Time Will Tell

The snow is melting, reluctantly it seems, along with these remaining March days.

Time has slowed down for me this week, and I'm so grateful for that. In these days of tempus fugit that we all live in, I'm grateful any time Time relaxes her wings.

This week has offered a more relaxed pace than I'm typically accustomed, and in it I've discovered my own influence on this magic. I, it seems, played a key role in manifesting this enchanting pace. It has also offered me a challenge to test this notion... by recreating it. And so I shall shine my light on the magic of my influence as I nurture a refreshed and renewed relationship with Time.

As for the burgeoning nettles pictured here, they have no apparent relationship to these ramblings. Or do they?

Only Time will tell.

😏

Peace.

Spring's Light, My Light

Merry spring, friends! Or autumn, as the case may be. 😊

Yesterday's vernal equinox ushered in the season for which I am ripe, as I am ready to cast off winter's dark mantle. The seasonal mantle that feels so cozy and comforting at winter's arrival, and which grows heavy and cumbersome as the season evolves.

I honored the day of spring's arrival with journaling, with seed starting, with making the season's first batch of pickled eggs, with a wee bit of time outdoors, and some quiet meditation. And reflection.

If you follow this blog at all, you might remember my February ramblings where I shared the perplexing binary challenge - silly though it may seem - that I was facing, and how - by the light of the reflective Moon - it offered me an expanded perspective that guided me deep into the disquieting alchemy of it, into the need to stir my cauldron with all the contrary verve, and allow it to simmer that it may temper and manifest something delicious from the discomfort.

Time has passed, and space has shifted, and now I'm deep in the verve and guidance of The Hermit, where I find Myself shining My light on the spaces I choose. Dare I say, a seasonal serendipity.

The guidance I've chosen since November has been challenging, sure, yet it has nurtured a deepened relationship (roots) to those things that most nourish and sustain me, and - more importantly - that hold blessed potential for nourishing and sustaining my tribe, my rooted ancestors, my beloved Nona Gaia.

And it's fascinating. I'm noticing patterns more easily. And honoring the Medicine within them. There are dots connecting in serendipitous ways, offering deLIGHTful opportunity. Thanks sweet Hermit! One such opportunity will come to fruition in April as I enter my next guidance phase of The Lovers. I feel a ripening. And I am ready.

So - in this vernal moment - as I reflect on the choices I've made these past several months, I offer you this: When you ask Spirit for guidance, heed it well, and follow its lead, for I am confident that providence will greet you.

EnJOY the journey. 

Peace.

A Healing Journey of Challenge and Evolution. AKA: Everything's Normal...

In 2004, when I first starting blogging, many of my posts were undeniably rooted in my personal healing journey, my evolution. The posts were written more for me that for any reader. In most ways this is still true, though in ways one might not easily recognize. And that's OK. Yet I feel a tug - at least today - to write for me, to document my journey/s here as well as in my heART journals. And so it goes.

The last couple months of 2017 were razor focused on some deep diving into the seas of my heart to examine closely the things I claimed as vital, not just to my life, but to all life, past, present and future. Some of what I discovered there was beautifully delicious, while other discoveries required brief dives and wee sips, a need for frequent decompression, and the recurring need come up for air. There was a lot of returning and returning. Know what I mean? Much of it was distinctly uncomfortable. And while I feel I've gleaned a better, deeper, if not darker understanding of my own heart and what urges me in this life, I feel I've returned to the surface with a lot of sorting and blending to manage in the days and months ahead.

As January came ripe and transformed into February, the work of sorting perplexed and puzzled me, for what I perceived felt out of character, and distinctly out of my comfort zone, for I was - quite possibly for the first time in this life - seeing things in binary form, distinct and separate, and at odds.

Then today came. And today I sense that this exercise in black and white (as they say) has broadened my view of a perspective that I do not embrace. From this higher and deeper space, I've been offered a gift of greater understanding and compassion for those who cling to what my own experience has taught me is a falsehood. A falsehood that pervades our social conventions. There's a part of me that hopes I can feel and express more of that understanding and compassion for those with whom I feel at odds, a little or a lot... and there's another part that I can feel stiffening against this hope. And yet, there it is, a challenge I've been offered, and a challenge to which I must respond.

You know what I'm talkin' about.

Yet this is still surface stuff, what I feel most drawn to in this challenge is the alchemy of it, the need to stir my cauldron with all the rival verve, and simmer it all to temper and manifest something delicious from the discomfort.

So now I sit with Nona Luna, et al, to witness the tides that stir the cauldron and temper all things in this salty brew I call life. I must stay alert, for the next phase of this journey will be lonely, for I am called to play The Hermit, with only my observations to keep me company.

Wish me well.

And may your journey bring you challenge and evolution.

Peace.

Imbolc Blessings

I don't know about you, but as we spiral into this part of the year - the midpoint between winter and spring - my mood lifts as I witness, without doubt or question, the lengthening daylight. Even as I know that winter's worst may still lie ahead, even as I awake to a winter wonderland, I feel uplifted by the light in this aspect of the seasonal tunnel, and the promise of spring that awaits us all.

