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Here we are at the edge of fall,
looking at the world and at our lives.
May learn from Squirrel
and gather up our resources
to store for future days.
May we learn from Persimmon
and allow ourselves
to ripen patiently
until we recognize
the perfect time to let go,
savoring the sweetness
and delicacy of our own best timing.
May we learn from Oak
knowing we belong to a
great, grand cycle
of generativity and renewal,
drawing up strength
from the earth beneath us,
stretching our roots deep,
and exhaling as we allow
the unneeded to fall lightly away.
May we pause at the turning point,
this hinge of change and choice,
to savor the good work
of this year,
to celebrate
what we have learned and made,
to honor what we've loved
and labored over.
May we open our arms in gratitude
and then wrap them
around ourselves
with compassion.
May we turn our faces to the sun,
feel the wind curl around us,
lay our hands on our hearts
and feel the connection
we always carry within.
May we set our feet to the spiral,
as the deep and powerful mystery
of being continues to unfurl.

In the evening we prepare for a very simple family Lammas ritual. I don’t feel inspired to do anything elaborate, so we cut our loaf of special bread,  prepared earlier by my sister-in-law and delivered warm. We add blackberry jelly to our slices and leave one slice for our offering.  We step out together onto the deck and set the bread, a candle, and a garnet-colored meditation goddess onto the center of the deck. We speak aloud of our gratitude for the changes, blessings, and creations of the last few weeks and of the months since Imbolc. Then, we each tear off a piece of bread from the extra piece and speak aloud what we will be sacrificing, what we are willing to change in the new season. a pattern emerges from our words, that of a family-wide wish for a better and healthier schedule, earlier dinner-times and bed-times, more opportunities to play together.

We join hands and close our micro-ritual with our favorite blessing:

"May goddess bless and keep us, may wisdom dwell within us, may we create peace."
—Carol P. Christ

I feel warm and satisfied with this tiny ritual, this simple observance of the season, this connection between the elements to those I love best.

Image and words from my new book, Walking with Persephone: a journey of midlife descent and renewal forthcoming from Womancraft Publishing (now available for pre-order with bonuses!) This book is a walk through the changing cycles of the year and nature with me as I learn to let my steps be guided by Persephone. 

Don’t mind me,

I’m out getting lost

“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.