Penny Reilly's Blog

Since my last post, I received sixteen chapters of the first draft, back from my editor and new tales are pushing at my consciousness. A deeper work in progress, my first non-fiction is well under way.

Long walks in a wet landscape, reveal the flotsam and jetsum of nature-treasures… are they meant to be found by, thus, showing themselves. Each item has a story to tell and each gives a hint of the wild tales unfolding in my next series in progress.

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Spring is long and cold, but very conducive to hours of writing or editing, at the farm. Only working at the gallery, two days a week, on average, has loaned itself to a greater output, word-wise.

Although my books to date are in the category of fiction, where does fiction end and inner experiences become truth, become reality. Where do fiction and myth, crossover? How much do we influence our world through our thoughts and dreams and through the direction of our will? Where your mind goes energy flows, is what I am attempting to express through this series. As I began this book, I realised how much of me is in all of my works. A greater part of me is the wild child Alma, from my previous series, Silver’s Threads as much as the shapeshifters and other characters, born of my inner meanderings and my search for understanding through the years. If we believe something is, then indeed we are the co-creators of its birth. The metaphorical journeys of the characters in this series are a taste perhaps of what humans are capable. What is attainable when they let go the fear of change or the unknown that holds them in thrall. Through a series of belief systems, they may have embraced, less than the ideal family values and ties, friends, teachers and peers. All these learned patterns can be our undoing unless we can identify what our own beliefs are or what is ingrained, picked up, so to speak, in the growing years of childhood, also dependent on the environment of those years. Each of my characters has a strong intellect but no less a strong belief in other realms of being, whereas so many people have an, if you can’t see it with physical eyes it can’t exist, mentality. I say to people of this nature, …you can see the trees move but you can’t see the wind. I challenge you to follow the threads of your own lives and ancestry, not in a linear direction but in a widespread, far-reaching continuum, for I truly believe nothing really dies, merely changes form.

A wee snippet, from Shards, a dark faerie tale, the first in my Cloak of Magick series, set in Cornwall and Australia, where my readers may find some familiar characters and many new…

Spyrys

Spyrys dance their circle round

…in sacred grove, they make no sound

In Elder grove and cairn of stone

…lay together Spyrys and human bone

I am a Dowra Spyrys …a sprite of nature and the element of water. I am a little mystery, and I work, mostly, in tune with the mother’s desires. I am not evil or wicked, but I am different to you, human, not conditioned to your right/wrong, good/bad influences and beliefs, and thus, indifferent to your belief structures with which you try to control the planet.

            For we Spyrys, everything just is, called up by the invoker through their hopes and dreams or negative and positive thoughts, towards themselves or others.

            I am able to travel far across the worlds and between the realms as I follow the waterways under and above ground. Two places call me, and it is in one or the other, I appear to help one who is lost, find her own Spyrys again, her own Spirit.

            If, somewhere in between, I may bring help to those who do not know they need it, then all to the good, for I am the Spyrys of Dowra, water, in the human tongue, which no one in any form, finned, winged, four or two-legged can live without. Three days without my element, and you are on your way to the realms of the Spyrys.

            I watch, I observe the humans who strive for their simple lives, a’feared of me and of their own powers to see me. They forget that they are not given the Fae gifts by chance, for somewhere in the between they asked for it, dreaming that they may see the truth of the otherwise hidden realms. I come to help them open their eyes and to help the one who has become lost through another’s greed and what you would call evil.

Greetings and blessings from Beyond the Gate Farm… Penny

Copyright Penny Reilly… All rights reserved.

Well, it’s been a while since I updated this blog, but I’ve not been idle. Scraps and Wild Gatherings, has taken off and fueled interest in my earlier works, which is a delight.

At present, I am working on a new series. The first draft of this, unfinished manuscript, is currently with my editor. Then there’s the ongoing process of my first, non fiction volume, based on the seasonal flow in Southern Hemisphere… the seasons, the garden, the food, fruit and herbs, wildcrafting in the landscape, the patterns and omens, the Magick in the constancy of the cycles, and yet ever-changing energies of the wheel of the year. A work in progress… indeed!

