Tag: spirit

Too Early to Wake Up

Full Moon blessings to you all!

“It is too early to wake up,” were my first thoughts of the day.

This is when I forced myself out of bed into the crisp new day. The sky was still a pale shade of grey-blue and the clouds painted themselves across the rising sun in the patchy pattern of a tortoise shell.

The garden was still fresh with dew, the grass a soft moist carpet beneath my feet. The sun trickled like streams of golden honey seeping through the trees. Like an enchanting watercolour, it painted the quiet spaces of the garden in soft magic and tints of light.

It is then, when it’s too early to wake up that I rediscover the pieces of wildness in me and in the still young hours of the day. It is then that the Great Mother wraps me in her gentle whispers and draws me out to bask in sacredness.

It is then that the elusive red-chested cuckoo from the river canopy down the road makes its way to hidden places in the garden trees to serenade the rising sun.

And the gossamer threads of spider-webs glimmer like pieces of the golden fleece.

And the Earth is alive, a vibrant Mother, sends pulses of wild energy into my body, grounding me, cleansing my aura and reaching into my heart-space.

These still mornings, when it’s too early to wake up are the invitations to enter wild worlds, even in the tameness of my garden.

These invitations work both ways, for as much as the Great Mother draws me out, it is important for me to leave room for wild worlds to enter into my own. Which is why I just love Mary Reynolds Thompson’s latest post and short writing prompt, Should My Fox Come Again to My Cabin in the Snow.

Also, I was pretty excited to have my guest post, Finding the kindness of the wild Earth, featured on the Kind over Matter blog last week.

houses on the hills2

Do you hear the stars singing?

After an evening swim, I sat outside on my little veranda with a pot of freshly brewed raspberry leaf tea and sipped its fruity deliciousness. I counted the stars as they burned themselves into the heavens. They scattered across the moonlit sky one by one. The evening shifted to darker and darker shades of blue as time grew older and I wondered what the stars were singing.

Do you ever hear the stars singing?

It is said that the stars sing loudly over the desert. That’s what the Bushmen in the Kalahari believe. Attuned to the energies of the Earth and the Universe, they tell stories of hearing the star soaked music filling the night air. Some say that they’ve woven these star songs into their own music. The Bushmen also believed that those who could not hear the stars singing suffered a terrible sickness of the soul, for they were not attuned to the invisible strings and threads that tie us all to Spirit and to the land.

This story brings to mind a poem by Hankasso (/Han=kass’o), a Kalahari Bushmen poet from the late 1800s whose translated work is published in an anthology that I bought several years ago. In his poem titled “What the stars say” he wrote:

“I grew up listening to the stars
the stars saying: ‘tsau! and “tsau!’
it is always summer when you hear the stars say ‘tsau!’

I’ve not heard the stars sing myself, but it’s such an enchanting thought. I imagine that what the Bushmen speak of is similar to the wild whispers and subtle nudges of wisdom that find their way into my heart when I deep practise stillness and immerse myself in Nature. Stories and poems like this remind me that the mystery is always there, whether we notice or understand it or not. The wild Earth always has something to say to those who wish to listen. And art is in the listening, for when you tap into your intuitive senses and listen with the ears of your heart, chances are you’ll be transformed by the profound beauty of what you hear.

“Some call it augury; I call it listening to the land, and its dreamings.” ~ Sharon Blackie

raspberry pot

Night Time Mysteries – and “the world that could be ours”

This morning I walked out to greet the garden at the mystery hour of dawn. The air was so still, warm and soothing, it was as if I’d stepped into a comforting hug.

As I stood barefoot on the moist grass to ground myself, I was fascinated to discover a sea of wild mushrooms had sprung up overnight. Mushrooms are like magic. There was no sign of them yesterday. Yet today, there they were. I couldn’t help but imagine them being birthed under the midnight sky, only faeries and a thousand twinkling stars there to witness the miracle of their essence coming into being.

What other mysterious things are born in the dark hours of night, I wonder? When I lay my head to slumber and my soul returns to its place in the stars? What unseen things manifest before the sunrise of a new day illuminates the world? And also, who plucks the flowers from my tomato plant at night before they’ve had a chance to bear fruit?

It makes me think of Mary Oliver’s poem, Five AM in the Pinewoods. In the poem she talks about how she gathered from spoor tracks in the pine needles that two deer had visited the woods where she lives at night. So she goes to that spot in the wee hours of the morning to wait for them and quietly watches the pair when they show up. Oliver says that this isn’t a poem about a dream, but rather a poem about ‘the world that could be ours.’

Indeed, the world of Spirit and of Nature is so full of precious and wild mysteries just waiting for us to notice. And when we do notice, when we show up and pay attention, we discover a whole new world. One where Goddess is ever present. Along with this comes a deeper understanding of the inner mysteries of our souls. And perhaps by openning up to that world, we too may come to experience what Mary Oliver discovered when she said:

“so this is how you swim inward,

so this is how you flow outward,

so this is how you pray.”

~ Mary Oliver

mushrooms