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ActualWendyApril 27, 2024

Thanks for giving us a pause, @Tm. Thanks for reminding us that we don’t have to know it all, and that the important part is doing it.

Doing it: it can be simple.

One of the earliest lessons for me in this I learned from this poem by Elsa Gidlow, a lesbian poet, and some kind of witch. Each day, she lights her fire. And each year, she lights the solstice fire from the coals of the old one.

Chains Of Fires

Each dawn, kneeling before my hearth, Placing stick, crossing stick On dry eucalyptus bark Now the larger boughs, the log (With thanks to the tree for its life) Touching the match, waiting for creeping flame. I know myself linked by chains of fire To every woman who has kept a hearth

In the resinous smoke I smell hut and castle and cave, Mansion and hovel. See in the shifting flame my mother And grandmothers out over the world Time through, back to the Paleolithic In rock shelters where flint struck first sparks (Sparks aeons later alive on my hearth) I see mothers , grandmothers back to beginnings, Huddled beside holes in the earth of igloo, tipi, cabin, Guarding the magic no other being has learned, Awed, reverent, before the sacred fire Sharing live coals with the tribe.

For no one owns or can own fire, it ]ends itself. Every hearth-keeper has known this. Hearth-less, lighting one candle in the dark We know it today. Fire lends itself, Serving our life Serving fire.

At Winter solstice, kindling new fire With sparks of the old From black coals of the old, Seeing them glow again, Shuddering with the mystery, We know the terror of rebirth.

TervenRainbowsMay 14, 2024

we don’t have to know it all, and that the important part is doing it.

Doing it: it can be simple.

One of the earliest lessons for me in this I learned from this poem by Elsa Gidlow, a lesbian poet, and some kind of witch. Each day, she lights her fire. And each year, she lights the solstice fire from the coals of the old one.

Thank you for the above reminders and for sharing that beautiful and powerful poem. Both are simply divine, and I got some goosebumps from the poem!

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