Preparing the Way for Spirit to Come Through

Autumn has New York State in her grasp, even though my morning glories are still trying to grow new tendrils. We turn towards All Hallow’s Eve and it feels as though winter will not be far behind. Indoors, I make preparations to honor my Ancestral Dead and welcome them into my home and hearth. I do this every day but at this time of year I do it more formally and intently on a night when the lines between the living and the dead blur.

I see movements out of the corner of my eye, things tucking behind chairs and bookshelves that aren’t there when I look for them straight-on. I feel people entering the room behind me but no matter how certain my body is that I am not alone I cannot see anyone with my naked eye. And my scalp prickles as if a hand has gently touched me. It warms beneath another palm. I no longer reach up to check because I know it is not a physical presence.

This is how I live every October. The blurs are what I refer to as wayward spirits, harmless travelers drawn towards memories of being alive. The closer we get to Samhain the brighter my inner lighthouse gets. My room lurker is currently The German Guy who has made another appearance. He belongs to my maternal Grandma Art’s side. And the hand on my scalp is my Great-Grandma Elsie. Always. She is my spirit traffic guide. She is never far.

I leave her cups of tea and horribly salted chicken wings. She lived with us in the summers and was alive until I was seventeen. There is a space in my heart that was shaped by her, a part of me that remembers how she molded me. 

You can’t let the bullies stop you from living your life, she'd tell me.

That goes for spirit bullies, too. Sometimes, if you are sensitive to them, they can crowd the room and demand attention. So when I clean my Ancestor Altar and refresh it for the season I call in peaceful spirits here that do not wish us harm. I take a shot of some pungent liquor and make an offering at the edge of our property for those spirits seeking offerings with no regard for the living.

There is room for them all to be honored…just...out there. Not in my home.

On Samhain we feast a Dumb Supper with our ancestors, setting a place for special guests and one place for all the rest to come and join. Together, the collective of us living and dead will say a final farewell to those who have passed since last year and I will ask the Ancestors to safeguard those who may not yet be at peace and to watch over their families.

Some years the names of my Recent Dead are few. This year, the list is longer than I'd like, and the losses are heavy. A dear friend and community member. Several other community members... oh, my heart. My Great-Aunt. A beloved friend and college companion. The loss of him is still rippling out through our hearts. It will be felt for years.

I wish them peace even as I grieve the loss of them, the loss of their physical presence, of their wisdom, of all the time we’ll never have to repair or strengthen wounds and hearts. And I am left to figure out how to move on from unfinished work.

But not alone. Those Who Have Gone Before aid me in my grief. The Ancestral Dead, the centuries of others who have felt such loss, have been deceased long enough that they can hold space for my sorrow. When I am open to it, in my darkest moment, I do not feel alone.

For some people the thought of ghosts is isolating and frightening. We often feel such a way about things we cannot explain. I’ve always trusted what I am experiencing more than just my eyes. We do not see everything and we do not see everything the same way as everyone else. It makes our personal experiences valuable.

Open your heart to the thinning of the walls between this world and the next. Do not try to quantify or qualify. I will tell you that yes, your loved one is gone. And they are alive. And they are reincarnated. And they are with you. All of that is true, all at once, right now.

Now they are gone. Now they are everywhere.

How will you honor them this year?



(post updated from October 17, 2018)

Autumn Crossroads on the Equinox

We are turning into autumn and the last of our tomatoes and beans are fruiting. The morning glories herald the dawn in vibrant hues of violet, periwinkle, and fuchsia. White moon flowers twine around the rail, their buds thick and strong. They are ready to burst open and hail the darker days of the year. Silence stills the land here, five years after the horrible flooding that made our city headlines in the news. We’ve moved on but the earth remembers. The first of the geese flying north to south in migration have trumpeted across the sky.

Smells turn crisp and quick as leaves dry, drop and decay, crunching against the bottom of our feet as we walk through the brush. Garden fruit and vegetables that missed their harvest will rot and fall. They become mulch and nourish the earth for sowing in the spring. In autumn, layers of bone, earth and leaves cover the world, dulling the sharp piquant of summertime. We bed our gardens and add bulk to our bodies against the funneling twist of leaves lifting in chillier winds. The beauty of life is migrating onward, disappearing into the earth and ether. The world outside us prepares to sleep. The world inside us softens into rest, too.

We have toiled through the languid heat of our longest days and the changing landscape heralds the lengthening dark that will descend soon upon us. This Equinox is my favorite time of year, symbolized by the crossroads. We stand at the point where the breathing world bleeds into the spirit world.

It’s a place where two conflicting truths can stand equally as firm and where balance is born. It is the place where the gateway exists. It is a gateway that lives inside you.

As the point of balance floats over our land like twilight fog, obscuring lines and blurring edges, we have the chance to touch the other side without walking through it. On Equinox, I pause to catch a breath. I stand between the long days of light and the long nights of dark. I stand at the crossroad and pay homage to those who have stood here before me, to the pause in the passage of time, and to those who will stand here long after I am gone. On this day I can see into the future as far as I can see into the past.

We stand in the tipping point, the grey space, the limbo, the in-between. Equinox is a time for feeling and reflection, a chance to catch our breath before moving forward. This is the time of year when I pause my search for more lines of my family tree. I wrap up my current work and make notes of where to look next. I will spend the winter months researching what names I have, reading old tomes and histories so that I might discover who my ancestors were and what places they inhabited.

The genealogical research is easier for me to do in sprints, following one line through till I hit a wall, then fleshing out that line, giving it form and story. In this way the act alone is a study in my own history and I am the eternal student. By using this method, the names and dates imprint on my memory with context. Every winter my living knowledge of my family grows stronger. In my dedication, the threads between me and my ancestral dead grow thicker.

We are about to enter the labyrinth, going underground like the mythological Ariadne, under and inward. I have been practicing my embroidery, in remembrance of my Great-Grandmother Minnie, and her mothers, whose scraps of sewing craft I treat as sacred objects from a line of women I never knew. In my nightly meditations I have been embroidering labyrinths, moving into the dark to come out of the dark. It takes two full lines, two lengths of needle and thread, in at one end and out at the other, to create the full labyrinth, which is made up of two roads, crossing at the key. In this ancient tool, duality and balance snake into forms that do not lose their symbolic origins.

If I unwind the labyrinth, the four arms of the equinoxes and solstices spread before me. We stand at the crossroad, facing autumn, knowing that as we step onto the road it is already turning towards winter. The crossroad lies near the heart of the labyrinth. We turn inward to find center at Solstice, and roll outward, retracing steps to find the sun again next Equinox. In walking the labyrinth, we move like the waters of our body move to the currents of the ocean, rolling in and out, each turn in moving us closer to healing and wholeness. As life continues through the shorter days and my body moves daily through the world, I carry the peace of the labyrinth inside me, as an anchor of stillness, walking it quietly within while the world moves loudly around me.

