“Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.”
From “The Way In” by Linda Hogan
Moon Stories
Crossroads are said to be potent places where two or more roads meet. But either road is still a road. At the end of the day, all our body longs for is to rest its bones. For spirit, to return home.
At night, those crossroads can come alive. Something in the air carries a charge of electricity. Murmurings arise from below. As crows fly, rocks erode, rivers rush, and mountains overlook the greenery of late spring, the questions carried throughout our day only seem heavier:
Where do we go from here? What is the right way? When will I reach home? Do I belong here?
When the poet David Whyte spoke to the idea of Belonging and Coming Home, he described the pain of exile and an opening, one that appears when we speak of our desire to belong.
Whyte said: “As human beings we have this immediate gateway –you’ve just to articulate exactly the way that you’re exiled, exactly the way that you don’t belong, exactly the way you can’t love, exactly the way you can’t move, and you’re on your way again. You’re on your way home. If you can just say exactly the way you’re imprisoned – and the door swings open.”
Feeling lost may simply be knowing that we’re not home quite yet. But it is also true that we are well on our way. As an good fairy tale knows. And, along the way, we may be tired, we may feel stressed, we may stop in moments of despair to weep or disappear altogether. What then?
Though the night has many eyes and the day but one, the moon above shines on like a lantern despite its diminshing light, and the darkness offers the promise of sweet rest with a soft lilt.
So, if your spirits are low enough for you to hear the sigh of your creaking bones, the murmurs of your disquiet spirit, or the crackle of indecision sparking those ancient crossroads alive in you, let us tarry for a while! And let us refill our cup with the nightly telling of Moon Stories.
And for those who wish to sing, be it lullabies or otherwise, I will offer two gifts of music. Afterall, singing helps me when I am at a crossroads, it nourishes my spirit, day and night.
Gift One is a preview of an upcoming course on traditional songs from Europe - I attended it and cried as I sang ancestral songs of Southern Italy, singing: “Love is beautiful, and making love is beautiful,” as the women who gleaned wheat in the fields had sung, while they worked.
Gift Two is an affiliate link for the Early Bird Rate to the full song course, beginning June 5th.
Folk Songs for Summer! Free Singing Workshop (link to the recording, here).
Early Bird Rate: Songs of Mother Europe via Weaving Remembrance.
What better way to celebrate the Pisces Moon?
May 21 – Moon in Pisces.
The firmament, which can be read like a text, is a living tome. A grimoire. The oldest Book of Spells. This Book of Magic is written in riddles.
When we hear a riddle, we lose our head momentarily. Its dizzying effect can have us walking in circles, and, before we know, we are creating ceremonies and entering an altered state of being. At the same time, in some stories, riddles can have a fatally high price.
Yet, riddles create a state of bewilderment, which can make us feel lost or spiral. It can also be the catalyst for helping us re-orient back on our path.
So, how do we get home with nothing but a book of riddles? Let us look through the pages with a poet’s eyes. When we walk in circles? Honor the rhythm tradition of slowing down. Still feeling lost? Practice the art of surrender. Find the blessing of timelessness, if not the poetry of the expanded moment — Being lost is an opportunity to center, soulfully and meaningfully.
When we distill the experience of feeling lost with language, the mind’s eye awakens and opens the senses, including the senses that we didn’t even know we had.
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