Just a few days until the fall equinox and I’m reflecting on all that has been done and undone in recent months. Considering this in-between season, of warm days and cool nights, slowly preparing us for what’s to come. Time to make peace with the harvest and all that wasn’t able to grow this year, while also rushing to complete unfinished fragments of tasks. This has been a powerful year (for me, how about you?) — the year of the snake. Being invited — but actually, required — to shed skin again and again on multiple levels. In light of all that, I’ve been looking back at my journals from recent months, and in my goal to share and express myself more freely, have included a few snippets here of my reflections throughout this summer’s shifting emotional landscape. A consistent theme that I notice throughout is the PLANTS. In times that I’ve felt lonely, lost, unsure of what to do with the confusion of all the ~ feelings ~, the plants have again and again been my refuge and steadfast companions.
[I wrote in some ways about my love for plants in my most recent behemoth of an essay The Weed Monster, which you can check out here if you haven’t had a chance to yet. Also, in honor of the plants, and the people who love them, I recently had some stickers made!! Details at the bottom if you want one :) ]
without further ado, my earthling observations and love letter to summer:
Mid-June
The tall, taller than us grasses of the coastal meadows and a perfectly intact full snakeskin lifted from my fingers. Two snakes along our path out to the inland salt marsh and back.
The crash of the waves and enormous vertebrae of a whale on the shore. Brought out of the depths and placed in an altar with feathers, drift wood, pock-marked stones. I’ve never seen a bone so huge, outside of a museum, like a dinosaur.
-
The pure bliss of swimming in a cold river and the sudden anxiety of a hoard of mayflies, swarming into nostrils and mouth, their tiny bodies coating our skin like a biblical plague.
Thinking about liberation movements and what it means to be free
How love wants to touch everything, but we keep trying to contain it.
June 30th
I carried my doubts with me across the country
shared them over the balcony
the things I needed to cling to and pretend I’d tend to
for the dark night air and the fireflies
What a world it is
That heavy feeling in my body
a laughter that reaches no one
Those things that most of us don’t want
everything I need to say,
to someone,
I have to write it down
the only way it knows how to get out.
Try not to be so vague.
I’m not sure how I’m living
Am I doing it well enough?
what a concept
well enough for who?
for myself
for the beauty of the earth
for the mystery that brought me here
& ancestors
& future
Am I missing sign posts?
the path of my heart unfurling one petal at a time.
It’s time to gather linden flowers
& visit the violets & nettle patches by the river.
mid-July
Summer is here and the fog I’ve been steeped in is slowly starting to lift. I’m remembering how to live this particular life that is mine. I know what life is mine because of what I love.
I’ve been offering my body up to the humidity, the lush green of the trees, any body of water that will hold me. And begrudgingly I surrender my skin to the mosquitos, gnats and deer flies that catch the smell of my sweat and pheromones on the current. Inhaling gulps of sweet summer while it’s here. Sometimes purposeful, sometimes not.
The pure delight of encountering blackberries along the edge of the park! Once again the plants snag my heart strings and pull me up out of the haze.
The fatigue of not knowing and trying to know
Instead of enjoying the mystery.
I was walking into the green, buggy woods without my glasses and I unknowingly stumbled within a few yards of a young white tail fawn who’d been resting, legs tucked underneath her on the forest floor. She bolted off startled, but then turned a few steps back to look at me, tilting her head, before bounding away again. Clusters of motherwort grow tall and purposeful into the silvery light.
Motherwort, her bitter medicine, those sharp seed capsules already forming. I clip their tops into my bag. Later, I chop them up on the counter and drop them into the jar with a splash of water and the 40 year old vodka from Grandma’s cupboard above the stove.
July 23rd
Breath in
Breath out
Swimming across the lake and back
afraid of snapping turtles and disappointed to not see any.
Running on the road hurt my hips and legs like I knew it would.
Barefoot on the grass is the way to go.
Caught up with a friend — “How to know if you’re on the right path?”
I’m tired of questioning. I’ve been running myself into the ground with it.
I catch a clip of someone saying “You know you’re on the right path if there is no path.”
Today on the paddleboard, laying amongst the lily pads and lotus flowers.
Thinking about the tarot readings and plant infusions I offered to my family:
- Blue Vervain for easing anxiety and insomnia (much too bitter as a tea, my bad)
- and Lemon Balm for lifting melancholy and improving mood (a hit)
The sense that really being myself can be/is a healing in itself
- to my family
- to whoever I’m with
- to the world
August 16thAte some crumbs of ye olde weed cookie and went on a bike ride, daydreaming about love. Not sure how to plan my next month or two. Summer at its late stages already. Grasses fading their colors. Everything fruiting and going to seed.
August 26th
Feeling such heavy feelings today. Normal interactions feel forced and pinched like I’m barely squeaking my words out. Body heavy with dread and despair. It’s so hard to climb out of. I made myself do some cardio and movement at the park, which helped. Crying with / to the plants also helped, and to Grandma. “Maybe things will feel clear when you get there.”
September 1st
Went on a bike ride to the river park. Hung out on the sandy beach, muddy beach, by the turned over roots of the fallen tree — a gateway to the underworld. I adorn it with a deer skull and feather. So many beautiful plants — how they change through the summer, blooming at different times. Now it’s goldenrod and elderberry, so much golden and purple.
September 4th
One of the stations at the stations of the cross has been breached and empty for weeks, where Jesus fell carrying the cross for the first time. I’ve been tempted by this void for a while and today gather up some already changing leaves and grasses and seeds and acorns to make an offering, impressed by the vibrancy of the colors.
When I return the next day this pagan flower altar has been swept away without a trace. I’m a little sad to see it go, but the impermanence was part of its beauty.
Goodbye summer, and thank you plants 💚
Wishing you all a beautiful equinox and start of something new.
til next time,
- Rachel
P.S. … Stickers!
I had this idea for a sticker a few years ago when I realized that I feel most myself when I’m with other people that adore plants. This is for all of you!
They are 5” x 1” & have a UV protection coating.
I’m selling them for $4.00 each ($3 sticker, $1 shipping…stamps have gotten expensive 😳) P.s. If you want more than one, it’s still $1 for shipping (so $3 x quantity + $1), unless you want to order a whole bunch…talk to me if so.
To purchase, Venmo me at @church-of-earth and email me at earthling055@gmail.com with your mailing address.
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