family

Altars, Energy, and Travel

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Molly

I’m finishing up my Ritual and Liturgy class at OSC and the final assignment was to create an altar for a specific purpose. First, I had the idea of re-doing my existing living room altar to reflect new focus and intention for the remainder of the year, but I couldn’t really get going on it. I am preparing to leave on a trip though and feeling nervous and stressed about leaving home (and my woods!). Suddenly, yesterday afternoon, the purpose of the re-visioned altar came to me cleanly—I decided to create a safety, protection, and connection altar to ground me in my home space and companion travel altar to bring that connection and grounding with me on my travels. I felt a focusing of energy and intention as I engaged in this process. It was a very powerful experience.

I chose items for the main altar that represented travel, the purpose of travel, protection, connection, each family member, and several reminders to carry my own priestess spirit out into the world. In the travel altar, I placed corresponding items connected to the items on my home altar (for example–a shell from the beach we will be visiting is on each, as well as an item created by or representing each family member). The items and purposes are described in the captions in the following photo gallery (to enlarge any photo just click on it and a slideshow of all the pictures will open up from there).

: My kitchen table altar. I haven’t blogged about it yet, but the center dish is a family “wheel of the year” idea I read about in a back issue of SageWoman magazine—basically, you add items to it throughout the year to represent your family’s year.

: Kitchen corner altar.

: Main living room altar as it was before this project.

: My two altar cloths–both dyed by the same friend.

: I added an earth paperweight and a labyrinth to represent travel and journey-taking.

: Sheela Na Gig is a protective symbol. I also have one of my crocheted Goddess of Willendorfs from my mom, since she is going to be traveling also (and the mini one went in my mini altar).

: My central Goddess of Willendorf has to stay. Also joining her are Hathor (Goddess for the Exhuasted!) and the Snake Prietess of Crete.

: Objects for the travel altar wait close by.

: Ring from Disney World and one of my usual rings are going to stay on the home altar.

: Stone Willendorfs–one mini and one *really* mini!

: Womanrunes in chalice: Rune of Journeys and Rune of Protection.

: Assorted stones from past travels.

: Picture of my grandma, for whom we are traveling in the first place, as well as family photo.

: Large and mini priestess sculptures

: Something from each member of my immediate family.

: Finished altar. Crowded, but purposeful!

: Mamoo was a traveler and she is here too!

: I laid out the items for my mini altar on the floor. There is stone from the woods and my woodspriestess beads as well as mini versions or representations of things from the home altar space.

: Tiny Willendorf hanging out on a womanrunes talisman.

: All packed up!

: The next day, I took both candles and my travel box down to the woods to bless them and “energeticallly” link everything together!

: And, I suddenly felt inspired to give myself a new travel ring! The green stone reminds of both the woods and the stones in my sacred space—I carry sacred space within and a symbol on my finger 🙂

: I added three beads made by my dad to the indoor altar as well, which connect to my woodspriestess beads (plus, it means my mom and dad are both represented on the home altar and in the travel altar, as are each member of my immediate family).

Today, I took my travel box altar and my two candles down to the woods. I lit both candles in the woodspace and then took one back up to the home altar, symbolically forging the link, the circle, between the two altars and the sacred woods. I returned to the woods, where I offered this blessing/prayer upon the travel altar:

These two altars are now blessed and consecrated by this holy woodspace. Witnessed by the air, the earth, the fire, the stones. The breath of my life, the water of my blood. They are energetically linked to each other and to the woods of my home. May they be strong. May they be connected. May they be protective. May they be joyous. May the draw rich gifts, long life, deep love, and great peace to us all. The link is made, it is energetically unbroken. Safe travels, protection, love, harmony, wisdom, guidance.

Remembering that we carry sacred space within, remembering that we carry holy truth within, remembering that our bodies themselves are an altar on this earth, and remembering that our lives each day are an offering. Remembering that we can cast a circle with the physical stuff of our own being.

Let this physical altar serve as a tangible reminder of that which we already carry within.

It is blessed and consecrated, it is witnessed, it is known. May it be so. Thank you. Blessed be.

Ritual and Liturgy is the twelfth class I’ve finished at OSC! I can hardly believe I actually manage to do this along with everything else. It has been a rich and deepening experience so far. I now have about fourteen classes and my dissertation remaining! It is doable after all 🙂

Categories: family, nature, OSC, prayers, ritual, spirituality, woodspriestess | 5 Comments

Womanrunes: The Flame

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Molly

Womanrunes: The Flame. Rune of Fire. R as in “roar.” Energy, vitality, enthusiasm, Amazon. When you draw this stone, rest assured that you can do it. It is time to draw upon your deep, fiery, inner resolve. Let yourself ignite. Approach your task with enthusiasm and vitality. If that which you must do is not serving your vitality, either do not do it, or find a way to light its fire. Call upon your warrior, call upon your Amazon spirit. Step forth boldly, go forth with grand gestures and resolute purpose. At the same time, dance. Put on your warpaint. Adorn your head and body. Dance with your inner fire. Dance with your vision. Dance with your purpose.

Your enthusiasm is what keeps you going. Your energy is what brightens the world around you. Your fire is that which rests within. It is hot, it is holy, and it feeds you.

I got this stone yesterday morning as I was preparing to meet a long day with lots of work and lots of responsibility. It felt like the perfect match for what I needed and a most excellent reminder. This morning, my two-year-old daughter had to have extensive dental work done under general anesthesia at an outpatient surgery clinic two hours from our house. It was another long day and it was hard on all of us, but we made it and we’re home safe and sound. She is tired, but by this evening seemed like her usual happy little self, which was a huge relief—she was so tired, wounded, lethargic, and out of it when we left the city, that I think some part of me feared she’d never perk back up again.

I was so happy to see the woods when I got home! I needed a boost!

