My Garden, My Soul, Part 21~ The Virtues of Herbs – Healing and Sensuous Seasonings

 

On the virtues of the herb Lemon Balm~ “It maketh one merry” ~ Hildegard of Bingen

Morning tea blend from my garden: Nettle, red clover, mugwort

On the virtues of the herb Lemon Balm~ “It maketh one merry” ~ Hildegard of Bingen   *(to be in a merry state is an important component of good health)

There is something particularly magical about Herb gardens and in particular, something mythically magical about Gardeners themselves who raise, tend and wisely use these herbs for the making of herbal teas and potions for healing.Those who knew and still do know about the inherent powers in the plants that offer healing to both creatures and humans alike were both admired and feared and in older times, labeled as wisewoman or witch for their knowledge of the secrets of Nature. What is odd about this view is that the healing powers in the herb gardens was also a tradition kept alive by monks of the medieval Catholic Church as apothecaries in their monasteries, most of which had impressive herb gardens to care for both the monks and the villagers where they lived. The awesome Benedictine  abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) amongst her other extraordinary gifts of music, writing, visions, prophecies and teaching, in her later years wrote three books of medicine based in the medieval use of herbalism and the greeningspirit (veriditas) energies of Nature.

 

Herbal wise woman

 

 

 

Brother Cadfael in his herbal apothecary

I have always felt like that magical wise woman as I tended the many herbs both medicinal and culinary in my gardens. Moving amongst them, gathering them, LISTENING to them, using them,  always stirs my imagination and images of ancient times dimly remembered and seemingly familiar. A felt-sense of history/HERstory. A scriptural quote that was presented to me serendipitously seemed apropos to this experience:

  “And the Holy One says ‘Stand at the crossroads and look, asking for ancient paths where the good way lies. And walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’ ”  ~ Jeremiah 6:16

The herb garden with its ancient paths and ever-present healing gifts is certainly a good way to follow!

 

 

 

Borage (for courage!)

 

 

Echinacea and Milkweed in my garden

 

 

Mugwort and red clover in my garden

BUT herbs have another virtue and that is saved for the kitchen and those of us who love to cook and adore delicious food! The herb garden is a scentuous symphony of flavors to tempt and delight even the most jaded or bored eater! Basils, rosemary, sage, chervil, lemon verbena, the thymes, sweet marjoram and oregano, chives, caraway and of course, the heavier spices from bark and seeds imported from faraway exotic places not near or backyard gardens. Fresh or dried they make us hungry for beauty on the tongue and for the tummy and stimulate creative cooking for ourselves or as loving gifts for family and friends! Or even a delicious tea to sip while reading a good book! A kitchen without bouquets of herbs on the counter or collections in the cabinet tells me much about who cooks dinner regularly or orders take-out!

 

 

My special herbal vinegar with lovage, garlic and hot pepper

 

 

Chives in my garden

 

 

 

 

Tomato, Basil and Cheese  Quiche

Spearmint, lemon balm and rose petal tea

    Whether you include herbs for either medicinal or culinary projects, know that you are entering a truly magical time filled with ancient secrets and wisdom… enjoy and share these virtues with others whom you love and treasure! In fact all herbs are a mixture of both medicine and food… you can’t lose either way…you bring the gift of love and healing from your garden of herbs!

Other herbal post on the Greening Spirit:

Mugwort Magic and Medicine!

