Sixth Annual Brigid Poetry Festival

There are the poems that you love, and then there are the poems that you write into your will. Here's one that I made the nice young lawyer from the white-shoe law firm write into mine:

When Death Comes

~Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.


Picture found here.

Poetry for Imbolc

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.
-- Sheenagh Pugh

On this Imbolc, may it be so for you.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

'Scuze Me While I -- Blam!

This week's page of my Ecological Calendar at work tells me that, at this time of year, some bees from every hive begin to make forays out in search of food, but that many are killed by freezing to death or by flying into snowbanks, which they mistake for the sky. I had this evil image of a heroic bee flying along in search of food, communing with the great Winter sky after weeks stuck inside the hive, and then, suddenly, blam! A snowbank. And the poor bee's last thoughts, inscribed idly by its poor frozen little legs doing their final bee dance, are "WTF?"

But on a more serious note, the bees' need for food is yet another good reason to begin starting some seedlings now (at least if you live, as I do, in Zone 7) so that they'll be ready to plant outside once the danger of frost has passed. Those seedlings will flower early and provide the bees with some needed food.

I save the pots that I get when I buy seedlings, wash them out in late Summer/early Autumn, and then re-use them every year to start seedlings. I've also made pots out of newspaper, which are great, as long as the ink is vegetable-based. You can pop them, paper pot and all, into the ground and the paper just decomposes. It's a perfect way to spend Imbolc, and if you have children, you can always get them to help, mark "their" pot for them, and then do all kinds of lessons about Science, Math (measurement, esp.), Poetry, Music, Art, etc.

Tomorrow, I'll be potting marigold, woad, cucumbers, and some orange cosmos (that I got as a freebie) for guerrilla gardening. I'll also sit down with my stack of garden porn catalogues and order datura, French tarragon, sweet basil, dill, Italian oregano, white foxgloves, black hollyhocks, and more black day lilies.

What are you planting? How many bees did you dance with last year?

I've got packets of one-year-old woad seeds for the first three people to email me their address at hecate demetersdatter at hot mail dot come.

Blessed Imbolc!

Indeed, My Sheep Are Lactating

I mentioned recently to some friends that, as a Pagan, I'm preparing to celebrate Imbolc. One of my friends replied, "Really? Your sheep are lactating?" My response is that "lactating sheep" is an old way of describing a complicated process that also means "return of the light," "beginning of the end of Winter," "an inspiring time when we begin to throw off the lethargy and hibernation of Winter and concern ourselves with Spring, and new growth, and our own commitments to new life."

I am an old woman with a broken-and-held-together-with-titanium-screws-and-plates ankle, and there are five inches of snow and ice on the ground. But I am going out tomorrow afternoon, yaktrax on my boots, cane in hand, deep grounding accomplished, and I am going to bring pots and potting soil in from the shed. I am going to do that because Wednesday is Imbolc and I will be damned if I will allow it to come and go without starting some seeds. I know, I know deep in my muscles, and joints, and broken bones, I know that, however bitter the weather may be just now, I know that, in a few weeks, the Sun will begin to warm the ground and to coax green shoots from inside their thick bulbs and hard-as-glass seed-shells. And, more than almost anything, I want to be a part of that process, to partake of that metamorphosis, to find myself enmeshed in what is going on in my tiny garden, in my landbase, in the Potomac watershed, inside Columbia's district. I want to be as wick as the land, to keep on dancing the dance of the seasons.

One of the delights, for me, of being a Witch is the opportunity that the 8 major Sabbats (not to mention the Dark Moons and the Full Moons) give me to orient myself within the Wheel of the Year. The events of my own life can be fortuitous or calamitous; I can be engaged and fulfilled by my work or terrified that the economy is about to come crashing down on my head. I can be proud of my accomplishments on the treadmill or concerned that I am aging too fast. (Like Whitman, I say, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes".)) I can be coasting or struggling, but, still, the Sabbats ARE. And each one calls to me, in the midst of my pleasure or my struggle, and reminds me to pay attention to the forces of the planet, to the Wheel of the Year, to what is always available to me as a With.

