Читать книгу Seasons of Moon and Flame - Danielle Dulsky - Страница 15
ОглавлениеHeart Healing
The bounty of midspring restores our faith in ourselves, in our magick, in our place in this great and numinous story. Even so, there is a subtle melancholy to this second spring moon, an ache that persists despite these long-stretching days and our grand plans to not waste the warmth. This second moon of spring is a moon of challenge, and — though it emerges in many forms — the challenge we are faced with now, the challenge our inner hags want us to meet head-on and meet well, is to not leak our wild power, not to mistake separateness for sovereignty. In These Wilds Beyond Our Fences, Bayo Akomolafe writes: “The inside and the outside are not easily divided.” We are part of all. All is part of us. We ourselves cannot be perfectly unflawed and unmarred within a wounded world.
Hag Lesson #12
We can be fully sovereign and still be healing.
Those garden-tending crones teach us of balance, of old ways rooted in living slowly even on these brilliant mornings when the dawn comes early, when it seems we are drenched in the dews of infinite possibility.
We assure ourselves, day by day, that our time is well spent, that our art matters, and that, for all our grand technologies, we remain slow-moving creatures on a beauteous planet. In this chapter, the Garden Hag takes us to visit the Elders’ Altar, a holy place where the best secrets are kept, and we are tasked with the fortification of our magick, with binding our spells to activism, with asking the hard questions about soul-deep experience and what it means to continually unlearn what we once called truth. Meet this moon with a brave heart and a poet’s tongue, and surely it will be your wildest season yet.
Long May the Balefires Burn
A Bitter Beltane Prophecy
Tonight, these flames are kept alight by the sheer will of those rare, hopeful wild hearts who understand the meaning of rebellion. Numbered are the days of the corrupt powermongers who boast trust in a far-removed, vengeful sky god but believe in nothing. Their cog-and-gear hearts pump oversugared neon light through their veins by day and poison ink onto their tongues by night, leaving them riddled with the disease of moving much but doing little, planning it all but saving no one, speaking incessantly but sharing not one meaningful truth worth repeating. The cages are unlocked, the children are free, the walls are crumbling, the lives of these monsters are short, but long may the balefires burn.
Sunrise Reflection: Calling in the Stubborn Dreamers
Beneath the first moon of spring, you bound your cosmic eggs to seed memories of sensate mind and feeling flesh, to the prayers of your forebears, and to the budding greens of a well-kept garden. Now, as this mighty moon dawns, bind your cosmic eggs to one more force. Ask yourself: How are my dream visions seated within the grander, global community? What meaning do my dreams have for the world of the future, for the legacy I leave behind? Be a stubborn dreamer now, an outlaw with a bleeding heart. If, in your vision, you are joyously dancing, feeling unapologetic and wild in a way, perhaps, your grandmother never could, and you have bound this vision to a memory of you swaying softly to music last autumn, swelling with a similar lightness and liberation in your belly, and have left wildflowers for the ancestors beneath a tree as a humble offering, then now, my love, now you must connect even more intimately to the cosmic fabric. What does your openhearted dancing mean for others? Who are you dancing for? In your Book of Moon and Flame, reflect on these questions by the light of dawn, asking yourself how this vision of you is a conversation with the universe about how you hope the children of the future will live.
Beltane Celebration: A Fire of Demand
There comes a time when our longing, our subtler kinship with the mysteries, is simply not potent enough. At Beltane, we call in our fiercest fire magick, demanding that the world be rid of those long-standing obstacles to freedom. We condemn inequity, and we put it in the fire. We call out racism and white supremacy, and we put it in the fire. We shred the policies that fail to protect our precious planet, and we put them in the fire. We breathe contempt at misogyny in all its forms, and we give it to the flames. We do all of this in our spellwork, yes, and then we move beyond symbolic action and we vote, we donate, we march, and we make ourselves uncomfortable. We burn, so we can heal. We resist performing, and instead we act upon our worlds with as much zeal as our wild minds and feeling flesh can muster.
