In the midst of the season of the cosmic Lion, the effects of intense global heat move our water bodies to respond.
How will we respond?
It can feel challenging to look within for equilibrium in these moments of intensity.
Take a beat. Just one to start. Listen to the soft, quiet voice of wisdom within for guidance. What does it say to you?
To me it says, trust the subtle medicine.
You are learning the deep and transformative power of walking softly and deliberately, with trust, toward the subtle medicine.
I trust the subtle medicine. I am learning to trust the subtle medicine. Everyday, I am walking myself toward trust in it’s guidance. This is a lifelong trust walk.
And I’m walking a little bit of it now with you.
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Every time I write, create new art, make plant medicine, or sit in a divinatory session with a client, I feel that I am transported back to making my first trust walk through the thick, dark quiet of the forest at Camp Adams as a summer camp youth. I step with care, searching for the shape of things. Is the earth ahead of my feet level? Does it dip down? Or climb upwards? Is it soft? Squishy? Wet? Dry? Tangled with weeds? I listen for the footsteps of those ahead and behind me, because I am not alone. I am walking hand in hand with those that have walked before me down this path, as well as with those who are to follow.
The subtle medicine for me last week was making a flower essence with ripe mugwort blossoms from my mom’s garden. She thought she was growing Icelandic Poppies, but I knew with delight that she was actually growing one of my most favorite medicinal plants, Artemisia vulgaris, a.k.a. mugwort. And the best part of this flower essence’s medicine story so far is that not only am I finding it helpful for my own divinatory work, my mom is also finding it helpful for her to connect up with the source of her own greater knowing.
Flower essences are subtle, but potent. Like the hand of a friend giving your palm a gentle squeeze in the dark to let you know there’s a bump ahead in the path, or the pull from someone behind, urging you to slow down. My trust in their medicine is vast.
The subtle medicine for me today is remembering that I can be a good elder for my nephew, because I am present with him, not because I have all the answers. While in the spiral of time I was born to walk before my nephew as his elder, I know that he is also my elder. I allow him to teach me how to remember the wonder and challenges of learning, growing, and becoming an ancestor. So as we learn from one another, we learn to walk together.
I don’t have all the answers in any realm as an individual. But as part of a greater organic and cosmic whole, I do implicitly trust the deep wisdom of the subtle medicine we make when we are present with one another.
I’m so glad we’re here together now.
- Artemis Divine -
August 7, 2023