You come with me; we'll turn the Wheel together.

Picture found here.

I Hope for Beauty

"This is totally beauty. It's also vandalism." (Be still, my beating heart.)

I just have to say that, IMHO, this is magic of the highest sort.

I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean it literally.

IMHO, guerilla gardeners do magic, deep magic, magic that really matters, and I don't care that they show up ignorant of magical practice, without an athame, bearing no incense, wearing no pentacles or robes, and lacking any chants or spoken spells. It's enough that they not only "hope for beauty," but that they also (unlike too many self-proclaimed Pagans) show up in her service under the pale Moon light.

Sometimes when, in Wendell Berry's words, "despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives [and most of all, what my G/Son's life] may be," (which lately is, you know, almost every night), I remind myself of something that Starhawk said after the midterm elections:

Remember that the real work of change is always going on—if not in Washington, then in thousands of towns and neighborhoods and communities, if not in the halls of power, then in the streets. Don’t be complacent, but don’t despair. All around us are allies working for more justice, more freedom, more ecological balance, more peace. This is not a time to fall back, but to step up, to be bolder, braver, louder, funnier, more inventive, more outrageous, more committed. Political winds blow back and forth—hold to your deepest values, and we’ll stay the course.

Guerilla gardeners are my allies, working for more ecological balance, more peace. I guess that it's time for me to step up, be bolder, braver, funnier, more inventive, more outrageous, more committed. It's time for me to do some serious guerilla gardening. Like Margaret Cho, I have decided to stay and fight. I'm going to hold to my deepest values and stay the course.

What other options are there? What have you decided?

The Witch of "This" Place

Suddenly, the nights are noticeably longer and there are, in fact, leaves falling on the lawn. The CSA is delivering acorn squash, and apples, and mushrooms and I'm thinking of soups. I've been able to turn off the air conditioning and open up the windows. In a few days, the Wheel of the Year will have turned all the way around to Mabon, the second of the three Harvest Feasts. (For the first time in years, I'll be out of town, away from my amazing circle of women, celebrating on my own, due to a court schedule beyond my control. I'm working on a plan to commune with some new nature so that I don't wind up making a sad little altar in my hotel room and feeling (too!) sorry for myself.)

Having three harvests is a pretty neat thing. It goes back, I think, to a time when monoculture was unheard of. If you grow different fruits and vegetables and raise different animals (as any sane people would do unless they lived in an incredibly hostile environment), they mature at different times. And you have different harvests, which come in an almost rolling cascade: radishes and asparagus giving way to too many tomatoes, the tomatoes giving way to too many zucchini, the zucchini giving way to the first autumn squashes and winter greens. In my herb garden, the tarragon is finished and the basil is warning me that if I don't "get around" this weekend to making it into pesto to be frozen in ice cube trays for the winter, I'll be out of luck. One thing about harvests is, when the food is ready to be picked, it's ready to be picked. We have to stop, pay attention, do what the plant requires of us when the plant requires it. That's part of what it means to be "in relationship" with the land.

It's traditional among many Wiccans to view this time of year as a time when we "harvest" other things, as well. If you set goals for yourself last Samhein, and if you've worked on those goals and been blessed with good health and good luck, you may be close to reaping the rewards of your work, whether spiritual, magical, financial, emotional, physical, or educational. And, if you're not, now's a good time to figure out what you can salvage and what happened to get in your way, all in preparation for the final harvest feast of Samhein.

I find it a good time of year, as well, to take stock. What have you got to carry you into the cold and difficult part of the year? What might you need to focus on now, that may have gotten lost in the heat of summer, the long days laboring in the threshing field?

