Autumn

The vineyards are aflame in shades of burgundy. The Cape doctor (the South Easter) has taken a respite from its activities, with the North Easter blowing in the cooling rains of autumn. In wet places the Arum lilies have made their welcome appearance. To the delight of children the "surings" (indigenous oxalis) too have appeared in abundance.

Autumn, traditionally the time of harvest festivals. Times to look back over the year that has passed by and take stock. My thoughts turn inwards in reflection. Last year on May Day, I had no inkling what this year would bring, yet here I am again, and I breathe a sigh of relieve that I have come this far. It is not without trepidation that I now turn to face the coming year. Where do I want to go this coming year, what do I want to achieve? I shiver in the cool evening breeze, wrap my cloak tighter around myself. Somewhere I can hear the mournful hoot of the neighbourhood owl. The breeze playfully tugs my hair and despite myself, I have to smile. Do I hear Herne's call? Time to turn inwards. A time for finding balance.

I was born in cold darkness of winter in the Dark Continent where the Dark Mother is strong. I have developed night vision. It is the very struggle that makes me defiant of death, that drives me to know, and makes the depth of my love so much deeper, because I know the contrast. Like light and shade in the hands of the artist, the blend in the need to express, so is the chiaroscuro of my being. Testing extremities to find the pleasing balance.

Stormy - Cindie Watkins

"You shall be freed indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound. ...Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom."

Kahlil Gibran

In the birthing process stay within the eye of the storm.

Psyche - Barry Windsor-Smith

tags: freedom  dark  grief  autumn  storms  spiritual