What a nice invitation…

Worry melts
fears fade away
burdens dissipate
frustrations ease
peace settles
like a falling leaf
like a mantle of love
like a soft embrace

Breathing deep
breathing easy
breathing peace.

Feeling soothed
calmed
and stilled.

This the wisdom
of woodspaces
this is the meditation
of Earthplaces…

I brought along the little pink box containing her little tooth that couldn’t be saved…

And, I brought this little set of cards my oldest son made me for Mother’s Day:

Goddess of the Earth, Goddess of Love, Goddess of Play, and Lion Goddess.

(*Oops–really written on 5/14/2013, but the clock clicked past midnight before I actually hit publish!)

—

Update: this project evolved into a real book!

The first post in my Womanrunes series is available here. The runes and the names of them come from Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Womanrunes system for which there are no written interpretations available other than the name and one word meanings. I’m engaging in a semi-daily practice of drawing one and then going down to the woods with it to see what it “tells” me–basically, creating what I wish I had, which is a more developed interpretation of the meaning of each womanrunestone.

Categories: family, nature, theapoetics, Womanrunes | 1 Comment

Sunday Sabbath: Happy Mother’s Day

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Molly

“We women should concentrate more on spiritual evolution and truly act as mothers for society. There is tremendous energy within women that needs to be recognized and used for the welfare of the world. If women truly see themselves as mothers, then they can give pure, unconditional love to anyone. This is what the world definitely requires today.” –Asha Ma (in Open Mind)

Blurry pic, but you can still see its tiny, magical yellow fluff self!

“The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry that secret out with our bodies into the living rooms and porches, backyards and grocery stores? Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world.”

–Natalie Goldberg (in Open Mind)

Happy Mother’s Day! Today, I was thrilled to see that one of our broody chicks hatched a baby! What an appropriate Mother’s Day event. Baby chicks are one of my favorite things about life. Witnessing one is like a religious experience for me (see past posts here and here).

One of my very favorite Goddess musicians is offering a free download of her album Lady Moon today–check it out while you have a chance! 🙂 Yesterday we went to a birthday party at the river and I enjoyed seeing all my children playing and having fun:

Went I got home, I went down to the woods with my youngest and smooched her under the canopy of green trees. It is a good time to be a mother!

Categories: family, nature, parenting, sabbath | Leave a comment

Womanrunes: The Self

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Molly

Womanrunes: Rune of the Self. Beginnings, Potential. Innocence.

The truth of being may be grander and deeper and broader than you can ever imagine. Look before you and bear witness to the magic, the pure potentiality that surrounds you all the time. Is not your very Self a true miracle? Thinking, breathing, moving, walking, grasping, laughing, loving, writing, talking, holding, birthing, creating. These systems that animate your body, beat your heart, grow your fingernails, circulate your blood, digest your food, gaze at your baby. This is incredible. Incredibly majestic, incredibly miraculous, and incredibly mysterious. What is this process of cell division? What is this process of thought? What is this process of life and living? Where does it come from and where does it go? How does it work? Really work. The language of meiosis and mitosis and synapses and electrical impulses is not enough. We can explain life in scientific terms…sort of, but underlying it is still a fundamental majesty of unimaginable wonder.

Rune of the Self: Potential. Innocence. Beginnings. Just as the acorn holds limitless oaks, the Self has limitless potential. Expanding, contracting, opening, closing, leaping, pausing, watching, knowing, asking questions…

To be a human being sitting on a rock, in the sun, feeling wind, breathing in and out, reaching. This very moment, this very experience, this very capacity to sit and see and wonder, is the soul of life.

Today* my mom and I spoke briefly about my grandma and whether or not her “spirit” is still present. I’ve mentioned that I don’t really get the kinds of “messages” that other people seem to experience after the loss of someone important to them and my mom feels pretty certain that life is over when it is over. So, once again, the Womanrune I drew today felt particularly perfect for the things on my mind.

I’ve thoughts for years that the answers, so to speak, are beyond the grasp of our imagination, beyond the boundaries of our physical experience. Bigger, deeper, broader, and more intricate than we can ever hope to learn or know and that is why, I do not pretend to have any sense of certainty about what, if anything, happens after death. There is too much we do not know or understand about the way the world works, the way the universe dances, to make any sort of definitive pronouncements and I return to subjective understanding, personal experience, and felt reality. Felt intuition. My felt intuition says that energy goes somewhere and that the animating force that runs through each of our bodies in life, stirs us into being, incubates our dreams and hopes, breathes life through us. That force may well remain forever, embedded in the ripples and eddies of time and space. It may remain recognizable, it may remain conscious. Or, it may become dispersed into the larger currents of reality, though having made an indelible imprint and a lasting mark at its place on the ribbon of eternity. These threads, in the Goddess-Earth-Universe tapestry, with which we weave and are woven, hold infinite potential, and are connected in an unbreakable fabric of relationship and wholeness. It doesn’t matter how far away the ribbon unfurls, there is still a mark on it named Mamoo. It doesn’t matter how great and grand the tapestry grows and how far it is woven, there is still a thread in it named Mamoo. And that thread, is interwoven with my own in deep and lasting ways. This place on the ribbon named Molly right now, I like her and I enjoy her company. 😉

My mind has been on my grandma all day today. I’ve been working on her memorial ceremonies and looking at pictures and crying and thinking about my speech for her luncheon. Something I realized is that some of the things I admired most about her are interestingly the same things that I am often critical of in myself.

