woodspriestess

Woodspriestess: Animated Stardust

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Molly

Where did I come from?
When did the I become aware?
How did I come into being?
Where am I going?
What is my purpose?

These are the timeless questions
of a thinking animal
animated stardust
hopeful spirit.

The stuff of life of is transformation
everything we see passes away
to the next moment
a constant, unending flow
of dissolving experience
energy and time.

And yet, part of one pattern
part of one weaving
part of a beautiful whole
that cradles the world
in infinite space.

I actually wrote this in September, but never finished getting it ready. It seems fitting to share today, after so many more moments have dissolved away into infinite space since the time during which I originally transcribed this poem. The picture, however, was taken today…not in my usual woods, but in the little woven fort my kids are working on next to the labyrinth at my mom’s house.

Categories: family, nature, poems, theapoetics, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

The altar of love

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Molly

This is my body; this is the temple of light. This is my heart; this is the altar of love.” –Sufi song (quoted in Birthrites)

“Traveler, there is no path. One makes the path by walking.” –Antonio Machado (in Birthrites)

This is a picture of the lovely elemental altar bowl my mom made me for Christmas. It “holds” all four elements in one: Earth the clay it is made from, water in the dish surrounding the candle, fire in the candle, and air in the smoke/flame.

I was going to write a bit more about the large stack of books I was lucky enough to amass over Christmas and solstice, but I decided a short, quoteful post will suffice for today (I also posted a thealogy-related Mary Christmas post at my other blog).

While I’ve read a chapter each in most of the books I received, I completely finished reading one of them: Birthrites by Jackie Singer.

Two quotes from Birthrites about the value and purpose of rituals:

Making ritual diverts our attention from the everyday tasks of survival, and for a brief time allows us to notice and comment on where we are. Faced with the awesome experience of findings ourselves conscious in an unpredictable universe, making ritual is a noble attempt to confer rhythm and coherence to our lives…

…there is a paradox inherent in the whole concept of new ceremony, because part of the power of ceremony is that it has the weight of tradition behind it. In times of continuity, ritual would be something handed down by the elders. Perhaps this is an ideal, but we do not live in times of continuity. Rather than abandoning the whole idea of ritual as irrelevant, we need to respond to the challenges of our fast-changing age by renewing ritual practise in a way that honours the past but makes sense to us now.

Merry Christmas! May we all remember that we carry an altar of love within us.

Categories: family, holidays, quotes, ritual, spirituality, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Drum Dedication

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Molly

May this be the beginning of a beautiful relationship
a harmonious partnership
a potent sense of connection and rhythm
may this drum keep time with the heartbeat of Mother Earth
may it honor, respect, and do justice to the skin of the elk it wears
and may it be tuned to the hoofbeats of the open plains, grassy hills, and deep forests.
may it hold sacred rhythm
may it keep sacred time
may it guard sacred space and ritual energy
and may it dance with joy and wild abandon
may it draw out the wildness of our heartspaces
and may it echo through the woods with its own true song
may I do it justice
may I guard the rhythm
and may I align my own heartbeat
with the pulse of the Mother
of our home, the Earth.

May it be so.
May it be blessed.
With the earth, the trees, the rocks, the sky as my witnesses
I bless, consecrate, dedicate, and honor this instrument of peace, healing, and celebration.

I like how, depending on the location of the sun, light shines through the back and creates these silouettes.

Used my timercam app on my phone and put it down on the rocks.

This morning I carried my new drum down to the woods to bless it. I took with me the remaining scraps of rawhide from the lacing to leave in the woods. I became so entranced with drumming there that it was hard to pull myself away to come back to the rest of the busy-ness of the house and holiday preparations (as well as car repairs). The night after we first made the drum, we got a little concerned because the top started to feel kind of wobbly (after having initially felt tight), but by the time it finished drying it had become, well, tight as a drum. It is amazing really to see how this worked. I love it! When I spoke the dedication I offered, I kept my hand on the surface and could feel each word vibrate lightly in the skin.

After I offered my dedication, I intuitively sang a repetitive, wordless tune and was surprised to find tears come to my eyes.

Categories: blessings, music, nature, prayers, spirituality, theapoetics, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

Winter Solstice Meditation

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Molly

Winter solstice
deep, long, dark night.
Cold cracks
brittle branches
icy stone.

