Two years ago, I wrote a post called "I Build A Lighted House (and Therein I Dwell). The Energies of Now -- and current 'happenings' in culture -- make this a timely message once again. Here goes ... “I build... Continue Reading →
I appreciated Robert Alan Rife's InnerWoven musing, Why the World Needs the Celts -- the always timely (and pretty inspired) gifts from the ancestral Celt-Gael wisdom and ways of being. As ever, the core ways and values find commonality with... Continue Reading →
Elegant Mystery has shared several images of Leonora Carrington's surrealist artwork, and the short documentary film about this amazing woman's life. What a wonderful, inspired, and deeply moving story! Leonora Carrington's story gives one example of what happens when a... Continue Reading →
Blog-sister Leigh Gaitskill, through her Not Just Sassy on the Inside blog, shares a wealth of discoveries from her Ancestry DNA test and subsequent sleuthing into her roots. As Leigh writes, she learned of family tree roots and branches that she'd... Continue Reading →
“You are joined in an ancient and eternal union with humanity that cuts across all barriers of time, convention, philosophy and definition. When you are blessed with Anam Cara, the Irish believe, you have arrived at that most sacred place:... Continue Reading →
July 22nd is designated as the 'feast day' for Mary Magdalene or Mariamene e Mara (which means Mariamne the Master) in various traditions that include feast days (and for those outside of those various traditions, too). The Wikipedia snapshot notes... Continue Reading →
Blog sister, Jessica Davidson, has posted a beautiful musing on the powerful story of The Handless Maiden, emphasizing how potent and meaningful this story is just now. Jessica writes: "The Handless Maiden is a myth that speaks powerfully to our... Continue Reading →
“Those who stand in the fires of uncertainty, despair and fear with presence, awareness and discernment are spiritual warriors. And in an age of digital distraction, emotional shaming and bypassing, we need all the spiritual warriors we can get.” ~... Continue Reading →
"We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use... Continue Reading →
“Mind can neither recognize nor create beauty. … Many people are so imprisoned in their minds that the beauty of nature does not really exist for them.” ~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. Here's a short musing from notes... Continue Reading →
There's a Fiery Phoenix (and Phoenixing update) musing brewing -- stay tuned. The recent and current 'energy weather' is fiery, and as we know (yawn), that always amps up the Hissy Fit, Tantrum Yoga & Psychic Spew potential. On a... Continue Reading →
“I build a lighted house and therein dwell.”** This is a musing on well-lit houses, inner (and outer) gardens, being refuge and/or refugee, among other things. In his July esoteric astrology letter, Phillip Lindsay shared the above ‘keynote’ for the... Continue Reading →
When we think of grief ... or well, when we think of much of anything ... we might not consider the grief that we inherit along our ancestral lines, that's in our cells and bones. Nor might we consider what... Continue Reading →
Both of these Attitude Adjusters brought to you by Rob Brezsny's Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. I've been enjoying yet another (re)visit with this perception-shifting gem -- it's... Continue Reading →
“You have traveled too fast over false ground; Now your soul has come to take you back. Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through.” ~ John O’Donohue, from A Blessing for One... Continue Reading →
"The perception of foundation is of great importance in our time, for we are coming to the end of a world cycle, and everything is beginning to unravel." "We cannot begin the next cycle of ages without a foundation on... Continue Reading →
It's always a fine time to muse on the notions (and experiences) of Home and the related themes of exile, displacement, hearth-tending, and growing new roots. That said, there is a particular emphasis right about now, given the very earthy,... Continue Reading →
Dark new, crescent moon. Public domain photo from NASA.
Greetings, fellow Sophians.
Here’s another lovely and timely musing from Anne Whitaker from her Writing From the 12th House blog, with a mention of another kindred spirit sister, Molly Hall. Double the insight and good!
And it’s perfect for this Dark Moon, or Moondark, time that we’re in (and since it comes each month, and in any other Deep Yin time (meditation, night, etc.), it’s always a good time for this insight).
With the new moon arriving tonight (Eastern Time, and then through the crescent moon in a few days), it’s a good time to rejuvenate, restore, and re-collect, and listen deeply for your Heart’s true yearnings that can inform the vision-seeds for this lunar cycle.
So gather yourself back to center, call home your exiled selves, and see what new insights and brilliant questions — the ones that open up the most whole-hearted possibilities — arise from the wellspring within your deepest core and heart of hearts.
I was born in the very last hours of Moondark…and find that it’s best to note Moondark periods in my new diary each year. At these times, each month, I find that I need even more time than usual (having several 12th House planets anyway) to retreat, be in silence, drift, and dream…let my mind wander.
This is what I am able to do today, on the last day of Moondark. I’d be interested in others’ experiences of this phenomenon – and its impact especially at those times which happen to us all, when LIFE requires us to engage, to be busy, to stay focused. What are you doing today as you wait for the Cancer New Moon tomorrow?
Having googled “Writing about Moondark”, I found this fine article, a compilation of others’ writings by astrologer Molly Hall. (see full attribution at the end.) It is well written and…
Deep Roots and Spring Growth. Photo by Jamie Walters, 2011.
Since I’m in the midst of ‘moving house’ as some of my friends say, and thus only marginally ‘plugged in’ for another week or so, it seemed appropriate to share this Sophia’s Children post from a year ago.
Musings on ‘home and exile‘ include a few of my favorite insights from May Sarton and John O’Donohue, though they also connect in to the long tendrils and whispers of ancestral memory and voices, too.
You’ll see related posts and inspirations just below, too, if you want to follow this thread of reflection to see where it leads you (and what it evokes from within).
