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Settle in with Desire,
have a cup of tea,
dialogue about decisions
and destiny 
and what makes your heart sing.
Listen to her wisdom,
she knows of what she speaks,
the path is before you,
the sun is shining
and she's ready to guide your way.
Set forth,
hand in hand,
a story of trust nestled in your chest
a soulsong on your lips,
and purpose in your stride.
Take all that you feel
and use it to create.

Sometimes the best rituals
are those we cannot plan,
requiring only pine needles and wind,
open eyes
and a long, slow-sinking sun
settling gently into shadows.
Sometimes the best magic
of all is made with
what is exactly right now,
bluestem grass and gray feathers,
raccoon footsteps
between the trees,
laughter and joined hands,
a faith in the cycles of retreat
and renewal.
This is what we are here for,
days like these.

Here we are in this liminal space
in which old chapters close
and things are laid aside,
set down,
put to rest.
We exhale into the stillness,
into the waiting time
between times
So, too, we may feel
newness and promise
coiled and pulsing,
sometimes whispering,
sometimes shouting,
sometimes singing
of the new and beautiful,
the exciting and inspiring.
May we have the courage
to sit between these two calls
listening.
May we allow ourselves
to settle for a spell
right here
between the tight and tender.
May we know both brave action
and brave stillness
as we allow the old and new
to steep together
in peace and trust
inside the crucible of change. 

“…I believe that ‘slowness’ is a power that we can and must bring to our magic because the modern need for speed has invaded this practice too. A while back, I picked up a book [of swift spells]. I was struck by the word associations – to be modern is to be speedy, swift and efficient. I am very keen to represent a counter idea – of slow magic: easeful rituals, gentle enchantment and leisurely spells, as well as magic to be found within the process of slowing down and being still. Not as a ‘better’ option, but merely a different one, something that maybe we can embrace, so that we can have options to take things slowly when the mood takes us, or seek it out in our practice. This is the heart of yin magic.”

—Sarah Robinson, Yin Magic

Are you afraid of being still? This is the question that kept arising for me as I made my way slowly through Yin Magic, by Sarah Robinson and published by Womancraft Publishing. Sometimes the most meaningful books are those that take me the longest to read. Yin Magic is a companion book to Yoga for Witches (previously reviewed here), but it also beautifully stands alone. In the book, Sarah invites you to, “dare to inquire: what could stillness look like for me? What does stillness from the busyness of my life look like?”

In the early hours of night-morning,
I am summoned
by the eclipsing moon,
waking suddenly
with a sense of delight bubbling
behind my breastbone.
My heart is beating fast
and a sense of wild, anticipatory glee
fizzes in my bones.
My feet are cold on
fine sparkles of frost
as I gaze upward,
hand against my heart
at the crescent of full moon.
I hear a noise behind me
and turn to see
the white flashes of two deer
in the woods.
They move only a few feet away
and then stand there,
dark and silent watching me.
I kiss my hand
and lift it to the moon three times.
Orion is leaning on the rooftop
and the sky is alive with stars.
I am a priestess on a spinning Earth
in the temple of night,
my body an altar beneath
a shadowed moon.
My breaths are an offering,
my heartbeat a song of praise,
in this,
a rite of resetting.
I return to my bed
and lie there
for a long time,
eyes bright,
listening to star song,
kept awake by poems.

The mulberries are now bare
while the oaks are still cloaked
in shades of yellow, orange,
and brown,
maples and dogwoods
still clad in scraps of red.
Puffs of woodsmoke
catch the morning light
and hang like mist
in the cedars,
my breath too,
a fine cloud
trailing away into the trees.
There is something in the air
that speaks of satisfaction,
of change,
of cycles complete and renewing.
There is an invitation
to pause and witness
and to mindfully choose
next steps and new directions.
Our lives can hold
what we want them to hold.
Be present,
stay open,
attend to what is.
Be in the world,
in your life.
Return to center
again and again.

We gathered roses
and bright zinnias
to crown their heads with flowers,
these shining daughters
who we've cradled and fed
and loved with everything
we have
and everything we are.
We knelt before them and sang,
our hands gently washing the feet
that we once carried inside our own bodies
and that now follow
their own paths.
For a moment,
time folded
and we could see them
as babies in our arms,
curly hair and round faces,
at the same time seeing
the girls in front of us,
flowers in their hair,
bright eyed and smiling,
and so too
we see women of the future,
tall and strong boned
kneeling at the feet
of their own girls
as the song goes on and on.
We tried to tell them
what we want them to know,
what we want them to carry
with them as they go on their ways:
You are loved.
We are here.
You are loved.
You are strong.
You are magical.
We treasure who you are.
This love that carried them
forth into the very world
they walk on.
We hope it is enough
to embrace them for a lifetime,
and so we kneel and sing
and anoint and adorn
and hold their hands in ours.
We are here.
You are not alone.
You are wise in the ways.
You belong.
We are not sure if tears can say
what we mean to say,
but they fall anyway
as we try our best to weave
our words and wishes
and songs and stories,
with strength and confidence
into a cloak of power
that will encircle them with magic,
no matter no matter
how far away
from us they journey.