We Have Come to the Cross-Quarters

Samhain (pronounced sow-in) is one of the four “cross-quarter” festivals of the ancient Gaelic calendar, which originated among the Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. The timing of the “cross-quarters” festivals were 6 weeks before and after the Solstices and Equinoxes. In this way, the year was divided into eight seasons., or moods of the year. Samhain marks the end of the harvest season, the start of winter, and the "darker half" of the year.

It was celebrated from sunset on October 31 to sunset on November 1, as the Celts counted days from sundown to sundown. It was a crucial time for finishing the harvest, moving herds down from summer pastures and slaughtering and preserving livestock for winter provisions. Many historians view Samhain as the ancient Celtic New Year.

The Celts believed that the barrier between the physical world and the Otherworld (the realm of gods, spirits, and ancestors) grew very thin during Samhain. Souls of the departed were thought to revisit their former families, while fairy-folk and other “Earth-Spirit Beings” roamed freely.  Families left food and drink outside their doors to welcome friendly ancestral souls. 

One thing strikes me most about this festival: Samhain was the time that the Earth’s light was leaving, so ancient Celtic people would assure its return by building a huge communal fire on a hilltop.  Then extinguishing all personal fires in their homes, they all processed to the single, new and pure fire. They re-lit their personal fires from this One sacred fire, knowing that from this shared fire and light came protection, prosperity and unity. At this time when the veils were thin, the people symbolically let go of their individuality and rekindled their innate knowledge that we all come from the same One, we are protected and nourished by this Unity. It was not just during the Medieval era that this was true. Right now, at this time, our beloved Earth and all her children are experiencing chaotic elements from many directions. We can feel the Light receding in more ways than one.

So, today, as the veils are thinning, let’s align with each other and this ancient wisdom that recognizes and celebrates the unity of Humanity and the Ancient Ones... in all their various realms: the Ancestors of the Spiritual realm, the Earthly realm, and the Familial realm. Let’s offer solidarity and gratitude, each in our own way. 

Take a walk among the burnt umber and golden dogwoods, the red and copper maples.

Light a candle and make an offering to the Unseen Beings.

Sing a sweet and melancholy song to the waning light.

Give gratitude and honor to the Spirit of Unity.

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Photo: Dave Hoefler

The Veil Between the Worlds is Thinning

 The veil between the worlds is thinning.

The beings of fire & warmth in Nature are receding.

Now we must carry them within as the light and warmth of Love.

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Roel op t Ende, creator of the podcast Voices of Waldorf Elders  Although our topic was “What do Young Children Really Need?” the conversation was wide ranging.  We talked about the fundamental needs of young children within the larger context of the fundamental needs of humans throughout a lifetime. As is true for the wellbeing of young children, every one of us is designed by Nature with an innate need for Love; to offer love, to be held in love’s embrace, and to carry an atmosphere of love as we walk through life.  We humans are designed to live within and carry the light ~ the warmth ~ of Love; we thrive when we follow these “original instructions,” and we falter when this is amiss.

Looking into our current society we find people of all ages struggling to find belonging, beauty, meaning, inspiration, and ~ essentially ~ Hope.  Not hope as pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.  Rather hope with her sleeves rolled up and her eyes open to the needs of all other beings, human and our other than human brothers and sisters needs as well. This kind of hope is the twin sister of Love; they work together side-by-side and fill the world with beauty.

Please listen-in with Roel and me as we turn our thoughts inward;

and our hearts ray outward at this time of

the thinning of the veils and the turn of the seasons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rOIuA5Xu40

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Photo by Tengyart

Gratitude for Our Plant Relatives

As the Plant world moves toward autumn sleep and winter regeneration

a global ceremony to honor our Plant relatives begins today.  Join me and the

Organization of Nature Evolutionaries here

 ONE is asking us to send notes of love and appreciation to the world of green growing beings:

 Plant

 Rivanna river bank,

damp earth a fecund womb,

gestates plant embryos

who dream of water

~ grace fallen from stars ~

who ache toward sun’s warmth

~ his sovereign ascendency ~

Plant ancestors live

through our cycles

moon to moon

blossoming, fruiting,

seeding, resting

We are kin

to seductive honeysuckle

unfurling first leaves,

opening blossom’s fertile whorl

into crimson dawn light.

