On this Christmas morning, Venus reached her second, retrograde conjunction with deep, dark Pluto.
We’re reminded that even as the Sun is reborn, there is darkness–not to be banished, but explored, savored, and honored.
In Celtic lands, we’re in the time of the Cailleach, the powerful, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners builder of mountains. One of my touchstones for this retrograde time.
She is a woman, no doubt of it, who enjoyed lovers of the highest station. She is no weakling, though. Even now she strides across the land, boulders in her apron, shaking winter storms from her hair.
I first met the Cailleach in the Beara, in Ireland.This is one of her strongholds, where she is remembered. Leanne O’Sullivan, a poet born and raised in the Beara, named her second collection Cailleach.
The final poem in that collection is called The Return:
I walk through paw-prints
the frost has dug,
among the moist grasses,
my silver hair flowing
like a cat’s deep stretch.
This is my season.
Again and again I die
under the blossom of leaves
and count my lives
by the sapped rings of trees.
No one will know me,
none but the wood growth,
its hug of frost
its scent of moss
its naked shadow
and I, standing at the end
of an embered wood
where once a light
passed through me
and passes again,
before I remember
how I appeared
or how I ended,
folding myself into my arms –
the seed,
the root,
the blossom,
the stone shining
with all my running juices.
~ Wishing you and yours all the warmth of this festive season ~
Image adapted from Zoltan Tasi
https://unsplash.com/photos/QxjEi8Fs9Hg