Wandering Quickly Through Rainy Season

WE ARE WANDERING QUICKLY THROUGH RAINY SEASON,  on our way to Hurricane Season.

Rainy Season is an introspective time, a time of respite from the build up of dust from Dry Season, and a relief from the annual increase in population of people to Southwest Florida during Fire Season.  It is a time when the animals are migrating, mating, nesting.  And we rest:  We rest in the shade of lush leaves and fronds which have leapt out in this growing time.  It is hot, and it is growing more humid each day and this makes humans feel tired.  (Make sure you drink enough water, this helps you deal with humidity.)

Spirituality, this is a time for making connections, and learning from those events, and for personal renewal.

We celebrate family milestones of graduations, marriages, new jobs, and moves across town or aross country, at this time of year.   These events present considerable opportunities for personal reflection; be sure to give your self time for that inner work.

Consider what personal goals you have for yourself, and the progress you are making in those goals.  Make notes on steps you need to take, to adjust your course.

It’s also a good time to clean your Altar, tidy it up, and check in with your Higher Power and your Guides.  It’s always a good idea to check in with Them while things are going well to say thank you for your blessings and bounty.  Get grounded through these communications and establish small rituals with them –simple ways to connect with them.  Do those little rituals, daily, make them a part of your life.  As Rainy Season winds down, it is important to get grooved in to this self care habit, over the next 2 to 3 weeks…

… as the heat and humidity of Rainy Season build up daily, and soon, the Hurricanes will come….

You will be glad you have tended to these self care tasks, and built up your reserves, once Rainy Season rolls into Hurricane Season.

*** We will be having the Hurricane Season ceremony and ritual, on Sunday, August 5th (2018) a little after noon, at the screened porch of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers.

**** In the Earthways Shamanic Path, we celebrate the Seasons as they unfold in our front yards, so to speak.  The area of the world where we make our homes.  Our town.  In Southwest Florida, we observe the following Seasons:  Rainy Season (from June 15th to August 15th), Hurricane Season (from August 15th to October 15th), Dry Season (October 15th to February 15th), and, Fire Season (February 15th to June 15th).

 

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Foggy Interlude

A few weeks ago, I awoke to a foggy morning and I savored the interlude.  The peace of it.  The way it moves in and blankets the earth:  the land, the trees, the water, too.  In Florida, the Earthways Shamanic Path celebrates four seasons, Rainy, Hurricane, Dry and Fire.  In between some of the Seasons, there is a Foggy Interlude.

The foggy interlude isn’t a pause.  Time doesn’t stand still in a fog.  It just slows way, way down.  Or rather, because fog is so thick, we must slow down to travel, so this is a time of mindfulness.  Simultaneously, because fog envelopes us, it is possible to clear one’s mind and allow the fog to enter us, for a time.

Fog is magical.  Shapes change in the fog, distances morph, sound travels like poetry.  We can rest between what was, and what is yet to be in the fog,

Traveling in a Foggy Interlude

Share your Peace with Mother Earth and Father Sky and the Big Waters all around you, for we are all related.

(c) 2017 to present, Whale Maiden for the Earthways Shamanic Path.  All rights reserved.

Pagans are busy Folk-The Wheel Keeps Turning

Pagans are busy folks, conducting Ritual for 8 holidays per year, plus observing full moons and new moons.  That’s a minimum of 24 extra days, which brings us to 32 events per year, requiring some level of attention, or a covered dish for a pot luck.  Then there are the celebrations to mark rites of passage: birth, marriage, death, and reaching puberty.

Honorable Shamans and Fellow Pagans, I have been actively looking at these many celebrations this year, and the four extra ones I celebrate:  Rainy Season, Hurricane Season, Dry Season and Fire Season.  I am walking around the year with all these holidays to see which ones fit into my lexicon, to form my Wheel of the Year.

I left off in my observations at Imbolc, followed shortly by the start of Fire Season in early February  Now the thing about the Pagan Wheel of the Year is that it is an on-going, rhythmic Journey through time.  The Wheel Keeps Turning.  Thus, it is totally possible to turn your back to it and dwell in the mundane world for awhile.  And that’s what happened in my case between the Spring Equinox and Easter and all the way to about now, May 1st, Beltaine.

