all of my journaling and thoughts on various. Spiritual matters over there. There's a lot over there. A whole bunch of stuff. Being written up about Bridget right now. That's going to be showing up there soon. You can head over to https://www.creationspaths.com/ . To get our regular newsletter. I have to say we're about to launch another podcast over there. Don't worry, this one's going to be weekly.
It's going to be bringing regular meditations every week. Little guided meditations, guided prayers. Okay. Guided rituals, things of that nature into your life. To help you really connect with. All of the things that we've been talking about.
We're also going to be doing some classes over there. So if you have a few dollars, you can. Pass our way. It really does help us out pay the bills. Make sure that we have food on our table.
Those of you who share with us will be getting those classes before. They go out to everyone else. As a little bit of a thank you. And also make sure that we can give you a little bit special attention. And the comments and stuff for them.
Thank you all so much for that. You do. And until next time. Find something to savor and just bask and it's light. Amen. Amen.
Share this post