When I came in from my woodspriestess time, I decided to do a guided meditation called Connect to the Red Threads: a meeting with the cosmic mothers from Lunation. I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time and even though my to-do list was a mile long today, I decided to give myself the 15 minutes to do it. In the meditation, you descend into the earth and into caves below it, while your “red thread” curls around connecting with the planet. In my “vision,” my grandma and my mom and my daughter all joined me in the caves and we were all connected by the red threads, navel-to-navel. My grandma sat there, holding her thread and smiling, but looking kind of out-of-place and I thought, she would SO have really done this. Even though it wouldn’t have been her thing and she would have felt like it was silly or not really been interested, she would have been game to sit in a cave and hold a red thread with me in real life if I’d wanted her to do that, because if it was important to me, she tried to be interested in it too. When the meditation moved out of the cave, I sort of got swirled out into the atmosphere and I held my grandma’s hand and took her with me. We hovered out in the universe together, her wearing a blue flowered jacket, white shirt, blue slacks and blue canvas shoes (I thought it was the outfit from her obituary picture, but it wasn’t actually) and the 13 “cosmic mothers” of the meditation came out to meet us. They were not easy to perceive—they were basically each a swirly woman in veils of different color, there was an orange one, a purple one, a green one, etc. Then, we went back down to the ground, to the earth and they sat around us in a circle. My grandma and I were standing. We put our hands together, palm-to-palm, and made a kind of circular, sweeping motion. Then she said, “I am still a part of the world,” and touched my face. The meditation ended and the 13 cosmic mothers swooped away and took her with them.

One of the things I talked about today with my mom was whether or not the “message” truly comes from outside of you or just from your own psyche, doesn’t really matter. It still tells you something. It is similar to shamanic journeying—it doesn’t actually matter how much of the experience is “made up” or self-created, it still happens and it means something.

For my grandmother’s ceremony, I re-worked part of a T.S. Eliot poem into a responsive reading so we can do it together. The group as a whole will read the part in italics and I read the other parts. I like call-and-response things like this, because it gets the other people actually involved, rather than just listening to someone talk…

“What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from…

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the appletree…

Heard, halfheard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are infolded
Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.”

In a stroke of irony, since I just wrote about the value of boundaries, my attention was also caught by an old recording I made called Boundless. It is a sort of meditative musing and rather than transcribe it, I decided to do an experiment and I uploaded the recording itself to Soundcloud instead. Let me know what you think 🙂

(*These thoughts were actually collected on May 6, which is the “today” of which I speak in this post.)

—

Update: this project evolved into a real book!

Categories: blessings, death, family, Womanrunes | Leave a comment

Woodspriestess: Hydrangea

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Molly

Bless this plant
that it may grow strong
that it may grow tall
that it may grow with courage and vitality.

May it burst into full blossom
and remind us of the joy inherent
in life, relationships
and in sharing time with each other.

May it draw up the richness of the earth
may it always have what it needs
may it be soaked with sweet rainfall
nourished by that which has gone before
and become an intricate part of the ecosystem
both taking in and giving out
receiving and giving
nourishing
and being nourished.

May it remind us of the woman
in whose memory we plant it.

A woman who was just as beautiful
as these flowers.

A woman who gave us strong roots
and rich experiences.

Who stood firmly on the earth
under this same blue sky.

A woman who grew,
who lived well
who shared and tended
and who blossomed fully
in a life that brightened
the world around her.

May it be so blessed
may she be so blessed
may it be so.

Wisdom from the green earth
strength from deep, dark places
blessings of the bright sky
soothing rain
swift winds
and a grateful breath
upon them both.

Today is May Day/Beltane and my mom came home with two blue hydrangea plants that she bought for us to plant on Mother’s Day as memorial plants for my grandma. I’m still in this place of depletion and overwhelm, compounded by the need to plan a major trip to California during this month—lots of reservations to arrange and details to figure out. But, I went ahead and toted my hydrangea down to the woods for a little while and offered it, and my grandma, the blessing above. I also spied some very pretty violets growing in the “weeds” near the house and I admired the lovely, storm-full-feeling clouds. I found a pretty rock with a vein of crystal in it that I’ve admired several times before, but left in its place in the woods. However, today I felt like it wanted to come back with me and have a new home by the hydrangea when we plant it.

As I’ve noted before, I remain amazed by the neverending capacity to notice something new in this same little section of forest. And, I also delight in the relationship with the space that I have formed there, so that my attention is precisely captured by those new things. See this tree?

Kind of far away, right? But, as I sat there talking into my recorder about hydrangeas, my attention was caught by something different at the fork of the trunk. It was kind of blobby line/bump and I thought: is that a skink with a missing tail? I walked down to look closer and sure enough, I had a new companion in the woodspace today:

I’m not only an observer in the forest, I am also that which is observed!

Categories: blessings, death, family, nature, prayers, readings, woodspriestess | 2 Comments

Goodbye

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Molly

The photo on the left was taken a few months ago. She was 83. One of the ways I will always remember her is wearing zoo-themed necklaces 🙂

She has told stories
she has made memories
she has preserved history
she has created
she has birthed
she has mothered
she has grandmothered
she has been of service
she has traveled far
she has grieved
she has rejoiced
she has loved
and been loved in return

This woman from which I came
this mother of my own mother
she who has been daughter
who has been wife
friend
mother
grandmother
great-grandmother
she has come to the end of her road
to the last stop on her earthly journey

Part of eternity
gave her birth
and she in turn shared that gift
and now she is reclaimed
re-embraced
hugged with the winds of time
and change.

Just a couple of hours after I posted my “last words” post, my grandma did in fact, let go and died during the early part of the morning. I always hope to have dreams about people who have died, to somehow get “messages” from them and the only person that that has ever happened vividly with was my father-in-law, which is strange given our distant relationship when he was alive. I’m surprised I didn’t dream of my grandma at all this month during this terribly short and terribly long process. Last night I did dream a short tiny dream though. In it, she sent a birthday card to my mom—we knew in the dream she’d wanted to make sure my mom still got a card on her birthday (my mom turns 60 next month)—the card came with $20 in it and it was in a homemade envelope. She hadn’t wanted to ask anyone to get her an envelope, so she’d made her own. That was it. Not the enlightening “message” sort of dream I imagine, but at least I had one! More photos and additional thoughts are on my other blog.

