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October and Ancestors

October and Ancestors

Oct 4, 2024

October and Ancestors

October – the season of change, of decay and dying; not dead yet, but on its way.

October, the season of wind and darkness, of shifting time.

Literal time shifts – the night gets darker, morning too, and the clocks will eventually change. And the other kind of time begins to shift as well – the otherworld gets closer, the darkness and the veil begin to surround us. Whispers through the worlds find our hearts, letting us know we are not alone.

The otherworld tells me of its presence: I am here. You are not alone. There are so many of us, known and unknown to you, here as close as the dark, as close as the fall breeze, as close as the falling leaves underfoot. We are here, lean back into our holding, let us catch you.

Ancestors. 

Back and back and back again.

Those I have names for and those I do not. They can reach forward from the other side, through the veil with their wishes and their wisdom – have this, hold this to your heart. It may feel at times that the circle right around you is all you have, but there are ripples of us, rings of love going back through time, ready to fill in empty spaces, answer questions that plague your heart, listen to deep longings that are still yet wordless, and give the yearnings of your soul a place at the table.

Even if the details of us are gone, hard to find and track down, lost in archives or burnt in churches hundreds of years ago, we are still here. Right here, in this shifting season, in this walk into deep time. The fire is lit, and we are waiting.

I tell myself to remember that the hearth is the place of gathering, the place of cooking and story-telling, of sleeping and mending, of healing and silence. It is the flame we gather around to hold us in connection. It is the fire within us that has been lit from the hearth that keeps us connected into ourselves. The flame passed down through centuries, across oceans, in births and in deaths. In this shifting time, as the veil is reachable and the darkness holds us, each fire, each flame, is a signal of our ancestors’ presence, like a hand on the heart. We are here.

Beltane – a poem and a dance

Beltane – a poem and a dance

May 1, 2024

Beltane – a poem and a dance

A few bits, but by no means a full dive, about the history and meaning of Beltane, include its translation as “bright fire” or “mouth of fire” in Irish. Like other seasonal ritual days, the celebration of Beltane was supposed to have involved fire. The fire was a way of ushering in the summer and light time of the year. Beltane also connects to a time of fertility and fecundity, when the earth is coming alive with color – plant and flower life, greenness of trees and grasses,
new animal life. The abundance has arrived and continues to burst forth. Like its counterbalance in the fall (Samhain), the time of Beltane is also a time where the veils between the worlds are considered thin, when we have closer access to the ancestors and the otherworld, whatever we may consider that to be.

Right now, when I look at the land around me, I see more animal and bird life, I can hear birdsong all day long, the vibrant pink of the azaleas and the green of the grasses are saturating the yard. The snowdrops and crocuses have given way to the dandelions; the fragrance of lilacs and hummingbird shrubs fill the neighborhood. The bees are flying two by two. There is a hint of summer in the air, but nature will not be rushed, and I don’t want to be rushed either. There’s an invitation to linger in this late springtime, to be taken by the sweet smells and colors, to dream in the afternoon breezes and begin to soak in the warmth of the sun.

Here’s an offering of a poem and a dance to welcome some of that Beltane energy.

On this New Moon Solar Eclipse day

On this New Moon Solar Eclipse day

Apr 16, 2024

On this New Moon Solar Eclipse day

On this New Moon Solar Eclipse day, however it finds you, take a moment to let yourself move. Let yourself dance and maybe even dance harder for all those who can’t. Enjoy the poem below and let yourself be moved.

We Have Come to be Danced

By Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced

WE HAVE COME.

Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove

Mar 8, 2024

Two Mourning Doves

At the end of 2023, I got to participate in a beautiful writing workshop by Sylvia Lindsteadt.  One of the exercises was to write a short piece of mostly metaphors about something in nature we’ve encountered around our home. We read the poem, Vixen, by W.S. Merwin, as inspiration (do check it out). I chose the mourning dove, who just that past fall had perched and nested outside our guest bedroom window to hatch two baby mourning doves.

Mourning Dove

Keening woman
Weaver of the dark cry
Devotee of the line between life and death
Gaze-holding protector
Mama bear with wings
Creator of the precarious home, perched milk maiden
Stalwart songstress, painting caves of forgetting
Nesting magician, world-maker, whisperer of swift farewells

Is there a creature, a tree, or a flower that you encounter around your home or neighborhood that might inspire you to write a short metaphor-filled dedication? 

Imbolc

Imbolc

Jan 30, 2024

Imbolc

The first time I really felt the meaning of Imbolc in my body was about 5 years ago on the dance floor at a 5Rhythms dance in Philadelphia with Rebekah Zhuraw. It was early February around the time of Imbolc on the Celtic calendar. Imbolc, meaning “in the belly,” is the time when lambs turn in their mother’s belly getting ready to make their way into the world. It is the time when seeds begin to turn over in the ground and start the process of rooting and eventually growing up to sprout in the spring. It is a time when spring is not yet here, but there is a hint in the earth, in the womb, in our own bodies that something is beginning to shift. I remember on that day planting a seed in a big pot of soil that Rebekah brought into the dance. We planted our seed with the intention of what we were hoping would root and grow in the coming months. And then we danced those intentions. Our bodies living and moving into the experience of Imbolc.

Below is a reading of an excerpt from Caroline Mellor’s poem, “Imbolc,” from her book The Honey in the Bones (highly recommended for those interested in the changing of seasons and the celtic calendar).

In the video, I invite you to listen to the words, take them into your own body, into whatever is beginning its organic process inside you of turning down and rooting, and to let that move you into a dance, into an expression of how your body is living these words.

The reading of an excerpt from Caroline Mellor’s poem, “Imbolc. The music is “I See You” by LAOR