Woodspriestess: Spring

Spring
what are we leaping towards
what wants to push up from cold ground
what wants to open to the sun
what is it that we need to know

What quiet, steady pulse beats
below the surface
what hope watches from the wings
what light grows broad
upon a patch of ground

Shedding
releasing
changing
renewing
growing
healing
springing

Letting go
leaving behind
casting off
sloughing
opening…

What expectations need we shed? What old thoughts need to leave our minds? What habitual patterns of behavior, relationship, and communication need to change? It is easy to be centered when you sit in the woods alone. The challenge is to carry that core into the unrelenting murmur of everyday life. The challenge is to reach for that place of inner stillness, even when it feels as if chaos reigns. Perhaps the challenge is to return to the place that heals my soul every single day even when the to-do list gets longer, the have-tos, the should-dos, the want-tos. Those things can be shut up for a minute and I can step forward onto dry leaves, solid earth, and steady rock. I can rest for a moment in the calm stillness that sings through these woods in harmony with the call of my own heart and the center of my own being. Find it here, find it now. Know that the potential is always within me and the place remains for me to return and return and return….

Spring
cast off
lay down
renew
release.

Emerge
perhaps cautiously
perhaps tenderly
but pushing forth
into full blossom

Know that stillness
in the midst of swirl
is possible
movement is constant
and so is quiet

She places her hands on both
and on her own heart…

Today began as another crappy day in what has been a string of crappy days. I awoke with a headache…again…the last time I remember NOT having a headache was in January. Lots of phone calls, lots of things not working out right, kids out of sorts, etc., etc. In the late afternoon, my kids went to visit my parents (who were having their own crappy day, so bless them for still helping me out!). After spending a half an hour on the phone, again, making a doctor’s appointment for my daughter as a prelude to her oral surgery appointment next month, I lit out for the woods. When I came back, I made tea. And, I decided that rather than immediately jump into preparing for my classes that begin next week, that I would take 15 minutes to listen to a shamanic journeying track. My best tips about “successful” journeying are to first look for a hole of some kind and actively go into it and that actively starting the journey off is okay. I used to think I shouldn’t try to “make” anything happen, just wait and see what happens, but then I read that journeying is 80% spontaneous and 20% created and that is okay. People will say, “how do I know if I’m really just making the whole thing up?” The answer is, so what if you are? It still means something. It is fascinating to watch my own brain work though once it gets going and to see how hard it becomes to continue to actively “control” the journey once it finds its own direction.

I went into a hole in a tree and ended up walking down a tree-lined road. In the past, I’ve always descended into caves, it is usually night, and it is in the woods with a bonfire and people dancing/drumming. This time, regardless of how I tried to pull my brain back to the familiar dark cave, start to the journey, I was on a road, headed to a city instead. It was a bright, sunny day and in a Central Park type area of bright green grass surrounded by a white city skyline, a woman is dancing with a tambourine. There is a white tent-like temple structure with a big gold ball on top and red carpet spilling out onto the green grass. I try to make the tent red like a Red Tent, but it stays white. I go into the temple and am greeted by a priestess who tells me it is okay to rest and that I am taken care of. She moves her hood back and she is me. I lie down and other women come in and massage my back and feet. I then saw—ack for the Whovians among us—a stone angel and she started crying. I think I dozed off for a minute then and when I woke up, the drums were done and my headache was also gone…

On Facebook today the following caught my eye:

This is how we DARE to have a grassroots movement. Come on women. Let’s raise these temples up. 30 states and 6 countries! If there is not one near you, it is waiting for you to start it! Let’s work together.

What is at risk for you to be the creative, alive force of love that you were born to be? What holds you back? What every day lies coerce you not to fly high and even stay lowly in a place that betrays everything your soul is beckoning you to be? This is the moment. This is the life. This is the breath. No one can take the action you are waiting and waiting and waiting to take but you, even when others have told you “yes you can” and “no you cannot.” You decide. A thousand years from now will anyone remember you? Likely not even in a hundred. So why not? Be the daring unrecorded history that mattered because you lived. (emphasis mine)

—ALisa Starkweather Red Tent Temple Movement

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This is my 100th blog post on this blog! (I’m pushing 800 on my other blog) Last night when I published the 99th post, I noticed I also had 99 comments (and it was 11:59 on the 19th. And, I have 91 followers [not very impressive, but this is still a new blog. And, I appreciate every one of them!]). So, it would feel fun to get my 100th comment on my 100th post…who wants the honor? 🙂