I awoke this morning wonderfully giddy, and as I turned to greet the day, my head began to spin and whirl, as though my brain could not grasp the physics of now, the point of the here and center. How Do I arrive at stability? My stomach began to churn with the effort of finding this illusive balance point. It felt as though my brain, and body, and feet were all in a whirling dance going in different directions, all while attempting to simultaneously catch up with one another.
I remember learning in a science class ages ago, that the distance between any two points can always, always be halved. And, with that understanding, the inference is that the meeting, touching, arriving of one point to another, is a mathematical impossibility. That what we reach, or aim for, we are always only arriving toward. Step by step, the path is unfolding, unfurling like a blossom. And by some miracle, we continue to unfurl like a lotus blossom, petal by petal.
And yet, it is said, today, at the Solstice, we have arrive at the stillpoint; a point when we can measure the approximate longest night in the northern hemisphere. After today, the daylight, in the north, will increase in minutes, the sun will rise higher on the horizon. The sun will shine deeper and deeper into the shadows and show us light and dark. Somehow, the impossible has become possible today, and new light arrives.
So, in the quiet before the shift, in the dark of the void, let's turn inward and listen to what other miracles are possible. What is the devotion of the miraculous, that calls you and me? Soon, the outward voices will gain momentum, energy and volume. Soon, distraction and busyness will be forefront. For now, Cherish these deep silent dark days. Find the inner peace to beam out into the world. Build your embers into a large fire to shine out for all to see, like the brave newly crescent moon just after sunset. Shine bright into the darkness knowing your light will show the shadows you make.
Let your point of arriving, be your inspiration for all you seek, all you cherish, all you dream ~
Wishing you love eternal, light that warms and deep peace.
The mist settles in comfortably after the rain, hovering dearly and close to the earth. The intermittent grays, that drift into imprecise definition, mingle with the moisture and light, outlining the shape of trees and hills.
The brush at the edge of the forest creates curlicues and hearts that emerge out of the indistinct light; the light enhances their dark beauty.
Lines of grey and darkness all intermingling, fusing, losing definition. The bright white seed-speckled snow below boldly contrasts the shapes above.
The stillness spreads to the brown wet leaves plastered below my feet.
In the stillness, I hear the bubbling "cheer-i-ups" of goldfinches and the fluttering wingbeats of titmouse. These social birds continue to gather with their friends for the daily celebration of life. They continue to sing songs of gratitude for their harbor from the storms.
I feel gentle movement on my face. Movement that arrives in the moist air, blowing strongly enough to lift wisps of hair and to blow the weight of thought away, not strongly enough to move the limbs of the nearby trees. These bastions of rooted solidity do not budge. Their stillness appears remarkable in contrast to my moving eyes, my cyclical breath, and even to the blood that moves in my sinews. They have arrived at their very deep place of quiet. Their sap waits in their roots. They do not shun this time waiting. Their bold limbs appear to be listening. In the shifting fog.
I follow their lead.
I will find stillness in this season; I will listen... and listen some more, trusting myself to what I hear within.
Gentle quiet Gifts of inspiration from the trees, for any time of transition.
It is Falling day. The magical day when, following an unseen signal, some trees spontaneously release their bounty of leaves in a synchronized swirl of falling grace. The descent is a mesmerizing dance, as the fluttering envoys wind their way toward a new adventure, falling in a eddies of beauty and light, cascading in glittering golds and yellows, all on the cyclical migration to the bare bones of winter rest.
This day arrives in any weather. It may be windy, cloudy, shivery or sunny. The leaves follow their own path, and timing, dancing to the rhythm of their own making. I discover the performance while on my way to harvest from some garden. Some of the leaves decorate the path. Crunching underfoot. The wind of my passing causes them to stir up once more, to flutter and swirl in a new tide of motion, following the beat of an unheard drum. As sweet as the leaves are on the ground, my eyes lift to watch the performance overhead.
