Late Autumn Musings

The "Poetic Mind" is strong this late autumn afternoon.  My daily commute, as I've mentioned previously, takes me through an as-yet-unscathed patch of north Texas ranchland.  A few moments ago, as I drove the rugged lane through the top section of the ranch--passing native Longhorns and Jerseys grazing in the waning golden beams of late afternoon, a snippet of a new poem tentatively took hold of me.  It's been many-a-year since She graced me with an inspirational muse!

As you, dear ones, have never (I don't believe) read any of the pieces I've previously written, I thought I'd "toss" this one out for your perusal...  It's quite as-yet unfinished...

There is a mellowness to the in-betweens:

An exhalation of the could-haves

And soft inhalation of anticipatory possibilities...

And, thus far, that's "it."

In the soft inspirational haze of the Autumn Moon...

Return to Fruitfulness

After over seventy days of triple-digit temperatures here in north Texas, the stifling heat of this summer has come to a simpering end.  A final "hurrah" was attempted by the spirits of summer, but to no avail.  Like a contrite sinner, the heat and has dissipated to a slow murmur in the afternoons.  Additionally, the rains have started to return to this drought-stricken land.  The deep scars in the parched earth where the ground has split for lack of water are starting to heal--the hardened crust has softened to a cushion of moist soil. 

'Tis the approach of Mabon this week and the Earth is healing itself in anticipation of the ensuing Harvest festivals.  In our Garden, the burned and decimated plants are starting to miraculously sprout and fruit once again.  Our hearty little cherry tomato plants have darling yellow flowers exploding on them--promising a riot of late harvest deliciousness!  The songbirds have returned and the dragonflies and damsel flies are dancing over the Pond once more. 

How much have we been taught in our summer inattentiveness!  Patience with the land, appreciation for the capriciousness of the rains, humility at our inability to manipulate the seasons to our own devices and desires...  She is harsh (at times) as the Mother--ever teaching and ever training--but the result is the Festal season into which we now enter.  Now begins the moment of our yearly offering of gratitude for the lessons taught. 

What have you, my dearest visitors to the Lair, taken to heart from the seasonal education of our Dear One?  What do you now reap?  What offerings can you now make in this knowledge?

Take time, my dear friends...for time is what She teaches us to have, to take, and to appreciate.  Listen to the approaching Season--it's starting its own lessons for us......

In the softness of the Moonlight...

Longhorns and Scrub Brush

Living in an extended drought in north Texas--where the meteorologists take rarified delight in reporting how very many days we've been in "triple digit temperatures"--isn't easy for one of a Nature-based Path.  The Lair's Cottage Garden is slowly wilting and crisping in the relentless sun...the deeply rich earth is cracking with the severity of the heat and dryness...the trees are even showing signs of stress.  It's difficult to embrace this situation and know that there is a plan in place...that all will be well.  The only plant that seems to still be thriving is my darling Brown Turkey fig--it's abundance belies the strife the Garden is enduring.

And so, we're in the high summer season...moving ever nearer Lughnasadh.  The daytime skies are piercing blue.  Soft pillows of poufy, white clouds whisp ever-so-gently overhead.  The earth--though in appearance dry and brittle--is covered in a melodious blanket of cicada burrs, sleepy sparrow chirrups, and the somnambulant buzzing of wasps and hornets.  At night, the cicadas give way to cricket trills and the lullaby of croaking toads at our Pond.

On my daily commute, I pass vast open ranchland.  This morning, the relentless heat and dryness was nearly forgotten.  Longhorn steer stood stalwart in an open field of scrub brush, but this field--part of a huge ranch in our county--was speckled with Prairie WindFlower, Purple Thistle, and the most riotous display of Cornflowers and Chickweed I've ever seen.  It was as if She was railing against the weather...showing us Her resiliancy and determination to bring the first of the Harvest festivals in with panache! 

I found my ability to embrace the wind and sun and brittle earth once more.  Blessed Be!

In the warmth of the summer Moonlight...
.   

Happy Beltane!

Warm Beltane Greetings from the Mistress of the Lair! 

It was brought to my attention today (thanks to the Llewellyn FB page) that today is International Pagan Coming Out Day.  Um....no.  Now, before you take offense to what you THINK I'm about to say, please understand that, in theory, I completely support coming out of the perennial Broom Closet and being honest and open about who and what we are--in a perfect world.  Unfortunately, we do not LIVE in a perfect world and our society is not ripe with an overabundance of what some derrogatorily call "fluffy bunnies."  People "out there" still have stereotypical attitudes toward our community and our lifestyle/spiritual style.  Regardless of what we want to believe, there are still staunch conservatives and extremists "out there" for whom our beliefs are offensive and sinful.

On Beltane, the third of our Spring festivals, we celebrate the fertility and sensuality of the fully-blossomed Season.  Why, too, cannot we celebrate our Paths openly?  The theoretical aspect of IPCOD is spot-on!  As the Season, so should we.  The reality is somewhat more complicated than that.

You all, dear ones, know "what" I am...and I you.  We embrace each other in mutual respect and mutual love--regardless of our individual Path differences--for we each acknowledge the manifestation of the Divine in the other.  She is in each of us...in our own manners.  Even if nothing is said, we "know."  It's not "enough," but it IS enough.  Forced revelation is the "mess" that we see in other belief systems.  She is not a forced revelation...She slowly reveals by degrees as the Waxing Moon. 

Remember that...and reveal yourself as you see fit.  The 19th century poet, Emily Dickinson, might have given us the best outline for such revelations--
      
          Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
          Success in Circuit lies
          Too bright for our infirm Delight
          The Truth's superb surprise

          As Lightning to the Children eased
          With explanation kind
          The Truth must dazzle gradually
          Or every man be blind --

In the softness of the slowly-revealing Moonlight!

