Seasons – Feminism and Religion

Winter Lessons, by Molly M. Remer

Yes, it is December
already and again.
Let yourself notice the milkweed pods,
how they have split their sides
and are sending silky white seed fluffs
into the waiting air.
Witness the trees,
bare and gray and patient.
Watch the squirrels,
tails puffed against the chill,
stored nuts in their cheeks.
Listen to the wind
how it whispers and rattles
through the empty branches.
Watch the clouds,
slow-moving white billows
in a pale blue sky.
Be patient with yourself.
Grant yourself grace.
Remember the three invitations
of the solstice season:
to listen,
to wonder,
to be content.
Remember your promise
to keep company with joy.
Remember your vow
to be in devotion
to your own life.
Think about everything
there is to do.
Open your hands.
Feel that thin, whispering
winter wind
skim over your palms.
Take a deep breath.
Allow yourself to marvel
at all this year
has held.
Bless it.
Thank it.
Cup your hands
around your own face.
Say: thank you.
Here you are in the center
of your own life’s unfolding.
There is nowhere else to be.
Be gentle with yourself.
Invite the winter crone to tea.
Look into her eyes.
See yourself reflected there,
your own winter eyes open
to the possibility
of both clarity and delight.

I have been writing for Feminism and Religion for 13 years. In the summer, I compiled a post with 13 summer lessons from 13 years of posts here at FAR. I decided to bookend that post with a Winter Lessons post as well. Here are thirteen lessons to share from past winter posts:

Threshold Time, by Molly M. Remer

Step by step,
we make our way.
Breath by breath,
we choose.
Day by day,
we see where we are.
Let us remember
that we do not really finish anything,
we tumble with the turning
which is right where we belong.

It is now
in this liminal space
between the cauldron
and the cave,
as obligation struggles
to come roaring back
into center,
that we sense what we truly need
whispering beneath the surface
of all that clamors to co-opt our time
and all that howls
to claim our attention.
Stand steady.
Inhabit your own wholeness.
Cast a one word
spell of power: return.
Step into the sacred
right where you are.
Re-collect yourself.
Reclaim your right
to your own life.
Defend your edges.
Give clarity space
to crystallize
and your own knowing
space to emerge.
It is vital,
this work of reclamation.
Hold it holy.
Let the knots unravel.
Set yourself free.

Summer Lessons, by Molly M. Remer

Let us be gentle with ourselves
as we cross the threshold
into summer,
as we both open our hearts to change
and open our hands to choice.
It is now that we both let things go
and celebrate what is flourishing,
what is thriving and growing
and calling us onward.
Let us be soft and supple,
luminous and languorous.
Let us practice the discipline of pleasure
and the liturgy of delight.
Let us protect wide margins for magic,
commit to our own life’s unfolding
and swim freely
in the current of the sacred
that is always available
to receive us
and welcome us home.

Today, I sit missing the orioles and thinking about cycles of change, how things grow and decline, and how we can choose to be present or not with what we see and feel. I tip my head back in the green filtered light of morning and discover berries beginning on the mulberry trees. The wild raspberries and blackberries too are tipped with small, firm caps of green. I am feeling the sort of overdue clarity that descends when I finally realize I can let something go, that not everything is mine to carry or mine to fix. I know that this clarity too will come and go, but for now, I welcome it, feeling the cool wind stirring my hair and brushing my shoulders as I enjoy the sunshine and the sound of hawks on the wing. There is a powerful hope in these blue sky days and for now, I bask in the sensation of both remembering and reclamation.

This year, as we tip into summer in the Northern hemisphere, the temperatures in my own Midwestern biome have been surprisingly cool, peaceful and rainy. In an era of climate change, this slow entry into the heat of the year has felt welcome and encouraging. Something that continues to inspire and teach me this year has been to start where my feet are, to return again and again to where I am on this earth and in my body. In a culture that encourages fragmentation and distraction, distance, discord, and dis-embodiment, this practice of return is an act of both rebellion and reclamation.

