Today, I gathered five candles, some sea salt in a small dark cauldron, a lighter in a starry brass holder, a rattle made of gourd, a singing bowl, a crow's feather, and my determination. I watched the candles flare and called in inspiration, for the faith to keep on going in a world that too often feels crumpled with despair. I planted my feet, reached out my hands, and lifted my voice, believing with everything I have left that no matter how many stories have been told to us about brokenness, we're here anyway still whole.
This past weekend I held a small summer solstice retreat with six friends. It was supposed to be larger, but people kept cancelling. It was supposed to be at the river, but risky heat indexes put us inside. It was supposed to be cooler inside, but the AC went out and we were relegated to the basement. And, it was perfect. It was just what I (and we) needed. Something that I remembered after the retreat was over was of the importance of paying attention to how you feel after something is over. Let those moments teach you.
I've been thinking and writing recently about reorienting our lives by joy and steering away from obligation. How we feel after something is over can tell us a lot about whether we are steering our lives by joy or obligation.
I rose early seeking Beltane dewdrops with which to anoint my brow. the cupped violet stems and clover were dry and I found no dewdrops in the chickweed stars. Instead, I put out oranges for the orioles, ran my fingers through the dandelions, and pressed my nose into the lilacs. I spotted green flowers on the mulberry trees, found the first wild pink geraniums and tender bells of columbine and came face to face with the quiet black eyes of solemn deer in the raspberry bushes. These things their own kind of anointing, their own small and significant rites of May Magic.
Here we are in this liminal space in which old chapters close and things are laid aside, set down, put to rest. We exhale into the stillness, into the waiting time between times So, too, we may feel newness and promise coiled and pulsing, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting, sometimes singing of the new and beautiful, the exciting and inspiring. May we have the courage to sit between these two calls listening. May we allow ourselves to settle for a spell right here between the tight and tender. May we know both brave action and brave stillness as we allow the old and new to steep together in peace and trust inside the crucible of change.
In the early hours of night-morning, I am summoned by the eclipsing moon, waking suddenly with a sense of delight bubbling behind my breastbone. My heart is beating fast and a sense of wild, anticipatory glee fizzes in my bones. My feet are cold on fine sparkles of frost as I gaze upward, hand against my heart at the crescent of full moon. I hear a noise behind me and turn to see the white flashes of two deer in the woods. They move only a few feet away and then stand there, dark and silent watching me. I kiss my hand and lift it to the moon three times. Orion is leaning on the rooftop and the sky is alive with stars. I am a priestess on a spinning Earth in the temple of night, my body an altar beneath a shadowed moon. My breaths are an offering, my heartbeat a song of praise, in this, a rite of resetting. I return to my bed and lie there for a long time, eyes bright, listening to star song, kept awake by poems.
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