The fire element belongs to Beltane, to those heathen bonfire celebrations of both revelry and battle. On this holy day, the cross-quarter day precisely nested between the spring equinox and summer solstice and often celebrated on May 1 in the Northern Hemisphere, we must consider the bridge between the romance of this Pagan celebration and the pressing need to make change in our wounded world. Gather wood, and set a fire to burn, be it a humble one in a burn bowl or a great pyre by the sea.* Adorn yourself, if you like, painting your face with butterfly wings and gracing skin with glitter; then begin tossing into the flames sticks or twigs you’ve named as those things, those insidious forces, that do not belong in this world. Toss it all into the fire, and watch it burn. Feel the heat of dying patriarchy on your face, then commit to taking in-the-community action in whatever way feels real and right to you, given your resources, privilege, and place.
We can delight in our activism, and we must have joy in our Craft. Beltane is an annual invitation to both honor and harness the power of the fire element, to make good use of a more righteous rage and not become stuck in apathy or immobilized by disdain. We, as Witches, can do all of this without sacrificing the heat and hedonism of a passion-filled Beltane because we understand that, in the end, our joy is radical. We need not choose between revelry and action; we can have both. If we are to survive, if we are to love this pleasure planet as she deserves to be loved, we must have both.
Adaptation for Families, Coven Groups, and Other Wild Circles: An Action Circle
In adapting this ritual for wild gatherings, consider letting this Beltane ceremony be an action circle. Perhaps gather small donations to be given to a collectively agreed-upon cause; decide on a plan for moving forward, for continuing the action beyond a single evening; then set the fire to burn. Witchcraft without activism dies quickly; it has no heat, no beating heart aligned with the planet’s pulse. We cannot have joy in our Craft without the fire, and we cannot claim to be of the earth without working toward its preservation. Gather your people, strategize, act, love, and keep dancing, lest we forget what we are fighting for.
And so it is.
Season of the Elders’ Altar: New Moon
Grandmother Speaks: Up and at ’Em, Lazy Bones
You awake with senses graced by birdsong and nectar, but it is the Garden Hag’s words that pull you from sleep.
“The dawn has come and gone, child, and we have much to do before that mighty sun sets. Come on.” She pulls the quilts back and extends her hand, garish enamel bracelets clanging together, and beckons you to stand. “Up and at ’em, lazy bones.”
She tosses a sheer garment at you.
“Strip yourself of those heavy clothes that weigh you down. We move with a lightness today, with juice in our joints and a certain exquisite grace in our step. First, I have a morning story to share with you. Now, I know what you might be thinking... that it is bad luck to tell a good story when the sun is up. But, I assure you, this is one of the few tales that is daylight appropriate.”
She takes your place on the bed, facing the night table — a creaky thing covered in nine candles, burned to the last of their wicks — and breathes deep, readying herself.
Temple of the Flame Tender: A Ceremonial Tale of Wild Redemption
To participate in this ceremonial storytelling, have a fire source and nine candles before you on a small and humble altar, setting the intention to dream and be dreamed; then read these words aloud for you, for the elders, and for those yet-to-be-born babes who will someday look to you for your wisdom.
Even those bashful grannies — those rare and mild-tongued hags who, against all odds, have managed to retain the shyness of girlhood throughout their many years of silent rebellion, bathroom tears, and hidden joys — even those oh-so-quiet crones have stories to tell. In many ways, their tales are the best stories, for their words are never lost in the muddle of useless conversation or tiresome small talk. To be sure, all grandmothers are storytellers, though their story may be kept shackled to their ribs for decades until just the right moment unlocks its binds and sends it climbing their tongues. The stories these wise ones tell are not those with blatant meanings and hard-edged dialogue where all morals are laid out neatly like a well-set table.
