Wandering at the Witching Hour

Day 2 of 30 days of making offerings to the Waters.

If it is not too much information my wee dog Gillie has the trots. She was restless and pacing, loitering near the door and it was 3 in the morning so I accepted my fate. I took her for an hour and half walk under the silver mists of the hidden moon, almost full behind clouds the eerie air was only amplified by the glowing eyes of creatures from the bushes watching me as I walked, and wept.

I had tried to sleep on the sofa, once Gillie woke me at 1.30, pulling her and my other dog close to me hoping we would all get some sleep. I was immediately taken back to a sweet and tender memory of the night after Dad died when my brother and I slept in my mothers bed all holding each other. I was imminently to turn 15 and my brother 12 so it was definitely not cool to be in Mum's bed, socially perhaps. And after one night my brother withdrew to his own space.

I slept in Mum's bed for a week or so, holding her. She was someone who loved to be held, but didn't always have the holding to give. Except when I was 24 and my dog died she did come and share my bed that night.

In the last years and months of her life she cried out to be held and when I felt I had it in me to do so, I did. I got into bed with her and let her curl up beside me. In her dementia she said something once that broke me somewhat she said "in the beginning there was only you and I" and literally, yes that was true. My father worked on the oil rigs so in my early years it was just her and I (Until my brother was born and then there was just me).

Like the full moon, a full circle - from those early breastfeeding one to one years to me holding her as she was dying, the intimate care and carrying that we did. And the tenderness of the memory of the time of Dad's death just stirred in me this evening a remembering of my orphan state. Turning to the cosmos and the land to parent me once more.

I did have my oat offerings with me and cast them into the streams and rivers that I passed. The water message today was even more subtle and small then yesterdays Dew. It was in the beam of the head torch that I only put on when passing through the Twnal Tywyll (Dark Tunnel) and as I emerged over the bridge with the River Ogwen thundering below I saw these infinitesimal specks of sparkling droplets suspended before my eyes.

It was not raining, nor even misty, these were just the water drops in air before they became Dew. They were the new formed tiny baby dew drops condensing in anticipation of the dawn.

This moved me, if seeking the Source of the river then surely this is it. Not the manifest body of water as it arises from the land but the moment of formation from its formless to the naked eye state, the invisible cloud.

Anyways, the winged ones continue their witnessing of these water rites; yesterday the robin and the heron, this morning the owl and with daylight a songthrush outside my window. I still personally feel clearer these days than I have done, just bobbing along in the mundane grief that is never far away. My tears and the Waters of the Earth dancing and resting, when I can, in the greater lap of The Mother.