Category: poetry

Summer Solstice 2025: Circles of Motion

Happy Summer Solstice!!

Summer Solstice occurs on Friday, June 20th, 2025 at 7:41 pm Pacific Time. It is the peak of light in the year—the longest day and the shortest night. Even if it’s not always the peak of greening and growing.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve been nonstop blooming since early February—snowdrops, heather, the many bulbs mom planted, the calendula that overwintered, marsh marigold, bleeding heart, the rhododendrons, the overwintered chamomile, western and eastern Solomon’s seal, lilacs, apple and pear trees, salal, salmonberry, and thimbleberry bushes, oxeye daisies, wallflower, chives, Astrantia, roses, Pacific Ninebark, foxglove, oriental poppy, and pond lilies! (And I know I missed some others…)

So, lots has been and will continue greening and growing!

This year, I’m more than ever aware of the circle of summer coming around again…all this blooming, over a few months leading us right into the Summer Solstice again. I love that I can still rely on the earth to grow again, to flower again, to create food, and beauty yet again! Like last year and the year before, and many before that.

But it’s happening early this year. And that worries me. Climate change is disrupting the seasonal circles.

As I write this, we have 2 inches less rain that we should have at this time of the year. It’s been a very dry spring. I have had to start watering the perennials a whole month earlier than last year. And my big water tank (270 gallons) is almost empty already…

Amidst all the flowers and greening, I am afraid and deeply sad about the disruption and damage we are causing the earth. The breaking up of the natural order, the natural circles of life.

This excerpt from Muscogee Joy Harjo’s Eagle Poem invites us into a way to be with this reality:

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.

The seasons are circles of motion of the earth. The earth shows herself to me in flowers and greening this time of year, but there are so many circles and so much motion happening underground and invisibly all around.

How can I open my whole self in prayer so that I can participate more fully in these circles of motion? Certainly, by tending the earth, by loving and caring for the earth, by listening to and praising the earth, sun, sky, and moon…

I pray for sun and rain and care and rest, that the earth receives these in the right amounts so that she can bloom and thrive.

I pray and give thanks as I create food and medicine from the plants the earth offers freely. This is one of the ways I can commune–by receiving these gifts and allowing them to heal me and my family.

…

I wonder if the earth prays? Maybe as I do, tangibly—in the winter-spring in rain, in the spring-summer in greening and flowers, in the summer in sun, and in the fall in apples and pears and Fall harvest?

And as I pray or the earth prays, do we know ourselves as one voice? Does she know me as earth standing on two feet? Do I recognize her many forms and shapes as me? And tend her as I tend myself—feeding, watering, brushing, cleaning, loving?

I find grace in knowing that the earth is always here, carrying us through the seasons, more than we know or can see, in circles of motion. For now.

June 20th: Summer Solstice Ritual, 6:00-7:30 pm
Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
outside in the Circle Garden/Courtyard.
Read more on my Calendar.

Fall Equinox 2024–Lying Down

Fall Equinox falls on Sunday, September 22nd, 2024 at 5:43 am PT.

It marks the beginning of Autumn in the US, and in the Celtic calendar, which aligns more closely with where I live in the PNW now, it’s the midway point, with Lughnasadh in early August as the start.

Veggies and fruits are being harvested and finishing up ripening in the last warm rays of the sun.

The light is changing—more angled, shining later on the gardens, highlighting the coming darkness.

And the sun is rising later and setting earlier—I find it surprising to wake up in darkness again!

Nancy Paddock’s poem “Lie Down” is a wonderful call for this season:

Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.

Now in Autumn, the busyness of summer is slowing and we are being invited, like the leaves on the trees, to drop, to return, to slow down, to lie down as we move closer to winter.

Sometimes this invitation comes from somewhere deep within and the bodysoul has no choice but to respond.

This happened with my pre-cervical cancer scare 10+ years ago. Receiving that diagnosis brought me right to ground and forced me to reorder my life to include more rest, more self-care, more lying down…

Or a client with a major depression who ended up needing mental health support in a hospital. She received a strong call to return to the ground of her being and to work on building a new way of body, heart, and mind in order to rise back up into living.

