Listen For The Wind Whose Breath Blows Back Again {August 2023}

LISTEN FOR THE WIND WHOSE BREATH BLOWS BACK AGAIN

recirocity • history • harvest

This is Jo, writing our August offering at the tail end of July—for Corina and me, last month was not much at all like lounging peacefully on a spot of warm earth. But, we stayed anchored to last month’s spell nonetheless. In the midst of multi-directional pressure, I would conjure up the peaceful sheep, mimic her closed eyes and gentle face, and let the sun’s warmth slow me down.

Turning the calendar page to August is like waking up from a long nap to find we’ve been transported to a dramatically different terrain—or, perhaps we’re still asleep, and this is our dream. The spell sounds like a snippet of remembered dream wisdom—a riddle whispered in our ears that makes perfect sense when we’re asleep but remains just out of reach as soon as we wake up. 

What is the wind whose breath blows back again? 

This year’s spells were all adapted from a poem I wrote in 2016, after returning from a spiritual journey. I remember sitting in the forest, breathing, quite aware that the trees were breathing with me. How perfect, that what we breathe out, they breathe in—what we breathe in, they breathe out. The image and sensation of reciprocal breath was enough for deep reverie, and lost time—one breath made whole with my inhale their exhale, my exhale their inhale, no distance whatsoever between us. 

But our image here speaks to more than just reverie—with firewood stacked against a stormy sea, a crow friend carries a reminder in her beak: the bounty of this harvest is all thanks to a single small seed. Stored energy. There is a tree stored in a seed; there is sunlight stored in the tree. (I am in love with the grandeur of trees.) Think of the years of energy stored in those trees that are burned in a single winter to keep us warm… 

The mystery in this spell allows it to speak to many things. It is asking us to listen to the wind, to experience our breathing, to attune to that which returns and repeats. When we listen to our thoughts, do we hear our ancestors' breath blowing back to us again? When we sense into our lives, do we find the conditions of our childhood reiterated again and again? When we harvest from the world, do we find ourselves committing to give back what is needed to be able to make that harvest again? 

The end of summer is the beginning of autumn which is the song that brings the winter in. This is a time of great harvest, and reverence for all growing things.
A time to dance in the fullness before the sun begins to wane. 

In gratitude, 

Jo