I watched fairies dance in the midsummer twilight waltzing with fireflies and skimming through treetops. It is true that they could have been moths, but as I stood in the shadows with my children all of us gazing upward in wonder the sky deepening to night I saw the certainty shining in their faces, the enchantment in their eyes and I knew without a doubt that we were seeing the true nature of these winged creatures. And we will never forget what it felt like to watch real fairies taking flight right before us as we dared to name the magic in the night.
Last week, my sister-in-law hosted a fairy tea party for our little ones at the river. We had an enchanting time eating tiny cupcakes and drinking sparkling raspberry-chamomile tea while wearing fairy wings as the sky dipped toward twilight. Then, we headed home and the kids asked me to stay out and catch fireflies. As we did so, a "fairy" suddenly flew across the sky in front of us and it is this experience that I share in my poem above. It was a priceless, magical, powerful moments with my son and daughter. The next day they wrote tiny notes of thanks to the fairies who let us see them and set up a fairy-sized tea party with tiny cups of cherry juice as an offering beneath the rose bush.
Peace Power Passion and Plenty... (Summer Peace Chant by me)
Today, we stood in the swift waters of the creek with our children. As we sang together, the breeze swirled around us, scattered raindrops kissed our shoulders, and then the fire of the sun peeked out of the clouds to warm our skin. Standing there together on the wet rocks, where the water emerges fresh from the body of the earth, we felt immersed in a union of the elements.
I find a rock with sun on it and a stream where the water runs gentle and the trees which one by one give me company so I must stay for a long time. Until I have grown from the rock and the stream is running through me and I cannot tell myself from one tall tree…
My specialty is small group rituals and retreats for women. However, a primary reason behind having women-only rituals at this point in my life is purely logistical. I find it nearly impossible to have a complete “retreat” experience with kids also present! Someone has to take care of the kids during said retreats…hence, single-sex rituals/ceremonies often make the most sense for my local community. However, shorter and simpler rituals are possible with kids, though they have a completely different feel and even function and so that energetic output needs to be balanced with the renewal and restoration we often need as parents, mothers, and women.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...