Pan With Us by Robert Lee Frost

 

Pan came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And raveled a flower and looked away--
Play? Play?--What should he play? 

“The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day,

just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep."

moon time...

Moonlight
by Sara Teasdale

 

It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.

The heart asks more than life can give,
When that is learned, then all is learned;
The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
It will not hurt me when I am old. 

 

Synthesis by Mara Berendt Friedman

 

“Be not ashamed women, ...

You are the gates of the body,

and you are the gates of the soul.”

~Walt Whitman

 

“Re-examine all you have been told...
Dismiss what insults your Soul.” 

~Walt Whitman 

 

The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.

~Neale Donald Walsch

Spellbound Fredrick George Cotman   Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
 ~William Butler Yeats, "The Land of Heart's Desire," 1894



Spirit, Healing, Creation

 

The eagle is symbol of the zenith.
A great reminder of your own ability to soar to great heights.

Eagles are messengers from heaven and are the embodiment of the spirit of the sun.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/eaglecam/video_lw.html

Blessed Ostara

"Again rejoicing Nature sees
Her robe assume its vernal hues
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep'd in the morning dews."
-  Robert Burns 

 

"The wood is decked in light green leaf.
The swallow twitters in delight.
The lonely vine sheds joyous tears
Of interwoven dew and light.

Spring weaves a gown of green to clad
The mountain height and wide-spread field.
O when wilt thou, my native land,
In all thy glory stand revealed?"

 -  Ilia Chavchavadze, Spring

Irish Blessing

 

May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you.

May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

 

 

"In winter's cold and sparkling snow,
The garden in my mind does grow.
I look outside to blinding white,
And see my tulips blooming bright.
And over there a sweet carnation,
Softly scents my imagination.

On this cold and freezing day,
The Russian sage does gently sway,
And miniature roses perfume the air,
I can see them blooming there.
Though days are short, my vision's clear.
And through the snow, the buds appear.

In my mind, clematis climbs,
And morning glories do entwine.
Woodland phlox and scarlet pinks,
Replace the frost, if I just blink.
My inner eye sees past the snow.
And in my mind, my garden grows."

- Cheryl Magic-Lady, Winter Garden

 

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the withered air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, and housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Come, and allow the warmth of Brighid's hearth to embrace you.

Allow the light of her flame to guide you.

Allow the love of her blessing to protect you.

May Brighid's love and light nurture your path.

 

Blessed be this season of Imbolc!

Santa Lucia

St. Lucy/Lucia is one of the only saints celebrated by the overwhelmingly Lutheran Nordic peoples (Danes, Swedes, Finns and Norwegians). The St. Lucy's Day celebrations retain many indigenous Germanic pagan, pre-Christian midwinter elements. Some of the practices associated with the day predate the adoption of Christianity in Scandinavia, and like much of Scandinavian folklore and even religiosity, is centered on the annual struggle between light and darkness.

The Nordic observation of St. Lucy is first attested in the Middle Ages, and continued after the Protestant Reformation in the 1520s and 1530s, although the modern celebration is only about 200 years old. It is likely that tradition owes its popularity in the Nordic countries to the extreme change in daylight hours between the seasons in this region.

The pre-Christian holiday of Yule, or jól, was the most important holiday in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Originally the observance of the winter solstice, and the rebirth of the sun, it brought about many practices that remain in the Advent and Christmas celebrations today. The Yule season was a time for feasting, drinking, gift-giving, and gatherings, but also the season of awareness and fear of the forces of the dark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy's_Day

The Spider’s Web ( A Natural History)

 

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

 

E B White (1899-1985)

"O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away."
- Robert Frost, October

 

"The stillness of October gold
Went out like beauty from a face."
- E. A. Robinson

 

“But I remember more dearly autumn afternoons

in bottoms that lay intensely silent under old great trees”
- C. S. Lewis

 

"Colors burst in wild explosions
Fiery, flaming shades of fall
All in accord with my pounding heart
Behold the autumn-weaver
In bronze and yellow dying
Colors unfold into dreams
In hordes of a thousand and one
The bleeding
Unwearing their masks to the last notes of summer
Their flutes and horns in nightly swarming
Colors burst within
Spare me those unending fires
Bestowed upon the flaming shades of fall."- Dark Tranquility, With the Flaming Shades of Fall  

 

"The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide.
The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf.
The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills...
Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay; ... its time of
flowers and even of fruit was over."- Charlotte Brontë

"As in the bread and wine, so it is with me.
Within all forms is locked a record of the past
And a promise of the future.
I ask that you lay your blessings upon me, Ancient Ones,
That this season of waning light
And increasing darkness may not be heavy.
So Mote It Be!"
- Faille, Lammas Ritual

Early Autumn

When an early autumn walks the land and chills the breeze
and touches with her hand the summer trees,
perhaps you'll understand what memories I own.
There's a dance pavilion in the rain all shuttered down,
a winding country lane all russet brown,
a frosty window pane shows me a town grown lonely.
That spring of ours that started so April-hearted,
seemed made for just a boy and girl.
I never dreamed, did you, any fall would come in view
so early, early.
Darling if you care, please, let me know,
I'll meet you anywhere, I miss you so.
Let's never have to share another early autumn.

Prayer to the Harvest Deities

The fields are full, the orchards blooming,
and the harvest has arrived.
Hail to the Gods who watch over the land!
Hail to Ceres, Goddess of the wheat!
Hail Mercury, fleet of foot!
Hail Pomona, and fruitful apples!
Hail Attis, who dies and is reborn!
Hail Demeter, bringing the dark of the year!
Hail Bacchus, who fills the goblets with wine!
We honor you all, in this time of harvest,
and set our tables with your bounty.

