I am listening.

Altar, 2nd March, dawn, full moon in Virgo.

Thick snow outside, strong winds and more to come. I rose at 5. No sign of the moon, just thick darkness like a blanket, and the roar of the storm.

This altar is for my body-wisdom.
For listening.
For loving myself enough
to listen.

Candles, lots of them, for light and life and for the way their flames dance,
the way my body tells me it wants to dance,
for experimenting, for flickering, for play.

For the light inside me, for inner wisdom, glowing.

A bowl of herbs:
Rose, for love.
Heather, for intuition.
Lavender, to quiet my worrying ego-mind.

A card, from a new friend: Dearest Lovely Human. An offering from her heart to mine. Given in gratitude and love, received in the same.

I am loved. I am wanted. I am grateful.

Rose tincture, made on Skye last summer, a slow process that grounded me when I was restless.

Rose quartz, for compassion.

(I bought this piece in Southport on my birthday, many moons ago. It was January, so cold, the sea was grey blue, we ate donuts and stuck heart stickers all over the pier.)

Heart medicine, witchcrafted by a faraway friend in a land far colder than this.

Rosehip oil from the Yukon, a reminder to love every part. Not only the visible beauty, the opening, the fragrant flower, but also the fruit, ripe and nutritious, that comes later, when summer’s flowers are done.
For what follows. For all of the journey.
For all of my self.

Tarot cards for the strength to be vulnerable:

The Empress, for sensuality, for connection, for letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves, for play and abandon and movement and dance, for leading with the body and the heart.

The Two of Cups, for vulnerability and intimacy, for the space that opens up when the judging voice is put aside and we speak – I speak – from a place of sincere and heartfelt vulnerability. For honesty. For what this brings.

Judgement (the good kind). For the freedom that comes only from the deepest kind of self-acceptance. The acceptance of light and shadow together, the acceptance of that long, long list of failures. For loving the failure along with the success, for knowing the two are not opposites, but limbs on one body. For the unlocking of that movement, that rising, that growth, through listening, greeting, accepting; through genuine self-love.

I am listening.

Tarot cards from the Wild Unknown Tarot by Kim Krans.