Harmony In Autumn

Happy Autumnal Equinox everyone!

The signs of fall are all around me, migrating birds passing overhead, the subtle shift in the afternoon light and the faint smell of dried leaves in the air.

I’ve been quiet myself, feeling the need to slow down and turn inward. Honoring my instinct to step back and take a deep breath, finding myself going from room to room in our home, taking time to relax, to look around and be present in the moment.

However, I did manage to tuck away some books for future reading and dusted off the wish bottles on the healing altar.

There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky,
which through the summer is not heard or seen,
as if it could not be, as if it had not been!  
~ Percy Shelley ~

 Yesterday, I created a Pendulum Chart for a beautiful goddess friend and I am hoping that she will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it for her. Digital collage using Painter IX and Photoshop.

 ~Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way. ~
Florence Scovel Shinn

 ~ A new Amethyst Pendulum Necklace ~ will be listed in my shop soon! ~

~We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognize and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there are other senses – secret senses, sixth senses, if you will ~ equally vital, but unrecognized, and unlauded.~ Oliver Sacks

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

 

Autumn Musings

For me, August is a bittersweet time at summer’s end, with it’s warm soft days that I wish would stay and never go.

This morning, the sun came out and lingered in the hazy late summer air as I watched the day seep into my house. The cooing of morning doves, the laughter of children and the sound of wooden wind chimes in the distance. So here I am, perched at the edge of my studio window watching trees, basking in the late morning sun, quietly dreaming.

Mother Earth is lavish with her gifts this time of the year;  the smell of loamy earth, the scent of jasmine in the air, tomato vines heavy with fruit and buzzing bees. On my morning walk, I also noticed a few yellow leaves on the birch trees,  indicating the change from summer to fall . . .      Sweet . . .  Autumn is here!

 

. . . as you sit on the hillside, or lie
prone under the trees, the great door, that does
not look like a door, opens. ~ Stephen Graham

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti~

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
~ John Muir~

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

Dancing With The Moon

I stepped out onto the patio tonight and was very pleased to see the most enchanting sight. Just coming up over the hill, was the beautiful moon. Although the moon will not be completely full until tomorrow. I stood there gazing upon her, loving the way the moonlight spilled out over the landscape bathing everything in a soft glowing light.  Hello mother moon . . .

The full moon this month is known as Fruit Moon, and even though the days are slowly growing shorter and the nights longer there is something so magical and joyful about the beginning of the harvest season. I love the heady smell of freshly plowed earth and the golden fields of  grain that are now ready for the harvest and I especially love the fresh vegetables and delicious fruits at our local Farmer’s Market.

The great wheel of change is moving forward into the autumn season, the great exhalation of the earth mother, a time of gratitude and celebration as we harvest the fruits of our labor. Celebrate and open your eyes to the magic of the season.

 

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver

 

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

Art & Myth

There are so many wonderful artists and storytellers weaving their magic on the web these days that it would be next to impossible to cover all of them in one post. So here are a few of my favorites . . .

Have a great weekend!

Undine, John William Waterhouse

Katherine Langrish’s ~ Seven Miles of Steel Thistles blog ~ serves up a bountiful feast of faery lore and literature, as well as a wonderful post on water folklore.

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, John Singer Sargent, 1889

The Victorian actress Ellen Terry wore a dress made of iridescent beetle wings when she portrayed the Lady Macbeth at London’s Lyceum Theatre in 1888. The famous emerald and sea green beetle wing dress has now been restored and returned to its home, Smallhythe place in Kent. Smallhythe Place was the home of the Victorian actress from 1899 to 1928.

You can read about the famous beetle wing gown and the actress Ellen Terry ~ here ~  See more detail of the  magnificent dress ~ here

Be sure to check out Virginia Lee’s Painting, Three Hares Tor, on her lovely art blog. The triple hare motif has always been one of my favorites. Love it!

Over at the website of The Company of the Green Man Blog, you will find all kinds of information, images and folklore about the green man.

Sue Blackwell ~ an extremely talented artist with a unique vision. Step into the realm of fairy tales and folklore  and explore the magic she creates with her series of book-sculpture. Breathtakingly beautiful!

The Girl in the Wood, Su Blackwell

 

“If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible color you could imagine.”  ~ Diana Wynne Jones

“Everyday Goddessing  is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us.” – Rose Arizmendi

Midsummer Solstice

Happy Summer Solstice!

Midsummer is a time to celebrate the power of light and also a time to show our gratitude for our Mother Earth. ~ We have a beautiful mother, so precious this small blue planet that we call home and we need to take better care of her.

Today the earth is in full bloom, alive with ripeness, abundance and the sweet promise of the harvest to come. We gather together with our friends and family to celebrate the warmth and fulness that the summer season has to offer us.

So many things to be thankful for ~ the laughter of children ~ breathing in the sweet scent of flowers ~ fresh vegetables from the garden ~ collecting lavender buds ~ warm sunshine kissing my face.

 

Folklore tells us that on this day the veil between the human world and the fairy world  becomes as thin and delicate as a spiders web, with the veil between the worlds becoming even thinner on the third day after Summer Solstice. Making it much easier for humans and other beings to journey back and forth between the realms.

It is also believed to be of great importance to leave offerings of milk and honey for the fairy folk to honor their presence in the world, so as to promote harmony between us. Some even claim that all magical work becomes more potent on this day.

Even today, many believe that fairies are simply nature spirits and therefore as ancient as wind and rain. In this view, they’re the manifestations of the living spirit in all organic matter.

The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, mentions that fairies seem to have originally been emanations of the Earth Mother that subsequently became water and vegetation spirits, appearing frequently on mountains, in woods or forests, or near water~courses.

It matters not whether you believe or not, our fascination with fairies will most likely never fade away.  The folklore and myths surrounding fairies has been with us for centuries and will likely continue on as long as mankind walks the earth.

 

Fairy Procession by Charles Vess

“This is a work of fiction.  All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence.  Or lack thereof.”  ~Neil Gaiman

Everyday Goddessing is about sharing magical techniques and sacred wisdom with other beautiful Goddess women. I believe that within every woman there is a goddess, a wise woman, beautiful, creative, powerful, with a deep soul, and that everything we need and are looking for is already inside  each of us. – Rose Arizmendi