Meditation: June 17th, 2025
"The wise heart learns to dance with shadows not to banish them, but to discover the hidden music that plays only when light and darkness embrace."
Physical Setting & Preparation
Position yourself where contradictions naturally coexist—perhaps at the edge where garden meets wild growth, where cultivated roses tangle with volunteer vines, or beside a stream where still pools reflect sky while current flows beneath. If indoors, create a space of gentle paradox: soft lamplight beside an open window where natural light also enters, smooth stones next to rough bark, water in a clear bowl that catches both reflection and transparency. Sit with your spine following its natural curves, neither forced straight nor collapsed, hands resting in a gesture that suggests both holding and releasing. The air should carry the complex perfume of late June—sweetness of blooming linden trees mixed with the green scent of grass growing thick and the distant promise of thunder.
Opening Invocation | Fosgladh
Tha mi a' gabhail ri'n dorch is ri'n solas
(I accept both the dark and the light)
Anns an Ògmhios a' dlùthachadh ri fhèis-ghrèine, mo chridhe tro-chèile
(In June approaching its sun-feast, my heart confused)
Feel the approaching crescendo of June's solstice energy—wild roses blooming with abandon in hedgerows, their thorns guarding beauty fierce as love itself, fireflies beginning to script their ancient alphabet of desire across twilight meadows. The earth mother holds her breath now between expansion and the first whisper of summer's eventual turning, poised in the eternal moment when growth reaches toward its peak.
This day carries the weight of complexity multiplying like honeysuckle vines—sweet and strangling both, beautiful and overwhelming in their abundance. Within this intricate season, we acknowledge two currents that spiral through the depths of experience: the sharp ache of feeling resentful, when the heart hardens like sun-baked clay around old hurts, and the bewildering fog of being confused, when the mind cannot find its bearings in the landscape of possibility and choice.
Body of the Working | Corp
Leig do fhreumhan sìos tro'n talamh tro-chèile
(Let your roots down through the mixed-up earth)
Anchor your awareness in the soil beneath you, rich now with the complex chemistry of decomposition and growth intermingled—last year's leaves becoming this season's nutrition, earthworms processing darkness into fertility, mycorrhizal networks weaving underground conversations between root systems in languages older than words. Here the earth holds everything—the bitter and the sweet, the clear and the murky, the simple and the incomprehensibly complex.
The resentment that burns in your chest like a banked fire—acknowledge it as energy trapped by old boundaries, like a river backing up behind a beaver dam. This bitterness carries information about what matters to you, about boundaries crossed and needs unmet. It speaks of care turned acid, of love that found no proper channel for its expression.
Tha mo fhearg mar shruthan air a chumail air ais
(My anger is like a stream held back)
In nature, stagnant water grows bitter, but water in motion cleanses itself. The anger within resentment seeks movement, seeks expression that serves justice rather than revenge, seeks the healthy flow that clears debris and restores the natural course of caring.
Now touch the confusion that swirls through your thoughts like morning mist, obscuring familiar landmarks and making every path uncertain. This bewilderment is not failure but the natural state of a mind confronting more complexity than it can immediately organize—like a forest in spring when every day brings new growth that changes the familiar contours of winter's stark clarity.
Tha mo smuaintean mar cheò sa mhadainn
(My thoughts are like morning mist)
In the wild, confusion serves important functions. It slows the rush toward premature action, creates space for new information to enter, allows for the patience necessary when circumstances require more listening than deciding. The deer that freezes when scents mix confusingly may avoid the danger that hasty movement would attract.
The Deep Working | An Obair Dhomhain
Thig gu cridhe na màthar-talmhainn a tha tuigsinn
(Come to the heart of the earth-mother who understands)
Breathe into the place where resentment and confusion meet within your body—perhaps feeling them as heat and coolness swirling together in your solar plexus, or as pressure and spaciousness alternating through your throat and chest. Here is where the earth mother's most patient healing work begins.
Her ancient hands, weathered by holding countless contradictions—the beauty and violence of storms, the necessity of death for life's continuation, the way love and loss dance together in every growing thing—cradle both your burning and your bewilderment. She who has composed symphonies from discord, who has grown roses from rotting matter, knows how to transform your confusion and resentment into the rich soil where wisdom takes root.
Tha mo mhàthair-thalamh a' comharrachadh mo thruaighe
(My earth-mother is composting my sorrow)
Feel her energy rising through your bones like the patient process that transforms fallen leaves into humus—the slow alchemy that breaks down what was into the nutrients needed for what wants to become. This life-force understands that resentment contains information about justice, that confusion signals the presence of complexity worth honoring rather than rushing to resolve.
Let your resentment be composted by this deeper knowing—not bypassed or spiritually whitewashed, but transformed through the earth's own process of taking what appears poisonous and revealing its hidden fertility. The bitter compounds that protect a green walnut become, through time and proper conditions, the sweetness of the ripened nut.
Bidh mo thruaighe a' fàs na fheàrr-thalamh
(My confusion will become fertile soil)
Let your confusion find refuge in the earth's own vast not-knowing—the mystery of how seeds choose their moment of germination, how birds navigate migrations across unmarked skies, how forests coordinate their seasonal responses through underground networks too intricate for human comprehension. Your bewilderment participates in this holy uncertainty that allows for emergence rather than forcing predetermined outcomes.
Imagine yourself as a seed in the dark soil, unable to see the path to light but trusting the intelligence that moves through all growing things. Feel how resentment and confusion, composted together in the earth mother's patient embrace, create the exact conditions needed for whatever wants to sprout from the depths of your being.
Afterthought | Smuain Dheiridh
Take a moment to contemplate:
What if your resentment contains crucial information about your deepest values, and your confusion signals that you're growing beyond the frameworks that once seemed adequate? How might welcoming both as sacred teachers change your relationship with the uncomfortable complexity of being human in a complicated world?
Closing Blessing | Beannachd Dheiridh
Tha beannachd na talmhainn chèile-fhillte orm
(The blessing of the complex earth is upon me)
Tha mi a' falbh le foighidinn is le tuigse
(I go with patience and with understanding)
Rise slowly, carrying within you the deep knowing that wisdom grows not from the absence of difficulty but from the patient composting of every experience into the rich soil where compassion takes root. The same earth that transforms poison oak and stinging nettle into medicine also works through your being, revealing the hidden gifts within whatever seems most resistant to blessing.
Walk forward with the humble confusion of morning mist that will lift when the sun reaches the proper angle, and the righteous resentment of seeds that refuse to grow in soil that cannot support their flourishing. You are both the question and the answer slowly forming, both the compost and the garden it feeds.
Slàn leat, a mhàthair-thalamh. Slàn leat.
(Farewell, earth-mother. Farewell.)
Oh how I needed that today! Hope you are all well!