And sometimes we find ourselves out in the living earth, and the invitation comes from an other-than-human being.

Like it did for me on retreat last month. I found myself captivated by a big old Doug Fir stump who was obviously returning to ground, very slowly.*

Sitting, praying, singing, grounding with this stump being.

Breathing and opening the fronds of my heart with the sword fern at theirs.

Dropping thoughts, over and over, into the earth.

Taking in all the life growing in and around.

It was raining steadily so I did not physically lie down on the earth, but I did with the rest of my bodysoul, allowing myself to dissolve with the rain into the ground, with the decaying life.

Letting go of trying to know, letting go of being separate, letting the ground, the stump being, and the forest hold me.

And when it was time, I rose up with the earth still in me to return to the human world… and then returned to practice with stump being again and again over the rest of the retreat.

As the leaves fall and we move with earth
deeper and deeper into Fall, toward Winter,
may we find ways to lie down
with our bellies to the ground—physically or not.
The earth is always here waiting for us.

* On retreat, all electronics were off and stashed, so I have no picture of this being to share.

Spring Equinox 2024–Coming Alive!

Spring has been quietly and not-so-quietly growing since early February in the Pacific Northwest. Spring Equinox marks the middle for us, and for some areas, the beginning of Spring.

In 2024 Spring Equinox falls on March 19th at 8:06 pm Pacific Time. This is a time when the day and night are close to equal, with the days becoming longer and longer until summer solstice is here!

The living earth gives us so many ways to participate in Spring—aligning with the growing light, practicing balancing, making way for the invitation to new leafing and budding and lengthening…

This year, I’m drawn to the invitation to join with the aliveness happening all around us, to enter into the movement, the vibrancy, the joy, even the noise of Spring.

The varied thrush is calling her long high whistle, the peepers are returning to the pond to call to their mates, and the robins and migrating songbirds are showing up to sing. Life is awaking!

Wintertime called us to rest and be quiet so we could be ready for Spring’s energy, and now Spring is here calling us to more!

This poem by the poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer showcases a bird we know well here, the Kingfisher. We are always excited when Kingfisher visits us with their distinctive call!

“Beyond Quiet“
From bare branch to bare branch
kingfishers weave the dry tick
of their call through morning—
as if sticks are rattling,
as if stones are clattering—
and whatever part of me
that is longing for quiet
is invited into the racket.
I say I want peace,
but what the heart really wants
is to know itself
as part of everything,
to belong to the world
of grinding and trilling,
scolding and chattering,
to knit itself into this raucous day,
strident and so alive.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Winter’s rest and peace give way to Spring’s aliveness!

Of course, we need to carry rest with us and still make time for it, but the invitation is always is to knit ourselves into the day, even one that is strident, in order to be so alive!

How will you participate in the invitation of Spring?

How will you knit yourself into Spring’s
fresh, new aliveness?

Fall Equinox 2023–Harvesting

I clothe my soul in the
mantle of creation,
heavens of light,
earth of life,
seas of love,
surround and support my
Autumn-wakening soul.
Preserve my soul in compassion,
may it shine forth
with the rich Autumn sunlight.*

Autumn Equinox occurs on Friday, September 22nd at 11:49 pm PT.

I grew up thinking that Fall Equinox marked the beginning of Fall, but in the Celtic circle of the year, Fall Equinox is the midway point, with Lughnasadh, August 1st, as the beginning and Halloween (Samhain) being the end.

This year, living here in the Pacific Northwest, I got it. Even though we can still get some summer heat in August, there is a change in the air and the nights begin to get cooler.

If I think of it as the beginning of harvest season, it makes more sense—in August, the summer fruits and veggies are beginning to be ready for harvest—beans, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, grains, plums, apples…

The same elements that are growing and ripening the plants are also growing and ripening us—earth-air-fire-water—creating the tissues and bones of our bodies, breathing us, firing our digestion and heartbeat, moving nourishment and flushing out toxins and juicing our cells.

