The Rosemary is hanging all about my room, dried and waiting to be stripped from the stem. I look out the window, and the smattering of leaves around my house, an autumnal moat, is a reminder that there are still many things to do in preparation for the winter.
The silence I used to write in, the silence I enjoyed so much, has been replaced by the sound of air rushing through the ducts, heating the nooks and crannies of this place, causing the walls to creak and cough.
Everything is changing around me.
Taking my blog to this site was one way of claiming a bit of ownership over that change. My reasons feel much more personal and emotionally motivated, rather than being political or business-oriented. I created this blog initially as a way to help me transition into a practice of Neopagan Druidism, and now I’m reclaiming it as a place to provide a peaceful, clutter-free atmosphere for me to continue writing, to continue trying to figure all this stuff out.
It was the right choice for me. An unexpected, but necessary change.
You never know what changes you’ll feel compelled to make in response to autumn.
Since coming to Druidism several years back, I’ve become affected by the seasons in more pronounced ways. Meditating on the transformation of the world around me draws attention to my own, more subtle (and not-so-subtle) transformations; the ways I’m moving from darkness to potential, from potential to new life, from life to growth, from growth to gathering and harvest — the time when my successes and failures become most clear to me — and eventually to a return to darkness.
What’s happening out there seems to be happening in here, so much so that I start to get the two confused.
Autumn comes, and it feels like I’m embodying the whole world.
Perhaps in part this feeling of overwhelm comes in anticipation to my upcoming trip to San Francisco, during which my kiddo will have the surgery I mentioned in my last post. I can’t explain how scared I am about that, and how big a deal this feels like to me. It’s been keeping me and my husband up at night. And in the daytime, when I’m not busying myself with as many tasks as I can create to keep my mind occupied, it’s all I think about.
But then the sun shines on the maple tree in our back yard, it glows orange, and I can see the beauty in the world. In that moment, I consider that perhaps in the midst of all this agonizing transition there is some unnoticed beauty just waiting for the light to shine on it.
There has to be, doesn’t there?
As a writer, as a parent, and as an adult, I feel this responsibility to have insights, wisdom, and understanding which will allow me to travel through this world relatively unharmed, to offer guidance for my kid that will help make things easier, to say the words that will be meaningful and relevant to those who listen. Perhaps it’s an unrealistic expectation of myself, but it governs much of my actions.
Perhaps that’s why autumn feels so challenging right now.
There are times in the year when the world is going to let go, it’s going to change, it’s going to cease to be what it was before. You’re just going to have to wait for things to come around again, and have faith that you are a part of a cycle. This change is not eternal. It will pass. The colors fade and the leaves fall, and the tree turns into a grey silhouette, but — but — the leaves will grow back again next year.
Gods willing.
I wonder if I’m the only one for whom autumn can bring this kind of emotional reaction. Is this just a biproduct of my current circumstances, or are there others out there who respond to this season with mixed emotions?
How has autumn touched you?