Today I am missing my circle.  I would have gone out of duty and because this is my community but the truth is, I am not sad to be missing it.  To many people this is probably the best circle of the year.  Instead of being held at one of the usual venues it is held at a very special chapel.  A walk along a valley, away from everything takes you to an even more secluded spot, tucked under the hill, where a spring bubbles into a wheel house and then flows underneath the altar stone of the chapel and out the other side, down the hill to a pond before seeping into the river.  A perfect place to celebrate Spring.

My problem is that last year I found this gathering too popular.  The circle was too big and many people were not respectful.  The drumming was not harmonious as outside groups tried to dominate and people who chose not to participate fully disrupted things by chatting outside.  The activity our circle’s leader would have led us through would have been perfect, with fewer people, and people who were respectful.

All the same, I am sad I am missing out on the opportunity for beauty.  Last year I journeyed with my Dragon and we danced the elements.  I ended up with a similar journey in the Autumn and I feel this is something I should repeat again in the coming days.

Instead I am going to go to a Baby Shower and I am so looking forward to seeing my friends.  i think celebrating the coming birth is so very much the perfect thing to be doing right now…  Unusually my friends have decided not to have the sex of their baby identified.  Names are not already pre-choosen and colours are neutral, not set in the pink and blue definitions we like to saddle babies with.  I think this is a good thing, I am not sure I would be able to resist knowing if it were me.  I like to peek ahead in the story, I often can not resist reading the end of a book before I should and I often wish I had some better idea of where my path is taking me.

I think those moments of doubt and anguish I sometimes suffer would be easier if I either knew it all already or had more trust that things were going to go exactly as they should.  Most of the time I do trust but sometimes, I just can not keep it up.  I do sometimes get snippets of the future, little hints but they are too obscure to be much help!  What they do do though is reinforce the importance of some small event or aspect.

For instance last weeks Hawk turning out to be a Herring Gull was an important thing for me but my husband actually making this mistake was important too.  The mistake was what brought this learning into my life.  I very much doubt he would have ever though of picking up a dead Herring Gull, round here they are often seen as vermin.  They nest on houses and sometimes attack people walking to their front door.  They steal food from peoples hands.  They are also masterful riders of the wind, graceful and beautiful in their element.  Anyway, a few days previously I remember I had a dream where the story was all about one animal but the image did not match at all.  I think it was about a Meerkat but the Meerkat looked rather like a Duck. When my beloved dog died a few years back it became obvious that an important dream I had had a few weeks previous was in fact advance warning.

So I am very definately stuck in the here and now.  I can visit the past and gain surreal glimpses of the future but it is only in the here and now that they have meaning to me.