Blessed Be Chapter 1 - New Moon Crew

It sat in my house for years and I never recognized its power. It was a just a piece of dried out wood that I found hiking with my New Moon Club, a monthly women’s group that met up at my friend Bea’s house. 

We were the type of ladies who would greet each other with feel good catch phrases like “Blessed Be” and “manifesting through the Universe”.  At every meeting we ended with the same ritual, writing heart felt intentions on little scraps of paper, reading them out loud to each other and then ceremoniously burning them, sending our hope and fears up to the Kind Ones in the Universe. Apart from the new agey elements, our little group was about being there for each other in that moment, having others to share our laughter and tears, the secrets about our men, our children, our past, present and future.

The core group was 5 women though now and then other ladies would join us. I was in my late 20’s and the youngest in the group. I met our ringleader, Bea at work. Bea was a gifted executive secretary in her late 50’s. Anyone she worked for had an office that ran like clockwork.  She had 2 grown daughters and 5 cats. Bea had no concern for the conventions that bind most women her age, she explored the world fully, both the external and internal. She was a Wicca practitioner, but never went as far as saying she was a witch. If you came to her with an open heart and a small fee just to cover her expenses, she would guide you through your own journey of healing. Her home was a safe place to explore our inner worlds, and celebrate the magic within each other and our selves. The three other regulars were Fiona, Blythe and Margaret.

Fiona was an introverted waif of a woman in her late 30’s struggling to keep her past from poisoning her present. Her intentions always revolved around releasing the pain of childhood abuse and repairing problems in her marriage.  Often she would come in complaining about her overbearing mother-in-law who routinely barged into her home and started cleaning it because she insisted Fiona did not keep house well enough for her son. Fiona was working full time and going to school part time. She felt she should make no apologies for the fact that starch ironing and furniture polishing was just not on her radar screen. Fiona would get so angry at her husband for never standing up to his mother about her intrusive behavior. Through group discussion Fiona learned to see her mother-in-law as a lonely sad person mourning the loss of her one meaning in life – taking care of her son. Soon Fiona stopped seeing her mother-in-law’s efforts as criticism but rather free housekeeping services. She got the lady to agree on coming over at scheduled times rather than just showing up. Things brightened when the women came to a point of mutual acceptance.

Blythe was a housewife, raising 4 strapping boys and 1 girl. Now in her early 50’s, she was trying to decide if her 25-year marriage to a philanderer was worth keeping. At first her special intentions were all about having the strength to hang on until the youngest kids were out of college because she didn't want their tuition money being waylaid to divorce lawyers.  When her kids were out of college she finally admitted to herself that as much as he infuriated her at times, she couldn't see herself with anyone else and felt she was weak because she let him get away with cheating. One night, after an extra glass of wine, Blythe confessed to the group that she always knew when her husband was unfaithful on his business trips because she was an intuitive and felt his arousal as her own. With our help she started to see the advantage of this strange connection. She stopped being enraged at her husband’s infidelity and got a lover of her own. Soon enough she was again able to enjoy the things she loved about her husband and the things she didn't. Her home became a happier place.

40 something Margaret proclaimed herself a self-taught white witch and we were her makeshift coven because any of the other witching groups she had met over the years were a bunch of weirdoes. She had a wild mane of black hair, wore peasant skirts and Indian cotton tunics. Her hands, feet, wrists were adorned with jewelry made of semiprecious stones and crystals. Each thing she wore was carefully selected for how its energies influenced her aural plane. She suffered from Lupus that often disabled her. When her disease allowed, she worked as sculptor and photographer. Her art was sought after in local galleries and at fundraising auctions.  She was between husbands for most of the time I knew her because her children took center stage. Her 2 sons and 1 daughter were navigating the perils of adolescence with a fair share of drama. Her intentions were always about recharging her spiritual batteries. We talked her through her eldest son’s brushes with the law for under aged drinking, her daughter’s unsuitable suitors and the near fatal ATV crash her youngest son sustained.

Each month Bea planned a little something for us, some exploration of a topic or theme presciently relevant to whatever was going on with us. We always started with some guided meditation and then had a group discussion over a covered dish meal and a few glasses of wine. Sometimes we did crafts like dream catchers or totem bags. On a few occasions we would attempt passed life regressions during our meditation time.  On or near the solstices and equinoxes we would venture out on a little road trip. It was a trip to a Celtic meditation garden that started the whole thing.