If you consider yourself to be a member of a Nature Religion, I'd like to suggest that one of the areas you consider is your relationship with Nature. Do you have a relationship with -- not just a vaguely benign feeling for -- your landbase, your local watershed, some particular plants, or animals, or places near to where you live? If so, what can you do to improve that relationship? We Witches say that power follows attention. If not, what can you do to begin to actually live your Nature Religion? We Witches say that power follows attention.

By now, you know that I don't believe that, "Well, but I live in the city," is a good excuse. Most Pagans in America today live in cities. And the landbase of every city in America is crying out for relationship with its humans. You don't have to have a yard. As I've noted before, cities are full of deserted spaces, almost custom made for a Witch's attention and connection. (And devotee of Hers that I am, I can't help but mention that it is in just such deserted, liminal spaces that Hecate often resides.) In Last Child in the Forest: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv writes about the work of Robert Michael Pyle, who described his relationship as a child with "a century-old irrigation channel near his home. The ditch . . . was his 'sanctuary, playground, and sulking walk,' his 'imaginary wilderness, escape hatch, and birthplace as a naturalist.'"

Louv:

"These are the places of initiation, where the borders between ourselves and other creatures break down, where the earth gets under our nails and a sense of play gets under our skin," Pyle writes. These are the "secondhand lands, the hand-me-down-habitats where you have to look hard to find something to love." Richard Mabey, a British writer and naturalist calls such environments, undeveloped and unprotected, the "unofficial countryside." Such habitats are often rich with life and opportunities to learn; in a single decade, Pyle recorded some seventy kinds of butterflies along his ditch.

What "unofficial countryside" is your countryside? The crisp Fall days are perfect for walking around, looking, and listening. Tell me what you find.

Picture found here.

Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.

~Charge of the Goddess

The Witch's Relationship to the Land

[R]oots are essential to the [W]itch. Just as she needs to know human nature if she is to find the freedom to use her emotional energy and that provoked in others, so must she know the natural world around her and its own flows of energy. A [W]itch, then, is entirely committed to her landscape. She doesn't just know how it functions; she aims to know every part of it. In constant relationship with it, she becomes attuned to both its short cycles of change and its long journey of changing.

It need not be a beautiful rural environment; the witch may be happier in the big city, the suburbs, or a place needing protection or regeneration. Wherever she is, she seeks out that intensity of connection with all those who make up the ecosystem. . . . Every action is a potential interaction, acknowledging presence, purpose and communication, and where the energy is strong, her respect rises. It may be with the mountains, the darkness, the forest or deer; it may be with the river of traffic, the wind that moves around the buildings, the sunlight on glass, the scents of anger, hunger and wit. Wherever she is, enthused by the divine hum of creativity, touched by the powerful desire to control, the witch seeks and finds her dark [G]oddess of potential.

Emma Restall Orr in Kissing the Hag: The Dark Goddess and the Unacceptable Nature of Women.

Restall Orr is acknowledging a point we still sometimes conveniently forget: Most modern Pagans live in urban environments. If we're to live our religion every day, and not merely a few times a year when we go on vacation or head for a Pagan festival, then we need to be Pagans, Witches, in the cities where we live. And, as Restall Orr explains, that means being in relationship with the natural world (of which humans are a part) in our cities. We can't just sit inside a sealed apartment and read books about communicating with trees, healing some abstract place called "the land," and imagining the wonderful magic we'd do if we lived in a cottage by the sea.

There's probably a narrow strip of blighted land right next to the parking lot of that sealed apartment. The soil may be crap, made worse by not-well-removed construction debris, litter, poorly-planned runoff, and the fumes of the cars that drive past. There may be a few weeds struggling to grow on the hard, cracked soil and in between the rocks and concrete. Occasionally, a crow may land there, looking for a place from which to fly out and pick at roadkill, in between the cars that whiz past. And it's right there, out your window, every day.

