Leafy Thoughts

A couple of nights below freezing helped the trees to really color up. 

Some trees still have green leaves that are very stubborn... 

They just won't give up.  I like that.  They remind me of our nation's motto (the Cherokee nation, that is) "Endeavor to Persevere."  

Happy Solstice and...

A Joyful Yule.  The shortest day, the longest night of the year....but now the light starts to push back the dark.

And so the wheel keeps turning, as Mother Earth starts her dance back towards Grandfather Sun.

And may the darkness in human hearts be pushed out and replaced with the light of compassion, tolerance and love.

Mixtures

My little fire of apple branches (pruned from my trees) burns merrily in honor of the Goddess Brighid's Day, or Saint Brigid's Day if you're Catholic. Brighid had an apple orchard, so I burn apple branches to honor her.

I also make Oat bread to honor Saint Brigid. I put a piece of it, along with a bit of butter, on an outside windowsill for her. Tomorrow my family and I will eat the rest.

Strange? Well, not really, if you consider my grandmothers. My maternal grandmother was born in Northern Italy, then moved to Sicily when she was a teen, and then to America. But her great-grandmother told her how the family originally lived in Ireland, then moved to the Brittany region of France, then Italy, over the course of hundreds of years. So my maternal grandmother was a Celtic/Strega/Catholic. My paternal grandmother was Cherokee.  The traditions of their ancestresses and ancestors were extremely important to both of them.

So I was raised Catholic, with all the various religious and spiritual beliefs of my grandmothers (and Oglala Sioux grandfather) mixed in with that. Perhaps a strange mixture to some, but not to me.

Anyway, happy Brighid's Day or Saint Brigid's Day!

Full Moon Musings

I can never stay inside on a full moon night, as long as the sky is clear. Something about the moon when she is full calls to some ancient  memory within me.     

To me, as to so many other women, the moon represents the feminine aspect of God.  To stand in her silver light is to feel a calm blessing washing over me.

I also think of her as 'Grandmother Moon' which is what my Cherokee and Oglala Sioux ancestors called her for thousands of years.  We still call her by that name.  The sun is Grandfather Sun, then there is Mother Earth and Father Sky.  But Grandmother Moon has the strongest claim on my heart and spirit.

So, on the nights when the moon turns water into liquid silver and paints the trees and ground with her luminescent, magical light, I take a "time out" from my life and enjoy soaking up the moonlight and the subtle, calm magic such a night can bring.