Overhead, is a light show; a celebration to the passing of time, homage to the grandeur of life, the showing of one's true colors, a tribute to dancing to the very end, and to living life to the fullest. Living loud, living in full color, and living bright.
In my front yard, resides a Grandmother Beech. Her branches hang low, with gravity pulling them lower and lower every year. Her leaves used to brush my hair as I passed. The branches that hang there now, have stop producing greenery a few years ago. And slowly, more of grandmother’s other limbs stop making new growth as well. I watch, knowing, that some day, the last limb will fall and the life of grandmother will be a legacy for the earth. Grandmother will decide that moment and that timing. She will decide when to stop and when to completely let go. Until that time, she will transition into her elder status in her own rhythm and grace.
Many studies have shown that what we who love the trees have long intuited is true: in their ancient wisdom, the elders are far more vital to the health of the forest and the land than we could ever comprehend. That their roots offer gifts to all who pass or grow nearby, indeed they feed mycelium that communicate to young trees miles away, helping them grow and in turn, helping all of us manage the stressors of our daily life with more grace. A forest that has an elder nearby, grows healthy and grows fast.
I offer gratitude for grandmother who decides to linger longer here; grateful for her wisdom, her sweetness and the many other contributions that she provides for all as a member of this forest. As such, I am grateful for another day with her who, as a member of my community and as an integral part of this life, adds to the well being of the whole.
I find that I too linger longer at the base of her trunk, wondering indeed, what other mysteries does she hold in her roots, helping all of us stay well on this planet. For now, the Grandmother tree lives.
I hope to be as wise as the trees on my path of life: to welcome their magic in my every day, to stand tall, to celebrate with kin, to share my wisdom with others, to shine bright and dance in any season, to listen to my inner timing, and to fall with exquisite grace.
I will sit at her feet and watch her wisdom cascade in golden light to me
More tree photos offering inspiration to shine, stand tall, let go and believe ~
(the above photo is a little out of season, but captures free fall so beautifully)
As always, thank you for all that you give to me in your standing tall and reminding me of the grace of life.
Here, where I live, the valleys welcome the Autumn mist, reverentially. The valley softly envelops the clouds as they linger here, on earth. Creating mosaics of grey and green. Above the valleys, tendrils of misty fingers rise expressing their delight and pleasure. During these misty times, the moisture creeps onto and into every surface, nook and cranny. The vapors spread long sleepy tendrils over the fields, ponds, gardens and rivers, silently arriving, then moving on slowly. They transform and disappear into the ethers on their own timing. During these days, the horizon, remains indistinct and hazy. Elusive and indefinite. Mysterious and possible.
The mist may last through the day, or may slowly disappear, revealing a bright sun; or yet again, the mist may lift on a gentle breeze, a breeze who comes like a guest, laughing all greyness away.
During the day, crickets hum and "brrzzz" in a steady beat, one that moves strangely in, and out of hearing. The flight of the bluejay crosses the sky lazily, drifting over the treetops in a new, yet distinct Autumn pattern. The Raven babies practice their new language skills, entertaining us with their inventiveness. Burnished corn silk towers over my head, glimmering in the lowering sun; goldenrod emerges to feed the bees before hibernation; st john's wort, and beebalm flowers fade.
All this alerts us, that the seasons are changing, that the precious migrants will move on so soon, and that our inner patterns are shifting too.
Cirrus clouds tumble now through the high atmosphere, as I look up. I know and feel the air is twirling up there, in a different rhythm and with different voices. Lifting the perceptions of my days, opening me to shift and change as well. The evening shadows grow longer and longer, lingering, as if to taste just one more moment of daylight, before they too will fade into the quieter days of winter.
At day's end, the early twilight calls me home sooner, from the gardens or river, to tend to the inner fires. Before stepping inside, looking up once more for the day, I see the clouds drift, the trees wave, the lowering sun creating golden shafts of light and soft shadows. I welcome them all, just as the valley welcomes the mist. I feel their graceful presence helping me prepare and change into a new season. Smoothing the edges of this transition in life, as effectively as the mist shifts the perception of my horizon.
