SeaHeart

"The wildflower saints provoke me to remember the steadiness of return,
year after year. They tell me that one does not need to be cultivated to be beautiful.
They tell me that the soul remembers its essence, if it is given room to grow."
~ Gunilla Norris, Journeying in Place

~*~

We often tend to listen outside of ourselves. We hear the rush of the rain, the movement of the earth, the thunder under the freeway. We listen to our friends, to the crowd, to the coffee shop barista as he foams the milk. We listen to the symphony and the hard rock, we plug in, tune out, turn off, and in all of this listening, listening, listening...we tend to stop listening to ourselves.

To be quiet and still, to turn that focus inward, to be gentle with yourself, and compassionate of the decisions you make and the words you say...to focus everything to that still, small voice within you...it's a constant work. To further complicate things, it's so easy to listen, but very difficult to hear...people don't recognize that they're separate. "I'm hungry," you say. Or, "I hurt, and I don't know why." Or, "I feel so much joy, and there's no reason..." Or: "I feel uneasy...something's happening."

I'm water, through and through, and with the water comes intuition. But even in my constant balance of outward and inward, there needs to be time, time to set the balance straight again, time to nurture that inner voice, that inner heart, soothe the aches the modern world gives, time to love and nurture yourself. We spend so much time nurturing other people, us healers, us witches, us empaths. Why is is so hard to nurture ourselves?

A life's work, they say. Make it a life's work, this listening and hearing and following of the heart. So we make those times, and we watch the shift of the moon, and the stars, and things make sense again. I've been quiet, and I've been dreaming, but this past month, things began to awaken again. I woke up from my dreams to find that the trees are flowing once more, that the stars are shifting, and my old friend Orion is retreating farther and farther each night. "Is it that time already?" I ask him in disbelief, and he answers silently, pointing ever westward. Yes, it is always time.

My full moon ritual last night focused on two things, perfectly balanced--my Silver Branch work and my Diana's Grove work. Both asked different things that led to the same epiphanies and flowed flawlessly together. Love yourself, I was reminded, over and over. And make plans. Now everything shifts, the door of winter opens...you can sense the greening and the flowing and oh my gods, everything is coming alive or about to...it's all waiting, waiting, waiting and it's coming. It's coming, can you feel it?

It's now that the energies come, jubilant and ready, and still the door to the year is closed. Everything is hush and ripe with expectation...it's almost here, this beautiful spring, and I can feel it when I walk, my hands deep in pockets, my breath fogging the air as I crunch on melting snow.

Last night, I walked. I walked before the ritual to clear my head, to align myself, to make ready. I'd been planning the ritual for weeks and was so expectant and excited and ready...just like the year. I wished the moon out, but she stayed hidden, impish and coy, as I sang to her.

The work with Diana's Grove this month was all about Service...which I need to devote an entire post to in the coming days...

Diana's Grove asks of us, within this month, to dedicate to an element for the year. The minute I knew of this, I knew which element, and I immediately resisted it. Water, really? I thought. I am water, through and through, and there is no other element that I know more of or am more aligned with. Why water? I began to think of the work I'm currently doing, what I call my priestessing work, with the animals, with my writing, and it all came pieced together, then whole within my heart. I am to be healing and feeling, loving and flowing, even more this year than any other. I will be asked to do and see and hear things that only a water girl could do and see and hear, and if I open myself up to the element completely, there will be new challenges and new paths and I must learn and learn and learn, as always. So I said "yes" to water, simply because I knew I needed to. And it came, washing over me, ready and ecstatic to go even deeper into my heart. I welcomed it.

The other note was to dedicate to a new Goddess, to let that Goddess in. My matrons are Persephone and Brigid, and countless lifetimes could be spent working in their energy and would only scratch the surface of their work. So I thought I should pair this with my re-dedication to Brigid (I re-dedicate every year on Imbolc as a flame keeper to Brigid)...but I knew that wasn't the case. And I waited and waited for the right one to present itself, feeling the energy along the edges, but unable to see it fully.

And so, She came dancing. Bast, in all of Her glory. All of the signs, all of the whisperings and movements and moments, all came spilling forth like treasures at my feet. "I'm ready," I told Her, watching the self-love and the belly dance and the priestessing animal work and the sun and moon work and the Goddess work all roll up into one beautiful, bountiful moment.