Kin to masting beech trees:

sisters, cousins

who together as one

launch their precious young,

making forests fill with music.

Nuts cascading from upper stories,

squirrels gathering,

gossiping amid leaf litter

Kin to blackberries who open

their taut, sweet fruit

into lustrous solar face.

As they turn toward sleep,

we turn toward gratitude. 

Beech trees do not fruit yearly or biennially.  By a mysterious communication,

beeches in an entire bio-region will set, mature and launch their fruit at the same time: mast-fruiting.

From my book of earth poems, A Litany of Wild Graces ~ Meditations on Sacred Ecology

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Jewel Weed Wears Her Diamond Studded Gown

 Let us Walk Redemption

Now we set this foot

upon holy soil,

now this one

upon star moss,

now sand beside

the sacred stream,

now the tenderness of

sweet Jewel Weed.

Let us walk our prayers,

walk at the center of

time and space,

as feet press prayers

into fragrant autumn loam.

 The first wild plant I fell in love with when I moved to Virginia was Jewel Weed! Her medicinal properties are full of kindness and generosity: her gel-like sap breaks down poison ivy’s itchy oils; her fresh juice cools and calms mosquito bites; her fungal properties help athlete’s foot and ringworm.

Plant people say that if you make a relationship with a wild plant, or if you need its medicine, it will come to live close by. Here you see this year’s Jewel Weed, just outside my kitchen door.  The hummingbirds, making their autumn journey south, are congregated here with me.  We are all buzzing and humming in gratitude. My feet press prayers into fragrant autumn loam.

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To Re-Sanctify Earth

 The Glory of the Ordinary

Fifty years ago I had a dream in which I was given a new spiritual name and new spiritual practice.  They were both called by the same name, in a language I did not know.  I asked a native speaker to translate and awoke with the words The Glory of the Ordinary ringing…singing… in the cells of my body. In her visionary book The Glorians, Terry Tempest Williams re-sanctifies Earth, rewriting a sacred text, Psalm ninety-one, beginning in this way:

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Holy Ordinary will rest in the shadow of the Glorians.  We will say of the Glorians they are our sanctuaries and our fortresses, they are our wonders in whom we trust.”

A visitation from the Glory of the Ordinary arrived outside my door recently; it is a wonder in whom I trust.  This is my sacred Psalm:

Animalia

I.

She hears a small thud

against the window.

Sparrow huddles,

breath coming fast,

blinks as the woman

bends to hold her.

No flutter of wings

quieter still

inside the basket.

The woman pulls

soft flannel close,

steps back inside.

II.

Forest animals

she bows to by day

return to her

under moonlight.

They inhabit her dreams:

She holds a wedding

bouquet of living snakes.

Bees deposit honey

into her lap.

Birdsong becomes

elixir in a crystal vial.

A stag with diamond antlers

stands in shallow creek water.

Her house of dreams

is a living bestiary

herds, packs, flocks, schools

species, times, seasons, eons

are waves on the sea

rising, merging, rearranging

patterns of furred, finned

feathered bodies

surfacing and receding

III.

When humans stood to walk

face forward, gaze level

the underside

~ belly, womb, heart ~

were exposed

vulnerable for the first time.

Rolling over

wolves submit

with a lowered head

tail tucked

underbelly soft and visible.

The woman rounds

her body, bends low

forehead on the ground

to bow bare

before the Sacred.

IV.

One sparrow

the weight of feathers

and a heartbeat

launches into flight

from a basket rim.

From my book of earth poems, A Litany of Wild Graces ~ Meditations on Sacred Ecology

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Photo by Michael Heng

To Reimagine Liturgy

Gaia’s own liturgy offers the possibility that we be released from the binding structures of the Western mind.  A new liturgy and its rituals can blur the edges of our sense of self and open the door to unitary states: unite the boundlessness of Spirit with the eternally cycling here and now.

