My dear human kin,
Greetings at the edge of the autumnal equinox arriving this year on Saturday, September 23rd. The second harvest. The last days of long light and the rising of the dark, a day of dynamic balance between light and night. During this season we welcome the in and the out breath, the double spiral, as the wheel moves us away from the masculine light, bright half of the year, and towards the dark, rich feminine.
You are warmly invited to celebrate with me and my wee podcast, Animisma - All Things In-Spirted. The equinox falls on September 23rd this year and there are two episodes devoted to this gorgeous time. You can find Animisma on your favorite podcast app and on my website here.
Season 2, Episode 7. The Autumnal Equinox is a contemplation of the myth and mystery of one of the greatest trees in all of our celtic lore; the mystical, forbidden, revered, celebrated, guardian, chieftain, goddess, tree of the land of enchantment, prophetic, eternal, legendary namesake of the sacred Isle of Avalon, food of the fae…
The Apple.
Season 1, Episode 6. Welcome dear ones, dear hearts, welcome to the seventh festival - the Autumnal equinox. In this episode, I offer you a little respite from the world. A moment just for yourself where you can reflect upon and honor this most beautiful of festivals. This is the second of the three harvest festivals, preceded by Lughnasadh and followed by Samhain. This is the festival of the horn of plenty, the cornucopia, where we are invited to gather and connect and enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Yarrow, Beloved.
Who was the first plant/tree/flower/bush/fruit you met who really changed your life?
Please take a moment, if you can, to remember this being, this creature, this kin.
I do mean a plant who really changed your life. After meeting them, seeing them, smelling them, hearing them, feeling them, you were never the same again.
Transformed.
Consider the in-breath. Oxygen released from the plants pulled deep into your lung tree. Now, the out-breath. Carbon dioxide released from your body and absorbed by our green kin. Let’s breathe together for a moment or two. The words will still be here, on this page. Let’s spiral our breath and ground into the Earth and imagine the green kin who have shaped your life and path.
This carved mound of flesh, fluid, and mineral (me) has been profoundly shaped by plants. Yes, as food, undoubtedly, however, the molding was undertaken by many. Here are a few exquisite creatures, offered at your feet, as you consider your own transformative plantcestor kin.
An antique miniature rose as a child. Strong and tiny, her scent was a transportation device to other times and other worlds.
The sensual frangipani/plumeria outside my bedroom window. Again, an intoxicating tropical scent signaling the arrival of hot, humid, summer days.
The pink yarrow singing on the edge of The Cliffs of Moher in Ireland (above). In awe of its beauty and resilience, I communed with it for a brief moment in human time; what felt like an hour was really only two minutes. Golden yarrow brought me boundary man moons ago. I drank its tea and suddenly felt the edges of my being stitching together, nolonger leaking energy, nolonger pocked like swiss cheese. White yarrow brought me protection, soft yet strong, it showed me that it could heal not only bleeding wounds of the flesh, but of the soul. Pink yarrow just a month ago on the wild edges of my Irish bone home reminded me of my own resilience, that though I am a human with wounds that may never heal, I have survived. On the edge of life, sometimes stumbling, broken, and tender, I too can shine, as she did, as she does.
The old man mango in the backyard. Fruitless, mostly, yet strong and true.
‘On The Thin Places - Betwixt and Between’ - below - was written at the autumnal equinox in 2020, a lonely time for many, and I offer it here for those who are new to my work. Welcome, dear kin. If you have walked through the passage below before, please feel free to skip over it, though of course, you are ever welcome to revisit it again. If you have been walking along this path with me for many years now, well, you are the strength in my boots, the song in my heart, and the gentle breeze that cools my sometimes heated brow. Mòran taing a chàirdean, many thanks, friends.
Two years after the musing below was written, I read a passage about my childhood, during a writing retreat in Scotland. One of the participants noted how lonely I must have been. She couldn’t understand how a child could describe the plants with such detail unless they had spent a lot, a lot, of time with them, and alone. It took me by surprise. I never felt alone with the plants, however, she was right, more than right. She looked at me with her young, compassionate eyes, and reflected on how rich her childhood was with family and connection (she and her father were in fact at the writing retreat together). I broke open that day. It was Autumn in Scotland, the trees had shed their leaves, cold winds were whipping around us, and I realized for the first time, at 43, the profound depth of the loneliness of my youth and how it had shaped me, and continued to.
