Dear Friends,
For months, I’ve been coloring this spiral image of Hebrew letters.
I colored it here and there during work meetings or while I was on a phone call or needed to take a breath between conversations. Coloring engages the intuitive part of me and helps me feel calm when I’m worked up. I had no deadline around finishing the page. Whenever I picked it up, I entered its meditative wheel of letters.
I finished the page this week the day before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates many things: an ancient dairy festival; learning; teaching; revelation; the Book of Ruth; flowers and gifts.
I placed the wheel of Hebrew letters on my ancestor alter, a place where I have photos of my loved ones who have crossed to the other side, some whom I’ve never met. I’m in process of writing a new manuscript about our connections, about intuition, healing and discovery. About how we can move forward and backward in the inner realms, how love can cross through time and space.
I hadn’t meant to create the coloring page as a gift for my alter but once I completed it, knew it would go there. The Hebrew letters contain gateways of wisdom that my ancestors pass down to me, letters that form the psalms and prayers that I hold onto when I’m lost or struggling.
The weeks of coloring yielded an unexpected gift. Sometimes, we have no idea what will come forward through the work of our hands. What seeds we are planting. What gift we are giving to another human, to an animal friend, to ourselves.
Today is the final week of our embodiment theme. You can catch up on the archives here if you missed a week. We’ll keep making connections between our inner lives and the landscape around us in the weeks ahead.
I’m offering a meditation and writing prompt about the kind of magical planting of seeds that we’re doing all of the time—even when we may not realize it.
Click the arrow at the top of the page to listen and then return to the writing prompt (or go right to the prompt).
I also found a really beautiful poem perfect for late spring about our connection to earth and alchemy and ancestors and the work of our hands—check it out in the deepening practice below.
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Writing Practice: Set aside 5-7 minutes for this practice. Write in a journal or open a ‘Journey with The Season’ document where you can return each Sunday.
After listening to the meditation, write about everything that you released into the earth: the worries, fears or regrets.
Describe the process of planting your seeds. What did you imagine that you are growing? What kinds of hopes and dreams?
Write a blessing or prayer for the seeds you planted. Here are some words to get you started:
May you be protected by…
May you grow into…
May your gifts become…
Please share responses as a comment or email them to me at gabriellekm@gmail.com
Deepening Practice:
This incredible poem took my breath away. Read it and savor it. Return to the seeds that you’re planting and add anything else you want to say about the process of planting and trusting and the work of our hands.
Photosynthesis by Ashley M. Jones When I was young, my father taught us how dirt made way for food, how to turn over soil so it would hold a seed, an infant bud, how the dark could nurse it until it broke its green arms out to touch the sun. In every backyard we’ve ever had, he made a little garden plot with room for heirloom tomatoes, corn, carrots, peppers: jalapeno, bell, and poblano— okra, eggplant, lemons, collards, broccoli, pole beans, watermelon, squash, trees filled with fruit and nuts, brussels sprouts, herbs: basil, mint, parsley, rosemary— onions, sweet potatoes, cucumber, cantaloupe, cabbage, oranges, swiss chard and peaches, sunflowers tall and straightbacked as soldiers, lantana, amaryllis, echinacea, pansies and roses and bushes bubbling with hydrangeas. Every plant with its purpose. Flowers to bring worms and wasps. How their work matters here. This is the work we have always known, pulling food and flowers from a pile of earth. The difference, now: my father is not a slave, not a sharecropper. This land is his and so is this garden, so is this work. The difference is that he owns this labor. The work of his own hands for his own belly, for his own children’s bellies. We eat because he works. This is the legacy of his grandmother, my great-granny. Ollie Mae Harris and her untouchable flower garden. Just like her hats, her flowerbeds sprouted something special, plants and colors the neighbors could only dream of. He was young when he learned that this beauty is built on work, the cows and the factories in their stomachs, the fertilizer they spewed out— the stink that brought such fragrance. What you call waste, I call power. What you call work I make beautiful again. In his garden, even problems become energy, beauty— my father has ended many work days in the backyard, worries of the firehouse dropping like grain, my father wrist-deep in soil. I am convinced the earth speaks back to him as he feeds it—it is a conversational labor, gardening. The seeds tell him what they will be, the soil tells seeds how to grow, my father speaks sun and water into the earth, we hear him, each harvest, his heartbeat sweet, like fruit.
Thank you for reading! Word of mouth is the way that I’m growing a community; sending to a friend who may enjoy reading is golden.
I’m sharing birthday wishes to my dear friend Julianne today who is planting so many beautiful seeds with her love and friendship!
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Coming up!
On June 21st, I'm offering a Summer Solstice Circle. Join in community on the evening of the Summer Solstice for guided meditation & writing prompts to welcome to explore what it means to shine.
If you are a paid subscriber to Journey With The Seasons, you will receive a complimentary link and don't need to register.
If you'd like to join the circle, you can upgrade your subscription or register here for this session.
Thank you. I’m honored and humbled.