Connections

"If women remember that once upon a time we sang with the tongues of seals and flew with the wings of swans, that we forged our own paths through the dark forest while creating a community of it's inhabitants, then we will rise up rooted, like trees." - Sharon Blackie

I read this spring that the things that were most important to you as a child are the things that are your core beliefs. I immediately thought of the ocean I ran in, the trees I climbed, and the grandparents who filled me.

Ancestors, Trees, Ocean.

In Ireland we learned that they say Sky, Earth, Water and it felt like a connection I've never felt before. 

And I got to bathe with seaweed.

We stood in an ancient Hawthorne grove in a ring fort. I touched a 500 year old Hawthorne and we sang to her. Now I sing it in my head as I pass the many Hawthorne's in our neighborhood.

"Red juicy berries and sweet white flowers,

red juicy berries and sweet white flowers.

Thorns that protect and connect to your power,

thorns that protect and connect to your power.

How can you teach me of softness and strength, of how to relate with love, with love.

How can you teach me of softness and strength, of how to relate with love, with love."

- Sage

So many portals we traveled to. Meeting ancestors all along the way. 

In a cemetery where some of the graves face west or Tír na nóg (Land of Youth) and the other half face east (the eastern church) overlooking the sea.

In another where in the ruin of a church an older stone from another time is in the window casing. A Sheela na Gig. And ancient visual of the Land and Goddess. Fertility and ancestors.

Truly there are not words for these connections and all I saw and experienced.