As I wandered through my neighborhood the other day—phone clenched in my hand, the little device hot against my hot head, throat tight, vocal cords vibrating with frustration and pain—I nearly walked straight into a pair of deer peering at me from the thicket.
Deer are not completely uncommon in my neighborhood. There is a small herd that shelters in our yards and bushes.
This summer, what now seems like a lifetime ago, I woke early to a doe bedded down by my back door. A week or so later, while out playing with farm equipment with my lover, a pair bounded through the field clearly engaged in courtship. As sweet as the essence of these creatures is, there is more to it, for me.
When I first started doing Ritual regularly, daily, to honor my ancestors, deer was the totem that emerged. So you see, seeing this pair at this specific moment the other day, was particularly significant.
I have stepped away from my ritual and daily communion with my ancestors for a while now.
I have not lit a candle in weeks, nor sprinkled coffee on the ground, nor inhaled a bit of herbal smoke in their honor. I have not asked for their help. I have not offered sacrifice. My communion with the Unseen has been rather quiet since performing the ritual for my dear friend, of which I wrote in “Anam Cara: a Tribute to the Moon.”
It is not that I have felt especially severed in my connection to the Unseen; I have too much momentum with my practices. It would be an impossibility at this point in my life. It is rather that I have been caught up in pragmatic things. Hands on children, hard conversations, court dates, dirty diapers, endless meals, and trying to keep my own body going through a sinus flu, blowing out my low back, and shedding my uterine lining; all things that individually can take me down, all happening consecutively while juggling all the aforementioned “pragmatic” things.
As if parenting, running a business, and keeping a skeleton’s flesh suit upright are all not enough, I have also been, quite knowingly, shuffling from fight to freeze, with some moments of relaxation, clarity, a bit of creativity, and joyfulness all peppered in. In a word: lots.
I have said this before, and I will mention it now: we need energy and psychological space to engage in ritual. It is one of the reasons that many people do not do it. In order to move energy mindfully and magically, we need to be able to harness our own emotions, as well as other elements to do so safely. This is not to say the Unseen will not intervene on our behalf in spite of having limited resources. It will. And magic is relational. Our relationship with magic, however, is give and take and when we ourselves have nothing to offer, that relationship becomes unbalanced.
Seeing those deer in that moment reminded me that They—the Unseen—are here. They are watching. They have never left. And I am not alone. It also felt like a message to be mindful of my state.
Deer are gentle, attentive, and agile. Those qualities are actually most in alignment with my deepest nature. I rise in battle out of necessity. Yes, I enjoy it once it is evoked in me, especially now that it is more clear as to the purpose and function of that specific energy. However, I prefer to be soft-bellied. I prefer serenity and comfort as states to evoke my creativity. That was not always the case. It used to be that I needed that stimulus to write, and without it—without some sort of drama to provoke my own sense of urgency—I couldn’t.
It is the opposite now. I have a hard time writing from a dysregulated state. The thoughts do not coalesce in the same way. The inner voice is harder to hear. It makes sense because the warrior is not pausing to record the battle. They are fully engaged in it—instincts firing, muscles moving to act before danger lands them headless. This is a more accurate description of my more recent energetic occupation, and it is not the province of the scribe. But it is the scribe I yearn to return to.
I wrote from my warrior’s voice in my last essay: “The Wolf Mother’s Love: Nips and growls nurture us, too.” I actually wound up revising the version I initially sent to all of you because someone criticized me so severely for it, it took me aback and invited me to refine my message. Though there is still plenty of “growl” there, I believe something else came through, too. And both, or all remain with me.
In my dreams last night, one sentence emerged clearly from a jumbled disjointed set of images and sensations.
“Whatever you do to that acorn, I’m going to do to you.”
Yes, there is a subtle threat possible in that statement. Vengeance. Retaliation. But I sense something else. More deeply—coming from the soil, solitude and Dark I tend to turn to—I sense karma speaking.
Karma is the morally unattached movement and reaction to energy and circumstances.
If you plant that acorn, I will plant you. If you water it, so shall you be watered. If you shelter it from harsher elements, so shall you be sheltered. If you neglect it, you shall wither. And if you harm it…so help me Gawd you, too, will be pounded into dust.
The commingling of the Scribe, the Sage, the Mother, and the Warrior is what it means to me to be a Witch. This is keenly observing the elements, nature, listening to the seen and Unseen for the messages and resources, and acting on them with discernment and responsibility.
My dream came on the eve following a poignant and tender conversation, in which someone very dear to me not only reminded me to be proud of myself, but shared how proud he is of me. Both are important. It is words and actions from caring humans that validate the ways we move through the world when we stand in our own integrity.
It recently became crystal clear to me it is integrity which is the foundation for our relationship with the Unseen—with the Mother, with Gawd, with Life.
If we, ourselves, are not willing to stand steady in what we know to be rite, how in the name of all that is blessed, holy, hard, and human, is She, It, They supposed to stand with us? The answer is: They can’t.
We create the structure for Power to come into us, to be with us, to help us, to support us, and ultimately when appropriately harvested (and with great respect) to serve us. Without this structure we are nought but cracked vessels which the Void can stare into, but never pour into. We must learn to look, to hear, to pay attention to the soul of the world to hear ourselves. And we must learn to listen to that small voice within so the world can touch our souls in return.
Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor. ~ Terrence McKenna
How does Nature awake you to yourself? How do your dreams guide you? What is your gut telling you right now? How can you honor your own soul and the soul of the world? These are not easy questions. They are not meant to be. But we who have the courage to contemplate them and, even more so, to put them into practice, we get to engage in a wild and lively dance with Power, seen and Unseen.
Lotsa love, and happy Spring!
~Justice
On Tuesday March 26, 2024 at 12pm MT there will be a live mediation “Awakening Instincts” for my paid subscribers. Links will be sent separately.
Powerful Justice. Kudos to you. Looks like I missed a couple articles and will look for them over the rainy weekend.
Hello? Your words slay me, in the best possible way. Ritual can sometimes be sitting on a stump, staring ahead into the distance, just being. I hope you have a moment or two like this among the thorns and flowers of your life lately. Hugs to you Justice.