Lammas: Now the Dying Must Begin

August 1-2 marks the mid-point between summer and fall. Known as Lammas, or Lughnasadh (LOO-ne-sah), it's one of the 8 "Cross Quarter Days" on the Wheel of the Year (the others are the Summer and Winter Solstices, Spring and Fall Equinoxes, Candlemas {Feb. 2}, Beltane {May 1} and Hallomas/Samhain {October 31}). Lammas is a celebration of abundance, the time of the harvest, and a potent moment to bring ourselves back into alignment with the natural world. Although it appears to occur at the peak of summer, in truth it's the first day of fall, and a time to embrace the dark.

An evocative description of this turning comes from a comprehensive mythology site with the delightful double-entendre title, Myth*ing Links, an annotated and illustrated collection of worldwide links to mythologies, fairytales and folklore, sacred arts and sacred traditions, loving compiled and updated by Kathleen Jenks, PhD.

"Lammas...is a hot, lazy, delicious time of the year. Bees buzz in the heat of the day, the air is still, and the force of the sun remains strong, even though its sway over the earth is slowly diminishing day by day. In the cooler nighttime, frogs and crickets keep us company. It is here, in the gloaming, when so many rituals begin...

"This is when the powerful gods of the grain harvests are honored. They are in their prime, sometimes generous, sometimes quixotic, and always aware with a bittersweet pleasure that their time will wane, as it always does, and they will die, as they always do, and yet nevertheless they will return to another delicious summer next year, as they always do, and have, and will, for this is the endlessly circling Wheel of the Year, and they ride it proudly.

"Yet there is a darker nuance, one that surprised me, for I had thought that this was a purely masculine god's festival. I learned however of Lugh's touching and loving devotion to his foster-mother, the royal Tailtiu, whose fate may be even more intimately woven into this season than his..."

Jenks quotes Parabola magazine author Mara Freeman on the further genesis of Lammas:

"...Lugh dedicated this festival to his foster-mother, Tailtiu, the last queen of the Fir Bolg, who died from exhaustion after clearing a great forest so that the land could be cultivated. When the men of Ireland gathered at her death- bed, she told them to hold funeral games in her honor. As long as they were held, she prophesied Ireland would not be without song. Tailtiu’s name is from Old Celtic Talantiu, 'The Great One of the Earth,' suggesting she may originally have been a personification of the land itself, like so many Irish goddesses. In fact, Lughnasadh has an older name, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of childbirth. For at this time of year, the earth gives birth to her first fruits so that her children might live..."

Dying to the Old

What needs to "die" so that the new can be born in your life?

Canadian astrologer and tarot reader Tara Greene says that Lugh's festival points Southwest, and resonates to the element Air. "Southwest represents the Place of Healing, of the Dreamer and the Dream. It is the place of both your Personal Dream and the Sacred Dream of the Planet. What is your Personal Dream? What is your Sacred Dream? The Sacred Dream is your Highest Spiritual Dream."

This August 1st, especially if you've never honored Lammas before, remember your relationship with the Earth and her cycles. Give thanks for the abundance of beauty, harmony, peace, love, healing, grace and balance you are inviting into your life and into the collective, and image-in your Sacred Dream.

The quintessential song for invoking Gaia's healing Sacred Dream came through John Lennon. Feeling deeply into these words now, there is a cellular resonance I've not been conscious of before, although I've heard the song hundreds of times:

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will live as one.

Imbolc: In the Belly of Wonder

February 2^nd traditionally signals Imbolc, the return of the Light. As a harbinger of Spring, it's one of the most powerful portals on the Wheel of the Year: the exact midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. A time to honor and go deep with the natural world.

Stephen Buhner's Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm is a Mystery School disguised as a book; a work that opens the doors of perception with wisdom and humor. On p. 301, this piece by William Stafford sang to my Spirit as an ideal invocation for the Return of the Light in your soul:

If you don't know what kind if person I am

and I don't know what kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders, the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider —

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —

should be clear; the darkness around us is deep.

    

Walking Between the Worlds: Samhain, Spirit and Sacred Story

This is a mystical time of year, when the veils between worlds are whisper thin. Secularly called Hallowe'en, in Earth-based traditions the turning of the wheel is known as Samhain (pronounced 'sow-in'), a powerful time to manifest intent.

In the U.S., Hallowe'en is about costumes, trick-or-treating, and occasionally, mischief. On the Celtic calendar, Samhain ushers in winter and the mysteries of the dark. October 31^st precedes Day of the Dead/All Soul's Day on November 1^st, a paean to the ancestors. The dark side — that which is hidden from our view — calls us to remember our transpersonal soulscape.

