Moving Through Crisis Into Recovery by Teresa Taylor

Nature rejuvenates so quickly, so completely.

Though we often view ourselves otherwise, we are nature.

~Jeb Dickerson

Greetings to our friends and community,Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

As we here in Santa Barbara County move from a state of crisis to the journey through recovery; we grieve, honor and celebrate the lives of the dead; intend and create the rapid and complete recovery of the injured; and pray for the soft landing for those who have lost their homes. It has been so much to hold that at times I found myself holding my breath—sometimes from grief and sometimes from the unbelievable beauty of the human spirit. Heroes abound. Angels abound. Herculean efforts abound. Love abounds.Whether you count 3, 4 or 7 kinds of love, they are all on full display in this sweet community bounded by mountains and sea.I don't know about you but I'm just beginning to have the psychic bandwidth to even remember the creative projects or more common tasks that got sidelined almost two months ago. Slowly they are coming into focus. We are declaring February 1st as the true beginning of 2018!As we straddle the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, Imbolc/Candelmas, we are reminded that spring is coming soon. The sun gets a little brighter, the earth gets a little warmer, and we know that life is quickening within the soil. Regeneration beckons. The candles of hope and healing are lit. May they shine brightly on the land and in our hearts.If you are going through hell, keep going. Go in peace. Go in kindness. Go in love.May your heart remain open, receptive and vulnerable to all of life. Teresa, spirit of Thule, Tucker, Huxley and all at Paradise Found 

Deep beneath winter’s surface, the earth serpent stirs, called from dreaming as subtle energies shift and earth’s longing for light, sheltered in winter dreaming, is born. We lift hopeful candles and torches to the night sky, calling to the moon and her starry attendants, invoking the return of light. We seek a place where we can feel living earth beneath our feet, offer prayers, poems, songs, dance invocations and blessings. We open our arms and hearts to the light—that it may unfold in the world and in us, that we may be candles of prayer and blessing wherever we go.

~Sherri Rose-Walker © Mother Tongue Ink 2017