Most Alaskans are familiar with the Tlingit tale about how Raven brings the sun, moon, and stars. I keep returning to it, and have placed metal garden symbols around our deck to embrace that space with its reality.

Myth seems intangible to the modern mind. When the mind tries to grasp myth, it attempts to turn it into a mental belief, because that’s how the mind works. However, to connect with the living essence of myth, we need to transcend the workings of the ordinary mind. The ordinary mind cannot grasp myth. Rather, the mind must be swallowed by myth (by becoming still and being open).

When we touch the reality of myth, it can bring us to our knees. It fills us with awe. When we are able to allow this to happen, we become embraced by a world far more expansive than we would ever have imagined and we become alive in a whole new way.

There is no need to create a quarrel between science and myth. Science is a mental process and myth is a soul process. That said, I believe that the two are at times able to concur.

My bones are mountains.
My tears, rushing rivers.
The earth’s crust is my skin.
Trees adorn my head.
The sun, moon, and stars are in my eyes.
The ether of the Universe is my breath.

~Anya Phenix

You are here
for something far bigger
than just hoping you make it through life.

You are here
to raise the energy of the planet,
one day at a time,
one person at a time,
starting with yourself,
and to do so
in great Joy
and with focused purpose.

Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.
— Rumi

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet-
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

I think we all approach life in a vaguely similar manner, the creative urge is in us all. The farmer who has just ploughed his field will look back at the neat rows of furrows with the same pride as Jackson Pollock would have done after splattering the canvas. Even the way we stack the plates on the draining board or hang the washing on the line can be infused with the same creative urge.

— Bill Drummond, The Guardian, May 28, 2012

(I put up this photo because altar making is something I just “do” all the time. For me, it is an ongoing way I express my creativity.  Bill Drummond owns the tower and has created the artist residency there.)

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
–William Butler Yeats

If you see a fairy ring

In a field of grass,

Very lightly step around,

Tiptoe as you pass;

Last night fairies frolicked there,

And they’re sleeping somewhere near.

— William Shakespeare

If I could gear my mind to the year’s round,

take season into season without a break,

instead of feeling my heart bound and rebound

because of the full moon or the first snowflake,

I should have gained something.

— John Hewitt, “O Country People” (Northern Ireland)

One of my morning mindfulness practices is open-eyed meditation on nature.

With the magic of the morning, we can utilize our innate need for connection and ritual, to guide through the transitions of this beautifully complex world with more awareness and joy.

— Karen Prosen

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion.

— Albert Einstein