Monthly Archives: June 2015

Holy Ground

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Molly

The color in this picture isn’t edited at all. They really are this glowing color that is so perfect it doesn’t look real.

“And I toil and sweat
And watch and wonder
And am full of love.
Living in place
In this place.
For truth and beauty
Dwell here*…”

While I expected to participate in my own photo prompts for the Womanrunes Immersion course, I didn’t really expect or plan to fully experience the course myself, personally. I am so familiar with the Womanrunes that I guess I didn’t know they still had more to share with me! As I developed the course, I kept saying to myself, “I guess this is my immersion!” When I described it as an “immersion” course, I meant it for the participants—to have daily contact with the symbols, to uncover their own truths, and to be alert for this work and magic in their own lives—but to develop the course materials, I had to be immersed myself for several months. And now, as I read my own words as they arrive in each daily lesson/prompt, I find the immersion continues and I still have more to uncover. As I touched on in my last post, what this course is uncovering for me is a desire, no, a need to reconnect and re-establish meaningful practices and contacts that I have let fall away since my baby was born in October. I also need more gentleness, patience, and grace when faced with the unexpected (which pretty much happens every day). I am receiving that I need to tend my relationships. And, at the same time, I am feeling the tickles of multiple additional course ideas and possibilities and I feel exhilarated and excited about this inspiration. I often feel as if my work comes through me, like I am a channel for it and this fire of inspiration just wants to burn through me…to be expressed and birthed into the world. It is an intense experience and it can lead me to be a little skewed in my personal life—to burn and burn and burn with “just one more thing! I’m almost finished!” rather than heeding my body’s call for rest or food or hugs.

Yesterday morning, in response to the prompt for the Pentacle, Rune of Protection, I took a picture through my roses at the woods leading down to overlook where I wrote the Womanrunes book. I love this place so much.

I was then enchanted by the raindrops on the rosebuds and by my baby’s face, enjoying the light drizzle.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been delighting in harvesting various plants. I made a rose elixir and also started a plantain infusion for salve. I finished drying raspberry leaves for tea and some chocolate mint leaves as well. And, I made four sage smudge sticks from sage that grows in front of our house in the flower boxes. I’m having so much fun lately with this herbal craft. As I mentioned, one of the things I’m recognizing as I work through this course myself is that I really want move these self-care, nurturing connections and practices up in my daily priority. While much of my work takes place online and I am grateful for that, I simply must cultivate more time to be offline, restoring my soul.

I’m also remembering to consciously center in my heartspace to consider what is actually required in each moment. What task actually needs my attention and what is self-generated, self-imposed busy-ness. And, I’ve implementing a daily, one minute grounding practice after being inspired to do so by Enchant Your Everyday.

While I was walking in the driveway on our nightly walk, I came across a gigantic frog. I’ve never seen such a big one! It was the perfect reminder of how this very same patch of ground upon which I spend all my days still finds new ways to surprise and enchant me!

One of the Womanrunes course participants then shared this with me:

Frog spirt animal associated with water:

“Cleansing
Renewal, rebirth
Fertility, abundance
Transformation, metamorphosis
Life mysteries and ancient wisdom.”

Sounds perfect!

(*Past post with the rest of the “I stand on holy ground” poem quoted above: I stand on holy ground | WoodsPriestess.)

Categories: divination, nature, sacred pause, seasons, self-care, spirituality, Womanrunes, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

Summer Love

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Molly

Too busy. Too buzzy. Not enough time.
To do. To do. To do.
Scramble. Hurry.
Tight chest
Tight breath
Tight heart
WAIT!
Listen to Summer.
Languid. Warm. Sweaty. Hot.
Petals soften
Juice drips
Kissed by sunlight
Bathed with rain
Sweet stickiness.
Passion.
Summer is heavy.
Hot and ready.
Blooming and dripping.
Unfolding. Becoming. Ripening.
Sweet. Tangy. Biting.
Feel it in the air.
Greet it at sunset.
Throw your arms around it.
Dig in. Hang on. This is IT.
Taste it. Hold it. Enfold it. Be it.
Lick it. Know it. Be it. Embrace it.
This is your life.
This is your life.
Do you love it?