Soon I will be stepping up and into my yurt, not with misty moisture on my face, but the sense of the crispy cold. Not with short sleeves, but with layers of warm wool on my body. I feel the yearning and comforting devotion in the hills, and trees, breeze, birds and flowers surrounding me now, helping me, like they, accept the changes with grace and pleasure. I welcome the season of changes.
Late Summer days buzz with activity; they ride waves burgeoning with abundance and growth. Options emerge with the sunlight and warmth, urging participation in play and productivity, in rest and fun.
These waves of busyness arrive soon after the sun lifts above the tree tops. The rising swell collects me and then sweeps me along onto a trajectory of motion. I dream up plans and possibilities, projects and play. I resemble an insect who darts from here to there, moving so quickly, from one point of interest to the next, that I feel barely visible. It feels rare when I do find myself sitting still, to just be. Or to just listen.
I wonder about this ambition for activity. My desire to fill the warm and inviting days results in more time engaging, and less time relaxing.
Meanwhile, summer shines on, flourishing and inviting. Twirling invisible tendrils of magic in the air. The sun smiles through it all with beneficence, magnanimously offering radiance, regardless of what we do or don’t do.
And in all the movement, I find myself beginning to crave quieter, inner balance, to simply
reach stillness. So, yes, while my gardens would dearly appreciate a weeding, and the paths would love a clearing of debris, or my floor a washing…. I want to find the precious gift of lying on the earth with empty space, to feel the luxurious summer breezes waft by, and watch them tussle the hair of the trees, brushing their limbs back and forth, like waves on the sea. I want to allow my imagination to fill in the spaces of the unknown without agenda; I want to sit and breathe in deeply the sounds of late summer, breathe in scents from exotic realms, and listen attentively to the birds’ announcing the coming Autumn.
This stillness is hard to create, that is, until the arrival of twilight. Then at the hush of night's edge, I find myself dropping whatever trajectory I was on (perhaps filling the hummingbird feeder, picking up firewood, or...) and I allow myself the gift of pause. I give myself the moment to inhale and feel stillness filling in the cracks of now.
I sit and lean back to listen, watch and feel. I feel the coolness of the night seeping in. I hear the last calls of the cardinals’ chirp, and the buzz of crickets. I smell the transition from late summer to autumn. Hurry melts from me just as quickly as it arrived. Night song begins.
Come, Linger with me now, watch, with me the pink emerge as sunset glides in.
Watch the changes of twilight slowly cover the sky and then drip onto us, igniting our skin like a shimmering of light here on Earth.
I wrap you in this magic ~ And here, in this moment, we will drink tea, watch dragonflies, and sing and toast the night.
"Gaze at the beauty of the green earth .... welcoming all that is earthly. "There is music of Heaven in all things. The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening. "All creativity" ~ Hildegard de Bingen
Today, my trail leads to the path of weeds. And, Here they are!! I did not sow them. They appear. As masters of their gifts. I follow their clues to here, to a clearing of my thoughts and activities. And Here, to marvel. I have followed this path today, with weeds as my guide.
I do indeed enjoy the presence of weeds in my garden. I enjoy the discovery, the wonder, the exploring. And I enjoy the embracing of what can sometimes be an uncomfortable challenge, of allowing for the presence of these green visitors, who dwell right here, alongside of me!
Once discovered, I ponder, but never assume, why have you rooted here? What gifts do you bring? What mystery does your presence reveal? How do I create enough space for you?
For example, in the middle of my onion bed, a healthy crop of nettles arrived at the end of the season last year ~ Mmm. My dear friend nettle. How did you find me so quickly? Nonetheless, when I started to make room in the garden bed this Spring, they responded emphatically and with sharp stingings of my shins, exclaiming with extra fire, "I Belong Here!"
