Solstice blessings 2024
Solstice Blessings When you lose your footing May the earth hold you When your heart is aching May the waters soothe you When life feels overwhelming May the air lighten you When your thoughts are darkening May the fire...
Four openings to summer solstice
Do you tell yourself that you hardly have time to breathe as the year winds up and you get busier and busier? What if you could listen to nature's invitation? — If you could attune to the season and find grounding and respite? Four ways to open to summer...
Make time for trees
Have you ever sat in silence in a forest? If so, you may have noticed how full of change it is. The moment to come is different from the moment just passed. Wind stirs the air and shakes the leaves, creating sounds that shift and change. Light comes and goes,...
Celebrating spring 2024
Here we are in the full leafiness of spring, the season that brings an infusion of new life, regeneration and joy. Can you feel it? Does it make you want to sing, dance, make love, run, walk, or laugh? Or do you feel tired, tossed around a little from...
Finding balance at equinox
Do you get frustrated — wanting to plan a weekend away and once again the weather is choppy? Wanting to take a long walk but the winds turn you back? I find some of my frustration comes from an expectation that spring will turn into summer at any moment. But...
A contemplation on cuttings
As spring struggles to shake off the vestiges of winter chill, are you feeling impatient? You know that warm weather and outdoor walks are waiting in the wings. But it seems like a long wait for spring to become established. You may be longing to leave...
Seasons Newsletter: Do trees sleep? (2024)
What do trees and grizzly bears have in common? According to forester Peter Wohlleben, who wrote The Hidden Life of Trees, bears prepare for hibernation by eating and eating to grow fat and sustain themselves for months of sleep with no food. And would you...
Seeding the dark at solstice
Winter returns us to ourselves. Distractions fall away as the nights grow long. We spend more time inside — inside our homes, and inside ourselves. Winter is a soulful season. We are remade as we drift into our depths. We encounter what has been...
Is Mother Nature angry?
Samhain/Kiwi Halloween, has passed, and we are entering the season of reflection and rest. I find myself shifting into a quieter mode, as I contemplate the slips I witnessed on another west coast beach. A beautiful valley, with a stream, nikau...
Ancestors, Samhain and Matariki 2024
Every Sunday my Aunt Jessie would visit the graveyard. The graveyard lay on the other side of town, a little further out than our house, so it became a natural thing for me to join her at our gate and run alongside. This is how I came to explore the...
Nature’s wisdom and the broken bridge
We stood at the end of the broken bridge. One step more and we would tumble into the sandy stream below. Twelve air steps across the gap, and we would step onto the outstretched bridge section on the other side. Before the cyclone, the bridge...
Hecate’s place, Te Henga
HECATE’S PLACE, TE HENGA, APRIL 1983 It is April 1983. I am drawn to making a large pit in the sand, big enough to lie in. I dig a deeper hole within it; add shells, seaweed, sticks and a feather. It feels like a shrine, something secret. I add...
A ritual for the equinox
Happy autumn equinox/Ngahuru! And to you in the northern hemisphere, happy spring equinox! At equinox on March 20, light and dark, day and night come into balance. At equinox, our two hemispheres of this planet come into balance. We are together,...
Summer’s end
We are reaching summer's end, and it's time to contemplate how to hold the goodness of the season. At a Summer Retreat I led on Waiheke some years ago, we imagined our own personal containers for summer's gifts, then made these containers on the beach. Some...
Balancing extremes at First Fruits
As the season changes and shifts on February 2, how do you balance extreme realities — such as the inert face of the parched earth with the juiciness of ripe stone fruits and berries? If you are in the northern hemisphere, read on, because extremes can...
Can it be summer without sunshine?
How do you lean into the gifts of summer when it is rainy or cloudy and not very summery? This is what a reader from Tauranga at the end of last summer. Sarah wrote to me, wondering, 'Many of the summer blessings you describe in Dancing with the...
Taking the sand work to San Francisco
TAKING THE SAND WORK TO SAN FRANCISCO 1982 In 1982 I received a grant from the NZ Arts Council for a two-month trip to the west coast of America. For most of that time, I was in Berkeley, studying Feminist Art at Berkeley University. I also made many networking...
Art in Nature: Openings to the sea
OPENINGS TO THE SEA: Summer Solstice 6/1/1983 Once again, I was returning to sand rituals at summer solstice, a pattern that would continue. When my son travelled to stay with his father for the first part of each summer, I took up residence in...
How to approach summer solstice 2023
Summer solstice, te maruaroa o Hine Raumati, is approaching. The longest day will be here on December 22nd. Is it on your calendar? Is it in your awareness? Why am I drawing your attention to summer solstice? This, the most glorious festival of...
Art in Nature: Inner channels – Juliet Batten
INNER CHANNELS - 1 21/12/81 Feminism had opened up an inquiry into the inner channels of my reproductive system. I painted ovaries and fallopian tubes and charted my menstrual cycle through daily temperature readings, to determine the moment of...