November 19, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog: Courage

Reblogged from my blog on SageWoman’s channel at Witches & Pagans: http://www.witchesandpagans.com

As the darkness approaches, I find myself thinking more and more about courage. What is courage? Personally, I think courage is so subjective – there is no one definition that would suit everyone. Yet I shall give it a go in any case.

The dictionary defines courage as: the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery. I would posit that courage is the quality of mind/spirit that enables a person to face difficulties, etc in spite of fear. It is just not true that the brave know no fear – I believe that they simply get on with it. There is no such thing as a fearless person, unless that person has not the mental capacity for it, having suffered physical brain or emotional trauma.

What causes fear? For the most part, fear is the unknown. As humans, we crave constancy, security. We’re not especially fond of change, at least in great quantities. We fear what we cannot see – many are afraid of the dark. Is this an instinctual fear, based on what could attack and eat us from the shadows? I had an experience a couple of weeks ago, in my own backyard, where I went to offer some food at my altar – a large dark shadow that was not usually there made me stop in my tracks. A bear, my first thought was. Then my brain worked through the processes of logic – there are no bears in Britain. I’m not in Canada anymore. What animal would be big enough to create this? A stag? Would he attack me in this, the rutting season? No, he couldn’t get through the hedge with his rack at this time of year… After going through these thought processes (which probably took less than a second) I simply stepped forward to investigate, and found it to be a large branch from the beech tree that came down in the high winds. I smiled at the brain’s way of dealing with it and made my offering, honouring the darkness and shadows as well.

Growing up in Canada, in bear country, you are taught to be afraid of large, dark shapes at night and early morning. You stay away from them. That learned behaviour has stayed with me even though I have lived in the UK since 1998.

So, what is the great thing about learned behaviour? It can be unlearned. My fear of the dark, of the unknown, can be investigated, experienced fully. Now, of course it is healthy to have a certain instinctual fear of large shadows in the dark, just in case I find myself alone in the woods when I get back to Canada for a visit. I can’t expect my brain to make these logical leaps in time to deal with the situation of a real bear being there – my brain would rightfully tell me to leg it. However, dealing with a fear of the unknown can be unlearned.

In new situations, I don’t have to automatically feel apprehension. I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to react. I can breathe, and work with what is actually happening at the moment, rather than living in the past or fast-forwarding to the future. In the present moment, we cannot know fear – we can only fear outcomes. When we are hurt, when we are in pain or in danger, if we are thinking in the future, “when will this stop!” then we are not in the present moment – we have given over to the future. Facing the current moment of pain, of danger, requires us to be totally present. This very easy to say, not so easy to do. Still, it is worth the effort, I think.

While working on this concept, in the meantime one can learn to live with the fear, in the form of taking on the notion of courage and running with it. Face the darkness in spite of your fears – they may only be tree branches anyway. Fear is a very human emotion, one that has kept us alive for millennia.

For me, fear is a god. Fear can be crippling, fear can drown us in its depths; it can suffocate us until we know no other escape. As such, fear can kill. Yet, like most gods, only in submission to these raw flows of energy would we risk death. By working with the flows, riding the currents of fear, developing a relationship with it, we can better understand it as well as its place in our lives, and the rest of the world. In the meantime, may all your shadows only be deadwood. You’ll only find out by checking it out, at any rate…

November 9, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog: November Skies

Here is a link to my latest blog for SageWoman at WitchesandPagans…

There’s just something about a November sky.

For many, November can be a month of hard coping, with the clocks changing, the nights drawing in, the colder air and wetter weather. Yet we often miss the beauty of this month, lost in our own solipsism. Looking around us, we see that there is so much more than our own worlds, than our own lives. As Bjork said, “nature is ancient and surprises us all”…

November 2, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog: The Ancestors from Moon Books’ blog

Here is my latest blog for the Moon Books’ main blog page. May the ancestors guide you well! x http://moon-books.net/blogs/moonbooks/ancestors/

Samhain is a time to think on the ancestors, as it is often said that at this time of the year, the veil between the worlds is thin. Our ancestors can mean so much to us, and yet, how much do we acknowledge them in our lives?

