A spell for skies that won’t turn blue
The wheel doesn't always turn
Apothecary News: I am finally having a shop restock!!! Mark your calendars for next week’s new moon on Monday the 8th. I am restocking my annual Woodswoman Salve batch which I only harvest and craft in the depths of winter. I’ll also be adding more locally made heirloom flower presses for your plant studies this season, and many after. We’ve come up with some new designs and materials for this batch which I can’t wait to share with you!
Though this is a small restock, I am looking forward to making plant medicine again and sharing it with you. Thank you so so much for the support.
A spell for skies that won’t turn blue
Tree branches clawing
at the unforgiving sky
their fleshless fingers thrown
up in desperation.
They long to be covered
in buds and birds
fresh as a summer daisy.
But the sky frowns down
a disapproving father
set in his ways
howling his anthem
unmoved by their pleas.
Even so we say,
Father sky let down your walls made
of harsh words and thunder clouds
Father sky know that sunlit kindness
is not weakness shining through.
Father sky remember
you were innocent once too,
clothed in robin’s egg blue.
Father sky it’s ok
to smile sometimes
I won’t mention it
if you do.
I’m tired these days (though maybe Mercury’s shenanigans haven’t helped my case). This final stretch of winter is always the hardest for me. Even though it is *officially* spring, winter clings to this place like a wet blanket. Today it rains, the next three days it will snow.
I love the intensity of winter during January and February, even March when the ground is covered with no sign of life. It feels right, gives me time to lean into the darkness and traverse the creative whispers in my mind. With my wood stove burning and my candles glowing, I feel like a bear woman, hibernating into the depths of the season.
No need to do anything other than be.
But now, as the rest of the world is waking up and blossoming, I feel as if I’m stuck in an odd limbo. Nothing grows. The air doesn’t warm. The sun still hasn’t shown its face.
It’s these frigid days that the dying winter clings the hardest, afraid to walk into the light.
During my years in Colorado, this month would be filled with refreshing green walks through the city, taking in the blooms and new life. The front range would already be waking up with its earliest grasses and wildflowers. My days would be filled with a brisk warmth as the mountain sun smiled down.
It’s easy to stay in tune with the wheel of the year when spring feels like spring. But how do you continue to embrace these rhythms when we are a few weeks into the new season, but everything still looks the same?
The northern sun reminds us why it can be such a difficult place to live. Beautiful but brutal. It doesn’t bless us so easily, keeping its jewels hidden behind the door of a grey sky safe.
The wood stove still limps along as our wood stash dwindles. I feed it logs only when the previous ones have burned to hot ashes, making them last as long as possible. We’ve already had to go back out into the woods to cut up a dead tree here and there, trying our best to keep the cold from reaching our bones.
The autumn fervor for stocking up on wood fuel has been carried away by the icy wind that still roams the forest. But still, I think it’s that small fire continuing to burn that keeps my body going. Small gifts for long stretches.
Yet I know the spring will still come, no matter how off kilter with the official seasons it is. New energy will flow into my body quite without my control, as if some divine force works through not just the plants, but its people.
I will spend endless hours in the garden preparing it for a new season. I’ll find myself in a state of awe as I always do when the nettle shoots, daffodils, and trilliums make their first appearance.
The light will come. It will come. I tell myself over and over. The northern sun may not be as generous as the mountain sun, but it remembers this place too.
But for now, my winter is still here, and I will let it be. I will read and write, brew cups of sun (chamomile) tea to replace the one in the sky. The fire will continue to be stoked and I’ll let myself rest just a little bit longer.
No great epiphanies, no life-altering revelation, just grayness, just sameness for another moon. Still, there are many different shades of gray.
Much love,
Val
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Might as well have been a page out of my
journal from here in the mountains of New Hampshire! Blessed be the final days of Winter.