We, like the plants, can also turn towards harvest. We bloom and fruit, shapeshift, and mature.

Autumn Equinox invites us to consider our harvest:

  • What is maturing and coming into fruit?
  • What is still ripening?
  • What harvest abundance can be shared with others?

One thing that is ripening in me is the ability to not push against life as much. The gardens and all the tending asked of me, the support of my parents as they age, our dog Sammy’s dying process… it all has its own timing which I can participate in, but I’m learning that I don’t need to push any of it.

Pushing—trying to do too much all at once, moving too fast, thinking I know the right way—just creates anguish and pain. I’ve done that too much and it’s finally beginning to shapeshift…

What about you? What will your harvest be this Autumn Equinox?

I go forth under the
mantle of earth:
clarity of glaciers,
silence of deserts,
beauty of mountains,
sweetness of valleys,
mystery of forests,
flow of rivers,
depth of oceans,
equity of plains,
homeyness of hills.
Earth-Mantle cover me,
keep and preserve me,
from strike of spark
till fall of dark.

* from Celtic Devotional, Caitlin Matthews, p. 98 & 104

Winter Solstice 2022

Remember…

Sitting around a campfire at night?

The circle of light within a vast ocean of darkness?

Leaving the fire and how the darkness swallowed you up as you felt your way to your tent to drop into the darkness of sleep?

Our bodies were made for darkness just as much as they were made for light.

For the darkness that invites non-doing and rest, slowness and dreaming, waiting and hope.

For the darkness that allows our bodies to heal, to regenerate, and rebalance in sleep.

Before electricity, we lived with, in, and by the dictates of the dark. In addition to fire light, there were candles and grease lamps, but they weren’t abundant, so they were saved for necessary tasks.

In the winter, we slept earlier in the evening and later in the morning, in accordance with the sun’s light.

And outside of our homes, it was dark—no street lights, car headlights, lit-up buildings…

Now, unless you live away from other houses in the country, it’s hard to experience total darkness.

Have you seen those maps of the world showing the light at night? It’s called light pollution and has become a health hazard to our bodies and to the creatures we share this world with.

Sea turtle hatchlings can’t find their way out to sea by the light of the moon because the city lights confuse them. Lack of darkness interrupts the predator/prey relationship, and even frog and toad breeding cycles. Birds that hunt or migrate at night have a hard time following the moon or stars, and seasonal migrations may even get knocked off their regular patterns due to light pollution.

Light pollution has taken away the dark. It has taken away the night sky.

One Secret by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Not the brilliant stars
But the infinite dark
What I wish on

This time of deepening darkness that reaches its peak at the Winter Solstice is an invitation to allow the dark to affect us, but not hold us captive.

It is an invitation to adapt to the living earth like all other creatures.

It is an invitation to allow ourselves to slow down, to dream, to rest.

It is an invitation to let old patterns, polarities, and problems that aren’t serving us dissolve as fresh, new life is rewoven in the growing light.

Holiday parties break up the darkness, bringing us together to feast and share in the coming light.

But then let us return to the darkness. To the unraveling, the unwinding, the making ready for the new.

Let us connect with the living earth and her rhythms to wait and trust that the sun will return again.

And then let the light find its way, day by day, from the midst of the darkness, growing, shining, bringing new life.

This is the promise of Winter Solstice.

In 2022, Winter Solstice arrives at 1:47 pm PT

on Wednesday the 21st of December.

If you’d like to mark this time on your own, I have a few suggestions for rituals in past blogposts here:

If you would like to be in community, I will be guiding an outdoor, earth-based, family-friendly ritual at Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in the courtyard from 7-8 pm on the 21st. Read more.

My winter dreaming is bringing changes…

Since we moved to Port Townsend, Washington in the summer of 2019, life has changed a lot!