Excitement is in the Air...

Preparations are underway at the Lair for a garden--a good and true garden chock-full of herbs and vegetables and goodness!  The utterly intoxicating scent of "new" is in the air.  The air itself is filled with the twittering of songbirds heralding the onset of Spring!  Trees and shrubs are cloaking themselves in the softest of green veils or the coy pastels of blossoms. 

This weekend, the tiller comes to work the small plot where the "Kitchen Garden" is being placed in a neglected - yet - sunny corner of the yard.  I've been perusing seed catalogues and garden centers for "crop" ideas.  The library at the Lair has been virtually attacked for information on herbs and medicinals.  And, as delightful as this planning is, even more so is the noticeable return of the "sparklies"--the Lair's faeries.  Hiding in hesitation at all the "new" with the move, they've returned both inside and out--I believe the darling things are helping me plan the next "installment" of the Lair's permanent home (the gardens).

So...in this period of the increasing energies of the waxing Moon, enjoy the planning for her jubilant return on the blossoms and petals and unfurling leaves of Spring! 

In the comforting glow of the Moonlight...

The Arrival of the Heron

The Lair has been graced twice now with the visitation of a Great Blue Heron--seemingly an oddity in north Texas.  We're not close to major water features (a couple of lakes and rivers, but nothing akin to this stunning bird's natural habitat).  I've spied it twice by our Pond (the fish are frightened). 

I feel extremely honored that this beautiful and regal creature has decided to continue visiting our yard. 

In the softness of the Moonlight..

Emerging into Imbolc

For the past week, the Lair has been iced and snowed in thanks to a rather freak Arctic "blast" of a storm.  1" of solid ice descended on us on Tuesday followed by 6" of snow on Friday...and temperatures never rose above 28 degrees 'til Saturday afternoon.  The "first signs" of Spring--or at least the lessening of Winter's grip--promised in Imbolc never really seemed to appear to us here in the "frozen tundra" of north Texas.

At least, the non-appearance of Imbolc is what it seemed on the surface.  Amid the snows and ice, I noted the return of the early Spring songbirds to the Lair's gardens.  The gardens themselves are showing the faintest hints of buds at the ends of the branches of the pear and fig...of random sunny-yellow dandelions in the all-but-dead lawns...of tiny red leaves (new growth) on the numerous roses.  Under the thick ice of the Pond, the fish have formed a "nest" of sorts. 

The skies are no longer the icy blues of deep Winter;  rather, the warming blue of the rising season has begun to colour the noon sky.  Dawn in all her blushing girlhood arrives earlier each morning.  The evening sky is just a wee bit more rosy-lilac at the gloaming.  Spring is slow to arrive, but arrive She is.  The Maiden is softly and hesitatingly returning.

So, as all of you wrap yourselves against the chill winds of Winter's final onslaught (as we at the Lair are doing) and grasp that warm and bracing cup of hot tea sweetened by the final oozings of the Summer bees' handiwork, embrace the knowledge that the sun WILL shine again, the lawns WILL green again, and She is watching patiently in preparation for her glorious entrance at Oestara.

In the Softness of the frosty Moonlight...

New Moon Snows



The Pond in our backyard at 9pm on 1/9/2011

 Our Lady gifted us with a lovely snowstorm yesterday in North Texas.  Throughout the day, we enjoyed the teasing "tappitty-tap" of sleet and freezing rain which rapidly changed to the peaceful whisper of fluffy snowflakes quietly falling to frost trees and lawns.  Our pond's valiant little fountain/filter kept working the entire time.

The songbirds bravely and hungrily faced the odd weather (snow is NOT common in North Texas it would seem)--enticed to the yard by overfull birdfeeders, suet stations, and seed scattered on our patio and walkways especially for them.  Our friendly little squirrels were nowhere to be found--hunkered down warmly in their nests.  The chirps and twitters broke the silence in a melodious riot of joy for the hospitality.

For those of you being visited by the snows today and for those of you curled around cups of tea and cocooned in blankets this morning--snowed in your homes--the Lair empathizes.  Enjoy the beauty of the winter landscape, embrace the silence, and be safe. 

In the frosty silence of the waxing Moon...

A Forthcoming New Moon

A new Moon means new beginnings and the commencement of another two week session of increase.  So, this new Moon tomorrow echoes the mundane world's New Year.  New beginnings, hopes for increase and improvement, and positive attitudes abound at present.  We're three days into 2011 and the "world is our oyster" as it were.

Oysters only create their pearls, though, at the introduction of an irritant.  The bivalve then encases the nasty bit in a smooth coating to keep the irritant away from its delicate flesh.  Most people forget that little "gem" of a fact.  This past year was filled (as many of us in the community as well as on Blogger will attest) with limitless "pearl fodder."  Have we created pearls from them?

At the Lair, 2010 was full of unknowing...of changes...of anticipation and constant (seeming) deflation.  2011 enters with a new full-time job for the Lair's mistress's beloved.  The old house is soon to depart to another set of loving hands.  The Cottage is filling with more and more "inhabitants"--numerous songbirds have discovered the feeders, the squirrels have attained a shocking familiarity with the humans of the Cottage, the toads and fish of the Pond live in happy cohabitation.  Our furry family inside are quite calm and happy finally...though our youngest cat--Athena--has passed from kidney disease and is now buried under the feeders by our Pond.

So, as the new Moon approaches and the new year unfolds, the inhabitants of the Lair bid you to recognize the pearls which surround you...the beauty amidst the irritations of our lives...and to embrace the promise and potential!

In the light of the Moon...