July of 2019 has proven quite interesting. There is so much going on astrologically and both on the inner and outer terrains of our human lives. I had two interesting experiences over this past week that have me really sitting with what personal strength is.
The first of which was an evening when I took myself off to the Audubon Sanctuary at Biddeford Pool on a whim. I dropped my son off and felt such a need for the ocean I headed towards her without even really consciously planning for the trip. My car just took me straight there. It felt divine to be travelling there on my own. For once not afraid, or carrying luggage or other people in my vehicle.
I arrived just before sunset. The magical thing about this particular location is that you get to walk for as long as you’d like to on a wooded path along the shoreline, choosing which beach you’d like to stop at and commune with the wild, ferocious, loving, honest being that is my beloved sea.
I spent my time with the trees on this particular journey. Drinking them in, watching their branches and vines commingle and intertwine, not rushing through this portion of the trail, instead really listening to them. It was beautiful, and quiet and intimate. There was no thought for the usual worry of the mundane. How to pay the bills, be a good Mom, a good healer, a good friend, figure out who I am, the incessant jumble of thoughts eased and the trees prepared me for the water.
Then at last I eased my way to the shoreline, and there she was. We had been waiting for each other it seemed.
Our reunion felt so right; so easy. I talked to her as I walked. I cried and heard the answering roar of her foaming waves, and the seagulls as they carried our thoughts back and forth to each other. I heard the Grandmothers and the Goddesses as well. The farther along the path I walked the clearer their voices became, until I started to really recall who I am, and where I come from. At last I reached my favorite beach at Biddeford Pool, one I had not been to since last summer. My feet stopped at the entrance, and I turned away continuing on. I couldn’t believe I was not called to sit at this particular rocky spot, all moody with her crashing waves, and cliffs and stones. Instead I continued farther down the narrow path, till I found a secluded beach I had only visited once before with my former partner.
It was so calm and peaceful in this little section of surf. Not my usual choice of Ocean communion at all. Only me and the soon to be setting sun, and a bunch of Cormorants and a light house across the way, and a thousand guides or so. And the ocean pulling at my feet so lovingly and so many stone friends. I put my hands in the water. I shook hands with my beloved sea, and she coiled around me.
I felt the truth of the Strength card as I sat with her for a long time. Working ritual, and singing and crying with her, and letting her tell me things. When we can drop our defenses and just be open to each and every experience, something incredible happens. True Magick. When we can honor our fears, our pain, our hopes and worries, and still realize we will be okay no matter what, it’s intense how raw that experience is, and how awakening, and how quiet. You turn a corner, you come, “round full circle’, as Maynard James Keenan sings. That is what happened for me last week on this night. I was alone and never more supported, and never more alive, never stronger, never more vulnerable.
So I found myself walking this journey with the sea and the Strength card for the next week. I walked back to my car that night and listened to music that I adore all the way home, crawling into bed late that night, still feeling the strength of the connection with all things, and with my sea, my beloved.
The weekend passed, and I spent some time with an old friend.
I watched who she had become. How strong her nurturing abilities are, and yet how she has been able to define her boundaries. She herself is on the precipice. I have watched with awe as she starts her journey in full. As she says the things that need to be said, and releases fully what is ready to die. I realized this is strength as well. To make the hard choices, and be alone, yet never alone. To walk a path that ends a lineage of dis-empowerment. To find yourself and your voice when you think you have lost everything.
Our strength resides within us in so many ways, dear ones. Let us call on it, whether we are a mermaid or a selkie, or a dragon goddess, or a witch, or a vampire or any and everything in between. Most of all, at this time, we are also human, and as we show up for ourselves by allowing ourselves to fully be, we embrace our true strength.
Love Always,
Raecine Ardis
Raecine Ardis Wilkinson 