Ahh... OK. I donned some gloves, then gently planted onions around the settled nettles. Once done, I watered the bed thoroughly as a gift. Now, Everyone is happy. Onion, Nettle and Catherine alike. That was a successful journey. Sometimes, though, like with the poke weed plant, I still have yet to negotiate the engagement. I am still learning.
I do not go to books and ask, "what does this mean?" Or "what should I do?" I sit and ponder. I sense that with the visitors, by simply sitting, wandering around them, and watching, that they will teach me how to listen. In the face of mystery and the unknown, perhaps simply allowing for the messages of beauty to unfold helps us find the ways to embrace change. I see this practice, the one of allowing magic to reveal itself to me as a form of entrainment. I do find that the process changes me. The experience provides me a peek into the profound mystery of diversity, into the mystery of the wild.
We all feel uncomfortable in the face of the unknown, the different, the challenge, yet difference is where good medicine arrives. Change allows for creativity and growth. Brushing up against the stranger, inoculates and deepens the life of the observer.
In that light, one might see the garden before you as a gift waiting to unfold, blossom and bloom; one might ask, what might be on the menu this day? Nettle soup? Lavender love? Mugwort mending? The Making, Creating, and Alchemizing of wellness then becomes a co-creation with Spirit, plant and human.
I hope that I will learn from this medicine. I hope I do learn to appreciate the gifts of the wild magic before me. Ansel Adams believed that Life thrives in the wild, and that we all need a touch of it in our lives. I do too. All this written here, is what I like to contemplate. The weeds, the discomfort, the diversity, the contradictions, and the wild all within The Weeds.
And that contemplation reminds me of me. Like me, some things flourish better in some environments than others. Like me, weeds possess the living Word of spirit, like me Weeds reflect magic, wonder ~ we flourish and congregate, we sing and dance, laugh and make medicine. We share comfort and receive comfort. We offer medicine for cupboards and dreams for the soul. In the waxing of summer's growth, we and the weeds flourish, ebb and flow.
We all reflect the mysterious and contradictory perseverance of life.
I will continue to wander into my garden to watch how the plants unfold. How they initiate and respond to the environment in their many-layered conversations. I will notice how the dialogue between me and this garden persists. This dialogue reflects the mystery and effervescence of life.
The greening comes as a mysterious emissary of the possible, Revealing memories beyond any linear understanding of reality. Offering hints of our collective history and our possible future. Bringing the scent of the strange, and unknown fruit. All these gifts meld together in a cauldron of potential.
The wild unknown is a Welcome Weed in the garden What wild potential will you plant today?
For more writings about local happenings, see Venus Muse~. The Solstice occurs on June 21, 11:30 East coast time. I will post something about Solstice on the Seasonal Happenings page soon too.
Happy New Moon, and Happy Summer and lots of love, ♥️
Singing Praises for their days. Singing of Robin thoughts and feelings. Singing of their Robin lives. Leaving traces of melodic lace lingering in the air as the day changes. Singing as poets of possibility, with light language streaming from their beaks with gentleness and peace. Singing, as the Sun sings, about the solar tides, and vibrations, singing as the trees sing about the tree creations and considerations.
In all this Here, in all this song, rides a swirling tide of thoughts and feelings from sentient beings about sentient experience, lapping on the shores of now, and through the atmosphere itself. This swirl offers experiential installations of many-splendoured things.
Encouraging us to feel too.
All of creative force pouring beneath the pink sky. To crack open and Feel.
What if,
What if Anything we call God or Goddess is actually the song that I hear at this moment? The song singing, now? The pink, the praise, the trees, the sun, the tides, the breeze, the field, and mountain, all together? The ebbing and flowing of life and song, the rising and the falling to compost? The light, the dark, and the moments in between, the cracking open? Like now? What if the creative force of life is that cracking open to life, from life when all of life allows God/goddess to feel and think themselves about themselves? The many-hued song that plays all together - that that is the divine thinking the divine
A little of everything and everywhere right now, and right here. a little of all that is, right now, right here.
the divine spark experiencing themselves in you, and showing you, you.
