It has been a weekend of uncommon quiet here in the garden. Exquisite blooms everywhere were challenged lately by cycles of incessant winds, then rain, then cool mist followed by hot, humid sun and more rain, into short spurts of open flowering and then curling back under cover just as quickly to protect those reproductive parts for a calmer, sunnier day. What weather each day might bring is a mystery.
Our planets and asteroids are splayed across the sky at the moment in a grand spread all around the Earth. Some of the major players are forming a grand questioning cross with each other while others are forming a grand agreeable trine, and others are opposing each other in direct confrontation, Earth always at center of it all. The result of all this interaction is that we are are at a crossroads of activity, of feelings, of energy, of thinking. Which direction do we take next? Expand, contract, get serious, celebrate or chill out?
This weekend we have been at the new moon phase, which is a quiet time of the month, a time to reflect, finish up the last month’s projects and prepare for the coming month. But we are also quickly approaching the high point of the year as summer solstice is right around the corner here in the northern hemisphere. It is almost the BIG time of the year for us, when we are most active and feeling our strengths. But we are at a small pause.
As I worked outside in the evening dusk a few nights ago, I found myself surrounded by ghosts, ghosts of nearly fifty years of life at this place. Ghosts of trees and plants long gone, neighbors, friends and family now dead who loved this land, beloved pets of many generations who are buried here who knew every smell and inch of the garden. It wasn’t spooky, it was comforting. Every being that has dwelled here, however long, has left a trace of consciousness that lingers. It isn’t October 31st. It is JUNE and I feel their life presence, not their death absence.
We are at a time of recognizing and appreciating accomplishment, looking at what has been and at where we are now, getting perspective. There are no clear answers at the moment for what comes next. We are being faced with a complex present that we all must confront and think about, responding as best we can with common endeavor and awareness of how what came before informs us still.
