ego and war, do much to nourish the fertile green Motherland that will flourish in warmer days. By the light of day, all is coming.
The Woman in Late Winter
The woman in late winter is building a bridge between her third eye’s intuition and the sensuality of her sacral chakra; such construction requires multiple resources, not the least of which are her time and energy. The doldrums of late winter can weigh heavy on a woman’s shoulders when she is not permitted the space needed to engage her intuition and sensuality. She is overburdened by careful planning and strategic goal setting for the coming warmer season, when the very foundations for her spring have yet to be poured. Open spaces in late winter for pan-sensory being; feel the heavy wet flakes of the last snows on your skin, taste the melting icicles, breathe in the scent of iron-thick mud, hear the sounds of the night creatures, and see with three eyes. If you have even a few moments when nothing needs to be forced, use that time simply to be.
THE SPRING WITCHEngaging the Sensual
Your Witch consciousness, centered in your sacrum, experiences a sensual ignition when the days grow warmer. Even if you live in an urban location surrounded by built structures and concrete, Gaia calls to you from below. Spring Witch, it is in your blood to nourish something green and make it grow at this time. It will serve you well to spend as much time outdoors as you can, for your skin is thirsty for the warmth of sunbeams and the mist of a soft rain. Spring boasts a waxing sensuality that the other seasons do not share; it is the time of the awakened womb, creative spark, and resonating life-force. Your inner Witch is a medium for pure prana as the wheel turns away from winter toward spring, and you may feel so alive that to continue with winter’s tasks and schedules seems a dark and heavy burden. Engage the part of your magickal psyche that yearns for the new at this time, for your deep-seated Gypsy’s soul must be fed during these warmer days.
Crystal Planting: A Healing Spell for Earth Day
Wild woman, we have been born into this world with the same sacred wound; every time our Earth is carved, shredded, and denigrated, we feel Her pain within our bodies. Our feminine psychic lands are riddled with rage and grief over the harm done daily to our Mother, and we suffer largely in silence. Each time a tree is dug up from the root or a river is polluted with harsh chemical distortions, our own cells cry out for both mercy and justice. One of the great falsehoods accepted by the human community is that one person cannot possibly make a difference in global healing, but this, my love, is a lie born of fear.
You are the very embodiment of the feminine divine; this power lives inside you, positioned for you to wield it as you will. Our great responsibility as children of Gaia, at this pivotal moment in human history, is to use our magick for global transformation. Do not play small, you fierce Woman, for you are fighting for your home. Go to a wild place now, bring a quartz crystal you have soaked in moonlight, and find a Mother Tree. If you are unable to go into nature, hold a crystal in your hand and proceed as if this were a meditation.
You know the Mother Tree when you see it, for it stretches over you like an aged faery grandmother. Hold the crystal in your left hand and press your ear against the bark. Do you hear it? She speaks to you in the language of Gaia, and She tells you of Her hopes and fears. The Mother Tree’s energy runs through like a primitive current, garnet-red, straight from Her roots to yours. She knows you are a wild wandering woman, and She recognizes your true soul. Your crystal begins to vibrate with the resonance of Her, and you plant the offering at the Mother Tree’s base, watering it with your grateful tears.
Lie upon the ground now, dear one. Get mud in your hair and hike up your skirt. This is the true Mother’s Day, and you can feel the sparks of sprouting seeds below you mirroring the swelling pinpoints of light in your womb, belly, and heart. Honor yourself now, my Sister-Witch, for you have found your soul’s authentic home. Return to the Mother Tree whenever you feel trapped by the doldrums of daily life. Come back to lie upon the Earth whenever you need to feel held, and drink in the medicine of tree magick whenever you feel wounded. Know that She has endured through countless storms, and that She feels the same pain you do.
From the roots of the body to the roots of the Mother Tree, blessed be. Trees are the stuff of the hearty feminine, and so are we.
Liberating the Spring Snake: A Meditation for Removing the Creative Block
The denigration of the wild Earth is similarly damaging to women’s creativity. Much like our natural world, generative creative power does not wish to be fenced in, welled up, or manicured. Your creative fire is raw and serpentine. Woman, do not fear the snake, for it does not fear you. As you read this, a serpent lies coiled at the base of your spine awaiting your call. Your pelvic bowl is her home and, while there are times when she must sleep, now is not that time. Your creative fire has awakened her, and she longs to slither up your backbone to your emerald-green heart center. She longs to be liberated; now call her to action.
The snake is your feminine creative power and, try as you might, you cannot contain her on these warmer days. Envision your greatest blockage to creating. Where does it exist in your body? What color is it? What temperature? Now send your magick snake there. Let it lick away at the blockage, weakening it with every flick of her flaming tongue. She writhes around the blockage without effort, and soon your greatest creative obstacle has been removed, eaten away by the power of the Holy Wild. She moves now to your heart center and divides in two, ringing around your arm bones and crawling into your Witch’s hands. Your fingers are abuzz now with unbridled energy. You are an emblazoned creatrix, and now you must channel that jewel-orange power. Wild Witch, paint, write, cook, dance, or doodle. Make mud pies. Shape some clay. String some beads. Your snake is awake! Now keep her free for as long as you can.
We are taught to distrust the snake as a harbinger of evil. So, too, we are urged to suppress our sensuality. In Goddesses in Everywoman, Jean Shinoda Bolen writes that “every heroine must reclaim the power of the snake.” The power of the snake is the power of the feminine life-force residing within the sacred sacrum. A woman who begins to awaken this serpentine force, particularly if it has lain dormant for many years, will start to push beyond her own safe boundaries as an artist. She will risk much, allowing herself to be seen as an unbridled, and thereby untamable, force in her own world. She will buck against structures of oppression, and she will refuse to let her sensuality be contained in a lidded basket any longer. Once the snake is awake, dear Sister, both your creativity and sensuality have been similarly licked alive.
The Woman in Late Spring
The woman in late spring is a woman whose passion has caught fire. Know this passion as the sacrum-spawned energies that fuel your sacred work, your many tasks, and a true, active peak in the soulful being-doing-being cycle. The same pressures on the woman’s body and mind that pushed her in many directions during the winter season may well persist into spring, but her psyche is often better equipped to prioritize and negotiate these to-dos as the wheel turns toward the hot southern gate of summer. There is more light in our lives, and we may well need less rest. As a woman moves into summer, she is served best by engaging in movement alchemy, purposefully wielding her body as an essential and integral part of the sacred self. Channel the building solar energies through your body; shake and jiggle in ways you never have before, unwind the knots in your joints, and make a hell of a lot of noise while you do it. The woman in late spring prepares to embody everything, and pulling the consciousness down into the lower chakras creates support for physical pattern breaking; it is a time of making your inner temple ready for the sun to move in, a time when the soft body serves you just as much as, if not far better than, the hard-thinking mind.
THE SUMMER WITCHHeating the Cauldron
As the wheel turns from spring to summer, the Witch becomes a sheer force of fem-fire. She is a solar storm, and she must remember to nurture herself with cooling magick amid the heat of hedonistic play in the natural world. You can feel summer’s wildfire in your boiling blood, my Sister-Witch, and you have