And you are
Right here, right now. now.
"Share these teaching when you meet someone whose heart is vibrating with the flow of love, let your words and energies be as free as your breath"
Insight Verse 157-9 from Radiant sutras
Thank you Jonas Emmanuel Fricke for many of these thoughts, impressions, expressions and more. A "poet of possibility" yourself We shall remember your song
I awoke before dawn, and felt a palpable difference in the air. A difference that had nothing to do with the day of the Month. I felt Spring. I can not say exactly how it felt, I do not what words to use to describe the sense. I Can say the day felt Softer. I thought, "maybe this is the arrival of Spring."
For those who live in other parts of this earth, you might not know that snow still covers my gardens, several feet thick in some areas, ice graces the tops of puddles in the morning, and no frogs have emerged to sing through the evening. Even the trees are slow to bud, as seen in the fallen red maple twig in the photo above.
Yet, in this pre-dawn moment, the atmosphere, the scent, the sense all changed. A new sense presented itself through my yurt walls, as though the sentient trees could feel the earth's rising energies, and sang a new song, as though the summer birds fluttered in a new warmth giving the forest and me extra company, as though a wave of new elementals had arrived last night, ready to cozy up for the Spring revelries and musical entertainment, as if their presence warmed the the very air's vibrations.
And the change seemed to occur overnight
Usually, Spring arrives slowly here. I cherish that pace; the pace allows me to notice and savor each shift. Mud season bringing sweetest sap, Goldfinches singing their ways into our hearts. All while winter continues to blow occasional gusts and storms. And Usually, we hold court with winter beyond any imaginings of time ~ this allows me me sink into the gifts that the north winds brings ~ gifts of contemplation, deep healing, deep mysteries, perseverance, humor and patience.
It was only 4 days ago, after all, that a gentle snow fell overnight covering the land tenderly and lightly. Arriving like an easy breath In and out, a gentle reminder of life continuing, reminding me ~ we are here, still, breathing, even after great change.
And now, Spring. Overnight. The waters run stronger, the birds fly in mystical geometries ~ duets, lines, figure eights, and more. Hawks circle, geese in V's by the 1000s. And the singing has returned: songbirds fluttering and warbling, woodpeckers pecking and announcing their territories.
It is said that a forest is healthy with the presence of birds. The same must be true for me. With their presence and song I feel a weight lifted ~ from the air, the forest and from my heart.
Today, the wide spectrum of Spring arrives, dancing in many hues of lightness and on a wider and wider path. Spring arrives today bringing warmth and music.
Branches of tea from my home to yours. Roots reaching out and through the ethers, from my heart, to yours, connecting us where ever you are.
I offer another edition of the etheric tea party, hoping you can join me in celebration of our lives, of the our connections and of tea! Today, I offer a humble cup of ambrosia, knowing that with this post, the lines of connection spread like mycelium through the ethers, through the clouds of unknowing, and through the earth, connecting each and every one of us together via a ceremony of tea.
February, the month, I have offered the whimsical party in the past, is nearly over. This year, to create the gifts for this party, I gathered with friends to drink tea and share snacks, for laughter, creation, and art. To celebrate all that we have danced through, both together and apart. These brave travelers helped to make the cards in the photos below; they represent the vessels of our whimsy.
I dedicate this post to you, happy to drink deeply from this cup of life with you, and happy to have the chance to share this voyage of life on this Earth. Grateful that we have danced, laughed, cried and drunk tea together. And, if this post inspires more drawings of vessels of whimsy from you, please do share in the comments.
To life, to solace for all beings in this cosmos, and to togetherness, knowing that we are connected to all beings that we love, no matter how or what is the distance.
To you ~ to your health, to your laughter, your joy, and your heart magic.
