We Shall Not Meet

Spring Equinox 2021

In this Southern Hemisphere, Spring has arrived: the time of renewal. In my garden, two irises bloom, abundant with colour and light. 

With joy after many months apart, we Goddesses of Shining Light prepare to meet for Equinox. After months of staying COVID-safe, we plan for glorious reunion. We’ve missed gathering – to dance in circle to honour the Goddess; to sing and meditate; to send out our light, drawn from the heavens, to our community here and to the wider world. To feel our hearts revive. And to lunch together afterwards in friendship, reconnecting with each other’s individual selves and lives.

Then comes a sudden new lockdown for our area. The gathering cannot happen.

A facebook friend reminds me, inner reality is paramount and I can celebrate very well alone. I can … but he fails to understand the power of the communal. We women are aligned in our purpose, our understanding, and in the mystical joy and peace we share, uniting for this service. 

It is above all our own renewal, an energy source. There are many things we do for others. This coming together is also a time for us — for each in her inner core, and collectively. Here we renew our strength. Here we renew our hearts. Here we renew our deep inner truth ... our spirit.

We want to look into each other’s smiling eyes, and hear again each other’s voices.  

We are not all Pagan, though several of us are. We include Christians, Krishna devotees, Buddhists, Indigenous people on their own timeless spiritual paths, New Agey types, and one avowed unbeliever — who nevertheless has an excellent understanding of energy flow and subscribes to our ideals.

What ideals are they? 

We seek to embody the qualities of the Divine Feminine, both privately and collectively. ‘Light workers’ is surely the most accurate term for us.

But can this summary convey how much we’ve been longing to meet? How our gatherings nurture and restore us? How they carry us through the months to the next time?

‘I see you,’ we say to each other without needing words. ‘I see you,  I know you. You are precious and distinct … and we are one.’ 

We relinquish our plans. We shall meet etherically instead. 

At Poets and Storytellers United, in Weekly Scribblings #88: Equinox, Magaly invites us to write on one or all of three phrases. I chose, 'I see you.' What I wrote seems to belong best in this, my 'witchy' blog.

Spring Equinox — Not Going as Planned

I was to attend an Equinox celebration today, hosted by the local Goddess Circle at the Castle, Uki. I dressed up in my purple Goddess gown and my wonderful Spring cloak that my friend Dinah made — and the car wouldn't start. 

'Flat battery,' I thought, though could not find anything I'd left switched on which might account for it. I knew that by the time I waited for the NRMA man to arrive and do his thing, and by the time I took the car for a long drive afterwards to recharge, I'd be far too late for the start of the celebrations. It would not be appropriate to burst in late. I changed out of my finery, not wishing to startle the NRMA man.

Not a flat battery as it turned out, but starter motor. It might be a one-off, he said, but told me anyway how to get it started if it happens again, in which case I should also take it to my mechanic. He still recommended I take it for a half hour drive 'to get everything charged up'. It was already too late to go to the Castle.

I had a lovely drive through trees out to pretty Crystal Creek, then back to town via the winding Numinbah Road, with fewer trees and more paddocks but still very scenic. 

I phoned my friend Mara when I got back home. 'Would you like to have lunch at Rainforest Cafe?' But she was expecting visitors. Clearly the Universe wants me to observe the Equinox in a quiet and solitary manner.

I am dozing now, over my screen, even though I meditated before starting to write. Maybe I just need a rest. Perhaps at this time I need it more than a whole day of dancing and chanting.

When I was waiting for the NRMA man, I had time to water my garden, which is best done early on these very warm days. I was going to have to leave it, to get to the Castle in time.  Tut, tut! Shame on me — dancing for the Goddess does not outweigh caring for one's plants. 

I have recently had two different conversations with other witches, in which they said they felt they were better witches, more in touch with the intuitive side of it, before they did a lot of reading and study. I think there's something in that. The academic side of things is interesting, but is not the core. Simple acts like watering the garden, sweeping a spider outside (gently) instead of killing it, lighting a candle for someone who is ill, going outside to gaze at the full moon -- these are the essence of witchcraft, aren't they? ... this simple yet powerful, earth-based practice.