Easter was early this year.  This means, it fell shortly after the Full Moon, which was right after the Spring Equinox.  That is the formulae for Easter by the way:  The first Sunday following the full moon, following the Spring Equinox.  You’ll remember that now, won’t you.  In my household this year, we had family visiting town from Up North, and family in Florida we visited.  All of them had new babies  and we cooed over the additions to our family.  Here was living proof of the miracle of life, and the deep truths in the birth-life-death cycle.

When I was a kid, Spring and Easter all kind of merged together like it did this year, since Easter is a movable feast.  We decorated hard boiled eggs, and my folks would hide them.  It was usually cold out on Easter mornings, so my folks would hide the eggs in the living room.    My Mom would carefully count them to make sure we had found all of them.  Growing up Unitarian Universalist, we didn’t dwell too much on Jesus at Easter, but we were keen on the Rebirth aspect of Spring.  We were on a daily and active bird watch and bud watch.  Would we see a robin, or the forsythia, first?  What about a Crocus?  Where would they turn up?   The days were growing longer, and the snow would thaw and the earth would, too.  And then we’d have MUD.  (Oh, I love mud!)

That’s a big difference here in Southwest Florida:  our ground doesn’t freeze like it does up north.  We might get a little frost one or two nights of the year.  But it’s  nothing like what happens in other parts of the country.

And here we are in Florida on a lovely Springtime Day, with Bougainvillea blooming …

Share Your Peace with Our Mother Earth and Father Sky, and the Great Waters in between.

(c) 2016, Whale Maiden

Be sure to visit the Earthways Shamanic Path Website.

 

 

Do you see the wind?

When it is windy, Honorable Shamans and Fellow Pagans, do you see it? What do you experience, when it is windy? If I’m indoors, I see the effects of wind: I see the flags flapping, and I see the tree branches and leaves whipping. A leaf or two may roll by, like a small tumbleweed. But that is not the wind, itself, just a manifestation of the wind.

If I go outside, I can hear the wind, whistling through the tree branches or leaves. (Am I hearing the wind, or the tree, reacting to the wind?) While outside, I can feel the wind hitting my face, my arms, and wherever it hits.

And, while outside, I notice that which direction the wind is coming from. And I note, this is a cold wind, bringing cold air and temperatures down from other parts of the country.

When I talk about the local seasons, our local wheel of the year, I must remember that a marker of Fire Season, is Wind.

How do you see the wind?

Share your Peace with Our Earth.

(c) 2016 Whale Maiden

The Florida Wheel of the Year – Earthways Shamanic Path

Hello Honorable Shamans and Fellow Pagans.  One of the things we encourage in the Earthways Shamanic Path, is for you to learn about the Seasons where you live, based upon studying the flora and fauna where you live.

I’m in Southwest Florida and I’ve been working on this Path for a while.  Here is the Wheel of the Year – Florida Branch of the Earthways Shamanic Path edition.

The Wheel of the Year, Florida Branch of the Earthways Shamanic Path edition

Here you can see our Seasons:  Hurricane Season, Dry Season, Fire Season and Rainy Season.  We are in Hurricane Season now.  (Understand that it still rains in all the other Seasons.)

Each of these Seasons presents us with different experiences and challenges.  For example, during Hurricane Season, we plan  around the daily “afternoon” thundershowers and the truly intense humidity.  The trade off is, it isn’t as crowded here then.  During Dry Season, and Fire Season, we witness the annual influx of tourists and “snowbirds.”  Everything gets more busy and crowded.  All these dynamics present us with opportunities to grow and develop as spiritual beings.

As you observe the Seasons where you live, you can develop your own Wheel of the Year, tied in to the actual Seasons and the magic of the land around you!

Let’s Share Our Peace With Our Earth.

Please join in the discussion at the Earthways Shamanic Path Facebook Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1016713368359826/?fref=nf