A Naked Moment

I was enamored and enchanted and somehow reminded, when I read in Marian Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, how the cycles of nature coursed through the very blood of the Priestesses on that holy isle because they were so magickally tuned in. It filled me with longing to return to that deep a relationship with nature as fervently as one yearns for a lover; to feel the silent rush of energy that signals the exact moment when the moon flips from dark to new, the exact moment of an equinox or a solstice.

But I am a modern day Priestess, who relies on her alarm clock to wake her, her calendar to track the passing of her days, her ephemeris to note the planetary changes. I live in a time when electricity keeps our world illuminated long after dark, cooks our food in seconds and brings the madness of the entire globe into our homes on television and the internet. Still, I get my hands in the earth as often as I can in my urban garden, I keep the Sabbats holy, I worship the Moon. I make do.

Between the last of late summer’s heat carrying on into the night and my own hot flashes, uninterrupted sleep has become a thing of the past. Usually I awaken between three and four in the morning and get up to drink a cold glass of water to bring down my internal heat in order to fall back to sleep. But on this September Full Moon night, my eyes flew open at 2 a.m. exactly, a trickle of sweat sliding down the side of my face. I tossed and turned for about 20 minutes, trying to still my mind, to think cool thoughts, to slow my breathing, anything to seduce slumber. Alas, it would not be won.

So I arose, and when I stepped over the threshold of my bedroom door, the dining room was flooded with moonlight! She was so high in the sky, I had to crane my neck to see her through the window; a luminous spotlight in the cloudless, inky blackness, beckoning.

I could not resist. Opening my back door, I gazed at the Faery land I have sensed my yard to be, now made visible to any watchful eye under the Moon. Each blade of grass, each petunia in her pot, each pear on her tree, bathed in luminescent shimmer. It was otherworldly quiet- no barking dogs, no playful shouting from the neighbor’s children, no distant hum of a lawnmower- just me and the Goddess. So quiet I could hear the nightshades singing. Their song carried me between the worlds and with the bravery found only in extraordinary moments, I stood, the cool breeze caressing my body in that naked moment of eternity, drawing down the Moon.

In the solar light of day hours later, I checked said ephemeris to learn that the Moon had reached Her fullness at exactly 2:27 that morning. She woke me up to come out and play! Apparently, the tides of the Moon still course through my veins despite electricity, despite menopause, despite sleep. The Goddess is alive, and magick is afoot!

Super Moon

Cosmic context:

The Moon, like most celestial bodies, has an elliptical orbit. When it is closest to the Earth it is said to be at it's perigee. When it is farthest, it is at it's apogee. The gravitational pull of the Moon is powerful and we all know that she rules the ocean tides. The last perigee of the Moon was almost 18 years ago. There is no doubt in my mind that when the Moon is full and at its perigee, her gravitational pull increases. This is why it's called a Super Moon. And it happens on my 52nd birthday this year, March 19th, at 11:10 a.m. Pacific time. (Actually, my time of birth is 11:50 a.m. but close enough for Jazz.)

Uranus, the planet of sudden and revolutionary change, moved from dreamy Pisces to fiery Aires on Friday March 11th, and we know the rest: a 9.0 earthquake causing a devastating tsunami causing a nuclear fright causing unthinkable tragedy.

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we'd all like to see the plan.

Spiritual Context:

In Gaia's Temple last weekend I told the Vernal Equinox story of the brave Maiden Goddess Persephone who returns from the Underworld bringing with her the regenerative power of new growth in Spring. (When I tell the story, Persephone chooses to throw her crown of poppies- her crown of innocence- into the fires of Autumn to descend into the land of shadow with Hades when she recognizes him as her beloved. She and Hades adore one another. No abduction. No rape. No coersion. No bargains. Just love.)

During her time in the Underworld she learns the mysteries of love with Hades. She learns the mysteries of death as Grandmother Hecate teaches her how to welcome and orient the souls of the newly dead. And she learns that these mysteries are one and the same.

While she is gone, Demeter, the Great Grain Mother, is bereft without her daughter. She refuses to let anything grow, and Winter freezes the land.

Six moons wax full and wane away until one day shortly thereafter, Persephone awakens with the impulse to return to the surface of the planet. Hecate is there to show her the portal back, and when she steps through she immediately feels the cold, moist slap of Earth on her skin. Or was it her skin? It felt stiffer than skin, like a shell of some kind, as if she was encased. She tries to move but the Earth all around her resists her every attempt. The impulse to return is strong and she tries again. This time she feels something shift and slowly, bit by bit, like a babe making it's way through the birth canal, Persephone works her way through the soil.

Now she feels growth beneath her, and what was once her feet and legs are long roots that branch out. She realizes with a start that she is starving and she hungrily gobbles up nutrients from the soil. As she does, fragments of teachings from the Underworld flood through her-memories of experiences touch her soul, flavors of wisdom nourish her growth; a hint of comforting the newly dead, a touch of karmic completion, riding the crest of an ecstatic wave, the taste of pomegranates. Suddenly, she knew that her experiences in the Underworld were the rich nutrients feeding her new life, and with that knowing, she breaks through!

Suddenly, Persephone is standing on the Earth, a Maiden again looking down at a tender green shoot that had just broken through its seed casing. She suspects she had been that very seed and knows one thing for certain. Death is not the end. As she looks up, Demeter is there to greet her and Mother and Daughter embrace in a fierce hug of reunion and renewal. Everywhere on the Earth, life blossoms once more.

The end.
Until the cycle continues.
Because there is no end.

