Don’t mind me,
I’m out getting lost
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Molly, Loved the poem! Thanks for sharing the "May Magic" prayerbook with us, great stuff as always.
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Blog posts tagged in wheel of the year
It is April and Earth’s Mystery School
is in session.
The dogwoods are preparing
to hold council,
draped in white
as they line the corridors
of discovery.
Chickweed has already been
holding a party in the front yard,
scattering the grass with stars.
The violets are keeping company
with dandelion,
trading tips on how to best enjoy the sun,
while waiting for bees
to waltz over from the plums.
Speaking of plums,
they’ve got a lot to say,
bursting with enthusiasm
and excitement to share
all they’ve brought to offer
and arraying their teachings
before you with a delicately irrepressible
and intoxicating air.
Dialogues with daisies will be
beginning just down the way
and there is much to learn
from elderberry
as it stretches tall
and prepares for an audience
capable of patience and possibility.
Lillies and iris are considering
options for collaboration
and preparing a display,
but they will be waiting a bit longer
for just the right moment to speak.
Hyacinth is feeling shy,
but has a small class to offer
on tapping into delight
and touching deep secrets
and long memories.
It is a fine time to divine with witchhazel
along the way
and choose recipes with maple 
and morel,
time to talk tea and tinctures
with toothwort and trillium
and to learn sweet secrets from
redbud and lilac.
Raspberry and blackberry
are getting ready for a team effort,
teaching about the sweetness of boundaries and about
holding space.
Rose will be a guest lecturer
as she knows a lot about balancing
bounteous blooming
with assertive limits.
Wild cherry has been wondering
what to share
and soon she’ll spread her
graceful arms
to welcome you when summer school begins.
Leave behind your computer,
you won’t need it.
Lessons are free and open 24 hours,
broadcast live even from
sidewalk cracks and roadsides
and vacant lots.
You’re welcome to study
as long as you like
as long as you’re open
to the schedule
of what is now.
“No longer am I only hearing my own voice
but instead I co-exist in a world where 
everything speaks with its own unique, quirky, gorgeous personality. Every berry has a little voice, every grass stalk makes itself known. I become surrounded by a community of living Earth, and this entire community is willing to play with me in this changing game of life.”
—Day Schildkret (Morning Altars, @morningaltars)
What is waiting for you to notice it?
Do you have time to play in this changing game of life?
As we enter the flourishing of spring, I have a practice-based audio meditation to share based on Day Schildkret's book Morning Altars. It is a Place Meditation.
Pity the poor cowans.
Yes, now is the time of year when I always feel sorry for non-pagans.
Deep Winter. The great, glorious blaze of the holidays has burned itself out, and Spring is still a distant hope on the horizon. Until then, only the endless, hard slog of Winter stretches out before us, a vast, unbroken expanse of snow: long, interminably long.
Poor cowans: all this way till Spring, and nothing in between but (ugh) Valentine's.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to Imbolc.
Solstices, equinoxes, and the days that fall in between: the Wheel of the Year, we call it, a wheel of Eight Spokes. A party every 45 days or so. In the pagan world, there's always something to look forward to.
It's a hopeful way to live: a milestone to mark the way, every month and a half. Everything is always moving, nothing lasts. Nothing is permanent but the Cycle. It says a lot about pagans that we find this fact consoling.
It's a way to mark Time, to remind us that we're constantly en route. (Pagans are always in motion. Even when we're sitting still, we're moving.) “Back before Beltane....” we say.
Walking down the street, I see an awful lot of old Yule greens still up, looking pretty tired and desiccated by now. All mark cowan homes.
A friend's high priestess sent her a beautifully crafted wooden wheel for Yule. An apt gift, certainly.
(Witches are big into wheels. Life, Time, Space: for us, it's all Wheels.)
Naturally, my friend called her up to thank her.
My friend: What's the symbolism of the ten spokes?
(The Witches' Wheel usually has eight.)
High Priestess: No, it has eight spokes.
MF: No, it has ten.
HPss: (Changes subject.)
Myself, I was pretty disappointed to hear this story.
(Talk about a teachable moment. When your student asks you a question that you can't answer, what should be the first words out of your mouth? Obviously, "Well, what do you think?" As a teacher, you don't teach stuff; you teach thinking.)
First off, I was disappointed that the woman hadn't looked carefully enough at the wheel—it was a gift, after all—to realize that it had ten spokes rather than the canonical eight.
Second, I was disappointed that she didn't know the symbolism of the ten-spoked wheel.
Third, I was disappointed that she didn't try to bullshit her way out of it.
I am here to tell the tales
of eerie lights
and thinning veils,
of trickling streams
and singing trails,
of seeking hearts
and thrilling wails.
I’ve gathered sounds of
shadows deep,
of stones that weep
and trees that sleep,
where legends steep
and secrets keep.
Gather round
on bended knee,
with webs to weave
and paths to see,
the Samhain Muse
has tales for thee.
These days, we in the Pagan community have many choices in terms of traditions and paths to explore and practice. Most of the folx I know include more than one tradition in their regular spiritual practice.
How does that work, and what happens when you have traditions whose calendars don't fit with each other?
...