I've experienced a lot of death in 2014, including my Mom, my literal and actual oldest friend at 101, one of my greatest spiritual teachers, Angeles Arrien, and several acquaintances. This season of dying and release is an excellent moment to explore what is ending or "dying" within our own beings. What do you need to let go of in your life in order to move forward? Samhain and All Soul's Day is an invitation for each of us to embrace personal and planetary transformation.

Visionary activist astrologer Caroline Casey says, "We cannot live through the dead, but we can invite the dead to live through us." What gifts are asking, aching to be brought forth through you, when the entire world is awash in liminal rebirth?

The real treat of Samhain is the opportunity for quantum growth. The trick, perhaps, would be turning our backs on these inner voices beseeching us to shine our brilliance and step fully into our aliveness, passion, purpose and service.

It's time to remove your mask, and become who you came here to be.

Lammas: Now the Dying Must Begin…

August 1-2 marks the mid-point between summer and fall. Known as Lammas, or Lughnasadh (LOO-ne-sah), it's one of the 8 "Cross Quarter Days" on the Wheel of the Year (the others are the Summer and Winter Solstices, Spring and Fall Equinoxes, Candlemas {Feb. 2}, Beltane {May 1} and Hallomas/Samhain {October 31}). Lammas is a celebration of abundance, the time of the harvest, and a potent moment to bring ourselves back into alignment with the natural world. Although it appears to occur at the peak of summer, in truth it's the first day of fall, and a time to embrace the dark.

An evocative description of this turning comes from a comprehensive mythology site with the delightful double-entendre title, Myth*ing Links, an annotated and illustrated collection of worldwide links to mythologies, fairytales and folklore, sacred arts and sacred traditions, loving compiled and updated by Kathleen Jenks, PhD.

"Lammas...is a hot, lazy, delicious time of the year. Bees buzz in the heat of the day, the air is still, and the force of the sun remains strong, even though its sway over the earth is slowly diminishing day by day. In the cooler nighttime, frogs and crickets keep us company. It is here, in the gloaming, when so many rituals begin...

"This is when the powerful gods of the grain harvests are honored. They are in their prime, sometimes generous, sometimes quixotic, and always aware with a bittersweet pleasure that their time will wane, as it always does, and they will die, as they always do, and yet nevertheless they will return to another delicious summer next year, as they always do, and have, and will, for this is the endlessly circling Wheel of the Year, and they ride it proudly.

"Yet there is a darker nuance, one that surprised me, for I had thought that this was a purely masculine god's festival. I learned however of Lugh's touching and loving devotion to his foster-mother, the royal Tailtiu, whose fate may be even more intimately woven into this season than his..."

Jenks quotes Parabola magazine author Mara Freeman on the further genesis of Lammas:

"...Lugh dedicated this festival to his foster-mother, Tailtiu, the last queen of the Fir Bolg, who died from exhaustion after clearing a great forest so that the land could be cultivated. When the men of Ireland gathered at her death- bed, she told them to hold funeral games in her honor. As long as they were held, she prophesied Ireland would not be without song. Tailtiu’s name is from Old Celtic Talantiu, 'The Great One of the Earth,' suggesting she may originally have been a personification of the land itself, like so many Irish goddesses. In fact, Lughnasadh has an older name, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of childbirth. For at this time of year, the earth gives birth to her first fruits so that her children might live..."

What needs to "die" so that the new can be born in your life?

Canadian astrologer and tarot reader Tara Greene says that Lugh's festival points Southwest, and resonates to the element Air. "Southwest represents the Place of Healing, of the Dreamer and the Dream. It is the place of both your Personal Dream and the Sacred Dream of the Planet. What is your Personal Dream? What is your Sacred Dream? The Sacred Dream is your Highest Spiritual Dream."

This August 1st, especially if you've never honored Lammas before, remember your relationship with the Earth and her cycles. Give thanks for the abundance of beauty, harmony, peace, love, healing, grace and balance you are inviting into your life and into the collective, and image-in your Sacred Dream.

The quintessential song for invoking Gaia's healing Sacred Dream came through John Lennon. Feeling deeply into these words now, there is a cellular resonance I've not been conscious of before, although I've heard the song hundreds of times:

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will live as one.

Beltane: Light Night of the Soul

We're all familiar with the classic "dark night of the soul", even if we don't know the terminology: the last few years, especially these past few weeks, everyone's felt the energies ramped up to gale force as lunar/solar eclipses, meteor showers and a Cardinal Grand Cross (the 5^th of 7 Uranus/Pluto squares plus) buffet the planet and liberate us from old beliefs and behaviors. We're being cleaned out and burnished to roar our "YES!"