Herbal Love #1: Finding My Plant Spirit Guide- MUGWORT

Herbal Love #2: Mugwort, Dreams and Dreamers Tea

Herbal Fantasies: A Lady’s Tea Recipe #1

Herbal Fantasies: A Magical Big-Hearted Tea

From Christine, the Greening Spirit

I invite you to visit my other blogs for recipes, inspiration and music!

http://sensuoussoupsandsuppers.wordpress.com    (Tomato, Basil and Cheese Quiche)

http://pianomistress.wordpress.com

http://thewinterkitchenfarmacy.wordpress.com  (Herbal Fire Cider Recipe)

http://wordmagicandthelawofattraction.wordpress.com

 

 

My Garden, My Soul: Part 19 ~ When the Plant Faeries Brought Me a Gift (another true story)

 

Many years ago when my gardens surrounded the house and I was traveling to Vermont one long weekend a month for an herbal internship with the beloved herbal teacher, Rosemary Gladstar, I learned about the virtues of the amazing healing plant, St Johnswort. We collected and studied its wonders there on Sage Mountain in Vermont, growing in the wild rather than  in the gardens themselves, and for me, it was so exciting to learn of this plant and I was eager when I returned to my own home on the coast of RI to find it and make that wondrous blood- red healing oil for bruises and wounds from the leaves and flowers.

I had never seen it in my area before, but back home I took long walks around my country neighborhood and nearby fields and wild places and along the wooded borders of my own “yarden”  every day for several days, following the exact same route each time as well as other new ones. I could not find it ANYWHERE.

Disappointed after several days of unrewarded searches, I sat on the front steps of my cottage and pondered. And then…and thennnnnn….. the thought came to me to ASK “the Universe” or more specifically, the Faeries/Devas in charge of St. Johnswort to help me out …to lead me to where I might find this bright yellow healing ally to make medicine for good causes. I asked most humbly…and then got up to do the ordinary, non-magical tasks of life, letting that thought and request go as I busied myself with other things.

It was only two days later (no more searching) that while walking down off my back deck into my garden along the back border next to the woods..right THERE!..in full view…was one little cluster of St. Johnswort with yet unopened buds and bright yellow blossoms in full bloom.  One plant only in a spot where daily I entered my garden plot from the rear and which was mowed down. It had not been there previously.

To say I was stunned is no overstatement, followed by laughter..out loud. Like this is not a new thing for me, these surprises and responses from the natural world and those unseen Beings who take delight in gifting those of us with good hearts alive with humility and respect for Nature’s magic and generosity. Thank you, thank you I said…also out loud…appreciating this gift and the playful humor that accompanied its appearance.

That afternoon and the next day, just as a test, I once again made the rounds of the places I had been searching for a St. Johnswort plant in the first place…. And there were NONE to be found anywhere. Only in that one special spot at the edge on MY garden.

Yes this is another TRUE story. Try it yourself when on a plant search and wildcrafting. This is an indigenous way of communication. Be of good heart and always with the sincerest humility and the Faeries, Devas and Angels will hear you!

Humility ~ having a proper sense of self in a Universe of Wonders ~Sr. Joan Chittister, OBM

    Virtues of St. Johnswort

If one looks closely at the leaves of St. Johnswort you will notice tiny little dots that when rubbed between the fingers release a blood red oil..the flowers do this also. Collecting the flowers and leaves of this herbal ally, covering and steeping them in a good quality olive oil for a couple of weeks will produce a deep blood-red oil that is used on bruises and wounds. The plant taken long-term is also a helper for depression although for this purpose a standardized preparation in pill form from an herbal pharmacy is more effective.  However, making the oil is empowering and magical and really does work for skin irritations and bruised boo-boos! The flowers can also be used as a summer tea..a cup of sunshine!

 

St. John’s wort flowers macerating in oil, to prepare a herbal remedy

May you enjoy communicating with the Faeries, Devas and Angels in your own searching!

from  Christine Phoenix Green, the Greening Spirit  2020

Please check out my other blogs for recipes, inspiration and music:

http://sensuoussoupsandsuppers.wordpress.com

http://thewinterkitchenfarmacy.wordpress.com

http://thewinterkitchenfarmacy,wordpress.com

http://pianomistress.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Garden, My Soul- Part 2: The Virtues of Borage

The Virtue of Humility:  “Having the proper sense of oneself in a universe of wonders!” ~ Sister Joan Chittister

Those whose gardens are the sanctuaries of herbs know that humility is a Virtue.  We often refer to herbs and their “virtues”, a medieval usage of  the word, describing their merits and usefulness subtly hidden in their at-a-first-glance smallness. Theirs is a humility defying the flashiness of showy and commanding Divas, but instead, tended in the green world by the elusive but ever present plant “Devas” whose mission it is to oversee and communicate the virtues inherent in each plant. Indeed that humility might almost render a clump of borage invisible except for tiny quick flashes of blue if we are moving through the garden mindlessly and in a hurry.

