Listen.
I tell of violets.
And raindrops
And forest song.
These lines above were the last lines I wrote when I created my full, magical name as part of our study group using Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Ariadne’s Thread book.
Wild violets are one of the basic miracles of spring to me every year. I love them. They make me ecstatic. They carpet the ground by the woodpile.
My upcoming free Earthprayer class begins on April 10. Feel free to join!
I roam
sacred ground
my body is my altar
my temple.
I cast a circle
with my breath
I touch the earth
with my fingers
I answer
to the fire of my spirit…
I wrote this poem several years ago and it was then published in The Girl God’s Mother Earth book as well as my own Earthprayer book. I thought of it when I read the prompts for today and I offer in my photo my own woodsprayer of wild plum blossoms.
I am also pleased to offer a free Earthprayer mini class for you beginning in April. Register via this link.
Two related past posts:
“I am whole unto myself
I am the bright maiden
Strong, invincible, and free
I am the dark maiden
Cloaked in veils and mystery
I am the pulse of the sun
And the pull of the moon
Flowing from one to the other
In perfect harmony
Where I walk
None can hinder me
I am maiden
Forever young and free.”
The prompt for today was actually to write a silly poem, but instead this poem from our study group yesterday kept floating back to me. I saw “daffodil” was the photo prompt and when I went out to my tiny temple to work, there was a daffodil right inside the front door–it had fallen out of the flower crown worn by one of my circle sisters the day before. So, even though it was a little wilted, I thought it was very fitting for today, shown here with both the bright maiden and the dark maiden at this balanced time of the season…
I felt headachy and out of sorts this morning, so I took my drum and rattle and headed for the woods. On the way, I visited my favorite rosebush and discovered there are flowers on my baby’s memorial magnolia tree.
I rattled with the natural gourd rattle we discovered just a few weeks ago in the garden, covered with old weeds, somehow having cured to perfection out there after more than two years of being unnoticed by us. I’ve made other rattles with gourds that we fill with additional materials and also decorate, but this one is perfect just as it is, on its own. A wonderful garden blessing. I drew two Womanrunes cards and got The Hearth and The Tool. These are the runes of home and of labor, which feels like a “ha ha, universe” moment since I’d just been inside fretting a bit about the complexities and realities of the home-based life we lead, working, and schooling, and creating all in the same space all the time.
In my quest for other wild plum trees on our land, I’ve come to realize that the big tree by the rocks that I’ve always called a plum, is actually a serviceberry. The flowers are always too high up for me to see very clearly, but it is obvious this year that they’re serviceberry flowers, not plum (same tree family).
The theme for today was “bow and arrow.” I was playing on the trampoline with my kids and just past sunset, I grabbed Artemis off my Maiden altar and went hunting wild plum trees. One of the most wonderful treasures of spring to me each year, I never get tired of taking pictures of their sweet, white blossoms. I actually discovered one, plus several spicebush trees, right behind my tiny temple too!
I like this picture because it feels like a, “do you see a face in the leaves?” moment and you can almost imagine it is just random magic…
And, I may take nearly this exact photo every single year, but I don’t care. It forever enchants me.
We spent the day at an Ostara festival yesterday. I went to an enCHANTment workshop in which I learned some new chants and “workshopped” an old one into something fresh.I have many skills as a priestess-ritualist, but leading people in songs/chants is not one of them! I introduced a song to this group (originally by Shawna Carol and beautiful, but slow paced) that I keep wanting to use to open rituals with in my own circle. I can’t “get it right,” so I asked them for help in creating something new with it that I could bring back to my own community to use. Anyway, this is what we did. Enjoy!
…People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
— Rumi
I’ve always loved the line from Rumi about not going back to sleep. I think of it many mornings when I awake extra early and, yet, I then go back to sleep…
Here is the open door at the tiny temple on this bright spring morning.
I was delighted to find a plum tree behind it last week and today I found two spicebush trees with yellow flowers behind it too! (The flowers on the spicebush were too high for me to reach though.) There is also a beautiful dogwood budding out behind it.
