A time for omens

When our minds can't possibly know, what does the body say?

It’s a cross quarter day, a turning of what we call seasons. It’s not important in here, where you and I are reading and writing from, but out there, we are circling and spinning, keeping time with movement. Celebrations on the wheel of time are about marking where the human experience meets what’s happening in the land. For me, Winter is about bowing.

This Winter found me deep in a bow, almost perpetually. I got the extended mysterious cold, like almost everyone I’ve spoken with, and in tandem with my partner and both my kids. I’ve had to bow to the nights up coughing, the cancelling of everything, and the strange reality of being sick and being caretaker at the same time. Bowing is sometimes a choice, but more often the only gesture that life calls for, like standing in the face of illness. It’s a surrendering, and echoes what every landscape does in winter. In this way, it seems fitting to me that Winter is so often the bringer of sickness. And though our culture is rapidly changing around how we view seasonal sickness, I still see it as a healthy response to too much of a good thing, be that microbes, stress, or abundance. Being sick is always a movement towards rebalance.

Just now, the barred owls announced there presence. I stepped outside to see what I could see, and though I couldn’t find them with my eyes, the juncos made it very clear just where they were. It was quite loud for a moment, then the wide silent wings of the intruder flashed between the trees and were gone.

“This moment between the season is very delicate. Yet, when we organize ourselves with a contemplative composure, the world itself comes to order, even if the situation is not supportive.” -Seanan Zook

Bowing makes sense in winter. It opens the kidneys to the sun, releases the heart and head to gravity, and softens our self-importance. So what comes after?

The listening stance.

I’ve been looking forward to making a little ritual to welcome spring with my family. In pagan traditions, this usually happens on feb. 1st, and I’ve been gathering rushes to make brigid’s crosses, planning a feast fit for all the animals to enjoy, and finding the last chunks of wax to make a threshold candle, or thunder candle, in honor of the many goddesses (and womyn) that guard the hearth, tending our relationship to fire and transformation. Here, now, the fire of yang is kindled deep inside the sea of yin.

But none of this happened. My littlest kid spiked a fever and all thoughts of ritual fell by the wayside as things cancelled, schedules shifted, and I ended up underneath him watching a Ukrainian kids movie about forest spirits, dubbed in English. Getting sick again was not what I was planning for…screen time was not on my sacred agenda.

Resigned to life in 2D for the evening, I sat there remembering how, this time 7 years ago, I was solidly pregnant with this child. I was in downtown Petaluma, a small farmer’s town-turned-hip in Northern California, walking towards the row of shops. In the path was a large fountain, spewing water out the top and gushing down three tiers. It was loud, but that didn’t occur to me until the baby in my belly did a somersault and literally steered me - belly first - to stand facing the fountain. It was my first experience of many in being led by this small passionate person with ears like a hawk. I stood at the fountain, feeling the visceral reach of his head towards the sound. He was listening, and now, so was I.

This point in the wheel of time, or “year”, calls for a listening stance. Ridiculously, this is the inspiration behind Groundhog’s Day, when we look to the animals to tell us what’s in store for us this year. Scrying, divination practice, dowsing, and reading omens (thank you groundhog!) are all old practices of this season, across cultures. Regardless of culture, it is when the sap is beginning to rise, the bulbs are beginning to stir, and the migrating animals are starting to think about traveling. There is so much movement in the bright stillness of early February, and standing still, ear to the earth, brings the winter wisdom into our feet and up through our bones. This seems quite important in a culture that imagines all good thoughts come through our brains, from the top down.

Nature is all there is, self-arising and self-resolving, in circulation.  If that’s the case, what are we?  Spontaneously arising nature looking at itself.” -Clarissa Gunawan

I make it out of the dark bedroom, feverish child finally enjoying wild dreams, and visit the mound of dishes by the sink. His unfinished dinner is waiting, and I realize there is one small gesture I can make to be a part of this crossing over into Spring. I grab a wooden plate and begin arranging foods both mundane and strange in a mandala of exquisite leftovers. My partner and older child pitch in wordlessly. Rice, the four zucchini rounds left, an old pomegranate - quartered, 12 rosehips, nigella and pumpkin seeds, a cross of kefir and spiral of maple made from last year’s sap, and some honeyed aralia root, for strength and circulation. The plate goes out into the dark where the animals gather at dawn each morning, surrounded by the ashes from yesterday’s fire, so we can see who’s feet found the feast.

It’s small, but it’s enough. I can slip into bed knowing I responded to the deeper, brighter threads of humanity that keep us weaving together with our environment, our history and future, and each other. There is no overlay of religion here, just a steady, grounded ritual born out of reciprocity.

Walking back towards the house in the dark, I see the glow of lights from outside, the crunch of melting snow underfoot. I can almost feel the pull of the earth as we careen around the sun, never stopping for a moment.