As the leaves dry and fall, I find some of this peace in the act of showing honor to those long gone. I often walk the local cemeteries, picking up trash and litter. It is such a small offering made to the memory of those gone before. They may not be my ancestors but they belong to someone. These dead shaped the town that I live in and they had lives filled with hopes and dreams, just like mine. To me the cemeteries feel most like parks, with spirits wandering here and there. They are some of the quietest spaces, full of the grace of those who lived and those still living who remember their names.

[Originally posted as Autumn Crossroads at Equinox on September 19, 2012. Some moments updated for the current time.] 

Compassion for Those in Grief

When my Uncle died, one of my family members took the day off of work to attend his funeral. She didn’t get paid for it, which I understand. But she got docked for it. They took money from her paycheck- but, if they weren’t paying her, they weren’t losing money. So it feels more like she got punished for having a death in the family.

I have a problem with that. I have a general problem with the way business handles death in general. The list of how many days employees get off for each different variation of family member is unreal to me. Like someone in a room can decide how much time a parent, grandparent, child, or uncle is worth. For you. I am far closer to a few of my friends, my adopted family, than some of my blood family. If my best friend were to die it would be like the loss of a parent or partner. But as far as a workplace is concerned, he could mean nothing to me.

When my grandmother died, I was too young to know that my workplace didn’t have to give me the time I wanted off. I called my boss at home and told him I was going to my hometown to be with my family, that I didn’t know what the arrangements were, or when I was coming back. I told him that I would let him know. I was gone for a week. I could have lost my job. I wouldn’t have cared. Nothing was more important to me than that time with my family. They needed it. I needed it.

Death is never convenient. It is never a good time. Even if you expect death will come soon, you are never prepared when it does.

There’s been another death in our family. My Great-Aunt Carol, my Grandma’s younger sister, recently passed. It’s hard to say, but it’s true, that she is in a generation where death is common visitor, for my age group. It doesn’t make it easier. I hadn’t seen her in decades. It doesn’t make it easy.

My world has changed again. That sphere of loved ones surrounding me in the grandparent generation has shrunk again. My outer sphere of living family members has shrunk. My ancestral spirit world has grown. Life changes. Life goes on. Somewhere.

I’m good at grief now, but it wasn’t always so. I was five or six when my first friend died. She was crossing the road to get to the mail when she was hit by a semi truck. Then my Grandpa, a friend from dance class, a friend in high school, my Great-Grandma, etc. All before I considered myself an adult. There have been at least fifty since then.

I didn’t handle grief well as a young person. I was still trying to understand what death meant other than I would never see them again. But even if you know how to handle it, it doesn’t mean you will when it actually happens. I’ve watched my parents suffer their own personal losses, the deep aching ones I have yet to experience. I know what lies ahead for me. Not how it will be for me, but that it will be.

So, knowing that we are, or will someday be in the space of grieving, what can we do when other people in our lives are grieving a loss we don’t feel? We can have compassion for our grieving friends and give them the space they need. If you can be there for them when they need to vent, sit in silence, or have a cup of tea, even better. Isn’t that what you would want for yourself?

If we disagree with how our friends grieve, or we feel the need to judge how long it’s taking them, we can keep our mouths shut. It’s the sweetest kindness when those we love are in their dark places. It’s a journey they have to take in order to find their way forward.

And if we can’t be there for them, if we can’t watch, if it pokes places we fear to look into, we have the choice to walk away. And if we are the grieving party and it’s been multiple years and we still sit in our bathrobes on birthdays and anniversaries, we have to accept that not everyone can take that journey with us. We can’t be angry at others for needing to move on before we’re ready.

It’s okay if you’re not ready yet. But honestly, you’ll never be ready. Sometimes you just have to do it. Moving on doesn’t mean letting go or forgetting. It’s not disrespectful. I know that step is scary- worrying that you’re replacing the loved one, worrying that if you move on, or that you’ll forget them. We all worry about that. But think about the depth of your grief. How could you ever forget a love that deep?

While you are grieving you are edgewalking between two worlds. The one in which nothing changes and the one in which everything does. You, on the inside, feel more strongly the ways in which everything has changed. While your friends are grieving they are edgewalking between two worlds. You, on the outside, are imbedded in the world that doesn’t change. It is your friends who suddenly fall out of sync.

All those who have lost will recognize the foreign journey the grievers travel, but they will not have the answers for the griever as to how to traverse that new terrain- it terraforms itself into individual experiences for each griever. But those who have been there will be able to be trail markers and touchstones, witnesses to the journey. Because they know that someday, we will all come out the other side.

Thank you for being a light in my life Aunt Carol. 

The Beginning I Saw in the End

Donna and Richard Riddle, madly in love.

It’s been eleven years since I sat in the hospital room with my Grandfather, watching him dance with death. It was my first bedside vigil and will not be my last. We sat, wondering how long it would last, watching his chest rise and fall, gambling the minutes… did we have time to go to the bathroom? Time to get a cup of coffee? Time to put on fresh clothes after a frantic race across the state to get there before it was too late?

The doctor had said it could be minutes, hours, days. We didn’t know how long it would be but we knew how it would end. There is no winning in the dancing, just an end of the music, the last pulling of strings humming in the air, becoming vibration with no sound, and then… memory. Waiting beside my Grandfather, my heart was already heavy with the loss of my grandmother three years earlier. I could tap my grief out for you in my own soft shoe, but we all know the face grief wears, and the mask grievers don.

I want to tell you something true, because it is the last day my grandfather had. The morning before I rushed to the hospital, he saw his doctor. He’d had lung cancer and had undergone treatment. He’d been in remission and then his cancer had returned. That morning, he asked his doctor how long he was looking at. Instead of months and years, the doctor gave him weeks and months. I don’t think he had expected that answer.

He hadn’t been feeling well. My parents received a phone call that night. Grandpa told them he thought he needed to go to the hospital. They raced over, but in that short time he had already slipped into unconsciousness. They say animals know when they’re about to die. And we’re animals.

My Grandpa loved life. He soldiered through losing my Grandma without removing himself from the world. But he was tired and he was in pain. That much was obvious in the hospital room.

He was struggling to breathe. We were painted in the room, separate tableaus across the same canvas. What happened to me did not happen to them. I was not ready to say goodbye to him, our rock, but I was ready for his suffering to end. I didn’t think he would be better off without us but I was ready for him to be free. I was ready to deal with my grief on my own time, not his. Being ready to accept the death made all the difference for me. In that room, with the clicks and the whirs of the equipment and the slow, low rattling of his lungs, I was prepared to wait.

I was praying in my head, words my heart couldn’t bear to speak, telling him it was okay, that we would be okay. I don’t know how I knew he wasn’t going to wake up. I think we all did. But we hoped. Sometimes when death comes, hope is a dangerous blade. The fact was we were there because he had decided he was ready. Cancer may have claimed him, but his death was on his terms.

