In the past two blog posts, here and here, I wrote about some of the things that have happened to me in the past year or so, and particularly about how using my oracle cards helped me through a rough time. This post isn't about the cards, but will fill in the ending of my time in Colorado, because there are things I really want to share.
So it was that I decided to remain at Springvalley Farm through the Autumn Equinox, and the new moon which preceded it by a couple of days. The hinge time. The liminal time. I decided that I wanted to use that time to sever my ties with the place. I knew that this was an important act.
| I tend to sentimentality and homesickness, and although I had not been particularly happy there, and often desperately unhappy, still, I had come to love the land. How could I not? I had walked it, ridden it, driven a tractor over it, thousands of times. I knew it with such an intimacy. I loved the grass, the trees, the slight curves, and the different humours of the different, individual spots. There is nothing wrong with that love, of course! But, since I was leaving, and since I was sad enough already, I knew that it was important to cut these ties. To move toward thinking of this place as merely "a place that I am leaving". With that in mind, I tried to say the cord cutting prayer every day. But also to frequently just say to myself, "This is a place that I'm leaving". |  |
 | My shrine to Epona was in the adobe barn where I kept the feed and tack for the ponies. Over the years I went there every full moon to light incense and candles - also at other times. I did my best to keep that part of the barn clean, and always to honour Epona when I was in the feed room. Her presence was always there. Sweet and strong and firm. |
Every morning I walked the land with the dog, Molly. We both had the need, physically, emotionally and spiritually, to do that daily. I took many photos of plants and of different views. With the state of my ankle being so variable, sometimes the walks were short, sometimes longer, but I felt a wonderful give and take between my spirit and the land's spirit on those walks, in the last months that I was there. Below is a little slideshow of a few photos.
I was so busy and tired, bone tired, with packing, with worrying about the future and mourning the things that had happened recently. I wondered how I would use that liminal time when it came. I am not good at planning rituals - they tend to unfold, though. In the end, I went out at night to the shrine in the barn with incense. I lit a candle. By this time the room was very clean and almost empty of things. I felt dead and empty when I went there most of the time now. No horses to feed. Stripping everything off to sell... But it was a beautiful evening, and I sat down on a chair and felt the beautiful presence of Epona. I began to sing my Hymn to Epona, and then to freely chant to her. Singing her praises from my heart. And I felt so strongly how she loved this place, too. The place where I made Her shrine. The phrase "In this house made of earth," came strongly to me. She delighted in Her house of earth.
  |   |
Later I went in and also lit a candle to Rhiannon, on my altar there, and spent time there meditating.
The following morning I wanted to do something to leave a "spell" of protection on the land. I had strong feelings of wanting to help the land with the transition to what will come next. The grass and other plants, the wildlife, had become used to my ways. I had always sought to work with the land, to allow it to have sovereignty over itself as much as I could, and over the years I had delighted in seeing an increase in grass, birds and animals of all kinds.
I had thoughts of burying something at each of the four corners of the farm - but what? And how? I couldn't come up with a plan. I wasn't even sure that I could walk the two and a half miles around the place. I definitely didn't want to do it carrying very much. I thought about leaving some kind of carvings on the corner posts, instead. Carvings of horses or something, but realistically, I don't have the skill to do more than scratch the wood. What to do?
Click here to visit my Patreon page and find out about pledging your support for my work.
In the end, I went to a collection of crockery shards that I have. These are not ordinary. They are pieces, mostly of blue willow-ware, which I collected many years ago from the beach at Port Charlotte, on Islay. Like sea glass, they have been tumbled smooth as pebbles, but with fragments of their patterns still visible. A stripe, part of a tree, or a leaf pattern. I have carried them with me for over thirty years, treating them as sacred, not really thinking about why. So I selected four of these, and started my walk.
At each corner, I managed to push one of these smooth, thin, pieces of china deep into the crevices of the corner posts, which are made from heavy wooden railway sleepers. Although they are weathered, they will last a long time yet. The walk was okay. I made it without being in agony, and as I put the fourth piece in place I felt a sense of some protective power surrounding the land, of four pulsing points reinforcing that power. And I felt ready to let go.
RSS Feed
