As we wake up this morning far from Bridie's land, the clock on this laptop tells me that at home it is already afternoon.
For someone who seldom leaves home, the changing of times has not been easy on my body. It's yet another reminder of how rooted we are in our own land.
Ever since I started to align myself consciously with the turning of the wheels of Earth, Moon and Sun about 35 years ago, my life changed. The more I feel and know myself to be part of the land and cosmic cycles - not affected by them, but an intrinsic part of the Whole - and organise my life to flow with the energy, the more beautiful it becomes.
We always close the barn following our Winter Solstice Ceremony and take time to enjoy the short, dark days at home by the fire. We usually re-open at the first New Moon, but this year was different. I, who resist crossing the Tamar Bridge most of the time, woke up with the mad idea of visiting the Tucson Gem Show. I was fully prepared for Marcus to say that it would be too much to manage, but he was immediately excited and so we started to plan.
We decided to move back planned teaching dates and to keep the shop on semi-closed with longer delivery times until the second New Moon/Chinese New Year - though the orders have kept coming in - thankyou. Anything and everything is only possible due to our wonderful Crystal Team, home and animal carers.
What brought this on? One of the things I do in the rest time is to go through my nice, old leather Filofax address book and contact numbers. Seeing me do this gave my son a laugh. He said that I must be the only person who still has a paper address book because everyone else has all their contacts on their phones. I’m not sure this is true. Do you still have an address book?
Anyway, for the past two years there has been much crossing out of people as they have left this earth plane. This made me start thinking about things I’d like to do. Small things have always made me happy, and I’m grateful for that. Home and hearth is where my heart is, and I created a life around that - with garden for food, chickens for eggs, dog for companionship and unconditional love and work at home enabling home education for my children when they chose it and community to honour profound moments together.
I started to think about the passing of time and realised how often I’d had an idea and dismissed it as impossible - for many reasons. It suddenly occurred to me that it was time for me to take action and, when I had a thought that I’d like to do or experience something, I should put it into action. If not now - when?
Making things happen is very different from long-ago days of travelling with a rucksack and no particular plan. It’s also different from travelling with four children because then I had what felt like boundless energy. Things now take a lot of planning, but many things are possible with good planning.
So - here we are in Arizona on Lunar Imbolc. Tucson is flat land but with mountains on several sides. It is spacious with some trees (that I don’t recognise) and lots of huge cacti. Flat land is very different for me, living as I do at the bottom of a valley with lots of oak, beech, alder, elder, hazel and more. I have, however, loved the presence of Mount Lemmon behind our little house. The energy of Mountain has been an anchor for me and each day I am excited to see how much snow there is on top.
I’ve been very conscious of the move towards today, since this was our planned re-opening date. I thought I’d create an Imbolc crystal grid here but, in spite of collecting crystals to do this, it doesn’t feel right. I could create something but it would be a forced creation of mind, without real feeling or integrity, because I can’t really connect to the feeling of Imbolc from here.
I searched through photographs from previous years and, through body memory, can access the feeling of promise, of first unfurling of leaves, of the courage of tiny snowdrops to face the new. It feels strange that I am missing this. But there is a learning in this. Although it is obvious at a mind level that festivals having their origin in the agricultural calendar spring from the energy of the land, in order to truly connect, I need to have my feet planted on the soil of that land.
I wish you a blessed Lunar Imbolc.
In searching for Imbolc images I came across these photographs from 20 years ago which triggered many memories. It’s from an early Becoming the Goddess series of workshops and we’re all making Bridie dolls.