We never really talked about death as a family, as a neighborhood, or as a culture when I grew up. Someone died and everyone put their funeral outfit on and we were sad and gave those grieving some space and then life went on. It tells a lot about my family that they allowed the soft chanting from the corner of the room where I sat. Music helps me move through emotion more easily and we were all doing what we needed to do in those moments.

When it happened it was quick. One second. It felt as if someone opened a door in the wall beside me, soft wind rushing in, and that second stretched into season as winter welcomed in spring and spring turned to summer and the smell of tilled earth, warm with worms, tomatoes and cucumbers, filled the air around us. I was ready for what was coming. I felt the shift as it happened.

One person turned away. One person died and one person cried out. I was aware of two realities. The air in the room stopped moving and I heard the sound of a toe tapping as a green light stepped into the room through the wall beside me. I held my breath, afraid to shatter the moment. On the hospital bed, my grandfather smiled and he lifted out of his body. Whatever you want or need to call it, his spirit, his anima, his soul leapt towards the light that smelled like my childhood summers and blinked away.

I was back in the room and the warmth that held us there was gone. He was gone. The sudden cold sterility of the room was disarming. So quickly, the heat from his body was dissipating. I stood apart from the moment and the grieving. I wanted to stand in sorrow but I was left in shock and wonder.

When I remember that moment, what I remember was not that it was awful for me, but that it left me full of awe for my experience and the gift I was given amid such a welling of sadness. Somewhere in the universe, in the ether, in the springtime around me, the energy I saw leave that room still lives, whether transformed, absorbed, scattered or inhaled, and the warmth of the man I loved became something new.

[Original article published March 23, 2011.]

The Graceful Birch

This time last year, a small accident derailed my day-to-day routine. Sometimes, we’re thick, and we don’t/can’t see the full path we’re heading on for what it really is. Sometimes, the universe has to kick us in the face before we can see it and alter our course. Growth, transformation, and evolution are at the heart of my spiritual practice, and I comforted myself with the knowledge that growth comes, even after a painful transition, if we can stay open to accepting it.

I spent the day after the accident going through old family mementos with my dad. In the box, among the cache of old camping photos, taken by my Great-Grandma Minnie, we found a piece of white birch bark, a lone keepsake among photos, pamphlets, brochures, recipes and news articles.

That find meant a great deal to me. Birch is my favorite tree. In my parent’s kitchen, I held a piece of the past, a pale piece of birch placed among collected bits, treasured enough to keep forever. Did my Great-Grandma Minnie pick it up? Was it a gift to her from one of her children on a family adventure? Was it something she loved instinctively, too?

That bark now sits among my treasures. Birch is a tree that we have attributed symbols of growth to over history. The Norse rune Beorc, named for the tree, means growth, and is one of my personal talismans. I have been meditating this last year on birch, pushing forward for my own healing and renewal, moving towards wellness.

Against the dark grey of seasonal winter, the white birch stands out in the forest like bones jutting from the earth. As they age, their bark splits and peels and curls away in beautiful rippling edges. If you have never seen an elderly birch tree, you haven’t experienced the full truth of their wisdom; that what is no longer needed gets sloughed away. I have seen birch trees bowed down by ice after storms. They bend but they bend under great weight. They bend but they do not break. Many old folktales say the birch was cut by an angry old man because it refused his command to break and fall.

I have leaned against a young sapling, and rested my weight against it. After a time, I could feel the slightest shudder of vibration, as if the tree beneath me were breathing. And I knew that ripple was the wind swaying the tree top, resonating down the trunk and against my chest. The tree folk have a rhythm of breath all their own and a stillness that I try to carry with me.

Peace, gratitude, growth, adaptation, evolution… these are the qualities I learn from the birch tree, a deciduous member of the Betulaceae family, native to temperate and boreal climates in the Northern Hemisphere. As one of the first trees to seed and spread after the receding ice glaciers, botanists refer to it as a pioneer species. It is often one of the first trees to seed and grow after disastrous fires, creating essentially pure stands of birch. After a generation, they are usually replaced by more shade-tolerant conifers or stronger hardwoods, and when they die, their bodies and fallen leaves will further nourish the recovering soil. There are so many birches in Umea, Sweden that it is called “The City of the Birches.” A devastating fire swept the city in June of 1888, and left 2,300 of the 3,000 inhabitants homeless. When the city was rebuilt, the buildings were placed further apart and silver birches were planted widely between buildings, so they might halt the spread of fire in the future.

There are sixty species of birch and they can grow up to 80 feet tall. Properly cultivated, they can live up to 140 years, though silver birches in the wild rarely live past 80 years. Currently, the oldest birch tree in the world is 101 years old in Wageningen, Netherlands. Each birch tree is male and female, carrying both the slender, male, drooping catkins, and the short, conical, wooly clusters of female flowers.

Birch bark is marked with long horizontal lenticels, making it quite distinctive and easily identified. The lightweight, chalky white outer bark is easily separated into thin strips. The bark is strong and flexible, as well as water-resistant, and can be bent, cut, and sewn, like cardboard. Full of resinous oil, birch bark is slow to decay, lending to it an air of indestructibility. Removing bark from a living tree leaves a permanent black band on the trunk, which will not harm the tree as long as this band is undamaged. Still, bark should always be removed from fallen trees first.

Birch bark was used as material for canoes, wigwams and other shelters, scrolls and writing paper, instruments, boxes and baskets, and even shoes and clothing by the indigenous peoples of North America, Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and Siberia. The water-resistant properties of it made it a valuable material in roofing. It is a good source of firewood, for whether it is frozen or freshly cut, it burns without spitting or popping. It even burns well when wet, because of the kind of and amount of oil it contains. In March, cuts can be made to the birch tree, from which thin sugary sap is collected, half as sweet as maple syrup. Moderate tapping will not harm the tree. Birch wine and other cordials are made from this syrup.

FOLKLORE

The word birch is said to derive from the Sanskrit word bhurga, meaning “tree whose bark is used to write upon.” It is also said to come from the Germanic birka with the Proto-Indo-European root bhereg, meaning “white, bright; to shine.” Where these language roads may overlap, I cannot say. The Germanic rune berkanan, or beorc, is named for the birch tree, which is known by many folk-names: Beithe, Bereza, Berke, Beth, and Bouleau. The tree has a prominent position in the history of Anglo-Saxon place names, like Birkenhead, Birkhall, and Berkhamstead, showing most commonly in Northern England and Scotland. The Gaelic word for birch, beithe, pronounced “bey”, is seen in Highland place names like Glen an Beithe in Argyll, Beith in Sutherland, and Loch a Bhealaich Bheithe in Inverness-shire.

            The birch is one of the earliest trees to bloom in the spring and as such, it embodies the energies of growth in general, but especially regrowth after destruction. To the Celtic people, birch represented inception and new beginnings. Twigs were used in May, at Beltane celebrations, to light bonfires marking the beginning of the new season. In October, at the festivals of Samhain, bundles of twigs were used to drive out the spirits of the old year. At Winter Solstice in December, birch brooms were used to sweep the house the morning after the longest night of the year, clearing the way for renewal. Birch was often used as a Yule log.

