Winter Weave: Day Name "Milky Way"

The spiral galaxy M83 which is believed to be similar in size and shape to our Milky Way galaxy

Last year at this time, I experimented with creating a Devotional. Using various natural cycles, archetypes, and "essences" to inspire me, I wove blessings for each day, voiced to aspects of Mother Mary, or the Goddess, or fanciful imagination (you choose what you think I meant!). As I was also working hard on my Kamana nature awareness study, you'll find things of that nature woven in as well, as I post subsequent entries. Oh, and aspects of music enter into all this. I was working with various modes (scales) from The Harmonic Experience by W. A. Mathieu. I also used the Devotional as a way to focus on a song I wanted to learn/relearn during some days, that were thematically associated with this cycle in some way. With all these different "threads" woven into my experience of the day, I named the cycle WINTER WEAVE.

Here's how I began it, exactly a year ago from today.
Winter Weave
Celeste - Mode of Silence

The threads of the Weave resonate from the following sources:

First moon name is from Ogham lore associated with moons. Second moon name comes from the book Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice, Clan Mother is from The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers by Jamie Sams. The "Mode" and day names come from the ECOLogical Calendar. The musical mode name is figured out by me ("Silence" is the musical mode corresponding to Celeste). The Week themes are derived from a version of the Thanksgiving Address, an ancient honoring practice from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) tradition, that serves as profound nature awareness practice in the Kamana Naturalist Training Program.

Birch Moon - Wolf Moon
Clans Mother of the 13th Moon Cycle:
Becomes Her Vision


Week One: The Universe and Future Generations

Fifth Day (of 13th Lunar Cycle) - Milky Way / Christmas Eve
[note from me: of course in this calendar yea, 2007, we are just past the full moon on this day!]

Morning

I call upon you, Mistress of the Starry Sky, Queen of the Heavens, on this eve of the birth of the Child of Light I ask for your blessing on this day and long night of waiting, expectation. On this eve of Becoming.

I invoke and offer this prayer-song. May peace, joy, and light flood the hearts of us all!
Litany: Rosa Mystica

Vas spirituale Oro pro nobis
Vas honorabile Oro pro nobis
Domus aurea Oro pro nobis
Regina angelorum Oro pro nobis
Rosa mystica Oro pro nobis

I give thanks for the gifts of life, light, stars, nightscape, dark, and love that I have received throughout my life. They are as plentifiul as the many stars and objects of our own Milky Way!

Evening

On this night as I turn toward sleep, I ask the Mistress of the Starry Nights to bless my dreams, and the dreams of each one of us in this home. May we bask in the harmony and luminosity of your generous expanse, and drink of the lactation of your blessing. In gratitude and faith, we turn to you, O Queen of the Night!

For more about experiencing a natural flow of time, I invite you to read my essay Time Passages

Snowneck Moon and The Starry Night Birthday

Snowneck, our Full Moon chicken

Today is a full moon, what my daughters have named the "Snowneck Moon", in honor of our large white-necked 'black gourmet' breed hen. The name I've chosen for this day, The Starry Night Birthday is in honor of my mother-in-law's 75th birthday (today), and inspired by a tiny gold bell that we gave her called "The Starry Night', created by a silver/goldsmith on the island. This beautiful bell has a cityscape etched in it, and if you peer through the 'celestial dome' of its microcosmic sky, you can see a star pattern. It reminds me of cutting an apple open, sideways, and finding the star at its center! So on this bleak, dark, wet midwinter's day I dream a kaleidoscope of images ranging from the dazzling -- inspired by that celebratory bell and Van Gogh's Starry Night paintng -- to the mundane, with an appreciative nod to the plain old nature of our large hen Snowneck, Queen of the Crop, with her deep grumbly voice, and who strides through the chicken yard and the field! And I also remember to wish upon a star (cloud-obscured!) and offer good wishes and gratitude to and for the generous, kind, discerning. and courageous woman who is my mother-in-law, Denise.

As the night descends, I wander the field, gathering radishes here, beet greens there, mustard greens, mustard blooms, baby greens, red-jewel chard, crinkly kale, and stalks of parsley and celery, and a couple of sage leafs. The CSA (community-supported agriculture) subscription has completed, and so we are able to wander, wonder, and nibble our way through the fields as we will, enjoying the immense bounty and beauty of this good earth and of the careful, lovingly seeded and tended crops by the Mathias family - the family that owns and operates the Journey School Farm Community and this CSA. I am absolutely awed and filled with gratitude at what is thriving here in the earth-stone heart of winter.

pictured above: Van Gogh's "Starry Night"