Be Still

My beautiful new moonstone ring!

Be still and know that I am she

She who kisses your eyelids with sunshine
Blesses your brow with raindrops
Lifts cares from your shoulders

She who rises with the sun
And who holds the night sky
She who holds you firmly
While spinning in space

Rooted
Grounded

Drawing it up
Feeling it settle in your belly and heart and bones

She who cradles eternity in her broad arms
And can never be lost.

One of the things I realized while at the Gaea Goddess Gathering this year was that not everything has to be a story. I don’t have to turn everything think about into a blog post. I spend a lot of time looking at the world through blogger eyes, apparently, and I was surprised how often I thought or said, “I have a blog post about this” or, “I’m going to put this in a blog post” or “I have a draft post on my blog related to this.” I kind of started to get on my own nerves with it, though I also kind of started to see it as a joke too. Right before we left for our trip, my husband finished cutting, shaping, polishing, and setting a beautiful moonstone that we found during our trip to California into a ring for me. The stone was set a little high and I worried what if I lose it. He said it would be okay and he could make another, this would be kind of trial run (for his stone-setting skills). Well, at some point on Saturday night I DID lose it. I was pretty horrified. Though it is tiny and it was ridiculous of me, I wandered all around looking for it. I have a good “finding power” usually in that if I am still for a moment and focus on the item in question, I often then go to exactly where it is. After fruitless wandering, I decided to do this. I stood in the sunshine and collected my energy. Then, I walked until I got to a spot that said “stop” to me. I stood there with my eyes closed and the sun shining on my face and I thought…again…”if I look down and there it is, this will make a great story.” Instead, I got the poem above. And, when I looked down, there was no moonstone.

Some time ago, made a very, very tiny pocket altar to carry in my purse. I searched all over for a little rose quartz goddess of Willendorf sculpture that I knew I had and wanted to include in the tiny altar. I was not able to find it. After returning from the GGG and having the insight that I’d been WAY too attached to the previous year’s experience to fully appreciate the current year, I decided to go down to my woods and untie the medicine bundle I’d made during last year’s GGG. I thought about doing this before leaving and I really wish I would have. It felt like both a figurative and literal “untying” of the experience from last year and an unbinding my life, my attachments. It was a beautiful experience to be in the woods at sunrise, unbinding my bundle and letting go. And, there in the bundle was that tiny rose quartz goddess. I guess I did get my story 😉

After my unbinding ritual, I walked slowly back to the house feeling light and contemplative. Inside, before anyone else woke up, I typed up all of my reflections and insights from this year’s GGG. I felt integrated, settled, whole, and at peace. I went to do laundry and when I was in the room, I thought of something else to include in my list (which was going to be a later blog post). I returned to my screen where the insightful note had been waiting for me and it was gone. Never to be recovered. I could NOT believe it. All my insights! All my wisdom! Gone! I have to start over…But, then I really just had to laugh (and cry a little), because here was another insight, another lesson, another hiccup in my story. And, not everything has to be a blog post after all….

The tie that bind—the wrappings from my medicine bundle from 2012 and a piece of amber from 2013 left in a broken goddess bowl in a nook in the rocks.