Showing Up

And sometimes a whole day goes by and you really have nothing to say.

But you've committed to writing every day.

Sometimes it's enough just to show up

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if I have one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

And Sometimes the Dreams Are Strange

Strange dreams woke me. 

Someone gave me a gift and when I used it, it created massive explosions. And destroyed pretty much everything.

I was so shaken by the explosions it was hard to remember the details of the dream. But as the day moved on, I remembered more and more.

Yesterday my mother called me. A strange dream had awakened her. The details were easy for her to recall and she felt compelled to share it. 

When we spoke on the phone today and I told her about my dream, we shared a strange feeling of odd connection. As if the concept of Wyrd had come to life. 

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about. 


Photo: (c) 2017 Katherine Cartwright. All rights reserved.

Sometimes the Transitions are Shaky

What I remember from yesterday's annual review and new year's dreaming is the feeling that I have a good life. A beautiful life, actually.

Taking the long view, it's easy to see. When you're in the trenches of the day to day frustrations, disappointments, and challenges, it's much harder.

How do we reconcile the two in order to live our best life?

Maybe some of our difficulty comes from an underlying fear of complete collapse. What if everything falls away? Can you have a plan for that? And what if there is no plan that can meet an unforeseen circumstance?

You can't live as if the worst is going to happen. And you can't plan your life as if the worst might be your lot. If the worst is going to happen, then you meet it with courage when it comes.

Until then, you live life as if you expect to have the best life possible.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about. 

New Moon Woman

I spent the day today relaxing into possibilities for the new year. Thinking about the year that has been and about what I might like the new year to feel like. What might be ways to shape my life so that I can feel the way I'd like to feel and do the things I'd like to do.

It was an amazing day. It's always an amazing day when I do this annual practice. 

It begins with a little angst, as I am sure that I've completely wasted the year and not accomplished a thing.

Until I do a quick inventory. I usually find that I've had a pretty amazing year and that I really love my life. Even the challenges, failures, relationship disappointments, and lost opportunities, which so so often seem to dominate my thoughts, pale when compared to the long list of accomplishments and good things I remember without even having to look at my calendar or diary. 

And knowing that there is so much more.

I think about what I loved about the year, what was hard, what I learned, what I can distill as pure essence. 

This year the essence goes something like this - 2018 was a deep dive into the YUK I had to let go of, and I did a lot of releasing. It was a time of discovery and wonder. I held my book in my hand.

That had been my intention. To hold my book in my hand. And, wow. What a lesson that has been about intention setting. I got exactly what I asked for. This year, I'm going to refine that intention to include getting my book out into the world. As it is, I've got exactly one copy, a print proof with several problems. The project is stalled because of a merger. 

Of the rest of the day, I'll say only that I'm still digesting. 

I'll let it percolate for awhile. And while it does, I discover that once again I am drawn to what living my best life might look like and stepping into that for the last three weeks of the year. To engage once again my low risk, high yield experiment.

I leave the experience of a day immersed in review and possibility feeling like I cultivated energy that has been lying dormant and reinvigorated myself around living well. I feel like I've thrown off the chains and that I am light again. 

A new moon woman. Truly.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about.

So Breathe, Just Breathe

Hours away from new moon and I am thinking about new beginnings, new cycles, fresh new energy.

And how in the deepest, darkest part of the year, my thoughts turn to the rising light and to turning the page, to leaving an old year behind. 

And welcoming the new.

We get a preview of that as we go to bed tonight and wake up in the morning to a new lunar cycle, to observing the moon's waxing, fullness, and waning over the next month. Before we know it, the old year also will become new again and fresh new energy will capture us and widen our creative imagination.

Many of us are doing the inner work to start the new year well. For some, it is clearing and de-cluttering. For some it is dreaming and visioning. For many, it is some of both.

Here are some great questions to think about --

How do I want to feel in the new year?

What kinds of changes might I be willing to make to create that?

Even small shifts can open the way for something new.

Or perhaps we might want simply to accept what is and to be at peace with that, to not engage in self-improvement, to feel like we don't have to change anything.

If that's the case, perhaps some good questions to think about might be --

What feels good about my life right now?

What are some ways I can cultivate gratitude for what is?

