"It is what it is."

How we love our cliches in our poetic little hearts. Those five monosyllables, comprising just three distinct words, symmetrically arranged, trip off the tongue. The vagueness of the "it" pronoun lets you feel just short of flat-out tautology, and with "the right inflection and body language, you could purport to be saying something quite deep.

Equinox is like twilight: midway point on the way to solstice, or to midday/midnight, point at which momentum has built so the energy is solidly toward more light, more heat, more day (or, in September, more dark, more cold, more night).

If you're paying attention, you can feel the energy change over. But, as I said in the equinox post, it doesn't all happen right in the key moment. Momentum builds to that point and continues for some time afterward.

And so this spell's "word" post is dedicated to moment/momentum.

The solstice was special because it coincided with new moon. Yesterday's equinox was special because it coincided not only with a new moon, but with a total solar eclipse thirteen hours prior. It's also a super moon, being in Pisces--the final zodiac sign--as we pass into Aries--the first sign--and begin the cycle again.

The solar eclipse together with the Pisces energy weaves in some finality amid the forward-looking springtime aspect of the equinox. A good time to move out of one set of habits and begin to inhabit one's life in a new way, but also a good time to move out of life altogether. Several people I know have had loved ones pass over, some of their own volition, in the past couple of weeks, and there will be more in the next few weeks. Death is change, and change is death.

Although some places are still under snow, it's feeling like spring here. Several 80+ degree days here this week, some more rain today. I'm told that this my first winter/spring in Tucson has been a kindly one in terms of the volume of rain we've been gifted. 

The rains gift a spectacular blooming of this desert place. As the trees leaf out and all sorts of small weeds unfurl from the ground, there are flowers everywhere. My neighbor's magenta bougainvillea vine. Cactus and yucca and agaves sprouting spiky and marvelous inflorescences. Mesquite trees covered in yellow blossoms and bees.

A time of beginnings for plants, then. In other words, there were so many choices available to me for a plant related to the theme of apprenticing and beginning. (Mindfulness post and word post for this series.)

It seems appropriate that this spell's word should be

apprentice

since we're talking about undertaking an herbal apprenticeship, and about apprenticing to the plants. There's a nice parallelism, word-wise, event-wise, life-wise, with my recent initiation into the Sufi order--both are part of my "spell" nexus, and both involve setting aside my own judgments, preconceptions, and stories, and opening my ears and heart to guidance.

The "surrender" piece is so important, but let's take a look at the etymology of "apprentice" and see how there's another side to the story.

This Saturday, March 14th, begins John Slattery's Sonoran herbalist apprenticeship program. I'll be participating. Actually, I'm already participating, since I'm doing partial work trade. I'm so grateful to be spending time in an herbalist's office--that milieu, those aromas, working with other herb-minded folks.

The classes, two-to-four days a month for the next seven months, are often overnight camping trips. We're going to be introduced to many different zones of this bioregion, which is far more than just desert thanks to the mountain ranges. But balancing the wide geographical range, I know from having taken a couple classes with John already that we'll be directed, encouraged, urged, to look exquisitely closely at what grows right at our feet.

Since the first part of this spell was about remembrance as a tool for creating boundaries, the spell's word is

remember

*The picture is of Mnemosyne, the ancient world's personification of memory, as portrayed by Rosetti.
This looks like an easy one, doesn't it?

• Re = "back"/"again"
• Member = "a part of an organized whole; literally a limb"

And with dis = "apart" and dismember as an apparent opposite, meaning "to break down into constituent parts," we can tell a fine story of how "remember" is a process of putting things back together, taking the separated parts and putting them back together, how all parts of a memory are essential constituents.

It's a great story, and I think it can be a valid story, but it's not the actual etymology of "remember."