Last night I did a ritual and I feel changed.
I have not been doing enough ritual lately! I knew this. When The Moon showed up in my tarot card reading for the year, it sang to me that I am not marking the cycles of time with my intention. And what else is magic than marrying intention to action? It’s not easy… I mean, have you ever tried to set your mind to something and make it happen? Exercise more? Quit… anything? A habit, a person, a substance? Marrying intention to action is ritual, is magic.
Imbolc, yesterday, marks the halftway point between winter solstice and spring equinox. On winter solstice, the year ahead is a wish, an idea, a spark in the night. But Imbolc, now, this is a ritual of seeds. The time when you decide what small thing that is growing that you will commit yourself to.
Last year was such a whirlwind. Last year I experimented with so many different seeds – my garden was like what you get when you buy those packets of “mixed wildflower seed“ which sometimes are great, full of borage and calendula and lupine and everything blooms. I’ve heard that can happen, at least. But actually what I usually get with those seed packets is a few winners and a few weeds and a whole bunch of clovr, but you water is all because FOMO. That's what last year was like, I was furiously nurturing everything, not knowing what to keep and what to thin. This year, I know to what in mine to grow: it is the use of myth and story to reveal us to ourselves and each other. To free our voices, especially women’s, in this time of need.
So last night at my friend’s house, she cast the circle and we invoked the elements together, and invited in the Celtic Goddess Brigid, because poetry and smithcraft are always welcome, and because you can never have too much fierce compassion and because February 2nd is also called Brigid. And we invited in the predators who we are working with this year to help us become more active and skilled in the pursuit of our desire. And spider stepped in, who is the first storyteller, and owl, who asks “Who are you, now?” And offers me the power of the sword, which is the power of air, which is the power of words to define desire. Owl, who is not to be seen, and then is all you see and is irresistible.
She was there.
And spider was there.
And I was there, all of me, called in by ritual, by the act of making an intention that is sacred to me: to build my business so that it is fierce and strong and so fertile, powered by love and art, and easy. Not effortless, no, my efforts will be like owl’s. Precise and committed. But with a sense of ease.
Like a seed growing.
That’s what we did, we named our intentions and we charged a basket full of seeds. I chose sugar snap peas and snow peas and filled them with that working and let go of all that does not feed it.
And today, I planted the seeds. Because, as everyone knows, in Seattle you plant peas by Presidents Day. I went to the nursery and bought some more because peas like to be in tight company and had a lot of ground to cover. I cleared the path to my front door and also the earth beneath the pea poles. I painted those poles hot pink August before last, the year that passport trouble gave me a surprise retreat alone (glorious!) when I couldn’t cross the border for witch camp. I planted the seeds underneath those poles in the shapes of stars and as I traced them into the earth, I recited my intention for my business and my home and my life and felt it alive in me and as the weeks go forward, it will be alive in the land as I bring my vision alive with my will, my love and the actions of my body.
So mote it be.