Love Steers the Stars

As soon as our solstice bonfire got started around 6:15, the clouds parted and the half moon shone through. A few more minutes and the stars popped out. Our view of the southwest sky was blocked by hills and trees, but Jupiter and Saturn set at 6:19 and 6:20, so we weren't going to see the Great Conjunction anyway.

Since the planets were conjunct at zero degree Aquarius, some astrologers say this is one more step toward the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Peace will guide the planets.

And love will steer the stars.

May it be so.

Solstice Pomegranate Seeds

Another solstice tradition, after smudging, is passing out chunks of pomegranates as we stand around the bonfire.

In Greek mythology, teenage Persephone was abducted by her uncle Pluto. (#MeToo). She has to return every year to this forced marriage because she ate some pomegranate seeds while she was in Hades.

Since we of the North Country are "married" to winter and darkness, we eat some pomegranate seeds on solstice--perhaps to remind us of the sleeping life force within us. Perhaps to remind us that we are in solidarity with Persephone and all the #MeToo women and girls.

As Og Mandino says,

I will love the light for it shows me the way, 
yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.

We stood around the solstice bonfire with a crescent moon hanging low in the western sky and crystalline stars twinkling above. us.

Petunia Night Sky

I fell in love with Petunia Night Sky as soon as i saw it in someone else's wagon at the nursery. Even though a single plant cost $5.95, i plopped one in my wagon too.

I lead a loving-kindness meditation called Breath In Peace and Breath Out Love. The initial instruction is "Breathe in peace from wherever you think peace resides: a still mountain lake, a meadow filled with wild flowers, the trees in the forest, or the night sky with the moon and the stars."

I imagine peace in the night sky. Breathing in peace, i breathe out love. Petunia Night Sky reminds me.

The Wish to Be Generous by Wendell Berry

The Wish to Be Generous

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

--Wendell Berry.

Moonlight and Moon-dark

Today the waning moon begins to grow at 4:06 p.m. (EDT) According to the planting-by-the-moon theory, you plant above-ground crops in the dark of the moon so that the waxing/growing moon can "pull" the seedlings up. You plant root crops at the full moon, so that the waning moon can "pull" their roots down.

I usually don't have time to organize my life to plant according to the moon, but today i do. So i'll plant kale, chard, spinach and other cold-weather crops today here in the North Country where patchy snow still lingers in the woods.

On new moon and full moon days, Buddhists all over the world take the 8 precepts for the day and don't eat after the noon meal. The Buddha and his followers (and monastics, still today) meditate all night long.

It's hard to organize our lives according to a lunar calendar, when life around us rushes on as if the moon doesn't exist or isn't important enough to notice. Yet, perhaps today, we could meditate for an extra 5 minutes. Or simply look up at the stars shining brightly in the dark sky.

Photo from earthsky.org

Sleeping on a Cloud

Last night
i slept
on a cloud,
shimmering stars
above me,
misty firmament below.

The cherry pink dawn
woke me to spring
scintillating ice crystals
of the chill and bird-swept land.