I have been writing for Feminism and Religion for 13 years. This year, sitting down to write and reflecting on the life lesson of starting where my feet are, I decided to go back through my past summer posts here to discover the other lessons I have learned from summers gone by. I chose thirteen lessons to share from past summer posts:

‘Willowing’ at the Turning by Sara Wright

My relationship with and time spent with Indigenous peoples reinforced my intuitive sense that seasonal turnings like the Spring Equinox need to be honored and experienced when the ‘time’ is right. Time, in the Indigenous sense is fluid. Because of this learning I have come to understand that although it is important to write a little ceremony that includes guardians, elements, prayer, gratitude, framing intentions/release that I also need to allow the powers of nature to determine when the actual passage occurs. Indigenous people dance their ceremonies which helped me understand that any experience that transpires around these turnings may become the body of the ceremony if it feels right though the words were written earlier. This year around the equinox darkness reigned in every sense of the word. Having set my intentions, I waited, wondering when the door would open… yesterday it did, and this is the story of what happened. Only afterwards did I realize that in every sense we had honored and experienced the beginning of spring and the rising of clear waters.

My Vet and dearest friend made one of his unscheduled visits. The moment after I got the text my little dogs began to bark. This is normal behavior for both animals who adore their Uncle Gary and are tuned into him on levels that defy explanation (he lives more than a half an hour away). They bark until he arrives, regardless of whether this is a regular visit, or one that’s a surprise. We keep track of the exact timing of his leave – taking, their behavior and his arrival for fun.

Hydrangea Lessons, by Molly Remer

How to create a ritual:
Look at the sky.
Touch your skin.
Breathe deep in your belly.
Feel your heart beat.
Stand on the earth.
Let life carry you.

September 2024:

It is now that slender bush clover makes flower crowns along the roadside and coreopsis lifts its yellow faces to the sky. There is change in the air, whispering on cooling winds and shrieking by above the field on the feathers of broad-winged hawks. The last cicadas continue to drone and the apples hang rosy on the trees. The deck bears a sprinkling of yellow walnut leaves, and I picked up a brown and green patterned oak leaf to press into the pages of my prayers. It is now that I pause to steep, to listen to myself before pressing onward into the final part of the year. There is both an invitation and a summons here, to evaluate and renew, to consider the pace of life and whether to ease off or push onward. It is now that I remember that restoration is the antidote to depletion and I gather myself up, tenderly calling the fragments home, recollecting myself and taking time to look at where I am and what I have and what I’ve chosen. There are crows calling at the end of the driveway. I keep my eyes open for any passing monarchs. There is a slight hint of spiced pumpkin on the wind. The Virginia creeper has darkened to rusty red.

Why Ritual in Turbulent Times? by Terry Folks

It is Autumnal Equinox. Five women gather equidistant apart beneath a giant avocado tree in the garden at Evi’s place near the village of Zaros. This little hamlet is under the watchful loving eye of Psiloritis (Mount Idi) on the Island of Crete in Greece. We leave the solitude of our individual cottages where we have been quarantined to co-create an Autumnal Equinox ritual I have initiated for this occasion. Since we are still testing positive for COVID, we maintain our distance. I have a nasty strain as I’m exhausted, foggy, my nose bleeds, and I’m coughing so much my head hurts. Still … this ritual is important as our morale seriously needs a boost. We are dubbed the five “Corona Sisters” or the “COVID Girls” whose Goddess Pilgrimage on Crete was cut short when we contracted the virus somewhere between our homes in Australia, Canada and the United States, and our arrival in Heraklion a few short days ago. We have renamed ourselves the “Avocado Sisterhood” to acknowledge the blessing of our togetherness, and we represent a quarter of the women participating in Carol Christ’s Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in 2023.

Summer Steeping, by Molly M. Remer

“It was one of those days so clear, so silent, so still, you almost feel the earth itself has stopped in astonishment at its own beauty.”

—Katherine Mansfield quoted in Meditations for People Who (may) Worry too Much

The editor of this anthology, Anne Wilson Schaef, goes on to say:

“When we do stop, many times we look around and realize that we are the only ones rushing around. We realize that the roses, the trees, even the clouds seems suspended in space, and it is as if the universe has paused for a breather. Life has time to experience itself.