Emotional Context:

We are living in those predicted interesting times. There is even more revolutionary trouble in the middle east, and Earth changes are bringing tragedy just on the other side of the Pacific, and the release of nuclear radiation has us all panicked,and right here at home our unions are threatened, and we are still trying to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf, and our families are still dysfunctional, and our relationships are challenging and the economy is still shakey, and on and on and on. So we put armor around our hearts to make us feel safe because we believe our hearts are too fragile and we won’t be able to take it. But that armor does more than just protect the heart, it imprisons it.

My sister likes to send me cartoons from the New Yorker magazine and my favorite is a picture of a King in an ermine robe and crown lying on the psychiatrists couch. The King has a rather stunned looked on his face, and his doctor is sitting beside him, holding his pad and pen. The caption reads, "Enemies, yes. But doesn’t your moat also keep out love?"

It is the attempt to avoid or deny our feelings, block our compassion for the suffering of others and ourselves, that has brought us to this state of the world; apathy and disconnection and the demise of civility.

When we swim our own moats to look into our hearts, we need to be able to find it behind its armor. A loving heart is strong! Love strengthens our hearts. And here’s a secret no one likes to believe: so does heartbreak! Heartbreak strengthens our hearts. Because it is natural for us to love. And even after heartbreak, we can’t help but love again. This return to love makes us resilient, which strengthens our hearts. It is our resilience that makes us strong, not our impenetrability.

It makes sense that we want to protect our sensitive hearts. But the armor we put around our hearts can be likened to the seed casing in Spring. It has protected us through the cold of winter, but now, unless we break free of it there will be no new growth. And what will that mean for our future harvest?

So. Let yourself weep for the suffering of Gaia. And our sisters and brothers in Japan. And the Congo. And Afghanistan. And Wisconsin. And the wildlife and water in the Gulf. And the homeless. Let our tears cleanse our sensitive hearts, over and over again if need be, and see how much stronger we actually feel. Let the Super Moon pull and tug our heartstrings, and Uranus revolutionize our ability to empathize.

And when I blow out my birthday candles, I'll make a Super Moon wish for us all.

Full Moon Magick

July’s Full Moon fell at 6:36 p.m. on a Sunday this year and I had a plan. I would make my own flower essence from the Evening Primrose growing in my garden. It had grown there every other year from the wildflower seed I had spread when I first moved into this little house with the big back yard over seven years ago. For the longest time I didn’t even know what this tall, lanky plant with the small clusters of yellow flowers was. Then one day, I happened to spot a drawing and explanation of it in one of my books on herbalism. It was only then that I learned to seek her aroma at twilight. She is pretty enough to look at all right, but she only lets her sweet aroma waft as the day wanes and evening approaches and I had never caught her delicate scent before. This is why she is called Evening Primrose and why my plan was timely on a Full Moon.

On this particular Full Moon, I arrived home after performing a house blessing, feeling happy with the work I’d done and filled with anticipation about my first ever attempt at making a flower essence. I am living a magickal life!

I’ve experienced the healing that flower essences offer from my dear friend who had given many a remedy to me over the years. Flower essences have helped me recover from traumatic experiences, ease my grief, strengthen my resolve, and remember who I am at a core level. Potent stuff.

This year I was determined to keep my water bill low, adding mulch to the garden to keep the moisture in the soil, watering only the vegetable beds every other day, leaving the flower beds to fend for them selves. At 6:25 I walked outside ready to begin; bowl of purified water and moonstone in tow. But when I walked toward the Evening Primrose, they were sagging listlessly; all blooms withered and hanging lifeless! These were plants that didn’t care about my water bill, they were dying of thirst. Literally. I ran to get the hose, all the while scolding myself for letting this happen. “Well,” I told myself to feel better. “You can make some on the next full moon.” But I knew by late August, she’d be past her seasonal peak. I stood there watching the spray of water sink into the soil below the plants, disappointment flooding my heart. It was too late. I’d missed the right timing to make the essence this year.

Something you learn as you garden: one thing gives way to another and there is always something more to do. As the Moon came on full, I spied my lavender ready for harvest. Full Moon lavender, perfect! I’d dry it to use along with tansy, lemon verbena, and Artemisia in my sachets as holiday gifts. I braved the bees, too drunk on the lavender to notice me, I think, as I clipped the slender stalks about a foot below the fragrant blossoms. Soon I had a few armloads of them and brought them to the table on my deck. I sat there placing each stalk against the next, positioning the blooms together in bunches. I took each bunch to the compost pile and clipped the ends uniformly. Then I placed a rubber band around the bottom of the stems and hung them on little wires from my drying rack. I followed this routine for about half an hour, maybe forty five minutes as the sun began to sink in the west.

As anyone who has worked with lavender for an extended period of time knows, you get as drunk as the bees on the scent. I was stoned before I knew it and all was right with the world. My mind floated back to the flower essence I had wanted to make. I glanced back over to the Evening Primrose and gasped! There they were, totally rejuvenated, standing tall once more. Precious water. A lesson in resilience and hydration. I ran over to them, praising them verbally as I counted the 13 blooms that had miraculously opened! In the growing twilight, their keen yellow looked absolutely neon, and the air was thick with their delicate perfume. Who needs recreational drugs? Learn your flowers, man.

I pulled a few strands of my hair out and dropped them in the soil as an offering of gratitude. Then I picked the flowers from their calyxes and gently placed them into the bowl of moonstone water. Back at the table, I wrapped my hands around the bowl and breathing their scent, I gazed unblinking at their beauty, my heart filled with gratitude for nature. It did not escape my notice that Evening Primrose brings rejuvenation to menopausal women. Like me.