Go in peace
go in love
and go knowing that you have left behind
something beautiful
something marvelous
something that matters
The fabric of a life well-lived
the hearth of a family well-tended
the heart of a community strengthened
and a never-ending chain of women
unbroken.

You’re our Mamoo
You’re our grandmother
and we say goodbye
and thank you.

Sink deeply
and gently
into the arms and lap
of time
the great mother of us all

She holds you now.
We let go.

Tonight I went down to the woods at sunset, which seemed fitting. I finished my memorial sculptures earlier in the day and so I took pictures of them there on the rocks. Later, we went back outside to go for a walk and I saw the nearly-full moon rising, so I ran back down to experience the fairly-rare occurrence of a sunset-moonrise, something that is hard to photograph because they take place in opposite directions.

Generations sculpture

Sculpture using a rock I found in the woods.

Sunset

Moonrise

Categories: art, blessings, death, family, poems, sculpture, womanspirit | 5 Comments

Last Words

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Molly

On Sunday, we thought we’d reached my grandma’s final day on earth. I spent the day thinking about her, crying, talking to my husband, and fanatically checking my phone for texts from my mom (side note to those people who write critical blog posts about “distracted” people “glued” to their phones, you may do well to remember that some of those distracted-looking people might be looking for texts about dying grandmothers from their own distraught mothers and that this phone-based link in fact represents connection and not disconnection or distraction). I went to the woods and I sat on the rocks and sang Woman Am I. My mom told me she’d been singing it to my grandma as she listened to the erratic sounds of her breaths, thinking each was the last. My letter did make it in time to be read to my grandma while she was still conscious enough to indicate she heard it. And, on Friday I did a FaceTime call with my mom and she took it to my grandma’s bed so that I could talk to her. She didn’t open her eyes, but she murmured a greeting and she smiled when she heard my little two-year-old say, “hi, Mamoo!” So, we were able to say some final words and goodbye “in person,” which was really, really difficult, but also a gift.

After singing on the rocks, I then spoke aloud to her, those final words that didn’t really come in a letter or on Facetime:

Unfinished new grief sculpture…

We have learned from you
we have loved with you
we have heard you
we have seen you
we have hugged you
and held you
we have mourned with you
we have mourned for you
we have been dazzled by your radiance
inspired by your adventures
and touched by your generosity.

Three generations of women
have sat in your lap as little girls
have been covered by your quilts
and zipped into your sweaters
you carried each of us on your hip
and held us each in your heart

We respect you
we cherish you
we appreciate you
we’ve learned so much from you
we’ve laughed with you
and lived with you
and traveled with you

and now
we open up our hands
we open up our hearts
and we let you go.
Be free.
Continue your travels
on the currents of time and space…

My grandma was a beautifully active, vibrant woman and her quick devolution due to advanced and very aggressive pancreatic cancer is a harsh blow to our family. I’ve always admired and respected her and been proud of her for all of her accomplishments and activities. She was not a particularly emotionally demonstrative woman, but it amazing to think about all the ways her presence is woven through my days even though she lives 2000 miles away–the sweater I put on every morning is one she knit for me, her quilts are on my kids’ bedroom walls and on all our beds, magazine subscriptions she gifts us with are in the car and bathroom…we’re connected in many ways and I don’t know what life will look like without her in it.

My “three generations of little girls” thoughts made me create this not-finished sculpture. Little boys are part of the generations as well, but not in as direct a line as the girls—I’m the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter of an oldest daughter (and my own daughter is an “only daughter,” so while she’s my youngest child she continues a line as the first daughter of a first daughter of a first daughter of a first daughter).

My dad also brought over the last four beads for my woodspriestess necklace and so I took a new picture with them too:
When I came back in, I drew a Crone Stone and got, no joke, She Who Knows: The Grandmother of Time:

I have had some really amazing experiences with these stones and I was in awe at the cosmicness when I read, Wisdom is the inner knowing we already possess. How is it our bodies know how to menstruate, to ovulate, to cease menstruating, to breathe? I thought at first reading it said to cease breathing and I thought it was so perceptive because of my mom waiting and listening to my grandmother’s slow, labored breaths. Then, I re-read and saw it was only “to breathe” and then it felt less cosmic. Ah, well.

Categories: art, blessings, death, family, poems, prayers, womanspirit, women | 6 Comments

Woodspriestess: Bad Mood

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Molly

Angry
crabby
spiky
irritable
pain-drenched

and yet still
I touch the ground of being
patient
loving
peaceful
life-soaked

touches me back

sun on my eyelids
wind in my hair
stone at my back

Earth holds me
Earth settles me
Earth hears me

bearing witness
to one another
in change
and possibility
in raggedness and decay
and in transformation
and purpose…

I have been in a horrible mood all day. I woke up with a headache for the third day in a row and it makes me foggy and unfocused and like I can’t choose the right words. Part of my brain is always 2000 miles away from home with my mom and grandma—I literally feel as if part of my spirit is gone there and it makes it hard to feel centered enough to write and to complete other tasks. Today, I tried to get ready for our annual craft workshop that begins next week and was frustrated and distressed by trying to round-up the supplies for classes I don’t really feel like teaching and for which I only have a tiny collection of students signed up. I felt like I should make another doll for my spirit doll workshop, but I just didn’t want to. I made it anyway and felt resentful, irritable, and in pain the entire time. And, like a genius, I also decided that I was sick of my too-long bangs (my mom usually cuts them) and so I hacked them off in the bathroom mirror using curved nailscissors—always a great strategy for an angry person with migraine-blurred vision.

The doll is a simple one that I envisioned as a sort of 3D scrapbook. I used an unfinished quilt square as her body and an assortment of pins from various “lives” and identities that have just been languishing in a box.

The quilt has some really lovely embroidery!

I also found an abandoned past project that holds some promise!