The herbal kindom require us to slow down and practice the soul-virtues of stillness and deep seeing. Looking closely into a patch of tiny blue flowers amongst their soft but prickly leaves, we observe a tiny magnificence of color, complexity and imaginative shape. The borage flowers are beautiful…another of the plants that exhibit the 5-pointed star in its form. If we moved quickly and mindlessly by a patch of this plant, as so many humans do in our largeness and speed, we might miss the complex but delicate blossom design.

Borage has many “virtues” and gifts for us. An herb of “good cheer”, it was thought to dispel melancholy and pensiveness (Culpepper) which actually happens when taking a true look at its richly colored flowers and their display.

A slight taste of cucumber in its leaves and blossoms offers a cooling effect…it can be used as a tea, or added to salads.

Herbs and their uses come in and out of favor in different time periods, but truly their virtues are always present whether acknowledged or not. I find that something shifts and awakens in me when I am hanging out with the herbs…something mysterious, wondrous, and alive…as if under an enchantment.

Enchantment… a virtue of Soul accessed through the magic of deep-seeing and discernment.  A rather nice way to live….whether one be a a plant or a person.

*** These pictures were taken in the garden of good friends….

From Christine, the Greening Spirit

     Hopefully, my other blogs will enchant you as well!

http://pianomistress.wordpress.com

http://sensuoussoupsandsuppers.wordpress.com

http://wordmagicandthelawofattraction.wordpress.com

Top of the Dune

Yesterday, a need to get out in Nature, to the sea, to the shore even though the colors of a snow-less winter so far are mostly of a brown, and black palette.

Apparently, many people had the same idea. At one of our lovely beaches here on the coast of New England, this one a little on the wilder side, looking down at ground level in the parking lot I saw that it was as busy here as the moving traffic in town.

But…

Stillness at the top of the dune.

Because of the lighting and the grey storm sky and the seasonal dying of the beach grass, the whole horizontal dunescape was an eerie yellow…

I am not sure why I respond so intensely to this season of letting go, finding beauty in its stark silence and the experience of quiet solitude. Maybe it’s because I believe in Mystery.

Christine, The Greening Spirit

 

 

 

Noni’s Tigers

Over the years, I have had a number of powerful dreams with Tigers, cougars, panthers, lions or other big cats. In some dreams they were accompanying me as protective guides, in others I was being pursued by or hiding from them. A most important and unforgettable dream was an”assignment” dream in which I was given a black and white picture of a face with tiger-like markings on it and told to color it in and access its power…to take on its likeness in my life. (more on that in an upcoming post).

I don’t live in Africa, India or the Amazonian rainforest. I live in New England on the coast and these big cats are not indigenous to this area. They come and visit me from the mysterious lands of the Unconscious and they seek me out to relay important messages and guidance for my path in life and situations that need me to access or express sensuality, inner power, direction and leadership. They in the dreams are NOT caged, captive and pacing with blocked energy. They are free, flowing with the life force and doing whatever they are supposed to be doing with intense focus life force.

One year at a medieval fair there was a stage performance with the big cats. When a tiger came out and across the stage in front of me, I was stunned by its SIZE and its powerful rippling muscles. I was totally in awe. And I was also terrified to be so close to such raw power and I moved way to the back..you know…just in case something unexpected went awry. Being so close to the LIVE energy of such animal magnificence literally took my breath away for the moment.