Eight the trees of the Old Ways known

In between the five are sown

Eight the Sabbats round the wheel

Five the elements that harm or heal

Spirit the fifth to bind the five

…as the Wyche wheel spins all human lives

Earth the Spirit; physical Life and Death

Air the spirit that gives us breathe

Water the Spirit; pooled emotions deep

Fire the Spirit waking us from sleep

Spirit the fifth to bind the five

…as the Wyche wheel spins all human lives

Around we spin and around again

…emotions rich… joy and pain

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter chills

Dance the circle dance on the dreaming hills

Spirit the fifth to bind the five

…as the Wyche wheel spins all human lives

Keep your eye out, for Wild Spirits Live Beyond the Gate later in 2018 and the first in a new, Dark Faerie Tale… Shards, hopefully by May 2018… perhaps sooner.

Bright Blessings… Penny

All content copyright Penny Reilly

Source: …Winter

Source: …when in the world …what in the world!?

Every morning, as Raven float on air currents, and mists rise off the ponds, I ask the questions, when in the world …what in the world!? How did I get to find such a space to live and be? When did I become so blessed by nature and her wild companions? When did the weather include me in their cycles of wind and sunlight, moonlight, and singing stars? When did I awake from oblivion, to the power and beauty of nature …or did I just not fall asleep?

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What in the world happened to the rest of the planet? I know there are growing numbers, a movement of people returning to the natural ways of living, even in the depths of cities. Whole streets, pulling down their dividing fences to share space and grow food together …what fun, what joy.  But what in the world happened to the world at large, chasing around like an unruly mob of hyena, baying at the blue moon of “I-want-it-now”?

When did all this “having” actually bring happiness …and I’m not saying poverty is a pretty space having been there once upon a time, but surely the resources of this little blue-green globe, are not infinite. When was the thrill of anticipating something long dreamed of, die, only to be replaced by a ravaging “mine’s bigger than yours,” mentality? I despair, but then, I did my planning. I waited until the very essence of all I am manifested for me in land with an old barn and dairy, just crying out to be reclaimed

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…and in the doing, I was claimed by the land. We are inseparable. I have told my family, one day they may find me, curled beneath an ancient tree, in my final sleep …for that is the natural process of such an immersion in nature’s embrace.

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When in the world did I get so lucky …because that’s the word people use, when they see my photo shots or walk with me through the orchard and greenhouse, across lush fields and into woodlands, down to the ponds. And yet, luck has nothing to do with anything in my world. Lady Luck is a capricious figment of non-responsibility, if you ask me. No… I dreamed, I longed… I lived as if I already had the lush landscape around me. I tasted, smelled, saw and touched in my innermost, dreaming-space, all the potential that is now my reality.

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I pinned a map on the wall of the region, and wondered what was there in that little pocket of land in the hills until, eventually, it found me. When I first saw it, in the “real world”, it was on a random drive, seeking and at that time, it was not on the market. I stood at the gate, breathing it in. A fox drifted fast, all unconcerned, a hawk flew overhead and a “conference of Raven”, muttered from the trees overhanging. So many familiar spirits in one place.

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When my house sold, taking longer than anticipated, I took another drive to the land that sang to me in my sleep …on the gate was a For Sale sign. Luck then? No, I believe design …conscious awareness of need and needed, drawing together the possibilities …quantum moments of empty voids, filled by desire, rather than random acts of “luck.”

When did humankind forget that Nature feeds us …belly, heart, mind and soul. Without Her we are lost

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And so,  …when in the world …what in the world?

May you find your sane solutions… Penny

I find, living the way I do, even when I’m not at the farm, I crave the no-nonsense simplicity reflected in Nature. Subtle shifts of colour in fading or growing light and the rudimental beauty of swaying branches, tall grasses, bright mornings or days, of persistent mist.

[image error]   Autumn is making her presence felt.

Wild duck have settled near the ponds and their honking cries are a new, quirky tone, in the [image error]cacophony of bird sounds, known and unknown, settling to stay through the cold months.

Nothing fussy. Just Nature getting things done.

