The Turning of the Wheel
Today heavy mist shrouds the apple trees and rises like puffs of smoke over the mountains. Every twig is still covered with lush green leaves and every time I look out a window I feel that gratitude pulsing through me – the wonder of being alive. A brilliant green frog inhabits my toad pond. Last night a Datura blossom literally opened before my eyes etched with pale lavender – a moonflower of exquisite fragrance and beauty, and if anything, I appreciate these moon blossoms here more than I did in the desert.
My shrinking garden, (now taped in lime green to remind Spencer that flowers grow here along with grass!) has exploded into raucous crimson, deep orange, yellow, pink, a cacophony of color and sound. I say sound because I can imagine that I can hear the flowers singing a song of abundance, gratitude, and praise to all there is…
The first lemon lily pods are ripening, green apples bend the trees low, grapevines are heavy with new fruit, wheat colored celandine spikes are bursting with seed, queen anne’s lace makes nests full of seed, diminutive pale pink poppies keep popping out of a tangle of ajuga runners and fledgling grosbeaks hug the feeders while little gold birds flit back and forth, sunbursts singing up the dawn.
The light is changing. High sun – dappled shade slides into deeper shadow as the sunstar slips lower on the horizon. We have already lost 45 minutes of sunlight to a sultry dusk; that steel sword edge of white summer light is softening, although here in this sanctuary of trees the thinning grassy hair of the Earth’s body is still active growing new shoots and creating more carpets of velvet moss. I can still hear the brook flowing but the sound is muted now. The water table is low from ongoing drought, although this July has given us a lovely reprieve with so many cloud driven days, some with real rain.
I have eaten the first blood red beets and greens from Kathy’s garden and my basil is providing me with salads and pesto that delight my tongue. The scarlet runner beans have bright orange blossoms and early this morning I watched three deer, an aunt, a mother, and a delicate spotted fawn grazing in their bountiful “kitchen” around the house. The fawn trotted down the mossy path as if he knew safety awaited him in the lush pine thickened hollow below.
I have to remind myself that everything I planted here was for the animals…especially when I see the place where my guardian cedar once stood so proudly until the deer stripped her of bark and leaves irreparably mutilating her. When I cut her down, I grieved the loss but accepted it too. I planted this tree as a seedling. I believe that she knew she was loved – oh so deeply – and I hope that was enough.
I have once again become a hermit, except for spending time on the pond watching the eagles fledge, and walking through this peaceful forest when the gunners sleep.
I also write on behalf of bears because the killing season will soon be upon us…Knowing that educating the “white” (death oriented) people around here about these gentle creatures is hopeless I do it anyway for Bb who has suddenly become a night bear… May the Spirit of the Bears step in to redress an imbalance that runs so deep in the hearts of these people that I am left without any hope on a rational level… nothing short of divine intervention can help these intelligent animals who are at such risk. I feel flickers of hope when I think about New Mexico, because they kill bears there too but not with such vengeance and cruelty.
For every season there is a sacrifice and this year my cedar took the fall at my own hand…
The Corn Mothers come into their own at this Feast of the New Grain. Corn is the mother of the Pueblo people… and this year my heart is with the Tewa who are celebrating the coming harvest, giving thanks for whatever rain has fallen, and saying goodbye to the Katsinas who are returning to their mountain homes.
Blessed Be this Mother of the Corn, and the abundance that comes with her Presence, first as Seed Maiden and now in readiness for the coming harvest.
At this Feast of New Grain I give thanks for being alive, for the generous hearted people who have stepped in to enrich my life in ways that I could have never imagined, for finally coming to the understanding that I have two home places, not one.
I also cut away what is no longer needed.
Blessed Be.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.