Here is a little update on my site, the former meth lab in Longmont. I did an equinox ritual. I prayed in the rain, which we needed, and gave thanks to the earth, the plants, water, people-everything that supports life on the land. It was very sweet. 

Things are going well, and it feels less like a meth lab and more like a home. A give and take relationship is forming, and I notice that the more I care for the house and earth, the more it holds me. I hoped this would happen, but it surprises and delights me to feel/experience it.

I am encouraged by the progress, and I had an interesting experience which seemed to mark a turning point in the transformation. I had a necklace of turquoise and coral with a silver figurine of a woman. I made it years ago when I was doing some deep healing work. Over the years the necklace came with me on wilderness quests, served as a talking piece in council and moon lodges and in rites of passage for teenage girls. Pregnant women have worn the necklace and friends have prayed with it. This summer I made a little altar in the back yard and put this necklace with its frequent companion (one that has gone on pilgrimage to France to visit the Black Madonnas) on a slab of black rock. They sat out in the garden for several weeks, soaking up the earth, sunlight, moon etc. until one day the turquoise and coral woman necklace disappeared. I searched the garden over and over. I looked everywhere—no necklace, and nothing else was disturbed or missing. I have many more valuable items in the yard and they were all untouched. I don’t know what happened to the necklace, but something shifted after it disappeared. Somehow, my connection deepened and I felt more a part of that place and a sense of happiness seemed to emerge- I don’t know how else to explain it, just that the necklace disappeared and some happiness erupted on the land. I will be with you in spirit, sending prayers, during the Gulf Coast event in October.