Magick is that way for me… nothing fussy. If you know how to perceive Magick, it’s not about tools and regimented rites, other than solid knowledge on staying safe and how to build energy through repetition… building layer upon layer that recognises where we’re going as much as we recognise its subtleties of inflection and change. We change, each time we ‘perform’ our rites, therefore, no two rites are the same.

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There is no place on earth, holier than another. There is perhaps, more memory stored through ritual or historical events, to rebuild memory anew, to reweave a rite, once woven. Replication is never identical. No two moments, even by intention, are  the same.

With a different pair of hands or different attitude, facets of the original rite subtly alter what lays hidden, stored in layers of intent, which creates something new with each change.

No matter how microscopic that change, the physical conduit is different each time.

The language or inflection of words spoken, will change a layer of the original. Added to that, where do the words of a ritual come from and, if just quoted by rote they are more or less redundant, unless spoken with authority and knowledge. We may build layers, pyramids, circles to add memory and new data. Authenticity, can only be that of the participant. Each participant in a group rite, brings something new and different to the working, and each time. We can perform a ceremony many times, but it will never be identical, even when words, tools and ingredients are the same. Mood, intent, moment in life, age, day, month, year, hour… each play their part in the alteration.

Authenticity, courage, strength are imperative… scribe your own words… craft your own rite. Bring to it, your own knowledge and power. Never allow another to dictate how you use your power as long as you know how to protect and remain safe.

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Forget your fussy tools… point a finger, pick up a stick, find the herbs in your garden, kitchen cupboard or a hedgerow, a feather; a tiny something used to express your connection to the nature of your rite, and to your Magicks. Let loose, with harm to none and with treasures of scraps and wild gatherings.

What is that moment, between in-out breath, pulse; brain synapses …when is that moment between conception and the first stuttering heartbeat in the womb?

Where and when, do we feel the shift from one season to another, as the wheel turns? What is the sound of the approach of Equinox or Solstice …for its close, and I can feel it but I have no words to describe how. It will be different, for each of us. A change of resonation in the earth, is all I know. As we grow our sensitivities, due to all the varying stimuli from planetary changes occurring, I sense the approaching Solstice and, be we Northern or Southern Hemisphere, a universal cognisance; something big, is about to go down. But, at what moment did we first begin to discern the energy of this changing time.

Hear the winds calling a sultry refrain

He’s still out and about, in the woods post Beltane

He’s there, in the rustling of fresh, fragrant leaves

He sends small reminders that tug at your sleeves

He says…

I am the essence that lives …all unseen

I am the memory of all that is green

Take up the mantle of earth’s greening time

Smell my wild fragrance like fresh summer wine

Come to your circle in Hawthorn arrayed

I’ll meet you in the greenwood

…where my music is made

She is heard in the cry of a newly birthed child

Her song is the call of a fox in the wild

Untamed and unfettered. she walks moonlit fields

where love is complete and in passion she yields

to the love of her partner

and her children, wild and free

All that’s done in her name is not judged

She lets it be

for when she loves, it is unconditional

She knows the frailty of all that’s made

So dance with her in the greenwood

in silver moonlight arrayed

She’s there, with her twin, her partner

as nature blossoms anew

In the stillness of Moonlight

their footprints seen, in moistly glistening dew

on grasses that ripple, with the weight of rain

and in the soft scents of spring

that eases human pain

When you sorrow, when you fear

the unknown, becomes clear

when you worship in sun and moonlight

dance in circle in grove and glade

for they will meet you in the greenwood

…where their music is made

Summer solstice, Alban Hefin, meaning Light of the Shore or …Litha, stemming from the latin solstitium, meaning “sun stands still”, which is what the sun appears to do on this day. It is opposite on the Wheel of the Year to Winter Solstice. Alban Arthan …Yule.

How fast has Litha come around again!

Celebrated as the longest day in the year, when life and light are at their most abundant …I feel as if everything begins to strain toward that light, for on Solstice it reaches its zenith and begins the long slow slide down toward autumn.

This day in my culture is the day of Jack in the Green …the Oak King, who must once again battle and lose supremacy to the Holly King of winter as the wheel turns on.

Oak trees reach their peak too, their familiar acorn seeds begin to swell, ripen and fall in the last bid for continuing life, and yet humankind strain instead, constantly toward youth and beauty, from a media prescribed formula, that cannot possibly match the natural cycles of the ageing process that we all face.

