As the Wheel of the Year turns, there’s a lot going on when the Season of the Witch (Samhain) arrives bringing new year energies while simultaneously time slows down and stillness descends. Relaxing into the season, this year I made plans to travel and visit family, leaving the first week of November. As it turns out, it was quite a journey.
When the check engine light indicated, I pulled over to the side of the road—well, interstate, to be precise. The insurance company's roadside assistance arranged a tow to the local auto dealer shop. The tow service was helpful, but while speaking with the repair shop, I learned
they were not certified to work on hybrid vehicles and it would be three to four weeks before they could "take a look."
Being a wee bit stressed, I managed to hold it together with the aid of coffee, but the
insurance company was less than amenable to paying for another tow. That just didn't sit right with me. After some determined negotiating (and I was very nice about it, really I was!!) the insurance company relented, and the driver delivered us (the car, me, the cat, and the dog) to the "big city dealer repair service." So after a three-hour drive in the tow truck (that’s an experience!!), the car was dropped off and we finally made it to our destination. After 12 hours of sleep, I found out the election results.
I cried. From the result, from fatigue, from bearing witness to the sorrow of loved ones.
When I find myself experiencing high stress and deep emotion, I reach for the element of Water. This time in the form of a two-hour soak in lavender and chamomile. It is in Water that I am reminded to be still and to go within, a place where wisdom is outside of knowledge, passion and time. It is a place where the wellspring within me feeds stillness—that place of Water.
Do you remember how fascinating it was when you first heard sounds underwater? The world they came from, the outer world of sunshine and the noises around us, seemed distanced—an echo of what surrounded us. We could sense it, but the only thing that mattered was the Water embracing us. We felt so very selkie, so very undine under the Water! We were creatures of another world. We were no longer part of wind and sky and Earth. We were Water.
The power of Water in that place of clarity is a sense of ourselves suspended, complete in our separateness.
Air brings us clarity through the wind and in our discernment we become whole. Fire brings us clarity through what it sparks in us and in our passion we become whole. Earth brings us clarity through union and in our evolution we become whole.
Water suspends us in clarity. On the surface of calm waters we are as aware of the skies above us as we are of the depths below us. We are one with each and yet we are, for the moment, separate from them.
We are calmed. We are able to think clearly and plan what needs to be done.
Seek clarity. Seek wisdom.
And may it always be so. Blessed be.
Lady Cynthia
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