Neglected by my parents (one clinically depressed and locked in her bedroom, one who spent his days away from the family pursuing his passions which included teaching children my age to sail - not his own - other people’s children), I was always alone, in the untended, overgrown yard. My younger sister wasn’t really an outside person, so there I was, on my own, from dawn to dusk.
Alone.
At age seven my father handed me a machete to clear the bamboo in the backyard. By myself I thwacked and made little headway, splintered by sturdy and tall stalks. It was scary trying to make my way through the few sharp bamboo swords sticking out of the ground my father had cleared while showing me how to use the tool that stood almost as tall as myself, so I cried angrily and kept on trying until my arms were sore and tired. I had thought that maybe we could have cleared them together. I’m still not sure who on Earth would hand a sharpened machete to a child and then leave them alone to clear overgrowth. This wasn’t ‘trust’ just another gesture of laziness and neglect. Teach the tiny child to mow and she will clear the lawn, even if the mower is double her size. Hand the tiny child a machete and she might clear the overgrowth. Alone.
Always.
I ran away a few times as a child. Tired of being ignored, nowhere really to go, I wondered maybe if I ran away, they might reflect on why they had me in the first place, and whether or not, I might be important enough to be found, least of all, to be loved. I was too ashamed to ask for help from friends and I didn’t have any extended family to turn to. My parents were at odds with their parents and siblings throughout my childhood; it just added to the loneliness. I returned of course. Nowhere else to go, often to yelling and screaming, beaten for leaving, depressed and desperate. You get the picture.
More than once I stood between my parents and the television and screamed at the top of my lungs, red-faced, fists clenched, spitting through tears “pay attention to me!” I was desperate. Hungry for connection. Tired of either physical abuse or neglect. Desperate for love, for family, for anything that resembled care. Eight years old and utterly exhausted. I barely made it you know. Maybe that’s a story for another day.
What comes as no surprise I’m sure, is that I learned very young to distrust humans and that I was essentially invisible, unimportant, and an ugly burden. I developed CPTSD1, a terrible trauma condition built from extreme and repetitive violence and neglect; something that has woven my nervous system into a frayed, delicate, and uneven, knotty shawl. I’ve spent a lifetime donning masks, swimming in a sea of cortisol equipped with hypervigilance trying to walk through a world (our world) of violence, cruelty, and pollution that makes no sense to a delicate, fragile, and perhaps strangely resilient creature who delights in the wilds of the unharmed, clear, clean, natural world.
I could go on, but that feels like enough for now. As I’m sure you have gathered, since there was no one in human form to turn to, I turned to the plants to raise me.
Gratefully, mercifully, they did.
On The Thin Places - Betwixt and Between
(September 23, 2020)
Between the here, between the now
Between the North, between the South
Between the West, between the East
Between the time, between the place
From the shell
The song of the sea
Neither quiet nor calm
Searching for love again
Mo ghrá (My love)
Between the winds, between the waves
Between the sands, between the shores…
Between the stones, between the storms
Between belief, between the seasI am in tune
Here we are again. The liminal place. The thinning. The stillness of the equinox beckons we slow our spin almost to the point of a complete stop and listen closely to the edges of the day and night. Between the light of day and dark of night is a liminal bridge, a space where only poetry can express the beauty of the moment.
Some beings only exist in the liminal. The doors to some places can only be accessed by this space known as the ‘betwixt and between’ and these sacred pathways avail to us ancient knowings, ancient beings, and realms beyond imagination. The mist that sits within a dark forest. The fog that dances atop a still lake at dawn. The cloud that moves across craggy peaks and high mountains. The late light that leaves its memory marked on the moors at winter’s edge. The rising of a red moon on a cold horizon. These are the spaces where moments are bridges, spaces where I often stop moving, steady my breath, and close my eyes as I feel the realms pulse around me.
