Image in photo by John Shannon
It’s a beautiful day and Mother Nature looks gorgeous in all her summer fullness. It is also a day where the energies are erratic and challenging and one of those days when I want to curl up in the roots of my huge Grandmother Oak. I want to lie in those ancient arms and be held. I want to feel the life happening below me as roots, critters and mycorrhizal enzymes in a symbiotic dance alter and enliven the system. I want to feel their community efforts working together, each individual supporting and enhancing the life of the other. I want to feel this because on a daily basis it is situational and in short supply, disappearing even, from the human community.
Tears stream down my face as I wonder what has happened. Things were definitely not perfect before – far from it – but now… NOW… well, as Alice would say, everything down is up and everything up is down and nothing is as it seems. My mind goes to that “who can I trust” place. My heart knows, but right now my mind is caught in that proverbial “but and what if” loop.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
I light a candle and pick up my drum. Randomly I strike beater against hide a few times until I find a rhythm. Then, as I feel the women of ancient times gather round me, I lay down the beater and allow my hands to find the rhythm… frame drum style. I slowly feel my body begin to move and my voice to make sounds – nothing special and definitely not melodic. Rather, visceral and raw, the sounds of my Soul moving from the depths into the now. Slowly, drum… dance… sound… begin to alter the vibrations holding me captive to the “what if’s and how come’s”, the questions and pesky doubts.
I finally reach the stillpoint where the mind is quiet and my body able to tap into its cellular memories. I light some frankincense and inhale this ancient resin whose aroma transports me back to the Temple. I drift off into memories of altars and ritual and purpose. I breathe in those rememberings as I feel myself sink deeper into connection with the Great Mother, She Who Has Been, Is and Always Will Be.
I am an Ordained Priestess of the old ways birthed into the Now to ground a different way of being and knowing, living and doing. Ritual is the language of my soul, the memory of ancient ways my guide.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
It’s never easy is it? Never what we expect. Always though what we are called forth to do and/or become. I think on this as I create a new altar to ground the experiences of this day and bring in new energies.
Thank Goddess for ritual and altars and the medicine of drums and roots and dirt-filled organisms teeming with life!
Honorings and Blessings to you Great Mother for holding and sustaining this daughter through lifetimes… for holding and sustaining me through this lifetime, especially through this now.
May you continue to hold ALL of your children.
And so it is.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey
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Ritual in These Times by Arlene Bailey ©2020
When the woods and water call me, I know I am in need of clarity and healing. . . .