Category: Uncategorized

Lammas is a seasonal turning point in the wheel of the year, mid-point between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox.  Two months back-to-back with Aquarius Full Moons, now Leo Sun and soon another New Moon.

This summer, I remember Francis Weller sharing that our work “is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them.” 

The Wild Edge of Sorrow (Berkeley, North Atlantic Books, 2015).  https://www.francisweller.net/

May we share our grief, our gratitude and our work together, supporting one another in the midst of lunar shifts, cosmological shifts, global upheaval.

With gratitude to Moss for including my poem “Blend, clay, coffee” in Volume 6, released  this month August 2021 https://mosslit.com/

This Morning

“This morning the doe speaks to her young

outside the window.

I do not know what is said but listen,

their love is great as ours…”

            – Linda Hogan

                        The Radiant Lives of Animals

(Boston, Beacon Press, 2020), p.83

“What do the birds of prey have to tell you?

Pause feel the wind in your tail feathers

Red-tailed Hawk carries your morning prayers …”

Gwendolyn Morgan from “Diurnal Raptors,” Before The Sun Rises, Homebound Publications, 2019. https://homeboundpublications.com/before-the-sun-rises-by-gwendolyn-morgan/

From unexpected snow for the Lunar New Year, Year of the Ox to Valentine’s Day to late February, each day is a gift. We prepare for Spring Migration, greening, blossoms.

“Creating worlds, we choose one word over another: cherry blossom or plum blossom, eagle whistle or kestrel, stratus or nimbostratus, spells or incantations – seed syllables of the luminous auric field.  She asks: What emotion will you release so you may choose another?”

from “Yellow Cedar” in Snowy Owls, Egrets & Unexpected Graces https://homeboundpublications.com/snowy-owls-egrets-and-unexpected-graces-by-gwendolyn-morgan/

Epiphany signifies illumination, a sudden intuitive perception, a moment of revelation. In the midst of an on-going global pandemic and much chaos, may we allow the earth to illuminate our path. Within the foliage of our west coast rain forests, we hear the sweet song of the Varied Thrush, feel the rain on our skin, watch the deer forage, find mushrooms beneath fern fronds, and remember we are connected to the earth.

With much gratitude to Esther Vincent Xueming, Editor-in-chief and Founder and The Tiger Moth Review for their inclusion of my poem

She (Who) Gathers Mushrooms in Issue No. 5 https://www.thetigermothreview.com/

https://www.thetigermothreview.com/blog/she-who-gathers-mushrooms

May we remember to continue to speak up for peace and justice in a troubled time…

https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2021/01/08/natives-respond-police-capitol/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=YESDaily_20210109&utm_content=YESDaily_20210109+CID_7cbed9625389b21e31e35f7640e5cc2e&utm_source=CM&utm_term=Read%20the%20full%20story

Sunrise, New Moon in Scorpio

“We wake; we wake the day,

the light rising in us like sun –

our breath a prayer brushing

against the feather in our hands….”

— Gail Tremblay, Onondaga, Mi’Kmaq,

from Indian Singing in the 20^th Century America

http://- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gail-tremblay

Wishing you a Happy Diwali!  Eagle, Sandhill Cranes, and Trumpeter Swans flew overhead around sunrise every day this week.  As we enter into this season of gratitude and light, may be listen to all the beauty around us as we give thanks for the gifts we have received in this life.   May we honor our ancestors, teachers, compañeros, friends and family along the journey.   May we honor the Sandhill Cranes, the White Pelicans, the Trumpeter Swans, the geese and migratory birds that gather along our creek banks during this extended migratory time.  May we honor the winged ones, the deer and all the woodland animals that cross our path.  May we honor the mosses, plants, flowers, trees and stone peoples. May we give thanks for the celestials, the Moon and Sun and Stars, the celebrations of light around us.  May we honor this earth, our home. 

“Listen to the howl of our spiritual

brother, the wolf, for how it goes with

him, so it goes for the natural world.”

— Oren R. Lyon,  Traditional Circle of Elders

We live in a time when our brothers and sisters are being shot,

when are sacred lands are desecrated.

May we lift up our voices for the natural world.

May we lift up our voices for peace and justice, equity and inclusion…

https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/endangered-species-act-protections-stripped-gray-wolves-2020-10-29/

All the warm nights
sleep in moonlight

keep letting it
go into you

do this
all your life

do this
you will shine outward
in old age

the moon will think
you are
the moon

Jacob Nibenegenesabe,_a poem from The Wishing Bone Cycle: Narrative Poems from the Swampy Cree, trans. Howard Norman (1972) http://ankn.uaf.edu/

“Western Bluebirds, American Robins,” is a poem I wrote for the virtual 2020 Peace & Justice Fair in Vancouver, Southwest Washington. https://vancouverpeaceandjusticefair.org/fair-day/

With gratitude to New Verse News, you’ll see the posting of the poem on their site along with the link to the recording from the Peace & Justice Fair this month. https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2020/09/western-bluebirds-american-robins.html

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we find ourselves in climate crisis. In the Pacific Northwest our skies are thick with smoke and grief. The air quality index is hazardous at 427. We wait for bird song in the mornings again.

May we be ready to start anew this New Moon. “it’s time for a fresh start….. the New Moon is also square to the Nodes suggesting that we are learning an important message for this time….. the Sun’s Square to the Nodes and trine to Saturn remind us that we must take responsibility…. we can’t wait and hope everything unfolds as it should…. We’ve got to walk the talk…” Leah Whitehorse. https://www.leahwhitehorse.com/category/astrology-forecasts/