A Garden Is Magic

Photo of Jenelle’s Garden. In the garden is a statue of Quan Yen and a street sign that reads “Queen Street.”

Months back, I gathered with some of my sister Third Road initiates, by phone, to do a magical spell. (Third Road is a tradition of Fairy magic that I channeled and continue to channel.) During our ceremony, Jenelle Leigh Campion read a poem she’d written about her garden, pictured above. Her artistry wowed me once again.

The poem also portrays themes dear to me:

* Inner wholeness created through connection with the larger whole and through appreciation of every part of the whole. This sensibility is central to my journey as a spiritual seeker and Fairy shaman.

* The green world as an enchanted realm in which each plant is a living spirit. Plants are my friends who give me great joy with their beauty and wisdom, while they help me with my witch spirituality.

Here’s Jenelle’s poem, prefaced by her introduction:

This piece was inspired by a writing prompt that asked me to write from a “family consciousness” perspective and use the “royal we” pronoun to describe a family having a group experience. Instantly, my garden called out as the collective voice that would like to be channeled into my writing and this was the result.  

Garden

We are the garden.
We are the ones who grow.

In the misty, humid dawn we drink in dew
collectively unfurling
from the evening’s contraction.

Hibiscus sees the light first,
standing almost as tall as the wall behind us.
Only a few shy flowers appearing amidst the bush.

Our bright pink petals of Lady Magenta
highlight brightly
in the sea of our green.

The tender arrives to inspect
our changes and newness
and inspire the cherished waters to flow,
refreshing and preparing us
for the work of the day.
Growth.
New achievements unlocked.
New blossoms to bloom.

Magnolia is always in the light drawing nutrients
down from the heavens and
up from below the foundation.
She hugs the earth and sky.

The cluster of Bamboo and Rosemary
are the grandmothers in the garden.
Kwan Yin stands in their heart,
reminding compassion.
These plant darlings shimmer in green
and laugh into the wind as they bend.  

The potted plant party corner thinks
it’s having an exclusive event.
And they are right.
The late day sun is their jam!
Drinking in and
reveling in brightness
their medicine becomes
plump and potent.  

We all become more
plump and potent,
happy in our brightness
or shade.

Easter Lillies, Holly, and Queen of the Nile
liking their cool calm zones
to chill and become beautiful.

We are the garden.
We are the ones who grow.

We are one circle,
within a larger neighborhood circle,
and a city circle,
state,
country,
continent,
world.

One global plant family
everyday turning up
to bring delight
to our courtyard.

Jenelle, who also paints amazing pictures, says, ”It is my joy to send art out into the world because it nurtures happiness, creates feelings of abundance in our lives, and shares the spiritual support and magical empowerment that the sweetness of beauty can provide.

I’m blessed by my students because, like Jenelle, they are amazing companions for me along the Faerie path. Join us. My newsletter tells you about upcoming classes and other events. Click the banner below to subscribe.

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I Carry Fey Magic Within…

I Carry Fey Magic Within, Fey Magic is Within All that Surrounds Me
WherFeyLivBlu 2012-04
Wholeness within and all around me.
Beauty within and all around me.
Joy within and all around me.
The Fey touch all I do.

The Fey touch all I do.
Struggle gone within and all around me.
Fear gone within and all around me.
Scarcity gone within and all around me.

Wholeness within and all around me.
Beauty within and all around me.
Joy within and all around me.
The Fey touch all I do.

There is no “other,”
within or without.
The struggle is gone.
There is only ease,
love,
a laughing fearless child,
a garden of flawed flowers and fruits,
vegetables and insects,
all beautiful, all needed, all God.

WherFeyLivGray2012-04The Fey touch all I do.

A Good Fortune is within and around me. It is not one thing or another but is a simple all-encompassing pure Fey beauty and luck empowering any spell I do or making my day more fluid.

The Fey touch all I do.

*******
And here is a short version of my above piece: Good Fortune blesses every area of my life.

I wrote this post in April, 2012. Let me know if you are like me—taking forever to post something, because of a bad habit of constantly writing too much to fit in books or blogs.