I’ve been working really hard for the last month preparing my Womanrunes Immersion course and I feel a little unbalanced and skewed off-center. I keep telling myself that it is okay to keep working hard, because I’m “almost done,” and sometimes pushing is exactly what is needed. But, I’ve realized as I participate in my own course, that since there is always something else immediately around the corner, that “break” I keep holding out for never comes. I have to create it for myself. The course is going so well and has been really inspiring and magical so far, while also needing a lot of energy from me. I’ve committed to working through the course myself, not just guiding others through it, and I’ve already had to take a deep look at several issues…feeling on the verge of some kind of breakthrough now. From yesterday’s lesson this reminder:

“When we lack proper time for the simple pleasures of life, for the enjoyment of eating, drinking, playing, creating, visiting friends, and watching children at play, then we have missed the purpose of life. Not on bread alone do we live, but on all these human and heart-hungry luxuries.”
–Ed Hayes (Simple Pleasures)

And, then from another article:

“The more fully we experience life’s beauty, the less regret we have that we didn’t live and love in the ways we most longed to.”

Barefeet, watermelons, and sunburns – it’s summer!

Yesterday in response to my own Womanrunes prompts, I literally went outside to smell the roses.

It was just what I needed and I need to move these experiences up in priority in my day, instead of being the last things I attend to. I’m also participating in this free offering:

Enchant Your Everyday: 108 Day Pilgrimage to Your Beautiful Life – Vanessa Sage.

This is a beautiful world. Don’t miss it!

Categories: poems, sacred pause, seasons, self-care, spirituality, Womanrunes | 5 Comments

Summer Solstice Imprint Necklaces

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Molly

Summer’s bounty
both sweet and spiky
sun-kissed and thorny
able to draw blood
and to cause you to smile
as you taste the juices of life.

I find it interesting to observe how the wheel of the year is reflected within my own mind and thought processes. In the late fall, I turn inward and feel like retreating and pulling away from commitments. In the winter, I incubate and make plans. In the spring, I emerge again and feel enthused with new ideas. In the summer, I start to make decisions about what to keep and what to prune away. I find that summer is a perfect time to see what is growing well and what needs to be yanked out by the roots.

Summer brings the opportunity to both wrestle with what isn’t working in your life and to celebrate the fruits of your labors. Summer is when you peek under leaves only to discover bugs in your cabbages, whether literal or metaphorical. And, it is the season in which you bask in what is growing well, what has taken root firmly, what is beautiful in the sunshine, what you can trust, taste, enjoy and savor. In the summer, we see both weeding and harvesting. Planting and tending and maintaining. We see withering. We see giving up. We see what is dying and what is thriving. This is the balance of the year. The wheel turns and turns and turns and before we know it, we are holding a palm full of berries once more. Older, different, changed and yet, right there, again. That juicy bite of summer.

Heat and light. Growth and transformation. Bearing fruit. Spreading open in the sun. Digging up by the roots. Weeding out. Composting. Turning over. Turning over. Turning over.

I’m preparing for our summer ritual and the themes above are on my mind. Based on the Sacred Year class I’m taking via the Sacred Living Movement, I’d like to offer the following activity idea for your own summer solstice experience. It would be a beautiful project to undertake at sunrise or sunset on this year’s summer solstice.

You will need:

Clay of some kind (self-hardening, air dry, oven cured, kiln fired, or polymer clay)
Rolling pin
Knife or cookie cutter
A few minutes outside alone in Nature

Go outside and center and ground yourself with three deep breaths. Then, begin to walk around slowly looking for a message from Nature, from Gaia, from the Earth. Trust your intuition and choose what calls your attention and seems meant for you. It might be a seed, a berry, a leaf, a stone, or a flower. Accept this small, renewable gift from nature with appreciation and collaborative intent.

Roll out your clay on a firm surface (protected with cardboard or a placemat) to about 1/4 inch thick. You can use whatever shape or size makes sense to you, squares, circles, dewdrops, ovals and freeform oblong shapes work well that about two inches across. If you are using clay that will be fired in a kiln, remember that it will shrink as it dries.

