On this day I make ready,
preparing to receive all that is given by life:
the Dew of Mercy from the bowl of the Mother
who gives what is given: milk, honey, vision.
I will receive in readiness,
I will receive with understanding.
I have bathed in the water of the high mountain spring
and braided my hair in nine braids for the Nine Drums,
Song Givers of the Oldest One.
My robe is a robe of finest cloth woven with feathers
and my girdle adorned with seashells.
I have painted my hands with whorls of blaeberry,
and anointed my brow with the Dew of Mercy.
I wear three crowns for the Queen of The Wheel,
and bear a hallowed bowl of birch.
Now do I stand in the Wondrous Grove of Birch,
a beam of the Sun clasped with a flower upon my breast.
Green is the Land beneath my feet,
watered in season and bursting with fruits
that arise from a bed of decay.
Clear is the Air, and piercing sweet
the song of wrens beneath the bush.
Thorns circle the Grove; bittersweet their mystery.
Honey and milk of the Land’s breast I will taste in the bowl,
Bread of the Underworld steeped for a feast.
And from the bowl I will drink Experience and Knowledge;
and from the bowl I will drink Vision.
On this day I make ready,
preparing to receive all that is given by life
with readiness, with understanding.
The Dew of Mercy is in the bowl,
And the bowl was shaped from the breast of a tree,
the tree of beginning, the Mother Tree.
The bowl was shaped for the rite of choosing,
choosing what is to be given,
choosing what is to be received.
And so I will drink from the hallowed bowl.
May this be our communion:
Drinking from The Birch Bowl.
Louise M Hewett (c) 2003, 2022
Purchase of the book is available here.