In First Nations tradition, this moon was known as the Snow Moon, because the heaviest snows fell during the last part of winter, in February. Last month, in January, we referred to the Full Moon as the Snow Moon, as 28 inches fell over Faerewood and surrounding lands. This is another whisper of the transformation of our weather patterns, and the change of climate.
Change can be challenging and difficult, and this one certainly will be, for the rest of our lives.
Most of us would prefer to have more control over the changes that sweep us from year to year, even as we understand that this is not possible, and She changes everything She touches. Take in a breath, and let it go, and see yourself releasing the need to control every portion of your life. Releasing the fear of uncertainty, settling into a deeply rooted understanding of your place in the cosmos, and your work in this lifetime.
Take in a breath and let it out, following it inwards to your belly, and outwards to touch every part of your world. Take in another breath, and hold for a moment; see it moving into every part of you, and as you release the breath, release tension. Settle into your own rhythm of breathing, pausing, breathing again.
With eyes shut, you sense rather than see a cool curtain of sparkling mist create itself before you. In your mind’s eye, move forward until you feel the mist curtain sparking against your face, and step through it, to a bright and silent plain of grass, with a single mighty oak tree at the top of a slight rise, several hundred yards away.
You walk towards the tree on its hill, feeling the grasses swish against your legs, and the cool air move past your skin, without a sound. You can see that this plain stretches on for miles, but have no sense of the space – it could be painted on a sheet standing only a few yards off.
As you approach the small hill, you see the oak tree loom larger, and soon tower over you, like a 30 story building. Its trunk is wide, as wide as a street. As you begin to step up the small hill, you begin to see a shape on the trunk of the oak. Closer still, it becomes a door of heavy planks, set into the trunk. In the center of the door is a round ring; a handle by which you might pull the door open.
When you arrive at the base of the mighty oak, it is as if you are in a room indoors, you and the tree trunk. And the door, which you now see is painted green and gold, overlaid and darkened with age. You reach out and touch the handle ring – it is cold bronze, and touching it sends a shock like a spark through your whole body. You grab the ring and pull, and it does not yield. You turn it within the door, and it seems to move the door a little, and suddenly the door pops open, and you see the top of a darkened stairway leading downwards, into the hill. There is a torch in a holder, and you take it up, and begin to descend the cold stone stairs.
As you move deeper into the earth, your feet upon the stone steps are like a drumbeat echoing your heart. The air feels colder, and the echoes of your footfalls bounce forward and back, creating an odd melody. The torch in your hand illuminates just far enough ahead of you that you can move fairly quickly, without think too much about where you are going. Until that thought enters your mind, and you slow your steps, and stop, listening.
The silence is thick about you, broken only by the blood rushing in your ears and the occasional hiss of the torch in your hand. The stairway is silent, but you have a sense of how far you have come, and how far you have left to go, to reach the bottom. You begin to hear something from below; uncertain, you move a few steps forward, listening.
The faint sounds are accompanied by a breath of air, that carries a suggestion of decay, a whisper of rot. A few more steps, and you being to hear music from below, from instruments you do not recognize. You begin to descend again, not as quickly as before, but with purpose. The scent of the air changes as you move, from the redolence of decay to the sharpness of early spring growth. You notice the light is stronger, even as your torch gutters and fails.
Quite suddenly, you step out into a sunlight glade in early spring, naked trees rising on all sides, green herbs sprouting from the forest floor. You step forward into green growth, smelling the herbs crushed beneath your feet. You notice a plant with tiny leaves, and tinier white flowers like stars growing everywhere, and as your gaze lifts from the star-like flowers, a Maiden stands before you. She is young and comely, and armed with a bow and quiver on her back. But she is focused on the green plants, and both hands are full of plants plucked from the ground.
She holds them out to you, and you take them, and eat them. They taste like your first love, like the recognition of your power when you were young and the world was newly born. Your vision explodes as the room becomes huge and the walls move out of your sight. Quite suddenly, your world becomes endless and exciting, anything could happen at any moment! You come back to yourself a little, and see the Maiden smiling at you from the other side of the glade. She nods and turns to go. You start to follow, and pause: She is within you, and you can choose your own path.
You turn to retrace your steps to the stairs, and the oak tree is before you, it’s doorway open wide. Stepping through the door, you find yourself once again on the crest of a low hill in a grassland, but now it is drenched in sound and color and brilliant sunlight. Birds and insects are singing, plants are growing and you can hear them stretch and reach. A family of deer move by on their way to feed. You can see the roots of the grasses spreading through the soil, and the clouds winging past your hill. You close your eyes, and feel the abundance of the space around you. Eyes closed, you feel the caress of the sparkling mist on your face, and step through it to return home.
Breath in, and feel the power of the Springtide fill you, and enliven your very core. Feel your fingers itching to dig in the earth. Return to yourself.