            Beltane bonfires in Scotland were made of a combination of birch and oak. Birch was often chosen as the maypole tree for the festivities, and was sometimes used as a living maypole. Scottish Highland folklore says that a barren cow driven with a birch stick will become fertile; a pregnant cow will birth a healthy calf.

            Birch was the Germanic tree of wisdom, and the holy tree of Frigga, the Mother goddess and wife of Odin. Frigga is associated with the Welsh owl goddess Blodeuwedd, and the barn owl is a familiar of hers. Birch, used in rune divination, known as beorc or bfarkan, is associated with Freya, the lady of the forest and goddess of fecundity. It is associated with the planet Venus, and all goddesses of love, like Freya and Frigga.

Birches were used to ward off evil spirits. Birch twigs were used to beat the energy left behind by witches out of the house. Twigs can also be used to gently strike a person or animal possessed by an evil spirit and drive it from them in exorcism. In its association with the dead and the Underworld a folk ballad from the 17^th century, “The Wife of Usher’s Well,” tells of a woman’s sons returning from the Underworld in clothing made of birch: “It fell about the Martinmas,/ When nights are lang and mirk,/ The carline wife’s three sons came hame,/ And their hats were o’ the birk./ It neither grew in skye nor ditch,/ Nor yet in ony sheugh;/ But at the gates o’ Paradise/ That birk grew fair enough.”

            In Siberia, the Birch tree was considered to be the axis of the world. Siberian shamans hung other dead shamans in birch trees. They left the dead to the elements. The dead spirit would use the birch as a doorway to spirit world, and as a means of return when he was petitioned for guidance. Among the Eskimo of the Gold Coast, shamanic teachers climb birch trees, circling the trunk nine times to represent his ascent into Upper World. His students will each do so in turn.

In some Ojibwe communities, birch bark was a sacred gift from Wenabozho, a cultural hero and they buried their dead in bark wrappings. Birch bark rolls depict the symbols of the Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa and are a treasured possession According to other Ojibwe folklore, lightning won’t strike birch trees.

COMMERCIAL

Birch is used in furniture making. The wood is heavy, tough and contains a straight grain that makes it perfect for handles and toys. It was used to manufacture anything that required turning, like hardwearing bobbins, spools, reels, and herring-barrel staves. In the country, lighter birch twigs were used as thatching, to make brooms, and for wattle-fencing. Baby cradles were traditionally made from birch, as a means of protection from fey folk.

J.C. Loudon wrote in his Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs, in 1842, that the Highlanders of Scotland used birch for much of their household and farming production, and general building materials. They used the branches as fuel in distilling whiskey. The Scottish used the spray to smoke ham and herring, which was preferred against any other kind of wood. The bark was used to tan leather, and was sometimes twisted in rope to be used in the place of candles. The spray was used for thatching and dried in the summer with the leaves to be used as a bed when heath was scarce.

MEDICINAL

The leaves of the birch are both an antiseptic and a diuretic. The infusion, having a bitter taste, has been used to treat gout, rheumatism, dropsy, and mild arthritic pain, as well as urinary tract infections, specifically cystitis. Taken over a few weeks, birch leaf tea will detoxify and stimulate the gall bladder, kidneys, and liver. Cooled, it can be massaged into the scalp to accelerate hair growth.

Native Americans used bark tea for fevers, stomachache, and lung ailments. Birch bark and twigs have similar properties to Wintergreen and can be drunk to aid purification of the blood. It’s a good body tonic, helping the bowels with conditions of diarrhea, dysentery, and cholera infantum. In history, it was used to expel worms from the body. Taken internally, the tea can be just as helpful for skin ailments like warts, boils, and sores, as well as when it is used as an external wash for skin eruptions. Cover the bark in water, boil until it softens and mash it with a hammer or pestle into a paste. This can be used to apply to sores, abrasions, and inflammations on a daily basis until healed.

            The salicylates in the bark and the essential oil ease sore muscles and joint pain when applied externally. The oil soothes irritated joints and actively decreases the inflammation. Massage it in to relieve stiffness and reduce pain. The oil has a high concentration of acid that repels mosquitoes and gnats. Mix 25 drops with 4 ounces of water in a spray bottle for a natural bug repellent. The inner bark is bitter and astringent and has been used as a remedy for intermittent fevers.

            Birch trees have intentionally been planted in waste areas, like old mines and toxic ground. The birch is believed to purify the ground in the same way it can purify the body, paving the way for nature to return. When the birch dies, it’s own body will nourish and cleanse the soil beneath it. I don’t know if that is true or not, that the birch can cleanse a soil so quickly, but I do believe the birch to be a great Way-Maker. In my own life, it has seen me through new growth and challenges. In meditation with birch, I have learned to bend with change instead of breaking beneath it.

BIRCH FACTS & TIDBITS:

• It takes 25 years for a silver birch to bear fruit.
• The name Macbeth is derived from the word birch.
• Beithe is first in the Ogham, an Irish tree alphabet.
• The tree was dedicated to Brigit, the goddess of inspiration, healing, and blacksmithing.
• Gardeners used birch brooms to purify their space.
• Birch was the personal sacred tree of the Norse god Thor.
• In Germany, young men would place decorated birch trees in front of the houses of their beloveds on May 1, to reveal their feelings.
• In some Scandinavian countries, the leafing of the birch tree marked the start of the agricultural year.
• In Sweden and Lapland, birch sap is used in place of sugar.
• The Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, was celebrated from Spring Equinox to Beltane with birch trees.
• In Wales, wreaths of birch were given as love tokens.
• Birch boughs were placed over cradles and carriages to protect infants from the glamour of the Little People.
• On St. Stephen’s Day, December 26/27, Robin Red Breast used a birch rod to slay the wren in a gorse bush.
• Many countries make birch wine and beer.
• Cattle and deer do not like the taste of birch bark, so they leave birch trees alone.
• In folklore, tying a red ribbon around the stem or branch of a birch tree would ward off the evil eye. 
• Birch was used for protection against lightning. 
• The Paper White Birch is the New Hampshire state tree.
• The Lieschi, or Lesovik, a Slavic Spirit of the Forest, lives in the top of birch trees. He wears a long green beard and casts no shadow, changing his size at will. He hibernates from October until the spring.
• In Russia, the birch was worshipped as a goddess during Green Week in early June.
• Russians plant birches outside the home to bring protection.
• Modern Siberian shamans use birch for the center pole of their yurt, with nine notches carved on it.
• The thin bark was widely used as writing paper in Northern India. The first written version of the Vedas, ancient Indian wisdom, were written on birch bark.
• The sap is fermented to make birch wine.
• Birch bark can be ground down and fermented in sea water to season the sails of Norwegian boats, made of wool, hemp or linen.
• Baltic birch is sought-after for making speaker cabinets, due to the peaks of high and low resonances.
• It is sometimes used for acoustic guitars and mallets in keyboard percussion.
• Books bound in Russian leather, tanned with Oil of Birch Tar, are unlikely to mold. Asphyxiating gases have been sourced from birch wood.
• Charcoal of birch is used for gunpowder.
• Many indigenous people linked the birch with the fly agaric mushroom, amanita muscaria, a hallucinogenic mushroom used for spirit journeys, because it seemed to prefer growing beneath birch trees.
• In saunas, birch twigs are used to ‘beat’ the body to stimulate circulation.
• A tea of the twigs and bark aids in ridding the mouth of canker sores.
• Softened birch has been used to form casts for broken arms.
• The inner bark of the birch can be dried and ground into flour for bread or cut into strips and boiled like noodles in stews. 