Categories: art, family, nature, woodspriestess | 2 Comments

Woodspriestess Beads

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Molly

I see leaves beginning to emerge! I also see which trees are not getting leaves… 😦

My body holds a dozen prayers
who can grant them?
Me
by listening and responding
and watching
and resting.

Hope song
of the forest.

(4/7/2013)

This morning my dad showed up at my door unexpectedly and said he had an early birthday present for me. He said that because of what our family is going through with my grandma that he thought I might need it before my birthday. It was a string of what he called “woodspriestess beads” that he carved for me. There is one bead for each of the 17 species of trees that grow naturally in this part of Missouri as well as a series of beads made from trees that hold some kind of meaning or family connection for me. There is a bead from part of the wood in the house where I was born and one from the house I grew up in (log cabin built in the 1800’s). One from the tree we used to swing in when we were girls as well as one from an apple tree we planted together and a peach tree that grew from a discarded pit in the compost pile. One from a memorial tree we planted for my great-grandmother, and one from a maple tree my grandpa mailed to us from California and that is incredibly huge now (and my dad taps it for syrup in the spring). There’s one from my own homesite, one from the tree under which my third baby is buried, and one from the cedar tree that was the “topper” for the frame of our house. There is ash, Carolina buckthorn, cedar, cherry, dogwood, elm, hackberry, hickory, honey locust, mulberry, red oak, white oak, osage orange, persimmon, pine, plum, poplar, redbud, sassafras, and walnut. They’re a beautiful palette of meaning and a gift of love. A portable altar of the forest.

I was also touched by the acknowledgement and attention paid to my little woodspriestess experiment. Something that both my grandma and my parents have always been good at is paying attention to what I care about and am interested in and acting to demonstrate that they support it. For example, my grandma who never breastfed a baby and who actually originally seemed to think it was kind of an oddly primitive thing to do, snips out clippings of articles about breastfeeding and sends them to me and made sure to volunteer at the zoo table at a World Breastfeeding Week event just last year (the very same weekend I was working at one here, 2000 miles away). My mom subscribes to my blogs and crochets me Goddess of Willendorfs and fires my pottery goddesses and comes to my Rise Up classes. My dad sets up teepees for sagewomen ceremonies and doesn’t complain about late-night drumming and shows up for my solstice ritual every year and makes me woodspriestess beads. (And, when I was little he used to correctly ID what Care Bear was hiding under a hankie using only touch.) What a good life!

Isn’t she lovely?! 🙂

Yesterday when I was driving to class, I was so impressed by the loveliness of the landscape that I stopped in the road to take a picture. How lucky I am to live in this part of the country and how lucky I am that this is what I get to see on my way to work!

And, today my little baby’s memorial tree finally opened in full blossom!

Not picked, just holding still to be “pic’ed”!

4/22/2013—adding a couple of new picture of the beads with the final four species added.

Categories: family, nature, woodspriestess | 11 Comments

Woodspriestess: Grandmother Prayer

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Molly

Today we texted her this picture, because that is instant–no waiting for mail.

Prayer for my grandmother
sweet wind carry it
hope guard it
love keep it
peace bless it

carry my gratitude
straight to her heart
fold it into her hands
nestle it in her body
where it will take root
and blossom

may she know she is loved
she is appreciated
she is held

in the great grand web of incarnation
the unfurling of genetic memory
in shared silence and story
in unfolding legacy

Peace hold her
love enfold her
life release her…

(4/15/13)

When I found out last month that my grandmother was sick, I immediately knew I needed to write her a letter. It was hard to figure out what to say and how to start and so I waited. Finally, Sunday night after getting a not-promising text update from my mom, I got a card and wrote in it instead—I think my problem had been in part related to trying to type it out. Handwriting worked. There were no pearls of wisdom or genius, but there were words from the heart and in my own sloppy-writing hand (it has always bugged her that I don’t have better handwriting!). I got the kids all to sign it in the morning and trudged it out to the mailbox and started fretting that it won’t make it to her in time. I went to the woods and spoke aloud. As I spoke, I became aware that I was wearing a sweater she knit for me and felt that in this way we were each wrapped in a prayer of love and thanksgiving.

The mayapples are unfolding their little umbrellas in the forest and today I spied some still-green-edged dogwood blossoms getting ready to put on a show.

Categories: blessings, death, family, nature, prayers, theapoetics | 2 Comments

Triple Goddess

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Molly

Triple Goddess

Is she enough?

Seed moves to bud

Bud moves to blossom

Blossom moves to flower

Flower moves to fruit

Fruit moves to seed…

An ongoing generative process of birth and re-birth, of legacy, and of love, the lives of women are multigenerational, complex, and multilayered, and yet within them perhaps the Triple Goddess archetype stands. Steady. Maiden, Mother, Crone. Maiden, Mother, Crone. Perhaps each layer there is subdivided into deeper experience, but the overall broad, blood mysteries are encompassed cleanly…

My hope rests

in the potential of women

To be all they can be

To listen to daughters

To hug friends

To care for mothers

To hold space for each other

Within the Triple Goddess is a trinity. A trinity of female power, of female experience, and of female story–honoring, and holding, and blessing the mysteries of women with the mysteries of the Goddess, providing a framework for our bodies’ language, our womb-deep stories and memories. Perhaps another Trinity that makes sense is the Mother, Father, and Daughter Trinity. The Daughter carrying the potential of new generations within her, the Father providing the spark to ignite the unfolding of life within, the Mother fashioning the Daughter from the very stuff of her own blood.

Is it enough?

