Physical Setting & Preparation
Find yourself in a space where summer's zenith can be felt—perhaps near an open window where the longest day's warmth still lingers in the evening air, or outdoors where you can sense the earth's fertility at its peak. Light a single candle to honor the sun's power even as twilight approaches. Place your bare feet upon the ground if possible, or hold a stone that has been warmed by the day's heat. Let your body settle into the embrace of summer's abundance while acknowledging the subtle turn toward autumn's promise.

The focus today centers on the summer solstice's aftermath—that moment when light begins its gentle retreat, teaching us about transitions. We explore two profound emotional currents: yearning (the deep longing that connects us to what we seek) and moribund (the necessary endings that clear space for new growth).
Opening Invocation | Fosgladh
Màthair na Talmhainn, glacam do làmh
(Mother of Earth, we take your hand)
Breathe deeply and feel the earth's pulse beneath you. The soil thrums with the memory of countless summers, each blade of grass a testament to cycles completed and begun anew. In this moment between solstice and the slow turn toward harvest, we stand at the threshold where abundance meets acceptance.
Tha sinn a' tighinn dhachaigh riut
(We come home to you)
Your breath becomes the wind through oak leaves, heavy with the weight of full summer. Feel how your chest rises and falls in rhythm with the earth's own breathing—the slow, ancient respiration of stone and soil, root and stem.
Body of the Working | Corp
Anns a' mhonadh is anns a' choille
(In the mountain and in the forest)
Sink deeper into the earth's embrace. Your yearning—that ache in your chest like a bird calling for its mate across vast distances—this is not emptiness but connection. Feel how your longing mirrors the way tree roots stretch toward underground streams, how flowers turn their faces to follow the sun's arc across the sky.
The earth knows yearning intimately. Mountains yearned to rise from primordial seas. Rivers yearned to carve their paths to the ocean. Seeds yearned to break through soil toward light. Your deepest longings are not separate from nature—they ARE nature expressing itself through your human heart.
Tha mi a' faicinn do bhòidhchead
(I see your beauty)
Now turn toward what feels moribund within you—those parts ready for release, like autumn leaves still clinging to summer branches. There is no shame in what dies within us. The earth teaches that death is not ending but transformation. Every fallen log becomes soil for new growth. Every winter creates the conditions for spring's explosion of life.
Feel the weight of what you're ready to release. Let it settle into your body like compost returning to soil. The Mother receives all offerings—your exhausted dreams, your worn-out patterns, your expired ways of being. She transforms everything into nourishment for what seeks to be born.
The Deep Working | An Obair Dhomhain
Thig gu fois anns a' ghleann sàmhach
(Come to rest in the peaceful valley)
Descend now into the earth's deepest chambers, where your yearning and your endings meet in the cauldron of transformation. Here, in the womb-darkness where crystals grow in silence and underground rivers sing ancient songs, the Mother shows you the secret of sacred longing.
Your yearning is not a wound to be healed but a compass pointing toward your truest self. Feel how it draws you deeper into the earth's heart, where every desire is revealed as love wearing different clothes. The ache in your chest is the same force that pulls salmon upstream, that guides migrating birds across continents, that turns seedlings toward sunlight.
Tha thu sàbhailte anns mo bhroinn
(You are safe in my womb)
And your endings—those moribund parts of yourself—feel how they dissolve here in the Mother's embrace, not into nothingness but into pure possibility. Like autumn leaves becoming soil, your releases become the fertile ground for new growth. The Mother composts everything with infinite tenderness, turning even your deepest sorrows into nourishment for joy.
Let yourself feel the profound interconnection: your yearning feeds the earth's creative force, and your releases become the soil from which your next becoming will grow. You are not separate from the cycles of death and rebirth that govern all of nature—you ARE those cycles, embodied in human form.
Tha gaol mòr ann
(There is great love here)
Rest in this knowing. Let your breath slow until it matches the earth's ancient rhythm. Feel how your heartbeat synchronizes with the pulse of sap in trees, with the circulation of underground waters, with the slow dance of tectonic plates. You are held, completely and eternally, in the Mother's infinite love.
Afterthought | Smuain Dheiridh
Take a moment to contemplate:
How might your deepest yearnings be invitations from the earth herself, calling you into fuller participation in the grand symphony of becoming and releasing that governs all life?
Closing Blessing | Beannachd Dheiridh
Beannachd ort, a mhàthair chridhe
(Blessing on you, mother of my heart)
As you slowly return to ordinary awareness, carry with you the knowing that your yearning and your endings are both sacred. You are held in the Mother's eternal embrace, where nothing is ever truly lost and everything is always being born anew.
Tha sinn ceangailte gu bràth
(We are connected forever)
The earth's wisdom flows through your veins. Her cycles pulse in your heart. Her love sustains every breath. Go forward knowing you are never alone, never separate from the great web of life that holds all things in perfect balance.
Slàn leat gu coinneachadh a-rithist
(Farewell until we meet again)
I know tradition calls idolatry to find a sacredness in all things, but there is this deep knowing spirit that you can feel if you still yourself enough.
I have lost some of it, and I am on a quest to retrieve what is missing.
What a deeply beautiful essay. Thank you!