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windinthemaplesSaturday night, after eating cupcakes and hula hooping and declaring war on any mosquitoes that so much as looked cross-eyed at us, we dressed for a starlit ritual. I traded my all-white faerie costume for an all-black ritual gown and a red hooded cloak. Sarah showed up, equally transformed, in all white. We both kinda laughed when we saw each other. She joked that we looked like the priestesses from that L.J. Smith trilogy, The Secret Circle, with good Diana in white and selfish, dark magick Faye in black. :p Thanks, Sarah. :D
A few weeks ago, Sarah and I had powwowed about the ritual logistics. We discussed a few themes and we knew that we wanted to leave people with a physical token of the departing Sun's energy. Neither one of us knew where we could get that much citrine on short notice, but I remembered this amazing bead and jewelry-making shop nearby that carries a lot of semi-precious beads. Maybe they'd have something we could use as a charged token? Walking in with Graeme one afternoon, it seemed like a grin from the universe to find a bowl of rough citrine immediately by the front door, for sale by the gram. I stocked up and we were set. :D Other than that, and the suggestion of a walking candle meditation, we didn't solidify anything. Sarah said, "Well, how good are you on the fly?" and I said, "I'm really good on the fly" and so we went into ritual with some idea of what Midsummer meant to us, the intention of distributing citrine, and not much more. At ritual conspiracy, element callers had volunteered themselves and we got to talk about what Midsummer means to us, what this Midsummer means to us as a group. Heart stuff.
The candle meditation was made into a trial of focus by biting insects and scalding hot wax. Sarah and I ended up doing a lot of the elemental calling work, a failing on our part maybe to empower people enough to step into their volunteer roles or maybe not giving them the time and space to do so or maybe just not supporting that process enough in the planning stages. I'm not sure, really, how to have fixed that. We distributed the citrine to each person and then I initiated us passing our citrine to someone else and receiving from someone else. I'd intended it to start a sort of continuously passing, give and receive and never be empty period, but really it was haphazard and random, leaving some with more than one citrine at a time and some with none. Total fail on my part. I should have been more direct and helpful with that process instead of watching it play out as it did. That said, I don't know what everyone's experience was or what they got out of it as participants, but I'll share mine.
Sarah and Jenn's backyard is big, but not as big as it feels. With some creative mowing and pruning, they created paths and sacred spots in the midst of wild meadow and pine stands. Thistle and blackberry bushes and wild grasses head-high make the winding paths seem mythical. So in the dark, we walked down a little side path out of sight of the house that curved into a sudden small circular clearing for ritual. At the center of our circle, two tin mosquito-warding candle buckets threw light across the faces of the participants as we sat in circle with drums and soundmakers, coming into sync with each other. I beat my palms happily into the bottom of a spaghetti pot made sacred, feeling like I could drum my very heart's happiness up into the star field. The song naturally ended and we moved to ground and begin with the circle casting and calling of the elements. Sarah and I fell into an easy double voice, back and forth, meeting the needs we felt and trying to stay in touch with the energy of the circle.
Really, I haven't the foggiest idea what was said. I wasn't really the one talking, frankly, so the words came easy from another place that I was more spectator to than anything. The bounty of Midsummer giving us all that we needed, both physically and metaphorically, for the dark days ahead on the Wheel. The bittersweet sensation of being both at the peak of the light season and a step away from the dark, of feeling that life was shifting and we were to shift along with it.
Everyone got a lit white tealight, including me, and we scattered in the darkness of the woods and the meadow and the tent city beyond to have our moments of walking meditation. I found a curve in the path I liked, from where I could see lone candle flames flickering in the distance in many directions, and yet ahead of me nothing but wild, untamed plantlife. I held that flame up and thought how small and mighty that light was. How comforting to see the tiny lights of others, faint floating faerie lights, who without the candle I'd have never known surrounded me in the night-silent woods and fields beyond. I was not alone, though I could have easily felt that way if I hadn't looked around. I had enough light for me to see by but not much idea of the landscape around me. At one point, the cup of the tealight tilted and my palm was scalded in one white wax wash. I hissed in pain, immediately fixating on the experience and wishing it hadn't happened. The light, though, unhindered by a pool of liquid wax, was flaring brighter, bigger, bolder as a result. How often in life do I try to rewind and wish away sudden dark moments instead of seeing the way the light in me can grow because of the experience? Hasn't all my most valuable personal, spiritual growth been the gift of dark times that changed me, that cleared out what I didn't need, and helped me breath a little? I was meant to spill the wax. I cannot control the candle, the Wheel, the world. I am not in control of what happens, only how I choose to view and respond to what does happen.
The wax spills, the flame grows, the wax builds again.
