Altars of the Moon

Now comes the days of the Summer Swelter, that expanse of time in the South when everything lives beneath a blistering sun, and ever increasing temperatures. I follow a different calendar than some, and so for me, summer is here and she is here to stay. I love watching the changes start and slowly gather strength and fall headlong into the beauty of summer.

This is the time I sit with decisions I made at Samhain and look at them closer. I am half way through the year. Are they still what I want? Do they still fit the life I am living, and do they still fall within the parameters of making my life more full?

Sometimes those answers are different than they were last October. Life is like that, it just changes.

The first place I go to prepare for a look at those Samhain workings is my summer altar. I spend the last week of April in full preparation for my private celebration of the arrival of May. The outside altar space is cleaned and spiffied up. I created this space many years ago and it remains a center of my work. While I spend a great amount of time throughout the year here, in summer she comes into her full glory. I spend time here, every single day.

This year I added some amazing new lights that were gifted to me, and my father’s boots. Both of these things make me immeasurably happy, and the boots have already provided safety for a few small critters. This fact would make my father both furious and hysterically amused, just as I did in life. So it seems fitting.

I would encourage you to find a little spot to make yours in the outdoors. The only requirement is that it makes you happy! There are no required supplies, and absolutely no rules in how it must be oriented or set up. I promise the altar police won’t show up and if they do please inform them I am already on retainer for your defense, and trust and believe I will be there to speak for you.

The summer also provides the backdrop to an increase in my moon work. I’ve also added several light representations of the moon on my altar this year. The moon and I have a complex relationship. However. summer always seems to soften the edges of our coming together and so I ramp it up while I can.

The altar becomes a thriving area of life and plans and wild moon energy. There are very specific phases in which we share time, and this summer I will be working to change some of the aspects of that relationship. Several years ago, I wrote Altars of the Moon, a song about my walk beside the Great Silver Lady and it remains a powerful song for me. One of the lessons I strive to learn constantly with her is flowing with change. Even when they are hard, things will come back around eventually.

Come to center, come find your soul.
Dont ask questions, be still and be whole
And as she guides you through the night,
Close your eyes, turn out the light.

I know that for me personally, one of the hardest things for me to do is to simply be still. Part of this is definitely due to my own genetic stew. The remainder is conditioning that productivity creates value, and tactile results equal worth. If you have ever spent any time around me , you know that sitting still remains outside my scope of practice! I use work with the moon to create a space in which I can simply be still. My outside working altar helps me to center, focus and actually be still.

The heat of this coming season is also strangely calming to me, and allows me to focus a little more clearly on goal specifics. By this time , I am beginning to see either results or the lack thereof regarding my “New Year’s“ resolutions. Just as the garden begins to burst forth with life, so does the manifestation of my goals. I begin in earnest to decipher what I want to truly harvest and what to let go of and redirect my energy into. The moon is there yet gain, to help me along the way, reminding that the waxing and waning of life is a constant that can not be changed.

And now walk here, this path that’s been trod
Answer the calling of the Goddess and God
Under the beauty, as sky clad you fall
Offer yourself, give her your all

Summers have come and gone throughout my life with varying degrees of importance and relevance. Some I remember as vividly as if they happened yesterday, the smell of peach fuzz, of cobblers in the oven. The sounds of night peepers and croakers, laying on the grass looking up at the stars and that Great Silver Lady looking back down at me. Knowing even as a child the magic in that mighty orb above me. I will always spend summer nights, faced upwards, remembering everything before me. Everything she has seen and held witness too, and everything she will face long after I’m gone.

Older than time and older than air
I offer myself to the power that’s there
And should you find my offer is fair
Come then and take me, but lover beware
For the moon, she hears my call
On her altar, I lay my all
I don’t fear the coming light
For I’m wrapped in her arms tonight
“Altars of the Moon” by Krista Chapman Green

I hope you all are walking onto the summer with a smile. And that wherever you are, you can create a space outside to share your own moon time with. Be still and listen to the Great Silver Lady, and your heart

For more information about Krista Chapman Green, including her collected articles here on Pagan Song, her bio, and links to Krista’s sites on the web, check out Krista’s page on Pagan Song.

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