Well, the big cats live on their own terms in my dreamworld but it is no mere coincidence that for many years I had these two tigers at the foot of my bed as guardians and “familiars”.  The orange one was male and the white, a female. They sometimes startled friends who entered my room to leave their coats on the bed during a visit or evening dinner ..they looked so real!

However, my grandchildren were fearless with these big cats and brought them out to the living room whenever they came.

“Noni’s Tigers” were always a special part of the family visits. Though they are way too big to sit on and play with them now, hopefully they will always remember that the tigers were part of the magic of Noni’s home.

A year ago on one of the family visits we went to a local arcade for miniature golf and games. Inside the venue was a merry-go-round  with a magnificent tiger to ride … a simple but wonderful old-fashioned fun experience complete with music and flashing lights and various colorful animals to sit upon.

Yes, the tiger was my favorite and also a wonderful subject to photograph, reminiscent of simpler times, simpler pleasures…  and pure magic while we play. Adults and children together.

Things are different now. My house is gone, I live in a lovely but small apartment and my “Noni’s tigers” are all wrapped up and in a storage unit along with many things I need to release and let go of. There is simply no room.The grandchildren no longer ask for the tigers and living in two different states are very busy now with growing up responsibilities and are not able to visit very often. But…

…. maybe I should surprise them. Maybe I should go to the storage and bring the tigers home to my apartment at least for the next time they do come. To see what will happen. Will they laugh and remember? I think they will. Part of our story. They NEED to remember in a culture that moves WAY too fast with too much irrelevant input.

I have not had a tiger visit me in my dreams recently for the past year or so. But in my experience, when I talk of these things, it calls images back in. I suspect I may have a Tiger dream soon because I “remembered”  them here and because courage and self-empowerment is a lifelong work.

Yes, Noni’s Tigers are going to come and visit in my dreams…and here! (going to the storage unit tomorrow brintog them back home…!

From Christine, the Greening Spirit

“Write the truth”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World I Live in

 

Lately, my spiritual peer mentoring group and I have been discussing how our concept or image of God has changed as we have gotten older. Most of us have originally come from traditional religious roots but over the course of our lives and especially in our eldering years, many of us have come to a point of questioning all that was programmed into us by church, family or state.

This of course is not true for everybody who are comforted by the same images for a lifetime. But in my particular world I guess we are a circle of quiet rabble rousers.. some might also, fearing our quest for fresh images of the Divine, call us heretics!

But that is only the name given to seekers and those who question, by others for whom there is only one TRUE story, tradition or concept of how we got here, why we are here, who in the Divine World made it all happen and who is listening when we are called to prayer. To think that no one is listening is to all of us, a heart-rending if not dreadful thought. But we pray anyway because we are “called to prayer” and love the invitation, but sometimes our prayer starts “Here I am… and to Whom it May Concern …. ” because Patriarchal concepts of the Masculine Divine do not fit with our lived spiritual experience any more.

It would certainly be easier and more comforting if we KNEW for sure who was listening,  or if we were not bothered by just speaking the traditional prayers addressing the Heavenly Power(s) by rote. But alas, we are in between what was and what might be, these Prayers that include the words, “what if?” and “maybe”.

For myself, I have found that talking in prayer to the Saints (who once had a human experience) inspires me, and even more personally, also praying to my Angels ie My Guardian Angel, and my Library Angel  (who might be one and the same), they  who constantly bring the Light of Guidance or Protection or hints of what I need to investigate next for my best unfolding and Destiny. I know when it happens that they have heard  because if those mysterious synchronicities that make me smile, if not laugh out loud catching me by surprise on the almost immediate heals of my prayers or beseeching. My Angels though engaged in serious work, ever have a playful sense of humor in their high Service with me.

I have also found comfort especially in sad times to image the Angels weeping with us in times of personal or communal grief. And there is much for which to grieve right now in our society.