No, these stories are those from which lessons must be mined slowly, those that are never told the same way twice, and those that might make you weep during the first telling only to cackle like a Witch in autumn during each telling thereafter. These are the stories that must be earned, and only those seemingly timid and flametending elders can discern who is worthy of hearing such carefully woven tales, who is cunning enough to see those thin red threads of soulful understanding within the thick blue cross-hatching of lived experience and hard-earned arcane knowledge. I’d like to think this is one such tale — but, in the end, I cannot be sure, for I first heard it in one of those waking dreams that haunts you in early spring when the longing for the sun’s grace is never greater and is all-consuming.
Those shy grannies say this story begins at precisely such a time, when Imbolc has passed and left a lonely-hearted creature thirsty for a better life than what she’d been given, when the shadows of Beltane are haunting even the most fervently guarded heart. Beneath that second spring moon, this wild one left the mountaintop house she had so carefully constructed, a brick-by-brick shrine to her discipline and achievements, a place where the wolves found her time and time again and where the wintry hags taught her well. She had developed a distaste for blind ambition, you see, and she set out searching for something truer, some wild place she remembered but had never seen.
Now, these slow-living grannies who tell this story have all the time in the world, and many of them would go into the trials and tribulations this wandering heart faced on her way east. Some will recount her nightmares and her many nights being hunted by spiritual predators. Others will dive deep into this wild one’s backstory and wax poetic for hours around the fire, speaking of her wounds and wants. Alas, these grandmothers have far more patience than I do.
My story finds this seeking creature at the end of her journey east, having arrived at the temple of the flame tender. This was a holy place, indeed, an ancient moss-stoned and hawthorn-flanked fortress that had lived through many incarnations. It had been sacrificial ground to the old hooded ones and a soldiers’ sanctuary. It had been a craggy altar to the Cailleach, and it had been an abandoned ruin on which lost children played their outlawed games. Even now, it is still all of these things and none of them, but that wandering heart whom we shall call Bride found this place at just the right time.
The breath of the moon was still cold in this Season of the Elders’ Altar, and were we to paint the pivotal scene of this beloved one’s life and title it only with her name, our art would surely depict her right there, having journeyed long and well and found this sacred ground, falling to her knees, heart swelling with more gratitude than she had ever known.
This was how the old fire keeper found her; she was near frozen, bubbling with all the joy of a mad one who had forgotten the aches and pains of life, but the elder Priestess knew better than to send her away. Clearly, the old gods had led this wanderer here, and the altar keepers fed her homegrown leafy medicines and put her to bed.
In the morning, this fateful soul met with the High Priestess, an old stalwart grandmother who had a wild look about her. The two chatted for a time, though those shy hags who tell this story disagree on the topic of their conversation. The grannies do agree, however, on this: At the end of their meeting, the High Priestess left Bride with these harsh words:
“I see your journey here was a hard one, but it has not broken you of your lust for victory. If you stay here, my child, I assure you your time here will wear down that armor you wear, nipping away at your goals and your strategies bit by bit until you have no idea who you are or why you’ve come. Soon, you’ll know nothing at all for sure, though you know much now. Even so, you must never lose hope, and you must keep opening every door — for you, for the elders, and for those yet-to-be-born babes who, someday, will look to you for wisdom.”
Now, Bride was always up for a challenge, you see, so while the wise one’s words might have scared a wildling with a weaker belly, they were precisely what that seeker needed to hear in order to stay put. Years and years went by after that fateful conversation. Bride became a Priestess of low degree, learning to tend the flames as the others did. There was a central fire in the holiest of holies that was perpetually burning, and the Priestesses were permitted to light three candles each day for their most precious desires. The ever-seeking and approval-hungry Bride thrived within this well-disciplined container. Each morning, she would wake, sip some tepid water, nibble on saltless bread, and light three candles of that central flame. One was for a lover with warm hands, one was for a poet’s tongue, and the final flame was always for the Goddess — or, rather, a wish that the Goddess would find her and gift her with the answers to all spiritual mysteries and worldly delights.
