Summer Solstice: Symbols & Stories

Happy Summer Sweet Ones!

The joy of ritual is the awe it evokes. Even when leading, I too want to be surprised! I want to moved by the power and grace flowing through us and our shared space.

When leading a ritual, a class, or even a retreat I practice becoming a “hollow bone” for whatever wants to come through in the moment. Yes, there is a structure to a degree; I’m not a complete heathen. I gather materials and sink into dream space prior to teaching or stepping into a sacred circle. I gather stories and references for points I may want to make. But it's you, the participants, to whose energy I most want to attune. So, we do that with breath, with pauses, and by asking questions. This ritual is no different. As I listened and asked the questions I heard answers for myself that moved me to tears.

The invitation was to offer a commitment. Mine is to Motherhood. To nurture that which is within and around me. After I shared mine, we made space for the other participants to do the same.

In the subsequent several days post ritual, I have found several indications of Spirit hearing my commitment. Most significantly, immediately upon closing the circle, I got “tapped” to join my own neighborhood in search for a lost child. It was heartwarming watching my neighbors pour out of their own little tin homes in search of the stray boy, looking in their own homes, and wandering the little parkway calling his name. He was found and rather quickly. He thought himself to be the “winner” of a wonderful game of “hide and seek”. “I was right there the whole time”, he proclaimed proudly to his wild eyed mother who grasped him gratefully. As we all found our ways back towards our homes we spread the good news to each other, “The child is home.”

Why was this event an indicator? Because I was talking about the magical child as the result of all manifestation. From the 2 comes the the third and then the many—the pluralization of consciousness. I was also talking about “drawing a circle around community” and lo and behold I stepped out my door to distressed mother and a community in service to her and her sacred child.

The other thing that spoke to me of the immediacy and practicality of our ritual was the appearance of a bumble bee hive in my world! I will be writing of this more extensively in another Substack, but for now let me say: I am now the Mother of Bees. And (apparently) cajoling bumble bees into your world is not an easy feat unless of course they offer themselves up such as these ones did.

And lastly, the last few days took me down with a migraine of epic proportions. I do not enjoy the kickback of firing off a big blast of energy into the cosmos—but it happens. Choosing to see my migraine as part of my initiatory process into my commitment is empowering for me. Not only that, though; it’s also a reminder to tend to my hormones, and be mindful of the womanly changes that are upon me. However, beneath the vice-like veneer of pain occurred a deeper unraveling, more willingness to meet that which is not feeding me and unhook myself from past agreement which are no longer worthy of me. I do not know what that will look like yet, but it feels like the shift in some relationship dynamics will be inevitable. I am also calling in grace to do the lifting for me so me so speak, as what I have seen I cannot unsee, but I do not necessarily want to be the architect of destruction, either.

And so I breath, I write, play with dogs, cats, and bees…I rest and I wait.

There is wisdom in waiting, in resting, in reaching down and in and sinking our roots into the loamy soil for nourishment.

And so, even as we dance under the Sun, remember the Night, the Moon, and Her velvety brilliance. Sink your roots into the soil, into the earth and once again, and again and again… be reborn.

Lotsa love,

~Justice