Category: practices

Spring Equinox 2025: In the Muck

Spring Equinox occurs officially at 2:01 am PT on March 20th, 2025.

In some places, this is the beginning of Spring, but where I live, it’s more like mid-Spring.

In Port Townsend, Washington we haven’t had enough rain yet—the winter didn’t bring the normal amount and Spring rains have not settled in with their regular pattern… Luckily, we still have time as Spring can last through “Junuary” around here!

Even so, there are quite a few places on the land that are mucky! Down by the compost bins at the bottom of the mulch beds, I could lose a garden clog if I’m not careful.

There is standing water near the comfrey circle that the native Ninebark and basket willow I planted are very happy to drink in.

The leafy bower path that winds by Green Woman and down into the young alders is also quite soft in many places.

And walking the forks path on the nearby DNR lands, I have to dance around and carefully pick my way through very muddy pathways.

I lived in Vermont for a few years in the 90’s, out a ways from town on dirt roads. I remember a Spring where I had to drive really fast in between the muddy ruts up a hill, just hoping I’d have enough speed to make it through before the muck sucked me in! There we had 3 seasons: Mud, Construction, and Winter!

In general, I welcome the mud.

It’s a sign that the earth cannot take in all the water quickly, which indicates to me that, with this water stored, we will have enough water to make it through our droughty summer… So, the mud is a healthy sign at this time of year.

This reminds me of our small garden pond. It’s pretty shallow—just a foot or so—and just below the water you can see the mud (silt, watered-down earth).

And out of this mud grow the most beautiful pond lilies!

And right now, the skunk cabbage is popping up out of the mud at the bottom of the ravine path—that’s the picture at the top of this post.

Isn’t it amazing??

It will be up even farther when this is posted. I think they look like lanterns keeping vigil.

I wonder if remembering the lilies and skunk cabbage growing out of the muck can help me in these difficult political times.

Is it possible that just as we need to experience mud season to have a healthy earth, that we need to go through these times as a country to learn how to bloom and have a healthy society?

Maybe we can learn to be care-full of where we put our feet.

Maybe we can learn to trudge through the muck and keep going, maybe even dance?

Maybe we can watch for what is growing out of the mud and be reminded that the beautiful lantern or flower need the muck to grow.

Can we trust this muddy path? Trust that light and blooms will come again?

Winter Solstice 2024–Breathing Room

Winter Solstice occurs on Saturday, December 21st at 1:20 am PT.

It is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our daylight hours will be from 7:55 am to 4:21 pm, about 8 & ½ hours of daylight and 15 & ½ hours of dark–almost twice as long in darkness!

Dave and I have an Advent ritual of reading a beautiful little book, All Creation Waits by Gayle Boss. Every day, it offers a story about a different animal and how this animal uses their innate knowing to adapt to the cold and dark of wintertime.

Even though we read it last year for Advent, too, the instinctual wisdom of each animal lands so deeply in me each time.

This winter, one of the messages I am working with is from Musk Rat.

Musk Rat’s physiology makes it possible for them to be a frigid-water swimmer all winter! Even when all is covered in snow and ice, Musk Rat can find plants to eat by diving deep down to the bottom of a body of water.

But even well-prepared by their amazing coat, Musk Rat gets cold after a while. So Musk Rat builds what’s called a “push up,” a pile of sticks that poke up from the water through the ice, so they can climb out of the water into this sheltered breathing room. Here Musk Rat can rest, regain their strength.

This advent, I’m taking that cue and have been practicing having a breathing room.

It’s a moment when I stop and allow myself to respond to the slower, darker season. I want to cultivate the innate knowing in me, as earth standing on two feet, about wintertime, too.

  • I sit in the nook and look out at the gardens. My favorite time is to sit and breathe while dusk is falling.
  • I light a special solstice candle and pause.
  • I sit by the woodstove and watch the flames.
  • I step outside and breathe in the crisp, cold air, looking around at the living earth, pausing from work.
  • I lie down and rest on the ground (inside since it’s so wet out!).
  • I sit or stand quietly outside and open my awareness.
  • I soak in the hot tub at dusk and sing songs to welcome the dark.

Especially since I spend so much time in front of a computer these days, I need to balance this with moments in the breathing room. And I love the idea that I am aligning with my innate inner winter wisdom by doing this.

This breathing room gives me a moment to align my bodysoul with the rhythms of the living earth.

The rhythm of slow.

The rhythm of cold.

The rhythm of rain and

long,

gray,

dark hours.

Do you have a breathing room? How do you spend time there?

And if you’d like to step out into the great breathing room of the living earth, join me on December 21st for an outdoor Winter Solstice Celebration! Read more.

A new solstice song for you from my dear friend and Full Voice Trainer, Barbara McAfee:

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.

Summer Solstice 2024–The Garden

Summer Solstice occurs on Thursday, June 20th at 1:50 pm Pacific Time.

If you’re local to Port Townsend, WA, please join the Summer Solstice Celebration at Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship!

This time of year, the garden is coming into fullness. In summer, we tend to focus on all the flowers that are blossoming—and it’s amazing how flowers are coming into their own right now!

The roses began opening last week—the wild Nootka, the Red Rose I don’t know the name of, as well as the mature Floribunda bush mom planted years ago. And the Foxglove spires reach for the sky, their buds bursting into flowers as blooming energy travels up their stalks. The bright orange-red and the pink Poppies are smiling and the dusky white Astrantia is face-open to the sun. The Rhododendrons and the Korean Lilac are almost done, as well as some bolting, flowering Kale, Arugula, and Collards that I am still harvesting from overwintering in the veggie garden.

And so much more is still to come into flower as the weather continues to warm and the light is long!