Light three candles now: one each for a lover with warm hands, a poet’s tongue, and the Goddess/God/Goddex.
By the light of day, Bride would hang on the elder’s every word, taking furious notes and striving to be a star student of Witchcraft. After sunset, Bride would never lounge about with the others but would take to her room and ponder heady philosophies, ethics, and the merit of the Holy Wild.
Over time, the aging Priestess began staying inside the temple and refusing to leave. She would obsess over the altar, spending hours upon hours staring at the central flame and willing herself to learn its secrets. The others stopped inviting the Priestess into the garden or to share in their storytelling, and Bride again found herself quite lonely, chained tightly to spiritual discipline and self-imposed regimens that offered the illusion of predictability.
Alas, death even comes to sanctuaries such as these, despite our best efforts to stay safe, and twenty years to the day after the Priestess had arrived, the old flame-tending grandmother who kept the temple in order died. All the Priestesses mourned, of course, but none with more anguish than the lonely-hearted Bride, who wailed so loudly that none could sleep for weeks, and the others feared for the Priestess’s health. A thick shroud of sadness she wore, and those days of good grief most certainly changed her.
Time dulls even the most biting of aches, of course, and by the following spring, the High Priestess could be spoken of with love and reverence and few tears. It happened, though, that the central candle on the altar was never quite as bright as it used to be, not really, and over the years the Priestesshood began to dwindle. Some of the women left for romance. Others left for art. In the end, only Bride remained.
Alone she was, but her routine kept her warm for a time. Each morning she woke; sipped her tepid water; nibbled her bread; then lit her candles for a lover that never came, a poetry that was never spoken, and a Goddess she never met. Her days were spent staring at the altar and willing it to share its secrets, and her nights were spent speaking to the dead High Priestess as if her heart were still beating. Over time, she started to see the ghost of the elder in her own face and hear her voice when she spoke.
The years flowed along like a slow-moving stream that wound about in a circle, always spinning ’round again to spring, unbothered by the unmet dreams of the flame-tending Priestess who never left the temple. Left alone with her thoughts, Bride began to wonder about the nature of time. She wondered if she had truly aged, or if she had merely remembered herself old. Her childhood memories seemed to be more fantasy these days, after all, and who was to say all of time wasn’t an illusion? Without anyone to argue in defense of linear time and the value of those boxes labeled “past,” “present,” and “future,” Bride slipped into a state of timelessness and grace, a holy void of sorts, that would have swallowed her whole were it not for her precious patterns.
One day, a day that began just like all the others, the Priestess woke, drank her water, and ate her bread, then began lighting her candles. Just as she lit the candle for her absent lover, a knock came at the door. Now, some of the shy storytelling grannies say that Bride heard the knock and ignored it, while others say that the Priestess, without any reference for what a knock sounded like after so many quiet years spent in solitude, could not hear the knock at all. She didn’t answer the door, in any case, not then and not when the other two knocks came as she lit the candle for her poetry and another for the Goddess. The rest of her day dragged on as it always did, and the knocks never came again, not really.
Something had changed inside that temple, though. Some wild energy entered the place and refused to leave after that day when the knocks came. That central candle in the holiest of holies burned a bit brighter, nearly returning to the glory with which it glowed when the High Priestess was still living. Bride began dreaming the most fantastical dreams, waking in a cold sweat and calling out to the old grandmother’s ghost. A year or more of these dreams went by, and the Priestess began to slip even more out of time without sleep to anchor her.
One such night, just at the Witching Hour, after a few hours of particularly fitful sleep, Bride began moving about the temple, as she often did. As she passed the hallway mirror, though, she stopped dead in her tracks, for there was most certainly the old High Priestess come back to life.
“What are you doing with yourself, child?” the reflection in the mirror said. “Day after day you light those candles for your wishes, then you don’t even answer the door for a visitor? How will you know if a lover has come? Who will hear your poetry, and how will the Goddess find you?”