Personally? I feel a sense of wonder in the fecundity of the landscape. This week the grasses and grain crops, already ripe early, are being harvested. I see the bale-maker as some sort of female machine, “laying” round, hay-bales, like big, fat hay-eggs, before more rain comes or sudden heat, dries everything out. We have both, forecast for this week.

Litha, is known as a day for renewing the vows we made to our patron deity and setting new goals, as the old reach their peak, beginning to show the first signs of manifestation …then to be harvested in autumn. Again we see this mirrored in our lives, more strongly than ever, if we are aware/awake enough to see.

The Summer Solstice is one of the three Spirit Nights of the year, the other two being Beltane and Samhain. Faeries and ghosts are abroad, easily visible to those whose sensitivities make the veil between the worlds appear exceptionally thin. This is a good time to cull magickal and healing herbs: fern seed gathered on midsummer’s eve are said to make one invisible; elderberries ward off enchantment, the tree near a house, protection from lightning strikes. Stonecrop, vervain, and yarrow are hung in special places around the house for protection against the evil eye and death. Above all, it’s the time for harvesting St. John’s wort, the golden, star-shaped flower that is the first of all herbs to gather in. Known as the, “blessed plant”, it is renowned throughout the Celtic lands for bringing peace and prosperity to the house, health to animals and an abundant harvest. It is cast into the midsummer bonfires, and placed over doors of houses and farm buildings for its protective powers. For these magical plants are filled with the energy of the sun at its peak, now transformed into green blessings for the human realm.

So, as the seasons change and the wheel turns again, I wish you Peace.

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The wheel turns and Beltane is done, gone in three days of super-moon, storms …we hurtle toward Litha, Summer Solstice, our landscape as green as that of my childhood lands. November, and we …

Source: …and who am I now?

The wheel turns and Beltane is done, gone in three days of super-moon, storms …we hurtle toward Litha, Summer Solstice, our landscape as green as that of my childhood lands. November, and we have seen little sunshine and many misty days have followed months of torrential rainstorms and flooding across Victoria that has felled great trees. We even had couple of frosty, two-degree mornings!

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I feel as though the hemispheres have reversed. My UK friends report, their winter to be mild and late summer flowers still bloomed in mid-autumn. Indian-summer? No …of course there’s no climate change.

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So, who am I now, since last I posted?

Inside, I am again, changed, and the more those inner change occurs the closer I move to the connection I have with, both my land in Australia, and my land of origin, until I straddle the continents in my dreams. And my dreams are rich with animal symbology, plants, birds and disturbed weather patterns. I’m almost to overload, especially as the next book of tales is under way and these visions, although feeding the creative process, are exhausting and exhilarating, in one. Add to this the loss of three friends as the chaos of people choosing to stay or go, accelerates, just as the battle for everyone’s right to clear, clean water, clean food and untainted seeds to plant, becomes all-important. Perhaps those basic needs will be the final battle predicted …when all else fails and we wake to the realisation, we cannot eat computers or drink mobile phones …a roof over the head is everyone’s right and people are risking their lives, in this moment, as I write.

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Where are we in our hearts, when we can stand to watch at a distance, children, women and men be cruelly, brutally treated in their bid for justice in basic needs. How do we overcome that distance across our planet …to reach out, to help. We may feel it’s impossible and behave thus, adding our own, helpless grief to their situation of hopelessness …perhaps, instead, we might be grateful for everything chosen in our life the good, bad and indifferent …you – we, have chosen it all, at some ill-remembered time …hidden in a forgotten, misguided choice that altered our direction …perhaps led astray by the Gods of misrule.

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My home is humble; a converted 100 year old barn …my writing nook a small corner, but grand for the one in the rickety tent, somewhere in a refugee camp. They may not feel grateful for being alive if their closest family, friends and familiar homeland, is gone. They may curse the Gods, who spared them but took their kin, and yet, even within that stark truth and grief, there will be, ultimately, a small glimmer of gratitude, they live …for that is our nature. Most would rather live than die, because at least the truth is known of this place, while even with my own, intuitive gifts, death is an unknown. No one can truthfully say, they know.

