Equilibrium Recalibration

Ok now less than a week until Beltane
and down the mountain
the trees bloom, it rains and is still a bit cold.
Perfect Spring.

Fast paced bursting forward of shoots and bugs and buds
We watch the lilac leaves grow daily, the forsythia yellow and the landscape come to color.
Birds everywhere, the brook rushes loud.
It makes you want to dance with joy on our Earth.
 

Though we woke to ice and snow in NYC last week
and had leftover snow here for a few days,
the fields of growing greenness replaced the endless white of this month since equinox.
Just as the blooming land and birds were like a dream
so too now the frozen landscape is a memory.
It is real Spring, cool mornings and warm afternoons bursts of activity and life.
Finally.

 

equinox sunrise

equinox morning
 

We gathered as families and individuals, 
some without their children and new folks with toddlers.
Our kid is here always even if he would rather be elsewhere.

Every day since our gathering I think of
the simple happiness (or honest sadness)
of the young ones.

I believe it was the child energy
as direct connection with spirit
that finally brought our Springtime back,
that helped to melt the piles of snow,
that encouraged the flowers to bloom.

  
snow and sacrifice and waters and fire
     

Notes from the day of our Equinox ritual:
The forgotten sound of the rushing stream.
While the family sleeps, I start the day:
Kitchen cleaning, boiling eggs,
finding balance
on schedule, including time for coffee and sitting
balancing all-
mom, cleaner, cook, bookkeeper, nurse, friend-
being quiet and saying thanks
on self-structured time
letting go
balancing wood, stacked against the wind
finding where to help, where to be silent.

small children  arrive and declare “Hi!”
the universal welcome of openness.
The smiles of children as another dimension.

Eagle in the east
birds & friends
many cooks
letting go. 
  
Grumpy older kid
finding balance
between toys and joy
and new distractions.
making him cut strawberries.
the delightfulness of small trucks.

The light in the well,
the poof of herbs in the fire
others cooking in the kitchen.
Just showing up is sacrifice


Our ancestors-dead people- closer to us than the birds, calling in a favor, watching over us

Children laughing in the snow fort
Sun gathering strength

Down to the last drop
One with the Earth

The connection between the dark ground and the shining sun overhead
feel yourself
balanced.

So quickly the bird songs and the stream become normal, regular sounds of our day, not the magic of newness, though always magical.
I am grateful for this outside season.
I am grateful to be able to pray for our good health,
for our safety and the safety of others,
for a healthy planet and for clarity of purpose.
Grateful for the beauty around us each day, for the moon and the sun rising and shining and setting.
Grateful for friends and family and art and nature.

so much gratitude to offer and so little time. Spring.           

Our Omens:

Sowelu or the Sun!
Gibor or gift
Raido or communication
Tiwaz- truth or balance

 Bryan pulled virtue cards to remind us  

Hospitality is the Sowelu
Perseverance is the Gibor
Fertility is the Raido
Wisdom is the Tiwaz

        

Imbolc, harbinger of Spring, part 3

Today I stood on bare earth, crows cawed.
Woke to a mourning dove call.

It’s going to get cold again, but, as promised,
Spring will come
sometime.

Now another week of more cold and just enough snow 
only on our road to make late night driving scary.

One last winter storm maybe,
and still some slick roads ahead,
but the trees are coloring faintly with imperceptible buds and there will be no holding back.

Thank you Goddess Bridget for watching over us.
Thank you Bridget for your sage advice and care.
Thank you Bridget for your keening and your light and your ever expanding girdle, like our hearts and lungs, enough to include all our laughter, prayers and dreams.

Thank you Earth Mother for being so strong.
Thanks for supporting me and all life.
Thanks for giving of yourself always.

Our ritual was after days of snow and before the big snow. After sub-zero temps and before the polar vortex became a household phrase. After our buddy was sick and I was injured and while we were all on the mend.
After Pete had passed and before the memorial to his life.
Grateful for the daily gift of good health and life.

No wood to spare, nothing that would really burn, we started the fire with Clementine and egg cartons, recycling and reusing, and there was barely enough warmth to keep us not completely cold in the faint icy drizzle.
The warmth was in our minds and our eyes.

 

Some of the biggest flames before we begin,
or maybe there is no beginning just a present,
a constancy of cold or ice or light or fire.
I see she is here already.

Our well of ice, moving and solid, changing and rigid.
Water in many forms, all mysterious, all essential.  

our humble fire, our simple sacrifice,
honoring the directions fanning the flames,
centering ourselves here in the damp cold,
in our heart and with our breath and from our guts.

Oh Bridget, thank you for your ever present flame,
spark of life.

Lots of eggs, lots of dairy, lots of snow.

women give prayers.
the moms tend the families, speak what is felt by all.
crying for loss, asking for support, giving seeds, food, love.
Bridget watches.

   
   
 

   

then the final sacrifice.
aromatic herbs from our garden from the summer,
so long ago, so forgotten.
Sweet scents waft over and around us.

Omens from my rune set:From the Ancestors: Uruz the Primordial Ox, the strength and urge of life that is within all things
From the Spirits of Nature & Place: Sowelu the Sun, the sun’s order and regularity
From the Gods & Goddesses: Isa or Ice, the frozen and rigid inflexible often transparent, shiny and slippery
For the Season: Ehwaz the Horse, empowered partnership

Our ice cold waters, our chilly backs, our laughter through the magic work, Bridget’s expanding girdle thrice danced around the circle, each time different, helping each other through.

Closing quickly, grounding silently, gentle sleet pushing us in. 

 

Our candle at the Bridget altar by the stream faintly gurgling under the snow burned late into the night,
past the memorial, past the rain, direct to the source.