Several years ago there was something going round the internet… an experience of sending a team of Angels to each other…the “story” was that there was a special team of Angels going to the homes of those they were sent to and would stay for seven days. We who were hosting were to set up an altar with white candles and fresh white flowers before and during their (invisible) stay. Our prayers during that time would be carried heavenwords in a special way.

It was a lovely experience for those who participated in this little spiritual ritual.. Perhaps the key word is “Maybe” but whether or not the Angels were actually in our homes for those seven days,  our personal vibration was lifted higher, WE  were changed and inspired to be like kindly Angels to those around us and in our own environments for the betterment of all.

If that team of heavenly spirits, the Traveling Angels, are still on the move I wish that they would be sent to me once again for these are challenging times.

For those of us who in these times are uncertain as to who is actually listening when we send our “thoughts and prayers” outward and upwards , I sense that the Angels MAY be (Maybe) eternally present to companion us and deliver our lamentations where they need to go.

And I am going with that!

This poem by Mary Oliver just most recently and  rather serendipitously “appeared in my life …(did one of the Angels send this for my awareness while I question who is listening to my prayers?)

  The World I Live In

I have refused to live

locked in the ordinary house of reasons and proofs.

The world I live in and believe in

is wider than that. And anyways,

what’s wrong with Maybe? 

You wouldn’t believe what once

or twice I have seen. I’ll just

tell you this:

only if there are angels in your head, will you

ever, possibly, see one.

                                                       ( my ballerina grandaughter )

 

 

From Christine, the Greening Spirit

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clay: Shaping Sacred Sanctuary in the Cave of the Heart

One of the loveliest meditation practices in retreat work is praying with clay, a medium whose primary virtue is its ability to be shaped by the intent of the artist whose hands are able to bring imagination, warmth and life from a seemingly inert, cold and compact ball of earth.

In the retreat experience, the prayer that often accompanies this centering and contemplative “shaping” experience is drawn from Old Testament scripture (Jeremiah) in which we are encouraged to be like clay in the hands of God, the Master Potter, allowing ourselves to be formed into goodness by the guidance of the Divine.

Clay is also a therapeutic tool in retreats for Healing and Wholeness aside from a religious focus although such healing often includes a deep spiritual sense of awe and relief that can border on the miraculous. In such exercises, a story from our lives that is painful or un-healed can be crafted into an image that holds and carries our experience so that we ponder it and receive insight, release, and movement into re-creation. As we shape the clay with intent, we may also re-shape our lives when it is necessary to let go of the old forms that have lost their purpose.

Many years ago when I was going through a very intense period of loss…divorce, single parenting, challenging financial survival while crafting a self-employed music teaching career.. I sought inspiration, support, deepening and sanctuary in a long-term program of training in retreat work at a wonderful nearby Catholic Retreat Center.

During one of the retreats on healing and wholeness, we worked with clay as a meditation. Desperately needing to be centered and still, coming in from a noisy, chaotic,  confusing, challenge-filled personal world that needed re-shaping for the survival of my children and myself, I took that cold ball of clay and worked it until all that pain and broken-hearted-ness entered it and became the clearest answer to what I needed for healing, comfort and clarity:  a cave/womb of refuge and sanctuary in which sacred silence, stillness and chosen periodic solitude would be the best medicine.

For whatever reason, I crafted on the back outside wall of this Cave, this Sanctuary, snakes which originally I think symbolized the challenges I was dealing with, and the safety of my sacred shelter in keeping them outside until I knew how to work with them. Yet over the years, those snakes have become instead, Guardians of the Goddess, protecting me and that sacred space ..the cave of my Heart where much of my work in the world has been crafted.

I also remember that at the time of this shaping, the little figure who was ME, had her hands over her eyes..and though over the years that has come to mean shutting out worldly distractions in order to dive deeply into the cave of my heart for Wisdom, during that initial time of crafting this image, the hands over the eyes symbolized the intense grief and the weeping I could not allow myself to do in real life with its demanding immediate responsibilities because I always had to be “on”.