It doesn’t have to be

Because the potential of women

Is written in the earth and stars

And it is boundless

As I walked in the woods with my daughter and thought about this concept and about my mother and my grandmother too, suddenly a fourfold Goddess also floated to mind. There must be something between—Donna Henes has already figured out and other writers have explored—the Mother stage and the Crone. But then, I reflected that my own mother—I guarantee—still strongly identifies with the Mother archetype. Once you’ve gone Mother, you can never go back. I am absolutely certain that she still identifies deeply with the Mother. And, then I thought about my grandma and I thought, heck, she probably identifies deeply with the Mother as well. My little daughter, my little Maiden, she identifies with the Mother also. While it may seem gender-essentialist, gender binary, and biologically reductionist of me, it thrills my little heart to see this in her–a heart that is deeply invested with being a mother and considers being a mother central to my being. Pregnancy, birth, lactation, are core life processes and working with women in these areas is deeply part of me, so when my little two-year-old points at her own belly and says, “baby…belly…me…grow…up,” telling me that she will grow up to have a baby of her own and then points to herself and says “Mama…ME! Babies…grow UP! Mama…ME!” I realize that she already carries that Mother image within her and sees that potential within herself now. Looking at her and looking at my mother, I see how I still identify as the Daughter. I am still the Maiden too. And, I see my mother and her mother and know that my mom still feels Daughter in this face of impending loss. And, she is both Grandmother and Daughter and Mother all at the same time. So, then I conclude that the Triple Goddess does work, because we each hold them. We contain them. So while they might not be enough for the human woman or even for biology, we may certainly contain and embody them all, sometimes all at once. And, that’s okay. There’s power in the triple image. There’s purpose in the triple image. And, there’s a genetic circularity of being in that triple image that I see reflected in my own days, my own relationships, my own roles. I am the Triple Goddess. She is the Triple Goddess. They are the Triple Goddess. We are the Triple Goddess.

Together at my brother’s wedding this past October.

When I recorded these thoughts as part of my final assignment for my Triple Goddess class at OSC, I was in the woods with my little girl and in the background of the recording she is saying, “Mama” and making other remarks and it seems perfectly fitting.

She brought her little (nonworking) cell phone to the woods too and stood talking into and repeating part of everything I said: “Triddle…Doddess.”

Categories: family, OSC, parenting, spirituality, thealogy, womanspirit, women | 4 Comments

Thursday Thealogy: The Motheredness of the World

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Molly

My most recent post is up at Feminism and Religion on the subject of Mother Goddess imagery (and my mamapriestess art). It was written partially in response to the critique sometimes expressed that Mother Goddess imagery is “exclusive” of women who are not mothers:

I am also of the opinion that Mother Goddess imagery may well be less about women as mothers and more about the motheredness of the world. In this way, I do not find the image of the Mother Goddess is exclusive, rather I find it exceedingly appropriate. Every person and mammal on this planet—male, female, black, white, hetero/homosexual– since the dawn of humanity has had a mother. It is a truly unifying feature. And, it isn’t about the role, it is about the primal relationship. The root of life. As Naomi Wolf writes in Misconceptions while reflecting on an ordinary street scene and suddenly understanding the web of life and the universality of motherhood (even the squirrels!):

“We were all held, touched, interrelated, in an invisible net of incarnation. I would scarcely think of it ordinarily; yet for each creature I saw, someone, a mother, had given birth….Motherhood was the gate. It was something that had always been invisible to me before, or so unvalued as to be beneath noticing: the motheredness of the world.”

This understanding of the invisible net of incarnation is the foundation of my own thealogy and my ethics.

via Goddess Mother | Feminism and Religion.

Goddess imagery is also about valuing human women and their bodies:

The sociocultural value of a divine presence that validates women’s bodies cannot be overestimated. Indeed, patriarchal religion in its most destructive way seems to have grown out of the devaluation and rejection of female bodies. A religion that rejects the female body, that places the male and its association with “the mind” and the soul rather than the earthy relational connection of body, is a religion that easily moves into domination and control of women. Reclaiming Goddess, reclaims women’s bodies—names them not only as “normal,” but as “divine,” and this is profoundly threatening to traditional Judeo-Christian belief systems. Thus, the primacy of relatedness and connectedness as the core feature of the Mother Goddess model has broad reaching implications for women’s spirituality, as a direct contrast to the dominator model of patriarchy.

In Carol Christ’s classic essay, Why Women Need the Goddess, she quotes feminist theologian Mary Daly (Beyond God the Father):

“If God in ‘his’ heaven is a father ruling his people, then it is the ‘nature’ of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male dominated. Within this context, a mystification of roles takes place: The husband dominating his wife represents God ‘himself.’ The images and values of a given society have been projected into the realm of dogmas and “Articles of Faith,” and these in turn justify the social structures which have given rise to them and which sustain their plausibility.”

In the same essay, Christ explains: “The symbols associated with these important rituals cannot fail to affect the deep or unconscious structures of the mind of even a person who has rejected these symbolisms on a conscious level…Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected, they must be replaced. When there is not any replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures in times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat.”…

via Goddess Mother | Feminism and Religion.

Last time I wrote about a similar topic here, I received some comments asking about the role of “the God,” which is not a symbol I engage with or feel comfortable with given how steeped that name is in the oppression of women, saying that a thealogy without the God doesn’t seem very “whole.” While I would still like to address this question with more thought in a future post, as I wrote the above, it came to my mind again, because it is true that almost everything has a father as well—so, what about the “fatheredness of the world”? My thought when originally asked about “wholeness” was that I don’t have a particularly literalist conception of the Goddess and so to me, she is a name for that which holds the all, which is, ultimately unnameable, but can be experienced in a variety of direct ways. I experience it as the Goddess. And, I find political, social, cultural, and spiritual value in the naming of that subjective experience/wholeness/weaving of life as Goddess. “Goddess” as word and symbol is important, really important, because it breaks the patriarchal “hold” on defining divinity.

