Wheel of Wonder July 24, 2016

Although the Wheel of Wonder blog remained quiet for June and most of May, Wheel of Wonder is still broadcasting weekly on KAOS 89.3fm in Cascadia.  Summers can get busy.  I hope you enjoyed many episodes.  I'm just back from the road, staying at another Sea Turtle Sanctuary, as I often do in the Summer.  Not much to report back about the hatching of baby turtles, unlike last year when 110 of the creatures crawled out of the sand beneath the light of their first full moon.  As a Naturalist, I've been enjoying learning and sharing information about the beaches of the wild Pacific Northwest Coastline, most especially in the area of the Salish Sea.

The beaches of
the Salish Sea
appear very rocky, barnacle
ridden and desolate.  But they are an incredible cauldron of cold tides and

abundant, resilient life.

One can spend many hours exploring them.  For an Earth Spiritualist, Ecologist, Biologist, or Bard, they offer many opportunities for stewardship and stories.

As the Wheel turns, we've passed the Summer Solstice, at which time I had the wonderful opportunity to join the local Sacred Fire Community for ritual.  The theme of the evening was sacrifice.  Sacrifice of bad habits and things that restrain you from becoming your best self and an asset to your community.  As we move forward to Lughnasadh, this idea of sacrifice stays with me, through the dramatic reenactment of the death of the corn king, manifested in the harvesting of wheat and the baking of the bread and brewing of the mead.  It also stands with me in the burning of the Wicker Man, the effigy that holds all the unwanted thoughts, going up in smoke.  It will also drift through my consciousness in the falling of the Oak leaves to nourish the ground, though I realize I wont see the poetry of that dance until we are closer to Autumn.  I hope your summer has been adventurous and educational as well, and may you find a fitting sacrifice of an old, bad habit to improve your life in the coming year!