If you stop to think about it, you are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of ancestors, their numbers legion. You, right now, are the result of evolution. Taking a moment to stop and think about this can have great impact upon our lives. We may suddenly realise that we are not alone – that we have the songs of millions of ancestors running through our veins. That we are part of a grander cycle of life, death and birth that makes the little dramas, worries and events in our lives pale by comparison. It also reminds us that we are connected to all living things – that if you go back far enough, we have the stuff of stars in the minerals of our blood, the water of the vast oceans in our bodies, the sunlight and storms of times gone by. In this way, there is absolutely no way we could say that we are an entity alone on this planet, and yet so many of us feel to be disconnected from everything and everyone around us.

Why do we feel this disconnection? Ancestor worship used to be common, and still is, among many societies around the globe. While the word worship may prove to be difficult for some, perhaps simple acknowledgement of the ancestors would be more apt. We have the good, bad and the ugly in our heritage – we need not worship any of them. However, connecting with and knowing that they are there, with all their glory and all their faults allows us the time and space to truly see life for what it really is – a culmination of everything that has previously happened, and the potential that lies within the future, with this present moment the very real blessing that it is if we are awake enough to immerse ourselves within it.

So why have we lost this connection to our ancestors? I don’t really know – I can only speculate. Our real, blood ancestors may have been replaced by myths from the dominant religion, or pushed aside to form the secular culture of today. Patronymic and matronymic Names such as Svensson or Gudrunsdottir were pushed aside by governments and churches in order to identify people according to the fashion of the time. Women were forced to give up their maiden names when they married, and whole lineages were lost in a patriarchal society. Voices were muted, or forcibly silenced.

What we can do now is to piece together the fragments that remain, in order to connect with our ancestors. For some this is easier than others – broken homes and families, orphans and adoptees face a very and ever increasing challenge in coming to know and understand the ancestors. Through rising conflicts in various countries, researching your genealogy might reveal some truths best left hidden from your social peers. There may not even be access to records available – so what is a person to do? We must remember that it is not only the secular world we live in, but also a spiritual world, where our ancestors await us if we choose to meet with them.

And so we do, in an odd fashion, at this time of year without really knowing why. Stories of ghosts and witches and the dead coming to life flit through the minds of children and adults alike, as they dress up in ghoulish costumes ready to tackle the dark streets with other like-minded adventurers. I remember fondly my years of trick-or-treating with my brother and sister – roaming the streets full of children, very little adult presence, dressed up in scary or not so scary costumes, out past the normal time allowed and going onto neighbours’ properties, walking beneath the bared branches of the trees, the moon shining spookily through just like in all the pictures we’d been drawing in school, a cat running across our path. Ghosts lurked behind every bush and darkened window, witches flew on brooms past the rounded face of the moon, skeletons danced in the graveyards. These images of the dead, the scary, the ancestors were still so evocative and ignited the imagination of every child wandering and testing the dark streets of both their neighbourhood and their soul.

We have a very real fear of death in our society. We do not talk about it. We go to visit dying relatives in the hospital and tell them that they will be okay. When they do die, we send the bodies off for preparation by someone most likely not a family member – if we are lucky, the family knows the undertaker through their previous work. On this night, the night of Samhain, Hallowe’en, we the masses are allowed to talk of death, or if not talk about it, act it out in a sugar induced high as children, or an alcohol induced platitude in our adulthood.

Taking a step back from all this and really acknowledging the season for what it is, for what it means to relate to our ancestors, is what Samhain is really about for me. I acknowledge not only my human ancestors, but all those who have gone before, whether they be cat or tree, mountain or sea. The tides of time and life and constantly changing, and death is always around us, as is life. However, at this time of year, where here in the UK the leaves are changing colour and falling to the ground, the ground foliage dying back and bare earth being exposed for the first time in many months, the smell of death and decay all around – it is easier and much more obvious to honour the cycle of death. Rebirth will happen when the sun begins to warm up the earth, when the days begin to become longer. Right now, the darkness awaits, and in that darkness, the stillness of death. Taking a moment to be still ourselves, to experience a little death on this most hallowed night, is so utterly freeing and grounding at the same time.

We are so often not human beings, but human doings. To stop, to cease doing things, to stop being active is to become old, or worse, dead. Yet we are not annihilated when we cease to run around on the hamster wheel – instead we are immersed in the wonder of life and death, of creation and destruction. That immersion is, for me as a Druid, what it is all about. Dropping that sense of self to be free within the world is all important. Knowing who you are first is essential – for when you know who you are, you can then let it go into the dark void of potential, into the cauldron of unknowing.