Gently press your gift from nature into the clay. Press it down on all slides, firmly but gently. If you are using a leaf, use the back of the leaf to create the imprint, because the veins on the back will create a clearer impression. Your imprint will not look perfect, but that’s okay!

Make sure to poke a hole near the top before the clay dries so that you will be able to hang it up or string it on a cord. If you are using clay that will be fired in a kiln, you can use one of your imprints as an essential oil diffuser after the first firing. Or, you can glaze it and have it fired again. I am fortunate to have a mom who is a potter and who is firing the imprint necklaces I made.

As I referenced in my last post, wild raspberries are special to me. While I originally expected to use wild dianthus flowers for my imprint, I followed my intuition and absolutely delighted in creating my imprint necklaces using wild raspberries and raspberry leaves. Seriously. These little berry prints make me swoon.

The message of the imprint necklace you create will be unique to you and your experience. When you wear or hang up your summer imprint, you will be reminded of the messages and lessons of Gaia’s natural, wild wisdom and the ever-changing, unfolding, everyday miracle of life on Earth.

(Note: if you also use berries, choose an unripe berry because it makes a much firmer “stamp” with which to imprint!)

Upcoming courses:

Womanrunes Immersion

Red Tent Initiation Program

—-

Crossposted at SageWoman

Categories: art, holidays, nature, seasons, spirituality, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

Raspberry Revolution

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Molly

…The spirit of adventure
    runs through my veins
    with the rich color
    of crushed raspberry

    May it always run so free
    may it be blessed
    and may I be reminded
    of the courage and love
    shown in small, wild adventures.

June brings out the hunter in me. The mission: wild raspberries.* A friend once laughed to hear me describe picking raspberries as a “holy task,” but it is. A task earthy, embodied, mundane, and miraculous at once.

Two of June’s treasures each year for me are the roses and the raspberries. This week, I sweated and struggled and was scratched and stung, but I returned home once again with my bounty.

Last year I wrote about my “Inanna’s descent” as I picked wild raspberries with my children:

…I was thinking about how I was hot, tired, sweaty, sore, scratched, bloody, worn, and stained from what “should” have been a simple, fun little outing with my children and the above prayer came to my lips. I felt inspired by the idea that parenting involves uncountable numbers of small, wild adventures. I was no longer “just” a mom trying to find raspberries with her kids, I was a raspberry warrior. I braved brambles, swallowed irritations, battled bugs, sweated, swore, argued, struggled, crawled into scary spaces and over rough terrain, lost possessions and let go of the need to find them, and served as a rescuer of others. I gave my blood and body over to the task…

I consider any berry picking expedition to be the very definition of success as long as there are enough berries to make a cobbler! It is so delicious I feel like sharing my version here, in case any of you would also like to enjoy one with your family during berry season (modified from this recipe).

Ingredients:

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 ts. salt
1 ts. baking powder
1 cup milk
2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Instructions:

Melt butter. Mix sugar and flour into the same baking dish in which you plan to bake the cobbler. Whisk in milk. Pour in melted butter and whisk again.

Scatter rinsed raspberries evenly over the top of the batter.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 1 hour until golden and bubbly.

Serve with whipped cream on top if desired, though plain is delightfully delicious as well!

—

While in the woods with my raspberries this year, I also finished taking pictures for my upcoming Womanrunes e-course:

“Revolution keeps a steady tempo with your heartsong and the color of your wings.”

Sometimes revolution tastes like raspberries.

—

(*This post is crossposted from my Sagewoman blog where it received many Facebook comments from people feeling compelled to inform me that these are called blackberries, not raspberries. Have no fear, however, yes, wild raspberries are black in Missouri and these are indeed raspberries, even though they are not red. We have wild blackberries also, which will ripen in July. The wild raspberries and blackberries, both black in color, grow right next to each other in my back yard. There are distinctive differences. The raspberries are less seedy, sweeter, juicier, and tastier. Their canes are green-white and waxy in color and they ripen a month earlier. We also have mulberries and dewberries here, which are both black as well.)

