On Monday night, just before bed, I went out onto my porch to greet the nearly full harvest moon just clearing the trees. When she passed behind a thin cloud, it dimmed her blaze enough to permit a look at her surface features, and I joked that I liked her better veiled. Then, feeling sort of bad about the sexist implications, and despite being more or less a complete rationalist, I apologized to the Goddess for joking about her avatar, and offered up a facetious prayer of praise, asking for health and long life so I can be the best care-giver possible to my aging mother.

At least, I thought it was facetious.

Yesterday morning as I headed out for our biweekly grocery shopping, I felt and heard a sudden clunk from the rear right tire, which promptly stopped turning just as I was coming past my house. The car is 18 years old and a bit rusty, it seems. Had the axle broken at 70 miles an hour on I-99, our mechanic-neighbor Eric cheerfully informed me, that would have sent me cartwheeling down the highway. So I spent the rest of the day feeling very lucky indeed.

In a world as full of beauty as it is of horror, gods exist so that people have somewhere to direct their gratitude for being alive: I’ve long believed this, and now I’m seeing how it plays out in my own life. By next year at this time, I’ll probably be babbling about how I have to learn to align my creative energies with the divine feminine. Pray for me.