Arise!
Let us greet this morning with smiling faces
Hair unbound
Hearts full of glee
Birdsong in one hand
Roses in the other
Let us dance to River’s music
And Earth’s heartbeat
Under quickening leaves
We are full with the promise of spring.
Happy Spring Equinox! May you be blessed with abundant happiness, joyful song, bright flowers, and steadfast hope.
In case you missed it:
While I have continued to make a daily post in the Facebook group for 30 Days of Persephone’s Return, I haven’t continued to make a daily companion post here. I’m going to “catch up” with several short posts in one right now and then for the days in which I had more to say or for which the post stands on its own, I will be making separate posts, but they will not be in “real time” or sequential order.
Day 19:
Since it is Easter, I drew inspiration from the Womanrunes card The Egg, rune of naming. Left card = what do you need to name and claim? Right card = what happens when you do.
Day 17:
These are my “laughing flowers” on my spring altar at home before we left this afternoon. This simple bouquet from Aldi, purchased to make a flower crown for myself for our ritual on the equinox, have brought me so much simple joy. I need to buy bouquets for myself more often!
I mentioned before that I was reading a novel about Persephone (total coincidence. It was a random digital book check out from my library!). It is called Harvest Moon and is actually a collection of three stories in one book. The first one is the one about Persephone and is by Mercedes Lackey. It was an interesting story and definitely took the angle that Persephone was not abducted, but rather fell in love and helped “stage” an abduction to break free of Demeter.
Day 14:
Long, busy, somewhat frustrating day today.
Taught tonight until 9:00 and then the drive home to my little one who missed me a lot. Feeling somewhat worn and tired and thus granting myself permission to go to sleep now instead of trying to do any more catch up!
I didn’t write a sun blessing, but I did take this photo of the sun setting on my newly planted rosebush outside my tiny temple. Perhaps that is blessing enough, both the planting and the sun.
Day 11:
An altar for spring + a candle for spring! I was making recording for a Priestessing class this afternoon as well as preparing for a Maiden ritual/spring ceremony tomorrow. It doesn’t show very well in the photo but my candle is there in a piece of rose quartz. Rose Quartz feels very “maiden” to me. Love it!
I feel so happy that this is my life and how I spend my days. I picked a rune for Ostara and was so pleased to see The Wand show up: rune of blessing. Calling in. Making sacred. Honoring. Blessing.
Yes.
My plans for a spring altar are taking place over the weekend as we celebrate the Spring Equinox, so I don’t have a photo of it yet. I do have many altars around my home though!
This goddess in my photo for the day is one we just made yesterday and is a portable altar of sorts. I carry my little goddesses all over the place with me and set them wherever I am = tiny altars everywhere, all the time.
As you will notice in my pictures and on instagram, I like to use the #havegoddesswilltravel. 😉 I love to see other people’s pictures of where their little goddesses have gone with them. Our goddesses are very durable and portable. They can accompany you almost anywhere without fear of them being broken (also, since they’re small, they are easy to tuck into pocket, shirt, or purse).
I have a St. Patrick’s Day anecdote to share as well. St. Pat’s is a significant event in my hometown and the college is my alma mater. I don’t feel like I can not do St. Pat’s. It is part of my local “heritage.” Yesterday, I was explaining to my kids though about how St. Patrick perhaps drove the pagans/Goddess out of Ireland and how snakes are a metaphor for that. We went into the skating rink for playgroup and my kids played different arcade games. My daughter won two little prizes totally randomly from two different machine full of all kinds of things and both of them were green snakes! (Different kinds.) Felt somehow symbolic–not driven out after all! 😉
The Snowdrops
~ Theodora Goss
“I’m bringing you a message:
That the snowdrops are worth listening to,
and if you listen carefully, you can hear them,
but you must get down on your knees, head low
to the ground, as though praying.They say that spring is more important
than whatever else you were doing, which you thought
was so important…”
I saw this quote in a blog post and it spoke to me. While there are no actual snowdrops at my house, there is plenty of moss, which requires the same time of listening. I hopped up first thing in the morning on Wednesday and went for another ramble in the deepwoods with my husband and our youngest child. This feels vital and restorative. And, I did it first, rather than wait to “reward” myself.