My main focus, when I am not working, is tending the land (growing as much edible, medicinal, and native as possible) and tending my family (husband, dog, aging parents, myself). And I am still singing–how could I not?

Because of this, I have not sought to build a coaching practice, even though I do still see clients from time to time. And now, I need to simplify more, so I’m going to let this big website go. I plan to create a blog site, so you will still hear from me from time to time.

Happy Winter Dreaming and Winter Solstice! I wonder what you will dream into?

Fall Equinox 2022: Asking Toward the Light

Happy Fall Equinox!

I arise facing East,
I am asking toward the light,
I am asking that my day shall be beautiful with light.
I am asking that the place where my feet are shall be light,
That as far as I can see I shall follow it aright.
I am asking for courage to go forward through the shadow,
I am asking toward the light!
~Mary Austin

Normally for Fall Equinox (September 22nd, 2022 at 6:03 pm PT), there is talk of the waning light, but I want to start with this beautiful prayer poem of light.

I have been praying it every morning recently, facing East, asking toward the light.

I love how open this phrase is, asking toward the light.

The prayer poem asks for some general things—for a day beautiful with light, that light will be where I am and that I shall follow it aright, for courage to face the difficulties of the day…

But it’s not asking for specific outcomes, for how my ego thinks the day should turn out.

It’s really more about setting an intention to align myself with the light, no matter how late the dawn comes and how early the dusk arrives, no matter how cloudy or sun-filled the day is, no matter how the day goes…

It’s almost as if I am aligning with what our plant brothers and sisters know how to do naturally. They know how to follow the light, how to bend toward it, how to store it, how to create food and seed and strength with it.

And then as the light becomes less and less, they know how to take that light in and send it into their roots or to release that light and let their bodies fall to the ground.

This is an important teaching of the Fall:

  • we can keep receiving the light,
  • having filled up with light, we can release it like leaves that fall,
  • and we can store the light for nourishment and give it away to others.

So, on this Fall Equinox, may we be asking toward the light and allowing the growing darkness.

May we be asking toward the light and storing it up, not only for ourselves, but for all beings.

Happy Fall Equinox!

the steady center

Cutting Loose by William Stafford
Sometimes, from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose from
all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, sound comes. A reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be
lost, learning how real it is
here on earth again and again.

Thanks to my Full Voice Coach Training last year, I’ve started reviewing the poems I’ve learned by heart over the years. (Poetry is a wonderful way to practice exploring different parts of your voice.)

I almost always start my day with poetry—a bit of beauty, of inspiration, of deeper meaning to open my heart and mind first thing.

This poem by William Stafford jumped out of my stash of poems, asking to be brought back into my bodysoul, so I’ve been reciting it every morning, waking up the poem within me again—or should I say, allowing it to wake up me?

The reminder that from sorrow—in fact, from anything—anger, joy, even fear—we can sing…

Singing is another practice I do every morning. Usually I sing to greet the morning. Sometimes I hear melodies that become songs through me. And often I sing along to a song I’m learning.

For no reason, except that singing wakes me up, too—lights me up, and connects me with a deeper heartful and devotional contact with life (myself included).

Singing has been a lifesaver in this transition of settling into a new home and community, a tether, a grounding cord to Being. Even though I feel lost—and often even “accept the way of being lost”—singing/sounding provides a constant “reminder that a steady center is holding all else.” 

And that “all else” includes me.

I also listen to the new sounds here—the shooshing of the wind in the fir, spruce, and hemlock, the west-coast birds greeting the day, the bark and talk of our new dog Sammy to get our attention, the crackle of the fire in the woodstove, the rain on the metal roof, the voices of my parents…

Sound/song/singing does help me “slide [my] way past trouble” because it unsticks me, “cutting loose from all else” that might be running in my mind, landing me here, now, in the moment, with this particular beauty.

The “twisted monsters” barring my path are very familiar and include fear of loss, fear of newness, fear of not-knowing, frustration at the time it is taking to settle, overwhelm at how much there is still to do…

And these are familiar stories—they crop up wherever I am because I always bring myself with me… Remembering this helps me “get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is here on earth, again and again.”