However, that is all past now and there have been many many happinesses and blessings since then, as well as the inevitable periodic challenges and losses that are always a part of life. But over the years, this little ME image has traveled with me through all the chapters of my book of life, reminding me to take the time for withdrawing from the chaos of a conflicted world and particularly at this time of our deteriorating political national culture.

For me, the snakes are still Guardians, protecting the need for silence and stillness to Discern Truth, BUT these days when shifting focus, those snakes also symbolize the Lies and Deceptions that are rampant right now in our media culture and  socio-political landscape and must be kept outside, being agents of Soul pollution.

I has been a long time since I have worked with clay and sculpted images that have beauty and power for transformation. But I DO have a packet of clay here, just waiting to be touched and warmed into life. Like what happens each time I sit down to write an essay initially not knowing what it will actually be about, I am ready to be just as surprised (and informed) when that clay comes alive under my fingertips!

I love surprises.

From Christine, the Greening Spirit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tartalina and the Priestess: Musings on an Unusual Valentine’s Day

It is Valentine’s Day today and at this particular time in my life, I am once again my own Valentine, as I have been over the past several years. I am also at a time of looking backwards, mindfully pondering where I have been in my life, where I am, presently, in the very much appreciated NOW, and lingering with questions regarding where I am headed in the future, next, in this still unknown third chapter of life.

I have been child, teenager, girlfriend, wife, lover, Mother, Professional, Grandmother. I have been many things at various stages, overlaying one onto the other like those Russian dolls that nest within each other, starting small and growing larger with each new role. I have been them all and today on a rather unusually configured Valentine’s Day culturally, astrologically and spiritually, I especially ponder the “me” that has been both Tartalina, and Priestess.

Two things: Today’s Valentine’s Day also falls on the day of Ash Wednesday. From an astrological/archetypal point of view, this is a rather interesting mix:  An “8th House” mix for those who speak and understand the poetic language of astrology.

The” 8th House”  is about several things but commonly  sex and death are initially considered.  Today’s Valentine’s Day oddly contains both themes for those who honor or ritualize both the popular cultural theme of romance and the more serious spiritual and religious consideration of death. This Valentine’s day offers us the opportunity to consider both sex/love and death as important and transformative experiences with the invitation to fully embrace Life.

In sex/love, the heart is opened and beating with Life, passion and connection. In death, the heart and beating are closed and earthly connection is released. In sex and love we can be healed but also we can be wounded which when lost, is like a death. In death, we if spiritually inspired, dream or believe our spirits move into a place of total love and merging with the All. Ash Wednesday reminds us of that return back to from where we came.

Big things to ponder here.

But now back to Tartalina and the Priestess.

A number of years ago, a dear artist Friend named Madeline, gifted me on my birthday with a doll she made to celebrate the qualities of the sacred feminine and love of ritual that we both share. The Priestess doll represents the spiritual quality of  the Virgin-One-Unto-Herself experience and knowing that is in every woman, some of us a little more aware than others of the sacred times of ritual, connection to the holiness/wholiness of the earth, the seasons , the phases of the moon and planets and the many seasons and moods within us. This beautiful doll with the golden hair representing the return of Spring’s bright sun in the month of May (my birthday month) and the waning moon on her forehead foreshadowing release and letting go speak to the same qualities that we experience in our lives.  There is much to ponder in the symbolism that Madeline placed artfully onto the Priestess Doll.  The Priestess is all knowing of the cycles of life …birth, the fullness of Life,  and death along the continuum of our time here. She knows we come from ashes and to ashes we shall return.   And I am her.

The other doll is “Tartalina”, made in a private workshop Madeline gave to me and another close friend of hers. Both myself and that friend were coming out of complex and  passionate love affairs that broke our hearts and we were in great need of healing.