So this Samhain, take a moment to stop and connect with the ancestors. Realise that the threads are always with you, shimmering along ethereal lines of connectivity in a grander tapestry of life. Some may have faded with time, some may need mending, but we have the magic lying within our very souls to do this. Pick up the veil that lies between the worlds, and see the shimmering lives of the ancestors on the other side – and know that there is no other side in truth. We are all here together, but our minds create the gauzy veil between the worlds. Lift that veil. Look death in the eye. Smile, and death will smile back at you. Rejoice in the impermanence of all things, and know that one day you too will be an ancestor, your threads still connecting you to all that is within the web of existence. Dance in the present moment, with the ancestors of past the future dancing alongside you.

October 2, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog – How Druidry Relates to the Environment

This is a reblog from my latest offering for this month’s Moon Books’ Blog – please note that in my opening sentence, I say “perhaps” with regard to Druidry taking the environment into deep consideration in the spirituality. I am aware that those of other faiths hold it as dear as I do, but I am speaking from what I have seen and experienced within the pagan community in general… For me as it is for many, many Druids, the environment is at the heart of everything that we do.

This article first appeared on The Druid Network’s website which I submitted few years ago. The website is currently undergoing an overhaul, but there are still many articles on there to inspire! http://druidnetwork.org/what-is-druidry/ethical-living/environmental-awareness/environmental-articles/

Awen blessings!

Druidry, perhaps more than any other strand of Paganism in the wide weave of spiritual traditions, takes the environment into consideration on so many levels. Druidry – most commonly believed to be from the old Irish words dru and wid meaning “oak knower”, or even the Proto-European deru and weid “oak-seeker” acknowledges this communion with nature in the very roots (pardon the pun) of the word. Heathenry – one from the heaths, or Wicca (most commonly believed to be from the Saxon wicce, to bend or shape, as a willow branch can be bent or shaped into something quite beautiful) have similar nature-orientated origins, however, the communication between the natural environment and the Druid of utmost importance in the path.

How do Druids view their environment? Many, if not most Druids are animistic, believing in the essential spirit of everything, whether it be rock or tree, raindrop, beetle, horse or the sea. There is a sense of consciousness in everything. When I use the word consciousness, I don’t mean in the scientific sense of the last two centuries, where it was used to differentiate between humans and other animals and also “non-sentient” beings. Consciousness, to me, is a part of the greater whole web of life, where threads are woven together, separate but still connected. It is what makes something what it is – whether it is the rose, a cloud or the moon. It is its own inherent identity, or, more poetically, its own song that makes it what it is.

With that sense of consciousness in all things, it is much harder for the Druid to disregard any aspect of the environment. No longer are wildflowers plucked for their beauty, to die within days on our dining room table. No longer is it an option to squash the spider in the living room who seeking warmth from the coming winter. Our entire perception is changed once we view the environment both as having its own consciousness and as we do so conscientiously. We gain both a greater and broader view of the web of existence, at the same time as finding our own place within it. How wonderful is that?

That world view brings with it a responsibility. No longer are we allowed to remain ignorant in the ways of our own environment. If we are to view it as a whole, then we must truly see every part that we also play within it. If the whole of nature has a spirit, then issues arise such as the taking of a life for food. Many within Druidry are vegetarian, if not vegan, and yet there are still many others who eat the flesh of an animal. Some do so, claiming that ethically raised and slaughtered animals for food are perfectly acceptable to put on our plates. In my own vision of Druidry, the damage caused to the environment by the raising of animals for food does not allow that luxury of thinking. It takes much more energy and resources to raise animals for food than it does to plant in the same amount of land a sustainable, organic crop for food. In giving up animal meat and animal products for both food and other commodities, we are caring more for our environment and also, at the same time, sacrificing our ignorance of the weighty issues behind such matters to become fully aware. We must accept responsibility for our part.