What might it feel like to sink into my present circumstances and to be mindful around the present moment, the breath I'm taking right now?

Can I simply enjoy this moment?   

Early in December, I take a day to relax into some possibilities for the new year. To think about the year that has been and about what I might like the new year to feel like. What might be ways to shape my life so that I can feel the way I want to feel and do the things I might like to do.

An interesting thing happens when I do this. 

I find myself wanting to live my best life. And so I say to myself, there're only a few more weeks left in the year. What if I dedicate them to living each day mindfully, with the intention that I live each day to the fullest? I count this as a low risk, high yield experiment. Something I can take with me into the new year. 

An awareness that with mindful living, each day can indeed offer me my best life.

It's not always easy to do because we can get distracted by so many things. But I find myself during these last weeks of the year cultivating a different kind of resilience and a different kind of awareness, a different attitude around allowing myself to be expansive and freer than I usually allow myself to be at home in my daily life and work.

The temptation toward constant self-improvement can rob us of our peace. It's so easy to feel like we're not enough, that we don't do enough or achieve enough or strive enough.

I have a strange theory that if we were to relax about ourselves and our lives, if we were to live mindfully in the present moment with an awareness of how fortunate we are, if we were to be happy with what is instead of always wanting more and better, we might just begin to create without expectation. It might become natural for us to live our best life without angst and striving. 

We would be living in grace. And grace opens the way. Everything else is fear. And fear shuts us down. 

It's just that simple. And also that complicated. 

But when we close our eyes and take a deep breath or three, we glimpse another possibility.   

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

The photo was taken by a friend one new year's morning at sunset. I forget who took it or which year it was, but I keep the photo close when I am in the mindspace of expansion.

 

Nocturne

It's getting a little ridiculous.

I'll be glad for the new moon and the shift in energy. These late night lunar invitations are taking their toll on my sleep. Of course, it could be Venus. 

Last night I was up sometime after 2, after having awakened at 1:15. I shuffled into the kitchen for a drink of water and a look out the window and Venus was rising just above the treeline. 

Simply spectacular.

The moon was not due to rise for several hours, about an hour before dawn, and I had hoped to be sound asleep when she did. But I woke again around 3:30, and then sometime after 4, and again at who-knows-what-time. 

I tried not to think about the long day ahead at work. 

By the time I got up for the morning a little before 7, Venus had long been folded into the lightening sky, perhaps even obscured by cloud. Her siren song had been silenced.

As I'm writing, it's nighttime and I'm wondering if Venus will sing to me again tonight. Or will she let me sleep? 

Is there something she's trying to tell me deep in the night?

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

Light and Obscuration

The waning moon must really want me to see her moods.

I woke up a little before 4 this morning and went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Out of my window, there in the eastern sky, the waning crescent moon was rising above the treeline. And Venus, the Morning Star, was high in the sky shining brightly.

Ribbons of cloud came to dance with Venus and the Moon and there was beautiful play between light and obscuration. I would have liked to have watched that play all night, but sleep was calling.

Not for long, though. 

I was up again sometime after 5, and the clouds had moved off and the Moon and Venus were both shining brightly in the still dark, early morning sky. 

I was mesmerized by the movement of the moon through the clouds. She never disappeared completely. There was always a faint expression of her there, even while she was obscured. There seemed to be almost a wrestling between the obscuring and the light as they vied for position.

These last weeks have been difficult, and these encounters with the moon and the Morning Star over these last pre-morning wakings have seemed like both gift and teacher. I'm writing again and drawing comics. 

The world seems a little less dark when I'm engaged with my creativity. 

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

I Open the Door and

Mostly I feel like I've come home to tie up the loose ends on a life that is ended. You know that feeling like when someone has died and you go to pack up their house and dispose of their things and move their accounts and execute their will?

That feeling.

I opened the door at midnight after flying all day and these were my thoughts. I moved through each room and, while I was glad to be home, something had changed. The next morning I noted them in my journal and commented on something else I noticed --

I'd awakened in the desert to the rosy glow of sunlight on the mountains and returned to a grey, cloudy, and cold northeastern morning.   

The contrasts were startling.

This morning

I woke early and took out the trash. 

