Manifesting: Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Had a bit of vacation recently.  Sad to say, it’s the first time in over two years that hubby and I have had more than a long weekend off together.  His layoff, finding and establishing himself in a new job, me working two jobs as needed…. Kinda puts a kybosh into any assumptions about taking a real summer vacation together.  But even though it wasn’t for an entire seven days, what we had last week was wonderful.  We re-discovered the value of recreation.  It’s not just about enjoying the hobbies we used to love doing together (fishing a big one).  It’s the time apart from the world when you can re-create so many things.  Your connection to each other, to the natural world, to your family.  All those things that “making a living” gets in the way of. 

It was also a time for me to re-create some spiritual connections.  I follow Teo Bishop’s blog, and just before my time off read this post.   He describes his daily ritual before his altar and it made me pause.  See, I am a typical Geminii – better at starting projects and making commitments than completing or following through on them.  I have good intentions about some kind of daily ritual – however small.  And many days I do, do something.  But I am not 100%.

Teo’s post triggered that old conditioned reaction – guilt.  It’s a throw back to my former spiritual path.   I was never terrific about going to church every Sunday or doing a daily devotional; why would I expect anything to be any different now?   I told myself that my deities don’t expect perfection:  the charge of the Goddess says that all acts of love and pleasure are her rituals….

So.  If I haven’t spent time in front of an altar each one of these brilliant June and July days, I have been busy.  When not on the job(s), I have been tending my gardens, with due diligence keeping the weeds from overtaking my veggies, and keeping up the appearance of the flower beds.  Then there are the bird baths and feeders; the Goddess’s creatures appreciate my diligence with the provision of fresh water.  These have been my rituals, my offerings.

And there have been other things.  My mother always said, “make hay while the sun shines”.  This time of year, when we can finally be outside a lot more, gives me opportunities to do things I can’t during more contemplative times of the year.  I’ve been training my doglets over the past several months in agility.  My dream is to compete with them; the pre-requisite to doing that is practice, practice, practice.  My instructor says my dogs are doing well… but…I don’t have the funds for unlimited classes…..the alternative is to make my own equipment.  And so, when I can, I buy materials on the cheap, and build in my backyard.  I started construction of an A-frame on July 4 (symbolic, in a way!) and on vacation finished it.  As soon it was put up in the back yard, the pups sailed over it, recognizing its purpose.  What fun and satisfaction!

On one of our vacation days, we rented a boat and with our adult son, enjoyed a day fishing, swimming, and lazily following a slow river that connected a small lake to a larger lake.  The river twisted and turned, you could only go headway speed, but it was lovely relaxation in the sun.  While we journeyed, I had the chance to reflect on many things.

So maybe I’m not perfect about regular attention to my deities or time before an altar.  But, I am intuitively in sync with the energies of the cycles of the seasons.  This is the time of year, when the earth is actively growing, we are soon heading toward harvest.  Already I see the shortening of the days; sun is setting a full twenty minutes earlier; the grasses in both the fields and the marsh are going from brilliant green to a yellow tone.  Not yet the golden tones of later summer, but, the grains are maturing.  And I am pulling good stuff from my vegetable garden daily now.

It occurred to me that I am:  Manifesting.  Thoughts and intentions and hopes and wishes that were only thought forms in January and February are coming to be, slowly but surely.  My energies, as in any good spell casting, have been focused to identified purposes, and I am beginning to see fruition, in more than one area of my life.

Yes, Mom, I am making hay while the sun shines.  And it feels good.  But Teo, on return from vacation, I read your more recent post, and was comforted and inspired.  I have not lost my passion, and it’s ok that I express it in ways that vary from day to day, and season to season.

Although, over vacation, I cleared out the clutter from one room in the house, and set up a new altar, for the purpose of daily offerings.  Inspiration and manifestation combined?