This being human is no joke!

We get lost over and over, and we re-find our hold on that steady center over and over, again, too. This is reality here in Eairth.

We sorrow, we sing, we cut loose, we find our steady center, we get lost, and we do it all over again…

How do you hold fast to your steady center when you feel lost?

It’s good to remember these teachings now as we move more deeply into Fall in the northern hemisphere. With the waning light and cooling temperatures, this seasonal transition of completion and letting go as we move toward Winter heightens the sense of loss even as we harvest and celebrate.

It’s a time to deepen our practice of welcoming everything, to add more stillness and cozy time amidst the Fall chores.

creating sacred space

Turn as the earth and move, turn,
Circling what [you] love.
Whatever circles comes from the center.
~ Rumi

Your sacred center.

What does that phrase evoke in you?

Your sacred center.

Where is it?

Is it some place in your body?

With a certain person?

In some belief you hold dear?

In some special place you go to in order to return to yourself?

Asian cultures tend to point to the hara or lower dantien as their sacred center. It’s the energy center just below the belly button, also known as the 2nd chakra, the place from which we sense our ground, our rootedness.

Hinduism, Sufism, and many Western traditions identify the heart as the sacred center, that place from which we feel our connection to the Divine / Love / the Beloved.

What about the mind? That is, afterall, what is thought to distinguish us as humans from other animals. Is it not sacred?

Among others, Buddhism, the Diamond Approach, and philosophical and scientific traditions highly value the qualities of vast, open, spacious mind, which can creatively perceive and receive understanding and knowing.

4th Way teacher, G.I. Gurdjieff, one of the grandfathers of the Enneagram, taught that we are 3-centered beings, so it make sense that each Center would have its own way of perceiving the sacred as it has its own way of experiencing life.

Sacred Center…

The Celts believed that trees recognize sacred ground and step back from it to create a clearing of sacred space (a nemeton), where earth and heaven join. Here, in the sacred center, Druids and others gathered to deepen their connection to Source.

People worldwide create places of worship—temples, mosques, churches, cathedrals—to demarcate sacred space. Often, it is found that under these buildings lie magnetic earth currents, called ley lines or even holy lines.

And, of course, the circle is a symbol of unity, a demarcation of the sacred connection of all things.

Consider the circle of your in- and out-breath.

Consider the circle of the day or the seasons.

Consider the circle of your life, born of eairth* and returning to eairth.

Consider the cycle of nourishment from earth, sun, and rain that grows seeds into plants that we harvest and eat.

This cycle sounds like one of nature giving to us. How do we complete the circle? We must give back something to eairth. We give back our breath, the CO2, to nourish the Green Ones (but they also give us their O2 to breathe).

How else can we play our part in the circle of nourishment? We can tend and care for eairth—by not polluting her, not trashing our source of nourishment. We can sing to her, praise her, celebrate her.

You can create sacred space anytime.

You don’t need to find a nemeton or a particular sacred building or space. It’s more about how you perceive your life.

We are each at the center of the circle of sacred space.

Not in a selfish way, but in the sense that all of our experience starts here, within us, in touch with body, heart, and mind, all three Centers, which opens us to Spirit and Soul.

At any time, you can perceive the circle of sacred space you are in by landing in your body to reconnect with yourself and eairth. Open your senses—what do you see, smell, taste, hear, touch/sense?

Notice your heart—how does what you are sensing affect you? How do you feel? Hint: It doesn’t have to be “good”—all feelings are welcome. Open your heart and let them flow through you, touching you.

Witness your mind. Thoughts will be there—observe them and allow them to pass through, like clouds that clear away to reveal a vast, open sky. Experience the immensity of the mind.

By engaging all three Centers openly, you open to contact with more life. Instead of staying caught in your thoughts, feelings, or body sensations or ignoring one or all of them, you are right here, right now, with all of it.

