threads of the spiderwoman: INVOCATION by Robin Williamson at Mabon

Monday, September 20, 2021

INVOCATION by Robin Williamson at Mabon

Brushwood 2016 by Theresa Guzman

"I, the Song, I walk here."

........Lakota poem

I've posted this before..............and like a loop, it returns to my mind at this full moon Equinox, so beautiful, this Day of Balance which was also, in olden times, Mabon, the Second Harvest Festival.

You who will come with me
I will consider it Beauty
I will consider it

Beauty, beauty

,,,,,,Robin Williamson

Every morning when I rise with the sun to water my garden, I find myself talking to all the people that live there. The tall sunflowers, making seeds beloved by finches and sparrows. The desert tortoise, Augustus, who has decided to live here and occasionally makes his mysterious appearance. My cats of course. The green scarab beetles getting drunk on tree sap. The bees, having a drink at the bird bath. The heavy pomogranates pulling the tree down now, the cosmos flowers as tall as I am now. The woodpecker loudly telling me that I need to fill the bird feeder, butterflies and funny looking caterpillars eating holes in leaves. The morning is not so hot now, and it is tender, reminding me of some song I can't quite remember, but a Song that is infinitely sweet, with a touch of bitter sweet, like Irish music, which always seems to remember the transience of things.

As a child, the garden was full of people. Now, as an old woman, I seem to have returned to that happy experience. I try, in my very little eco-system, to create Good Relationship with all My Relations that honor me by living there. Even the ones that chew up my flowers.

"To the native Irish, the literal representation of the country was less important than its poetic dimension. In traditional Bardic culture, the terrain was studied, discussed, and referenced: every place had its legend and its own identity....what endured was the mythic landscape."

R.F. Foster

There was a time when humans thought of themselves as part of the Circle of the majestic cycles of the planet, and as part of the great family of life - when they negotiated with the animals and the elementals, when they listened to the voices of the trees and the medicine plants, when they thanked the buffalo or the reindeer or the seals for their sacrifice, when, I believe, they celebrated the harvests and the auspicious days as part of the great Song, their voices adding to the chorus. ("Chante: to sing"). We can re-member ("to join") this en-chanted paradigm, and learn to speak to each mythic landscape again. I feel Robin Williamson's beautiful poem so fully captures that vision.

I share it again and again because I love it, the Bard, because I want this Voice to not be forgotten. And Oh! As the moon shines down in its fullness on this day of quinox, I wish all, all, all it's fullness and abundance and promise.

Found at the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, UK.

You that create the diversity of the forms:

Open to my words
You that divide it and multiply it

Hear my sounds

Ancient associates and fellow wanderers
You that move the heart in fur and scale

I join with you

You that sing bright and subtle
Making shapes
that my throat cannot tell

You that harden the horn
And make quick the eye

You that run the fast fox
and the zigzag fly

You sizeless makers of the mole
And of the whale: aid me and I will aid you

You that lift the blossom
and the green branch
You who make symmetries more true

Who dance in slower time

Who watch the patterns

You rough coated
Who eat water

Who stretch deep and high
With your green blood
My red blood

let it be mingled

Aid me and I will aid you

Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, UK

I call upon you

You who are unconfined
Who have no shape
Who are not seen

But only in your action
I will call upon you

You who have no depth
But choose direction

Who bring what is willed
That you blow love
upon the summers of my loved ones
That you blow summers
upon those loves of my love

Aid me and I will aid you

I make a pact with you