The Lady of Shalott

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott

On either side the river lie
  Long fields of barley and of rye,
  That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
  And thro' the field the road runs by
  To many-tower'd Camelot;
  And up and down the people go,
  Gazing where the lilies blow
  Round an island there below,
  The island of Shalott...

http://www.online-literature.com/donne/720/



What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect,
delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from." 
~Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade

Grown-ups never understand anything for

themselves, and it is tiresome for children

to be always and forever explaining things to them.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer has passed onward: a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "History"

Rain Drops

Rain drops from the clouds and onto trees,
Down the tree trunks and off the leaves.
Down a mountain, into a brook,
Past a chipmunk in a nook.
Into a pond, off a log.
On top of a turtle and onto a frog.
Onto roads, onto the grass,
Onto trains and trucks that pass.
On top of bridges, cars and boats.
Even onto people’s coats.
Onto houses and my windowpane.
I just love to watch the drops,
The drips and drops of rain.

- E.B. (1938- ) MotherGooseCaboose

Water sustains all. 
Thales of Miletus, 600 B.C.

Blessings of the Summer Solstice

A Tree Song

by Rudyard Kipling 

Of all the trees that grow so fair,
  Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs,
  (All of a Midsummer morn!)
Surely we sing no little thing,
In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Oak of the Clay lived many a day,
  Or ever AEneas began.
Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,
  When Brut was an outlaw man.
Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town
(From which was London born);
Witness hereby the ancientry
  Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Yew that is old in churchyard-mould,
  He breedeth a mighty bow.
Alder for shoes do wise men choose,
  And beech for cups also.
But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,
  And your shoes are clean outworn,
Back ye must speed for all that ye need,
  To Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth
  Till every gust be laid,
To drop a limb on the head of him
  That anyway trusts her shade:
But whether a lad be sober or sad,
  Or mellow with ale from the horn,
He will take no wrong when he lieth along
  'Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
  Or he would call it a sin;
But--we have been out in the woods all night,
  A-conjuring Summer in!
And we bring you news by word of mouth-
  Good news for cattle and corn--
Now is the Sun come up from the South,
  With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs
  (All of a Midsummer morn):
England shall bide ti11 Judgment Tide,
  By  Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. 

~Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest"


"Unrest" by Don Marquis

A fierce unrest seethes at the core
Of all existing things:
It was the eager wish to soar
That gave the gods their wings.

From what flat wastes of cosmic slime,
And stung by what quick fire,
Sunward the restless races climb!--
Men risen out of mire!

There throbs through all the worlds that are
This heart-beat hot and strong,
And shaken systems, star by star,
Awake and glow in song.

But for the urge of this unrest
These joyous spheres were mute;
But for the rebel in his breast
Had man remained a brute.

When baffled lips demanded speech,
Speech trembled into birth--
(One day the lyric world shall reach
From earth to laughing earth)--
When man's dim eyes demanded light
The light he sought was born--
His wish, a Titan, scaled the height
And flung him back the morn!

From deed to dream, from dream to deed,
From daring hope to hope,
The restless wish, the instant need,
Still lashed him up the slope!

I sing no governed firmament,
Cold, ordered, regular--
I sing the stinging discontent
That leaps from star to star!

To find the universal elements enough;
to find the air and the water exhilarating;
to be refreshed by a morning walk
or an evening saunter;
to be thrilled by the stars at night;
... to be elated over a bird's nest
or a wildflower in spring
- these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
~ John Burroughs, Naturalist (1837-1921) ~

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

~Wallace Stevens

the creative adult

is the child that survived



Blessed Beltaine!

http://greenwoodabbey.org/paninfo2.html

Robert Frost - Pan with Us

Pan came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And raveled a flower and looked away--
Play? Play?--What should he play?

Listening to My Sweet Pipings by John William Waterhouse

The Lion ~ regal, majestic, powerful and strong, yet nurturing, devoted, playful and calm. The King of the jungle is respected by all, and when Lion Totem comes, it’s nearly impossible to ignore his call! A native of the continent of Africa and one who roams the lush savannas in that part of the world, the lion is master of his domain. For those who find Lion as their totem, the various types of cats should be looked at and studied for the benefit of seeking greater communion and guidance from this king of the felines, (or mighty queen of the felines, if you happen to be working with the female lioness).

So revered is this king of the cats, that, out of respect, many cultures still refrain from calling them by name. The word “Lord” is often substituted by local tribes who share their habitat with the lions. As your totem, you will find yourself commanding this same respect from those around you, but not for no reason – you will have earned it, as Lion teaches leadership amidst cooperation. Just as lions live in groups called prides, so you may find yourself placed in uncommon situations of leadership or at the very least as an integral part of a group endeavor.

The next lesson with Lion that you can count on receiving is one of cooperation and how best to work with others. Within the pride, it is the female who does most of the hunting. But by hunting alone she would not do quite as well, and so she relies on her mate to do his part. He sits and roars, scaring the prey toward her. She then takes the lead and brings down dinner.

Antelope is their main choice of fare and it is recommended that those with Lion Totem study the qualities of Antelope as well. In the above, Lion shows that cooperation and group endeavors can be very fruitful, but that each member must do his or her share if things are to run smoothly. Between the two, the lioness does most of the work. She is the huntress, the caretaker and nurturer of her cubs, the teacher of survival to her family, and the temptress to her mate whose main job is to protect his family.

http://www.controverscial.com/Lion.htm

Green Man becomes grown man in flames of the oak

As its crown forms his mask and it's leafage his features;

'I speak through the oak,' says the Green Man,

'I speak through the oak,' says he.

William Anderson

Guinevere-The Maying
Hon. John Collier

May Day
by Sara Teasdale

A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,

As I see through a mist,

One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,

See the bent head and arms folded over the breast,

the Female I see.

Walt Whitman