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Nature gives us everything we need …we should not have to fight for it, for it is already ours. Our blood, bones, skin …a product of this planet, whilst governed by a spirit, drawn to experience everything it can and to embody all it is …and if we feel we lack, then we are not truly connected. If we whittle it down to bare bones, we need only shelter, food, water, loving relationships and a space for our creative expressions to grow, because again,the more we connect to Her, (to Gaia if you need a name for the unknowable) …so too, does the need to express. To let nothing be hidden in our authenticity. We don’t have to blurt our pain or our need to defend ourselves to the world …but in expressing those needs and emotions in a creative way, the pain of “not knowing” falls away and suddenly, there is no need to know anything, for the sake of knowing …we become …beings, being.

My body

a vessel

created to hold my song

For right or wrong

I cannot judge its meaning

If I try

perhaps tomorrow die

within each note

…there are my truths still gleaming

My song

a whispered note

A mix of joy and sorrow

Fear of change, may bring

the lessening of joy, for the coming morrow

For when I cling

to life or any other thing

I only bring

…the moment of its ending closer

My notes

which bound me to my task

I ask

what point, the searching

Each word

each breath vibrates the web

to encrypt

…my soul’s bright urging

Body, mind and Spirit

A tapestry of life

spun off in rhythmic song

A chord, a note, a sound

I’m bound to sing

in truth

…no note sung wrong

I vibrate

in colour

sound and rhythm growing

When sung

each note is spun

to shine

…awakening, my deepest knowing

So, life moves through me and yes, I am changed by circumstances, by a chance meeting – eyes connecting,  a few words, heard in the produce store, a vision, a feather falling to earth, a particularly strange, bird call, a cloud, a dream of a great White Stag or playing as an Otter in a mill-pond and waking, with a different song on my lips, I change again.

Hear the winds calling a sultry refrain

He’s still out and about in the woods, post Beltane

He’s there, in the rustling of fresh, fragrant leaves

He sends small reminders that tug at your sleeves

He says…

I am the essence that lives …all unseen

I am the memory of all that is green

Take up the mantle of earth’s greening time

Smell my wild fragrance like fresh summer wine

Come to your circle in Hawthorn arrayed

I’ll meet you in the Greenwood

…where my music is made

She is heard in the cry of a newly birthed child

Her song is the call of a fox, in the wild

Untamed and unfettered she walks moonlit fields

where love is complete and in passion she yields

to the love of her partner

and her children, wild and free

All that’s done in her name is not judged

She lets it be

For when she loves, its unconditional

She knows the frailty of all that’s made

So dance with her in the Greenwood

…in silver moonlight arrayed

She’s there with her twin, her partner

as nature blossoms anew

In the stillness of Moonlight

their footprints seen, in glistening dew

on grass that ripples with the weight of rain

and in the soft scents of spring

that ease human pain

When you sorrow, when you fear

the unknown, becomes clear

When you worship in sun and moonlight

dance in circle

…in grove and glade

they will meet you in the Greenwood

…where their music is made

Life moves through me; the planet – a live being, offers me knowledge of events before they occur …earthquake, tidal waves and floods, storms that have such power. I am exhilarated rather than afraid. Why do I have this ability? I have wondered all my life …but in those moments of awareness I change …deepening my connection in the journey toward oneness with all that gives us life.

Be blessed …Penny

I am happy to announce the new and the forthcoming in one post. My poetry book, Unfurled, from my store and on Amazon and my long-in-the making text-book of sorts, will be available early next year. What I have never done really, is introduce myself, not only as the Druid author/bard but as the person behind the writing …so here goes!

Growing…

As a small child, Nature was my friend; my means of understanding the natural laws of life and a constant solace in a world that otherwise at times, seemed bleak. I’m not saying I was unhappy all the time, but rather somewhat different as I was blessed (or cursed) to see, sense what most could not, and from a very early age too.

I could ‘see,’ read a gravestone by touch to tell the story of the person interred there …hold an old book and ‘know’ who had held it, perhaps loved or hated it. I could see/read the energies of Nature, swirling in a coloured dance around everything.