Winter Solstice Wonder: Snow Falling

“They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could 

the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we 

ever recover from the wonder of it?”

~ Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

The world we live in is a vibrant kaleidoscope of magic and science, for science is magic that has been placed in boxes; a deconstruction of wonder. It is this place of wonder my spirituality has found me, breaking down those walls of distinction to simply be moved by the beauty of… everything. There are days when I feel like I see the whole world for what it is for perhaps the first time.

Winter is coming to the land that I live on, to the city that I live in. In America, Solstice marks the beginning of our coldest days, which for those of us in the Northeast, usually means snow. It’s an excuse to snuggle down with loved ones and nest in blankets in the shelter of our homes. It’s a reason to pull into ourselves and reflect on what we have gratitude for, and what is important to us.

I also find snow to be quite beautiful.

There is breathtaking wonder in falling snowflakes, in the filigree of crystalline symmetry, as the little frozen worlds slide in to meet each other and catch on edges; each snowflake a delicate crystal. How amazing it is that they fall into each other, hugging and holding on to create something solid and larger than itself. Under a blanket of white, the sleeping earth becomes encased in diamonds of ice.

The sunbeams fall on snow, momentarily blinding our vision and we must reach into other senses. The dancing light flits across the surface of earth, refracting and sharpening in the cold chill of breath. And we smell winter, freezing against our mucus membranes. And we taste winter in the icy cold within our lungs. And every bare particle of flesh feels itself retracting against the frosted air. That is what it means to be alive in snow-drenched winter time. When the sun shines it’s brilliance we forget the cold, if just for a moment, and bask like lizards in the reflective gaze.

On Solstice night, we sit through the longest dark of the year. We’ve watched the days get shorter and we’ve been turning our porch lights on before making dinner. We’ve stood in bursts of sunshine and soaked up the solar vitamins in preparation. Winter may just be beginning, but with its start comes the promise of lengthening days. The air is cold but the sun is warm, a hope that shines through the intruding chill.

            Yet even as I anxiously await the first flurry of snowfall, I see the pattern of the worlds and know that as the darkness retreats, snowmelt will warm with the early spring breezes. It will sink into and feed the ground below us which, in turn, will nourish seedlings so that they might flourish in our gardens. Then plants and flowers will grow in warmer sunlight, to nourish our hearts and bodies.

            All this is wonder, beheld in the beauty of a single snowflake.

            On the longest night, we greet this turning. We greet this movement forward, into a new spring, a breath of freshness in an age-old pattern. What appears to be a never ending circle when viewed from above, is an ever-winding spiral, a journey circling around and moving upward with each turn when seen sideways. It’s a pattern we know, which is how I know that on winter nights, when the moonlight is strong, the fallen snow will shimmer with the reflection of the sky above us. The earth we trod will be awash with fields of glittering stars.

            That starlight lives within us, a spark of ancestral matter. And it is this gift I reflect on most. All the light I need lives within me. All the hope I need is in me. Every day, I hold fast to this truth and let it illuminate my darkness, and hope that someday, others will see their own source-light, too.

            “Your first parent was a star.”

             ~ Jeanette Winterson, Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles

Calling the Dead on All Hallow’s Eve

At this time of year, the air is cooling, the garden beds have been put to rest, cider is mulling and apples are transformed into a myriad of treats, whether candied, cobblered or sauced. Crisp autumn leaves fall and dry, skittering across sidewalks and pavements when the winds lift. In the Northeast, the green world is dying and we feel the approach of winter’s arrival. In this time of in-between our connection to the Dead is strongest.

My Ancestor Altar stays up year round as my ancestor work is every day of my life. They walk with me always. My altar lives on top of a bookshelf and holds a photo tree with pictures of my deceased grandparents and great-grandparents. I have a special glass I use to make oblations, liquid offerings, to the ancestors and a candle holder I light to act as a beacon. It is also decorated with pieces of petrified wood and fossils. I add items and take some away during the year but this altar is my working altar.

Samhain night, Halloween, is the time of year that you don’t have to be a sensitive to communicate with the dead. Just as in our world, it would be hard to call your friends without a phone, spirit work is no different. There are tools that help strengthen those connections: names, candles, personal objects, and offerings to entice them. I make another altar specifically for this holiday, decorated with items appropriate to the season, like petrified wood, bones, tree bark (I’m partial to birch), little pumpkins, festive candles, and autumn leaves. It pulls the energy of the outdoors inside my dwelling for those nights when the idea of being indoors feels stifling. It’s a means of opening our personal space; the spirit world does not take much notice of walls, but we do.

This time of year prompts many people to remember the loved ones no longer with them. The visual loss of leaves on the trees stirs an introspection from deep within and we emotionally feel each person we have known who no longer breathes reflected in the dying of the natural world around us. I refer to them as my Beloved Dead, and it is specifically this group I reach out to communicate with on Halloween. I place photos of them on my altar, though I do not include photos of anyone living, for superstitious reasons. I use post-its to cover the images of the living when I have no other photos, so as not to get them confused with the dead.

I have personal items that were passed down to me after loved ones died, as well as items gifted to me by them that I add to my altar. I strengthen the connection with objects the spirits are familiar with and might have a lingering attachment to. It also helps me focus my intent more strongly. I have a glass ring that my Great-Grandma Elsie gifted me when she began her decline into Alzheimer’s that I place on the altar every year. I also put out our cat Luna’s food bowl, with her collar and her favorite patchwork mouse toy, into which I’ll sprinkle some of her favored catnip treats, in hopes that she too will return for the night.

On Halloween, when the veil between worlds is thin, light a candle on the altar and call in your Beloved Dead by name. Invite them into your home. Pour a drink for them. I leave a glass of water for the wandering spirits to quench their thirst, an emotional memory from their living years. I also pour a cup of Blackberry Tea for Elsie, a cup of coffee for my Grandpa, and a shot of rum for my more spirited ancestors, as a treat. Our memories are made up of sights, sounds, tastes and smells. Our spirits can still access them even as the ability to touch fades.

