THE TURNING OF THE TIDE AT MIDSUMMER

 Image from http://deskarati.com/2012/05/12/pre-historic-science/

Midsummer marks the time when the air tide turns and begins to ebb. The air tide began to flow at Beltane. The season past has been one of change; things have been in transition, and there has been an element of chance in everything as some seedlings took root and others were stillborn.  With the turning of the air tide, the season of ripening begins.  Now we know which of the seeds of time have taken root and will grow.  It is a time for dedication, patience and awareness.  The work of the coming season will be watering and weeding, watching and protecting that which has taken root.

The turning of this tide is best observed in a circle of stones made in the old manner, out of doors, when the sun is high in the sky.

Take with you a stone to establish you’re altar, and a little water or oil to use for anointing.  Find a clear place in the sunlight.

Lay out a Circle by marking the four directions with stones around your central altar stone. As you do so, invite Spirits from the four directions to guard your Circle.

Welcome the God as King of high summer; as you invoke Him, feel the Sun enter you through the crown of your head, crowning the God within you.

Speak to the God who is both within you and in the sky above, voicing your intentions for the coming season.

Using the oil anoint both feet, saying, “Let my feet go in Your ways.”  

Anoint both hands saying, “Let my hands do Your work.”

Anoint your third eye, saying, “Let me see the way before me.”

Sit or kneel in silent meditation for awhile.

Give thanks to the God and the Guardians.

Open the Circle by walking widdershins (counter-clockwise), and kicking the stones outwards.

  

At the Dark of the Moon

Introspection, trance work, self-evalution

Dream work

Fast or eat sparingly

Don't overwork

Wrap yourself in a covering or veil of some kind, arranged so you can breathe properly (oxygen deprivation is not an essential part of the experience.)

I especially like some slow and evocative sound for this--Tibetan temple bells, for example.
Close your eyes and go into a cave. As you go deeper in, the light becomes fainter and fainter, and you have to feel your way with your feet and hands.
The passageway becomes narrower, and more difficult to negotiate. You go deeper and deeper into the earth.
Then after a time you will suddenly lose your footing and go floating in free fall, around and around, down the passageway, until you land in a cavern deep inside the earth.
There you may find something, or you may meet someone.
You may be told something you need to know, or you may be given something to take back with you.
Perhaps you will find or be given something that must remain in the cavern, but which you can return to again.
When you are ready to leave the cavern, you will find that you can float up and out the passageway, by the same way you came.
Then you will find your footing, and make you way along the passage, feeling with your feet and hands, until you return to the mouth of the cave.

Sun Moon

Sun Moon, Dyad Moon, are names for the Full Moon that falls in Gemini. (Incidentally, the "moon falling in Gemini" is a different matter from the Moon being "in Gemini" in an astrological chart. When I talk about the Full Moon that falls in Gemini, I mean the Full Moon that falls sometime from May 21 to June 21.) The Dyad Moon will be full on Monday, June 4.

It's a time when opposites attract; magically good for working on relationships. It's a time when differences can turn from a liability to an asset.

To Open

 Now, with the moon nearing full and the Air Tide rising high, is a time for opening awareness, for paying attention, the first power of a Witch.

The conditions of modern life compel a lot of filtering, more and more as the years go by and the information age whelms. We get very good at screening out what we have decided is irrelevant.

Years ago, I taught adult school ESL classes for Mien tribespeople from Laos. Those people were time travelers, among other things. The middle-aged adults had grown up a world rather like that of our ancestors a thousand years ago (I remember one man telling me about the first time he saw matches used, when he was a teenager). One striking thing about them—aside from some obvious things like gingerly picking up a pencil and turning it around to figure out which end of it you write with—was their awareness of everything around them. In class, they were easily distracted, noticing every sound in the street outside, every footstep in the hallway. I realized that they came from a world in which there were no irrelevant sounds. Everything they heard was significant. Another time we went on a field trip to a regional park, and they kept pointing out plants and asking their names, surprised that I did not know the name of every plant and tree we saw. 

We live in a world defined by the sounds we have learned to notice, the things we know the names of, the  ideas that we have not dismissed. It is a world that we would not be able to negotiate in any other way.

To open to growth, consciously open awareness. There is a familiar magical exercise of closing your eyes and for a short time hearing everything that is there it hear—street sounds, indistinct voices from a next door apartment, bird calls, the humming of appliances, the wind—whatever sounds your environment holds. Pay attention, and give each sound some meaning, no matter how fanciful or contrived. It is best to close your eyes because then, by opening them, you can return to the filters that you normally rely on—but you might want to make a record any meanings you have discovered, if they are meanings that mean something.

Another exercise, perhaps a bit scarier, is to open your mind to ideas and opinions that you have rejected or disagree with. What if there really is a God who sends people to hell? What if torturing suspected terrorists really is somehow necessary to national security? Maybe the Kardashians are actually interesting and important people, and you should bookmark their blog. You don’t have to commit to any of these ideas, or act on them. As Aristotle said long ago, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” But roam among the thoughts you reject, and see where they take you.

The Nine Powers of a Witch:

to open,

to close,

to bind 

and to cut,

to change,

to know, to will, to dare

and the power most rare,

to be silent.

 

This May Moon is the closest the moon comes to the earth. 

No time could be more fertile. 

Give a care to what you conceive, for something will begin to grow.

The Sidhe ride on May Eve, moving their cattle to high ground for the summer as mortals do.


It is said that at Hallowe'en the spirits come from the other world to visit, but at Beltane we may go to them, and safely return again if sensible precautions are taken. (Eat nothing that they give you, is the most important thing.)