You don't need to travel to it or wait for that far-off day when you move to a bit of land that will call to you for relationship. You can visit that strip of land tonight, when the crescent moon is high and the traffic slows. At first, you might just walk on it, introduce yourself to it, tell it that you want to get to know it. Caress and breathe on the weeds. Go back inside and learn their names. Those are good plants for this land; they can grow there even under bad conditions. Maybe tomorrow night, you can take the land a gift: some used coffee grounds for the soil (Starbucks will give you bags and bags for free), some water that you've blessed for the weeds. Maybe you can do that every night between now and the Dark Moon on the 10th. Maybe one night, you'll decide to pick up the litter. Maybe one night, you'll send the energy of sex magic to that bit of Earth. Maybe one night, you'll notice how much healthier the weeds are looking. Maybe when they go to seed, you'll save some in a small brown envelope that you've covered with runes.

And that's how it begins. What happens to that strip of land as Autumn comes on, as the weeds die? How quickly does its snowcover turn to black from car exhaust? What might you do in the Spring to encourage what were 5 weeds to turn into 15? How will "your" place call forth what Restall Orr describes as your "dark [G]oddess of potential"? How will you call its forth? What will the resulting relationship look like?

Picture found here.

It's Elemental

My great luxury this Summer is water.

A year ago, Landscape Guy put in trees, dozens of gardenia bushes, hundreds of day lilies, lots and lots of toad lilies, butterbur, and ferns. Then, the blizzards of early 2010 hit and damaged quite of bit of what we'd done. Now, we're in the middle of a quite dry Summer. And, so, I water.

I do have a rain barrel and it helps quite a bit. Every morning and twice every evening, I move the hose to a different spot to drain the water onto another dry area in the garden. And, then, I turn on the sprinkler. I've been packing lunches, doing w/o much air conditioning, foregoing new clothes to pay for the water. It's what I really want.

In the Winter, my great luxury is often Fire, in the form of gas heat, although I also luxuriate in knitted covers (Earth) and hot baths (Water, Fire), warm soups (Earth), and the scent of dried herbs (Earth, Air).

What elemental luxuries do you enjoy this time of year?

Blessing Of The Sacred Day To You

Holy Mother, has there ever been a more perfect Litha day? Here in the nation's capital, it's sunny and hot, but not too muggy, and there's a lovely gentle breeze doing the most loving dance with all the leaves. The fae are still lingering from last night, just as the magic of good company still lingers on my porch. The daisies, day lilies, thyme, and basil are all abloom and my deck is a constant visiting place for robins, morning doves, blue jays, cardinals, hairy woodpeckers, and an occasional chipmunk. What a change from Yule, when my wonderful circle of amazing women couldn't get together due to a freakishly large blizzard, I couldn't even open the door to get out and feed the birds, and all the plants were buried under feet and feet of snow.

Litha is, when we live our lives in tune with the seasons, the time to appreciate how well our lives are going. What we planted at Ostara and Beltane should now be in bloom, and, of course, I don't mean "just" our herbs and flowers. If we've planted a regular daily practice, it is beginning to flower. If we've planted good works, kindness, and love, we'll be reaping those fruits.

If we're not happy with what we've got, there's still time for a mid-course correction between now and, say, Mabon, Samhein, Yule. As the days diminish, what needs to diminish in your life? As the nights grow long, what part of the mystery do you need to cultivate? What do you want to water? What should wither away in the late-Summer heat? How will you accept responsibility?

Picture found here.

Blessed Litha

Turn the Wheel.

What We Envision

Dark of the Moon, new beginnings.
Dark of the Moon, plant a seed tonight.
Dark of the Moon, what we envison,
Will come to be, in the Full Moon's Light.

Let's go do magic, Witches.

Picture found here.

As Rumi Said: Wake Up! Don't Go Back To Sleep!

Tomorrow (Goddess willing) you are going to wake up.

You are going to wake up in the middle of Sacred Matter (sheets, pillows, mattress, nightgown, self), Sacred Relationships, Sacred Dreams. And you are going to go about your Work. You are going to go about your Work inside a temple that you may not recognize, surrounded by Acolytes of the Teachings of Patience, Priestesses of the Message of the Importance of Assistance, Demons sent from Hel, sent to prod you into Waking Up!