When coming out of a passionate relationship that has been “the best and worst thing that every happened to us”,  there is a decision to be made in the grief process as to whether we close our hearts totally in renunciation and self protection, or to, after a time, keep our hearts open to the new, to risk love once again despite having been wounded.

I created “Tartalina” to hold that broken heart open in love and understanding, and to honor the alive passionate sensual part of my nature that is as holy and private as my deepest spirituality. She is about owning and loving the sacred, mischievous, naughty, physical, spicy, tart-like feminine expression that is pure sensual delight. I created her to be beautiful and earthy with her long legs delicately imprinted with garden vines and green hair of nature and veriditas for these are earthly as well as spiritual powers. She is a Valentine. And I am her.

I am Tartalina and Priestess combined and in this middle phase of the blessed “NOW” between the remembrances of the Past and the as-yet unknown answers of the Future, I honor and love them both, knowing I can call their qualities and virtues back in whenever necessary.

An incredible Love Story: The Artist is Present: As she sits  silently for eight hours  looking into the eyes  of anyone who wishes to be seen, she is startled when an important lover from the past takes the chair in front of her. Deeply moving.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day to me! …and with love to all of you as well!

From Christine, the greening spirit

 

 

Winter Has Fallen Asleep!

Doesn’t it seem like Winter is endless this year? Cold, dark, windy, FOREVERRrrrrr!

I think Old Man Winter has fallen asleep in the woods and I hope he has not forgotten in his dreams that Spring is waiting impatiently to bring color back onto Earth’s canvas.

There has not been a lot of snow, but this HAS been a grey Winter in many of our spirits these days, with the intense flu season and especially the political upheavals, disarray and FROZEN icy heartless souls in power at the top in our government  right now who are stealing the lushness that belongs to all of us.

If we who believe in Spring don’t lose hope that all will dark, cold and seemingly life-less forever, if there are enough of us to soon, if not already, stir the soil, clang the pots and bells, sing songs and recount stories of our most colorful and generous dreams, then surely the green-ness, the “veriditas”, the flowers of freedom, as well as the Earth, will return in Spring.

Old Man Winter actually does know this.

As the Celtic poet Priest John O’Donohue has said:

“If and when  you are in a bleak time, remember this: The secret work of winter…is..Spring”

May it be so (as it always has been….)

From Christine, the Greening Spirit

 

 

 

Puddle Trees

There are days and seasons when the world is grey. Days when the natural winter of the earth as well as the winter of our situations and spirits have almost drained us of energy and color.

And yet… hiding away from it is not the answer. Grey is a time offering its own virtues… releasing the judgemental nature of black and white, softening the edges of the ego, gently demanding patience until color begins to return to both our environment and our lives.

What always helps me in the grey times is to get out and meet it on its own terms, fully accepting and learning from it by a WALK in nature.

On this one particular day when I’d had enough of staying inside in inclement weather, I went out…bundled up of course…after the rain that was melting snow. There was mist and fog both ascending and descending, and lots of puddles.

As always, my camera was with me though I did not think I would see anything of worth or beauty in such seemingly bland landscape. But you know, it also pays to be awake to possible surprises, even in the grey times, and experience has taught me that we are never disappointed.

And there they were….everywhere. Puddle Trees!  Watery Reflections …or maybe invitations/magical portals to another dimension beneath ours if one could dive in to see what all this grey-ness was really about.

It is a worthy practice to once in a while look at things from another perspective. In the tarot there is a Major Arcana card called “The Hanging Man” depicting a man swinging upside down from the limb of a tree. He is not in trouble…just seeing things from an upside down perspective to consider things or situations in a new way.

The Puddle Trees are a little like that.  A sort of fairy tale to ponder with several secret lessons to be revealed in meditation.

I was delighted with my “find”  and had fun meeting the Grey in a new (upside down) way!

From Christine, the Greening Spirit