This, too, is nourishment. There is no forcing or dominating of yourself, others, or nature. You are simply here, present with what is, offering yourself to life, letting life move through you and affect you, participating in the sacred circle.

One of my current practices for creating sacred space is a breathing pattern I learned from Chameli Ardagh. These days, I practice it outside every morning. It helps me reconnect with earth and heaven, with soul and spirit, with all living beings. Try it on: Creating Sacred Space Meditation.

Turn as the earth.
Circle what you love.
Come from the center.

Here is Libana singing the Rumi poem from the top.

* I use “earth” to refer the ground, the soil, and “eairth” to refer to the living, evolving planet we live in, composed of earth and air.

Freedom to Rise like Trees

Painted by Laurie Evans

From all quarters, life on this precious Eairth is desperately calling for the rising of the rooted Feminine—in both women and men.

Eairth* and all her creatures are gasping for breath.

We lose between 1 and 300 species every day (low to high estimates), and it is widely thought that we humans are causing the sixth great extinction, presently underway.

Our Eairth home is warming and her interconnected life systems are responding by creating chaotic and destructive weather patterns which make it less hospitable for all life, humans included.

Our human family is forgetting not only our connection to Eairth, but to each other with the rise of more and more nationalistic movements across the world.

And meanwhile, we continue business as usual, as if the worn-out industrial-growth society could ignore the problem and continue consuming more and more…

We pour more money into unsustainable practices, trying to get the last bit of fossil fuel out of Eairth with complete disregard for Gaia’s life systems** that are being broken in the process.

We pour more money into genetically engineering seeds and animals and genes as if we could do better that Gaia that has been evolving and supporting us for 4.5 billion years…

We need to wake up and
let the rooted Feminine
consciousness rise up and
inform our lives,
our actions, and our world
before it is too late,

before we lose the freedom we celebrate on July 4th—especially the freedom to be alive
on this precious planet.

The beautiful image at the top of this blogpost, painted by my dear friend Laurie Evans, can give us an image to hold before us, to live with.

Can you feel how rooted she is? Rooted in tree and freely branching, leafing, flowering into life.

Before growing tall, tree roots take time to grow deep—up to 200 feet deep—into the earth. There they receive nourishment and stability from the depths, from deep sources of water and minerals and stone.

What deep sources of nourishment do you have, to fill your well, to root you in your deepest Essence?

The Feminine embodied consciousness knows the value of turning within, of the nourishment of inner life.

When we are deeply rooted inside, we discern Truth and are not swayed by the opinions of others. We choose healthfully for all life. We value our spiritual practices as a way of sustaining connection to soul including the anima mundi, or, world soul.

Tree roots also spread wide—at their widest, three times the width of their crowns (and mature crowns spread up 590 feet wide, so you do the math!). In his astonishing book, The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben describes how this wide root network is the primary way trees communicate with and feed each other.

And even more beautiful, trees communicate through symbiotic relationships with special types of funghi that grow on their roots! The funghi receive sugars the trees produce from photosynthesis and give back water and minerals, as well as communication networks that Peter refers to “the wood-wide web.” They can transmit messages to other trees along these root network systems—about danger and sickness, and the need for nourishment.

What wide root networks do you have, that you feed and that feed you? Our interconnections with others are necessary on the path of awakening. We need to support each other—to be warned of danger ahead or when we lose our way, to be reminded of the need for true nourishment…

The Feminine is relational.

When rooted in our Feminine nature, we do not over-give or lose ourselves. We do not stay too long in relationship. We do not forget ourselves and wind up exhausted and burned out. We stay connected and know that each person brings a gift to the table.

Tree nature has intricate, indigenous lifeways that guide natural tree growth. What we could call tree instincts respond as needed in the moment without question—sending sap, messages, and energy. Their instinctual tree-wisdom arises to meet life, with utter faith that their response is in alignment with Gaia’s rhythms.

