Midsummer Musings

The difference between busyness and fullness.

I’ve been noticing this theme, an undercurrent of a lesson that’s been woven into the fabric of my experience since the beginning of the Gregorian year, centered around embracing what is. Back at the new year, my partner and I were very mobile—traveling from Connecticut to Massachusetts to Delaware and back home again.

Normally, this portal is saturated with ritual for me. I have end of year reflections, new year intentions, lunar calendar musings…it’s a whole thing. So I found myself caught up in this ants-in-my-pants crankyness because I felt like I didn’t have the space to do my practices the way I normally would if I was cozied up at home. What I realized is that I was being given the opportunity to shift up my regular rhythm. To do things differently by embracing what was. It showed me the ways I overcomplicated my own sacred experience by being attached to things happening a certain way, at a certain time, rather than letting life flow through me, moment to moment, reveling in the mystery as it unfolds. I was trapped in the busyness of it all, missing the magic of the fullness.

This same lesson has continued to show up, especially when life gets really full, which is exactly what’s happening right now. Amidst all of the Magdalene magick, I was feeling like Midsummer was kind of getting a little lost, almost forgotten even. I barely did my normal Litha rituals during Summer Solstice because we were so engrossed in the Magdalene photoshoot. I literally just dressed the sabbat altar for summer this past weekend. I haven’t even gotten to the annual door opening spell that I normally do. Life is just…FULL. Of so many beautiful things that are taking precedence over what I would normally do in the past when summer seemed to hold more space for me. This doesn’t mean I’m dismissing or disrespecting my connection with the earth as she moves through her seasons. Quite the opposite in fact—I’m growing and evolving into a different, deeper, more present relationship with her through what’s unfolding here and now.

This is the medicine of midsummer—being in that connection in a different way. Summer is the peak. Full moon. Full bloom. Full expression. Full life. In winter, that connection is the opposite—it’s turned inward because it’s bitter to be outside. The earth is sleeping and she wants you to also sleep so she can meet you in dreams. When summer comes, you take that connection you’ve been cultivating through the quiet, inner descent and you express it outwardly. You find out more of who you are and what you're a part of in this external way. In the way that you commune with the beauty of the world around you, the natural landscape, with your relationships, through your social calendar.

I feel like that's why things are so full in the summer—so you can practice that outward expression while also remembering to hold communion and connection with the sacred. To be coherent in your heart and congruent with the things that you learned through fall, winter, spring, and then you're just out there living it. In full presence.

So the magnificence of this Magdalene magick is that it has given me the chance to be in this experience where life is so full and yet I am so grounded. Because of the lessons I learned through the winter (which btw, you can read about in my chapter in Magdalene Unveiled now that it is officially available for pre-order) I am now holding life in a different way. My container is different. My capacity has expanded and therefore so has my trust in my capability.

The thing to remember, that I used to forget and I think many often do, is that summer can get so active that we confuse busyness with fullness. However, there is a difference. When you’re just busy, you’re not present, you’re actually absent. That’s why life feels so draining or chaotic. If you’ve ever come back from a vacation and said damn, I need a vacation from my vacation…it’s likely because you were all caught up in the busyness (and therefore not fully in your body) rather than embracing the slowness amidst the fullness (aka fully present in your skin).

Trust me…I get it. I fall into this all the time. It’s a weekly wobble and weave. Yet this is the adventure of summer—to get out of your comfort zone home and out into the world during this season of fullness, while simultaneously carrying the inner cave with you so you remember to tend this inner sanctuary, as you are in motion. Because guess what…you can handle it. This is the moment when you are meant to be doing more, holding more, experiencing more. That’s the whole purpose of this point in the cycle.

The key is to stay devoted and intimate with your sacredness because that connection is what helps you hold fullness rather than busyness. It grounds you so you can drink in the sweetness and the ripeness of summer. So you can actually enjoy it. Taste it. Savor it. So it’s not just fleeting moments passing you by as you move from barbeque to camping trip to swimming pool to lakeshore to oceanside and on and on and on. Your presence, as opposed to your absence, is what makes this possible. It’s the foundational skill of the priestess—to be in resonance. To empty out of that chaotic frenzy and stop catering to the busyness so you can be present, fully there, all the way in it.

This is also what supports your ability to discern where you need to say no. Even though summer is full as fuck and there’s so much going on, you still get to say no. You have that free will. You’re allowed to say no because when you say no to one thing, you’re saying yes to something else. As you are more present and in communion with your soul & source, you are way more discerning about embracing your sacred yes and honoring your sacred no. And from there you’ll find your calendar starts to feel good. You look forward to what’s on it and when things get full, full, fuller, your navigational skills are impeccable because you’ve taken the time to be in connection & communion, to be present. To find the balance between fullness and slowness.

Another great way to understand this, especially as a woman, is when you menstruate during a full moon—which also, by the way, is a very priestess thing to do. Back in the red tent days when women were all synced and cycled up, most would bleed at the new moon. While a certain few—the priestesses, healers, seers, oracles—would more often bleed at the full moon because they were capable of holding that space of inner stillness, that inner cave through which to see, not with the eyes but with the heart, while simultaneously being in peak illumination, expression, fullness. It’s a gift of the priestess to contain and sustain that range so they can then translate and transmit it to the community. And it’s a practice. It comes through finding the moments in the fullness of the summer to just sink in. Slow down. Be still.

This was the medicine for me today, the day I’m weaving this for you. I had to get up at 4am to drive 4 hours to Atlanta, Georgia in order to expedite my passport for an international trip I’m taking that I just realized I didn’t have adequate identification for. I could’ve totally succumbed to the chaotic swirl of busyness and let the reactive part of me freak out at how seemingly impossible it was to fit this in during such a “busy” time. But I knew better. I saw the lesson, learned it, lived it. I embraced what was, did what I needed to do without hemming and hawing about it and I let it be an adventure to a place I had not yet been. When I got home, I put my barefoot on the earth, brewed a cup of tulsi basil and sat outside in the cool summer breeze, talking to the trees. And that’s how this transmission came through.

So before you move on to the next endeavor, take some time to slow down and tune in. Because summer is nothing but an endless adventure and what makes it all the more juicy is when you choose presence over absence. Fullness instead of busyness.

All my love 🌹
Alessandra Mary

If this transmission has resonated, landed or moved something within you, please drop a love note in the comments below. I read every single one and I’d truly cherish hearing from you. 💌