Winter’s song
echoes in skeletal treetops
and crackling leaves.
Rest time.
Hibernation.
Silent watchfulness.
Waiting hope.

Sink down.
Open up.
Receive and feel.
Hold peace.

Pause and check within
for that glowing emberheart
in your soul.
What purpose calls your name?
What seed incubates
waiting for the breath of hope
and the breath of action
to coax it into life?

Winter Solstice.
Time for your light to shine
from within the sheltering dark.

If you pause in darkness what does your body have to tell you? What do your dreams have to tell you? What does the frozen ground have to tell you? What do the spirits of place have to tell you?

What song can only be sung by you?

What emberheart can only be ignited by your breath?

What path have your feet found?

What messages are carved in stone and etched on leaf for your eyes and in your name?

What promise are you keeping?

—

This afternoon my husband and I worked together on the drum kit he gave me as a solstice gift. It is still hanging up to dry, so I don’t know if it completely worked yet, but it was fun to do together and I’m extremely pleased with the result. I love it so much! It is elk hide and the kit is from Centralia Fur and Hide. I felt very mindful while working on it that this was a creature’s skin and I both felt disturbed or guilty, as well as respectful of that.

Categories: art, blessings, endarkenment, family, holidays, nature, poems, prayers, retreat, spirituality, theapoetics, woodspriestess | 2 Comments

Women’s Mysteries, Women’s Circles

Posted on December 17, 2013 by Molly

“Women united in close circles can awaken the wisdom in each other’s hearts.” ~The 13 Indigenous Grandmothers (via The Girl God)

“Feminism catches fire when it draws upon its inherent spirituality. When it does not, it is just one more form of politics, and politics never fed our deepest hungers.” –Carol Lee Flinders (in The Millionth Circle)

Show up or choose to be present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.
Tell the truth without blame or judgment.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.

–Angela Arrien (in The Millionth Circle)

“Women’s mysteries, the blood mysteries of the body, are not the same as the physical realities of menstruation, lactation, pregnancy, and menopause; for physiology to become mystery, a mystical affiliation must be made between a woman and the archetypal feminine. A woman must sense, know or imagine herself as Woman, as Goddess, as an embodiment of the feminine principle…Under patriarchy this connection has been suppressed; there are no words or rituals that celebrate the connection between a woman’s physiological initiations and spiritual meaning.”

–Jean Shinoda Bolen

The final quote above comes from a very helpful resource for priestesses, the Women’s Mysteries Teacher’s Journal, which is available for free online!

I read and enjoyed two relevant blog posts this week as well, the first about women’s capacity to push each other’s buttons and how it can be easier to work with “victims” than “leaders.” Important to consider…

The process of working with one’s own buttons can be very useful in feminist life. From my own experience and from following the news in feminist and Goddess movement I know how easily women’s groups can break up, often due to strong women pushing each other’s buttons. Have you noticed how we find it easier working with the victims of patriarchy and patriarchal religions, than with the leaders of feminist groups? How we find it easier to help, than to cooperate? In this we might fall into a trap of patriarchy and assume the role of a patriarch rather then a feminist leader.

via Buttons and Hooks by Oxana Poberejnaia | Feminism and Religion.

And, the second this priestess pep talk:

She supports and believes in you utterly. All you have to do is trust Her, and keep on showing up.

Because You are Enough.

Always.

Completely.

You are born of magic, a daughter of the Goddess.

You are a Priestess charged with sharing Her blessings, Her beauty, Her power with the world as it manifest through you, you unique thing you, and it is your DUTY to get out there and create that vision, that life, she is inspiring you with…”

via The How to Be a Priestess Pep Talk

I’ve mentioned that I’m looking forward to the new anthology coming out from Goddess Ink and I very much enjoy the snippets from the book they shared on their Facebook page (I also pre-ordered the book!)