Gaian liturgy is sacramental:  outward and visible realities express the subtle movements of Spirit.  The unfurling of an emerald fiddlehead fern announces the sacred miracle of Spirit’s seed.  It unfolds not only in the green world, but also in the sacrament of our own bodies. The tangible and finite make Spirit visible. 

A sensate liturgy offers us a communal lens through which to witness truth.  With spoken rhythms and gestures, scriptures and texts, prayer’s call and response, the human community is woven together for a sacred moment outside of time into one body, one heart, one mind.  We become one living expression of praise, in communion with all beings.  The resonant states created by a participatory liturgy lift us out of isolation, unbind us from the narrow confines of solitary thought.  We become embedded in something greater than ourselves, a pervasive joyous intelligence.

In these invocations we return to a liturgy of the incarnate deity.  Let us gather friends and family, and together experience these healing, unitive states.  Let them be written into our bloodstream, carried in the rhythm of our footsteps.  Let us walk this ecstatic unity into the moments of our daily lives.

From my book of poems to the Earth, A Litany of Wild Graces

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Summer Bouquet, Summer Dreams

Night Breath

In nuanced darkness

the spherical nature of sound

echoes in cochlear spirals.

Cicada’s song resonates

with red fox’s shrill bark

and moonlit breezes.

Through tapestried shadows

the breath repeats Huuuu...

heart beating its rhythm.

This breath, created by

tulip poplars and spice bush,

we share with

red-winged blackbirds

who feed their fledgling

one sunflower seed by one

orcas breaching and

shimmering in sunlight

as they play off Vashon Island

a bob cat whose shriek

punctuates pungent dark.

It is a layered elixir infused with

the exhaled dreams of boundless

furred and feathered ancestors

since the first chloroplast

invited mitochondria to dance

a tango of symbiosis.

Each breath, a stratified

sedimentation of beings

~ a fertile broth ~

 drifts damp and lush

through bedroom windows.

From  A Litany of Wild Graces, my book of love poems to Earth.

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Rewilding the Human Heart wins Nautilus Award

Rewilding the Human Heart is a celebration of new and ancient ways to honor our earth-ancestors and deepen these primal relationships. As we dive into the cardinal elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether, as well as nature’s realms ~ Minerals, Plants, Animals, Humans and Unseen Beings ~ we also rekindle their wild and essential nature within our own being. In this way we become better relatives to our fellow earthlings.  

 Chapter by chapter we become immersed in the components of our luminous biosphere. We deepen our felt experience of the elements and invite the realms of nature into closer relationship. Because we are composed of these very elements and realms, we will discover how their qualities, moods, gifts and challenges exist within our luminous inner sphere. We will deepen into relationship with these earth-ancestors on many levels, within our body, heart, soul, mind, and spirit. Their wildness will rekindle our own wild and tender wisdom.  (From the Introduction)

Web

 In forest light,

mind’s kaleidoscope slows.

Movement germinates anew,

arising now from her feet

that step through leaf litter.

Solomon’s Seal waves

from a green ocean’s

distant reef.

At her feet agrimony bows;

hand to heart, she bends.

Silken veils

invisibly spun across her path

reach out and cling to her,

as spiders come and greet.

Wrapped in webs she walks,

Spider Grandmother by her side.

Together they comb and spin Unity,

weaving life’s complexity

from the singularity of One.

A sole ray of light

pierces summer’s canopy,

refracts off a silk thread

riding across her eyelashes.

It is an arrow of light

flying into the future

showing her the way.

Prose is from Rewilding the Human Heart

Poetry is from A Litany of Wild Graces

When I’m not in the woods, find me here:

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We Learned to Sing from Our Feathered Ancestors

“The nightingale dips the truth into honey

and makes this into song”

Thirteenth Century Sheikh Tapduk Emre

Sing

Wood thrush flutes

amid dogwood flowers.

Sings reality to me,

veils it in aeolian cadences.

She and I

inhabit this green cloister,

our lives spent singing

among supple poplars.

