Day before yesterday I hit a wall of sorts. Some of the most draining signs it was coming were entirely self-induced. My challenge ever since has been to love myself through the results of my ungrounded/ungrounding efforts rather than beating myself up that here we are again, Ace. Loving myself through the results of something I should have seen coming or even better yet avoided altogether is no small task for someone like me. So that's kinda what's still the major point of pragmatic and ongoing focus.
I decided to start with the one true thing. for me yesterday, that involved going outside in the pouring rain (this was very early yesterday morning) and standing at the north eastern edge of the field just beyond the garden fence. I asked the invisible earthly sun to help. Also explained what I had done to myself and how also I had known better than to have done it. And then. Wow. I felt the whole surface of the field sort of fold around the edges of itself energetically so it vibed like more of a bowl. And the earthly sun medicine spirit said to me "we got this."
and I knew somehow that the "we" was me and the earthly sun. Didn't understand what it meant and saw no trace of the sun from one end of yesterday to the other. Today I woke just about as early and noticed immediately how/why I woke up. The sun was in my eyes. Before that, when it was still yesterday/raining, and I had the sense it was going to take more creativity than I possessed to deal with even a single more day of rain without losing my dwindling supply of goodwill, I tried to push past the negativity, man. I went out with my good camera and took pictures in the side pocket gardens. They were hushed, water-logged and dripping with moody secrets destined to remained untold. Was just starting to find my groove, and lots of previous unnoticed garden seedlings like the cardinal flower above, when the rain drops began to fall again. I mean they fell again. again. and again and again and again.
Usually when people bitch about the rain and how they 'don't like' it (especially once it goes on for longer than an hour or two a time every once in a while) I talk about the ground and all the drought cycles we have that we never used to have, etc. But in this most recent rain binge? I, too, am absolutely sick of the rain. Also lightning. Totally totally completely and absolutely done with lightning. Have only experienced this frame of mind three or four times previously in my life. All the other occasions involved enormous frustration while traveling fairly rough across country and wishing to camp in specific places for equally specific reasons but no dice. It happened in '82 and again in '03.
But me being sick of rain is immaterial to the deeper concern I hold - The ground will get sick if the rain keeps going. Or rather not the ground itself so much as everything that's trying to grow in soil rather than watery mud under cloudy skies. As I had feared while sitting inside imagining what was happening in the field between lightning strikes - much of the formerly gorgeous tomato crop has begun to rot. The beans aren't rotting but they're still an inch and a half long and no wider than they were when I brought in the shallots. The squash are fine but I want to keep them that way and so I've been reading how to complete the curing process inside. Have studied repeatedly the exact way they're supposed to be cut from the vine so the curing process isn't interrupted or short-changed. I will probably screw it up anyway but I say that with a great deal of love for myself rather than self-castigation.
There are a few plants that don't suffer from so much rain. One is Cardinal Flower. I originally had two little plants that I hoped to grow into a super colony before I left earth. They were devoured entirely by insects. But not before the few straggly flowers apparently set seed. All the rain brought all the cardinal flower seedlings to attention. I could see where many bud heads had previously withered too badly to survive but two did and the others had just enough color to them that I could see where the plants were located. I drew a little map/chart in the dirt and have since gone out to recreate the guidance system on paper with next spring in mind.
You can see how rain soaked everything is because the flower above had been sitting in full sun for at least two hours and its was still absolutey saturated. I am absolutely saturated as well and thus grateful this is the full moon in the water sign of Pisces rather than one of the two others. If it were Cancer I'd still be crying and laughing like a lunatic with poor to no ability to explain why. With scorpio I'd still be sitting quietly somewhere in a calm and relatively dark place.
Or else, far more realistically, let's face it. I'd still be dancing around to Mambo Sun just to see if I could take myself all the way to other side of whatever the hell that was. But it was ever-remarkable Pisces. Therefore I went into that void. The no-thing-ness. It was, as always, incredibly supportive in that the void supports all forms of energy. To me it's like an enormous cosmic hammock supporting all. forms. of. energy. Once I got that about Pisces I started to be incrementally less concerned about the way my son spun out emotionally. He was two and three during this time frame. And he also has a scorp ascendant and a sag moon so he spun out a lot. Emotionally and otherwise.
What I noticed about his spin outs is that they also had what J called drive-backs. He'd spin all the way out, then kind of donut-circle-drive around all the way out there for however long it took him to get the whole thing untangled within himself and then he'd drive himself all the way back. In like an hour, tops. And then not understand (this part remains the same...) why others are still oscillating about the fact that he was tremendously upset but he's not upset anymore so what's the problem.
Understanding the maternal metrics of likewise understanding my kid's personality helped me understand who I was at the core. Not as a mother. Not as a grown up. Not as a kid myself wandering around inside my adult mind and body wondering what to do next. At the core. At the core it's said we're all the same and thus all Heart. Today's vibe still has the all-heart energy of the Piscean full moon and within that window I'm preparing the essence bowl pictured above from Angel Wing begonia flowers.
T loves having this one put in a bowl of orange water with some lavender essential oil. I place a few of my great-grandmother's cut glass finger bowls with the combination near places in our common areas that he frequents and then when he's wilting or lookin' flinty I point out the bowl and he stands watching with a silent glow while I replenish the essence and essential oil drops. I love that this is one of the ways he enjoys being loved by his mom. And then afterwards he keeps track of the bowl in that he'll look towards it in the room from time to time along with his survey of the other things he enjoys seeing.
