We are companioned

In the imaginal realm, the sky glows like a gray pearl. Snow swirls around me like frost-smoke. 

Out of nowhere trots Fox, with a jaunty air. Sparks of magic fly from his russet fur. Wonder fills me at his presence. 

Fox does not pause in his trotting, but acknowledges me with one backward glance over his shoulder. A clear invitation.

"I am coming!" I call. "Wait for me!"  

But Fox slips along the trail only he can see, and disappears into the tanglewood. 

I head off. Only in such fresh snow would I ever be able to track a fox at all, you understand. Though the drifting snow tries to swallow the prints, I follow them to an opening under the hill. 

I stoop to peer into the cave. I do not see the fox, but a small wood fire burns on the stony ground. 

I enter and sit down. As I warm my hands at the flames, I hear the voice of the fire: "I am here to warm you, to shine down upon you, to bring you light in dark places. Know that you are not alone." 

The ancient stone beneath me speaks next: "I am Earth's bones. For your whole life and beyond will I hold you; you are never alone." 

I hear the liquid voice of small rivulets that trickle down the cave walls. Water says to me, "I am with you, to quench your thirst, to bathe your wounds, to wash you clean. I am part of you, you are never alone." 

Then, from the darkest part of the cave, where the shadows flicker, comes forth Fox. In the firelight, he gazes at me in silence. Then I hear him say, "I am the voice of the bright peoples. We are your teachers, your soul kin and companions in this life. Seen or unseen, we are always with you, so you are never alone." 

 
 
 

The constant gardener

 

One day, I sat in front my altar and lit a candle, inviting any whisper of insight. 

 

As I gazed in turn at each of the earth treasures upon the altar, I began to tell myself a blessing story about the soul seeds I hope I am planting. 

 

What is a blessing story? A kind of spell … a kind of prayer … a means of tending the inner landscape.

 

I envisioned these seeds within being nurtured by the powers of the sacred elements, symbolized on my altar: earth, air, fire, water and spirit. 

 

I asked that sacred Earth hold my seeds in waiting darkness until they are ready to unfold. 

 

That sacred sun and rain awaken the sleeping seeds, calling forth fragile roots and tendrils. 

 

That my soul seeds grow my spirit in the directions it needs to grow; that they someday bear flowers and fruit, to feed what needs to be fed. 

 

That I am one with the Turning of the Wheel — the never-ending rebirth of this ground that we stand upon — which holds us so faithfully, without faltering, through our entire lives and beyond. 

 

I offered gratitude for Earth’s sacred gifts, uncountable as the stars.  

 

And I thought: We are the gardeners of our own souls. 

 

Who will tend them, if we do not?

 

What I remember

On the eve of Imbolc, I feel like my candle is unlit.  

 

At this time of year, I long for a sense of kindling. A feeling that the world is inviting me. But all is quiet.

 

The Northern winter is long; a test, really. It tests our patience as we wait for the world to unfold in its own time. It tests our belief that from the grayness we, too, can rise green and new, like the eternal springtime.

 

When we see only the cloud-thick skies of winter, we cannot notice how the light is growing. 

From our rooms, we cannot notice how the Bald Eagle and Great Horned Owl already nest in the tallest white pines and cottonwoods. 

 

But, seen or unseen, we know that Earth manifests all in its right time. Including our Selves.

 

A sacred sun burns deep inside each of us. So I believe. Some call it spirit, or divinity, or life force.

Sometimes we feel the flames leaping. Other times, it may burn so quietly. And in the depths of a winter of the soul, we may worry that the fire has flickered out. 

 

We may not know that slow, quiet transformations are happening within us, which cannot be measured. Or understand how to unravel the messages we send ourselves in dreams, or synchronicities, or patterns. 

We may hear a voice saying that perhaps we are too old, or too worn out, to be renewed; that our story has somehow ended, without our even being aware of it.

 

But then we are reminded. Are we not made of this constantly renewing Earth? Yes. Of the same essence as the clouds, the crow, the ice, the snow. 

 

We know then that our lives are not small, but enormous … shapeshifting, unfolding, flaming, throwing light all around us. Ever-renewing.

 

This is what Imbolc helps me to remember. 

The cauldron of remaking

When a person asks me what I am doing, now that I have left paid work behind, I'll usually say something straightforward. Like, "I'm doing more gardening," or "I'm reading more books," or "I'm spending more time in nature." 

But underneath it all, I think I am really trying to change my relationship with time. To feel it is at last enough. To live in the present moment more often. To slowly reconfigure my inner constellations so that they once again make sense to me. 

I feel a sense of trying to emerge, as if from a long sleep or captivity. 

