~

Autumn is upon us.
It came in one day.
Tuesday it was summer hot. I wore sleeveless shirts and leather thongs and floral skirts.
The next day the rains came. The cool. I awoke to the familiar smell of cold.
There is a smell that comes with winter, and I smelt it today.
It’s melon freshness touched the ends of my nostrils and turned my hands into wrinkled wise old woman hands.
The first day of autumn I wore knee length black boots, black pants, a sweater.
In one day, leaves turned from green, lush green, palm green
to yellow. Rich, gold, pumpkin soup yellow.
Yes, winter is approaching.

I met with the women’s circle last night to celebrate Autumn equinox.
We sat on round pillows and ate small slivers of sandwiches.
I rub the goddess sculpture’s belly. She knows me now.
The middle of the circle has corn husks, golden hindu girls playing flutes, a pine cone.
Autumn. A harvest. Introspection.

It is time to begin the descent.
Like Persephone returning to her husband in the underworld,
we turn slowly into ourselves.
We descend, some tripping, some flying,
down into the belly of ourselves.
Inner insight. Autumn.

It amazes me so that on the other side of the world, dear friends are coming out of their hibernation. They are celebrating their spring equinox.
They are rejoicing and re-emerging.
I am thinking of you, dear sisters and brothers.
Your winter has been long, and I hear how your spirits call for the return of spring, of summer.
Having touched that side of mother earth’s belly, I can tell you it is there.
A moment’s grasp away.
The southern hemisphere has relinquished its loving of summer, and is ready to turn within.
And the northern awaits to dance in opened tulips and the scent of earth.

Wherever you are in this world,
whatever equinox you are celebrating,
I am thinking of you.
We are all connected in our cycling.
All of us.

Big love,
Leonie