To bolster and nourish my lifting mood, I've gone through my saved seeds, my leftover seeds that are still viable, and my recently received batch of organic heirloom seeds from Baker Creek. With this annual ritual, I Know that the season of seed starting is here and with it, and with every seed I plant, I shall collaborate with Nona Gaia in nourishing the promise of spring, the promise of abundance, and more. Much more. Growing and preserving the lion's share of our own Food, and much Medicine too, offers blessings I count year 'round, and I encourage all who are able to grow as much Food, Medicine and Empowerment as they are able.

If all you can manage is a pot of something on a windowsill, that counts. Go for it! 

And with that I wish you a blessed Imboc.

Peace.

Time to Get to Work

Back in November I felt a distinct tug to return to the journey work that had served me so deeply and broadly many years back. So I made a commitment to mySelf to make time and space to the meditative work of exploring my own internal landscapes, as well as those that call to me from beyond the familiar, and perhaps then some. It was a tug, a calling, to which I knew I had to respond.

Over the past few months I've made some time and space to revisit this work, yet my efforts so far have felt shallow and less than rooted to the calling that beckons me. I recognize that Truth. I've journaled it. Yet mere acknowledgement is - apparently - not enough.

Last night as I sat crocheting with my spouse and some foolishness on the foolish screen, the healing mantra-counts that guide my crochet patterns took on a voice of their own, if only for a moment, and I felt an uncomfortable shift. The backache I had been experiencing most of the day eased, yet the ache lingered elsewhere, moving throughout my being, transformed to an ethereal reflective form that challenged me from the places of mystery to which I've been summoned, yet have not fully committed.

So today, after the mystery of night's deep sleep, I reflect on my ordinary life journey thus far... as well as those otherworldly journeys that woke and nurtured parts of me that manifested extraordinary experience and perspective that is - I am quite certain - otherwise unreachable. I sit here and honor the fiber of my journeys, ordinary and otherwise, that twine and circle and become stronger with each hook 'n' twist 'n' spiral. I sit here and honor how mystery gets our attention. I sit here and honor the commitment and the roots I must nurture. I sit here and honor the work that sits - in progress - on my lap.

I sit here and honor the actions I shall take.

Peace.

What Whispers Await

A few 2017 ferments. Some assimilated. Some we're still enjoying.
Along with others much older.

Here we are... hanging on the burgeoning daylight of the recent winter solstice, and teetering on the cusp of the so-called new year. For me, this little patch of early winter is a time that squirms with the potential of new opportunities.

There's still plenty of night darkness in which to feel held and hidden, and just enough expanding daylight to feel the squirm of our inner seeds. It's a patch of time that invites us to take a risk, to pick a seed and nurture it in the quiet stillness of winter.

On this day in 2004 I published by first blog post. As I gaze into this reflection from my current perspective the act hardly seems risky. Yet I do recall how tentative - and dare I say brave - I felt when I posted that very first Welcome-to-my-blog-entry, a statement of intention that was clearly more for me than for any reader. Nonetheless, it is, in fact, the second post on December 30, 2004 that still whispers to me... whispers how I had (finally) grown comfortable with my own voice, and was willing to share it with others.

A lot has changed in these past 13 years. And a lot hasn't. Kinda like a 13-year-old crock of forgotten kraut. While my voice has evolved, it hasn't changed much. I recognize easily it in myself and in others. Yet, it has grown stronger and wilder, and while I can still meander like no one's business, it has grown more concise. And in this season it stirs, and squirms, and I wonder... what fresh whispers await me?

Peace.

Sol Bread and Solstice Blessings

Sol bread. Mixed, kneaded, shaped and baked with the brightest of intentions to guide us through this long, dark night and to the sunrise of expanding light and hope and compassion and all that is Good and whole and holy.

And ale.

Solstice blessings!

Peace.

Get Ripe, Get Ready, Go.

Today is a day of expectation. I feel anxious. I feel ripe. I feel ready. Yet not without a sense of trepidation. The feeling is palpable, visceral, undeniable in the light sweat that surfaces on my palms, and the physical vibration that cascades down my legs.

Seeking Deep Guidance is challenging. Dark. A touch frightening. If it isn't, you're skimming the surface and no matter how much you tell yourself you are, you're not seeking Deep Guidance. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Since my autumnal new year I have felt what I can only describe as a stirring of deep seeds. Seeds that are tugging at my conscious awareness... for the nurturance they need to survive past their sprouting. I feel something imminent awaiting me. And if feels vital.

I know this may sound odd or dramatic (or both) to many, and I'm cool with that, but this realization (like so many others) is born from the kind of personal work to which I've dedicated myself for - at least - the past 20 years or so, and I take it seriously. While this work has been externally supported, it has been exclusively solitary, and yet today I am reaching beyond my inner sphere of wisdom for external perspective, vision, and ::gasp:: guidance. It's exciting. It's disquieting. It's impending.

And I am ripe for it.

More on this later. Maybe.

Peace.