November 1^st 1998 to be exact. We all played hooky from work or family commitments and drove out to the secluded park a hour and half away to do a mindfulness hike. After a hardy picnic lunch we sat Indian style on our blankets, closed our eyes and basked in the remaining warmth of the Autumnal sun.  Bea talked us through quieting our minds, calling the four sacred directions and setting an intention for the next hours to come. Next we would walk silently through the paths of the park mindfully exploring what lessons nature sought to provide for us on that a balmy Indian summer afternoon.

The day is etched so vividly into my mind. During her instructions to breathe deeply and let go of the strife of our every day I became keenly aware that the grass tickled my bare legs. I kept peeking to be sure it wasn't actually ants crawling up my shorts.  I was finally able to really focus on meditating when she suggested we set an intention.  I decide that I wished that through this trip I would gain enlightenment about the world around me and my purpose in it.  It often was my habit to make my intentions broad like that I couldn't help but swing for the metaphysical fences every time. I would come to learn being a little too ambitious with these kinds of wishes could have a big impact on one’s destiny.

And so the hike commenced. I mindfully strode through the woods with my lady friends doing my best to appreciate the glory of creation. My fears of ticks, poison oak and various creepy crawlies were immediately awakened. I smiled to the wilderness and reassured myself there was nothing I could see that really was going to hurt me.

As planned, 15 minutes into our walk the path spilt into 3 different trails. Bea said that each trail was well marked and circled back to the path we were on so it was impossible to get lost. The general plan was to separate and explore the woods alone. Find a place to sit down or keep moving or whatever struck our muse. In 30 minutes she would ring a bell and that was the signal to make our way back to entrance of the park.

 “Blessed be” we all mouthed silently and selected our own routes and paces. Since Margaret could tire easily and was sometimes a little unsteady on her feet it was decided in advance she and Blythe would buddy up and go down the same path together. They chose the left path. Bea and Fiona went to the right. My second deep awareness was a mild sense of annoyance that I was the only one really going it alone in the woods. It aroused my resentment of Fiona for being so clingy towards Bea. These caused me to reflect on why I cared about Fiona’s clinginess at all. And the truth was it highlighted my own wish to have Bea’s exclusive attention, it gnawed me to see my own neediness.

I had grown up one of the youngest in a large blended family. My birth mother died when I was still a toddler and my father remarried another woman when I was 6.  My stepmother had raised 5 kids on her own and perhaps out of necessity followed a minimalist approach to mothering. My basic needs were covered but I still felt lonely and forgotten on an island sometimes of my own making. I missed the mother I never knew. I felt like I was “the other”.

The carnivores in the schoolyard could smell that otherness and feasted on me through out grade school and high school furthering a melancholy I learned to overcome. I studied Social Work because I was convinced a career in mental health was my calling. I quickly learned it was not my path and settled into work at an Insurance Company.

In my late 20’s I could check off education, career path and marriage on my life experience tally sheet.   I grappled with the existential angst of “now what”.

Tuning into the present moment there on the walking path, I noticed the detritus of autumn all around me. Red and golden leaves below my feet had once soaked in the sun but now their time to fall had come. I too only had so much time. I had no patience for the uncertainties the winding road of life presented me. Being around these older women enabled me to see how life goes on. My written intentions were most often about finding balance and acceptance while creating my own path. 

The walking was easy. The meditation gardeners maintained the trails so that branches were trimmed back. Paths were mostly free of roots or boulders to trip on. The poisonous plants I worried about were nowhere in sight. Seating areas were thoughtfully placed every few hundred feet, some of those areas were clearly meant to be campfire circles.  Faded ribbons evidence of rituals of the past were randomly tied to trees. Every here and there small piles of rocks were precariously stacked like mini-megaliths.  Birds traded songs above my head. Now and then rustling in the leaves startled me.  I attributed the noise to copper head snakes but each time it proved to be a foraging chipmunk or squirrel. Bit by bit, I started to relaxed and tuned into the sensations of the forest. A warm breeze moved the tree limbs. The sun danced with the few leaves still on the trees and streamed patches of gold on the forest floor. I turned a bend and moved into a small valley where trees huddle together more closely and the air turned chill.

