autumn autumn autumn

Oh, this season I was born in- coming back around to help me remember because heartbreak can take so much from you." (davka)

These days I am high and beautiful and shining like topaz, hair bright as tiger's eye, soul glistening like magnetic slick-night hematite....

Samhain comes 7 days before my birthday - a week before 16 I finally let the life of Jesus slide off my shoulders and took on Their Mantle. The deepest part of me knew he had been a good man, a real person of God/s and that I wasn't doomed to hell (though I still had anxiety attacks about that fact for a few years.) Four years ago this fall I watched my own face in front of a mirror at midnight, lit only by candles, and was in love with the mysteries of Life and the Earth and my own candlebright autumnbronze self. Glowing, I spoke with my grandparents and great grandparents and the many mothers before me, asked them for guidance and blessings, and the flames guttered and danced in response. Every year, by candlelight, I draw cards or cast runes for the new year. We are so beautiful by candlelight, I thought, lit by heat that sleeps in our eyes. We glow.

I probably won't be able to do that this year, but I have finally set up an altar of sorts in front of the mirror in my room. Autumn is a nesting time for me: I long to can fruits and reap harvests and sing in the moonlight with my coven people, my urban tribe, I want to dust and sweep and pull out the down comforters... This year I am stuck in a no-open-flame dorm room. I guess I'll settle for naps in my shawl's scratchy wool, remembering the tongue of flames against my hypnotized hands and face, that heat, the ribbons of dusty smoke curling towards the rafters...