Allow yourself to sit in the silence of the evening, interspersed with the giggling hordes of lively trick-or-treaters. Be open to the impressions that come from the balancing energies of life and death. Once the doorbell has stopped ringing, attend to your altar. If you sense that you are not alone, speak gently to the room about you.

This night is the time to say the things you need to say to those who are no longer physically with you. It’s important for our own lives, for the ones we live here in the world, that we not feel the weight of things left unsaid holding us back from moving forward from our grief. Just because a loved one dies, doesn’t mean we are silenced. This night is also the perfect time to honor those who came before you, to remember them and to keep their memories alive for your children and grandchildren. It’s the perfect night to reminisce and share some of your favorite stories of those who are gone. What is remembered lives.

I light a candle for my Beloved Dead, calling in their names individually, inviting them to my home for a visit. And then I put out tea lights, one for each person I know who passed since last Halloween. This year, I have five spirits to light candles for, five souls who have passed within the last twelve months, five Newly Dead. I will ask nothing of them but speak prayers for them to be at peace, and to reassure them that those left behind will be all right.

As part of my larger work, I will unroll the names of ancestors and dead I have gathered from the multiple shrines I’ve tended over the last year. I will read each one aloud and burn them in a Samhain fire, sending smoke out into the thinning veil, sending prayers from the living who remember them still. To Those Who Have Gone Before, be at peace and travel well. Until we meet again. Ase.

Autumn Crossroads at Equinox

We are turning into autumn and the last of our tomatoes and beans are fruiting. The morning glories herald the dawn in vibrant hues of violet, periwinkle, and fuchsia. The white moon flowers are twined around the rail, their buds thick and strong. They are ready to burst open and hail the darker days of the year. Silence stills the land here, one year into recovering from the horrible flooding that made headlines in the news. The first of the geese flying north to south in migration have trumpeted across the sky.

Smells turn crisp and quick as leaves dry, drop and decay, crunching against the bottom of our feet as we walk through the brush. Garden fruit and vegetables that missed their harvest will rot and fall. They become mulch and nourish the earth for sowing in the spring. In autumn, layers of bone, earth and leaves cover the world, dulling the sharp piquant of summertime. We bed our gardens and add bulk to our bodies against the funneling twist of leaves lifting in chillier winds. The beauty of life is migrating onward, disappearing into the earth and ether. The world outside us prepares to sleep. The world inside us softens into rest, too.

We have toiled through the languid heat of our longest days and the changing landscape heralds the lengthening dark that will descend soon upon us. The Equinox is my favorite time of year, symbolic of the crossroads. It is at the point where the breathing world joins with the spirit world. It’s a place where two conflicting truths can stand equally as firm and where balance is born. It is the place where the gateway exists. It is a gateway that lives inside you.

As the point of balance floats over our land like twilight fog, obscuring lines and blurring edges, we have the chance to touch the other side without walking through it. On Equinox, I pause to catch a breath. I stand between the long days of light and the long nights of dark. I stand at the crossroad and pay homage to those who have stood here before me, to the pause in the passage of time, and to those who will stand here long after I am gone. On this day I can see into the future as far as I can see into the past.

We stand in the tipping point, the grey space, the limbo, the in-between. Equinox is a time for feeling and reflection, a chance to catch our breath before moving forward. This is the time of year when I pause my search for more lines of my family tree. I wrap up my current work and make notes of where to look next. I will spend the winter months researching what names I have, reading old tomes and histories so that I might discover what I can about who my ancestors were and the places they inhabited.

The genealogical research is easier for me to do in sprints, following one line through till I hit a wall, then fleshing out that line, giving it form and story. In this way the act alone is a study in my own history and I am the eternal student. By using this method, the names and dates imprint on my memory with context. Every winter my living knowledge of my family grows stronger. In my dedication, the threads between me and my ancestral dead grow thicker.

We are about to enter the labyrinth, going underground like the mythological Ariadne, under and inward. I have been practicing my embroidery, in remembrance of my Great-Grandmother Minnie, and her mothers, whose scraps of sewing craft I treat as sacred objects from a line of women I never knew. In my nightly meditations I have been embroidering labyrinths, moving into the dark to come out of the dark. It takes two full lines, two lengths of needle and thread, in at one end and out at the other, to create the full labyrinth, which is made up of two roads, crossing at the key. In this ancient tool, duality and balance snake into forms that do not lose their symbolic origins.

If I unwind the labyrinth, the four arms of the equinoxes and solstices spread before me. We stand at the crossroad, facing autumn, knowing that as we step onto the road it is already turning towards winter. The crossroad lies near the heart of the labyrinth. We turn inward to find center at Solstice, and roll outward, retracing steps to find the sun again next Equinox. In walking the labyrinth, we move like the waters of our body move to the currents of the ocean, rolling in and out, each turn in moving us closer to healing and wholeness. As life continues through the shorter days and my body moves daily through the world, I carry the peace of the labyrinth inside me, as an anchor of stillness, walking it quietly within while the world moves loudly around me.

As the leaves dry and fall, I find some of this peace in the act of showing honor to those long gone. I walk the local cemeteries, picking up trash and litter. It is such a small offering made to the memory of those gone before. They may not be my ancestors but they belong to someone. These dead shaped the town that I live in and they had lives filled with hopes and dreams, just like mine. To me the cemeteries feel most like parks, with spirits wandering here and there. They are some of the quietest spaces, full of the grace of those who lived and those still living who remember their names.

Plugging Into Nature

I have an Ancestor Altar on top of a small bookshelf in my office. I use it as a place to leave offerings and prayers, and for doing spirit work. I use the construction of an altar as a meditation on creating a sacred space. The meditative intention, layered over the last one builds a history of sacred purpose and sacred energy. Nature is my temple, and immersing myself in it connects me to divine energy. Magic is all around us.

Once a year I go on retreat to a festival in the mountains. For a week I unplug from the electrical appliances of the industrial world and I plug into the mountain, into the stone, into the air, the stars and into the water. It is a spiritual balm unlike any other and reminds me of yearly childhood camping trips with my family. We spent our summers discovering the landscape of the state we lived in: the Finger Lakes, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, the 1,000 Islands, various creeks and gorges, all of the old-time re-enactment villages, the underground caverns, etc.

One of the places we took frequent family trips to was Arrowhead Campground, remembered most fondly for the crazy year the inchworms were literally raining from the treetops. On one trip, my brother and I were exploring the woods and we found a giant pine tree that had fallen during the winter. We saw something when we climbed beneath it, that it was something more than just a dying thing. We spent two afternoons together fleshing out its skeleton with sticks and rocks and moss until it resembled the other thing we saw. We disappeared under that tree and we slipped into a crack in the earth.

That spot was special and we both sensed it. Normally we would have wanted to show it off and I didn’t understand then what kept us silent. We even managed to stay quiet as our parents passed right beside us, wondering aloud at what we were up to that they hadn’t seen us around. We were safe in the bubble of that beautiful, dying pine tree, in both this world and another.