May 1^st ushers in Beltane, one of eight Shabbats on the Nature-based Wheel of the Year. [The others are the Solstices and Equinoxes, Lammas (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st), and Imbolc (February 2nd).] Beltane breathes renewal into our cells as we acknowledge the elemental world and the advent of summer. For our Southern Hemisphere allies, the Wheel of the Year is reversed: they now celebrate Samhain. 

As Stargazer Li reminds us, May 1^st also commences the time cycle known as the Night, "to source what is from our own deep dreaming depths... which carries us the following day into the Moon of Liberation, to release the old stories and live at the next level...

As Samhain honors the power of death, so Beltane honors the cycles of life and rebirth. Beltane takes place in Taurus, the zodiac's earthiest, sensual sign, and focuses on exuberant sexuality: the pollinating of flowers, the lush cornucopia of fruit-bearing plants and trees, the reproductive cycle of the entire natural world, from birds and bees to people and trees. It's a fire festival of fertility in all its forms — and thus we dance in homage to Aphrodite, the Goddess Herself.

Are you ready to dive into a Light Night of the Soul, a sacred reUnion of our masculine and feminine selves? The temperatures are soaring into the 90s this week, welcoming the solar eclipse and activating our solar/cellular recognition of the Light we are.

Ignite your Light, and let it shine. As Pharrell sings, clap along if you feel like a room without a roof…

Ley Down Fear, Lift the Light!

February 2^nd is Imbolc (literally, "in the belly"), a sacred moment when the Light returns. Imbolc is a powerful portal: the exact midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. As the first "cross-quarter day" on the Wheel of the Year, it heralds the Equinoxes and Solstices, as well as Beltane (May 1st), Lammas (August 1st), and Samhain (October 31^st).

This year, February 2^nd is also an auspicious moment to connect, clear and heal the ley lines of the planet. You're invited to join with your galactic brothers and sisters at the time and place you choose (sunrise or sunset are optimum, but your heart focus is what matters most). The Ley Lines Project says, "It is as if Gaia appears to be especially invigorated by a low elevation Sun. Her ley lines appear to dilate and increase both in their energetic and information carrying capacities during this twice-daily solar aspect. So, with the pathways enlarging to at least double their capacity, is this not an opportune time to purge them of unwanted energies and replace them with the light of compassion?"

Mystic Ariel Spilsbury writes, "This year, Imbolc is presenting us with a 'gateway', indicating work to be done inside and outside ourselves. Let us use this sacred time to reflect and confront what is hidden in ourselves, what must be exposed and examined before action is undertaken at Spring Equinox.

"Imbolc is a 'fire festival'. Imbolc marks the transition and transformation from death to rebirth, as the light of day grows significantly longer and you can be assured that Spring is right around the corner. At this time the animal world comes out of hibernation, the birds fly north again. This is a very holy day for initiations and a day to devote yourself to the God/dess and your own spiritual path. This is also a powerful time for intuitive and visionary work and to seek inspiration. At this time if you really tune in, you can just begin to feel and sense the 'inner stirrings', the seeds beginning to stir, and the inner light growing stronger.

"It is time to let go of the past and look to the future, clearing out the old, making both outer and inner space for new beginnings. This can be done in numerous ways, from spring-cleaning your home to clearing the mind and heart to allow inspiration to enter for the new cycle. What was born at the Solstice begins to manifest, and this is the time for individuation, as we each light our own light, and set ourselves tasks and challenges. We nurture and kindle our resolutions and begin to look outwards again, do outer activity, although first we look deep within to discover what potential lies there waiting to be fulfilled." 

Ecstatic Disharmony

"The longest night

The wheel is turning

What will we give to the night?"

This is the sacred Winter Solstice chant Caroline Casey included in her mythological trickster-redeemer  sharing on Tuesday night at Earthrise Retreat Center in Petaluma, CA. Situated in verdant silence far above the freeway, with a full Gemini moon casting a luminous spell, we drank deeply of the darkness with a fervent urgency. 

"Ecstatic," Caroline reminds us, literally means, to stand outside ("ex" + "stasis") — which is what those of us called to midwife this transitional time on the planet feel, to the marrow. Embodying the sacred means returning from the Otherworld with wisdom gained. "To love disharmony back into harmony creates a greater harmony than existed before," according to author Michael Gruber.

What will YOU give to the night? The old way (but not the Old Ways!), the one right answer, outmoded beliefs and behaviors, fear of the unknown? Whatever it is, toss it into the cauldron and affirm, "xxxx is gone with the night!"

