Azhdaya's Laire

Ostara

by Nancy Venus

The blessings of the dawn grow near

The Earth in perfect balance clear

The light and dark of equal time.

The dark will wane. The light will shine.

'Tis a time of fertility.

Bless the Maiden, Mother to be.

Bless the God,

He soon will be Father of eternity.

Bless the Earth it's fields and Streams.

Bless us all, with all our dreams.

Bless the Sun with warming rays.

Now we will have longer days.

Light and dark, and dark and light

Fairies of the Air take flight

Fairies of the flame return

the bonfire soon will burn.

Fairies of the rain draw near.

Bring the moisture needed here.

Fairies of the Earth now dance.

Dance the dance of sweet romance.

Ostara Praise unto thy name.

The Earth has come alive again.

http://www.geocities.com/nancyvenus/ostara2.html

"Tree, gather up my thoughts

like the clouds in your branches.

Draw up my soul

like the waters in your root.

In the arteries of your trunk

bring me together.

Through your leaves

breathe out the sky."

~~ J. Daniel Beaudry, Breath ~~

~ Ostara: Mist and Wings ~

This poem was written after the gigantic Nor'Easter that locked down Boston on April 2nd, 1997. Three feet of snow in 24 hours is pretty impressive, and I wrote this poem after slogging through that snow to go sledding, and then watching it all melt in the 50-degree weather that followed.

Dampness swirling in the lamplight

Narnian and silent, she is waiting

Watching as the droplets slide down her hair

And the net of webs woven through it.

Barefoot, she leaves no trace in the snow

Save the rain that cascades behind her mist.

And the scent of the sky

Is enough to drive men mad.

She has been sleeping long and long,

Beneath the firs sheltering her grave

The apples that lay fermenting sweetness last fall

Dropped their seeds to sprout above her.

And I went walking through the woods

Greeting her in silence as befits a god

Wishing for the touch of calon lan

That comes only with her return.

The whipping tale of the comet

In the astral winds beyond sight

Presaged a late return this year,

But the warbler on my window sang her in.

© Anne Cross, 1997

http://www.watson.org/~juniper/poetry/ostara.html

"It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon

men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that

emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and

renews a weary spirit."

~~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~~

"The forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness,

nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself. Nature

is not merely created by God; Nature is God. Whoever moves within the

forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with

his entire body, breath sacredness and contain it within himself, drink

the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness,

open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness."

~~ Richard Nelson ~~

"My lilac trees are old and tall;

I cannot reach their bloom at all.

They send their perfume over trees

And roof and streets, to find the bees."

~~ Lousie Driscoll, 1875 - 1957, My Garden Is a Pleasant Place ~~

"Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years."

~~ Wendell Berry, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front ~~

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -

the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

~~ Rachel Carson ~~

~ Awakening ~

Buds, as pale green lunar moths

Land overnight on the naked birches

And comes the warm Spring light

They will unfurl their sticky, verdant wings

And shed Winter's dark shell

~ Silver Dragon ~

http://www.angelfire.com/magic2/imbolc/

The dandelion lights its spark

Lest Brigid find the wayside dark.

And Brother Wind comes rollicking

For joy that she has brought the spring.

Young lambs and little furry folk

Seek shelter underneath her cloak."

~~ W. M. Letts ~~

"Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,

Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,

And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers;

A poet's face asleep in this grey morn.

Now in the midst of the old world forlorn

A mystic child is set in these still hours.

I keep this time, even before the flowers,

Sacred to all the young and the unborn."

~~ Alice Meynell, In February ~~

"Away in a meadow all covered with snow

The little old groundhog looks for his shadow

The clouds in the sky determine our fate

If winter will leave us all early or late."

~~ Don Halley ~~

"Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;

And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;

No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,

And willow stems grow daily red and bright.

These are days when ancients held a rite

Of expiation for the old year's ill,

And prayer to purify the new year's will."

~~ Helen Hunt Jackson, A Calendar of Sonnet's: February ~~

"Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle ...

a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl.

And the anticipation nurtures our dream."

~~ Barbara Winkler ~~

"O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth."

~~ John Davies, 1570-1626, Ode to the West Wind ~~

"Was it the smile of early spring

That made my bosom glow?

'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor wind

Could raise my spirit so.

Was it some feeling of delight,

All vague and undefined?

No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong,

Expanding in the mind!"

- Anne Bronte, In Memory of A Happy Day in February

"For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;

And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

~~ Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

Atalanta in Calydon (1865) ~~

"The resonance of Earth (Schumann Resonance) has been 7.8Hz for thousands of years.

Since 1980 it has risen to over 12Hz. This means that 16 hours now equate to a 24-hour day.

Time is speeding up!"

~~ Gregg Braden ~~

"May my life be like a great hospitable tree,

and may weary wanderers find in me a rest."

~~ John Henry Jowett ~~

~ A Song for Brigid ~

Goddess of Poetry

Goddess of Fire

Daughter of Dagda

We sing!

Without tire, you rise

rise

with each blessed February

rise

to rekindle our fires

remembering

spring

Oh, sweet bride

full of hope

full of dreams

we believe

we plant our seeds

this eve

may you fair Brigid

ever tend them

with your loving eye

out with the old, in with the new

maiden goddess

we welcome you

* * *

A Song for Brigid - by Gwendolyn James 2006