Autumn days deepen, and we are slowly called to descend.
At this time, the earth, the season, our bodies, our soul and the wildness in us, all sing into our minds the story of darkness, of inward journeys and deepening rest, the song getting stronger and stronger as autumn grows around and within us.
As the solar energy declines, as the days darken and the nights lengthen, as the hormones for fertility and outwards growth in tree and plant dwindles away and dies, our animality tries to pull our bodies in the same direction. For it remembers the ancient need for autumn and winter, feels it in the marrow, tastes it on the air, smells it within the soil.
In our ancient wildness, we know these old processes are the processes of growth.
The animality of us, remembers the wisdom learnt from millions of years journeying with the earth and being in intimacy with the seasonal movements.
The wilds processes of recovery and growth still vibrate through our flesh.
This time of year is a visceral reminder for the deep need to let decay what holds you back.
The earth has nailed the processes for good living, harmony, reciprocity and wholeness and more of us need to start taking notice. Rather than see the wild as unintelligent, soul-less, a product made for us humans, and instead start to see and feel the wisdom and intelligence that resides within its processes.
We as humans, lost a great deal when we decided to cast aside our animality. We stopped listening to the wisdom of our bodies that is so in tune with our landscapes. We stopped listening to our instincts so in tune with the environment, we stopped trusting in our needs in order to to fit into a civilised way of being, and we stopped trusting in our familial belonging with the earth.
But just because we turned away from our animality, our wildness, it doesn’t mean our wildness disappears, it is still there in bone, soul, heart, blood, flesh, nervous system and gut, for wild is the threads we are braided from, the material we are shaped from.
Despite how we ignore and cover up our animality our wildness, it will try to call us into ways of being that will help create wholeness within, it will try to take us through the wilds processes for renewal, growth and recovery.
We are just like the concrete spaces, the monoculture lawn, the chemical sprayed garden, that our wild, like the weeds, the bacteria, the earth, the fungi, the seeds, will keep trying to shift towards health.
This animal pull, is felt the most acutely in the autumn and winter months, as a whole new way of being takes over our landscapes and the call to descent arises from the earth, the forest, the meadow and the body.
Autumn and winters MO goes against this modern society hell bent on being spring each day of the year; young, productive and outward.
And so this call to be different, to be quieter, to listen to our inner worlds, to shed what is holding us back, to tend to our soil can feel like there is something wrong with us. If we are someone who depends on our outward ways and productivity for external validation and safety in the world, this feeling of descent can be hard.
Yet if we live in a way that is not in our integrity, if we live in a way that ignores our inner world, the wild inside will keep trying to alchemise, keep trying to break the concrete, keep trying to get us to rest, keep trying to bring us home.
POEM -
Beannacht (Blessing)
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.- John O’Donohue
Thank you for being here, for reading this far and allowing me into your inbox, it means so much!
Good health and wildness to you
Brigit xx
Thankyou Brigit ☺️ I loved that blessing. I certainly hear the call of descent, louder each year that I open up and wild myself more xx
Beautiful 🍁🍂🍄✨