Physical Setting & Preparation
Find yourself in a place where summer's full power is evident—perhaps where you can witness both the delicate and the mighty existing side by side. Feel the contrast between a flower's silk-soft petals and the iron strength of the stem that holds it aloft, or between the gossamer spider web trembling in morning air and the ancient tree trunk that provides its anchor.
Allow your body to rest against something solid—earth, stone, or bark—while keeping your face open to the sky. Notice how your skin, so thin and sensitive, protects the fierce aliveness within. Breathe deeply, feeling how each inhalation makes you both more open and more present, more exposed and more filled with life force.
Opening Invocation | Fosgladh
Tha mi a' tighinn gu Màthair na Talmhainn
(I come to the Mother of the Earth)
Place your open palms upon the ground and feel the tremendous vulnerability of this gesture—offering yourself without defense to the vast intelligence that moves through all growing things. Yet in this openness, discover the profound empowerment that comes from aligning with forces greater than your individual will.
A Mhàthair, teagaisg dhomh do neart
(Mother, teach me your strength)
In this moment of summer's climax, when every living thing stands fully exposed to sun and storm yet continues to thrive and flourish, call upon the Mother's deepest teaching. She who knows that vulnerability is not weakness but the courage to remain open to life's full intensity, and that true empowerment flows from this radical receptivity.
Body of the Working | Corp
Tha mi lag is fosgailte
(I am tender and open)
Feel the exquisite vulnerability that courses through every fiber of your being. Like the newly emerged butterfly with wings still soft and untested, like the bird's egg moments before hatching, like the bud swelling with such tender urgency that it must soon burst open or die—you carry this same precious fragility.
Summer's height amplifies this vulnerability. Everything stands fully revealed: the young deer stepping into the meadow, the flower opening its most secret center to any passing bee, the fruit growing heavy and sweet on branches that bend with the weight of their own abundance. Nothing hides. Nothing protects itself from the possibility of damage, loss, consumption, or transformation.
The Mother whispers through the wind in grass: "To be alive is to be vulnerable. Every moment of growth requires the courage to become more than you were, to let your edges dissolve, to trust the unknown."
Ach tha mi làidir cuideachd
(But I am also strong)
Yet in the very center of this vulnerability pulses an unshakeable empowerment. The same force that makes the flower tender also drives its stem to push through concrete. The same openness that makes you susceptible to pain also makes you capable of profound love, deep wisdom, transformative action.
This empowerment is not the brittle strength of armor but the flexible power of water that carves canyons, of roots that crack foundations, of life that finds a way through every obstacle. It flows from your willingness to be affected, to be changed, to let life move through you without resistance.
Summer itself demonstrates this paradox: the season of maximum exposure is also the time of greatest creative power. Everything that dares to be fully itself—however fragile—participates in the unstoppable force of life expressing its infinite creativity.
The Deep Working | An Obair Dhomhain
Gabh a-steach don mheadhan
(Enter into the center)
Descend now into the sacred place where vulnerability and empowerment reveal themselves as one movement, one energy expressing itself through two faces. Here you discover what every ancient tree knows: that the capacity to bend is what prevents breaking, that deep roots grow strongest in soil made soft by countless seasons of rain.
The Mother's greatest teaching lives in this paradox. She is utterly vulnerable—every species depends on her health, every pollution enters her body, every wound becomes her wound. Yet she is absolutely empowered—healing every injury, transforming every poison, turning even destruction into fertile ground for new creation.
Tha mise càrr na talmhainn
(I am part of the earth)
Feel yourself dissolving into this same consciousness. Your vulnerability becomes the very quality that allows you to sense what needs healing, to respond with precision to subtle changes, to offer exactly what each moment requires. Your empowerment flows from your willingness to be penetrated by reality, to let truth reshape you continuously.
Like the mycorrhizal networks that connect forest ecosystems, your openness creates invisible webs of connection and mutual support. Like the honey bee that must expose itself completely to gather nectar, your willingness to be vulnerable becomes the source of your ability to nourish others and contribute to the great pollination of consciousness across the world.
The rhythm of your breath now matches the rhythm of all breathing things—the in-breath that makes you receptive, the out-breath that empowers you to give. Each cycle teaches the ancient dance: receiving and offering, opening and expressing, being affected and taking action.
Afterthought | Smuain Dheiridh
Take a moment to contemplate:
How might your greatest vulnerabilities actually be doorways to your most authentic power? What becomes possible when you stop trying to be invulnerable and instead learn to be skillfully open to life's full intensity?
Closing Blessing | Beannachd Dheiridh
Beannachd Mhàthair na Talmhainn ort
(The blessing of the Mother of the Earth upon you)
As you slowly return to ordinary awareness, carry with you the deep knowing that vulnerability and empowerment are not opposites to be balanced but aspects of one unified way of being. Like summer itself—simultaneously the most exposed and the most powerfully creative season—you are designed to thrive through openness rather than despite it.
Thig air ais nuair a tha feum agad
(Return when you have need)
Go forward knowing that every moment offers you the choice to meet life as the earth does—with the courageous tenderness that allows all growth, and the quiet strength that transforms every experience into wisdom. Your vulnerability is your connection to the web of life; your empowerment flows from your willingness to serve that greater wholeness with every breath.
I love the photo and quote. Perfect!