It isn’t only Persephone who is Returning. It is ME.
The theme for Day 7 was Garden. I have lots of pictures for it, but not a lot of words. We have been working outside every day and enjoying it so much. Planting fruit trees. Mulching. Pulling up old things in the garden. Putting down new rows in the greenhouse. Planting lettuce and peas in the greenhouse. We’re planning to finally get catfish in the aquaponics system this year. The goldfish we started with are massive. They were originally tiny little 50cent “feeder” goldfish. Now look at them!
Mark pruned the vines in the vineyard also:
Sage and elderberry are both coming up, though they’re planted in difficult locations and have to struggle quite a bit!
Elderberry tries again
Sage with too much competition and not enough light, but making an effort anyway!
Arise! 
Let us greet this morning with smiling faces
Hair unbound
Hearts full of glee
Birdsong in one hand
Roses in the other
Let us dance to River’s music
And Earth’s heartbeat
Under quickening leaves
We are full with the promise of spring.
—
When I saw the prompt and painting for today, I instantly had this poem pop into mind!
Scatter my ashes on the tree covered hills 
Let my bones come to rest on these stones
Raindrops will come to carry me away
Back to the Fire of All.*
At sunset, I headed to the woods with my drum. I had been thinking about the course prompts for day 6 and found myself singing the little song above. On the way, I stopped to look at the magnolia tree that we planted in memory of my third baby, who died in my second trimester of pregnancy. His death-birth, my hemorrhage and hospital transfer after his birth, and the intense walk through grief that followed, was my death-life-rebirth experience that I’ve written about before–as well as a shamanic initiation into my priestess path and my dedication to the Goddess. His memorial tree is beginning to bud.
After my drum time in the woods, I turned to go back in and looked up to see many buds on the wild plum that was damaged last year and that I feared would not survive. Through its branches, the bright crescent return of the moon…
Unfathomable eons
Glacier time
I am just a blink of an eye
But I can sit, and watch, and wonder.
(*I realized the next morning that my little tune was similar to Kellianna’s Warrior Queen song. **This is actually my writing from March 14)
My friend made this meme for me last month using a quote originally part of a blog post I wrote called Thealogy of the Ordinary, and later used in my Earthprayer book. I thought it was perfect for today*!
Had a truly beautiful day of ceremony and restoration today. I keep trying to take a “day off” and totally failing. Today made up for it as well as reminded me why I can NOT accept letting go of my personal magic in order to “get things done.” Went on a mystical morning walk into the deep woods with my husband and our youngest child. Did a sacred bathing ceremony of renewal for myself. Then, did a lunar priestess ritual in my tiny temple, but invited my husband to participate. We meditated, passed the rattle, chanted, did some candle work, and then listened to a shamanic drum journey together. I didn’t see a lot visually during the journey, but I did have really dramatic physical sensations around my forehead, the top of my head, and my “third eye” as well as hearing flute music (in addition to the drum, even though there was only a drum!)
I feel I have been VERY close to the edge of total burnout and perhaps something bad happening (health-wise) to me lately. I’m so happy to be happy again today!
I finished three intense projects and went on a big vacation as well as finished up a class (including final paper grading, etc.) what seemed like all at once and I feel like I dipped too far into my “reserve” energy and even went beyond it in order to get it all done. Very depleted. I also noticed it helps to acknowledge: “yes, it makes sense that you feel depleted. That was a LOT to do. It’s okay that you feel that way.” I think I had been feeling annoyed with myself for feeling depleted or like I “shouldn’t” feel that way!
Anyway, a little dedicated attention to my own renewal goes a long way! I will not neglect it again.
(*actually from March 13)
WoodsPriestess 