Have you planted yet?
This is the time of year when we plant our goals for the coming harvest season, having come up with the ideas at Winter Solstice and remained alert for the confirmations and redirects that begin at Imbolc. Now, at Spring Equinox, we plant those goals and soon begin the process of nurturing and tending them. Having observed the signals Deity has sent to us, we are now confident of what we should plant, what we should not plant and what we should amend before we plant.
Sometimes, as I experienced this year, we have an unexpected goal channel down at the last minute. That is always both refreshing and exhilarating. It’s one thing to have planned and considered what you will plant for 12 weeks and quite another to have to hit the ground running on a goal you had no idea about or (actually) interest in pursuing until a few minutes or hours before the ritual or even during the ritual. I have even had goals come to me after I planted and, knowing that gardening and farming is a process, I just planted the new goal after the main planting. It’s not like it wouldn’t come up or manifest just because it gets planted a little bit later. Despite what frowning, stern purists will tell you, magick is nothing if not flexible and forgiving. Like nature from which it comes, magick adapts.
This year has been particularly fascinating because I have to tell you, 2010 was a tremendous challenge on absolutely every level of existence. It felt as though there was no part of my life or my self that went untested, sometimes repeatedly, sometimes cruelly. For me, 2010 was the Tower card of the Tarot:
The Tower card means that everything you consider to permanent and “safe” is destroyed in order to build something better. The feeling of having no place to hide, no soft place to fall is very common. The feeling of being pushed beyond your limits and feeling as though you will never see the light at the end of the tunnel is also typical of this time. That went on for me for about 2 years, but really culminated in 2010. I was still cringing as 2011 began, but as March progressed, I began to feel more confident and tentatively stuck my head out of the fallout shelter.
I used the blessing of the Super Full Moon to blow out all of the darkest corners and to look into my shadow areas to find any lingering icky things that I might need to confront. There were a few and it was difficult, but it was worthwhile. Another thing I did in the energy of the Super Full Moon was something I’d never done before and should have long before I did: I asked for a healing for the pain I carry around inside of me from old hurts of the past and wounds that should have healed and been forgotten long before.
Sunday was rocky as the last remnants of my challenges from those years all seemed to come back for a final curtain call. On Monday, the day we chose to do our planting, I woke up feeling blessings showering over me. I can’t really say that anything new specifically manifested, but I could feel the tingles of magick all around me and I was hyper-aware of the interconnectness of all things through the day. This put me really in tune with appreciation for the blessings I have in my life.
Images of different directions I’d been led in recent times filled my head through the day and I could see the patterns and pathways at work. I wasn’t sure were it was all heading, but I was loving it. By the time we set up our planting ritual (Listening to “Return to the Goddess by Lindie Lila), I could feel the urgency of something about to burst forth. We cast together and as soon as we began talking about our intentions to plant, it was right there. Not only would I plant the financial security, the secure and safe housing situation, each of my children finding something special that they love to do and the circumstances that would allow both me and Eric to fully actualize our best selves (all of that already a tall order and our goals we’d set back in December – slightly tempered by some minor redirects), but I was going to reclaim something in my life that I’d released over 13 years before.
This is Jera and Kano
They are Germanic runes, of which I am a fan. Back in 1997, I was struggling for some kind of identity following a horrible divorce and grueling relocation in addition to an unexpected pregnancy. It was another of those years like 2010. I asked to be given a name for my highest and best self and I was led to draw two runes from my rune bag. I got these two. Jera means fruition, harvest, the highest and the best. Another aspect of Jera is “time heals all wounds” and “this too shall pass.” It speaks to the movement and healing power of time and reminds us that despite our current hunger, the harvest is coming. Kano means “to know” and is representative of fire and intuition. It means opening, as in opening yourself to your greater intuition, to the will of the Universe and to your greater intuition. Together, these made JeraKano, which became my new craft name. I had a firm idea of who Jera Kano was in the worlds, how she looked and what she meant. She was strong, determined, confident, very Witchy and mysterious and she took shit off of absolutely no one. I felt empowered and encouraged by this positive view of what I could become.