While I’m ‘shifting roots’ and moving into my new flat, I’m wishing you the blessings and inspirations of your own deep-rootedness, and also the heart-yearnings that sometimes lead us into new growing grounds!.
Hero Awaiting the Return of Leander, 1885, by Evelyn De Morgan.
“I too have known the inward disturbance of exile,
The great peril of being at home nowhere,
The dispersed center, the dividing love;
Not here, nor there …”
– May Sarton, From All Our Journeys
In Plant Dreaming Deep, Sarton writes that, despite teaching at various American universities and living in university town, she still didn’t feel rooted where she was.
“What I meant by “life” was still rooted in Europe,” she writes. “During those years I went back whenever I could to the strong ties in England, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. I had not yet cut the umbilical cord.”
Then she asks the essential questions:
“And how long would the life in me stay alive if it did not find new roots?”
“If ‘home’ can be anywhere, how is one to look for it, where is one to find it?”
So very familiar, this Odyssean journey. (For fellow astro-mythology geeks, you’ll find Odysseus (1143) riding the waves somewhere in your chart – mine’s at 17 Taurus.)
Enjoy (and big congrats to O and OM for nearing the big finish!).
Psyche Entering Cupid’s Garden (1905, John William Waterhouse)
This is such a lovely musing about the places and spaces we live in, how they have an essence and living heart(h) of their own, and how we’re very much in relationship with them … whether we realize it or not.
(And if you’re an empath-sensitive, you’re probably very much aware of it!).
I’m a few weeks from making a new house my home, so will be getting acquainted with it, and the spirits of place, soon.
It’s a lovely reminder that each place, each thing, each being, is Holy Ground in and of itself.
Old houses are filled with stories. We live in them knowing that others, long dead, have lived here before us. We may never know exactly who they were, what their lives were like, how they lived and died. But we know that their history has soaked into the walls, their voices have filled the rooms, their journeys have helped the house become what it is today.
I remember the autumn evening, ten years ago, when this house became our home. We hadn’t yet moved in, so it was empty of furniture, but we lit the fire and sat on the floor in the sitting room. The décor was dark and ugly, there was much to do to make it ours, but I remember the feeling of contentment at knowing this was our home. When we moved in we set to with paint before we even settled, divesting the house of its last…
Seems a fine time to fan the (metaphorical) flames of the Spirit of creative adventure, which helps us to more creatively navigate in-between times and transformation zones.
Or just get an inspiration boost when we need one.
Plus any time I can revisit and share a bit of John O’Donohue’s (or May Sarton’s) inspiring wisdom, well, that makes me happy.
The first of the Voyage of Life paintings by my fellow Imbolc-born Aquarian Thomas Cole (1801–1848)
“As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.”
~ ‘For the Interim Time’ by John O’Donohue
There is an amazing freedom and possibility in the unknown — just as a marshy eco-tone is teeming with emerging Life yet is neither firm land nor water-body. It’s an in-between zone.
We don’t always see the places or times of in-between, with their great tension, transition, or life-altering shifts as an invitation to creative adventure or liberation, though, do we?
It can be a challenge when we’re caught up in the stress of change or that place of creative tension —standing at the precipice of the Unknown, or…
One of my favorite medicine-poems: I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves... -- Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and are we standing now, quietly,... Continue Reading →
Julia at Painted Path writes this in her recent post, Falling Apart: “Imagine dropping, really setting down, who we think others want us to be, who we think we should be, and just being who we are. Who we already... Continue Reading →
"I had seen their ships come into port in the Indies and in (America), disgorging their cargos of emigrants, so emaciated and worn by their passage ... skeletal as living corpses, white as maggots from two months in the darkness... Continue Reading →
We learn and hear a lot of cliches about home - what it means, where it is, how we find it, when do we feel at home and when do we feel displaced, unmoored; what we do if our sense... Continue Reading →
[Update 11-4-17: Lilith in transit enters Capricorn on November 8, 2017, which means over 2017 Lilith has been transiting the super-potent Galactic Center zone, perhaps amplifying Lilith-like themes out into the shared psycho-sphere (and yes, psycho-sphere is on purpose). Saturn,... Continue Reading →
“I too have known the inward disturbance of exile, The great peril of being at home nowhere, The dispersed center, the dividing love; Not here, nor there ..." – May Sarton, From All Our Journeys In Plant Dreaming Deep, Sarton writes... Continue Reading →
"When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected inner wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within." "That which is scattered has no unity,... Continue Reading →
"Your vision is your home, and your home should have many mansions to shelter your wild divinity." ~ John O'Donohue, Anam Cara Vision, not to mention ways we cultivate and reclaim our precious 'wild divinity', are among our Sophia and Artemis... Continue Reading →
"The question holds the lantern." This, from the late John O'Donohue, could in itself be a meditation, which I find to be the case with much of what he wrote. But here is a bit more from The Question Holds... Continue Reading →
In an externalized culture with a bias toward extroversion, introversion, solitude, quiet, stillness, and drawing inward can be an anathema to some and downright terrifying to others. And yet we know, more and more, the costs of perpetual extroversion and... Continue Reading →
I've been reflecting deeply on the topics and experiences of home and exile for several years now, and probably longer. Since I hear from so many who feel uprooted and unmoored in this 'plugged in' yet too often disconnected culture, I'll continue... Continue Reading →
Hero Awaiting the Return of Leander, 1885, by Evelyn De Morgan. 
Ariadne…
The first of the Voyage of Life paintings by my fellow Imbolc-born Aquarian Thomas Cole (1801–1848) 