Appalachian winds move

among their branches,

intoning grace and praise.

Chanting her spiral remembrance,

she is a Sufi clothed in simple brown.

I become dust at her delicate

crimson feet.

We take flight together;

sacred breath

inhabits my bones,

hollowed by the knife

of human limitations.

She, with bones made of air,

I with bones carved by grace,

our melody resonates in

the heart of the world.

From my book A Litany of Wild Graces

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There you’ll find Nesting Circles of Belonging

 ~ Family, Nature and Cosmos ~

 Photo by Matheus Protzen

Singing is Our First Language

Over the millennia humans have learned tangible ways of fostering relationship with each other and the more-than-human world.  Our lives were spent observing the myriad ways plants, insects, birds, and other animals communicate. The gifts of song, movement, breath and blessing are lessons humans have learned from our other-than-human kin. I call these ways of communication technologies of relationship. We employ these technologies ~ these embodied languages ~ within our deepening kinship with nature.

Song is earth’s first language, articulated by wind in treetops; by water rushing over stones and dropping into clear pools; by birdsong at dawn, autumn crickets, geese flying in formation; by coyote whom we call the song dog and vixen’s song of love. Like our ancient ancestors around the fire at the cave’s edge, we too can discover the magic of song as we embed ourselves more deeply into our own immediate pocket of the emerald earth. As we walk our favorite trail or sit in the twilit back yard, allow song to arise from your listening heart.  Offer this simple song as a gift to these other-than-human relatives who surround you.

Sing now! Seeds are wakening below and springtime birds are beginning to return.  The pre-spring-time blessings of Imbolc are rustling underground and winging our way.  Our songs of gratitude can help pull the warmth and growth of springtime closer.

Soon, in this blog, we will call on the miracles of Movement and Breath to deepen our relationship with our fellow Earthlings!

Excerpted from my book Rewilding the Human Heart ~ A Journey of Reunion.

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Photo by  Doncoombez 

The Heralds of Spring

Bare winter branches

bow to frigid winds.

Chimes chant prayers.

Summer’s hydrangea stalks

rattle sun-drenched thoughts

that skitter past frozen ferns.

 Cardinals are scarlet sentinels

on dogwood’s silver branches

etched into winter’s brocade.

Yet, at the foot of wintry poplars

 snow drops feel the call

of coming solar warmth.

 Let’s celebrate new and ancient rituals to honor the rhythmic cycles of earth and our fellow earthlings.  As we dive into the cardinal elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether, as well as nature’s realms ~ Minerals, Plants, Animals, Humans and Unseen Beings ~ we also rekindle their wild and essential nature within our own being. In this way we deepen these primal relationships.

Join me and LifeWays for a deep dive into Kinship with Nature is a Family Affair.  In this video is your personal invitation; I’d love to take this journey with you!  

Photo by Kate Knott

Winter Wishes and an Invitation

We are blessed with actual winter weather here in Virgini: below freezing nights, frosty mornings, and snow will arrive soon!  The winter birds are at the feeders all day and the squirrels come to me when I call them, saying I’ve put their breakfast of nuts on the porch rail.  The frogs are breathing through their skin, sleeping in the creek-side mud, and the coyote’s song wafts down from the high orchards.

We have passed the “bleak midwinter” though.  Imbolc, in early February, is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox; it marks our emergence from winter. It is a time of fire and light: candles and hearth fires symbolize the returning sun and inner light, with celebrations involving candle-dipping and bonfires. Underground, even in the snow, seeds begin to subtly stir. Our fist patch of snowdrops nod their heads beneath the poplar by the porch. 

With this sense of earth’s slow awakening and new life gestating, LifeWays and I invite you to join the course Kinship with Nature is a Family Affair!  Together we will celebrate this time of nature’s re-awakening, beginning February fourth and traveling through early spring till March 11th. This is the perfect moment for a journey that will take us more deeply into kinship with the natural world and all her feathered, furred, foliated and finned beings.

