Lesson Five
Lesson 5: The Wonder of Our Longing
The energy of longing is a wise teacher. When we hold the tension of longing without naming what it is we long for, we are suddenly kin to the prima materia, to the unformed infinite cosmic forces that preceded our universe’s birth. We are pure potential, and we are swaddled by a profound sense of trust in the great unfolding.
In winter, we are nested in the holy void. We cannot know what immense wonders await us, and we are tasked with seeing magick in the mundane. Our rituals are those that nourish us, that hold us, that do not deplete our precious resources including time, money, and our physical energy. Here we are shaped by awe, and we marvel at the spiral dance of the planets, at the necessary humility of the human animal, and we become living poetry.
For Reflection:
1. How does it feel to hold the tension of the longing energy? What words come to mind as you hold the tension of longing?
2. Work now with your favorite oracle- be it a pendulum, tarot, wild divination and animal speak, pyromancy, tea leaves, etc.- and hold the tension of longing while you ask the oracle your most pertinent questions. Do you feel your divination work is changed in some way when you hold the longing energy?
3. Of the three winter stories in Seasons of Moon and Flame- The Bone-Woman’s Brew, the Storyteller Crone’s Jewels, and The Moon Child and the Holy Wild Hag- which one speaks to you the loudest right now and why?
“Perfectly positioned in this joyous and wicked world am I. Many,
many moons ago, my hopeful soul sat atop a wild, crystalline comet
and spiraled around a slow-dying star. Countless visions had I there,
riding that blazing orb into oblivion, but the one I remember most
clearly is this scene I found myself in right now. I saw it as if it
were a soft-lined painting done by some dead and stone-faced master
artist; it was I, just as I am on this wintry evening. It was I, standing
in the cold with a heart overwelling with a senseless and infinite
trust that all is as it must be, that all is an intricate weaving of pure,
primordial chaos with silvery threads of purpose and poetry. It was
I, perfectly positioned in this joyous and wicked world.”