As I prepare for the start of a new online women’s circle, my attention has circled back the novel, Sisters of the Solstice Moon, that I read last year, during the heat of summer, while recovering from an ankle injury. This book by Gina Martin, published by Womancraft Publishing, has been sitting by my computer since then, patiently waiting for its moment to be highlighted in a review. In the book, 13 women from the strands of time are called from across the planet to the same place in Egypt, a council of women, devoting to protecting this world and saving the wisdom, mysteries, and teachings of the Goddess before they are destroyed. It is multilayered and complex, weaving the threads of 13 different women’s stories, lessons, and insights into one tale. The second book in the series, Walking the Threads of Time, is scheduled to be published later this year. And, Sisters of the Solstice Moon is now available on audio book too.
Reading a novel like this highlights for me the tender beauty and fierce power of the fact that we’re still here, we’re still holding circles, celebrating the Goddess, daring to live our truths and speak our visions into being, we are still circling and singing–we cannot be destroyed.
As I wrote of my own in-person circle last year in an essay for Feminism and Religion:
…We gather in circle and I guide them briefly through a breath and grounding. A light breeze rolls around us, caressing our faces and our closed eyes as we rest our hands on one another’s lower backs and hum together, surrounded by green trees, under a wide blue and white sky. A chorus of bugs and birdsong joins with our voices, the gentle drift of the never-ending river current hums, the ground is warm and whole beneath our feet. I have asked four of my friends to offer an elemental blessing with some herbs of the summer solstice and they circle us, speaking their carefully chosen words, scattered herbs to encircle our working. We sit and sing together, words of welcome and affirmation, love and wonder. Tears begin to fall from several women as the songs soak into our bones. I’m not sure what brings the tears, the circle, the song, the container, the sunshine on our shoulders. I look up to see four vultures cresting the bluffs and circling our circle with their own. We are here, we are alive, we are whole, we are well.
From the book description for Sisters of the Solstice Moon:
On the Winter Solstice, thirteen women across the world see the same terrifying vision. Their world is about to experience ravaging destruction. All that is now sacred will be destroyed.
Each answers the call, to journey to Egypt, and save the wisdom of the Goddess:
She who is Kali Ma from the jungles of Arya, Tiamet from the Roof of the World, Badh of the Cailleach from the Land of Eiru, Awa from the Land of Yemaya, Uxua of Ix Chel from the Yucatan, Parasfahe from the Land of Inanna…all racing against time and history to bring us their story.
This is the history before history.
This is herstory, as it emerged.
And, I guess what I mean to share, what I am thinking of now, is that this herstory is still emerging. It is powerful and humbling to be a part of. I am grateful.
May you, too, circle, celebrate, and sing, whether virtually, through creative mental journeys and exploration as you read books like this one, or in person. We all need the vital sustenance that circles of women generate, explore, and carry forward on the threads of time.
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The photo in this post was taken by Lucy Pearce (Womancraft Publishing) and I absolutely love it. So beautiful! It speaks of something, deep and rich.