I’ve been waiting to post since the New Moon because of the eclipses. What do they want me to say? It has been a rich few weeks and I haven’t wanted to say much. I had a very deep essence making experience with Cramp Bark the weekend of the Solstice at a Flower Essence training and since then I have maintained a feeling of permanent connection to the green realm. As a result, I’ve felt disconnected from this one. Making the magic with plant connection lifts me up and sets me down differently. Cramp Bark essence will be part of a line of essences meant to aid shadow work. It isn’t up in my shop yet, but its message is about helping us embrace our whole selves, dark and light. Let me know if you want some. I call it Erasure of Duality. It helps us own the darkest side of ourselves, integrate our most difficult experiences and calm our harshest judgments which depend on our belief in polarity. I shared the poem she offered me with the second tier and up of my Patreon supporters. You can get the full download here. I’d love it if you wanted to join me there!
So I’ve met myself whole, with the help of the plant realm, and I’m looking for words to describe what that feels like.
But this New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer has me also searching to answer other questions. Within this unity, who am I? Who am I without my stories and my past? Cancer is about home and mothering and I am home with my mother, watching how she mother’s herself, how I mother myself, and the connections between the two, seeing the old patterns of feeling and relating with my father. Who am I without the stories of my parents? I learned that until we are three, we share our energy centers with them, so any insecurities or lack of self-love of theirs become ours. Ancestors pass things on to us too, down the gene lines, the DNA chain. Who am I without the steps of my ancestors? Depending on how far back you go, we also share our DNA with the trees. My wholeness resides there I think, back in the time of slow plant evolution, back to soil and bark and loam.
A total solar eclipse feels like the end of the world in some ways. Slowly the sun goes dark. I remember a children’s book I had when I was small about some farm animals who become increasingly panicked at the growing dark. They gather together and tremble. And eclipse season is a time of deaths, people go, we let go. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my very elderly rabbit, and Cramp Bark showed me how death is inside all life. I am constantly dying to outdated versions of myself. It feels good to let these selves go, but then arises the fear of the unknown. What if the Sun doesn’t come back? In Cancer we can feel like children in need of safety and reassurance. Especially today. If I watch the news, it feels like we are only minutes away from certain and complete disaster. Yet I wake and the birds are singing. I feed them and I eat and sleep and dream. I meditate and write.
With these thoughts in mind I wrote a prayer for summer. Feel free to recite it daily to your garden, and to add your own stanzas.
A Prayer for Summer
May there always be
an abundance of birds
and the small insects
and larvae and caterpillars
they eat. May they always
mate and mate again,
nest and wait and feed
and nourish their young.
May there always be
moths beating their wings
at my window and
fireflies winking me to sleep.
May it always be hot
in the sun and then cool
in the shade or the lake
or river or pond or pool
before bed at twilight.
In the morning,
may the dew always come
to water the petals of my dreams.
May all things be allowed
to ripen and flourish and live.
May the peonies and the
lupines and the mallow
and the roses always say
there is more to come
more to come
more to come.
Cancer season also has me remembering and reading of how, as children, the gateways of our perception are open, and as we choose to open them again today, as if for the first time, there is the same awe and joy at what we find and see. This feeling comes first. I hope it still comes first for you, these ripening days.
Much love,
Amy