I looked up, and there in the still dark, early morning sky I saw a beautiful waning crescent moon rising with Venus, the Morning Star. It is unseasonably warm and there are soft winds. They caught my hair and lifted it against my cheek. 

Venus has been absent from our sight for about six weeks. Her familiar presence in the darkness disappeared while she was in the beams of the sun during her retrograde period, so close to the sun we cannot see her light. 

When she sets as the Evening Star and moves into the retrograde period, she rises as the Morning Star, visible in the early morning sky until the next retrograde period, when she'll set as the Morning Star, disappear into the beams of the sun, and then rise again as the Evening Star to light the night skies. It's a familiar cycle noticed by people since ancient times. 

It may even be the origin story for the mythic Underworld and Wilderness journeys and the corresponding movements in the human soul. The times we go deep within and then return with wisdom, insight, knowledge, and new understandings. 

Last night when I was writing, my journal fell open to the day I flew home and to the poem I posted yesterday. At the top of the facing page are my thoughts upon arriving home, the feeling like I was tying up the loose ends of a life that had ended. But in the intervening days I've been pulled back into that life and its voluminous demands. I lost myself for about 40-ish days, just about the time of the Wilderness Journey. 

But seeing that wonder in the still dark, early morning sky - a rising waning crescent moon and the Morning Star, who rises in the deepest part of the night to herald the coming dawn, calls me back to myself and illuminates the movements in my own soul. Calls me back to the work of tying up the loose ends of a life that is ended. 

I left it in the desert and picked up a new one.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

I Woke Today Feeling

Sunrise in the desert

And there's a rosy glow on the mountains

When the sun comes, it's simply light.

I woke today feeling

You've got this, girl.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

Photo: (c) 2017 Katherine Cartwright

Threshold

I approached this threshold on my first desert hike.

I hiked out over the desert and up into the mountains to a large canyon that was dotted with oases.  

I hiked from oasis to oasis. The desert drew me, but the vision of the impossible lush green within the treacherous landscape sustained me. And drove me forward.

I remember the moment I decided finally to take the trip that had been at the edge of my vision for years.

I remember the exhilaration I felt as I passed the boundary that marked the desert.

I remember the first step into the dry, gritty landscape.

I remember reaching this threshold. Two boulders stood sentinel and dared me to be mindful of the choice I was making. 

And the air was different on the other side.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and to writing about these days. 

Photo: (c) 2015, Katherine Cartwright

Kicking and Screaming into the Dark Night of the Soul

Sometimes life sends you lessons you can't ignore.

Or if you do ignore them, they intensify until they bring you to your knees. 

That's my world these days. I'd like to say I've learned the lessons well, but I'm spending a lot of time on my knees lately.

Life wants me to stand up for myself. I just want things to be harmonious.

But there is no harmony where there is discord. No harmony where there is contention. No harmony where there is disproportion.

Conflict makes me cringe. It swallows my joy and my lightness.

Drags me kicking and screaming into the dark night of the soul, where I find my courage and strength and clarity.



The kind of clarity that allows my anxiety to lessen and my deep, inner calm to reassert itself. 

It likes to run and hide when I'm on my knees.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.

Photo: 2014 Katherine Cartwright

The Magic of Ordinary Things

The night I took this photograph I was standing on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore watching the full moon rise. A woman stood next to me, taking pictures with the exact same iPhone. But the images we captured were very different. Hers was as we saw it there in the night sky; mine was as you see in the photograph below. There was light shining on the waters in both, but the light reflected from the perfect sphere in the sky was very different.

It makes me wonder.

It really makes me wonder.

I have a similar experience photographing the sky in the daytime when I am out in nature in an expanded state of consciousness. I've got a picture from a trip to New Mexico on a glorious day up in the Enchanted Circle near Taos. The sun looks like a radiant being shining blessings from above. I have other photographs in which you can see the reach of the sun's rays into the canopy of the forest. 

There may be a scientific explanation for these kinds of things, but I prefer to be in Mystery. I wrote a poem about that once. It remembers an experience I had with a friend. We were looking at the same thing but seeing something different. We were presented with something that seemed impossible. We could both see it. At first. Something changed when she tried to figure it out and came up with the answer, but she also lost something in the process. She decided in the end that she liked my magic better than her science.

