Big deep loving breaths. Here. Now.

As I drop a few words here this cold, cold northern morning, holding my body and my heart, i am acknowledging the terrible-terrible and the tender-tender in deep play in me, and in the collective of us. i am tending to my human and remembering i am also part of the larger, unfathomable something…

Everywhere there are words spilling as everything comes undone. Words as pleas, as poems, as calls to action, as prayers and as accusations. Words as sepulchral spin, and words dug from stars’ poetry and clay’s prose speaking to the what is, and what might be, in these unpresented and tangled times.

I am mostly speechless, except to coo with my sweet black tabby, Lady Fern. Speechless except for the sounds of sobs, that i am allowing to gush and spill, and radiating permission for you, for us all to do the same. i am mostly speechless like the silence that only the frozen northern lands know. Is this too the Crone’s voice?

This short pod post serves to untangle and bring present a few threads.

* Acknowledging us, together and alone at this time in the ongoing, in the deep dark of not knowing and in the colossal ruptures near & far.

* a reminder to give yourself and others space for feelings to come, and feel what you are ready to feel and that we can (awkwardly, unwillingly & messily) practice sitting in the discomfort of what is present. This I know from my own awkward attempts for many, many decades…and the acknowledgment that when i can feel and lean into the intense discomfort of being human, there is almost always, eventually, a clearer space and path on the other side toward action (even if it’s a nap) and an easing of discomfort. Those of you that have worked with me know the energies of alchemy; downward, inward, upward & outward.

* to share a short Cailleach story from the Isle of Harris, Scotland,** and

* to introduce my dear friend Carter McKenzie who’s deep emergent collaboration will be shared on the new moon episode. Due to tech stuff I will not introduce Carter in the podcast and the recording quality may be extra raw…I am exploring options to do better with this - thank you for your patience and please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Thank you for your listening, for your tears, rage (etc) and your presence. If you’ve read & listened this far, here’s a potent song ally to sing today, a song by Minneapolis song leader, Sarina Partridge, This is a Wave.

May we feel what we are ready to feel.

Loving us,

Tracy

Here are a few verified ways you can help folx now in Minnesota, feel free to drop more in the comments!

CAIR Minnesota

UNIDOS MN

ISUROON

Carter McKenzie (she/her) is a poet and activist, whose most recent collection of poems, The Book of Fire, published by above / ground press. Through imagined voices, often based on specific court cases, this chapbook is a remembrance and exoneration of the victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563-1736. Of the nearly 4000 accused under that law, 84% were women and girls. These poems are a bridge between the living and the dead. They serve as a way to grieve and understand our connection to those whom the forces of the Reformation attempted to erase, as if they never were.

To order Carter’s extraordinary book, The Book of Fire, please email her directly at [email protected]

** The story of the Cailleach Sqair was shared by Norman MacLeod and retold with his permission. More about The Hebridean Folklore Project here.

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