As a child in Catholic School, I enjoyed the ritual experience of the coronation of Mary in May. We all dressed in our First Holy Communion dresses including our veils or our full Catholic uniforms with our little French barets on our heads to honor the Mother of us all. Someone special was chosen to crown the statue of Mother Mary with a crown of flowers that stood in the flowering garden courtyard. Today, I hear some say they are ‘recovering Catholics’, yet for me, my Catholic experience was and is a good one. I recommend seeing the good in everything and using whatever our religious experience was as a child for a foundation for spiritual growth and connection in our adult years. This provides an opportunity to bring harmony and balance into one’s life. All things in life need a good foundation on which to build including our future spiritual growth.

I was blessed with a Mother who showed me how to celebrate life and the seasons through connection with the Earth as a means of spiritual fulfillment. Or perhaps that is how I chose to interpret the gardening, the cooking and the various every day rituals of life we experienced together. Therefore, these experiences became wisdom teachings, which I receive and carry forth in my life through my experiences and sharing with others.

Today, I have extended these rituals by meeting monthly with other women in our group, 13 Moons: A Women’s Circle. This group has been meeting for over 2 years. There are always new women joining our wonderful circle. There are many who have come and gone and return again. It’s great because there is no pressure. We are just there for each other, a circle of Goddesses, when we want that connection. We usually meet the second Wednesday of every month. We use Jamie Sam’s book, 13 Original Clan Mothers, as the foundation for the sharing. The monthly Drumming Circle with me and Marisol (and all of you) usually falls near the Full Moon and is another way of extending community connection to the Mother Earth below, and Grandmother Moon above. As in Heaven, so it is on Earth. I always enjoy this circle because I feel much better after beating on a drum for a couple of hours. Now this is surely a way to get rid of stress and tension! Marisol also leads us through a Shamanic Journey, which offers us an opportunity to a revelation through Dreamtime energies. If you want to learn to Shamanic Journey, Marisol has a Beginner’s Shamanic Journeying Class starting on Monday, May 14.

There are so many reasons to celebrate the beautiful days of May. May Day is the only major festival of pre-Christian Europe that was not adapted by the Christian church for its own purposes. Some people believe that the celebrations on May Day began with the tree worship of the Druids. Others believe they go back to the spring festivals of ancient Egypt and India. In many European countries, traditional dramas enacted on May Day commemorated the triumph of summer over winter.

Happy Mother’s Day,