A Day of Tea and Reading

Blessings, Darlings!

The day started with a thunderstorm.  Then just rain.  And it's still cool, cloudy, damp, and windy.  A raw day. We've more than enough leftovers that I don't need to cook dinner tonight.  I've done some housecleaning already.

It's time to sit in a chair with a cup of tea and read.  I'm starting with re-reading parts of H. Byron Ballard's "Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time" (and given our times, I suggest that all y'all read her Tower Time documents) and then try to catch up on reading and practicing the lessons I signed up for from Jason Miller (I'm doing his Strategic Sorcery course.)

I have decided that I need a tea cozy for my tea pot. Having Covid-unemployment, buying one is not in the stars right now. But I have bubble wrap left over from having moved. Using that and tape, I'm making my own. If I can find some velcro in my sewing supplies, that would be a nice touch, too, otherwise I'll need to add a ribbon tie or buttons.

And that, my friends, is our Arts and Crafts class for today.

 

Frondly, Fern

 

The Waters of Avalon

Blessings Darlings!

There is a pagan chant, a filk of the hymn "Waters of Babylon" that is based on Psalm 137:1, that has been running thru' my mind this week.

"By the waters, by the waters, by the waters of Avalon,
We lay down and wept, and wept, for this aeon.
We remember, we remember, we remember Avalon"

Rivers.  Weeping. Remembering. 

I grew up in the Chicago area.  Hymns - either Judeo-Christian-Islamic or Pagan - that referred to 'going up on the mountain' were rather at odds with the land we lived on.  And, trust me, you're going to lose a battle with the genius loci every time.

But water and rivers WERE a feature of our land, flat as it is.  My first years were spent living a half block west of Lake Michigan, which I ran to at every opportunity.  The western most border of my 'home area' was the north branch of the Chicago river. 

Other local rivers joined my internal map as the years went on.  The Des Plaines river - as far west as I tended to bike, and on the shores of which I got married.  The Fox River, where my family had owned a tiny bit of land and a barn, and where they spent as much of the un-air-conditioned summers as they could.  Stories were told of that house and land, of my uncles walking the plowed fields near the river searching for arrow heads.  Later I occasionally swam in it.  Still later, my husband and I lived along it, and had our child while living there.

Once in Maryland, while driving over bridges over waterways was pretty standard, we lived along the Patuxent River.

Now, I live in the Rocky Marsh watershed, on the Potomac river, close to the confluence of the relaxed and relatively clear Potomac river and the fast and muddy Shenandoah river.

Living water has always been my go-to for grounding and peace.  Even when visiting Sedona, Arizona - I wasn't hiking to the vortices.  I was staying north of the city along the Oak Creek River, swimming in it, listening to its voice as I slept.  Days were hiking the West Fork trail, along the creek.  I could sit on the bank of the creek for hours, watching it, listening to it.

In this Tower Time, I'm called back to the rivers.  I'm going to sit by the confluence of the rivers and listen for the wisdom.  Let the river wash away the feelings of sorrow and helplessness.  Let the living waters, as old as the hills, shapers of the land, fill me with their endurance, persistence, and power. 

And then I'll return.  And help kick ass, as best I can.

This post inspired by many folks and waters, but mostly by Eridanus Darryl Kummerow's post about how he's going to be looking for peace in his home - which happens to be near the very same Fox River that runs thru' my life.

Frondly, Fern