{"id":66721,"date":"2013-05-05T01:12:55","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T05:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=66721"},"modified":"2013-05-05T01:12:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T05:12:55","slug":"tales-of-love-and-mystery-in-beltanes-blooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/tales-of-love-and-mystery-in-beltanes-blooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales of Love and Mystery in Beltane\u2019s Blooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once again, I noticed on a run through the woods that there were tulip poplar flowers under my feet. They\u2019re blooming early again. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tulip poplars are tall, broad, covered with wide leaves, a great provider of shade in the canopies of the DMV parks. Because they\u2019re so big, and because their flowers are mostly green (though they have lovely yellow and pink or even bright orange features) it\u2019s really easy not to notice them. You often see them only after they\u2019ve fallen to the ground. The cherry trees are as showy as a general at a state dinner, the dogwoods bloom right at eye level, redbuds are neon ravers, and the magnolias are just plain huge. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s from the tulip poplar that the bees in this area get enormous amounts of nectar. I never thought that bees would fly that high — you think of bees as on a par with the flowers you see around you in the garden — but they head for the tops of the trees and gather it from the flowers. The flowers are so full of nectar that it drips from the cuplike petals. If you were a kid who ran around a lot in the woods, they were one of your food sources along with the honeysuckle (invasive, where the poplars are native). <\/p>\n

But as the researcher in this NASA article<\/a> noted, the trees are blooming earlier each year. This is messing up the bees, and so it\u2019s messing us up, too. I feel like it messes up my own rhythms to see these flowers more in May than in June. Two years back, when I first started noticing it, I wrote about it:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Beltane<\/strong><\/p>\n

From early on, I stopped paying
\nAttention to the numbers
\nOf books lent, kisses given
\nAnd received, numbers of nights spent
\nCrying, either on each other’s sofas
\nOr in each other’s arms, or beers,
\nOr any rounds passed around–
\nThe return on keeping
\nTrack of these is mean.<\/p>\n

But track I did the phases
\nOf the moon, the path of sun,
\nThe rise and fall of bodies
\nOf water, the week to expect
\nCertain fruits and flowers,
\nWhen to look for mud or drought
\nOr storms. The earth’s clockwork
\nFueled my faith in abundance.
\nI knew more would be given.
\nOn Beltane, at my feet lay
\nA nectar-sticky tulip poplar flower,
\nA full month before blooms of other years,
\nA full month before the bees
\n(Fewer every year) come to harvest,
\nAnd I felt the outrage of betrayal.<\/em><\/p>\n

In seeing the seasons themselves go haywire, I feel what I think those who are not poly might in feeling like their relationships, or how they define relationships, change. Most of us expect constancy in relationships, that they always continue under the same terms, ignoring bright young Juliet\u2019s counsel about the inconstant moon. If you say you are a certain way, or have a certain relationship established, you want it to continue under the same terms. <\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t expect that from people or relationships, and I guess I shouldn\u2019t expect it from the natural world, either. What I know is that people change — and not in the cyclic way of the seasons. And what I commit to is giving them space for these changes.<\/p>\n

Last week we saw a man who had been engaged to a woman for several years come out as gay very publicly: Jason Collins (yay, Washington DC) of the NBA. Coming out is exciting; there\u2019s a burst of energy there and it can surely be helpful for others. But I don\u2019t hold anything against those who, like myself and the other tulip poplar flowers, hide in plain sight. Anyone who chooses to look can see sweetness there, but the flowers aren\u2019t showy and they\u2019re easy to overlook. For some, it\u2019s a necessity of keeping their lives going — would that it weren\u2019t — and for others, it\u2019s simply that they don\u2019t want to call attention to themselves. For a small group such as pro athletes, it might be necessary to actively hide their identity, a trade-off many still seem willing to make.<\/p>\n

Those who are used to being ‘out there’ have, if they\u2019re smart, devised a delicate balance between maintaining their identity and putting all their business out on the street. The recent flapadoodle around actor and director Jada Pinkett Smith\u2019s Facebook posts about her marriage are a case in point. She and Will Smith have often been the topic of ‘open marriage’ gossip over the years. <\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t seemed to have hurt their careers any — hell, if Will Smith can survive The Wild Wild West<\/em>, he can survive anything. Their children don\u2019t seem to be hurting from it; one of their daughters, Willow, who has had some success in music and videos, recently declared that she decided to turn down performing opportunities for a while, because she wanted to be \u201cjust a kid.\u201d That, to me, is evidence of one amazing child (and good parenting), though of course no one can judge from just one piece of celebrity gossip. Which is sort of her mom\u2019s point as well, as can be seen from this close reading posted on The Root<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Professor Jada Pinkett Smith is back in the building, and class is in session. Continuing her online university-esque lecture series disguised as Facebook posts on everything from haters and bullying to goddess energy and last-resort lesbianism, Pinkett Smith recently sort of addressed the persistent rumors of her alleged open marriage to fellow actor Will Smith.<\/p>\n

“Do we believe loving someone means owning them? Do we believe that ownership is the reason someone should ‘behave’? Do we believe that all the expectations, conditions and underlying threats of ‘you better act right or else’ keep one honest and true?” asked Pinkett Smith in true Socratic method form, attempting to school folks through pointed debate and questioning.<\/p>\n

She continued, “Here is how I will change my statement … Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship … this means we have a GROWN one,” then signed off with a simple, “Siempre, J.” For some, the actress-director’s post led to more questions than it answered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But does she have to answer any at all?<\/p>\n

To me, the answer is no. She doesn\u2019t even ‘have’ to be an actress or director. And she\u2019s probably going to get more attention and controversy for her executive producer role in the new Angela Davis biography than for her marriage, particularly in light of recent events. At least for now, it\u2019s more dangerous to call out redbaiting, racism and similar shadow-puppets as threats to civil rights than it is to declare that trust is needed for a ‘grown’ relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila Once again, I noticed on a run through the woods that there were tulip poplar flowers under my feet. They\u2019re blooming early again. Tulip poplars are tall, broad, covered with wide leaves, a great provider of shade in the canopies of the DMV parks. Because they\u2019re so big, and because their flowers … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}