Category: spirituality

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.

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?

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.

Spring Equinox 2023–Wilding Church

As I walk out the door, I begin to move and breathe differently. I slow down, notice my body, start noticing what’s around me.

I’m going on a wander, one of the main practices of eco-spirituality workshops I’ve attended and a core part of Wild Church.

I let my feet, not my head, guide me toward the entry I’ll take today into one of our forest paths. As I step in, I cross a threshold and consciously mark it. Sometimes, I say a few words about my intention; sometimes, I ask for guidance; often, I ask just to be present and receive what the living earth wants me to know.

Today, the sunlight is slanting through the forest at just the right angle to catch all the spider webs. I’ve never noticed them before. I see three different active webs with spiders in the middle and lots and lots of old webs in the branches of the cedar. The old ones are collecting things—twigs, moss, fronds, needles, bits and pieces… They look like little hammocks of support. I am surrounded by support and grandmother spiders weaving the world.

The synchronicity of this? Not only is support something I am opening more to these days, but I pulled the Spider Medicine Card this morning!

In my desire to feel like the earth being I am, I have been practicing, wandering, singing, reading, attending eco-spirituality workshops…one of the books I devoured in the last year was by Victoria Loorz called Church of the Wild. This book describes her path from traditional Christianity into Wild Church, a way of meeting in community to practice being and communing with creation, outside in all weather.

Others at QUUF, the UU fellowship I belong to, had also found this book and a small group of us met to explore how to bring a live experience of Wild Church to QUUF. Given that this practice feels vital for my soul right now and since I have been leading Winter Solstice rituals for 15 years and am ordained as an Interfaith Minister, it seemed like a good fit for me to get trained to guide. Our first Wild Church was in late February as the earth was turning more toward Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Speaking of turning toward Spring, Spring Equinox is today, Monday, March 20th!

The earth teachings of Spring are about new beginnings, fresh energy, awakening from slumber, new growth. Think of the seed, dormant in the soil, surrounded by earth and other tiny beings, feeling the call to wake up, to use the compost surrounding it to put forth new life.

We’re seeing this all around us here in the Pacific Northwest. If it’s not visible where you live, know that the stirrings are happening under the ground. Life is arising again!

As humans, we can follow earth’s call to fresh awakeness, too. We can clean out, clear up any old, stale habits, energy, or belongings that keep us from awaking, from growing. We can simplify to make room for this new growth.

Of course, Wild Church is not new. It is an opportunity to relearn what native peoples everywhere practice:

Communion with earth
as our primary place of belonging.

If you’re in the Port Townsend area, please join us on 4th Saturdays (next one 3/25/23), and if you’re interested in finding a Wild Church near you, check out the growing list of gatherings.

The other fresh, new work in progress in my life is this new blogsite. I have downsized and simplified my online presence to reflect my simpler, downsized life. Even though I’m still cleaning up blogs that didn’t transfer over perfectly, I’m very happy with the change! You can still find calendar listings and practices, including my real-food recipes. I hope it will serve you as well as it’s serving me!

How will you welcome in the “leaping greenly spirits”*
of Spring into your life?

* From the e.e. cummings poem “i think you God for most this amazing”