However, as a mother of sons and the wife of a husband, I have wrestled with questions as to whether Goddess-oriented thealogy excludes them as males in the same way that Judeo-Christian imagery primarily excludes women. I continue to return to “no,” because in their own experience of having been grown and birthed by me (well, my sons, not my husband!), the notion of a female image being fully capable of literally being able to hold both male and female within her, is exceedingly natural, appropriate, and logical to them. When we do family rituals, I do often use spiritual naturalist or spiritual humanist type of language rather than gendered divinity. Sacred Universe is a great term as are the generic labels Spirit or the Sacred or Nature.

As I’ve shared a photo of previously, at my toddler daughter’s request, I recently made a “Daddy Goddess” sculpture as well to go with my many others—as I was making him, I realized I do have some room for a Green Man type of symbolism after all:

And, as I shared in my Feminism and Religion piece, a couple of months ago my six-year-old son made this sculpture for me…

“This is the Goddess of Everything,” he told me. “See that pink jewel in her belly, that is the WHOLE UNIVERSE, Mom!!”

Yep. He gets it! 🙂

Categories: family, feminist thealogy, Goddess, parenting, spirituality, thealogy, Thursday Thealogy, writing | 4 Comments

Woodspriestess: The Language of Spring

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Molly

A blush of green begins

Delicate lace of wild plums
Graces gray forestscapes

Heartbeat in the forest sings
The passion of life untapped.
The soul of the world
is speaking the language of spring.

This morning I went outside and swooned to see that the wild plum trees bloomed in the night! (Or at some other recent date and I didn’t notice until this morning?!) There are two small ones right near the house and more dotted throughout the woods and I love them. I also stepped over by the woodpile and right onto the wild violets that grow as a wonderful little carpet over there—they’re my very favorite tiny flower of spring and I actually gave a little shout of happiness to see them! An old-new friend coming back to visit. While I like seeing things that other people have planted or that I’ve planted myself, there’s really nothing like seeing what the ecosystem has planted on its own.

I went ahead and headed to the woods then with two of my kids (the third kid was inside making pies!) I had a bit of deja-vu-ish moment, because I remember delighting in the violets and taking pictures of them at this time last year when I went on a 300 Things walk with my daughter (which in hindsight was my first ever “woodspriestess” post).

Couldn’t resist a picture of these delicious curls too (Hey! They’re “springy” in their own right 😉 )

While I couldn’t get a very good picture of it because of the breeze, I also checked on the progress of the memorial tulip tree we planted for my third baby. I have been a little worried about it, because the buds don’t seem to be changing much, but we’ve got color!

And, at my parents’ house where the matching tree resides, they’ve got a whole bunch of flowers already!

When I wrote my final reflection for my Ecology and the Sacred class, I included this reflection on those things we plant…

…on the same road on which we live, there are several former homesites, with a variety of introduced plant life that continues to bloom each year. Around the corner from us is a ramshackle house that has not been inhabited for about 50 years. It has a gorgeous flowering quince that blooms each spring and dozens and dozens of iris bloom as well, making bright spots of color barely visible through the trees that have grown up to nearly cover the house. The home in which my parents live (one mile away) is a restored log cabin originally built in 1899 and moved to the current location from a spot out by the gravel road. Jonquils had been planted along the front of the house and in the yard area (so, sometime during the early 1900’s, I would imagine) and those jonquils continue to bloom each year in the now-woods and by my parents’ house, where my mom transplanted some originals along with the house itself. When driving down the gravel road in the springtime, there is another location of a previous home that is only identifiable visually when the jonquils bloom and as their yellow glow catches your eye through the trees, you can also see a small footer of a crumbled foundation nearby, indicating they were once planted in front of a home. I am struck by the fact that this rosebush and tulip tree that I’ve introduced to my own home landscape may well outlast us and our entire home and may indeed be our most lasting “legacy” on this patch of earth.

Step out onto the Planet

Draw a circle a hundred feet round

Inside the circle are

300 things nobody understands, and, maybe

nobody’s ever really seen.

How many can you find?

–Lew Welch

Categories: family, nature, OSC, parenting, woodspriestess | 2 Comments

Woodspriestess: Grandmother

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Molly

She trails pink fingers across the sky
scoops up her stories
and offers them with smiles

She plans lunch and words
and a graceful exit
She has been an example
of living
the stardust of generations
has been knitted by her cells

She who has traveled far
She who has loved in her own way
She who has left her mark
on people, places, and things

She holds herself close now
feeling small and tired

Life’s sunset.

Quilted in bright colors
Sinking over hills of gold
and long dry valleys.

(3/31/13)

Several days ago I went to the woods at sunset, finally observing this time of day from my woodspace. As I began to speak into my little recorder, I was talking about the sunset, but somehow, it turned into a poem about my grandmother. As I’ve alluded to before, my grandmother is very sick. It has struck the family as a sudden surprise. To me, she has always seemed invincible. Small and mighty. Strong and determined. I’ve always been proud of her. If there is anything I learned from her, it is to do stuff. Don’t wait or wonder or wish, try it out anyway. She is a world traveler, my grandma. Traveling to new destinations including shortly after her recent diagnosis. When ziplining in Peru a few years ago, her children questioned her:

“I thought you weren’t supposed to do something like that with a medical condition?”

“What?” she replied, “I don’t have a medical condition.”

“What about your pacemaker?” they said

“Oh that, that’s no big deal. I just didn’t mention it to them.”

My mom is sad and consumed with this impending loss. I am peppered with distraction and overwhelmed with the swirl of life, home, work, and children, but beneath the surface of every day, I hear the ticking clock and I sense the poignancy of time. Life decisions seem more potent and urgent now. Approaching endings always seem to bring new perspective. My husband wants to quit his job after spending eight years doing the same thing and becoming less and less enriched by the experience. We have fears about leaping into something unknown, but we also know that it is more scary not to try…

Categories: family, nature, poems, theapoetics, woodspriestess | 4 Comments

Thursday Thealogy: Making a Place for Others

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Molly

I went to the woods intending to take a picture of the setting sun, but I’d accidentally hit the reverse-image button, so my own face was looking at me instead. So, I thought…that’s most real!

