It's been a while since I've written you and I have many thoughts I'm racing to catch before they're gone. This is how it is when my writing spirit calls me in. Inevitably my cat wants my attention at the same time, pushing my hand with his wet nose to make room for him to be on me in the most uncomfortable way.
I thought about the winters of Ottawa today, prompted by S12 of Alone which we started tonight as a family because of my obsession with survival. I mused on the way winter forces you to be still, to sit with the greyness and the silence of snow falling for months until the unbearable cold makes you wonder what the purpose of life is and just when you feel you can no longer bear it, the warmth returns, crackling spring sidewalks morphing into a thick summer air. What that consistent ritual does to a spirit, building character in ways you don't realize until you've moved away to near perfect weather for days and months on end, and when you hear yourself commenting on unexpected rain, you wonder if you've lost a part of you.
I still love it here. I haven't learned enough about this place, about the people who call this home - truly home and not as transplants who murmur about ways they wish it was more like their home instead of accepting it for what it is; a city with its own heartbeat. Do not step into a strangers house and ask them to change things and make it more comfortable for you.
It's been uncomfortable here for my family only because it's the first time I've felt like I have no control of home in the physical sense, and constantly feel the pressures of an expiration date. We're not in control of our time here (though I suppose this is true of our aliveness) and as much as we tried, life is asking something else of us for now. Life is asking us to remain comfortable with uncertainty, forcing us to relinquish control and to simply be present in our discomfort and learn to dance with anxiety. I've adopted a daily practice of gratitude for a place that stretches and bends us, a place wrapped with constant wonders, teaching us something new about ourselves that only being here could teach.
My cat is fully on my chest now, watching a YouTube video on welding that my husband put on. The full moon shines through the window pane above the plum tree that was abundant last year but with last week's wave of heat, wiped the dream of plum pies away.
The thoughts are slowing down now.
I've been awake since 4:30am, at the mercy of night sweats, but energized to do my solar return ceremony. Preparing a fresh pot of rice, my kapwa tarot spread before my alter asking for them to show me what I need to know. In the quiet of the morning under candlelight, writing the thoughts and lessons offered by each card, I felt something within me shift. When the sun rose, I took my candle into the backyard, placed my feet upon the dewy grass and asked for answers from a newly discovered guide; Dalikamata, the ancient, all-seeing Visayan goddess of health, clairvoyance, and vision. I didn't realize until that moment just how disconnected I've been and that this act of reconnecting with my roots helped ease my ginhawa.
Unlike winters and the uncertainty of home in the physical sense, my choice to intentionally reclaim this practice and awaken cultural memory is something I can control. It brings a comfort I haven't felt in a while living within structures that can overwhelm and debilitate. It is here I'm learning to realign my ways of being to heal the parts of me I wasn't prepared to heal until now.
I ended ceremony cooking a pot of sabaw, simple but intentional, letting love permeate into the home to welcome my family from their slumber. And just as I started the day with writing, so it ends.
For a few years now, I've felt as though my guides have been wanting me to redirect my energy inwards and it's been hard to do in a place (or industry) that asks/takes so much of me.
I am finally listening and embracing it.
Inwards and onwards my friends. Happy full moon.
Love,
Mai
