A spark in a long flat year

Rocking the rock, feeling held

It was a spark in a long flat year, a spear in a grey, grey sky….

Dear friends,

I am grateful for this day and you, I do not want to let you down. Have you ever felt the weight of it all on your shoulders? I am sure of it. I am sure of you. Sure that you have been experiencing enough of this life to know what grief and love feels like, and how it grows in you, on you.

It’s the tail end of June, and last week was sparkle, every thorn and quiver in every hedgerow heightened by its own display. After the precipice of solstice and an evening of cacao, sharing, kindness, openings and sadness in the company of gentle women in the homeland of East Clare, I went back to my twig house to bask in a blacked out sky.

Feeling like all was well for just that one eternal circle. Sitting on cushions and listening.

Circles have this impeccable ability to connect us when we sit in them. Perhaps because we match the energy of continents and oceans within them.

I didn’t know these kind creatures before this year. And when I reflect on the toil, isolation stress of living in a cluttered, dusty building site in March and April, barely knowing a soul and seeping in an emotional drain pool with the fresh grass and freedom of the now (a garden-full of growth, little sleep, no electricity but more life and a fresh pile of dry firewood) — I know that it is true, and not just some old ancient rite — the solstice brings clarity, light, and with that a certain comfort.

The day before the solstice I woke up 2am to sore thunder and rain, flashes of lightening from the bog flashing through the uncurtained cabin. It was like a spontaneous tropical rainstorm of Mexico or Indonesia. I walked outside 7am to 24 degree C heat almost forgetting I was in Ireland. There was a density in the air as the day wore on..

On the day of the solstice, I managed finally string some curtains up on the large window facing the day. Sometimes it takes a solstice to finally do these things.

To sit in ceremony on this old rock of ours and try not to let it spin too fast. Solstice pairs the exhaustion and burnout of the springing, shifting, sprouting months of March, April, and May with a need to be useful, stay awake and ‘on track’. And then there is lack. The summer, in its bright tired wonder, brings its own form of restless sleep.

Solstice — a spark in a flat grey year. The world turns again, and everything is at its peak. My garden is in its subtle beginnings and despite their meek stature the nasturtiums have released ruby red blooms. Nature has brought the abundance this year of anything, and all along the hedgerows we have been blessed by dog daisies, dog roses, wild roses, foxgloves, and now, as June slips into July — fireweed has arrived, and it foresees.

Fireweed foresees the unfolding. And we are already half-way through!

New Moon came Wednesday and all was well until it wasn’t. I lost a bunch of artworks and a pouch of precious shells, had an experience of shrinking, and allowed myself to feel small in presence. Not in a good way, a flat way. A way I have known before. A very subtle, significant way. And I know I so not alone in this. I also recognise my part to play in these situations, that we humans are fundamentally just energies engaging.

I often return to Rumi when at a stuckness or precipice on life, or when I quite frankly haven’t anywhere else to turn.

/You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens/

Reading this is remembering.

The heart takes time, however. And it