Part I: Introduction
What need of a lamp
when day lightens us,
what need to bind love
when love stands
with such radiant wings
over us?
What need —
yet to sing love,
love must first shatter us.
-Sappho, Fragment 40
Full Moon Tea for March 13th/14th:
Lavender (Lavandula spp.)
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)
Violet (Viola sororia)
Every time they fly overhead, they stop me in my tracks. Whether I’m indoors or out, I hear their boisterous passage and my heart swells. They are the Geese, whose strong wings press upon the air in rapid beats, with long necks outstretched towards their destination. They announce their appearance to all beings below, honking with unselfconscious abandon. Their arrival — and swift departure — mesmerizes me every time, and I become enthralled by their soaring presence. They careen across the Sky and are gone, leaving an invisible wake of enchantment hanging in the air.
This is how it is with anything that casts a spell of enchantment over us — it can come and go, surprisingly and unexpectedly. Such moments, I feel, are essential to us as humans — we need the mysterious arrival of awe to expand our small notion of ourselves. Be it through an animal encounter or a natural event, through a transporting song or a spirited place, we all have a deep need to be enchanted from time to time.