The word environment has many meanings, however. Our immediate response to the word is the natural environment – nature. There are many other environments, however – little worlds created by human consciousness. We have our work environment, our home environment, our villages, communities and cities. There is the issue of human to human interaction as well as interaction with nature (though as humans are a part of nature, I realise that I am contradicting myself in some ways, but please bear with me). Our own sense of self, or self-awareness, creates a thorny path through which we must navigate carefully, in order not to injure ourselves or others. Unless one lives as a hermit, the Druid will have interaction with other human beings, some Druids, some not. As with the Druid relationship with nature, sensing the inherent consciousness within it, Druidry teaches us that same sense of consciousness in human interactions. I admit – it is a lot easier for some people to respect an old oak tree than most human beings, however to be fully aware of our relationship with others we must act with a certain sense of honour, that same sense of honour, in fact, that we give to nature. We may not like some human beings, much in the same way we may not like broccoli, but we still acknowledge and respect their place in the wider web.

So how do we relate to our environment? Within Druidry, there is a beautiful Welsh word, awen. Various meanings range from flowing water to divine inspiration. I prefer the inspirational route, however, this is not an “out of the blue” inspirational experience, but one that is crafted through time and dedication to one’s environment to develop a rapport with both nature and inspiration itself, until they both work hand in hand. To the Druid, inspiration lies all around us in the environment, whichever environment that may be.

The word – inspiration – to inspire, breathe in. Breathing in must, of course, be followed by breathing out – exhalation. Breathing is the most primitive and simplest way we relate to our environment, and the most effective way of remembering that we are a part of it. The air that we breathe is also the air our ancestors breathed 50, 100, 1000 years ago. It is also the air that the willow, alders and yew trees exhaled 50, 100 or 1000 years ago. The wasp breathes in the same air, the grasses and wildflowers exhaling into the deepening twilight. We can relate to our environment by simply remembering how to breathe, what we breathe and how it is all connected. From that, we literally gain inspiration, as well as being inspired by it. The inspired Druid then exhales that inspiration, whether it be a song to the darkening skies before a thunderstorm, giving thanks before partaking in a meal, writing a symphony, throwing paint at a wall or dancing in the light of the moon. This establishes a communication between the Druid and the environment – speaking to each other, even if it is without words.

We relate to our environment though inspiration, and we are all related, as the Native American proverb says. It isn’t simply communication with our environment, but a soul-deep sense of relativity – we are all related. By being related, this instills within us a sense of responsibility, of caring for the environment, whichever one it may be. If we see that we are related to the badgers living in the brown-land area soon to be re-developed, then we also see that we must take action to ensure that they are safe. If we see that we are related to the food that we eat, we will ensure that we eat organically and, if possible, grow our own food as much as we can to develop that relationship even further. If we see that we are related to our neighbour next door, we are more likely to establish an honourable connection to them and the rest of the community. It creates a sense of caring for the environment and all within it, and it is no easy task.

The challenge that faces the Druid is to see clearly these relationships, and to act honourably in all regards. If this challenge is accepted, then the worldview is broadened considerably, as is the environment. The web of life will shimmer with inspiration along every thread. May it do so for you, all my relations.

http://moon-books.net/blogs/moonbooks/druidry-and-the-environment/

September 30, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog: Authenticity vs Validity

Here is my blog for Moon Books’ blog page – I write the monthly essay. Check out some of their other blogs as well – really good stuff there!

I remember, quite a few years ago now, reading Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon. I had always known, vaguely, that modern paganism was just that – modern. After reading that book, and finding out just how modern most of our rituals and celebrations are, I had a bit of a religious crisis. I was having a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that the spiritual path I was following was essentially made up by two guys in the 1950’s and 60’s.

For a couple of weeks I toiled with this issue, until it finally dawned on me that all religions, at some point, were made up by some people. Simply because someone made it up 200, 2,000 or 20,000 years ago didn’t make it any more valid. I realised that authenticity did not equal validity.

There was no way of tracing pagan roots back to what we would imagine to be a more “pagan time” – ie. for most this would be before Christianity. Paganism didn’t write or record much down in words, though we can catch remnant in snatches of old folk songs, rhymes and the like. If our paganism is inspired by an even older spirituality, such as our Neolithic ancestors, then certainly we have no written records – a few artefacts, burial mounds and sacred sites to draw inspiration on, but nothing of their words to live by. We still do not know, and can never be certain, what they actually believed, how they lived their lives and how they communed with their gods, if any. We can only speculate.

