It IS Summer and this usually means wedding season! I played this year's first wedding yesterday in Moss at beautiful Røed Gård. I think it is so special to be part of something so intimate, yet not entirely part of it. I got to witness speeches, congratulate the beautiful wedding couple (I knew the bride from the Medieval Festival in Oslo and am beyond honoured that she asked me to play at her wedding. Takk Mari!), but I was also partly responsible for the soft-music aspect. What a joy to see so many happy faces!
As I still had over a 150km to drive back home I didn't stay until the end, to make sure I wouldn't be too tired to drive. My energy is quite fritzed during summer and I spent all my energy playing songs and singing, so I easily get past-tired and then I do not want to drive. Going back home to air got more pressured, more charged and there was quite a feisty thundershow up in the skies all through the night.
I've been reflecting these last two weeks as the Summer Solstice truly was an explosion of intensity. The air was filled with heavy rain, thunder rolling through the skies and much has not been the same after that. When I started radically changing the way I work with Siren, in an ever changing world and topping that with a Sojourn that cleared all the debris that has nothing to do with my sovereignty and boundaries - circles were broken, connections faded and EVERYTHING came to the surface.
I remember the dark pool in the White Spring, the cold water, the singing, humming, the darkness, shapes and curves in candlelight, altars and flowers, ribbons everywhere. The voices growing louder, higher, from singing to calling, to screaming, to whispering. Pure water temple magic. There were tears, being out of breath, sitting with women in the uncomfortable, the release, the relief. That whatever was stuck in terms of patterns, thoughts, self-inflicted, society-pressed could find a way out of our systems. And usually we do this with our voice, with moving, dancing, somatic movement.
Nothing has been the same for me after the Sojourn. Just because I'm facilitating and had a fantastic group to travel with, doesn't mean that this journey didn't do just as much for me and is still working its ways into my life. Working in nature with what needs to come to the surface, embracing the situation as they are, continuing on even when tired rewards us with sights, revelations and understanding. It faces us with annoyances, irritations on not being left alone as a group, outsiders feeling the need to act threathening, irresponsible and selffish. Oh, I got triggered, hard, during the Sojourn.
On a Sunday we went to Avebury. Setting the theme, intentions and connection for the day, there was a group of men (adult men I wish to precise) who felt the need to make remarks. Too far away to say something, too nearby to ignore, but my hyperawareness clicked and it got me SO out of it. Like, just leave us alone with our little circle under large mama beeches. The behavior to be annoying, to be unnecessarily disturbing, mingling yourself into a circle you are not part of, people do it all the time. The hatefulness in comment sections, politically, everywhere.
When I quit social media in January, focusing on my own land, my family and my life's work, a large chunk of very negative energy was removed from my life. It gave me back time, my brain the ability to come up with ideas instead of being flooded with content and not doing anything at all. It also got incredibly, INCREDIBLY quiet.
In some ways I've felt invisible, non-existent these last couple of months. The salon grew more quiet too, people trying to haggle my prices down or downright disappearing. It made room for more peace during my services, people coming in willing to completely surrender, it made room for breathing, pauses, dedication to my craft and the valuing of time. It gave me back the joy I've been trying to find in the last 1,5 years. The realisation? During the Sojourn and the days after the Summer Solstice, when everything that did not align, removed itself. Situations, people, worries, all gone.
So July will be quiet, most people are taking it slow, it's either too warm or pouring out of the skies to do something. So I tend to my garden, I tend to my products and my little tribe of people who understand, who see and face me in all my facets. There have been enough battles, there has been A LOT of self work, being mirrored by my fellow Sojourn sirens. So much has happened and so much is still bubbling under the surface. All we need is some quiet and some time.
I hope you find what you need and deserve this Summer time.
Stay honest and kind,
Lene
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