Seasonal Poetry & Prose | The heART of Ritual

The heART of Ritual

musings

Welcome to the MUSINGS room in our digital nest! Here you will find an extensive selection of articles, poetry, prose, videos, recipes, and tutorials that journey the natural cycles, seasons, elements, and archetypes in the Celtic Wheel of the Year, as well as our Irish indigenous festivals, folklore, and customs.

This is lovingly provided as a free community resource, however it is copyrighted content. As such, we respectfully ask that if you share this content outside of this dedicated space, either in whole, in part, or paraphrased, that you credit the author and source. Thank you.

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'A Morning Offering', by John O'Donoghue

I bless the night that nourished my heart To set the ghosts of longing free Into the flow and figure of dream That went to harvest from...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'The Thing Is', by Ellen Bass

To love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Ancient Language', by Hannah Stephenson

If you stand at the edge of the forest and stare into it every tree at the edge will blow a little extra oxygen toward you It has been...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Sojourns in a Parallel World', by Denise Levertov

We live our lives of human passions, cruelties, dreams, concepts, crimes and the exercise of virtue in and beside a world devoid of our...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Learning from Trees', by Grace Butcher

If we could, like the trees, practice dying, do it every year just as something we do— like going on vacation or celebrating birthdays,...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'On Pain', by Kahlil Gibran

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Wild Geese', by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Mistletoe', by Walter De La Mare

Sitting under the mistletoe (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), One last candle burning low, All the sleepy dancers gone, Just one candle...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Hoar Frost', by Moira Cameron

In icy cover of the dark- too cold, the Arctic air can’t muster up the will or care to gust- strange magic thrives in stillness stark:...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'A Dream Within A Dream', by Edgar Allan Poe

"Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'The Darkling Thrush', by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'The Man who Trod on Sleeping Grass', by Dora Sigerson Shorter

In a field by Cahirconlish ⁠I stood on sleeping grass, No cry I made to Heaven ⁠From my dumb lips would pass. Three days, three nights I...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Dream-Song', by Walter De La Mare

Sunlight, moonlight, Twilight, starlight— Gloaming at the close of day, And an owl calling, Cool dews falling In a wood of oak and may. ...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'The Message of the Rain', by Norman H. Russell

When i was a child i was a squirrel a bluejay a fox and spoke with them in their tongues climbed their trees dug their dens and knew the...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Feed The Birds', by Sylvia Spencer

Birds of Britain, I watch them fly high beautiful birds as they wing to the sky. They are a star studded spangle of gracious charm. A...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'The Lamplighter', by Robert Louis Stevenson

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky; It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by; For every night at teatime and...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'A Wintry Sonnet', by Christina Rossetti

A Robin said: The Spring will never come, And I shall never care to build again. A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome, My sap will...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Spellbound', by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'The Legend of the Winter Rose', by Kenn Allan

The path beyond the garden gate Weaves 'round the olive trees And leads to where the flowers sway Upon a gentle breeze. Behind the heads...

Seasonal Poetry & Prose: 'Old Christmas', by Mary Howitt

Now he who knows old Christmas, He knows a carle of worth; For he is as good a fellow As any upon earth. He comes warm cloaked and...