You are going to perform the sacred act of incorporating into the body of a Priestess: sacred grains from Mother Earth (grits or Cheerios or oatmeal or whole wheat toast), sacred beans from the Mountain Forests of the Last Inhabited Continent (coffee), or Tisanes made from Sacred Leaves, grown on the Hillsides of the Himalayas (iced tea).

You are going to accept the gift of ancient dying forests, dead dinosaurs, and the pressure of Mother Earth (oil) in order to get to where your destiny demands that you go: work, your child's daycare center, your school, a field where you will harvest food. (And, given the sacredness and diminishing availability of that gift, what v important thing will you do? How can you honor that gift where and as you are?)

You are going to access a privilege unknown to your mother, your grandmothers, your great-grandmothers, your many-many-many-many-many times great ancestresses and talk, over distances, to friends, employers, family, journalists, even weird bloggers. You are going to flip a switch and wash the dishes that would have taken your great-grandmother hours to wash, push a button and wash the clothes that she would have labored all day to clean, punch some numbers and communicate to distant relatives what she would have taken an hour to pen in a letter.

And, then, tomorrow night, you will go to bed, sigh, and wish that you lived in enchanted times.

But you -- you -- you are called to live as a Priestess, a Witch, a lover of Enchantment, now, today, in this world. This one. The one where you will wake up tomorrow and either add to Enchantment, Magic, the World of the Goddess, or sustain the myth of the mundane.

Whose side are you on, Sister? Whose side are you on?

Picture found here.

Trees

Almost all of the snow from the terrible winter of 2009/2010 is melted and it's possible to look around and assess the damage. Many of the trees here in the D.C. area, including lots of really ancient ones, took a terrible pounding from the snow. Trees such as hollies and magnolias, that keep their not-needle-like leaves and, thus, catch a lot of snow, were particularly hard hit, but they certainly weren't the only ones. Leyland Cypress, which were quite popular 15 to 20 ago as wind screens and privacy fences, fell over by the score. It's heartbreaking to see old friends with missing limbs, disfigured, broken. Yes, it's possible to see this winter's events as the same sort of "periodically necessary" pruning that forest fires perform out West. But that doesn't make my heart bleed much less for the five-story-high magnolia just down the street from my office that lost great big branches.

Here's one local witch's way of attempting to heal the hurt.

I stopped for a visit to Sligo Creek Park. I hadn’t visited in so long, and the bright sun reminded me of why I love that park. I walked to the bridge and paused to listen to the waters. I breathed deeply as I crossed the bridge; it felt like coming home.

And that is when I noticed all the damage. Several of the trees had lost branches; some had lost major limbs. It was devastating. One poor young tree had been split in two, exposing her delicate inner structure to the wind and the rain.

I paused at each wounded tree and expressed my deep sympathy and grief for its loss. Touching my hands where I could over the open wounds, connecting to the still living trunks, I expressed my hopes and prayers for recovery.

At the poor tree ripped asunder, I expressed my sorrow and I could feel her respond. I reminded her that her life was not over, as long as she could still feel her roots in the soil and take in nourishment from the sun and rain, she could still grow and thrive. I asked the older trees, especially those who themselves were wounded to tell this young tree about how life could continue. And to tell her especially that she would live not in spite of her wounding, but now more because of her wounds.

As I sat down to rest a bit before returning to my car, something broke apart inside of me. I suddenly felt all that had been wrenched away from me. I could see all my inner preciousness and vulnerabilities exposed to the elements. And just as suddenly I began sobbing. My poor shoulders were trembling with each wave of tears. As I sat in my misery, I suddenly heard voices. It was the trees repeating back to me all I said to comfort the youngest of them.

“You will live on not in spite of your wounding, but because of [it].”

