Catholic Wise Woman
Lunar Samhain.
This is the part on the wheel of the year where birth, from what you’ve grown, is but a barely there hint of a dream. Because of the Mercury Retro, we are reviewing whatever happened in our life, especially your opinions of it, since summer solstice onward. The review is almost over, and the catalyzing intellectual energy of Libra which has felt stuck bc of the retro will blast through on the other side of the weekend.There will then come a lot of emotional processing, followed around Thanksgiving by a clarity of will and values, before we enter the deeper stage of restful sleep to prepare the soul for rebirth.
We burn lights for our ancestors now, as we are in the West or Reflective time of the wheel of life. We honor them, seek their vision, guidance, support.
With the solar eclipse as well, we take time to tend that in our day to day lives which we will consciously let go of now. What will compost? Later it will feed life, again.
Traditional Samhain (Halloween) is celebrated at sun down. For thousands of years people venerated the Oneness of Life through its manifestations of living and dying and living again right here on earth. I call this the Earth or Wisdom Path. Post-Christian peoples assimilated Samhain as Halloween. You’ve heard it said: the veil between knowing and not knowing, light and dark, living and dying thins as these realities meet in between. This is quite literal of the thinning of the line in Psyche of conscious and unconscious. My own sleep has been nothing short of magical all week!
Alter, Dia de los Muertos, All Souls, Sacred SamhainReflection-Time! At the Waxing-Tide of Final Harvest
Well it’s times like these I feel so small and wild…
I
Canyon chill is a smile that comes in the place where there’s only room for secrets and strength, which is hope, just under the skin. I do not like cold but October Canyon chill isn’t the cold of dreary end it is the invigorating reminder that end is Begin! in disguise.
I am a spring equinox baby so I do best on the quarter moon. Wednesday was a day of life. Thursday I went to Sleepy’s to swim. Where I always find my joy again, sea-bliss shine.
There is sage to be bundled and mugwort crushed for dream bags and tea. I picked it from the dear canyon here under the last moon of Summer. What a harvest. On Wednesday w my other wise womens Sepi and D, I will honor the peak-end of growth tide. Big ol fat ol full moon! Sacred Final Harvest. This is vision moon-tide, vision cycle of precious inner-outter alignment sight. Aligning–which is our choice bc with wisdom, comes responsibility. We choose to take pause, tend ourselves, align. With the potent pure potentiality energy, as it floods us through one last time.
There are such exciting things coming up! Wild Women Wisdom is undergoing some exciting evolution! I cannot wait to be what is yet to come (as I have already seen or sensed it, in the wild wisdom or poet-vision inside sacred space.) Officially, I start my collaboration with Eve of Magpie Life on October 23 in LA as a featured presenter for her life coaching Living Room series. Presenting on the power of Women’s Mysteries! Ahh so blessed is the soul who follows her own inner light, all the way through the tunneled darkness when it appears to have entirely lost its glow…
II
It is Friday which means Poetry Day. There is ceaseless Feminist Re-Visioning happening in the collective. Social Justice Action being made true and real manifest. I Poet-Activist. Since Youth. Always, Youth. I sat a long time this morning in my loft in quiet happy reflection. It is tidey up here and cool, not stuck with thuck-thuck hawt heat. What a difference, two weeks. Another reason I love fall. Be Good Tanyas played, and The Waifs. In my time I have seen ten thousand setting suns. And I made my bed where I laid my head and it never hurt no one.
The morning started with Jolie herself, though. Singing The Littlest Bird, which as soon as the chords hit I knew: as yes, poetry day for sure. Vision strong and pure.
Remembering.
Sonoma, February, 2012.
When I called Mike who is from where I’m from and is why I live here now. He’s been in the OC since 2002 I think. I was in a panic it was a rotten, drenched redwoods February afternoon. I was staying in Sonoma fifteen minutes from the coast. Unwittingly taking care of a grow. I had thought I’d stay there for good, until suddenly that changed and I knew: I have to go. In four days I had it all ordered, and back to living in my little car and on the road I went. I drove all the way from Russian River to Newport Beach. This is how I ended up here! It was grey the whole way down the 5. It was cold and I was full of washrag gut. Wringing. Fear. Closer I got to LA shorter my breath got til I was driving the awful updowns of Grapevine in the dark not knowing how to do what I was going to do. It was bolts of blank and muscle shock and nothing works when your last ditch is get me out of here and fuck even that has turned on you, too. I didn’t know where I was but know I do.
Anaheim and busy traffic and neon lights.
Jolie Holland came on. Suddenly and I remembered. Breathe. All you can do. I played and replayed her song, steady driving down the 5. Trained my breath to the words of her song. I sang, and sang. I sang along.
The GPS took me some way that I ended up on Beach. So I crossed the jetty into Newport in the dark and there at the bridge was an eery fog. But on Mike’s road it was warm and I felt the glow of soul. I went in and he was asleep on the couch. Dez on the other one, Tyler studying at the counter. It all started right then.
This morning, it was nice to once more hear that song. Reflections, you know? Under Strong Vision Time of Final Harvest Moon-Waxing Tide. Wisdom of making new out of the rich substance of what is old, what has gone before.
This is the cyclic work of soul…
The Littlest Bird
Well, I feel like an old hobo I’m sad, lonesome and blue I was fair as a summer’s day Now the summer days are through You pass through places And places pass through you But you carry them with you On the soles of your traveling shoes Well, I love you so dearly I love you so clearly I wake you up in the morning So early just to tell you I got the wandering blues I got the wandering blues And I’m going to quit these rambling ways One of these days soon
And I sing, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs And the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs Well it’s times like these I feel so small and wild Like the rambling footsteps of a wandering child And I’m lonesome as a lonesome whippoorwill Singing these blues with a warble and a trill But I’m not too blue to fly No I’m not too blue to fly ‘Cause the littlest birds sing the prettiest songsThe littlest birds sing the prettiest songs The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs And the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs But I love you so dearly I love you so fearlessly I wake you up in the morning so early Just to tell you I’ve got the wandering blues I’ve got the wandering blues And I don’t want to leave you I love you through and through Well I left my baby on a pretty blue train And I sang my songs to the cold and the rain And I had the wandering blues And I sang those wandering blues And I’m gonna quit these rambling ways One of these days soon And I sing, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songsThe littlest birds sing the prettiest songs The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs And the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs Well I don’t care if the sun don’t shine And I don’t care if nothing is mine And I don’t care if I’m nervous with you I’ll do my loving in the wintertime
So stoked for this: Blessing of the Waves
I have been arranging my weekends to attend Catholic Mass. It’s a big deal for me, who is healing wounds around my experience of male cosmology and imbalances in our world. I am a Catholic Wise Woman, and as if the holy Mystery needed for me to know that this seeming incongruence was alright, I learned this week about this event, in Huntington Beach, tomorrow at 9 am Northside of the Pier. It is sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Orange County. smile, smile, heart, wink
