Spring

After the eclipse things have changed. We're also past the Spring Equinox and today it feels like spring already. Birds are singing in the garden and the seedlings I've set are stirring in their pots. I know I'll have to keep them covered at night from frosts, but I feel so optimistic today, so full of hope. It's not that I have wished the winter away as I believe in living every season as it comes. But today I feel so full of spring that I can let go of a tightness inside and open up.

I'll look tonight for the sickle moon in what should be a clear sky. As she grows I will grow with her and come to fullness. So I hope.

Stirrings

My small garden looks so ragged, so in need of love. But I tell myself it is as it is supposed to be at this time of year. So I keep to putting things on the compost heap for later, pay my respects to the garden spirits at my altar under the thorn tree and bide my time, as the garden spirits tell me to. Spring is stirring slowly but, again, I tell myself to take each day as it comes, as a blessing in rain or sunshine, in wind or calm stillness : these are the elements of our being and we must live them as they come to us just as we must live with both happiness and sadness, as I do.

Imbolc

So Imbolc has come and gone. The candle I lit burnt down. These cold days with blue skies seem so pure and fresh. So like my feeling for Brigit. So like the pure whiteness of snow and of snowdrops. So clear like a teardrop on my cheek in the cold wind.

Another year grows. My eyes open to another Spring awaiting its time. 

I wait too, but must remember that the moment is Now. That is all there ever is.

Dark Moon Solstice

Usually I acknowledge the Winter Solstice by lighting a red candle at sunset that will burn through the night. Last night I needed to do something different because I also regularly acknowledge the Dark Moon and the two came together this year.

So instead of lighting a candle at sunset I waited until after midnight when the Solstice time had passed then turned off all lights and sat in the darkness for a long meditation on this dark time. Only after the time of the New Moon had also passed did I light a white candle and I waited until morning before lighting the red candle for the returning Sun.

I feel this is time for a new beginning and await guidance on where my path will take me and what the returning light will bring.

Invisibility

I want to be invisible. I want to go to the woods and be like a tree. So no-one can see me. Then I would be safe from people. There are other dangers I know. But I don't mind risking those. So I've been working on a spell of invisibility. So I can go out to the woods and dissolve into them and not be seen by other people.

I don't want to share the spell here, for that might make it not work. But I know I have to share some things and I don't think all other people are bad. So I come on here from time to time to be 'public', or visit other people's pages to see what they are doing. Here I'm not invisible but I'm in control of what I reveal and I feel that I can expose things safely. When I meet people face-to-face I am like that, always keeping  my secrets and staying safe. But also always looking for others  I might feel safe sharing secrets with. ......

So I went to the woods and I did the spell and sat near the path as still as a tree trying to be like an invisible dryad. Some people passed and ignored me. They receded and the wood spirits came closer. What I could see changed. I thought what other people saw of me also changed. I thought the spell worked. Then some more people came, a family with young children. A boy with a stick ran off the path towards me. I looked at him and he looked at me. Then he ran off. I think he saw me, but I wonder what he thought he had seen.

Coming Home

After writing what I did last time I have to say something different now. I walked out to a place that I used to go to a lot, but I haven't been there for a while. It's difficult to get to as it means quite a long walk along the forest track and then to scramble up a slope. But then there's a mossy hollow and a spring bubbling out of the ground. I never used to meet anyone coming up here but I think I felt discouraged from coming when some men in an off-road vehicle further down the track gave me a scare. They didn't do anything but the way they looked and laughed at something one of them said scared me. I wouldn't have stood a chance if they'd come after me. They shouldn't have been there anyway and I felt that the place had been violated, so I stayed away.

Today I felt called back there. I met no-one except a couple walking a dog at the beginning of the track. I got a bit scratched climbing up through the fern and bramble but once there I felt a deep peace almost like I could have curled up in the moss and dissolved into the place. I sat there for a long time watching the patches of sunlight filtering down through the trees. Then I went to the spring and spoke a spell of blessing. Afterwards there were tears in my eyes and I let one fall into the water.  It was overwhelming, like I was a lost daughter come back home. And I am.

Shadows

'All my bright uplooking
Is cast down'

I seem to have written that in my notebook about a year ago. But I don't know where it came from. Did I write it or copy it from somewhere? I don't know.

It's how I am though. After a couple of years of visions and openings I seem to have lost the sight. What was for a while a path to initiation taking me through the veil now seems just flat and ordinary. I still go out and look and see things that fill me with wonder and a feeling that I belong. But I can't see through them any more to what is beyond.

How could such a gift be granted me and then taken away?