Out here in the rust and russet landscape of Utah, I'm taking a break from the afternoon heat by escaping with my husband into a tiny local café. Cold drink, lots of ice, wobbly ceiling fan — and in the distance, the rippling, pine-studded ribbons of sandstone cliffs beneath a hazy-brilliant, unbrokenly blue sky. Best. Honeymoon. Ever.
Wildflowers in the garden, a riot of purples, pinks and golden orange among the feathery green in early morning sunlight. Gorgeous skies cresting to a deep sapphire blue, a smooth, unblemished arch above the subtle scents of autumn, crisp and rotting, wafting on a breeze that all summer moved sluggish and hot but now finally dips into cool. Click for more photographs.
We returned home from our wedding on the edge to discover that our backyard garden of wild flowers had been plenty busy while we were gone.... Amazing white blossoms nodded and danced in the cool and autumn-scented breeze, turning their faces towards the warm face of the sun. Click for more photographs.
Never fear. Though it's no longer August and I'm only two weeks from my wedding day, I have not abandoned the 30 Days of Druidry project. In fact, you can consider this a sneak peek at my up-coming post on Spirit and the gods. This amazing timelapse video was made by Randy Halverson (dakotalapse.com). It features stunning images of the milky way as part of a grand starscape turning above wheat and sunflower fields as thunderstorms blow in. This is definitely one video you should watch full-screen. Click to watch.
First, I knew the sea. The dark waters and the deep. That seeping, salty body that sloshes crest to trough and back again, ebb and flow in a dance with the moon. We carry an ocean in our blood, blue or purple beneath our skin, and only sometimes flushed pink or deeper red. The sea, like the past, seeps into the hidden depths within us where it works its erosion through memory and dream. Ancestors trickle through our fingers like water, each one of the beloved dead like a raindrop that enters the river that runs to join its source again. You can feel it sometimes, just as you are drifting off to sleep — that spinning, floating, rocking — as though the present were only a tiny raft upon a great heaving sea of time. And then there is the sky. The bright air, the heights that hold the stars and sun like mighty pillars, fluted columns circling to make a temple to the gods.
A few days ago, our landlord and his son asked us to clear our tiny front porch area while they worked on stripping and repainting the ceiling. Usually we have a small table set out front with a few candles and the odds-and-ends the kids bring back with them from the woods. We don't always do a great job of maintaining this outdoor altar, especially during the cold months of snow and ice... But today, I needed some spiritual down-time to ground in the textures and scents of the earth and replenish my soul a bit. Our landlord's home improvement project seemed a perfect excuse to revisit our outdoor altar with fresh eyes.
I look up from my work at the computer and notice for the first time the gray curtain of rain outside my window. That sacred presence that crept upon the land so slowly, opening itself up into a downpour over this city of steep hills and huge rivers with such unrelenting patience that it's easy to believe the rain could go on forever, pounding over the black slate rooftops and gathering into the gutters. And it does. I turn off the air conditioner and open the windows to let the breeze and noise-song of the storm in. The smell of summer is delicious and sweet and warm in my lungs. The red brick of our neighbor's house darkens to a deeper, mottled red across the narrow span of the alley. Our tiny garden nods and nods...
A match is struck — the flare in the darkness, the smell of sulfur, the quiet roar and hiss that is the first whispered melody of the cosmic dance. Energy and matter, process and emptiness, fire and water, the dance of relationship. Each sacred rite begins this way. The match is struck. The world begins again. I light the small white candle floating in the deep blue bowl. What was before this? Nothing and void, pure potential. The flame licks and eats the air, the waters beneath swirl and turn, the soft wax of the candle hangs suspended in between. The wax melts, shining and dripping into the waters. The wax evaporates, lifting in invisible currents into the air. The fire stretches and curls, its edges sharp against the darkness, its movements as fluid as blood or rain. The waters grow still, a hard surface like the mirror reflection of some greater night, infinite as space and full of stars. The Three Realms unfold, dynamic in their spiraling dance of self-giving and welcome. Land, Sea and Sky created and re-created again, the cosmos reborn with every prayer.
There is, I think, an old, white-bearded man who has taken up a place in my soul, like a seed of light or a hermit's lantern held up in the surrounding dark. His staff is heavy, planted in the ground. His brow is bright. In his dark eyes, that have seen such sorrow, there is still a star, a gleam like wisdom or stubborn joy. And he is a leader of a people, and he would lead them into the wilderness, that they might make of themselves whole constellations with the patterns of their dancing. That darkness is my body. That wilderness is my spirit. That constellation is the soul-song rising, woven from the sound of my breathing and the blood turning through my gnarled, twining veins.
Last month, I had the fantastic opportunity to attend the inaugural Wild Goose Festival down in central North Carolina, a gathering of progressive and emergent Christians interested in engaging with questions of social justice, peace, community, art and spirituality in a postmodern, multicultural world. I admit, as a Druid and a Pagan, I had my trepidations about attending a Christian festival — worries about what kinds of assumptions others would have about my own religious affiliation, anxieties about potential misunderstandings or miscommunications that could arise (although growing up Catholic and holding a degree in comparative religious studies, I'm reasonably well-versed in the unique ways Christians sometimes use language or make off-hand Biblical references) — but I resolved to set aside both my fears and my cynicism and attend the festival with as open a mind and as soft a heart as I could.
Alison Leigh Lilly 