Harvest Moon Meditation

Lighting Your Inner Lantern

I sit this morning with a steaming mug of tea.  Must be Fall!

Our meditation circle reconvened this week after summer hiatus.  We are blessed with new faces. As I light the candles, I feel the warmth of being back together.

After getting re-acquainted, we lower the lights and play Marina Rayes' Liquid Silk, native flutes weaving through the sounds of nature.  It's perfect for conjuring the Spirit of the Earth.

We anchor ourselves to the warm womb of Mother Earth, progressively releasing accumulated tension. Allowing gravity to settle our bodies and minds. Drawing vitality up through our energetic roots, we inhabit our bodies with fresh awareness.

I feel a little rusty.  Did I forget this or that?  Is everyone comfortable?  How many of us are still struggling to get out of our heads, smile.

Soon my voice ceases and we are left with the music.

The woodwind flute, lending a voice to longing.

The echoing notes of the loon on a misty morning.

The call of the owl through the forest hush.

A stream splashing over stones.

So soothing for our (formerly frayed) nerves.

As we sink in more deeply, the roof seems to sail away into the moonlit sky, leaving us exposed to the late summer whispers of nightfall.  The trees cast long shadows, back-lit by the fat harvest moon.

The Great Mother herself  is weaving  us into communion.  Like winding yarn into a ball, she encircles us in strands of red, orange and yellow light -- over, around, and underneath us. 

The energy of the group, re-ignited.

Such is the way when we recede into silence.   Tethered to the ground of our being, our awareness opens, shining like the brilliant moonlight spilling across lawns and ledges.  May this inner lantern shine for us as the nights lengthen and the year wanes.


All are welcome to join us next Monday evening, September 23.  Details can be found under Workshops above.

Storm Rolling In

I find myself in solitude on the first evening of September.  Dusk gathers early.  Yellow leaves drift onto the lawn.  Melancholy nibbles at the edges of my awareness.

I put aside what I'm doing and decide to do the work,  as Byron Katie calls it,  on the disintegration of what was once a cherished sisterhood.   I pull out her book, Loving What Is, open up a word document, and sink in ... to my bruised heart.

That's when the inner storm starts brewing.

My discontent spills out, sprawling across the screen like a swollen stream overrunning it's edges. As my fingers fly over the keyboard, anger rumbles like distant thunder.  A decidedly cool front moves in, a rush that rips dying attachments from their moorings and tosses them in a tumult.  Relief comes in the outpouring. It blows through, and in it's wake there's a quiet sense of calm. 

Next morning, as I step out for my walk, the metallic sky portends rain.  I smile at the familiar synchronicity of as within so without.  Before long, I've found the rhythm that opens the pathways to other realms.  I become a bridge for the Spirits of Earth and Sky to traverse and heal. It's a two way exchange, where I offer my healing gifts to them and they graciously return the favor.

As this connection takes hold, a geyser, a surging fountain of energy, swirls up through my being, dislodging energetic debris.  I yield to the flow, the up-welling of cleansing and clearing.  All the stuff I hide from myself -- anger, sadness, frustration, the dreaded judgment, excuses, procrastination, laziness, failure, self sabotage and vulnerability -- wheel out into the spacious open sky of awareness, like Dorothy's house uprooted from the plains of Kansas.

Why hide all this?  It's my humanity. Shared with everyone else on the planet.

A fresh perspective from the  eye of the storm.

Rumbling thunder brings me back to earth.   A literal storm is upon us!

Needles of rain slant across the sidewalk. I pick up the pace, feeling exponentially lighter.

I stop at the dock, snug under my umbrella, only vaguely concerned that it's spider-like skeleton is aluminum. The pond is eerily deserted.

Scanning the shore, I spot her -- a beautiful lone heron. The bare branch she stands on extends low over the water like a graceful arm, whose open hand offers her footing. A tableau of balance and ease.

My husband calls to check on my whereabouts.  I don't tell him that I'm on the dock in the rain, taking lessons from this heron.

She's poised over the pond, upon the open hand of God. While her watery reflection wavers, the great blue heron waits out the storm.