Goddess Ink
From “The Kohanot: Keepers of the Flame” by D’vorah Grenn: “How do we move forward from here? Being a priestess can be exhausting. Without proper shielding and protection, women can find their precious energies only going out, and too rarely being replenished. We must continually find new and effective ways to guard against becoming depleted. Every day, we witness the positive, transformative effects of “restoring women to ceremony,“ to use Lynn Gottlieb’s phrase, another reason it is vital that we continue our work. But to do so, we must protect our spirits, psyches, hearts and time25; those who have been spiritual leaders for some time are well aware of the pitfalls of not doing so. Since others rely on our strength and clarity, this is not a task to be postponed or ignored. We must carry and pass on the knowledge of how to take better care of ourselves, along with our spiritual teachings.”

How do you replenish yourself and protect your energy? In this last week as I’ve worked to finish all my grading for the end of the school session, I’ve been aware of how I tend to let self-care go first—I haven’t practiced yoga in four days, keep getting to the woods at 11:00 at night instead of in the morning, staying up until 2:00 a.m., etc. I feel okay about the out-of-balance because I know it is a very short term push that will end soon, but I think I/we must be mindful of this not becoming a regular habit or pattern of being.

There is also this good one about the priestess path and the idea of mastery…

Goddess Ink
From “Models of Leadership” by Ruth Barrett: “A woman on the priestess path must be vigilant in examining the unconscious tendencies and unexamined habits she has learned from her culture. Another unexamined tendency, which is crucial to recognize, is that American culture is in all-out war against mastery. I use the word “mastery” as it is used in the martial arts. Mastering the physical, psychological and energetic skills required to achieve, for instance, a black belt in Aikido is a path that requires discipline, openness to learning and the patience and persistence to work through plateaus. The black belt is not a goal, it is a journey. The journey is the destination. A sensei (master) of a martial arts black belt is still a student. Mastery is a path, not a title or a credential. It is the process of recognizing and achieving potential. So it is with the priestess path. The more I know, the more I know there is to learn and I must endeavor to have an open beginner’s mind.”

The snow is finally melting and this afternoon I went on a dinner date with my husband (as well as finished up shopping for stocking stuffers and for our solstice dinner. Lots of plans for fun food!). I didn’t get to the woods until about 9:30 and enjoyed the company of the full moon for a time in a much warmer-today woods. We did a very small mini-ritual on the back deck together as well, just with our candles, checking in on the intentions we set during the last full moon, making new intentions, and closing with a short prayer.

Categories: community, feminist thealogy, night, priestess, quotes, resources, ritual, self-care, spirituality, women, women's circle, woodspriestess | 2 Comments

Whew!

Posted on December 12, 2013 by Molly

Light from the back porch (saying, “come back inside!”) and light from the moon.

“We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. The red-winged blackbird flies in us.” –Susan Griffin (Open Mind, 5/29)

I got to the woods at 11:00 tonight after a long day of grading papers, interspersed with household tasks and kid needs. I keep trying to remember that this is only a very temporary phase and my usual “balance (such as it is) will be restored soon. I enjoyed looking at the moon (which is half right now, even though it my pictures it looks almost full) and the sensation of the quietness in the woods tonight. Still snowy, dark. Almost silent. I tipped my head back and watched the lights from a far off something flying noiselessly across the sky, noticing how the sound of it followed, rather than preceded it. I listened to my own breath and became aware of a humming sound, a ringing almost, in my ears. Just the biological effect of having my head tilted back, or tinnitus, or the divine hum and heartbeat of the universe, I’m not sure. The sound I think we hear when everything else is quiet and our minds are still. I heard a guest on Voices of the Sacred Feminine talk about this once—that if you settle down and listen to the sound behind everything else, it is a “divine buzz” or hum or the “ommm” to which the world vibrates.

“Mother earth, sister sea,

giving birth, energy

reaching out,

touching me

lovingly.”

–Miriam Therese Winter (Open Mind, 7/5)

In other news, we’re having a holiday 10% sale in our etsy shop (use code: HOLIDAYS10OFF). I love that these goddess pendants represent a collaborative creative effort with my husband. Feels like a union of energies.

Categories: art, nature, night, quotes, self-care, spirituality, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

I make the effort

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Molly

I make the effort
to maintain a ground of oceanic silence
out of which arises the multitude
of phenomena of daily life.

I make the effort
to see and passionately open in love
To the spirit that infuses all things.

I make the effort
to see the Beloved in everyone
and to serve the Beloved through everyone
(including the Earth)

I often fail in these aspirations
because I lose the balance
between separateness and unity,
and I feel afraid.

