What does this little narrative have to do with feminism you ask? Why everything! It speaks to the journey of one woman from young adulthood into old age, a woman who learns along the way that Nature/ Earth/Immanence is also the Way of the Goddess, and that living a life of meaning (in a finite loving body) is the path the goddess set her upon at birth…
It is the day before thanksgiving. For too many years, this was a time of great sorrowing – a day on which a young motherless woman said goodbye to her grandmother… a grandmother she couldn’t afford to lose, and later, much later, a grandmother she couldn’t become….
This morning I awaken in the pre- dawn to a heavy lidded moon peering in my window… A deep stillness permeates the air – The Earth is a Lady in Waiting. A late November sun takes about two hours to rise over the trees, and it is in this space that I give thanks for my favorite time of day. I bathe in the pale blue twilight; clarity heightens clear thinking, while my body opens to shinings. Cardinals arrive, flashing dusky crimson feathers… Around nine a golden eye overcomes night shadows and the house is lit like the brightest candle, the brook mirroring Earth Star’s rising. Chimes begin to ring. My Norfolk pines breathe out life giving oxygen as do the Passionflowers, their vining tendrils curling in spirals, emerald ringlets inching across the window. My dogs lie on their backs, paws extended, soaking in the sun… I spray my woodland garden with water, moistening its startling red partridgeberries, snowberries, emerald mosses, tiny hemlocks celebrating new life.
Winter Green is made of Gold.
Today or tomorrow I will weave my balsam wreaths into circles of prayer giving thanks for trees, for animals, for life, for winter light, for those humans capable of love, and for the heat that warms the fire within, animating me like my Star Baby does…
I see a circle closing as Grandmother glides through the door.
BIO
Sara is a naturalist, ethologist (a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.
feminismandreligion.com 
Beautiful. Thank you for this wonderful woven wreath of words.
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This is beautiful. I’m especially struck by how you put together your memories of your grandmother with your love of the Earth. I’ve recently been thinking about my own grandmother and how, even though she’s been gone for 30 years, I still feel her presence everyday because she is who first taught me to love Nature and the wild, who showed me the wildflowers and how to keep track of which ones bloomed in her yard, who cared so much that trees and the wildlife that depend on them have a sanctuary that she bought an acre of land to save it from clearcut logging. I’m very much enjoying how you are making your own traditions for this time of year!
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Amazing how the presence of these figures who taught us to love nature stay with us…I love it that your grandmother bought an acre of land to save it from logging – oh, if only we all would do this… on the east coast there is a regional organization – Northeast Wilderness Trust that buys up large tracks of land with the promise that it will never be logged again in perpetuity which make them unique…. From maine to NY they are saving whole forests – they walk their own talk – and they refuse to open their lands for snowmobiling etc – YOU HAVE TO WALK! Anyone who reads this please check out NortheastWildernessTrust. org…
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thank you for this!
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Every time I phone my cousin, who lives in Texas, part of our conversation is about our memories of our grandmother, who lived to be almost 100. Thanks for sharing your grandmother with us. Yes, all is green and gold. Bright blessings for the winter holidays and the winter light.
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I really like how you point out how the “Way of the Goddess,” and finding meaning in that involves us processing it through our “finite physical bodies.” I think that gets missed a lot; how it is through these bodies that we experience the treasures of the earth. And if we forget, the dogs can always teach us. Mine right now (in the dark and cold) is sitting outside on the deck breathing in the winter air and enjoying it (she is part husky and parts of other breeds that love the cold).
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Oh how lovely that you live in India and that we share common ground – if only we could spread it further and further….. our earth needs our help just as we need help… we are all in this together I am honored that you read the posts. Thank you.
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Thank you so much, Sara.
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Dear Sara,
I am a woman from India and your experiences resonate and reverberate with that of mine; of the winter light – “Winter Green is made of Gold.” My body feels deeply my Mother, GrandMother, the trees, the radiant flowers, the haunting bird calls. You speak of the beautiful Norfolk pine and I emphathise with you perfectly well.
Thank you so much for your writings.
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