I have been given all the supplies I need for the days ahead. The Sun's light may be waning, but the light within me is waxing in counterpoint. Around me, in community, the Sun's light has become internalized and we'll all, as a tribe, get through the season of darkness together. I need only open my eyes and see the lights around me to know that I'm never alone.
We are all moving through the dark together, separately, and we are all carrying light with us. Enough to share, enough for us all.
A few weeks ago, Sarah and I had powwowed about the ritual logistics. We discussed a few themes and we knew that we wanted to leave people with a physical token of the departing Sun's energy. Neither one of us knew where we could get that much citrine on short notice, but I remembered this amazing bead and jewelry-making shop nearby that carries a lot of semi-precious beads. Maybe they'd have something we could use as a charged token? Walking in with Graeme one afternoon, it seemed like a grin from the universe to find a bowl of rough citrine immediately by the front door, for sale by the gram. I stocked up and we were set. :D Other than that, and the suggestion of a walking candle meditation, we didn't solidify anything. Sarah said, "Well, how good are you on the fly?" and I said, "I'm really good on the fly" and so we went into ritual with some idea of what Midsummer meant to us, the intention of distributing citrine, and not much more. At ritual conspiracy, element callers had volunteered themselves and we got to talk about what Midsummer means to us, what this Midsummer means to us as a group. Heart stuff.
The candle meditation was made into a trial of focus by biting insects and scalding hot wax. Sarah and I ended up doing a lot of the elemental calling work, a failing on our part maybe to empower people enough to step into their volunteer roles or maybe not giving them the time and space to do so or maybe just not supporting that process enough in the planning stages. I'm not sure, really, how to have fixed that. We distributed the citrine to each person and then I initiated us passing our citrine to someone else and receiving from someone else. I'd intended it to start a sort of continuously passing, give and receive and never be empty period, but really it was haphazard and random, leaving some with more than one citrine at a time and some with none. Total fail on my part. I should have been more direct and helpful with that process instead of watching it play out as it did. That said, I don't know what everyone's experience was or what they got out of it as participants, but I'll share mine.
Sarah and Jenn's backyard is big, but not as big as it feels. With some creative mowing and pruning, they created paths and sacred spots in the midst of wild meadow and pine stands. Thistle and blackberry bushes and wild grasses head-high make the winding paths seem mythical. So in the dark, we walked down a little side path out of sight of the house that curved into a sudden small circular clearing for ritual. At the center of our circle, two tin mosquito-warding candle buckets threw light across the faces of the participants as we sat in circle with drums and soundmakers, coming into sync with each other. I beat my palms happily into the bottom of a spaghetti pot made sacred, feeling like I could drum my very heart's happiness up into the star field. The song naturally ended and we moved to ground and begin with the circle casting and calling of the elements. Sarah and I fell into an easy double voice, back and forth, meeting the needs we felt and trying to stay in touch with the energy of the circle.
Really, I haven't the foggiest idea what was said. I wasn't really the one talking, frankly, so the words came easy from another place that I was more spectator to than anything. The bounty of Midsummer giving us all that we needed, both physically and metaphorically, for the dark days ahead on the Wheel. The bittersweet sensation of being both at the peak of the light season and a step away from the dark, of feeling that life was shifting and we were to shift along with it.
Everyone got a lit white tealight, including me, and we scattered in the darkness of the woods and the meadow and the tent city beyond to have our moments of walking meditation. I found a curve in the path I liked, from where I could see lone candle flames flickering in the distance in many directions, and yet ahead of me nothing but wild, untamed plantlife. I held that flame up and thought how small and mighty that light was. How comforting to see the tiny lights of others, faint floating faerie lights, who without the candle I'd have never known surrounded me in the night-silent woods and fields beyond. I was not alone, though I could have easily felt that way if I hadn't looked around. I had enough light for me to see by but not much idea of the landscape around me. At one point, the cup of the tealight tilted and my palm was scalded in one white wax wash. I hissed in pain, immediately fixating on the experience and wishing it hadn't happened. The light, though, unhindered by a pool of liquid wax, was flaring brighter, bigger, bolder as a result. How often in life do I try to rewind and wish away sudden dark moments instead of seeing the way the light in me can grow because of the experience? Hasn't all my most valuable personal, spiritual growth been the gift of dark times that changed me, that cleared out what I didn't need, and helped me breath a little? I was meant to spill the wax. I cannot control the candle, the Wheel, the world. I am not in control of what happens, only how I choose to view and respond to what does happen.
The wax spills, the flame grows, the wax builds again.
I have been given all the supplies I need for the days ahead. The Sun's light may be waning, but the light within me is waxing in counterpoint. Around me, in community, the Sun's light has become internalized and we'll all, as a tribe, get through the season of darkness together. I need only open my eyes and see the lights around me to know that I'm never alone.
We are all moving through the dark together, separately, and we are all carrying light with us. Enough to share, enough for us all.
