Mabon: Autumn Equinox 2024
Listening to the cranes calling to each other, I notice their songs have changed in quality. The laughing reunion has given way to a bittersweet longing in the autumn air. They are preparing to leave and are singing their grief to leave and their longing for Africa… I too am preparing for a migration of sorts. Leaving at the autumn equinox, I will spend the next three months in the US. I will work on my album, visit friends and family, travel to national parks, be a digital nomad, offer dance and soul workshops with my beloved and enter into the slipstream of the nomadic ancestral story of the Scottish travellers.
It a strange thing to prepare to leave for such a long trip. I feel the rightness of it, sense the call of the red rocks of southern Colorado and the canyon lands- the places I feel most alive- and also the strange leave taking bittersweetness of departure… And yet, I ask myself, what am I truly leaving behind? The known of the day to day and the comfort of having all my “things”; my books (so many books), food, clothes, a full stocked and equipped kitchen… that’s pretty much it. I sit on the lip of the unknown and feel a depth of present-ness, of excitement and pleasure, sure, of fear and nervousness too, of course. However, my main quality of being (apart from being overwhelmed at having to choose which of my “things” I take with me) is a calm rootedness in my own heart and being. As if taking the leap to nomadic rhythms of coming and going I am finally arriving at an expression of my nature that I have long denied.
I have no idea what will greet me over there, our Van will be half converted when we arrive and there will be much to do to make it liveable, especially as we are beginning in fall and winter, which is not the easiest of times to live in a van even when fully converted! However, this is the time, right now, I have waited long enough.
Image: dew on spider's web, Giant Mountains, Czech
Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, I also have a similar sense of rootedness in my heart/self in my work as a mentor and guide. A kind of arriving that will continue to deepen and refine itself, surely. However, I now know my own taste, as it were, my own magic, and have crafted a vessel through which I can offer it. There is a feeling of healthy pride, of harvest, that the last 25 years have been alchemized and distilled into work that I am passionate about and in love with and through which I can love the world.
Following the Threads: Creativity and the courtship of my Muse. Having landed the knowing of myself as a Ritual Performance Artist whose medium is consciousness, I work in the following realms: Story, music, ritual, guiding wilderness programs, and preparing to produce a podcast as art form. Stories are consciousness shifting medicine for our times, offering ancient maps for re-membering our relationship with the Holy Earth, as well as how to dream a renewal of culture. Singing is an offering to Earth of improvisational love songs to Life and for the first time a collaboration on my first EP! with my colleague and dear sister-friend, Tracey Forest. Born of Earth place and each of our own mythic soul places, we are singing the songs of longing, loss, love at this time, in these times, of life and death, Beauty and transformation. Working title: Phosphorescence.
Saying yes more and more fully to my Eros/Creativity, I begin to weave threads of ritual, story, music, wild voices and more into an experiential Podcast as Performance Art. Part old school radio show, part ritual, part soundscape installation, part magical transformation, this will be an auditory performance that shifts consciousness through Beauty and wonder.
Sharing the harvest here feels authentic and vulnerable, to be visible in my bigness and creative power, as well as to reveal my longings and passions, feels risky in a particular way. Perhaps because it is the most true of now, the emergent edge of what I am living and to look at it fully, feel it fully in the writing and then share it, is to invite you in to my most alive and tender growing edge. I feel a sense of trust and giftedness in the sharing as well. Thank you for reading and I look forward to sharing space with you- in person or online for a program or through podcast, music and video. May my offerings feed the Holy Earth and feed Life. Blessings to you all in this harvest time.
Image: Bryce Canyon, Utah
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