I climbed a large boulder that drew my eye and planted myself on it like a lotus flower. With my eyes closed I centered my attention to the beating of my heart and the expansion and contraction of my ribs with each breathe. It was easy to be quiet here. I didn’t fret what bugs could be on me or any other thing. Any thoughts passed quickly through and did not linger.

I floated in the peace without grasping. Time passed and I heard the bell ring. I repeated my intention – “May I take home something from the trip that would enlighten my understanding of the world and my purpose in it.” Then I opened my eyes, jumped off the rock and proceeded back the way I came feeling lighter and freer.

I was nearly back to the meeting point when I saw a branch lying on the ground and felt oddly compelled to pick it up. It was a little shorter than my arm and curved gracefully into a fork part way up. When I reached for it I found that the weight of it felt good in my hands.  I carried it along with me out to meet the ladies. We gathered together by the cars laughing and sharing our experience of the day’s adventure.

Margaret and Blythe discovered a huge spider’s web and watched its sizable owner wrapping its lunch in silk. Margaret was sure that she would return home and capture its toil in some kind of artwork. Blythe noticed one moth fly up to the web and narrowly evade capture and certain death. This got her pondering about how little divides us from one fate or another. 

Fiona and Bea sat down by a small pond and watched skate bugs skim across the water leaving ripples that extended and then overlapped other ripples of other skates. They got in to a conversation about inter dependency of all beings and how our own actions and those of others reverberate across the world in unknowable ways.

When it was my turn to share and I felt embarrassed because I had so little to say compared to everyone's deep thoughts. I just sat on a rock and listened to everything around me the time flew away in a heartbeat. I showed them my stick.  I said “And I found this!” and felt a little ridiculous when I looked down at the branch again. Perhaps it wasn't really so remarkable? I couldn’t really explain the ways in which the stick just called out to me.

 They examined the stick and to my relief they ooh’ed and ahh’ed about it. Bea suggested that I decorate it. She offered to give me some craft supplies left over from one of our previous projects. I was welcome to select some things to adorn it when we got back to her house. Inspired by my find, all the other ladies set out on the edge of the woods to find their own wands. I felt partly proud that I started a trend and also a little annoyed with the group, so eager to mimic me. It felt like somehow by them finding their own “magic sticks” my lovely sacred branch was less special. I pushed such thoughts out of my head, admonishing myself for being so petty. 

We returned to Bea’s house just early enough to spend 20 minutes decorating our sticks. Fiona dipped her stick in glitter glue and then stuck feathers to it for her cat. Blythe tied lengths of thin rawhide to her branch and threaded beads in a colorful pattern.  When she spun the stick between her hands back and forth the beads made a rhythmic clicking sound. Margaret painted her slender length of wood white and then inscribed it with tiny precise lettering so small it could not be read except up very closed. She had written a beautiful poem on it by Rumi.  I found a piece of purple ribbon that looked like netting. I carefully wrapped the ribbon along the branch. I thought simple but elegant was the best way to go when it came to magic wand fashions. The shape of the branch and its texture held center stage. The purple gauze merely claimed it as something other than a discarded twig. Once I saw the diversity of what each of us did I no longer felt like they were a bunch of copycats.

After the ladies’ outing I returned home and placed my magic wand on the mantle of my disused fireplace. It became the centerpiece of my meditation nook. Whenever we had a new moon ceremony that required a magic token I would trot it out laughing to myself that I was a “real” witch since I actually had a wand. During the Harry Potter craze I dressed for a Halloween party as Hermione Granger and the stick came along as my wand for authenticity.

I lost touch with my New Moon friends after I moved out of state. I heard it disbanded shortly after. I kept in touch with Bea on Facebook but it wasn't ever the same. I never found a group of friends as supportive as our new moon circle had become. The years rolled by.

The branch was just a memento of a nice romp I took in the woods one day with a bunch of ladies I used to know. Being a sentimental soul I carried it with me from move to move. Over time it took less prominence because I no longer had a mantle to sit it on. Eventually it lived under my bedroom dresser. Every now and then when Spring-cleaning time came around my husband would suggest it just collected dust and should be discarded. I insisted that it stay, it was doing no harm to him keeping the dust bunnies company.