“A knock? Well, I — I don’t recall —” she protested, but the grandmother interrupted her.
“Next time someone comes to the door, Priestess, let them in. Put your routine out for the dogs, and leave me in the ground where I belong.”
The ghost kept looking back at her through the mirror but said no more, and the Priestess returned to bed. When she woke in the morning, she moved to sip her water but stopped herself. It was for mere moments that she stared at her glass recalling the spectral crone’s orders, but that small window of time was space enough for her to hear a knocking. She recalled the grandmother’s words and moved, not without caution, to the door.
Half her heart was expecting a lover, but what she found was a wild-hearted woman who had heard from her own mother about the holiness of this place. The Priestess was hesitant, but there was something about her way that made Bride invite her to stay. The next day, another wild heart arrived, and then another, then another. In only a few moons’ time, the temple was full of Priestesses again. When early spring rolled around, the old Bride-Priestess found herself face-to-face with a strong-jawed creature who, she thought, seemed much like she used to be, chained to routine and ambition, fearful of all things unknown.
Like we all do, the elder had become the very teacher she had needed when she was younger, and she told the woman, this new seeker whom we’ll call Brighid, in the most matter-of-fact tone she could muster, “Soon, you’ll know nothing at all for sure, though you know much now. Even so, you must never lose hope, and you must keep opening every door — for you, for the elders, and for those yet-to-be-born babes who, someday, will look to you for wisdom.”
In time, the newcomer fell into a ritual, lighting candles every morning for innocence, courage, and spiritual discernment. She was overly attached to Bride, that young one, always following after her like a loyal puppy and thirstily soaking up every bit of the elder’s wisdom. Every morning, she lit her candles for innocence, courage, and spiritual discernment, and every night, she prayed to the old gods for the High Priestess’s health.
Light three more candles now: one each for innocence, courage, and spiritual discernment.
Alas, death visited the holy place once more, as it always did, carrying Bride into the ether, where she joined those ghostly flame tenders who knew her best. The other altar keepers slowly left the temple for their many reasons, and Brighid found herself alone in the fire keeper’s temple, waiting for knocks that, in time, did come. The lover with warm hands was first to arrive, followed by a poet’s tongue, and the Goddess herself, and as time wound ’round like a circular stream, the Priestesses returned to the temple, the fire tender aged, and a wild heart who looked much like she used to look in her youth found herself there. “Soon, you’ll know nothing at all for sure, though you know much now. Even so, you must never lose hope, and you must keep opening every door — for you, for the elders, and for those yet-to-be-born babes who, someday, will look to you for wisdom.”
The budding Priestess, this new wild heart whom we shall call Bright, lit candles for the sacred trees, for good stories, and for those hearth-holding Witches who, when all is said and done, keep hope alive for those who have yet to know true belonging.
Light the final three candles now: one each for sacred trees, good stories, and hearth-holding Witches.
In time, it was innocence, courage, and spiritual discernment that came to the door, followed, of course, by more altar keepers and a wandering Priestess who would call in beauty, magick, and grace, only to be found by sacred trees, good stories, and the hearth holders.
Some of those bashful grannies who share this story end it with a song, others with a prayer, and some just a knowing nod that silently says, Yes. Yes, you understand. I, however, will end it with pertinent questions:
What have your forebears lit candles for that, at long last, has come to your door? Will you answer when the knock comes, and will you keep the fire burning for blessings destined only to find the yet-to-be-born?
The Garden Hag does not wait for you to answer but stands, leaving you with the nine candles burning and these words: “Well, ponder these questions now. Meet me by the forsythias once you’ve dressed, and we’ll go to the Elders’ Altar, where nostalgia meets activism, where the deeper wounds meet the healer you’ve become.”
