Tree of Many Feathers:

2/7/15

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To those who must take their leave in the season of the ugly wolf—the season of the three furrows side by side: water, snow, and house thatch, the season of the seven songs that call forth the spring—we say our farewells. For even in the iciest winters, the wolf must come, tend his coat and stalk the rabbit. The furrows are always full. Or empty.

There is always Spirit moving in unexpected places.

And so we say, farewell to the deep earth within which is spirit, too: The stones, the miters, the shifting tectonics—bid you the grace of enormous earth plates, the rising joy of gathering moments, the sweetness of releasing and expirations of the richest soils. Where sighing plane meets solid footing.

Farewell.

Farewell, too, to the roots and trunk and limb of the trees we once dreamed, shared, climbed in circle: The earth tree bridge between the here and the now, the then and the once, the never was, the always will be, the last hug, the joyfulness of forgotten places, and living memory which does not wane.

Always farewell: may you journey the sacred, the Underworld, the Otherworld, the Summerlands, the Golden Age, the scythed fields, the ripe orchards of coloring leaves, the new winter, the Mabon’s Yule Logs, the nurse maid’s beeswax candles, and the first hunts of spring.

There is forgiveness in each new leaf. And: silence. Absence. Always, yet, farewell.

The farewell of lakes and rivers to you: In the deepest eddies of the creek bed, we make our dreams of parting sweeter, lighter, with reverence and blessings, taking your leave, may grace flow.

May you breathe. May you prosper. May you be well.

A farewell for the reeling stars that are in you and of you: The white dwarves and celestial clusters hum and grind and spin—may dignity be yours, endurance, and purpose.

Farewell to all turning wheels, the seasons, thinning veils and shadows, rich and fat abundance, decadence, secrets, abatements, and frustrations. We bid you the speed of all the Gods. We bid you boundlessness and bounty. Turns. Movement. Changes.

Farewell to yearning. Farewell to fears. Farewell to passages that no longer open—may there be openness where you will it, coursing and sweeping, without shadows, without sorrows. The wheel must turn. The wheel will turn.

Farewell.

Troubles, mettles, anxious sleeping will always pass: Farewell to teakettles boiled dry, to broken brooms, to over sleeping, to jumbles, tumbles, and imperfection.

A poem should never linger on goodbye.

There will—in some deep moment, fashioned of sleep or waking, lively with dreaming or leave taking, wistful, earnest, resolved—be peace in every heart.

Farewell.