But I make the effort.

–Ram Dass (via Letters to my Daughters by Beth Sage-Owens)

It was pretty silly of me to plan a new blog-every-day experience while simultaneously entering the heaviest workload of the school session. I made this commitment to myself to show up though and so I’m doing it, even though it basically feels ridiculous to expect of myself and I’m not sure that what I’m sharing in these hastily banged out little posts actually has any value to anyone else! The school session ends on Saturday though and the rest of December will be ahead of me to continue my experiment/experience as well as turning my attention to my thesis (this month of posts was kind of going to be my wrap-up “lessons” from a year in the woods). I came to the computer wondering if I already had anything in my drafts folder I could use today, in my own best friend style, and behold, I did. This poem that I copied from a book at the beginning of October. And, it was pretty appropriate for today 🙂 After the GGG this Sept., one of the women I met there offered to mail me a book of her past writings and newsletters and this poem caught my eye and I saved it to use someday.

I visited the woods very hurriedly today because I was getting ready to leave and drive to class on potentially icy roads. I said, “I’m just going to take a picture and leave!” BUT, guess what? I could see both the moon and sun from the same spot (I had to move around a little) and the light in the woods was beautiful. And, as always, it restoreth my soul.

Moon

Sun

So, this is what I’ve got to offer tonight, nothing more, nothing less. I make the effort.

Categories: GGG, nature, poems, quotes, readings, woodspriestess | 3 Comments

The Full Circle

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Molly

“Goddess is Magic, the subtle forces of planets, moons and stars, and the Powers of our own Deep Minds. And She is Our Ability to Call forth that which we have need of, and to banish that which we no longer need. And therefore let us gather together in our communities, and join with the forces within and without…”

–Shekhinah in Open Mind (9/25)

Diane Mariechild, the editor of Open Mind, then goes on to explain the following:

Goddess is the full circle. She is birth, life, death, and rebirth. [People] need the Goddess. The planet needs the Goddess. We need to celebrate and embrace the full circle of life; to know that all of life is contained within this circle. There is nothing that is outside the circle…Goddess is energy, a way of balanced relationship, an openness of the heart that allows us to have a full experience of life, with all its pain and all its joy.

Find a quiet time during the day or the night when you can sit alone and feel the energy of the world around you. Tune into the natural world—the water, the air, the light of the sun or the moon, the trees, the Earth. Can you sense this energy? No need to call it by any name. Sense. Breathe. Allow

Last night and today, it snowed a lot. I was interested to see the juncos–snowbirds–show up several days before the snow, when the temperature was still in the 60’s. They hopped around in the driveway and I told my husband that I guessed the forecast was actually going to be right, even though the air didn’t feel like it! I used up most of my writing energy/time today by writing blog posts about our winter family fun on other blogs. And, today my blog post about my grandmother’s memorial service (which I planned and served as the priestess for) was published on Feminism and Religion:

It was deeply important to me to have multiple voices represented during the small, family-only, service and I enlisted all the grandchildren present, as well as her step-grandchildren, in an adapted responsive reading based on Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road”. I chose it precisely because it spoke to the irrepressible, adventuresome spirit of my grandmother. It was a lot of pressure to be responsible for the family ceremony for the interment of her ashes. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted it to be what she deserved. I wanted it to “speak” to every person there. I wanted it to be worthy of her. I hope it was enough.

via An Epic Woman: A Feminist Eulogy by Molly | Feminism and Religion.

I also found out that my revised thesis prospectus was accepted and I can officially use my Woodspriestess project as the subject of my thesis!

And, I decided I simply must pre-order this amazing-sounding anthology of writings by modern priestesses:

From “Priestessing with Integrity” by Sylvia Braillier:

“Priestess . . . favored by the Goddess, wise woman, sage and a guide to others on the path. Being a priestess is a vocation that honors the sacredness we embody as women. We are fortunate to live in a time when the Goddess is returning and we can represent and support her work here in this world as priestesses. It’s easy to make up romantic notions about what it is to be a priestess. Not to say that some of them aren’t true, but it’s a package deal that includes real challenges and great blessings. When the rubber meets the road, what does being a priestess really entail?

