The Slowening

Beautiful Image from Art-Magick

The Slow Days are here.

Where once all was a headlong, pell-mell rush to the sky, each day bounding forward with a new life, a relentless change, an ever-quickening, now all things have slowed. Summer has thickened, ripened and stilled.

It's a time to slow everything down. There's no rush. There's plenty of light to play with.


I love these long, endless, meandering days around the Solstice. Summer now is truly unbounded, the thick heavy light of the Erce, the sun-goddess of the Angles, draping the northern horizon with an eternal dusk-dawn. The stars hold their breath as she glimmers her long eve of farewell that slips seamlessly into a long morn of greeting.

This year, even the mad summer showers have slowed, pressing their long thunderous kisses from air to earth with a lingering, lazy passion. The soils is sweet, wet and warm beneath my toes, the air above my head swimming with swift screams. All is lush, drowning in light or bending low with the rain's bounty.


There's much that's similar to my mind, in the quality of this time of year, to that of the Winter Solstice. That's also a slow time, but then the night has swallowed the world, and we retreat within our homes, within ourselves.

A time of fragility and strength-hoarding. Of hearth-gazing and long-dreaming. Exploring the inner secrets of the mind. To look forward to growth.

But now we can look out into the endless light.

A time of robustness and life-spending. Of long-walking and land-gazing. Exploring the outer secrets of the world. To look forward to harvest.


The Quickening is over.

Time to relish the Slowening.

A belated beltane ritual and a glade well-met

Beltane itself was busy with owls hooting and May-day dawning; morris-feet prancing and white-blossom casting; green-grass mad-hatting and tired-feet soaking...

So our Grove's Ritual waited until the moon was as ripe as the grass was fat. And the wait, and our wending journey to the glade, were worth every moment and every step.

We were led into the glade, by those in the know, as the sun slinked down - but the magic was rising all around. Some of us came here as old friends of the place, others fresh to its bolts of bugle, riot of reeds, and chitter of chaffinch. The grass was cool to our feet as we marked out the quarters, but soon the glade flickered warmly with glass-jarred candles and drifted with strips smoky-rocked incense.

Brimming with bugle. Thanks to Wildwood for piccie.

With Bel-fires set, and with unfamiliar words clasped in our hands, we stumbled into our ritual. A first for our Grove, to be grass-kissed, tree-hugged and sky-vaulted. The words may have stuck, places may have been lost, and steps may have faltered.

But then we were there.

Centered.

In a ring of may-day love, song alive on our lips, berry wine sweet on our tongues.

The magic lay within us. Between us. All round us.

A magical place had slipped a little of its wonder inside each of us sitting in that glade, within and without its circle.

Beltane blessings: long overdue. But Glade: well-met.

Lady Eostre steps into the light..

An Anglo-Saxon word hoard for the passing of Ostara and the dawn of summer:

The Lady of the Greening, Beth Wildwood

The land she twitches
Her nostrils rich
With the gloaming scents
Of a million shoots

Nurtured
By the dew-soft hands of Lady Nerthus

The moon she fattens
Her belly taut
With the unbound promise
Of a million stars

Gathered
Into the comforting arms of Lady Freya

The sun she races
Her hair bright flaming
With the shining joy
Of a million blossoms

Opened
By the warming smile of Lady Erce


Now the woods lie poised
     Between Holly and Oak
     Between Moon and Sun
     Between Loss and Hope
     Between Past and To Come

Into the clearing
     With shoots beneath
     With blossom around
     With stars above
Comes Lady Eostre

In her step she brings Dawn
With her touch she brings Love

With thanks to Beth Wildwood for her beautiful painting

Brigit At the Forge

(Joanna Powell Colbert)


Mine is the magic of the forge
And the brewery.
My brass shoes I made myself.
And my bell of healing-
That I hammered also,
Golden like the sun,
Milky like the dandelion.
The first time keening split the air of Ireland
Was when I howled for my dead son,
His skin so white.
That was the first,
But not the last.
For me plant the spring wheat.
For me catch the new lamb.
For me greet the speckled snake.
For me stamp your beautiful feet.
For me ring the golden branch.
For me pour out milk, sweet milk.
I am the white swan,
Queen of them all.

Brigid's Day is here

She works with light
She works with words
She fashions delights in her bright-lit forge

She draws back the veil
She brings on the quick
She nurtures the year as it gives its first kick
 __



Imbolc Blessings to those who follow the Wheel

BBx