Have you ever found a spot in nature that feels that way to you? A place you like to escape to, to unplug from the world? A place you only reveal to people you feel close to? I have dozens of spots like this. Everywhere I go there is a place that speaks to me, something that pulls at me. Some tree, or rock or clearing.

I believe that I am drawn to these spots because other good energy has been laid down there before me. It could be as simple as the echo of every person who has stopped there and been momentarily spellbound. It could be an ancient place people used to gather. It could be the oldest spot in the woods and it could be the youngest. I don’t think it matters so much why those spots call to me. I think what matters, is that I can sense it, that my heart is open enough to hear it.

These places feel as sacred as altars to me. When I find them in the natural world, its more sense than sight. That sense feels kind of fuzzy and unclear. But I am drawn to add to it, to leave offerings as if it were a holy shrine. I think about bringing the shrine to life like creating a painting, by adding color and texture to create clarity.

I soft focus my senses so that I am taking in everything without any one thing pulling my focus and I walk around the space, feeling out what spots sing to me. Where do I feel the wonder? Where does the energy seem to concentrate? How can I make that more obvious to other eyes?

I take objects from the space itself, sticks, stones, feathers, the odd bone, and move them to another spot in the space where it feels better to me, and I’m no longer surprised to see patterns emerge. The more pieces I move, the sharper into focus the good feeling becomes, until it hums. When my skin hums I know it is good. I have laid another layer of good energy down in that space. I have acknowledged it as sacred and left behind a bit of magic for someone else to discover.

Spirit World: If You Saw a Ghost...

For a moment, forget whether or not you believe ghosts are real. At the end of the day, none of this work is about whether or not you believe in ghosts. But our interactions with other, whether it’s spirit world or an unknown culture, are moments that define the aspects of us that are not otherwise tested regularly. They are our very own teachable moments.

Why does the supernatural scare us? Because it is one of the last unexplained reaches we haven’t been able to quantify yet. At the turn of the 20^th century, we still had not mapped exploration to the poles, and there were so many places unknown to our world still. Now, there is little of our known world left to challenge us. But challenges, when framed correctly, test us and shape us. These moments hardly ever feel safe.

Many of us have had experiences that tested us and darkened our lives for a while. Moments that we pushed through and moved past. In these moments we struggle to learn to be a survivor rather than a victim. None of us are alone in that journey. Life is not fair and not always kind.

How do you respond to those moments? Do you freeze and wait for the danger to pass over you? Or do you bolt at the first sound to stay hidden? Freezing leaves you open to capture, to attack, to hurt. Bolting keeps you on the run, often missing important moments that held no danger at all. How does fear own your body?

I was disheartened to discover that I had become a rabbit. Not the run-as-fast-as-you-can rabbit, but the kind that freezes when it’s seen, when it’s in danger, waiting for the scare to move on. It left me open to more hurt and that was not the person I wanted to be. My emotional body and my physical body were not in sync.

You cannot reach out to the spirit world successfully if you cannot stand fully in yourself. What I needed to learn, without judging myself for what I would discover, was how I responded to stimulus. I couldn’t move forward in my practice until I knew. Touching the spirit world is about learning where your body has resistance to it, and if you care, learning where the walls you have put up are, so you can work at expanding your world and your truth.

It’s not about pushing yourself past your threshold in an unsafe way. It’s definitely not about breaking yourself. It’s about learning where your boundaries are and how to gently push at them, like seedlings pushing out of the earth.

Imagine…

Allow yourself to imagine that you are alone in an empty house. It is the middle of the night. You hear a strange noise and look up, thinking for the moment that you see a figure in the next room that just as suddenly disappears. The house feels different, as if there is a presence in it that you can’t see, as if you are being watched.

Does the adrenaline-surge in your body taste like movement or fear? Does it push you forward or does it freeze you where you are? Do you believe that your eyes saw form or do you dismiss it as a figment because now nothing is there? Do you run from the house and refuse to enter it again unless accompanied by friends after the sun comes up? Do you spend the next few days living with the lights on?

Do you freeze where you are and wait to see if there is more activity? Do you go towards the spot where you think you saw something, with a heavy object in hand, and investigate whether or not something was really there? Do you simply return to what you were doing and ignore it?

Do you try to engage the entity? Do you ask it what it wants? Do you ask it to move on? Do you let it know it’s scaring you? Do you let the moment go but stay open to experiencing one again?

What emotions move in your body?

How we meet our fear highlights our nature. Most people will spend their time explaining to themselves why they couldn’t possibly have seen a ghost, because ghosts are not real so they cannot exist. I say that it doesn’t matter whether the existence of spectres is true or false to the moment. The facts surrounding ghosts is in itself ether and knowledge does not speak to who you are as a person.

We cannot control what happens to us. The only control we have is how we respond to it. We can only control what interactions we have with the natural world if we remove ourselves from it. But to remove ourselves from it would be to deny our own role in this world we share. We should immerse ourselves in it. The natural world is constantly trying to reach out to us and help us find the way back to stasis, center and home.

Relevant Posts

Spirit World: Ghost Visitations (published September 13, 2011)

Spirit World: Afraid of What Lies in the Dark (published April 4, 2012)

Spirit World: Haunting at White Street (published April 11, 2012)

Spirit World: What is Ghost? (published April 18, 2012)

Animal Allies: Hummingbird Messengers

Humans are part of the animal kingdom, which is part of the vast living world around us. In earth-centered circles, we often adopt animal totems as a means of aligning our energies with specifics elements; strength, courage, endurance, etc. The animal world is vast and varied and full of natural magic. It’s normal to feel drawn to different animals, each for special reasons, but most have a core group of animals they are drawn to repeatedly. I call them my animal allies, friends of nature that I feel an affinity for.

Animals are helpful guides in ancestor and spirit work. Where we have lost our connection to the natural world, they have not. They are a key to help cross the threshold, something known and familiar, and cultures throughout history have often associated specific animals with this task. I use them in visualizing exercises to help me widen my view of and understand my journeys with the spirit world.

There are different kinds of animal allies. There are ones that are mated to us, our co-walkers. Chances are you can think of one or two easily that you have been drawn to or had an unusual connection to. Our shadow allies are animals that stir great fear in us. By working with them magically, we can learn the way to work through that fear. These allies can be powerful magic.

And then there are the animal allies that serve as guides and mentors, guardians of portals that look into parts of the natural world normally hidden to us. We take their lessons based on indigenous mythology and animal behavior. They represent some part of me and the way that part of me relates to the world around me. The energy of those animals walk with me in my life and when I need guidance I turn to the spirit of my personal allies, of seal, lioness, owl and buffalo for strength.

Hummingbird Messengers

Spring has arrived and the animal world is reawakening. I await the first hummingbird sighting in the Northeast. The hummingbird is an animal only found in the Americas and the islands between them, so its mythology and folklore belongs to the New World. Hummingbirds are seen as messengers between the worlds, aiding shamans in their work to keep nature and spirit in balance.

