Category Archives: 5 Lughnasadh: Reaping

Lughnasadh

Essence

Trial by trial,
stand strong.

Witness the layers peel
as you hold the mast of your being
your rock
your you
all stripped back
to reveal you
glistening in the light
unlike anything else.

It’s you.

There you are,
your power
completely familiar
and now impossible to forget.

Hold on, my friend.

My heart goes out to those who are emotionally suffering under the “shelter in place” order. I know. It can be excruciating to stay present while in the depths of one’s own disorganized self, especially if one has known great tragedy. And who in this great world has not? If not in our families and relationships, by the influences of corporate greed, which has swept us away, again and again from our true heart needs, while gouging Mother Earth, who literally is us in every way imaginable.

Maybe there is some energy rerouting that can happen. Think of the awe-inspiring, creative force each of us contains. We all have designed our own flow to keep our lives stable, investing our energy in chosen places, people, media, activities and mental structures. Now that our normal balance is upset, our energy might be spilling over, stopped up. It might be striking out. It can burrow down and create depression. Or it can just freeze and all those things we have been avoiding are right here, maddeningly in the forefront.

Hold on, my loved ones. This is a rare visit to the sacred forge of transformation. The power is building up and the heat is rising. This is the time to use every tool in your toolbox, every lesson you have learned about taking care of yourself, to rest, to ground, to breathe deeply and to listen. To dance, speak, sing, to ponder. To let yourself freak out. To write, break bonds, reach out or let go. You know what to do.

The quiet voice that has been whispering to you, all this time, is still with you. Listen. Listen. Allow true inspiration to come from the depths of yourself, the earth, just as the Spring tendrils curl and reach upwards in a dance towards the coming sun.

I know you. You can do this.

Tasara Jen Stone

Prayer for Us All

Great Mother Earth, I am listening. Your cry, your warning could not be clearer, your Spring ever sweet in your instruction.

You have taken many lives in the wildfires, storms and floods. Now you take more in this pandemic.

I call out to the Spirits of the Land. I have not forgotten you. My heart aches for your resurgence. I call out to the Fey, to revel bright, to strengthen Mother’s voice for all to hear, to feel in the winds, to taste in her precious foods, to be intoxicated by, when her blossoms give and give yet again.

May we learn our lessons gracefully this time. May the need for drama and extremism fall away. May the stillness be long enough for us to hear our heart of hearts. May we listen. May we turn the tides gracefully and with ease and wisdom. May we tend to all the sick of the world, human and other, with grace. May those that pass on, pass gracefully, and may they find their way to the other side by the grace of the Spirits of Kindness.

May we remember our citizenship in this world. May we level our eyes to every living being. May we wield with love and bring ourselves back into balance, before it is too late, before she balances for us, and we must start again, as we did millions of years ago. May this be the time that we listen. May this be the time that we understand.

Tasara Jen Stone

When the Veil

When the veil comes down, we are standing there like Innana, naked. Or maybe we are already turning on the spit.

What they don’t tell you about Innana is that by the time she gets to that point, she is so desperately relieved she could kiss the ground. She is sick of the long haul, the grasping for something, anything, the agony of loss – and she’s glad it’s finally all gone. Because now she can see that which could have never been taken. It is herself. And that undignified humiliation, that unbridled relentless unapologetic agony is what brings her to herself. She faces herself, and then she knows all that she has always known, this time without interference. And she thinks, “Holy crap. I am home”.

veil

And all that has been stripped, she knows she’ll never want back. Her jewels, her crown, if necessary will only be a prop for the real show that needs no casing. It is the people who need it to be encased in order for it’s rawness to be bearable to them. She can give them that. Such is the power of a woman.

And the veil to the outer world is torn down too. The antics of humanity, the circus show that has always tantalized in some way has now become a low hum because she no longer wants. She does not hunt. Her power, her nourishment is found, and she has become like the rocks, like the waterfall, like the moon. She channels the archaic ages of time and sips her tea while she watches. And she waits. She may try to trip us up once in a while hoping we may find our way to her, to keep her company, but she knows that no one can do that finding but ourselves.

Yes, we. We are all forces of nature, some to glow, some to build, some to sing, some to purge and some to awaken. Like waves crashing upon each other we greet, we encounter and we retreat to await the next surge. What will it be like next time? Will it be different? But who will we be? There is no other.

The wise woman, she breathes on the sea bed. She has seen it all. She has lived every form from hay flower to flea, from bat to snail. She has growled and been prey. She has birthed and she has lay down to die. She has loved and she has burned. She has prayed and crawled. She understands the value in things and the waste in trying.

The old woman, she is endlessly awake, her awareness our daylight, her dream-time our moon. And with her gaze she holds us all. She holds us with a love yet unfathomable.

The Great Gate

The weather turned and so did I. The dark came down early, the day ended, so I closed the doors. The shutters took a snap. I wondered what the night might bring. I am done. I am tired. I am taking off all of my tools.

The great forces of deconstruction say purge, purge, purge. The gates are yawning open and the maw of the crooning crone is soon upon us. The crisp air, the taking stock, the pull into retreat, these things we cannot avoid.

She calls, she calls, she calls.

She says look, let go, cover your eyes, it doesn’t matter because in the folds of mystery you cannot see. Time for the sacred to take the helm. Time to sleep. Time to sleep.

Who are your spirits to stand beside you in the dark? Where is your candle stick and your flint stone? What forms out of the dark are down the road?

Is it the nurturing womb of stasis? The crone’s cave? The turning spit of dismemberment? The hallows of memories past, released from their cages to fly through into the void? Who will help you?

Prepare, prepare, prepare. Prepare to lie down. To be one, to be naught, to not be, to be only what is left after everything else has left.’Tis the season. We come, we came and now there is nothing.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

by Tasara

The Well

I reached out
far
very far
and I fell.

I fell into myself
back
into
my deep, deep well
and was washed over with relief
to know that I cannot harm myself
with leaving

for I will always be there.
Like a child tottering along the edge of a rail and
the mother who won’t let her -.

Because it is back with myself where all things reside
where the moon is the richest
and I can safely lie on my back
in the summer dewy night
and look up
eyes awonder, up at the stars
private and safe
the sweetness of the night.

It is in the well
where the sacred resounds
with edges and echoes
that reach far beyond its thick moss.

It is here where the dreaming is strong
the mind is at peace
and the churning, more meaning

Chaos reaches high above the sky
order sifts between its heat waves
dust sinks and rises
patterns on the land

I come
and I go,
traveling far within the crevices
the ravaging land, untamed
yet holding wildness only in moments
when the wind turns to look at you
or me or them
and then the storm picks
one of us
and we fall back within
to realize that we
have never left

that the beauty in awe is remembering.

by Tasara