~ Blessed Be ~

Imbolc: Return of the Light

In mid-winter, we celebrate the return of the Light, in every sense. In my We'Moon Daybook, Marian Spadone writes of Imbolc, "All is contained within us — all future possibilities, all growth, all knowing. This is the time after the Great Dark but before the Bursting Forth. This is the time for dreaming and for knowing our dreams. This is the time of illumination…Resting still in the cauldron of birth, we close two eyes and open our third. We have enough light to see now. Use the light! Brighten the light of your Inner Knowing." My February What Shines newsletter will explore many ways to do this, playfully.

This cross-quarter moment (February 1-2) wears many guises. In the U.S., it's popularly celebrated as Groundhog Day, when a small furry rodent either sees his shadow or doesn't, and the result determines whether we experience six more weeks of winter. The day has far deeper meanings than this, as Spadone intimates — and yes, it is a potent moment to observe your shadow!

Celebrated globally, Imbolc is both a Christian and Pagan holiday, known by various names: Imbolc, St. Brigid's Day (Bride's Day), and Candlemas ("mass of the candles", which in the Catholic religion marks the end of the Yule season).

In Celtic and Earth-based traditions, Imbolc ("in the belly") is one of the most powerful portals on the Wheel of the Year: the exact midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. A harbinger of Spring, Imbolc celebrates the return of the Light in a profound sense. As the first "cross-quarter day" on the Wheel of the Year, it heralds the Equinoxes and Solstices, as well as Beltane (May 1st), Lammas (August 1st), and Samhain (October 31^st).

At Imbolc, the energies begin to pulse with renewed life and hope. Fire festivals are common. Vicki Noble, co-creator of the Motherpeace Tarot and author of Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World, which affected me profoundly during my own awakening, writes, "Traditionally a time of transformation and initiation, Imbolc brings 'big dreams' and a raised vibration …

"With powerful Pluto in the physical sign of Capricorn (until 2024), we look forward to momentous planetary and personal change. As old structures crumble, inside and all around us, imagine yourself sitting safely inside of Kali's dance of liberation."

What most astonished me was discovering that St. Brigid (in the Irish tradition) is the Patroness of Midwives. Since my birthday is February 4th and I've long referred to myself as a midwife for our global rebirth, it was a clarifying reminder of "what we know, before we know that we know!"

Samhain, Spirit and Sacred Story

I'm not Irish (this incarnation), though I've long been fascinated by the culture ~ perhaps because, for me, Ireland defines myth and magic.

I've just read The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog by Patricia Monaghan, who was raised in Alaska and didn't begin exploring her Irish roots until adulthood. Her ineffable prose is tantamount to immersion in Celtic tradition. I traveled lustily with her through verdant valleys and over holy ground, inside the history and mystery of pagan celebrations once subjugated and now reclaimed.

Because Patricia paints a picture of an Ireland still steeped in "the old ways," where the Goddess in all her guises is a formidable presence, her story is a soul-nourishing gift for Samhain, one of the eight holy days that comprise the Wheel of the Year.

In the U.S., Samhain has been reduced to a children's holiday called Halloween, with a focus on costumes, candy and occasionally, mischief. But on the Celtic calendar, Samhain ushers in winter and the mysteries of the dark. October 31^st precedes Day of the Dead/All Soul's Day on November 1^st, a paean to the ancestors. The dark side — that which is hidden from view — calls us to remember our sacred heritage, as Monaghan so masterfully does in her incandescently rendered soulscape.

Mythologist Kathleen Jenks, an advisor to Monaghan's Black Earth Institute, explains on her own site, Myth*ing Links why this season is an excellent time to explore what is ending, or "dying", within us. What do you need to release in order to move forward in your life? Now, when the veils between worlds are thin, is a ripe moment for each of us to embrace personal and planetary transformation.

And the souls of those who have gone before can still share their wisdom with us, if we invite their collaboration. Astrologer Caroline Casey likes to say, "We cannot live through the dead, but we can invite the dead to live through us." What gifts are asking, aching to be brought forth through you in this quantum moment, when the entire world is awash in tremulous rebirth? How can you shine your brilliance and step fully into your aliveness, passion, purpose and service?

It's time to remove your mask, and step fully into who you came here to be.

Solstice: A Sensuous Bonfire Initiation into Love

The Zombies once sang, "It's the start of the season for loving." Of course their name was a bit of an oxymoron. Today there is no way to both awaken and remain a zombie! It is, with bells on, the season for Loving.

