"You must set out now” by Anne Kathleen McLaughlin

 

You must set out now.

Gather your belongings.

Take only what you need:

A journal, a pen, water colours,

A change of clothing, warm socks,

Woollen cloak with hood.

The currach awaits you.

Show your bundle.

Climb in.

Here are the oars.

Push away from shore.

Leave what holds you.

Seek no promise of safety.

Set your face to the boundless sea,

The wind in your left eye. Go.

In the pre-dawn darkness

One light shines:

Seven pointed star.

You do not know the way.

There is no way to where you must go.

Trust your life to this star.

Here is a journey prayer:

Star of the Sea

Seven arms encircle my soul.

A body to dance

A heart to know

Inner light to guide

Inner fire to impassion

Earth to birth me

Sea to hold me

Wind to carry me Home.

From Singing the Dawn – Rebirth of the Sacred Feminine

by Anne Kathleen McLaughlin 

Image: "Sea at night” by Władysław Ślewiński.

When the Old Oak Tries to Emulate the Willow

 The sun sets on another day.🌄

It's been such a hard week and a half. I will tell you what's gotten me through: my spiritual practice, my teachers’ wisdom, which I have heard over and over again until I've integrated a tiny portion of it into myself; listening to a LOT more of it over the last few days; my friends – some of whom I didn't know before this week; reaching out for help instead of curling up into a ball and waiting to die. (I did curl up for half a day. I needed to absorb the shock before beginning to act. And then I needed help looking at everything from different perpectives till I decided what I would do. I was still more intensely stunned because the worst of this news arrived on the morning after the US election, when I was already rocked back and struggling against despair.)

I won't go into the details of what upset me so much these two weeks, but I will say that I end this week stronger and — key here — more flexible than I began it, because I got to decide from a position of wisdom, acceptance, and support whether I was going to fight a particularly hard unfairness or whether I was going to shift in myself. In this case I decided not to fight but not to lie down and be rolled over either. Not to frame choosing my mental and physical health over fighting a war with my landlord — someone who holds great power over this aged, unwell, and, most importantly, moneyless person — as submission on my part, not to frame it in a way that shamed me for “failing” to fight. That left me able to agree to some things and — !!! — to negotiate others.

It may still transpire that I “win” nothing, but at the moment some of the worst of the order is possibly withdrawn. I wrote it all up, too, in an email, and the landlord’s sheriff didn’t disagree with my summary of our agreement. Fingers crossed.

Slowly my perspective shifts until I begin to see myself as a person with choice even when it doesn't seem like it, a person with help around me even when I can't see them right away, or can’t see what they can do.

Thank you to my friends and my communities. You are good. We are good together. 🫂