If my work life prompted a long hibernation of the soul — because my job never called for soul, just "deliverables" — then how do I reawaken this wellspring of vitality, passion and intuition? Is she still there? 

I see her, my spirit, in my mind's eye. In a clearing, deep in an oak wood, owl on her shoulder and crown of leaves upon her head. She stirs the cauldron. She feeds the fire, she keeps the moon in a drawer. She is wise beyond reckoning. 

I call to her: Be with me, be around me, be within me!

It is difficult to hold space for the unmaking necessary before the rebirth. Difficult to feel like enough without doing. I spent many hours in the garden when the sun was high, planting, tending, watering. 

But the winter, I tell myself, is the time to stop struggling toward the sunlight. Let my inauthentic life die. Stop doing to justify my being. Let go of. Listen for whispers. Descend into the darkness of that cauldron, and be stirred. 

Seedbed of dreams

Two nights ago I saw a moon like a half-filled chalice, cupping silver light poured by an invisible sun. 

I drank from that cup. As the moonlight slid down my throat, how I wished that radiance would water the ground of my being. Stir long-forgotten seeds to life. Show me whether I have fallen by the wayside, or if this path is true. 

Have you an inner wisdom, and what does she look like? Do you speak to her often, ask her questions nearest your secret heart? And does she answer in words you understand? 

Maybe she speaks in mind pictures, like animals glimpsed in the darkness on the side of the road you're traveling. Maybe in the sound of wind rushing past your face, or the jeweled dragonfly who lands on your hand, blessing you with its clawed feet?

Mine speaks like the young-old moon: a grandmother, a sister, a mother and a daughter. 

Her voice is like a silver-linked bracelet hanging with stars, and like a deep, damp seedbed of earth. 

She is within and without, which is a mystery. 

As moon without, she knits with long silver needles a waterfall of light between herself and the earth, her beloved; most beautiful of all the sky's children. She spills her light over me, which falls down my face like tears. 

As moon within, she whispers like rain. She stirs her cauldron of dreams, and waits for me to remember what I always forget: That I am she. 

A sense of calling

Over and over I notice middle-aged and older people acting with a sense of urgency to do the things important to them now, while they can.

A coworker travels to Peru and China, leaving less-adventurous Europe for when she's older.

Friends venturing into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area on their own, where you paddle and portage your gear through wild lakes haunted by the calls of northern loons under a sea of stars.

Traveling off the beaten path to Cuba and Cusco, before health concerns make such travel difficult.

Picking up and moving to a new house or city. Daring to quit a traditional job — to give up wage servitude and lose health insurance and a measure of security — in order to gain greater control of one's own life through self-employment.

One who retired and went to the Dominican Republic to build houses through Habitat for Humanity. Another who retired and wants to leave the country to teach English as a second language. One a master naturalist who began a nonprofit on environmental education and stewardship in one's own neighborhood.

As for me, I always thought travel was my dream. I am fortunate to have pursued that dream, to the extent that time and money have allowed.

(My other dream was to be a writer of novels. And I did write two unpublished novels, whom I love very much. But ultimately I loved the idea of being a novel writer more than the reality of how much time it took away from being outside with the sky and wind and trees....)

As a young woman I expected to always be excited by the thought of traveling to new cities and lands. Now I've changed, and travel doesn't hold the rewards it used to. Travel (or maybe it's more fairly called tourism) often leaves me with the overall uneasy feeling of consuming rather than learning.

Maybe I'll figure out a more satisfying way to travel, maybe I won't, but the point is I feel in transition with it. Neither here nor there.

Today I'm taking stock. If that's not the dream around which to arrange my priorities anymore, then what is? What is the thing I feel I must do before it is too late?

Small acts of devotion to the earth, repeated over time.

Applied dreams, inspired by a desire to help, heal, restore.

Actions that are radical, because taking positive action is radical.

Tending actions that begin small, in partnership with earth, and that then build on themselves through a positive feedback loop, as the land begins to flourish, repaying many times the care lavished on her.

Actions that do not consume, but rather feed, give, nourish.

I am so particularly moved by instances where one individual took upon themselves a momentous task to restore a forest, or a jungle, or abandoned ranchland or farmland, or a prairie — and then did this work faithfully and often alone, for many years. This to me is love in action.

I am not a mother. Where are my children, my small legacy to the earth?

It is the trees I planted with the earth, the gardens I made with the earth.

I feel a sense of calling. I believe that if it feels like a calling, then one should listen.

In spring, I begin once again in my own back yard, planting, with the help of the earth, in this new place.

But I will keep my ear to the ground, trusting it will tell me what comes next.