As a child I used to sit with trees as the sun was setting because I could feel them breathing out. Almost like a sigh of relief as they settled and awaited the night and all those who might walk along them in the starlight. They spoke to me most at that time of day. The old mango tree I grew up with looked and sounded like an old man. I’d climb through his boughs and tickle him as I sat and pondered my next move. We were great friends. He loved me like family and I loved him with all my heart. He watched over us playing in our little yard and I felt seen and safe. One very early morning, I wandered out into the yard to say good morning to all the trees and birds (and lizards and insects) and out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny foot moving through his bark. When I looked up to his canopy, he looked as tall as the house, almost human, and suddenly tree. “I knew it!” I remember saying to him. “I knew you were friends with faeries.” His smile was deep and wide. I remember feeling as though he said “we’re all faeries” and in that moment I started to cry and ran over to him hugging him, getting dew all over my clothes, and bark in my short curly hair. It was exciting, strange, familiar, and wonderful. I knew he couldn’t hug me back, that it wasn’t safe for him to be seen by others, so I squeezed his trunk tightly and whispered that I’d keep our secret safe.
I’m not sure I could guess how many times I told that tree, and others who raised me, that I loved them. My constant companions, wise elders, gentle playmates, and forever friends. I promised to protect them and I wrapped ribbons around their branches and left presents in their trunks. We spent countless hours together from dawn until dusk and they taught me how to look closely at things, to watch cicadas walk, and to sing to birds. I’d kiss their branches when they broke and collect their leaves when they fell. I could see them as spirits. I knew their names, and they knew mine. I knew when they were going to blossom and when they were going to die. When I walked to and from school, I said “good morning” and “good afternoon” to every tree and bush and flower. I touched their bark and brushed my fingers through their leaves. They were my community and I loved them.
I feel such an invitation at each equinox. This fulcrum time is so rich with potential for accessing the liminal. Seeing life in its harmonic perfection, this moment of the year calls us home to the still chambers of our hearts and asks that we sit there and contemplate the light and dark that weaves us. Moving now toward the darker, inner half of the year, in this moment of the betwixt and between, I wonder if you might take a moment to sit with a tree or flower as the sun sets? Perhaps you might close your eyes, place one hand on its trunk and one hand on your heart, and see if for a moment you can feel its voice move across your thoughts, or hear the song that it hums within its roots. I plan to spend as much time as I can in stillness during these moments of the year, and perhaps I’ll ask the fae to deliver a message of love to my old friend the mango tree2 thanking him for taking care of me and teaching me the way of the leaf.
In unity with the trees, may the blessings of this liminal moment soften your gaze, comfort your heart, and avail you to the wonders that live between the here, between the now.
Éire
Before we head fully into the heart of the Autumnal season, I leave you with a visual offering of recent travels. The green of Ireland is breathtaking. It is all-encompassing, unyielding, mossy, fresh, and alive. As we spiral deeper into the harvests, I offer you a verdant display of green, a bright green spark to freshen your cooling Autumnal palette.
May you and all you hold dear be blessed by the harvests of the season.
If you are a seer, like me, one who lives in the liminal spaces and finds the cruelty and hardship of this world strange and overwhelming sometimes, may the wilting leaves and changing colors reflect within you your own seasonal brilliance, and may you know that though the paths can be sharp, and though your feet might have worn thin from the walking, there is still magic here, both within and without.
Thank you for being here, wherever, whoever, and whenever you are - you can’t imagine what an extraordinary and restorative, life-giving gift it is, to have a connection, and to be seen and heard, by humans.
Until next time.
Your petal-skinned (and sometimes finned) sister,
h. xo
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
If you’d like to learn more, this website is a good resource: https://www.beautyafterbruises.org/what-is-cptsd
It is unlikely that tree is still in that yard, it was changed extensively after my parents sold the small house and downsized to an apartment, rendering me homeless. I can still feel his spirit, that beautiful Mango tree, like the memory of a grandparent who always showed up. Always.