And so, two men, Gerald Gardner and Ross Nichols pieced together a spirituality as best they could, after looking into folk traditions and seeking inspiration from the natural world itself. This evolved into what is recognised as Wicca and Druidry today. These paths are not hundreds of years old, though they have been inspired by older traditions. This does not invalidate them in any way.

I would personally have a harder time believing in the validity of someone’s path who told me that they were following a “thousands year old British tradition” than someone who told me that they made up their own spiritual path. Why? Because the need for justification of a tradition bothers me – why do we need to justify our paths? Our good Druid friend, Iolo Morganwg, made up a lot of stuff when he couldn’t find any reference to it a couple of hundred years ago, and yet the stuff that he made up has great resonance and beauty for some druids. Yes, he passed it on as “real”, and was only caught out fairly recently in his forgeries, however they still remain beautiful and meaningful forgeries nonetheless for many. It bothers me that he felt the need to forge these documents, but it doesn’t make his tradition any less valid for himself and others with whom it inspires. The question of lying about the authenticity of a tradition is what invalidates it for many.

Why do we feel the need to authenticate a religion or spiritual path before we embark upon it? Does this have anything to do with the Age of Enlightenment vs the Age of Reason? Why should one be more valid than the other, simply because it has hard facts that it can draw upon?

A religious and spiritual path is such a personal thing, that I find it hard to believe that any one path is good for more than one person. We can certainly be inspired by it, but the path must be walked by us, and us alone – no one else can do it for us. Buddha said “Be a light unto thyself”. We have to find our own ways of communing, our own relationship with the world in order for it to make full sense to our hearts, bodies, minds and souls. Oftentimes the words and teachings of others can come close, and yet they are still not quite as personal as a one to one relationship.

Protestants have a more personal relationship with God, for the most part, than Catholics when it comes down to it. That in an inherent part of Protestantism, one that is explored and made quite poignant in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Protestantism placed a great emphasis on personal, individual reading of the Bible, thereby increasing the personal relationship with God – no other could really do that for you. Sadly, within history and especially after the birth of Calvinism, fundamentalism became de rigeur.

How much of our paganism today is influenced by this Protestant way of thinking? It’s hard to tell, but it’s not something I have a problem with. I like the idea of everyone having to find their own personal relationship with God, or a god, or goddess, or the spirits of place, their ancestors or the three worlds of land, sea and sky. This idea is, of course, not solely attributed to Protestantism (remember Buddha’s quote?) but it is one of the more recent religious institutions in the UK, of which we are currently exploring the legacy.

How far back the tradition of personal relationship with deity goes is, to me, of no consequence. It’s nice to have historical authenticity, but it does not a spirituality make. It is within the personal relationship with whatever it is that you are communing with, and which changes you, inspires you or moves you that is really what matters in this life. Whether you pray using a prayer that is a thousand years old, or one that you made up on the spot, it is in the feeling and intent behind it that matters most, not in the words themselves. It must connect you with what it is you are trying to reach, else what is the point?

So, to all those out there who are making it up as they go along, who find spiritual validity in what they do, I give a hearty hail! To those whose find the words of others resonate deeply within their soul, and blend their historic traditions with personal experience, again I give a hearty hail! Life is too short to follow a path simply because others have trodden it – we can learn from that path, but ultimately it is we who are doing the walking, no one else, and in that is our own validity and personal experience found and blessing us along the way.

http://moon-books.net/blogs/moonbooks/authenticity-v-validity/

September 30, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog: The Gods in Druidry

This is a reblog from my work for SageWoman’s channel at Witches and Pagans:

Who are the gods in Druidry? There is no one answer to this question, as deity, like religion, is such a personal thing in Paganism. There is no single authority telling us who our god is, or what She is saying. There are books, teachers, Orders, Groves etc that can offer paths of a tradition that may lead to a relationship with the gods, but again they won’t tell you exactly who they are – we’re given a map and a compass but we have to find our own way.

There are so many classifications of deity in Druidry. Ancestral gods, those who have been revered by a particular tribe or people for a substantial length of time may still dwell alongside those who have formed a relationship with them in their original environment. Ancestral gods may also travel thousands of miles when people relocate to other parts of the world, bringing their culture and identity with them. These ancestral gods may be heroes out of legend and myth, elevated to godhood. They may be physical manifestations of natural phenomena. They may be real, or they may be archetypes.

