Sage Moon, Silly Me

Waxing Moon, January 2015.

Lessons come, whether we knowingly seek them or not.

I did not make offerings this month, primarily because I was annoyed. Annoyed at the Moon.


Moon: fixed, bewildered, "Where are the offerings?"

Me: petulant, accusatory, "Where are the Lights, Ms. Moon?"


We have been fruitlessly chasing the Northern Lights across Anchorage for the past couple years. With a sudden coldsnap came crytal clear skies & the promise of their spectacle. The Aurora Borealis; heavenly, spectral rains emitting galactic silence. They are among the most incomprehensibly surreal things I have ever seen & not heard. 

At the advisement of our Aurora Alert app (oh, those insipid smarty-pants phones...) we geared up & set off for the bluffs overlooking the mouth of the Turnagain Arm. Blustery as always are these bluffs -- this visit, their blustery waxed bittery thanks to the chafing, stinging cold. The children, such troopers, were driven onward by the promise of finally experiencing what they have only seen in pictures -- a sky filled with solar ribbon candy, sheets of sparkling, coloured stardust falling to meet them. 

But, THAT MOON.

Aurora chasing.

Standing on the bluff, tediously nipped by the winds, we could see the futility of our foray & everything else, thanks to THAT MOON. 

Moon-tans, maybe Moon-blindness in the making.

Gah! That Moon!


But the next morning She humbled us with Her gloriousness, so much so that Hubby felt compelled to drag me from bed in the darkness of the 8 or 9 o'clock hour to witness Her night's finale as She drifted behind the neighbor's house on the much-further-than-opposite side of the sky from which She rose...

And in Her descent, She was ferocious.

And yet the lesson was not yet over. (Over the years, I have realized this is how She works, yet I always seem to forget.)


This morning in the gloom of daybreak, She persisted even until the Sun's tendrils tentatively felt their way over the mountainous horizon. There She was, fat & sassy, slung low over the airport for everyone to see. 

Moon: Fat & sassy as seen from the hoarfrosted edge of Lake Hood.

And despite the insanity of trying to perpetrate photography in the mannerless cold, I felt an irrational desire to chase Her further.

Still dissatisfied, I parked in a government lot at the furthest point of the lake shore drive to get one last series of shots. But as I stepped out of the car I saw it.

Wonderland.

There was no way to capture the resplendence of this fleeting place with a lens made from inorganic matter. A row of hoarfrost laden Birch in the earliest dawn -- perhaps more akin to twilight -- illuminated by high pressure sodium lights anchored at the strangest angle. It was like being inside a hanging garden of ice-bound fractals. I felt dwarfed & lost among them. And I wished I could fly, not like a bird, but like a moth...

However, had I been a moth I would have frozen instantly.

I could have lingered indefinitely on the ground in the crunchy snow surrounded by that fantasy land, forgetting myself, save for the fact that the cold was seeping through my jeans into my knees. So I reluctantly made my way back to the car & there She was, bold & almost blood red, as if to emphasize that Her point had been made.

Shivering like mad, I set the camera on the roof of the car & willed my frozen fingers to push the button.

Yes, Lady Moon, you too are worth chasing.

Every damn time.

For Birch Goddess, the Helper.

I could have forwarded this via Spaceface or Booglemail, but I thought someone else might enjoy the story/blog & I wanted to save it "for the files." 

Besides, I dislike leaving this little corner of the ether.

Sat down to write about animism & fluffy bunnies this morning & saw this post by the Sensual Animist: "The Legend of the Birch Tree." It could have been written about you, except that it is very, very old. But, then again, perhaps it was.

The Priestess's Path between the pillars, by Moma.

When the Land Greets You Back. Part 1

Remains of 2011 Autumn Harvest Circle offerings.

As I grow older, I become less & less convinced that coincidence is a common occurrence.

Several weeks ago now, as part of my efforts to greet the Land, I visited the site where I had attended a women's circle last Autumn. There, I had left an offering on behalf of my entire family, the remains of which I suspected might still be lingering about on the forest floor. I am not entirely sure what drew me there, but I think I was hoping to recapture some of the magic of that evening & to reconnect with a familiar space & a fond memory.

When the Land greets you back, more often than not, It catches you unawares. This is the joy of it, is it not?

Rambling over the slight drop & descending into the cluster of trees where our rite had been held, our feet crunched in the dried leaves that carpeted the ground about us. It had been very dry those first weeks after we arrived. Advancing closer, I could see bits of our offering peeking from the undergrowth at the base of the old birch tree. We stopped short however, because a few feet from our goal, my eyes fell upon this vision in white:

The glamour slime (Fuligo spp.?). 

A luscious, flawless, wet beauty, making her way across the parched & crispy litter -- litter which was more akin to bran flakes than last year's leaves. What the helvella? 