How do you trust your instinctual, indigenous nature? We humans have life-intelligence inherited from our animal ancestors. This native wisdom helps us stay rooted and alive as part of the interconnected web of life. It tells us when we are hungry, in danger, in need of bonding or of the shelter of a friend.

Rooted in the Feminine, we trust our instinctual intelligence to guide us.

We know ourselves as embodied—as earthly, incarnate, with a body that needs tending, a heart that needs loving, and a mind that needs opening. The Feminine knows the value of the body and does not try to transcend it and the greater body of Eairth, but to live more fully embodied, more fully incarnate, here, in this life, exactly as it is right now.

Trees know how to not only root, but how to branch and leaf and flower and fruit and seed!! Their circulatory system pumps sap nourishment from the sun through the leaves down to the roots, and from storage in the roots, back up when it is needed. A healthy sap-system supports not only inner, but outer growth. Mature trees release their seed, give away the fruits of their growth—in flower, fruit, or seed—so that their essence can live on even after they release their standing forms to the earth.

How are you called out, once your well is sufficiently filled, to branch, to leaf, to blossom? What have you been developing deep within yourself that calls for expression, that wants to be given away as a gift for others? It needn’t be big to be of service—we’re not all meant to be Michelle or Barak Obama, Joanna Macy or Brian Swimme! But we are all called to be ourselves and of service to the world. Maybe it’s random acts of kindness, or a listening ear, or maybe you’re called to protest or form a PTA or help save a river.

As John O’Donohue says in Eternal Echos, “The wisdom of the tree balances the path inwards with the pathway outwards” (p. 149). When we are deeply rooted in our inward path, the pathway outward is a natural outcome. The rooted and rising Feminine is not about just doing our spiritual practices!! Yes, that’s crucial to keep the root well-nourished, but we are also called to give birth—to blossom and give of our fruit.

The Feminine within us all feels the call to embody our Truth—to birth it in our daily lives and to be of service to Eairth, to others, to the world…

As I was writing this blogpost, a big, welcome storm blew through. I was sitting on the front porch in the early morning watching the graying sky on the horizon, feeling the wind gaining strength, blowing my hair and clothes. When the storm landed, the trees started dancing with the wind—not just their leaves and branches, but their trunks, too. Being deeply rooted, deeply belonging to Eairth, trees have faith in their foundation and solidity.

Buffeted by stormy winds, trees stay flexible and participate with the storm. Not resisting—simply responding to the wind, they become its dance partner.

How flexible are you when the storm hits? (Because it always will!) Are you able to sway with the wind and trust your nourished, deep and wide roots?

The Feminine knows the value of fluidity, of responding to life flexibly.

She is not stuck in fixed opinions and beliefs, but knows that everything life brings is worth interacting with, worth considering. She feels deeply, responds, and flows with the winds of life.

Trees root in one place for their whole lives. Because of this, they know the value of patience, of endurance, of trusting time. Storms come and go, predators cause damage and may even cut them down. But they persevere, even in death, knowing that right here is where they belong.

How do you find belonging in these times of disrupted families, ever-growing screen-time, and lack of Eairth connection?

The Feminine knows how to make home, to create the shelter of belonging wherever we are—

in the city or country, in a house or tent, with yourself or with others. This is the part of us that knows how to belong to ourself, to others, and to Eairth. And in that belonging is the safety and shelter of home.

Like trees, rooting,
we freely rise.

Nourish your roots, trust your instinctual intelligence, be of service, be flexible, and create a shelter of belonging for all Eairth, for all life.

Together, with the rooted and rising Feminine in each of us, we express our freedom, and heal our relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with Eairth.

The trees do everything totally.
They don’t hold back.
They fruit completely.
They stretch to the sun completely.
They give their all. They drop their leaves completely.
They disappear into the ground
and root themselves down completely.
They’re total. They’re total permission.
If you want to learn how to live, learn from trees.
~ Clare Dubois, Founder of TreeSisters

What do you need to learn
from the rising Feminine
nature of trees in
this season of your life?

* Eairth = earth and air together, our planet home, first heard from Thomas Berry (I think!)