Other gods can be found in the place wherein one lives. Where I live near the coast, the gods sing their songs in the wind and rain – sometimes warm and refreshing from the south, or bitter and cold from the north, swooping over the North Sea and communing with those gods. There are the gods of forest and heath, and also of farming and agriculture. There are ancestral gods as well, that we can see in place names. I often see Holle in the heathland, especially when at night the mist rolls in and everything is cast in its glow.

Then there are the gods of humanity – those of love and lust, of rage and anger, of compassion and fidelity. They sing deep within our bones, and are just as much a force to be reckoned with as the other gods. The Druid works to establish relationship with these gods as much as with the gods of nature – for humans are a part of nature. We need to understand ourselves before we can understand the world, and find our place in it.

Then again, there are many Druids who have no need of the gods, who live and breathe their Druidry without the need for reverence of deity. My own personal Druidry, my own soul, craves this ecstatic relationship with deity, and sees deity in all of nature around me. Perhaps it makes it easier for me to connect with the sea if I perceive it as deity – perhaps it simply is what it is. But to me, the gods are real, they are here, and we can communicate with them, building relationships and learning how to live on this planet with them and everything else.

My Lady, deep within the forest I honour you, deep within your sacred grove. Held within your embrace, here my soul sings with freedom. Blessed Sister, antlered one, deep in the forest I find you as well, and run with you through the trees and fern, fleet-footed and light-hearted. Gracious Lord, I hear your call in the autumn twilight, and move my swaying hips to your music. Gods of my ancestors, My Lord of the One Hand, befriender of animals, My Lady of the Snowshoes and Skis, My Lady of the Hearth, Lady of the Mists, know that you are honoured. To the gods of love, compassion and understanding, I hail to you! Blessed Gods of this land, of the little valley in which I live, of the wide sweeping skies, you are my love, you are my life. I am in you and am a part of you, just as you are in me and a part of me. By seeing the divinity within nature, we come to know the nature of the divine…

http://www.witchesandpagans.com/SageWoman-Blogs/the-gods-in-druidry.html

September 10, 2013 by Joanna van der Hoeven

Reblog : Standing on the knife’s edge of the equinox

Here is a reblog of my post on the SageWoman’s channel at Witches and Pagans… http://www.witchesandpagans.com/SageWoman-Blogs/the-knife-edge-of-the-equinox.html

Now we are diving deep into the cool waters of the West, into autumn’s light. The equinox is just around the corner, and the new moon of September passed. This year we will be blessed by a nearly full moon over the equinox, which is at 21:44 on Sunday, 22 September (where I live in the UK). The tipping point is near, the balance will shift, and we will enter into the fading times of restful thought, of dreaming in the dark.

This is a pivotal point of the year. Relishing in that special moment, when day and night are equal, we can ride that wave of energy, humming with all that we bring to it, the sacredness of the time and place in which we celebrate. Standing at the edge, looking over the horizon for a moment, maybe two; we breathe deeply before we fall forward into our lives once again, with its cycles and spirals.

As we plunge into the depths of the dark half of the year, what will we bring with us along the journey? Now is the time to think about what it is that we wish to carry forward, and what it is that we wish to leave behind. It is a time to think about honour, integrity, loyalty, courage and wisdom. It is a time to look at our actions, at our lives, and see in what way we can live in a more truthful way to our own wild natures, yet still moving within the compass of compassion and awareness.

Are you living your ethical code? Are you in tune with your moral ideal? If not, now is the time to address that. Looking over the year, our lives, generations upon generations of souls, we see what seeds have been planted, and which are most beneficial for all. We carefully collect these seeds, to carry them with us through the dark months, to plant again next year. We hone our sense of ethics, we look deeply into the meaning of honour. What actions have we made that have been dishonourable? What will we do to ensure that this does not happen again? How can we live in tune with our ideals, and support our community, our planet, and our universe?

I know I am breathing deeply of late, with prayers into the growing dusk and spending time reflecting upon what has been, what requires change. For me, autumn is a time of reflection, the light upon the water. And as I stand on the knife’s edge, I hold close to my heart my inspiration, my awen, and laughing I will fall forward into the cool darkness of winter, knowing that the cycle continues.