January: Persephone - The Maiden

I'm doing a little catching up here, post shape-shifting. Bear with me for a bit... ;-)

Before this year began, I purchased a calendar and "activity book" from my very lovely friend, Goddess Leonie, to square away the old and make space for the new. One of the things she included for this 2012 edition was a section to do a divination for the year to come, so I broke out one of my oracle decks and pulled twelve cards, one for each month.
My intention is to share with you the lessons I've learned, and the insights that have come to me, at the end of each month. As January is the first month on ze calendar, the first Goddess was Persephone. Her message to me was: Find ways to use your innocence as a strength. Thus and so...

An innocent butterfly. (North Carolina, 7/10)

When I drop in to the innocent place within me, deep in my Center, I find emptiness. It's not a hollow or despairing emptiness; rather, it's a rich emptiness - the Void Before Creation, where all is possible, and simply abiding, waiting for the Voice to speak the Word that will make All Things manifest. I can come to this empty space and re-center myself when I'm feeling too full of clutter, too full of the ten thousand details of distraction, and I need to drop everything and reconnect with what is Really Important.
This innocent place, this innocent being within me...she does not judge anyone. She is open to loving and playing with all whom she meets. She runs outside when it's somewhere between rain and sun to look for rainbows. She stops to watch the crows fly across the sky and wonders if she can figure out where they're going. She is captivated by a hummingbird flitting by, a flower blooming, the colors of the sky at sunset. She feels herself expand when the scent of jasmine tickles her nostrils, or when she hears a woodpecker tapping in a tree far above her head. She knows she is a part of the Natural World and feels completely comfortable within it.

Following the Trail. (Kit Carson Park, 1/11)

When I go out into Nature, I drop into this place of Innocence and reconnect with the world around me, along with the gentle softness within me. I fill up the empty places with Authentic Energy and return home refreshed and renewed. As long as I see the Beauty in the "ordinary," I know the innocent one within me is happy and healthy, protected and loved...and I can take these energies and share them with those I meet, known and unknown.
I was grateful to have opportunities to rest in the Emptiness during my Eye of the Needle initiation process. I have emerged from the death/rebirth cycle still rather Empty, giving me the opportunity to be selective about what I want to fill this new space with. I begin to draw the new threads together...