Opening Practice: Flame Tending for the Yet-to-Be-Born
Materials: Three small, squat candles, one for each “cosmic egg” spell jar
As the new moon dawns at midspring, place your small candles on top of your cosmic egg jars. You might choose colors that correspond to your dream visions, or a simple tea light will suffice. When ready, affirm that you are in sacred space, feel into your body, and light these candles, one at a time, in the name of a less wounded, more whole world. As you light each candle, call to mind a vision of children in the future gifted with a dream similar to the dream you are calling in for yourself. If one of your cosmic eggs represents you rooted and secure in a new home, for instance, perhaps you envision future generations, the yet-to-be-born, swaddled and secure, as you light the candle. If you are calling in travel and spaciousness, perhaps you see young ones playing in wide-open spaces while you light the candle, affirming that what you are calling in for yourself is not for you and you alone.
Let the candles burn for a few minutes, holding your hands over the heat of each flame as you move between your visions. When it feels right, carefully pour some of the wax over the jar to seal it, then thank the elder ancestors for the flames they have tended for you. Open the circle and, ideally, allow the candles to burn out naturally, or snuff them if you must.
And so it is.
Waxing Moon Practice: The Wildness of Our Longing
As this potent moon waxes, consider that what you yearn for is also yearning for you, that you are more sensitive to the spiral dance of nonlinear time than you think, and that desire is memory. As the moon swells toward fullness, task yourself with this practice as often as possible. For each of your cosmic egg jars, move your thoughts between these four points:
1.Call to mind a seed memory — that is, a memory of you feeling the same feeling that is integral to your vision. While envisioning this moment, chant aloud: “Yes, thank you. More, please.”
2.Now, come to the present moment. Chant: “Yes, thank you. More, please.”
3.Call to mind the vision of you with dream fulfilled. “Yes, thank you. More, please.”
4.Finally, picture the vision of future generations in a more sustainable world, feeling the same feeling that you yourself are calling in.
Do this strategically until it comes more easily, though it might seem difficult at first. If your vision is you joyously dancing in nature, the seed memory might be you softly swaying in your kitchen on the first warm spring day, and then the dream-world vision might be children dancing while bees buzz about and butterflies grace the skies. Envision these scenes in succession: first, you swaying softly, then you in the present moment as you are now, then the vision of you dancing in nature, then the dream-world vision, you in nature, present moment, softly swaying, present moment, nature vision, dream world, and continue. This is a psychic dance that makes for potent spellwork, binding what you want to what you already have to what you hope will bless the great-great-grandbabes of the future, be they your own blood or not.
Season of the Elders’ Altar: Full Moon
Grandmother Speaks: Blessed by the Most Primal Rivers
The Elders’ Altar is hardly as grand as you envisioned it to be. A lone and humble candle burns beside old, cracked antlers in the center of a flat slate stone veined with rose quartz and dappled with wax, set upon an immense tree stump, all nested well at the bottom of a steep hill. Morning-glory vines have overtaken it all, with blue and purple flowers spiderwebbing around even the candle, climbing the hill behind the holy place.
You are not far from the Garden Hag’s house, and the journey seemed too easy, but you sense there is some battle in store for you.
“Not very impressive, is it?” The Garden Hag pokes at your arm, and you raise a brow in her direction. “I know. I thought the same thing the first time I came here.” She pulls a lush bouquet from her long-flowing scarves and places it beside the candle. “Stand back.”
The ground begins to tremble beneath your feet, just as a sudden white-blue streak of lightning cracks the sky and sends an immediate growl of thunder earthward. You want to ask what’s happening, but you aren’t given the time; the humble stump rattles, and loose dirt shakes at its roots, leaving an ever-widening hole beneath the quivering altar.
The rains are falling now, and the candle flame is sizzling with the relentless drops but somehow keeps burning. Your footing feels suddenly unstable on this quaking ground, and with no warning at all, a burst of rushing water erupts from the hole beneath the altar, coughing a river your way and drenching you and the Garden Hag in a salty splash.
“Hang on!” the crone shouts over the unrelenting sound of storm and flood. “This is what we have come here for.”