The experience has always stayed with me. As have her words. 

How we see is as important as what we see. 

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year. I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days.  

Photo (c) 2015 Katherine Cartwright

Beauty in the Night

It's hard to believe that only a month ago I returned from my time in the desert.

The days and weeks have seemed to slip away and I wonder where the time has gone. 

The light, too, is slipping away, as each day seems to diminish and move toward a longer night and deepening darkness. It's the time of year that we go deep within and hibernate. It's part of the natural cycles. And it feels quite at odds with the striving of the the world around us.

But there is beauty in the night. 

I've included a stunning photo from a friend, Daniel Cain, with this blog post. He's someone who spends his days and nights moving through the desert and taking amazing photographs of the experience and the natural wonders he discovers there. Lately, he's been capturing images of the night and the night sky. 

They've got me thinking again about the beauty that can be found in darkness and the tiny illuminations we discover along the way.

Beauty in the Night: Meditations in the Dark Time of the Year - I don't know if this will be a series, but if there is one in me, this is what I am drawn to thinking about and writing about these days. 


Photo: Daniel Cain, November 2018 - Ocotillo group grow in Palm Canyon under the night sky in Anza-Borrego Desert Park. 

In the Wilds Hunting Stories

Two days later and I am back in the badlands.

Watching the late afternoon light bounce off stone and create unimaginable color. The Salton Sea, off in the distance to the east, is robins egg blue. The mountains beyond glow with all the shades of pink.

I've come to watch the sunset and am hoping for wild color in the evening sky. It's a different landscape from the other day with its dust storms. There's a light breeze and the light is making everything glow. Of all the places here that are easy to get to, these badlands might be my favorite. 

The stone tells its stories, revealing layers and layers of history, all the way back to the dinosaurs.

As I sit here watching the sun go down, I wonder whether I'll be back this way again. 

The mountains behind me are now blue shadow. Soon, the sun will drop behind the mountains, but sunset is still about a half hour away. My life feels wholly my own when I am here. I am wild and free. A woman hunting stories to bring home and tell.

The late afternoon sun teases shadow from the badlands. Reveals texture and glow. The changing light bares features of the landscape that would otherwise remain hidden. 

It's hard to know which way to look. I want to miss nothing. 

The sun is now a mere echo of radiance behind the mountains. The eastern sky is pink and lavender. Light and color paint the mountains. The panorama blushes and the air feels colder. If it was a week later, I'd be watching the full moon rise. 

The moon appears suddenly. A first quarter moon high in the sky.

There's no light shining on the badlands now. The features I saw before have receded once again into obscurity. The sedimentary rock closest to me looks as if the earth is folded here. It's getting cold and I need to get my coat from the car. Everything has softened to an impressionistic painting. If I was not in the desert I would think I see mist rising in the distance. I don't have words to do it justice, to paint the landscape.

The pink and the lavender skies over the Salton Sea have risen higher and a bright blue is beneath it. The sea now is pink and lavender, and the mountains a dull periwinkle. The glow over the southwestern mountains is a fuzzy apricot. I imagine that my red jeep seems out of place here but, as I turn to look, it melts beautifully into the dusty lavender brown stone behind it.

The sun has now set. I think of it melting into the Pacific Ocean as the lights come up in the beach towns. There are no lights here in the badlands. I want to wait for stars but it feels like it's time to go. 

I leave the badlands to the moon and the crying coyote.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40 day wilderness writing journey during the 2018 Venus Retrograde period. There is no agenda other than to show up and see what treasures are buried there.

Photo (c) 2015 Katherine Cartwright. View over the Borrego Badlands in Anza-Borrego Desert Park in the late afternoon just before sunset. 

To Capture and Share

I'm in the Borrego Badlands on a day so windy it brings up dust storms. 

The dust and wind dance together and seem to be alive in their fusion. I look across the wide expanse of the badlands and my view is obscured by clouds of rising dust, grit, and sand. The mountains seem once again softened by mist and cloud. Off in the distance, the Salton Sea is barely discernible from the surrounding landscape and the mountains beyond are completely eclipsed by the dust storm.

 I'd come seeking clear skies.

The paper of my journal is covered in grit. And the pen seems hesitant to move across the page. The wind is wild.

