it is as if my Entire Being breathes out a long long Sigh.  Now toward Light.   Soon enough dark will come four hours later.  Soon enough.

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they go in and out that little doorway,  just to enjoy again their new straw bedding.

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They were so mellow today.  Maybe they are like me.  Having some Goat thoughts about this day?  I spent a long time with them.  just sitting on the picnic table,  holding close, rubbing, scratching whoever came and there was no pushing or competition,  just a moving and changing of position.  I sang those songs of some other kind of language,  the songs they like to hear.  

i would like to be like this all the time … from November when that sense of contraction seems to begin…but i'm not.  And maybe i will just let that "demand"  go.  Maybe just accept that i just am not.  And simply wait for Solstice,  having Faith that it will come.  Maybe.

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i sat and looked a long time too at the Raft.  At the clumps of dried grasses.  All the dried Kochia is now pulled and gone.  Some would say to cut the grasses back but i know that they are winter shelter for Beings and i also like them in this seasonal form.

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all around,  in this Oasis,  Tay has changed things.  Pressed down the grasses like a deer would.  It's a small space but she has made trails through it.  It will be very different this coming spring.  After wintering with her presense.  I don't know what it will be like.

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I would like there to be SunFlowers here.  A lot.  I don't know if that will happen.

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maybe some Rocks will shelter seedlings?  Will hold water?

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i don't know.   Maybe.

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Half way up,  the colorful scraps.   They are from Nanette's  (stitchandsow-homeandgarden.blogspot.com).

,  from Nanette's pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash in Tibet last summer.  She saw them in a stream.  They had floated down from the Mountain and she asked permission to gather a few.  They are scraps from Prayer Flags.  She sent these Here.  I think how they began in Tibet,  arrived home with her in  Australia and now are here on this Raft.  I made Nettle tea this midmorning from Nettle leaves that Cynthia wild harvested in Vermont.  I sprinkled the spent leaves around the raft as a Blessing.  

And i realize how my "years" have come to go from Solstice to Solstice.  I am a SUN being,  of the Lizard Clan living in the body of a human woman.  So it goes.  I will think this year to accept parts of myself that are Inconvenient.  Just letting mySelf and everything go,  as is.

 

 

 

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29 responses to “Beloved SOLSTICE”

  1. Liz Avatar

    I am glad to know that you do not cut your grasses … we do the same and I’m never sure if it’s “best practice” but somehow it feels “right”
    And I am coming to a fuller appreciation of the solstices and equinoxes … how unifying they are, and unsullied by commercialism.

    Like

  2. hermosa Avatar
    hermosa

    Happy solstice to you Grace. It is my most favorite of holy days. The photos of the “Raft” are particularly drawing me with the beautiful cloth you have been stitching on now breathing fresh air of Solstice. And all the little tokens and offerings that ride upon the raft. And as I looked, I saw that you had a “Hung/ zen tambour”. Do you play it? It is ethereal. A very peaceful world view you have offered us today.
    thank you,
    hermosa

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  3. grace Avatar

    i appreciate, like in the fullest sense of that word, APPRECIATE
    your words here. Partly because it is the ending of this DAY and i am sitting
    here looking at this illuminated screen
    so to have another human appear is comforting
    but the words too, themselves, how do we do it?, always is the question.
    So many opinions but the sense of what it FEELS like????
    Yes. Solstice. Equinox. They are that Underlying Order. They are the
    Overlying Order. Having nothing at all to do with the small details, but
    rather the GRAND WORk

    Like

  4. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Worship is in just being. Solstice blessing on land and critters and on you dear Grace………
    This from a friend on FB:
    “Mine is a way that is little trod
    I am bound by no sect or creed:
    I say my prayers to Nature’s God
    In the field where the lapwings breed.
    I hear the wind preach and its psalms are sung
    In praise of the infinite free
    And ne’er a sermon from human tongue
    Is half so divine unto me.
    Ammon Wrigley
    1861-1946
    Saddleworth