Last night's ritual took all of these moments and epiphanies and wove them together in bright, golden cord. As I asperged, as I touched the salt with my fingers, and the water with my skin, I felt all of the energy, the dark and the light and the crescendoing season rise up within me, exultant.

And I sat in the darkness, watching the candle flicker as I chanted to the Great Mother, perfectly happy and content...

Waiting for spring.

What were your workings for the esbat? What do you look forward to with the coming of the dark moon?

...in no particular order:

Florida
Our Florida pictures are on Flickr, Jenn posted about our trip here and Rachel posted about our vacation here, and every single time I try to write up a post, I draw a blank. I can't articulate it...I simply can't, and I'm going to stop trying. It was one of the most amazing sets of days of our lives. The magic, the purification and loving embrace of the ocean and our soul family...honestly, every single time I think of what was experienced, the ritual that Rachel and I had on the beach that full moon night...I begin to cry. I've written about it in my paper journal, and that's the record I'll keep, close to my heart. There are universal truths...if you are a witch, and you go the sea, everything changes, and you are healed, always, forever. Healed.



The Fairie Festival
Jenn and I have been going to the Spoutwood May Day Fairie Festival since 2004 (it's actually where I proposed to Jenn~ <3). In the beginning, it was a second honeymoon type thing for us. We simply cavorted on the land for three holy days and nights, and it was just us. Over time, we developed incredible friendships with some of the amazing people who go there or are a part of it, and then were able to introduce our friends to it, too. To us, it's still holy and sacred, but now we share it with those wonderful people who come with us, who are there, too...so it's evolved and changed from a honeymoon type atmosphere to one of love and community, and the circle comes around again. The more fairy magic in the world, I think, the better~ To those new on my friends list, I start posting about said fairy costuming MONTHS IN ADVANCE. Expect costuming posts in...oh say, a day or two. XD There is NOTHING better in the world than any excuse to wear fairy wings. Jenn and I talk about the Fairie Festival every day lately, knowing that it is the sentinel between winter and the beauty and bounty of spring...we CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!

Diana's Grove
I'm halfway through my second year of the Sisterhood of the Silver Branch, and...along with that spiritual work this year...I am lucky enough to experience Diana's Grove again. Diana's Grove was where I first met Rachel, actually, many years ago~ :) To be able to experience the land again, the sheer magick of it all...I am humbled and eternally grateful. This is the last year of Diana's Grove in this incarnation...and the perfect year is, of course, the story of Persephone. What is Diana's Grove, and why am I doing it? Diana's Grove is sacred community...it's myth within our lives. It's sacred land, it's sacred people...it's an experience that is once in a lifetime, and that I'm actually able to be there for the final year, working with my matron Goddess and Her journey...wow, wow, wow.

What Would You Give?
...The reason I brought it up now, instead of a post all of its own (of which there will be plenty this year), is because one of the questions asked of us in January's work really touched me, changed me...meant something to me, in Florida, and continues to here. Rachel and I were sitting on the beach, and we began to talk about this month's work, when she brought up a question I hadn't yet seen. Right now, we're dealing with the part of the myth of Persephone's disappearance (there's more to it than that, but I digress), and Demeter's reaction to it...including roaming the earth, weeping and searching for Her daughter. A question asked was this: if the Goddess, in Her guise as Demeter, came to you...how would you help Her...what would you give? The question shook me to my core, and immediately my heart rose up with a response, and there was so much more that was unearthed and came to fruition and showed me magic...On the beach, in the full moon, Rachel and I discussed it once again, and something else came to light. If you were in Demeter's shoes instead...wandering the earth, and you came to the Goddess' door...what would She give you? The paradox of it, the giving and receiving (especially the receiving), and all of the implications and the way the world has been shifting lately to bring these awarenesses to me...beautiful. I had to share that question with you. :) What are your own answers? And if the Goddess gave to you...do you love yourself enough, have compassion to yourself enough, to receive it?

I Am a Priestess
I keep writing things here, and then erasing them, because nothing holds the passion and joy and rampant tides in my own heart for what happened to change things on the beach that night, and why I now call myself a Priestess in my faith, to and for my Goddess. So we'll save that for another day~ <3