Now a new wave of sobs erupted shaking my entire frame. I cried and cried until I didn’t even care who saw it. I cried until I no longer could hide my sadness or repress my grief.

Yeah, there was something going on in my heart. This wounded warrior was carrying a lot of unexpressed grief. Grief I now know that must be expressed and cared for in the now and not stored in my body.

As I left the park, I expressed my deep gratitude to the trees. And to all my healers and teachers, I say Namaste.

That's part of what we Witches mean when we talk about "being in relationship" with things like trees. It's not just a one-way transfer of energy; it's a, well, a relationship.

I see that Omega Center is offering a timely workshop on entering into relationship with trees.

Trees are generous beings. We appreciate their gifts of oxygen, inspiration, and healing. Let’s return the favor by becoming their healers and protectors.

When Tree Whispering™ experts Jim Conroy and Basia Alexander put their hands on trees, they feel bark, and also a bio-energy field of information and wonder. This weekend, they lead us to touch the majestic trees of Omega, experience growth energy, and take meditative journeys into trees’ inner dimensions.

We learn permission-based Green Centrics™ holistic energy healing methods from integrative medicine, ancient wisdom, faerie folklore, and new sciences in our approach to trees. We enjoy “coming from the tree’s point of view,” listening for messages with our intuition, and hands-on procedures.

In mindful—even sacred—ways, our interconnectedness deepens. While tree whispering, we shift and grow our very being in harmony with global transformations. In practical ways, garden chores become a respectful and cooperative partnership. Our trees at home will become healthier, and expectations for improving forest health multiply.

. . .

Jim Conroy, PhD in plant pathology from Purdue University, is The Tree Whisperer™. As founder of the Green Centrics™ system and president of Plant Health Alternatives, he heals, saves, and protects trees. A speaker, teacher, and certified organic land care professional, he has more than 25 years’ experience as a corporate executive. TheTreeWhisperer.com

Basia Alexander is an author, teacher, coach, and cocreative innovator [/Sigh]. As founder of the Institute for Co-Creative Cooperation with NATURE, she advances widespread adoption of NATURE-Partnership concepts and practices. PartnerWithNature.org

If you're looking to deepen your relationship with the trees in your landbase, you could do worse than to pick one or two, spend time with them, learn about them, listen to what they whisper, and begin to whisper back.

Picture found here.

Goodbye And Thanks For All The Fish.

OK, February 2010, it's been nice, well, no, it really hasn't been, knowing you. See 'ya around. Or not. Here, let me help you find your things. Want me to help you into your coat? Here you go, don't forget your purse. Wouldn't want you to have to come back for anything, would we? OK, bye! Here, I'll open the door. Yeah, yeah, we should get together again, or not. OK, definitely not. Bye. So long! Adiós! Khau bulyghyz! Au revoir! Auf Wiedersehen! Gee, look at the time! My goodness, tomorrow's going to come really early. OK, bye, now! I'll never forget you. Really. Have a nice trip. Or, not. Actually, just go and if you manage to fall off a steep ledge, that's fine with me. Git. Scram. Off'a my property. Disappear. Vamoose. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Good bye you sorry excuse for a month. I'm GLAD you're only 28 days long. There's a reason they gave you fewer days than all the other months. You, February 2010, were the Worst. Month. Ever. And, now, ha! your time is up. Over. Done. Bye!

gif found here.

Can We Live Through February?

Winter Doldrums?

Although the weather wizards are calling for a bit more snow to fall on us, here in the MidAtlantic, where we're still not able to travel completely normally or to look outside and see anything but feet and feet of snow, if you "listen" with your body, you can feel the Wheel turning, sense the coming of Spring. The Sun's up earlier every morning and its light is stronger, especially, it seems to me, in the early evening when it hovers, more and more reluctant to go, on the Western horizon. The buds on the trees are bigger and bigger and, every few days, some new kind of bird returns from the South. It reminds me a bit of those moments when you're not quite awake, and, indeed, you could almost fall all the way back into a dream, but when you also know that soon you're going to wake up and start the day.