Categories: nature, prayers, seasons, woodspriestess, writing | 5 Comments

Wisdom from Moon Time for Red Tents

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Molly

“At her first bleeding a woman meets her power.
During her bleeding years she practices it.
At menopause she becomes it.”

(Traditional Native American saying)

One of my favorite books to have available on the resource table of our local Red Tent Circle is Moon Time, by Lucy Pearce. I reviewed it in this post, but didn’t have room for all the juicy quotes I wanted to share! One of the ideas I include in my own Red Tent Resource Kit book is to use womanspirit wisdom quotes to stimulate a discussion in the circle. Here are some quotes from Moon Time that would make great launching points for a sharing circle at the Red Tent:

“It is my guess that no one ever initiated you into the path of womanhood. Instead, just like me, you were left to find out by yourself. Little by little you pieced a working understanding of your body and soul together. But still you have gaps.”

Questions for circle: Were you initiated into the “path of womanhood”? What gaps do you feel?

“You yearn for a greater knowledge of your woman’s body, a comprehensive understanding of who you are, why you are that way. Perhaps you have searched long and hard, seeking advice from your mother, sister, aunts and friends, tired of suffering and struggling alone. You may have visited doctors, healers or therapists, but still you feel at sea and your woman’s body is a mystery to you. Or maybe you have never given your cycles a second thought … until now.”

Questions for circle: What do you feel like you need to know about your body? What mysteries are you uncovering?

“Through knowledge we gain power over our lives. With options we have possibility. With acceptance we find a new freedom.

Menstruation matters.”

Question for circle: How does menstruation matter?

Additional information about why menstruation matters on a physical, emotional, and relational level:

We start bleeding earlier today than ever before, with girls’ first periods occurring at 12.8 years old now, compared with 14.5 years at the beginning of the last century. Coupled with lower breastfeeding rates, better nutrition and fewer pregnancies, women now menstruate more in their adult lives than at any time in our history.

From the age of 12 to 51, unless you are pregnant or on the pill, every single day of your life as a woman is situated somewhere on the menstrual cycle. Whether ovulating or bleeding, struggling with PMS or conception, our bodies, our energy levels, our sense of self, even our abilities are constantly shifting each and every day. And yet nobody talks about it…

via Moon Time: Harness the ever-changing energy of your menstrual cycle

As I noted in my review, one of the things this book was helpful for to me personally, was in acknowledging myself as a cyclical being and that these influences are physical and real:

Each month our bodies go through a series of changes, many of which we may be unconscious of. These include: shifts in levels of hormones, vitamins and minerals, vaginal temperature and secretions, the structure of the womb lining and cervix, body weight, water retention, heart rate, breast size and texture, attention span, pain
threshold . . .

The changes are biological. Measurable. They are most definitely not ‘all in your head’ as many would have us believe. This is why it is so crucial to honour these changes by adapting our lives to them as much as possible.

We cannot just will these changes not to happen as they are an integral part of our fertility.

From there, another relevant quote:

“There is little understanding and allowance for the realities of being a cycling woman—let alone celebration.”

Questions for circle: What allowances do you make for yourself as a cycling woman? Are you able to celebrate the experience?

In my own life, I’ve had to reframe my understanding of the impact of the monthly moontime experience by looking at it through the lens of healthy postpartum care following birth—it is crucial that we care for our bodies with love, attention, respect, and time. Our local Red Tent Circle definitely doesn’t focus exclusively on menstruation or on currently menstruating women (all phases of a woman’s lifecycle and her many diverse experiences and feelings are “held” in that circle)–in fact menstruation sometimes barely comes up as a topic—however, one of the core purposes of our circling is in celebration. We gather together each month to celebrate being women in this time and in this place, together. I started out my work with women focused on birth, breastfeeding, and postpartum. While those are formative and central and important life experiences, it became very important to me to broaden my scope to include the totality of women’s lives, not just pregnant women. I want to honor and celebrate our whole lives, not just pregnancy and birth. Having a mother blessing ceremony during pregnancy is beautiful and important and special, but I feel like that care, attention, value, and ceremony can be brought into the rest of our non-pregnant lives through gathering together in a Red Tent Circle. This is one reason why I’m so excited to offer an online Red Tent Initiation Program this summer. This program is designed to be both a powerful, personal experience AND a training in facilitating transformative women’s circles.