Sadly, life intervened and honestly, got to be more than I could bear. I crumbled and gave into the fears and weaknesses. I shied away from the image of what I could be and doubted that I could ever actually be that. Eventually, I forgot about it. At times, Eric would challenge me and say, “What ever happened to JeraKano? Is she just gone?” That stung, but I never had a good answer. As we began our ritual, I knew JeraKano was back and ready for action, no longer willing to be denied.
As I looked back over my time of letting go of my highest self and most actualized potential, I could see the practical reasons for why things happened as they did. I was given a vision of what could be, but it was not yet time for it. I still had to mother and JeraKano is a warrior priestess. Now that my children are growing up, it is more appropriate to embrace that part of myself. JeraKano is a balance of male and female energies and I have needed to embody primarily female attributes almost exclusively for the past many years. The jobs I have done have been primarily right brained/female attribute jobs (tarot reader, psychic, writer, journalist). Now it is time to embrace that part of myself again.
Eric and I have been in isolation for the better part of seven years now. We retired from performing public rituals and have kept to ourselves. We rarely even practice together any more, each of us following the spiral path in our own way. As we sat together on our bed, I asked him what he remembered about JeraKano. I half expected him to say, “Who?” or to only have vague memories, but his description of who she was and how she looked was not only right on the tip of his tongue, but also fit mine perfectly. I told him that I had a last minute planting and I knew it was time to plant the return of that part of myself. I was nearly breathless with anticipation to bring that back again and so into the planting it went.
Today, the day after planting, was a happy, joyful day. I feel the return of magick and, as the music promised, the Return of the Goddess, seeping back into my life. It’s not that She ever left or that I went away. It’s just that we were working with one another in a very different way. After years of preparation, it is now time to engage that other way of being in the world again.
Now, without me knowing about any of that, a few weeks back, I got the call to embrace something else I’d put off and that is working with Dragon energy. I put it off for years and years, mostly because Dragons are sort of the mafia of the magickal thought form family. They are rogue, in that they answer to no one else. The ArchAngels are aspects of the Divine. The elements are aspects of the Earth and therefore, of the Divine. The little gremlins and elementals are less Divine, but are controllable. Not that you should ever turn your back on them or be careless when you are engaging them, but they are manageable. Dragon energy, is, well complicated. They insist on being treated respect, but will walk away (sometimes forever) at the slightest flinch or show of fear or cowering. They insist on being treated as “first among equals.” They are very good at doing what you ask them to do, but they do want payment. With Dragons, exchanges are quid pro quo. Dragons typically are not there to keep you company or comfort you. When you call them, it is less of a communion and more of a meeting. I got the call for Dragon energy around the same time my sacred space became available again, so when I reset it, it was to honor the Dragons. Before I did that, I recreated my fireplace mantle altar to honor the Dragons. I was stunned by how many Dragon representations I had amassed over the years. I courted them for a while before engaging them, just letting them know I was there and I’d heard their call. (You will possibly remember that “Kano” means “fire” which is a strong aspect of Dragons) I had one Dragon come forth to act as my liaison. I asked him his name and I expected something like Naelyan or Eragon or something along those lines. Oh no. He told me his name is Steve. Here is a picture that is close to what he looks like:
It is a new venture, but like JeraKano, it’s one I feel ready to embrace. This time of new beginnings and new life has breathed new life into me. Without me revealing anything that has been going on with me, within 48 hours of me beginning Dragon work and setting up my sacred space again, I had two high priestesses that I have known from the past contact me out of the blue. That, for me, was a lovely validation of where I am going. This is the first time in a very, very long time that everything in my life is on track and exactly where it needs to be. I very, very much look forward to the harvest that comes from this, whether it is this fall, next or the next. Some things take a LONG time to grow!
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