I think, and YMMV, that there's an advantage for Witches to being in deep relationship with a particular place, in order to appreciate fully the Turning of the Wheel of the seasons. And that takes time. It takes, as most relationships do, time spent with the beloved, both when it's pleasant and when it's not. It takes daily and hourly attention, not simply an attempt to reconnect 8, or 13, or even 21 times a year. It takes being open to the pain and degradation that the land has experienced and is experiencing, as much as it takes being open to delight in the blossoming of flowers or the warming of the soil. It takes turning off the tv, or the computer, or the cell phone, or your monkey mind, and, ok, it must be said: Going Outside.

Now, we all know, the problem with Nature Religions is, well, Nature. Snow and freezing cold in the Winter, rain and mud in the Spring, heat and mosquitoes in the Summer, wet leaves in the Autumn. And, so, one of the more practical parts of this religion can be learning how to be outside in each of those situations. Boots and shawls and Yax Trax in Winter, a mosquito repellant, discovered after trial and error, that works in the Summer. But if you're serious about being in relationship, then you have to do what's necessary to allow you to spend time with the beloved. And the rewards are substantial.

I was over at G/Son's yesterday, for the first time since the crushing snow that we got here, and he and his 'rents were showing me some v. large trees of theirs that came down in the snow. G/Son said, "Look, Nonna! Our trees came down, just like this!" and then he lay, face down on the floor, arms and legs spread out. The fall of those magnificent trees was too intense to discuss with mere words, it was, for him, a full-body experience. That's relationship.

May it be so for you.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

Imbolc 2010

It snowed several inches last night, but today's sun, and temperatures in the low 40s, melted much of it. An almost perfect day for astrological Imbolc. I slept in and did conference calls and answered emails and read cases from home, my snug little cottage in the Potomac watershed. I'd gone out last night and hung suet and peanuts and sunflowers from my euonymus bush, so that the birds could calorie-up before being snowed in. I needn't have worried. I was able to go out on the deck this morning without slipping and pour sunflower seeds on a cleared-off surface for the birds.

And, after the conference calls, I decided to set my altar up outside, albeit that I have a lovely, cozy room set aside in my cottage for ritual. It was sunny and the snow was melting and I figured that, with a sweater and a shawl, I could be comfortable outside for the better part of an hour. My wonderful circle of amazing women did our Imbolc celebration over the weekend, with the full Moon, but this afternoon was just for me, the Witch of this Place, as I announce myself before calling the Quarters and beginning to do the work of a priestess who helps to turn the wheel. I did what witches do and I called to Brigid the Bright and, as I always do on Imbolc, I started my datura seedlings. Datura's poison; don't handle it w/o gloves or some other barrier and always wash your hands afterwards. But the flowers are pure white, and they smell of lemon drenched in vanilla, and, in the late summer, they open in the moonlight. The seeds take a long time to germinate; you plant them and water them and give them light and then you always think: this batch is a dud; they're not going to germinate, nothing wic here. And, then, long after you've given up, the first green sprouts appear.

I did what I do in circle and I charged the tiny peat pots and the lovely little seeds and I planted the seeds in the peat pots and charged the whole thing and then I looked up. On the deck, were about a dozen birds of all sorts, including both the cardinal and the blue jay, who never show up together. They didn't mind me and they didn't mind my iPhone playing music and they didn't mind the pinon incense and they didn't mind the 7 different candles burning. They were just there to help to turn the wheel because, well, because the wheel needs turning and they live here, too.

May Spring begin in your heart and move outwards from there into the world. May the beautiful poison thing in you bloom and perfume the world. May all the winged dragons of your special place attend you. May you become the priestess of your own bit of Earth.

This is my will. So mote it be.

Photos by the author. If you copy, please link back.

Go On, Wheel, Turn For Goddess' Sake! Turn!

It did, this decade did suck. But, still, some amazing things happened to me.