ClassesBotmBnr

The Next Lesson

The Next Lesson
Feb, 2012
I needed to inject some humor into a rough day, so it seemed a good time to share this allegory I wrote last year . . . Me, a trickster? Naw! 🙂

A spiritual teacher had three students she taught for many years. After they finished this vigorous training, one went to a dance class. He found enlightenment in that first dance class, and thought, “Ah, this is much better than what I received from my spiritual teacher, this is the real thing.” Another of the three students started a garden. In that greenery she found God, within only a few days. She thought, “Wow, look how quickly Nature brought me to God. All those years with my spiritual teacher could not do that.” The third of the three seekers became a wealthy banker, and donated millions of dollars to alleviate homelessness. Years of serving this way was his path to enlightenment, because when we do service, God enters us to live within.

The teacher, upon hearing about her students, thought, “Yes, good, my lessons worked.”

FDG2013JCrop

Francesca, 2013

Then she did what she had done every day she had trained the three of them, though they had not known it: She walked out into her garden and danced with God, who lived there, in her garden, as well as in her spirit and heart and hearth. As always when they danced, trees in her garden grew money. People threatened by homelessness, or who already suffered from it, came from miles around, because they could pick that money at will, to pay for shelter and whatever else was needed to escape tragedy.

After the dance, the teacher said to God, “Now, I hope those three students are smart enough to come back to me for the next lesson.”

Joy Creates Abundance

The Generous Sun – Francesca De Grandis, 2012.

The Generous Sun – Francesca De Grandis, 2012.

Beltane Poem

Do you say you’re too worried about money to be happy? Do you insist making a living earns all your time, you can’t take time for joy?

Ancient Mayday, it was not just an elite priesthood who went into the fields to make love. Even farmers did it to bless their crops.

Joy creates abundance.

Know the battle is fixed: When the Winter Queen and Spring Queen’s armies fight on Beltane, the Spring Queen always wins.

What keeps you from Spring? Is it fear, hate, self-doubt, refusal to love the frail arrogant humans populating this planet? What keeps you from Spring? Leap the Beltane fire. Be purified.

You winter heart—what freezes it still!? Leap the Beltane fire.

And be welcomed into Spring by the Faerie Queen.

She gives you a rose.

A dragon appears, climb on its back, take your rose with you, take flight upon this great and honorable beast.

As you fly, your thawed heart blooms a garden, your thawed heart blooms spring, your thawed heart starts to hope.

Become a garden on the back of a dragon,

Throw back your head and howl in mad joy.
Throw back your head and laugh with foolish pleasure.
Throw back your head to watch the moon and sun smile at us all.

Come to earth.
Throw back your head and grin, that Mother Earth caresses your feet.
Bow your head. Looking down, grin that you, a garden, are embraced by Mother Earth.

Thank the dragon, and say goodby as it flies off.
Do not try to keep it by you a second longer,
do not think it has more for you.
Trying to capture or control a dragon is bad news,
even if you do not realize you are trying to imprison it.

As you cry out a wish from the bottom of your garden heart,
a wish for abundance and all your heart’s desires,
throw your rose into the sky.

Do not try to get the rose back, let it go.

Send the gods love and power and hope.
Then say thank you and goodby to them for now.

Joy creates abundance. Take time for joy.

May 2, 2013. Yesterday, I wrote a Beltane ritual in my head while I was leading it. Usually I don’t remember what I channel unless I write it down right then but, for various reasons, some of it remained with me. The above is a variation on what I remember of yesterday’s Beltane rite/poem/concept. One reason I remember it is that, as some of you may recognize, there are bits adapted from a Beltane script/poem/concept I developed years back. I made a new poem out of it today (never try to capture a oral tradition moment, make a new moment instead) to 1) help the rite’s participants, including moi, follow through on yesterday’s work 2) because gods impelled me 3) I am a ritualist, poet, and cosmologist who likes to share some of her ideas in written form, lol 4) I am taking time for joy.