Whether initiated as a priestess within a tradition or by the challenges and blessings of life, certain responsibilities are part and parcel of the vocation. The job of priestess doesn’t stop when you leave the circle. It is a life commitment to accountability and integrity, not only by performing your duties to the best of your ability but by walking in life as a living representative of enlightened behavior and speech. As a priestess, your behavior sets the bar. One of the greatest gifts you can give is to teach by example and live the teachings as fully as you can.”

http://www.goddess-ink.com/priestessanthology.html

May we all live well and wisely and take any opportunity to play in the snow 🙂

Categories: family, feminist thealogy, Goddess, nature, priestess, spirituality, woodspriestess | 3 Comments

Winter Rose

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Molly

Snowy rose.

It takes patience to photograph a rose

it take patience to grow a thorn

it takes patience to be a rosebush

it takes patience to be born.

Snow has fallen in the forest and the air is cold and misty.

Throughout the summer and fall, I took pictures of my rosebush by the back deck, focusing on one rose specifically that I took pictures of throughout its lifespan as a sort of in-depth study of its bud, bloom, full flower, and decline. I meant to do a post about the life cycle of a rose and include all the pictures as well as my sense of connection through it to the larger cycle of life, endlessly repeated. The moments passed and I never wrote the post, but today one small piece of what I thought one day as I tried to take a picture of it came back to me as I stood on the rocks. In the breeze, it is hard to steady the bush enough to take a non-blurry picture. Trying to steady it and thinking I would have to give up on getting a clear picture, I snagged my finger on a bramble and I thought about how patience is required for both tasks.

Here are some of those rose pictures:

And, here are some of today’s snowfall. The Wheel keeps on turning and I keep on watching (and living it).

Categories: nature, woodspriestess | 6 Comments

Self-Improvement

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Molly

So, two days ago I wrote about giving up the idea of personal perfection and yesterday I mentioned enjoying how the internet “smallens” the world. One of those smallening experiences is the opportunity to be Facebook friends with authors I admire and one of those authors is Jennifer Louden. She is one of my all-time favorite writers and I have her books—The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book, The Women’s Comfort Book, The Couples’ Comfort Book, The Women’s Retreat Book, and The Life Organizer (new paperbook edition and digital support kit is available now). I’ve read her books for years and return to them often—she has a unique ability to not be a self-help author, while still being helpful and about working with the self. I’m planning to work through The Life Organizer again beginning in January (I did it in 2008 and actually kept it up the entire year). Jen has always seemed real to me. Approachable. Authentic. Not fake or gimmicky at all. I don’t get the “sales” feeling from her, nor do I get a glitzed-up perfection image. And, though she writes about spiritual topics, I detect no touch of what I would semi-meanly call “shaman chic,” which is a surefire way to rub me the wrong way. Anyway, we’re Facebook friends and I comment at various times on her status updates, a recent one being:

“Be willing to look at your own life and want more for yourself without beating yourself up or making it about another self-improvement plan.”

Ooh! Such a good tip and yet one I wasn’t sure I could actually figure out. So, I commented to that effect: “I joke that I’m tired of my life being one long self-improvement project. However, I also want to reach my own potential!” She said she’d write a blog post for me and today, she did. See. World, smallened. So cool. While I perhaps didn’t explain myself in full—what I think I really meant when I used the word “potential” in my comment was that, “I worry about whether ‘self-acceptance’ can be a sort of a screen for hiding behind or an excuse for ‘giving up’ and not fully developing yourself”—I still loved and learned from the insights she offered in this post, especially this:

Your potential isn’t something to be reached, it’s something to be trusted.

After I read her post with a couple of tears prickling in my eyes, I shared my done-with-perfection spontaneous woodsvision with her. I didn’t write about it here on the day it happened because I didn’t feel like I had enough time and besides it was kind of…weird.

I saw that this perfection thing was a white worm that was wrapped around my heart and also curved into the grooves of my brain. Sitting there on the rock in the woods, I unwound it. Pulled it out. It was long and ropy and invasive. I held it out in open hands and it floated off down the hill, dissolving into a million sparkles in the sunshine until I couldn’t see it any longer.

I felt lighter after this and like I really was, truly done. I don’t need that wormy thing any more. I had the same sense of certainty about being done with apologizing for things as well. Hope it really lasts!

