Musings From The Trail
Sacred Mother
give me roots within your heart.
Let my mind and imagination soar in the vastness of you.
Let my words and actions express your peace, your joy, your wisdom.
Mama, wrap your energy around me
and pull me all the way
into you.
☾☽
Photo: Altar to the Earth Mother,2016
by Nancy Lankston
“I don’t care how spiritual you are. How long you can melt in the sweat lodge. How many peyote or ayahuasca journeys that have blown your mind, how many master plant diets you’ve done or how well you can hold crow pose. I don’t care what planets fall in what houses on your birth chart, or how “silent” your meditation is. I don’t care how many crystals you have or how long you’ve gone without sugar, salt, spices or sex or how vegan your diet is.
I want to know how human you are. Can you sit at the feet of the dying despite the discomfort? Can you be with your grief, or mine, without trying to advise, fix or maintain it? I want to know that you can show up at the table no matter how shiny, chakra- aligned or complete you are – or not. Can you hold loving space for your beloveds in the depths of your own healing without trying to be big?
It doesn’t flatter me how many online healing trainings you have, that you live in the desert, forest or in a log cabin, or that you’ve mastered the art of tantra.
What turns me on is busy hands. Planting roots. That despite how tired you are, you make that phone call, you board that plane, you love your children, you feed your family.
I have no interest in how well you can ascend to 5D, astral travel or have out of body sex. I want to see how beautifully you integrate into ordinary reality with your unique magic, how you find beauty and gratitude in what’s surrounding you, and how present you can be in your relationships. How do you hold the ones you love in the midst of conflict? How do you take responsibility for your part? How do you make amends?
I want to know that you can show up and do the hard and holy things on this gorgeously messy Earth. I want to see that you can be sincere, grounded and compassionate as equally as you are empowered, fiery and magnetic. I want to know that even during your achievements, you can step back and be humble enough to still be a student.
What’s beautiful and sexy and authentic is how well you can continue to celebrate others no matter how advanced you’ve become. What’s truly flattering is how much you can give despite how full you’ve made yourself. What’s honestly valuable is how f***ing better of a human you can be, in a world that is high off of spiritual materialism and jumping the next escape goat for “freedom.”
At the end of the day I don’t care how brave you are. How productive, how popular, how enlightened you are. At the end of the day, I want to know that you were kind. That you were real. I want to know that you can step down from the pedestal from time to time to kiss the earth and let your hair get dirty and your feet get muddy, and join the dance with us all.”
~Taylor Rose Godfrey
🌙
Taylor describes this essay as a modern day call to shifting from spiritual consumerism to returning to human kind… heart inspired by Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s, The Invitation.
I call it beautiful wisdom.
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
~Maya Angelou
Safe travels, Ruth.
Your brilliance will continue to guide us as we fight to make equality and justice for all a reality. 💗
The Word
Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between “green thread”
and “broccoli,” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”
Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,
and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing
that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds
of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,
but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,
—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.
~Tony Hoagland
in Sweet Ruin, 1992
☀️
Image: Pacific Sun
by Nancy Lankston
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
~Mary Oliver
Beltane Blessing to you on this beautiful spring day. ❤️
My Celtic ancestors celebrated Beltane with bonfires, dancing, maypoles and ritual sex as well as plentiful food and drink. Sounds good to me!
This is a traditional time to celebrate the sacred union of the masculine and feminine – either with a partner or within one’s self. The merging of masculine and feminine energies allows something new to be created. Sacred union is natural magic.
Beltane / May Day is a favorite of mine. My partner David and I were actually married on May 1st many moons ago. This day is filled with deep personal meaning for me.
Time to celebrate and DANCE!
🌙☀️
Image:Fire Dance by Jula C R Gray
I am SAFE.
I am HELD.
I am LOVED by Her.
You are SAFE
You are HELD.
You are LOVED by Her.
We are SAFE.
We are HELD.
We are LOVED by Her.
❤️
Who is Her?
In the ancient tantric tradition, Adhara Shakti is the Goddess, the divine feminine who supports us in the physical realm. She is the supportive energy in the soil and rocks of our Earth, and in the bones of your body. She is there in the the steady beat of your heart and the solid support of your pelvis and spine. She is there, always there, in the ground beneath you.
To me, Mama Earth embodies Adhara Shakti. I am safe. I am held. I am loved by Mama Earth.