Warms spring rain. The flooding fractured a poorly built bridge, rising waters overflowed moss covered banks – roads disappeared under the deluge, and I was out transplanting the last of my perennials! Working in the rain is a sensual experience – the scent of sweet earth grounds me, the sound of rushing waters not only stills inner chatter but reminds me that this is the time of year that every tribal culture used to celebrate the coming of the rains, the rising of the waters, and the blessing of wildflowers. Today, I know of no one that celebrates May Day but me, although some still honor this day as a Turning of the Wheel of the Year. And how can the latter not be?
After transplanting, moving stones, and feeding the tadpoles in my frog pond, I check on the progress of all the wild bee loving violets around the house. No flowers yet. I visit the brook to peer down at budded trillium and marsh marigolds. One golden blossom greets me in the rain; Mary incarnates! The first delicate trumpets of trailing arbutus glow like pearls. Too late for frog breeding, vernal pools are now overflowing.
The following poems were written after making a decision to move into an apartment for the winter, and then struggling to understand what went wrong. Instead of community I met with hostility, and as we know one breeds the other, and for a time I got caught by my shadow too.
Called home out of necessity and need, the longer I stayed the harder it was to leave even when 16 feet of snow crashed down from the roof blocking the entire front of my house. ‘The Peace of the Wild Things’ is in my blood and as hard as I try, I can’t seem to make an adjustment to living in a town where crows and men rule, and birdsong is absent though migration is under way.
I have this image in my mind of standing on one of those moving floors at the carnival. It is hard to get your balance because it is constantly shifting.
The world is constantly shifting at the moment.
It is unsettling.
You think you have found your equilibrium, and then the next experience or conversation occurs. Financial upheaval. Health concerns. People dying.
The fear calls.
Three months officially out of my second marriage, I am still in a transitory period. Juggling as I normally do so many things and people. Which ones will I catch? Which ones will I let go?
Every morning I wake up and stand on my deck with my arms thrown up to the sky in gratitude. I love my deck and my old 1961 home. The deck needs care. I have replaced a couple of boards, but there are many more in need. I wonder if it is even savable at this point.
I let that thought come and go. It is okay for now. It holds my weight.
Nothing lasts forever, and this does not make my top ten list.
The client that I had for seven years on and off is now gone. With my veteran husband gone and now that we have moved to Alabama, I am officially no longer a small Illinois Veteran Owned Business so I will officially no longer be part of their budget.
My main priority right now is finding a job and income. It can be overwhelming. I do not want to sell myself short as I have done the large majority of my life. I also do not want to be in a job that I am struggling. I want to find, like the new relationships in my life, ones that are just the right blend of challenging, interesting and rewarding: ones that fit into the puzzle of my life. The adventure.
At times it seems a high order: especially in the shifting sands of the world at the moment.
Every morning after greeting the sun on my deck, I go into my sunroom and meditate.
The view out of my back window is of crepe myrtles, pines, a maple tree and a corn field. Birds fly past. My cats lie lazily on the chairs. My stones and statues and other precious items surround me.
Isn’t this moment enough?
Isn’t it enough to be happy in this moment?
I start to stress about money or people, overthinking, analyzing and panicking as I am wont to do and then I stop myself.
I remind myself.
It is already here.
The people I want in my life. Who truly see me. Who I see. The ones where we support each other. Allow each other. Touch each other physically and mentally.
They are already here.
The means to pay my bills in ways that fill and align with my soul.
It is already here.
They both just need to catch up with me. Turn a corner, and they will be there. All I need to do is ‘encourage’ the things I want in my life, and let go of the rest.
Step by step. Breath by breath.
The future is already here.
Yesterday I returned from my Land in Appalachian mountains of North Carolina: ten acres of unrestricted land with a bog and a creek on one side and a mountain on the other.
A few days ago, I bought the land. When the check cleared, I was left with $20 in my bank account. I had a momentary panic wondering what I am doing.
But then I left that thought behind as well.
It is the third time that I have been there. It is the first time that I went alone.
I sat. I listened. I meditated. I got lost in the woods climbing up the small hill and forest that is already beginning to feel like home. I napped in my hammock, took off my clothes, sang, danced, cried, touched myself. Said hello and thank you and I will take care of you. Take care of me.
Almost half of my land on the right side is bog or a wetland: nature protecting itself, impassable and overgrown by invasive porcelain berry plants. The last time I came my friend tried to get to the creek and did not even get close: his feet sinking into the earth a foot, a huge smelly fly ridden animal bed, plants everywhere. The real estate description suggested putting in a pond to drain the bog so that you can use the land.
No. Protect the bog. Protect our earth. I deeply respect that side of my land knowing that it is cradling precious carbon needed to maintain the balance of life. I talk to it and tell it that I just need a small way in to get to the creek so that I can have water and a shower. A small path.
I find another way down a road to the creek. A snake scurries away in the water. The neighbor says good, I see that you have a machete. You will need it. I would suggest a firearm as well.
We shall see. I feel the fear and respect that I carry.
This is the Wild. She is often unforgiving. I get that.
But I believe that we can come to an agreement and a relationship.
It is one of the balls that I am juggling at the moment. To get to the land from Alabama, I drive along the Ocoee River, rushing water and rocks, majestic steep mountains forming a gorge. It leads to my land, out of the gorge, up a small highway, past buildings that nature has reclaimed, no chains, few stores and onto a dirt road.
‘Home’ pops into my mind several times.
Home.
BIO: Caryn MacGrandle is the creator behind the Divine Feminine App which has been connecting and inspiring women [and other genders too] throughout the world since 2016 as a directory to find Sacred Circles, events and resources. Women find the app each and every day, and it currently has almost 8000 users from around the world. Caryn has also hosted Sacred Circles and events for the past nine years and is passionate about the power of a Circle to heal individuals and the world. She has participated in numerous online and location events such as the World Parliament of Religions in September of 2021 in which she presented a workshop on Embodying the Goddess: Creating Rituals with Mind, Body and Soul and just recently a webinar/panel with Dale Allen presenting Dale’s Indie film award winning “In Our Right Minds: Leading Women to Strength as Leaders and Men to Strength without Armor.” Each and every day, Caryn (aka Karen Moon) works tirelessly towards her belief that the most important area to first find equality and balance is the divinity found within yourself.
I am visiting my home town in Russia for holidays. I have not been home for 3 years and I have not lived there for 12 years. Many things surprise me. One of the features of contemporary life in my home town is the relentless and often destructive onset of capitalism. As I have said already, currently patriarchy has joined forces with capitalism in order to suppress nature and oppress women.
One of the ways capitalism does this is by involving women and men into an endless rat race and by substituting their Wild Nature (as Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés describes it) with an identity of a consumer. People willingly put on masks of consumers who live to make money and to spend it on entertainment which is sold to them.
feminismandreligion.com 