** Gaia = the self-regulating living system of our planet

Savoring Eairth’s Gift of Summer

Listen to Wren singing her song.

The People
Today we have gathered and we see
that the cycles of life continue.
We have been given the duty to live
in balance and harmony with each other
and all living things.
So now, we bring our minds together as one
as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.
Now our minds are one.
~ from the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address:
Greetings to the Natural World 

Summer Solstice,
the threshold of Summer,
the outer sign of an inner
developing, an inner
maturing into fullness.

At 10:54 am CT on Friday, June 21, we in the Northern Hemisphere enter into the days of lush growth, of rampant blossoming, of warmth and celebration.

We are held in this natural cycle of life that Eairth and her seasons continually unfold, a cycle that invites us to us back into balance and harmony with ourselves, with each other, and with all living things.

The wren that has been singing to me daily this week is living out her natural cycle—she has been nest building and tending, and sharing the abundance of the beginning summer in her beautiful song. Take a listen above if you have not already!

And isn’t it interesting that at Summer Solstice, at the peak of the longest days of light and the generous greening of Eairth, we also turn the corner towards Winter Solstice? Every day past the Summer Solstice will get a little shorter and each night a bit longer until we reach the longest night on December 21.

Summer correlates energetically
with the Full Moon (this past Monday)—
the fullness of energy,
the following of desire,
living large, embracing our passion…

And we know, just like the cycle of the moon, already beginning to wane, that summer is also balanced with winter—expansion with contraction, light with dark, activity with rest—always balancing and harmonizing in the natural cycles of life…

What would it be like to live into our fullness, to follow our desire, knowing that it is deeply rooted in the dark, fertile nourishment of Eairth?

To only follow desire so long as it is tethered always to Source, like an umbilicus connecting us with the nourishment of the Mother?

The Native American Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address continues by first honoring the Earth as our Mother:

The Earth Mother
We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth,
for she gives us all that we need for life.
She supports our feet as we walk about upon her.
It gives us joy that she continues to care for us
as she has from the beginning of time.
To our mother, we send greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.

Feeling the ground of support of the Mother under our feet, receiving the gifts of her bounty—fertile soil, food, water, air, birdsong, animals, mountains, trees, plants, rivers, oceans… Without these we would not be alive!

Summer is the perfect time to appreciate these gifts—
to savor the abundance
of Eairth and of our lives.

Moving too fast and doing too much—habits I easily fall into—keep us from savoring. And it’s usually a sign that we’ve forgotten the deep rootedness and moment-by-moment belonging to Eairth, skating along on the surface, not experiencing our daily life as a gift.

One of the ways I’ve been savoring recently is through all the sweet friend dates we’ve been having before we move (in a little over 2 weeks!).

Normally, the most time I might have spent would have been 1-2 dates/week; but now, sometimes we have up to 4 dates in a week!! When I look at my calendar, my habitual self thinks it’s crazy…

But, in reality, we’ve both been really conscious about savoring these in-person connections that we will be leaving behind as we settle in a new land. Instead of feeling distracted or depleted from too many dates and too much to do, by staying connected with our deeper rootedness and relaxing in the field of connection between us, we feel abundant and full of gratitude for these connections!

Another way I practice savoring is sitting on the front porch in the morning, looking out at the dancing river birch, the green lushness of ferns, pachysandra, and hosta circling it, marinating in sun and birdsong. And when walking through the neighborhood, I open all of my senses to savor the profusion of summer beauty that Eairth is opening into right now. (Find more savoring practices.)

Open to this moment. Live it.
Belong to it.

Summer is a gift given by our Mother, Eairth, right now.

Live in harmony, enter the cycle of abundance and celebration, of savoring and en-joying, knowing that this cycle will give way to the next, a new season, a new rhythm of life.

And like our indigenous brothers and sisters, two-legged, four-legged, winged, standing, sitting, lying, and flowing ones, give thanks for the generosity of Eairth, who continues to give us all that we need for life.