Book Review: Seasons and Solace, by Jennifer Miller
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I adore Yule and the season around it. This is my favorite time of year. I have healed the childhood trauma I experienced on Christmas day. Nevertheless, Christmas Day has often, inexplicably, continued to be my most distressing day of the year.
Then I found the following information. It names the nameless distress I have felt and thus heals it.
Gather to you
what is most precious.
Open your hands
and let the rest go.
A threshold time approaches,
There is only a cycle
of unfurling,
a cycle of descent and renewal,
of deepening and discovering,
of contemplation and transformation.
May you settle inward.
May you deepen into trust.
May you pause often
and may you laugh often.
May you reach out in connection
and may you sink into solitude.
May you savor and celebrate
the rich and warm texture
of your own life.
May you come back home to center.
May you trust yourself to choose
with wisdom and with love.
As we approach a new year, I've been evaluating and considering what I want to carry with me across the threshold into the new year. This can be both challenging and liberating! I've decided to close my classrooms in 2024 and also to retire my podcast. And, I've decided
to "retire" from making posts on this blog. I've enjoyed my time writing here, contributing 245 posts since I started in 2013.
Here is where you can find me:
- Creating goddess magic and community practice: Goddess Magic community
- Offering free support for building devotional practices: #30DaysofGoddess
- Writing weekly for my (free) newsletter: Creative Spirit Circle
- Writing books! My current books are available on Amazon (as well as often from me directly on etsy).
If the site becomes more active again, I might return, but for now, this is Happy New Year and goodbye! Thank you for your time and presence over the last ten years.
Sometimes we need to step away,
to soften inward,
to pull back,
to become still and quiet,
closed in and listening.
to the beating heart
of our own knowing,
the pulse of longing that chimes,
the whisper of desire that tugs,
the silent truths that surface only
when given safe and sacred
space to speak.
Sometimes,
we need to reach out,
to lay aside our work,
set down our lists and connect,
extending our hands
to those we love,
faces tipped back
beneath singing stars
and a curving slice
of new orange moon.
The antidote to depletion
is restoration
and this can come through
shared stories and night walks,
through stuffed owls
stitched together
as darkness falls,
amid laughter and conversation.
We discover that when we take time,
make time,
to either step away
or to step in,
we reconnect with what
replenishes our souls,
rebuilds connections,
and restores peace.
The idea of restoration as the antidote to depletion comes from David Lapin. I have a past article exploring the subject here: Restoration.
I will be taking a break from posts here until January as I take some time for restoration.
- Reminder: #30DaysofGoddess is an ongoing free daily practice with monthly updates.
- Community practice with a goddess-centered devotional community available here: Goddess Magic.
- Newest book of poems: In the Temple of the Ordinary, vol 2
- 365 Days of Goddess devotional book.
As the trees go bare
and the winds chill,
we hear ancestors
whisper in dreams
and in stones,
we hear a summons
rising on the steam
and trailing through our bones.
We set forth
seeking mystery,
craving understanding,
determined that we will listen,
we will change,
we will keep our promises.
We descend and we remember.
We find the cauldron full-bellied and black.
We gather by the fire.
We peer inside the depths.
We have been steeping
in the broth of our own liberation,
brewing dreams
and stirring in as much hope
as we can find.
Finally, we pause,
patient with all that is undone, unknown,
and unfinishable.
We recognize that we may never arrive
and yet,
we are here anyway.
Slowly,
we begin to consume
the stuff of our own renewal,
the sustenance we crave.
Quietly,
we savor the taste
of what we've made of our lives.
With gratitude,
we realize:
it is good.
Happy Samhain!
My newest book of poems: In the Temple of the Ordinary, vol. 2 is available now via Amazon and Barnes and Noble and also open for pre-order on Kindle.
...A ritual of reconnection:
Step outside.
Look.
Listen
Feel.
Feel your feet on the earth.
Tip your head to the sky.
If there is rain,
welcome it.
If there is sun,
feel it bless your skin.
Cast your eyes to the horizon.
Bend down and touch the Earth.
Rest your hands against your own heart.
Wait.
The sacred will meet you here.
My newest book of poems: In the Temple of the Ordinary, vol. 2 is available now via Amazon and Barnes and Noble and also open for pre-order on Kindle.
...We dedicate ourselves
to the path of the everyday mystic
in the temple of the ordinary,
this earth,
a teacher and guide,
our rosary,
this sky a chapel of awe,
this ground,
a temple of wisdom.
We are disciples of the daily,
acolytes of joy,
students of the sacred,
right where we are,
our lives and landscapes
a holy text of being.
So happy to announce the release of my newest book of poems: In the Temple of the Ordinary, vol. 2! It is available right now via Amazon and Barnes and Noble and also open for pre-order on Kindle.