Often, when we stop and let ourselves take in the beauty that is around us, we realize there is much more than we originally imagined. Our eyes begin to see beauty in the cracks in the sidewalk, the crookedness of tree limbs, the cragginess of faces, even the color of cars.

We don’t have to travel to see beauty. It is everywhere.

How much more alive we are when we can feel those times that the earth has ‘stopped in astonishment at its own beauty.’”

Do you have time for beauty? When was the last time you stopped in astonishment? What is astonishing you lately? Where are you discovering beauty?

Margins for Magic, by Molly Remer

My ritual today
is to forgive myself
and to begin again
with what I have….

A rite of renewal:
Step out under the sky
whether it holds thunder or sun.
Rest your hands against your heart.
Say: I am here.
I am grateful.
Open your arms to the sky.
Feel air soothe you
and wind bless you.
Say: I am radiant in my wholeness.
I am loved.
Sweep your arms down
to touch the Earth (or the floor.)
Say: I am connected.
I belong.
Settle your hands against your belly.
Say: I am centered.
I am powerful.
I am strong.
Return your hands to your heart.
Wait.
The sacred will meet you here.

We pause today in the middle of the road to listen to a mockingbird perched in a crabapple tree by an abandoned house. In clear and rapid succession, it runs through its impressive repertoire: Phoebe, cardinal, chickadee, titmouse, laser-gun, a few extra trills and beeps and back again. We stand, heads cocked and silent, to experience the performance before walking on with a smile, pausing again to inhale deeply as we pass the wild plum trees so sweet and fleeting. I have been preoccupied with projects, feeling bright, creative energy burgeon inside me as it does around me, so many things tug at the mind and ask for time, leaving my dreams restless, my eyes wild, and my mind awhirl with both pressure and possibility, a persistent urgency that calls me on and away and out of being where I am. On the way back home, we stop again because there are five red winged blackbirds, conversing by the neighbor’s pond and we circle through the grass to examine white flowers in the pear trees and to check for peach blossoms (none). I love spring in Missouri, it restores and nourishes me. It reminds me I am home. I sit with my tea listening to a distant chainsaw and the wild turkeys in their rites of spring, a light rustle of wind, and the clinking of my flattened spoon wind-chimes from years gone by. A lone crow glides in to alight on an oak tree beneath the sun. It tips back and forth briefly, wings a satin shimmer in the sunbeams and then drifts away like a black kite through the spring sunshine. I have joked that the description of my next book could be: “I sat. I saw these things.” And, this is true, for I did, and this is my news for today.

Listening to Our Landscapes, by Molly Remer

Today the hawk is back, tail feathers lit gold and black by a bright and welcome sun. It stays only a moment before tilting out of the tree and continuing on its way, but this moment is enough to spark a sense of joy and wonder in my chest, the awake kind of glee that fuels and feeds me, that inspires and holds me. This feels like the Year of the Hawk to me, of clear focus and intentional commitment. I watch it glide away between the trees and take a deep breath of release and freedom. I re-center myself into my body and reconnect to the sacred What Is. I am open to clarity. I am open to trust. I am present with this day’s unfolding.

The Webs We Weave, by Molly Remer

Each year, as fall peeks around the door tasting the air and sending cool tendrils of change slipping across the horizon and skimming across our shoulders, I feel clarity descend, a sharp and sudden certainty that I do know exactly what I want to do and where I want to focus.

In early September, we watched an orb weaver spider make her web by our studio. Much faster than we might have imagined, she tumbled gracefully through almost empty space, connecting long strands from porch gutter to hydrangea bush, returning to the center often to stabilize before launching into the next direction. The sun was setting and we stayed captivated by her dedicated intention, moving next around the middle and expanding from the center rapidly connecting her many threads. Finally, we walked on the road, watching the sunset illuminating the bluestem grasses in the field as the nighthawks darted bat-like above our heads on their annual migration. We returned to the web at dusk surprised to see how much finer the structure had become, each strand now laid very close to the one above it in a radiating circle. As we watched, I felt a sense of liberation chiming in my bones, freedom that comes from knowing with firm and dedicated awareness which way to go, trusting the threads of my own life to hold me as I make my way with both purpose and grace.