#bee smith

If this were a cinematic moment, there would be a scene where the wind blows the weathervane round to signify a huge change in direction.  Do you feel it, too? Ever since February (well, for me Imbolc, but for some friends a bit later on) it feels as if the huge 'stuckness' of 2018 was unclogged.Whoosh! And that whoosh! is the wind shifting the weathervane round.

Tis the season to prepare for the Festival of Brigid. Here in Ireland the customs of the goddess Brighid and St. Brigit, Abbess of Kildare, are often conflated. There was a Fire Temple at the Abbey until Henry VIII broke up the monasteries. Both the saint and goddess rule poetry, healing and craft. Both represent abundance, springtime, and returning light. In 'being both' Brigid (or Brighid or Brigit or Biddy or Bride) is a prime example of spiritual adapt and survive. Nothing is lost. It transforms a bit and moves with the times, but the essence is still there. What is important is to keep what is useful of the old and infuse it with up-to-date intentions as time rolls on, feeding the well spring of inspiration.

Hasn't 2018 been the oddest year energetically? It has felt both overfull and stop and start. Old routines and ventures appear to be coming to the end. Or at least need to go fallow for a year. Meanwhile, what is beginning is also a bit lame and halt. Nothing is quite what it seems to be. Or at least that is what this crone divines.

A friend had to remind me that yesterday was Hecate's Eve. As a crone I love Hecate,her dogs and crossroads, her ways and means, her lantern light. I wrote several poems back in 2016 when I was participating in Joana Colbert Powell's 30 Days of Hecate e-course. It was a wonderful way to stay sane in what was a momentous year for me - getting married, turning 60, my croning ceremony.

Sometimes the activity of the waxing year come so thick and fast that by Midsummer you can feel a bit ramshackle. Part of it is due to the aging process. But also, I am the sort of person who need a good chunk of quiet time to process the emotions around events. So what happens? I get a little bit sick, a virus, just sick enough to take me out of the fray to ponder the imponderables, to think around the large and small circumstances of life, and to put them into perspective.

Darkness and Awakening. These are, in my personal estimation and temperature taking of the zeitgeist,  the two great themes of 2017. Whether you look at the year from a macro or micro view, take it personally or put a more universal perspective to your lens, these are the recurring motifs.  Even the 2017 Word of the Year that has been identified is complicit. It speaks both of a knowing darkness and a guilty glimmer of self-insight. We ask ourselves these days if we are 'Woke.' That implies awakening from, perhaps a dream or very deep slumber. Some people awake with a jolt. Others emerge slowly in a fug of confusion. But awakening eventually happens, even in the darkness of a December morning.

The August 2017 eclipse season is upon us. Astrologer's view eclipses as doors closing (sometimes with a slam) and new windows of opportunity. During a solar and lunar eclipse season we encounter a period of shadow. Something is hidden. Then something is revealed. Weather can turn capricious. This summer I have had a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, this  month I suspect we will hear multiple thumps on the ground of our being.

Eclipses are said to be a closing of one door and an opening of a window. At this past full moon on 6th September I did some Tarot queries using Joanna Colbert Powell's Gaian Tarot. The results were a bit counter-intuitive. A full moon is a culmination, but all the cards were pointing to beginnings and letting go so the new could happen. So eclipse season ain't over yet. Nope! The weather happening globally is the narrative set by the eclipse.