Ah....Now I Remember

Yeti and I strolled through the Ramshorn-Livingston Sanctuary this morning, and as we listened to water shushing through cattails and loosestrife and the chittering of flocks of redwing blackbirds, watched the powerful flight of a great blue heron, felt the kiss of sunlight and caress of Fall-like breeze, I realized how much I've missed long woodsy wanderings.  For years, taking walks in the woods was a natural and magickal part of my life.  I've done ritual within a ring of ancient trees and had a herd of deer dash through my circle.  I've celebrated the first day of Spring in the rain, surrounded by woods high atop a bluff looking over the Hudson...and been awed that my candles stayed lit until the ritual was done, despite the raindrops.  I once walked the dappled paths at Stonykill feeling truly broken by a relationship that was causing as much suffering as pleasure.  As I wandered, crying, railing at the Universe and asking the Goddess for wisdom and solace, She led me to a nut, cracked open with a gaping wound but fresh and green, and whispered that sometimes one's heart has to be broken open so it can heal and grow.  Once while racing to teach a class, my car navigated itself on a detour to my then-favorite wooded place.  Although I argued about having someplace to be, I was soon at the edge of a woodland pond, and was gifted with an otherworldly joy that surged from the Earth, through my body, fountaining out of my head and raining back down into every cell, and back to the Earth Herself.  Only then was I allowed to head to my class.  For years the woods were my home, my place of peace, and solitary walks weren't lonely; they were the moments that I shut up and listened to Her.  Today I remembered all of that--the joy, the peace, the comfort, the whisperings, the wisdom...and while wandering with a Yeti is a wee bit different than the meditative meanderings of the past, for sure these woodsy walks are making a welcome and most blessed return.....