Season of the Heart
Slowing down, again; plus the importance of creating & appreciating beauty
Dear Ones,
It’s been a week! Together we continue to cope with national and international crises on a daily basis, and we fight back in any way we can. In my personal life, I had a mini-Tower experience with a sudden cardiac event that landed me in the hospital for several days. On a professional level, I was distressed to learn that the release of the new edition of the Gaian Tarot was delayed, and I navigated that upset while hospitalized. My heart lifted and expanded as we welcomed in the May here in the northern hemisphere. Some marked the day with May Day Strong demonstrations, some with prolific, abundant flowers. Some with both!
On May morning, I rose before dawn to greet the sun and wash my face in morning dew (from the Lady’s Mantle in my garden!), then went right back to bed.
It does not escape me that my heart event happened just as Beltane arrived, with Hawthorn (the May-flower) as its emblem, the herb of heart medicine and magic.
On a Zoom call with my writers’ circle yesterday, everyone was commenting on how lush and extravagant the blooms in their neighborhoods are this spring. I find myself wondering if Mama Gaia / Mother Earth just knew we all needed a little extra balm for our spirits this year.
My friend Christina (author of The Beekeeper’s Question and Storycatcher) asked me to get out my journal and write a dialogue with my heart. My mind immediately went to the metaphorical heart, and I realized how easy it would be to go straight to symbolism and myth, looking for meaning. Nothing wrong with that at all (it’s my jam), but I think I’ll try a dialogue with my physical heart as well and see what emerges.
I thought I might write to you about my not-quite-a-heart-attack experience. I also want to tell you about how I felt so held and supported by my local friend circles, my far-flung circles and online communities, my neighbors in the condos where I live, and the nurses and health care professionals who looked after me. Heart-expanding. So grateful.
But I don’t actually have the energy to go deep into any of these topics, as important as they are. I’ve been told that my body needs to rest and recover from a major cardiac event, so that’s what I will do. Out to the garden I go, to sit in the sun and watch blossoms tremble in the breeze.
About the Gaian Tarot delay: since my May Day post, I’ve heard from my publisher, REDFeather Mind Body Spirit, that Gaian decks are shipping out to retailers as I write. They will ship out in batches over the next few days. This means that everyone who pre-ordered from Bookshop or Amazon should be receiving their deck next week. Such good news!
(I wrote the rest of this post before being hospitalized.)
The Practice & Pleasure of Creating & Appreciating Beauty
During our Wisdom Circle call on Zoom a couple of weeks ago, the first “circle round” question was: “What practices help keep you calm and centered during hard times?” Everyone went into breakout rooms of 3-4 people. They each shared their response to the question in turn. When we all came back to one screen / one circle, we realized that a key theme kept recurring in most of the small groups: the practice of creating and appreciating beauty.