It feels nice. I think doing it while also steadying the ongoing lo-fi blessing of I'm your mother and I love you very much really does 'nice-ify' the rooms' vibrations.
Begonia's vibrational and healing signatures are written in the key of Heart. The flowers themselves as they grow often shape shift and evolve into secondary forms of elaborate beauty that at times seem more than a bit otherworldly. Sound familiar fish lovers? I'm making this essence with myself and my son and our described unceremony of meaning in mind. We are both getting hardened by these times and all the thoroughly toxic and corrupt individuals who are making so much noise. We share an affinity for dark humor that's currently running on scant fumes. We're both done. But we're freakin' water signs. There's no such thing as "done" we simply become uncontained and uncontainable.
Until all that emotional and mental and psychic chaos of no borders or boundaries finds a way to crash or stumble into Heart territory. And things get quiet. And if they aren't going to become quiet by themselves we begin to look around at how we can create other forms of quiet to compensate and rebalance.
Today I'm also preparing something both cardinal flower and jewelweed called me to be prepared-to-prepare. Today's cloudless sky and full-on sun was something I had to take on faith. I also took the pictures in case it was sunny and I wanted 'nice' images from my nice camera to include in a post.
The bowl above is a very obvious and much welcomed 'raincheck' from my customary birthday bowl. It holds cardinal flower - which is equally and simulataneously super-grounding and elevating for the first chakra as well as being a ceremonial vibrational stand-by - and jewelweed which is a very versatile essence several flower alchemists in my modest circle of such have been mentioning as seeming on an evolutionary curve that hasn't come all the way into focus. All I know is that I've never in my 24 years here in central MA seen jewelweed flowers so large and full and vibrantly expressive of their full Being. We had a rainy later spring but then drought in between the two rain cycles. The dry periods were also quite hot. The combo killed off most of the Jewelweed plants. We're talking hundreds of plants all told. Yesterday both of these medcine spirits said to me TOMORROW. I didn't have much focus or sustained energy or even a clear sense of my physical body. But I did have faith. Not saying that part has anything to do with how today's turning out but it is what I had. Didn't think I "had" much of anything at the time beyond a heaping wealth of personal short-sightedness.
But I did also have faith and I don't know why but I honestly believe I was born with it.
Jewelweed is for people who don't know how to slow down. In an unchallenged/unilluminated state they don't know what 'stop' means until their mind or body or both provide a glaringly clear definition. It's also for people who've confused productivity with gear-stripping. And whose personal definitions of "uncomplicated" would leave most people with crossed eyes and/or the need to speak up and say something. does any of that sound familiar??
the bowl also contains a single teeny tiny broadloaf plantain flower. That's for balance in all ways and all things. I work with the Plantain medicine spirit and the plant's vibrational energy a lot. Am loving how it might feel to be aware of the tiny ping of a presence of this beloved energetic signature. There are three red sage flowers for all the usual sagey-reasons in the key of red/securing and illuminating the first chakra. And there are innumerable tiny individually cut and loved all the way into the bowl fragrant heliotrope flowers. This is an essence for folks who don't know how/when/why to stop beating themselves up. a-hem. Think I'm gonna re-read yesterday's post on my other blog with Fleetwood Mac's Yesterday's Gone playing in the background. And maybe just for balance and because I love this man so so much I'll follow it up with mega-pisces George H's Horse To The Water.
Already listening to it so I could find the link to put above and below. You'd think I'd be out of things to mention loving about George and his music but here's something else. I LOVE that this song is his final musical word. It really speaks to those two ever so pointy-points on the tips of the Vesica Piscis. One goes all the way up and the other absolutely never forgets we are also all-one as on all of us inhabiting the same planet and all it contains. Including our own entirely human human-nature. What I love about Pisces extrapolation the most is the way the energy entices us with something like "look. here's the limits of earthly consciousness. Here's the limit of having limits. Oh look. here's the other side of consciousness. It's all one. It's all the Same." And the creative art of all types that comes from that energy all holds that message without even having to look very closely. But when you do you are always richly rewarded.
Horse To The Water time is upon us, imo. It's kind of the way "everybody else" seems to be living. Set it up on You Tube and listen while you do something else. Sam Brown kills the vocals. From the Albert Hall memorial concert.
*Partway through the Harrison segue J called up the stairs to tell me I had essence bowls on the verge of shade. Got out and moved them in time but not before entangling myself in a few dozen burdock seedheeds. They are everywhere. Always. In all stages of formation and decay. After I moved the bowls by the pool I went out and double checked the bowl in the field. Felt when first setting it out that it would like to moved more to the center of the field beyond the garden once the sun was higher in the sky. Will talk about that bowl and the experience in my next post.
The seeds and the inside of the seed casing is SUPER itchy. Had to change my shirt and in a perfect world would have also had a shower then and there. Any number of dwindling burdock plants are left in inconvenient places to seed because the locations mark bird flyways and the seeds are beloved and extremely beneficial after the black frost - for the chickadees who come in from deeper woods and the finches who stay year round.
During yesterday's earlier morning break from rain I captured the Hydrangea bush. Subsequently had a dream while napping that I told the bush I really disliked the name of the variety and that I felt saying it out loud (Pinkie Winkie) was both diminishing and disrespectful. Today when I was out in the same place gathering the cardinal flowers, jewelweed, and a single tiny plantain bloom I kept going over to the bush because it was beckoning yet not. When the bowl was set into the grass while I re-stabilized I was looking directly at the bush. It definitely looked back at me. When that was established - my knowing it had a conscious bead on me - the bush communicated its wish to be known as Madame Butterfly.
Much better, no?