Today, my woodstask was actually taking new pictures for our updated listings on etsy. See, sometimes there are visions, sometimes there are poems, and sometimes there is business. I love how the same space has born witness to it all over the course of the year. I feel like I both bear witness and am witnessed there in that same space. Earlier in the day I’d been thinking, again, about my dissertation. In shifting my thesis topic to my woodspriestess experiment, I feel more confident that I have something original to offer. It is an offering of myself and my own experiences—and a personal process of spiritual inquiry that I hope can be of some benefit to others. With birth as the focus of my dissertation, while I might have 200+ pages of notes and over ten years worth of reading, writing, and thinking, I’m not sure I have anything new to offer. However, looking at my sculptures, I felt a renewed sense of confidence that this is actually what I have to say that is new. These figures are my language and my lessons, the symbols of what I’ve learned, how I’ve grown, and what matters to me. I’d already decided to “frame” my thesis in the context of my sculptures and I feel somewhat confident that I can draw that over to my dissertation and use a sculptural framework for my narrative as well…

P.S. I also decided that I’m not going to waste my energy fretting over literally getting my daily post published by midnight. When I say “today,” I’m not talking about the day we’ve technically just slipped over into. I’m talking about what happened before I stayed up past midnight and finished this post!

Categories: art, birth, books, self-care, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

Deep Talk

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Molly

“No lesson is learned immediately. There is a phrase used in West Africa, deep talk, which means that anybody will understand it on a certain level. People who are interested in really understanding more take that lesson deeper. As far down as you take the advice you could still go deeper if you lived longer enough.” –Maya Angelou

I really like this concept of deep talk, even though I’m not totally sure I completely get it. I’ll keep living and see what I learn…

I already wrote a short post tonight on my other blog in which I mentioned being amazed sometimes about how the internet “smallens” the world. It is truly incredibly. Last month, I got a message from Nané Jordan, who I quoted in my original thesis proposal. She happened to find my blog post and offered to send me a copy of her own dissertation and thesis on birth/women’s spirituality related themes. The package arrived today from Canada and I am very much looking forward to digging into her work. I’m also sending one of my own pewter goddess pendants back to her and I love that we’ve made this connection, through words and ideas, from across the miles.

As I sat on the rocks this afternoon, looking at her dissertation and thesis, I felt really concerned about my ability to do this. To dig this deep. To so deeply engage with my ideas. I flipped through her work thinking, how did she DO this? I worried that maybe I think too casually—skimming over the surface in internet soundbites and the blank safety of a computer screen, when I should really be wrestling in the mud with my theories. Dibbling, dabbling, working in bits and pieces and fragments and hurried scraps, rushing along. Do I think deeply enough to carry a project of this magnitude and effort through? Then I thought about how just a few minutes ago I stepped the wrong way in the leaves and twisted my ankle a little. The cat bit my hand and I smacked at her in an un-spiritually-evolved, non-zen manner. I thought about how I stepped on an armadillo in these woods and I knew something after all: this is my mud and I’m wrestling in it with my theories…

“We need to approach our state of mind with curiosity and open wonder. That open curious listening to life is joy—no matter what the mood of our life is.” –Charlotte Joko Beck

(*both quotes again from the daily reader, Open Mind, by Diane Mariechild. Love this book!)

Categories: nature, OSC, spirituality, womanspirit, women, woodspriestess, writing | Leave a comment

Practice

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Molly

“My writing is a practice. It requires that sort of daily repetition and solitude—being with oneself—awareness—awareness of one’s body, awareness of one’s thoughts, awareness of one’s own process. And meditation makes me more aware of everything I do, so it makes the movements within my writing process clearer to me.”

–Susan Griffin (in Open Mind, 10/16)

It is interesting to see that I’ve decided to begin this new daily writing practice at a time in which I don’t feel much like writing any blog posts! Hmm. Today, my time in the woods was abbreviated slightly by the return of my small children, but before their voices came floating over to me, I was sitting with the sound of woodpeckers. There were at least three different ones near me of at least two types and it sounded like there were more that I didn’t see. As winter steadily approaches, I’ve noticed that there is much less bird song in the forest lately, but today (warmer) the woods were alive with the sounds of birds and squirrels. Woodschorus.

