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Springtime has come to North Texas, which means both swathes of bluebonnets along the highways and sometimes monsoon-like rainstorms. It's a far cry from the winter storms that are gripping my home Dakota prairies, but there are times when the torrents of rain make it hard to remember that long warm Spring days are coming. But any good Texan will also tell you that we welcome these days of rain, because they both stave off that first 100-degree day and help to alleviate the period severe droughts our beautiful state experiences. The memories of the droughts of 2008-2010 are still fresh with many of us, and the rains give us hope that we won't watch our state burn and suffer under the sun this summer.

Spring rains and floods have been seen as blessings in many cultures over history, with the Nile floods being the most well known. So I was happy to see Anuket, the personification of the Nile River herself, show up in my oracle reading this week.

This post was originally published in May 2016 -- but since Glispa is visiting us again via the Oracle this week, it's worth revisiting!

As I've often said before, one of the things I appreciate most about The Goddess Inspiration Oracle by Kris Waldherr -- and one of the reasons its a key tool in my practice -- is how multicultural it is. I appreciate the inclusion of indigenous Goddesses from around the world alongside the more familiar European Goddesses. And I also appreciate that these Goddesses are never drawn in a stereotypical or fetishized way, and their stories are treated with the appropriate respect and reverence. I have learned so much about Goddesses from traditions with which I was largely or wholly unfamiliar. And while I realize that the cultures these figures hail from might see them as Goddesses in the same sense of the word that I use, I appreciate that they are included alongside all these other powerful female figures.

Early March is in in-between time. Back on my native South Dakota prairies, March either marked the very subtle beginnings of spring, or heralded one last round of storms where we'd be in Winter's icy grip for a few more weeks. Here in Texas, it's always a toss up as to whether early March will bring chilling rain and wind or high bright days in the 60s. More often than not, it does both in the same week. It's this magickal time in between, where it's not really Winter anymore but it's not yet Spring, and we start to think about planting but hesitate in case one last freeze or flood comes our way. It's a time to wait, suspended in the liminal space, when things are already heavy with potential. Soon we'll hurtle headlong into Spring, with all its busyness and activity, but for now, we're in that twilight period, where one season is not yet gone and another has yet to begin. 

So who better to guide us through this time than the Germanic Goddess Berchta? Berchta has visited us via the Oracle before, a few summers ago. But her message -- that the seeds of our future lie within us, ready to be planted and nurtured -- seems so appropriate to the time we find ourselves in now. As we think forward to the Spring, we are reminded that the things we will nurture over this next cycle are already deep within us. They are things we nurtured and kept alive through the dark and introspective days of Winter. Our destiny is already within our power, if only we recognize it, fertilize it, honor it, tend to it.

This week, beautiful and fertile Hathor comes into our reading to encourage us to see the bounty all around us. For many in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the tail end of Winter -- things are brown and dreary, or even still covered with a blanket of snow, and it seems as though the blossoms and sprouts of Spring are a million years away. This Winter has been hard for many of us, this Priestess included, with depression and even despair creeping in around the edges as a seemingly endless string of tragedies, scandals, and losses unfurl in the news every day. It can be hard to remember to count our blessings, to revel in the love and bounty around us, and to keep the faith that spring will come. But Hathor is here to remind us.

Weekly Goddess Inspiration has been on a bit of an...extended hiatus...as the Priestess here has navigated some life changes. But we're back and ready to be inspired by the Feminine Divine in all Her beautiful forms. If you're new to this blog, Weekly Goddess Inspiration is a time when I pull a card from one of my many Goddess oracle decks to see what the energy for the week will be. This week, I'm pulling from The Goddess Inspiration Oracle by Kris Waldherr, which is one of my favorite decks to work with. 

Swim Beyond  © Carrie Wachter 201

Spring is the season of passion, of stirring life, of creation. In my younger years, this season was all about Beltaine, and Beltaine was allll about passion and sex. One of the things I love best about my path is the celebration of sexuality as something sacred, as a gift from Goddess. As I've gotten older, sex has become less central to my Spring celebrations -- not because sex is no longer an important part of my life, or because I think it unseemly to be openly sexual and sensual now that I'm no longer in my 20s, but because I've begun to think about passion and creation in a wider sense. My Beltaine ritual this year involved working on my home, spending time with my partner, and honoring all the things I am creating, gestating, and getting ready to birth -- my women's circle, my priestess sisterhood, my creative projects. All the things that awaken passion in me, and all the passions I feel in addition to sexual passion. 

In my New Moon circle this past week, I drew oracle cards that encouraged me to step into my Authentic Self, to find my true passions and follow my calling. In some ways, this whole past year has been about accepting that I even have a calling -- something I've resisted for most of my Pagan life -- and learning what it might mean to step into it. So I've been spending the past week thinking about authenticity, about passion, about the role my politics around gender and sexuality and justice play in following my calling. I've also been reflecting a lot on the role that healing around my sexuality has played in my spiritual path, and about the ways in which I can help to create safe, brave, healing spaces for survivors of sexual violence in my spiritual community; about how I can help to facilitate the much-needed conversation about consent that's happening (or needing to happen) in Pagan spaces; and about what it means to be part of a sex-positive spiritual community in an overwhelmingly sex-negative culture.