My Grandmother called me Fae and a spiritualist friend of hers wanted to take me to train my gifts. My Mother said I was too young and scoffed at the notion that I might indeed be different, psychic, clairvoyant and empathetic, call it what you will but for me simply different was enough but that differentness is what brought me to where I am today.

Sensing…

It is possible however to unlock these ‘other senses’ …to let go the fear and superstitions designed to keep us ignorant and controlled, to discover what it’s like to be attuned to the cycles of life both Lunar and Solar. Symbols and guidelines become as clear as the face you see each day in the mirror …when you know how and where to look.

‘Fate,’ per se, was not always kind to my family but again I could see, when everyone was bemoaning their personal and mutual experiences they didn’t actually take responsibility for what had happened.

Life led me by my senses, not in a hedonistic way but in the way that Nature called to me, a constant companion. If I were smart, I would always have listened to her promptings without reserve; for the times I did not, life would generally fall apart and so I learned through that beautiful irony known as hindsight.

Connecting…

From the beginning, I connected to Her, at times one with Her. I would question everything told to me that did not resonate within, right down to my spirit and so my questioning of formal religion started early. I thought about things deeply and fully, my child’s brain straining to take in all the information around me and to understand how it all worked. I remember being maybe seven or eight, wondering why people thought of God as being a large, old man on a throne who waved a big stick at everyone and said in a sonorous voice, “Thou shalt not” and “Thou shalt.” It would at times make me giggle at the thought because I would then picture an ageing Santa, rolls of jelly fat quaking as he roared, and shook that big stick. Why did people believe that source would ‘smite or smote’ those who disobeyed and why was he, presumably, so far away? He obviously didn’t listen to human prayers and pleadings either, for if he did then he wasn’t very nice when he allowed famine, wars (all in his name) and painful illnesses.

My family was by no means churchly people and so there came a time when I would ask the question, why not, wondering why other kids went to Sunday school …and the reply came from my quietly wise, father, ‘Well darling, all you need do is sit under a tree and listen.’ I will always thank him for those words of wisdom, because they gave me the foundation in understanding who and what I am.

Many years later, when a book fell on my head from a shelf in my bookshop, by the author, Starhawk, which I did not remember ordering, the realisation came to me after devouring it in one sitting, who I am.

Yes, it was that simple and through the years snippets of information fed to me as a child, when I asked relevant questions on the subject, came back to me. All the little rituals and superstitions from both my grandmothers hit home. It doesn’t matter that they were closeted in their beliefs, because that was just the way it was back then …but that two women from such different origins, had the same foundations in their belief system.

Searching…

It led me on a search all my life and, when life was tough, relationships hard, growing up angst, heartbreak and happiness, nothing really deterred me. Every religion, philosophy, cult and culture led me deeper into the understanding that the same thread ran through each of them, and with that came the knowledge that all of them had been twisted, possibly out of all recognition. They were fabricated, mostly to control others …and so my catch phrase became, what was before that?

This question took me back further, to the very origins of today’s religions and further yet to the Old Ways. The Christian traditions themselves came from a need man had to control the worship of others; even to the point of the Greenman image that still graces the oldest churches in the UK. It was this image that was one of the means used to bring the Pagan folk into the buildings prescribed as needed, to worship in …which brings me back to my father’s words, “If you need to find source, sit under a tree.”

Wicca was born from the assembled information traced through the Celtic Mystery Traditions, for they are the keepers of the wisdom that would otherwise have been lost and which include Stregga, the Italian Tradition. I am a member of an English, Druid order, despite the fact I live in Australia and thus, live the cycles in reverse to my original birthplace.

Many brilliant identities have written reference books to help in any quest for historical knowledge,  I am writing this next book in an attempt to help/guide those seeking a stronger rapport with the planet Herself and hopefully, going beyond the somewhat hierarchical systems that have been born in the last 60 plus years to find a more spontaneous way to be.

…and so I come full circle, just as Her cycles do, to the first Primordial and elemental ways of Nature, within which, we can see and understand all we need to know about ourselves, if we have the eyes and ears …in fact all the senses to see. By see I do not necessarily refer to the physical eyes either, although that form of sight is a gift indeed, but rather I will use the term see to also mean, sense, in whatever way the reader may perceive things in a different way to those prescribed as normal.