Sunset

Got obsessed with collecting acorn caps to make hats for Christmas ornament elves

A mysterious hole in the ground that wasn’t there yesterday.

Can you see the little woodpecker?

I’ve also noticed that while I enjoy being alone, I’m feeling a little cooped up and isolated lately–the Thanksgiving holiday meant that our usual weekly activities were different from what they usually are and I’ve gone nearly a week without seeing anyone other than my immediate family and my parents. My nerves feel a little shot by the voices of my darling children, I’m really feeling extremely done co-sleeping with my toddler daughter, and all three of them seem out of sorts and extra messy, wild, loud, disagreeable and irritable too. I think they also miss seeing their friends and going places.

With winter’s approach and the turn of the wind to cold, it has also come to my attention that I want to create some more sacred spaces inside my home. Before I began my woodspractice, I used to sit at my living room altar every morning and spend some time in prayer/reflection. Now, I’ve let it get a bit dusty and so over the weekend I spent some time cleaning it up and rearranging the items a little bit. Today when I sat down at my desk to work on my classes, I lit a candle and then designed to squeeze a little altar space in front of my textbooks 🙂

I’m having trouble allowing myself the moontime downtime my body calls for as well. Though I very nearly talked myself out of it AND very nearly apologizing for wanting to do it, I did carve out a small niche of time in which to participate in Paola’s New Moon Intention call this evening. I laid down with a heat pack with a candle and a pocket goddess sculpture as a tiny altar space and listening with my eyes closed to her voice and to the intentions of the other women in the virtual sacred circle. I’m glad I gave this to myself, even though it meant people were waiting for dinner.

Yesterday, I decided that I’m no longer willing to expect myself to be perfect. I’m done with that. I’m cleaning it out. Unraveling it from around my heart and brain. Done.

“Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.” –May Sarton (in Open Mind, 10/25)

“It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched.” –Tillie Olsen (in Open Mind, 11/8)

In keeping with the swirling change of the seasons, I fell in love with this amazing picture of Shekinah Shaking Out the Seasons by Caron McCloud (Shiloh Sophia McCloud‘s mother). For some reason it came to me today and I felt absolutely transfixed by it:

I hope there is a print of this available someday because it must go on my wishlist! And, I signed up for her free “7 day aliveness challenge” too.

Categories: art, family, introversion, moontime, nature, quotes, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Interstanding

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Molly

“The question about how to ‘understand’ her now clarifies itself, as the wrong question…perhaps interstand is what we do, to engage with the work, to mix with it in an active engagement, rather than ‘figuring it out.’ Figure it in.”

–Judy Grahn (in Open Mind, 10/8)

To interstand, we must be in relationship with what is happening (Diane Mariechild). After my realization in the woods this weekend about my thesis, I also remembered that December represents the anniversary of my decision to embark on my year long woods experiment. So, it seems like the perfect time to do a wrap-up month of daily posts—kind of a conclusion month as I both finish out the year and prepare my thesis. I did this in March and it was an extremely powerful experience in deepening my practice. I’ve been wanting to do another month of daily posts for a while now, but keep letting other things get in the way. Now feels like the right time though 🙂 Of course, the day is almost over and this is all I’ve managed, but that is part of the practice: doing it anyway.

I took a couple of pictures of little treasures in the woods this afternoon and also a better one of the tree I wrote about yesterday:

As I spent time today catching up with Open Mind, a book of daily meditations that I’ve loved reading this year, I found this delightful quote:

“It is now time for all women of the colorful mind, who are aware of the cycles of night and day and the dance of the moon in her tides, to arise.” –Dhyani Ywahoo (in Open Mind, 11/22)

And, it reminded me of one of my favorite new pendant designs:

(This one isn’t yet listed on etsy. If you’d like me to set up a reserved listed for you for her, let me know :))

Categories: nature, quotes, spirituality, woodspriestess | 3 Comments

Sacred Relationship to the Land

Posted on November 30, 2013 by Molly

I recently read an article about creating a sacred relationship with the land. As soon as I read it, I knew exactly who I think of as the guardian spirit of my own place in the woods. It is this tree. I’m thankful for the opportunity to get to know it.