You’re on your knees now, clutching the hag’s legs, and you can see that the waters are subtly pink in tone and smell faintly of iron. Even the rain tastes of seawater, and blush-colored droplets and darker red rivulets are running down your arms. More distant, the thunder growls, and the rain slows to intermittent drops as the stump’s roots return to where they were when you arrived, dirt moving to refill the void and sky returning to a soft blue shade.
The chaos passed just as swiftly as it arrived.
The hag pulls you to stand, and you wipe the wet from your eyes.
“Well,” she starts, “how do you feel?” She blots your face with one of her scarves. “You’ve been initiated now into a line longer than you can possibly imagine. You’ve been blessed by the most primal rivers of wild belonging. Such is the magick of this place.”
Full Moon Practice: The Truest Healing
Materials: Cosmic eggs and offering to the ancestors
This full moon of midspring calls for high-fire magick, demands you muster up will and agency, and urges you to forge connections between all the potent reflections and small ceremonies you have done so far this season. For this ritual, you’ll need your cosmic eggs, now sealed in wax from the new moon, and whatever offering you have been making to the foremothers since that first spring moon bade you examine more fully your ancestral lines.
Begin by casting a circle using the circle-as-story method, or create sacred space in whatever way you see fit. Feel into your body. Hum. Let your belly swell with breath. At the center of your circle, place your cosmic eggs and an offering to the ancestors. Choose one cosmic egg to work with first, holding it and facing north. Now, take a quarter turn to the east and call up your dream vision, what you first nested in the jar, what you want for yourself. Feel the feeling. See it. Know it as already happening. Turn and face the south, and call up the vision of the dream world, the children being gifted with the same blessing you are seeking. Feel the feeling. Turn west, and call up the seed memory now — your past experience of the same feeling you are calling in, in greater, more potent form. Face north, and come to the present moment, holding on to the same feeling.
Now, keep going, moving clockwise. Face east and call up the vision. Feel the feeling. Face south and call up the dream-world vision. Feel the feeling. Face west and call up the seed memory, again feeling into that moment in time, then returning to the present moment facing north.
The feeling is the glue, you see. The embodied feeling, the under-the-skin sensation, is the binding matter between all these moments. We add one more layer to this now. Stand at circle center, the point of sovereignty, and touch the offering you are making to the forebears. Speak gratitude, saying “thank you” or other words that seem appropriate. Now, move around the circle nine more times, coming back to center after each direction and repeating your words of gratitude. Come to the north, feeling the feeling of the present, then return to center. “Thank you.” Turn east, feel the feeling and see the vision, then return to center. “Thank you.” To the south, the feeling of future generations blessed and whole. At center, “thank you.” Turning west, coming to the memory, feeling the feeling, returning to center. “Thank you.”
Do this nine times before moving on to your second cosmic egg, going through the same process, adding gratitude to the ancestors after you have moved around the circle clockwise once, then continue for nine rounds returning to center four times each, before doing the same with the third and final egg.
This work is powerful, indeed. When you have finished working with all three jars, remain at center, at sovereignty, and speak a spontaneous prayer to your more primal ancestors, to those whose drums beat in your blood, whose prayers are stamped on your bones. Open the circle when it feels finished, trust the spell as complete, place your hands on the ground, return the cosmic eggs to your altar, and spend as much time out of doors as you did engaged in the spellwork.
And so it is.
Season of the Elders’ Altar: Waning Moon
Grandmother Speaks: This Is Hardly a Day to Be Timid
The water runs cool around your ankles. You’ve stripped yourself of your garment, and you kneel in this fast-running stream, splashing your face clean and pouring handfuls of the pure stuff over your arms. The pink and red has dried in hard patches on your skin, and it’s not coming off easily, even in this hard-moving bath.
“Just dive in,” the Garden Hag says from behind you. “There’s no turning back now, after all. You’re changed. You’re fearless. You’ve been tattooed by the blood of your own becoming, and this is hardly a day to be timid.”
Waning Moon Practice: The Feeling Body