Stargazer Li says the burst of Gemini activity, beginning with the May 20th Solar Eclipse and June 5th Venus Transit, followed by a second New Moon in Gemini leading into the Summer Solstice, "brings much learning and an expansion of communications through words and stories that become integrated into our approaches to living our journey. What we think and say has the power to create, to crystallize something new. Being effortless and magical in our approach, relaxing into the experience of living our amazingness is the gift being offered. Let's be willing to receive it."

Earth-based spirituality pioneer and prolific author Starhawk writes, "This is the time of the rose, blossom and thorn, fragrance and blood. Now on this longest day, light triumphs, and yet begins the decline into the dark. The Sun King grown, embraces the Queen of Summer in a love that is death because it is so complete that all dissolves into the single song of ecstasy that moves the worlds. So the Lord of light dies to himself, and sets sail across the dark seas of time, searching for the Isle of Light that is rebirth. We turn the wheel and share his fate, for we have planted seeds of our own changes and to grow we must accept even the passing of the sun."

And planetary priestess Ariel Spilsbury, co-creator of my much-beloved Mayan Oracle book and card set, writes, "As a collective we now find ourselves perfectly poised and balanced, like a tightrope walker over the Abyss of the Unknown. We have practiced for lifetimes not going into fear, staying centered no matter what appearance arises, so that we can face this initiation of stepping through those appearances into freedom, not in some other lifetime, but in THIS one! Each of us is now facing our personal piece of shadow that is being vibrationally activated and amplified with the intention of clearing it for ourselves AND the collective mindfield of Earth, that we may transition personally and as a species, from the sleepy caterpillar into our awakened, soul butterfly selves. THIS IS NOT JUST A METAPHOR! 



This is actually happening alchemically now on Earth. Within the chrysalis, we are being re-tuned and rewired from the inside out, as a natural part of the vibrational process of evolution, which is dissolving in Solutio, the fractally repeating, shadow material that has dogged us over lifetimes, as a gift of Grace! That isn't to say that we aren't taking radical responsibility and supporting that process with our personal choices for freedom. If we are intending to become the freed butterfly, we are doing just that, through our vigilance in embracing IN LOVE the persistently attached shadow when it arises, rather than denying, judging and rejecting it! (I embrace my shadow, as I embrace my light!) In Alchemy this process is called Umbra-solis...the sun AND its shadow complete the Great Work. Please deeply consider that it isn't the 'getting rid of' or healing shadow, rather the full, loving embrace of it that will complete the Great Work we are engaged in personally and as a species at this time! This is the final clearing of the patterns that are no longer serving our LIBERATION! In this process, Light Itself Can Be Seen as the Final Veil! 



Feel the sensuous, energetic ripple from inside your personal chrysalis that is now inviting you to begin to birth your transmuting self into a new world! That evolutionary potential is being offered through the Divine Feminine portal that opened on the Venus Transit on June 5th 2012 that will be complimented by the male portal completion on Dec 21, 2012. What this open window of evolutionary potential represents, is the unprecedented opportunity to clear, forgive and embrace shadow and simultaneously birth ourselves into a new and expanded frequency of soul expression on Earth, entering the Mystery of the birth of the Blue Sun within our own hearts. 



The result of the birth of that inner blue fire will be the transmutation of our DNA and thus our blood into Sangreal, holy blood, literally changing the valence structure of our blood, so as to sing a Love Song to the Divine One! (If you wish to accelerate this process, watch the following video Solfeggio Harmonics - 528 Love hz). Remember that the heat and passion of Shakti, kundalini, the activation of the blue and gold dragon fire current of life force that moves up the spine, is that which is igniting the collective bonfire for the transmutation of fear into love on this planet. As we practice and embrace this transmutation, it will literally change the way we see reality, as the ecstatically flowing river of light that it actually is. In this moment, I invite you to stop and breathe in the alchemical, golden ecstatic, blue fire, dragon current, this river of light, to ride your blood into pure alchemical gold. Breathe that possibility in! Open to the golden alchemical frequency that is now available, whose intention is the loving release of whatever may still be residual in your being, that cannot stand in or contain this much light. Allow it to be lovingly consumed in the light of Divine Love! These are not just beautiful concepts or words. I encourage you to meditate to experience their truth directly and to personally experience and feel the frequency of alchemical gold light that is now available to transmute anything less than the vibration of unconditional love! 

Let us use the energy of the perfect balance of Summer Solstice as a powerful, planetary acupuncture point, to offer re-balancing to ourselves and Gaia. Celebrate together the powerful window of opportunity that the time we are alive in right now represents. We are entering a new world together ... As the star Maya say, together let us walk the Road of Awe, Xi balba beh into a new world!!