“This generation is serving as the midwife for the rebirth of the Shechinah…This Goddess who shines on us as we study sacred texts is found in redwood groves and apple orchards. She is coming to us in the wind and the water, in the ocean and the mountains.” –Rabbi Leah Novick (quoted in Open Mind, 9/8)

This weekend as I sat on a rock looking through the “doorway” created by two more tree trunks at the Guardian Tree beyond and having the sensation that it was both a doorway to and a doorway from, I had a sudden crystal clear moment of revelation about my M.Div thesis project. This is IT. This woodspriestess practice and experiment I embarked on throughout the course of 2013—I’ve been working on my thesis this entire year, I just didn’t know it. I spent some time this afternoon writing a new thesis prospectus and it came flowing out. A Year of Lessons from the Forest. I’ve got this.

[My prospective content for my birth-as-a-spiritual-experience thesis plan is over 200 pages long, which also tells me that my thesis needs to re-become my dissertation plan (it actually WAS my original dissertation plan until I decided to take a detour and complete the M.Div).]

I also remembered spending a lot of time as a child with a big sycamore tree in the valley by my house. It was the guardian spirit of that place. There was a little sort of brambly grove by it with a rock pile (from past settler field-clearing) that I used to play in/on/by. I pretended that the tree had a keyhole in it and my magic key (that I used to wear around my neck), would open the trunk and that there was another world behind the tree. I called it Idlewild. (googled this and apparently it is a series of books that began being published in 2003. I was a kid in the 1980’s though, so I didn’t read them)

Here are some excerpts from that article I mentioned…

How To Create a Sacred Relationship with the Land

Here are some tips for establishing a bond with the land near where you live:

• Start with your own backyard, and apply the suggestions below. Hua reminds us that “every place is sacred.”

• By foot, explore new mountains, hills, forests, lakes, ocean sides, or other earth areas near where you live. Feel which places call to you. When you find a place you like, keep returning. Make a commitment to visit it at least once a month.

• Ask permission to enter any given place from what you feel is the “guardian” spirit of the place –– you’ll instinctively sense where it resides. What’s important is your respectful intention.

• State your intention for being there –– to love the place, say prayers, hear what it has to say, be of service, heal the land, honor the local ancestors, make amends for transgressions to the First Peoples, etc…

• Sit and feel your love for the place. That’s it. Just feel the appreciation you have for the beauty of the landscape, the trees, the plants and animals. Let Earth Mother and the visible and invisible elements feel your affection.

• Listen for messages. Get quiet and see if you can receive information –– and healing –– for yourself, others, Mama Earth, etc…

Seven Sisters Mystery School Marguerite Rigoglioso

Yep. 🙂

Categories: Goddess, nature, quotes, spirituality, thesis, woodspriestess | 4 Comments

Bonewind’s Return

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Molly

Bone wind has returned
mother of winter’s chill
sweeping through bare branches
and rattling dusty leaves.

The remnants of summer
have completely faded
and the doorway to the new year
has cracked open.

With the skeletal swirl of frost and freeze
I see the hint
of new things
waiting to burst from behind the door

Hibernating now perhaps
hunkered down to wait it out
resting, biding time, percolating
nestled in darkness
but, oh so ready, to grow.

It is only on the surface
that the world prepares to take a long nap
underneath the crust
change boils
life bubbles
new ideas gestate
and time crowns anew
with the promise and potential of birth
held in cupped hands.

The flame of fresh ideas flickers
and catches
until the blaze of possibility
envelopes the cold.

Winter is falling across the woods and I find myself filled with an amazing sense of promise and potential about the new year. 2103 has held a lot of transition for my family, it has held the grief of my grandmother’s death, as well as changes aplenty–some changes that are beautifully enriching, creatively inspiring, and relationship enhancing and some changes that have been difficult, sad, trying, and frustrating. Ever since the wind turned towards fall, I’ve felt a sensation of “fall cleaning.” Sweep it out, start fresh, begin again, take a break, pause, regroup, reform, re-try, launch, begin, start new things…I’ve felt it practically in terms of rearranging my house and going on various decluttering missions, but I also feel it inside—my own purpose, focus, priorities, and projects.

—

In the past I wrote about what I termed the bone wind here: Woodspriestess: Bonewind | WoodsPriestess