I find myself longing for a different landscape, but there's beauty here as well. It's stark and seems sterile, and It's so dry - even with the recent rainfall. There's barely any green on the desert plants. The ocotillo are bony hands with eerily moving fingers in the wind. 

I hear a raven calling and the voices in the dust. 

The usual color in the badlands is absent today, even though the light is lovely and strong.

A sign somewhere speaks about the good in the badlands. 

"...describes land of no apparent use to humans. Vast and eroded, void of topsoil and vegetation - can't be farmed or ranched. Sedimentary rocks - layers rich with natural history. Fossils locked in rock preserve the stories of animals and plants that once thrived here. When the light is right, the badlands glow with vibrant color. Erosion has created fantastic shapes and patterns that become a challenge to capture and share."

Into the Beams is a 40 day wilderness writing journey during the 2018 Venus Retrograde period. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the treasures buried there.


Photo (c) 2015 Katherine Cartwright. View of sedimentary rock in the Borrego Badlands, Anza-Borrego Desert Park. 

Dust Storm

I stood on the mesa and watched the wind lift the desert floor and dance.

It took two weeks of reflection to come to this interpretation. To see my experience differently. Were you to peer into my journaling of that day, you would read about stark and sterile landscape, about dust and grit and sand. 

I certainly recognized the beauty. How could I not? But the recognition may have been fleeting in the face of overwhelming challenge.

The challenge that day was to find a place to stand where I could breathe the air.

The next day, I developed an illness that flattened me on an afternoon I'd intended to take a long hike deep into the desert. Instead, I found myself reclining in an antigrav chair with my hat over my face, neck, and chest all afternoon soaking in sunbeams and softer winds. 

Occasionally looking at the sweeping views of mountains. 

Listening to horses chuff. And to whistling winds.

Resting into the silence that surrounded all that. 

A different kind of wilderness descent.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40 day wilderness writing journey during the 2018 Venus retrograde period. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the treasure buried there.

Photo (c) 2015 Katherine Cartwright. View of Anza-Borrego Badlands toward the east and Salton Sea. Moonrise, a Hunters Moon. 

Trickster Wins the Day

Coyote crossed my path today.

Right there in the middle of the Badlands, where dust storms raised spirits in the dust that danced so high they obscured mountains.

Trickster wins the day. 

All my lights need recharging. I did not discover it til after dark, and it is so cold my iPhone could pass out at any moment. It likes neither heat not cold. 

All that's left to do is watch the stars twinkling in the night sky and go to sleep. But I'm feeling wide awake and like I'd like to do something. Last night I was sleepy quite early, but someone was playing loud music that moved through this quiet wilderness like a band of raucous revelers. 

I imagine that when I finally settle down, the coyotes will begin to sing.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde period. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the treasure buried there. 

Off the Grid

I'm technology challenged in the wilderness.

I've been here since yesterday evening and was unable to publish last night. I spent the day in transit. The constantly changing landscape mirrored my own inner space. The westering sun threw enormous beams through the clouds and the sky was illuminated with an unusual silvery blue.

The difference between here and the beach towns is a bit surreal. I'm staying on a horse ranch in Ranchita. Conditions are primitive. And wonderful. I spend the mornings working with the horses and the afternoons hiking in the desert. I go to bed with the sun and rise with the sun.

There's something very clarifying about spending some time this way.

I drove through mist, fog, and storm to get here. California's been dry for a year, so this is unusual. It made rivers in the desert. When I arrived, a cloud settled over the place.

Literally.

There was no visibility. I could not see my next step. The night was cold and damp. It was a misty morning until all that burned off and revealed crystal blue skies and brilliant sun.

In the afternoon as I drive my bright red Jeep Renegade down the road, I am met with sweeping views of chapparal before descending 4000 feet into the desert bowl, where the heat bakes out whatever ails. It never fails to take my breath away.

The day is beautiful - all sunshine and shadows of clouds on mountains.

Back at the ranch in the evening, the setting sun turns big, puffy white clouds deep pink and glows behind the mountains, setting the sky on fire. It darkens quickly and a late waxing crescent moon appears suddenly in the sky. Jupiter and Mars attend her. As the hours progress, more stars appear, until the skies are filled with them. I'm hoping to see the Milky Way.