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  5. grace Avatar

    This was to Liz

    Like

  6. grace Avatar

    i do. i do play it. I play it for the Sun. I play it for the grasses, for me, for the Goats. It is. it is Ethereal, other worldly
    of a different sense of things. Yes. I do.
    and i am thankfull that you come here with your words….Thank You

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  7. grace Avatar

    “is half so divine unto me”

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  8. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    yeah.
    grand work it is.
    the dried & lovely grasses. just to know that they are a home.
    & leave them .
    prayer flag scraps form another part of the world —
    nettle from another part of this country–
    i so love the notion of accepting our inconvenient parts–
    this year
    as the light returns–
    wishing you –& all who visit here ( & those who don’t )–
    a blessed time
    a time of love
    & peace
    xo

    Like

  9. grace Avatar

    judy…oh, Hey, judy
    our Inconvient parts….to just say OK to them. To look to the Seamless but not demand it. To ASPIRE to it? is it enough?, Maybe. and i guess it’s all i have to give in this moment. Just the Seeing. Just the Trying to Know.
    it makes me feel good that you appeared here

    Like

  10. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    oh i do think it is enough
    i think it must be
    it makes me happy that you are here
    maybe i will be less shy with the coming light.
    it was to you that i ever wrote words this way
    how many years ago–?
    a bunch i think

    Like

  11. grace Avatar

    judy…time is short. We Give what we Give. I am happy too, that you are here. Happy. to see your name here.
    to be less shy with the coming of This Year’s Light, then good.
    Why NOT?
    the LIGHT comes. Doesn’t it. For All of Us equal.
    it’s been a bunch of years. We are still here. Still leaning into the Light and still who we are. How really GOOD that is.
    I love you. yup. i do. and you coming here gives me GOODNESS.

    Like

  12. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    we are still here , leaning–
    & yup–
    i love you too
    we’ll see what happens with the shyness
    ( she said, smiling)

    Like

  13. ² Avatar
    ²

    yes time is short
    is something of the world
    give of the heart is for eternity
    is part of all there is
    is sn’t it
    the grasses that way i love it to
    we live a divine time

    Like

  14. Kathy dorfer Avatar
    Kathy dorfer

    A big happy solstice to you … Thanks for the goat in the bucket photo .
    It made my day ( :

    Like

  15. Deb G Avatar

    I read this last night and thought of you:
    “I don’t think writers should be too civilized, that they should be too much of the cities (which is what the word civilized means). I think they must, of necessity, live in the crucial but commonly overlooked transition zone that lies between human habitat and the wildness of the world, the place where wild plants exchange genome with their more domesticated cousins. I believe writers must travel into wilderness and bring back what they find, envelop it in words, and release it into the world.” Ensouling Language Stephen Harrod Buhner
    Wasn’t able to finish the book and can’t check it out from the library anymore. I’m adding this one to my “to-get” list I think.

    Like

  16. Liz Avatar

    I knew and was glad …

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  17. Liz Avatar

    The prayer flags make me wonder about the solace project … and your words …

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  18. Saskia Van Herwaarden Avatar

    ha, it would seem the beings are everywhere

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  19. Mo Crow Avatar

    what a beautiful day!

    Like

  20. Yvette Avatar

    you you you
    love the light!

    Like

  21. Els Avatar

    Happy Solstice Grace !
    Some bright and joyful last days of December and all the best for 2015
    (with sunflowers, and a lot of stitches !)

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  22. grace Avatar

    to live as the grasses do. Receiving the Given

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  23. grace Avatar

    Kathy and to You….
    that is a feed bowl. They often lay in them after everyone has
    eaten the feed. Goat nests.

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  24. grace Avatar

    I got that book and haven’t read it at all. Still working on
    Plant Intelligence. I loaned it to the friend up the Mountain
    who READS and she is loving it.

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  25. grace Avatar

    I haven’t even worked on that yet. When it’s time i will

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  26. grace Avatar

    more than we could even guess i think

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  27. grace Avatar

    and you.
    we do. love Light

    Like

  28. grace Avatar

    yes and to you Els….in the coming year…Love and Goodness

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