Kinship with Nature is a Family Affair will travel through the elements and realms of nature in an embodied way, incorporating song, movement, blessing, story and much more. Research shows intimate connections with nature improve our health, mood and sense of purpose.  Science affirms that the child’s love of nature, and its many health benefits, depends upon their adult’s depth of connection with the natural world. Are you not quite sure how to deepen and express your own love of nature?  Would you love to know how to “pass the torch” of nature connection to the children in your care?  Join us in this joyful learning process!

Please forward this invitation to friends and family!

A Gaian Litany

It is November, a time of year that we are reminded to give thanks.  The Haudenosaunee, though, practice giving thanks on many occasions, throughout the year.  Their “Words Spoken Before All Others,” also called the Iroquois Thanksgiving, is a Gaian Litany.  It offers thanks to Mother Earth and Father Sky, to land formations and bodies of water. To food and medicinal plants, and trees who offer shade. To the animals who burrow, swim, fly, those who are furred and scaled, finned and feathered. We as well can give thanks on many occasions ~ in fact it is our human responsibility to give thanks ~ in this way we help to hold the balance.

Let us step into earth’s sanctuary and begin to know the nature of each being, the qualities of each plant medicine.  Learn the names and ways of these other than human persons ~ this litany of wild saints.  Bring joy and gratitude.  Call the names of these beings; know they are listening, they understand.  The language of the heart needs no translation.   May this Gaian litany be

Invocation; to call forth

other-than-human presences.

Invitation; to join in the great

conversation of beings.

Participation in a living

geography

botany

zoology

cosmology

a vocabulary of Oneness.

This is litany in its most untamed and fecund form.  Call the names of

land formations

water mothers

plant beings

animal cousins

fire spirits.

A ripple of gratitude echoes toward the past, refracts into the future. The long round of time glistens with a thread of human remembrance.

Litany is creative word

Word is animate being

Being is the breath that sings

among us.

Let us sing their names as we walk.

This is from my book A Litany of Wild Graces

Other Ways to connect with me:

Rewilding Substack: https://sharifaoppenheimer.substack.com

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Photo Quỳnh on Unsplash

Journey Through Outer Terrains and Inner Waterways

Take an inner and outer journey fluid with possibility. Move through liquid states of the soul. 

Discover elemental ancestors who have come to you as gifts from the stars.

Explore your own flowing imagination,

Your rooted being

Your vast and free breath

Your flaming inspiration

What is the most crucial rewilding task? What is an essential need today?

Rewilding the Human Heart

Join me and the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries for a six week exploration of humanity’s unbroken Kinship with Nature. Come Rewild your Heart and discover a belonging you never imagined possible. Together let’s rejoin the “great conversation among all beings.”  I hope to travel these seascapes and soul-scapes with you!

From the ONE website:

Our upcoming course Kinship With Nature, with beloved teacher and author Sharifa Oppenheimer, starts October 16! Kinship with Nature is a 6-week elemental journey into rewilding the human heart; inviting us into the felt sense that we are not separate, but part of Earth’s great family of beings. Learn More Here

Image: Organization of Nature Evolutionaries

Deepen Your Kinship with Nature ~ Rewild Your Heart!

You are invited to join me and the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries!

October 16th- November 20th
A 6-week elemental journey into rewilding our hearts

From the ONE website:

Led by Sharifa Oppenheimer, beloved Waldorf educator and author of Heaven on Earth and A Litany of Wild Graces, Kinship with Nature draws from her newest book, Rewilding the Human Heart: A Journey of Reunion. Though not required for the course, the book is a powerful companion for those wanting to go deeper.

This course is for you if you are:

Seeking peace, purpose, and presence through Nature connection

Longing for a spiritually grounded, heart-centered learning experience

Moved by Sharifa’s writing or Waldorf-inspired teachings

Curious about the wisdom of the elements as a guide

to personal and planetary healing

Exploring ways to rewild your inner landscape in response to a changing world

Together, we’ll explore the five elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether—as living teachers and pathways to inner and outer harmony.

Click here for more information, answers to questions, and to register

I look forward to making the Elemental Journey with you!

https://www.natureevolutionaries.com/kinship-with-nature-course