My phone is acting up and the camera's not working. My words are going to have to carry the experience. We make do and discover unexpected treasure.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde. The only agenda is to show up and discover the  treasure buried there. 

Conversation with Crow

The crow in the tree is talking to me.

He got my attention while I was going off in my morning journal with mindless chatter, purging nighttime thought clutter and early morning dreams. His language is curious. I've never heard anything like it before. 

He went on this way for awhile, charming me with clever conversation. And then he released his hold on the branch and glided away - effortlessly. The tree is empty now and it feels a little lonely without his presence. 

Or maybe it's me. Maybe I liked listening to the crow talking. I liked our coversation. I liked talking with someone so much wiser than me. 

I watch crows fly by as the day goes on and wonder if it is he.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde period. The only agenda is to show up and discover the riches buried there.

Morning Songs

The ocean surface is smooth as glass.

I hear waves crashing on the shoreline.

It's funny how dry my skin feels. 

The air doesn't feel dry.
But my hands are dry and

There are new waves and
Whorls in my face

Down where the edge curves toward my neck.

Birds are singing a different song here, 

Or maybe they are different birds.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the riches buried there.

Each Time I Look Up

There's a lovely sliver of crescent moon in the evening sky over the Pacific Ocean.

Jupiter shines a little way off in the distance.

And Mars, with an orangey glow, stands sentinel to the south.

There's a peace to the night sky this evening. Ocean waves move with rhythmic cadence and the wind blows in light gusts. The sky darkens and stars begin to appear.

Each time I look up, the sky seems more and more alive.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the 2018 Venus retrograde period. There is no other agenda than to show up and discover what riches are buied there.

A Gift of Hours

I flew back through time today and was given a gift of hours.

I stood by the edge of an ocean at the end of the world
and allowed my thoughts to take flight.

To melt into the horizon with the setting sun.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde. The only agenda is to show up and discover the riches buried there.

New Moon

I wanted to write while the moon becomes new.

So here I am. Taking a break from whatever I was doing to simply be present to the shifting energy and my own deep relief for a new cycle. 

New moons are energy thresholds that give us new opportunity with new possibility. Humans have been marking changes of seasons and cycles for as long as they have been noticing seasons and cycles. 

I think we like it when everything is made new.

Ah, and here it is. Just now. 

Can you feel it?

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the riches buried there. 

This Is the Way the World Ends

To tell the truth, this title presented itself to me as a thought and expects me to write something to go with it. 

I feel like a captive writer this evening.

Stepping into the unknown

Death and Rebirth

The Balsamic Moon rises

Just before dawn

I dwell in nether lands

Neither here nor there

It is the moment between

The final exhale before

The first in-breath of rebirth

The balsamic moon rose this morning and will rise again tomorrow morning. New moon arrives tomorrow at 11:47 pm, eastern time, just before midnight and the shifting into a new day. She is square Pluto in the solar system. A hard aspect. Conflict. The symbol for death and rebirth, transformation, and power, the Lord of the Underworld from ancient myth has something to say for the next month as he collides with a tender new moon, the Libra moon and the beginning of a new season. A season that takes us into the darkest time of the year. 

Libra is balancing, delicate, and relational. The scales of justice may have met their match.

It's uncanny how such ancient symbolism finds a mirror in the world today. 

Never mind the world "out there." Ultimately, it's an invitation to peel back the layers of what may have remained hidden in our own lives around all these themes. 

Death. Rebirth. Transformation. Power. 

An invitation to dance with the Lord of the Underworld. For a time. A month. Or a season.

And we're suspended for about a day between the invitation and the initiation. 

This is the way the world ends. With an invitation. With an ending and a beginning.  

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the riches buried there.

The excerpt from No Matter What Else Has Been (c) 2012, Katherine Cartwright, appears in the body of this blog post. The complete poem will appear in the collection Claws of Uthurunku, currently in production.

Poetry of Descent

She begins her descent.

And at each threshold, she must surrender something. 

Clothes, jewels, veils, crown. 

And finally her breath.

Into the Beams is an approximately 40-day wilderness writing journey during the period of the 2018 Venus retrograde. There is no agenda other than to show up and discover the riches buried there.