I wondered where she was going in this forbidding, desiccated place, but then decided that was her business. My business was to revel in her sheer awesomeness. Slime moulds are rockstars. You don't bother with the how's & the why's, you just revel in their glamour because it will most likely be lost to you tomorrow. We gushed & played paparazzi for the beauty queen, then we left her to her travels... 

The perfect greeting. The perfect gift. Few things can make me feel so welcome, so celebrated, so at home. The Land knows these things, but how?

Poetry for the Esbat: Mourning Moon 2011

How quickly the months roll by. I find myself a bit taken aback that this is already the fifth Esbat since I began quietly writing here in this corner of the ether. I look out the window this afternoon & see a wall of snow-covered birch trees. They seem to be huddling closer together these days. Is it for warmth? Or are they still unused to the silence?

November brings us the Mourning Moon, or as the Farmer's Almanac calls it, the Frost Moon, or Beaver Moon. According to the almanac, this was once the time when beaver traps were set (before the water froze) or, possibly it was because this was when the beavers were observed beginning their winter preparations. I made a cursory search for the origins of the name "Mourning Moon," but I only found discussions about it being a time of letting go. Perhaps you know its beginnings?

For this Esbat, I selected a poem that speaks to me not just about our luminescent Lady's face, but the quality of season, the bare trees, the changes & the moods they invoke. It speaks to my last walks only a short week or two ago. How I already miss my wanderings.

Solitude Late at Night in the Woods, by Robert Bly

The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!

My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.

It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odors that partridges love.

Blessings to you this Esbat my friends.

Wandering: Procession

From the bluff above, I imagined a sacred procession...

Sunset over the Cook Inlet, Anchorage, Alaska.

I must have forgotten myself for a moment, soon remembering that every step we walk on this Earth is sacred.

Wandering: The Priestess's Path

I went wandering with the wee ones recently & on this particular jaunt, I found myself thinking of a friend of mine. When you enter the park from our direction, you have to navigate a steep hill that drops into a dense stand of birch trees -- it was undoubtedly the trees that made me think of her. There was a special quality in the air that day & I found myself looking up at the trees, not at the ground where my beloved fungi generally dwell. I was preoccupied with the trees & not at all invested in seeking mushrooms. As we walked, I paused to photograph the towering birch & I remember thinking how odd it was, those trees, that day, how odd that I was so charmed by them.

Then I came upon it. The path. The path I passed nearly every day with little care to notice, had taken on a new quality, a depth of meaning I could not quite articulate.

So I took a photo & said to the Little Lad, "This is perfect for her. This is her path."

It was only after I opened the image files & began to make enhancements that I saw it. There was a deeper message & a symbolic richness to the image I captured, something to be unraveled, made sense of -- this was not just a path amid the birch trees.

If you are not familiar with the Tarot, card number II, The Priestess, is frequently depicted as a woman/priestess/popess, etc. seated between two pillars. The pillars have many symbolic interpretations; they might be white & black, with 'J' & 'B' upon them representing Jachin & Boaz of the Temple of Solomon, they can be dark & light, representing night & day, or they might represent two disparate choices. Some view them as the Pillars of Wisdom from The Tree of Life while others believe they represent the seen & unseen, or the aspects of female & male. The interpretations abound, but the universal agreement is that the Priestess serves as the link; the bridge, the moderator, the central pillar, the balancing force between two opposing sets of conditions.

The Priestess is serene, almost impassive. She sits in the balance; objective, perceptive. Her card represents many things, among them, esoteric study & learning. She is a symbol of gnosis gained through feminine intuition & a symbol of initiation into wisdom. Her mysteries are those of woman & of goddess. The complexity & abundance of what can be learned from her path cannot be overestimated. She offers fearsome trials, the rewards of which are measureless.

With Photoshop, I confess to some limited talents. However, I made only very minor adjustments to this photograph. I cropped it to center the path more squarely in the middle, used a dry brush artist filter (for the paint-like texture) & then intensified the tones/hues. The trees did all the work. How & why they grow like this -- a pointed duality along the path -- I can only wonder.

Perhaps you too recognize this path, perhaps you are walking it, or have walked it at some time in this life. Consider yourself among the most fortunate. As for my friend, she will know this piece is for her, she will recognize the path. I take no credit for this message. I am just a person with a camera, a wanderer. A wanderer deeply honored to be the the courier & interpreter for this communiqué from the gods. Blessed Be, my friend.

Wandering: Dryad's Wand

Yesterday while wandering with the babes, we came upon this birch beauty. It struck me as though some dryad had carelessly staked her wand into the ground, perhaps for later use, perhaps forgotten. Adorned with the pretty little polypores that spiral & crown it, the abandoned tool awaits the return of its missing magus.