“…in listening you become an opening for that other person…Indeed, nothing comes close to an evening spent spellbound by the stories of women’s inner lives.”–Sacred Circles

This morning my attention was caught by this blog post’s exploration of becoming most real:

Becoming most real means becoming aware of what we are doing and feeling all the time. It means noticing not only our imagined or desired reality —the one we’re cooking up in our mind to soothe our discomforts and fears — but also the reality that actually exists, the one that is most real…

[during a stressful experience]…But then I asked, “What is most real?”

I noticed that I was feeling tense and stressed. That I knew already. But I also noticed that I was struggling to change things, trying to force myself to feel relaxed. And that was the key. Because then I went from being lost in the struggle to being aware of the struggle. I went from identifying with the struggling to identifying with my deeper self that sees the struggle. For a moment I was grounded in the unflickering flame of my true self. For a moment I achieved the very aim of yoga.

You can practice being most real by asking yourself, “What am I trying to feel right now, and what am I actually feeling right now?” These two are related: What you are trying to feel right now, or more specifically, the fact that you are trying, is what you are actually doing; it is most real. Most real is not the state you are trying to achieve but the state you are in. That’s where you’ll find the greatest vitality, peace, and happiness.

via Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi (book review).

I’m three quarters of the way through a year-long OSC class based on the book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. We’re examining and practicing compassion to ourselves and in personal relationships, community relationships, and to non-humans. The subject of the sixth month was, “making a place for others.” What does this mean? The author explains…

I began to notice how seldom we “make place for the other” in social interaction. All too often people impose their own experience and beliefs on acquaintances and events, making hurtful, inaccurate, and dismissive snap judgments, not only about individuals but about whole cultures. It often becomes clear, when questioned more closely, that their actual knowledge of the topic under discussion could comfortably be contained on a small postcard. Western society is highly opinionated. Our airwaves are clogged with talk shows, phone-ins, and debates in which people are encouraged to express their views on a wide variety of subjects. This freedom of speech is precious, of course, but do we always know what we are talking about?

Armstrong, Karen (2010-12-28). Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (Kindle Locations 1476-1481). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Previously used in: Plucking out the heart of mystery

I spent all month working with this idea and very often, I suck at it. One of the roles of a priestess is to hold the space for others, and I do find I am able to do that in a ceremony environment and also in a support group setting, but it pretty much ends there. This isn’t really new for me, when I worked in battered women’s shelters, I remember coming home and being aware I was monopolizing the airspace with my husband and saying, “I spend so much time listening to other people and their pain, that then when I get home I just need a space too and I no longer feel like I can give it to anyone else.” So, I feel as if my closest family members rarely get to experience my ability to hold a space for others, because they’re sort of forced into that role for me instead.

I’m really feeling exhausted this week. Worn out and beaten down. Incapable of keeping up. Dropping balls. Forgetting things. Having to leave things undone, unreplied to, unfinished, let go. Bad mother, bad wife, bad friend, bad person. I know from past experience that this isn’t a permanent feeling. It is directly related to not enough time at home alone and too much outward directed energy with no time to refuel and recollect my energy. Next week looks much the same. Some of it is self-imposed. A lot of it is related to other people’s expectations of me (or perceived expectations). I keep feeling as if I’m making the wrong choices, doing the wrong things, letting myself get scattered and fragmented and overwhelmed and panicky. And, as I write it all out, I then feel like I can see how my thinking is disordered and I feel judged.

What’s been on my mind today is listening to other people; making a place for others. I’ve been thinking about seeing and being seen, hearing and being heard, knowing and being known. About witnessing each other. But, is there really any way to see and to truly be seen or is it all so filtered through our own lenses and our own interpretations of experience that we all just bump around into each other’s “ice cubes” rather than actually connecting? (See Charlotte Joko Beck for the “ice cube” thing.) I’m such a self-monitor, the watching of myself becomes painful, and I feel inauthentic or critical of my own responses and being. I want to be able to connect authentically, to reach out and engage with others deeply, to have the same sense of understanding of other people as I have of myself and this patch of earth I live on. Today, in the woods I thought: this is just all so relentless. And, then I thought: yes, it IS relentless. Life is relentless. That is what makes it beautiful. I sometimes feel as if I’m becoming more and more distant and disconnected from people even as “connection” takes a prominent position in my thealogy and my values, and yet it feels so hard, and I feel so tired. And I want for everyone to get along and I want for everyone to be friends and I want for everyone to understand each other, I want for everyone to be seen and to be heard and to be known. I want this for myself and for others and yet, I can’t do it. Sometimes I feel separated from others by glass. The way I share my own feelings and taste my own experiences is through the written word. Companionship lately ends up making me want to run away (again, I know logically that this isn’t actually true, it is symptom of not having the two hours to myself that I need. Once I have some two hours I’ll be back and not at the verge of tears all of the time anymore). I want to separate right now. Separate so that I can write about connection…

What is real?

Sun on its way down.
I had a weird moment here in which I laid my head on my knee, where my phone was resting–both my eyes were open and because one of them was looking at the reflection of the trees/sky in the shiny front of the phone and the other was actually looking at the ground, it was like I could see the trees and sky superimposed on the leaves/rocks and it was very surreal. Since I was writing about perception and thinking, again, about subjective experience, it seemed like a fitting moment–one I wished it was possible to photograph too!

Feel your breath
feel your pulse
notice the butterfly
watch the hawk
hear the spring peepers
witness the sunset
listen for howling
give thanks for that relentless, hot, hunger
that fuels you
celebrate your own passion
and your refusal to stop trying
feel tears prick your eyes
feel tiredness sweep your body.
wind in your hair
life at your back and at your shoulders
hope on your lips
love is in your hands…