Her ways are cyclic and we need all our senses to survive in what can be harsh conditions. It can be daunting if, unprepared as so many are, for the breathtaking force, when we are out of tune with Her, and the amazing bliss engendered, when we are in harmony with the Seasons of Lunar and Solar change.

Science…

Science has methods of discovery that are in fact proving the existence of a driving force that lives behind and within all things, but that is a tale for another time.

Without the curative discovered, from Nature via herbal remedies, which are now synthesised by science, we would most likely, have disappeared as a species centuries ago, but then I guess that too would just have been the way of Nature. Science has us, mainly, enfolded in a safe world, where everything is insured, protected by security devices, preventative medicines and procedures. When it’s hot, we can flick a switch, likewise when it’s cold.

In cities the stars are rarely seen, due to light pollution or smog; machines take us everywhere and the demand for the latest gadgets holds many captive to their keyboards, just as I can be self-publishing my books in a world of electronic data.

It is more the norm for communication forums and social media activities to be held in cyberspace, than in physical gatherings and most people would rather email or text messages than pick up the phone to speak in person. Children have to be pried (or bribed) outside into the fresh air and as a result, we can see why the epidemic levels of Vitamin D deficiency have come about, (in fact not only in children).

Australia has a harsh climate in the first place and so we need to address, more than ever the warming globe we live on and what we can be doing ourselves and not waiting for the mysterious ‘they’ to do it for us.

My methods, those that I would attempt to share with you here, are intense and yet they are the simplest to achieve in any life situation; it is connection …with all life, with the cycles of Nature and with the force behind it all …Primordial Goddess.

No matter how we try to control Her however, She will always break free. Imagine if, just for 5 years, no maintenance was done to roadways or railway lines. I’m sure you’ve all seen the small, so-called weeds, breaking through solid concrete with slender stems in their bid to grow. Imagine then in 10 years or 20, how our carefully constructed cities would blur around the edges as Nature took back her territories …for it is all Hers not ours …it is by Her Grace we walk this Planet and I believe it was meant to be as Her caretakers or caregivers, would perhaps be more appropriate.

Our lives are full and busy with doing but whether we pay attention, or not Nature is there, everywhere, even when we think we have Her under control …simply being.

It smells heavenly as the rain storms impregnate the soil and the somewhat, sticky burst of occasional warmth, release the crude essential oils from the eucalypts in the surrounding forest …wild fennel adds an exotic pungency to the mix as lichens free their earthy, moss fragrance, along with their spores, to the air.

Everything lifts their faces skywards as the mists and rains of spring turn the paddocks green and wild dandelion, nod their golden heads as they cast off their puff balls, strewn …to be taken where they will…

I can see that winter yielded to spring as the hedgerows change their coats from grey to green and flowering elders begin to splash the landscape with white to nature’s, still wintry palette …the mornings are cool and tiny spiders are making their webs from grass stem to stem across the ground …droplets of shining rain cover each thread with silver and my thoughts begin to drift towards the next season of growth …Ostara approaches rapidly.

Pussy Willow turns to the sun…

Heart of the wild lands… Spirits of old

what do you teach us, so gentle yet bold

Whom do you call on as this new spring breaks

Who will hear you… who will awake

Will we stay sleeping or will we wake up

to dance in your meadows… to drink from your cup

Will we remember… as time speeds by

…remember the greening… and fly

Seed sewing time …fresh green shoots and bitter greens such as dandelion and sorrel, flourish along the edges of dirt tracks and through the fields …and the wicking beds and greenhouse begin to fill with ripening garlic, onions, spinach, nasturtium and coriander. We yearn for warmer days and spring-summer fragrances and the garden days are just begun. It’s always best to stay in the moment as the wheel turns on towards Ostara, Spring Equinox …as we begin the season of abundance and the last bonfires are lit to celebrate our personal winter’s end …how fast the wheel spins on. Yes, best to be present in the moment for you are the maker of your own Magicks.

…blessings from Beyond the Gate …Penny