1. Son married the loveliest, kindest, most down-to-Earth woman -- a kick-ass, take-no-prisoners prosecutor of whom I am in awe, an amazingly, instinctively wonderful mother, a creative cook, and a lady with the deadly accurate instincts of a risk-taker and a yogini. I get to be not only the mother of the gentlest gentleman, funniest Scorpio, strongest father, and all-round kindest person I have ever known, I also get to be the MiL to a DiL that I love. May your children, too, marry well.

2. G/Son. And, as Mr. Frost said, that has made all the difference. I hope that, just once in your life, you get to love someone as much as I love G/Son, that the simple fact of someone's existence can make you as inordinately happy as G/Son's existence makes me every minute of every day.

3. I found my long-desired cottage home and a collaborator (thanks, Landscape Guy!) for the garden that I've been wanting ever since, at about seven years old, I read The Secret Garden. I was born to be the human part of this tiny landbase. Like a good lover, it completes me. May you find your "bit of Earth" and may it love you back as this bit of Earth loves me and I love it.

4. The Witches. My wonderful circle of amazing women. We've grown, shrunk, grown, done amazing political and personal magic. We've sunk our roots into this city and become a part of its magical infrastructure in ways that the denizens of this city never suspect and we've done it flying well below the radar of the city's Pagan community. We support each other, infiltrate, do magic in places where it should be impossible. As Barbara Starrett said:

I am a secret agent
Of the moon

Ex-centric
Extra-ordinary
Extra-sensory
Extra-terrestrial

Celestial subversive
Con-spiratorial
Spirita Sancta

Holy
Holy
Holy

And then some
And I have friends.

May you, too, have such friends.

5. I took a tiny, obscure bit of United States Code -- moribund for decades and decades -- and turned it into a several-billion-dollar win. It was the sort of pure fun that no one ever tells you that you can have doing law. It's addictive; it can cost an awful lot of nights' sleep and produce an awful lot of of grey hairs, but it's like riding a wave of pure energy. May you, too, have breakthrough wins. I have a job where I get paid to read, talk, and write about issues that matter to me and where, more often than not, I get a published opinion that says: Hecate wins, you other guys, not so much. I like to win. I do. I never expected to have such a great job. May it be so for you.

6. One late afternoon, on the balcony at Morton's, Son explained to me about this guy called "Atrios," and these things called "blogs" and, well, who knew? May you, too, find the creative outlet that works for you.

May this coming decade bring you delightful surprises, unearned gifts, Moon-lit dances, and serious wins.

What were the highpoints of the Aughts for you?

Photo by the author from her garden. If you copy, please link back.

Fare Thee Well, Aughts!

What a decade. It was Sandra Day's fault, but it was my fault, too, and yours, for not rioting in the streets. Well, done is done and, thank the Goddess, the Aughts are done.

Come with me. Strip. Shed your past as cleanly and as decisively as the snake sheds her skin. Leave all the old markers behind. Stand naked on the high hill. Ground. Take a huge lungfull of the icy cold air, the clarity; right now, this is all about the element of Air. Then, leap. Open your heart and let go of everything. Leap into the energy of the enormous Blue Moon that will end this decade and begin the next, spread the wings you didn't know that you had, and soar into the Teens with me.

This song always reminds me of the poem by Mary Oliver:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

But, we can do so much more than "just" save our lives. We can, with prodigal abandon, begin to spend our lives. Which, of course, reminds me of the Rumi poem:

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
"What a bargain, let's buy it!"

May this be the decade when energy becomes green, civilization becomes sustainable, the noosphere comes into its own, women assume half the power in the world, witches are honored instead of murdered, art matters more than war, and your life becomes an amazing collaboration with your very own landbase, watershed, biosphere, higher self/sacred dove/Goddess-self.

Make one wish for yourself on December 31, 2019. Go write it down here. Then, do what witches do: you begin by casting a circle.

Blessed new decade to you.