Back to Moon Time quotes!

“There is no shame in tears. There is a need for anger. Blood will flow. Speak your truth. Follow your intuition. Nurture your body. But above all … Let yourself rest.”

Questions for circle: Do you allow yourself anger and tears? Do you feel shame? How do you speak your truth? How do you give yourself time to rest?

To be clear, I wouldn’t use all these quotes at one Red Tent Circle! I would use them individually at different gatherings. This one blog post has enough potential circle discussion prompts to last for more than six months of Circles! 🙂 This month I also bought a bundle of copies of Moon Time to have available for women at our local Red Tent.

More good discussion quotes here: Talk Books: Cycle to the Moon | Talk Birth.

And, there are others in my Red Tent Resource Kit.

Please consider joining us this summer for the Red Tent Initiation Program!

Categories: books, community, friends, moontime, priestess, quotes, readings, red tent, resources, retreat, ritual, self-care, womanspirit, women, women's circle | Leave a comment

I brake for flowers

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Molly

I stopped on the side of our gravel road last week to take pictures of one of my all-time favorite wildflowers. I’ve tried to transplant them to my own house, but they prefer growing in their own way on their own terms (don’t we all!), so I appreciate them from the road!

I also brake for moonrise. The full, strawberry moon was so phenomenal on my drive home last night that I stopped three times to try to take a picture of it. Unfortunately, this meme is so true with regard to my moon-photography skills…

It was absolutely huge and pink and amazing. All my pictures turned out to be tiny blurs. By the time I got home, interestingly, the moon hadn’t yet risen over the trees at my own house and was not pink at all. I’m not sure why it was so dramatically different just 40 miles away!

On the way, I had to restrain my urge to brake for flowers, because I wanted to make sure I got to the first night of my new class with lots of time to spare. However, I longed to pull over for the gorgeous field of coneflowers, black eyed Susans, and something fabulously blue and spiky that I saw on my drive!

After my daily blogging with 30 Days of May, I’ve taken a break from writing posts here and have been completely absorbed by the preparation of my upcoming Womanrunes Immersion ecourse. I am so thrilled to be doing this! I haven’t finished taking all the pictures I plan to take yet, but all is going well.

I’m getting ready for our annual summer ritual. It is for families, rather than for women, which I find makes the planning more of a challenge! I have been re-reading some of my past blog posts about summer rituals and enjoyed re-reading this past “ritual recipe.” It has a variety of reflections at the end, including this one about group size:

…Small IS good—I already know from my years as a breastfeeding support group leader that I’m a sucker for bigger-is-better thinking (I tell my own students: don’t let your self-esteem depend on the size of your group!!!!!). When the group is small or RSVPs are minimal, it starts to feel like a personal “failing” or failure to me somehow. However, the reality is that there is a quality of interaction in a small group that is not really possible in a larger group. At this retreat there were seven women. While there was an eighth friend I really wished would come and who we missed a lot, the size felt pretty perfect. I reflected that while some part of me envisions some kind of mythically marvelous “large” group, ten is probably the max that would fit comfortably in our space as well as still having each woman be able participate fully. Twelve would probably be all right and maybe we could handle fifteen. I also need to remember not to devalue the presence of the women who DO come. They matter and they care and by lamenting I want more, it can make them feel like they’re not ‘enough.’

via Ritual Recipe: Women’s Summer Retreat | WoodsPriestess.

I was very interested to read this evocative description of the “Goddess Wave” as shared by the Shekhinah Mountainwater Memorial Fund:

“It’s lonely in the tip, and it takes courage to stay there. But every part of the Goddess Wave is valid in its own way, and there is no value judgement here. It just helps to know which part of the wave you are in and whether or not you want to be anchored there…”

Goddess Wave | Shekhinah Mountainwater Memorial Fund.

(I also appreciate the mention in the post of the Womanrunes course)

Check out the information about this neat online course too: The Fivefold Goddess: A Web-Based Course and Initiation Cycle into a New Vision of the Divine Feminine.

So many neat projects!