My Grandmother was fond of hummingbirds, of both hummingbirds and owls. Feathered allies can easily cross from one world to the next, and for me, because of my emotional connection to my Grandma, hummingbirds are my close allies to the spirit world. Imagine the hummingbird, wings moving so fast that you can’t see them, can’t focus on them. Wings moving so fast that its body appears to hover in mid-air, as if still.

This is the meditation of the hummingbird. It is so simple to me, moving between worlds without moving, at once blurred in motion and sedately still. It’s about learning to walk with one foot in spirit world and one in the breathing world. It’s about learning to trance in instead of trancing out, about journeying through another world while remaining aware and present of this one. May the return of the hummingbirds this spring stir feelings of rebirth and renewal.

Hummingbirds in Legend

• When Native American culture was being lost, the Ghost Shirt religion attempted to bring back their old ways through dancing and the leader of their dance was a hummingbird.
• There is a ritual among some Pueblo Indians for stillborn babies, or those who die within days of their birth. They hold prayer sticks with hummingbird feathers during the winter solstice sunrise to quicken re-birth.
• The Cochiti Pueblos have a legend about how Hummingbird thrived during a drought because a passageway to the Underworld remained open only for him to fly through, where he gathered honey. They believed he alone didn’t lose faith in Great Mother and so the way remained open for him to flourish.
• There is a taboo against harming hummingbirds among the Chayma people of Trinidad as they believe the birds are dead ancestors.
• A Mayan legend describes a hummingbird piercing the tongues of ancient kings, whose blood would be poured on sacred scrolls and burned. In the smoke, their divine ancestors would appear.
• The Aztecs used hummingbird feathers for decoration. They adorned their ceremonial cloaks with feathers, and the priests attached them to their staves, used to suck evil out of those cursed by sorcerers. Chieftains often wore hummingbird feather earrings.
• There is a warrior in Aztec mythology named Huitzilopochtli, “hummingbird from the left,” referring to the spirit world. He was the son of Coatlicul, who conceived him from a ball of feathers that fell from the sky. Huitzil was killed in battle and a green hummingbird appeared where he had fallen. The Aztecs believed that warriors who died in battle became hummingbirds.
• One of the Nazca lines in Peru depicts a hummingbird.
• In the Andes, the hummingbird is associated with resurrection because each night, in the cold, the hummingbird appears lifeless, but as the sun returns it stirs again, taking flight.

A Meditation to the Stars

With Solstice behind us, the days are lengthening and every night the sun sets a few minutes later in my office window. In the Northeast we are still in the grip of a cold and dark winter. We wrap ourselves in blankets to warm our bodies. We drink mugs of hot cocoa, cider, tea and coffee to warm our insides. We light candles to warm our homes and blaze against the darkened nights.

In the flurry of winter, we look to the stars in the sky to remind us that there is always light to be found in the darkness. We remember, and know, that those stars still live in the sky above us, even when the sun obscures them from view. Light can always be found, if not outside of us, then within. We become the light in the dark.

            The earth beneath us is sleeping, even though we who walk upon it are in need of healing. The earth is in need of healing, too, still recovering from the flooding that ravaged our area in September. Normally, when we are in need, we pull our energy from the earth and the trees and plant life around us. We take only what we need and find ways to return in kind. Sometimes, the natural world’s needs matter more than our own and the caretaker must rest. Where do we turn for energy when the source we know is unavailable?

            In the stillness of a frozen world, I turn to the stars in the sky. Starlight is the ultimate ancestor fuel. It is history, a memory of light that began its journey across space and time in the past. The light we see in the sky, that moment of brilliance, has already ceased to shine by the time we view it. The star still shines, certainly, but that moment, that spark is long behind it and what we see is an echo. The light that permeates the dark is the Ancestor of the present moment, a conduit of luminous energy reaching out to us.

The closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is approximately four lightyears away, which means that the light we see from that star is four years old the moment we glimpse it. Polaris, the North Star, is 680 lightyears away so the light that twinkles down on us is 680 years old. That means the light originated approximately 9 generations ago.

Almost all of the stars that we see with our naked eye are a few hundred lightyears away, shining with light a few hundred years old, about four generations worth. It’s light that began its travel across the sky when my Great-great-grandparents walked the earth. It’s light born of their time, travelling across empty space to reach me in my time.

A scattering of the stars we can see are as much as 2,000 lightyears away. That’s approximately 25 generations old, our ancestors who walked the earth circa 12 C.E., before Vesuvius erupted and froze Pompeii under ash. What lands did your ancestors walk then? This light is only just now visible to our eyes, available for our use.

            I stand, slippered feet on wooden floorboards in my apartment. I feel the cold of the earth beneath my feet. I feel the chill seeping into my apartment. I take a deep breath and reach into the cold with my roots. I sink into the energy of the earth and feel it sleeping beneath me.

I become Tree, curling into earth. I feel my breath drawing in slow and deep, one breath, as if the entire season of winter is an inhale. I become an entire grove of trees breathing in unison and when we exhale, I know we will breathe out the warmth of spring.

            I am rooted in the earth, arms stretching up into the winter air. Above me thousands of stars twinkle in the night sky. Across the eons of time I sense energy, not heat, but power, source, strength. All of my arms sense it too and I am reaching past the boundaries of my edges to drink it in. I inhale deep and long. I hold the air in my heart, filling me and warming my core.

            As the human of me exhales, I drop the energy I don’t need down through my legs, through my feet, into the sleeping earth. I give back in gratitude for all I have been given. My human breath falls away to earth.

I am vulnerable, naked like the winter trees that lose their leaves. My feet are solid in the soil, roots curling through stone. I feel the stars swimming through the water of me. I am human. I am animal. I am nature.

All that I am stands strong, drinks in, refuels and falls away to earth. Everything but breath falls away to earth. The breath is the rhythm of the tides, the pulsing of light across empty space. The Ancestors are shining above me. Dawn approaches and they fade from sight but they are constant above. I drink what I need and let the rest fall through me into the earth. I am healed and I am healing. I am healer.

            The water in me mirrors and magnifies the brilliance of the stars above and a fire grows within, contained and white-hot. My waters are fire, warming me in veins through tissue and muscle. Edges flow and I feel full to the ends of my flesh. I am starlight shining in skin. I am the end of the timeline, the result of the past, burning through the present. I am breathing in seasons, like time, in and out, ebbing in the waters.

            Our Ancestors are more than our blood relatives. They live in every pocket of the natural world. I am because they were. I am because they will be. I am important because I am here. I am humbled because I do not matter, beyond the matter of this flesh. When I exhale the last time, my soul will cease its matter and will become star-dust, swimming through space to feed the needs of those who come after. We breathe in the wisdom of the ancestors of the past. They are in me and I am in them and in this life it is the only comfort I need.