What brings so much blooming forth?

It’s the natural unfolding of the plants’ inner instructions, for sure, but we can also look a little more widely at all the factors that help a garden to grow:

  • The space we clear for the plants,
  • The nutrients we add to the soil, be that mulch, compost, or specific amendments,
  • The work we do to clear the soil of impediments—removing rocks, slugs, rabbits, voles (all in my gardens), etc.,
  • The supplying of water and counting on enough sun and warmth,
  • The good wishes, prayers, and songs to feed their spirits.

Just like the blossoming of the plants, our blossoming is also supported by much-needed toil and loving attention. The conditions we create allow our inner and outer gardens to flourish and bloom.

Are there nutrients or other conditions needed
in your life to support your blossoming
into fullness this summer?

How will you support this?

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?

Winter Solstice 2023–Paradox

Winter Solstice occurs at 7:27 pm Pacific Time on Thursday, December 21st, 2023.

In the US, we usually think of this as the beginning of winter, but in the Celtic tradition, it’s midwinter, the depth of darkness. The winter season begins after Halloween (Samhain) and ends at Imbolc, February 1st, the very beginning of Spring. This way of circling through the seasons aligns well with the Pacific Northwest climate we live in now.

Regardless of when winter begins, we can learn its rhythms and invitations by noticing what the living earth and her creatures are doing and practicing this in our own lives:

  • Go dormant, hibernate, lie fallow.
  • Root, return to ground, compost.
  • Go within, turn inward, introspect.
  • Listen deeply and listen some more.
  • Welcome darkness and night.
  • Slow down, stop, rest.

It’s hard to do this in our go-go culture. And it’s harder yet during December when we have created a light-filled holiday time. It feels like time speeds up between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Parties, Christmas lights, celebrations to drive the dark away… just when the living earth is inviting us to go into a slower, darker, more inward time. It can feel quite paradoxical.

I am practicing with this paradox in a few ways…

Like the collage at the top of this blog, which spirals from Fall to Winter (bottom right, earthwise and ending in the middle), I find the quiet, dark spot in the center of any moment. I take that moment to land, to feel held, to quiet and rest. Even though the 10,000 things are clamoring for my attention (and often succeed in getting it), I practice returning to the darkness, the stopping, the slowness.

I am also practicing the following mantra I learned from Miranda MacPherson. I start by just sensing my body, returning to the moment in this way. Then I slowly recite it inwardly with my breath. This has been a beautiful, restful practice for me. I do it at least once a day and sometimes more, repeating it as many times as I can before moving to the next thing on my plate.

Be nothing.

Do nothing.

Get nothing.

Become nothing.

Seek for nothing.

Relinquish nothing.

Be as you are.

Rest in God. (Sometimes I say, “Rest in the dark.”)

This is the breath practice I am finding nourishing:

  • Inhale: Be nothing.
  • Exhale: Do nothing. Get nothing.
  • Inhale: Become nothing.
  • Exhale: Seek for nothing. Relinquish nothing.
  • Inhale: Be as you are.
  • Exhale: Rest in God (the dark).

How do you hold the paradox of light and dark?

How do you find a place of rest
in the midst of the busyness?

If you would like to practice with others and you live locally, I have two opportunities for being in community in these dark times:

Winter Solstice Celebration, December 21st, 7:00-8:00 pm
Outside, in the courtyard at QUUF. Bring a chair and dress for the weather!

Wild Church Port Townsend, December 23rd, 10-11:30 am
At Fort Townsend under the big Doug Fir. Bring a chair and dress for the weather!

For those who live too far away to join in person:

Chant & Song for Community, Healing & Hope will start up again on zoom in January on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays from 7:00 – 8:00 pm PT.

Read more on my Calendar.

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

Summer Solstice 2023–Fullness & Stillness

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

Breathe this gatha (mindfulness verse) with me.

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

This is a Summer Solstice invitation–to take in the fullness of summer and to rest in the stillness within.

Summer Solstice, a time when the sun seems to stand still in the sky, occurs at 7:57 am PT on Wednesday, June 21st, 2023.

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.

The fullness is all around us.

Flowers blossoming–in our gardens right now: floribunda roses, foxglove, oxeye daisy, euphorbia, rhododendron, native and cultivated bleeding heart, chives, sage, lady’s mantle, California poppies, orange Oriental poppies, valerian, geranium, fringe cups, toad flax, purple bells, peonies…

Leaves in full verdancy–lady, bracken and sword ferns, hazelnut, birch, witch hazel, asian pear, cherry, apple, mountain ash, vine and big-leaf maples, nettle, cleavers, herb robert, violets, kale, cilantro, lettuce…

And so many more that I did not name… Not to mention the birds!

As Gunilla Morris says in A Mystic Garden, you can almost hear the earth humming with growth.

Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

And the stillness?

It’s as if all this verdant and vivid growth is held in the stillness–in the ground of the living earth, in the rays of the sun, in the vast vault of sky.

Without this holding, nothing could grow–without the earth the roots root in, without the light of the sun that creates life, without the air to breathe…

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

Isn’t this so like our lives?

I can get so caught up in the fullness–in answering its call to tend, to enjoy, to jump in–that I forget about the stillness holding me.

Sometimes I can get a visceral sense of the holding by just lying down on the floor to do some somatics or by stepping outside into the living earth or by just sitting with tea. I used to take 5 minute “Do Nothing Breaks,” too.

This summer, let’s savor the fullness–revel in it (not just work!)–and also take time to rest in the stillness. We need both to be whole.

Breathing in, I take in the fullness.
Breathing out, I rest in the stillness.

Which part of this gatha do you need
to be reminded of most?

How will you practice that?

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!